MOI HUSBAND'S "OTHER WOMAN"

or, rather, ex-Other Woman is the subject of a short story first published last century by Bamboo Ridge but now newly online at OurOwnVoice.  CHECK IT OUT HERE!  But I'll also give some background to the story by cutnpasting an email I sent to one Listserve:

Dear All,


... I would like to make you laugh (hopefully) and point you to a short story of mine that was published last century by Bamboo Ridge and reprinted online recently by OurOwnVoice. Click here: http://ourownvoiceonline.com/stories/stories2012b-1.shtml

This had a real-life inspiration. I'd been married already for 7 years when I brought my husband Tom to the Philippines for his first visit (and only visit so far). I still remember that dangerous thousand-mile-per-hour bus ride from Manila to my childhood village in Santo Tomas, Ilocos Sur. It occured at night and Tom was amazed that the driver could see in the darkness through the narrow roads. He was further amazed when he looked over at me at about 2 a.m. to see the woman that he thought he knew (thus married) blissfully cramming her mouth with chicharron soaked in vinegar and pepper from what he pointed out was undoubtedly disgustingly-unsanitary plastic bags ('twas my first chicharron in years!).

After that overnight bus ride where he saw me change from a Manhattanite to a pure-bred Pinay (haha), the bus finally rolled into our village. The bus doors opened. We got off ... right into a wedding celebration. My Apong, bless her grandmotherly heart, had set up a wedding reception for us since, of course, the village had never participated in my wedding here in the U.S. You can imagine Tom's stunned surprise at having spent a sleepless night on the bus grimacing through every fast-taken turn on the dark road, every so often dubiously looking at me as I scarfed through one filipino snack after another, then decamping the bus right into a "breakfast" of a wedding reception complete with lechon, ornately-decorated cake and our wedding album (which my my mother had sent earlier) being passed around all over again. 'Twas magical realism at its best! You couldn't make it up! (And I suspect my husband is still wary, if not scared, of returning to the Philippines....!)

...
So it inspired the story that OOV printed ... I hope you enjoy. I can tell you honestly that OOV publisher Reme Grefalda read it and it made her cry. Tears of laughter, I hope...:)

And of course hope you enjoy the rest of the OOV issue: http://ourownvoiceonline.com/
Eileen

Now I am hungry!

Hm. I have a whole bunch of these types of stories written when I was a newbie writer and before I fully launched myself into poetry that my mother considers "difficult to understand."  I should put them together into a book manuscript -- I am comic(al) after all ....