Still Waiting

I remain friends with all of my ex's because it's easier on the body than to be hateful towards them. Each of them has his own endearing quality and each of them has his own unique malignancy. There's NJ, we're still the best of friends and we'd cross the Atlantic for each other if needed, so when I was in the hospital 3 weeks ago, Chat emailed him. He was concerned so I emailed him to tell him I am well and at home.
He emailed me back: "Glad you're home and ok babe, take care of your old ass."
You see what I mean? why I'm still....

Goodbye Michael

After all the scandal and all the tabloid fodder that plagued Michaels life towards the end, he was still someone's son, someones brother and a father to his kids. All I can say is, don't judge someone's hustle, until you really know their inner struggle.

With less than 10 hours to prepare, the inmates at Cebu Detention and Rehabilitation Center did this tribute to Michael Jackson. The same inmates who did "Thriller" which made them famous. Byron Garcia, the governors brother did not do it to be famous but did it as a form of exercise for the inmates.



Thanks Byron.

What is Love?

Mark Sanford, the South Carolina governor was incommunicado for 5 days. His staff said he went on a hike at the Appalachian Trail. His wife said she was not worried that his staff could not get hold of him, because "he was writing and needed to be be alone." Then Mark came back and said he was not in the Appalachian - he was in Argentina "crying for 5 days." Crying to his mistress? Crying with his mistress? Doesn't matter.

When you read the papers, you can see everyone putting in their 2 cents. One 19-year old even commented about the governor not "being a good role model for him." Dude, your role model is not politicians or ball players. It's called parents, you hear? Others say that the State of South Carolina was in danger because she was without a governor for 5 days. There must be some other crackheads left behind minding the store, wasn't there?

Politicians, married and going beyond established limits. I am not going to talk about morals or why they should be held up to a higher standard because they are public servants. Girl please, the man or woman we elect for public office is simply the reflection of who we are as a people, so why are the people so surprised or even startled when these elected officials suddenly acts up like humans?

I am sick of people trying to raise their moral banner on other people. I believe in moral absolute, and that there's an absolute truth, nevertheless, I also believe in giving a hand to someone who has fallen. Copies of emails between Mark Sanford and his Argentinian mistress was posted by The State, a local S.C. newspaper. That to me is sicker than the adultery Mark has done. The wife and the kids have been kicked in the stomach already, then the local paper decides to kick them some more. I would boycott that paper in a heartbeat.

In the Philippines where I came from, if a man doesn't have a mistress he's looked upon as abnormal. And to be considered really normal, he has to have more than 1 mistress. Especially, if he is a politician. So Mark, don't worry about the presidential bid for 2012; America voted for a black president for a change - by then, America would either love or hate Barack so much that any change will be welcomed again just for the hell of it. The American people will find it endearing then to see dark Maria travel back and forth to Argentina aboard Air Force One.......while you take the bus. That's love.

Broken

The Broken Pot


You molded me for good use
A little kink, a little bent
"Not quite perfect," I muse

I took on a shape, a character
Is somebody going to notice me?
"Don't forget your purpose," you whisper

I don't feel anyone touch me
I don't feel, I don't hear, I don't see
Would you whisper it to me loudly?

The storm, the storm, I am broken
I don't need more love, I don't need more money
I need my Savior. Patch me whole. Again.

I am a broken pot, can't you tell?
"No, In my eyes you are whole"
"I love you, even when you don't feel"


Copywright@2006RitchieAlter

Just here and there

Chat used to ask me why she doesn't have baby pictures. I told her that the year she was born, the camera was already invented but money was not...at least not in my economy. This was Chat at 6 months old. We tell her the reason she is dark is because she didn't have any covering from day one because I can't afford it.

Chat in one of the rare -very rare occasions that she is not wearing black. When she was young and living at home, she would get ticked at her dad because Don would always get to her about "there's other color besides black" and when she would wear dresses way above her knees Don would say, "Where's the skirt to that blouse?"

Two months ago, when I was walking around KL airport, waiting for my flight to Penang, a thought suddenly came to me that jolted me into a profound realization: I said to myself, "One of these days, I will either get disabled or dead. I will do whatever I want to do now if I can afford it."

Then two weeks after I landed back here in Dallas, I landed in the hospital. Lying in that hospital bed I was reminded of that thought and while anguished about the future, I concluded I have no regrets of the past.

If you thought I look horrible here with my bedhead, you should have seen my face-red and swollen from the dengue fever. This was the night when the doctor told me I could go home in the morning. Chat likes to take pictures of me in the hospital because she said she wants to show it to me when "you get cocky at times."

Sweat the Small stuff

I got sick of being sick so I dragged myself to work today. Everyone wanted to know what the diagnosis was. Mosquito bite. (I wish I could tell them of an elegant sounding disease) It felt good sitting there at my desk knowing that at the end of the day I will get paid, even though I spent half the day remembering how to do my job again. I believe that part of healing from anything is to try to get back to your old routine, regardless how boring that routine may be.

While sitting there and looking out the window, an outburst of emotion came over me; suddenly life seems meaningful and at the same time it felt meaningless. I started to feel the urgency to get to a stream, a river or a lake and just sit and stare. I dreamed it to be a cool morning, with the dew on the leaves of the trees dripping on me. Then I dreamed of the European countryside, me standing on the foot of the hill (I don't know what hill in Europe)looking out to the vast valley before me. But I also saw myself sitting by the Mekong river sipping tea tarik, just gazing out to nowhere.

I thought to myself; no more hostels, no more budget airlines, no more roughing it. I want to be a nicely dressed traveller, not a grungy tourist. I still want to be a vagabond but tweaked a little, like, a bank account at every country I happen to be. Then I woke up and realized that it's all I could afford - to dream. Because finally, my butt is broke. My finances was on a slippery slope anyway,I know that, but I never thought that a mosquito can topple me or my finances. See, it's always them little things that gets you.

Things I am Thankful For

I am back home from the hospital and feeling so much better. I slept so good in my own bed last night. No vampires coming in at all hours of the night wanting my blood, no nurses coming in at 2 a.m. to feed you another 39 pills while she add more bags of that burning fluid into your IV line. And she's smiling. At 2 a.m, yes. If she's not smiling, it's because she's not a Filipino nurse.

Seriously, when the doctors could not come up with a positive in any of the tests that were done, in between bouts of bone breaking fever and chills I kept thinking I will not come out alive because the doctors kept telling me "You are very sick, more than you know, your organs could fail anytime because your blood count is dropping but your body is fighting it out now." I got very afraid for the future.

I told Chat no visitors then she started texting my preacher friends in Cebu to activate a prayer group, I called my praying friends here in Dallas and they put me on speaker so I could hear them pray for me. I don't ask everybody to pray because I know who among my friends has a prayer life and those who doesn't. I cry when I think about what the doctor said, "Your body is fighting it out now." I know very well it's not "my body" who was fighting but the One who created my body.

I am a firm believer that God is aware of every detail that is happening to us because the Bible says that He either "cause" it or "allows" it. I was comforted a lot by this knowledge. And I am so thankful that I am sick in a country where they don't ask your family to come up with money first before you can be treated. Whatever the doctor thinks your body needs, they administer it. And when it's time for you to go home, you don't stop by the cashier to settle bills -doesn't matter if your bill is 1k or 1mil. This is America and boy, do I thank God for her.

Dengue Fever?

I am looking out to a nice wooded area and a creek runs through it. Huge homes interspersed in between those trees because this is where most of the rich Jews live here in Dallas. With my blood shot eyes and swollen face that's the view I am seeing now from my hospital room.

I was rushed to the hospital 3 days ago because over the weekend the body aches that was bothering me since I got back from the Philippines finally morphed into a whole body rash and bone breaking fever. The doctor at the urgent care clinic was frantic to send me to the ER because my blood platelet count was low and there was blood in my urine. He thought I must have gotten some parasites from Malaysia.

The doctor is leaning towards dengue fever but until the test comes back positive we're just going by my symptoms. Here are the early symptoms:

1. chills
2. low grade fever/sometimes high
3. body aches

The first week, all the above happened intermittently then I feel good the rest of the day but tiredness was dominant. Watch for the day that you won't have this symptom, because the day after you will get it really bad and that begins your real misery. Bone breaking fever, rashes all over your body, nothing is spared because even my eyeballs are blood shot, then my extremities are swollen. My eyelids are swollen way above my face. This won't be the time to enter any beauty contest my doctor said. And don't forget the vomitting and diarrhea.
There's no cure for dengue, you just have to let it run through the course - that is if you come out alive from the symptoms. (at least that's how I feel)

I know the cost of this hospital stay would pay for a whole years stay at the Four Seasons or Bangkok Oriental. And Chat thinks that I got this because I was "roughing it in Asia", John thinks I got it just because I was in Asia. He told Chat to stop letting me go to Asia...how rude.
"Why doesn't she go to Europe, why does she keep going to Asia?" "Maybe because she's from there?" Chat told John. So now Chat tells me not to go back to Asia. "At least in Europe, you may come back with a French lover, not a stupid dengue fever."
Well, with this hospital bill - I won't be going anywhere but to work.

Peter Loth

My circadian rhythm is so whacked up I just could not shake it off- I feel good for a few hours then I lose all my energy just trying to sustain a good feeling. When I tell people how I feel, they'd always come back with, "You're still jet lagged?" Well, I guess that's better than the usual "You're still crazy?"

Last night, friends of mine invited me to their house to meet Peter Loth. I was so happy that Chat agreed to come with me because the way I have been feeling lately, I wasn't sure I would make it there. But once we got there, I started to feel better. How could I not after hearing Peter's story. Peter was born in the Nazi concentration camp and did not get out of the children's prison until he was 16. To avoid being killed because he is a Jew, his mother handed him to a Polish woman when he was 3 months old. Whenever you go to a Holocaust museum, look up Peter Loth and you will see him when he was a baby.

In spite of the pain of torture and rape that he went through, Peter told his story bravely injecting humor in between holding back tears. When Chat was introduced to him, first thing he asked was, "Where are you from?" and crazy as Chat is, she said, "I am from Iran." Peter gave her a cockeye and we all laughed while he hugged his enemy.


,Peter's message is to promote awareness that the Holocaust did happen and so people won't forget, but most of all, he wants to tell people that forgiveness was not easy to come by. He held on to that hatred because that was the only thing he can hold on to - without hatred, he had nothing left. He did not want to forgive Hitler and the Germans, but when he found Jesus, he had to buckle down his knees and follow what Jesus said: "Forgive, or your father in Heaven will not forgive you." And when he finally did forgive, he was liberated and free, he said. And that's always been my message to everyone: stop nursing your hatred, let it go or that person who has hurt you will own you. Let go. Let God.

Some Trivia

Chat and I are very much alike in everything; we even have the same sick sense of humor but when it comes to working with the soil, she's totally my opposite. Gardening? forget it. It never occured to her that my citrus plants needed to be watered while I was gone for 2 months. I asked her to pick up my mails and check on my apartment while I was out of the country. "At least your apartment didn't burn down under my watch" she said.
This was the before and after.

Finally, yesterday I found my favorite fruit- no, these are not hairless kiwi but chicos (at $3.99 a lb.) No wonder I love Central Market. Growing up we were surrounded by all kinds of fruit trees, but for some reason only this fruit still captures my fancy.

This is my second box of mangoes since I got back from Cebu. ($6.99 for 18pcs.) Tiny mangoes from Mexico but they're very sweet.