Me and Milenyo: Mother Nature's Sons

Where I’m at, Milenyo is currently unleashing its might.

Right now, I am stuck in my soon to be evacuated condo unit, with no power, landline phone is gone, mobile phone battery charge drained and my laptop has no charge either.

I am all alone. Basically, isolated.

I write this entry while this ultra-powerful storm is battering the Philippines with great power. I have not experienced winds at this velocity (inertia, pressure, momentum, whatever) for a while.

My windows are locked up well but I can still hear it cranking. Though sealed tightly, I can still hear the wind whispering, rather SHOUTING out loud... Can You Hear Me Now?!

Earlier today, my concerns were of business matters, none would interfere with my schedule.

At 9:00am, wind still not that strong, I even lashed out some words via text to my assistant. Saying, to the effect, "We are not kindergarten, we have work today!" (This after she didn’t report for work.)

Not knowing that, probably handful had already perished because of this storm. Not knowing that, around that time, estimated to be 50km away from Makati, our satellite office down south is being pounded hard, winds and rain, by Milenyo.

Not being able to tune in to TV news because of work load made me clueless with what's incoming. Not having my internet news source set at local portals (Yehey! INQ7.net, Philstar.com) made me unaware of the impending/ongoing killer storm.

What was to come was a hard hitting storm, the likes of which I have not seen since I was in gradeschool/highschool.

But my new-but-soon-to-be dropped condo unit is built like a rock having been designed by an American engineer. This fact should make me all the more confident. But, I am not confident at all. Compounded by the fact, that my unit was burglarized some days back. Every crank, every sound, every crash, I am becoming even more restless and checking things out every instance. A little scary now. (Thus I am entertaining myself with this entry.)

Part of what makes me anxious during storm is that, when I was small (and Christmas Trees were tall), I was seriously-dead-scared because our house was swaying like crazy. I may have carried a bit of 'stormophobia' (look that up at wiki) with me now.

My mother and lolo wanted to be cool, they contracted people to build our house, Filipino Nipa Hut themed. Like the ones at Nayong Pilipino. Made up of sewn coconut leaves (pawid) and bamboo skin (sawali), all supported by thinny-winnie-wirey wood. Simply, a huge 'bahay kubo', that is as vulnerable to storm as Paris Hilton is vulnerable to casual sex.

So back then, during Milenyo days, when our house was dancing like J-Lo and the 'pawid' roofing is as messy as my hair, I did call on all the Saints that I can think of and asked for help. I did pray, talked to God and made bunch of pact/promises, in return, I was hoping that God would calm down those killer storms.

I am still alive. I guess God decided to grant my prayers. But boy, did I break lots of promises.

Right now, 1:00pm, September 28, 2006, Milenyo is still kicking ass, still pounding Makati. So I better stop this post and recall all the Saints and start making promises once again.

(Written on a piece of paper, just like the old times.)