God Bless Our Home

The new house looks good and spotless. After a last few hour mad dash to clean up (aka “hide”) carpentry equipment, loose boxes and stray furniture, we managed to have the townhouse in tip top shape for the house blessing today. (Just don’t open any of the closets, please).

Presiding over the event was the kind priest who had been receiving all our clothes donations at the church: Father Ferdie Santos. We never recognized him as a priest mainly because he looked like he was about 15 years old and was always wearing civilian clothes. The blessing began outside the house, all family members were asked to hold lit candles and the priest sang And the blessing went off without a hitch. He said a few prayers, we responded accordingly that all activities in the house were to be done in the name of God, as witnessed by God. During the entire blessing, my two year old was playing with fire (literally) as he also demanded to hold a small candle. My heart nearly skipped a beat when out of the corner of my eye, he almost lit my brother’s hair on fire. But it was okey, he was under the watchful eye of Oma.

On the menu: Hungarian sausage and salami from Ricky, pancit bihon, lumpiang shanghai and barbecue, all courtesy of Three Sisters and blueberry cheesecake and cupcakes, courtesy of my sister, Rachel. Everything was good.

The only diversion of the day was when we discovered that two family members were sorely missed. Murphy, our black dachshund, had somehow managed to find us. We moved two blocks away and were keeping the dogs at the old house for protection until we install a proper doggie door at the new house. But Murphy managed to find the new home, using only her instinct and wit. This all baffled us because she had never been to the new house before. She was like Benjie! Meanwhile, Malcolm the brown dachshund, made a suicide attempt for attention by blocking one of the cars. The result was another mad dash to the veterinarian to be treated for flesh wounds. Up until then, we realized our townhouse would not be complete without their presence. Tomorrow, a doggie door will be installed and after a week the dogs will join us in our new hour. But until after a medicated flea bath!

Another univited guest came as well: the yellow butterfly. In fact, we already named her Lola. Whether that's Lola (like from Her name is Lola, she was a showgirl) or my Lola Barbara, we leave that up to you. But right now as I'm writing this, she is now perched outside the old white grills we had transferred to the house. Hi Lola.