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Hi kiddo, I'm back from Pangasinan. Here's the tale of my weekend there. Early Saturday morning, at 2:30 a.m. to be exact, I woke up Tonggie, whom I had asked to share driving chores with me. I had decided to drive because on Friday, my tummy started acting up and, if I were to hitch a ride, it would be embarrassing to stop once in a while to make 'patutak.' The earlier arrangement was that three Ferrer kin would bring their cars and would take on hitchhikers and we would all depart at 4 a.m. from Auntie Norma Liongoren's Gallery-cum-bahay (she lives above the Gallery) in QC. Auntie Norma had planned on taking her car but, upon learning that I was taking the FX, decided to leave it and bundle herself and her passengers with me. So Tonggie and I were up at 2:30. We packed an icebox full of softdrinks, prepared veggie sticks (singkamas, kerot, pepino, alas! no celery sticks) in a tupperware bowl and filled another tupperware container with Ranch dip. We also had Pringles and Ritz crackers and Oishi crunchy goodies stashed away. We drove off at 3 a.m. and got to the Gallery at 3:45. And spent the next 20 minutes knocking on the door, the gate, the walls of the Gallery. It did not help that the Gallery is next to the main road and the Liongorens nightly sleep through the noise of jeepneys, tricyles and trucks rumbling past. Finally, a groggy relative, Susan Claire, staggered through the gallery and let us in. We told her we were there to collect Auntie Norma, Diane Agbayani (Claire's sister) and Liza Lansangan, expecting she would go up and roust the snoring beauties from their beds. She must have been half-asleep 'cause she said they would be down promptly and waddled away. The hitchhikers slept on till 5:15 a.m.!! Then they came down one by one to shower and have a leisurely (aieeee!) breakfast. We did not set out until 6 a.m.! Thus we were caught in the horrendous traffic jam that begins in the North Expressway after 5 a.m. because of roadwork there. It started raining cats and dogs around 10 a.m. Tropical Storm Linfa was making its presence felt. We got to Lingayen at 12 noon, 9-1/2 hrs from the time Tonggie and I awoke for the trip. Mama mia! Lunch was at Auntie Penny Pobre's housewarming party. There was lechon and all kinds of good food, but I did not partake because of my tummy. After lunch we went to the Viray residence in Pangapisan for the Ferrer Reunion organizational meeting. The meeting went well. While it was in progress, I noticed that the FX's left headlight was broken. A stone must have hit it. I sent Tonggie off to find a replacement. The new lamp would light only dimly. Our plans to go to Baguio, which were developed during the ride to Lingayen, were put on hold. We drove half-blind to Dagupan where we had dinner at Matutina, a seafood place like Dawel (I don't know if you remember Dawel, but that was the place where you and I ate when Auntie Adeling and JoAl were with us). Gloria Macapagal Arroyo eats there, so Auntie Norma insisted that we check it out. I had the sinigang na malaga I love and it was delish! We then went to Traveler's Inn in Dagupan which is owned by Auntie Norma's sister Bing. She put us up: Liza and Diane in one room and Tonggie and I in another. There was only one bed and one pillow. Tonggie and I shared the bed but I hogged the pillow. The rain continued to come down as we slept the sleep of the just-too-tired in air-conned bliss. I woke up at 7 a.m. Sunday to have the headlight problem fixed in Lingayen and by 8 was done (30 minutes of waiting for technician and one minute to fix.) Turned out it was a busted fuse. I wish I had known that. I did not think it could be the fuse because the right lamp was working perfectly. In fact, each headlight has a fuse, which -- come to think of it -- is a smart thing. Que bobo yo! When I got back, Auntie Norma showed us around her family's compound. We met her elder brother and his married daughter who, with her husband who is in the bakery business, has a franchising operation called Plato Wraps. They have carts that sell pita-like sandwiches, e.g. chicken with mayo cukes and tomatoes in a flat bread. They started in Dagupan and are now in malls in Manila. Then we went to the house (in the same compound) of another brother Bok who is, according to Auntie Norma, the shoe magnate of the North. Business-minded, these Crisologos. A hotelier (Bing), a fast food franchisor (Mrs Plato Wraps), a shoe magnate (Bok) and a gallery owner (Norma.) Liza bailed out at 10 a.m. She had work on Monday so she hitched a ride with one of the other cars. Auntie Norma suggested that instead of Baguio we could go to Bolinao on the western tip of Pangasinan. It is the Boracay of the North, she said. Auntie Bing seconded the proposal and said she and her kids were looking forward to going there again. Since the rain had abated and since Auntie Bing had so kindly put us up free of charge, I agreed. We'd go to Baguio Monday. Everyone packed up and got ready to go. Diane was first down. She put her bags in the car and then looked at me with a funny expression on her face. She held up a panty and asked, "Whose is this?" Holding it against her waist, she added, "It's not mine." I told her I did not know, maybe it had fallen out of Liza's bag. She put it back in the car, still looking at me strangely (I suspect she thought I may have sneaked out for a liaison Saturday night.) After while, everyone came down and the awkward moment was broken. The picnickers were me, Tonggie, Auntie Norma, Diane, Auntie Bing and her three children, a boy whose name I did not catch and two girls Bambi and Rai-rai, and one of Auntie Bing's nephews, whose name I did not catch either but whom I shall call Mr Kulangotero because that is all he did during the ride to Bolinao. Worse, he sat right next to me! He had a repertoire of nose-cleaning techniques: pick and flick; pick and roll then flick; pick and stick. And he had my sleeping bag to his right. I have to have that washed because it might be booger-infested. We left at 11, Tonggie at the wheel. En route, I bought some spitted roast hito the size of my forearm; Auntie Norma bought a sack of talaba; and when we got to Bolinao at about 12:30, we bought mangoes, tomatoes, talong, a couple of strange-looking ridged cukes, bagoong, red eggs, longganiza and ice. Took us another hour of driving in a light drizzle to get to Patar and the lighthouse we wanted to see. Because we were hungry, we then drove into this resort that had its gate half-open and promptly got stuck in the driveway of the place. Turns out the driveway was soft clay because the area had been a rice field and the resort was not yet open. Bogged down as we were, that is where we cooked and ate. It was raining steadily now and, since the place was not yet finished, we sat under leaky tarps and beach umbrellas. Patar in Bolinao is beautiful in a wild untouched-by-man sort of way.The resort's beach was secluded from the rest of the coast by weathered limestone cliffs and it had a coarser version of the Boracay sand, a mix of eroded limestone and shell. It was a place whose beauty shone through despite the driving rain. The owners of the resort were smart to not tamper with what God had wrought. (We were so far from civilization that there was no cell site.) The kids and Diane swam while Aunties Norma and Bing supervised the cook of the resort (it was his first day of work and he had his kitchen under a tarp too.) After lunch, which was delicious (I never figured where the ridged cukes were used), the two aunties joined the kids swimming while Diane ensconced herself in this natural bathtub carved by Poseidon from the rock, letting the waves crash over her in a jacuzzi powered by the wind.
Meanwhile, Tonggie and I worked to get the car unmired. We were helped by the owners of the resort who arrived at 5 pm to find this car blocking the driveway. After two hours of digging, strewing gravel, setting planks; after the cook fell on his face when his feet went out from under him in the slippery clay; after getting out and once more getting stuck, this time on the beach (we got out of the mud, and onto the hardpan, but Tonggie decided to turn around on the beach and finding himself stuck, gunned the engine and dug the car into the beach till the car's floor pan was resting on the sand); after I jacked the car up to put wooden planks under it; after it was free and Tonggie had made it halfway up the driveway and got bogged down again; after more digging, pushing, changing drivers (Auntie Bing for Tonggie), we finally got unto solid ground and the main road. It was now 7 and I drove us home. Diane figured that we got stuck in the mud cause we had not bothered to go to Sunday mass. We got to Dagupan at 9:30 pm, where your Auntie Dolly called to say that thieves had entered Pilar and had made away with the brass chairs and tables in the garden. I decided then to go directly home, forget about getting Pangapisan bagoong and going to Baguio Monday. At the inn, the weary picnickers unpack the FX and I find another panty in the FX! I ask whose this is and the aunties figure it must belong to one of Auntie Bing's girls. I say this is an amazing thing, it is the second panty we have found. Auntie Bing says she found a third that she discreetly pushed under the front seat with her toe. I am awed. My FX has turned into a 'nakakalaglag panty' car. Diane says that might be the same one she found, was it blue? Auntie Bing believes it was. Auntie Norma's face lights up and she says it must be hers! The mystery of the blue panty in the car is solved. After that feat of sleuthing, we go with our ice box to the Dagupan all-night market where the aunties helped me buy bangus, boneless and whole; malaga (my treat to myself); oysters; pingka; and two kaings of mango, one ripe and one green. A quick bath, and Tonggie, Diane and I are off to Manila at 12:40 am Monday. I drive all the way to Diane's Teachers' Village apartment, struggling mightily to stay awake the last 30 km, and Tonggie takes over for the trip to Alabang. We are home at 5:30. I go with Manang to the Barangay Hall at 10:30 to report the theft but they are not too sanguine about recovering the stolen goods. That is the story of the weekend (mishaps notwithstanding, it was fun.). The rains have not stopped. Steady and heavy. But no wind. It is officially the start of the rainy season.
Miss you lots, (((((((())))))) "8{>
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