Summer heat

IT’S officially summer when a Popsicle begins to melt the minute it leaves the freezer, and when one Popsicle is not enough to lower down one’s body temperature.

Ladies and Gentlemen, its summer and boy is it hot!

I’m sure right now, a good chunk of the Philippine population are swarming beaches everywhere and parading around in Speedos and skimpy bikinis. The beaches of Boracay and Bantayan are without a doubt filled with underdressed people soaking up the sun.

So while most people are out by the beach, enjoying a stress-free summer, sipping pina coladas and making good use of the ultraviolet rays of the sun, the rest of us are stuck at home or at work, or even in school, sweating our hearts out.

Honestly, it’s too hot to do anything. Once you step out into the sun, you know you’ll get baked in a matter of minutes. Five minutes in the sun, and you’ll be sweating like a pig and suffer a heat stroke.

Summer and I have a love-hate relationship. I love summer because it usually means no classes, a long break and no school work (though that recently changed with thesis assignments and our internship). At the same time, I hate summer because it’s extremely hot.

Yes, I know, hating summer is considered high crime. Go on, sue me. I don’t care. All I know is that it is hot and all of us are literally cooking to the point of resembling a well-done roast beef.

I guess we now have a reason to use Paris Hilton’s catch phrase: “That’s hot!”

It is summertime like this that makes you wish that you could lug around a huge air conditioner or better yet, turn off the sun for just a few minutes. Come to think of it, it would just be better to stick one’s self into the refrigerator and stay there for a couple of hours.

I remember lying in bed one afternoon and staring at the ceiling, doing nothing but watch a spider diligently working on its web.

Since my room in the city faces directly the sun in the afternoon, it comes to no surprise that the room is sweltering (even the air that the electric fan provided was warm). The sight of a spider web reminded me that it was time to clean the room–yet again. But because of the extreme heat, normal body functions were temporarily turned off.

After watching the spider complete its web for what seemed like centuries, the spider slowly climbed out the window, off to God knows where.

I fell unconscious soon thereafter, tired of watching a spider work.

I woke up hours later, when it was relatively dark and conditions already have cooled down. I checked the web, to see if the spider came back.

It never did.

That poor thing must’ve burned to death under the heat of the sun.

Easter bunny and eggs

AS A KID, I adored rabbits. I worshipped Bugs Bunny, ate raw carrots, owned a mountain of rabbit stuffed toys, bought countless rabbit stickers and talked my parents into buying me my own living, breathing Bugs Bunny.

Easter, therefore, was one of my favorite holidays.

I loved the mystery of the Easter Bunny. At that time, it was rather confusing-was it the rabbit who would lay the brightly colored eggs? But then again, that was scientifically impossible. Or did the bunny pair up with a giant chicken who would lay the Easter eggs?

Either way, it never really mattered who produced the eggs, but what was really important was finding these colorful treats.

I remember waking up on Easter Sundays without much refusal and the customary “five more minutes.” Dressed in mismatched sleepwear, I’d run around our old apartment trying to find the hidden treats that the “Easter Bunny” lovingly placed in tiny baskets filled with synthetic grass.

Treats like colorful hard-boiled eggs, egg-shaped candies, chocolate Easter Bunnies and stuffed toys are what I would usually find (not the healthiest breakfast, I know).

As I think about it (and as you remember your own Easter experiences), it is childhood memories like this that make me want to become a child again. To wake up on Easter Sunday and wonder what the Easter Bunny has left me-would I find another stuffed toy or would there be more chocolate and candies this year?

Ah, the wonders of a child’s mind.

The Easter Bunny never really did last long, though. I soon discovered that the Easter Bunny was my mother, who would wake up in the wee hours of the morning and diligently hide the treats all over our apartment.

Nevertheless, believing in the Easter Bunny (or in Santa Clause for that matter) was fun while it lasted, although it was rather disheartening to find out that a life-sized “bunny-wabbit” did not exist.

When we moved to the Philippines, I tried to bring the tradition of Easter egg hunting with us. It lasted for a few years, until that fateful year when we forgot how many eggs we hid in our house.

All of you should know that once an egg rots, it stinks big time. Apparently, we failed to find one egg, which was hidden behind a desk.

After a few days, finding it wasn’t really that difficult.

We stopped the whole egg hunting tradition after that smelly fiasco, and have since preferred a subtler and less stinky Easter celebration.

May your Easter be a happy one, and please do count your eggs before hiding them.