things that will always make me think of my dad: i've been working on the railroad or something

my sister and i get violently carsick. since my sister's been sick, she gets even more so.

so if there were 3 or more people to travel in a car, my mom and sister defaulted to the front seat (my mom's driving is just about all that my sister can handle - and not only then. she can't drive all that much). if i was one of the 3 and my sister was NOT there, i got bumped to the front seat.

my dad was always relegated to the back seat unless there were only 2 people in the car.

2 years ago, we (mom, dad, hf) were driving to church for midnight mass on christmas, and i asked my dad if he remembered any christmas songs from the philippines. and he got SO EXCITED and started singing something. all i can remember are 1.5 lines because it's in tagalog, yo. i can only say "monkey," "dog," "water," "i'm lost," and "it looks like you're sitting on a coconut" in tagalog.

(i have some mystery hits from LA and orange counties - if any of my cousins are reading this and may know the rest of this song, lemme know!)

ang pasko ay sumapit
[blah blah blah blah blah] awit.

he started singing at the top of his lungs and sang FOREVER (their church is quite the hike from their house).

i asked him to sing it again because it was super funny and we were having fun

when my mom started laughing uncontrollably.

"that's a CHRISTMAS song? it's not 'i've been working on the railroad' or something?"

(in her defense the melody sounds an awful lot like that)