Suddenly This Summer (Part 3)

"Mommy, I want to go 'twimming in the 'twimming pool!" Lisped two-year-old Eishka, dragging her groggy mother by the hand. Said mother was blinking against the glare of a very early summer sunrise after having spent the wee hours yowling her lungs out at Paradiso's videoke bar.

Yaya Rose and Yaya Arcelle, themselves mote-encrusted and sleep-deprived, were rehashing their midnight performances in the same videoke shout-out, and laughing with hysterical horror about the hapless centipede that crawled over them the night before as they lay huddled in blankets against the arctic air-conditioning.

Atch was cranky and muttering darkly about people singing way off-key .."and at the top of their lungs, too..." cutting into his precious sleep. "...likely kept the whole resort awake," he grumbled. But the rest of the midnight revelers largely ignored his sour-graping. He was prevented from singing the night before due to a heat-induce sore throat, bully for him. He perked up after I handed him his morning coffee, but not by much.

We introduced Eli to the joys of the twin swimming pools. After a previous day spent digging his toes in the warm sand however, the cold chlorinated water made him scream bloody murder, runners of tears and snot streaming down his miserable face:

I want to go back to the beach!

Lucky for him, he was rescued by his Tatay, and together they contemplated the plumage and shrill warbles of the lovebirds in cages around the pool area.

Two beached whales

Breakfast was a subdued affair, most of us either nursing a hang-over, or sulking over having been ordered to return contraband shrimp and entire hermit crab communities back to the sea where they belonged.

The rest of our stay was spent in the swimming pools, and even my mother with her sprained ankle jumped in, creating mini-tsunamis in her wake, much to the delight of the kids.

Finally, it was time to leave, and amid the flurry of packing, the yelling at dawdling children, and the last minute snagging of swimsuits left to dry, an air of exhausted melancholy settled into the adults. Even the little ones seemed a touch subdued. Vacation time has come and gone. Back we plod to the real world.

We waved our tired goodbyes to the Hawaiian-shirt clad staff and sent ourselves on our way. Except for one hair-raising incident when an embarrassed Kylot muttered, "Auntie, I'm going to throw up," and Atch pulled over to let the poor car-sick boy heave his half-digested lunch over the side of the road, the drive home was groggily floatingly uneventful.

We got home to our beloved furnace of an apartment. Dust had gathered in thick flurries over surfaces and in corners in a conspiracy of powdery coup d' etas during our one day absence. We dragged our limp lethargic selves inside and deposited our lumpy waterlogged belongings on the dining table for sorting.

And as I eyed the growing mound of laundry-ables piling up, I sighed, thank you Papa God for the wonderful vacation. A Happy Easter to You, too.

Suddenly This Summer (Part I)

Woog stares sullenly at the battery-operated fan that is blowing wistful flurries of air into his sweaty face. "So I'm going to die," he announces in a grating whine to his hot sweaty irritated family over the breakfast table.

It is Black Saturday in the Lenten weekend and the electric company has magnanimously decided to let the populace repent of its sins through an unscheduled power outage in the middle of summer. It is eight o'clock in the morning and the house is a furnace. Outside, the cement jungle is worse.

"Call Bata and see if they have electricity, "Atch says through gritted teeth. Bata, where my parents live, is our "brown-out" refuge. Whenever there is a power outage, we hightail it to where they have air-conditioning at full blast.

Alas, the Bata contingent is sweltering as well. "Come over anyway," my sister says, "and pack for an overnight, just in case."

Aha, so they're planning to go away for the weekend. Spirits revived, Atch preps the car and Woog rummages for his plastic beach shovel. I am tasked with the packing of everything else.

We arrive at Bata in an hour. There are excited hyperactive kids everywhere, and Woog and Eli join in the fray. One of my sisters, the medical student, is listlessly walking around questing for a bathing suit. Her twin, the student nurse, is outside entertaining some boy. Another sister, newly arrived from the capital where she is a corporate lawyer, is making frantic phone calls to beach resorts, north and south. Apparently, everywhere else is booked with holiday-makers for the summer Lenten season.

My father is leisurely sipping his third cup of coffee, and my mother is at the dinner table doing paperwork, left foot propped up where she sprained her ankle gardening the day before. No one seems to be in a hurry. In this household where I grew up, schedules vary from moment to moment. Here, "the last minute" finds it's truest sense of the word.

Atch sighs and settles himself in the sofa with a glass of iced Coke and the morning paper, while the ebb and flow of noisy kids seethes around him. Finally, Deedee the lawyer finds one last likely place to the south. In two hours, we are packed in two cars and on the road.

* * * * *

We arrive at Paradiso Beach Resort, Hinigaran after more than an hour on the blacktop. Adults in the lead car shake their heads to clear the ringing in their ears. Unfortunately, the lead car has been tasked with carrying all of the yammering squealing excited children, ranging from ages 8 years to 9 months, said children having streaked off to the seashore as soon as the car doors have opened. We crane our necks in panic but they are oblivious to such mundane matters as adult concern:

Cooling hot footsies
(Clockwise from left: Yaya Rose & Eli, Eishka & Yaya Arcelle, Woog, Kylot)

9-month old Eli: "So this is sand?"

Burrowing for crabs

They are gone for more than an hour until the kill-joy adults forcibly reel them in for a late lunch at 2 pm. So enamored is he with sand and sea, Woog contrives to give the shore a passionate parting embrace before allowing himself to be dragged in to eat:

Sand lover