Blankets
We are so different, my husband and I. His likes are so unlike mine. He can’t stand seafood; I love pusit, bagoong, and shrimps. He likes beer; I like coffee. He likes eggs, potatoes, mayo, and anything that goes well with his beer; I like sinigang, mangga, and anything that goes well with my coffee. These are just a few reasons why we couldn’t get along. Sometimes we differ so much in points of view that we end up arguing, only to realize that nobody’s wrong, we’re just plain different. And so we now agree to disagree. And we cherish the things we love both, like our love for Zoe, our love for good food, our love for going to places we’ve never been to, and our love for each other.
We started our marriage sharing blankets. It was an adjustment for the both of us to share our space with the other. It got to the point when my husband would get the blanket all to himself (of course, this happens when both are asleep and snoring the night away), and I would wake up in the middle of the night cold and grumpy, looking for the blanket that was supposed to keep the BOTH of us warm. The morning would start with an argument: “where’s the blanket? (where’s the stolen blanket)” and “why did you keep the blanket all to yourself? (how dare you leave me cold!)”. Now, we’ve decided to have separate blankets. At first the idea of having separate blankets left me queasy and made me feel that we were doomed to splitsville because we couldn’t get along with just one blanket. I felt that there must be something wrong with us. But then it dawned on me that having two separate blankets does not make us less of a couple. We do many things separately and we’re cool with that. We have different friends and various activities without the other and that doesn’t make us less of a couple. In fact, it makes our relationship healthy. The time spent apart makes us miss each other more, and we look forward to swapping stories about how our day went. Once in awhile we snuggle up in just one blanket and sleep with our toes touching, until one of us wakes up looking for the missing blanket.
Favorites
These are a few of my favorite things…
* sipping freshly brewed coffee on a rainy morning
* waking up in bed with my husband and my baby Zoe
* my old sleepwear of more than two decades, no matter how much they look like rags now
* hugging my husband
* a good, firm, relaxing massage
* a manicure and a pedicure
* reading a good book in bed
* no-traffic Sundays
* spending time alone in a coffee shop
* Ms. Polly’s honest-to-goodness chocolate cake
* taking my time grocery shopping
* cooking with abandon
* Becky’s Kitchen chocolate mousse and walnut fudge brownies
* Razon’s halo-halo
Who is Baduday?
It took me ages to figure out what to name my blog. The name I thought of was either chosen or I would change my mind, rightfully so, before I declare it mine. I have a very indecisive nature. What I would find appealing today might seem trashy tomorrow, hence, my caution. I started blogging with one good reason. No, make that three. First, to keep my mind from getting all too rusty. Second, because I am a frustrated or, on a positive note, aspiring writer. And last, to talk about how it has been like being a mother of a toddler. The toddler’s name is Zoe. We lovingly call her Baduday, especially when she is at the helm of one of her antics that make us giggle oh so naturally like little kids. Of course, being her parents, we adore almost everything she does. Yup, even when we scold her for doing a naughty thing and we try with all our might to keep a straight face. She has this knack for charming you even when you are out of your wits, and when you’ve thought you’ve seen enough, she’d surprise you with another bomb to make you go hurtling with laughter. This happens when it’s just us…her dad and I. That’s when Zoe becomes our Baduday. It’s a different story when she’s around strangers or relatives she hardly sees. It is in the presence of others that she clams up and stays in her shell, even if we tell her that it’s safe to let them know who she is. I think Zoe enjoys all the pretense, perhaps it’s her way of trying to be an adult, or she knows that when she’s around other adults, everyone’s playing pretend and pretending no one knows everyone’s pretending. That’s just the way she is and that’s the way we’ll let her be. Whatever suits her fancy. Just this morning, she declared she wanted to go “out”, which literally meant just out of our bedroom. I felt she was giving orders like a president and, for half a second, it scared me to think that this little monster, a little-me for that matter, could be so demanding. Of course I soon realized that her way of expressing herself at this point in her life was with one- and two-liners. The faster to get to the point, the better. I think our politicians could learn a thing or two from her.
The Aftermath
Howdy! I’ve been in oblivion for quite some time now with the coming and going of my California-based family and the crash for the nth time of our CPU. It happened almost the same time the typhoon Milenyo hit Metro Manila. Milenyo came without much warning, just an advice in the news that there will be no classes on that day. It was days of no electricity, no water, no phone. Our street was quite lucky though, the night Milenyo crashed into town, electricity came back. But no thanks to the typhoon, our house, sticking like a sore thumb, was the only one in our street with no electricity. A neighbor’s tree caused our cable to trip. And we ended up staying powerless for three more nights. I wanted to rush to our neighbor and demand some sort of explanation, as if there was some explaining to do, on why they allowed their tree to grow so high that it had to reach the Meralco cable, OUR Meralco cable. I wanted to blame them for the misfortune that beset us after Milenyo. They were, after all, the owners of the tree, but the calmer side of me won, and I left it as is, which I think was not a good idea because up to now I still hold a grudge on them. A day or two after the storm I saw them chopping down portions of the tree. Why do we act only after damage has been done? Which reminds me of the many vessels that have sunk at sea, for carrying too much passengers they say, and the many investigations and the stricter implementation of rules after the tragedy, as if to repair the damage, tsk, tsk.
On a lighter note, the nights without light brought me back to my childhood days, when my family would all gather in the living room, around one or two candles, and chat the night away. Sometimes my mom would see it as an opportunity to hone our mathematics skills by drilling us in addition, multiplication, etc. Other times we would gather around to pray the rosary, taking turns leading each decade. There were no mobile phones yet to pass the time, yet we got by somehow, and looking back, those days were quite fun.
Today, the days are hotter, the nights hotter still. It must be the environment that’s changing the weather. The nights we spent without electricity were like nights spent in Divisoria on a hot, sticky day as you literally rub elbows with everyone just to get done with your Christmas shopping. It meant lying in bed, all sweaty and cranky from lack of sleep, making use of a cardboard to fan my toddler, who is a few months shy of reaching the terrible twos. It meant days of eating adobo and kilos and kilos of longganisa because you had to cook everything there was in the freezer to not let them go to waste.
Now we move on. Milenyo has come and gone. The power and water supply are back, and our lives are back to normal. Till when, nobody knows.
Tricia's World 