After Precious' visit

The photo was taken at 11:40. In the picture, I could see the beautiful sinus rhythm in the high 90's to low hundreds of Mr. Jungmann. His oxygen saturation was ideal at 98 to 100%.

At 1321, Mr Jungmann coded. This is my first and the last shot in front of beautiful sinus rhythms. 

It's my very first horrifying code blue experience. It's like a bucketful of ice was poured on me that moment I realized that the code was on my station. I almost wished I was the one coding myself. 

Mr Jungmann was a trauma patient. Weeks before he fell off from a 20 or 30 feet elevation. He was in the marines or a navy.

Mexican Revolution Reenacted

To me, Mexicans and Native Americans are one and the same. Referred to as Indios, Mexicans and Native Americans both belonged  to the indigenous peoples of North America. Native Americans such as the Kumeyaays were displaced when United States took position of the Norhern part of Mexico. Native Americans living in the unoccupied  part of country  remained to be called Mexicans. 

July 4th Togo Blog

Land of Opportunities bring day of opportunity.  Here I am using the shade of a FedEx drop box and leaning on the UPS  dropbox next to it while waiting for the parade to begin.  It's my day off sandwich and I am consuming it with gusto seated at the last irrigated roadside lawns of Bernardo Center Heights Dr. Some nine years ago, I was in this same area, less than 100 meters from this spot, wishing I was a spectator to the parade. Instead, I was working at the Deli of Vons Safeway. 

The parade finally begins and there's Scott Peters like an old friend waving at me. I am probably one of many who waved  back acknowledging his payback time wave. I voted for him the second time. The first time I saw him on a parade, it was the gay pride parade at Hillcrest. 

Brian Maienschein followed. I bet he would not have won as congress representative in the 77th District if voters had to write his name in full. 

It was not much of the music the band played that attracted me. It's the diversity.

Pride in San Francisco

It's Pride Week in San Francisco and I am glad I was there to capture even just a figment of it. San Francisco is, to me, like New York City, but just a tad more hip and artsy. Hip as in fashionable, stylish, funky and phat according to the urban dictionary. Phat and  I didn't mean to say fuckin phat like how I described my laughing Buddha. Phat in the urban dictionary means cool and fun but not obese. San Francisco is fuckin phat, indeed!

Artsy like pretentiously artistic! It's the culture of being young and gay.  Gay as in lighthearted and carefree not just being male and hosexual. At the Justin Herman Plaza, office workers eat their sushi burrito while a juggler tries to catch everybody's attention at a square where a fountain used to feature water an art form. That was before the drought. Even then, the atmosphere in the Justin Herman Plaza is gay which is not just being male and homosexual. 

Justin Herman was not the significant other of Harvey Milk as I thought he would be. Justin Herman which the San Francisco downtown landmark is named after was an urban development hero. Google couldn't  tell me if Herman Plaza was gay and homosexual but Harvey Milk was. 

Harvey Milk was neither the father of the Pride in San Francisco nor the mother firetrucker of the LGBT movement, Brenda Howard was. He did start his happy gay moments in Castro Street. The rainbow flag is probably among his brainchildren as a mother firetrucker. Milk encouraged Gilbert Baker, an Army draftee honorably discharged for being gay, to pursue his dream of being an artist, specifically sewing fabulous clothes that he could not afford. With Milk's "create and change" motto and influence, Gilbert Baker used his sewing skills to create the     iconic rainbow flag.

I deliberately avoided to go past two males wearing pink vests with "Because I am a Girl" logo. I thought they were selling hugs and the logo's message struck me as apologetic or some kind of an excuse. "Because I am a Girl" turns out to be a Plan International's movement to empower girls early on. Plan International is a non profit organization used to be known as Foster Parents Plan Internatonal. 

If it's not for solidarity, I wish people should just leave the rainbow flag alone. The Plan International's riding on LGBT issues to promote their advocacy against genital mutilation of girls in Africa is way out of hand considering that transgendered individuals like Bruce Caitlyn Jenner went under the knife for voluntary genital mutilation. And Pope Francis should shut up as well. How could he have known that same-sex couples do not make good parents?

Making out with BART

I have known about BART since that first visit to meet with classmates from Normal five years ago.

"There's your boyfriend Bart," Djeline teased me. 

I looked up and there was BART. I was riding with Marissa, Djeline and I were on Mila's SUV. Mila was on the wheel. We just came from Union City and we were going to Coyote Hills Regional Park through Highway 680. BART was indeed there, waiting.  

I have forgotten about BART till recently when I made another commitment to Amtrak. I initially planned to go to Yosemite taking the San Joaquin Valley Line from Bakersfield. Recalculating the route after I cancelled the plan to go to Yosemite through Merced, I was glad to learn that the same liner stops at Oakland.  So from  Oakland Jack London Station, I went right to look for Lake Merritt. I kept thinking of Shannon Merritt while looking for Lake Merritt.

BART is not a name of a person like Merritt Weaver, Shannon Merritt.  BART means Bay Area Rapid Transit. But Lake 

Merritt is a real lake formed from a large tidal lagoon right in the heart of Oakland.

Techs in the City

We came up with the name just to sit together as a group in the upcoming game between San Diego Padres and Saint Louis Cardinals in August. Michael in the B station is looking at his outlook  in between beautiful sinus rhytms and artifacts. I am roving and Anette,  who has been calling me Gloria de Jesus! Is in the B2 station and cracking up. Dovey is  at the A station is quizzing Davoo with "name that rhythm", a game she herself designed for newbies like I was recently. 

I was thinking of Teletubbies at first. 

Nah... British infants...too cutesy!

"Techs in the hood?"

Nah...kind of cheesy. There goes that word again. Cheesy is for me a better way of sayiing corny. But corny sounds like horny. 

"Techs in the city!" 

Michael loves to have "techs in the city".

It's a random mindfuck moment for the glorious holy shit!

The Blood of Lambs by Kamal Saleem

I finally finished the book. I got the book as a freebie in a used book nook in my neighborhood public library. 

My close to four years in Saudi Arabia somehow got me interested on novels set in the Gulf region. The book is just one among the many books that are mainly narratives of life as a Muslim. 

The early part of the book was close to believable. I must have read similar stories such that of a child soldier and suicide bombers  in news report, supplied by UPI, Agence France Press and other big news agencies. 

Towards the end of the book, I couldn't help but smack my head. The  book is pure fiction most likely  made up by a Jehovah's Witness and backed up by archived news reports. 

An excerpt from the section "America: 1985-1991", page 280-281 reads: 

But as I bent to lift the edge of the carpet, I heard a voice. 

"Kamal, the Muslims believe in the God of Father Abraham, and so do the Jews and the Christians. Why don't you call on the God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?"

The voice was so strong, so powerful, so real.

And I knew I would never have thought such thoughts on my own. 

Terrified not to listen, I rushed back to the window and fell on my knees again. I cried out in a loud voice, with every fiber within me, "God of Father Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, if you are real, speak to me! God of Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, if you are real, I want to know you!"

Then, for the first time in my life, a miracle happened in front of me. The window brightened until its frame disappeared. The entire room was flooded with light. In this light was overwhelming peace and joy. My heart leapt within me because I knew it was the light of God. 

"Who are you, my Lord?" I cried.

A voice spoke in my heart: "I am that I am."

"What does that mean?" I called out.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," the voice said. "I have known you since before the foundation of the world."

"My Lord, I will live and die for you!" I said.

"Do not die for me," the voice said. "I died for you that you may live."

At that moment, I knew I met my Christian God. I knew I had met my Creator. There was no turning back. 

Fr. Francis Xavier

It's still Sunday and I have too much time on my hand. Wasn't I supposed to be in church? I don't remember when I was in church last. Maybe it was when I tried to steal the body of Christ for Karlee. I have been trying to remind myself that Jesus Christ doesn't have an F for a middle initial!

Two posts on the same blog in a day? I must be fucking bored! After downloading another Noel Cabangon song, in Ilocano this time, I started typing names of people I haven't seen on Facebook at Google. 

St. Francis Xavier?  I randomly typed names  and Google asked if I meant St. Francis Xavier. I am reminded of a book I once read, about the miraculous remains of St. Francis Xavier. I have  a copy of the book. 

I have just been reading an old blog I posted almost five years ago where I mentioned about starting graduate school at Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro with Renaissance Literarure and Theology. What I never mentioned in my blog was about meeting Francis Xavier himself. I met a living one of course, not the miraculous remains that is still encased in a glass casket. 

Francis Xavier was named or named himself after the saint whose remains miraculously stayed intact after his death. St. Francis Xavier was the Spanish missionary who co-founded the Society of Jesus, Since his death in the 16th century in China, his body has been transported from one place to another for  public viewing. He was never interred.

Catholic pilgrims travel to where his remains lie in state and kiss the casket like they normally do to the statue of Baby Jesus.

I met Francis Xavier after mass one day at the Xavier University campus in Cagayan de Oro City. I am sure he is not the reincarnated saint because St. Francis Xavier never went through Ash Wednesday.

"Thou art dust and unto dust, thou shalt return!"

To me, this meant that the real St. Francis Xavier never turned into dust and still in his own flesh preserved as a sacred relic at some church in Goa, India.  There's no need for reincarnation.

Funny how I am learning now that this short-term uyab who was then attending the South East Asian Rural Institute (SEARSOLIN) in Cagayan de Oro, is an ordained priest!

Guilt Trip cancelled

Aguilera and I were classmates at Grossmont College and we both started  working  almost at the same time as Telemetry Technicians. I came from another campus after I broke off  with  Ayyedis Vahkkendjaab. Aguilera  is new to the acute care setting.

Aguilera is still not familiar with pharmacology terms in the first month so when a nurse called that a patient she is monitoring is getting something she heard like a guilt trip, she thought the patient must be catholic. The patient was actually getting a Diltiazem drip. Diltiazem which is a calcium channel blocker works by relaxing the heart muscles and blood vessels. The medication was going to be administered intravenously on a drip. And the guilt trip is actually a Dilt drip. 

Today being a Sunday and still considering myself a catholic, another term for freewilling and universal agnostic, I am having a guilt drip. 

I am supposed to be riding the Metrolink to LA Union station tonight to catch an Amtrak bus to Bakersfield. From Bakersfield, I would have been riding the train to Modesto and wait for Djeline and Rich to pick me up at Modesto and off we go to Groveland for some fun trip to Yosemite National Park. The trip was something I initiated. 

While watching patients' heart rhythms and oxygen saturations to pay for my fun trip, I am not about to leave RN, my El Capitan of a husband to go looking for the El Capitan in Yosemite. RN must have caught a germ I didn't wash off my clothes at one time. I am staying home for now for my El Capitan.

Perya sa Mira Mesa

Sa Sociology, áng Mira Mesa ay isang halimbawa ng ethnic village. Mira Manila nga daw. 

"Hmp...tsura lang!"

Matsura  o hitsura lang? 

Maiz con Hielo

The order was topped with ice cream and I remember my apple pie order at Julian that came without the ice cream topping. I also remember that long time ago in front of Far Eastern University with my brother Mario. I ordered a bun thinking I would get a sandwich. My brother and I agreed we should have ordered a sandwich after we have consumed about a quarter of our bun. We must have been so embarrassed of mistake that we just consumed the pretending it came with the works.

The maiz con hielo like the halo halo could be easy home concoctions. All you need is a blender that could make smoothies out of ice cubes. Some corn, some leche plan, some fruit preserves from Asian stores, condensed milk that surprisingly didn't aggravate my lactose intolerance. Top the concoction with vanilla ice cream. 

National City

I know that National City is close to Bonita. Bonita is a town close to the U.S.-Mexican border where I just finished a hike with the San Diego Day Hikers. 

I am always hungry after a hike and I think of all the Filipino restaurants at National City. I think of National City as the Filipino ethnic village in San Diego. 

I pick Karihan from the list of Filipino restaurants that Google lists.  I think of kare kare, the ox tail dish with vegetables  in peanut gravy eaten with shrimp paste. Comfort food that must have originated in Pampanga, a province in the Central Luzon region. I opted for the fish dish cooked in sour medium. It's not sinigang. It's called pangat. It could be a cross between sinigang and paksiw. Filipino cooking is distinct with the use of a sour medium such as tomatoes, lemon and vinegar. 

Heads or tails? The server asks me in Tagalog.  She was not about to toss a coin. I said ulo without second thoughts. The brain and the eyes are highlights of my fish dish order. The heaping order of jackfruit cooked with string beans, squash and coconut milk is crying out for attention while Martin Nievera croons "Be    My Lady" to a younger woman on the Filipino Channel. 

I had a very strong urge to take a picture of the counter but I noticed that a party of four with bowed heads are saying grace before meals. I stood up to get a closer shot of the sign that reminds me of 101 Dalmatians. We Filipinos always try our best to be convincing to the point of exaggeration. Of course, if you know your biochemistry,        you have no problems with MSG which your body produces. The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome has never been proven. MSG which comes naturally from  protein rich food groups such as beef, fish and chicken and even vegetables has always been classified by the FDA as a food ingredient that's generally recognized as safe. 

The business establishment looked like a salon for men from afar. Even in their adult years, some Filipino men are nicknamed Boy. An adult Filipino man who has a lot of girlfriends or who flirts to a lot of women is also called a "chick boy". 

Chic boy and Elegant's nails are within the same stretch. 

Chic-Boy is not really a chauvinistic pig. Chic-Boy is a chicken at baboy restaurant! Cooking ina!

Not the Mindanao that I Know

I 

Philippine National Police Special Action Force versus Moro Islamic Liberation Front at Maguindanao. I have been following the story not as a rubbernecker but as someone who had connections of Mindanao and Muslims in the past. This is about the encounter between Philippine government forces and MILF Abu Sayyaf group in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on January 25, 2015,  a week after the Pope visited the country. It was a video of Filipinos being pitted against each other, brothers killing each other.

"Duul mga kaigsuunan ug paminaw kamo

Duna ko'y dala nga mga balita gikan sa banwa ko, gusto ko nga ipahibalo ang mga istorya nga nagahitabu sa banwang gisaad nato."

Mindanao to me is not the Mindanao that Manila based media have always portrayed. There always seemed to be some feeling of discomfort among the population when the media portrays the whole of Mindanao as a war zone. The war zone image is more  about the age old conflict between Christians and Muslims in Mindanao. As a new graduate working in the Northern Mindanao region, the image of a pious population who didn't miss Sunday celebrations of the holy eucharist and people taking  part in  basic Christian or ecclesiastical communities was the profile image of Christian Mindanao. 

I had the chance to know more about Mindanao Muslims while working with the Ministry of Health  of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Assir Region. The principle for non-judgmental attitude I learned while earning my BS on Social Work somehow helped me to be less factional while sharing a hostel room with fellow OFWs from Mindanao. The belief by Filipino Muslims in what is now known as the Automous Region of Muslim Mindanao that Filipinos were originally of the Islamic faith until Spanish conquerors Christianized  most of the colony's population was something that made sense to me. It's probably a fact but no reasonable historian would easily claim it for fear of ridicule by the ass kissing supreme leaders in Manila.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decent Work Agenda and my 3D job

The International Labour Organization (ILO) and Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sum up my relationship with Ayeddis Vahkkendjaab who I will be leaving soon. To me, 3D means dirty, difficult and dumb. 3D is 3K in Japan, the birthplace of 5S. Kitanai means dirty, kiken means dangerous and kitsui means difficult. Instead of kitsui, Ayeddis Vahkkendjaab is more of a kusottare. And instead of dangerous, Ayeddis Vahkkendjaab is more of dumb. The closest translation of kusottare to the English language is crappy.

As where the headquarters of international organizations like ILO and OECD are located, 3D jobs in the US go by different names, just like Ayeddis Vahkkendjaab and Aywilbe Fayed. 

5S

The poster was among the several posters at guard house wall at Occupational Safety and Health Center in Diliman, Quezon City. It sums up the 5S methdology.

I thought about 5S after almost 10 years as I cringed while my someone say my cluttered computer-on-wheels desk is "very unprofessional". JCAHO is coming any day and the concern was to get an outstanding rating. I am reminded of how Chris Cruz used to put it: simplistic!

I have the impression that 5S is taken more seriously than Japanese cars in workplaces in the Philippines. Marieta Javier, who was a colleague at the Bureau of Women and Young Workers, used to say "I will 5S my desk" instead of saying "I will clean my desk". When she goes home from work, she also 5S her house. 

5S, as the Japanese initially conceptualized, is more than cleaning and tidying up. It's the "professional" way  of cleaning and tidying up. You need not say "seiri" because you don't know what seiri means. "Seiri" is a Japanese word for Sort, the first of the 5S. The idea is to sort out unnecessary items in the workplace and discard them. You don't need the framed pictures of your children on your desk top. 

"Seiton" is another Japanese word that means Systematize in easy to understand terms. To systematize in the 5S methodology means arranging necessary items in good order so they can easily be selected or reached for use. 

A born expat author

The first thing I asked Lin Robertson was why he calls himself a born expat. He is an American born in Japan and now living in Mexico. 

He is probably the only published author of fiction I ever met. He explained to me what a Gringo is. 

"Gringos are North Americans."

"But isn't Mexico considered North American country?" I asked thinking of the North American Free Trade Agreement always known as NAFTA, for short. 

"Technically, it's what white Americans are called in Mexico." Lin added that the term used to be derogatory to Caucasians in US. He said he doesn't get offended being referred to as Gringo.

I borrowed two of his books which happened to be available at the San Diego Central Library. I didn't get to read them. Meeting a real author and listening to his narratives in person was more interesting.

 

Sex on the beach at Rosarito

The reentry to the US that took 3 hours of waiting was to me worth the food trip.

I have already eaten a third of the serving when I remembered  to say Grace before meals.
Holy Mary, pray for us!
Kim mentioned about the chocolate clam on our way to Rosarito. I was thinking of our very own chocolate soup. To my delight, the chocolate clam did not even come  close to the color of a coagulated pork or beef hemoglobin that our very own chocolate shoup is made of. The steaming aluminum foil covered  clam was pried open right before my very eye. The clam meat must have been scraped  and chopped before they are put back into the clam for a short grilling. The clam meat was served  rare with salsa and a slice of lime and avocado.  For someone who can't eat shrimps and shellfish at home because of pre existing food allergies in the household, I swear by Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the chocolate clam is really good!

Bloody Mary and Sex on the Beach are about the same price and cheaper than Piña Colada Especial. Bloody Mary sounds so British, it's like listening to Adele sing Rolling in the Deep over and over again.
Of course Sex on the Beach would be nice!

And you don't even have to be at the Seafood Festival at Rosarito Beach Hotel grounds to enjoy Sex on the Beach. All you need is
1.5 oz vodka
0.5 oz peach schnapps
1.5 oz orange or pineapple juice  and
1.5 oz cranberry juice

Octaves on a Concert Violin

"My name is OC and I am an OC. Don't argue with me."

Aside from having OC for his initials,!he tells me he is a real OC with the D. He takes Zoloft, Lexapro, Prozac and occasionally Seroquel. 

I could relate with OC. I could humor him with treats from the pantry. I won him over in a way by calling him Octaves.

"Your name is music to my ears." I told him half seriously.
 

From then on, he would always ask for me or ask if I am working.  He is music personified, indeed. He started playing the violin at five. He was a prodigy.

He came to US from Romania in his teens, or was it Hungary? Life used to be do re mi fa so la ti do in a violin. He performed with a band in Las Vegas. As in every sonata, there's a a do at the beginning and all the notes in between until the music ends with another do. Take it from this shithead who doesn't know anything about music. 

There's Octaves smiling with his violin for a photographer. It is hard to imagine Octaves seeing him  as the OCD that he is now.  It must have been  the strings of the violin that got out of tune, then it snapped!

Mayada, daughter of Iraq

The story chronicles one woman's survival under Saddam Hussein. As I read the account of Mayada 

Anak ng Puto at Dinuguan

"Grade  1 lang ang inabot ko 

No read, no write pa ako

Paano na lang ang buhay ko?"

Karlee wanted coconut juice from Trader Joe's. Before she texted me to pick her up from the Sandberg's residence after a sleep-over, I was ready to enter Orient Valley, a Filipino cuisine place at Carmel Mountain. I aborted the plan to pick her up from the Sandberg's and thought she might want a tall glass of Halo-Halo at Manila Sunset. She declined the tall glass of Halo-Halo and wanted to leave the place. She seemed disappointed about not going to Trader Joe's. Stuck-up snot!

"Isang kahig, isang tuka

Ganyan kaming mga dukha!"

I enjoyed the song more than anything else. In an enclosed area came  the sound of a screaming child  throwing a fit. 

It's the Manila Sunset, alright. A young Filipino girl took my order. She repeated my order in a no-accent English without the suffix "po". 

Puto at dinuguan!

The  steamed rice muffin which is more of my translation of puto is mushy and more of the son of a male prostitute that I thought it was in the first place. 

The vampire soup is good enough for this fucking hand-to-mouth nomad that I would always be.