Camera shy

My preccocious little toddler has picked up the bad habit of dropping things into the garbage bin. The concept of trash is still alien to her. I think she just finds it a lot of fun to drop things in with the nice flip-flapping plastic lid of our huge trash bin. And so a week came by without me noticing that our digital camera, an Olympus worth about Dhs. 1,000/- (approximately US$272.00) has gone missing. I spent the weekend turning the house upside-down and inside-out in the hope of finding the camera as I had bought the blasted thing to record my daughter's precious early years in the first place....but to no avail. My search was a failure and am now a thousand dirhams poorer sans digital camera. I'm now back to the film-reliant version. The thing is, I have to get them developed and scanning them and downsizing their file sizes are such hassles. I've written my daughter a note sealed in an enveloped to be opened when her first pay check comes. Inside is a note that says: "You owe me a camera!"

Health

My dad may be coming down with Alzheimer's disease. It was a sad weekend for me, worrying about my father and moreso, of my mom who is the only one left to care for everyone else. Sometimes I wish I could be nearer my folks so I could help them. The need to find greener pastures has blown my sails into these parts of the desert and yet my anchor is left in the shores of the Philippines.

A year earlier, dad discovered a cyst in his right temple. After a series of lab tests and MRI scans, doctors decided to leave it be lest they puncture or damage more than they ought to cure. This had caused my dad some epileptic-like seizures on several occasions but has held on firmly to the fact that alternative and herbal medication may find him a cure. He's been quite strong and positive about the whole thing...the fact that cancer in his family is rampant. And now, he may have the same disease that former US president Reagan has which his own aunt (my dad's) had.

Despite the care we give our bodies, something just seems to creep up on us as we grow older. I may not be feeling anyhting wrong with me now in my early 30s but I dread the things that I will suffer from by the time I hit 40. This brings me to ponder upon the fact that I was never really good at taking care of my physical being. My husband is bound to suffer the same fate as I granting we have the same lifestyle, diet, habits...

I wouldn't dream of passing our ailing bodies as a burden to our child. This dilemna is like an annoying singular fly in an all white square room with me in the typewriter. I know I have to do something about it but for the moment I'm preoccupied.

A bit of Spanish

I can no longer speak as fluently as when I was eating, breathing, living with Spanish in my head all the time in university. Years of non-practice has grown molds and rust into my Spanish speaking abilities. To attempt a casual conversation with a native speaker would be like an adult speaking with a child still on the early stages of language acquisition. It is sad to note that all those language subjects I've taken in college have all gone to waste.

Yo soy no creado como cualquier persona que he visto; Creo que yo soy no creado como cualquier persona en existencia. Si no soy mejor, por lo menos soy diferente.

Getting Older

My husband is a year older today. I wish him to be a year wiser as well, if he can manage it. Boys seem to mature slower than girls do. I mean, I reckon my husband is somewhere between 12 or 13 last year and I really hope he'd shoot up to post adolescent 'age' this year...18-ish would be great!

I got him an Ericsson Z200 mobile phone, putting my finances into another turn for the worse (more like, the hopeless!) but he's happy with his new toy and that's all that matters. At least until we can no longer afford to eat and he'll have to sell his new cell fone to a fence who'll buy it a 30 percent the original price allowing us a few grains of rice with free sand thrown in for good digestion.

He has a laptop but he's not a businessman, not even a student. He uses the laptop to store his music, which he's got original CDs of; plays computer games, his current favorite being "Diablo" a Valentine's Day gift from me; and totes - read that: hauls - it from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain so he looks like a computer savvy guy! Does he use Word or perhaps create Excel spreadsheets? NO! Does he even try to better his typing speed of 25 wpm? NO! His laptop is not anything but a toy...a Dirhams six thousand worth of pure entertainment.

I'm glad that he's over his components, audio and speakers phase because that set us back by the thousands money-wise. He bought speakers upon speakers that our small home looked like an audio shop. He bought amplifiers, CD players, tape deck and power amps and the cables...oh my God the cables...I couldn't believe they'd cost a fortune! He'd drill holes on walls to mount his speakers or double-sided tape them to a stand that you are not allowed to touch much less get near to! You can trip or accidentally hang your neck (can you really do that?!) from all the cables that snaked the floor. I was just pure nightmare!

We are transients here, not really citizens and would never live here forever. But the amount of stuff we've accumulated over the years could easily fill some serious shipping space...what with speakers and amps and players...sensitive stuff that I don't know where to put in Manila as we still do not have our own home.

So today, on his birthday, I really wih my husband would seriously start thinking about our future. How we'll ever get out of this place and save up enough for our golden years as well as for our growing daughter.

The road ahead is looking rather bleak. Although despair is far from my mind, as I look at the positive side of things...one cannot help but fear the bad times.

Cold Summer

It should have been the start of summer in these parts of the world, hinting at warmer weather ahead but on the contrary, nature decided to have a fog today and thereby freezing us desert folks to a bunch of chattering idiots who, because we have declared it to be summer, wore our summery outfits to work!

There I was stepping out of the house, bright and breezy, waiting for my car pool mates in near zero visibility. We were only able to locate each other from the sound of our chattering teeth! This must be mother nature's revenge on man's continued disregard for the environment or, she just decided to play a joke on us desert dwellers for being too presumptuous.

”I am not made like anyone I have seen;
I dare believe I am not made like anyone in existence.
If I am not better, at least I am different.”