Grains

Pa arrived a bit late from the market this morning. We were supposed to eat breakfast together. Hmp. I had finished my bowl of cereals, and started with the second CD of our morning background (which I discovered from the CD pudding case I had brought with me) when he showed up, clutching striped plastic bags of chicken cuts and vegetables. He would be THE king of the kitchen today because my Tia Rose and cousins Rach, James and Jay, would be coming over to spend the night with us. As promised, he would give one sack of rice to them if and only if they would sleep over, which, of course, they did-- not because of the "reward" but because of my parents' prodding. Apart from the choice cuts and greens, he already bought round fruits (suprisingly, including bananas) in preparation for New Year's eve. And, as usual, he polished off our morning with today's broadsheet— sort of a bribe for skipping our sunrise date.

I was enjoying my dose of scoop, particularly on Hatton's challenge to Pacman and on the Chateau Royale feature article, until I browsed the next set of pages. The well-known Honesty Coffee Shop in Batanes was robbed. I was dismayed, awfully sad about it. [Many people are familiar with that store— probably the only establishment in the world that does not have any lock or any person watching over it. All transactions are based on honesty system as the shop's name implies. A customer chooses an item then he or she simply leaves an exact payment.] But then it happened. Someone disrupted the time-honored passivity. Worse, the incident was not the "first" in the renowned zero-crime-rate town. There were other cases that, according to the article, had been reported as "minor incidents" only. Those crimes have been kept (or maybe settled subtly) to preserve the good image of the Ivatans. Come on now.

Good thing there was the Entertainment section to the rescue. Plus the sight of my father, doing his daily dumbbell exercises to the tune of In Love With Bacharach's last track.

*****
Hay. Batanes is our would-be next stop.