Three cheers and kisses for the cook

Weeks before today dawned, there was talk around the dining table on where we'll celebrate someone's turning a new leaf or another year older. No consensus was reached despite lobbying on one side for Japanese food, pizza and pasta on the other.

The impasse was broken when I declared, "Let's just stay home and enjoy a home-cooked meal by Tatay." I requested that we have grilled fish and a salad. If there was anymore leftover fish, let it be cooked into a sour paksiw. Kimi volunteered to prepare the long-life pasta dish.

Tatay Rolly was assigned marketing and cooking chores, and he rose to the challenge. At 5 a.m. today, just as my phone pinged to announce the first text of the day, Rolly bent over me to pinch my cheek by way of greeting me. It was still dark and my eyes were reluctant to open, but I could hear him getting dressed to leave for the market. Before he did, I managed to utter a word: "Champorado!"

So he cooked the family's favorite breakfast fare before heading out to catch a fish or two. Sweet!

Not steak, not lechon manok either. It's grilled yellowfin tuna. Comes with a dipping sauce of soy, vinegar and small red chilies.

Salad of pomelo (too much of it, in my opinion) and wansoy

He didn't forget the cake, walking from the Baguio public market to his office to put down the market basket, then another walk to Vizco's on Session Road for its famed strawberry shortcake before heading home.

Our food and family portrait photographer, Kimi, catches us right before we dig in.

Kai made me a rainbow necklace from her blocks, but I found it too heavy to wear so she did. By the way, it's also Pride Month so here's to our LGBT friends and relatives!

Canto y Carmen

You can't miss the new home of Canto on Kisad Road, Baguio City. The large windows look out to stands of pine trees that surround the city library. Since the restaurant reopened this month, the queues have been long, a lesson on patience that gets more than adequately rewarded when a table becomes available. Behind the structure is more parking space plus a couple of swings for the children who can't stand queuing up.

Speaking for myself, I love the refreshing aftertaste of the lychee and almond slush served in a Mason jar. I always begin my Canto meals with this. My daughter Kimi has taken a liking to it, too. Kai took a sip once and made a face. Maybe after a couple of visits, the Not So Little One will have adjusted her taste buds.

Kimi's fave are the tacos richly topped with grated cheese which Kai adores. If you have this for starters, it's hard to move on to a main course. But you must try the famed, fall-off-the-bones Lomo Ribs, Rolly's favorite paired with mashed potatoes.

The Carmen's Best line of ice cream is agreeably pure indulgence, but I cannot say "No" to Kai who loves it and can finish a cup. No sharing, please. Proudly Philippine made.

Kai can't finish the Marshmallow Fluff and needs our assisting appetite. If you dig and eat through the marshmallow and vanilla ice cream in the first two layers, you'll hit gold mine at the bottom of the glass--a chunk of brownie.

Photos by Kimi Fernandez

April showers, finally

Image sent by Carmencita Sipin Aspiras

In the part of Baguio where we live (15 minutes away from the central business district without traffic), we have been experiencing daily afternoon rains, including one heck of a thunderstorm, since April 15. We, the home-bound family members, could almost hear the plants and trees going glug glug glug as they soak in and store the water. The rains last, like the trip to our neighborhood to and from town, 15 minutes tops, enough to cool the air for Baguio has also been feeling the stifling humid air that lowlanders complain about.

I received a lot of encouraging feedback from blog readers about my April 12 entry here about watching our grandchild and the garden grow. Psychologist Yoya Bulatao, who I finally met at a Fully Booked writing workshop that Neni Sta. Romana Cruz and daugher Aina organized over a year ago, cited my grandchild Kai as "the most interesting flower of all."

Pianist Carmencita Sipin Aspiras wrote from far California, which has not been spared of drought, and shared the above photo that warms me to the tip of my toes as I like to write with feet unshod. She wrote: "What a refreshing topic! And so apt for Spring. Lucky Kai will blossom into a beautiful person as she is nourished by your and Rolly's love in the form of a lovely garden." The image she sent me looks like an illustrated cross-stitched quotation.

Thank you, Heavenly Gardener, for listening to our pleas for rain.

My deaconess friend and her pressed flowers

Toottee's art of pressing flowers

Although I maintain 34 Pinterest boards, I am not a do it yourself person. I'm actually clumsy. Ask my family.

So I've always admired people like Toottee Chanco Pacis who makes her own greeting cards, her breakfast bread, her taco shells, etc.

And she also writes sermons and articles here and there. Recently I invited her to stand as guest of honor along with Perla Macapinlac, ICM, two deeply spiritual persons I associate with my visits to Baguio.

Toottee read an invocation before Perla opened (by flinging a door open wide) my solo show ("Sampayan Blues" ends on Saturday, Nov. 14, at the Sanctuary Gallery of the Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary in Campo Sioco, Baguio). Like me when asked to say something in public, Toottee prefers to write down her thoughts so she doesn't meander from the subject.

These words of hers are my prayer for all for today. the 10th of November.

Oh Lord God,

We thank you for the gift of life.

We thank you for providing for all our needs, including the gifts you have given each of us.

We thank you for occasions like this afternoon's show where we can once again enjoy your creations on canvas and paper.

We thank you for the mag-lola, Babeth and Kai, for a unique collaboration and their family: Kimi, Lolo Rolly, and Auntie Ida for letting it happen.

We thank you for the people present--friends and relations who came to grace this exhibit with their encouragement and support.

Lord, teach us to appreciate and be grateful for the beauty of your creations may they be ordinary and simple.

As the Good Book says, "Establish, Lord, the work of your hands that we may indeed glorify your name."

Lord, I thank you for Babeth.

Amen.

What else will we play next?

These served as my welcome remarks at the opening of "Sampayan Blues," my ninth solo exhibition at the Sanctuary Gallery inside the Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary on North Santo Tomas Road, Campo Sioco, Baguio. The show of paintings and installation ends on Nov. 24. Come visit!

Kept it place by clothespins are the paintings "The Laughing Matryoshkas" and "Be Salt, Be Light, Be Seamstress, Be Doll."

The untitled installation in the middle of the gallery and surrounded by 18 paintings

Portrait of the artist by EV Espiritu and floating above an old wash basin and borne aloft by chipboard "bubbles"

EV Espiritu should have another solo show after his "Soul Catcher" photo exhibit from several years back. He's got one wild mind. Here he poses with the mobile that he had conceived and helped execute.

My collaborations with grandchild Kai who, when she entered the gallery, recognized her figures and announced, "That's my work!" From top: "BFFs in Flower Field" and "Oval and Round"

Good afternoon. Let me thank Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary, its genial and caring staff led by Olive Gregorio, curator Erlyn Ruth Alcantara for allowing us to turn this gallery space into our playground for a month.

Thank you, old comrade in arts and media EV Espiritu, my collaborating artist alongside Maryknoll’s Clem Delim, who is a quiet joy to work with. Yasmin Almonte, the Sarabia sisters Anna Leah and Wawie I thank for gifts of space so I can paint with no other concern except to breathe and paint.

Thank you Baboo Mondoñedo, Merci Javier Dulawan and Ben Tapang for choosing either the most barbed or kindest words for me. All of you who came today despite gray clouds, threatening rain and a bout of sampayan blues, thank you.

What else will we play next? This is the question my four-year-old friend and grandchild Kai asks when we’re done with an activity. It’s a question adults like us must also reinstate in our lives to put the element of play in things we do.

When I was painting “Storm Surge” in the aftermath of super-typhoon Yolanda, I couldn’t paint continuously and with joyous abandon. There was toxic anger in my heart at the way a national crisis/calamity was being handled. I put away my brushes, rolled up the canvas and as for the tiny tubes of acrylic, they dried up.

Until one day I found myself stuck up while writing another hanapbuhay article. Restless, I had to channel my fretfulness into something constructive lest I harm myself from frustration. That’s how I found myself returning to “Storm Surge” after it lay idle for a year. I recaptured the elusive lightheartedness that used to accompany a brushstroke.

Each visit to Baguio had me bearing witness to the ease with which Kai applied herself in her painting, coloring and drawing. Absolutely no self-consciousness about what others would think or say. I like to think I am now apprentice to this master.

Enjoy the show, and thanks again for coming and banishing the blues from my sampayan. May your own clotheslines be often visited by playful birds and butterflies, the scent of flowers, blasts of wind, rays of sunshine and just the occasional rain. Bless you!

Fab at 88

My old office stood at 88 East Capitol Drive. The bungalow on an elevated lot that used to house Raya Media Services Inc. is gone, and in its place is Shine Special Education Center, Inc. Sharing a space in the Shine building is Rub, a ribs and manly fare place that Mom likes to call in for orders of their baby back ribs with sidings and extra barbecue sauce when she's in no mood to prepare a meal for her hungry hippos (that's us her children).

When I think of mom and many things I associate with her, she really stands for the appeasement of hunger. I don't think we ever had to go to bed hungry in our lives in the years we've spent with her. As for intellectual and spiritual nourishment, we each follow what gives us bliss.

The feeder in the family just had to cut short her "staycation" at the Linden Suites courtesy of her youngest born Gigi because she had to attend again to the food preparations (to welcome the stuff she had pre-ordered, not to cook) for the Sunday celebration of her 88th jubilee.

Photo by Gigi Lolarga

When my sister Embeng asked what words should be iced on Mom's Hizon's mocha cake, I didn't have to think twice: "Fab at 88 Mommy dearest."

Mom had a contingent of willing candle blowers to assist her: youngest grandchild Bianca and great grandchildren Kai, Max and Jared.

Photo by Embeng Trinidad

It's still your birth month, Mom. Enjoy enjoy And Joy!

Oo, issue pa!

Now it's my turn to tell the girl with the curly hair (Shirley Temple reborn?): "Let me take your picture."

Today is Women's Equality Day. I can almost hear some voices in the bleachers shouting, "Issue pa ba 'yan?"

It still is, believe you me. And because I live in female-dominated (by our numbers) houses in Pasig and Baguio, I have a mother, four sisters, two daughters and a grandly lovable daughter who refuses to be called "Little One" anymore ("because I'm a big girl now!" she will assert), I believe the world can bear some changes in as far as lessening or removing the treatment of women and girls as doormats.

Over the weekend, this contrast of celebrations of 18th birthdays went viral. A grandma's wish for her Not So Little One is may she grow to see what gives life both meaning and true beauty.

Contrast: Who's the person with more depth even if it's not our place to judge?

My look up gal

The reason The Wee One is looking up in some stolen shots I've taken of her is I must have pointed out either the shape/size of clouds or the startling blueness of a Baguio sky. This is after we've taken a breather from our morning walks.

She walks alongside or ahead of me, never behind me. She used to put on her own pair of play sunglasses and funny hat to imitate my walking outfit. Nowadays she just announces to all after breakfast that we're off to get sunshine and our dose of Vitamin D. And she sounds very authoritative when she says that.

Until our next January walk, Kai. I remain truly yours, Boobook Skywalker.

Not quite Tiffany blue but close enough

It's my favorite shade of blue (the kind of blue that melts into green). It's also akin to turquoise.

My daughter unexpectedly gifted me with a "pedi" treat at David's Salon at Porta Vaga, a commercial arcade along Session Road, Baguio City. I liked the place instantly because there was a private manicure-pedicure cubicle with glossy magazines covered with soft plastic to make 'em last longer until the nth customer.

I think the label means nail varnish. It doesn't specify the exact color. If I were in charge of naming the color, I'd call it Cool Grandmama Blue.

Pretty paint job

I was going to settle for the usual cleaning, clipping of toenails, etc., until I saw a glass cabinet of nail polish in metallic colors and one brand only called Cuccio, made in the US. No sign of tiny bottles of Caronia, Revlon, Jennifer Lynn or Bobbie, the brands I've been accustomed to.

I went for this easy-on-the-eyes shade. My pedicurist was quiet Rochelle. The cubicle was like a sanctuary. Salons in Metro Manila are usually gossip hubs competing with the sound of hair dryers or a TV set tuned in to a teleserye. Rochelle worked with care, would ask now and then if a side of a toe is painful (no hang nails though).

When the work was done, my grandchild came in, her eyes agog. "Booboo, what a beautiful color!" It made my Sunday! Thanks, little pal.

Cool Grandmama's blue nails set against curious Kai. Photos by Babeth Lolarga

'Kai ligaya ng buhay'

For that witty pun on my grandchild's name I have Manong Ed Maranan to thank, he being the master of the art of punning.

I failed to make my November trip to the post office, the time of year when I mail handwritten Christmas cards. There was just a lot of reading, writing, correcting of papers, proofreading of book galleys to attend to.

So I succumbed to the 21st-century convenience of a Christmas family letter with a picture of "Kai ligaya" attached in my email to over 200 contacts. You can imagine how much I spend on stamps for individual cards in a year! Well, I'm often reminded by environmentalists to reduce my paper trail by going electronic in my mail. So there.

Since the adjectival response to the photo of "Kai ligaya" has ranged from "adorable" to "cutie" to "she looks like one of my apos," I thought I'd post one more pic in this space for a Christmas-y and merry feel.

Posing by the Christmas tree of Gardenville Hotel in Green Valley, Baguio City Photo by Booboo Babeth

September morning of our lives

Another holiday, this time because it's Baguio Day. You can imagine how skippy happy The Wee One is with another full day ahead of her, all her own. Photo by Babeth Lolarga

Here's a song that I hope she also grows into. I'm teaching her the spiritual "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and she enjoys watching on YouTube the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's versions.

Maybe when she's a little bigger. My Dad used to sing this when it was being played on the radio as he drove his car. Neil Diamond's "September Morn" remains one of the songs that I associate with him.

Some excerpts:

Stay for just a while
Stay and let me look at you
It's been so long, I hardly knew you
Standing in the door

Stay with me a while
I only wanna talk to you
We've traveled halfway 'round the world
To find ourselves again

September morn
We danced until the night
Became a brand new day
Two lovers playing scenes
From some romantic play
September morning
Still can make me feel that way

Look at what you've done
Why, you've become a grown-up girl
I still can hear you crying
In a corner of your room
And look how far we've come
So far from where we used to be
But not so far that we've forgotten
How it was before...

I have to turn myself around

Missing my hokey pokey partners now that I can't do that dance because for some reason my mind still can, but my body can no longer. But I pray it's a temporary condition, and it too shall pass. Here's to the Hokie Pokies in our lives. Two playful cousins are seated on a bench at the open public space of Capitol Commons, Pasig City. Photo of Kai and Max by their Booboo Babeth

It's always Tatay's Day on our street

The pair of hands at the bottom are Rolly's, the small ones atop him belong to the Wee One, the LO (little one) who's growing bigger, taller and more smart ass each day. Rolly is Tats to her, Tatay to the other women in the house: me, our daughters, sometimes to the help, but she'd rather address him Kuya. From the picture you can sense he's our protector, provider, the one who never fails us. the one whose love is unuttered but deeply felt. Long live Tatay! Photo by Babeth Lolarga

Two Poohs

Piglet: "How do you spell love?"
Winnie the Pooh: "You don't spell it, you feel it."

Somewhere in Pangasinan, as the Baguio-bound bus slowed down along MacArthur Highway due to one of several road cuts, this sight I captured from my window.

The Pooh toy must be so loved to be washed and dried in the sun this way.

I remembered a smaller version of Pooh that still has pride of place in our house. It was never given away or passed on to another child. The thought of throwing it away never crossed anyone's mind. It looks bedraggled from years of being loved too much.

Kai, the new Wee One in the family, has also learned how dear it is, as dear as the newer stuffed toys in her entourage. Two Poohs that have known love--that is what they are.

Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Hands cup cheeks

I used to wonder why The Wee One liked to pose in this fashion for photographs. Took a lot of half scoldings, half sweet talking to make her pose more naturally. Until I saw the possible source of that hands cupping cheeks pose.


Kai with her Granny Sue this summer in Baguio Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Photo from The Glitter Fairy in Twitter

'Staycation' is the way to go

Her list of summer activities outshines mine (I can timidly claim reading a couple of books, getting hooked on the TV series Sherlock Holmes and Game of Thrones, occasional handwritten letters, increasingly rare walks, flower appreciation, snacking at odd hours).

Kai has learned to cut and prefers to do it alone, plays catch ball with her elders, swims with abandon in a small sea of balls, gives her water toys a full bath and squeeze until sneezing point from exposure to the cold, snaps "dragons" in the garden, indulges in pretend play with her stuffed toys, joins the doggy walk morning and afternoon, sings "Letting Go" from Frozen full throttle, watches four Hoopla Kids videos on YouTube (strictly rationed, same for TV hours unlike her Booboo). Daily summer phonics class is now part of her routine.

I can add to my list the photo documentation of her summer. I still dream of going to the beach, of feeling sand under my feet or even swimming in a warm pool before monsoon season arrives. My travel is limited to Pinterest sites of dream getaways and the TLC channel.

Meanwhile, our "staycation" is going splendidly, and we feel blessed each time the sun is out. I've grown to accept that this is as good as it gets.

Enjoying each moment Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Conquest of the rope bridge

"We live in a world of disappointment. You begin with high hopes and the beautiful innocence of childhood but you discover that the world isn't good enough, nor are our lives and nor are we. But there are moments in life when we can have an experience of transcendence, feel part of something larger, or simply our hearts burst inside." – Salman Rushdie

Kai crossing the rope bridge in the playground by herself Photo by her Booboo

Laughing flowers

When April showers fall in Baguio every other afternoon, the earth starts laughing with flowers (with thanks to Ralph Waldo Emerson for that quote). A recent visit to Mother's Garden in Upper Fairview, Baguio, gave us a chance to admire both flora and fauna.

Welcome arch

Little Kai got into the rabbit and chicken cage fearlessly and fed the furry animals with slices of chayote. She still talks about it every moment that she remembers the experience. Her remembering of the past is getting better.

As for her Booboo, I moved my other eye (the camera) closer to the laughing flowers.

Red and yellow and purple and orange Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Teacher of wonder

Our three-year-old resident is doing an inventory of her missing toy parts with help from vacationing Granny Sue as I write this April entry.

A couple of nights ago, she spotted the crescent moon from the office window and ran to the different bedrooms to call everyone to view it with her. It did look like a smiling mouth from a Smiley face. Her eyes were a-glow with wonder. She even asked how the moon managed to be suspended up there: "hanging in the sky." That was her own description.

Half of Kai's face inside her Booboo's summer hat

In the mornings, when it gets cloudy, she yells from the balcony: "Mister Sun, come out!" She's aware we need him to help speed up the drying of the laundry.

That's Kai, our teacher in wonder and amazement. Stay for as long as you can in that state, little 'un. Happy three!

Whirling with her birthday balloons Photos by Booboo