June 17, 2017 at 3:37 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Flowers, Links, Places, postaday, Relatives, Traveling)
Tags: England, flower photography, Gardens, London, memories, photography, postaday, postaweek, Saturday, Wordpress
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is FOCUS.
David W. asks:
Are you a stickler for getting in close to your subjects and capturing every detail, or do you prefer a more ethereal look that illustrates the sensations of the moment? Or both?
Self definitely falls into the latter group.
Much has happened in the world in the four months self traveled through England, Ireland, and France. She took this picture standing on the steps of London’s St. Martin-in-the-Fields, where she’d gone to listen to a candlelight Pachelbel Canon concert:
Iconic Double-Decker: London, Early June 2017
Before London, self was in Paris. She spent one day at Monet’s Garden in Giverney, which was awash in blooms:
Blooming in Monet’s Garden in Giverney, Early June 2017
Finally, Versailles. The lines were incredible. It took all of her niece Irene’s ingenuity to get us both inside. Self took this picture staring through the gilt iron gates at the front entrance, on a very hot afternoon in late May:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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June 3, 2017 at 9:24 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Family, Filipino Writers, Lists, postaday, Publishers, Relatives, short story collections, Traveling, Venice, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: AWP, Los Angeles, Mayor of the Roses, memories, Miami University Press, postaday, postaweek, teaching, UCLA Extension, Wordpress, writing conferences
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is FRIENDS.
Which is a very fun theme!
Three Cheers for UCLA Extension’s Writers Program! Love the people. Here they are, doing Spin the Wheel at the 2016 AWP Book Fair in Los Angeles.
Keith Tuma of Miami University Press, at the 2016 AWP Book Fair in Los Angeles
Self and Irene, Café Flor, San Marco Square, Venice: November, 2015
- Nutschell Ann Windsor, Program Administrator, UCLA Extension Writers Program (She writes, too!)
- Keith Tuma, Director of Miami University Press, which published self’s Mayor of the Roses, the first in their fiction series
- Amy Toland at last year’s AWP Book Fair in Los Angeles
- Irene Lacson, niece and travel buddy
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 31, 2017 at 5:37 pm (Artists and Writers, Family, Niece, Places, postaday, Relatives, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: England, happiness, Paris, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
Self’s favorite travel buddy: her niece! A week ago, at the Arc de Triomphe (lots of other people in the background, when self asked a stranger to snap the picture, he waited for the worst possible moment):
Self with her niece Irene: This was our second adventure. The first was Florence, November 2015.
And here the two of us are, on the bridge between the Tuileries and the Musée de Orsay, which is Irene’s favorite Paris museum:
Heading from the Tuileries towards the Musée d’Orsay, Irene’s favorite Paris Museum.
The last thing self expected to see in Bath, England was a teddy bear. But there it was, waiting for her in her room. Instant BFF!
Tasburgh House, Bath, England, May 2017
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 28, 2017 at 1:06 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Family, Holidays, Niece, Personal Bookshelf, Places, postaday, Relatives, Sundays, Traveling)
Tags: happiness, memories, novel, Paris, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
Self with her usual gear: The book she’s reading is the novel THIS IS YOUR LIFE, HARRIET CHANCE!
A Woman stares out into the gardens of the Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte. Woman stood there so long that self got tired of waiting for her to move and made her a part of the picture.
Mementos of a Trip, Never To Be Forgotten: Paris, May 2017
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May 21, 2017 at 9:38 am (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Links, Movies, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Sundays, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: French movies, Paris, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
Self was last here in 2012. She’s declined every opportunity to return, until now.
Look what she encountered around the corner: a film festival running in conjunction with Cannes. The movies are in English, with French subtitles. Perfect.
Her Dear Departed Dad worshipped Orson Welles, and movies in general. He passed on this HERITAGE to self.
Self didn’t know until today that it is the 70th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival:
Self is a film nut. She takes advantage of every opportunity to attend film festivals, wherever in the world she happens to be: Edinburgh; Ojai, California; Cork, Ireland; Palo Alto; San Francisco.
One day, perhaps, she’ll write a script based on one of her stories.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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November 24, 2016 at 8:05 pm (Artists and Writers, Conversations, Holidays, Movies, Personal Bookshelf, Plays, Recommended, Relatives, Women Writers)
Tags: poetry, Thanksgiving
Self’s favorite scene in the movie is when SHE (played by Joan Allen) goes to visit her dying aunt in a hospital in Belfast.
Aunt:
The thing is, no-one told
Me I’d have all this time, but far too late
To use it for the things I dreamed of. Fate
Delivers upside down and back to front.
I’ve more to say than ever, but they shunt
Me back and forth all day from bed to chair
And back to bed again; it isn’t fair.
All this experience I’d like to share.
Not that it all adds up. Not that you care.
I’d better stop — it’s time for you to go
Already, isn’t it? Five minutes — oh,
Well maybe ten . . . you see, I never know
When you’ll be here again. It’s such a blow
Each time you leave, it’s hardly worth your while
To come at all. I mean it! Don’t you smile
Like that! Oh, you’ll be sorry when I’m dead.
I’m only joking, dear. I only said
That for a laugh. Although of course it’s true.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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November 16, 2016 at 11:48 pm (Books, Conversations, Dearest Mum, Family, Food and Drink, Places, Recommended, Relatives, Women Writers)
Tags: humor, Manila, memories, novel, Santa Cruz
Self is on pp. 172 – 173 of Karen Joy Fowler’s Wit’s End.
She has been enjoying it, not least because the characters are Democrats (They wear their political affiliations on their sleeve. But of course they do: they live in Santa Cruz, CA).
A character owns a pair of dogs named Stanford and Berkeley. Self almost dropped the book because of that but she’s so glad she didn’t.
Anyhoo, the book makes her all sorts of nostalgic for Santa Cruz, CA. For its wooden roller coaster and its Boardwalk and its blue and pink cotton candy and the Ripley Believe It Or Not hall of funhouse mirrors.
Sample dinner conversation between a famous mystery writer and her niece, Rima:
“I remember once when you were about four years old. We went out to eat and you told the waitress you wanted a petite filet mignon. She just about dropped her pencil.”
“I was always saying something cute after you left. Hardly a day went by.”
“This puts the Democrats in very good shape for 2008.”
“There’s even corn in the toothpaste now. Did I mention that?”
Something wet landed on Rima’s ankle. Stanford was drooling; it brought her back to the moment.
Regarding that petite filet mignon: when self still lived in Manila, Dearest Mum’s youngest brother married a nineteen-year-old. The first time self met the prospective bride was at dinner in San Mig Pub in Greenbelt Park. And the teen-ager ordered — steak tartare. Dearest Mum was so impressed she couldn’t stop talking about it.
Until that moment, self had never laid eyes on a steak tartare. And she’s never had a yen to order it, either. That means self will probably end her days without ever tasting this singular delight, boo.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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October 3, 2016 at 1:32 am (Family, Food and Drink, Links, postaday, Relatives, Sundays)
Tags: China, memories, nostalgia, pets, postaday, postaweek, websites, Wordpress
Of course, nostalgia is something that affects everyone differently. We’d love to know what kinds of experiences you’ve had that stir these emotions for the past in you.
— Jeff Golenski, The Daily Post
Here are some WordPress blogs whose takes on this week’s photo challenge, NOSTALGIA, intrigued self:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 30, 2016 at 11:17 pm (Dearest Mum, Family, Places, postaday, Relatives)
Tags: Bacolod, Fridays, memories, nostalgia, postaday, postaweek, The Philippines, Wordpress
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is NOSTALGIA:
- What kinds of experiences stir emotions for the past within you?
The Philippines, specifically Bacolod City, where her father grew up, is the locus of all of self’s nostalgia. And of course, Dearest Mum, who met self’s Dear Departed Dad when she was a young pianist in New York City, and Dear Departed Dad was in Georgetown Law School.
The Daku Balay, Burgos Street, Negros Occidental: The Philippines. Self’s grandfather built this house, at the time the tallest structure in Bacolod City. Self’s father was born in this house.
Dearest Mum, in Her Early 30s
Bacolod City, Negros Occidental: June 2012
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 17, 2016 at 6:32 pm (Family, Links, Lists, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling)
Tags: Bacolod, England, memories, postaday, postaweek, Saturdays, The Philippines, websites, Wordpress
Edge of Family’s Fields: Negros Occidental, the Philippines
Path cleared for a tractor.
And one more:
Hinoba-an, Negros Occidental
Check out a few more WordPress bloggers who posted on EDGE:
- Yamanashi Kei’s blog, for the picture of Oklahoma City skyscrapers and foliage
- ilargia64, for the pictures of Antelope Canyon in Monument Valley, Arizona
- Chris Brebart’s What’s (In) the Picture?, for the shot of the Norfolk dunes
- NIVS24, for her shot of a beach in Virginia
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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