Dateline: Detroit, 06.27.08

          

Detroit, MI. June 27, 2008 – We took off at 9:15 a.m. from Detroit airport via NWA flight 997 for Miami, Florida for a 3-day cruise to the Bahamas.       We are a party of six: my wife, Gloria, daughters Kaycee and Loren, my son’s mother-in-law, Noemi and her son TJ. (short for Timothy Jayson).  One could say that we are off to a “nurses convention” in the Bahamas because except for Loren who has yet to take her freshman course this September as a nursing student, and myself, everyone else  is a nurse.       

        Noemi is a physician-nurse. She  owns a hospital in Isabela and works as a nurse in the nursing home where my wife works.  She hustles back and forth from the Philippines to the US, works 6 months as  obstetrician in her own hospital and  six months in the U.S. nursing home.  It is rather odd, but luckily, she has no plans of working as a forensic pathologist, or as a mortician, otherwise she would have all the bases covered.  Aside from being welll-off, she is a charming widow who obviously have more fun jet-setting.                  

      My son Benjo and his wife, Aimee who are nurses too were already in Miami waiting for us, having flown a day earlier  from their work in Denver, Colorado.  They are now living in San Francisco.

     When the plan was afoot to take this vacation cruise, I have raised some objection about it because I hate flying and I see no relevance in spending money, (though not mine) when I think of my poor relations in the Philippines  who could benefit more if my side of the expense would be converted into cash and remitted to the Philippines and hope to find this amount in the bloodstream of commerce as my contribution to the deteriorating economy.  But despite my suggestion that I be provided my cash side of the expense  instead,  my wife said no.   

       I always find consistent difficulty and irony in undertaking a fun and pleasure trip while so many have the bare necessities to sustain life, or to put it more bluntly, while so many homes have their rice baskets empty.  Added to this dilemma is the fact that I have to close my business for four days and have to lose some money in the process.  I could have built a mini-crisis in my relationship with my wife and my kids on account of the social paradox that I found myself in, but the better part of prudence doused cold my intransigence.  

      So off we go. No cell phone and laptop and no blogging in political websites for 4 days (one day more for flight to Miami and back to Detroit).  My mind was in for a real pleasure and fun.   On flight to Miami for Bahamas, though, Kaycee, who used to write feature articles in her high school paper handed me a quarter size of a writing yellow pad. This pad and my pen become handy substitute for a keyboard and a monitor screen.  I started to write.

Bahamas Diary, Day One