Drama!

I moved all the way to France to star in my very own fit-for-Pinoy TV telenovela. Imagine me last Saturday a gorgeous Iza Calzado, long black tresses falling in sensual curls down my back as I stand at some restaurant's bar, sipping a drink, talking to a guy who was not at all hot. Ugly as hell, in fact, no Dingdong Dantes this one. Anyway, he had started small talk and to be social I was small-talking back.

A little while later, I took my leave, turning to say goodbye to the guy's companion, a blonde with bad posture, craggy face, and skin the color of pastry dough. Unbeknownst to me, this female character had the spirit of an evil Princess Punzalan. In a jealous rage peppered by a mega-dose of racism, she focused on me her mean eyes, reached a claw out to give my hair a tug--yes, members of the audience, a sabunot it was--then proceeded to abuse me with a sentence not fit for printing here. And then her final line: "You, Thai puta."

As I wrenched myself out of her grasp, I wanted to scream, "Excuse me, pero hindi ako Thai!!!"

Attempt at being funny and cute failing miserably, let me just say, Fuck these small-minded and uneducated idiots, I want to go home.

Obsession

Chasing Sally I've fallen down a dark rabbit hole where I spend sundown haunting the 13th-century streets of our village, a ghost hybrid that doesn't say "boo." I'm infectious: Going into a bar for coffee, I heard the two barmen begin meowling too. Occasionally, ancient female spirits join me. Led by Madame Bardella, saint mother to cats lost or abandoned, we go on our tours when the world turns gray, our beacon her hair dyed magenta.

Alone I go to church grounds. Once in the chapel of gray penitents, I thought I'd found the errant juvenile, but her tail had grown two centimeters and there was a patch of white on what should have been an all-black neck. Still I was staring, willing this beast to transform into mine. "See how it raises its legs to pee," cousin Sylvain suddenly came up behind me. It can't possibly be Sally, because this one's a he.

Exactly one week after her little sister disappeared, on the same day and the same hour, our other cat Dolly went out the cat flap and wasn't seen again. The witches had returned hunting for meat for their cauldrons. Fortunately wise and quick, Dolly managed to jump off the broomstick and fly across the moon, landing back in my garden on the twentieth hour.

I am still hoping for the best, convinced that someday soon, Sally will walk right in through our lavender gates, bruised from her adventures but happy to be home. This despite knowing that many other cats have not made it. A new friend who lives two streets away told me that she lost two felines in one year, a mother and her son. That's nothing compared to our blonde neighbor.

We managed to track her down yesterday. Her gray-and-white male had been pissing in our home, and we demanded to know if the horny bachelor was keeping hostage our little girl. She said not at all, but she'll be keeping her eyes open. Then she warned us not to hope. The woman's lived here six years, and from a total of thirty cats, she's lost twenty-four.

I'd die. So yesterday Dolly was cut up and her ovaries removed. In exchange for protection, we offer her innards to the cat goddess Bastet.

Meowing Plaintively

All activities on this site are suspended as the Provenciana's energies go to posting flyers, harrassing people on their afternoon walks, aiming a flashlight down abandoned wells, knocking on neighbors' doors, quizzing the veterinarian on cat behavior, and meowing like a fool on the road at sundown, all in the effort to look for baby cat Sally. If despite her broken tail and lack of a passport she had happened to get on a plane and flown away, and you see her being a tourist in the Philippines, Singapore, the States, or Spain, please let us know. Pierre is tired of investigatigating the neighbors' chicken pens, and Dolly and I spend the rest of our time looking out the window, trying to figure out if any of those black shadows could possibly be her.

Chikahan

Eksena sa Osmena.

Ang saya-saya!!! Ilang raw na rin ang nakararaan ngunit ninanamnam ko pa rin ang alaala. Mga ati at kuya, kinakailangang maranasan niyo ang araw-araw na niraranas ko para lubusan ninyong maintindihan ang rurok ng aking kagalakan. Sa unang pagkakataon sa loob ng siyam na buwan na halos walang humpay na pagbubugbog ng utak at pagpipilipit ng dila para matutunan ang isang wikang banyaga, ibinuka ko ang aking bibig at--nanginginig at pumapadyakpadyak ako hanggang ngayon habang naaalala ko ito--nagsalita ng walang iba kung hindi Tagalog, o Filipino kung gusto mo.

Oo, dito mismo sa Pransiya naganap ito, chikahang nagsimula ng alas-diyes ng umaga at natapos ng alas-kuwatro, anim na oras , sey mo. Salamat kay Kala at Makis, na nagmaneho mula sa malayong lugar para makipagtagpo sa isang kababayan (ako) na hanggang noong nakaraang buwan ay nag-aakalang walang ibang Pinay na nakatira sa may dito. Ulit, Kala at Makis ang pangalan nila, wala akong litrato, pero may blog ang dalawang ito. (Ayan, nag-Ingles tuloy ako, pero ano ba ang wikang Filipino para sa blog, "blag"? Ili-link ko sila dito, hintay lang kayo.)

Nangyari ang lahat sa lungsod ng Arles, nung nakaraang Miyerkules, anim na oras na walang kahirap-hirap na pagsasalaysay ng mga kuwentong buhay. Kumain din kami, una sa Restaurant L'Entrevue at pagkatapos sa Fad'Oli, at naglakad sa napakahabang palengke, naghahanap ng itim na sinulid at itim na bag ("maleta"? "tampipi"?), ngunit karamihan ng panahon ay ginugol namin sa talakan.

Dahil mga kababayan, madali silang basahin at kaibiganin. Bukod sa hindi ko kinailangang maghanap ng palaging nagtatagong wikang Pranses, hindi ko din kinailangang palaging kuwestiyuhin kung tama ba ang basa ko sa personalidad at karakter ng taong kaharap ko, katulad ng madalas kong gawin kapag kahulimilo ang medyo malalamig at madalas na seryosong mga Europeans dito.

Hanggang dito na lang, magpapaalam na ako. Kay Kala at Makis, maraming salamat, kahit na hinayaan ninyo akong molestiyahin nung mamang matanda na maydalang gitara. Gayunpaman, winner ang araw na iyon. Ay hindi pala. Panalo!

Something That Made Me Go Wow

Not-so-little pinkies.

Yesterday morning, while drinking coffee, we drew the curtains to get our view of the salt mines in front and the marsh on the right, and got a pink surprise. Our dear departed duckies (remember them?), after hopefully having caused indigestion in the bellies of their nasty hunters, must have flown on to bird heaven and partied with the bird king, and to his majesty told how good we've been with our morning offerings of dried baguette, so that the king decided to send us a gift.

The Camargues, where we live, is from spring to autumn home to tens of thousands of flamingoes, those elegant-looking birds that range in color from white to deep pink, which many of us have only ever seen in pictures or on The National Geographic Channel. In Manila, the only birds I'd see flying free were the nondescript maya and the ubiquitous kalapati, so the first time I saw flamingoes on the road to Le Grau du Roi, I was squealing with delight. Since them, I've spotted more of them, on the same road and when we go to Les Salins du Midi, but always they were in large groups and keeping their distance from men.

So imagine our surprise when yesterday we were treated to the sight of flamingoes right there in front, a few meters from the edge of the terrace! Seven of them were feeding, standing stick-legged and their beaks in the marsh. They were there while we breakfasted at nine, and stayed until after the sun had set.

As I made dinner, I told myself: I complain about how hard life is trying to adjust to life in provincial France, but having lawn furniture like this makes me determined to shut up.

P.S. Whatever is in that marsh must taste good. It's March 7, and it's the third day the flamingoes have come. This morning they even brought over friends, three seagulls and an heron.

State of Emergency

Do they give Olympic golds for sliding down snow on your butt?

Forgive me for not blogging anything witty or smart, but I direly need a vacation from the vacation I just took. Last week we drove up to Briançon in Hautes Provence, thinking of doing nothing more than spending a few days inhaling chill air, enjoying the company of friends, and feasting on rich mountain food.

Unfortunately, Pierre and I are so out of it that we did not realize that the Winter Olympics was just an hour's drive away over the border into Italy, a distance short enough for the athletic endorphins to travel and infect the two other couples we were vacationing with and their accumulated four children. We knew we were in trouble when on the first morning the kids filed into our room at seven a.m., already wearing snowsuits, shaking us awake with chimed threats. "Time to ski! Time to ski!"

As I brushed my teeth, I started getting images of a giant snowball with a Philippine flag stuck to its side. It would be me, accidentally pushing my ski professor off a steep ravine so that I was left to my own devices and out of control, rolling down the slopes, gathering speed and packing up snow. Reaching ten meters in diameter, I would flatten entire families of French tourists. Forever their death screams would haunt me: "Merde!" "Putain!" "C'est quoi cette connerie?!" Screaming as well inside my prison--"Putangina!!!!!!!"--my alien vocalization would cause an avalanche and cut the town off from all major roads. After they'd run out of wine to maintain the joie de vivre and cheese to make a proper fondue, the survivors would have to walk home (school break's almost up anyway). The chic would curse me for making them look ridiculous, wearing those tennis rackets they strap on to feet and call snowshoes. Nonetheless, they would attempt to sashay and strut, the three surviving Parisians actually managing it.

I would be deported encased in ice and shame, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would have a lot of explaining to do in front of the European Community. Afterwards there would be an international ban against all Filipinos: any one of us even attempting to step on snow would be instantly shot.

Fast forward to now: We're back home and a coup attempt is the headline at inq7.net. We survived, but barely.

Waking up in a cold sweat, we have nightmares about spending the rest of our lives required to get up all chirpy at dawn. Pierre cracked a rib because he forgot that he wasn't twenty years old anymore and went up on the steep red slopes the first time he ever tried snowboarding. I managed to ski just fine, but fell too many times ice-skating and even got myself kicked on the calf by my husband's metal skates so that I was limping for a day. The holiday's triumph: Angie was chanelling the spirit of her countrywoman Shizuka Arakawa, gliding after just an hour on ice skates.

Adrenaline pumping anew through his aging body, Pierre threatens to bring us up again for another week, at the end of which he says I have to be skiing down the red slopes with him. Make a petition to stop him, please. It's for the national good.

Les sportifs.

A Hallmark moment between father and daughter--

except for the plastic bags on his feet!

Future ice-skating champion?

After snowboarding, Pierre tries dishwashing,

an activity he also considers extreme.

Je Suis Wicked Stepmother

She was just here, Angie, my stepdaughter, child of the world, a passport holder at 45 days old. One and a half months after being born in France, she visited Japan, lived eight months in Mexico, and, to recover, stopped a few years in the Philippines. Long enough that, when I met her, aside from English she was speaking Filipino and two Visayan dialects.

At the ripe old age of six years and eight months, she has settled down. Home is Essex, with her Japanese mom and English stepdad. School breaks she goes back to where she saw her first summer, vacationing with her French father and Filipina stepmother. She speaks the Queen's English, and of Filipino remembers only "manang" and "patay." ("Old woman" and "dead"--don't ask me why.) We're proud of how her French is coming along. This past week it was amazing to hear her forming complete sentences all on her own. (Of a lost stuff toy: "Mon chat, il est parti.")

This petite peripatetic taught me an important survival skill last summer when I heard her in conversation with our neighbor. Cesar was saying goodbye, telling Angie that maybe he'll see her again during Christmas, when she could meet his sons. The little one was looking him straight in the eye, nodding her head, enthusing every now and then "Oui! Oui!" She did this all throughout Cesar's enumeration of potential winter activities.

After he had left, I asked if she had really comprehended. Angie answered, "Oh, not really. I say Oui to everyone talking to me in French so they'll think I understand and then they'll go away." I tried the trick a few times when I just didn't have the energy to get my brain's language center working, or when the speaker's southern accent was too thick. It worked!

Why I Must Be in France

A scene from L'Express Bar. (Spot me, hiding behind the roses.)

They don't know their rice. They boil it in a pot full of water, as if it were spaghetti, and even then they don't know to make it al dente. The first time Jeanette saw me do it, adding water just until the second line of my middle finger resting nail-first on the bed of white grains, she seemed unconvinced. Some time later, with the water absorbed and evaporated, I put the heat down low to get that nice, steamed puffiness. Jeanette couldn't stand it. In that way mothers-in-law have of assuming that, yes, they can, she marched to the stove and turned off the fire. Excuse me, I interrupted, but when you look at my face do you see anything there? Yes, you got it, I told her. I'm Filipina, and I know my rice. So I lit another match.

It's not all about beer. In college at the University of the Philippines, it was San Miguel Pale Pilsen at Gulod, near Krus na Ligas. After graduation, in the bars of Ortigas and Makati, the order remained basically the same. San Miguel Beer, this time Light. These days, I go either to Perroquet or L'Express, two bars on the village square. After having at different times imbibed moresque (pastis with almond syrup), panache (beer with ginger ale), Martini (red, white, and rose), whiskey (once with Coke and another time with fizzy water), and all kinds of wine, I have finally decided that my aperitif of choice is kir, white wine with blackberry syrup. Still, old habits die hard. When we walk over to Tac-Tac, a few cobblestoned streets away, I often return to my roots. Marco, the owner, doesn't make it easy. He gives me the drinks list, and demands that I choose from his stock of fifty beers.

They distrust water. You go visiting and you're shown Frech hospitality with one of the first sentences uttered: Do you want something to drink? Une verre d'eau, you answer. A sound like your hosts are uncomfortable, and then you're told, a bottle of rose wine is chilling in the fridge. You say, I'm sure it's very nice, but no, thank you. Just water, really. That sound again. Pretty soon, you have a complete list of everything in the alcohol cabinet. They're even willing to make you try some homemade aperitifs, although the recipe will have to remain a closely guarded secret. When they do finally bring a glass of H20, before the first sip they have to stop you. Wouldn't you really rather have some wine instead?

They have only one word for rice, and it's riz. I read that a people's language reveals what they consider important. So back in the Philippines we don't just call it kanin. It starts as palay, and when pounded becomes bigas. Cooked, it's sinaing; the overcooked part, tutong. The day after, leftovers are sautéed to become sinangag. Over here in France, there's ivre, enivré, soûl, bourré, bu, cuit, cuité, beurré, bituré, and aviné. Along with some thirty other words, all mean the same thing: drunk.

Keynote Speech #2

It doesn't matter, Tweet, Steph, all my other dearies, what nationality your man carries. This advice applies to all: It pays to know your guy's dirty secrets. Go ahead, dig and prod, unearth all those nasty things that he's got buried. It will be useful one day. Trust me.

Case in point: Many weeks ago, I was hooked. I'd hear the opening words coming from the television, perpetually tuned to a music video channel, that insouciant voice declaring, "I know you like me, it's easy to see," and instantly I'd start wiggling my ass and jiggling my boobies, dancing in front of the mirror, making like a Pussycat Doll. I even clicked on to their official site, found out that the lead singer is part Filipina. I knew it! There was something familiar in that long black-haired sexiness. I felt a connection. I thought they were, as the Fil-Ams used to say, da bomb. Dontcha?

Well, my husband, the dear, serious-minded European, answered plainly, "I don't." The Pussycat Dolls were shallow, he declared, the lyrics to the song downright stupid. Les idiotes, he said they were.

That instantly stopped me shaking my bootie. I looked at him, then back at my reflection in the mirror. I frowned, and then smiled. I remembered. Grabbing a hairbrush, I made that my mic. Opening my mouth, I started to belt.

"And I-iay-iay will always love you-ooh-ooh-oohhhh..." I went at it long enough and loud enough that if we were living in a tenement in Manila and I had the help of a karaoke machine, a beer-drunk neighbor would have dropped his forkful of sisig to come and shoot me dead in the head.

That instantly stopped Pierre badmouthing the hotties. You see, one of his deepest, darkest secrets is this: He was once an avid fan of Whitney Houston, and up to today he considers The Bodyguard one of his favorite films ever. Ha!

Why I Think I'm Still in the Philippines #1

1. My father comes from Batangas, where they have that ala-eh punto. So when I came here to the south of France, I didn't mind that they don't cut the ends off their words as they do in Paris, that they sometimes even add an "n" and a "g." I find it adorably quirky that to say "hand," le main, you don't pronounce it "luh mah" but rather "luh meng"; and the French word for "when," quand, doesn't sound like the "kauhn" they teach you at Alliance Française, but more like "kang." You want to buy bread, le pain? The boulanger will look at you funny if you utter "luh pah." Stretch it and curl it, and you'll get your "luh peng."

2. I used to live near the Mandaluyong City circle, where it was not unheard of to bring out motor boats after a big storm. Now that I'm a resident of one of the world's richest countries, I'm still not exempt from flooding. Just a few months ago, after heavy rains, they evacuated two neighbouring villages. When the baha comes, we sometimes even have brownouts too.

3. When I was a kid and came down with a fever, my mom would have called over to the house an old woman who would poke my tummy and feel my head, then stick little square mirrors to my back. The woman would murmur some words under her breath, before pronouncing me soon cured and then taking her leave. That was the hilot. Last year, Pierre fell off a motorcycle and got seriously scraped on the legs and arms. The day after the accident we went to his aunt, an old woman who cupped her hands over the wounds while whispering incantations. C'était la hilot.

4. I used to go out with a boy who grew up in Malabon, where the people are so chummy they give neighborhood characters special nicknames. Fond of playing the guitar, my ex was called "Clapton." Lucky him. He had a neighbor who was christened "Lamok" and another one was "Manok." (For the benefit of non-Filipino readers, the first neighbor was "Mosquito" and second one "Chicken.") Over here, it's the same thing. There's a man, slight of built, that they call "Anchois." A mechanic whom I met just this afternoon is "Camoui." If they lived in Malabon they would be, respectively, "Dilis" and "Langis" ("Anchovy" and "Grease").

Too Much!

It bugs me, the way my face keeps staring at me all the time from over there on the right. I put it up a few days ago, thinking I looked very cute, but now I realize that it's a snigger, not a smile, there's a malicious glint in my eye, and that my teeth look monster-size and too white. Then there's the fact that I present proof of being a camera whore everywhere I post a comment on blogger. Aside from the hi, hello, i luv what u wrote!, I also leave this statement: left profile, chin slightly down, 'yan, best angle ko 'yan! Time for cosmetic surgery, then. I think I'll just put up a picture of my cats...

Name Game

Rosalinda Pertierra Lejano is the name I was baptized with. My husband loves telling that to friends and acquaintances, having them try with their Francophone tongues to pronounce all those hard consonants and abrupt vowels, especially attempt to roll their Rs. And then the coup de grace: He tells them that the name means "beautiful rose from a land far away."

"So, your life, it is predestined, yes?" Cesar proclaimed the other night. Naturally immensely flattered, I preened and I smiled, may have even fluttered my lashes ohmigosh, all in the effort to channel the spirit of Jeanette's blush pink Rosa alba.

Then yesterday the universe decided that lately I've been having too good a time and made homesickness strike. I woke up this morning cursing my parents for not having had the foresight to name me otherwise.

My preferred options: Sampaguita Satabi Ngcornerstore, Gumamela Sa Kabilangkalye, maybe even Bougainvillea Ngkapit Bahay.

Starting the New Year Happy

An indispensable tool for survival, wherever you are, whoever you're with, is the ability to have fun. So New Year's Eve we drove some 70 kilometers to a vineyard near Fourques, to welcome 2006 with three dozen others, majority of whom I was meeting for the first time, and whose names, I have to admit, I now forget. It didn't matter, as all together we gorged on oysters, drank a tremendous amount of alcohol, and danced till our feet hurt. Bonne annee!



(Top to bottom: Don't ask me who my dance partners are. With my brother-in-law Rudy. Our first New Year as the Massebieaus! Me, just after doing a Bonnie Tyler.)

O Eto Na, Tars

Having a major lightbulb moment.

Tara called Friday, asking me to post epiphanies, those lightbulbs whose illumination we cheer as if we were stuck in Boracay in the nineties during a month-long brownout. It was my thirty-third birthday after all. So, sige na nga, eto na. And since this is for Tara, lover of lists, I enumerate:

1. Learning French is easier than you think. "C'est tres difficile, le Français," I've been told by the French themselves so many times, told with a certain air of smug superiority I might add. Well, I've been here seven months and speak well enough to be funny at dinner parties. Having spent previous vacations here, my ear is used to their nasalities, but I only really applied myself last May. There lies the secret, I think. I applied myself. It's the truth of clichés that makes them clichés: You put in the hard work, and you can do most anything you want. Plus this: It was a matter of survival. Learn French or lose my mind? I'd long ago done the latter, so there really was no other choice.

2. Dirt under my fingernails makes me happy. Seeds thrown into holes in the ground turn up in salad, stir-fries, and stews on my dinner table. There's some magic at work there. Now if only I can find a spell for ridding the garden of those nasty slugs...

3. Marriage is calming. You have to ask yourself, "Do I want to spend the rest of a lifetime getting upset because somebody plays his music too loud/leaves his dirty socks lying everywhere/disagree with me using a tone of voice I find displeasing?" You answer no, and you go out to buy headphones/think about hiring a yaya/ever so subtly raise an eyebrow in that way he knows is the signal to shut up.

4. If I were a Miss Universe contestant, I'd say "Tolerance." That should be the goal. Part of the minority for the first time in my life, I've become hyper-conscious of signs of racism. I've not found blatant discrimination against les Asiatiques, but stereotypes abound. We are perceived as a mysterious lot possesing arcane knowledge, wily and clever, the women seductive temptresses to boot, everyone capable of some mean kung-fu. Gosh, I took up some kickboxing at the gym back in Manila but that's about it.

5. Even long-distance, friends are important. Tara called yesterday, Maya remembered to pray for me. They're so sweet they make me want to cry.

6. You can take the girl out of Manila, but you can't take the bakla out of the girl. Part of New Year's Eve was spent singing Bonnie Tyler all-out, holding a blue Bic ballpoint as microphone, up the bar top and down again, then up and down the hall pausing to gently toss a balloon here, run my fingerss along some confetti there, belting for a captive audience of thirty Frenchies, many of them strangers, those not singing along looking completely stunned wondering what just hit them. Me answering, "Nothing I can say... total eclipse of the heart."

Oh, and did I mention that last week I met a real-life girl named Lavinia?

7. Nothing beats a husband who supports all your endeavors. After I'd made a complete spectacle of myself, bowed and let go of the Bic microphone, Pierre comes up, gives me a kiss, and says, "Baby, I'm proud of you."

8. You can just say no. There's this New Wave song that goes, "Why do I spend so much valuable time, with people who don't care if I, live or I die." On hindsight, that was the soundtrack of my twenties, when what my momma taught me since I was little had such strong hold, and I did my very best to smile all the time and be nice, brainwashed to think that not to like anything or anyone was a crime. The problem was exacerbated when in my late twenties I got myself a boyfriend who would go to the opening even of envelopes. Dragging me along, of course. Now, I've realized, life is precious, my time is limited, and I really don't have time for all that crap.

9. In my next life, I'm coming back as a cat. They sleep sixteen hours a day and never have to take baths. Need I say more?

10. You know you can't have all that you want... (Back home I drove a kick-ass car, a Lancer GSR, but with the impossible traffic I'd consider it driving super fast if I manage ninety kilometers an hour. Here in the country of first-world autoroutes, I clunk around in an old box-type Ford that begins to shake once I hit 120.) ...but that doesn't mean you can't keep trying for it. (New Year's resolution: Buy a red Mini-Cooper!)

Living With Animals

What is Pierre doing? (The boy on the left is Mateo...

I think we scarred him for life.)

I will never read Neil Gaiman again.

Something you have to know about me is that I'm one of those flaky sorts who believe that if you think something hard enough, you'll make it real. It works both ways. You can make come true the good, the light, and the wonderful; at the same time the bad, the horrible, and the ugly. Just as long as you believe.

So, back to Neil Gaiman. I'd just finished reading his collection of short stories, Smoke and Mirrors, and as I do when I read something very good I'd given his characters space in my brain for a few days. They got full play at night; I'd gone to bed with images of babies being used as lab animals, God setting up Lucifer for his fall, a child's fingers in a pool of wolfman's vomit, the monster Snow White feeding on her father's genitalia. Truly horrible stuff that used my head as a bridge to walk out of the pages of a book into the country roads of southern France.

Yesterday night the elegant black cat came, fur slightly dusty, a rat clenched between her jaws. She approached her sister, the smaller, nervous one, sleeping on my bed, and with a call like a crow cawing, woke her up so that together they could torture the dead. They moved to the living room and tossed the body around, poked its belly, pulled the tail, nibbled a little.

I shut myself up in the bedroom, barely able to breathe. I remembered myself, five years old, in bare feet going at night to the kitchen for a glass of water, but a few steps away from the fridge stepping on something warm, furry, and alive, feeling things cracking underfoot, then hot liquid on my soles. I turned on the light to find my foot covered with meat and blood.

After I'd spent an hour listening to the sounds of the cats' macabre play in the next room, my husband came home. I thought, "My savior, my hero." I asked him to get rid of the rat, please.

"In Peru, ancient kings considered rats a feast." (Yes, Dang, again he was in Yoda-speak.) I wasn't in the mood for his tales of travelling the wild lands, so I repeated, Come on, get rid of it.

Which he did. Holding the rat upside-down by its tail, he went to his mother's house next door. A few minutes later, he was back with something red and glistening packed in cling-wrap. I saw him feeding tiny bits of meat--was that liver and a heart?--to the cats.

Later that night, in the middle of a post-Christmas dinner at a friend's house, my husband got up and went to the fireplace. From his jacket pocket, he took out his cling-wrapped bundle and gingerly freed from it a string of meat. He put it in the fire and grilled. So while the rest of us feasted on oysters, smoked salmon, foie gras, and duck, my husband, he ate like a Peruvian king.

Gutted and skinned.

Adventuring

I'm spending Christmas as an Inuit on a black-and-white beach, enchanting dragons with a tusk borrowed from the silver walrus.

How about you?

The People In My Neighborhood #1

Nope, he's got the same nickname as my husband, but it's a different man.

Pierre--the husband--was the guy behind the camera though.

Pierrot lives in a big old wooden boat, a retired peniche, one of the lumbering cargo carriers that until the early twentieth century was essential to life in these parts. The Camargue, as this region is called, was a poor area that had not much roads, but made up for it by having connecting bodies of brackish water, les etangs. The peniche would move supplies from village to village, powered not by any machine, but by the muscles of the horses teethered to its two sides, the animals galloping on dry land, pulling the boat along through the narrow marshes that snake all over the region.

Given the must-see value of his abode, Pierrot occasionally hosts concerts and parties. One I recently attended was a period piece: come dress as a Gaul, the modern French's ancestor, and feast on wild boar roasting on the spit. Pierrot not being a very sociable guy, his events are considered a success if he manages to attract more than a dozen people. That one I went to had maybe twenty attendees--half of them dressed like Asterix and Obelisk--so I guess that it was a smashing hit.

*****

You don't need a frontal view to know that the man in the old boat doesn't care much for depilation. This serving as my segue to a postscript:

Blame it on the wine, my amateur French, or my brain shutting down because it just! couldn't! take it! anymore! In my neighbor retelling the story the day after, I realized that I had missed an important part of Anick's depilatory adventures. It turned out that after slathering on the hot wax, she went chicken when it was time to tear her hair off. So she decided to leave everything where it lay, and went to work with hardened goo still stuck to her pubis.

The next time you see a postman, wonder if she (or he--why not?) is carrying more than just your mail.

New Parents

PIERRE (standing in the kitchen corridor, watching the little ones have lunch): They always have a good appetite, no?

ME (walking up to stand next to him): Yep, they eat all the time!

PIERRE: They're growing up so fast...

We look at each other fondly, with wide smiles, then continue watching the girls.

*****

PIERRE (talking to one of the girls in French babytalk that we try to translate here): Ooohhhh... yes, that's my moomoon. Moomoon loves her Papa, yes? Come to Papa now... My moomoon...

ME (looking at our other little girl; then, in English, so that the barely bilingual children don't catch it): Honey, that's why this little one is developing an emotional problem. She knows that the other one's your favorite.

PIERRE: Of course, she doesn't know!

He thinks for a second, then goes to the neglected little girl, resumes his babytalk.

PIERRE: Yes, my moomoon. Come to Papa, moomoon...

*****

ME (at night, in bed): Where are the girls, honey? Can you bring them in here?

PIERRE: You know, you have to start learning to let go. One day, they're going to be all grown up and won't want to sleep with their Mommy anymore.

*****

PIERRE (early in the morning, in bed, just woken up): The girls are crying, honey. Maybe you should see what it's about.

ME (half-asleep): You go look, hon. I take care of them the whole day, now it's your turn.

I go back to sleep, Pierre gets up.

*****

Meet the girls, that's Sally on the left and Dolly on the right:

I know, we're sick.

My Spaceship Has Landed

Now that you have the map, come and save me.

Last night was girls night at neighbor Violette's house. Now "girls" may not be very accurate here. I was a good ten years younger than everyone else, and I'm at an age when some mornings I actually spend time checking for wrinkles under my eyes. The conversation, however, was decidedly female (and don't be going feminist on me on this one!).

Ever since those times in Mandaluyong that I spent with Maya and Tara, often over coffee, sometimes over wine, occasionally over harder stuff, talking about our jobs, our dreams, our loves, our writing, and, yes, about other people, I have learned to appreciate female-bonding sessions. This time, somewhere in southeast France, I don't think I bonded with anyone.

"Don't expect to be discussing art and literature," Pierre had said, sending me off, the anxious husband thinking that for her sanity his transplanted new wife has got to start finding girl friends to replace her old ones. Of course not. Just art and literature would have been a bore. Pierre, however, did not prepare me for this:

There we were, first with our aperitifs of white wine (that would be me and another dark-haired guest) and whiskey coke (the four tougher mommas), later attacking the raclette and green salad, talking about: where to get the right bra for big bosoms, how much the shrimps went for at the just-opened supermerket, stockings or tights for the winter, the place to shop in Montpellier, what exactly is a bag tag, and where to go for tequila and rhumba. The high point of the evening was Anick the postman entertaining us with her depilatory adventures. (Are you ready for this? I sure wasn't.) All flushed with the excitement of remembering, she recalled the pain of waxing her own crotch, of chickening out halfway through the torture, and so living for a few weeks with the dire consequence of having half her vaginal triangle hairy as usual and the other half smooth as a baby's butt. Nowadays, she just lets it all grow wild.

As Abi would say, Hindi ko kaya...

But He IS Cute!

No, Pierre is not pushing 50! And neither is he without any chin. I admit, my husband is not a very photogenic fellow, and his skin is somewhat sun-damaged, but he does have his charms. That includes his integrity, intelligence, kindness, and, yes, his abundance of body hair. I find him hot. Just to prove you wrong who've said Pierre is pangit, I've put together some of my favorite pictures. Di ba okay naman siya?


(Above) Sailing the Atlantic.
(Right) Life as a beach bum.
(Below) His everyday face... Oops! Eh hindi nga photogenic...