When April gives way to May...

...our April-born girl will be in another part of the country, in the hot lowlands playing in a shallow pool filled with water from the garden hose with cousins Max and little Jared and shy LJ, our help's three-year old kid in Pasig, for company.

When Kai/Butones dressed up to get ready to leave for a long-postponed trip to the lowlands yesterday, I asked her who she wanted to see at my mother's house. "Max, Jared and LJ," she said. There was absolutely no mention of the family elders. Children say the darndest thing. When needy me asked if she'd miss me, she said, "No. We've been together too long."

Well, that put Booboo in her place, and I've been filling up the space left by her absence with nothing but work, readings and music in that order. But the music I miss most is her playing her xylophone by my side while I work, her calling out for me to sing every note she picks out on that do-re-mi scale. "Sing it, Booboo," my little bossing commands. And I have no recourse but to stop whatever it is I'm in the midst of, and I sing, often off-key, and she turns to me with a frown.

Before she, her mother Kimi and Granny Suzy left, we had time for a few pictures that I wish I can use for my passport photo, but fat chance in hell will the Department of Foreign Affairs allow any of these. These are my souvenirs for April of 2015. Ahhh, Kai, you are the sunshine and moonlight in my life!

The Wee One as resident percussionist Photo by Booboo Babeth

Our demure look

Our smiles

Our range of facial expressions. She's better at it.

Our sleepy look

Our..."whatever", another favorite expression of hers Photos by my indulgent daughter and Kai's Mamay Kimi

The girl with intense eyes

I've taken maybe over a thousand pictures already of this girl, but none satisfies me as much as this random shot. She was waiting for her mother to return to the great-grandma's abode and then to be taken back to her highland home. See you in a week or two again, not so little button of my heart.  She has said goodbye to us temporarily, to the lower land's humidity and prickly heat. Early tomorrow she says hello again to a kinder clime and her friend, the fog. Photo by Booboo Babeth

The afternoon before the perigree moon shone brightly

"Keep calm and don't care what others think." - a tweet from Inspirational Quotes. So here's the Pinoy babushka not minding the discomfort of bending to shepherd two terrific three year olds: my grandchild Kai/Butones who's asking in a thrilled voice "What's that?", meaning, the rush of summer-like wind that greeted us as we got off a cab and posed by National Artist Arturo Luz's outdoor sculpture on Makati Ave. and De la Rosa St., Makati, just this Sunday, and her cousin Max busily munching on choco nibbles.

That's Wowa Pinky, the fifth sibling who came after me, and her grandkid Max posing with the complimentary plate of sweets (a shot glass of chocolate mousse, an eclair and a choco chip cookie), courtesy of the Ayala Museum cafe. We went into the cafe for some juice and just desserts for the kids, but the manager said the Sunday buffet was closing in a few minutes. He sent us this plate for the children while we ordered fresh buko lychee juice, orange juice and the Pinoy equivalent of Four Seasons for ourselves. Thank you, cafe management. That was a lovely gesture, something we will continue to tell our grandchildren about.




Our real reason for being at the museum premises on a Sunday: To attend the free "Opus 1," the Manila Symphony Orchestra Academy's first recital series with Jeffrey Solares, MSO's executive director and associate conductor, hosting the afternoon program. We came away quite impressed how a four-month old music school was able to produce kids shown in the following photos. They performed like real pros. One girl, who not only is enrolled for violin lessons but also for voice, sang "I Whistle a Happy Tune" with such self-confidence that even if she was off-key some of the time, she went right on singing. I couldn't contain an admiring "Brava!" Congratulations, Maestro Solares, the school's faculty, the students and the persevering parents and guardians.

If I had a child or a grandchild there sawing seriously away on the violin, I'd be taking photos, too. Either that or I'll be biting my fingernails and hoping my blood kin measures up. Do I disown her if she doesn't? No! Because the little guy in front wearing eyeglasses showed how it's done--he accidentally dropped his bow not once but twice but picked it up without a trace of embarrassment and continued playing.


MSO concertmaster, violinist and music teachers' teacher Gina Medina Perez with Ira Alexis Aclan whose interpretation of Weiniawski's Polonaise Brillante took my and my sisters' breath away. I am not Madame Auring, but I foresee a bright musical future for this girl.



There is music/rhythm/poetry even in the playing waters of a fountain. I'm sure the seeds of music appreciation are planted in the cousins. When Kai was in her mother's womb, she showed she liked Vivaldi's "Spring" by hardening and kicking. Max has grown up to the sound of her Tita Bianca's piano playing (lessons, practice and recitals). With the MSO Academy setting the pace for their generation, the future of classical music performances and appreciation is as bright as the supermoon. And I hope I don't live long enough to eat my words. Photos by Booboo Babeth and Private Ryan

Without reason

"Be happy; without reason." - Tsoknyi Rinpoche

In my quiet moments today just before waiting morning light filled the corner where I do my thing, I scrolled down and looked for the image that could be paired well with the quote from a Tibetan Buddhist monk.

The picture is one of several I took on a morning stroll with the wee one, Kai/Butones. I remembered a lesson from my photography teacher, Tita Velasco Lim, who said to try things from different perspectives, even from a worm's.

I wondered what a flower would see, if it had eyes.


Yellow saw blue and green. Photo by Babeth Lolarga

On the road with counting babe

A brief entry before the holiday fever depletes what's left of our strength this long, almost harrowing year:

My grandchild has long learned her numerals and has counted with one to one correspondence. She has gone past 20 and to amuse herself while we were aboard a bus to Baguio, normally a six-hour trip that turned into eight hours because of heavy traffic in some parts of EDSA, Nothern Luzon Expressway (NLEX),MacArthur Highway and Gen. Palispis (formerly Marcos) Highway, she started counting aloud from "one" all the way to "ten", then proceeded to "eleven" while I alternated with the next numbers. When we reached "twenty," she said she'd count by herself. So from "twenty one" she counted all the way to "twenty nine." She paused for few seconds, then confidently declared in a voice loud enough for the next rows of passengers to hear: "Twenty ten!"

Precious moments!

While Kai/Butones was also in one of her pauses, a.k.a. siesta time, in Pasig a few days ago, the elders (my mom, Nene Lolarga but Mama Mermaid to family members below 11 years old, me and Mamay Kimi) took the chance to finally have another four-generation but non-traditional photo op.



During the restive trip to the North, the bus would pause, too, sometimes for 30 minutes, engine running, as we waited for the traffic to ease a bit so we could resume moving. I sometimes gazed out the window to sights like these:


Somewhere in Pangasinan where the plumes of talahib are gone and the river's water level is low


Somewhere in Pangasinan again, sparrows have the time of their lives sliding down the rusting roof of a sari-sari store, only to get up, flutter their wings a bit, then go for another slide. A reminder from Matthew 10:29-31 to the anxious, the anguished, the fretful, the worry warts, even the exhausted, that we are worth more than sparrows: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."
Photos by Babeth Lolarga

2 sisters at an outdoor art bazaar

Yesterday's accidental discovery on the Web while I was reconstructing the Play List (the other blogs I visit) on this space was "Art for Generations." Cecile Zamora of Chuvaness.com announced this two-day (Dec. 7 and 8) event of real estate developer Greenfield Development Corp.

The open space where the art fair's tents are set up used to be a parking space for wet and dry market consumers in what was formerly called EDSA Central.

The field of green is the same path I choose to walk on when I head for the MRT line that takes me either to Makati or Quezon City.

I've always liked living on the boundary of Pasig and Mandaluyong Cities. Every Metro Manila city is within reach of the train or bus, but with the holidays upon us and the heavy traffic, Greenfield is now where my sister-roommate Suzy and I prefer to go.

We visited each tent, then paused at one occupied by Prometheus Atelier. When I saw the business card of the lady inside, I quickly asked how she was related to the artist Gig de Pio. A daughter-in-law, she said, then she called her husband Simkin.

I asked if he was the same de Pio boy who was in a creative writing workshop I conducted at the Ateneo de Manila grade school, summer of '87, when I was on the second trimester of pregnancy (I was carrying my last-born Ida). He was that 11-year-old kid, and now he is husband, father, graphic designer and studio artist. Add portraitist to the list as Suzy and I took turns posing for him.

I told him, don't do me in a flattering light, please. He said he works on what he feels and what he sees. It seems what he saw of Suzy and me were our younger selves. Not complaining because we both liked what we saw. He even put my name on my portrait, "Tita Babeth," after signing it.

So pleased was Suzy with her portrait that she said it would serve as her new Facebook ID pic. I've placed mine in a corner of a bookshelf where I intend to point it out when Kai/Butones comes down from Baguio to visit her grandaunts, granduncles and great grandma next week. Wonder what she'll say, this very positive child whose favorite adjective is "Ganda!" Okay, I preempted her.

Do find time to drop by the bazaar, on its last day tomorrow, Sunday. Look for the guy with Promethean talent who answers to the nickname "Sim."

Suzy and her Ate B

Simkin de Pio sketches while Suzy dreamily looks away.

Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Painting again with Kai in mind and as partner

Call it a discipline I learned from my mother and my grandmother--something about doing something even if you're resting because if you rest, you rot. So even if I try to lessen the strain from the use of my eyes, I thought I'd indulge in something pleasant, and painting is on top of the list.

Good thing I found a painting partner in my grandchild, Kai/Butones. It can get lonesome working on a piece by one's lonesome.

Kai has assisted in the background work for the smaller watercolor and mixed media pieces while she inspired me again with the larger acrylic painting.

Thank you, Kai Mykonos Fernandez, you're always a joy to work with. And thank you, Mom and Lola, for blazing the trail.

--From a hapless but not too helpless painter

"Unfinished Garden," watercolor on paper by Booboo and Kai

"Kai Watches Booboo Have Cuppa Joe," mixed media on paper by Booboo and Kai (collection of Desiree Caluza)

"Kai Wuvs Booboo, Booboo Wuvs Kai More," acrylic on canvas paper by Babeth Lolarga

The same semi-final version of the work above. A painter or writer can revise as often as she can until she breathes her last, a final lesson from Dolores Stephens Feria.

Photos by Booboo

The 'bestest' times of my life

...in my current incarnation are when I get to hold, or get a chance to see, or mingle with, the big, middle and little lights of my life. Whatever my flaws in this lifetime, and they are many, I know I have been blessed over and over, under and sideways because I have a family, because I am a wife, because I am a mother, a grandmother, a daughter, a sister to all in this family of humankind.

Call it aging, call it post-menopausal pause that enables contemplation--perhaps I find myself in this mindset these days because I feel the windows of time, of space, of patience, slowly shutting. This gives me one more chance to set things right, or center, or left again.

The center will hold.

Images in their sequence:

1. Stuff a lola wants to hear someday

2. Rolly Fern (seated right) watches Kai/Butones dance onstage while everyone awaits the start of a program for the 12 Outstanding Senior Citizens of the Baguio-Benguet area. Beside Rolly is Kidlat de Guia carrying his few months old son and representing his father Kidlat Tahimik

3. Rolly relaxing by the bread display of Cafe by the Ruins

4. Butones and her Mamay Kimi

5. Butones with her aunt Ida who she sometimes addresses as "Ate"

6. The gurlz

7. The Lollikins of Pasig, Quezon City, Antipolo and Calgary with family matriarch Nene Lolarga seated in the middle row (in bright orange, the color of service)

8. Look forward, ever forward, angel of ours!

Dots and caps

It's nice to come home to Baguio and do some hugging: me hugging Kai/Butones while she hugs her new book, given by another lola from Antipolo whose thoughtfulness is bottomless--Lorna Kalaw Tirol.

Baguio in January is lovely--sunny with lots of hints of fog. Sometimes, the cold can get a bit much, but not for Butones who can still wear half-sleeved tops and a knitted owl cap to warm her head, while Booboo, back from the lowlands, is bundled in her turtle neck sweater (Luisa Igloria, wherever you are, thanks for the nice bottle-green sweats) and her favorite flowery bonnet knitted by a woman from La Trinidad, Benguet.

Instagram photos by Kimi Fernandez

Our season's centerpiece and the Holstee Manifesto

Here's the innocent in our lives, Kai/Butones Fernandez. After her comes the Holstee Manifesto that I've seen popping up in different websites here, there, everywhere. I call it the new Desiderata.

Get well soon, Butones. We'll see you in a few.

Someone's turn to miss his princess, Butones

Tatay/Grumpa Rolly's thought bubble: "Until Kai returns to Baguio, I'll continue to drink my Lights nightly. No ifs and buts."

Kai/Butones and her thought bubble: "Every time I look up, I think of my mountains. But please, Grumpa Tats, I wanna enjoy the city lights, the Christmas light shows. I wanna be spoiled by my other grandparents and my Papay. And I wanna wear summery outfits like this one which I can't up there. I'll join you soon. Don't get lonesome. I'll let you ride on my stuffed horsey and play with Barney in the nursery so you won't miss me too much."

Photos by EV Espiritu and Kimi Fernandez
Huge acrylic on wood painting behind Rolly by Booboo Babeth

Mah bibi's comin home

When it's jazz time at Green Valley, I life to put on Nina Simone's version of "My Baby Just Cares for Me." When I sing it in my head, I think of she who had been our baby for quite sometime before Kai/Butones arrived to bring this mama/grand-mama more joy and love.

So here's to you, Ida, a preschool teacher in a neighboring country, who is flying along with thousands and thousands of overseas Filipino workers to be home for Christmas. Ilang tulog na lang.

Ida is beginning to look a lot like her pupils. Photo grabbed by Tita Su from her FB acount

Nanay Babeth has taken liberties with this Gus Kahn-Walter Donaldson song to make it more appropriate for our moment in this time:

My baby don't care for Crocs
My baby don't care for frocks
My baby just cares for me
My baby don't care for cars and races
My baby don't care for sleazy places

Liz Taylor is not her style
And even Lana Turner's smile
Is somethin' she can't see
My baby don't care who knows
My baby just cares for me

My baby don't care for slime
And she don't even care for grime
She cares for me
My baby don't care
For cars and races
My baby don't care for
She don't care for sleazy places

Liz Taylor is not her style
And even Liberace's smile
Is something she can't see
Is something she can't see
I wonder what's wrong with baby
My baby just cares for
My baby just cares for
My baby just cares for me

Come home to Tatay, Nanay, Kimi and Kai, Lola Mommy, Tito Dennis, Ta Su, Ta Gi, Ta Wut, Tito Kwenk and the ever-expanding, ever-loving group that is known as family.

From Garrison, Kai, Rolly, Babeth, Kimi & Ida

Most recent photo of our little singing and drumming girl, Kai/Butones, taken by her Ninang Marye Panganiban

Times have indeed changed. To save the environment, many have chosen to send their cards through e-mail. 

So here's our family message to one and all: joy love peace goodness kindness justness righteousness gentleness. Our tiny one echoes Tiny Tim in the Dickens short novel to all who could hear him around the Christmas table, and she says it in her own toddler-speak, "God bless us, everyone!"

Patnubay and Mabuhay! 

Poem by Garrison Keller shared by a friend