Seniors and other FB Moments

FIRST thing I wanted to do after watching the film version of "Les Miserables" was to go and buy a copy of the unabridged English version of the Victor Hugo novel set in 18th century France. It isn't available. Obviously, there's a general recurrence of interest in the classic, considered one of the most important novels of all time, and also one of the, if not the longest.

So there I was, scouring the bookstores and finding out that, a) it isn't available, b) they don't know when their stocks are coming in (both from National Bookstores), c) we're all sold out, and d) you can fill out a form so we can reserve one for you the moment we get them (from Fully Booked). Even in the book sale kiosks, I tried, but failed to find, a copy. Whatever they had was sold out.

The manufacturers/ printers must have anticipated the renewed demand for the book, and just two days after I signed in my name At Fully Booked Katipunan, I received a text message saying my copy has arrived. There was, I was told, a long list of people who secured reservations for it.

This just goes to show that the showing of movie versions of the classics or recent popular films based on books engenders an interest in reading. Like what Harry Potter did with readers of all ages, and the Twilight saga with the teens, young adult and adult readers. This, apparently, is the best way to interest young people to read, rather than spend their leisure time merely facebooking and playing with their iPads.

Facebooking, though, has its rewards. I was resistant to having an FB account for a long time. My son made me one when I happened to see my old - as in long time -- friend on his FB page. I typed in a message for her, and another one for my best male friend. (I also have, proud to say, a best gay friend.) They were his fb friends. That account passed on, I never used it. Then my 'makulit' granddaughter made another account for me. This time I used it. And I've been facebooking ever since. Through fb, I found other long lost friends from worlds beyond-nah, they're alive and kicking-who are on this side of gray. Actually, all of us are already card-carrying members of the SC club. I'd like to think of it as meaning Superior Citizens. Don't anybody dare to disagree; we've earned our stripes, raised our kids, kicked out some husbands/kept our husbands, choose your wild. We're entitled to our idiosyncrasies, to spoil our grandkids (or not), live the sweet life one deserves. Unfortunately, some of us still need to work, or want to work. Not the same banana. One does it for money, the other does it for honey; as I said, the sweet life.
Whatever side one is on, there are certain ills for the Superior Citizen. Having insomnia is one of them. (And I thought I was alone.) First Lady Miniang was whining on FB that she's really old 'coz she wakes up at 4:00 am, having had only a couple of hours' wink time. Right after that, a flurry of same messages flooded the page. All saying, "aku rin, bala ku aku mu". ("Me too; I thought I was the only one") Welcome to the club. That's why facebooking is alive in the wee hours of the morning, or the ungodly hours after midnight. Actually, same banana.

Thing about fb is, and I don't know if this happens to others, people I didn't even request for Friends status, nor have they requested for mine, suddenly surface as 'friends'. Not that I mind. Most of them I know. But there are some irksome ones who keep coming up despite our having turned them down. How can you trust to share your life and thoughts with someone whose face you can't even see? What's worrisome is that, according to my cousin Sally, some hackers have moved on to fb. They'll use your profile, steal your photos, and then request to be friends with people, in your name. There should be a security check for that.

I've received quite a number of 'requests' on e-mail, asking me to help them invest their money here and I will receive an insanely huge amount for my efforts. Gee, I should be a mega-zillionaire by now. These usually come from places like Faso-Burkina or other exotic-sounding places on God's earth. Does anyone really fall for these scams?

Oh yeah, I forgot. There's the slippery as an eel heel named Aman as a particularly odious example of stupidity or gullibility. If you receive e-mails such as "please help", "urgent, need help", followed by promises of money beyond your dreams, they ARE beyond your dreams. Delete delete delete.