June 22, 2020 at 4:22 am (Sundays, The Economist, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: humor, Redwood City, restaurants, summer, writing process
When stimulus checks arrived in mid-April, Americans let rip on a broad range of goods. — Leader, p. 7
LOL LOL LOL
America is not dead — as long as Americans can shop, there is hope.
During the first week of lockdown, self was very anxious. She worried about stuff like — writing instruments.
Self still writes in longhand, and she needs a special kind of pen. After days of fruitless searching in groceries and supermarkets, frustrated at not being able to find the exact pen she was in the habit of using, she finally found them on Amazon. Sold in packs of 10. They took a bit longer than she expected to arrive, but they did arrive. So that got rid of one of her primal anxieties.
And she makes herself use Door Dash to support local mom-and-pop restaurants (one of self’s favorites, a small Thai restaurant on Woodside Road, closed two weeks after the lockdown, and she was so bereft).
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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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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April 9, 2020 at 12:00 am (Books, destinations, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Recommended, short story collections, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: COVID Reading, Ernest Hemingway, Italy, Milan, reading lists, restaurants, seasons
Food in this story: chestnuts. In Milan. In the fall. The war is just over (Which war? Self had to google: World War I)
Also, the Café Cova, “next door to the Scala” which “was rich and warm and not too brightly lighted, and noisy and smoky at certain hours” (a tourist trap now, according to Yelp)
We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were different ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the hospital. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long. Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them, a woman sold roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket.
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April 6, 2020 at 7:25 pm (Books, destinations, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Personal Bookshelf, Places, plans, postaday, Recommended, short story collections, Traveling)
Tags: Garden, happiness, London, memories, Mondays, nostalgia, restaurants
Love this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge!
P. A. Moed:
This week . . . we’re getting back to basics. Show us what simplicity means to you.
Is it stepping back to a time when luxuries were scarce and people were content with less?
In these times of self-isolation, self turns back to the comforting presence of her old books:
There’s a date in self’s handwriting on the flyleaf: February 1984
And she’s planting tomatoes:
And she vows that as soon as she can travel to London again, she will visit Chez Mamie on Hanway Place, the place where she’s spent so many hours, enjoying Julie’s fabulous cooking:
Chez Nous (Formerly Chez Mamie), 22 Hanway Place, London: Self has been eating here since 2014.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 6, 2020 at 6:26 pm (destinations, Family, Food and Drink, Links, Niece, Places, Traveling)
Tags: breakfast, Cee Neuner, Doreen Fernandez, happiness, Makati, memories, Prague, restaurants, reunions, The Philippines
WHAT FUN! Self loves Glass, Cups, and Saucers. Just in general. Thank you, Cee Neuner!
Good morning, Silay! Hometown of Dear Departed Food Writer Doreen G. Fernandez: Self visited in September.
Gamboa House, Silay: September 2019
Hello, Ateneo Classmates! Reunion Dinner
Makati, September 2019
Hello, Prague! At the Globe Bookstore/Coffeeshop. Self was in Prague with her niece, Irene.
May 2019
What a year 2019 was!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 12, 2020 at 11:39 pm (Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Lists, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: California, elections, farmers markets, fast food, London, Manila, politics, restaurants
There’s always plenty of action around us, so your challenge is to share some of your best captures of that action with all your blogging friends.
— Tuesday Photo Challenge
Ever since self’s Nikon Coolpix stopped working, she hasn’t taken as many pictures. Taking pictures with her Android is such a bear! Nevertheless, she did manage to take some action pictures:
- Top Picture: San Mateo Farmers Market, the Yang Gang, January 2020
- Middle Picture: On the street in front of Ottolenghi in Spitalfields, East London, Nov 2019
- Bottom Picture: Jollibee Hamburger, a little past midnight, Manila, September 2019
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 2, 2020 at 5:58 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, Lists, Niece, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: art, Bacolod, Christmas, Cork, Cornwall, Events, Filipino food, Fowey, Ireland, London, memories, Menlo Park, Oxford, Prague, Redwood City, restaurants, The Philippines, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Great theme!
In 2019, self traveled the world. Her life triangulated between home in Redwood City, California, to England and Ireland, to the Philippines. Side trip to Prague with her niece, Irene!
Here goes, all the images that mattered most to self in 2019, arranged from most recent — December 2019 — to the earliest, January 2019: Starting with her home in Redwood City in early December; to London’s Blackfriar station; to Manggapuri Villa in Don Salvador Benedicto, Negros Occidental, Philippines; to Prague; to Oxford University’s Exam School for Alice Oswald’s first reading as Oxford’s first woman Poet in Residence; to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park; to the Main House of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig; to the fire pit in Manggapuri Villas; to the Daku Balay in Bacolod City, the Philippines; to self’s bedroom; to the Blue Room in Café Paradiso in Cork, Ireland; to Fowey in Cornwall; to Courthouse Square, Redwood City; to the cover of last winter’s issue of Prairie Schooner, which included her story Things She Can Take
Prague, May 2019
Waiting for the Alice Oswald lecture to begin, 13 November 2019
Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Republic of Ireland, last week of October
Manggapuri Villas: September 2019
Daku Balay, 50 Burgos Street, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, The Philippines
Self’s headboard in Redwood City, CA: Made in the Philippines
Paradiso, Cork, May 2019: She bought the Converse sneakers in London a few weeks earlier. Now they are scuffed and smudged, everywhere.
Stay tuned.
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December 24, 2019 at 5:51 pm (Food and Drink, Holidays, Links, Niece, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling)
Tags: Cee Neuner, Christmas, England, London, Prague, restaurants
Excited that it’s ALMOST CHRISTMAS!
Excited, too, to be able to participate in Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this weeK: ONE BASIC COLOR.
Here are some pictures self took earlier this year, in May. She was in London and then joined her niece Irene in Prague, her first-time ever in that wondrous city:
- The Church of St. Martin-in-the-Field, just off Trafalgar Square, London
- The London Eye
- St. Martin restaurant in the Mala Strada district of Prague, just a few doors away from the American Embassy
Self just realized, looking at her shots and comparing to Cee Neuner’s, that self’s are extremely monochromatic. Ah, well!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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November 3, 2019 at 10:30 am (Fan Fiction, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Links, Places, Sundays, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: California, Everlark, Manila, Menlo Park, photography, restaurants, The Philippines
P. A. Moed quotes Kim Hunter:
. . . emotions come through much stronger in black and white. Color is distracting in a way, it pleases the eye but it doesn’t necessarily reach the heart.
Domestic Terminal, Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Manila: September 2019
Sitting at an Outdoor Table, Café Borrone, Menlo Park, California: August 2019
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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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.
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