Ladies who lunch

There's this Stephen Sondheim song "The Ladies Who Lunch" from the musical Company. Its lyrics rewind in my mind whenever I'm out with my gang of girls (yes, we revert to girlish ways). The girls write, edit, do public relations and overall work with words. Cleo Laine, Carol Burnett, Patti Lupone, even Barbra Streisand have versions of the same song, each worth listening to.

I like to be early for these lunches and watch the girls come in one by one or two by two--usually Angge Goloy comes in second, this time with her Australia-based geologist daughter Yayay (here for her St. Scholastica's College high school silver jubilee, among other reasons).

Then what Angge calls "the advance party" of a "schoolbus" sub-group, Chato Garcellano, my editor for many years, follows with the more leisurely walkers Ester Dipasupil and Corito Llamas a few minutes behind her. Missing was Lynett AdVillariba who had wifely duties.

What I love about our group: the huge smiles, hugs and cheek-to-cheek kisses with which we greet each other before we settle down for a huge lunch and almost simultaneous talking. I like to lean back, listen and watch them make happy talk about life, work, family.

Ladies who lunch transform into "bag" ladies at the stroke of 2 p.m. (from left): Giselle Amanda Goloy, a.k.a. Yayay, Chato Garcellano, Ester Dipasupil with me behind her, Nini Yarte, Corito Llamas, Angge Goloy and Joy Buensalido

We make time to get together at least four times in a year. It seems time is never enough. SOP is lunch, followed by coffee and dessert elsewhere.

This time Angge and Yayay picked out Nikkei Peruvian Resto-Bar at The Podium in Ortigas Center. Portions were conservative but delish. I came out satisfied with my salmon teriyaki--crisp outside, tender in the inside with a sauce a tad sweetish for this diabetic.

Interiors of Nikkei at The Podium. Love the shafts of light on the heads of the customers

Inevitably, there is always someone having a birthday in the group so we each whip out our presents for the young Yayay who swears by improvements in her health because of the Keto diet. I gave her a copy of my book of essays Catholic and Emancipated (published by UST Publishing House in 2011) which her mom says will make good reading as Yayay prepares for her class' 25th anniversary. In turn she gave her titas who lunch a box each of Australian tea leaves.

Yayay and her Tita Babeth lean on each other

Latecomer Nini Yarte's only excuse as she arrived while we were all finished with lunch was: "I was made for dinner!" And she handed to Yayay the quaintest gift of all, a Himalayan lamp, I think.

At Ca Va Cafe where we enjoyed our coffee with bibingka crepe. Clockwise: Babeth, Ester Dipasupil, Nini Yarte, Joy Buensalido, Angge Goloy, Corito Llamas, Chato Garcellano and Giselle Amanda Goloy

Lovely decorative touches within Ca Va-- dried flowers, birdcages and lanterns

The excitement over seeing one another hadn't died down so we moved over to the cafe called Ca Va for cappuccinos for some, lattes for the others and one bibingka crepe for sharing among the eight of us.

When I got home, thanks to the "schoolbus" of Corito, I sighed deeply and thanked the universe for the gift of friendship.

Photos from the cameras of Giselle Amanda Goloy and Joy Buensalido

Lara, Elnora and the ladies who lunched

Chilling at the new Cafe by the Ruins Dua with the beautiful Halili women (Lara on my right, Elnora on the left), all of us survivors of lo terrible Baguio holiday traffic

How did Lara Halili come into my life and I into hers? Total strangers, we shared a room for one afternoon that ended in a musical evening in Nueva Ecija. We don't mind confessing to being ardent fans of pianist Cecile Licad who we joined in a van with writer Pablo Tariman for an outreach concert in an auditorium that had seen better days at Central Luzon State University.

I had earlier pitched the outreach story to my Philippine Daily Inquirer editor Chato Garcellano and she gave me the go ahead. Problem was I had no camera to record the event. But Lara did, a state of the art contraption that she had mastered after a workshop in Batanes with Mandy Navasero.

Like a pro, she accepted the on-spot assignment, took lots of photos (two were used, one on Inquirer's front page) although she was in tears at one point, moved by Cecile's and the Manila Symphony Orchestra's music. Since then, Lara and I have stayed in touch even when she moved to the US. There she has lived her music aficionado fantasy, following Cecile at her different Stateside engagements, becoming friends with soprano Debbie Voight, attending season upon opera season of the Metropolitan Opera, even campaigning that it not be closed, etc.

Her stories of post-concert meetings with the greats backstage need a separate blog.

Over late lunch yesterday at the new cafe, we played catch-up. I met her gracious mother, her sister Eloisa and her daughters (Eloisa did the ordering--she knows her food well, being a restaurateur in Sta. Rita, Bulacan). The other sister, Elnora the pianist, is another huggable friend. I've been thinking of putting together another book of poems or essays perhaps just so I can launch it and have Elnora play at the book party (she has done this for another media pal, Jullie Yap Daza).

Before we parted, we brought out our respective cameras and asked a waiter to do the honors. This time I came prepare. I never leave home without my ever reliable Canon PowerShot.

Grand exit

From left: a bag lady with fake Burberry shawl, Lara, Elnora, Eloisa and Mama Halili

Paseo de nom nom

I believe that woman writer who described ladies' lunches as pampahaba ng buhay.

Another semi-retired media colleague (the other being me) Angelina "Angge" Goloy can be counted to efficiently manage an event, even if it's just for five ladies who occasionally lunch. Our respective birthdays are spread out in the year so periodic reunions can be expected in the months of April, May, June, August, September, give or take a few delays when schedules can't be matched. In December, there is another goodwill and gift exchange lunch.

I've lost count of the number of years we've been doing this. What I clearly recall is how they all fall on a Monday, days off of the girls who're still deeply engaged in newspaper work.

For Corito Llamas' sexy-something natal day, we went on a day trip to Tagaytay's Bag of Beans, she wearing a blouse (Indian textile) that she herself sewed. Our journey, as they say, was more interesting than the destination. In fact, it was a barrel of laughs that our pit stops along the highway were meant to decompress, stretch our curled legs and giggle some more. To say we were packed like sardines in a can is an understatement.

At Bag of Beans' new extension area, the balcony, three of us had the bangsilog with atchara (daing na bangus, garlic rice, eggs), having left the city with hardly or no breakfast. The two others ordered steak, mashed potatoes, pasta and pizza like there was no tomorrow. That's Ester Dipasupil, me, Chato Garcellano, birthday girl Corito and Angge.

The security guard who took our pic wanted to include everything, especially his employer's sign board. Expectedly, the strict gourmet in Corito (she founded the magazine Food, now part of ABS-CBN Publishing) brooked no nonsense from the service staff. She frankly told them we were having our coffee and pastries elsewhere because their service was poor. So there!

In our search for a coffee shop with comfortable air conditioning (Tootsie's was closed - the staff had gone on an excursion), we found ourselves at Sonja's Garden, but it had a set menu. So we used the time to smell the flowers and wander in and out of the souvenir shops and garden pathways. That's Ester trying on an Ophelia wreath. And then we got rained in, but the quick rains cooled the air.

Angge and Corito underneath the gauzy whatchamacallit and twisted vines. Atmospheric and ambience-rich, it's the perfect spot for honeymooners, balikbayan visitors and tourists in their own country.

We found heaven in a petit cup and a platito of nom nom ensaymada, the best we've had outside Metro Manila (without prejudice to Hizon's and Cunanan's home-baked ensaymada). Antonio's Garden wasn't just clean, bright, spacious, with a splendid view of the volcano and the lake; the staff was attentive, too.

Smilingly satisfied, we pose for our last class picture before these Jills hit the road.

Living for more sights and Mondays like these. Happy birthday, Corito! Wishing you more!

Some photos by Babeth Lolarga

Comfy with uncertainty

"When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life." - Eckhart Tolle

More than a decade ago, I stood to watch the sun rise on an open field in Clark, Pampanga. Then Inquirer travel editor Chato Garcellano had sent me there to write about and take pictures of a hot-air balloon festival--I think it has become an annual thing every February. And February is only "three sleeps" away--that's American Anglicizing of the Pinoy phrase tatlong tulog na lang.

Alice M. Sun-Cua, physician, poet and essayist, has this book of travel tales with a title that never fails to make me smile: Riding Towards the Sunrise. So thank you, January, even though we're not done with you yet. February and Year of the Horse, here we, who are still around, here we come riding to more risings of the spirit and of the sun!

Here's to uncertainties, possibilities and mornings like this. From the smudges you can tell it's an old print, not something digital. Photo by Babeth Lolarga

Lost in Batanes

March it was

the month when my heart

my fumbling   restless   stupid heart

gathered its resident blueness

& set it side by swollen side

with the translucent turquoise

heavings of the Ivana Channel

i wanted you seated beside me

riding a rocking   round-bottomed falowa

a frail   forlorn transport

to the isle of Sabtang.

it was there

there that i wished

we could bury the hurts

we had inflicted on each other

in the creamy sand for skittish

hermit crabs to fight over.

but you were elsewhere again

dressed like & with the gait

of an open-mouthed tourist

curiously poking into the dusty corners

of a church where the smell of dried

collective sweat assailed

the itinerant worshipper.

what is it about us then

--the few moments we

are flung together a pool

of space instantly

rises between us?

should we have

tried to wade

to brave the rough surf

i clinging to your muscled arm

you holding me by my bloated waist

our bodies receiving

the benediction of the Pacific

currents?

or should we have

in the spirit of childish mayhem

rolled down the hills

of Payaman

our torsos joined

before the eyes of the indifferent

cows & the astonished gaze

of our fellow travelers?

what winds of madness have brought

me to this place where just beyond

this cold & comfortless bed

we heard the tauntings

of the seductive sea as it

licked with infinite gusto

the yielding shore?

your nights were strangled

by dreams of shipwrecks & drownings.

desperately you moaned

twisting the sheets

but heedlessly I dozed

my own discontent stilled

half tranquilized by my

nightly Thorazine.

o dear one

we should not have let

our love languish

on the roiling surface

of the water

like an orphaned floated

from a fisherman’s boat.

who would scoop them out?

the love along with the old appetites

the yearnings & obsessions

now bedraggled & wrapped

with seaweeds & moss?

we were such cowards

i the bigger one

for failing to jump in

to save the remnants

of this short   short bliss

that was

our wedded life.

--Babeth Lolarga

1999

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About this poem: 

It took a broken Netbook for me to gain time to sift through my papers and find hard copies of two poems that I had wanted to include in a third poetry manuscript. Who stops at two collections of verses? Let me ask you that. 

This poem was written to accompany a suite of photographs that were as many as there were stanzas in "Lost in Batanes." The framed "Chromatext" pieces were part of a group show of the art guild Salakai, founded by sculptor Jerry Araos, at the GSIS Museum. It was the guild's offering to workers and employees, the show's opening around the time of Labor Day. Jerry used his curatorial eye to select the enlarged panoramic photos that were eventually framed using his wood design. 

I have smaller prints of those photos I took in March that year when I joined my husband  and his colleagues in the academe on a memorable trip to the wondrous isles of Batanes. From that trip sprung a longer essay eventually published in the travel section, then edited by Chato Garcellano, of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and included in the essay collection Catholic and Emancipated (UST Publishing House, 2011).

The smaller photos I have given away to friends as mementos so they can be encouraged to explore the northernmost province in their own time. It seems to be in nearly everyone's bucket list.

I put the poem in this blog so it won't go missing again.

Photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Batanes_Hills.png   

Sweet 60 birthday tribute to Jingjing with the smiling face

It was through the assignments given by Chato Garcellano, then travel editor of Philippine Daily Inquirer, that I got a chance to reconnect with Jingjing Romero. During the time Chato was travel ed, she'd send me off to media familiarization tours of Boracay, Palawan, Laguna, Batangas, with Jingjing as organizer and contact person.

Jingjing always impressed me with her warm, as against cold, professionalism. These tours were so efficiently organized. Not a minute was wasted. Not only did one get the main story with enough spillover materials for sidebars and private diary entries, one also got enough space and time to catch one's breath. Brava, Jingjing and her Stratos staff!

Jingjing Romero and a posse of media in Laguna: she is somewhere on the second row wearing a red blouse and a wide-brimmed hat.

What's more and what's better, Jingjing has a big heart, bigger than her fair, moon-shaped face that hasn't been visited by a frown or the lines and spots of age since the time I met her.

She showed this facet of herself many times in my life when some writers and I in Baguio City were reviving the Baguio Writers Group. One of our projects was a fund-raising jazz concert for a cause (e.g., the treatment and recovery of Napoleon Javier, a founding member of the Group who suffered and survived a major stroke, the holding of writing workshops for the city's young writers and also for retirees who'd like to leave a legacy, etc.).

Through her private donation along with those of other donors, the Baguio Writers Group, now under Luchie Maranan, has continued its mission of sharing writing expertise and opportunities with others.

When she's in the city up north, she calls and asks me to join her group for lunch or supper, even if I feel awkward because I'm not really a part of Baguio media in the sense of being a permanent resident there. When we part, she never fails to hand over a small gift, a bar of chocolate, an umbrella at one time (very useful during the monsoon months). This thoughtfulness I appreciate--it sets her leagues above other public relations practitioners (it's a profession, I agree, and a good one), but those others can appear user-friendly, sometimes.

For as long as you're connected to a major, even a minor, media outlet, they flit by you as though you're close and intimate and even loosely sign their notes, "With love." Jingjing is above insincerities like that. After all, mahigpit na ipinagbabawal ang plastic ngayon!

When music aficionado Pablo Tariman and I, as his assistant, embarked on the classical music education series billed as Intimate Concerts at Kiss the Cook Gourmet Restaurant, Jingjing was there with her gang called "Six and the City." Their presence at the initial concert of pianist Oliver Salonga helped to raise funds for the halfway house maintained for Aeta schoolchildren in Barangay Bayan-bayanan, Dinalupihan, Bataan, a project of former Audit Commissioner Evelyn San Buenaventura.

We saw Jingjing again, her son and another group at another intimate concert fund-raiser at the same venue, this time for the legal fees and other needs of Pablo's son-in-law, political prisoner Ericson Acosta, who was thrown in a Samar jail with trumped-up charges.

Another occasion, a recent one, when Jingjing responded to an SOS was when I referred film director Martin Masadao, also of Baguio City, to her. He and I asked her if she could request Seair to provide two seats for an under-aged member of the cast of Anac Ti Pating and a guardian, his lola, for a flight to and from Davao City.

This was in November of 2012 when the Sineng Pambansa awarding ceremonies were held in the southern city. Jingjing moved quickly to grant the request, and the boy, Raynon Ladia, went on to win the Best Actor trophy  and the film, the Grand Jury Prize.

When a gift is freely given, the returns are plentiful.

I predict that Jingjing's 60th year in this world and the additional grace years that will follow will be a time of great harvest not only in terms of material wealth (Who wants that alone? Not the Jingjing I know, I'm certain of that). Only someone like her whose faith in God is unwavering and who infects others with this faith deserves a period of grace such as this one tonight.

Thank you, Jingjing, for being a blessing to others.

--Babeth Lolarga

This piece serves as the blogger's testimonial to Ms. Elena "Jingjing" Romero of Stratos Inc. who is celebrating her 60th birthday tonight somewhere in Filinvest 2, Quezon City.