July 3, 2020 at 6:46 pm (Artists and Writers, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Surprises)
Tags: art, Fridays, Garden, happiness, memories, summer
Whew, where would self’s head be right now if she weren’t doing a Photo Challenge? These Photo Challenges are really helping self stay positive during the pandemic.
The latest Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is: SURPRISE.
Would you like to know your future? If your answer is yes, think again. Not knowing is the greatest life motivator. So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence, a surprise.
– Vera Nazarian
Do joing the fun!
Here are self’s recent surprises:
These cherries from a tree in self’s backyard were so unexpectedly sweet!
Picking more cherries!
Her friend Jacinta O’Reilly, a painter in Ireland, sent her this beautiful card that she made herself. What a beautiful surprise to get in the mail!
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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June 12, 2020 at 7:06 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Family, Food and Drink, Links, Niece, Relatives)
Tags: art, Cee Neuner, exhibits, Fridays, magical realism, memories, museums, San Diego, San Francisco, summer
Bless Cee Neuner for keeping Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge so FUN!
For this week’s Fun Foto Challenge, HATS, self found a couple of pictures from her archives.
Self’s baseball-cap wearing niece, Angela, an undergrad at the University of Michigan, spent a summer as an intern at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park. Self had a lot of fun hanging with her:
The Martian is son’s favorite novel (after the Dune novels; son is an avid science fiction reader). He met the cap-wearing author at SDCC 2018:
Finally, one of Magritte’s most iconic images, the man in the bowler hat, at an exhibit in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, July 2018:
Other hats:
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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May 22, 2020 at 4:29 pm (Food and Drink, Lists, Places)
Tags: desserts, Filipino food, Fridays, indulgences, memories, nostalgia, The Philippines
- Bamboo shoots – labong
- Banana – saging
- Bottle gourd – upo
- Cabbage – repolyo
- Calamansi – calamansi
- Cashew nuts – Kasuy
- Cauliflower – koliflor
- Chickpeas – garbansos
- Chico – chico
- Chinese cabbage – pechay Baguio
- “Chinese” peas – chicharo (one of self’s faaaavorite vegetables, growing up in Manila)
- Coconut – niyog
- Corn – mais
- Cucumber – pipino
- Custard apple – atis
- Eggplant – talong
- Fern leaves – pako
- Ginger – luya
- Green snap beans – habichuelas
- Guava – bayabas
- Lanzones – lansones
- Lima bean – patani
- Long cow pea – sitaw
- Mango – mango
- Mangosteen – mangostan
- Melon – melon
- Mung bean – mongo
- Mustard – mustasa
- Papaya – papaya
- Peanut – mani
- Pineapple – piña
- Pomelo – suha
- Potato – patatas
- Santol – santol
- Squash – kalabasa
- Strawberry – stroberi (lol)
- Swamp cabbage – kangkong
- Sweet peppers – sili
- Sweet potato – kamote
- Taro – gabi
- Tomato – kamatis
- Turmeric – luyang dilaw
- Watermelon – pakwan (Dear Departed Sister loved chewing pakwan seeds)
- Yam – ubi (Ubi ice cream is the best!)
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May 21, 2020 at 4:28 pm (Books, Conversations, Family, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended)
Tags: COVID Reading, humor, nonfiction, reading lists
There were a few Galvin children who did not develop schizophrenia, Michael being one of them. When his mother was in her 80s, he agreed to assume some of the responsibility for her day-to-day care.
Hidden Valley Road, p. 288:
He soon learned that however frail she might have been, Mimi was still in charge. He would offer her Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner, knowing how much she loved it, and she would refuse, saying she’d had it the night before. He’d make spaghetti instead, and she’d say there was too much of it.
“It got a little confounding,” Michael said. “I almost dumped it on her head.”
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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May 19, 2020 at 7:22 pm (Food and Drink, Holidays, Links, Places)
Tags: breakfast, California, Cee Neuner, Christmas, Filipino food, memories, nostalgia, The Philippines
Let’s nose around in our archives or sniff out new photos that are related to the sense of Smelling. Be creative and have fun.
— Cee Neuner
Self found this Foto Challenge more than usually, er, challenging. She’s trying to keep her mind off food — for the first six weeks of the shelter-in-place, that was all she thought about, with disastrous consequences. And her roses don’t give off scent — mebbe it’s the type of soil? Even her Sheila’s Perfume rose has no perfume!
Anyhoo, after some determined hunting, she managed to come up with three photos:
- Fried chorizo for breakfast in the island of Negros, central Philippines:
- A fresh-cut Christmas tree makes all the difference. Self got hers from Wegman’s, a local nursery:
- Just before shelter-in-place, self had her front door and front porch painted. The smell of fresh paint is the memory of singular happiness:
Stay safe, dear blog readers.
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May 13, 2020 at 4:34 pm (destinations, Family, Food and Drink, Links, Plays)
Tags: Cal Shakes, Cee Neuner, indulgences, memories, nostalgia
- The topic for this week’s CFFC is Sense of Tasting. This is all about things you can taste, be it sweet, sour, bitter, comforting, fulfilling, addictions, etc. If you can drink or eat it, you can usually taste it. — Cee Neuner’s Fun Foto Challenge
These days, self has been searching for comfort food. But, first: NOSTALGIC MEMORIES of her last picnic at Cal Shakes, Orinda:
Picnic Before Macbeth, Cal Shakes, Orinda, October 2019
Second, comfort food during a pandemic: Maggi on Roasted Chicken is the best! And her favorite cookies from childhood, available at Pacific Market in South San Francisco:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 12, 2020 at 5:18 pm (Artists and Writers, Camarote de Marinero, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: historical fiction, novel, The Philippines
Stayed up till the wee hours again, CUTTING. Self isn’t sure when her eyes finally closed, but she must have been writing up till the last, for all the lights in her room were on when she opened her eyes this morning. Also, she’s wandering around like a ghost.
Below, a passage she worked on last night, which she decided to keep.
Early Map of the Philippines
Other memories he would have been happier to relinquish: Fiesta. Mantilla. Rioja. His mother’s admonishments. He would surrender to these memories helplessly, sometimes angrily. It would have been better for him if he had not, upon seeing the rivers on Isla del Fuego, immediately thought of the Segura and its esteros. If he had not been reminded, upon seeing a cluster of white rocks, of the Piedras Blanca in the foothills of Murcia. If he had not, on seeing the native women, always thought of Dorotea and her thick, black hair, the weight of it in his hands.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 9, 2020 at 4:57 am (Books, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf)
Tags: Fridays, nature writing, psychology, reading lists
This has been a most interesting read. She’s almost to the end, she thought author Frans de Waal could say nothing more that would surprise her, but she was wrong.
- Attraction to meat has shaped our social evolution. The gathering of fruits, which are small and dispersed, is mostly an individual job, but the hunting of large game demands teamwork. One man alone doesn’t bring home a giraffe or mammoth. Our ancestors deviated from the apes by hunting animals larger than themselves, which required the sort of camaraderie and mutual dependence that is at the root of complex societies. We owe our cooperative nature, our food-sharing tendencies, our sense of fairness, and even our morality to the subsistence hunting of our ancestors. Furthermore, since carnivores are on average larger-brained than herbivores and since brains require a great deal of energy to grow and operate, the consumption of animal protein along with effective food processing (such as fermentation and cooking) are seen as driving forces behind our ancestors’ neural expansion. Animal protein provided them with the optimal mix of calories, lipids, proteins, and essential B12 vitamins to grown large brains.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 6, 2020 at 3:53 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, Dearest Mum, Family, Food and Drink, Holidays, Links, Relatives, Women Writers)
Tags: Cee Neuner, lunch, Manila, Readings, restaurants
Think about what you like to listen to: a voice, the wind, the ocean, music, purr of a cat, birds singing, etc. Be creative and have fun.
— Cee Neuner
Son and his cousin celebrating New Year in the Long Ago
Dearest Mum and the Widow of Dear Departed Dad’s Best Friend, Having a Good Time in Café Romulo, Manila
Michelle Ruiz Keil, reading from her YA, All of Us With Wings, in the Mission, San Francisco
Looking over these pictures, self is overcome with nostalgia. Fun times, there used to be. Thank you, Cee Neuner, for giving self an excuse to reminisce.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 5, 2020 at 7:49 pm (Camarote de Marinero, Conversations, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: historical fiction, humor, novel, The Philippines
In Pampanga, mekekeni.
In Tagalog, parita ka.
And in Castilian:
Señores, vengan aca.
Vengan pangasi,
Venga kudkuran,
Venga bibingka, guinataan
Suman sa Imus
Tinapay sa bombing matabang!
Matias could not help laughing.
“It is about eating bread, and rice cakes, and all good things. Sleep well, Matias,” Father Salazar said.
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