The British Royalty

The House of  Tudors did it again. Queen Elizabeth hosted another pomp and pageantry by commanding all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men in staging the Royal Wedding of the new century: William Weds Kate!

2 billion people had been granted front seats for the occasion. And the world literally stopped, breathing sigh after sigh, as Mercedes Benzs and Rolls Royces wearing the royal seal process the route to Westminster Abbey. Brothers William and Harry had totally grown into men. Diana must be smiling from heaven, happy for her boys. And dashingly, like knights in uniform, the world’s most famous brothers gave the world another lesson on gallantry. Being royal means acknowledging that your constituents love you. And they did just that. Videos though showed that Harry is up to teasing Will well and good on his wedding….

The writers and the fashion world are scrambling for the right words to describe the new Princess Kate… how about beautiful?

There is so much more to say about this JUST WED English drama… but I want to enjoy the videos again…. so….

My Mommy Reminisces Her Childhood!

Mommy called sometime after lunch today. Her half-an-hour phone card ran out in twenty, so I dialed. She couldn’t sleep even if it was almost midnight in LA. She said that perhaps now that she is alone, she gets to reminisce her childhood, one that was so difficult because of the world war. The call was rather long, but I enjoyed mommy’s recollection…

She was a happy child despite their house getting bombed and burned down by the Japanese forces… She sold peanuts and envied her classmates who queued for their classes… and one day, her friend Punggit forced her to leave her peanut post and come line up for class. She did, and when the new teacher asked who she was, Punggit answered She is our best student!

Mommy was under a teacher called Mrs. Suarez. One day, Mrs. Suarez gave the top students some seat work. When the bell rang for recess, mommy ran to the lohiya to eat her merienda. Her stepfather was there and she asked what was the answer to one choose the correct answer item. Her stepfather pointed to the answer she thought was right. So she marked her answer, folded her paper, and returned to class. Then the teacher asked them to submit their papers. Little did mommy know that that was the final test that would determine the rankings of the honor students. The following day, the teacher announced the placing, and mommy was first honor. Ha Ha!  Mrs. Suarez declared that in  her 23 years of being a teacher, the class mommy belonged was the best.

Mommy said that her classmate Cesar Gonzalez was pitted against her in spelling. It was sort of boys versus girls. Cesar asked mommy to spell the word immediately. Mommy forgot one m and the girls lost! Cesar went on to become a doctor, so mommy said he was really intelligent. But that is mommy”s way of saying that she didn’t have books, much less a dictionary. Their house got bombed. In fact they didn’t have towels. They used their clothes to dry themselves after bath. And she had only two worn dresses then. Mommy was accelerated from fourth to fifth to sixth grade all in a span of one year, three months for each level. That was also why she was not given elementary honors, because she only had 3 months of 6th grade. but she graduated.

Mommy said that one of her classmates , Odon de Castro, became a priest. So, their batch from Cavite must really be a good group. And of course mommy turned out to be the best secretary in the US Naval Supply Depot. She was high school valedictorian, after all.. And the Blue Cross of America lauded her for performance par excellence.

Mommy said that a student from Northridge named Pam was writing her thesis in 1994. Pam wrote mommy’s story and her childhood experience is now archived in the university. 🙂

Good Friday 2011

Forty days of Lent is long enough for fasting and abstinence. But Good Friday is still one day when a little more of sacrifice feels so appropriate for uplifting the soul. It is the climax of all the mortifications… so my daughter Tish and I went on the traditional Visita Iglesia. We visited a total of eight churches in Quezon City, Manila and Antipolo. The following is our itinerary…

Church of the Holy Sacrifice, UP Diliman, QC

St. Peter’s Basilica, Commonwealth Avenue, QC

Santo Domingo Church, Quezon Avenue, QC

Chapel of the University of Santo Tomas, Espana, Manila

Christ the King Church, E. Rodriguez, QC

Immaculate Conception Church, Los Angeles, Cubao, QC

Chapel of Padre Pio, Libis, QC

Shrine of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Marcos Highway, Antipolo

Here are some of the pictures my daughter took in the course of our Visita. It is only now that she is older that she is beginning to appreciate the architecture and art of the houses of God.  I posed for a few shots. There were some new things in my alma mater, like the bells on the front facade of the church. Plus I was waiting for someone. I will never wait like that again. But overall, we had a quiet trip.

It is not official yet, but it is vacation time.

Talk about how good mornings can be when one can dilly-dally for yet an hour on the warm, cozy bed… and allow the sun to peek at one’s window, as if saying, you lazy head, up and about pronto, and come dance with me!

Mmmmm, that really sounds lovely, and mmmm, feels great! 🙂

School is over. Final exams are done. No more dawn trips to the refrigerator for breakfast meal preparations. No more before sun rise departures for the half-an-hour drive to the university. No more early morning bumpy starts, he he!

It is just the bed and me, and my wonderful, chummy pillows, ha ha!

Yup, the two girls are still asleep, and I, although by way of habit, had stood up for routine check, am going back to bed and indulge on a summery slumber…

Jean is graduating on the 16th of April. Hmmm, till then, back to bed!

The Crazy World of the Internet

Facebook had made me realize two things: strangers could be friends and friends could be strangers. Why? Simply because I have virtual friends now, who were supposed to be my classmates in formal school, from kinder to college, and I do not know them from Adam. And then there were so many young people, friends of my daughters, who added me up, and I couldn’t fathom why in the world are they interested in me as a friend. These new virtual friends make me crazy. Two things again. First, I do not speak their language, and second, they keep suggesting people as my prospective friends. And when I had the chance to take a peek, I have scrolls upon scrolls of names and faces I am sure I would not even meet in my lifetime. Somehow though, I feel connected. Isn’t  that amazing?

When it comes to the people I know who would not befriend me, and I would not befriend either because of some real life situation issues, more like clashing viewpoints and opinions, I see their faces and their names floating on my screen, and somehow, they never make me forget the past.

It’s a crazy, crazy world….

A Busy World, A Hectic Life!

Isn’t it curious, that one such as I, had stayed rather long away from here?

Well, I am not going to talk about the weather because after that 8.9 earthquake and mammoth tsunami that hit Japan, several aftershocks were tallied, and some 20 thousand dead and more were missing, and in other places in the world, hail, floods, tremors, tornadoes, blizzards are claiming lives and disabling limbs.

Neither am I going to talk about world politics because despite the NATO’s air strike on Libya, the strongman and his sons are still holding on, making the restlessness in the Arab world biblical in scope…

Whereas somewhere in this planet some quiet human beings go about their lives as usual… me, too!

Granted the price of food had gone up globally, and the price of fuel is colossally mean, my tiny family and I had to do with the scrambled eggs with cheese, steamed eggplants dipped in soy and calamansi, coffee, pan de sal and oatmeal everyday. It seems to me that the greater war is how to manage the available commodities for the entire population and sustain it.

But we get by, and rather than be bothered by the business of the rising diesel, we kept the legs moving, dashing from one task to another. At last, Jean has submitted her thesis and Tish has rounded up her final exams. Jean is on a probable cum laude status. The average has yet to be computed, pending the thesis grade. But Tish had gone on to a beach in Zambales for a well deserved relaxation.

And me, I am the restless bumblebee buzzing the quiet offices for records and documents, buying the stuff needed for this activity or that… simply seeing to it that everything is order for my two girls. They have much more in their minds to think about the daily necessities, so I try to make it lighter for them. And I am glad they are excelling…

Well, I did buy a couple of wedge shoes to replace my 5 year old sandals, and two blouses, too! I don’t wanna be looking all shaggy and forlorn on Jean’s graduation, do I? Tsk tsk, Jean and I did go on a shopping spree…the college required a Filipiniana dress code for the graduation rites. I thought…Jean is on the homestretch of her college life, so why not indulge? And we did!