Manang Neneng Is Looking For Something

So some of you already know about Manang Neneng, whom I wrote about in The Lamentations Of Our New Laundrywoman. Today, I overheard her while she was in the backyard, calling out to her pet stray cat.

"Oh, PUSSY! Where are you, PUSSY? Come here, PUSSY!"

Yes. There is nothing quite as unnerving as hearing an old woman calling out to her PUSSY.

The Lamentations Of Our New Laundrywoman

We hired a new laundrywoman a few weeks ago, because the old one recently got married to a man she had never before seen in her entire life (it's a funny story, but I think I'll talk about that in another entry) and moved back to her old province. So we now have a new one, and she is an old but rather spirited lady who used to be a beautician (which probably explains why her hair is not her natural color and her penchant for wearing ornate, dangling earrings at all times). She's in her fifties, so we all call her "Manang" which is a respectful term that translates to "old lady". But her real name is "Neneng" which roughly translates to "little girl". So that makes her "Manang Neneng" or "Old Lady Little Girl". Lovely...

Over the weekend, we took Manang Neneng, along with the cleaning lady, with us to our vacation house in Tagaytay to do some laundry. At first she was really excited, because it was going to be her first time to see it. She seemed to enjoy herself, and the weather was really nice. But on the second day, an overwhelming sense of sadness had overcome her. The cleaning lady found her in the basement, folding clothes with tears welling up in her eyes. She asked what was wrong, and Manang Neneng tells her that she's sad because she misses being in our house in Manila.

Oooowkay...

Then the cleaning lady laughed at her. And then she told us the story of Manang Neneng's lamentations about being home sick after a whopping total of TWO days. And then we laughed too. I wondered what on earth it was that she could be missing in our house in Manila, and then my mom said that she thinks it's all the stray kitties that she's befriended there the past couple of weeks.

So there... that's the story of our new, super-emo, cat-loving, formerly-a-beautician laundrywoman. And today our lesbian cook resigned so we're looking for a new one, too.