I Did.

Yes, I’m afraid I’ve gone and done it, wore something old, new, borrowed, and blue, had a big fear of tripping a big somersault kind of trip on the aisle and almost did but didn’t, got hitched, and now it’s over and done with.  Surprisingly, no one lost a shoe or got hit by lightning.

And now some of life’s lessons revisited, like…

Polite conversation.  It gives one… encouraging words, such as, “Why’d you pick that for your motif?” or “You must be excited” or “Can’t wait for the big day, hum?”  We smile, we nod, but I am not fooled! No matter how joyous or even colossally unbelievable to select members of the honorable families (at least some of them, anyway), there shall surely be hitches and those are hardly something to be excited about.  So yep, this will be about the days leading to October 15.  Lotsa snark material here.  Otherwise, RUN! Run from the mad monologues of a newly married geek.

We have the motif.  Motif is Old French for “motive”, and conveys theme or idea, a recurring design or sequence.  So if we’re talking about motif in its literal sense, well… DSTS and I were semiformal to casual bordering on a walk in the park or a ride on the stone carabaos.  ‘Xactly sounds like what the barong and the sundressy gown felt like.  We’d have gone with either a Mohawk, Timawan, Justice League, or maybe Appalachian motif in its stead, but supplies and funding were scarce.

Back home, though, when speaking of motif, most people tend to mean just the color and not the whole theme in general.  Rarely will someone include details such as, “Oh, butterflies!  Butterflies on my gown, on the silverware, and the candles, and 2,000 cocoons that will metamorphose and flutter about by the time we forcefeed people at the wedding banquet!”  Or, “Ooh, whee, ooh, I look just like Buddy Holly.  Oh, oh, and you’re Mary Tyler Moore.”  Whaddaya mean if I’m sure?  I’m sure.  I dunno, maybe that’s the way it is nowadays.  But the idea really sunk into me when I was there facing Lulu The Wonder Woman and he asked me what my motif was. 

“Wild color combos are so in, babe.  What’ll it be?  Fink and turquoise?  Furple and yellow?”  Orange and lemons?  Deciding to nix the previously considered motif-motifs, I said, “Copper.” 

“Coffer?  Is that, like, farang fink?”

“Hindi, like a nice, rust color.”

“Anoh?“ 

“Um.  Bronze?” 

“ANOOOHHHH?!!“ 

“Red na ma-brown na ma-orange na metallic.  Kalawang na shiny!”

There we go.  I’m feeling stupidly wiser all of the sudden, just like all brides are wont to be, so please indulge me: mes hijas, should your turns come?  Remember what elderly Aunt Jill tells you: the basic thesaurus, while helpful, will give you lots of anohs, so it’s best to bring something.  A Pantone booklet.  Or swatches of the cloths you like, which I did, in the form of an old, shiny sleeveless pajama top.  Why it was shiny, I don’t know — maybe it used to be something you wore to the clubs, but it bloated and handed down to me and I used it as a pajama top.  Or maybe it was of Mama’s wunnerfully magical retasos.  Anyway, just bring something.

So a lot of people ask why this color.  Well… I like it, to start with.  It’s metallic… very cool in photos.  It also has this warm, earthy shade that looks good on you whether you’re fair, tanned, or darker.  Gold and silver do not work the same way and, in fact, get kinda washed out in some lighting, whereas copper or bronze look great in natural outdoor light or artificial indoor lighting.  I don’t have anything against bright colors, ‘kay.  Wear those limes and incandescent oranges and pinks if you love ‘em.  I’m just saying that sticking with those colors in a society with a dominant colonial mentality must compel your maidens to really like their tans, or else swear by the power of their favorite peelers or Likas Papaya, that’s all.

I asked Lulu to suggest a lighter color for the ninangs to wear.  Why I’d want to do that, well, all the ninangs were fair complexioned, and for relatively mature women with fair-to-medium skin tones, pastels look great.  Lulu gave me a choice of old rose (pink) or puce (yuck).  So I choose old rose… I don’t exactly like pink, but sure, why not, Lulu.  I can live.  Hum.  Anyway, I just want to say my ninangs all wore pink and they looked fab, bias in favor of my taste notwithstanding.  Hee.

These boots were made for walking.  “Chin up and smile,” hissed the manong of the church through smiling, unmoving teeth, as I attempted my first wobbly step while fearing I might step on the hem.  For the manong was trained to maneuver everyone in the tradition of Patton, and was being tasked to do the exciting job of coordinating the step-nos after no rehearsal was allowed, since a place of solemn worship rightfully demands solemnity, and picture coordinators shouting, “Wan, tu, tree smile!  Glide!  And, glide!…  sinabi nang glide, ang kulet…” when other people are naturally in serious spiritual mode, concentrating on their problems and sins and penitence and stuff.  Not in harmony, right?  But gawd, the spontaniety.  Nearly killed us.

“Dahan da-HAN!”  Manong pulls me from the pensive tangents back to the pre-mating ritual.  “Ayan,” he approves after a few more steps, still with that weird smile.  Gaad.  He’s destined for a life bereft of dating fabulous submariners such as myself, that’s for sure.  Sigh, here we go. Chin up, check.  Smile.  Ste-ep, ste-epp…  whoops.  There goes the hem.

I reach the middle part of the aisle where Mama and Papa were waiting for me so we could proceed together, as was in Manong’s script.  After holding to each parent, I checked if the smile was still on (it was) and we resumed walking, with chin up, while checking the smiles.  Papa was nervous, too… I mean, there were a few people but for non-showbiz people like us, we’re like, all those people lookin’ at us?  Scary.  So he kinda veered slightly away from the red carpet leading to the altar, and I was like, “Papa, I think the heels?  Have left the carpet.  Let’s go back.”  And yay, we made the walk ALIVE.  The feeling through it all was calm, then chaos, then calm again.  Then a sort of dread on what might happen next. 

It’s the harbinger of what married life is.  And the video must suck.

Preciousssessss.  The horrid Monsy, who grilled DSTS and me on cathecism and graded us unfairly even if we answered all questions correctly just because neither of us nor our parents bothered having going through confirmation whatever stuff, officiated the ceremony.  Sorry, DSTS, but I couldn’t let this go.  The other couples who were poor excuses of confirmed people couldn’t even get one answer right… except for that man who was a former seminarian.  What’s the point of passing these people through this test when it’s clear they got zero?  I even know the freaking catechism stuff — not in the Bible — better than they do, for Pete’s sake, and I’m not even Catholic.  Then that Monsy gives us crap for knowing what the church is supposed to be testing couples for, and give the dumdums thumbs up?  That’s what priority is for you, you, prissy, habit-wearing fart.  No wonder Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for people to reach the kingdom of heaven. It has nothing to do with being rich.  It’s because they take the trouble to get confirmed, then fall asleep on Sundays.

He instructs DSTS to put the wedding band on my right ring finger.  DSTS was confused.  “Di ba left?”

“Right, sabi!” Monsy insisted.  Dude, we didn’t piss him off the last time, did we?

And just saying that Monsy is one badly-trained Babylonian mystery practitioner.  The tradition of the ring dates back to ancient times when people revered the Circle as the cradle of life, the never-ending cycle, Semiramis’s moon egg.  Whoever wears the ring has the power bound to the body.  Now it also happens that during those times, it was believed the end of the vein leading to the heart was found on the left ring finger — the heart was supposed to be located on the left side of the body, probably because you could hear the blood pumping better on that side.  So if you had the ring worn on the left ring finger, the one who puts it on controls the wearer’s heart.  So it really was the left, Monsy.  LEFT!  Man, what are they teaching clueless guys in seminary these days!

Oh, right, we forgot the doves.

It takes 17 muscles to smile.  But do that for a whole day and in lipstick, with my teeth!  Felt like crap and I looked like the Joker.  After the ceremony you’d think we would have the sense to rest or freshen ourselves up for the banquet, but no.  We had to be dragged helter-skelter across Lito Atienza’s domain to oblige the poor shutterbugs’ quota of under a thousand pics in pixels.  We posed like Fred and Cyd with toes together, arms held straight while holding hands, but we looked like cigarette stubs.  And now we have sore feet (and mine hurt more — at least DSTS wore socks!).

Seriously, though, Lulu did a great job with the dress.  It was probably not the most perfect gown he designed, but it was just right for me — because I am the Ever Wobbly!  It was comfortable enough for most places we were shanghai-ed to, and hem and length just right to minimize chances of collision with incoming bipedes.  So Lulu may be the second most requested sister, but dudes, Lulu rules!  He gets my shameless plugs!  Buy his dresses!  And while the Sisters are mostly cool, have a caveat that Lachesis might send you a fugly red mannequin for photo stuff, ’cause she sucks!  Huzzah!

Always say grace before dinner (“Grace.”).  No, dear God, I really was grateful for the food.  There’s this thing when I see people I know and am comfortable with that makes me so thankful for life that I want to eat heartily and there we were.  We were famished. 

Then came the hard part.  The waiter who has been cruelly rationing our share of the good stuff put a platito of juicy, succulent crab meat in front of us, and I swear my crab claw stared at me and screamed, eat me!  EAT ME!  And I had this overpowering urge to rip off my darn gloves and grapple with the guests for one decent shell cracker so I can pound at the shell and pick on the meat until I was sure that fine specimen of crustacea did not die in vain.  I looked at DSTS with that wild look in my eyes (“Honey, for the love of crabs!”).

“Don’t even thinkaboudit,” DSTS said quite cheerfully enough.  The thing about being subjected to public spectacle is you make an effort to improve your talents in ventriloquism.  We ate little ’cause we decided it’s nicer to go around and talk to guests after preliminary dishes and to avoid public speaking things and stuff normally expected by people who normally want to be entertained — so those guys were stuck with tinking the glasses with their forks.  ‘Cause imagine shaking hands with people while smelling of crab.  Gotta love the sticky feeling, too.  You know, I’m going back to my inclination that guests really are a nuisance, after all.  And we splurge on nicer food especially because of company?  What kind of twisted society have we developed into?

Ed Borncross really blew us away with the mood stuff.  The quartet delivered music by the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and some contemporary favorites, and they didn’t falter even once, or if they did, it wasnt’ noticeable.  We were expecting a three-person ensemble and a vocalist who was prone to cringeworthy piyokness (we saw her perform during Ed’s invite to go-sees at prior gigs at Fernwood and San Agustin Church).  But on The Day, Ed hired a different and much better vocalist and threw in an extra violinist.  Ed gets shameless plugs, too.  Both performance and price are highly recommended, just let me know when you need snooty mood music.

By the way, for people planning to throw parties at the Fernwood gardens that are worth lots of moolah to begin with, we checked and the ‘biospheres’ are nice, but on summer days, it’s like a pressure cooker in them.  Maybe there are plans to install megabucks worth of airconditioning someday, but for now we’re saying it’s not smart to hold your parties there when summer, unless you’re fond of runny makeup and sticky barongs.  The plants can only do so much for what DSTS refers to as the nog-nog smell. 

Toast to the best of the best.  Cool Grandma, you would have partied, your teacher friends were there, hee.  DSTS was that sixth grade classmate I was telling you about then, strange how things sometimes turn out, huh.  We miss you.

To the Mamas, thank you for being the pillars that hold together our families.  We couldn’t have made it this far without you.  To the Papas, you showed us what life is, thank you for inspiring all your children to work hard.  To brothers and sisters… so that’s what you look like in formal wear!  Soldier on!  And we must continue to be relied upon to whap each other behind the head in times of necessity.  Family people, we appreciate the support. 

To Piolo and Sandara, we’re still big fans!  Thank you for helping us with that crazy day.  To Den Marsh, Yayis, and Mike, thanks for the well wishes.  To Intrepid Jane and Fearless Gival, thank you for keeping the cool whe we sicced you with the bouquet.  What can I say?  We’re wholesome… but for a while we had you going there, didn’t we?  To friends who braved the traffic and hitched rides from Mars, thank you for sharing the day with us.  We both come from small clans, and you guys being there made the day extra special. 

And to friends and family who couldn’t go… were you NUTS?!  You missed out on a chance of a lifetime.  It’s not likely I’ll ever wear drag in full splendor again!  Thank Glork. 

And these, too, shall come to pass.  Hello, Yulu.

T Minus 17

It’s great to be home again, if you overlook the minimum jeepney fare is now 7.50, intersections in the metro are fast becoming extinct, and we still have the madam president’s tush firmly planted on Malacanang ground, et semper, amen.  We have Magnolia back in the market, and the milk, Chocolait or otherwise, is so much better tasting than Nestle’s, everyone.  Please ignore that misleading Nestle commercial.  And we have more people training children on how to be the next Viva Hot Men!  Ahh, the circle of life.

We have food.  I’ve been reacquainted with bibingkas, Red Ribbon’s infamous ube cake, Ongpin’s dimsum (best in the WORLD for monosodium-gultamation), Diok Hua’s incomparable tokwas and maki mi on Padre Algue, and a taco and Mongolian barbeque at Toll House in Angeles City.  DSTS is in constant panic that I won’t fit into that damned white thing when zero hour approaches.  Miracles do happen, dear.

Flipside:  I’ve wiggled into dresses, bonded with relatives I’ve never mingled with for decades, and talked with vendors I wouldn’t be caught dead talking to EVER should you look me up six years ago.  Aliens have plucked my eyebrows supposedly to aid the pre-mating ceremony, so when I finally get back to real life, my labada-induced perspiration will never hold up as well, I’m sure.  I want a headband like Federer’s. Cards we’ve pledged insomnia for to print and fold were finally sent via post office.  I’ve tested for blisters wearing illogically designed footwear, and my spinal alignment is to be adjusted to better project my ribcage to pixelated photomatic synthesis as instructed by the brilliantly semi-autistic hired savant called Wonder Lulu.

I don’t think I’ll be getting married again soon.

PS — A belated shout out to Mr. Shuli, who’s now happily trekking the land of Rogers.  Happy Birthday!  Thank you for introducing me to Vlad Dracula once again.  Have a great adventure ahead — and I hope soon I can afford to shoot that infernal dial up dead.

Waking Up Now

And it’s down to the last month before we hemorrhage brain cells with no holds barred, and in formal attire.  I place most hopes on vivacious Lulu, a smiling summoner of tulle and whatnots who belong to a coven of such on Balete Drive.  You know, I wonder when Lulu and the posse started that business, because I cannot recall exactly how many people regaled me with white lady tales in my lifetime, and naturally there’d be sightings of white ladies where there’s a salon that caters to such ensemble.  Di ba?

Lulu and her sisters Atropos, Lachesis, and Clotho have varying personalities (and Lulu by far‘s the only sister with a joie de vivre kind of projection), but good taste in salon masa music pervades in their little shop of honors (First meet:  Thievery Corporation’s Sounds From The Verve Hi-Fi.  Second meet: Joss Stone’s The Soul Sessions.  Third meet:  Gloria Estefan’s jazz flavored, sepia-toned music videos). 

Lulu, please make my gown a nice one and I swear you’ll get shameless plugs until the day you retire.

The question is whether that thing is gonna fit well or not, and if I, who foolishly dared mock the walk-and-turn exercises endured and practiced by seriously serious high school classmates who took on John Robert Powers hazing rituals, will be fine trying to gracefully (ha ha ha) walk in it on shoes that I pray will not compel me to tumble headlong into an embarrassing somersault and land in a complex arrangement of popping limbs and white fabric.  What did women do to need a proper sense of balance when heels, wobbly already by themselves, are to be inclined at such an angle for esthetics and strategic socializing?  Shoudn’t natural bipeding be enough?  And we include this in the set of acrobatics to be accomplished by females that they may be deemed well bred and well brought-up because?… I suppose this is yet another stupid codicil to pain in childbirth.  Those… men.  Grrr.

Counting to the days I discover the dress, shoes, and, childbearing actually fit, I’m herewith stuck in Poor, Poor Village with Big Heads still floating, and I dishing work, taking work, taking work home, taking work back to the office in the morning.  Gotta love work.  Sigh.

I had one of those alarm clock dreams again.  You know, those that flash me WAKE UP ‘CAUSE YOU’RE LATE! LATE! LATE! in pure unadulterated neon pink? Usually signalled by sequences that will take me in a bathroom or something similar, then taking a shower or changing a blouse and suddenly random with-people (live with, go to school with, work with) would barge in, or the door and the wall it’s attached to will simply disappear, and lo and behold I’m the goldfish, and scene will freeze frame, cue in end credits or fade to black?  Hey, I’m sorry I don’t have the standard white rabbit bungee-jumping into Wonderland, ‘kay, that’s the way it works for me.

Anyway.  That kind of dream recently updated itself… but not exactly sure what it meant, or if I like it over the old ones.  Much. 

Last night I was working on a presentation and debating whether to take a late shower already or somehow find time cooking something that hasn’t died yet in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch.  And, there’s my not-so-related-to-work stuff called The Download List:  fun movies from the 80s — The Monster Squad; John Hughes’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Some Kind Of Wonderful; Disney’s Flight Of The Navigator; Jim Henson’s The Labyrinth.  I gather I’ll need several months to complete downloading.

I decided on the shower so I can let my hair dry while doing three more hours of work finishing a chart and then adding on some more to one project proposal.  By approximately 2 am, I hit the pillows gladly.  Brief segue:  I miss reading Voltron fan fiction on the Net.  I no longer have time for browsing through fansites… plus, Geocities, Angelfire, and other free webbies supporting the majority of the fans’ pages are firewalled off.  One of the better authors out there was someone pseudonymed Rayne Storm — cousin Manga recently discovered her excellent Black Arus storyline.  Anyway, excellent as it is, there’s an unforgettable passage somewhere that made me go, hummm… where Rayne’s version of Princess Allura took a shower (shower is the word for the day) and was so tired she was “asleep before her head hit the pillow.”  Kinda like being dead before hitting the ground, except that it incites less of the pricking of my thumbs and by Goran, I wish I could do that trick.

Getting back, the first few sequences of the dream didn’t register that well.  I remember the last part, though.  It’s in living color, and I had the idea I was in one of the dorms or something, only the place looked like my mother’s house.  It was very early in the morning, and I was all, whadda fuh… it’s morning!?  I haven’t finished the stuff for today’s deadline yet!  I rushed to the front porch (very like our house’s stone porch) that overlooks the family swing — it’s a couple of wooden couches facing each other with a coffee table in between, mounted on what looks like a wooden raft, which in turn, is attached with swing mechanisms to a frame of pipes with a roof over it.  Mother had it built twenty-three years ago beside an old guava tree that grows by one wall facing a public lane. 

I get on the swing to get to the guava tree, which I climb to the point I could see over the wall.  The sky towards east was a curious morning blue streaked with lots of pretty oranges of the sunrise, but curiously when I looked up, half the sky was black, not night blue, and filled with… black clouds?  For the detail-oriented, I’d say they’re shafts of coal-colored strato-cumulus — shaped like one side of Binky the Clown’s hair. So from looking up, I follow the sky back to the direction of west, where it’s illogically pitch black, and behind our house was a HUGE, leafy mango tree that shouldn’t be there.  At the heart of its branches, very Brian Froud-like in composition, sat a big, hairy kapre.  Puffing black smoke clouds with the standard gigantic tabako.  Looking straight at me.

If I may interrupt again?  I never think of kapres.  Not much of an impression.  True, my knowledge of Filipino mythology, for lack of better sources, mostly comprises non-deitic folklore entities like tiyanaks, aswangs, duwendes, Maria Makiling, and mangkukulams.  But it also hasn’t been referenced to since 1986, which was right about when my father, in his own brilliant way of bonding, insisted we sit through a circa-70s Ramon Revilla agimat flick rerun on IBC 13′s Halloween special… never mind I was just nine and T2jim was five and Dozer 21, who, though small enough to escape unnoticed, can barely crawl across the room to save herself from lines like: “Wag kang lalapit.  Wag kang lalapit!  Yaaaah!“  At this point, the starlet’s village lass turns to aswang lass.  Honestly. 

And guess who was stuck with memories of fanged beings gorging themselves with screaming barriotic extras because of that unforgettable parental guidance moment.  But if we’re talking about monsters, bloodsuckers always have better scope for imagination and the heebie-jeebies factor for me.  And this is why I found the dream stranger than usual.  Why a kapre in particular, and does it have to do anything with a sitch I’m in these days?  The things I think of just to not think of work.

And so to conclude.  With a yelp, the dream-me clambered down the guava tree, scrambled across the porch to get inside the house and lock and bolt the door behind me.  Close call.  I leaned against the door, there was the whole household, staring at me like the people in the older goldfish-alarm-clock dreams.  I really thought that time the place was a dorm, but I guess we could say it was home all along.  Anyway, I addressed the person that resembled my mother, saying, “Hi, guess what, there’s a kapre up in a huge mango tree that I’ve never seen before behind this house.”

And “Mama” replied, “Yup, he’s testing our new tobacco stock.”  Noo, nee-noo, nee-noo. 

And I wake up. 

A white dress, Balete Drive, shower scenes, a kapre.  We have a theme.

Home For The Fairy Tales

You know what they said about your wedding being the best day of your life?  Let me enlighten the uninitiated.  It couldn’t be that good.  That idea is an illusion.  The reality is it’s the sum of days of shameless haggling and meeting with people who drain you of funds for things you get to please other people.  I can only imagine it will be a day of pure stress.  I mean, the bill for the caterers?  I could get a whole library for the same amount.  Maybe several pairs of Jimmy Choo shoes.  Of course, if you’re filthy rich with plenty to throw out to mercenary highwaymen called planners, then yes, your wedding may indeed be the best day of your life.

Don’t even get me started on the people at the churches and city hall.

And so, for the moment, I embrace the mass practice of, erm… escaping the harsh world that is reality.  Filipinos are at a crossroad about who they really are.   Many don’t know how to deal with all the crap, and so they turn to the fantaseryes so in vogue today.  Mulawin is done, and now we have half of its cast in Darna.  There’s also this one called Spirits at Channel 2… but I’m more of a Channel 7 person when I need to immerse into this kind of thing.  So, here’s this new telefantasya entitled Encantadia, an offshoot from Mulawin about a bunch of warring fairy sisters bent on absolute domination of the kingdom of fairies.  No, I am not kidding. 

I have to say I like the costumes. 

See, Dawn Zulueta is the queen of the fairies in Encantadia, and Lireo is like their Emerald City.  She had these four daughters, the sanggres, with different guys… maybe because as the Inang Reyna, she cannot marry.  We have to wait for the explanation.  Amihan (air elemental) was fathered by Rakeem, played by Richard Gomez.  Rakeem was a warrior who ran off with his kid to earth for her safety, and he flashes this Men In Black kind of wand to anybody who sees weird stuff from them, particularly Amihan, as she can turn to smoke, create gusts of wind and all that.  In his spare time he writes a funky kind of phonetics and teaches Amihan the ways of the sword.  He advises Amihan of the wisdom of staying out of school.  Lesson One to the masses:  letting a kid handle the sword is okay, but playing ball in the village school with the village schoolchildren is bad!

Okay, the Bad.  Bad guys from fiery Hathora catch up with them one day, and I’d like to note the way the Hathors were “beamed”, backlit by red lighting amidst smoke and jagged rocks?  Very nice.  Rakeem is killed, of course, by Haggord? Haggard?  Hmmm, could it be the writer’s been mining her Peter S. Beagle?  Haggard notes the tattoo on Amihan’s nape before attempting to kill her.  The fairy kawals save the day.  Amihan’s returned to Dawn Zulueta by Dawn Zulueta’s kawals.  You’d think male actors would balk at being called warrior fairies, but that’s not the case here.  These are professional fairies.

Still with me?  Okay.

Next is the lowdown on the three other fairy daughters.  Sunshine Dizon  plays first-born Pirena (fire), who totally screams her lines and is prone to hacking and heaving for dramatic effect; sometimes it looks like she’s on the verge of a seizure.  She can morph to look like other people, like Mystique.  Slashing double blades, she is hinted to be fathered by Haggard.  Haggard (Pen Medina) is the leader of the Hathors who killed Amihan’s dad. 

There’s water elemental Alena (Karylle), the third sanggre who can sing her foes to death.  That’s not a typo, the goons really fall fall down dead after a few bars of gibberish.  She’s a capable fighter except when her opponent is totally flirting with her, as some guy called Ibarro (Dingdong Dantes) did.  They tried this Han Solo-Princess Leia thing that would’ve worked if only they could act and work on the timing of when to thrust and parry. Officially Alena uses a spear for battle.  She’s completely useless with the arnis during Ibarro’s pseudo-ambush in her bedroom.  Use the Force, Alena.  Use the Force!

Lastly, there’s Danaya (earth sanggre), who’s not that developed a character yet.  She’s a healer, and wears this interesting looking headpiece of twigs for formal wear.  In action she dons leaves and leather stuff worthy to display Diana Zubiri’s famous FHM charms… it seems the writer has been mining her mythology as well.  Danaya wields a pair of arnis clubs.

Following my fascination with the Marvel Jim Lee, Flair, and Fleer stat cards, I pick all sanggres except Alena, and Haggard for my basic virtual deck.  Alena can’t convincingly fight worth a damn so I think that spikey tilapia-inspired shield design is so wasted on her.  She should’ve been the one stuck with Amihan’s feathers.  Amihan is supposed to be the most seasoned fighter, but she’s prone to annoying weepiness, durnit.  Lesson Two to the masses:  good guys must be living doormats; to be otherwise would make one a kontrabida… just look at those uncouth Survivor contestants!  Amihan’s gear lacks the organic effect seen on the three other sanggre gears.  Her armor looks okay, I guess… but with bad lighting, she looks like a bibe.

So the deal was, Queen Dawn wanted somebody to succeed her already because she wants to retire early from taking care of Encantadia’s four elemental jewels of power.  Hence a contest to test which daughter is the one worthy to be queen.  Pirena thinks because she’s the eldest, she should be the next in line.  But then she overheard Dawn telling the little person she fears Pirena becoming queen because of her “bad blood”.  So she snaps.  See those tanned neck muscles flex. 

Dawn’s fighting getup looks like those of ancient Japanese lone swordsmen, also inspired by Ninja Kids.  Her action double looks like a white-robed-and-hooded masked Dementor with a huge salakot.  So anyway, Amihan, who grew up to resemble Iza Calzado, wins the Quaddiwata Tournament.  Naturally, Pirena thinks the contest was rigged.  She challenges the queen’s decision through a spurned sanggre duel, and Dawn gets injured.  The three other sisters band together to bring Pyrie down.  Pirena steals the jewel of Fire and then crosses over to the dreaded lands of Hathor to seek Haggard’s help to plot against everybody.

Anyway, Alena the water elemental draws the attention of a roguish heir to a vagabond warrior clan, Ibarro — people, if you have any heart, please don’t name your baby Ibarro.  I don’t care if that’s a proper sounding name.  It’s funny how Dingdong Dantes always manage to get stuck playing characters with some of the weirdest sounding, deviated-from-Spanish names on Philippine TV… then again this is the guy whose real name is Sixto, and is known as Dingdong to his friends and fans.  Ibarro should be a piece of cake. 

Ibarro sports an Episode II Anakin Skywalker’s hairdo.  After several scenes of not-so-witty repartee, Alena falls in love.  Lesson Three to the masses: it doesn’t matter if your backgrounds are different; royalty chicks and foxes fall in love with poor riff-raff alla time.

You know, there’s this scene where Ibarro fell down during battle, so Alena was like, “Ibarro!  Ibarro!  Speak to me!”  Of course Ibarro was just playing possum.  There were several scenes after that, then we cut back to Ibarro and Alena, now being all mushy, and she’s bewildered and utters, “I don’t understand (this feeling I just can’t hide)… I don’t even know your name!”  This after a just couple of commercials?  BIG HINT that this love affair is doomed.  Ibarro replies to the lass with, “Ibarro!  I am called Ibarro, love of my life.  Future mother of my children!”  Aww.  GMA 7, you try hard and this stuff is inspiring for we who eventually grew out of dreaming of producing a D&D project, so please fire the editor of this show.

Then Pirena, aided by Haggard and his minions, attacks Lireo.  Her three sisters spread out, leading their most able kawals.  Amihan lets out this scary-funny war cry upon sighting the enemy.  Pirena and Haggard tag team on Amihan, who’s naturally so incensed with Haggard, ’cause he killed her father and all.  She was spouting in standard Inigo Montoya when Pirena slashes a mean one on Amihan’s back!  Then Haggard stabs her in the gut!  Will she die?  Of course not, this is only the fifth episode.

Danaya drags her back to the castle and heals her.  Queen Dawn Zulueta hears of it and philosophically decrees that as soon as she recuperates, Amihan should now concentrate on breeding so the next time she gets mugged, Encantadia will not want for an heir.  Nice logic there, Queen Dawn.  Attaway to solve this political crisis.  And you wonder why Haggard is rebelling?  Bathala save the queen. 

Inang Reyna then asks holy Bathala for help and Bathala sends a butterfly thingy to find the perfect sperm donor for Amihan.  Pan to scene where Alena stole off to see Ibarro and tell him she’s… wow, totally diggin’ on him.  And the butterfly lands on his shoulder!  Shall we buy a new guitar?  Sing the songs of Air Supply? 

Lots of people may diss Pirena or Haggard after this episode, but I am not fooled. It’s Queen Dawn who messed up everything. She was tactless to gossip about her daughters by different men! And do you mean to say Bathala’s butterfly chose guys like Haggard for stud duties, too?  And they live apart?  And where are the other studs?  Does she have a networked harem?  I don’t understand this consort method thing.  Everybody should just follow Pirena’s lead and chop off Queen Dawn’s head so unity will be restored. 

I expected better from Amihan, a warrior fairy who’s supposed to have witnessed the cruel death of a parent; Iza Calzado’s got classic, regal features, but Amihan should be played something like Maskman‘s Igamu.  But no.  The writers seem to have destined her to be a clone of her highly logical Inang Reyna.  That scary warrior facial contortion’s misled us, y’all.  Wimp.

Aargh!  The commercials showed Star Struck finalists in contemporary clothes for future episodes! 

I know, lots of marionette acting, obvious blocking and sloppy editing.  BUT it’s got nice props.  The animatronic little man looks like the 80s Dungeon Master and has the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ digits.  There’s this creature that looks like a malnourished Luck Dragon.  And midgets that look like Ewok-R2D2 crossbreeds.  And the lines? Priceless!  I barely got over the live micro-organisms commercial and now we have Nancy Castiglione, who plays an earnestly Tagalized Tinkerbell with an American accent, screaming, “Nah-SAHN na ang EE-nang Ray-NAH?!”.  Hee.  Encantadians even speak Kinda-Sorta-Elvish complete with subtitles.  Pen Medina, who plays Haggard, kicks ass with Egyptian-inspired kohl eye makeup and the standard GMA 7 villains’ yellow contact lenses.  I wish I could wear those to work.

I may stick around to see how this one turns out.

This show begins and ends with a CG storybook window.  It is rated PG, contains competent D&D fashion statements, scenes of beachside battles, extremely tanned characters due to the beachside shooting location, slo-mo battle choreography, disregard for children’s education, very clumsy courtships, computer-generated blood as befitting to sanggres, shameless hoodwinking, and lead characters so gullible, you’ll root for Sunshine Dizon to run amok and kill everybody already.

A Survivor Of Soon-To-Be-Married Nutcases

I’ve a friend called Den Marsh.  I met her in high school.  She’s a fine teacher, y’all, and oh, yeah… Cross-Stitching Lindseyphile recently pushed her to Friendster.  So, yay!  Welcome, and have fun. 

Brief segue.  Getting back on that thing in Displaced: you can get multiple Friendster Blogs blogs if you upgrade your account.  Also… I’m now blogging from China, so I suppose entries starting April should be logged correctly.  Chee, China has the FB blogs and we don’t.  But we have Pusit!

Anyway, Den Marsh.  I went home in February and she sent me a text message saying hello and congratulations.  Also if there’s anything she could do for me.  She would, except go through the maid of honor thing again.  I told her my thanks, but that I wouldn’t ask her to do anything.  Being not in Manila a lot, I thought it would uncomplicate things if I let the family and ourselves do the things we needed.  Anyway, poor girl.  She’s traumatized several times by bride-to-be friends.

Like the time another friend Zashi was about to get married, she hinted very broadly that she’d like it if Den Marsh threw her a bridal shower.  So Den Marsh tried.  She found this restaurant with a private room and everything else.  Unfortunately, I think only three of the people showed up.  I didn’t — really sorry… I had work that weekend plus an important family thing to attend to immediately after, and Cross-Stitching Lindseyphile was already working in Taiwan.  So naturally Zashi was disappointed and told Den Marsh so.  Den Marsh was sad and really affected because she truly tried, dudes.

Then came the time Den Marsh’s best friend, Peggy Sue, was getting married and she tagged Den Marsh to be the maid of honor. Much later, I heard through Cross-Stitching Lindseyphile, and then through Den Marsh’s texts, that they kinda grew apart during that time.  Apparently Peggy Sue insisted that Den Marsh take on lotsa chores, which she did. But Peggy Sue, assuming she had everybody else at beck and call, also ordered Den Marsh’s boyfriend to do other Peggy Sue related chores because “what’s he doing hanging around doing nothing anyway.”  I’m not an expert here, but ordering boyfriends of other people around as if you’re also entitled to it…  Peggy Sue.  Really not cool.

It’s sad, but I hope you don’t take these too personally, Den Marsh… times like these compel people to be in their most un-logical state of mind.  All that phermones and hormones and pressure and compromises and payment?  Blendered into one horrible, giant mess.  I think it helps to lessen the lunacy if you don’t have a budget to follow, and, ha ha ha.  Trust me, honey, you’ll understand when your turn comes next year.

I don’t even mind not having a bridal shower, it’s complicated to sync travel with schedules as it is.  I’m just nervous about the ceremony.  It’s not that I haven’t made up my mind yet and want to end the waiting, ‘kay.  I cannot wait for it to be over soon enough.  Even if I find the act of promising eternal love terribly romantic, it’s a different thing to do it in public, and the ceremony itself is the torture.  It’s like, center stage.  And the Von Trapp trainings in the early 80s didn’t exactly work for this personality. 

Phase two of preparations is about to take place, though.  And yes, I’m ballistic enough, thanks for asking.  And we still haven’t taken care of the baskets of fruit and mee sua and tee kha and fabric and things.  And we need to go see florists. And check the seafood.  And prepare the music list and sample CD.

But chill, Den Marsh, and have no fear.