A note on my grandmother

How have you all been this long weekend? I'm writing from home, and I think this is the first time in many visits that I'm not worrying about school or work.

I've been spending time with my family, remembering loved ones who have passed on. I especially miss my grandmother, because November 1st actually reminds me of her. When I was much younger, she used to marshal our big family off to the cemetery every year to visit the graves of our lolos and lolas. It would be a day-long event, with her in the thick of everything. She would have my titas pack Marie biscuits and bottles of Coke so we wouldn't go hungry during our expedition. Apart from the candles and flowers, we would bring brooms to clean the family plot. It was a busy scene: the adults chattering amid tidying up and the children playing with candle wax until someone got burned. Sometime during the day, my grandmother would bring me and my cousins along for a walk through the bustling cemetery. We would call on relatives and family friends, my cousins and I inducing the customary exclamations of "Nagdadakkel dan!" (Look how big they've grown!). Often, we would run into this ancient great-uncle who always looked spiffy in a brown suit. She was a real family woman, my grandmother. On the day we are supposed to remember the dead, she made it a point to bring together the living.

Home again.

Interverse, did I not tell you that I was back home? That's right, again. I'm here to do some data gathering for a special problem for my terrestrial sampling methods class (Did you also feel that I am sharing unnecessarily here? Because I'm typing this and I have a feeling you won't really care.) Anyhow, plunging on shamelessly, the sampling is done! Yes, this morning, while it was shining and John Hay smelled all of pine and dew. We saw a black labrador and lots of ferns. So many ferns.

This is my mother. She was my RA for the day, even when she could have been sleeping in on the weekend. She's the best.

After, the boys met up with us and Pa took us out to Army Navy for lunch in that new Convergys place (My fine Baguio folk, please. Do not roll your eyes at my belatedness, this place is still novel to me.) I had the steak burrito, and was satisfied as always. However: Army Navy, you know you totally strum my guitar, but you seriously need to rethink your condiments. I am nuts about your cream thing, but more salsa I say! Plus, your lemon wedge is not so much a wedge as half a wedge. Acid is the secret source of your burrito's power. Give me a full wedge!

(Before I forget: my baby brother is taller than me and there are unknowable things happening to his voice.)

And then, Booksale after. It was on sale more than it usually is because the rest of SM is on sale. So:

What was a Bukowski doing there? For only P127 too. And finally, a copy of What Was She Thinking? (Notes on a Scandal) because it was only P45 and didn't have the movie cover. I can be obsessive like that. Also, Booksale is cheeky (read: bookmark). That's why we love them.

At the end of the day, we dropped by the SM Supermarket. Boys and girls, maiawawannak idiay. The tocino and the tapa were not where they normally are. I wanted to sit quietly in a corner and wait for my father to come get me. Because that is what you are supposed to do if you get lost.

There is an art to packing groceries. When I was younger and there was no SM Supermarket, we used to shop in local grocery stores like U-Need or Victoria's or 5 Cents Up or Sunshine. The bag boys could fit everything we bought in three bags or less. They were genius packers, efficient in their use of space and quick with their hands. They would momentarily approximate the relative sizes and shapes of the items, and find the perfect nook for them in each white plastic bag. When you carried the bags, things didn't stick out to poke you in the leg. The bottoms would be flat so the bags would be upright when you put them down. And the eggs were always on top. When you had too many items for plastic bags, the boys would suggest you would be much better off with a box. Everything would fit neatly in there too, tied up with straw, a perfect handle knotted at the top for easy transport. In SM, they just toss things thoughtlessly into huge plastic bags. Weekly grocery shoppers tend to end up with six or seven loads. It is a wasteful process. Remember when we said we would stop using plastic?

Later, dancing hippos. I am tired of looking at plants.