I do so solemnly believe that every child should read Dr. Suess. My brothers and I have an old yellowing copy of Green Eggs and Ham in the province. It was hard bound and orange. I say "was", because I don't know what color it is anymore, or if its cover has even survived the times, but its pages are now definitely the yellow of an old, well used book. It's a copy we've passed down to our younger siblings and a copy with all the markings of a well loved book: dog ears in every page, crayon scribbles here and there, water marks, other marks. There is a history in our copy of Green Eggs and Ham that no family album could hope to accomplish. But it's been passed on and with it, memories of bedtime stories read and reread on my mother's knee after prayer time (yes, madasaling mga bata po kami).
Anyway, I got a second hand copy from Alikabook. It's also orange and aging, but free of the "love" marks that children leave behind when they turn from 3 to 4 to 5 years old. I bought it for Promise. I have pledged to myself that my daughter will be a reader. Among her first loves will be me, her daddy, ice cream, a Speak and Spell (if I could still find one that works), and a good book.
Christopher says Dr. Suess is a secret psychotic. There are neologisms and clang associations in all his books, he says. Otherwise, he's high on something when he writes them. But Christopher always says that about someone magnificent. He says that about JM Barry too. Pixie dust and happy thoughts that make a person fly is just too close a metaphor to that other dust, he says. But again, that's just Christopher. This is the same guy who wants to call his daughter Dziedzik or Moon Rider. His mother gave him the daily news paper and taught him to read Darna and Captain Barbel when my brothers and I were reading Dr. Suess. They couldn't afford a Dr. Suess at the time, he says. Now he's a doctor reading Dr. Suess and Pugad Baboy to my Promise, and teaching her to count metacarpals instead of just fingers... hahaha! And I love him for it. You can see it in her eyes that Promise is in love with him too.
Chapter 2: Diyosa to Chimi-aa
Today Promise and Nanay Ring are in Cubao with my brother Allan. My daddy was in town but I didn't get to see him anyway, not for lack of trying. I had to commute from Cubao to Taft to get to work today and it was so hot. Summer is such a bummer when you're not on vacation. It's the kind of hot where you leave home fresh from the shower, strutting in your practical flats, feeling like a goddess and arriving at work looking like a domestic slave who just got off from sweating over a hot stove. Gone are the smell of soap and shampoo you spent an hour soaking in. Your make up has caked. Your lips have gone dry and you need another shower before the day's work has even begun.
Tsk.Tsk.Tsk...
Chapter 3: Just Another OPD Morning
... And to top it all off, today's batch of new OPD patients are a couple of telenovelas too early in the day. One is an old man with OCD who killed his daughter in law for physically hurting his grand kids (I'd do it too if I were in his shoes, but of course I didn't tell him that) and he spent a good 5 minutes fixing up Aleah Tiu's desk in the middle of our session because her folders were just not stacked properly with the labels facing up...
The other is a father suddenly told that he's a terminal case of cancer. He takes the bus from Oriental Mindoro and back every week just to get chemotherapy. He feigns strength when it's quite obvious he can't even lift his arm without wincing.
I know I sound like I'm complaining. I'm not. It's just that sometimes I feel completely unable to help them. They're here in the hospital hoping that someone could give them a pill to make it all go away and my pills just don't treat cancer. You remember Elisabeth Kubler Ross when you see patients like these, but it's quite another matter when it's not really a psychiatrist they want to see. They just happened upon a hospital where the system requires other services to ask for psychiatric evaluations. A number of my patients who are referred here are even surprised to find out that they're waiting in line to see a psychiatrist.
But that's all in a day's work.
Chapter 4: Roasted Island Legumes
Manang B: Toto! Ano gusto mo brikpas niyo?
Christopher: Chicken Cordon Bleu.
Manang B: pride tsikin To?
Christopher: Chicken Cordon Bleu!
Manang B: Ano na?
Christopher: hay sige, roasted Island Legumes nalang.
Manang B: Ano?
Christopher: Roasted Island Legumes.
Manang B: iba nalang Toto.
Christopher: Ano nalang?
Manang B: OMILI DUS PROMAS! (sabay halakhak!)
Promise: (face-palm!)
Chapter 5: Post Coital Hair
They're just curly.
Done with rollers and hairspray. Sex had nothing to do with it.
They warned me to not write anything about it and I've already said too much.
But in a nutshell, curls are fun...no matter what activity you associate them with (haha!) :P
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