September 25, 2019 at 11:23 pm (destinations, Family, Links, Niece, Philippine History, Places, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling)
Tags: Bacolod, Corregidor, Don Salvador Benedicto, festivals, memorial, memories, nostalgia, Philippine History, Redwood City, The Philippines, World War II
Week 179 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge is STONE (“Turn to something a bit more permanent.”)
Self went searching among her recent photos for examples of stone.
First, the fire pit at Manggapuri Villas, Purok Pagdanon, Don Salvador Benedicto, in the Philippine province of Negros Occidental (Dear Departed Dad’s home province). Just beyond, shrouded in mist, the still-active Canlaon Volcano. Don Salvador Benedicto is about an hour-and-a-half drive from Bacolod City:
Manggapuri Villas: September 2019
Next, a photo of Courthouse Square, just prior to the Annual Redwood City Salsa Festival:
Courthouse Square Before the Annual Redwood City Salsa Festival, Saturday, 21 September
Finally, a statue of General Douglas MacArthur on the Philippine island of Corregidor (That’s self standing with son and his cousin Georgina, 20 years ago. She found the photo when she was cleaning out the closets recently):
Georgina, Andrew and Self on the Island of Corregidor, at the Mouth of Manila Bay
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
September 19, 2019 at 4:47 pm (destinations, Family, Food and Drink, Links, Places, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling)
Tags: Bacolod, happiness, memories, restaurants, The Philippines
Thanks to a Photo a Week Challenge prompt: SOMETHING NEW.
And self did do something new: She went home.
Not only did she go home, she went one better and returned to her Dear Departed Dad’s home island of Negros Occidental.
She stayed with cousins.
7th Floor, Belles Artes Condominiums, Galo cor. GV & Sons Street
She saw, for the first time in six years, the house where her Dear Departed Dad grew up, the Daku Balay:
Daku Balay, 50 Burgos Street, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, The Philippines
In Bacolod, she had the most delicious pizza! Here, smoked bangus pizza and basil pizza:
Café Oscar, Galo Street (Ground Floor, Belles Artes Building), Bacolod City
Great trip.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
June 17, 2019 at 4:06 pm (Family, Links, Philippine History, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Bacolod, memoir, memories, Mondays, The Philippines, work-in-progress, World War II
Below, page 1 of a very, very old work-in-progress. Self was clearing her closets when she stumbled across the hard copy yesterday.
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY, DEAR DEPARTED DAD.
Leave a Comment
October 17, 2018 at 11:45 am (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Places, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, artists residency, Bacolod, historical novel, The Philippines, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, war novel, work-in-progress, World War II
Self’s novel is set on the island of Negros, in the central Philippines, at the start of the Japanese Occupation during World War II. Honorato, an hacendero‘s son, and Moses, the enkargado, are ordered to the mountains by Honorato’s father.
Self is bringing it, people. Just bringing it. Right now, her manuscript stands at 247 pages.
The next day the forest rears up before them, indescribably dense. It takes them a mere hour to reach the first line of trees. Upon entering, they find themselves under a thick canopy of foliage, the light fading to a cathedral dimness. Birds and an occasional monkey frolic overhead.
Moses leads the way, hacking the heavy vines and tree branches that block their path. Soon, his back is soaked with sweat. Honorato watches silently as the enkargado removes his shirt. The older man’s back is ribbed and corded and hard-looking, with small scars pocking the surface, from what past injury Honorato can only guess.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
September 25, 2018 at 5:52 am (Books, Conversations, Personal Bookshelf)
Tags: advice, Bacolod, indulgences, memories, Mondays, Robert Greene, The Philippines
An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings. — Robert Greene
Plus, from one of her old journals:
- Today I had a massage . . . lol
Written, of course, in Bacolod. In Bacolod, self was always so mellow. She was never angry. A one-hour massage averaged 500 pesos, about $9. She had daily massage, over there. Heck, she could even have had two massages daily, if she felt like it. All the masahistas had strong, unerring hands. They seemed to know by instinct. Only once did self ever have a bad message in Bacolod: the woman just moved her hands skimmingly over the skin, didn’t really knead it. Ugh, self felt she’d spent a full hour just being tickled.
One night, during a massage, self kept hearing the distant, popping sounds of what she thought were gunshots. It made her so uneasy. The masahista said it was Firecrackers. Oh, it was New Year’s Eve? It had completely slipped self’s mind.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
September 23, 2018 at 7:20 am (Conversations, Philippine History, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Bacolod, historical fiction, novel, work-in-progress, World War II
It was mid-April. Honorato was sent to the mountains. He had just turned 18.
His parents worried because he was tall, because he was good-looking, because he was the eldest and bore his family’s hopes on his slender shoulders. So, hide, his father told him. Get as far away from here as you can.
How long must I stay in the mountains, Honorato asked.
As long as the Hapon are here, his father said. And don’t try to come back, not until the war is over. We will get word to you, somehow.
It was still dark when the enkargado knocked softly on the door of Honorato’s room. “‘Toto,” he called softly. “Time to get up.”
Leave a Comment
September 11, 2018 at 4:35 am (Books, Family, Memoirs, Philippine History, Relatives, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Bacolod, memories, The Philippines, work-in-progress, World War II
- All the time, my stepfather was shaking and swearing, because call-up letters were flying around like birds.
This evening self suddenly thinks about her World War II novel (244 pages) and realizes it has no heart. The only thing it describes is how an 18-year-old is sent into the mountains with the enkargado.
When Bacolod was occupied, self’s Dear Departed Dad was 12. The Japanese High Command chose the biggest house in Bacolod to commandeer. Which at the time was Dear Departed Dad’s family’s house.
It had a winding staircase made of imported Carrara marble! With a working Otis elevator! Of course the occupiers must have marveled about how that house had come to be, in such a small island in the center of the Philippines.
Must have been pretty tense, right? When self knew her grandfather, he was an old man in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the neck down. He was always that way, always a sublime paralytic in her memory. It wasn’t until six years ago that self learned that her grandfather suffered the stroke during the Occupation.
There’s a war story self’s Dear Departed Dad told her about how, one day, everyone in Bacolod was made to line up around the Plaza. There was a prisoner seated in the middle of the Plaza and he was beaten pretty badly. The guards wanted him to point out his accomplices. Right when two of my father’s uncles passed in front of the prisoner, his guards gave him a particularly vicious beating. And his arm came up and he pointed, without thought. And he was pointing at one of my father’s uncles. Who was immediately taken away and never seen again.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
January 9, 2018 at 11:49 pm (Food and Drink, Links, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: Bacolod, Cee Neuner, Filipino food, indulgences, Manila, nostalgia, The Philippines
Another great Fun Foto Challenge from Cee Neuner: Needs to have the letters O and U in the word.
Self’s word is SOUP. Specifically, a delicious Philippine soup that originates in the central Philippine islands of the Visayas:
BATCHOY: Super Special Bowl of Heaven
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
2 Comments
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.
Leave a Comment
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.
2 Comments
« Older entries
