Outgrowing Santa Claus

"Mom, I know you're Santa Claus," Belli said this in the car yesterday. I had always known this day would come for her but it still caught me flatfooted. She's twelve and had just learned that her tooth fairy, Blessilda, was me as well.

It has been a tradition in the family and I have kept at it for over 24 years, ever since Maverick was born. Each Christmas, I make a big production of Santa Claus' arrival. Weeks in advance, I ask the children to write him letters with their Christmas wishes. Then, I set out to get their gifts and hide them in the most inconspicuous places. I do such a good job of it that sometimes I forget where I hide them. On the eve itself, I go through crazy lengths to strengthen their belief in him. One of my kookiest moments was actually having our houseboy trod on the roof to simulate Santa approaching the window. Hungover from an evening of revelry, I trudge downstairs at 3 am to arrange the presents. Every year I ask myself why I do it when I could very well be snoring in bed. I stuff the the food that they lay out for him in my mouth and chug the milk. I'm lactose intolerant so it's never pleasant. I could chuck the milk down the sink but how, then, do I get the mouth print on the rim of the glass? Yes, I am that serious.

They would wake up to a marvelous Christmas morning, shrieking and delirious with joy, while I sip my hot tea and will my head to stop throbbing.

We're dead serious about tooth fairies at home as well. They each have their own. They write letters and enclose their teeth and slip them under their pillows. In the dead of night, I creep to their rooms, retrieve the letter and the tooth stealthily, and use my left hand to answer their letters with a glitter pen that I keep solely for that purpose. Then I leave money in place of the tooth with my reply to the letter.

I have created a whole fairy world where little winged people play peanut ball, sleep on clouds shaped like hammocks, go on vacation in the North Clouds (I made this up when once I completely forgot to wake up and take the tooth so I wrote a letter the following night explaining that the fairy went on vacation). Their fairies are named Laxmi, Wandalou, Prospero, and Blessilda. I don't know how I even came up with such names. Their ages range from 749 years old to the high thousands. I have drawn their portraits to show the kids what they look like.

Why do I do all these? I figured childhood is too short and that I should make it as magical as I can. Maverick, Kitty, and Belli have now outgrown Santa and their fairies; three more to go.

Funny Pun

A pun (or paronomasia) is a phrase that deliberately exploits confusion between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect. Puns are a form of word play, and occur in all languages.

A friend gave me a good one yesterday about Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was the great Indian advocate of nonviolent protest. He was an ascetic. He devoted his entire life to resisting the domination of the British empire by fasting and lecturing to create awareness among millions of Indians. He lived and died a pauper, travelling on foot to far off lands trying to unite the Indians against the oppressive Brits, choosing to weave his own loin cloths from Indian cotton, and eating whatever vegetables he grew in his backyard. He was, therefore, not in the best of health.

So my friend said, "You know, Gandhi is a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis." Quite clever, don't you think?

A Belgian Tradition

Chambar is a Belgian restaurant that has over three dozen types of Belgian beer. Beer brewing is to the Belgians as wine making is to the French--centuries of tradition involving history and passion-filled processes. It is the Trappist monks that started it all in the 19th century in France. They later moved their abbeys to Belgium and imposed stricter rules in their manufacturing of ales. The use of fruits, flowers, herbs, and nectar have found its way into their brews and into the satisfied bellies of beer aficionados the world over for many centuries.

Chambar celebrates this tradition and offers food to complement their beer. The different brews I tasted were, in fact, unique in smell and flavor. My favorite was the plum and honey infused dark ale that had no bitter aftertaste.

I ordered an asparagus and goat cheese salad with morel mushrooms and truffles. The serving was so small and the price too high that I don't think I'll be going back there in this lifetime--mostly because I can live without beer.

La Regalade

I went on a lunch date with Belli to my favorite Vancouver restaurant, La Regalade. It is a quaint French Bistro with heavy oak tables, comfortable, smoking chairs, crisp, white linen, and glorious food. It is not the snooty type of restaurant that has a warden for a Maitre d' and maximum security prison ambiance. Neither does the cuisine use the fine-dining type of plating that's high on the pretty and low on the flavor with servings that can't fill up even a midget on a diet.

La Regalade offers French Provencal cooking which is a lot of slow-cooked casseroles that have been simmering all day. The heart of every dish is the fruit of small family farm lands and the meat from their few heads of livestock. They are infused with fruity wine, smothered with fresh herbs, and simmered for days. The duck and prune stew, the beef bourguignon, escargot, duck confit, and moules marinieres are pure joy.

Today I had the Salade Niciose with a glass of Pinot Blanc and Belli had Soupe a l'oignion. We shared the Pate Campagne with red onion confit, dijon nustard, and cornichons, and had tarte au chocolat chaud and ile flotante for dessert.

I'm a happy cow!

Ice King

I watched an ice hockey game today and felt fatigued afterwards. There was too much testosterone floating around the ice rink. The speed of the game, the clear and present threat of violence; the sound of the stick slapping the puck and hurling it yards into the air,;the slamming of the sticks on the boards when players try to intimidate the opponent; the flagrant fouls--elbow jabs, body slams, and stick pokes; the verbal abuse; and the constant grating on the ice of skate blades that have been known to slice jugulars and kill players instantly on the arena, really sapped my energy.

All I did was sit there and cheer for my man, Mr. T, but the distress over possible harm that might befall him ate me up.

Still and all, he was poetry on ice.

Seattle

I am in Seattle or "Shattel" as Filipinos unable to get rid of their accents pronounce it. It is not raining, which is a shock because it rains in Seattle all the time--every time I'm here, at least! The new wing of the airport is spectacular--floor to ceiling glass windows in grid design. The door man tells me that the cruise ship companies subsidized it because their passenger pick-up terminal is housed within the complex.

I'm staring at the Space Needle outside and thinking why many people rag on America and its crassness: the lack of culture; the junk food cuisine; the supersize mentality; their continued mutilation of the Queen's English (how 'ya doin' type of talk); and the premium put on entertainment to the subjugation of education and other, supposedly more important things.

Mother Teresa was quoted as saying, "Americans suffer from muchness and poverty of love..." She may be right but I look around this airport and when I see these defibrillators mounted on every hallway, when I hear ambulance sirens wailing on the streets responding to emergencies in under three minutes, I feel good I'm here.

A Boom Ba Bam Ba Way...

This Lion at Discovery Kingdom is the biggest I've seen to date. He was fenced in on a huge expanse of grass and craggy outcroppings. He was reclined on a boulder when we first saw him; he looked majestic. Below, on the ground, were two lionesses playing around with a ball. In a minute, they tired of it and went their separate ways, to opposite ends of their area.

Of a sudden, the lion leaped down from his perch onto the clueless feline closest to him and proceeded to hump her. She may not have known what hit her but she submitted instantly. Onlookers were taken aback. I, for one, was disoriented in the beginning, didn't know where to place myself--to look away or stare--worried about Bidi and Pippi and what they might be thinking, but I decided that there's nothing more natural than what we were all witnessing. So I said to both of them, "they're making babies..." to which they replied, "Cool!"

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight--NOT!!! He was busy doing something else.

Up Close and Personal with Beasts of the Wild

Since Bidi had paid up front with the Tony Hawk ride, off we went to Animal land to encounter the fiercest, the wildest and the weirdest looking ones. Bidi was in heaven!!!

The gargantuan Siberian tiger spooked me. He was Albino, around 500 pounds, and looked like he had a personal grudge on me. He kept looking in our direction, opening his jaw, and licking his fangs. I did stay on to watch the tiger show but only half of my buttocks actually made contact with the seat just in case we had to run for our lives.

We got to ride on a 9,200-pound African elephant. She was ginormous! prompting Bidi to say as we swayed and bobbed on top of her back, "This elephant is definitely American. I mean, she's huge and that puny elephant I rode in Phuket was Asian--get it?" I said to him, "But this elephant is actually African; that's what the guide said." To which he replied, puzzled, "Really? I thought there was no food in Africa?" And so for the rest of the wobbly ride I had to explain to him the confusing concepts of race, descent, citizenship, birth right, and migration. Maybe, in the case of animals, poaching? Illegal exportation? And sometimes, fair trade, I'm quite sure, but I didn't tell him any of that, not at his age. He is bound to discover on his own what it's truly like out there but in good time.

Not Another Theme Park!

Yes, another theme park!!! It was SixFlags Discovery Kingdom (formerly Marine World) in Vallejo, this time. I made a deal with the kids; I said "okay, one more theme park but only if we ride Tony Hawk." It is the much-hyped roller coaster that simulates the motion of a skateboard, designed and sponsored by Tony Hawk himself, the world champion of the skateboard X-games, debuting that very same day.

I am a junkie for all sorts of coaster rides: I am happiest (the insane and hysterical kind of happy) at 500 feet in the air on a backward loop, careening down in a free fall; cork screwing at 200 mph; and catapulted to impossible heights from improbable angles, brain side down.

BUT! I turn retarded if you put me on anything that utilizes centrifugal force for motion. Merry carousels make my stomach churn, playground spin platforms make me regurgitate my breakfast. So, I was terribly curious as to what the Tony Hawk ride would do to me. It was constructed in such a way that the seats are attached to the base with giant ball bearings so that they can turn independently of each other simulating a trapezing, airborne skateboard. It didn't only lurch and tumble forward and backward, it also spun side to side and wound around in dizzying speeds.

Pippi, of the deceiving matimtimang dalagang Pilipina constitution, was gung-ho. Bidi, whose stomach is infamously made in China was most reluctant but since it was the only way they could make me go, he had no choice.

And so we lined up, an hour before the park actually opened just to get on Tony Hawk at its inauguration day. We were knocked around good and screamed to kingdom come but lived to tell. And no, I didn't see my breakfast again that morning.

Isabel Allende Speaks

Latin American writer, Isabel Allende, talks about, women, passion, and feminism. This link was sent by a most insightful writer, Chichi Lizot, whose life as an expat all across the globe has enriched her perceptions of people and what moves them, of the world and why it figuratively spins on an axis. These have translated into her writing, which is honest and soulful so that the reader readily agrees to be taken deep into the world of her characters. She uses a language that is at once Filipino and foreign. Thanks, Chi.

Enjoy Allende's speech. Friend and gifted writer, Popi, says she kinda looks like Paula Abdul and I'll have to agree.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/204

A Day at The Wharf

The promise of a trip downtown to the wharf never fails to excite, even if one well knows what lies in store and that little has changed. We bundled up because the wind factor bay side is atrocious. We did the obligatory cable car ride for Bidi's sake who has a fascination that borders on obsession with planes, trains, and automobiles--anything mechanized that moves people from one point to another.

He had been lucky this trip; he was invited up to the cockpit by the pilot during the Los Angeles-San Francisco leg. He was allowed to push buttons on the control panel to shake the yoke and the rudder, to flash and dim cabin lights, to activate voice commands, and to contact the tower.

Anyway, so off to the wharf we went to do the same old things. We inspected the Dungeness crabs; watched the master baker at Boudin bread factory, birthplace of the sourdough; visited the homing seals; shopped at the fruit stand, Ghirardelli chocolate shop, and sundry souvenir stalls.

We glimpsed the Coit Tower and the Transamerica Building, stared at the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, soaked up the sun, the San Francisco air, and the city's spirit that casts a glow in one's heart long after he has left the place.

And so with flushed cheeks, tousled hair, and cold hands, we made a final stop at Ben and Jerry's for an ice cream fix before hopping back onto the cable car for the trip back uptown.

It was a good day.