The dog who would be a reader

I just went through my digicam to check what's stored and found these pictures taken by my grandchild Kai. They're of Satchi and her master Rolly Fernandez lounging in the library where she loves to scoot over once released from the balcony that she has for her home. She loves Rolly's bed, rolls all over it before lying on her belly. She even likes to look at the books. When she wags her long, bushy tail, she knocks over Rolly's assorted knickknacks, including a framed bulletin of Bandilang Pula, a publication of the seven-day Diliman Commune, or our kids' snapshots. Once, and only once, did Satchi gnaw the spine of my book, Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story. What a scolding she received, but I doubt if she understood any word said. Something must have sunk in because there has been no repetition of the incident. She has maintained her respectful distance from the books. However, she still sniffs at them, her eyes glancing longingly over the titles. Somebody said Satchi must've been a reader in a former life. If she was, then she has found the right home.

Kai and camera

Satchi, Kai's playmate, at rest

Grandmother caught dollying herself up even if she's just working from home

Selfie with Satchi's snout

Kai, the nine-year old in our house, has found an old Canon digicam to keep her busy. She snapped away but was careful to compose her shots of Satchi and me. She would immediately delete anything that didn't meet her standards.

I asked my husband Rolly where she learned all these things because I didn't go out of my way to teach her anything about how to use a point and shoot camera. He claimed that it was all his doing.

Kai perked up on hearing we were discussing her doings again. "No!" she said. It was her Tita Maria Klaridelle A Reyes who taught her how to work a real camera, not the toy dangling by her wrist.

Thanks, Kla, the fruits of Kai's apprenticeship are evident in these pictures. Why, I've even requested her to take photos of the books that I've lined up for reviewing.

Dreaming of when it's over

Kai and Satchi

"What will this bleak time be called when it's all over?" ~ Tweet from Pamela Colloff

I'm afraid my grandchild Kai has recently developed some kind of insomnia. Every night it takes her later and later to fall asleep, and it's usually after midnight. No, she doesn't take an afternoon siesta. I'm beginning to worry that she's suffering from some anxiety that makes nodding off difficult for her.

She's active the whole day--playing with the dog Satchi, feeding her, giving her vitamin, chatting on FB Messenger with her cousin Machiko Susi in Antipolo, playing pretend with her miniature figurines and dolls, an hour of Netflix cartoons. You'd think that's already a full day for a child.

Yesterday she carefully wrote on two postcards and told her pen pals about how bored she was. And I quote: " Extreeeeeemely bored! Satchi is bored too waiting for me to go outside and play. Sometimes I am able to see a very pretty butterfly. Oh! And to go to parties!"

Let's play 'Pretend'

Give my apo Kai a cloth diaper or a newly washed bimpo, and she can cast all her other toys away. When she learned to tinker with her mother's cellphone, she has been applying all sorts of funny faces on whoever held it. Her grumpa was no sacred exemption. I like how she rendered Rolly Fernandez into a Charlie Chaplin of sorts, herself she depicted as Catgirl. In real life, she dressed up Satchi as Superdog.

Rolly Chaplin

Kai Catgirl

Satchi Superdog

In the beginning of the lockdown, I imagined I was part of the story and cast of The Diary of Anne Frank. There I was, hiding away in an alcove with my red leatherette-bound Mercury Drugstore diary which I would sneak out when everyone else was asleep or busy and where I would write entries to help make mere survival bearable. But the Frank family's enemy was a palpable one--the German Nazis. This one that we have is invisible and just as deadly.

Well, this was my way of coping in the early weeks of the lockdown--to pretend, maybe a way of denial of the harshness of COVID-19. I've taken refuge in the patched up videos of choirs and orchestras and vocal soloists.

I've also begun counting the riches still available to us.

Jamie Tworkowskie named them for us:

Conversations will not be cancelled.
Relationships will not be cancelled.
Love will not be cancelled.
Songs will not be cancelled.
Reading will not be cancelled.
Self-care will not be cancelled.
Hope will not be cancelled.
May we lean into the good stuff that remains.

Despite my family's distance in Baguio, they can still manage to smile for the phone camera and clown around. Only Satchi has, what I imagine to be, a thought bubble that reads, "Bah! These humans!"

Suddenly, she is 9

I woke up to Nash Tysmans' angry tweet: "Ang Amerika hindi rin preparado kasi ungas din ang Pangulo nila! #OUSTDUTERTENOW"

And to Pablo Tariman's angrier FB status, since then deleted, methinks, about the foul mouth of the Leader and how a janitor has more dignity than he who lives in Malacanang Palace. Nothing like a morning swim to calm Pablo down.

The malicious aspersions cast on Atty. Chel Diokno were causing me to roil and boil at 5:30 a.m., my usual time of waking. It wasn't a good way to start a Saturday, especially since today is special.

It is the ninth birthday of my granddaughter Kai. I bemoan that I am separated from her by 209 kilometers, and no bus is plying the Cubao to Baguio route so I can't be there to watch her blow an imaginary candle on a small birthday cake. Imaginary because blowing birthday candles is among the no-no's during the time of COVID-19. Small cake because she has no other guests beyond her mother Kimi, her grandpa Rolly Fernandez and our dogs Satchi and Boots.

She was up early, acknowledging text greetings from relatives here and abroad. Apart from "Thank you," she punched in the words, "Stay safe! God bless!" Then we teased her with a video call, singing the birthday song. My daughter Ida, phoning in from Los Angeles, CA, couldn't suppress the schoolteacher in her, asking Kai for the correct spelling of lumpiang Shanghai. In one of her communications, Kai wrote that "lumpiang Shang High" would be among the dishes served at her modest celebration.

Then we asked how she and her buddy Satchi, a golden retriever, were doing. As answer, she brought the phone outdoors to the Baguio balcony so we could see the dog sniffing out the birthday gal.

Baguio girl's carrot cake

A girl and her dog

Earlier in the week, she showed us a drawing of a slice of carrot cake, a manifestation of her heart's desire. She has remained cheery of disposition despite missing her lowland-based cousins and slew of grandaunts and granduncles, they who dote on her, her classmates, her play-date mates and her teachers.

Sadness over the quiet commemoration of her birthday is alien to her. As I write these words, the John Wilson Orchestra is performing Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," and on this day divided by broiling political forces, I wish you, Kai, a rhapsody in yellow... as in sunshine, sunflowers and sunny smiles. And hope!

A girl and her dog

This morning Satchi, our golden retriever, came bounding up the stairs. I called out her name, and she entered our bedroom instead of heading for the balcony which is where she stays most of the day after her walks.

She slobbered all over my husband Rolly's face as he was snoozing. She refused the treat that my daughter Kimi was trying to entice her with.

This seven-month old golden is, most of all, Kai's best pal. Apart from walks, they chase one another or Kai talks to her in a commanding voice to make the dog obey. The latter doesn't seem to work yet because it provokes Satchi to get more excited and jump all over my apo. They're a happy sight to behold.

Last Saturday, as Kai and her father took Satchi for her morning walk, she loosened herself from her lease and ran all over the village park, the little girl giving chase and breaking into tears, thinking the dog might get lost.

Satchi found her way home alone and waited for the gate to open. Kai cried more tears of relief.

All in a day. With Satchi, our lives are complete.

Photo by KIMI FERNANDEZ