People are wondering about this infernal heat. Why, they say, does it feel like summer when it’s the start of the “ber” months already (otherwise known as pre-Christmas time in Pinas and characterized with the cooling of the weather and the onslaught of Yuletide-song playing). As soon as September 1 rolled in, I heard Christmas carols being played in department stores and I couldn’t help smiling at the Pinoys’ eagerness to get the Christmas spirit going.
According to PAGASA, the heat is caused by a high-pressure area and that we (in the Philippines) can expect “fine” weather by day and thunderstorms at night. Temperatures have reached fever proportions in Q. C. at 37ºC recently. Honestly, this is the warmest I’ve felt this year. Not even the sweltering summer a few months ago, which got everyone talking about global warming, El Niño, and water rationing, got me complaining this much. One can really stir the air with a spoon, it is that heavy. I told Nanay (my grandmother), this must be how a heat wave feels like! I’m absolutely debilitated by it!
My agony is worsened by the coming of a cold, which I probably contracted last weekend in Clark when I had to repeatedly dash from and to the car trying to avoid the rain because P kept forgetting to bring our umbrella. I woke up today in a foul mood, having slept for only two hours, and immediately blamed P for my condition. I moaned and groaned and said to P: “I wish I could ask you to stay and take care of me, but you’ve already been absent from work this week (we attended a funeral).” To say that I’m impossible to deal with when I’m sick is an understatement. I simply don’t believe in suffering in silence. I cry, I whine, I complain, I toss and turn. P knows that the only way to shut me up is to baby me. He took out a mentholated rub from the cabinet and spread some on my back, chest, and neck. “Not too much,” I whimpered. I felt P rolling his eyeballs. He then lay beside me, although he should be getting ready for work already, and rubbed my legs with his (we call this “kiskisan”). I immediately fell asleep and woke up cheerier than a few hours earlier.
I say thank God for husbands, thank God.
