The Day After

i woke up seeing the sun streaming in the chowking room. i thought it was already late but the clock read only 630am. i stayed put, lying on my back perfectly still while staring at the ceiling. paralyzed na ba ako? twitching a little here and a little there, i felt the muscles in my shoulders, upper arms, thighs, and legs are aching. hindi pa. to be certain, i got up and went to the living room. sure enough getting down the stairs took me a long time, but i did passed my i'm-not-paralyzed test. i walked with great effort and took a nap on the sofa - which is not exactly a soft-a. its a hard wooden soPa. a few minutes later, i opened my eyes seeing papa and kuya looking down at me. buhay pa ko!, i wanted to tell them, but instead i just got up and went in the pink room. i borrowed ate april's HP6 and read a few pages before eating breakfast. then, i continued reading potter's tale until i heard the familiar "tita, laro tayo."

like a zombie with my body weighing like a ton, i followed yuri up the chowking room. yuri seemed to have planned the whole day for us. she carried a bag full of toys and made me carry mike sullivan and the toy guitar. yuri explained that we will be playing upstairs so that moimoi, the little monster, will not bother us. good, 'cause moira is a nuisance when we play house. oh! and of course walking up the stairs was a pain in the ass, literally. i found out the muscles in my buttocks hurt too.

that day, we pretended to be camping in the woods. remembering the conversation last night, i couldn't expect anything else could i?

papa: san kayo uli pumunta?

me: sa ta--

yuri: sa bundok!

papa: pano kayo pumunta dun?

yuri: naglakad sila..

and that's without telling yuri what happened yet.

we used blankets as tarp and manang's stick as a pole. then we prepared for sully's birthday party. our party food was my leftover trail food. we placed them in toy plates and saucers. sully's cake was made of duplo with bread sticks for candles. party started when tigger, bart and lisa came. somewhere in between i told yuri i wanted to sleep. she replied in a very sad voice, "hindi na nga tayo naglalaro eh." i felt guilty and missed yuri more so i tried to stay awake longer. we sang sully a happy birthday song, ate, played games, and had fun. but when i could barely open my eyes i told yuri i really need to sleep. "gisingin mo na lang ako pagkakain na." "ok. pero lalaro tayo ulit ha." then she went down and left me sleeping.

i woke up three hours after. yuri told me she tried waking me up but i wouldn't bulge. she told me to eat lunch, but i didn't. i felt i don't have the appetite having missed eating with the family. so thinking of nothing else to do but play yuri, moira and i went to the playground. we watched moira, almost 2 years old, go up and down the slide all by herself. after a lot of sliding and playing on the monkey bars, we took a break and ate popsicles in the clubhouse. then we played in the swing and went to outerspace. when we touched based on earth for the third time, we agreed it's time to go home.

after taking a much needed bath, yuri and i cooked and ate pancit canton. then, we played with her doll house and with kim possible. wanting something more realistic, we played sims in the pc. at around 530pm, papa went out to jog. yuri wanted to go too, but i told her i couldn't come along 'cause my body's hurting all over. yuri just said "ok. laruin mo na lang yung sim ko."

a few hours after dinner, yuri said goodnight.

i wonder when we'll be having good quality time again. the last time before this was the day she watched me take my tennis lessons. we jogged around the subdivision after and i gave her a piggy back ride home because she was tired. that was more than a month ago. sadly, it took me more than a month to play with her again.

playing with yuri is what i miss most. it's what i miss most every weekend i'm away. being with the family is what i miss most the next. i really do miss being with yuri and the family, but then there are things in life i cant postpone anymore or just wonder about my whole life. i guess i just have to be home earlier on weekdays so i can eat dinner with the family, and yuri and i could have at least a little time for each other.

yuri will be turning 7 on the third of august. seriously, i wish she'll be 16 or 18 or 20 every weekends so i can take her along my adventures. then again, that's too selfish of me. so i just keep telling myself that when yuri's old enough, i'll be more than prepared to take her to where ever mountain she wants to go to, and even competent enough to give her tennis lessons and dragonboat rowing lessons. yup! someday i'll be able enough, so missing each other today shouldn't have to be such a sad thing... someone ought to remind me that often.

Finder's Keepers

back in college, i remember seeing tents being put up in the middle of the lobby. the tents will then have cookwares, backpacks, and what-have-you around or inside them. what-have-you includes peculiar looking people milling around the set-up. i'll be one of those curious passers-by who will inquire what the fuss is, and then walk away. at the start of every school year, i'll be seeing this similar exhibit. sometimes the same people will be convincing me to join them, but to no avail. i guess i was too busy with bar & beerkada and later on with my affiliations that i never seriously considered joining them.

but even after the week of recruitment of members, i'd still be able to identify these peculiar people around the campus. there's something about them that make them stand out among the crowd. something aside from their hairy and untidy looks, multipocketed bags, and colorful friendship bands. there's something about them that appeals to me, something astig. teka lang, si neph astig?!?! what the ....?! just kidding neph ;)

neph is a member of UST MC. we became close friends when we, together with the nova gang, were reviewing for the board exams. sometimes during nonproductive moments he will tell us stories about his mountaineering escapades - all of which were amusing and interesting. once i asked him why do they climb mountains and what do they get from all those climbing. without much thinking he would say that trekking up is tiring but what kept him going is the thought of "pag nasa summit ka, ang ganda-ganda ng sunrise." at which i'll retort, "masmaganda pa kay rhia??" "oo naman!" neph would say without batting an eyelash. the topic will then move on to jeering at neph's forlorn lovelife. much as the ruckus would continue, the question still lingered on my mind.

i asked the same question to leo. he is a good friend from the higher batch who joined a mountaineering org right after college. since joining the org, he would always ask me to join their open climbs, to which i was never able to because of one reason or another. To my question he gave a very intriguing answer: "Sumama ka na lang para malaman mo."

so here i am, an official applicant to Ortigas Center Mountaineers, Inc. one of the will-be members of Batch X, representing ten years of OCMI existence. i filled up an application form weeks ago. i remember stopping and thinking for a while on one of the questions. i cant remember the exact words but it was asking me why i wanted to join or why do i want to climb mountains. Deep in thought i wrote down: to be closer to God. twice i filled up a form asking that question, and twice i wrote the same answer. i haven't literally climb a mountain yet so i don't know if there's truth in what i wrote.

what's that glow in them mountaineers? why do they climb mountains? heck! i don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering about the answers. asking around wouldn't do. i am going to find out for my self.

this weekend we will be having our first training climb. my first ever climb. we will be trekking up Tarak Peak, Mt. Mariveles at Bataan. the seriousness of my blog may hide it but note that i am soooo excited. i'm so excited! / ta-nan-ta-nan-ta-nan-tan! / and i (can't) hide it... =)