9:45pm was party time in belly city, and baby was
thumping in time to this song:
"He knows he's going to be my drummer when he turns 5"- Father creature
Guess it really is hard not to attach expectations on future housemates. Except instead of future doctor, we're grooming this kid to become the next Jack White.
And then to our horror, he'll rebel and grow up to Work For The Man and Wear Suits and Picket Against Gay People.
Or he'll turn meta and be like Ninong Ben, who does wear suits but also writes music and cuddles cats. Hi Ben! We miss you.
The father liked this idea so much that he insists we should get the kid started on suits ASAP.
Kidding aside, we chatted about tracing our family trees. I mean, who else could this kid be related to right? It seemed important to know who he might end up taking after when the time comes. It's a "Looking-to-the-past-to-predict-the-future" kind of thing I guess.
I think what makes extended family so important in the Philippines is geography. When you live on an island, everyone on land tends to be related to each other one way or another (or related to fish). Islands have dominating families who went to war with each other unless there was a way to merge clans. That hasn't changed much. In fact, it's a tragedy to fight relations, but it's nothing for a whole family to take on one member's grudge match.
This is a long shot, but maybe that's why Spanish priests sired so many children. They needed to be related to the natives in some way, because as Cersei Lannister put it, "Everyone who isn't us is an enemy".
It's social suicide to vote against family ties. Government transactions become easier when you have family (or family friends) in position. You get major discounts from certain establishments when you have family in the business. Regardless of whether you actually like each other, if you're related by blood in any way, you're obliged to be on your best behavior.
And of the bastards, the mistresses, the orphans and the disenfranchised, where do they belong on the social hierarchy? They belong to prime time television of course. To this day, the anak-sa-labas is still the most frequently used trope in Philippine entertainment. Because if you don't belong to historical fact, you always have a place in fiction.
Is identifying with extended family really worth the effort? Or is it better to just allow the kid to create an identity independent of past ties and family drama? What about evolution?
No father dearest, this baby doesn't have to be a rock star just cause it's in his blood. It's not all nature anyway that we end up the way that we do. Maybe he doesn't need to express any angst because he won't have reason to. Maybe rock music will be old news to him, and he'll invent a new form of art. Maybe he'll be such an improvement that he'll be unrecognizable to his kin. Who knows?
All that remains is to hope work for the best.
I did some serious stretching yesterday morning, and some walking around maternal lola's hill. I took a long bath afterwards, gorged myself on wild guavas and rewarded myself by taking a little cat nap.
Ok, so I slept the whole day. But I started the day with exercise!!! *fireworks*
Part of what got me out of bed was the thought of not being limber enough for The Birthing. Baby might find mommy too stiff and come out looking like this:
Shiet nalang. If that isn't motivation, I don't know what is. I have 9 more weeks of scaring myself out of bed and watching my diet.
It was maternal lola's birthday yesterday, and the local barrio fiesta the day before. This meant lots of food, and unfortunately for me, most of it was pork. I'm not vegetarian myself, but I could definitely hear ze partner's voice over my shoulder saying "STOP FEEDING MY CHILD FEAR".
Bastos buntis that I was, I asked aloud"Dili pwede magfiesta nga healthy ang pagkaon?" ("Can't we have a feast with healthy food?") and an aunt went "Pwede man unta, dili lang andam ang mga taw" ("We can, people just aren't ready for that yet").
I thought they just ate whatever was served, it was a free buffet wasn't it?
There's a word in bisaya for the sensation you get when you're up to your neck in oily fiesta food. It's called BIDLI.
There was little consolation in stuffing myself with fruit salad. Every ingredient in this salad came from a can. So yeah. I live on a hill in the country, but nobody thought to make a salad with things we already have growing over here. If you have a recipe for a tropical fruit salad (that doesn't require canned fruit mixes) please email me at mutangpusa@gmail.com. You are a beautiful beautiful person for making me not have to google that.
Maternal lola made up for it the next day by hiring a different cook and serving fish and chop suey.
Mmmm chop suey. Bidli-less and guilt-free.
Hoy father creature, lend me your subversive vegetarian cookbook be, I think I'm going over to the dark side now.
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