I woke up at past midnight after dreaming about my father. I can’t remember what it was exactly but it might have been about him checking out something that I’ve done or DIY-ed. Was it a project? Was it my house? I can’t remember now but I have traces of warm fuzzy feelings from that encounter.

Todos los santos and dia de todas los almas (All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day) have passed and I haven’t visited my father’s columbarium. But I did buy a bouquet of flowers and extra fat/large candles for him that my mom brought. Maybe I just dreamt about him because of this guilty feeling. You see, the observation of these holidays, especially All Souls’ Day, is about praying for the souls of the loved ones who are stuck in purgatory. I don’t believe in purgatory—it’s a Catholic construct and even when I was still Catholic, I questioned this concept.

Purgatory was invented so that the church can raise money for the Crusades. The church sells indulgences so that essentially “buys out” the soul of your loved ones stuck in purgatory. Martin Luther, a monk, said this exploited the poor. The selling of indulgences is a source of so much corruption in the Catholic church and this sparked the revolt within the church, hence, the protests = protestants. The number one thesis of Luther is salvation is achieved by faith alone, not by good works, not by buying your way out of purgatory—that is not biblical anyway.

• Ephesians 2:8“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. “

But I still observe All Souls’ Day for the remembrance aspect. It’s more for my benefit—and for the benefit of my children who didn’t meet my father. I have already been comforted by the fact that people saw that he went to church the morning he died, which was unusual. After he got sick (massive heart attack that made him weak), he stopped going to church physically. He didn’t want people who knew him to pity him when they saw him in that state. So he would just hear mass by our gate since our house is literally spitting distance from church.

But that morning was different. He scrounged through our clean laundry that were for ironing and took out his favorite red and white striped shirt, took several of our handkerchiefs, folded them, and stuffed them in his back pocket. He went to church to attend the first mass of the day at 6 am, cooked breakfast for him and my brother, took a nap and never woke up.

How did I know about what he did moments before he died? I was the second child to have arrived home and the house was still as it was when he left. The clean laundry for ironing was located in my room and I saw he rummaged through it and he didn’t put it back. When I checked his clothes that he had hung on the back of the door in his room, I saw he had worn his favorite shirt and in his back pocket were our handkerchiefs with his. He took a part of us when he went to church, maybe, to ask God for salvation because he knew it was time.

That’s how I knew my father is not in purgatory or anywhere else.

I’ve been doing laundry for three days. My cleaning lady did not come yesterday because of the Todos Los Santos holiday and my kids’ uniform needed to be washed before she ironed them today.

I have already gathered and folded several batches of clean laundry to make room for the new ones I had been hanging since midday Wednesday. I did that in-between edits, which helped me to clear my head.

I surveyed my surroundings and saw that my cleaning lady didn’t have to do any yard work anymore since everything has been taken care of after the bitch Kristine has left.

I still have fruit trees. One rambutan tree looks like it died after going bald after Typhoon Kristine. The avocado tree is leaning dangerously lower; it was almost uprooted. I must have it adjusted with some kind of support to keep it upright.

Yes, I buy 8 kg of cat food. I feed too many cats.

I had cleaned out the contents of my fridge and now I had to replenish it. I’m almost afraid of buying too much meat again in case another horrible typhoon hits us again and leave us without power for a week. And it seems like there’s another big one coming…

… when you get giddy about household items you just purchased, just like this pink kettle I bought from Lazada.

While we were without power for almost a week, I realized that I can’t continue boiling water using pots/casseroles. I already burned myself by spilling scalding water because the pots don’t have spouts. I had been dependent on my electric kettle to boil water for coffee and tea for years and I never found any use for the stovetop kettle.

Now I do. I bought a cute one so I can just leave it on the stove and not bother getting it out of sight. More frequent strong typhoons are the norm and this is not going to be the last time we will be out of power for an extended time. We have yet to recover from that bitch Kristine/Trami, and here we are, facing another disaster…

We have now a supertyphoon barreling its way to Taiwan. Signal # 5 is hoisted over Batanes and Typhoon Leon/KongRey is not even going to land in the Batanes/Babuyan group of islands.

The eye of the typhoon is big and clear—an indication of the strength and speed of the winds that KongRey is bringing. Typhoon Haiyan, which I covered for my former media outfit in 2013, had a very clear eye but KongRey’s eye is bigger.

Haiyan/Yolanda = 315 kph winds

KongRey/Leon = 240 kph winds

Now that Typhoo KongRey has made landfall in Taiwan, it has lost the eye, so likely it has slightly weakened.

We had electricity just a few minutes ago. ❤️ My corp comm friends made it possible. One of them said they kept on bugging the operations network guys to expedite the repair of whatever. She said they even escalated it to one of the officials sitting on the panel infront of us during the presscon yesterday…

The local operations team must have had a scolding because they had been calling me and updating me about the progress of the repairs. They had been asking me every now and then if we already have power. One of the guys said they will not leave the site until our power is restored. They told me they are replacing one busted transformer at the university gate but I told them the transformer near our compound needs replacing, too, as it keeps on exploding due to overcapacity during school days.

😭 I love my corp comm friends.

I am now doing the first batch of laundry. All our laundry won’t fit in our clothesline downstairs so I have to do the washing in batches.

I was creeped out by this statue that an unknown neighbor had been keeping in their yard. Because the trees were either uprooted or became bald, I can now see the formerly obscured neighbor. And their creepy statue.

So I’ve been doing the laundry and hanging them for the past 3-4 hrs because they’re all beddings. I’ve been going up and down the stairs in the middle of a very windy night. I am thankful that I don’t live an a condo or renting an apartment that doesn’t have an in-unit provision for a washing machine hook-up. When I was looking for an apartment to rent, my non-negotiables were a laundry area and a parking space. With those requirements, it’s no wonder I ended up in an old two-storey apartment because that kind of housing ticks the two boxes.

I’m glad that I’m not in New York City and struggling with transporting laundry from a laundromat to a walk-up apartment, like this couple:

If I live in such situation, my laundry will never get done. 😬

Still no power while the rest of my town is already electrified. Even the university. What’s ironic is that I just came back from a press briefing by our power distributor. I asked the corp comm friends to help me out; I don’t know how I can work like this and I need to file at least three stories tomorrow.

It’s hot and muggy tonight. I was only able to charge our mini fans partially. I don’t know how I would be able to sleep tonight.

I brought my daughters with me to Ortigas today because we have no power and they are on a scheduled school break. I left them at Megamall so they can loiter around safely while I attended the presscon nearby. They contacted their dad and they told me he went there to meet them.

I wasn’t able to write any story because by 4:30 pm they were already asking me where I was. Before leaving the premises, I was assured by the corp comm team that they have already expedited my request for speedy power restoration.

Dinner and ran a few errands in Megamall then we drove back home for two hours.

Still no power. 😩

Our town is officially under State of Calamity. This means prices of goods and services cannot be jacked up due to high demand and scarcity. Calamity funds from the national gov’t will immediately be released and it will be the priority area for relief efforts.

Mobile internet is very spotty after my sisters have turned off the power generator, so getting this blog updated after hours is a challenge. Smart is not smart these days. I texted a friend from PLDT’s corp comm unit about this.

My older sister read in some chat group or Facebook post that some barangays in our town near the lake are still underwater. Count ourselves lucky that we are at the foot of the mountain that’s why water that flooded my mom’s porch drained quickly.

It’s 4:51 am, I’m awake. I checked on Twin I who had a long fit of coughing trying to get the sticky phlegm out before we turned in for the night. I’m on standby in case we need to nebulize again at the hospital because we’re still out of power.

I wanted to catch up on sleep but I need to move my butt or else the food inside my freezer will get spoiled. I shopped for an ice box and searched for stores with tube ice—and that was the most challenging part. It’s always sold out wherever I went. I remembered one Alfamart near a Mount Grace hospital and went there, thinking that people won’t be buying tube ice there because they already have electricity. Eureka! I was right! I bought three bags and flew home.

Now the distasteful part—the cleaning of the freezer. It was great that my freezer held out for this long and my meat and other frozen goods were still cold albeit already defrosted. I needed to cook the unmarinated ones because they won’t last in the ice box. The rest can be chilled in the ice box and the freezer with a bag of tube ice.

For the next 1.5 hrs I cooked: gyudon, bak kut teh, pininyahang manok (chicken in cream and pineapple), and grilled porkchops and grilled Mediterranean chicken.

Told my sis in law to bring her entire brood because all this food needed to be consumed tonight. I don’t think my fridge will be turned on tonight. 😩