Double Delight, Year Two

It's been a year since our little seven-year-old twins stepped inside a school for the first time in their lives. Then they had zero knowledge about the ABCs, colors, numbers, and shapes.   

What a difference a year makes!

Now eight years old, here they are—about two inches taller, a few pounds heavier, and many notches smarter.

 
They now know their alphabets, arithmetic, all shades of the rainbow, and all the animals in the forest.  They can read both English and Filipino, and write quickly and legibly.

Captain America is Coming!

This superhero—together with Green Lantern, Spiderman, Iron man, and Batman—is coming to Las Pinas on the 30th of August!

Our whole household, composed of four adults, are more than excited—we are in a tizzy; if we don't take time to breathe we'd burst. 

All five heroes come in one neat little package called Adrian—my four-year-old grandson.  He moves from one super hero to another in a span of hours and couldn't quite make up his mind who he really is. 

His mom calls it recycling.  One minute, he's making like Captain America, the other minute, he's asking me and Tony for a Green Lantern thingy—as a belated gift for his recent birthday.

Fear of Growing Old

In a coffee shop sometime ago, I overheard two teenagers chatting:  

Girl 1: “My mom is sooo old, she'll never understand what I am going through.”

Girl 2: “If you think your mom's old,  mine's worse—she just turned 47!  Ugh, I can never talk to her about anything!”

It took colossal effort to keep myself from yelling, Hey, 47 is sooo young, you hear! 

Too Much, Too Little

My friend ALB (whom I love dearly) and I enjoy the same things—especially the arts, crafts, music, and exotic places.  We both gush and drool over art books and travel brochures in unison.  We could talk for hours about the many wonderful places and beautiful things we've seen.

“You and I have the same taste,” I tell her, “the only difference is, you have the money and I have the looks.”  She loves the joke.

Two Missing Semicolons

One print ad that I helped write was published this morning. To my horror, it has two missing semi-colons!  In their places, I had erroneously typed commas. Shoulda, woulda, coulda!

You are probably laughing at how anyone could be so distraught over two missing inky-dinky semicolons!  

Well, I also laughed when . . .

my friend G, an art director, was furious when her artwork came out on a tarpaulin with a lighter magenta than she specified;

Brainstorming Again!

One of the things that charmed me most (and which I now miss) about advertising was brainstorming.

Looking for a big idea, two to six people clump together—usually in a small corner or the corridor—to pick each other's brain. The rules: “No censorship. Say what's in your mind, no matter how stupid.” 

It usually begins slow, then, like building blocks, a blah thought is tossed around like a ball. Before it is passed back to the originator, the ball has already taken a different shape.

Paid Hacks

Among friends and students, I remain the only one with a Jurassic mobile phone. It's four years old, and I have no plans of buying a new one.

Aside from being frugal, of course, I keep my phone because I use it for only two reasons: calling and text messaging. My prepaid card of P500 lasts me three months. I receive very few text messages, I have a separate digi-cam, and I avoid calling anyone because of tinnitus—I hear hiss and buzz over voices—so I use the land line.

One-way Ticket to the Unknown

Over an early lunch, I said good-bye to a client of many years, one who has become a dear friend in the process.

Rosy and her husband, plus four children, will soon fly to Canada and will reside there permanently. 

There is always FB, of course, and the email to keep us in close touch, but the thought of not working with her ever again makes eyes well up.   

“Do you have relatives there?” I asked. Many of my friends who have chosen to live abroad have relatives waiting for them. 

“None,” she replied.

“None, as in --”