Monsoon Flowers

Blossoms

Last Friday wasn't much of a Friday like any other as the wind was still blowing from the west and with it came more gray clouds. It started getting boring come 3 p.m. so here I was again. I looked out the backyard and saw this beautiful flower that sprouted from what probably is from the same species as the taro. I grabbed the camera and began taking some pictures. I guess I got a bit carried away from snapping as I went around the house taking pictures of almost every blossom there was to snap at-in a somber way. That's one thing about the monsoon season. It brings with it an array of colors. Beau-tee-ful!

Rising Sun & Sabors

Da Opening & Fury Claw

Lang & Whatevers

Bogie & Da Risen Sun

Purple Cluster & Oranges
Hiding Claws & Hi-B
Fury Lion & Tai-bo

Sin-sir & White cotton

SOME FRUITS & VEGGIES

Boorie & Artist

And some nuts too

Poo & Pools

Kenneth's visit

Junior, our eldest son, visited us Saturday evening with his family (Devin, baby Kenneth and their mom Catherine) just as our binoculars were fixed on the tube watching "3:10 to YUMA". The concentration on the tube broke when we heard Devin's loud voice "hello...Kyler...". I went up the front door and there he was with his mom also carrying baby Kenneth who was all bright eyed and smiling (probably happy to see his old man again).

The Magic

Junior, Catherine and baby Kenneth left around 10 or so and so we went back to watching more DVDs when Devin came up to me and wanted me to "make magic". I use to trick this boy into holding something (be it candy or gum) in my closed palm, stick out the index finger of the same hand and play with his ear while at the same time saying "magic, magic...", open my hand and show whatever it was in my hand to him to his amazement. That is the magic and now, I'm running out of it as I don't have candy or gum for it. One time he came up to me, grabbed my hand, put it to his ears and there he was on his own "magic, magic" and when I opened my empty hand in front of him to find nothing, tried his luck on his other ear hoping the magic would work. Ai adai this boy. Another time he attempted this, all he found was a young betel nut in my hand which he gave up on. No more magic that time but last night, I had to tell him that my magic only works when the sun is up and shining. "Ooooo! When the sun come up" and I just replied "yes" and that was the end of the subject-at least for now.

Devin!-again

Pat and I took him to Sunday service but on our way there to Church, I told him to behave during the service. He said "yes" but wasn't looking at me but facing straight forward as if to say "why bother". "Devin, do you hear me" again "yes" but I guess I don't have to say what happened in church as you would already know.

SPAMALICIOUS

Rolling thunder here and there. It's been like this for 2 days and nights-I think. Right after my honey bun left for work this morning, I decided to cook something for my grumbling stomach. Besides the drizzling rain and occasional thunder rolling and our son Kyler with the television, everything was quiet for me in the kitchen as I went about with my preparation. Guess what it is I'm cooking for breakfast. Yep!!! The same thing Kyler had earlier when I came out to see off honey bun to work.

The peaceful moment vanished when my Par Ton came up the door unexpectedly and attempts to get my attention "oyy-oyy". He really got my attention alright because he frightened me from my concentration as I was dicing the SPAM-Oooops, said it. He giggled and walked out towards the back of the house probably to pick walawal. What else is there to do in the backyard except pick leaf but as the saying goes "do onto others what you want others done to you", it was done. As he came straight by the kitchen window, I yelled out and boy-you should have seen the look on his face. He was more scared than I was as he abruptly turned towards my direction-rounded eyes, puckered lips and a stance as if he was going to do the chacha with his back arched backward just as a scared cat would. I can't help but laugh at his reaction. He continued off walking and mumbled "se-lomw".

That's my Kompairi

Wait a minute!!!!!

Something's very wrong here. This can't be his picture. My kompairi has no teeth-unless of course, he had them fixed. He sent me the wrong picture. I told him to send the one with his best smile and this is what he sent. Dang it par!

U-1-na-b WIL SMITH you.

Rev&Tax / Devin

I'm not much of a person who likes to wait in line-most especially when the line is unusually longer than expected. This one though, took a turn for some laughs as Devin (our grandson) came along with me.

1 Day Ahead
My better half decided to task me with payment at the Revenue and Taxation (known for short, Rev&Tax). This was towards the end of the month and to make matters worst, it was "end of the quarter" when businesses and others scramble to pay up or be in deep shit. I had just taken her (my better half) to Rev&Tax the previous day just to pay for a simple business license. I waited in the car for what I thought was and endless wait before she came back out, hopped on the car and said "man, there's too many..." I just thought "frustrating and plain arrogant people"

The Next Day

Devin and I got there the next day to find the line spreading from east to west, taking up one side of the entire hallway which was lined with portable chairs. I just held onto my grandson's hand and stood at the entrance observing what was going on when a glass door to my right swung open and out came two people. Two individuals in line nearest to us stood up and entered the door where the two others came out from. We gradually walked to the end of the line, seated and timed the process. Every 10 or 15 minutes, we would all get up, moved one or two chair(s) over until one or two finally enters the cashier's booth area to do whatever business they had to do. I was only there to pay for one damn business license but now stuck in line with the rest.

Picking a Fight

Devin was somewhat getting bored and so he got off my lap after several attempts, stood for awhile when a guy came through the main entrance with his radio blurring some transmission. Devin let loose of me, approach the guy and there he was with a very clear "brod, you want fight". Everyone seating in the hallway who had been observing my boy laughed. I called for him but he kept behind the guy with the radio who didn't pay much attention to my boy's comment.

Getting Fresh

Two females sat to my left (one Filipino & the other Chamorro) before this big Caucasian dude with long beard, mustache and long crummy hair. He had on a T-shirt, shorts with slippers (zorrie) not to mention his round belly. This was the same dude who told me "Let him go. He's only a kid. Let him roam around...besides, he's keeping us entertained". I was a bit uncomfortable with my little one mindlessly roaming and entering the office spaces as I would constantly get off my behind and go after him. Another woman employee came out from one of the doors and there goes Devin running after her "Ay girlfriend-you got money". Laughter came from amongst us with the Chamorro commenting "si dad todo fumunagi enao" or something to that effect.

Feed Time

The line was moving slowly as frustration starts to built into everyone of us waiting. Some employees were seen roaming from door to door before this traffic started calming down. Then we saw some exiting the main entrance with their purses or what have they when the female Chamorro said "esta fanan oran lunch-no" (it's probably lunch time). I just thought to myself "11:30 and I'm still here". Now I can really feel the frustration building in me that I had forgotten about my boy who was no where in sight. I got up and looked around when one of the ladies in line before us pointed towards a door as if to tell me "he went in there". Sure enough, I knocked and entered and there he was sitted with 3 women employees who were having lunch-him too. Our sister-in-law Mona was one of them. I just told them how sorry I was and Mona just said it was okay as it was her lunch time. "I'll bring him out to you when he's finish eating".

Escort Service

I went back out and the Chamorro lady asked "monge i lai mu" (where's your kid) I responded comically "machochochu" (his working). The Caucasian dude "where" same respond "his working" he again, jokingly "he probably has more contacts around here than his pops" and everyone tend to agree with a little giggle. These occurrences made time past as we were slowly (but moving) towards the cashier's booth. A few minutes later, Mona came out holding Devin's hand with his other hand holding on to a doughnut. Another comment from the Caucasian dude to my boy "you work here" with a simple "yeah" from Devin who was truly working on the doughnuts.

Santa Clause

I think it was past 2 p.m. already and Devin had found a new playmate, a daughter of another person who came later and sat herself towards the end of the line. They were both running up and down the hallway and I could care less already of what my boy does when he finally approached the Caucasian dude whom he had gained some friendly trust with, stood in front of him and sort of surveyed him from top to bottom as I and others observed. He approached the dude, placed each of his small hands on each of the Caucasians knees and asked "you Santa Clause" the dude replied "that's my brother". Devin asked again "you shower" dude replies "yes I showered" Devin looking down the dudes feet with his hands still on dudes knees "you wass yo feet" dude replied "yes I washed my feet". I knew where the next question was going I just had to stop him from going further. Then came the Chamorro lady "tomtum boy dai enao lai mu".

Although there is no moral to this story, it only shows how much young ones can easily take your mind off from things you constantly are aware of around you. They make you smile, laugh, good ice breakers to avail of conversation to others whom you hardly know and most of all, great entertainers too.

Church Comedian

The Parish Priest, during one of his Sunday homily, stopped and told the congregation "wait, we have a commercial" and that's when Devin went up front, stood and faced the mass attendees-making face. It was a laugh too which brings me to think of placing ankle cuffs on him next time we go to Sunday church.

Our key players

FUTURE MUSICIAN & A STUNT DRIVER

As you can see from this clip how much mom can ignore our boy while not only singing to her but actually playing the uke for her, but mom is too busy working on the computer nay. But look towards the end of the clip as our grandson ends his song and places his music instrument down slowly.

"That's our Devin"

and how about our other grandson who is also coming up after him? He's so handsome that he smiles only when he wants to. His maternal grandfather categorizes him into the "looking committee" because he'll just look at anything of interest to him and I mean "look" as in gaze, eyes fixed and every other word that so much resembles look in da dang dictionary. Now WATCH!!!!

One plays the Uke and the other drives a "baby-walker"

LONG DISTANCE

CRITICAL INQUIRY

I was awaken from my "power nap" by our youngest son as he was handing me the phone saying "uncle Wayne". Wayne is presently residing in Salem, Oregon and his call sort of got me a bit worried this time. You see, our aunt Vicky was admitted in a hospital somewhere in Portland as she is still awaiting operations. This was why I was a bid worried by Wayne's call.

PHONE CONVERSATION

No greetings or anything but sort of like he was just calling from the neighbor's house to invite me for a drinking session.

I took the phone and listened for a while. I can hear other people in the background and were a little too loud compared to my weariness then I answered, "hello"he goes"Tikk, can you tell me what large reefs we got back there that are good fishing spots" I got to thinking for awhile, "what da hell is Wayne up to..." and responded back to his inquiry "Esmeralda" and he yells "Esmeralda", then I heard several voices in the background as if surprised and repeated after my brother "Esmeralda". Then Wayne comes back and asked "any more reefs that you know of" and I told him "Zalandia" and just as Wayne repeated Zalandia, more yells came from the background and I had to asked Wayne just what the heck he was up to. He said they were just sitting and talking of fishing spots (located) here at home but no one among them knew their names so that was the reason of his call. "They weren't just sitting and talking, I bet (everyone a dollar) they were sitting, talking and drinking too". And for you my brother Wayne, the picture above tells a whole lot of story in itself.

Among those sitting and talking (besides looking at the camera lens), mixing up a chew or two and drinking, these are just a few of the fishermen that can sum up a great (if not good) fishing stories of the Northern Islands. And the next time you decide to give me a call, ask first how I or my pet puppy are doing. Arra so?

Summer In

DEVIN POWER

Our grandson will be turning 3 years old come July and we have yet to plan on what to do on his birthday. Well, with the strain and burdensome economic situation we are presently experiencing, maybe a small family bar-b-que to show some love on his birthday.

Anyhow, he and I were glued to his favorite television channel-2 when power abruptly shuts off, he turned to me with a "what da hell" look and said "si Lucy". I asked "what about 'si Lucy" when he said "si Lucy turned off da power" I can't help but laugh as I came to understand what he meant by "si Lucy". He was simply telling me "...C.U.C. turned off the power".

VROOM, VROOM

I told my 2nd oldest son to cut the grass down at our mom's place approximately two weeks ago today. He did just that and was later dropped off to our house by our folks later that evening. He had used my brush cutter on that day and because I had not seen him when he was dropped off, I had no idea whether he had brought it back, so the next morning, I went out to the storage to see if he had brought it back. The gas container, the brush cutter line and my pair of cutters which he had also brought with him on this particular mission, were in the storage but no brush cutter.

I called him out and asked if he had brought the brush cutter back after cutting the grass when he simply told me that he had already put it back into the storage. I just told him to go look because I just can't seem to find it except for the three other items. He looked, came back and said he had stored it back in the storage but isn't there anymore. I asked if he had loaned it to anyone else but only stated he had not.

I didn't make a great deal out of the present situation as I only thought that maybe a family member had come and borrowed the brush cutter without us knowing. Besides, we woke up very late that morning and maybe they came and took it while we slept. A few days past and my better half started saying "maybe someone came and stole it" but I just thought "why would they only steal my brush cutter and not the rest of my tools". Not long after that, I began thinking the same thought as my wife except furious over what others would do with other people's belonging. Just a final word on this matter, "I truly hope whoever took my brush cutter would truly enjoy operating it, without it kicking debris into both his eyes and blind them"-just a thoughtful curse.

ANOTHER TRIP

The boys left on a fishing trip north again. This time around, only my par (West), my brother in law John and the Master Canoe carver Tuughumaay (and 9 other crew members) went on it. The boat will off load passengers in Alamagan, Pagan and Agrigan prior to heading all the way north where a national monument has been proposed. This should be an exciting trip as it will be this voyages first trip to the last island to the north. Can't wait to hear about it from the boys.

Un-announced

Da Electric Company
Didn't someone say "...come June, power outages will be a thing of the past" or was that meant to be the other months of June in the distant future? Not that my name is Francisco to be Frank or Tikko but quite frankly, I'm sure we all share the same frustrations over the many power outages we are now experiencing EVERYDAY. First came the scheduled outages followed by the unscheduled ones and the next thing we know, frequent outages that are burning up our appliances that we can't afford to have fix back into operation because we spent more on paying utility bills from the same electric provider that's responsible to the damages in the first place. Hafa Adai masusesedi? Essor salappi!!!!

Stimulated Situation
It was reported that the Chalan Kanoa branch of the U.S. Postal service was swarmed with a lot of people checking their mail boxes for their "Stimulus Checks" a few days ago. The Postal parking was filled with cars all the way to the Round House on the south. There must have been one hell of a traffic situation down there on that day. Let's blame and thank Uncle Sam for creating such a chaos. Ready? One, Two, Three-all together now. THANK YOU UNCLE SAM. Anyhow, it was one heck of a relieve to be able to par up a bit with bills. Thanks for stimulating me too.

Gas! Gas! Gas!
Had you been in the military, you'd be scrambling with your chemical suit as every second counts or your ass is grass. In our particular situation, we are exercising burning less fuel for more time-time your vehicle will take you until the engine chokes to death for the lack of fuel and decides to make you walk, hitch a ride (which is against local law) or find some other means to get to refuel.

Back in the 70's, we were lining up at the few gas pumps on island to fuel up our vehicles and whatever container(s) we may bring along with us. My late uncle owned a Willey's back then. He would hook up his military type trailer, stack it with his G.I. fuel gallons and any other container that will hold liquid (which include empty plastic Clorox containers) and get in a long and slow tedious line on a scheduled day to buy fuel. Because I was the mucus one back then, I was told to walk back home and get lunch as once you take your vehicle out of the line, you end up at the end to start over again which was something you don't want to do as most times, fuel supply runs out and that was before it was limited to something like 10 or 20 gallons per vehicle. I come back with lunch and my uncle was still lining up not anywhere close to the pump yet.

Present gag
As if the price of fuel is not high enough, some idiot decided to play some stupid rumor that the gas price was to climb past 5 bucks per gallon starting around 2:00 p.m. on that given day. I was driving past the San Vicente Mobil station when I first came across an unusual long line to the pumps only thinking "Stimulus". I came up past the Kagman Mobil where there's another unusual long line of cars probably waiting to gas up. The same thought came to me again "Stimulus".

Around 4:00 p.m. as I was heading back up the same road from Kagman, cars were still lined up at the Mobil station but the board still read "4.62" per gallon. This just kept me wondering why people were really lining up at the fuel pumps. This got me thinking on my way up to Capitol Hill as I was heading to pick up my better half from work. The gas gauge on our vehicle was registering a quarter tank. Should I go and fill up?

The first thing that came out from my better half was "has the gas price gone up already". I just asked her back "is it suppose to go up". Not taking any chances, we headed down town to the nearest ATM and on our way down, Shell Marianas located in (local) Puerto Rico still indicates the same price for unleaded. We got some money out from the bank and headed to the middle road Mobil station to fuel up.

Hyped Old Lady
Surprisingly, there were only a few vehicles lined up at the gas station by the time we got there. I went inside to pay for the gas and found myself in line behind an Oriental couple and an elderly Chamorro woman. The elderly's turn to pay her purchase and as she approached the cashier's counter she asked "is the price of gas really going up" only to be responded by the Philippine national lady cashier "I don't know ma'am-we don't get da memo yet" and I interrupted from behind the elderly "can I give you a memo to bring down the price of gas to a dollar" as they both laughed followed by a comment by the elderly "ai ya sina mohon no laihu".

The Gas Attendant
I found our nephew working the pump on my car as he conversed with my better half who was still in the car. I asked him if their station was busy earlier and he responded "you should have been here this afternoon uncle. There were more cars and more people here than during the grand opening". We gathered from him that people were also arguing as to who came first in line to get gas. Oh well, All is well...I think.

4 extra credit
A hooker was approached by two "nit-wits" as one asked, "how old are you" and she responded "terry dollah". The other nit-wit asked "what's your telephone numbah" and was responded back "too, ay,ay-ay, ay, lie, lie". Followed by another question "and what can you do" she responded "wrong time, shode time, airy time".