HAPPY NA WEEKEND PA

1. i stayed with my mom, who lives with a sister and b-i-l, over the weekend for company. they were out of town while the kids, out of school for the summer, were on their own personal journeys. i was particularly amazed with the younger daughter c. she's 18 and just graduated from high school, and with friends, she's embarking on a conscience trip to the remotest parts of india.

2. i have a friend from the philippines who came back from a conference in mumbai. he said that when he got back to the philippines, that's when he truly appreciated his country.

3. i had long been fascinated with india. not only do i want to go there, i had also wanted to expand my reading of indian literature beyond the victorian influence of the west. of course like many of us, the experience was limited to high school's/college's reading requirements on ramayana and mahabharata, and a little of rabindranath tagore. when i was in new york, i was lucky to get hold of this collection of essays by the indian intellectual a.k. ramanujan, and it was through him that i encountered the theme of one body's relationship to history, borne by the conflict of a hindu upbringing and an american environment.

4. no, i had never read salman rushdie. shame.

5. yesterday i cooked for my mom and my brother (to whom i lost in tennis again, as if i ever won, 6-3, 6-1). paksiw na lapu-lapu was my gastronomic means of affection (even if i wanted to give my tennis tormentor nothing but bones) and it was, for all my humblest opinions, nothing but fantastabulous - lots of ginger and garlic and bitter melon and eggplant, and two fat and very fresh snappers just seemingly out of the ocean. the bad thing, though, was right after cooking, the kitchen smelled of something resembling body odor. i had always thought that duct tape was the most important thing in any house. yesterday, i thought it was chinese incense.

6. when night came, instead of the usual reading, i watched dvd. dr. zhivago romanced me once more.

7. hayy, bakit may weekdays pa.