Bringing My Dad Home and Getting Sick

I started coughing badly Saturday, and by Sunday I had fever. I wasn't feeling well when I went to work Monday.

When I went to St. Luke's Monday evening to handle paying the bills, I was so sick that I was in a bad mood... worse than in previous days when the hospital's slow pace would drive me nuts.

We hired the same ambulance that drove my dad to the hospital. The driver arrived wearing a polo barong and slacks ... which was when I realized he may actually have a regular 8 to 5 job and drove the barangay ambulance as a volunteer. Ha ha ha!

We got home around 1:00 this morning.

I took another sick leave today. My brother says I got flu.

Bringing my Dad to the Hospital

Papa had fever and chills last Sunday.  When he still had fever Monday afternoon, I told mom that maybe we should bring him to a hospital.  I was thinking the nearest one, which was San Pedro Doctors Hospital.  However, when my dad heard that he will be brought to the hospital, he began to insist to be brought to St. Luke's Medical Center... which by the way is in Quezon City, a place north of Manila while we live south of Manila.

Ofcourse I know he wants to be brought there because my Uncle Totoy is a doctor in that hospital (given his age, he's probably more busy being its Assistant Medical Director for Professional Services and incumbent Chair of its Institutional Ethics Review Board, or IERB, instead of attending to patients everyday).  My first problem was finding an ambulance to take him there at a late hour.  My mom waited for me or Jon to arrive from work instead of making calls and packing stuff to be brought to the hospital. We left the huose after 11PM and got to St. Luke's before 12:30AM ... the trip was fast because traffic was VERY light.

Although Jon called Uncle Totoy before leaving the house, we still had to follow procedure and check Papa in through the emergency room.  It was 1:30AM yesterday when we finally checked Papa into a room.  Needless to say, I took a leave yesterday and today.  I this morning updating my brothers and sisters abroad through mail, then I'll spend the afternoon inquiring about PhilHealth benefits, paying bills and ofcourse, withdrawing money.

Peaches

Peaches is the smallest of Hazel's kittens. Unlike Apple and Cherry, whose eyes turned yellow as they grew older, her eyes stayed blue.

Daze

News of the Fire
Just before 9:30 AM, Jon called me up on the phone to tell me he is in Manila. The apartment burned down and he is looking at the extent of the damage. That's when I recalled hearing a news report from the bus radio about a fire happening on our street early this morning.

So it was our apartments on fire.

It seems to have started from my room at 2527 which is at the back, then it spread to the front then the back room of 2529 and 2531 before firemen contained the fire.

It was a relief that no neighbor's house caught fire.

The one big question is ... how the fire started that early in the morning. It wasn't too hot for the fire to have started spontaneously from the heat. That leaves faulty electrical wiring. How it could start from my room is another question. Nothing is plugged-in in that room. When a light conked out in 2529, my brother took the flourescent bulb from my room. When his electric fan was busted, he borrowed the one in my room. He returned it eventually - after it conked out on him as well. The same thing goes with my table lamp - he borrowed it when it was working then returned it to the room when it was broken. Ofcourse when he returned them, he didn't plug them into the sockets since they're already broken.

Tess is okay. She's obviously distressed, but bailing the water from the firehoses out of 2529 is keeping her mind occupied at the time Jon called.

Jon took some pictures and videos of the scene then he and Tess went home. Yup. Tess will be staying with us permanently instead of staying the night here on long holidays.

We won't be able to touch the scene till the arson investigators are done with it.

Needless to say, I was in a daze the rest of the day.

When I got home, I saw the videos and pictures Jon took. Nothing of my stuff survived the fire. My room is just one big hole at the side of the house. Sal's dresser is still standing. Tess and Jon's things got singed but not all burned. Wow. Lucky them. I'm sad cause I got zero.

Lunch with Tullett-Prebon
Broker Tullett-Prebon treated the FX group to lunch today at the Spiral, Hotel Sofitel (used to be the Westin Philippine Plaza). Since our office is near the hotel, and the brokers were coming from Makati, we had to wait around 10 minutes. Good thing I had my cellphone to play with, so I took some pictures.

Shayne:


Rey and Danny:


The Spiral:


Wonder if I could enter this in the DLSU "green" photo contest? He he he!:


Pasalubong
My oldest brother's wife is in the country on one of her business trips. She passed by the house to drop off some token gifts or pasalubongs. I got this cute, small bag:


Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

I don't know when I'll get to use it though. I haven't even used the other small bags Sal sent me... and they're at least an inch bigger than this one. Now if I'm into partying, bringing nothing but my wallet and cellphone, those bags would be useful.

Oh dear, this got me thinking - I wonder how much of the stuff we gave Tess which she never used got burned in Manila. So sad.

Today's Dose of Randomness

Was absent yesterday. I've been sneezing occasionally since last week and no matter what I do or no matter how much sleep I get, I still end up feeling tired and yes ... late to work. I also have a headache that won't go away. Muscle pain, especially at the back - check; headache - check; sneezing or coughing - mild but still a check. I feel hot, but the heat's contained in the head area, so I doubt if the thermometer says I've got fever. I initially thought it's some sort of flu, but without the fever it's probably the common cold. What's odd about this one is that I only sneeze occasionally and though I always feel parched, my throat started itching only today, making me cough mildly at times. I hope this does not evolve into full blown cough with laryngitis. I do not want another bout of losing my voice!

-----Anyway-----

I usually pass through the long gallery every morning as it is a short cut to the dealing room. This morning though, I noticed people setting up cameras and bright lights atop the stairs leading to the gallery so I used the staircase that leads to the main branch. Near the chapel I saw some TMG people talking and probably on their way to the banking hall, which is also near the staircase where I saw the camera crew. I first thought that our corporate affairs people have decided to start taking pictures for the company's annual, and that our marketing folk were having their group picture taken. Learned later that the TMG people just wanted to see if actor John Lloyd Cruz has already arrived. Apparently, the camera crew belongs to an ad agency and they're shooting a commercial today. It's funny how many commercials have been shot in the building and I've only recognized the building in one commercial.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone!

My blogs are finally updated. Oh yeah!

Didn't go out to record the fireworks set up by neighbors on New Year's Eve. Just watched them from the porch with the dog curled up beside me. At the stroke of midnight I usually play Auld Lang Syne for about 15 minutes or longer. Didn't do it this time. I did open the piano once I got tired watching the fireworks... which was almost 1AM of January 1. Played Auld Lang Syne about 5 times before switching on my cellphone's music player and tried playing the songs there "oido" ... that means playing by ear - no piano sheet.

Had some success with "Say it Right", "Don't Matter" and "Beautiful Girls". Disney Channel was playing High School Musical 2 Monday night, so I took out the chord sheet of "You are the Music in Me" and tried playing it. Did better with the chord sheet of "Hey There Delilah" because the song's on my cellphone and I could listen to it over and over till I get the melody and rhythm right.

To the clueless, chord sheets are only useful in telling me what keys to use with the left hand, not what to do with my right hand - I have to figure that one by myself. Sometimes though when I don't agree with the chord sheet, I also do some editing on the chords - I think some chord combinations work well when you're strumming a guitar, but they don't sound well together when used on the piano. Got so lost in the groove of "Say it Right" that I kept playing it till I was sleepy. Woke up late for the next day, that's for sure.

Had Calandracas for lunch yesterday. It's one New Year tradition we got from the Cavite side of the family (along with Bacalao for Holy Week). Tess passed by later in the afternoon to greet everyone a happy new year. She gave me a couple of glass bead bracelets. I guess that'll be the last Christmas gift I'll be receiving for this season.

Since digital cameras make it so cheap to take pictures, have a peep at my 2007 Christmas stash (all pics shot with DSC-W70 ... according to imageshack - this blog's picture host):

By jingfrey	By jingfrey
By jingfrey	By jingfrey
By jingfrey	On the left is the portable stool from Deutschebank. Propped in front of it is a back scratcher. On top of the stool is a face towel from Jeng tied up with one of her hand-made book markers which she did by "tatting". Curled up at the bottom is the bendable pencil from Liezl. The coaster with candies came from Es.

Dottie gave me the back scratcher for Kris Kringle's "long and hard" ... a lot of people got back scratchers on that day by the way. The handle of the one I got was odd looking and looked more like a wand ... which was why Ted and I ended up exchanging "expelliarmus" and "avada kedavra" that afternoon. Ha ha ha!

Need more wall

By jingfrey, shot with SONY ERICSSON P1i
When my sister who lives in Australia came to visit via Singapore, she gave me the first two wall decors. When I was in Hong Kong, my brother suggested buying the third one.

The question now is... where do I hang them?

Today's Dose of Randomness

Cleaning up my cellphone and found this image:

By jingfrey, shot with SONY ERICSSON P1i

That's Ted and his wrist watch taken Nov. 23 ... he asked me to buy a metal wristband of the same color in Hong Kong. Took the picture just so I won't make a mistake on the color. Problem was, I didn't see any Timex watches being sold in the places I went to in Hong Kong, and neither did Jon.

------Joggers back at Centro Pacita------

Walking to the bus station this morning I thought of pulling out my cellphone and click pictures of Centro Pacita:

By jingfrey at 2008-01-01


By jingfrey at 2008-01-01

The joggers have re-claimed the place. No sign of the weird golfer. Don't think there's a big enough patch of grass on which he could practice now.

Things of Note Today

Got a watch from Ate Tess
All of a sudden, people are giving me watches :-)
Ate Tess just handed me a watch that has beads for the wrist band. One that my officemate Jeng would consider making as a hobby. It's cute. I don't know when I'll be wearing it though... it looks too much like something a girl - as in a young girl - would wear. I wonder if I can find the time to look for a wrist band to replace the beads? I do know why she bought it ... the brand name of the timepiece is Chinese and is Jin-G. Ha ha ha!

Everybody loves ABS-CBN?
Rowena, one of Rach's blogfriends, occasionally drops by my blogger site to read and leave comments. I've added her site to my RSS feeds in order to catch whenever she makes a post. Her past 2 posts were stuff I already read on chain mails I got from other people, but her last post was interesting. ABS-CBN's Maalaala Mo Kaya show was at her house recently to film an episode. I don't know whose story they're doing, but based on the pictures she posted I know the episode is directed by Jerry Lopez Sineneng and stars Valerie Concepcion and Daria Ramirez. Some bloggers have left comments joking that they now know where she lives and will go caroling at her house this Christmas.

That makes her person no. 6 I could connect with the network, along with an officemate' husband who provides transpo to ABS-CBN crews that need to go on-location, another officemate's aunt who's a TV segment producer, 2 high school batchmates who used to be in Star Circle but dropped out of show business (one of them eventually moved to news reporting) after they got married (they still appear in commercials), and another high school classmate who used to be a field reporter.

I was in touch with the latter even after college and would kid her whenever I catch any news segment wherein the person she's interviewing does something randomly funny. She disappeared from field reporting years ago and I'm not in touch with her now. Her name once appeared as associate producer of the now defunct Magandang Umaga Pilpinas, but is now listed as one of those given (early) retirement packages by ABS CBN.

Ho-hum... everybody loves ABS-CBN I guess. I usually watch GMA7 though when it comes to local stations. Well, not everybody loves ABS-CBN ... someone left a rant against the station on the PNB ad for The Filipino Channel I uploaded on YouTube. Told the guy (?) there's little chance his sentiments will reach ABS-CBN through my YouTube channel.

Wrath of Sam
Speaking of YouTube, Sam actually answered the guy who left insults on a clip from her birthday recital that I uploaded on YouTube. I don't know if she went as far as hunting him down to his YouTube channel, but I noticed he has taken off all the videos he has posted (there were just 2 anyway). Last time I checked, he's replied to her. Again, I can't help but be amused at how he writes like a bitchy woman. Hopefully this does not escalate to war between the two. You see, as far as girls go, Sam is what people would call "siga" ("toughie" in english, and for trivia's sake it came from the word sigarilyo, because smoking cigarettes used to be considered unsocial and toughies were associated with heavy smoking). Just realized it's an amusing combination: bitchy boy and toughie gal.

Yohan's Health:
Rach blogged that Yohan felt bad enough to make her rush him to the hospital. She fears dengue but the hospital says the results are negative for dengue and diagnosed bacterial infection instead. He's being monitored though. Hope he gets well soon.

Rach's New Domain Name:
Rachel recently got her own domain name: www.mysoulfulthoughts.com
It's some sort of consolation prize from her friend Tina who hosted a contest (I think the objective of that exercise was to get as many hits on Tina's blog as possible). Rach hasn't really migrated to it yet, but you can already access the site. She's still publishing her blog at her blogger site.

Rach has become a serious blogger lately. She's a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM) and if she's not managing the home and taking care of her husband Jules and son Yohan, you'll probably catch her online. She's got a whole set of friends she met just by blogging. She and other SAHMs have actually set up an online magazine - Pinoy Moms Network, and Rach contributes articles regularly. She's also into increasing traffic to her site and writing blog entries that are actually advertising (the get-paid-per-post advertising thing). She's so hooked on blogging I think she even had withdrawal symptoms when her internet connection was faulty (as in zero connection) for about 3 days. Half the things she does are alien to me now. And to think, I was blogging even before she knew what a blog was.

Just realized she took off the widget that's supposed to identify what country the online visitor came from. I told her the widget's faulty because it keeps saying I live in Australia. He he he.

Today's dose of Randomness

Very happy to find Karen and Cely's e-mails in my inbox. I've uploaded the pictures they sent in and put the links in the jingsbb blog.

Sam called last night. She just got off the phone with Ogie and was so annoyed she needed to talk to another person to let off steam. She and Ogie are partners in the wedding-coordinating business: To Be Wed. What Sam was ranting about? A client feedback that suggested Sam smile during weddings. Was chuckling quietly while she blabbed on. Honestly, one would think she's the one pregnant and not Ogie. Conversation ended when her mom texted her via celphone and suggested she watch Tulfo's show on Channel 9. It was some sort of expose on Senator Lacson. I think she's more into following political news than I am.

Speaking of Ogie, she's going to give birth last week of November. She's thankful it won't be first week of November. She doesn't think she can handle a child with Sam's temper. Sam's birthday is November 8. I learned this from Sam herself. She's the first one to admit she's a grouchy person.

New set of iron grilles being installed at the carport. The separation will allow the two dogs (Heidi and Becky) to run around free in front without fighting. The two dogs are to be in front of the house so the cats can be in peace at the back. We've got so many cages and grilles to separate the pets that I'm for naming this place "The Fortress". Jon thinks more along the lines of prison. It's more likely the zoo but fortress sounds better.

The planet Mars was supposed to be at its nearest point to Earth in 5000 years last Wednesday or nearabouts. The sky was clear Wednesday but got cloudy the night after. Jon has a telescope. Maybe he stepped out to see the planet. Jasper sent me e-mail with an image of "Mars upclose" attached to it. Was torn between laughing out loud and wanting to wring his neck yet again. It was a picture of a Mars chocolate bar.

He keeps sending those kind of mail where I think it's about another and open it to find out it's about something else. When others forward jokes, I usually could guess what it's about before opening the file. Jasper's aren't predictable. Hopefully, when he does announce his marriage (yikes, realized just now I can't remember his girlfriend's name), it won't be in the form of a joke.

At least Jasper promised to tell us. Allan didn't - he was just absent from class a week and I took a wild guess as to "Why?". He sheepishly admitted I was right - he got married and was on honeymoon in Bohol. Really, you'd think we'd be offended if we don't get invitations. We can understand not being invited - we're just classmates in MBA. Albeit the five of us formed a strong bond because of those late nights solving Financial Accounting assignments.

We bonded during our first term - second half of year 2001. We grouped together because we all lived south (Paranaque, Laguna, Batangas). We'd meet Tuesdays in either Festival Mall or Alabang Town Center and occupy a table in the food court until the mall closes. If we weren't done yet, we'd move to Starbucks or the billiard hall/bowling alley/restaurant-place-whose-name-I-can't-remember-right-now. Both had tables and close much later. If we haven't solved all problems, we met again Thursday. We called ourselves the 1 o'clock breakthrough group. That's because when we were stumped, it's either I figure out the solution at 1 a.m. (yes morning!) or someone else gets the solution at 1:00 p.m. Saturday right before the accounting class starts at 1:30. After that term, we'd still hang around together if we see each other in the canteen. If one or two of us are taking the same subjects, we'd take the same class.

Miss the group. We're kinda separated now. Jasper takes classes in the Greenhills Campus because he's moved back north to his mother's place after it was robbed. Rachel is on leave because she just gave birth. She was on leave her whole pregnancy because the doctor prescribed bed rest. Claire often enrolls in classes at the RCBC campus. Allan is usually in the Taft campus. I was on leave last term. Still on leave this term.

I took a leave because I got transferred to Peso GS trading April and I cannot deal with studying MBA and learning the ropes of GS trading at the same time. I barely passed the subject I was taking when the transfer happened. Plus, I failed to turn in at least three research papers. That means I have to repeat that if I enrolled. Next term starts September. Online enrollment ended last week. Don't like the prospect of doing research papers just yet so I enrolled for residency. Means I don't have subjects but I can enter campus without the scanner emitting a warning signal when I flash my ID before it. I think I can also borrow from the library. And, I can get free issues of Far East Economic Review and Asian Wall Street Journal from the Graduate School office. As if I'd enter campus :-) I think the only time I'll ever enter campus this term is to pay the residency fee.

2003 Forced Leave: Day 2

Second day of my 5-day leave. I'd probably go out later.

Tess' birthday tomorrow. She was here Sunday and mom cooked pancit (usual birthday fare). She brought brownies and crema de fruta. Goldilock's version of crema de fruta is too sweet. I've decided to make a simple, less sweet one next weekend. Dunno if she'll be here though.

Lots of birthday celebrants this august:

Lola Cion
Sally
Mary-Anne
Katrina
Ardes
Willie-john
Tessie

Happy birthday all! Sorry I wasn't able to send you e-cards.



The carpenter's back. The repairs aren't finished and the carpenter took another higher paying project. It's finished now, ergo he's here. Reminds me of Murphy Brown ... the painter never finished painting the house. Ha ha ha!

Thinking of buying a scanner. Repulsed at the idea of spending too much though. He he he. We'll see. Willy told me he's willing to give me a digicam... waiting for it. He wrote once to ask what "pasalubong" i want. If he's willing to give more than the digicam - then here's my wish - just send the dollars. :-)