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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Pink Salmon Sinigang to Save the Sunday

It's lunch on a sunny Sunday -- a welcome break from all the snow this whole week. My sister is home from a week-long business trip, and is due to fly out again this afternoon for Oklahoma. To make the most out of her weekend at home, she had the whole morning planned out. Only none of us knew it.

First was church at St. John's, where we were late coming in because we stayed up late last night watching movie after movie (again part of my sister's grand make-the-most-out-of-my-weekend-home scheme). At ten this morning, she was hurrying everyone out the door to try and catch the 11:00 mass. To escape her ire on this sunny Sunday morning and because she convinced me that we were coming back home after church anyway, I decided to leave my purse at home.

After the mass, and on the way back to the car, my sister announced she was dropping by her office to pick up some stuff for her trip. That was fine. After leaving her office, she casually tells everyone on board (me, Ma and her new husband) that we were going to the nearby winery to sample the wines. I was excited to go -- imagine getting loaded on a Sunday before breakfast! Woohoo! My sister was genius!

But it was too good to be true. Everyone who wanted to taste or purchase the wines was asked to show an ID. Of course, I didn't have mine. I left it in my purse at home -- where we were supposed to go straight back after mass, according to my sister. My gracious new brother in law offered to drive and get my purse, but I didn't want to impose. I let them go taste and buy their wine while I wandered around the winery looking at old pictures on the wall, reading old newspaper articles and moping.

Of course, my sister just thought of going to the winery at the spur of the moment, not bothering to check whether we all had IDs or not. It didn't matter that I would not enjoy this little outing, so long as she "made the most out of her weekend at home". Like she's not coming back...ever. Hello! she lives here; I don't. Meaning, it didn't matter how long she goes away for, she can always come here. I do not want to sound ungrateful to her, what with her paying for this trip and all. But this is testament to her self-centeredness.

She does not always think of other people when she makes decisions. Like today. She decides for all of us to come to this winery. When we get there, and they (her and her husband) have already started sampling the wines, she remembers her husband has to drive home and promptly tells him to stop drinking. She then hands me his drink and orders me to finish it. I who was not supposed to drink at the club because I had no ID, because my sister (who is telling me to drink now) also told me (earlier in the day) to leave my purse at home because we were coming... straight... home... anyway.

We are just railroaded with her bossiness all the time. Which reminded me of last night when we called the other sister back home in Manila, who reported that she was unable to drop off the wedding CDs at home because no one was there, and that all the other stuff were still in the box. Sister no. 1 hounded her and hounded her on why she did not drop off the CDs. Was I the only one in the room understanding that THERE WAS NO ONE HOME? I could hear Sister no. 2 on the phone, all worked up and trying to explain the phenomenon of "The Undelivered CDs" to sister no.1 and I can hear the frustration in her voice. I know why Sister No. 1 was so upset -- because she just wanted all the rest of our family and friends back home to see her wedding. Because, of course, everything was about HER! Now I am starting to remember why I hate her. And it makes me so relieved to know she will be on out of town trips so much of the time that I am here.

One hour, 7 drinks and 5 bottles of wine to take home later we were sitting down to a lunch of pink salmon head sinigang. It's very luxurious, I know to make sinigang out of pink salmon, but it tasted so much like home, it made me feel better! That and knowing that my sister was airport-bound again in 2 more hours, and will be gone for the rest of the week was enough to salvage what is left of this Sunday.

1 side-notes:

vanilla said...

i can feel your gigil, ma. :) thank God for the salmon lunch!