it's been nothing but catch up work, figuring how the laptop works (having it fixed when the USB ports & flash card reader couldn't read anything for some reason).
we finally took time to go to the Manila International Book Fair, which was pretty crowded on a Saturday. because of the impending rain and distance (at the cavernous SMX next the humongous Mall of Asia), i decided not to chance possibly submerging a certain small silver car in floodwaters and we commuted via MRT/jeep instead, a pretty pleasant trip despite the crowds (hoping to get early bargains at weekend sales? most of them disembarked at the Cubao and Ayala stations).
after checking out the FB MoA sale and scoring paperbacks of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy (which the sprout finished about two-three weeks ago) and "Howl's Moving Castle" we moseyed on to SMX and wandered the aisles, getting halfway through the exhibits (and purchasing another "Trese" volume signed by the affable Budgette Tan & Kajo Baldisimo) before we got a text that our friend Aina had just arrived.
while waiting in the lobby, we noticed that the crowd had suddenly shifted and gravitated towards a man with thinning hair and eyeglasses, looking very much like Noynoy Aquino (on his way to laud some educators at a conference above the bookfair). the sprout wanted to get an autograph, i told him to just do a handshake and if he's lucky i could snap a picture with the camphone. we debated for a minute, and *poof* the moment was gone as the tide of well-wishers carried Mr. Aquino away. (Aina & the sprout spent a little time later trying to stalk the senator for another autograph/photo op --no success).
ever the expert shopper, Aina ended up buying autographed copies of Pugad Baboy from the Anvil booth and a Moleskine edition of Sense & Sensibility (she plans to get a Moleskine P&P soon) from NBS. I'd been hoping to score P&P and Zombies, or S&S and Seamonsters, but no luck. (besides, I still have a backlog of books to read, and a few others to review)
some weeks later, the sprout agreed (w/ an uncle) it was high time the fishpond was cleaned (plenty of inbred tilapia died, they couldn't take the clean and chlorinated water, hehe) and it was a good time to see how Turtlee (originally my sis-in-law's pet) has been doing.
that's the sprout's size six foot next to the very much grown up Turtlee (whose was about the size of a cupcake sometime in 2001 or 2002 when sis in law got her with a male turtle of the same size who died about a few months later. the sprout was just starting preschool then)
now he's catching up to me too (haha) --those are my Crocs he's wearing (in-arbor na nya). and that's about 2-3 inches of floodwater in the front garden during Ondoy last September. our neighborhood is pretty elevated but we had floodwaters turn our street into a river, and the drains couldn't take the volume of water raining down, so we had a couple of inches of water creeping into
(and out of the house)
compared to the others who spent the night above floodwaters in no electricity, we were pretty damn lucky, but we found out later that the sprout's school was inundated in a flash flood when the wall blocking the nearby creek gave way.
*swoosh* whatever cement/asphalt job was on the driveway, it was gone. the classrooms were in AT LEAST 4ft of floodwater (bless those volunteers who cleared the water with a bucket brigade). kids who left their schoolbags/books over the weekend found them a sodden unusable mess when the school reopened a week and a half later.
(see that brown stain on the white corkboard? that was the flood/tide line in the sprout's classroom, damp when i touched it)
even the makeshift wall bisecting the property gave way (those nasty real estate people should foot the repairs this time, i wish)
the library was a mess... bags of soaked and unusable books had to be thrown away before mold or mildew got 'em.
oh, yeah...and i got a year older (i feel that way with the back problem & the cane, but hopefully exercise, phys therapy and a couple more sessions with the chiropractor should set me straight, nyahaha).
