Wordless Wednesday: eyeball

One Sunday afternoon at Bonifacio High Street
Cute pooches eyeballed under the pergola
Comparing notes of their pampered lifestyle

Ruby Tuesday: bougainvillea

Bougainvillea in bloom
Taken in Mitra Farm, Puerto Princesa, Palawan

Bougainvillea is a tropical and sub-tropical ornamental flower which belongs to the family Nyctaginaceae. This tropical trailing plant can be grown in containers and is perfect for hanging baskets. Bougainvillea has established itself around the world as one of the most often used ornamental plant. Since its discovery in the 18th century in Brazil, it has become popular around the globe because of its beauty and grace. This plant is named after A. Louis de Bougainvillea who located the impressive plant that has turned out to be one of the most famous plants in the world. The plant brings a myriad of colors and life in its leaves and flowers. The plant exhibits versatility which allows it to blossom all throughout the year. (Source: www.amazines.com)

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A birthday postscript

Some people certainly love to rub salt into an open wound. When I walked in this morning, somebody asked me, “So how does it feel to be 43?” What is the right answer? A slap on the face perhaps? :D

It’s weird thinking about birthdays after you’ve hit the big four-O. Shouldn’t we stop counting birthdays after age 12? And I can’t help but feel that time is running so fast. At 6, I was wondering how it felt like to be 14 years old and to finally have boobs. Now I have boobs, but I’m starting to wonder how it would be like if I turn back time and re-do the things I regretted doing, starting from age 6.

What if I could?

I probably should have not tried my hardest to ride a bike without balancers…that way, my knees wouldn’t have been so scarred. I should have tried harder to learn how to dance despite my mother’s comments that I didn’t have the grace and rhythm of a dancer. I should have followed my PE teacher’s suggestion of taking up volleyball or any kind of sports instead of reading comics and pocketbooks, and playing dama (Spanish checkers) at the bleachers. I shouldn’t have learned to smoke so I didn’t have to worry about quitting. I should have spent more time with my father when he was alive.

Thing is, I can’t go back.

the evergreen Lake Kabalin-an

Life’s choices are permanent, for better or for worse. What’s done is done. Time machines just aren’t invented yet, so I have to live with my mistakes and see the best in the choices I have made. It’s hard, especially when you get the chance to sit down and look back what you’ve done for the past 40 something years. I can’t help but think of the “what ifs”, and feel sad that I can’t do those things over again and make the right choices.

But I also think about the good stuff, the happy things that happened because of the choices I’ve made.

I realize that falling off over and over again from that bike made me tougher than most kids my age. I realize that I can’t please everybody, especially my mother, and learn to take some things with a grain of salt. The love for reading has enriched my life in ways I can’t imagine, and dama taught me to strategize and gave me confidence around boys---nobody bullied me! Smoking made me realize that life is short and that the residue of my pleasure is but a puff of smoke. I realize that my father loved me anyway despite my imperfections, and losing him early in life taught me about responsibility and self-reliance.

I contemplated at the question I was asked this morning, and my answer is---it feels a lot like 42, only a little more delicate. But really, I'm not 43, I am twenty with 23 years experience!:D

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lasang Pinoy-Sundays: Halloween

These are the Halloween food I grew up with---palitaw and suman or biko. Palitaw, muase in Ilonggo, is a small flat rice cake topped with grated coconut mixed with sugar (or muscovado) and toasted sesame seeds. Suman, popularly known as biko, is another sticky rice recipe cooked in coconut milk and muscovado. I mastered making palitaw one summer vacation when I was about 12 and there was nothing else to do. That summer, aside from palitaw, I also learned how to make lanson (from cassava) and linupak (from boiled banana). Palitaw is actually very easy to prepare---just drop scoops of galapong (batter of sticky rice) into boiling water. Flat disks would float when they are done.

The palitaw on top was my dessert at Via Mare last weekend, and my mother cooked the yummy biko this afternoon.

More Lasang Pinoy treats at SpiCes.

Litratong Pinoy: Kadiliman (Darkness)

May kakaibang pakiramdam na dala ang kadiliman. Ang mga bagay na hindi karaniwang kinakatakutan sa liwanag ay parang nag-iiba ng anyo pag inaaninag sa dilim. Bakit nga ba tila may nakaabang na panganib sa dilim?

May malalim na takot na pumipigil sa atin upang subukan ang mga bagay na hindi natin alam. Mas pipiliin natin ang mga bagay at sitwasyon na alam na natin. Sa kadiliman, hindi pamilyar ang ating mga hakbang, hindi natin nasisilip ang lubak-lubak na daan, at kung ano ang nasa dako pa roon. Ngunit kadalasan, ang likas nating takot sa dilim ay nagliligtas sa atin sa kapahamakan. Mula kabataan, nakasaksak na sa isipan ko na sa madidilim na sulok ay nandon ang mga gagamba, alakdan, ahas at iba pang nakalalason na hayop. At ang mga paalala ng ating mga magulang: H’wag dumaan sa madilim na lugar, baka may holduper. Pag dumidilim ang kalangitan, ipasok sa bahay ang mga sinampay. Ang madilim na bahay ay naputulan ng kuryente---version ko pala yon...ang sabi ng nanay ko ay---ang madilim na bahay ay lapitin ng maligno. At ang peyborit ko---ang naglalaro sa dilim ay nabubuntis este nadadapa pala.

Teka, dumidilim na ang paningin ko!

Bisitahin ang Litratong Pinoy.

Taken on December 2007 at the Mall of Asia grounds.