Morning Gal

Sometimes you just have to face your mornings with some attitude!

The Pope, the Rabbi and one sleepy worker

I know you get forwarded emails, too: inspirational images and messages, threatening prayer chain letters (if you don't forward to 10 people in 10 minutes, etc.), special offers for all and sundry, including marked-down penis extenders. These usually go to the spam file for examination on a pleasant day when deadlines have been met and time is long.

Meanwhile, I enjoy answering correspondence, whether instantaneous like email or handwritten postal mail. My replies or inquiries are written in a fashion with all words spelled out as much as possible, even if I don't press the "shift" key to capitalize what has to be set in caps. My second sister shares my sentiments on this matter. She also insists at all times that abbreviations be limited to SMS/texting only. Otherwise, spell out a word like "thanks" in your hurriedly written email note.

This afternoon, while taking a break from a manuscript that's giving me nosebleed, I opened my inbox and found this. Nothing really like a loud guffaw to diminish sleepiness at this time of day. Whoever wrote this apocryphal tale deserves half my boiled banana (sorry, no apples in the fruit basket).
***
The Pope and the Rabbi

Several centuries ago, the Pope decreed that all the Jews had to convert to Catholicism or leave Italy. There was a huge outcry from the Jewish community, so the Pope offered a deal. He'd have a religious debate with the leader of the Jewish community. If the Jews won, they could stay in Italy; if the Pope won, they'd have to convert or leave.

The Jewish people met and picked an aged and wise Rabbi to represent them in the debate. However, as the Rabbi spoke no Italian and the Pope spoke no Yiddish, they agreed that it would be a "silent" debate. On the chosen day, the Pope and Rabbi sat opposite each other.

The Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. The Rabbi looked back and raised one finger.

Next, the Pope waved his finger around his head. The Rabbi pointed to the ground where he sat.

The Pope brought out a communion wafer and a chalice of wine. The Rabbi pulled out an apple.

With that, the Pope stood up and declared himself beaten and said that the Rabbi was too clever. The Jews could stay in Italy.

Later, the cardinals met with the Pope and asked him what had happened.

The Pope said, "First, I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up a single finger to remind me there is still only one God common to both our beliefs.

"Then, I waved my finger around my head to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground to show that God was also right here with us.

"I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us of all our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of the original sin. He bested me at every move and I could not continue."

Meanwhile, the Jewish community gathered to ask the Rabbi how he'd won.

"I haven't a clue," the Rabbi said. "First, he told me that we had three days to get out of Italy, so I gave him the finger.

"Then he told me that the whole country would be cleared of Jews, and I told him that we were staying right here."

"And then what?" asked a woman.

"Who knows?" said the Rabbi. "He took out his lunch so I took out mine."

Addition to stash of Audrey Hepburn quotes

“I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.”

-Audrey Hepburn

Although this second quotation is not attributed to Ms. Hepburn, it's within the subject of contagious happiness. It's simple but hard to do.

Courtesy of Blissful Quotes

Lechonitis & other pleasurable sins

At noon of Chinese Lunar Year, on my way home from a Tibetan Buddhist temple (a first visit), after partaking of the community's vegetarian lunch, I received an SMS from a writer friend, a gourmand down to his funny bone. He was exasperated that he had put too much vinegar into the lechon leavings that he was trying to turn into a paksiw with a brown sauce.

Still full from a lunch of noodles, gluten served a variety of ways, braised veggies and a dessert of Mandarin orange, I gulped and asked, "Anong lasa?"

He answered that it was a mix of adobo and paksiw. I thought I felt the stirrings of acid reflux from the imagined taste of both adobo and paksiw put together.

I warned him how suicidal his diet has become.

His reply: "Yah, I know, but often I feel I am on the home stretch na. Kaya feeling no-foods-barred na :-D"

Well, I told him not to be in too much hurry to leave his mortal coils. An enterprising cook may yet invent fat-free lechon that will take the guilt out of being an unrepentant carnivore in the age of health food consciousness.

Not letting the subject go, he replied again: "I can look for a pig that's fed only vegetables. Will that do?"

I said the Prado Farm in Pampanga raises pigs that are fed arugula leaves. "Organic lechon," they call it, with a whole duck inserted in the pig's belly, then roasted altogether.

I could almost hear him laughing out loud when he texted: "That's a whole new meaning for 'double dead'!" He couldn't stop himself from following up: "Hmmm. Has anyone thought of stuffing a whole roast calf with a lechon stuffed with a duck? Ick! Parang Russian matryoshka dolls. Eeeww, pardon the analogy!"

I got into the spirit, suggesting that this new dish should end with a camaru as only a Kapampangan cook could invent something like that.

Old friend texted back: "Or longganisa of all kinds--Vigan, Baguio, Lucban, Capiz, Tuguegarao. Or even quite logically, balut!"

That's when I decided to put a stop to the whole crazy exchange. I could feel the healthy food I digested regurgitating.

Friend understood my queasiness, and ended the virtual conversation with: "Ok,kaivegan na lang tayo :-D"

Kai-vegan, got it?

Maxine welcomes year of dragon with attitude

SM, curb your greed

400 @ 400

Tuesday next week, Jan. 24 (my dad Enrique Lolarga Jr.'s 83rd birthday, if he were still around; he was a UST College of Medicine alumnus, batch '53), is "400 @ 400" day or 400 books, published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, to be presented to the University on its 400th year.

Quite a feat Dr. Cristina "Jing" Pantoja Hidalgo, publishing director, Prof. Jack Wigley, her deputy, and their hard-working staff have accomplished since Prof. Hidalgo took over the university press.What I like about this coming event is the venue, a library, specifically the Miguel Benavides Library at the UST campus.

The library is thus described at its website: "The UST Miguel de Benavides Library is housed in a 6-storey building facing Dapitan Street. Seventeen sections and four branch libraries comprise the UST Library. The collection of each section / branch varies according to courses offered by the University. The Library Staff is headed by the Prefect of Libraries and the Chief Librarian. There are 27 professionally trained librarians, 24 support staff and 80 student assistants."

There'll be space to move around, and if my cold and cough (an allergy, don't worry; nothing viral or catching) isn't licked by the 24th, I'll be there in an inconspicuous corner with a box of Kleenex and a jug of water, waiting for friends and family to come by and have a copy or two signed.

This whole enterprise of putting out a book of selected essays is a story of a challenge met. The challenge came from Jing who asked if I was interested in gathering my little Facebook notes and other essays into a book. Not only was I interested, I hired myself an able research assistant, UP Diliman geography graduate Marye Panganiban, who could accompany me to the Lopez Memorial Museum and Library and the Philippine Daily Inquirer library to look for "old words," as my editor Chato Garcellano would put it. Marye, with my daughter Kimi's help, encoded these essays and reports, a whole section of travel pieces from the time when Chato sent me all over the country on assignment.

The OC (obsessive-compulsive) streak of my niece Marga Susi was harnessed as she arranged the essays in sequence to facilitate the layout artist's job. Several times the flash drive I submitted to Jing was corrupted until one afternoon, Kimi and I sat down cleaning my files one at a time till I was able to send a clean USB to UST.

I heeded Gilda Cordero Fernando's advice not to get a more established writer to do the introduction. She had a funny experience when she had a first book of short fiction introduced by someone else. It seemed the intro was unrelated to the contents and it was generally ignored.

She suggested that I get writer friends familiar with my works to submit blurbs, and that's what Chato, Marj Evasco, Cris Yabes, Gou de Jesus and Anna Leah Sarabia did. They didn't need to be sent samples of my work to go over. They were familiar enough with the stuff I've managed to get published over the decades (that really dates me) and turned in their short blurbs by text or email after a day's notice. Aren't women friends wonderful?

One day in late June, Jing texted, "Your book is out!" Excitedly, I made arrangements to pick up my 10 complimentary copies at her home (henceforth, delivered to the blurb writers). I think this was as close as I could get to UST. Throughout the process, everything was done online. The series of USB I would send through a personal messenger or drop off at Jing's house on my way to or from school where I taught (when the Community of Learners was still at its New Manila location).

The proofs were sent to my mother's house in Pasig, and I went over them during a weekend in Baguio. My husband of 27 years cursorily read them, then declared in an offended tone that he would boycott my launch if his name was not moved from the acknowledgment to the dedicatory page (hmmm, this detail should go into an autobiography because I find it funny; my reaction was "Kailangan pa bang i-spelling 'yan?" but the correction was made for fear of losing a prized patron).

I arranged a book reception in my adopted city of Baguio at that bookshop-turned-literary salon Mt. Cloud. Padma and I worked on my modest working woman's budget so we could feed the visitors and book buyers with Hill Station's delicious turrones and flowing coffee. All 26 or 28 books I brought up were sold out that afternoon in July. The others were sold by Nina Araos at her Kitsch the Cook Boutique, at the Alabama art fair in Cubao and at Libreria at Cubao Expo.

My kumare Winnie Velasquez, fellow Paulinian, made a special trip from Marikina to Baguio to be with us, while my grandchild Butones made her public debut as my guest of honor. She wasn't featured on the dedication page; she wasn't born yet when the making of the book was in progress.

Last December, as the Christmas rush got started, Philippine PEN sponsored an authors' talk that had me sharing a panel with Manong Ed Maranan, Mookie Katigbak and Dean Francis Alfar. I arrived early at National Bestseller at Robinson's Galleria to chat with the salesladies.

The store manager said my book was doing well. My heart skipped two beats as I began to think of royalties and imagine Catholic and Emancipated on the NBS bestsellers list for non-fiction.

I asked, "How many copies has your branch sold?"

She answered, "Sampu po, ma'am. Marami na iyon."

That's why I like writing and getting published. It has a way of keeping you humble. I'm sure Dad would've agreed.

Photo of blogger's book courtesy of Rudi Tabora

One night only, one night only