Cooking is a Labor of Love in Marinduque

Coconut Lobster-very Rare and Expensive Dish in Marinduque served with Cucumber and Philippine Sour Tomatoes
Macrine loves to cook in the US. But here in Boac, she complains it is a labor of love. Meat products such as pork, beef and lamb are not as tender as the one you purchase in the US. Except for LIVER, all of meat products must be pressured cook to be tender enough for the teeth of senior citizens like us. On the other hand chicken ( not the native one) is acceptable and could be enjoyed without the use of the pressure cooker.

Moreover, our kitchen area is not air conditioned, so Macrine "sweats like a hog" when she cooks even with the assistance of our cook and housekeeper.

The dish that Macrine loves to cook is Liver with Onions. She cooked it in soy sauce with lemon, vinegar, sugar and garlic salt. Another dish that she does not trust our cook are the tempura tiger prawns, okra, sweet potato and eggplant. All other dishes are cooked by our cook without her supervision. My favorite dish is eggplant relleno with shrimps, onions and tomatoes. Speaking of tomatoes, the Philippine variety are small and sour whereas the US variety are huge and sweet. So in the PHL tomatoes are vegetables and in the US they are fruits. Agree or disagree?

Marinduque is abundant with fresh vegetables. You can purchase almost all kinds of vegetables except green lettuce, broccoli, asparagus and spinach. Fresh Fish and sea foods are also abundant and reasonable except during the rainy season and during Lent. My favorite fish is BINGAW-a fish belonging to the red snapper specie. It taste like pork and has no fishy smell. It is expensive and rare.

Speaking of fish, Do you know that the fish head is the most delicious part of the fish. When you have an important guest for dinner, it is customary to serve him the head in the soup dish called sinigang. The sinigang is cooked with a variety of vegetables and may be flavored only with Philippine tomatoes ( sour) or with tamarind also a sour fruit.

Fish Heads in the soup reminded me of a memorable event, when my younger brother and his family from Australia visited us in Colesville, Maryland in the mid-1990's. During the week of their visit we received a gift of SALMON from our fisherman friend from Virginia. Macrine cooked it as sinigang. Instead of me, gorging the fish head, I gave it to my brother, since he was our guest. Later on my brother informed me that was the most delicious fish dish he had tasted for quite sometime. He was very appreciative, that I gave him the fish head. I hope he remembers this event. Anyway, the saying that "a Way to a man's heart is through his stomach" really applies in our marriage. I am very appreciative that Macrine is a Good Cook!

Two 87 Year Olds-Close to Us

Golden Wedding Anniversary, 2007

Our ninong and ninang ( primary sponsors) during our golden wedding anniversary four years ago, are now both 87 years old.

Our ninang is still strong and walks everyday to church about 1/2 km uphill with her caretaker. She has a clear mind and still enjoy life to the fullest, since I see her on several social events here in Boac during the last four months. She is still involved with her beach resort business and coconut plantations. She is a widow, no children, but had adopted one of her nephews.

On the other hand our ninong appears to be weakening and lethargic. For the last three weeks, he has not visited us. It used to be his routine to drop by for coffee every Wednesday morning before he goes to the bank in downtown Boac. We asked his caretaker what is happening. The caretaker told us, he has no appetite and just take Ensure. He is lethargic and shows some signs of senility. Our Ninong is also a snowbird. He has 4 children and several grandchildren all residing in US. He has decided to quit snowbirding beginning this year, since he gets better care here in Marinduque.

Today is Wednesday. If he does not drop by, it is time to visit him.

Macrine and I are praying for the continued health of our ( both are 87-year old)) ninang and ninong here in Marinduque.

Is Snowbirding Really Great?

Photo taken at the Balanacan Cove Convention Center with David III and Frank Irlandez, March, 2011
You bet it is! This lifestyle is fantastic if you hate the cold temperatures in the US on winter time. But why are there not too many Filipino-American retirees snowbirding?

My guess is that it just too expensive, maintaining two households. In addition, one must have personal resources to take care of your house in US (abroad) while you are in the Philippines and vice versa. In our case, we are lucky to have a son who is single and has the time to take care of our residence in US while we are in the Philippines. On the other hand, we are spending a lot of money hiring a caretaker/gardener/housekeeper/cook to take care of our second home here in MDQ when we are in US in the spring and summer months.

Just recently, we almost lost our Caretaker/Housekeeper. But after 1 month of vacation and sick leave, they decided to return. It would have been ideal, if we have another relative here in MDQ to take care of our second home when we are in US, but I guess that is asking too much.

I hope that our current arrangement will continue as long as we have the energy( that is healthy enough to travel back and forth) to maintain this snowbird lifestyle.

Here are the highlights of our 2011 Snowbirding Year

1. Catholic Wedding of Elaine Lazarte and Alex Chaplain
2. One week of MI, Inc Medical Mission in Marinduque
3. Valentine Dinner and Dance and an overnight stay at the Bellarocca Resort & Spa
4. Attended several parties including Macrine's 75th birthday, Blessing of Bob and Elisa Howard Cottage in Laylay, Dinner with Rene and Genny Nieva at the Amanah Forest Preserve
5. Dinner with Steve Sosa in his beach house in Quatiz, Gasan and
6. Holy Week and Moriones Festival Celebration

Is snowbirding in your future plans after retirement? If so, please feel free to ask me if you have questions anytime. After all we have been snow birding since 2002 and we have a lot of experience and knowledge on this subject. Cheers!

Note: I believe the word "snowbirding" is not yet listed in the Webster dictionary.

Drug Expiration Dates and Its Efficacy

I have always wanted to write an article in one of my blogs about drug expiration dates for the information of all our MI, Inc missioners as well as to the thousands of patients in Marinduque. The e-mail below of Dr Sulit( One of the Founders of MI, Inc) to Anne Miles (President, MI, Inc-2010) attracted my attention and the following is my response.

Let me emphasized that almost 99% of the drugs we distribute for free during the past seven medical missions in Marinduque are within their expiration dates. My guess is that only 1% that we gave may have expired from 1 to 6 months past the expiration date. These drugs are still good and effected as explained in the e-mail below:

"Dear Annie,
Attached are two of many articles about drug expiration dates
which pharmaceutical companies are required to put on the labels of
medicines which they manufacture. The expiration dates do not mean
that the "expired drugs" immediately become ineffective and harmful
after the expiration dates. Unfortunately, medicines which have
passed that date are perceived as ineffective and harmful and create
an alarming concern among practitioners and the patients. These
articles should help clarify that some expired medicines which were
among the left over drugs from the recent medical mission which
were donated to the Marinduque health system are still good and
safe to dispense to the patients. I thought that it is good to share
these information with other people so that they are also informed in
case that the question is brought up to them, I hope that the 2
attached articles get to you with the letter".
Warm regards,
Hector

As a former FDA employee ( I was Chemistry Team Leader), one of my major responsibilities is to approve expiration dating of all new drugs submitted for approval in the Division Of Anti-Infective Drugs.

In general, tablets and capsules are still good and effective from 1 to 3 years after expiration when stored at room temperature. I have approved an anti-malarial tablet that was stable for 10 years. The stability of the drug is dependent on several factors, three of the important factors are storage temperature, packaging.
and its formulation.

In general, suspensions and syrups, will still be good 1 to 6 months after expiration. Most of these drugs have short expiration dates perhaps not more than 18 months or less.

Educating the general public and our missioners regarding drug expiration dating should be MI, Inc primary goal during our medical mission.

I remember an incident during our mission in Buenavista last February. Macrine and I were working in the pharmacy section one afternoon. Macrine gave a bottle of tablets to an elderly patient. The woman looked at the bottle and she saw that expiration date was December, 2010. She wanted to return it, but I interjected that the tablets are still good. She took the drug back with an attitude that we were giving her a "Poison".

This attitude is not an isolated case. The general public believes that once the drug has past its expiration date, it is no longer good and must be discarded immediately. My rule of thumb is: For capsules and tablets-one year after expiration is still good. For suspensions and syrups, 6 months after expiration should still be OK.

Do you find this article informative. I will appreciate your feedback soon. Cheers!

Miko-Our Bilengual Dog, Driving and Snowbirding in Marinduque

Last month-whole month of March, Miko, our pet dog ( see photo above) was our only companion, 24 hours a day except when our laundry lady and two temporary workers are here in Amoingon to do their duties. Our driver/caretaker and cook/housekeeper ( husband and wife team) were on their two weeks paid vacation and two weeks of paid sick leave. Thus, I got to feed Miko every day as well as exercise him in the beach every afternoon 15 minutes before sunset. Miko understands both English and Filipino commands such as sit, move and let's go as well as kain na, alis etc.... Miko loves American food and leftovers. His favorite is Chicken Macaroni salad and Spaghetti.

My other duties was to drive Macrine to the public market in downtown Boac. This is the job, I really do not enjoy, because the public market stinks ( the FISH section) and is always crowded and not many parking spaces. Luckily, I have to do this only once a week.

Speaking of driving in Marinduque: Driving here requires that you toot your horn more often. It also teaches you how to expertly maneuver overtaking the slow tricycle drivers as well as carefully passing jeepney drivers who drop and pick up passengers in the middle of the road. In addition to the inconsiderate jeepney drivers, you have to watch out for pedestrians, small children, dogs and chickens crossing the national road without any warning. However, after driving to downtown Boac ( 10 KM one way) and to downtown Gasan ( 12KM one way) for one month, I feel more at ease, thus, do not need the service of our driver. On the otherhand, Macrine really missed the services of our housekeeper and cook. Macrine does not mind cooking, but hates washing the dishes. We do not have a dishwasher here( we do have a washing machine), so dishwashing have to be done manually. Macrine hates the grease and oil that sticks on the plates, so she has to boil water to rinse and clean the dishes every time.

The other day, our Help returned to their normal duties. We feel we are back in Paradise. But, remember that there is no perfect place on earth. Paradise only exists in your heart and mind. But to my mind, Marinduque is paradise when you have help in your daily activities, such as cooking, cleaning the house, driving, gardening and other errands. This is indeed close to perfect living especially when you compared it to our daily activities in Northern California-our primary residence.

If you have been following my blogs, we are called "snowbirds", or as our new friend from Toronto, Canada commented when he learned of our lifestyle. " So you are "snowbirding" every year" ? Yes, Indeed and we loved it.

Watch out for my next article on "Snowbirding" and Retiring in Marinduque.

Afterglows in the Sunset of our Lives

The other day, I took a photograph of a sunset and its afterglow( see photo above) from the west balcony of our retirement home in Boac, Marinduque, Philippines. Looking at the photo reminded me of both Macrine's and my professional life in the US. Macrine retired as Manager, Quality Assurance Nurse from one of Maryland's Home Health Nursing Company.

I retired from FDA as a chemistry Team Leader in the Center of New Drugs, Silver Spring, MD. Both of us had satisfying careers( I had received several awards, letters of commendation and appreciation, and an EEO award). So when we retired in the early 2000, we often ask ourselves, if this is all that we can contribute to society and the community.

Since retirement is often called " the sunset of your life" stage, are there afterglows in our lives that we can be proud of. Yes, indeed! The following are examples of the afterglows in the sunset of our lives.

Five years ago, Macrine received a letter of Appreciation and Thanks from Governor Carmencita Reyes because of her involvement in MI, Inc Medical Mission Of Love, 2006. Macrine was president and over-all chairperson of the medical mission in Marinduque that year. Here's an excerpt from C Reyes letter of Thanks.

Dear Mrs. Katague,

I would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude for all the assistances extended by MI, Inc. Your association is one of our full-time partners in the delivery of health services particularly in the conduct of medical/surgical missions which benefited hundreds of Marinduquenos. Thank you so much for the support and assistance extended to our administration and to the people of Marinduque. Mabuhay Kayo!

About three years ago, Macrine and I received a Letter of Thanks and Appreciation from then Governor Antonio Carrion in our efforts to promote tourism in the island not only during Easter but also whole year round. The letter mentioned several of my blogs and articles that proclaimed my love for the province and encouraging other Balikbayans to build retirement homes in the island.

In 2009, my dream as a "citizen journalist" was attained when two of my articles was accepted for publication in HULIQ News. The first article was about Marinduque as the Ecotourism capital of the Philippines. The second was on the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in Morong, Bataan.

Last but not least: Just recently two of my thousands of readers of my blogs commented: " I have been reading your various blogspots and websites for about one week now. They are all well written and great reading. What I have been reading and following intently in your blog is your life story, very interesting indeed. Please keep on writing and thanks for opening yourself up in your blogs."

A second reader also commented: I have been following your blog for quite sometime. I learned a lot about Marinduque and the Philippines. I specially enjoyed reading your childhood experiences during the Japanense-American War. Your contribution as an FDA employee to the burnt victims of the bombing in New York and the Pentagon is indeed commendable and worthy of an award. Keep writing !

Will there be afterglows in the future? I hope so. I would like to hear that our oldest grandson ( now 20) got married and gave us a great grandchild.( that Macrine and I can pamper whenever we want to.) In addition, we would like to hear the news that our youngest granddaughter( now 8) had graduated from college and that both Macrine and myself are still healthy to attend her graduation.

Lastly, Macrine and I thanks the Lord for the past, present and future afterglows in the sunset of our lives.