WITH SO much information from the Net, anyone can and could get highly confused. First, one reads that coffee is poison and shouldn’t be imbibed, especially not by seniors. But another scientifically researched news tells us that coffee is an antioxidant and an antiaging wonder, except that one has to take it black. And now comes more data from Manny V., a successful commercial model for print ads and TV. When he’s not chatting with us senior citizens and giving out loads of information, his nose is buried and concentrated on his phone, reading more data from the Net, which he passes on to us.
Manny is also a crossword puzzle enthusiast, that’s why he complained loudly when Dunkin’ Donuts moved from its enclosed space to the lobby of the mall and forgot to take along its supply of newspapers, and Manny missed his crossword puzzles.
Manny has more news on coffee, and this time he’s telling us about “bulletproof coffee”—why the name, I don’t know—that one takes with butter which is supposed to be undesirable for health reasons, but which is suddenly so extremely good with all kinds of delightful benefits trumpeted on the Net. But it is not just any butter. It should be “grass-fed butter” similar to the butter produced from the rich and creamy milk of yak, essential to the diet of the people of the Himalayas, a hardy race, living atop the highest peaks of the world, in the cold, dense climate up there. I wonder about their statistics on births and deaths. I wonder about the population and average age of their senior citizens. We haven’t heard that they number by the thousands. Manny V. wants to dispute this information about yak milk, but we’ll leave it there for the meantime.
I passed on this new data about the antioxidant and antiaging qualities of bulletproof coffee to my daughter Sandy who considers herself a connoisseur when it comes to coffee, and who is not easily swayed by anything. She told me back: “If you’re going to die, you’re going to die!”
Speaking of death, a resident in our building passed away, and Barangay Pio del Pilar kagawad and scene-of-the-crime-operatives (Soco) came to check for possible foul play. E.R. Tagle, our famous senior citizen who likes to say that he is younger than me, whispered that he was surprised the guy had just died because he looked like one of the “walking dead”—no disrespect meant, but he was really just skin and bones. He never took solid food and just lived on his bottle for a long time. He didn’t have any friends and I didn’t think it was foul play, but I suppose the Soco guys had to do their job. In my case, I have arranged for the funeral parlor of my choice to just come and take me away. I don’t want any of those guys messing with my earthly remains.
Senior citizen Art L., a lawyer, said that even in death there is a class division. If one is rich, his remains go into the columbarium fitted into a space located at eye level. If one is placed at the bottom, I don’t have to tell you what that means.
I don’t know if it is worth my while to hang out with these senior citizens. The information I get from them in about one or two hours of chat is overwhelming. No wonder I am awake all night, digesting what I’ve heard. Senior citizens have an opinion on everything, but I really enjoy their views on politics. They tell me who to vote for and why. Sometimes they insist I take black coffee and I protest because I say it stains my teeth, and in unison they cry out: “You still have your teeth?!” These guys can be so funny.
And now, I have to mix my coffee with butter as well, which I have been avoiding as previous information didn’t recommend butter in one’s diet for it is known to clog the arteries; and now I have to look for the grass-fed one on top of that. It is not the butter which is grass-fed but the cow that produced the milk that got churned into butter. I didn’t even know that some cows didn’t eat grass if the grass-fed ones are so special. Oh, my, lots of things to learn… and all I ever want to do is lie in bed and read my spine-chilling, hair-raising, hard-to-put-down, true crime books.
My late husband Peter was a coffee addict and he bought expensive Dutch coffee and always the latest coffee machines. He also tried to get me to drink coffee but as I said, I am not a coffee person. My daughter says I know nothing about coffee and I agree, but I can tell bad coffee—the dish water types from perfectly brewed, strong-scented coffee. Peter used to say that they ought to create cologne with the wonderful aroma of coffee. I think they already did; also one that smells like unwashed armpits called JR, but that’s another tale to tell. One thing I am glad for: I live alone by choice but I have all these nice, intelligent, friendly and chatty people around me such that I am never alone, and life is fine and couldn’t be better.
Shirley Wilson de las Alas claims she’s 77 years young and spends her days alone in her condo unit, doing a variety of things, mostly studying music, language and such; or reading books and magazines, or searching the Net for interesting items that she wants to know about. And when that’s all done, she goes down to the mall to join her senior friends, who are hanging out at the popular Dunkin’ Donuts shop and having coffee, in order to find out what’s the latest that she might have missed.