Tita V's Wedding

Without further ado, here is the link to Tita V's and Uncle E's wedding videos!

 Tita V's Wedding Pictures

By the way, the photos were taken with my trusty Nikon D60 equipped with a prime Nikon 35mm f/1.8.

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A Kid's Graduation Party

Cousin Christine's Oldest Son's graduation party was in a cozy barn-looking hall at a park. It was three days shy of the summer solstice, and the temperature was around sixty degrees Fahrenheit. Typical Pacific northwest weather. Thank goodness for forced heated air.

When I arrived, Cousin Christine's Younger Son was slaving away in the kitchen. Not!

The kids - yes, I still call them kids... in fact anyone younger than I am is a kid to me - were playing charades.

 

Here are some instances to support my statement about calling anyone younger than me "kids"...

1. They don't know what NCIS is. You know, that
     witty murder mystery solving TV show with the
     Navy special agents, one of them an lady
     ex-Mossad who can kill you with one quick
     move of her wrist.

      Huh? What the heck does NCIS stand for 
      anyway? Is that from Star Wars? Whuh?

2. Kids eat a lot. A. Lot. And they. Don't.
    Gain. Weight.

     I repeat: kids eat a lot.

     And don't gain weight.

3. Kids don't sit with the adults. They're not
    cool enough. The kids, not the adults. I
    mean the adults are cool. Oh you know
    what I mean!

4. Kids play on the swing set.

5. Kids are terrified of heights.

6. Did I mention that kids don't ever gain
    weight no matter how much they eat?

Thanks for inviting your old aunt to your graduation party Christine's Oldest Son. And now I have to run a marathon, do two hundred squats, a thousand sit-ups, and eat oatmeal and broccoli for the next 17 days to burn all the calories from the food I ate at your party.


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High School Graduation

Graduations flood the month of June. This was Cousin Christine's Oldest Son's high school commencement. They are very special events because they mark the milestone of adulthood. From here, he is no longer a child, but a man who votes for his country's leaders. From here, he embarks on the journey of adulthood.

Graduates are very proud of their accomplishments. Commencement is the culmination of thirteen years of schooling to prepare you for the road of careers and livelihoods.

Commencement brings on a sense of camaraderie with your fellow graduates, and appreciation for the teachers who counselled you through four grueling years of GPA, SAT, and ECA. (Ahem, that would be extra curricular activities.)

The ceremony itself is carried out with tradition. The turning of the tassel. The tassel which will end up hanging off the rear view mirror of your car. The car which you'll drive, hopefully, to college.

Tossing of the cap. Somehow, everyone gets their cap back.

Such fanfare calls for fans. Friends.

Brothers and sisters.

Uncles from far off cities.

Grandmas, er, I mean "mamas" from far off countries.

You want them to support you on this commemorative day. So that when you hold up your diploma and say "Look Ma, I did it!"...

Your fans cheer you on with obnoxious disregard.

 

Even the mamas who wear Prada...

Will cheer with obnoxious disregard.

And high school juniors, on this night, officially become next year's seniors. Oh joy!

 You can tell where your fans are from by the gifts they bear. Leis. Fake, but leis nonetheless. Islanders.

And even if it rains, and the temperature drops to the fifties, you muster up the pride to smile really big because today is graduation day.

Congratulations Cousin Christine's Oldest Son! 

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Fiancé

Two weeks ago, I walked into a restaurant to join a meeting.

The subject of the meeting was a wedding. Not just any wedding. Tita V's.

They met last fall, on the Internet. God bless the Internet. Immediately, a special friendship brewed from their correspondences. With the help and encouragement of her  BFF, she made a decision within seven months of meeting her Internet friend to be his fiancé.

Tita V's fiancé adores her! He calls her "Dear". It sounds so traditional and endearing.

They have so much in common. It's almost uncanny how their lives parallel each others'. 

So when they laugh together, or put a hand on the other's shoulder for comfort, or talk about tomorrow's to-do list, it makes me tingle with gladness.

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From Saipan With CH3OH

 My cousins from Saipan.

Actually, the first time I met them was in Cebu. Paul was a wee little baby, covered with heat rash, wobbling around the driveway of his grandpa's  (my uncle) house, with his mother (my cousin Baby) in protective pursuit of him. He was barely a year old, but already Cousin Baby was teaching him everything there was to know about the world. There was course sea salt sprinkled on the fender of a jeep (I think it was a jeep); Paul put a pellet in his mouth and made a funny face. "Saaaalteee," said Cousin Baby. "How does it taste?" she asked. "Saaaaahltee," she reiterated.

But it wasn't until Cousin Baby came to live in Truk that I got to know them better. 

 Raneez was the good child. Mayet was the middle child. She cried crocodile tears, and I'll leave it at that. And Paul was the good son. It wasn't too long after this photo was taken when Cousin baby and her family relocated to Saipan.

Raneeza, Mayet, Paul and PaB.

Anyway, Cousin Baby, her husband Cousin Ray, and their youngest child John (whom I barely know) came all the way to the Mainland from Saipan to visit Paul, Raneez, Mayet, and Mayets babies. We met up at Tita V's house last night. 

Shortly after PaB, MaK and I arrived at Tita V's house, this honkin' piece of red metal backed into the inclined driveway. By the sound of grumbling engine, I knew right away that it was diesel.

 It had beefy tires to support its massive, yet sleek body three feet off the ground.

 Now, about Cousin Ray. He was in Truk about a year before Cousin Baby, Paul, and baby Mayet joined him. So for a year, he was our chaperon to the beach. I remember one particular time we went swimming. Cousin Ray had recently acquired a slick little red Swiss Vitorinox type of pocket knife, and while waiting on shore while we kids (not Paul or Mayet) were out in the water, whittled a face into the side of a coconut. In the process, he cut his finger. But instead of stopping, he ripped some husk off the coconut and bandaged his gaping wound so that he could finish his whittling. When we finally came back to shore, we were more interested in seeing his cut than the face on the coconut. Kids!

Cousin Ray is a mechanic. A brilliant mechanic. He used to subscribe to Popular Mechanics. He could fix anything. Anything. So when I saw this slightly built body squatting under the honkin' piece of red metal, I knew immediately it was him.

 And there's Paul, two and a half decades after tasting salt pellets off the bumper of a jeep. Paul, like his father, likes mechanical things, especially if they're rideable and loud.

 Like father, like son.

Paul and Cousin Ray were installing a methanol injector. "It helps with the mileage and power of the truck," he said.

Curious, I asked him more questions. Because now I wanted one of these methanol pumps. He went on, and on, and on about increased thermal efficiency, increased power output, EGT, etc., etc. etc. 

 

Whewh! It all went right over my head. 

"Windshield washing solution," he said. You can use that instead of pure methanol. Now that I understood. But the rest might as well have been a cloud of methane.

Seven gallons is sufficient. I keep it in the [black] container on the pick-up bed. And by the way, the yellow tank is filled with diesel. "Just in case I run out on the road; not all gas stations carry diesel." 

Did I mention that Paul is smart?

 "The methanol is injected into the fuel intake... [and the rest, as I said before, is a cloud to me.]

This is Sheazie Bear. He is now a big brother to baby Jaida. I just thought I'd plop his picture in here to give me a break from thinking mechanics. All that gas talk was starting to give me gasssss. Don't mind that look on Sheazie Bear's face. He had just woken up from a nap, and wouldn't have anything to do with anybody but his uncle John (Paul's youngest sibling).

 Back to car talk. Cousin Ray needed a tool, so he and Paul went to Fred Meyer to pick one up. Thank goodness for Freddy's late business hours, huh! It was now after eight o'clock PM. Yes, up in our neck of the woods, the sun sets after nine o'clock.

I crawled underneath the honkin' piece of red metal because I could. Have you ever looked at the bottom of an automobile? It is something else down there, like a scene out of Star Wars! I was waiting for a door to slide open and start flashing green and red lights. 

 But the closest thing to a red light was transmission fluid leaking out of the brand new tranny that Paul just installed the day before he drove up here. 

Oh, did I not mention that he drove? All the way from San Diego? Well, Oxnard really, because he had to go there to get his truck, or something like that. Car talk isn't my strongest suite.

 And just like that, the methanol pump was installed. Bam!

 "The drive back to San Diego will be a good test run for the methanol fuel," said Paul.

Just in case any of you want one of these gadgets, here's the box. I know I want one. Paul told me it comes in a kit, and is very easy to install. (Right! Maybe for him.)

 That honkin' piece of red metal that Paul drives is a Ford F-250. Tomorrow, they all leave for San Diego. Twenty-one hours should be plenty enough to test that pump.

And by the way, EGT stands for Exhaust Gas Temperature. [Don't ask me it's significance.]

I don't know mechanics.

I barely know how to charge a car battery. 

But I know this: 

CH3OH.

 

No, it ain't related to R2D2 or C3PO!

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