Pandemic Lockdown Part II

After one week into this pandemic that started nearly what felt like two hundred two years ago, I started decluttering our house to keep me busy. I did so slowly just to keep myself occupied, leaving other areas for the next days. I thought the pandemic will end in a few weeks and it would be nice to have a clean, spacious house when it happened. It was a bit of a challenge to get rid of the stuff in a manner that I can still remember where everything is. All is good, though, with a dozen 80L megaboxes and their contents catalogued in my phone’s Notes app.

I’ve thrown out a ton of old craps from the old house we thought we still had use of, including old clothes and memorabilia that we never used in the first place. Most went to donation. However, lockdowns after lockdowns made us order more stuff online to replace what we threw away. Oh crap!

With covid still raging wilder than ever, clutter caught up to us faster than we got rid of them. It’s back to mess and I am back to decluttering. Good thing, though -the reading glasses I lost the first time I did this re-appeared. It was sitting in a corner behind a box behind another, which I am sure I’ve already searched in many times. Someone’s playing tricks on me!

With my glasses on, I see clearly now having gained a new insight into all this:

Decluttering is a full-time job and it’s not easy. A never-ending game of hide and seek. It gives Work-from-Home a new perspective. I guess we all need to do it at some point in our lives. It’s just more fun and easier when you don’t have a business to run, a family to feed and a pesky 62-year old lower back. Oh, crap again!

But hey, still, I say cheers!

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The Greatest Performance of my Life

I am empowered by the prayers of other people, and I help empower them through mine.

This is one blog post like no other because it has a call to action at its end. It also carries with it hope that you will respond to the call. 

More than seven years ago, I had this idea of developing an online platform through which people, sharing similitudes like birthdays, professions, hobbies, or interests can be united -one person per country. I just thought it’d be cool to have one friend in every country in the world born on the same day I was born, as an example. Or born twins, on the same day, like we were. Or coffee-lover fans of James Taylor. Or electrical engineers practicing lighting design. The list is infinite.

After paying small-time web developers and programmers (I could not afford expensive ones), they came up with an application that was absolutely worthless. Money down the drain. With little resources I had, the idea remained just a silly dream.

Then an inspiration hit me like a lightning bolt out of the dark skies. Instead of interests or birthdays or professions, why not prayers? And the best prayer that I know where many can participate, and above all, unite in, is the Holy Rosary. It’s been around for centuries, it’s wildly popular all over the world, it’s easy to learn, and there are hundreds of millions of people who already know the prayers by heart. It’s perfect for my purpose. The basic rosary comprises 74 prayers or prayer beads. What if those 74 prayers were prayed by 74 people from 74 countries and each person prayed in his/her own language? 

I prayed harder and dug deeper into my pocket to hire better people. The result: www.rosaryofthenations.org was born! I created this site with a specific goal in mind: to unite people around the world through prayers. Unless I come up with a way to grow trees overnight, I’d like to think this is the most important work I will ever do in my lifetime.

Now the call.

I am looking for Catholics in at least 80 countries to pilot this project. They will be those who will respond if prayer intentions are posted by anyone anywhere. Please join and if you know any faithfuls in other countries, please ask them to take part also. 

Here’s a two-minute video of how it works (and you have two minutes of your time, right? 😉):

And here’s a video of how a completed rosary looks (or sounds) like when 74 people from 74 countries prayed in their own language. Play it while meditating, while driving, while walking or jogging.

See you at Rosary of the Nations. Cheers!

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66 Done, Infinity to Go

Yesterday, January 2, would have been my parents’ 66th wedding anniversary. But why do I say ‘would-have-been’ when it still was their anniversary, even if both have passed on from this life? They would have celebrated may be more appropriate. Or maybe not. All my life, I can only recall one time when we held a party to celebrate -their 40th anniversary. There probably was a little money to spare since all five children had already graduated from college by that time.

There were no pictures of the bride and the groom. The easy conclusion I can make is either the technology had yet to reach their place or the photographer’s calesa broke down on the way to the church. The only other details that we’ve been told about the event that started our family tree were that of the priest, Father Esguerra and of the church, St. John the Baptist in Dinalupihan, Bataan which outlived the priest as it still stands today. No details of how many carabaos and pigs were slaughtered for the reception. No honeymoon pictures, either.

I am jealous of those who have old wedding pictures (or paintings) of parents who have been married for 50-plus years. Even if the pictures weren’t taken at a time when they were especially handsome or glamorous, they had something to brag about to their children and grandchildren of how great-looking they were when the world was still in black and white.

But looking back, it didn’t matter if we had no pictures or paintings of their young lives. It was the times we spent together that did. We remember better the times they touched and cared for us, the times we were scolded and spanked, and the times we laughed and cried over meaningless reasons. Uncomplicated lives we lived then. I remember best the early times we shared meals on leg-less table called dulang. The delicious meals that my Inang served then were those I miss most now.

Today, I’m not sad. I’m just grateful to have had them part of our lives and to have been part of theirs.

With five children, 17 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren (and more coming soon), this family tree will keep growing. 

Happy anniversary! Cheers!

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Just do it!

We did it in 2020. We did it again in 2021. This year, we do better! Much better.

Happy New Year! All the best!

IKEA High, IKEA Low

My lighting design firm, Toespin, was awarded the lighting design contract for the first ever IKEA store in the Philippines, which recently opened to the public. Occupying 65,000sqm in area, it is regarded as the biggest in the world.

Four years in the making, it prides me to be a part of a team of international design disciplines, tempers, and tolerances for deadpan humor. Above all, I am proud of my team -Victor, Herbert and AJ, who, in their usual all-out dedication to brilliance, contributed much to make #IKEAPhilippines shine the brightest.

The people behind the creative and engineering marvels are usually not talked about by people outside our industry’s design circle. I mean, do you really look at the ceiling in any store and wonder who designed the lighting? Or the air-conditioning? Or the acoustics? Or the toilet flush? Yeah, right!

It therefore got me excited to hear from my niece, who is an OB-Gyne resident in one of the top hospitals in the metro, beat the drum for us when the subject came up in their doctors-only conversations. She proudly told them that her dad’s twin brother -that’s me, was the lighting consultant for the project.

Said they, “Really? Your father has a twin brother?!!”

Doctors. Not engineers. Not architects. Not designers.

Cheers!

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It’s a Twin Thing

Our hearts do not beat at the same time and at the same rhythm. Many people say we look the same, our voices sound the same, we say the same corny daddy jokes. But that’s probably just about it.

Fred and I are fraternal twins born many, many, many leap years ago. I don’t recall having sibling rivalry between us. Neither of us was smarter or stronger. Although one maybe, just maybe, a tad more handsome than the other. I am not saying who, though. I will let history judge us.

To this day, I believe we were born with a natural talent for knowing what to give each other for our birthday. Last week was another testament to this belief. We gave each other a polo shirt.

During one brunch, I showed him how much I liked the yellow sports shirt that I just bought from Uniqlo. He liked it as well. He asked what size I wear. I said small since the size I was looking for, which is extra-medium wasn’t available. That gave him something to think about. That gave me something to think about. That was a week before our birthday.

In the store he went to buy, he tried on a shirt. Small wouldn’t fit. So he took the large size instead. We have almost the same body size.

When I went out to buy him one, I speedily took a small-sized green version of my shirt. In and out in a flash. By choosing a different color, we will be better able to tell ourselves apart in the fairway.

Then came the reveal. The shirt he gave me was white. All good. But size was large. But when I tried it on, it fit me as well as the original yellow shirt.

For his part, the small size didn’t meet his fancy. He made use of the gift receipt to have it changed to medium.

It turned out, they were of two different styles, made in two different countries.

Oh well, we are both happy and content. All good. And all good. If you were wondering what would make us happier, break par in a golf game together would be it.

Cheers! 

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Birthday Cheers to my Barista

I love basketball. I am a big Celtics fan.

When Andre was in Grade 4, I enrolled him in Milo basketball clinic where I saw in him, some fine dribbling skills and passing moves. While watching, I found myself daydreaming that one day, I will be sitting side-by-side with Jack Nicholson at the Staples or Rod Steward at the Garden to watch him play in NBA.

Then tennis. One of the coaches there said my kid had great potential. Another daydream then was me seated at his box at the Wimbledon Centre Court cheering at every ace and every fantastic cross-court shot he makes.

More daydreams came with badminton.
Then swimming. Daydreams went beyond Earth.

Then daydreams no more.

Andre grew up. He switched to Ultimate (Frisbee) -no influence from me.

And then golf.

And then influences shifted.

With his mentoring, I find myself playing, too.

The dreams I had for my son were mine -not his. Working with me in my design firm; being the barista that started this Coffee Cup Reflections; and, golf. These were never a part of those dreams. I’d like to believe though they are God’s plans for him. Even if I string all my plans together and multiply them by infinity, they still don’t match up with God’s.

Now I feel I am the one being raised by my son. He soars high with his own wings (and clubs). When I want a break from life’s responsibilities, there is someone I can lean on. With a flat white on the side.

______________

Soar even higher, Andre Christer! I don’t mind looking up to watch you fly high. Disregard those silly daydreams. They don’t matter. What you are to me is way more important than what I had wanted you to be.

You are to me, a wonderful son-gift that God has given. I love you, son.

Happy birthday!

Is the coffee ready?
Then, vat are ve vaiting for? Cheers!

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