Feeding the inner life through delaying tactics

"Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours." - Jane Kenyon in her piece entitled "Everything I Know About Writing Poetry"

The thing with working from home is you tend to work unconventional hours. Either you go overboard with overtime or you take frequent breaks, including midday snooze and snacks every two hours, which are nothing more than exercises in procrastination.

Not sold on a haircut. Photo by Kimi Fernandez

That was how I one day found myself accompanying the visiting grandchild to the mall for a haircut. Afraid to lose her natural curls that has earned her all sorts of endearing names from the family, she whined all throughout the haircut and was only appeased by a lollipop. When you're in a mall, you get caught up with other activities, not just duties like bringing a child with unruly hair to a tot salon. There's a devil of a phone bill to settle and unable to cough up enough cash, I buy a new SIM and transfer all contacts to a new number and get on a prepaid phone mode. Hay naku!

Next exercise in procrastination was rationalized this way--I need books for professional and personal growth. Besides, I'm not buying them (I don't even have enough to sustain a cell phone without "donations" from family members). The husband is treating me without saying so. One of the things I'm most grateful for is a husband who loves books with a passion and who doesn't mind crossing several provinces and cities for book buys. He's returning to Baguio several kilos heavier from the weight of his purchases.

I'm happy about my exercise in self-control. My tote bag carried only seven new books. I have a magic seven, all wisely selected, to go through. The seventh one is actually a repeat reading after I first read it back in high school (To Kill a Mockingbird before breaking open the pages of Harper Lee's now controversial, recently discovered and published novel Go Set a Watchman). Rolly did a very Camelot-ish thing: he took me to the (Manila International Book) Fair. Thank you.

And now for quiet time again while the grandchild is out enjoying a swim with her mother, grandaunts and cousins, and husband is en route to another city, choosing Fast Food Fiction Delivery (edited by Noelle Q. de Jesus and Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta) as his bus reading fare.

I am by myself, Ms. Kenyon, and will return to working on another person's manuscript in a bit. A just as blessed weekend to all!

A city of big hearts

There were no second thoughts about where we would spend Fathers' Day yesterday--in the company of other fathers, mothers, their children and, in our case, our grandchild. Kai was the most visibly excited to renew acquaintances with the penned rabbits at Mother's Garden Cafe and Restaurant on upper Fairview Road, Quezon Hill, Baguio. The place is no longer hard to find although the road going up is quite steep and full of hairpin turns, but Baguio cabbies know where it is and expertly get us there.

Today is JJ's birthday. He's the 44-year-old son of Therese Jison, the chef patron of Mother's Garden. JJ and I first me for art lessons with Norman Chow at Toottee Chanco-Pacis's Happy Homes greenhouse, also in Baguio. Well, our city is that way; it has streets and subdivisions with lovely names: Fairview, Happy Homes, Green Valley.

Therese and her staff prepared a spread fit for a prince which is what JJ is to me. A noble one. After the guests had their slices of triple-layered, moist chocolate cake (with thick caramel in between layers) with cherries and chocolates on top and a dollop each of homemade vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries, JJ continued cutting his birthday cake so he could serve the staff. He's that kind of man with fine manners, a big-hearted person. I hope my apo will become that way, too.

The view from the terrace of the garden restaurant

Huggable JJ with his Tita Auring Bautista

There was seafood pasta with squid rings, chunks of halibut, salmon and scallops...

...boneless chicken teriyaki...

...lechon, also roasted in the garden's all-brick oven...

...the pretty-pink roast beef...

For dessert, vanilla ice cream churned from the restaurant's own ice cream maker, the strawberries plucked from the garden...

...and JJ's chocolate cake where everything could be eaten and savored, except for the candles. There were pieces of dairy chocolates spread atop the cake, all made by Le Chef's Billy King and staff of Camp John Hay's The Manor.

Of course, a grownup party like this is one isn't one unless the guests and co-host, Heiner Maulbecker, talk more about their dreams for the city, mainly re-greening it further. In the picture are Herr, Leonie and Des Bautista.

And then the fog rolled in, and it was time to go...

...to say farewell to these lovely ladies in deep pink that look like ballerinas en pointe.


Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Ode to a cupcake

And not just any cupcake--it has to be red velvet. I'm a very late convert to it. My daughters have been into red velvets, oh, since five years ago, maybe more. I guess I was put off by the color and the cloying richness. It made me think of a vamp actress. Can't explain the association.

That was until Martin Masadao introduced me to his friend Odette Mills, fellow Baguio resident who also played a cameo role (but with spoken lines) in Martin's short film "Kitoman (Red Rice)." You see, the word "red" makes an appearance again. Odette brought a sample of her red velvet cheesecake in a neat box that seemed to have been folded by an origami master. I was hooked.

The taste was never replicated, and I refused to touch any other red velvet cookie, cake or cupcake. Not until I could save up for a dozen of Odette's babies. I raved about it to my husband and my granddaughter; the latter was the most excited. Rolly thought it was a frivolous expense because for a lesser price, we could get a box of assorted JCo Donuts (we both like the Alcapone).

The little vamps come in this dainty box with Odette's contact details. Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Odette delivered the goods at Rolly's office two afternoons ago. It was an interminable wait for Kai and myself as we counted the hours until Rolly arrived in time for dinner. Well, the rest is, as they say, history and satisfied cravings.

P.S. If I use Cupcakes by Sonja as my standard, Odette's CakeBaby products are up to par.

We had one with the cream cheese butter frosting. Odette's red velvet cupcakes come also with lemon buttercream frosting. She deliberately makes the cake part not too sweet so the consumer doesn't get umay (hard to translate that Filipino term). Or the consumer doesn't easily tire of it.

One rugrat in the background about to demolish a cupcake.

In the garden

"When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the ground." -Jamaica Kincaid

Ms. Kincaid is among the authors scholar Del Tolentino introduced me to along with Carolyn Heilbrun (a.k.a. Amanda Cross) and Anne Fadiman whose familiar essays in At Large and At Small I return to every so often for a quick pick me up.

The garden is in my mind every day. It's where I go for a bit of sun and to watch my husband Rolly putter around and make improvements. It's where he sips his second cup of coffee after we have eaten breakfast indoors. It's where Kai and I have our conversations about butterflies, the color of the sky and of the new flowers coming out of their tight buds. It's where I just breathe and try to empty my mind. It's where I think sometimes if I should return to writing for a living or extend my vacation from deadlines - the pull of the latter is stronger when you have the three earlier seasons of Game of Thrones locked somewhere in the TV.

We used to call this open space Kai's secret garden, but since Rolly spends and expends more time and effort on it, it has become his.

Top views of the garden Photo by Babeth Lolarga