Pam Pastor's Blog, page 2

Article Alert: “Beyond the black beret���the stories of the SAF 44″

Senior Insp. Joey Gamutan��and his wife Merlyn celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary miles apart. It was Jan. 24, the day before the clash that took his life. The next day, despite being deep in the battle, Joey was able to call Merlyn one last time.

A day later, their firstborn turned 5.

Senior Insp. Rennie Tayrus��relished being a policeman, even if it meant being deployed on his birthday.

On Jan. 2, he shared a photo of a policeman with the words: ���Parents, please stop telling your children that we will haul them off to jail if they are bad. We want them to run to us if they are scared��� not be scared of us.���

Read the full story HERE.

Ramen for foreplay

The plan was to do laundry but because it was cold and raining and the thought of lugging dirty clothes across the street was unbearable, we said, screw laundry, let’s nap.

And when we woke up with a pounding headache after sleeping too much and saw that it was still raining, we said, fuck laundry, let’s eat ramen.

We bundled up – and when I say bundled up, I mean I put on two shirts, jeans over my leggings, a cardigan, a knit sweater, a bubble vest, a scarf and my incredibly warm circle knit scarf.

I was wearing so many layers that I looked and felt like a mascot.

I may have overdone it, I thought, because as we walked to the subway, people were staring. They looked sleek in their hoodies and jackets and I looked like a yeti.

I really had overdone it because once inside the train, I began to overheat. All the layers made it difficult for me to breathe so I took off the scarves and the bubble vest and dumped them in my backpack.

It’s a bit of a walk to Totto Ramen. On a dry day, 12 minutes are a breeze but when it’s raining, they’re an eternity, especially when you’re wrestling with an umbrella.

I cannot say this enough: I hate umbrellas. They’re so much work. I never know what to do with them once they’re wet. I would usually choose getting soaked over bringing an umbrella but Jill gave me her special death stare – the kind that can melt the Titanic iceberg – so I grudgingly brought one.

It was 4:55 when we reached Totto Ramen, it was still raining and we realized with horror that they wouldn’t open until 5:30.

Fuck.

Were we really willing to stand in the rain for thirty minutes? Did we want ramen that much?

A Japanese man arrived. “No! Closed?” he asked when he saw the sign.

“Yup, they open at 5:30,” we said.

But there was another sign – Totto Ramen has a new branch just a couple of blocks away and it opens at 4.

“Should we go there?” Jill asked.

“I don’t mind,” Janna said.

We started walking, with Jill and Janna ahead of me. My stupid umbrella wouldn’t open so I walked for a block with my scarf wrapped around my head and the useless umbrella dangling from my hand.

Jill ran back, grabbed the umbrella from me and opened it with ease. Just call her the umbrella whisperer.

We entered Totto Ramen, dumped our umbrellas, grabbed a table and peeled off our layers.

We ordered three paitan ramens with pork, no onions, no scallions, extra eggs plus extra corn for me.

We were already eating when the waitress sat a couple at the table next to ours.

And when I say next to ours, I mean they were just six inches away.

“Just like Hong Kong, right?” the guy said.

“Date!” Janna said immediately. Their awkwardness made it clear.

The girl looked like a pre-makeover Tai – you know, Brittany Murphy’s character in Clueless. She was totally Tai – curly hair, bright eyes, scuffed shoes.

The guy, Janna swears, looks like Ogie Alcasid. But Jill says Janna is crazy. I’m not sure. I never saw his entire face because he was right beside me.

I didn’t see him but I heard him.

I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I really didn’t. But they were so close that I couldn’t help but overhear everything they said.

They started talking about the guy’s facial hair. Apparently, it was his first time to grow a moustache.

It was puny as far as moustaches go but Tai was totally into it. “Facial hair is hot these days, right? I like it. I mean, if fashion states that you should do something other than put a razor against your delicate face in the morning and you can do something else in the morning, I’m all for that. You have my two thumbs up.”

Delicate face? What? This girl totally had the hots for Ogie.

They went on and on about facial hair and even started discussing The Hulk’s moustache. At one point, Tai calling Ogie “a rogue man” but Ogie did not understand what she meant. They only stopped the moustache discussion when the waitress not-so-subtly reminded them that they needed to order.

“I already know what I want!” Ogie announced grandly, while Tai scrambled to read the menu.

He ordered the extra-spicy ramen with bamboo shoots, egg and corn.

She ordered the chicken paitan ramen.

“Go on, get some toppings, they marinate the bamboo shoots here really well,” Ogie said.

So the girl ordered bamboo shoots “and maybe an egg.”

They talked about the Japanese soda he was drinking. He let her take a sip.

Their food arrived. Tai took one taste of her ramen and said, “Mmm mmm. I woke up today and said, “I want chicken noodle soup.” And I got it. And this is fancy.”

She started talking about her good friend “who is losing his mind.”

“A bunch of people in the east coast – well, not in New York – are trying to live cashless,” she said.

“You mean he squats?” Ogie said, a little snootily.

“Oh no, it’s with permission. He’s an artist.”

It was a very long story. Her friend went to Mexico, met a woman, fell in love and got married but, because he doesn’t have money, he is having a hard time trying to bring his wife to the States.

Tai seemed to find it romantic but Ogie didn’t seem impressed.

They moved on to another topic: Tai’s trip. She said she was just going to be in New York for ten days and wouldn’t have time to see all her friends.

Ogie cleared his throat. “Well, thank you for making time.”

Tai blushed, “Oh of course! I love this! This is great!”

And then they started talking about how they were going to Ogie’s apartment after.

“I did some spring cleaning. I took some of my books out of storage to show you,” he said.

“Ooh, I can’t wait to see your apartment.”

It wasn’t dinner, it was foreplay. The sexual tension was so thick I could poke it with my chopstick.

“Oh yeah, someone’s getting laid tonight,” we nodded in agreement.

I turned back to my ramen. It was good.

Crashing the red carpet

“I want to see celebrities.”

As one of the adults planning her birthday trip, I kept asking Janna what she wanted to do in New York. That was her only answer.

The easiest way to make it happen was to bring her to a taping of Letterman but we couldn’t – she needs to be 21 to join the studio audience and she’s barely 18.

One morning, I thought of taking her to see Emma Stone at another show’s taping but she woke up late.

She wasn’t too excited about Emma anyway. There was one person she really wanted to see: Beyonce.

Janna has a big Beyonce obsession. She wouldn’t stop singing Drunk In Love. She sang and played it so many times during this trip that the tune was stuck in my head for days – and I hadn’t even heard it before she forced me to listen to it.

“Tita Pam, Beyonce is in New York!” Janna said a few days ago.

“Maybe she’s attending the Time 100 gala,” I said. Beyonce is on Time’s list of 100 Most Influential People this year and she’s on the cover of the magazine.

“Can we go?” she asked.

I know fans sometimes crash red carpet events to watch the arrival of the stars. But I wasn’t sure if people did that at the Time 100 gala.

I knew just the right person to ask: Gidget, who used to work for Inquirer and who has been with Time for years.

I sent her a quick Facebook message: Do fans ever wait outside the gala to see the red carpet arrivals?

Yes, she said, giving us a valuable tip: fans usually wait after the event, when the lobby isn’t packed with members of the press. But Gidget wasn’t sure if Beyonce was coming.

“That’s okay,” Janna said, “Let’s go anyway!”

On the day of the gala, we monitored Twitter while eating our way through Chelsea Market.

“Oh my god, John Green is coming.”

“Laverne Cox!”

“Amy Adams is there!”

“Pharrell is performing!”

“Ooh, Christy Turlington is there.”

“Seth Myers!”

“But where’s Beyonce?”

According to one tweet, Beyonce was a no-show. But Janna didn’t care. She still wanted to go.

So before 10 p.m., we left the apartment and braved the downpour.

“What are we dooo-ing?” we mimicked Tracy Jordan mimicking Oprah and we laughed, our faces wet with rain.

We continued to check the #time100 hashtag on Twitter, even while we were on the subway.

By the time we got to Columbus Circle, we were soaked and freezing, my umbrella was broken and my eyeglasses were so foggy that I couldn’t see a thing.

I took them off and looked up. We could see the party lights from where we were standing. I snapped a picture of Janna.

We entered Time Warner Center and spotted the red carpet. Apart from a few guards, we we were the only ones there. “I can’t believe no one else was crazy enough to go out tonight,” I told Janna.

A few guests were leaving but none of them looked familiar.

“Let’s walk over there,” I said.

“No, the NYPD scares me,” Janna said, looking at the four policemen who were standing by the red carpet.

“It’s okay,” I said.

We followed the red carpet, took a right and realized that we weren’t the only ones there. We had just been standing at the wrong place.

We secured a spot on one side of the carpet, one with a clear view of the elevators. We were surrounded by a few fans and tourists, a couple of photographers and a number of autograph scalpers – creepy men who walk around with big backpacks full of celebrity photographs. I’m pretty sure these men try to get photos signed so they can resell them on Ebay. Some of them were carrying clipboards.

People in tuxedos and evening gowns walked past as they left the party but the crowd just looked bored. “Nope, no one famous. Next!” their blank faces seemed to say. It must be so weird to get off an elevator and have an entire group of people snub you.

Suddenly, there was a commotion.

The crowed rushed to our side of the red carpet, shouting, “Ed, Ed, can you sign this please?”

“Christy! Christy!”

It was Christy Turlington and her husband Ed Burns. Christy is on the Time 100 list for her fight against maternal mortality.

Christy actually looked like she was willing to stop for pictures and autographs but Ed kept walking, saying, “Sorry, guys, not tonight.”

I took a few quick photos of Christy for Jason who has adored her since high school.

Some people chased after the couple while the others dispersed, returning to their original spots. Minutes later, they crowded around us again. “Alfonso! Alfonso!”

“Who’s that?” I heard one tourist ask.

“Alfonso Cuaron, the director of Gravity,” someone answered.

Alfonso was leaving the party but stopped when he saw the waiting crowd. People had photos taken with him and he signed a lot of autographs. He kept saying, “I have to go, I have to go,” but he kept signing and posing, trying to accommodate everyone.

Janna took a selfie with him and then told him, “I love your glasses, man.”

It soon became clear that we had chosen a good spot. “Stay put, don’t give up your spot,” I kept telling Janna while the crowd jostled us to get closer to whoever was on the red carpet.

There were lulls too. And during the lulls, people walking by talked to us, trying to find out what we were doing there and who we were waiting for.

A cool-looking girl with dreads and piercings snuck up on us. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s the Time 100 gala, we’re just waiting for people who are leaving.”

“Who’s here?”

“Pharrell, Seth Myers…”

Spotting the blow-up of the Time magazine cover, she asked, “Beyonce? Jay-Z?”

“Nah. They’re not here.”

“Who else is here?”

“Uh, Carrie Underwood?”

She rolled her eyes and walked on.

The elevator opened and I spotted a familiar face.

Katie Couric walked towards us, stopping when a French mom excitedly waved her over.

“Who are you guys waiting for?” she asked, smiling.

“You,” the French tourist said.

“Not me,” Katie said, laughing as she posed for photographs.

A sharply dressed guy with facial hair walked by and people chased after him.

“Who’s that guy?” a photographer asked us.

“We have no idea.”

“Probably someone in fashion,” somebody else said.

He signed autographs and posed for pictures while we wondered who he was.

The photographer, who reminded me of a younger Mr. Heckles from Friends, tried to made small talk.

“Are you from California?” he asked Janna.

“Nope.”

“You sound like you’re from California.”

Then he started telling us about his Filipina best friend who used to live in New York but now lives in California and how he’s not good enough for her so they’re just like brother and sister.

He kept talking. He talked about his plans to sell the pictures he was taking that night and how he can only sell them “if it’s the whole body.”

He asked if we really didn’t live in the United States. He asked if we were teenagers. He asked too many questions.

Janna and I amused ourselves by naming celebrities who looked like the people who were exiting the elevators.

“Mariah!” (She really did look like Mariah.)

“Heather Morris.”

“Cara Delivingne.”

“That guy from Entourage.”

“Gwyneth Paltrow.”

“Sandra Bullock.”

“Megan! Megan!” the photographers called out to a pretty tall blonde.

I did a quick Google search and found out that it was Megyn Kelly, Fox news anchor and also a Time 100 honoree.

More curious people walked by, wondering why we were standing around and staring at the elevators.

“Who’s here? Brad Pitt?” another lady with a French accent asked.

“We wish,” we said. “Amy Adams, Pharrell, Carrie Underwood…”

She grabbed her husband. “We’re staying.”

A French girl approached Janna, asking if it’s true that Miley Cyrus was at the event. She said one of the guards told her that Miley was there.

“No, we don’t think so,” we said.

The elevator doors opened and Miley’s French fan gasped. “Beyonce?!”

Janna and I laughed. It wasn’t Beyonce, it was Laverne Cox, one of the people I had been wanting to see.

Laverne plays Sophia Burset in Orange Is The New Black, a show that we love.

“Laverne!” Janna and I called out.

“I love your show! Can I have a selfie with you?” Janna asked.

“Okay,” Laverne said. “I’m doing, like, three.”

There were so many things I wanted to say to Laverne – how her character is one of my favorites on the show, how much I admire her for her advocacy and how glad I am that she is so outspoken about transgender rights – but there was no chance. Instead, I settled for a very inarticulate and awkward “I love you.”

“Who is that?” the French girl’s mom asked me, watching the people clamoring for Laverne’s attention.

“Laverne Cox, she’s on Orange Is The New Black.”

“She must be… man,” she said in her thick French accent.

“She’s transgender,” I said, adding that Laverne’s OITNB character is transgender too.

The elevator doors opened and it was my turn to gasp. I grabbed Janna and said, “It’s Robert!”

Leaving the party were Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez, the husband-and-wife composers of Frozen’s insanely popular songs. Robert also co-created The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q and, after Let It Go’s Academy Award win, is the youngest person to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.

“Tita Pam, you shouldn’t have gasped. No one else realized who they were until you reacted,” Janna chastised me. She was right.

The guy beside me heard me say Robert’s name and he pushed his way ahead of me. “Robert,” he called out. “Can I have a photo with you?”

Soon, a crowd had gathered around the couple but Kristen was obviously in a hurry. “I’m sorry, guys, we have to go. Sorry. Our car is waiting.”

But Robert was still signing. “Come on, sweetie, let’s go,” Kristen called out to him.

Robert stopped for a few more photos. If I didn’t speak up, I knew I’d lose my chance. It was time to pull the Pinoy card. “Hi Robert, we’re from the Philippines,” I said. He stopped, smiled and got Kristen to join us for a photo.

Photographers and fans chased after them until Kristen eventually said, “I’m sorry, guys, we really have to go. We’re trying to get home to our kids.”

Once again, tourists and photographers walked up to us to ask who Robert and Kristen were.

The elevator doors opened again and a bunch of people stepped out.

“Crazy Eyes!” I grabbed Janna.

It was Uzo Aduba who plays Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren on Orange Is The New Black.

“Uzo! Can we have a photo with you?” Janna and I chorused. She looked surprised, like she didn’t think she would have fans waiting outside. Janna, the selfie master, took photos with her and kept talking to Uzo while she signed autographs. “I can’t wait for the second season. I watched the trailer.”

Uzo posed with me too but here’s a confession: I don’t know how to take selfies with my phone. The same thing happened with Aziz Ansari last year. He ended up having to take the phone from me and doing it. Janna has been trying to teach me but I clearly need more lessons. When Uzo walked away, I realized that all I managed to do was take a very blurry picture of the floor. It’s a good thing I had photobombed Uzo and Janna.

I had no time to moan about my lack of selfie skills because John Green was on the red carpet and I love him. He wrote The Fault In Our Stars, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Looking For Alaska, Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances and co-wrote Will Grayson, Will Grayson with David Levithan, another YA favorite.

“John!” I called him while trying to get Janna’s attention so she could take our photo.

He was so nice. He took my phone from me and said, “I’ll take the selfie. I’m really good at this.”

He took a few photos and Janna took a few photos with him too before telling him, “I love your book, man.”

“Who’s that?” people asked us for the nth time.

“John Green. The movie based on his book The Fault In Our Stars is coming out soon,” we said.

More fans gathered around John. One mother wanted John to hug her daughter so he did. Then she wanted him to do it again because she wanted to take a photo of John hugging her daughter. People are weird.

There was a woman standing beside John and a photographer asked, “Is she your wife?”

“No,” John replied. “She’s my publisher.”

Janna and I were giddy, so giddy.

She was hoping to see Pharrell too but the guards soon left, telling everyone, “That’s it.”

And we realized it was true because workers started removing the velvet ropes and the red carpet.

It was midnight by the time we left Time Warner Center. The cold night embraced us again.

“I love you, New York,” Janna kept saying as we talked about how crazy the night had been.

“Let’s celebrate with halal,” Janna said so we made a quick Halal Guys stop.

We were on our way to catch the train home when Janna gasped, staring into the distance, transfixed by the twinkling lights. “Is that Times Square?! Can we go?”

And I said the only thing you should say to a person who is falling in love with New York for the first time even if it’s almost 1 a.m.: “Of course. Of course we can.”

Thigh-high socks and Carrot Top’s brother

“Hey, I like your backpack, it’s trippy,” Carrot Top’s better-looking mohawked brother said from behind the counter at American Apparel.

“Thanks,” I said, inching away, because I hate small talk and I’m terrible at it.

I wandered around the store and went down to the basement where a crop-topped girl greeted me. “Looking for anything in particular today?”

I glanced at her bare midriff and said, “That. A stomach like yours. Sell me that.”

Except I didn’t say it out loud. I kept walking until I reached the far wall where I found something I had really been searching for.

Thigh-high socks.

Don’t ask why, I don’t know either. But ever since I got here, I’ve been checking every store for thigh-high socks.

I grabbed a black pair and headed back to the cash register, back to Mohawk.

“Hey dude, all good in the hood?” he said.

“Yup,” I said, dumping my backpack onto the counter so I could dig for my wallet.

“Any of the fine ladies here assist you today, like Danielle?” He motioned to a scantily clad girl beside him.

“Yeah…” I struggled to remember Crop Top’s name. “Madeline?”

“Maaadeline,” he repeated, scanning my purchase and waving my socks in the air. “These bad boys are final sale.”

“Okay,” I said.

“That will be eighteen big ones.”

I handed him a twenty.

“Tweeenty big ones,” he said, like he was on a game show and that was the prize.

He gave me my change and my socks and said, “Here are your thigh-highs, have a great day!”

He was so perky, so happy that it was off-putting.

On my way out of the store, I spotted another rack of hosiery. Over-the-knee socks! Yes! I grabbed a black pair and walked back to Mohawk.

This time, he was totally different. If it weren’t for the mohawk, I could have sworn he was somebody else.

“Thirteen dollars please,” he said, getting my money, giving me my change and handing me my purchase like any other cashier in any other city.

In just three minutes, he had become completely normal.

And I was completely disappointed.

This is a love letter to Katz’s Deli

The last time we ate at Katz’s Deli, Jill and I made the mistake of ordering just one pastrami on rye and splitting it.

Then I made the mistake of grabbing the pastrami pieces that had fallen out of her sandwich and onto our shared plate and popping them into my mouth. She wasn’t happy about that. “Akin yun eh!” she said, looking like a kid whose lollipop you had just swiped.

So for months, in Manila, we had serious discussions about a deli that was thousands of miles away.

“Next time, we get one whole sandwich each.”

“Yes. And just one plate of fries.”

“Yes! And no pickles.”

“Yes. Should we mix the pastrami with corned beef?”

“No.”

Yesterday, we finally made it back to Katz’s Deli.

“Don’t be afraid of the sandwich, let the sandwich be afraid of you,” hollered Katz’s hilarious doorman to nervous-looking tourists. I can’t blame them, Katz’s Deli can be intimidating for first-timers. Some of the guys there still scare me.

We ordered one sandwich each – pastrami on rye with mayo for me, pastrami on rye with mayo for Jill, pastrami and corned beef on rye with mayo for her mom, pastrami on rye without mayo for Janna.

We attacked our sandwiches while staring at cute babies and marveling at how fast the guys at the next table inhaled their sandwiches.

No inhalation happened at our table – only an intense initial attack that petered out into little ladylike bites, a sure sign of fullness.

I only managed to eat half my sandwich plus two bites of the other half. Jill ate half her sandwich. Her mom ate half a bread slice and half the pastrami. Janna ate half her sandwich plus one bite of the other half.

And that is why I spent the rest of the day walking around with four sandwich halves in my backpack.

“Tita Pam, your bag smells like pastrami!” Janna said, laughing behind me as we walked up the subway steps.

It was a twisted gift from the deli gods. “You missed our pastrami? Here, smell it all day. Smell it on your bag. Smell it on your things. Smell it on you. Walk around smelling like a deli sandwich.”

I’m having leftover pastrami for breakfast today.

The jumper

“Holy shit, holy shit!”

I was busy staring at my phone screen but Jill’s voice made my head snap up. I craned my neck to see what she was looking at.

A man standing on the subway platform just a few feet from us was dumping his things onto the floor. First his bag, then his jacket, then his wallet and his gadgets. They clattered as they hit the ground. Then he jumped off the platform and onto the train tracks.

Holy shit.

The subway signs flashed in my head. “141 people were struck by trains in 2012, 55 were killed.”

I stood, frozen, my heart pounding. Oh my god. A suicide attempt? I can’t believe I’m about to see someone die.

“Hey man, don’t do it!” I turned around and saw a guy calling out to the man on the tracks.

“What?!” the jumper answered, annoyed and indignant. “I dropped something.”

I burst out laughing.

But the other guy wasn’t convinced. “What was it you dropped? A charger?”

The jumper held up whatever it was that he picked up and clambered back onto the platform.

The 6 train arrived, we all rode the same subway car and pretended nothing had happened. The jumper buried his face in a book and the rest of us tried to bury our suspicions of suicide.

Like Barney but better

I was in a serious hair rut. For a few years now, this has been my hair care regimen: shampoo, condition, towel-dry hair, tie hair in a bun. Yes, while wet. Yes, I’m terrible.



My hair has grown so long and my bun has gotten so big that the last time I traveled, airport security actually checked my bun, as if I was hiding weapons of mass destruction in my tangles.



It was time for a change and I didn’t mean me reaching for the nearest bottle of Manic Panic and DIY-ing my hair troubles away. I needed the experts. And by experts I mean the killer combo of husband-and-wife team Jude Hipolito and Rose Velasco.



I actually sent Rose my first SOS in November but I didn’t have the chance to go to the salon until now. I first met Jude and Rose during a work trip to Shanghai. It was Rose who first colored my hair in 2004. I didn’t know this until now, but she says I was the first person to ever ask her for pink hair.



Ten years later, I found myself back in their chair, this time in their newest salon Juro Salon Exclusif. I had no pegs, no plans. They know better so I left it up to them. Jude expertly cut my hair (while I was standing – yup, that’s how he works his magic), keeping the length but removing all traces of my fake ombré.



Then, Rose pre-lightened my hair (it was my first time to see myself entirely blonde and that was… erm, interesting) before giving my hair a reddish-purple base and highlights in different shades of purple and lavender.



You know how hair color – especially funky colors – can often look like it was slapped on? Not this time. It looks like purple hair actually grew out of my head and I love it. The result is the right mix of subtle and crazy.



I know this salon is more expensive than most but after abusing my hair for years, I totally think it deserved this treat. My hair does seem happier now.



And the best part? Jude and Rose are such warm, lovely people that an afternoon spent at their salon feels more like a nice visit with good friends – except you leave with better hair. I can’t believe I waited ten years to experience their magic again.

Shrapnel

After reading this horrific article, I called Lola Charit because I knew she and my other grandparents lived through World War II. They were both in Manila – this is where all my grandparents grew up.



When I was growing up, every year, we spent November 1 at the family mausoleum at the North Cemetery which was just a couple of blocks from our house. I’d point to each name, especially those who passed away before I was born, and ask how they died.



It was Soly’s story that had always stayed with me. She was just 17, pregnant and married to Lolo Dick, my Lolo Osing’s brother. It was 1945, at the height of the Japanese war. Bombings and gun battles were a regular occurrence and Lola Bibay, their mother, thought it was safest for them to sleep in their garage. So there they were that night, sleeping in total darkness – Lolo Osing, his parents, his siblings and Soly. Soly was sleeping beside her husband Lolo Dick but in the middle of the night, he realized she was no longer beside him. While they were asleep, shrapnel had pierced through the garage, hitting Soly in the stomach, killing her and her baby. The force was so strong that it blasted her away from her sleeping husband.



There was no way to give her a proper burial, Lola Charit said, so Lolo Dick and his siblings made a makeshift coffin for his wife. They found a spot under a tree in the North Cemetery and buried her there.



Lolo Dick was so heartbroken he soon left for the US after.



Years later, after the war, because his brother was already thousands of miles away, it was Lolo Osing who tried to search for Soly’s remains. He looked for the tree where they buried her. He found remains, claimed them and gave them a proper burial. It was only today that I found out, after talking to Lola Charit, that he wasn’t sure if it was really Soly he found. The bones in the crypt I had been pointing to as a child could have belonged to another victim of the war.



Lolo Osing and Lola Charit were still in the early stages of their courtship in 1945. Lola Charit’s family was luckier than Lolo’s. Yes, it was a tough time, she said. They didn’t have a lot to eat (sometimes just half a corn), her mother cried every day but at least they all survived.



Lola Charit’s brothers liked going outside to watch what they called “the dog fights” between Japanese and American planes. One day, shrapnel hit Lolo Rogie and Lolo Aling as they watched a battle. Shrapnel had to be taken out of Lolo Rogie’s leg and Lolo Aling still has shrapnel in his lungs but they’re both still alive today.



In later months, things became better. Lola Charit’s mom started selling halo-halo to their neighbors and to American soldiers who were everywhere. “Yung mga sundalo, walang ginawa kundi manligaw ng mga babae,” Lola Charit said.



“Ikaw din niligawan?” I asked.



“Oo naman, di ko lang pinapansin,” she said.



Lola added that they didn’t learn about the massacres until later. The Japanese had destroyed bridges and getting around was hard.



I asked her how they escaped from being killed. It was just luck, she said. If they had lived in a different area of Manila, she said, “Malamang patay kami lahat.”



It’s easy to think that things that happened in the distant past have nothing to do with you. But I was hit with the realization that if my grandparents had been at the wrong place (or if Lola Charit responded to an American solider’s advances instead of marrying Lolo Osing), I wouldn’t be here today.



History. I hated it as a kid but now I want to know everything.

Beyond tragic

This is Anne Van de Ven. She is the 26-year-old Dutch woman who died in the Florida Bus tragedy.



According to a Dutch publication, Anne had quit her job as a primary school teacher so she could travel around the world. She explored South America, China, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Borneo and Indonesia and had planned to go to Australia after visiting the Philippines.



Anne had been here for almost two weeks when she boarded that ill-fated bus with her friend Annemiek Verwegen. Annemiek survived the crash but is in serious condition.



Anne chronicled her travels online – on a page that has now become a virtual memorial, where the people who knew her have been posting messages of shock and grief and remembrances of a girl they described as “sweet” and “sparkling.”



She was loved.



This was the last thing she had written in her travelogue: “A life without dreams is like a garden without flowers. My year visa for Australia is inside. Let’s see if these flowers bloom in late February… But first I’m going to thoroughly enjoy in the Philippines with the beautiful Annemiek at my side.”



She liked the Facebook page “Places To See Before You Die.” The last place Anne saw was Bontoc, Mountain Province, all because of irresponsible bus operators who care more about profit than people’s safety.



How many more Annes and Tados need to die before they stop gambling with people’s lives?



On the eve of her last Christmas, Anne had written, “I walk around the globe, visit exotic places, meet new people, different cultures and live my own vision of freedom. I chose to be a professional dreamer. And when I lie awake at night and think about all the misery in the world, I try to think of what I do like, because my sense says that it could go either way.”

This Homeland intermission was brought to you by The New York Times

“Holy shit!” I said to Jill, pausing Homeland so I could break the news without Claire Danes stealing my thunder. “I just got an email from The New York Times.”

“Whoa!” she said.

They wanted to know if I would be free for a phone interview later this week. The topic? Nail polish, of course.

But I kinda had the feeling they thought I was based in New York. So I emailed back and said I’m in the Philippines but sure, they could call me. The reply came within minutes. Was I just traveling here and did I have Skype? No and yes, I replied, I’m really based in the Philippines. “Not sure if you were looking for someone based in New York,” I added.

Yes, they were. The interview was off. “Leche!” Jill said. Strangely, she was more bummed out than I was. Truthfully, my bigger reaction was relief. Because I was already thinking, “Holy crap, if I do a Skype interview with The New York Times, does that mean I need to get a blowout and put some makeup on?”

The next day, I told Tatin about it and her reaction mirrored Jill’s. “Sayang!” she said.

Again, I was left wondering why she seemed more bummed out than I was. That was The New York Times. I almost genuflected in front of that building when I first saw it. Why wasn’t I sadder?

In the middle of EDSA traffic, it hit me. It’s just never been my dream. I like writing newspaper articles, not being featured in them. Everything I’ve done – the writing, the singing, the baking, the nail polish insanity – I’ve done because they’re fun, because I’m passionate about them, because I really enjoy them. It’s never been about fame or attention or money.

So it was with zero hard feelings that I wrote back to The New York Times,

“No worries!” Then I gave them the name of a girl based in New York who loves polish just as much as I do. Then I pressed the play button because Claire Danes was trying to save America from terrorists and, damn it, she wanted me to watch.