Day Twenty Six: Being the Third Child

My Dad. Long Beach Island, NJ, 2005.

Last night I got a little angry at my Dad.

He and my two sisters visited my Mom's grave and forgot to tell me about it. And he blamed me for not coming.

Over the phone, he swore that he told me about visiting Mom. Dad even got a little LOUD with me, if ya know what I mean. It took every ounce of self-control and patience that I possessed to not accuse him of losing his mind, because in that instant he was not making any sense. Why on Earth would I not want to come? Did I not drive all the way to his apartment the day before to help prepare for the 40th day Mass at my aunt's house? I could have slept over and gone to visit Mom with him and my sisters the next day. I would have looked forward to it. But he kept telling me that I don't listen, and it's all my fault, and that of course he told me because why wouldn't he. Which are all lies. A bereaved child would remember something as important as a planned visit to her mother's grave.

So I hung up the phone as politely as I could and called Elle to find out what the heck happened. She swore that it was not a planned visit, that it was a spur of the moment thing, and that Dad was simply confused. But even though it was a spur of the moment kind of thing, I asked why couldn't they at least call me to let me know they were going? Elle didn't have an answer. And when I heard this, I let loose a barrage of angry words. Of course I started crying, which made Elle cry, which made me feel horrible for making her cry.

It all boils down to being the third child and the game of telephone. Whenever a message gets sent through the telephone "line", it becomes distorted or forgotten completely. And the end of the Fabian telephone "line" is me, the third and youngest child of Pat and Norma Fabian. I am the last to know anything.

Most of the time, when this sort of thing happens, I pull out a story from our childhood to illustrate the deep the history of me being wronged in this way, the story of when I was in the first grade and my sisters forgot to pick me up from school. It's a bit childish since I'm an adult hovering around middle age. I when I recite the story, it's with a faux dramatic flair that elicits groans as well as laughs. Usually, I'm poking fun at a situation that didn't have such hurtful consequences, like when my Mom changed the time for our annual Christmas Eve party and no one told me. When I arrived hours earlier than everyone else--my Mom answered the door still dressed in her robe and she didn't even start cooking--I was more aggravated than truly mad. It wasn't the location or the date that was changed, just the time. No harm, no foul.

But missing a visit to my Mom's grave is hardly comparable to arriving 4 hours early to a Christmas Eve party.

Both Elle and Liza called to apologize, which was a relief to me. Sometimes I feel like my grief is not recognized by my family. Hearing my sisters say that they were sorry made me feel valid.

I have yet to call my Dad again. I can't talk to him when he refuses to say sorry. He lacks the humility to admit he's wrong. And he was really, really wrong.

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel less self-righteous. But right now I'll allow myself to be mad at my Dad.

Oh, Mom. How did you put up with him all those years? 

Day Twenty Five: Family Gatherings

Me, surrounded by presents. My Christening, 1971.

We all have quirks, which make us unique and occasionally interesting. (And sometimes irritating.)

Take coffee, for instance. In addition to skim milk and no sugar, I like it tepid. Oh, you can serve it to me hot, but I won't drink it until it has cooled down to a nice, lukewarm temperature. And no, I don't like ice coffee. Won't touch the stuff. My coffee must be tepid.

Dave has a whole bunch of quirks, like furniture on the middle of the room. When I purchased that red leather ottoman a couple of days ago, it broke his "open space in the center so I can roam freely" rule. But because I am his grief-stricken wife, the only thing he said was "wow" in all lowercase letters and then walked upstairs. Yes, I admit to playing the grief card, but I get to do it so rarely. It felt oddly satisfying.

Growing up in Brooklyn during the 70's and 80's, my friends (and boyfriends) thought I had a lot of quirks just because of my Filipino background. The strange food, the funny language, the mannerisms and attitudes of my parents, and the large Filipino family gatherings that dominated every weekend for the first eighteen years of my life: all of these things made me different. But in order to be accepted I allowed myself to be called "quirky."

I tried to separate myself once I got into college, only dropping by once in a while to visit my parents or hang out with my cousins. And while Dave has met my family and we certainly had a Filipino wedding, he has not really been introduced to the "Filipino ways" of my past.  I had buried it by the time we met.

To commemorate the 40th day of my Mom's passing, we had a Mass at my aunt's house last night. Of course I dragged my kids, because they are, after all, Filipino. And because they are young and therefore more accepting of the strange and bizarre. But then there's Dave, my non-Filipino husband who thinks that one of my only quirks is drinking tepid coffee. I've mostly shielded him from all things Filipino, except for small visits here and there with my immediate family.

The Mass at my aunt's house was held in "Taglish" (half English, half Tagalog) and punctuated with many Filipino hymns. The priest was Filipino and peppered his homily with jokes about husbands and wives like he was Henny Youngman. A Filipino folk choir group sat in the back of the room with guitars and an amp, and sang. There was an egregious amount of food waiting in the next room where the huge television was tuned to the TFC (The Filipino Channel). And there was about a hundred Filipinos packed into my aunt's house, singing, crying, talking, eating, and laughing.

I felt it was important that Dave come to this Filipino family gathering, that he experience this small dose of what my life was growing up in Brooklyn. And Dave was fine. During the Mass, he stood in the doorway to the next room, holding my cousin's newborn baby, and swaying to the music of the choir group. He ate pancit and pan de sal, talked with my family, and even invited a few of my cousins to our house. He was, above all, the man that I always knew him to be, but never gave a chance.

It was all the more sad because my Mom would have been so proud, having him there, her handsome and loving son-in-law. She would have introduced him to everyone, made sure that each person knew that he belonged to her in some way, stressing the word "my" in saying "oh, this is my son-in-law David..."and smiling widely as the words tumbled out of her mouth. But I denied her that pleasure. She had often made excuses to my aunts and cousins about my lack of attendance to our family parties: another party, a sick kid, or us being out of town.


So now I am making this promise to my Mom: we will be there, as much as we can, to every Filipino family gathering.

Because I miss you, and because I love you. And because I can't think of a better way of honoring your memory.

Kara DioGuardi Out - JLo and Steven Tyler In at American Idol

Jennifer Lopez takes over the gig and waves goodbye to Kara DioGuardi who was fired from AI. Steven Tyler takes over for Simon Cowell. Simon made the show. American Idol is has jumped the shark.

Ellen Quits Idol

You think Ellen Degeneres is busy enough with her own show and Portia to be tied down to Idol. Personally American Idol hit its peak a long time ago. It was a great run while it lasted. Simon Cowell as well as Ellen will have to be replaced for next season. Good Luck with that. Here are some fond memories of Cowell and Ellen.

Zac Efron Still The Most Popular from High School

Trust me the pix were secondary, I got great video which I will post LATER!!!!. The fans came out to see Zac Efron at Jimmy Kimmel yesterday. Efron has a new movie Charlie St. Cloud. Zac is busy promoting his new film which will be popular to his HSM target audience.

Simon Baker: What Big Feet You Have....

Simon Baker who plays Patrick Jane on CBS the Mentalist is dapper, gorgeous, sweet, talented and a family man...But I couldn't help noticing what large feet the star has. And you know what they say a man with big feet has a very big HEART!
Anyway, he is a beautiful man. Baker seems to be an avid photographer the way he checked out a LEICA M9 camera on location in downtown Los Angeles.



I also heard that Patrick Jane's car that he uses on the Mentalist is a 1972 Citroen DS21 was recently flown in from Germany.

Boys Will Be Boys at the X-Games: ESPN 30For30 The Birth of Big Air Premiere

Some hella cute guys were slacking off at the premiere for THE BIRTH OF BIG AIR. Directed by Jeff Tremaine chronicles how free style BMX came about and how pioneer Hoffman kicked it up to an entirely new higher level. I didn't know who Mat Hoffman was before watching the film but WOW was I impressed. Lots of fun people were there Danny Carey from TOOL who I used to play b-ball with, director (and very cute) Spike Jonze, Steve-O (sober), Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville (who I would like to photograph naked and he reminds me of an offspring of Jack Nicholson), Mat Hoffman (legend), and a bunch of other cool people who are involved with promoting and participating in the X-Games. I pitched a stunt idea to Steve-O about jumping into the BP Oil Disaster as a way to bring awareness to the situation. We will see what develops.

German Body Builder & Powerlifter: Daniela Sell Hits Santa Monica

I saw these two love birds walking hand in hand on the Santa Monica Pier. I had to stop them and asked them if I could take their pictures. Turns out Daniela is a popular bodybuilder and powerlifter from Germany and she moved to Switzerland to be with her boyfriend.

Exclusive Tracy Ryerson & Stamie Karakasidis: of Showtime's THE REAL L WORD Visits KPFK

Showtime's The Real L Word stars Tracy Ryerson and her partner comedian Stamie Karakasidis were recently at KPFK doing an interview. Catch The Real L Word on Showtime at 10pm on Sundays. Here's some quick pix...

Attention all Hack Wilson readers...

Will be gone tomorrow through the 15th of August for the Army. No blogging til then I'm afraid. Hold down the fort for old Hack. Until then...

Day Twenty Four: Phone Conversations with Elle

Liza, Elle, and me. Outfits made by Mom. Circa 1974.

Phone conversations are not my forte, except when it comes to talking to my sisters. My inner social moron inexplicably disappears.

Talking with Liza usually means listening to each other mildly chide our husbands and children, report on the crazy friends we have, and discuss some family issues (or, more likely, me listen to her tell me what I need to do--she, after all, is the oldest of us three sisters, and quite the bossy pants). While our conversations are largely the same, the death of our Mom has made a small but significant change. Lately she's been uncharacteristically sentimental and ends our conversations with "I love you" which initially shocked the heck out of me. I nearly fell off my chair that first time, but quickly recovered and reciprocated with a "hey, I love you, too!" awkward outburst. I now expect her to end our conversations this way, and am ready to say it back without sounding stunned. Sometimes I get a little tearful after hanging up the receiver, a little happy/sad at Liza's subtle transformation, and I can almost feel my Mom smiling from wherever she is.

My phone conversations with Elle are a different matter. She's always been one to wear her emotions on her sleeve, and whenever we talk it always takes the tone of a Church confession. It's a two way street, this bearing of the soul. I seem to tell her things that I normally wouldn't say aloud, and I'm often surprised at what comes out of my mouth. But lately I've been holding back. Elle still bears her soul, talking about her "last times" with Mom, her sleepless nights, and her overwhelming sense of regret. I listen and try to chime in, tell her that she's not alone. But I'll go no further.

I listen to Elle laugh about watching a video that her son Michael made before my parents went on vacation a few months ago. It was the last time Elle saw her alive--well, alive in the way that she wanted to remember her. In the hospital, my Mom was not the kooky, funny, loving person that shows up in the video. She was unresponsive and getting colder by the hour, a dreadful promise of what we could never have again. And when Elle talks about watching the video a second and maybe third time, something inside me wants to break open, and it hurts to keep it from doing so. She can hear my Mom's voice, she can almost imagine her in the same room with her. And I want to tell Elle to stop, not because I think she's wrong for trying to bring my Mom back from the dead with her thoughts, but because I wish that I could do the same thing.

Whatever Elle has been telling me in our phone conversations is what I've been feeling but not wanting to face. The last times, the sleepless nights, the deep ocean of regret that sits inside me. Instead of allowing her--or anyone else for that matter--to see what my grief has been like these past 5 weeks, I sit with myself and shore up the walls, not letting anything in--or out.

Fellow blogger and friend Tim Daniel gets published again...

You might know him as the Left Coast Rebel. Tim is a great blogger and a great American! I'm proud to blog rank and file beside him.

Tim wrote an excellent piece for The Daily Caller....

From California to New York state, Arizona’s illegal immigration law has been making headlines. In what is perhaps a last ditch effort, the state chose to enforce border security and stop criminality that comes with undocumented immigrants.


But last Friday residents thousands of miles away in New York witnessed something similar but quite different: an aggravated, disheveled, undocumented senior citizen.


70-year-old Representative Barney Frank, (D-MA) was heading out to New York’s Fire Island. The New York Post reported that the Massachusetts congressman failed to contain his exasperation when a ticket clerk at the local dock rejected his request for a $1 discount ferry fare to the island. Frank did not possess the necessary Suffolk County Senior Citizens ID to take part. Something quite fascinating then unfolded.


The New York Post recounts a witness claiming that, ”Frank made such a drama over the senior rate that I contemplated offering him the dollar to cool down the situation.” One can imagine the horror of a Congressionally-pampered power broker confronted with a simple, everyday incident like this. Barney Frank lost his cool and that says it all.


And so the story unfolds. In many corners of our society a seemingly trivial incident like this from a man of such high authority would bring pause for no concern. Perhaps, instead – a laughing matter, or an excuse to muse over the representative’s strange proclivities, personality and arrogance.


But the story of the $1 discount fare points to much, much, more.

Read the rest here.

Election year whoring: Obama to make appearance on The View

Perhaps the most narcissistic of any President we have ever had, President Wrecking Ball himself will grace the clucking chickens of ABC's The View (only one view allowed and that is psycho-fem libtardism) on Thursday along with rapper 50 Cent (to listen to wonderful 50 Cent music click HERE!) and comedian Rob Schneider. Talk about fitting company!

Leave it to Obama to set the mark for the first president ever to appear on a daytime AND nighttime TV show. We can throw ESPN in there too. And Al-Arabiya. As well as the first president to stoop to such a low level before foreign leaders...literally.

I won't lash into the boy king here. I've done that enough. He has already destroyed himself, and is continuing to each day with new levels of incompetence and tomfoolery.

Instead I'd like to rip into The View. They deserve it.

This show, if that's what you'd like to call it (I see it as nothing more than a glorified gossip-fest by extremely ugly women, inside and out) is perhaps the sorriest excuse for a television show in modern day America. If there is anyone reading who actually watches The View regularly, and finds "joy" in the incessant, putrid ramblings of Joy Behar, you are a scumbag of the lowest degree. Here's what I think of your irrelevant show. I look at The View and see nothing more than a bunch of uneducated dope women bitching and screeching and clawing and griping about important issues they know absolutely nothing about. I would absolutely love to see Ayn Rand in her prime go on that show and shred the living daylights out of each and every one of them. The entire setup of The View is extremely biased. We all know this. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, obviously the only conservative there and also the most attractive by far, is the only voice with reason on this godawful show, which is usually drowned out by the bitchly cackles of Behar, Walters, Whoopi, and The Pig when she was on the show. There is no fairness or balance on this show. It features the totalitarian fascism of left wing views and left wing views only. A place where Barack Obama can always count on receiving infinite praise and where anyone with a hint of conservatism can count on getting tarred and feathered without mercy.

Why is Barack Obama going on The View tomorrow? Why to swoon voters of course. Election year politics. You'd think he would shy away from such an unpresidential platform at this, but should we expect anything less from this stuttering, childish buffoon? The mere fact The View invites guests on like 50 Cent gives them 0 credibility or merit. And the fact our great President, "the leader of the free world" as they call him decided to appear on the show the same day the pile of crap 50 Cent is, just lowered my level of respect for Obama even more, if that is even possible.

The View is like a volcano of feces erupting and spewing forth each and every day, polluting the rest of the world with their filth. But what is worse than this perpetual, daily eruption? The idiots that mass together and stand with an outstretched hand and open mouth, hoping to catch some of the fecal matter in their palm, or if they get lucky, on their tongue. They applaud at any and every feminist and liberal outcry, even if they have absolutely no idea that they are clapping about.

The View will have its time for now. But very soon, it will sink into the deep, dark oblivion of Hell. Just where it belongs.