make over

Tried on a new venture:  Make up!  Did not want to have my face done by some stranger and at the same time my budget did not allow me to hire an "expert", so the practice began.

I bought some tools of the trade and got excited over the idea.  Ana and I had a pact that we would do it no matter what!!

Before:

Ana practiced on my face.  Here is the outcome!!! Of course I messed up Ana's face too but not sure if she will like her photo posted here! hahahahahaha!!

 After some practice and painful skin,  I was ready for the wedding.  I did my hair too!

I used light pink shades of eyeshadow and reddish brown for contouring of eyes.  Mascara and dark brown eyeline finished the look.  Peachy rose blush on my cheeks and some Maybelline lipstick.

I would like to be a make-up artist!

thoughts of cool off

Maybe cyber connections have brought me back friends from the youthful past and i am glad it did find some missing pieces of my life.  I realized how funny and innocent my youth was and proud that for most of my elementary to high school friends, this thing called success was reached!  Happy to see my girlfriends married to good husbands, grateful for their good health, and delighted over their own accomplishments.

Cyber connections have also provided a virtual reality for families who are separated by the continental divides.  My son and his family in Australia will be terribly, horribly missed if not for the net.

Somehow it has provided romantic liaisons and people have found life partners through this incredibly efficient means of connecting people from the different parts of the world.

I will not enumerate anymore how the net has also opened new risks for children, dependence on instant gratification, a venue for misplaced or erroneous "strength" for bullies, and a cowardly way to face issues against another human being through a deceptively "intelligent" social or public commentary which in reality and in short, defamation especially when it is too far from the truth.  I have seen thousands of readers who have failed to think critically for themselves and have committed unknowingly, betrayal of self and the human race.

Such power to make or break is here to stay unless we all unplug then choose to grope in the dark again.  Maybe if we only learn to balance things then we reduce the risk of raising children who are not crippled but are no longer using their legs, who are not mute but are no longer speaking... who have no autism but are imprisoned in their own world, people who fail to look at the eyes of another person because that part of their humanity is no longer exercised.

Yet I do facebook when I have often thought of setting myself free.  Still i consider my students  (probably hate the fact that I am around this "new space") and my responsibility to exercise the role of a diligent father of the family given the fact that this is a completely different "school" or "unlearning environment.  I cannot yet leave the very young ones who are easily influenced and who still lack the process of discernment yet they are already out there in this very threateningly dangerous zone even before they learn to read danger signs.


This feeling is very much akin to shaving my head and coming out clean into the world.  I want to but I could not yet.

Ta-ta!

meandering

Staring at this empty page... sleepy
I beat my pots and pans the other day... tired
Somebody tried all means to open his presents before Christmas... caught colds and cough
It rained manna from heaven on Christmas day...blessed
I turned another year older.

I had ham and bread this morning
while neighbors drowned in blasting noise of their own voices
i just wanted peace for breakfast.

walking out of my closet in boots
leaving my phone behind.
what news do I need to know?
the pettiness of self-absorption?
the latest on what people are eating?
or where they are?
and who they are with?
latest fashion?

I turned another year older
what do I do next?
what won't I do?

this was an empty page.
yes inside me is a galaxy of undiscovered thoughts and knowledge
of observations, truths and realities
but i choose to sleep tonight...

DIY projects for Christmas and all seasons

My school runs on creativity, ingenuity, serendipity, and love for recycled art.  It is the means by which our students become resourceful and inventive. 

 A boat cut-out from corrugated board painted white

 dolls with papier mache faces wearing clothing from scrap

 Lantern cut-out

 a christmas tree of tool material can show nativity scene inside or stacks of gifts

 hanging lanterns made of bamboo frames and Japanese paper with tool ribbons for the tail

a Venetian painting depicting a gondola on plywood using water based acrylic paint

Breastmilk vs. Steve Jobs

It is the gentlest, life-giving, healing substance that ruthlessly murdered an iphone, killed all possibilities of contact, music, games...  it is the same substance that healed Justo Leandro, makes him grow and gives him tremendous joy and satisfaction.

such is the irony of life...

Yes, my daughter, that was a lot of breastmilk that the genius of  Steve Jobs could not match!
 No match!

a drop of this heals the beginning of sore eyes.

a drop applied on the skin is a rich source of glycolic acid to maintain a beautiful and youthful cover

a 3-month supply provides growth of brain and bones

6-month supply produces powerful growth energy that is responsible for movement, erect spine, intelligence, excellent digestive function...

one-year supply gives the fullest and maximum benefit to an ever-growing little human!

THE SUBSTANCE IF COLLECTED IN A CONTAINER, (does not matter what kind) and kept in a thermos bag with an iphone can kill this "virus" efficiently.  Remember to keep the lid of the collecting bottle loose to spill the milk)

(we used a generic and manually operated breast pump attached to a bottle in this experiment, Ana's milk with a bit of stress, a pinch of excitement, and an overflowing measure of love for Justo)


this is an accidental discovery but some great inventions are a result of some twist of fate.

I am thankful to God that He gave you a lot of milk for Justo.  There will be other phones, right now I have one in my drawer.  An old Nokia with a flashlight. 

RIP Steve







 

Quo Vadis

photo by Sugar

Just a few days more and I would have lost it! The voucher for travel was awarded to me last year as the grand raffle prize in the Assumption "One"- a reunion of all "old" girls.  Lucky indeed to have won the first prize and to find it in my drawer a year after, a few days just before its expiration.  Oh wow, just in the nick of time.

Sugar came along motivated by roast ducks in Hongkong.  He wanted to see Bangkok for the fruits but the recent floods made us cross it out.

We left with US$11.00 and our half-month salary.  Not much and for him, it was something he would not risk before.  He is getting the hang of it and it was such pleasure having him around to carry my bags, to feed me, and to deal with the Hongkong nationals, if you know what I mean.  Oh yes, to take my pictures too!  I will not complain.  He tried his best.

jewels of Hongkong

amidst the concrete jungle, somethings of earth still exists

sitting on top of Hongkong

no ready cash for the train fare

the giant Buddha atop Ngong Ping

Remember 5 things to get from Hongkong:  Chan pui mui, white candy, walnut and licorice chews, rose tea and egg rolls. Well, make sure you meet Gandhi and Einstein too.

Interlink travel tours gave us such a wonderful package- hotel right in the middle of Kowloon, great airline and schedule of flights, breakfast and a half-day tour.  Thank you!

I hope that I can convince him to ride with me again.  I plan to tell him there's roast goose everywhere in Europe.

Ta-ta!

Poetry without words: bathing in sunlight

a sink i bought not for the house but for all my grandchildren to bathe in

Poetry without words: watercolor landscape

the sun trying to penetrate the curtain of thick fog this morning

continuation: try St Jude

Strange as it might seem but I found somethings I thought that I will never, ever see again, things that I was not looking for:  a check payment I have not encashed, a picture of someone I want to pray for, a crystal bead that fell from an old chandelier and  a book I have been wanting to read but have not.

We went home that day we scanned the roads after matter of factly telling ourselves that it was hopeless to find the piece I lost. 

That day I lost my earring: 

I changed into my walking outfit.

I said "hello" to my face on the mirror and saw that I was wearing a pair of earrings

On my way out,  I passed by my dresser and applied sunblock on my face (and saw a pair of earrings one on each earlobe).

We looked for the earring three days after.

I found the earring on the fifth day in my room, on a ceramic platter.

All this time it was just simply under my bed that Gloria sweeps and mops everyday.


 what was that? a human error or a saintly intervention?

 

34 first wedding anniversaries

Today i write a love song
A love song of me and mine.

Somewhere in the old boxes of time
a song so sweet, a memory of a line
a love song i hum in my mind.

 "Desmond says to Molly girl I like your face..."

In a campus in Diliman I was found,
a hippie flower child
Of organic beginnings
In gingham shirt
And stone washed Levi's.

a line from Joe Black says it all...
He was struck by a lightning
and started levitating
can you imagine
this Sugar of mine?

Brains and brawns coated in dark skin
while I, luminous in pinkish white
with eyes critical and wits so quick
maimed the hulk, in muted silence.

I am singing this love song
in the soft, misty mornings 
when the dawn is bursting
with the sun's first rays.
"obladi, oblada life goes on bra (?)"

My love unknowing, he sleeps in tender snoring
that I am singing this love song of mine,
"obladi, oblada"
He is definitely going to make it 
his record breaking 34th year of amnesia!

I don't want him to remember!
Because he is sweet that way, my "sugar, sugar"
No saccharine wedding anniversaries
My type of thing after 3 decades and 4,
and why should we bother?
We love each other
in a very unfashionable way!

...and so we were wed after 4 years of courtship
a true Filipina was I, a galant Pinoy Pele was he
on that day, 34 years to be exact-
wed by an old. bald guy in a cathedral called San Agustin.

... while his girl watched from the last pew...
 whhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttt???????!!!!!!!!!!

the groom: a little bit like vitty and juaqui and some parts like ana 

the bride:  gown by Auggie Cordero, make up by Jesi Mendez

( I mean the priest's, not the groom's)
YEESSs!! (shrieking from the audience)
...in pious whispers, the women of Naic hissed ...

and who would not suffer from amnesia hahahahahhahahha!!!
( I mean the groom not the priest)

and this is what's true... this love song of his...
"the first time ever I saw your face..."
would be his last...
after waking up from his hypnotic trance
he woke up abused and harassed every night...
to feed and burp
the babies.

and as he got up from bed this morning - this is another day
what's the fuss?
Jacob presses the button of his fire truck
And the day begins
again...

and tonight, we will have roast duck!!
Cheers!

Part I: Try St. Jude

Ang Nakaraan:
I lost an earring the other day.  I also got lost on the same day that an earring fell unbeknownst, from my ear, as I was making my rounds on the roads romantically named after locally known flowers.  

I remember childhood tales of "tikbalangs" playing tricks on passers-by where they incredibly lose their way on familiar territories and find themselves in twilight zones (music is supposed to be played here: ni-ni-ni-ningggg  ni-ni-ni-ninggg).  If you are a Filipino, you must have heard of this (not the music but the tale).  Enough said, I walked to retrace my steps this morning.  On the pretense that I would like to try to find my earring, I brought Mr. S along.  With an extra pair of eyes, I hoped to give justice to my lost article by looking for it, the least I could do in a hopeless situation.  Also, maybe for closure.  But the mission was also to discover how I got lost (or so it seemed in a quicksilver second).

No trace.  Not even a bit of what people experience when they think they have found an oasis in the middle of a wasteland, a mirage in the climax of life-threatening thirst.  But still, I prayed or hoped or wished. St. Jude just popped up in my mind very quickly.  The patron saint of everything impossible. Is that right?  I said a little prayer before I got distracted by the thought of an appointment in a few hours and at the same time trying to figure how I got lost that same day.

                                                                   Itutuloy

Lost and not Found

I don't lose things.  They lose themselves.

I have lost only 2 pieces of earrings in my entire life. They manage to untangle themselves from my earlobes and drop themselves off to the ground where they will not, most likely to be found! Adventurous pieces, huh? Yes, this morning, as I walked my rounds in the secluded roads of flowers along 7th avenue- Azucena...... Begonia............ Hyacinth............... Rosas............... Magnolia......... Sunflower..............

I am now in possession of two unmatched earrings, very much like two widows whose partners decided to go.

Here's my requiem to the lost earrings:
Dust unto dust... minerals unto minerals.... crystals unto crystals... they belonged to the earth before and are now back from where they were mined. 

I rest my case. 

HEDCen: Morning Assembly

Today in school, I had a big, tattered box brought to the assembly for everyone to see.

2 gray school uniforms with molds growing on chocolate stains
a backpack with a week-old lunch inside
water bottles still with fingerprints on them
a shoebox with trinkets or left-overs of some school project
a cloth bag with soccer shoes
bags
more bags
jogging pants
PE uniforms
spoons and forks
dirty socks
folders
notebooks...

and brains left and completely forgotten for days  by the absent-minded owners...

All of these items LOST and UNCLAIMED.


Aaaahh! School!

PInked

Just what my mom would say, slightly pink like the cheeks of a blushing, young girl.  That tinge of pink when she tries to catch her breath after swooning over some young lass who gives her, just a bit of glance!

That kind of pink when the heart sees something that makes it beat irregularly and queerly.  Pink that is hardly there but there!

That kind of pink that does not brag nor is imposing to the senses.  Almost pink in the manner of one whose ways are impeccably just right and natural,  like the veins on a petal of baby lips while the senses have not yet awaken.

Those toes that are pink as I imagine Ziva Estelle's.

A faceted pink that is almost hardly there, faintly and subtly like the sky on some rare days, like the ones I witnessed in Bantayan Island.

Maria would always say to me, wear pink.  It suits you.  It is healthy.  And so will I, without being noticed.

 

Poetry without words

early morning where the ants live

 

Gloria finds her smile

So Gloria started to smile again.  That happened after the jump.  Here's a beautiful lunch she offered in return. 

 Isn't it fantastic?

Cheers!!

Gloria's BIG jUmP!

i noticed she's been wan lately.  i guess everyone who has seen her will agree with me.  Gloria's disposition  has shrunk from ebullience to dry.  

I tried to revive her joie d vivre but she seemed weighed down, her head aches she says.  I guess there are other reasons: her husband who for goodness sakes, is INSANEly short of wits but always trying to outsmart the smart with full confidence!

Food did not interest her much nor changed the way she felt. No amount of drugs or loving could bring back the glow in her face.

I wanted her glory back so badly so I staged my last recourse!

 MAKE HER FLY!!    V v ... ....  v
                                                                                                 v
               v                   v                   <         v
        v                                                                                                                v                  >
V                .>

G-l-ooooooooooooooooo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-yaaa-a-a-a-a--a-a-a-a--a-a-a-a-a-aahhhhhhhh

FIRST ATTEMPT:  She could not even lift her feet from the ground to make a tiny jump :(

 SECOND ATTEMPT:  Gloria lifting her heels and landing on the ground as if she really and seriously jumped!!!

Ay! ang taba ko! kasi naman ang payat ni Glory!

 Then I showed her how. 

 I caught her smile after that.  Great!  She is now on reset!

 There you go Gloria!!!!!  Bravo!!! Mission accomplished! back to normal.  Sanito, the love and thorn of Gloria's existence will be jealous!

This technique is what I call:  jUmP for JOY!!  I did this once when my youngest son decided to study and work in Australia.  I jumped from a 20ft bridge in Cagayan.  Short of taking a suicide and leaving my fears behind.  

I'm still alive...

Gewgaws and tchotchkes?

The sacred in christmas is remembering all good things...

 and being remembered too.  this is a gift delivered from Guam from a friend called Alice.

 a mitten from a tent in Bethlehem was a gift from Glenda, a teacher of 13 years in The Little Farmhouse.  She is joining her husband in their church's mission this coming schoolyear.  I have this trimming to always remember her by.

 a twig I incorporated in my tree for a bit of emphasis.  After all, this tree could have been more natural than inorganically fake.

 there is sadness whenever I hang this.  this beautiful reindeer was a gift from one of my special students and a very special boy.  I pray that he is happy and well.  how I wish that I was able to keep him, but then there are things beyond me.

 A beautiful wooden angel.  I found this under a heap of trinkets being sold for a few pesos, dusty and drab.  Look at how she glows in my tree!

 This must have cost Ana some pounds!  A remembrance of her honeymoon in Europe.

 My first crystal decor!  I bought this glass reindeer from Fisherman's Wharf in SanFo.  Happy and sad memories...

 A clown to make me remember the hard times of putting up a school. lucky to have found this!  it is a treasure and what a bargain!!!

 Roxy reminds me of Jasmin very much.  Two christmases ago, she sensed it when I was starting to feel very weird and very sick and could hardly make the tree.

 Love these crystal balls from London.  The newest addition to my family tree!

Old and worn-out when I found this old guy.  This was a post, post Christmas sale from Papemelroti.

Let me tell you this little story about a young wife looking for a christmas tree decorator.  She wanted to have a tree "in season" or in vogue.  She asked about the color of the year and while I was admiring the store's display, she asked me if I have a tree and a decorator.

I told her that my Christmas tree is as authentic as my life, and for as long as family and friends gather around it, then it transcends everything material.