Deja vu.

RIGHT, A typical Manila street donned in a fiesta mood.

I've never attended town fiestas since I left Manila twenty five years ago until yesterday. Well, in Toronto, my cousin who grew up in Pasig organized a club of Pasiguenans and they celebrate the Pista ng Pasig every year, and I get invited to it. But it's not like a fiesta celebration done in the Philippines.

Yesterday, having been asked to do an offering at a mass celebrated by a Bishop, I had to wear my Sunday Best. It's a habit from childhood.

It brought back memories of childhood, like how my Aunt and my Mother used to dress us up in our best clothes and shoes for the Sunday mass. If it was the town fiesta or during special occasions like Christmas and New Year, we always had new clothes and pair of shoes to wear. Back in our hometown in Nueva Ecija, we snotty kids from Manila never failed to draw looks from the townsfolk for our "new, expensive-looking attire." Or it could be that our family was always late and had to do a "grand entrance."

Like a true blue blooded man of the twenties, my father always wore a 'fedora," and freshly-ironed shirt and de hilo pants. He favored pastel shirts, and didn't shy away from pinks nor maroons. He had a gold key chain hanging by his belt hook and hidden into his pocket, and for several years always carried a gun, and at one point, a riding crop with a concealed blade. My mother owned an "aparador-full" of dresses. During town fiestas or even if just invited to one, she'd always have a new dress to wear. At my graduation from elementary, she wore a pink mini-skirt and a jacket.

The parochial church, San Andres de Apostol, celebrated its first year of being a "parish." It is under the San Lorenzo Ruiz mother parish, and under the Antipolo archdiocese.

At eight in the morning, a marching band was making the rounds of the village, but unlike marching bands of yesteryear, this one was quite subdued. There were no kids nor dogs tailing the band, although there were still majorettes in mini,mini skirts.

I'm not used to this "offering stuff."

In Canada, my parish would ask for food donations during Thanksgiving and food drives, and for slightly-used clothes to be given to poor families and the homeless, but the parishioners would put them in front of the altar before the mass or bring them to a truck parked outside the church.

Yesterday, there was "palaro,' and a procession as part of the over-all fiesta celebration. In our youth, we watched all the events and were forced to join the "prusisyon."

Black Friday.

RIGHT - Shadee has fully recovered and grown, and is a menace to garden plants.

Once again, Americans are lining up early for their Black Friday Sale, the biggest sale of the year which occurs after the American Thanksgiving. By the way, Happy Thanksgiving to all my American relatives and friends.

In Manila, Christmas sales have been going on since the first days of October. The countdown to Christmas can be heard over radio and TV shows, and in commercials.

I've Christmas-shopped already while I was in the U.S. and Canada last October. I bought mostly clothes, since toys were difficult to pack or carry. My Ohio-based sister had tons of gifts for family back in P.I. and asked me to bring them home. Instead, I had them shipped through the "Balikbayan" door-to-door service. While at it, I also shipped my Total Gym machine.

I bought my Total Gym about eight or ten years ago. Chuck Norris' infomercials made me do it. Lately, the beauteous ex-wife of Billy Joel, Christine Brinkley, had joined Chuck in promoting the exercise machine.

Total Gym is a multi-exercise, lightweight, easy to use machine. It easily folds and slides under the bed, or can stand against a wall when not in use.

I'd used my Total Gym regularly, and in addition to my treadmill and rower, had provided me with complete gym experience in Toronto. Not to mention my thrice-weekly dance-exercise routines and daily walks with the dog, Shadow.

Being in Manila is a different thing. Here, I subsist on sugar and fat-loaded dinners and snacks taken throughout the day. There's rarely exercise time, and dancing becomes boring. And the dogs run around on their own. I attribute my lack of interest in exercise to the very hot, humid weather.

Back at the Health, Beauty and Spa Salon which I regularly go to, someone suggested enrolling at its Fitness Club. I figured instead of putting monthly money into it, I'd rather build my own "mini gym" at home. To start with I already have a professional punching bag hanging at the backyard.

Last October in Toronto, I lost about ten pounds in three weeks. Thanks to mostly vegetarian diet and no snacks.

When my Total Gym arrives in Manila, I hope to regain my exercise spirit. Also last Sunday, I found a manual treadmill for about 9,000 pesos, which I plan to purchase after Christmas when prices are expected to fall further.

Being firm and fit are great.

Spotted.

Over at my mother's first death anniversary party, certain guests clamored to have "sing along" segment, so as host, I quickly set up the Magic Sing. Years ago when Magic Sing was non existent, I had the regular karaoke machine and lots of VCD karaokes by various artists.

But it came to pass that these machines were over ran by the microphone-karaoke, called WOW at its introduction. I bought the first generation Magic Sing at Virra Mall for 26,000 pesos. Now, you can purchase a small karaoke with two regular microphones and a free wireless for 9 plus K, with about 3,000 songs.

And so the singing started. But despite the large selection of songs contained in the mike-karaoke, it became apparent later that I needed more song-chips to satisfy a more varied guest list, including the young people and even myself.

So I went to Odyssey to buy chips. Sooner than I stood by the demo karaoke, the sales clerk started to push the store's latest karaoke machine - the 9,999 peso-contraption. He said "it has the equivalent of 7 song chips." I figured if I buy one chip, I would be paying 3,200 pesos and for 6 or 7, another 20,000 peso outlay. So this small karaoke comes out a lot cheaper!

I was ready to buy it. Then I started to look for my "favorite song," in the song list. I flipped the book, from cover to cover, but my song was not there. Finally, I queried the boy clerk. "Does this karaoke carry all the songs from the 7 chips?" "Yes, sir."

I moved to ACE, then to SM, and finally a female singing- clerk told me, " Sir, your song is not in any of the song chips." I protested, "but my sister's got it." She said, " it's built into one of the newer Magic Sing."

I hung my shoulder after that. So, I cannot sing one of my favorite songs in the comfort of my house. Either, I go to my sister's house or to any of the rental karaoke clubs, like Red Box or Music Match.

Segue to some days ago. We took our Ohio-born, San Jose-based nephew to Music Match at Morato for some shouting match. The place is new, and for 3,500 pesos, you get to choose from 3 set menu selection, including drinks, and three hours of singing. The song selection was huge and the three young people in our group plus the oldies had a good time.

It was in the middle of this good time that I heard my bro-in-law say, "please key in I'll Be Seeing You." He beat me. He sang my song.

Mask.

I have not managed time effectively since I got home to Philippine shores. Family affairs and events took precedence.

Some relatives were visiting from the U.S. and one night, Halloween, we went out, first to Eastwood, then to the Fort. Most in our group were young once and three were mostly young, so choosing the club to while away the night became problematic.

Actually, the clubs were mostly for the young.

At TOYZ, we got a table and soon observed the teens and early twenties occupying the small dance floor and dancing to music which was just okay to our ears. My two sis, then Toys and Cris, Toots and Cesar bravely stood side by side with the three youth and danced, err, swayed. I never lifted my body out of the chair.

My sis told the others that we oldies had an excuse if quizzed by kibitzers - we had our Halloween old-face masks on. But what if it was time to remove the masks? We had a good laugh with this one.

I wrote about this because I came across a news item regarding a Chinese who boarded a flight to Vancouver from Hongkong as a 55-year old Caucasian, and leaving the plane as twenty-something Asian man. Whew! How did that happen?

Apparently, the Chinese youth wore a silicone mask of an old man, and after some hours into the flight went into the washroom, removed his mask, and emerged a young man.