How the week was won

Guess how? Through the inevitable lunches with friends the most recent and undocumented of which was a meeting at Mary Grace Robinsons Galleria with old pal Jenny Llaguno. We exchanged stories, she gave me a book for my husband Rolly's collection and before we knew it two hours had passed. What a lift after the gray morning weather.

Earlier in the week, on a Monday, it was sunny and dry, perfect for the now yearly reunion of our unnamed group of amigas y amigos. The amigos, Pablo Tariman and Isah V. Red, were indisposed (subtext for rushing to meet writing deadlines). But I was just too glad to take a break from writing and editing and stretch my lumbering body a bit.

Meeting place was Cafe Juanita in Kapitolyo, Pasig, the kikay resto in my 'hood. I thought I'd make it ahead of everyone, but Joy Buensalido's car was parked outside--I recognized her driver. Next came Jingjing Romero who pulled a roll-on luggage behind her. She had just come from a staycation at Marco Polo Ortigas Manila with Margie T. Logarta. But where was Marge? She was still taking a shower when Jingjing checked out of the hotel.

Clockwise: Ester Dipasupil, Babeth, Joy Buensalido and Jingjing Romero

Our usual Do Re Mi picture. I like the "prints" on Margie's dress. She's standing at the bottom of the stairs (left).

Second to the last to arrive was Ester Dipasupil wearing what Margie described as a Dennis the Menace outfit (denim overalls with striped red and white tee underneath). We were almost done with lunch (ampalaya salad, puso ng saging sisig, beef ribs adobo, callos, fried fish whose exact name I've forgotten not being a fan of anything beyond bangus) when Margie strode in with her own bag on wheels.

Generous Joy had a bag of Maya goodies for everyone (Pablo, you still have to pick up yours at our house). She also had a printed voile blouse for Jingjing. But the latter was still in mourning for her mother so she didn't want to wear something so colorful. I claimed the blouse for myself when I saw how roomy it was. Sorry, too much girl talk and gestures.

Much of the content of our conversation deserves to be heard in a confessional box so I will fast forward to a Thursday lunch at Victorino's Restaurant on the intersection of Scout Rallos and 11th Jamboree streets, Kyusi. My reasons for going there was to interview Anton Juan and to meet up with another group of friends. And to wear, nay, flaunt the gift blouse from Joy and Jingjing.

With ageless enfant terrible Anton J. Photo by Niña Simunek

After we finished with official business, I was taken aback by Anton's question: "So, Babeth, did you ever marry?" My girlfriends, including his niece Niña Simunek, all burst out laughing. I put to rest his wrong impression, saying, "I am married and have two children and one grandchild."

He clung to his impression, adding that "you look pure and virginal. I cannot imagine you having that look of desire."

At this point, my girlfriends started agreeing with him, saying, "It's because you're hardly seen together with your husband."
Anton's Manang Jenny agreed and in all seriousness said, "It's because, Babeth, you never seem to be in a rush to hurry home to cook for anyone. But your nurturing side is very strong."

Well, after 35 years of marriage to Rolly, this is just about the second time someone like Anton mistook me for a singleton, much less a virgin (sabay ilag). The first ones who thought I was single, and this was only a few years ago, were Nympha Sano and her hubby Stef. I also had to correct their "misimpression."

Later, as we had our picture taken together, I told Anton pointedly, "My husband happens to be tall and handsome." His eyes grew wide. Somebody piped up, "He wears a beard, too, and he's a good provider."

I hope that settles that. Love you, Anton. Working on my follow-up questions but please get over your jet lag first.

When Sonny gets blue

The then newlywed Romeros, Sonny and pretty Babes, in the Seventies Photo from Sonny's Facebook account

Another dearly beloved joined the Light at 5 p.m. Windsor time--Ramon "Sonny" Lolarga Romero, glass sculptor, husband, father, grandpop, cousin to a multitude of Lolargas, Romeros and Valdellons.

A few weeks ago, we, his cousins, learned that Sonny was bedridden, weighed less than a hundred pounds and was hardly taking in food. It was a matter of time and up to God's will. Meanwhile, my brother Junic in another part of wintry Canada gave updates on email to tell us how Sonny was faring. Then came the call for old photos of Sonny in what we thought was some kind of digital memorial album that his wife Baves was preparing for any eventuality.

The time has come for Sonny to be spoken of in the past tense. But he lives in these pictures of him as a babe on our grandfather Enrique Acosta Lolarga's knee and as a boy declaiming an oratorical piece at our grandmother Telesfora Cariño Lolarga's house in Lower Brookside, Baguio.

Lolarga ancestors. That's long-haired Sonny on Lolo Laki's knee.

The young orator

Sonny the graduate

Yesterday, my siblings and I hosted a bienvenida lunch at Cafe Juanita for Sonny's younger bro Henry, who's based in Los Angeles. Sonny was among the subjects of our conversation--how long he would last in what appeared to be a losing battle with cancer, what Henry would do in case the call came that Sonny was gone.

We grasped at glimmers of hope. Henry just had a conversation with his kuya wherein the ailing brother agreed to hang on until Henry could return to North America. Henry wondered if Sonny's tone could have meant he was being considerate and assuring up to the very end even if he knew he had little time left and just wanted Henry to enjoy his Philippine stay until next month, not encumbering him with death watch duty.

Now the Sonny memories are flooding back--his "Laugh-in" jokes at Christmas reunions when he had us in stitches, his being adept at the drums (he used to play in a band or combo as we called them in the Sixties, and, like Ringo Starr, he steadily played the beat and the rest of the musicians followed), his taking up Fine Arts at the University of the East and later producing marvelous glass sculptures of various animals in Canada.

Henry Romero, our honoree, on my right at yesterday's lunch

It's still a full moon, I think, tonight. I'll be looking at the moon, and I'll be seeing you, Sonny Boy

Stuff

There's a lot of it out there no matter how you remove all the fluff from your life to arrive at an elegant austerity. I saw this throw pillow at the Japanese restaurant Haru in Kapitolyo, Pasig City. My roving camera has captured stuff from all over that they're beginning to clutter the computer screen. My techy daughter always reminds me to delete old, unused files that are slowing down the gadget's speed and effectiveness.

And I think everything (the decor), if the price is right, is for sale so you never visit the same Haru (or Cafe Juanita or Breakfast @ Juanita's) twice. The owner knows how to hoard, display, then release stuff. I think it's the whole point of gathering stuff--to later give them away or share them even at a profit. The chandelier though looks like a permanent fixture. Photos by Babeth Lolarga

One couple's pearl jubilee

Happy Pearl Day, Mr. You Know Who You Are from Who Knows What You Are to Me

We must have asked ourselves many a time, not only in our respective thought balloons, what would it have been like if we didn't take the leap? But we did, and oh, how we did. It has been 30 years since we took our vows one evening at our Pasig neighborhood's parish church. He was 34; I had just turned 29.

When he and his guy pals get together, he still wins the contest of who of them married at a late age. Indeed, at 34, he was the oldest, perhaps in his sense of daring and adventure to offer his self's riches (strengths, weaknesses, humor, humorlessness but most of all his integrity as a person and a career journalist) to a shaky girl who was unsure, even today evidently, of her place in the sun. But they took the gamble anyway.

Who would have thought that our kind of unique loving would last with he there, me here? And we are very we in the couple sense despite our continuing tale of two cities. Okay, so it's a long, long-distance love affair, as the pop song in the '80s goes.

And since I'm singing today, let me sing (one of the songs sung at our 25th jubilee at the former location of Cafe Juanita in Kapitolyo, Pasig) "I'm Glad There Is You" by Paul Madeira and Jimmy Dorsey. I'm doing this using my best imitation of Sarah Vaughan as she recorded this with The Earl Rogers Choir (a capella) on April 4, 1948, in New York. As an aside, April 4 is the birthday of our grandchild Kai/Butones and Paula Carolina S. Malay, Armando J. Malay's spouse. Armando was Rolly Fernandez's choice as godfather at our wedding. Mine was Nieves B. Epistola whose birthday it was the other day.

I'm Glad There Is You

Said I many times, for others illusion,
A feeling, result of confusion.
With knowing smile and blase sigh,
A cynical so-and-so was I!
I feel so secure, so positive,
So utterly unchangingly certain,
That I never was aware of love anew,
Till suddenly I realised there was love and you,
And all;

In this world of ordinary people,
Extraordinary people,
I'm glad there is you.
In this world of overrated pleasures,
Of underrated treasures,
I'm glad there is you.

I live to love,
I love to live
With you beside me.
This road so new
I'll muddle through
With you to guide me.

In this world where many many play at love,
And hardly any stay in love,
I'm glad there is you.
More than ever,
I'm glad there is you.
(I'm glad there is you)

At their silver jubilee. Official photographer for the evening was the couple's kumare Anna Leah Sarabia who wrote in her Facebook caption: "if he could sing, it would be the way you look tonight. rolly was more clear-eyed, it seems, as our dear friend by then had had enough to make her smiling tipsy." To which another friend the three of us have in common, Pet Cleto, who's in Canada, responded: "the hazy borders are superlatively right for this image!"

Perfect Timing

On July 26, 1984, a singing quartet serenaded a newly married couple, one Babeth Lolarga and one Rolly Fernandez, at their reception at Nielsen Tower on Makati Ave. The musicians just rendered two songs: "Bayan Ko," which moved their godfather Armando J. Malay to stand up and raise a clenched fist all throughout the singing, and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree," a lighthearted ditty that took the edge off the first song.

Forward to the same day and month 25 years later. There were more than 25 songs sung that evening at Cafe Juanita. Days before, the fretful newsman in Fernandez worried that GMA might just spoil everybody's plans, including ours, by declaring a state of emergency at her hopefully last SONA. His fear never came to pass. But six days later, the death of Mrs. Aquino began galvanizing Filipinos again to unite against injustice, corruption and the assorted excesses of GMA. And once again I see yellow ribbons wherever I turn--around pine trees, at the Volante Pizza parlor's posts, etc.,--and the cheesy song about receiving a letter telling me I'll soon be free is so very in again.

One of our anniversary singers, journalist Vergel O. Santos, once winked at our First Draft group of women writers, saying: "Don't you just think that getting married is all about perfect timing?

These poems from Edel Garcellano's blog www.theworksofedelgarcellano.wordpress.com do not quite follow the line cuts he did. My stubborn computer refuses to follow the cuts and stanzas that Edel used to fashion these three verses. So they appear here like prose poems (sorry about that, Edel):

7.

A.
Anniversary

In a cafe, 
they are all smiles
 as she confides 
over the microphone
 she & her groom 
leave well enough 
each other alone – 
neither too near
 nor too far –
 unlike igneous rocks 
that upon close contact 
spark a fire.
 Goethe’s
elective affinity of desire? 
This: 
the secret of the feast
 that stood the text 
of their own conjugal times.
 & If the merrymaking 
among friends,
 who open doors
 for the bride’s flair,
 tells a story 
for all to learn,
it must have been
 Solomonic 
for a bonding
 to steer clear
 of short-lived passion,
embracing instead
 the cool danger
 of reason.
 Gold medal
 for him 
visible with ascetic grin?
 Applause for her 
who collates goodwill
 of kith & kin?
 A toast to hearts 
who beam
 at the fairy tale
 rendition 
worked out 
with delicate precision.

B.

At 11pm 
the celebration 
was almost 
done
 but the singers 
were still belting out 
nostalgia 
as if they had 
just begun
 to feel the heat
 of fun.
 Outside Cafe Juanita
 of post American
 Tertulia,
vibrant 
with old world air
 & yellow lights
 from lamps 
wrapped by 
silk gowns,
the rain had stopped,
emitting a scent
of late-night 
cool.
& after the formal
 settling of the bill,
 rearranging of chairs,
plucking of wine bottles 
off the tipsy tables, 
the couple 
would drive home
 a few blocks away, 
as if overwhelmed
 by love’s 
strange declaration.

C.

They came,
singly or in packs, 
to be with the couple
 despite the heavy 
rain.
 They, who stood 
through thick & thin 
of accounted years:
 laughed at the same
 tried jokes;
 exchanged warm toasts;
 heard the chorus
 of ersatz troubadours 
that drew 
the night to a close.
What is there
 to expect 
after the celebration 
of beatitudes?
 Another 25 years
 of magical struggle
 & passionate hope.

Photo by ANNA LEAH SARABIA.