May 27, 2019 at 4:31 pm (Holidays, Surprises, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: humor, London, memories, Mondays, nostalgia
Prague was very pretty but people do not speak English there.
London is adorable because as usual there is traffic and the skies are grey.
It’s another Bank Holiday. OMG, so many of these! Can someone please explain what is going on?
The last thing she remembers doing in London was watching John Wick 3 at the Odeon on Tottenham (Five Stars!) and meeting Jennie for dinner at Chez Nous immediately after. Then walking with Jennie down Great Russell Street and pointing out the British Museum and the Antiquarian Bookseller and paying a very brief visit to the Bloomsbury Hotel (The lobby looks like most of the space is taken up by a bar. Or mebbe it’s always been that way and she’s just mis-remembering?)
In Paddington, she used an ATM to withdraw pounds. A message told her: PUT YOUR CASH AWAY QUICKLY.
Then, as if she needed another reminder, the PA system began to squawk: THERE ARE PICKPOCKETS HERE.
She dashed into an exit elevator like her pants were on fire. GOTTA GET OUT OF PADDINGTON I’M SURE I’M BEING STALKED BY SOMEONE WHO SAW ME USE THE ATM.
The taxi rank was beautiful: it snaked all the way back, looked like at least 50 taxis, each moving smartly forward evey few seconds. She wished she had the wherewithal to take a picture. But she was SO deathly afraid of pickpockets. Seriously, though, that is some serious taxi business going on at Paddington.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
February 22, 2019 at 2:35 am (Books, destinations, Family, Holidays, Places, Recommended)
Tags: crime, memories, nostalgia, novel, reading lists, thrillers, vacation
Lou Berney’s thriller, November Road, is nearing its mournful denoument. The killer’s getting closer and closer.
NOOOOO!!!
Before we get there, however, there’s the 1963 Las Vegas Strip, where Frank Guidry discovers his past and Charlotte discovers her future.
Las Vegas was the one place self associates with “family vacation” — the one place we returned to, year after year, for about five years. We’d stay at a hotel — either the Bellagio, the Venetian, the Paris, or the MGM Grand — and loll by the pool and take in a show. We’d grow fat at hotel buffets. Here’s a picture of self and son, taken about 15 years ago, at Hoover Dam. How ironic that this is the ONE picture she has of a particular trip. And it’s not even IN Las Vegas.
With Son at Hoover Dam, Just Outside Las Vegas, a Lifetime Ago
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
February 13, 2019 at 9:06 pm (Personal Bookshelf, Places, Traveling)
Tags: Cee Neuner, Japan, London, memories, nostalgia, Philippines
Self’s choice is RED.
Self at 19, with Masako in Shibuya, Tokyo
Red Woven Bag from the Philippines, in Self’s Closet
Self’s Red Knapsack: The Penn Club, London, 23 November 2018
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
2 Comments
December 23, 2018 at 4:08 pm (destinations, Filipino Writers, Holidays, Places, Sundays, Traveling)
Tags: nostalgia, Paris
Self happened to be in the City of Light. This is what she did.
Leave a Comment
September 25, 2018 at 10:55 pm (Artists and Writers, Family, Places)
Tags: art, Cee Neuner, exhibits, Gardens, Golden Gate Park, museums, nostalgia, Redwood City, San Francisco, The Philippines
Love Cee Neuner’s Fun Foto Challenge!
This week’s challenge is PASTEL COLORS.
It turned out to be surprisingly hard to find photos with predominantly pastel colors!
These flesh-coloured gourd plants were at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers:
The Magritte exhibit at SFMOMA on self’s birthday in July:
A bit of nostalgia:
Map of the Philippines, Son’s Room in Redwood City, California
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
2 Comments
September 19, 2018 at 3:38 pm (Flowers, Holidays)
Tags: Cee Neuner, Garden, nostalgia, Redwood City, summer
Colors. How self loves them.
To make it even better, Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is VIBRANT Colors.
Here are a few pictures self took this past summer:
One of self’s earliest rose purchases was this Fourth of July.
From Redwood City’s Annual Fourth of July Parade:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
2 Comments
July 13, 2018 at 4:24 pm (Artists and Writers, Personal Bookshelf)
Tags: C. P. Cavafy, Fridays, nostalgia, poetry
from “Gray” (1917)
Those gray eyes will have lost their charm — if he’s still alive;
that lovely face will have spoiled.
Memory: keep them the way they were.
And, memory, whatever you can bring back of that love,
whatever you can, bring back tonight.
Leave a Comment
June 5, 2018 at 1:55 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Mondays, nostalgia, poetry, Spain
Excerpt from Granada
To be so far from oxtail stew, sardines
in garlic sauce, blood oranges in pails
along the avenida, midday heat
wetting necks and wrists; to be so stuck
in stone-thick ice and clouds and recall
the pomegranate we shared, its hardened peel,
the translucent membrane gently parting
seed from luscious crimson seed, albedo
soft beneath bald rind, acid juice
running down our fingers, knuckles, palms,
the mild chap of our lips from mist and flesh;
- Joanne Diaz received her MFA from New York University, where she was a New York Times Fellow, and her PhD in English literature from Northwestern University. She is the recipient of writing fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Leave a Comment
May 14, 2018 at 12:10 am (Books, Family, Places, postaday, Sundays)
Tags: memories, nostalgia, postaday, postaweek, Redwood City, Wordpress
If one were to think of nostalgia as a place, then that place would definitely be son’s room. She never could bring herself to change the layout, even though he’s long gone: grown, married, and settled in southern California. If you want to know what a museum of childhood looks like, this is the place!
Sunday, 13 May 2018: ALL THE THINGS
5 p.m.
Now, most of the books and stuff scattered on the desks and cabinets are self’s.
Leave a Comment
February 1, 2018 at 12:53 am (Family, Food and Drink, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling)
Tags: Filipino food, Manila, memories, nostalgia, postaday, postaweek, The Philippines, Wordpress
First cousin on mother’s side: Maitoni Cu-Unjieng
Home-Cooked Food, with Lots of Fried Garlic
Self is named after this iconic Filipino soup from the central Philippine islands: Batchoy
Leave a Comment
« Older entries
