e-Starved

December 20th was a big day in the Sabolboro household. It was Bong's birthday and Jas's graduation. Now, I am a proud momma of a U of M graduate... yay! A party was planned for these milestones, including a despidida for Thaad who's going back to the Philippines to study film making at the IAFT. Long-time friends and their families who now reside in Canada came to Michigan to celebrate this joyous event with us. The Sabolboro home was transformed into the Sabolboro Hotel. As I always say, my house is small but everyone is welcome. Unlimited internet access is one of the ammenities that this little hotel brags about. Brice had with him his own Macbook and so with Dennis. Ervin brought his own PC notebook. All these equipment, in addition to what was already available... the front room desktop, my notebook, Bong's notebook, Thaad's Macbook. Everyone was ready to read and answer e-mails, harvest e-crops from their e-farms, surf and have fun. Uh-oh... we got disconnected!... of all the time to get internet trouble! Even the phone was not working!... and my ever-reliable and beloved techie guy was not able to do anything about it. Well, oh, well.... If there's one thing we learned about this whole experience is that we have proven that nobody ever dies without the internet or the phone because here we are... alive and still internet-ing.

My apologies to those who lost a lot from wilted e-crops and to those who missed watching their pinoy drama on-line... better luck next time.

P.S. After hours of troubleshooting, Bong finally figured it out. Thank God for husbands.

Ding-Dong

My parents named me Casilda, pretty name, according to them. I grew up getting used to be called by name's shortcut like, Casil, Cas, or Sil.... so then, my nicknames.

As a little girl, my older... and bigger cousins would tease me, they would call me "Indang"... may I say, they murdered my pretty name. I would get mad and cry over it but soon I got used to answering to that monicker. Now, without hesitation, I can say that my name is Indang, call me Dang for short. Except for my parents, everyone calls me Dang.

This is my story. This is how I got my nickname, but every Filipino has one. The joke is "Filipinos have doorbell nicknames." My husband's name is Renato and his nickname is Bong. I would say it is an appropriate handle because he's a big guy and Bong sounds like a big bell. Kwing is one of my sisters and yes, her name sounds like a small bell... and yes she is small... small but terrible, that's what she is. Her size does not prevent her from fighting with anyone who gets in her way. Mirzi is my godaughter. Her nickname is Ting-Ting. Why? Only her mom has the answer. There are a lot of other doorbell nicknames.... Bingbong, Ding-ding, Kong-kong, Yang (my other sister), Bibang (my grandma), Peping (my grandpa), Neneng, Miming, Soling (my other grandma), Leoning (my other grandpa), and so on and so forth... Filipino strangeness!

I know a girl whose nickname is Klang-Klang. I guess it depends on how you say it... then you can see the semblance to the actual person. Can you guess?... big girl?... small girl?