a couple of relatives have died in the past week. to be more accurate, one of the deceased was a relative of a relative, and the other person was one of my mother's favorite uncles. today i drove my mom down to the colombia funeral home on rainier avenue to pay our respects to my cousin's grandfather, and it didn't really dawn to me until the very end of the rosary that there was a lifeless body lying face up in an open casket right across from where i was sitting. death is incredible, and it is incredibly awkward to be near the corpse of a person, one of whom i had never met. in the fashion and tradition of quirky filipino names, the old man who died was named valentine at birth.

my mother's uncle, endo, otherwise known as peter by his americanized and assimilated grandchildren, died a couple days ago in the philippines, and so all of his children, my mother's cousins, booked tickets and flew back to the islands. unlike the preceeding dead guy, valentine, i personally knew endo, at least to a greater extent than having him be a random dead guy. we visited my auntie lulu out in west seattle, one of endo's daughter in-laws, to see how everything was coming along with her packing, since she was one of the last people who booked a flight. while there, however, i pleasantly discovered the immense beauty and charm of my auntie lulu's household, found in the family her son was beginning to create.

lulu's son, my cousin russell, who i haven't seen in quite a while since i've missed the past two new year's parties at their home, is now married with two kids, and still lives at home. at first his whole life's situation seems totally fucked, but both russell and his wife are working, with russell having a notably good job calibrating medical instruments in their last stage of development before they are shipped out to be sold at prices as high as $250,000 dollars. i don't know, it just seemed complicated and dignifiable when it was first explained to me, and of course it gave my mom another person to gauge my underachieving life against. to get off being off tangent, the actual enchantment of russell's life is in his family: a stunning wife and two funny little tykes who embody everything and anything about the innocence and imagination of every young child i have ever met.

for any man to understand what i mean by "stunning," my cousin's wife looks as if she is mixed with white and asian, though i could be wrong. that stunning. so stunning i already forgot her name, even though today wasn't the first time that i've met her. in a matriarchial respect, she seems to be a very charming mother. she's very much like the young mothers you see in the movies (i'm shameful, i know), picking her children off the floor in dove-like swoops with a certain yet uncertain unmeditated understanding of the child's happiness. she is not a m.i.l.f. simply because she'll probably grow on to me as a cousin in the future.

i simply can't reiterate how cute russell's kids are. leilani, obviously raised to be a delightful young girl and obviously succeeding at every level, is beginning to talk in full coherent phrases, and hearing her talk is something i won't even begin to misrepresent by trying to describe it. though far from being a parent myself, i empathically understand the adage that goes on saying "the joys of parenthood" when i hear leilani laugh. raymond, the semi-newborn as well as the youngest of the two, doesn't care who holds him, retaining his drooling and radiant smile even with my mother's own frightfully smothering grasp. he's a baby, a mixed baby. what more could be said?

both of the children play with the family dogs. my uncle bert, who is in the philippines right now, and my auntie lulu have three dogs in their house, pogi (which means handsome in tagalog), chiquita (like the banana), and beluga (like the caviar fish). imagine a seven-month-old baby face to face with a dark brown chihuahua. initially for a split second it seemed quaint, almost strange, to see the two face head on, but it became even funnier when ray-ray (as his sister calls him) head-butted beluga.

i never really payed attention to dogs before, but as i myself stared straight into the face of a bewildered beluga, i noticed for the first time that dogs have dragon noses, and in general all of the illustrations of chinese dragons that i can recall seem to resemble dogs. chihuahuas in particular seem to smile the way humans do. before today i used to detest the sight of a chihuahua. to me a chihuahua was a sorry, underfed and anorexic excuse of a dog, and rejoiced in the fact that they had put the "yo quiero taco bell" dog to death, but in hindsight i wish i had given the little trotting creatures a chance. i don't think i've ever pet a dog more in my life, even though it barked and scared the shit out of me back when we weren't friends.

today could easily be categorically summed up with "death, babies, and dogs," but that would also exclude my heist at the renton community health center where i scored 56 condoms, as well as the notable relationship between anthony and seth's grandma.