Beginnings

Having a fast growing 3-year-old granddaughter share the beginning of the New Year was one chapter in life filled with fun and laughter. Being continuously asked by Chessie, my granddaughter, "What happened to your hair?" helped me enjoy my receding hairline. Having to happily spend apostolic i.e., time with the apo, intervals during the holidays was refreshing for dealing with a child required honesty and the challenge to make each opportunity a learning situation. Pushing back her eyeglasses with a finger (yes, she wears a pair at an early age), fetching a glass of water from the dispenser, using the television remote, trying to remove her unreasonable fear of the dog, and answering her "why man?" questions. Walking with a child brings about the freshness of life that made me wonder why we have to make life so complicated with so many wants aggravated by being dishonest to others and more so with oneself.

Getting back to the office to start the new year saw much to be done in summarizing the year the was with month end, quarter end and year end reports to be done for financial reporting purposes. The year-end figures and/or events can serve as the benchmarks or reference points toward the year that has just begun.

With convicted rapist Corporal Lance Smith now returned to his homeland (as the U.S. embassy grounds is considered U.S. territory) the review of the Visiting Forces Agreement has to cover this case wherein the our President decided that the health of bilateral ties outweighed the value of clarifying the constitutional and legal principles that are alive in this case. We can begin to clarify where we stand on this matter since it sure is interesting for a foreign soldier convicted by our courts to be in the custody of the U.S. Embassy while legal remedies are to be exhausted while foreigners violating our immigration laws are held at the detention center. Anyway, this is an interesting story that continues to develop with implications on our national character and leadership. We begin the election process for our decisions on May and Chairman Abalos has begun pointing fingers at others for the failure of the efforts to automate the election process. So we begin the New Year with preparations for the old manual method of holding elections.

This is going to be interesting as whether Chairman Abalos will be sick and admitted again to the hospital during the critical time of the election as he digs deeper in the field of infamy or turns around and remembers that it is really the Filipino People who generously pay him.

Let us end with this attempt to make you smile. First for my family to encourage them be positive with the concerned, "My brother drinks a toast to holidays: "Here's to our holidays, all 365 of them!" and this poem to encourage us to become healthier: Twas the month after Christmas, and all through the house, nothing would fit me, not even a blouse.

The cookies I'd nibbled, the eggnog I would taste. At the holiday parties had gone to my waist. When I got on the scales there arose such a number! When I walked to the store it was less a walk than a lumber. I remembered the marvelous meals I'd prepared, the gravies and sauces and beef nicely rare, the wine and the rum balls, the bread and the cheese And the way I'd never said, "None for me, please." As I dressed myself in my husband's old shirt and prepared once again to do battle with dirt--- I said to myself, as only I can "You can't spend another winter disguised as a man!" So -- away with the last of the sour cream dip, Get rid of the fruitcake, every cracker and chip. Every last bit of food that I like must be banished. Till all the additional ounces have vanished. I won't have a cookie -- not even a lick. I'll chew only on long celery sticks. I won't have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie, I'll munch on a carrot and quietly cry. I'm hungry, I'm lonesome, and life is a bore but isn't that what January is for?

Unable to giggle, life's no longer a riot. Happy New Year to all and to all a good diet.*