Federer, Infanticipation, & that Rotting Chicken

Friday madness.   Where did the day of Friday madness go?  There are one hundred fifty one (yes, 151) resumes sitting on my desk waiting for me to kill them one by one.  Intel has announced closure of operations and massive lay offs in gigantic proportions loom in the papers.  That’s only a few days after Barack’s historic inauguration.

But  yeah.  The signs have been there as early as November, when I started interviewing engineers from Texas Instruments.  It continued on in December last year when I started getting a lot of applications from former BPOs and call center employees.

Yep.  Life goes on.  We manage with this kind of outlook by looking at resumes of people looking out for jobs.  It helps that after going through these resumes and have cut them down to 10 possible candidates for pre-screening, I can talk to family members and friends who bug me about how their interviews went also.

Then I see I go online and she says, Go Federer!  Wow! The rush of excitement hits me.  I can almost imagine Federer running down with intent concentration to hit the ball.  And I think to myself, it would be good to spend a day along the banks of Lake Geneva, reading Paulo Coelho again and idling in the sun.  “But you’re so far away…”  so Carole King croons behind my ears.

A yahoo mail notification pops out.  Nharleen is infanticipating for the second time.  Yahoo indeed!  And she wasn’t even aware that she was pregnant until she thought she had sore throat and the doctors were telling her that there’s nothing wrong with her.  Immediately I thought that this should be a good excuse to celebrate.  A vision of the cosy resto bar two streets parallel to Benavides comes to my mind.  I went there last year just a few days before Christmas to pick up a bottle of wine – a 2005 Shiraz.  I had taken a look at their menu and saw they had beef carpaccio.   I sigh.  Amsterdam on a cold January day seems a thousand years ago.  I wish I had someone to buzz or call who is just ten minutes away.  I need a drink.

I tells me about patience when waiting for a job.  I tell her I know somebody who needs to exercise more patience.   And that somebody also has a lot of expectations from people around her, it becomes scary.  Scary because when she becomes disappointed, she watches for the rain.  Then the conversation heats up.  She tells me she’s not like that.  Yeah, she just waits for beer or wine.  Then she reminds me, oh don’t forget about crackers and cheese.

Amazing how a thousand memories long buried are resurrected by crackers and cheese.  I have altogether forgotten about those crackers which Sandy - that sweet, blonde Dutch bartender  at ISS- serves me whenever I climb up on a chair beside her bar at ISS.  Those crackers and the cheese with magnificent herbs bring me to life.  Throw in some red wine or Drommelsch and I’m good.  The red wine brings the glow back into my cheeks and I am a happy sot.  Never waste the dreary Dutch weather on thinking about rains.  There’s always good cheese, strong and old mustard which I love to hate and the bitter-sweet taste of the wine to make me feel happy enough to throw a dart or two.  Put in more people in the bar, especially on a Thursday night, and it’s happiness all around. I and I look forward to these, other than her rains.

Happiness, of course, do not come simply in crackers and cheese.  There’s always laughter with friends.  A walk on a cold wintry day along Queen’s garden, with Nancy talking beside me or just simply being silent.  And what a cold day that was for both us as we tried to lose ourselves into our readings.  A moment away from the puddles of our minds. 

I heave another sigh.  Nancy and I were not the only ones who lost ourselves during the transition from winter to spring.  There was that lunch with Sahar by that deli around the corner beside Prinsbaar.  When we sat around enjoying cold sandwiches on a cold weather.  Discussing issues but never discussing our issues.  We all respected each other for that.  There we sat.  All three women who can be women of considerable strength.  And we were as vulnerable with our thoughts sitting around in the deli but managing to be tough enough like that tough bread we ate.

And then the reminder of winter lost me back along the quiet streets of Amsterdam.  I was busily chatting with Ken who came for a visit.  Ken, you poof.  Carpaccio was great and the Vietnamese food behind the streets of the red light district.  The sweet aroma of marijuana pervading in the streets of Amsterdam and my unquiet thoughts as we tried talking about things I cannot now remember. 

A sense of peace came to me as I gazed down at Amsterdam from the rooftop of the Hilton hotel while munching on my breakfast.  It was then that I figured out what I had set out to do in the Netherlands.  It was then the enormity of the choices I will make weighed down on me.  It was then that I knew that inasmuch as I had learned to love the cold, cold country, I needed to get back to where I came from.

I knew that even as I sat gazing at the sunset from Seinpost rooftop.  Or just lying around by the sand along Schev Beach, waiting for the fireworks to come as Ayanda and Pem chatters happily or hearing Dina marvel over the sound of the waves.  Even as I enjoyed the company of Adrianus, Kazuyo, Avi, Nur, and the Indonesians.  Even as I sat inside the tram just going around the city of Hague and discovering for myself that I can be alone and still be as wretched as in the company of firneds.

But I will always remember the fun of being around the Indonesians, driving down our bikes to Delft, walking around Centrum or shopping with them along Brugge, Vienna and Prague.  I am disconnected with this kind of life.  Or so I thought.

Until I reminded me about that rotting chicken.  Oh, that was really one of the highlights of having I for a roomie.  How that incident really brought sunshine to my life in the Netherlands.  She made a trip to Konmar.  She was barely a week in Bazarlaan 25.  And already she was wreaking havoc in my grey mornings and nites.  On a fine morning, I woke up to smell something really suspicious from my ref.  As a result, I cleaned out all my old cheese inside, including the fresh ones that I really liked.  Still, the strong odor pervaded my nostrils.  I left for school hoping that the clean up will eliminate the smell.  Alas, I returned, tired and weary and ultra bored from my class.  Still the smell pervades the air.  I start hunting it down.  Lo and behold! Inside the vegetable bin calmly sat a harmless chicken.  I gets back inside the room and I asked her if she put chicken inside the bin.  Nonchalantly and calmly as a child who trusts her mother will not hurt her, she said yes.  I didn’t know whether I should spank her as a recalcitrant child or laugh.  Laughter won.  I told her you don’t put chicken inside the bin.  You freeze it.  I being I, she said she didn’t know that you were supposed to freeze chicken.  She’s only a lawyer by profession.  How she managed to pass the bar, I didn’t know.  I suppose, that’s why lawyers lord over courtrooms and not kitchens.  Leave the kitchen and the ref to the cooks and chefs.  Never let a lawyer near a kitchen and they start filling up the ref with strange odors.  Chicken ended up in bundles of plastic bags and inside the garbage can.  I prayed that nobody died from smelling that rotting chicken afterwards.  Certainly not that yummy looking caretaker that a lot of women in the ISS have been swooning about.

So I managed to lift me up from one of my bad moods today.  But still, the resumes here clamor for my attention.  It takes a lot from me to go over them, knowing these are people hoping to find a job or a better opportunity.  I only need one for the position.

So where is this all leading to?  These rumbling thoughts on a Friday filled with melancholia and madness?  It all leads to freedom from toil and stress.  To Rhi-rhi dances, Iskox hugs, Boo-boo Abu clinging.  To a whining girl who pesters me about a little bear named Angel who chose to stay in Las Pinas over the New Year.  To a bedroom under construction for months on end now.  To a husband who wishes for hot soup with lots of meat on a sunny and humid day.  To the batcave and to friends from long ago years of battling my demons at San Beda.  To the weekend and another week of staying cooped up on my desk.  And to another round of being on the road up north.  Up to Highway 33, looking over my shoulder when I gazed at a blue moon when I spent my birthday on the road last December.  Probably, another day to laugh.  Another day, a different place.  A different time.  A different kind of drink.

I sure hope the road does not come to own me.  There’s so many dreams I’ve yet to find…  But you’re so far away…

Cheers!

1 comment January 27, 2009