Tricky Boy vs. The Thousand Light bulbs

My father doesn’t trust me to screw on a light bulb.


He’d rather I call the building electrician who charges 100 pesos an hour rather than have his “little” girl change the busted light bulb.


But because he’s in town for a surprise visit, he screwed it on himself.


:-)


Pops texted me the other night telling me that he was going to be in Manila for some work-related trip with the mayor about some lighting seminar something or other.


I thought it was a way cool surprise. It would be nice to see my pop, I thought it would be nice to give him a tour around my hospital, so he could see where I worked.

This is my pop. (Lol. :-))


I was going to post the picture of him standing in front of the roster of names of the psychiatry residents (one of them mine), pointing to my name, and acting like the complete “stage father”. I actually toured him around the ward (where he got all curious and actually wanted to see my patients, which of course, I good-naturedly refused to do, because of the privacy clause.) I also took him around the hospital, where he saw the ER (he was surprised at how many patients there were, and how crowded it was.). When we passed by the ambulatory unit from across the street, I pointed out to him a patient who I thought was probably going to be admitted. “Pop, do you think that’s a Psych Patient?” I asked. “ Hmm...” he went, thought a little harder, and finally said, “No, she looks normal.”


(Haha. There is a reason why he’s an Engineer and I’m a psychiatry resident. True enough, I saw the same patient in the wards the next day.)


:-)


We just got home from Quiapo, where he wanted to go because he was looking for a place that reportedly sold good ham in Aranque Market. We took a cab, and walked around the Quiapo area most of the way.


He knew the area…and while we were walking, he shared a story about back in the seventies, when he was still in Nautical school, he and his friends were into Bruce Lee movies and from ROTC class, they’d line up to see the movies at the Bruce Lee festival (this is pretty much why I grew up watching Bruce Lee movies as well). They’d troop on Saturdays and munch on banana-cues (essentially bananas fried in sugar syrup).
We bought strawberries for home, and when we passed by a thrift shop, he held on to some tops that I liked while I picked out some more. Haha. He was a pretty good sport. We also ended up buying me replacement lamps for those that I had busted in my apartment (and hadn’t changed because I didn’t have the time), a screwdriver set (although he wouldn’t trust me to use it to change the ballast on my bedroom light), a table, things I needed for school, etc.


The sales clerk at the hardware store tested out one of the bulbs, and started to explain how the lights worked, and I was almost puffing out my chest when I said, “It’s ok, my pop’s an engineer, and he knows all about that.” Haha. The dude was Ilonggo, trying to speak in Cebuano, and very, very chatty. Pop and I gave 
him a good ribbing, and he laughed along.


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I reckon I’m a daddy’s girl type of girl. :-) I get along well with my father, and we’re very similar in that we are both stubborn, and that we both love a good laugh. We both want to do things to make people feel at ease. We don’t always agree on certain things, and there were even times that we’d have to resort to some book source, or some internet source to settle a discussion (which I almost always win anyway, haha. My father is not a big reader of books, but he is a sharp man.). They’re usually pretty trivial stuff…and one of the funniest I can recall was when we were arguing over what particular cannon they used in Desert Storm. LOL.


(Whatever… :-p)


He’s a joker, really, and I do recall times when we’d take at least two hours during dinner because he was always entertaining us with a joke, or a work anecdote, and stuff. Ahh…good times. 


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In theory, I reckon I know how to change the ballast of a fluorescent lamp, but no, I am not supposed to do it on my own. Lol.


He’d rather have someone do it for me, because he doesn’t trust me not to hurt myself around electricity. (He actually explained things as he went along fixing stuff in the house, including my toilet flusher, but of course, wouldn’t actually let me do it.)


Don’t worry pops, I’ll make sure I’ll get a man who can fix the ballast, change my lightbulbs, and do the plumbing as well as you can ( as well as make me very happy, of course.).


:-p


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Ohers:
 Congratulations, Atty. Zeus Yee! 
 Going home for the weekend.
 Attending graduation of 4 of my cousins. 
 Grew a pair of balls...but am slightly miserable about the timing. :-S

A bittersweet Surprise

June 15th, 2009
Dorm Rooftop
5:20 PM

The past few days have been quite dramatic and life-changing, not just for me, but mostly for someone I know especially well. He just recently became a father and overnight, these heavy responsibilities are going to start getting heavier and heavier on his shoulders.

As much as I want to be there for him, I cannot do so because I am utterly incapable and secondly, I am not sure whether I will be able to help him as much.

I promised him, jokingly (but I meant it), that if I were a big-time doctor, already, his little girl could have anything her little heart ever wished for, and all she had to do was ask me.

I suppose the thrill of fatherhood is still keeping him buoyed up and exhilirated. His little girl is himself in all aspects, down to the mouth and earlobes. It must be something for a man to see his own likeness in his offspring.

This is a bittersweet secret...one that will be known by all anytime soon. For his sake, I hope it will be soon because he's going to need all the help he can get.