More than twenty years have passed. A stretch of time, long enough to own a journal of funny bone-tickling thoughts. An episodic plot for a pinoy expat continually adapting to the nuances of a language. Surprisingly, he does navigate with an American driver’s license. Living with American job skills but in the mold of a culture left behind. You can’t stop remembering the humor there is in being an expat for a decade or two.
Am I dyslexic?
I grew up using the pinoy vernacular to point directions. Most of the time, the sun is my compass. But what about when the sun rises? The house faces West through the patio. I’ve set my position pretty straight here. It’s the driving that makes you laugh most of the time. Scared of driving on the freeways, I skirt the back roads where driving exceeds my speed limit. Driving the main streets with lights directing my time to work is easy, isn’t it? When the road is straight, and it’s secondary roads, I see a procession of cars behind me. When they finally pass through my lane, I hear horns and voices. I don’t understand; they sound like loud slang! And, I don’t yell back. Americans don’t make eye contact. They are not conflicting. So I stand still, watching my driving, praying that I’ll be where I’m going on time soon. Yes I need to be an aggressive driver!
Where is my GPS?
I finally got the highway hustlers out of my way. My written directions work better than a GPS. When he falls silent, I’m afraid I’m totally lost in the ways I least take. I knew I skimmed through it on my google maps (boss says mapping is out of date) but for me, it works, I’m a bookworm! With my index finger, I keep playing until I know why McDo or Walmart happened on my standard drive. So the unit goes smooth. I realized I needed an upgrade for my Apple iPad mini (the boss is jealous!). The new version has a built-in GPS (they said that Samsung did some intellectual hacking, who was the first then?). Both the mapping and the GPS need an update; They can’t seem to meet my needs on the road!
To each his own
I have never been friends with my dishwasher until recently. It had given the most laughs as far as I can remember. From oozing soap scum (wrong TIDE soap was used) to weird noise (cutlery got into spinner and fought by itself to work). Sometimes its use is a confirmation that I will never get to own it. The wash becomes cloudy. So many times I would see the same cutlery that I had just washed in the sink (4-6 of them). The head of the house could not have used so much in such a short time! Then when the speech is light (he sees that it’s non-confrontational (again), he knows when to get to the tiger when he’s tame!), he would say by way of comment what I did with the dishwasher. Again I would remain silent. Deep down I cringed. After all these years, I have never quite mastered washing silverware the right way. It’s okay, I wash them by hand, except when I’m in a hurry. Most of my laughs come when my cousins are around. Polite, they take over the washing of dishes, but they always complain that there is too much in there, they can’t wash! Hey, if I leave it full or empty it’s none of your business, it’s my dishwasher and dryer!
The Gourmet is going to cook
I am a Food Channel addict. I might flip my X-Men radar when Rachael Ray is in that big tube doing her 30-minute meals. Andrew Zimmerman picks up a scorpion on the outskirts of Malaysia. He then he is ready to soak in a vinaigrette overturned with a thousand spices; he does not modify! Yes, I know to be with him in most BIZARRE FOOD FINDS. I never took notes on the food that I seem to like to make. You see I want original recipes. If I like what I see I would move it and still bow as if it were my own. Everybody does that. My friend modified my recipe and posted it as her own after including me in her FB contacts. Can I fight a newly found family member? But again, when the writing needs to level up, I hate data scaling. Without fail, the track talks about my victories; I can go on and on and be nice to my keyboards. Treating a cookbook is a no no for me. I would buy one and let it sit in my kitchen for display. The head of the house jokes about how I can cook without one. If I make the same dish over and over again, wouldn’t I have memorized how to do it after the second or third try? I don’t need a cooking bible to perfect one. Repetition is the teacher of perfection!
I could go on and on, and the laughs get the best of me. I tolerate my boos because the Pinoy in me is still me!