I miss having coffee conversations. After an event/coverage, my journo friends and I usually work in some coffee shop in Makati or Ortigas. In-between typing our stories are conversations that can be mundane or these can be mature talks about life.
It has been a long time since I’ve had that. I miss it.
Everybody’s sick right now. Friends are posting their Covid-positive results on FB or are counting the days they would be out of quarantine. So it’s very scary to venture out right now. After my bout with Covid last year… Nope. I can’t even go out to the neighborhood Bo’s Coffee to change scenery to write. I’ve had another excruciating afternoon polishing a story I did with our new hire. I think I need better mental stimulation other than reading news.
I think I’ll cheer myself up by buying flowers tomorrow and set up a working space outside our front door so I won’t be too cooped up. I’ve been having conversations with my cats lately 🤦🏻♀️
Last year was just brutal and I couldn’t define what it was but it was an uphill battle. Thank God for supportive friends, some of whom had to literally drag me out of the house to join the living.
So as part of this year’s theme, I’m celebrating the things that made me who I am.
My gallery wall. Photo by CallMeCreation.com My photos and my watercolors. Photo by CallMeCreation.com When I was in high school I experimented with a Chinese paint brush. My control was dismal but at least I tried. Photo and art by CallMeCreation.com
I ran out of picture frames so I guess I would have to order online from Ikea.ph instead of going there again. I have a lot of photos I can print and hang. Or I can paint again with watercolors. But I’m super rusty. It has been 25 years since I have picked up a watercolor brush. I’m not good but at least I’m enjoying it. I’m not even aiming to have an exhibit like my sister but this is just something for my own home. Some of the better watercolors I did in high school were given away to classmates.
I’ll take photography seriously again, just like when I was in college. I didn’t invest in DSLRs because I know how time-consuming photography is as a hobby to justify the expensive equipment. And time is something I didn’t have for decades. For now I’ll use what I have–my cellphone and my Fujifilm XQ1–until I can say that I can now commit time before I step up and buy myself a mirrorless Fujifilm, which I find to be the best when it comes to low-light photography. I’ve worked with Canons, I had a Nikon, and two Olympus cameras but I find Fuji to be the best when it comes to color rendering and low light scenes. I have yet to try a Lumix. I’ve read about Hasselblads when I was still fooling around with films because those are the go-to cameras for medium formats–for book covers and posters. But those things are out of reach of the general public, especially now in digital. I’ve only seen a Hasselblad in a studio for portrait photography.
I lost all my Lomography cameras 😔 I had a Holga and I still had a black abd white film stuck in there when I left it in the old house. All that is left of my Lomo stuff is the 135 film converter. 😕
Rose tea to stave off colds. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’ve been imbibing copious amounts of tea as I’ve been feeling under the weather. I might have contracted the girls’ colds so I took 500 mg of vitamin C, Neozep every 8 hrs, and a lot of bed rest. I slept early last night and slept some more after lunch. So far it has worked but I’m refraining from going out because this may turn out to be the dreaded omicron variant. It can’t hurt to be paranoid; look at what happened last year when I thought what the girls had was just an ordinary flu turned out to be Covid that knocked me down.
There is this Gwyneth Chua from US who broke her quarantine stay to party in Poblacion, Makati. She was positive for Covid and has infected 15 people whom she had dinner with or partied with. Stupid, stupid privileged asshole. And Twitter has the receipts. As it turns out, she studies at De La Salle University and Lasallians are now disowning her.
Now, we’re back to a higher restriction due to tripling of cases in the last three days. Another lockdown to stem another Covid wave is not far behind. 😩
The strict enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) a.k.a. hard lockdown has started a few hours ago. Since I was busy with work, it was only this morning I was able to go to the barangay hall to apply for a quarantine pass.
But they sent me home because I didn’t bring a 1×1 photo for the pass, which they will make as an ID of sorts. Who the hell carries a 1×1 photo all the time?!
Good thing I always have a stash of photo papers at home. I printed 1×1 photos all over my A4 sized photo paper. I just don’t know how I will be able to use up all those when everything these days are digital 🤔
I went back to the barangay hall only to be told that I don’t need a quarantine pass because I can use my work ID. Drats. So I called up my househelp and told her to apply for her quarantine pass instead so both of us can go out.
While I was at it, I asked about the seal of authentication for my vaccine card. The barangay officer took my card and said the barangay captain will collate all those needing the authentication seal and have them stamped then they will return it to us. I just hope they do it soon.
Then I spent the rest of the morning and noon panic-buying. I bought a lot of meat from a Monterey Community Market, then shopped at Puregold for other food and household supplies we will need in the next 2-3 weeks. Then went to UP for vegetables.
I just want to quit. Quit this company. All I can say is you cannot make yourself small for somebody who refuses to grow up.
As I told a friend, I just do my job, keep my head low, get my salary, then jump when the opportunity comes.
I’ve been looking at openings but so far none stirred excitement inside me. I mean, none tugged at my insides yet.
Pita bread and curry. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Beef strips with enoki mushrooms that I made myself. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Since we’re stuck indoors again, I have been trying to cheer ourselves by cooking yummy food (and yes I am forcing my girls to eat Indian food). I no longer know how to make things better for the four of us (the other househelp already went home to her hometown and got married the other day) because…we are all tired of all of these.
I have already asked for a leave of absence for a few days this month before they announced the lockdown. I was initially planning to go to my hometown for a mini-break (bike to nearby towns and just chill) but I guess that won’t be happening anytime soon. So I will be stuck with nothing else to do.
So the rains just took a little breather this weekend but it seems like more will come in the next few days as we see we have three tropical depressions forming north and northeast. They look like they will be typhoons heading to Japan later this week, which may pull more southwest monsoon rains for us in Luzon and in Taiwan. Monsoon + lockdown = cabin fever.
Or extended lockdowns = joblessness/hunger. I need to keep my coffers available again for the community pantry.
Which spells trouble for us economically. As my economist brother posted on social media:
The purpose of the quarantine is to delay the surge so that the system, specifically the health care system can prepare itself. The question is, does the system have the resources it needs to prepare/recalibrate/upgrade? Can we expect additional health workers? Do we have enough vaccines for the planned intensified vaccination program? Have these vaccines been distributed or are they ready for distribution? Have we taken stock of the capability of our LGUs to vaccinate or intensify the vaccination drive? I HOPE THESE WERE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION BEFORE LAGUNA WAS PUT UNDER MECQ. REMEMBER QUARANTINE DOES NOT KILL THE VIRUS. BUT IT KILLS THE LOCAL ECONOMY AND THE LIVELIHOOD OF OUR PEOPLE.
Because this freaking government does not have any concrete plans at all. we’re 1.5 years into this crisis and yet we still don’t have plans. The healthcare sector is completely exhausted. There are no more nurses; hospitals are understaffed. Doctors are tired.
People are sinking into anxiety, anger, and/or depression because of this never-ending lockdowns while other countries with high vaccination rates are returning to normal. They’re opening Lion King on Broadway, while we scramble to get our shit together before we hunker down again and wait for another disaster.
So Filipinos are distracting themselves with the Olympics, with the stellar performances of our athletes, despite all odds. They’re serving as beacons in the dark days ahead.
Our boxer, Eumir Marcial just knocked out his opponent today, assuring him of at least a bronze medal. He’s up for silver in the next bout.
A genuine display of sportsmanship! Philippines’ Eumir Marcial and Armenia’s Arman Darchinyan hug after the men’s boxing middleweight division at the #Tokyo2020#Olympics. Read more: bit.ly/3ygA204. (: Luis Robayo/AFP)
Meanwhile, another woman in a “masculine” sport is gunning for gold. Nesthy Petecio will be facing off with her Japanese opponent in the finals. As Manny Pacquiao has proven, the Philippines is one country to beat in boxing.
Meanwhile, EJ Obiena is also up for gold in pole vaulting. These guys are so inspired now that they saw how Filipinos celebrated Margielyn Didal and Hidilyn Diaz the past few days.
Hoping for three golds. So at least my countrymen would have something to smile about in the coming days.
This reddit post has made the rounds on social media because of its universality among Filipinos. This is one of the most annoying attitudes I have encountered among those Filipinos who just happened to have stepped on foreign soil. I related to J this situation when he told me of his encounters with at least two Filipinos here in the Philippines who have distanced themselves from Philippines-based Filipinos and elevated themselves as superior to those who stayed here. One insisted he is a Singaporean (even if he’s really a Filipino) and he is just “forced” to be here because his company assigned him here because, well, he is Filipino! While the other one is a Fil-Am who grew up in the US and kept on insisting he is American and he disdains being identified as Filipino during his conversation with J.
As I told J, some of us chose to stay here because we can. Our families have means to stay here, meaning our parents didn’t have to go abroad to give us decent lives. Some of us stayed to help the country because if all the skilled manpower and the intelligentsia left, who would be there to help the oppressed and the voiceless build the country? Brain drain devastates a country. This is the primary reason why none in my immediate family left the country, even if we’re going to be a cesspit come 2022 elections.
And yet we get flak from those who just happened to have a whiff of foreign air. I have heard from my classmates, my sister (who tried to live in the US for a while) and other relatives and ex-in-laws stories about the Filipino communities in the US, the primary preoccupation of their members is to one-up each other. The reddit thread in the above post also talked about that toxic environment among Filipinos that some of them have all together avoided Filipinos or left the US to live back here. One high school classmate of mine told me about the toxic community she was forced to live with for a time when she was pursuing her master’s degree in the US. It was so toxic that she avoided all Filipinos within the state.
Too many things happened the past week that I wasn’t able to write my thoughts about Hidilyn Diaz and Margielyn Didal making waves a the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Margielyn Didal of the Philippines in action at Tokyo Olympics 2020’s women street skateboarding finals at the Ariake Urban Sports Park, Tokyo, Japan onJuly 26, 2021. (Reuters/Toby Melville)
Margielyn was just a beautiful ray of sunshine in this dark, dark world. The Brazilians love her (and I’ve been seeing their tweets). She was just happy to be there competing and being friends with her competitors.
Meanwhile, that day was one of those days you just want to shut down and ignore the State of the Nation Address of Duterte. He was rambling for three hours, being his usual incoherent, unintelligible self. He even would not exert effort to read his prepared speech well. Then he would segue into one of his stream of consciousness that don’t make sense. When I caught him on TV (a rare moment that I watched TV, by accident), he was invoking China several times that I had hurled a string of invectives at the screen.
The irony later that day was that a woman–which Duterte looks lowly upon–earned the first gold medal for this country in a sport that as seen as masculine. And crushed China. How poetic.
This administration even demonized her when she asked on social media for private sector sponsorship for her bid in the Olympics because government support was not there. Then the DDS crucified her: how dare she challenge the government, the oh so benevolent Duterte! Then she was included by then-Presidential Spokesperson Panelo in the fictional matrix of destabilizers. Which the DDS trolls magnified and made Hidilyn fear for her life.
It gave me goosebumps. Kudos to you, Sgt. Diaz.
I had stayed with my cousin for three days and made sure her mom is stable before I went back home to attend to my household and work. My other cousin (the older one) finally arrived and they were able to make more arrangements in case my aunt turns for the worse. They were able to arrange for a priest administer the Anointment of the Sick (last rites) via video call (IATF protocol says no personal visits yet allowed? Or is this a parish decree? I don’t know) and funeral arrangement when the time comes.
Unfortunately, we will be going on a hard lockdown again a.k.a. enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) on August 6-20 so I don’t know how I would be able to go to my aunt when she…I was already assigned by my family as the first responder.
Speaking of lockdown, I did a lot of errands yesterday and today before everything shuts down. I contacted a plumber who charged me PHP 4,000 for changing faucets. And I had to redo all his work today because he did a bad job.
But it was a learning experience for me. I finally was able to do simple plumbing work like changing faucets.
Now that I know how to apply grout, I can chip away that dingy grout and apply a fresh one. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I had to change this as well because the whole pipe assembly leading to the shower was leaking. The reason why water is not bursting outside the walls is because the broken joint or whatever was being held together by cement. But it’s just as matter of time eventually the thing will give way and I would have a huge problem. We changed the original separate faucet and shower setup to a dual faucet shower installation so we don’t have to open up the concrete walls to install new pipes. This is cheaper and easier.
Unfortunately, the one we installed yesterday was a lemon despite the its hefty price tag. I had it exchanged for a better one and installed this one myself.
I changed faucets! Achievement unlocked.
The rains won’t stop. No chance to ride the bike before ECQ. *Sigh*. So I need to buy that can of paint so I can finally refresh my closets and doors’ paint because Kimchi loooooooooved scratching that corner of my closet. I need to find something to do indoors. The rains would not stop. Soon the strong typhoons would come after August or September.
Looks like a typhoon forming northeast that sucks the southwest monsoon. The dark rain clouds over Luzon have dissipated a bit though.
Philippines’ Eumir Marcial and Armenia’s Arman Darchinyan hug after the men’s boxing middleweight division at the 
Read more: 
: Luis Robayo/AFP)
