November 16 - 22, 2009: Haunted by My Ghosts

I have been itching to go to the cemetery to visit my parents but I decided to wait for my youngest brother before we could schedule that trip. For some reason, my parents who are long gone seem to haunt me or are they telling something..... like why we have not paid them a visit. The picture of my parents popped out as I was loading my usb to load my lecture in class. I wasn't trying to open the picture and it popped out by itself. It happened twice.... same picture. I was stunned.

At the office, ghosts of the past appear to have reemerged. The leeches appear to once again wrestle control taking advantage of the weakness of the current dispensation. Most of the time, they are out of the office doing odd jobs for some other office. I am haunted by the same issues as in the past.... and I am getting tired......

After a rather routinary week, the weekend came into view.....

My brother arrived the previous week but it was only this weekend when we got the chance to finally visit my parents in their resting place. They were sick and too jetlagged the weekend after their arrival and they begged off from our original plan. I do not want to go the cemetery twice so I figured it's better to reset it it to this weekend.

Like most weekend, I had to pack my day. My children complained about the many errands I have to do before we can go a certain destination. For that trip to the cemetery, we had to pass by Makati to get the replacement for the St. Joseph of the Nativity set I bought last year which has four kings instead of 3 and a missing St. Joseph. I have been patronizing the seller for a long time and I am sure I can have it replaced. However, I lost her contact number after I purchased the Nativity set and I was not able to replace it last year.

I returned the excess king the day before and arranged with the shopkeeper for my pick-up this weekend. Upon inspection of the replacement, it turned out to be the wrong model. I was actually pissed because he didn't check the item I returned. To appease me, he promised to just replace the whole set because their current production of nativity set is different from the one I bought last year. We had to make another arrangement for this long-overdue replacement....hmmmmph

We headed to the cemetery after that short detour to be caught in a monstrous traffic jam as we were nearing the cemetery. The rain also came. It was dark when we reached the cemetery. I had to explain to the guard that we were not able to visit earlier and it was only now that we were able to visit. He let us in probably taking pity on us but astounded about our courage to enter the resting place of the departed at night. It was eerie visiting our parents on a dark, rainy night. I was getting goose bumps as we moved closer to my parents' grave but tried to put a brave front. I trained my headlight on their tomb. My brother decided to go first to check the area. I followed him and told the kids and my sister-in-law to stay in the car. Since it was raining, my brother and I decided to make it a very short visit. After saying our prayers and our unsuccesful attempt to light a candle, we went back to the car. The kids were also getting nervous. I quickly maneuver the car to the opposite direction.

I had one last errand before we go to a resto for dinner. We passed by a dog-breeder to have the registration paper of our pomeranian signed. After this, we went homewards eyeing a diner where we could take refuge. We took the C-5 Road and it dawned on me that we will be passing by Hot Racks, a favorite resto we go to, which serve very good porterhouse and T-bone at very reasonable prices. I could see my girls' eyes glimmer as I mentioned the place.

Once there, we settled and most of us ordered steak. We capped it with a dessert of cheesecake and a cake made with milk..... which is so delicioso. After a hearty dinner we headed home. In the car, MS and my nephew were asking my brother if my nephew could sleep over. Before traveling to the US, my nephew would not want to be left at our home if his parents won't stay. He never got to sleepover alone in our house. In the US, he learned to live and sleep with our relatives and got so used to it. My brother gave his blessing. I was telling my brother to just stay over too but he and my SIL decided to go to their home. I dropped them at the bus terminal.

We arrived home and everyone settled into their own rooms......