Born To Eat.

Dateline: Few Days after Ondoy - Oct. 1, 2009
I looked around. The dimly lit areas in the garden-like restaurants below still hold the shadows of hundreds of patrons. The cinema we just left before midnight was still attracting movie goers. Several of the upstairs restaurants had clients inside them. The parking lot was still packed with cars.

This was in Greenbelt Makati a few days after the killer typhoon Ondoy. These scenes, I'm sure, were replicated in the malls all over Metro Manila and outside.

Pinoys just love to eat; I think, we were born to eat. On the same evening I just mentioned, we had dinner at around 7:30, then had desserts and coffee afterwards, movies and snacks at 8:45 p.m, then more snacks before bedtime.

I remember eons ago when I was still working in Manila when we used to have snack at 9:30 a.m, then lunch at 11:30 a.m , then snack at around 3:30 p.m. and pre-dinner and alcoholic drinks at 5:30, then dinner either at home or out, at 7 pm, then midnight snack at 11:30 or 12.

History repeats itself. I find myself snacking more often in Manila than in Toronto. In the office in TO, I never snack and I eat lunch only when clients have gone. I have dinner before 6 p.m, and rarely have midnight chow. If I do, it consists of cold cereal or a piece of toast with peanut butter.

Here, I snack on half-a-foot turons in the p.m., taho in the a.m. and chichiria at midnight, sometimes with a bottle of beer.

History repeats itself,too, in terms of driving. This afternoon, coming from Sucat, and after a heavy downpour, I caught myself driving Manila-style again; zigzagging, ignoring lines, and at one instance, following another vehicle which hugged the opposite lane in a tight two-way street.

Caramba! I have gone mad.

Before reaching Fairview, I stopped at a restaurant to have my lunch at 3:30 p.m. Upon reaching my mother's house, I snacked on the half-a-foot-long turons offered by a sib.

Then towards the evening upon reaching my sis' house, we snacked on "buchis," and then I found myself snacking on potato rings and a bottle of Red Horse close to midnite.

Forgive my slips.

What I really want to do is just to have coffee with an interesting personality, preferably when there is moonlight, so that I can do a "Cher" and tell myself, "snap out of it."

It's gonna be hard, but I will try. And I'm still utterly sad. But certain people do not realize that certain people are real.

The hardest part to the weather situation is not knowing what really happened between the moon, stars and the universe.