Eew!

I have read Rose's blog, of Cottage Rose via Tracey's link and there she was talking about her encounter with a snake in her garden. I was squirming on my seat while reading through it. You see my fondness for animal only stretches to my feline and small canine friends. You can put in some rabbits, and birds and aquarium fishes, but other than that, my human brain power cannot equal the physical strength of most animal, so I would rather stay as far away from them as possible.

I would like to share with you the list of creatures that I find rather scary despite of their size.



Snake - These cold-blooded reptiles are also cold-blooded killers, and it always seems the further you get away from home, the deadlier they get. If you thought the bite was bad, the aftereffects of a snake bite are even worse. I haven't been bitten though despite those early years in Manarra but its there where I saw different species and sizes of snakes.



Jelly fish - yes this graceful free-floating marine creature actively swim to hunt their prey, and a nice human leg or arm can suffer some serious collateral damage. Its one reason I hate swimming in the beach, aside from the salty water hurting my eyes.



Bees - one bee sting is manageable and not a big deal, it’s when they swarm in packs and sting the living crap out of us that we’re in trouble. I know that bees are extremely territorial and don’t need a big excuse to take us out. Just Imagining getting stung hundreds or thousands of times all at once isn’t a pleasurable thing, so I would rather duck and hide when I see a hive.



Crocodiles - I had taken a good look at one of these prehistoric beasts and realized just how deadly they can be. Once they get a hold of us, we’re done because they’ll engage the roll maneuver, ripping our limbs right out of our sockets. Follow that with being dragged into our watery grave, and we’ll be lucky if we drown before we even know what ripped us apart.



Mosquitoes - With mosquitoes, the deadly strike comes from simply snacking on humans. Of course, it’s not the bite that delivers the painful blow - it’s the contraction of diseases you get afterward. Fever, nausea, vomiting, an enlarged spleen, a whole host of problems show up and ultimately doom us to our death bed if we’re bitten by a disease-ridden mosquito.

Oh, you may have asked, where's the Lions, Tigers, Hippo, Panther, Elephants, Bears and other wild animals? Well folks, geographically, we don't have such animals roaming in our wilderness. Aren't I thankful?

So how about you? What other earthly creatures gives you an eew!?

Watch out, female at the wheel!

Men are better drivers. It’s that simple.

No, I am not looking for an excuse why I dont drive. I had sat in front of a wheel before and I was screaming each time someone or something crosses my path. It was nerve wracking and I told myself I won't drive ever again. Besides, my conceding defeat to men's skills is due to the fact that men invented cars and have been piloting them with greater skill since day one.



As a woman I know that we tend to get distracted while driving, maybe because we allowed certain amount of distractions with us. Just take for instance those celebrities or even everyday women who let their dogs in the car. Even the use of “dog” is stretching it, since the canines in question are possibly cats with personality disorders. Anyway, one yippy little thing riding on the lap of another yippy little thing equals one big reason women can’t drive.



I too, admit to singing while inside the car. Road tunes are as vital as gas itself, but some of what passes for music lately must be partially to blame for bad driving. When women sing and drive, the driving becomes far less a concern than the choreography to go with the shrieking. Please, no encore.



Most women also uses the mirror for personal reason- yes, to look at herself. Like her looks are going to metamorphose into Quasimodo between stoplights. And I hate it when the driver uses the cellphone while in front of the wheel. Despite the traffic penalty impose on such act, still I see people in traffic doing this. Please give these women all the space she needs, cuz OMG, u wont LOL if ur stuck next 2 a texter.



Another reason women can’t drive is a matter of interest -- or rather, a lack thereof. Women have no interest in cars beyond them serving as appliances of transport. As long as it starts, all is well. So when dash lights flash, components make ugly sounds or smoke appears, it may or may not resonate with the female driver that these are less than ideal operating characteristics.

Simply put, women do not have the driving gene. The only antidote is good insurance.

Some things can't be fixed.

I grew up in the sixties and in a practical family, where things aren't thrown away but recycled and repaired. We would wash aluminum foils after we use them and fix old shoes and sandals as long as we can squeeze life out of them.

Our life is full of fixing this and that - the kitchen door,the old radio, a bag, the chair, the hem of the dress or skirt, the pillow,... things we keep.

Yes, it was a way of life, although sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, re-heating, mending - I wanted just once to be wasteful! To throw old things away, knowing fully well there will always be more.

Last Sunday I got news that my father-in-law died. And last night I got a call from my sister in Bacolod. She told me that my Tita Bebing is fast slipping away. She had been battling lung cancer since last year.

Then it dawned on me that no matter how well I am able to fix some things, sometimes, what I care about most gets all used up and goes away - never to return. No amount of extenders can hold them anymore, there ain't glue available to keep them still. They will be cut off from my life and the distance is much farther than the farthest point on this earth. I cannot pretend that they just left temporarily and expect them to come home sooner or later. Instead, I can only hope to join them someday.

So, I figure that while I have my nucleus of a family, my old and new-found friends, my pet cat, and those other things that mean much to me, then it’s best that I love them, and care for them, and fix them when they're broken and heal them when they're sick. Not only because they need it, or because I want it, but because it's all worth it.

Lemonade Award.

Another award from Tracey who seemed to be getting all these wonderful awards!

Thanks for passing this on to me, Tracey. Awards like this makes blogging worthwhile.

Now, to whom will I pass this to? hmmmm....

I will give it to Sid of Useless Information, Joy of Stardust and Moonbeans, Boysie of Shifting Sands, Ms Moon of Bless Our Hearts, Joey of Living with Brittle Asthma and Kingdom of Estarra.

Go and get it guys!

Tattoo, anyone?

We could fill a book with all the dumb things we’ve done growing up. Yet, no matter how many dumb things we did, none can compare to a lifelong reminder of our idiocy, which comes in the form of a bad tattoo. From an old girlfriend’s name to a cartoon character to barbed wire wrapped around an arm.

It used to be mens' domain, but now more and more women are joining the tattoo bandwagon. Am I seeing Amy cringe? Yeah, Tracey she did make a good effort keeping her tattoo from mom and dad. Ha ha ha.

So ok, I have seen some guy’s with tattoo that look good on them, but generally, I don’t understand why people are painting their body. I do understand however, that these tattoos speak about the person’s personality.



I have seen macho men with a super hero tattoos. Sure, Batman is a badass, Spiderman is cool and Superman is awesome. Also the emblems emblazoned on their chest represent heroic greatness in their stories, but when tattooed on someone, they just represent that person’s geekiness.

And that idea of getting a mythical animal - whether it’s a giant, an elf, sprite or unicorn is as outlandish as the myths from which they originate.

I also saw men with an anchor. Do they captain a sea-trawling vessel? Live in a battleship? Sail the high seas as a pirate? Unless they have a girlfriend named Olive and an addiction to spinach, then they should leave the anchor tattoo to true sailors and start thinking about other options for themselves.



I noticed too that it seems everybody has a Chinese symbol tattoo. And when asked, they say it represents peace, strength, compassion, or other pseudo-spiritual theme. But I am certain that most would admit they can’t verify if that’s indeed what their tattoo means. For all they know it could say “kick me.”

There are also those who think Bob Marley is god and Al Pacino’s Scarface is cool. Some have a soft spot for Elvis, so they immortalize them with a tattoo. It sounds reasonable, yeah. But beware. Their strong real-life face in photographs can quickly turn into a cartoon in someone’s arm. And with a botched illustration, they simply reduced these people to a caricature – for life.



Still others have a pop-culture mentality. Some funny lines struck them and they like to get a laugh from their buddies, so they decided to print it across their shoulder blades. But what if this joke fades? They will be stuck with an expression from an era they are about to outgrow. And I can say the same with those Looney Tunes characters.



But what really appalled me is a tattoo on a person’s face. I think that’s ok if one is planning to join a freak show or have figured out that he can make a living off it. But if your not Maori or anyone working outside a tattoo shop or carnival, should avoid a face tattoo at all cost.

I can tolerate it if my sons come home with a red or even green hair color…but please, not a tattoo!

A feeling of nostalgia.

It’s one thing to live through the ‘70’s and quite another to have it thrown back at you – remixed.

You see, whenever I go around shops, the music I hear is generally the music I heard twenty or thirty years ago, except that the shoulder pads are gone. And when I hear music from the ‘70s, I am immediately inundated with visions of flared pants, the jumpsuits, bang-bang, dyed t-shirts, flat form shoes and teased hair that’s at least a foot tall.

I look at kids nowadays carrying CDs or simply storing away digital music and wonder how we managed then to lug around our favorite round vinyl album that came in square covers. Where today, people slip in an MP3 player in their pockets and listen to music while walking, we use to carry boom boxes on our now-scoliotic shoulder.

But then there are moments when I am positive I am in another decade, and a decade that I sometimes need a map to get around in. Why does it seem complicated to be an adolescent in this day and age? Or is it easier?
I was waiting in line in a cashier counter the other night and saw these girls beside me wearing a P1,000 flipflops, carrying fancy phones, and I couldn’t help hearing their conversations.
“ Are you going to Bora?”
“ No eh, we already went to Bora last summer.”
“ I want to go to Siargao!”
“ Yeah! Oh my God! Let’s go!”
“ But we don’t know how to surf!”

I felt sorry for the parents. It’s a near impossibility that these kids actually earned any money they were so extravagantly spending. Such conversations would be hard to find among people actually earning their own money. Well I bet, ten years from now, this is how those kids will sound:
“ Are you going to Bora?”
“ Are you nuts? Do you know how much the hotels costs?”

Maybe I get disappointed with kids of today because they don’t seem to have any social consciousness at all. Ok, I know I am making unfair generalizations. Many kids actually are aware of the world beyond their headphones, but that life now has become almost ridiculously complicated.

Thirty years ago I stood in line with three twenty five centavo coin to use a phone where you drop the coin, stick your finger in the hole corresponding to the appropriate number and dial. Today I saw one such phone used as a mall store décor and it looked like a museum piece.

Yes there are so many things I missed from my past. But at least when I get to thinking that I miss the music, all I have to do is turn on the radio and its all still there.

Hair gone wild.

I don’t fuss over my hair. But I don’t like it when it started to cover my eyes, or when some strands tend to become unruly. And I hate combing it, thus I keep it short so I can simply ran my fingers through them. I cut my hair every two months, and now had to resort to dyeing it as I am seeing more gray than black.

Oh well, hair styles changes a lot, and each era seemed to have a hair style of its own. The seventies are more of the upswept curl and Farrah Fawcett was an icon. I remember doning a long wavy hair in high school too, which I painstakingly curl using a roller overnight to give it a curve. Of course, it is very uncomfortable sleeping with your hair tightly clasp on rollers! Hair gel and hair color isn’t the fad then.

But aside from being a woman’s crowning glory, and spending millions for its upkeep, teenagers nowadays use their hair to piss off their parents. Even Madonna changes her hair to represent each comeback, and Donald Trump represents his wealth with a comb-over. It is common knowledge that Samson used hair to store his power, while Rapunzel used her hair to sneak the prince into her tower – how early teenage rebellion began.

But do you know that hair is more than just a dandruff jungle?

Oh yes, hair they say can also clean up oil spills. Funny, but when an oil tanker sank in the coast of Panay a year ago, someone from the government here called for all concerned citizens, specifically salon owner to donate their hair clippings to a government agency tasked to clean up the sea. Did it work? I don’t know, but some observers say it will add more pollution to the sea bed as human hair isn’t biodegradable.

So whoever had hatched this “hairbrained” plan must have seen an oil soaked Otter, thereby he collected human hair clippings from local salon and stuffed them into a pair of his wife’s pantyhose and viola: an oil mop!

Of course, finding hair in your food can ruin a meal, eew! But, what if your food was made of hair – or at least your condiment?

Darn, but as expected, another Chinese company, Hongshuai Soy Sauce, marketed their product as “using the latest bioengineering technology”. However, the company didn’t use amino acids derived from wheat, but amino acids derived from human hair swept off of barber’s floor.

See how one person’s recycling is another person’s retching over toilet?

And did you know that during the Victorian era, women often wore jewelry made from the hair of deceased loved ones? Yes, since there were no photos of dear old grandma, her hairs paid homage. A most morbid fashion I should say, since the Amazons wore shrunken heads around their necks.

Thank God for digital cameras…