IT’S MAY 9, 9:51am.
I’m on the verandah of my ancestral home, PRIMA CT, with a view of the public market under construction.
There’s a T-intersection right down in front of me.
The over-cross of the T is Buenaflor Street.
PRIMA CT stands on Buenaflor Street, where the old rich of the town have placed their stakes.
***
From where I sit now, I can see 16 tricycles parked on one side of the road.
There are also 10 e-bikes by the fire truck and the rescue vans.
There are at least 75 people walking around; to the market, from the market, from the plaza, et cetera.
It is really hot, but only a woman uses an umbrella. A blue umbrella.
***
I am half-naked as I write this.
I just came from my morning coffee.
After coffee, I biked around looking for a liter of spot putty.
Somebody is working on my room at Casa Dom Pedro.
I have installed wall cabinets, and he is repainting my room.
But he is slow, like OCD-slow, with a sense that he’s preparing a museum.
I’ve been telling him, it is just a room!
***
But he’s insistent.
“I am doing it well, or I’m not doing it at all,” he says.
And I’m thinking, You better finish this week, or you are not going to get any more jobs from me!
Anyway, it’s been more than two weeks.
And he’s asking spot putty liter by liter.
I mean that we started with one gallon, and he said he needed just one more liter, no more.
Not another gallon, just one liter.
That was on Day 7.
***
Today, I was looking for a third additional liter.
That’s the thing: spot putty is rare in Dumangas.
I really don’t know why.
We got one hardware selling them, but it’s by the gallon.
I remember going around on bike a few times before looking for a liter.
I think I ended up buying it in the city.
Today, I retraced my bike steps.
And remembered one obscure hardware store I passed by in one of the nearer barrios.
***
I’ve been sweating from the bike ride.
I think I did seven kilometers total.
Looking for the stuff, buying it, delivering it to the Casa, and getting home to hammer a few pages of my column.
As you read this, I would be ready crash writing for the Palanca.
I mean, I have some materials in mind, but I know I need the pressure of the deadline to deliver the writing.
***
But that is not to say that I don’t have Palanca ready materials already.
Still, I want to clear my schedule towards the Palanca deadline.
I really don’t want a pressure in May when all the fiestas happen.
You are likely to read this on May 15, and on that weekend of May 20 is the Manggahan Festival of Guimaras.
Who knows where I will be?
***
I have just given instructions how my Spam and eggs are to be cooked.
I’m feeling a little hungry.
My last food yesterday was a red velvet frappe from a coffeeshop in Bangga Bante, Zarraga.
A friend saw them on Facebook, and if my friend is driving, I am going.
Long story short, I took Instagrammable photos of us.
And I made what probably was the most daring shot (red sarong, long slit, white sexy legs) in that small coffeeshop’s history.
Even the owner agreed; check my social media accounts.
***
But I was in the photo shoot mood.
Earlier that day, we went to the Lapaz-lapuz Islet from Brgy. Paloc Sool in Dumangas.
It had the abandoned marine laboratory (a brainchild of the late Congressman Narciso Monfort).
And I just love the gray and beige ruins amidst blue waters and the greens of the mangrove.
***
At the islet, I swam a little bit.
Ate grilled fish, pork, chicken, and rice.
We also met one group of picnickers.
Among the picnickers was a boy of 22.
Not drop dead gorgeous, but passable.
We talked, I proposed marriage. Haha.
But I don’t like asking for phone numbers.
***
He gave me a name so I could search him on Facebook.
My mistake for turning off my phone for the day.
I couldn’t find him on Facebook when I finally got into it.
My friends and I agree, It’s his loss.
Again, he is not drop dead gorgeous!
He is not that hot.
He is not hotter than the weather. Haha./PN
