third in a row...but shall return

Two of my closest friends at work said goodbye a few months ago. Another one is going, the Princess from Ivory Coast whom I loved to call daughter, is bound for Madrid, today.

Frieda introduced me to the books of Shel Silverstein. Whenever the poem “The Prayer of a Selfish Child” comes my mind, it is her I remember. She came to the company as a fresh graduate from UCLA. She is multi-literate in several languages, English, French, German, their native language (which I kept forgetting what it’s called), and soon Spanish, which is the reason she’s flying to Spain, to study.

Frieda is almost two decades my junior but we get along really well. I guess because we’re on the same wavelength despite the big age gap. Like me, she is also a tech-gadget geek, maybe more than I am. She changes her IPOD as frequent as Apple releases their newest model. Her digital camera? Conservatively twice a year, or so…

We spent quite a lot of time together in the office but the ones I remember most are the fun we had during our few gigs.

Watching a movie or a stage play is more fun when you go with Frieda. She’s got so much life in her and you could feel the genuineness of her laughs. I love the way she laughed, very much.

Driving and getting lost on your way can be fun too, but only when you’re with Frieda. When someone’s being rude to her, she would ask me to be rude with that person too, ha!ha!ha! No one’s more natural than her.

There were times I would email her in French trying to impress her but I gave up, languages are not for me, only for Frieda.

When she called an hour before her flight departs for Spain, I began to miss her badly…then I wrote this blog.

P.S. She is coming back next summer so the fun continues :-)

With true friends...even water drunk together is sweet enough. Chinese Proverb

sleepless nights...(surviving insomnia)

For as long as I remember, I have been suffering from insomnia since the final three months of senior high school. I recall going to bed with a small AM/FM radio beside my pillow hoping that music will put me to sleep, but to no avail. Most of the times I would stay awake browsing through different frequencies as the radio programs goes-off the air one by one. The time I hear the Philippine National Anthem played by the early morning radio programs, is the time I start to drowse and eventually fall asleep.

The incident that I didn’t sleep for two consecutive nights prompted my grandmother to bring me to the family doctor. I was prescribed a non-habit forming sleeping pill that I would take only whenever I am finding it hard to find that precious sleep (evidently every night, during that time). Because of fear of not waking up, or sleeping directly to eternal rest, the pills ended up expiring in the cabinet while I struggled to live with the discomfort.

Insomnia to me is a disaster and a semi-serious disorder although most would claim; it is not a disorder in its own right. So, for years, I remained awake up to wee hours in the morning and would force myself to sleep when I hear the neighbor’s rooster crow. It’s like I descended from Dracula’s line that I am so terrified of sunlight making sure I’m asleep before the sun peeps out the sky. Fortunately, there were afternoon sessions in my college, I was able to carry-on with my studies without much hardships. I start at 2:30 and finish at 8:30 pm everyday. I wake up at 10:00 everyday, except for Sundays when we go to church, my aunt would literally pull me out of bed at 6:30 am to be able to attend the 8:30 mass.

I managed to move on with this sleeping habit for years, not having to feel the side effect until I worked with HEPC, a Japanese manufacturing company at the Cavite Export Processing Zone. Japanese people are so disciplined you can expect them to be at work early all the time despite a long goodtime the night before, or lack of sleep for that matter. My good friend Debbie (well she is not yet a good friend that time, LOL, I love you Debbie! Miss you too!), then our HR manager, put me on a one-week suspension without pay because of habitual tardiness. This was after serving me with two written warnings, and who knows how many, verbal warnings. After this budget-wrecking punishment, I tried my very best to get up and swipe my badge at 8 am despite the lack of sleep.

Not only did I suffer from insomnia, I also have an unpleasant habit of sleeping with my eyes only half-closed. My mother and Brack observed. Gross or scary? It’s like you would want to put two big coins on my eyes in an effort to shut them. Sounds familiar? It’s what they do to people who died with their eyes open, hahahaha!!! But time passes; people change intrinsically and react environmentally. While I still at times have problem remaining asleep for the duration of the night, I think insomnia (after living within for two decades) finally said goodbye to me for the last ten years at least, thanks to child rearing, I guess.

Now, I can make sleep without extra effort, my eyes shut and my mind drifts to quietness as soon as my back touches the bed. Thus this morning’s conversation:

Husband: You were sleeping soundly last night.
Wife: Am I really? How did you know?
Husband: I watched you sleep.
Wife: Aren’t you scared?
Husband: Why should I?
Wife: To see me sleeping with my eyes only half-closed.
Husband: Oh no. I haven’t seen that happen to you anymore. Your eyes were totally shut-off. Like the other night I woke up at dawn and watched you sleep, I just forgot to mention that yesterday morning. You looked so beautiful in your sleep, just like sleeping beauty.
Wife: Smiled at husband :-) (awww! It must be love)

No soda on weekdays

Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and french fries, perfect match for soda! But when I asked, “Who wants soda?” Lemuel replied, “I can’t have soda on weekdays.” “What? Why can’t you have soda on weekdays?” I asked back. “Because Daddy said so,” was Abraham’s quick response. “Oh, I didn’t know that. Since when did he tell you that?” After which, I kept my words to myself and smiled secretly in admiration of Brack’s effective implementation of a rule I never even noticed was observed in the house for a long time now.

I also laid-out some rules but I feel like I have to remind the kids time and again about the rules for them to abide. How come Brack’s were carried-on even when he’s not around to implement it?

I lived with rules too, hundreds of it, when I was growing up. I may have not appreciated most of it then but I treasured it deeply as I transformed into adulthood. As a matter of fact, I feel fortunate that I grew up under the care of a very strict grandfather, for his rules made me see life deeper and differently than most young people do. And while I have yet to discover the secret beneath his’ and Brack’s apt parenting style, I am satisfied that the kids are adjusted to following rules without rebelling. It feels good they are developing one of life’s most important virtues – RESPECT.

Even if they say you miss the fun by obeying rules, I still believe rules are essential to men. Zarah Dizon