The long weekend

First of all, we're greeting my sister Kim a happy 22nd birthday! We hope you continue to grow with the values enriching us this season of Easter. Celebrations may be postponed until the proper time, but enjoy it anyway.

***

It's such a long weekend for us, having no work from today until Easter Monday. After attending the Stations of the Cross this morning, there was nothing much to do, specially with the cold rain suddenly trapping us in the house. It's the perfect weather for cuddling, which we certainly did as we browsed through every channel.

At midday, the chef called as many Sri Lankans he could possibly think of, as today marks the New Year in their calendar. It's interesting to note that they also have a specific time to take their first meal, which we almost interrupted when we called my sis-in-law.

The weather tomorrow will be colder, and not necessarily a more comfortable one than today's. But there's much to be ecstatic about with waking up tomorrow. My uni days friend, Mitch, had driven over from Sydney today with her sister's family, and we're meeting up after having last seen each other some 5 years ago. I have a school kid's hope for spring in me, and that's enough to keep me going.

Twenty-ten

"You're leaving quite early?"

"Yeah, it's market day," he said.

"And it's something else, too."

"What's that?"

I let out a short sigh, quickly caught by a what's-wrong-with-you smile. "It's my birthday."

"It's not. That's tomorrow."

Ok, why argue, right? He's clearly forgotten it. Oh well, well, well...

Alone later, I thought, it's somehow good to forget when you're turning a year. It's definitely not a younger year anyway. But on second and more dramatic thought, hey, I'm turning the 3-big-O this year!

I decided to put on a pout when we met again after work, and somehow it didn't turn right.Funny as it may seem, we ended up with a slight argument. A celebration wasn't anywhere near that hour because of the long weekend ahead, so we could very well afford that misunderstanding. Then today, my chef and I met with differences set aside. He also made up somehow, with a new timepiece for me. To tell the time? What irony. (Well, yeah, it was something like that. Hehehe.)

***

Apparently, it wasn't only my husband who forgot my birthday. It was past mid-day before anyone in the pharmacy remembered it was my day. It was really nothing to fuss about, but they think it should be. So today, Bev and company surprised me with a cake and some indigenous balloons.

what's left of it... one candle per decade

my "Smokefree" campaign balloons looking naughty

To Bev, Bob, and Tamara, thank you very much. Late as it may be, you still made my day.

Adopting too soon

No, I don't think we'll be adopting at this point yet, nor have we discussed the matter. It's too soon to tell anyway, but we're very much hoping we'll be raising our biological children. But here comes this kid who volunteers to be our adopted.

We hadn't come to know Matti until he introduced himself to the chef's bike. Yeah, the bike. He seemed to have been stalking the chef's bike, and then one day, approached to ask about it and professed his adoration for it. Equipped with the talk of a salesman, he offered prices to bits and parts of the bike, which of course, the chef had no intention of putting in the market. We were just shaking our heads in disbelief at the talent of this verbally diarrhoeal kid claiming to be 14, but the chef had (unfortunately) fallen trapped into the kid's accidental charm, especially when the BMX dirt track was introduced to him.

Tonight, after coming home late from their ride, we invited him to join us for dinner. He reckons we 'love' him to have him over for dinner, and insists on having us 'second' parents. The chef and I look at each other, trying to contain the kulit-ness of this kid.

To Matti, our home will always be open to you. Just please, next time, leave your shoes outside the door. :)

struggling with the chillis in the seafood pasta

When leaving means coming home

This time last year, I had set foot on Australia as a resident. The feeling still lingers to this day-- the thought and the anticipation of what was in store for me here was quite arresting. My previous trips, even the unaccompanied ones, never shook me from within, knowing I had a return ticket at hand for the many just-in-cases. For this trip, I was tugging along an overloaded 52 kilos of luggage with the-rest-of-my-life stuff and a short list of crimebuster phone numbers. It was also one filled with a lot of give-and-take luck.

It was an arduous yet exciting preparation of sorts, sifting through memories at the same time. Finally, it was a matter of choosing between what I needed and what I wanted. Well, I let in a few want's like my very first vanity set, a Hello Kitty comb and mirror set still well preserved in its original plastic purse.

The want's didn't score up much, and I wouldn't like to think my excess baggage took its toll from them, even after having gone through much drama with the airline I flew with. I was misinformed about the first-migrant's baggage allowance which apparently didn't apply with that airline, but was extremely fortunate when their own supervisors pulled me out of the ditch. Thanks basically to the prompting of my sister, who dropped me off at Cebu airport, to continue with my melodramatic acting, which supposedly harbours sympathy from those men.

I returned to my sister and her friends at the lobby for last farewell hugs and to relay how my luck went so far. More luck turned up when I was heading to the pre-departure, and a ground attendant approached me to offer a first-class seat just because they didn't have enough people in the said accommodation. Well, who would be such a duffer to refuse that?

At the Hongkong stopover, the 40 minutes' wait was well spent getting lost trying to find the next terminal. Upon finding the right one, I sat in pure relief, only to be told to stand up again to file for entry to the plane. Upon arrival, my husband was nowhere in sight at first, because of the confusion the on-going construction was causing. I was glad when he finally rang me up, and then my phone died at the first hello. Great, he really had me at hello. So much for cinematic lines.

Standing still and a few neck stretching, I had soon found my man. I was finally home.

Transition

Two months ago, only a few days into this job, I was re-acquainted with one of the pharmacy's regular customers. While doing a part-time last year, he was first introduced to me by the dispensary assistant then, who thought we had shared something in common-- Sri Lanka.

By the looks of him, yeah, one could not deny he or part of him is from there. But during our earlier conversations, he seemed to have avoided any association with the said country, claiming to be a hybrid of some other nationalities and clearly defying that giveaway accent. Bev, a long-time friend of his, said that his seeming denial may be a front of some sort or maybe an emotional defense mechanism due to past issues unbeknownst to us. I was to discover later that he had lived the bitter and war-torn days of what he still, and fondly, refers to as Ceylon.

His subsequent visits to the pharmacy (basically for repeats of his and his wife's prescriptions) and my never-ending reminiscence of the 'good' face of Sri Lanka eventually led him to keep ajar what, I imagine, was once a closed door. Over time, the confidence must have also grown with the familiarity for each other, that sometimes he was airing that bit of 'arrogance' you commonly hear from a grandfather when he proudly speaks of past accomplishments. It makes my smile wider to realise he still had Sri Lanka-- or Ceylon-- in him.

Last week, I made reprints of photos of some of the breathtaking sites I've been to in Sri Lanka. Bundled up, I wrote on the envelop, "Still reminiscing Ceylon..."

And this morning, he came to the pharmacy to see me, but not for his scripts. It was a quick visit with an obvious struggle to keep his welling eyes from pouring. He was already preparing his retreat, while handing an envelop to me with shaking hands. I didn't know what was in it but said thanks anyway. He wanted me to open it and probably see the surprise in my face. But it did more than just that.

Whatever they were that forced him out of his home country-- and probably the positive remembrances of it-- only brought out the fine poet in him. His words are as poetic as the beauty of Sri Lanka, and here I share his...

Transition

The silent mountains, Oh! so high
Where only hawks and eagles are seen to fly
Drifting buoyant upon an upward draft
Like tiny specks on a silken blue scarf.

In the valley below in a clear moving streamAn occasional fish surfaces to catch a sunlight beamOnly to be picked away in an intrepid sweeping diveBy an ever watchful hawk so observant and virile.

In the city cars rush by with squealing brakes
Leaving occasional crashes in their wake.
Trams with continuous rattle rolling on and on,
Planes roaring up into the sky-- outward bound.

In the suburbs as an accompaniment to these dreadful sounds
Monstrous buildings mushroom up to deface the good earth around.
Parklands succumb to box-like buildings hugging each other
Like mosses in a damp garden plot clinging tightly together.

Life moves on with never a moment's thought,
Unconscious, uncaring of a world so overwrought
Such drastic change from a quiet pristine, beautiful world
To this our boisterous, deranged frenzied modern whirl.

- Clive Felsinger

Getting there

It's a big relief to be finally done and over with the dispensary assistant course. Well, at least for the classes, because there still is a workbook to accomplish and an assessment/interview to look forward to prior to receiving the certificate, which seals it all.

But, indeed, this is already a big step covered towards getting a certain Aussie qualification. Today was the second and final day of the weekend course. Seated in a classroom again with around twenty other women for 9 hours a day was, in a way, nostalgic. Most of my weekend "classmates" came from the far corners of Victoria, like Wodonga or Yarrawonga, the latter being some four-and-a-half hours drive away. Except for one, the lectures were not seat-warmers which, more than anything, gave us the opportunity to socialise on the side.

***

Getting up in the morning for those classes was quite a feat forme and my chef-cum-chauffeur, with our bioclocks set to waking up at around 7am. For this weekend, we --or at least I-- had to sacrifice an hour's sleep to make it before the first class at 8.30am. Oh, but thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time today, I gained back that lost hour yesterday.

I guess the struggle had more to do with the sudden drop in temperature. While last week was still basking us in the 30s and high 20s, April's Fool had us yesterday when it greeted us with a cool breeze. Looks like autumn is finally making its presence felt.