hello there, snake

24th of august 2007 | friday

it might as well be just my luck.

after my late morning bath, i ate breakfast, slept until past noon, woke up, changed my houseclothes with a black shirt and pair of denim pants, combed my messy hair, brushed my teeth, put on my contact lenses, went downstairs, pushed my feet into my trusty pair of tribu sandals, told my half-asleep mother that i was going out, got the house keys and shoved them into my bag, opened the wooden door, looked through the screen, saw something, opened the screen door, and, in split-second, i pulled it back. i slammed shut the wooden door, quickly locked it, and clutched my heart before i squeaked, "mamang, nakakita kog halas. naaaaaaaaaa! nahadlok kaayo ko." (ma, i saw a snake. naaaaaaaaaa! i got really scared.)

what could have been a very laidback la di daaaa la di da daaa daaaa i'm-on-my-way moment turned into an OMG moment. when i opened the screen door, i came face to face with an adult snake making its way to our doorstep. i really saw it on our doorstep!

because of the brief ruckus i made, my mother got on her feet and suggested that i open the wooden door again to check the whereabouts of the snake. with my heart still beating triple time, i opened the door -- the snake was no longer there.

my next-door neighbor (who also happens to be my cousin) called out if i indeed saw a snake and went over the fence separating our lots to take a look. my brave mother went out with handfuls of crushed garlic in her hands and threw them on our doorstep and inside the holes of the concrete blocks near it. i told her not to bother going anywhere near those just yet because the snake might have taken refuge there and might attack her. but as i've already mentioned, my ma is brave. she even poked the holes with a stick and disturbed the area the way she does during her daily gardening activities.

i got a huge, huge scare from seeing that venomous snake (it had the skin pattern of a cobra). my heart established a new 'normal' hearbeat rate -- faster -- and i went close to running a fever.

BUT i think it was a 'two-way' traumatic incident. i reckon the snake also had to contend with the trauma of having to deal with the frightening sight of me and my panic-inducing reaction. in that sense, we're quits.

for all the efforts, the meter-long snake could not be found. we have no idea where it went. we could not agree whether it's long been around to stay or if it's a temporary refugee looking for a cold place -- what with the relentless heat in the fields at the backside of the compound.

in the meantime, all seems to be well. the naughty cats in the neighborhood still come around to 'play' in our kamalig. so i say, all is well. global warming be damned. PLEASE, please, don't make me see another snake that way again -- with my own two eyes and with nothing between us. it's too much for one heart. really.

hi from canada

"May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun
And find your shoulder to light on,
To bring you luck, happiness and riches
Today, tomorrow and beyond."
--Irish Blessing

on august 9, 2007 i wrote: waaaah my baby boy left for canada this morning. no more wake up calls of ate katrweeen for me from him in the mornings. no more impish shouting matches with him in the evenings, too.


go well, little guy!
now, i can only hug the small pillow he left behind. a pair of his shoes (with his small socks inside) and a pair of his slippers adorn the bookshelves in the girls' room. there's a copy of his passport picture stuck under the glass on the table in the room where i sleep. last weekend, i saw him smiling and waving at me through the webcam. through pc-to-pc call, he said, "hi ate valinkatrweeen! how are you?" the fact that he can make out my name completely makes me so damn proud of him! he's only two.

wasn't it only a little more than a week ago when he told me "flowers for you!" and insisted that i sing along to his toddler-ish guitar-playing?

on the bright side, no one's gonna wrestle the marshmallows, stik-o's, and lollipops out of my hands anymore. i can enjoy eating them in peace.

still, i wish he's back here. he's my favorite jolly brat, you know, and the marshmallows don't look as sweet anymore.



p.s. video clips of his toddler antics are here.

not-so-known stuff

"Everyone is born right-handed... only the greatest overcome it."
-- Lefthanders' Slogan by a brilliant unknown author

image source: imdb.com's gallery for love actually
southpaws unite! today, 13th day of august, is international lefthander's day!!!

what? southpaws?! lefties?! who?

some of the better-known great ones are...
albert einstein (greatest physicist of all-time, theory of relativity, hello!), benjamin franklin, linus pauling (nobel prize awardee for both chemistry... and, yeah, peace advocacy, beat that!), alan turing, bill gates (who among us here hasn't heard of him?), edwin "buzz" aldrin (second man on the moon, neil armstrong's first ever lunar photography human model -- in spacesuit, of course), ayrton senna (my fave dead formula one racer!), mahatma gandhi ("be the change you want to see in the world"), prince william, friedrich nietzsche (philosopher, "what doesn't kill you will make you stronger"), aristotle, alexander the great (general and conqueror), kurt cobain (nirvana), billy corgan (smashing pumpkins), noel gallagher (oasis), sir paul mccartney and ringo starr (the beatles), seal, sting, and phil collins (singers all), wolfgang amadeus mozart and ludwig van beethoven (musical genuises), manny pacquiao (p4p boxer), matt groening and his creation bart simpson, hans christian andersen, lewis caroll and h.g. wells (writers, writers), oprah winfrey (talk show host), hugh jackman, jim carrey, and robert de niro (actors, actors), michaelangelo and leonardo da vinci (great artists), and jack the ripper (serial killer, he, he, he!).

now, here's the question: (--,) ehem! are you one of us?


p.s.
(1) i didn't know until today that there's really such a day as lefthander's day.
(2) i earlier confused linus pauling with linus torvalds. my apologies.

snakeskin

"Indifference and neglect often do much more damage
than outright dislike."
-- Prof. Dumbledore in Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix

do you think this is a water hose?

august 4, 2007 | saturday
some snake shed off about 1.5 meters of skin and left it behind in a corner of our yard.

current whereabouts of the said snake: unknown! we reckon it just passed by our territory; the skin's orientation seem to suggest that the snake eventually went out of our gate. needless to say, of this, we couldn't be sure.

we didn't see the snake. we only saw what it left behind -- the skin it shed off.

ho-hum. i should say kiber... but... but... ah wah, i don't like snakes.


note: click here for more photos.

the new book in the house

"Take the ultimate mental challenge! Baffling logic problems and cryptograms… 3D mazes, optical illusions and conundrums… visual and verbal teasers... tantalizing word games
and maths puzzles - enjoy them all..."
-- www.readersdigest.co.uk

a collection of puzzles and mental challenges in loose-leaf pages

c",)(",)(--,)
we asked for it. we got it.
yey, my father is really the man!

notebook of poems

i couldn't seem to finish the handprint i was trying to paint. my motivation to do so went on vacation, i think.

i'd like to blame those two eeny weeny whitish worms i saw crawling on my ultra-sweet slice of mango for that bit. who knows, maybe i accidentally ingested one of their equally eeny weeny siblings? (yuckkkk. i feel somewhat sick at the mere thought.) i should have been suspicious when i realized that mango tasted way soooo sweet. those worms, although they seemed harmless, must have scared my motivation away.

hence, this. with motivation to finish 'the handprint' out of the window, i decided to work on something else -- something not completely different, but different enough. i did away with the chinese brush and the watercolor tubes and the sketch pad. instead, i gripped some colored pencils and pulled from the shelf my notebook of poems. now, this.


from time to time, i encounter beautiful words and enchanting lines; and i have this habit of compiling them. i write them down in a notebook, the notebook which i call my notebook of poems.

using the colored pencils, i added something to the notebook -- i decorated the pages with my doodles. see?


someday, i'll finish that handprint. for now, i'm happy to have doodled on the pages of my notebook.


note: click on the images to see the hi-res versions. you may also click here to view other pages of the notebook.

the things that come to mind

"If today's World Stealing Day,
what would you steal from me?"
-- forwarded text message

big. or small. great. u.n.d.e.n.i.a.b.l.y.

rain. i love the rain that we're getting in the afternoons... they make sleeping in oh soooo good.

lollipops. be they as pricey as chupa chups or as affordable as boom boom, i'm glad i can taste them yummy.

colorful socks. others go crazy with shoes. i go crazy with socks.

happy and comfy home life. i have a papa. i have a mama. i have siblings. us. warm. under one roof. so beautifully priceless. undoubtedly THE best among my wonderfully cherished treasures.

old glossy magazines. from pages of which i cut interesting and artsy printed stuff.

dvd marathons. either the dvd player gives up... or i do.

mata sa abat. one of my cousin b-boy's amusing toddler antics. watching videos of him doing it never fails to make me giggle -- more than watching R2-D2 go smoking and a-blinking (or yoda a-fighting or captain jack sparrow a-mumbling) does.

good reads. i love them. always.

text messages. just keep them coming...

papemelroti scrapbook. my p6peeps friends' 2003 birthday gift to me which, after almost 3 years of being merely stored, i've finally put to good use... for -- what else, but -- scrapbooking!

blogging and netsurfing. to keep them off this list would be hypocrisy.

needlework. gotta give in to the tree-hugger in me. i gotta finish stitching my tree.

harry potter. new movie and last book. woohoo, july double whammy.

those who make me feel so missed. yey, i do matter! :P sometimes, i don't mind being nagged. or pestered.

cloud 9. while others would not settle for anything less than toblerone or cadbury, i'm gleeful with my cloudy bars. in fact, i'm okay with just one.

sketch pad. when words fail me... i draw and play with lines and colors. when creativity spills, why waste it?

ice cream. all-time favorite. for good days and bad days and all days in between.

makulay ang buhay. sa sinabawang gulay. this is probably the most effective lss-inducing output since "people stay...". the think-tanks of this jingle and commercial do deserve to be praised.

photos. visual images of priceless moments frozen in time. portkeys to when intangibles become tangibles.