The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Butch Galicia / Philippines News Agency
Toronto—When Filipino-Canadian seniors meet in coffee shops and fast-food courts on weekends, they fill up lazy minutes with spirited talk on any subject — from the mundane to the beyond.
In past Saturdays, the table has been very active with open minds and quite loud voices engaged in intelligent discussions about the timely and trendy ramifications of the May 9 elections in the Philippines.
However, when a debate turns scalding hot and gets out of hand, an elder chills the air with “Oplan 65”—the easiest and most effective way to change the topic and deescalate an impending Word War III.
“Oplan 65” takes off from one of Toronto’s dedicated cartoon shows on cable TV Channel 65 or the Treehouse Channel. The number also stands for the age when a Canadian becomes a senior. Indeed, cartoons and seniors are compatible.
The operation plan works this way: Still seated without any intent of standing, someone will bring up the flimsy yet valid excuse of leaving to see and attend to a grandchild or grandchildren.
As if mesmerized upon hearing the G-word, everyone begins sharing short anecdotes and long tales about memorable and precious moments they have had with the sons and daughters of their sons and daughters.
Coffee refill motions are sanctioned, as alert ears take in every lively “grand-ish” narrative of happiness, love and reassurance.
Emergency trips to the washroom are fewer and quicker, for fear that one may be unable to capture a prime tip to great Canadian grandparenting, infused with typical Filipino customs.
The stories about grandchildren are unending, weekend after weekend after weekend. All day!
BTW, grandchild, in the Filipino language, is apo.
Following is my take on my “apps,” short for apo. This essay is lifted, expanded and edited from a raw living-the-moment version I recently penned in social media:
Call me technologically challenged and impaired, if you must. I am not tech-savvy, but I know that an “app,” in short, means “application software.” Whatever, I seriously don’t care. I’ve got my own “apps.”
Some assembly is required before my “apps” come into being. I can’t explain it in either blunt language or in web jargon. An excerpt from an old song may perhaps help: “Let me tell you about the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees, and the moon up above, and the thing called love.”
They come as is, where is; not as advertised. A work of art and a creation of Mother Nature, they surely will merit the delight of the Pope and the Greens, and those who do the math and the magic.
Each is delivered in a different time and circumstance. A mythical stork makes the special delivery, not a friendly mailman, a courteous courier service agent, or an exuberant IT specialist.
My “apps” are warmly welcomed as cute and adorable bundles of joy and love, not signed off as some computer program pre-installed on a mobile gadget in tape-wrapped boxes and parcels.
Those anxiously awaiting the new arrival roll a tear or two, not due to a hidden fee. They are happy.
Batteries are not included in the whole package. Neither are wall nor portable chargers necessary when my “apps” are up and about. They have all the energy in the world to drive adults crazier than crazy.
They are not bots. They do what they are good in doing: To run after pigeons and squirrels and be dazed when they find out they don’t either have wings to flap or they can’t climb a tree, to jump into a muddied puddle and make a splash, to crawl into dark empty holes without fear or favor, to recreate a tornado and create a huge mess, to wail like a fire alarm, to emote a silly grin after spilling milk, and to dare be a million more cartoon and digital characters that act their age. Almost always, the elders let them get away with their impishness.
They are not downloadable. Most often, they excitedly upload themselves on my back, pretending to be knights and princesses on their galloping way to Neverland.
A GPS tells how to get to a place. My “apps” lead me to only one destination: where they are.
I have accepted the truth that I can’t play them all the time. But why do they find it timeless in making a trampoline out of my bed and land knee first on my pillow-shielded big belly when I’m sleeping?
Upgrades are inevitable, which is why I always wish they never grow taller, bigger and heavier.
Definitely, they are not free. They are priceless. Even so, their value adds up each moment I am with them.
Grand-parenting, so someone said, is not a full-time responsibility. No! Don’t tell this to the Marines. Tell this to a grandpa and a grandma, when their grandkids are in the zone.
Know why there are grandparents? The reason is clear and simple: Because there are grandchildren.
I am a grandparent. And I have my own “apps.”