Playing chess at home

As a young bride I lived with my in-laws for 10 years. Like any newlywed, after a while I wanted a home of my own. I got mine for the cost of a platinum diamond studded Rolex today.

Ah, a new home – Edith Oliveros, Willie Buhay, Ogie Periquet, Omeng Esguerra. Am I happy I’m writing this article. I thought I had abused more interior decorators. I can look Peping in the eye when he says: "With all your repairs and furniture you could have built three houses." But that isn’t an original quote. His Mama Metring would say that to Peping’s dad Jose Sr.

I can distantly hear my brothers tease me about being like my daddy Desi too but I don’t collect grills or lababos. Dad would ask me everytime he’d visit our home base, "What’s the flavor of the month?" Not because he still worked for San Miguel Brewery but because he didn’t know if the bed he saw last week was in the same place this Sunday or the yellow upholstery was now a printed blue and white one.

Some time ago I changed my bed’s position from the right side to the left side of the room. I posted a sign at the door for Peping, "Beware you might fall. Bed now on the left side."

I’ve been "playing chess" with the furniture in my house for years and still am. I’ve tried to psychoanalyze myself and I’ve concluded that when I want to change something in my life, I change my furniture around.

Tables, chairs, beds, huge cabinets, couches, frames, paintings (that should have signs below them – Do not touch because there are three other holes behind it.)

On one of my visits to Pin and Jojo when they lived in a condominium as both were asleep, I was suddenly inspired. I had always thought Pin’s wooden furniture (she likes antiques too) were too big for her living area. I moved them around and left. I didn’t see Jojo’s face but when he awoke I heard he thought he was in different house. Worse, he couldn’t find the car keys that he had placed in a drawer because he couldn’t find his desk. All he said was, "Pin your Mom’s been here." That’s why I love him so much. Believably he’ll never forget that afternoon either because he and Pin pushed all the furniture back to the way they was!

I don’t dare to jumble things around at Mikee and Liaa’s houses. Noel and Dodot arrange the furnitures themselves, not my girls. My sense of discretion allows me to add only decorative candles, wooden bowls, celadons and blue and whites. That’s okay. Eugene Torre had his limitations too! But listen, surely he and I require skills, "push there, take it back here..." We go through intensive intellectual study... "Ay, mas maganda itong silya (my pawn) here where it was last month. It matches with the house’s ethnicity." And we do require concentration... "Ibalik ang mesa please ulit." It requires understanding, "This better be the last try, the boys are sweating," as my antique pieces are carried here and there and "ay nakus" are poured out because Oh! My gosh! the pegs aren’t in the proper holes...at nagasgas at natanggal ang tornilyo.

All that done, there’s a feeling of lightness, space and accomplishment living in "fresh" surroundings. Until I hear "Mom! Mom! You threw away my ‘Permesso de Soggiorno.’" And that’s a major offense and what a hassle to get one in the Questura or police station in Italy.

China, on the other hand, who I thought had accepted my bedroom intrusion on her domain, requested me, "I just want one comfortable sofa where I can watch T.V." Was she rebelling or had she become like me? Last week, she said, "I’m changing my room completely," and we giggled nervously at the sound of the upcoming hammers remembering when we subjected Peping to that years back.

Peping had left for Australia and that meant it was the correct time to repair the house. Then there appeared a tremendously huge expected-unexpected hole on the wall of the house like a bomb had exploded inside. A bed sheet over it at night gave us the temporary privacy with the dim light’s help. No vinyl. No glass. No wood. No tiles. No wrought irons. All our clothes were in plastic sheets, our shoes (Mikee, Mai-Mai, China’s and mine) were lined up in straight rows like soldiers while 30 carpenters of two shifts labored to finish the job in two weeks. They didn’t. Peping came home to an air raid shelter, got a tremendous allergy and I haven’t dared repair the house again.

This hobby, this necessity is my way of relaxation that’s followed me everywhere. Drills, hammers are amusing to me. It means new life, a new look, a new attitude. But oh how time flies and I’m still the same – an architect-contractor. Three years ago when I visited Mikee in Remouchamps outside Belgium with Bobby Blanco and Lulu Tanalgo, we stayed in an elegant old home converted into a hotel owned by an elderly elegant woman who didn’t speak a word of English. We would have stayed in two rooms because it wasn’t expensive but we decided to stay together so we could chat ourselves to sleep after seeing that one room was big enough for another bed. Requesting and her agreeing in sign language, the elderly woman kindly showed us an extra bed we could move to our room. Yes! We moved a dresser in far Belgium to accommodate the extra bed while Madam watched and laughed with us. Moving that bed and a table pa was heavy as it kept on getting stuck on the carpet laid on a creaky wooden flooring.

My latest "victim" is in a club in Baguio. Executive housekeeper boss of the Baguio Country Club Amy Gonzales knows exactly how to play my game so we can save on purchases. Armed with her cell phone and radio, she calls in the "troops" – men from carpentry, housekeepers, electricians whenever I’m around, just in case I see a sofa out of place or a painting that’s better there than here.

With the many times I’ve moved our furnishings around, you might say I am a "grandmaster" of the game of chess. But it’s especially difficult to play chess in Baguio at a compound with a house whose grounds roll up and down. Once transporting furniture in the early evening shadows I thought I saw a safari scene of natives setting up furniture in tents for the night hunters. No wonder Dr. Shure of Stanford University Hospital remarked, "Mrs. Cojuangco, what happened to you? This problem you have is for movers. Do you carry anything heavy?" "I do," I replied as that excruciating discomfort in my C-2 to C-6 reacted causing my right hand to be numb and listless. He performed a delicate operation placing several screws to alleviate my neck and spine from my extreme pain. I figure moving about furniture has some social value which is sympathizing with my help. I must show them I too can do what I ask them to do. Only I forget they’re 180-pound men and I’m 110 skin and bones.

Ay naku, gosh I am sure that every time I call the household staff upstairs they can’t wait until I declare – "checkmate!" The best times for them is when I’m broke. But then they don’t get their extras for being movers. Everything remains stagnant and in place that my brother Martin asks me – "Have you nailed your furniture to the floor?"

Then I think sometimes it’s good to be broke. Everything stands still. Life is simpler. Life is weightless.