where this apple came from

(to those who don't know my mom, let's just say that she could be verbally challenged. she was the one who came up with such terms as "wash ashboards" (washboard abs) and "hamster, hamster jenny from the block" (won't even try to explain). and i don't write fiction, the decision to stick to nonfiction came after anonymous referred to my first short story (resurrected and given the title "running home" for my fiction class) as "kabaduyang my green sky." ah, to be young and in love... i digress, yet again. the following is just one of many accounts of her zany vocal misadventures.)

just a while ago, after watching oprah (she was watching oprah), mom looked at me and said, "pj, may sitio na si tita kaydee." (tita kaydee is her widowed cousin, known for throwing money, gas money usually, in my general direction. she funded the recent addition to my wardrobe - a Ninoy-note worth of jeans. thanks, tita, for keeping the tim yap in me alive.)

"ano?!" - the exclamation point is a necessity in this interrogative, this is how i usually react to my mother's statements - the annoyed deaf person's reaction.

"meron nga. seven thousand bili niya," she said.

"ha?!" - i really couldn't understand what she was saying. is my tita a haciendera all of a sudden? is she really a proud new owner of a municipality or a barangay?

"ang cute nga, e. mabuhok daw yung aso."

tapos ang usapan. nadali nanaman tayo ni alma (my mother's name: alma concepcion juan laqui. remember, i only write nonfiction.).

"ginagago mo nanaman ako, alma." she doesn't mind the expletive or two now and then, and that i call her by her first name. at this point, she is caught in a fit of aneurysm-developing laughter. how diffictult is it to pronounce two words made familiar by daily use (fecal material, yes. used as an invective. who uses "zoo" on a daily basis? my life is one, so i do.)? it is entirely in vain, we both know it, but she tries anyway -

"tama diba? shih tsio... shih stu..."

it never really falls far away from the tree, does it?