Touchdown

I arrived from Dakak Friday morning and have already bustled around town til Saturday night. It's going to be a long, incoherent entry as there are really a thousand things on my mind now.

I promised to write about the Palawan trip. I guess I should have written about it even when I was feeling too tired or too lazy. Because right now, it has just lost its appeal to be written. Perhaps I still am too tired.

Before the Dipolog/Dakak trip, Ninang wasn't doing well. Her system reacted to the change in her chemo drugs resulting in a drastic BP drop, delirium fits, and a heart that started to fail. I texted friends for Type B blood. Most of them responded with the willingness to donate; all of them with prayers. My best friend Nina texted that she was offering all her sacrifices for Ninang and our family. She was in the ICU for five days. In between, Nina and her partner Sam who is also my best friend, were texting me details about our Dumaguete trip in August. Both of us Sillimanians, Nina and I need to go back "home" soon. We will be bringing Sammie with us.

I digress again.

Ninang's home now. Cancer is a fierce enemy. But Ninang's even fiercer.

Paradise Found




The forty minute or so drive from Dipolog airport to Dakak in Dapitan City was alternately punctuated with verdant scenes out of idyllic postcards in the South. Zamboanga is beautiful and so peaceful that it belies everything that is said about this region.

Unlike Palawan, which everybody raves about, Dapitan is a charmer. It instantly welcomed me with its winding hilly trails, spontaneous waterfalls and a southern sun that didn't refuse to let up. The townspeople in motorcycles or "habal-habal" (3-5 persons riding a bike)reminded me of Dumaguete.

Dakak was beautiful.

I don't know if the rumors about its white sand were true, it's still beautiful that it was more like a vacation for me than work. I was having second thoughts about going because of Ninang's condition but I'm glad I went.

Dakak is a cove that strectches vast between two mountains. It's like a giant's open mouth, the beach its smooth jaws. The water is so peaceful, no waves lapping on the shore even in the changing of tides.

Kulas and I had a lovely time swimming. We were in the water from 3pm to about 6 in the evening. We were just there, alternately floating on our backs, the clear blue sky seemingly lifting up all the heaviness in our hearts.

I don't want to wax mushy but...

I'll try to write more, and better about it later.

Oh and I have a boy there. The owner's son was there. I didn't get his name even when I had so many chances to do so. I just called him Boy all the time. Had it been a couple of years back, I would have flirted and asked him for a drink. But it wasn't just because my fiance was there with me. It was just enough that I had a Boy who would occasionally lock eyes with mine on afternoons when I felt too hot in my olive green bikini and would approach and exchange pleasantries with my fiance instead...

***

Kulas and I went to the Arms show at the Megatrade last night. Though I'm one for a gunless society, pistols are just so sexy. Kulas was equally so when he was firing his rounds at the Fun Shoot. We got a prize silver bullet keychain for a bull's eye.

It was a generally relaxed Saturday night. We were both tired from our trip that we just needed to loosen up. Had Sabrette hotdogs with sauerkraut and Dijon,plus mango-banana shakes from the adjacent Fruitana (it wasn't good,though as they used puree rather than fruit chunks). Oh and I got Murakami's "Wind-up Bird Chronicles" at Powerbooks whose new floor layout disoriented me.

Dead tired when I got home. I cleaned three rooms in the house earlier that I just didn't have enough energy to wait til Kulas got home. I dozed off and woke up to a quite Sunday morning.

I'm tired already and it's only 11 a.m.

Blog therapy. Days like this I wish I still smoked.