SALACYLIC ACID FOR CRACKED HEELS

Women are naturally fastidious about their appearance. Housewives, though coiffed in simple ponytail and tattered house dress make pains to put on a bra while at home, or flung a towel at their breasts while talking to strangers. Our nails we brush meticulously to make it glow. Our teeth we floss with thread or the more expensive 711 version. Our heels with pumice to rid ourselves of the unwanted sight of blackened cracked heels.
But cracked heels no matter how hard we rub it, stays and stays. Never a good sight, it is a sore to the eyes. It crosses social economic status. I once saw a middle aged woman who was shopping bedecked in bangles and rhinestones of good taste. She would have been a pleasure to my sight but ugh, her heels were deeply cracked. We were two ladies with the same ugly problem.
Until I saw a lady doctor guest of Oprah who, with Dr. Mehmet Oz gave this fool-proof lifetime solution: Rub salacylic acid on cracked heels quite sparingly. Do not splash generously ( as one is tempted to do) unless your threshold for pain is high. When dry, apply a thin coat of petroleum jelly. Stuff your feet in socks and sleep tight. Repeat for a week.
So what happens? The salicylic acid peels off the thick callous skin of your heels, exposing the cracks and lightening it. The petroleum jelly softens it and voila! Pink heels fit for a Victorian lady. And the remedy is a forever formula!
Now I feel beautiful in slippers, sandals, or barefoot. No cracked heels to spoil my legs!

MY SECRET SHIFTER

I have learned a new word yesterday. SECRET SHIFTER. What is this? A secret shifter is somebody, something, someone that literally shifts your mood from gloomy to instantly happy. This secret shifter lifts you up, and revs your spirits and literally makes your day.

Mine is our mongrel dog Puga. (Puga means a warrior in a comics strip I have read a thousand years ago.) Puga is a 7 month old cross of a breed between a native and a Labrador. But he looks like a beagle with lots of fur and the curliest eyelashes a dog can ever have. This guy never has a bad angle in him. He is simply adorable and tantalizingly irresistible. His day starts with a lot of kisses from me and the kids and ends with still a lot of kisses and hugs.

Find your own secret shifter. Hold on to it. Nurture it. You will never have a bad hair day.

FEED YOUR DOG RIGHT!

We once had Polka, a beautiful Dalmatian bitch. She was serenely graceful with her tapered, polka-dot back and a bit of a challenge to handle with her psychotic disposition. ( You can’t leave her alone for some hours, otherwise, she will tear your sofa to shreds and what not.) We had her for 7 years. She died 2 years ago because of a liver disease caused by a faulty diet.

Attention dog owners and dog lovers: Bear in mind that your four- footed nimble companions are sensitive to food. They cannot just eat your table left-overs ( no matter how delicious it is to you) or munch on some dog food you think is good for them. Their gut is different from yours!

First, REMOVE SALT ( in whatever form be it soy sauce or fish sauce, etc.). Second, SAY NO TO ONIONS. This vegetable is poison to their system. Third, download practical dog food recipes and begin COOKING it. Much like a poinsettia in December, your yuppies will practically grow before your very eyes—bulging to just the right size with fewer trips to your neighborhood vet ( which is pretty expensive).

These are some of the recipes ( my canine tested-version):

I Yam What I Yam
1 cup liver ( chicken ) or gizzard
1 cup cooked rice
1 grated carrot
1 tablespoon parsley
1/2 cup peas
1 sweet potato

Cook rice, carrots, parsley, grated camote, and peas together. Let cool and serve.

Doggie Meat Balls
1 1/2 lbs raw hamburger
1/2 cup canola oil
3 eggs
3 cups oatmeal

Mash ingredients up into balls and place on cookie sheet. Freeze. Steam or microwave.

KITCHEN SOUP EVERYDAY FOR “ONDOY” EVACUEES, et al.

Marikina, Cainta, Pasig, Pasay, Navotas, Malabon and all the other eastern lying towns of Metro Manila is in such deep shit. Shit caused by Typhoon Ondoy. Dead people, dead animals, mud, and garbage litter these areas. It will take a lifetime to erase this nightmare. As victims troop to the evacuation centers, one is wont to ask—so what is next?

SIMPLE SOLUTION. Establish a FOREVER KITCHEN SOUP in every affected barangay or town. Whip up a round the clock meal service fueled by food surplus by restaurants, hotels, malls, food center, even from the palengke. Have this center open FOREVER serviced by volunteers or residents themselves. Food donations can only last that long.

Another SOUND CURE. The hefty donations collected by ABS-CBN can be given as a housing fund to a developer with sound business ethics. A 51 Million peso collection is good enough to build small houses. In fact all donations can be pooled altogether into this scheme.

These people have no homes to go back to, no money to buy anything, no nothing -headless chickens running blind struck by Mother Nature. It takes more than charity to whip them back into shape.

Let us start now. (And in starting also remember that life is so fragile that a torrent of rain can drown us in seconds.)

A CHUCKLE A DAY

Yes Virginia we do have a need to smile everyday. Not just a simple one, but a pealing, gout-wrenching laughter. If unavailable, a chuckle in sound reverb is good enough. Where do we get this, how do we get this, how can we get this?

First, read your morning paper. Read the editorials, or the columns of Conrado de Quiros or Rina David, or Neal Cruz. Listen to Deo Macalma with his mountain accent or Ben Paypon who greets every Ms. Universe in the universe.

Or, watch your dogs slug each other over a piece of withered bone. Or, watch in ironic alarm when your male cockatiel humps the female one with such piercing protest that cats quiet down.

No matter how, just get your chuckle. It will be the coffee of your emotional cells. It will perk you up and it will be the resounding gong of your day. Oh, I’d rather have my chuckle than spend my day having a grim face. Really, it is so tiring maintaining that brooding look. (Remember how Marlon Brando died? Alone, with a bored look and a drawl even he wouldn’t be able to understand.)

Or talk to your plants. Go ahead, don’t mind the neighbors.

DRINKING WATER EVERY HOUR FOR BAD BREATH

A naturalist doctor I heard over Emily Marcelo’s radio program said that water is the elixir of life, and the penultimate medicine. Like a charging warrior, it pumps up emaciated blood cells and turbo-washes it of toxins.

Take bad breath. Who says you don’t have it? I do. Jesus, if you think you don’t have it, man you are dreaming. Ever smelled your drool halfway through dreamworld? I bet my hundred bucks it must have smelled like a cross between a shit and rotten vomit. Yewwww!

So, having heard it, and having disregarded Orocare as a first defense against morning breath, I convinced myself that I must do it. Immediately, now, asap.

In between doing laundry washing, cooking, checking my emails, answering the phone, and getting fleas off our mongrel dog Puga, I set my eyes on the wall clock and started drinking at exactly 8:30am. Doing simple mathematics, I knew that by the time I hit 4:30pm, I would have run to the latrine around 6 times as I have stuffed my bladder with sweet water 8 glassfuls full.

The doctor, bless him, was right. I huffed into my dry palm and smelled it close. Nope, there was no odor. And that was sans toothbrushing. And my pee was clear white, as opaque as a white sheet can be!

I have been doing it quite faithfully for some time now. Naturally tested, and THE CURE passed it with swirling colors!

Now, if only I can maintain it for a lifetime…