Y Grace
Today is Kuya Rody’s first death anniversary. I can’t help but look back on this day last year – our exchanges of texts in the morning and throughout the day -- to calling him to have a short chat, and our last exchange of ‘goodnight’ texts a couple of hours before I got a call from my sister Malou informing me that Kuya Rody was rushed to the ER of Chinese General Hospital. It’s hard to forget those. And then the hospital scene. And the funeral. And now, everything’s been a year.
Together with my 2 sisters Emmie and Malou, we organized a simple yet memorable get-together remembrance for dear Kuya Rod. It was held last Sunday (July 19) at his gravesite in Holy Cross. Years ago, Kuya Rody gave us the name the G.E.M. Team – of course those letters stand for Grace Emmie Malou – and gratuitously flattering us with, “because you guys are truly a gem”. So in our invite, we decided to sign our name as that.
The get-together was a success. We had a very nice breezy overcast weather – with just a drizzle of rain – blessing each one’s arrival.
It was a potluck picnic and most of the food shared was Kuya Rody’s favorite chow. There was dinuguan, misua, mango-tomato salad with bagoong, itlog na maalat and tomatoes, Korean beef with cream sauce, chicken cordon bleu, fried spring chicken (ala Max’s), spaghetti, bringhe (similar to paella), chicken macaroni salad, minatamis na saguing saba, and for drinks, we had gulaman, soda, coffee and of course water. Fresh fruits like ripe mango, watermelon, bananas were also served. So you could imagine how full we all got!
After lunch chow, we gathered for the prayer. I read the Bible Reading from 1 Corinthians 15: 35-44. Then Emmie led the Prayer for the Souls, Malou led the Prayer for the Dead, and Ate Aurie led the Closing Prayer.
For our finale, we sang the Family Power Theme Song – the Arceo clan theme song - whose lyrics were composed by Kuya Rody in 1982 (upbeat melody given by Kuya Rolan). We haven’t sung that song in ages! And we were moved to tears as we sang – each word gently melting our hearts, each of us being touched by its message. Truly, everyone felt Rody’s presence.
Then it’s time for some laughter. After all, it’s a celebration of Rody’s 1st year in eternity. I prepared 2 trivia games about Kuya Rody.
The first one is a word game, wherein the answer will be taken from the letters of
R-O-D-O-L-F-O A-R-C-E-O.
And the second game is a question and answer game wherein each of the 2 teams race in writing the correct answer on a white board. The games turned out to be hilarious as each participant ‘contests’ each other’s answers. Haaayyy, naku, si Kuya Rody talaga. After the game, everybody got a treat from Manong Felix -- a bag full of chichirya! Whooppeee! I grabbed the Caramel popcorn and some flavored pulburon. Yum yum!
Well, as it turned out, the belly laugh made everyone hungry. So at snack time, we munched some more – of what’s left on the buffet table – and some started ‘hoarding’ for their ‘take-along’. While snacking we chatted away, and the topic? “What were you doing/where were you last year of July 21, and what was your reaction when you found out about the passing away of Kuya Rody? “ The scenes are still vivid for a lot of us – especially Manong Felix, Ate Aurie and Roma, who were one of those who rushed Kuya Rody in the hospital.
It was indeed a day full of fun, food, family bonding, and fitting tribute to Rody. We were savoring the moment -- we all wouldn’t want it to end.
To everybody who came and joined us, brought their share, and helped to make it a success, maraming salamat po.
And to you Kuya Rody, maraming maraming salamat sa magandang alaala na iniwan mo. Hinding hindi ka namin malilimutan. Mahal na mahal ka namin!
It has been a while. A year to be exact. And here I am publishing my first blog in a year! I actually have tonsquite a number of blogs that are unpublished/unfinished due to my being a facebook addict very busy.
My name is Grace and I’m a Facebookaholic. I admit, it’s the first thing that I do in the morning, and probably the last thing I do at night, well, yeah, apart from yawning. I must admit that I’m currently crazy with farming – maintaining farms at Farm Ville and Farm Town. I have recently been intrigued by my niece’s Barn Buddy – but I had to constrain myself from getting hooked started. FT and FV was introduced to me by my Super Kumareng Vangie – and the rest is history.
Anyways, I have only been farming for barely a month now and the levels that I’ve reached so far is no comparison to some of my ‘neighbors’, but I’m extremely enjoying it thus far. Hence some points that I’d like to share:
Virtual farming is a lot like how you deal your life. The cliché ‘you will reap what you sow’ is exactly true here. If you carefully plan / decide what you plant, you will make a good harvest and earn ‘coins’ for you to be able to ‘afford’ things for your farm. You have to choose which to plant among the ‘seeds’ that will grow on a given time period. Let’s say you want to plant strawberries which will grow in 4 hours. You really have to make sure that you will be able to check on it after 4 hours or it will wilt and go to waste. To enable myself to do ‘something else’ (in my non-virtual world), I make sure that I plant seeds that will take days to grow – especially if I will be busy for the next couple of hours or days. Planning is essential in planting. In real life, planning directs your life to the better path.
Sending gifts to your neighbors is a very good feature of FT and FV – as you may send out various farm essentials to your friends / neighbors -- free! This include trees, flowers, animals, etc. which they can use in their farm. This reflects your generosity and thoughtfulness and that of your friends. Since gifting is free, you may only do it once a day to each friend, or you may send one again until that friend has sent you back a gift. I know this is only a virtual world and a game at that, but I noticed that my friends who are really generous and thoughtful in real life -- are the ones who make an effort to send me gifts to my farms. (You know who you are. I love you a bushel and a peck! )
In Farm Town, you could bless other people by hiring them to work in your farm as they can earn extra coins. What’s even better is that harvested crops generate more value when you let other people harvest it for you. This pretty much encourages players to ‘help’ other people earn more coins. Most of the people you hire are very appreciative – as they make additional money from you that enables them to buy more virtual thingamajigs for their farm. If they are already your friends, you feel happy when they hire you -- your bond becomes stronger. But some total stranger playing the game may also hire you, and you end up being virtual buddies. Much like being an entrepreneur – you bless people with work, you gain numerous rewards, one of them is having a steady income for you and your family, not to mention your workers’ respect, good service and loyalty.
Magtanim ay di biro. Maghapong nakaupo. This is the downside. I have spent countless additional hours sitting in front of my mac for Facebooking. This doesn’t help my attempt to gaining back my shapely *ss from the not so distant past. I typically do office work, so my job usually requires me to sit in front of a computer most of the time in a day for 6 days. Sogetting addicted playing Farm Town and Farm Ville robs me of the time to at least do some stretching and exercise like walking. And not to mention my laundry almost walked out on me to go to the nearby laundry shop. And what about my reading backlog? And my blogging backlog? And this list will be endless.
So I digress. This blog also serves as a warning. A warning that is maybe too late to come. If you are reading this, you are, I’m sure, a citizen of the internet. And you probably have a Facebook account. And you probably play virtual games and do a lot of stuff in there too. So I guess this is more of an advice. DON’T OVERDO IT. Like life, if you overdo and overstuff yourself with anything, you reach a point of breakdown. Systems crash. So after reading this, go and find yourself better things to do than sitting. Hug your mom. Offer your dad a cup of coffee. Play or walk your dog. Tend your garden (the REAL plants this time!) Get up and move your *ss! And I mean NOW!
