Not to be defeated, I decided to try and replicate the dressing. I found a recipe that seemed to have the right ingredients, and played it by ear. Luckily, I got the flavor close enough, and Oneal insists it tastes better than the Comida Rica dressing.

We brought the dressing and the salad to Karen’s for Sunday lunch, and it was quite a hit! So we’re sharing it now with everyone. Enjoy!

Salad:

• Arugula – Chop off the stalks and trim the leaves into bite-sized pieces. Try to get baby arugula, also called rocket, if you want to avoid the bitter taste of older leaves. Or do away with arugula together, and find other leaves that suit your taste.
• Basil – Plucked from the stalks. Trim the bigger leaves into bite-sized pieces.
• Carrots – Peeled and julienned
• Coriander (Wansuy) – Plucked from the stalks
• Cucumber – Peeled and julienned, seeds removed if you prefer
• Mangoes – Peeled and diced
• Mint – Plucked from the stalks. Trim the bigger leaves into bite-sized pieces.
• Mixed greens – Trim the leaves into bite-sized pieces.

Dressing:

• Brown sugar – 1 tbsp
• Chili powder – ½ tsp
• Dried kaffir leaves – 5 leaves, crushed
• Lemon juice – From 1 lemon
• Patis – 1 tbsp
• Sweet chili sauce – 4 tbsp
• Warm water – ¼ cup
• Optional: Dried garlic chips

Salad Directions: Toss salad ingredients in a large bowl. Toss well for a pretty distribution of color.

Dressing Directions: Mix sweet chili sauce, brown sugar, lemon juice, patis and water in a bowl. Add chili powder and dried kaffir leaves. Optional: Crush garlic chips and mix into dressing. This will make the dressing spicier.

Serve dressing alongside salad and a bowl of extra mint leaves.

Introduction of the Parents and the entrance of the first big surprise of the night: the 501st Legion

and of course, the Newlyweds

A few months ago I received an invitation to a press conference, something I had to attend for work. The letter was addressed to “Ms. Regina Rosero”.

Back in June, I requested copies of our marriage certificate from the NSO. Naturally, I used my maiden name when I filed the request. A week later, Air 21 delivered the documents to our house. The village guard called our house and asked, “Meron po ba diya’ng Layug, Regina? May Air 21 delivery po kasi,” said Bernadette, our security guard.

“Ako yun,” I said, laughing. It’s funny, but sometimes it stings a little that there are people who will not know me by my own name.

It isn’t a new story, or a new feeling. For decades women have had to struggle with the question, “Why must I take my husband’s name?” If it isn’t your husband’s, it’s your father’s name. What name is really your own anyway?

For decades, women have tried to solve the problem. Many have accepted their multiple roles as independent women, as wives, as daughters, as sisters, as mothers, and they have chosen to embody this multitude of roles by hyphenating. Many are hyphenated women.

I think I first encountered the term in college. As a Literature major, I studied various texts about identity, gender, culture, and so on, and you can’t read all that literature without having to read all sorts of critique and analysis and crap. I never enjoyed literary theory, but (naturally, I suppose) I enjoyed women’s studies. Women’s identities as they transformed from one form to another, as they shifted from daughter and sister to lover and wife, then to the all-encompassing role of mother. But though we grow and move from one role to another, we never really shed our old skins. They cling to us throughout our lives, and that multiplicity is encompassed in that tiny hyphen, the one that bridges our old identities with the new.

I’ve been surrounded by hyphenated women all my life. My mother, also a writer, raised me in the company of her friends from college, collectively known as the Sisterhood. The Sisterhood is composed of writers, strong women who had strong feelings and opinions about women’s lib, women’s health, women’s rights, everything women. And three of them who were married chose to hyphenate their professional names, such that all who read their work knew that they had identities and personalities of their own before they married.

So it’s funny how, eight years after college, here I am, a Hyphenated Woman myself.

There’s no point in hyphenating my last name legally, as that will just cause confusion when my given name is already so kilometric. So I decided to change my name in all my legal papers to my married name.

As I consulted various friends, it’s funny how so many of them said, “But you don’t have to do that.” It seems more of my friends are pro-Independent Woman than I realized. And I had to say to them, “I know, but when we have kids they’ll carry my husband’s name anyway, and if I use a different name there will be confusion legally, and I’d like to avoid all that.”

But I did consider keeping my name. For a brief moment before I applied for a new postal ID, I saw my name written out with my husband’s last name, and there was a little stab at my heart. Is this how it feels to shed an old life and start anew? How many other women have felt this sense of loss as they bid their father’s name goodbye and accepted their husband’s as their own? I am not the first, and I certainly won’t be the last, but that didn’t make the shock of my new name any less startling.

Then I went ahead and filled up the form, and presented the marriage certificate, and the clerk at the post office banged away at her typewriter, the typebar emphatically spelling out my new name: Regina Teresita Magdalena L. Rosero. A week later I claimed my new ID, and I stared at it with fascination as I contemplated my new identity. I joked to my neighbor and college friend, Mary Ann, “Look, I no longer exist! A new person has taken my place!”

Though legally Regina Teresita Magdalena Layug no longer exists, all my bylines now use Regina Layug-Rosero. I insist on this, because despite my hullaballoo about shedding the identity I had established over my 28 years, I am actually proud to carry my husband’s name. Like many women before me, I embrace my new identity, my new family, my new name. My in-laws are wonderful people who accept me not as a daughter-in-law, but as their own daughter, and my brother-in-law is as close to me as my own blood brother. No longer am I simply the daughter of Marian and Fer, but also of Baby and Boy; no longer am I simply sister to Victor, but now also to Ron; no longer am I simply myself, Regina, but now I am also wife to Oneal.

I’m proud to be this new person, even if it does still take some getting used to. But it’s all me.

Royal Canin cat food

It was about three months after our wedding when I got a call from a co-worker, Misha, telling me he was near the house, and that he was bringing over a wedding gift. Imagine my surprise when he parked in front of the house, and emerged from his car carrying a cage with a Siamese kitten!

It was the first time we had ever had a purebred cat. All our other cats were the offspring of my Botchok, a stray I had picked up in UP ten years ago. Though her kittens have grown to be big, strong and healthy cats, they’re still different from purebreds.

So I was a little bewildered. What do we feed him? Does he need special food? Does he need exercise? Does he shed more? I called my husband, whose first reaction was, “But doesn’t he know we already have five cats!”

My husband came home, and as soon as he saw the Siamese, he absolutely melted. “Awwwwwww!” he squeals, and he couldn’t resist picking up the kitten and cuddling it. Ah, the power of a cute baby.

Like me, he felt rather confused about taking care of a purebred cat. Fortunately, my friend Jill ran an online pet show, and often had free samples of cat and dog food. She very nicely offered me free samples of Royal Canin wet cat food.

The free samples we got were Instinctive, Kitten Instinctive, Ultra Light, Intense Beauty and Oral Mature. The kitten, Bunny, was only three months old, really a baby, so we gave him the Kitten Instinctive. He seemed to really like it, though he also ate dry cat food.

Indoor Mature

Our other cats are used to dry cat food. We normally feed them Tri-Pro pellets, sometimes Friskies. They won’t eat Whiskas. We only started buying Royal Canin when the vet told us that Botchok needed food for mature cats. We realized Royal Canin was something awesome when all the other cats wanted Botchok’s food. Imagine the chaos when we’d be trying to feed Botchok, and the other cats would keep trying to steal her food! We had to feed her in a separate room, and keep everyone else out.

Finally, we were able to feed them Royal Canin with the free samples from Jill. We had to make sure to put a small amount in each dish, just to make sure each cat got his or her share. If we put everything in one or two dishes, the cats would walk all over each other trying to get the food!

Unfortunately, Royal Canin is a little pricey, so we can’t really afford to feed all 6 cats with it. Since Botchok is the only one with special needs, we buy Royal Canin only for her. We feed her Indoor Mature. While she’s always had a lovely coat, I think the Royal Canin food has made her fur even smoother and silkier. Now she has the nicest coat of all our cats.

Or I could just be biased because she’s my favourite baby cat.

Introduction of the Principal Sponsors during the start of the Reception:

this was the Wedding Entourage entrance, complete with Lightsabers

I didn’t have a whole week of terrible things, but it was still annoying and stressful. I was waiting for some of my writing fees to be available, and accounting kept making mistakes with my kilometric name, or my checks kept getting delayed. That’s not funny when you have bills to pay.

Then the car broke down. Naturally Oneal was annoyed, and he didn’t have time to bring it to the shop. The weather made things more difficult for us, with three different wakes to visit, and Oneal having to go back and forth between Parañaque and Pasig. We were lucky that friends happened by and gave us a lift home, two nights in a row.

Oneal’s dad was able to pick up the car on Friday, and have it repaired in time for the busy weekend. All in all, it wasn’t that bad, but I did suffer a comical traumatic experience that must be shared.

On Thursday, I was scheduled to go to the office. Given how unpredictable the weather had been, I wanted to dress appropriately: sensible clothes and shoes for rain or shine, and presentable clothes for the wake of Dante’s uncle, which we were visiting that night. So I put on jeans, a tank top, a jacket, and brown boots. I was armed with an umbrella and two handkerchiefs, a bottle of water, and my knife tucked behind my back. I also had snacks in my bag, since I get grumpy when I get hungry. See, I was prepared for anything!

RIP rubber heel

So I stepped out and walked my usual route towards the corner of Ortigas Ave. and C-5, to get the jeep to Cubao. I trudged through Hypermart and Tiendesitas. Once I was on C-5, that’s where I noticed that my tread seemed uneven. When I looked down, I saw that the rubber heel was sticking out on the side of my foot!

I had walked so far, and it was so hot and I was sticky and sweaty. I couldn’t very well walk all the way back home lest the heel come completely off. So I waited for a jeep and got down at the corner to walk home. By the time I got to the house, the heel on the other shoe was coming off too!

When I looked at my shoes at home, I saw that the heels were cracked in the middle. It looked like the rubber couldn’t take the heat from the pavement. I had to change into a different pair of boots. And since I was already disgustingly sweaty, I had to change my shirt too.

Both shoes!

I set out again for the jeep, and I made it to IPI, unscathed and starving. I got on a jeep and made it to Cubao without incident, with only crackers to stave off my hunger. I boarded a Lagro jeep near Ali Mall, and sat quietly as other passengers got in.

Once the jeep crossed Aurora, it stopped at BDO as usual to get more passengers. One of the passengers who climbed in was a greasy-looking man in dirty black shorts and a black shirt. He looked like he was homeless, one of those wandering people who just picked up what they could off the street.

And he sat beside me.

I got a little nervous since he was muttering angrily, and he smelled not nice at all. I thought he was muttering at the young man who was hanging on by the back of the jeep. I tried to keep quiet and be inconspicuous. Then the young man got down at Ermin Garcia, and I thought the homeless fellow would turn quiet.

Alas, he was still muttering.

And he kept glancing at me.

Call me terribly bourgeois and middle class and prejudiced, but I thought he was going to rob me. I thought he was looking at my jewelry, so I tried to hide my hands behind my bag and under my handkerchief. I thought he would reach for me. Once when he looked at me, I looked at him, then looked away, hoping to show that I wasn’t intimidated by him at all. I thought I saw him smile, but he was still muttering so I thought he was still angry

I kept thinking, if he reaches for me or tries to touch me, I’ll slap him or elbow him. On the other hand, I was also thinking, he’s just a crazy old man, he can’t do anything. But then again I would think, if he tries to hold me I’ll kick him.

Eventually he got down at Kamias Road, and I was unharmed. I and the lady in front of me breathed a very visible sigh of relief when he departed, and she told me, he had been muttering as he looked at me, “Wala ako’ng asawa.”

I didn’t know if I was going to laugh or cry, so I just laughed as I told the story at the office. But that was creepy.

Ruby Bayan, our ninang

Our principal sponsors at the wedding are awesome, wonderful people, who happen to be very good friends and close relatives of ours and our parents. But one truly awesome ninang is Ruby Bayan, mom of my best friend and our best man Dante Gagelonia.

Tita Ruby is based in Florida, and is a woman of many trades: she writes, does Web design, creates gorgeous jewelry, does her own carpentry and gardening, and is often sound engineer for her husband, Mike Llamas aka DJ Stoney Burke.

When we asked her to be ninang, Tita Ruby jumped onto the Star Wars bandwagon without hesitation. She scoured the Web for a costume she could wear to the wedding, and not only did she indeed wear a costume, but she made it herself too! And she modified a costume that was purchased for her husband. Check out her costume construction progress on Multiply.

Bridesmaid jewelry

In addition to the awesomeness of her costume, she also gave us a wonderful wedding gift: bridal jewelry for me, and jewelry sets for my bridesmaids and main and matron of honor! We gave these sets to the bridal entourage on the day of the wedding, and they all shrieked like teenage girls when they saw the beautiful, beautiful things. Check out the jewelry and the process of making them on Tita Ruby’s blog.

Tita Ruby, thank you for being an awesome ninang!