January 15, 2017 at 4:59 pm (destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Sundays)
Tags: Mendocino, postaday, postaweek, weekends, Wordpress
— Jeff Golenski, The Daily Post
Back in Mendocino for Second Saturday, which was last night. Self didn’t get much sleep the night before, so the last 60 miles to the coast were harrowing. But she made it!
Mendocino Hotel, Main Street, Mendocino
Winter Fog, Mendocino This Morning
Water Tower, Albion Street, Mendocino Village
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
October 30, 2016 at 1:23 pm (Eavesdropping, Lists, Sundays, Surprises)
Tags: complaints, San Francisco, weekends
These girls next door never quit!
The laughter comes in waves. The current laughing cycle began at 5:50 a.m. or thereabouts.
Self peers out her apartment window, sees one lighted window in the building next door, and it’s on the side facing hers. She wouldn’t mind so much if, Friday night, the same laugh/screech/laugh cycle hadn’t occurred until the wee hours.
Honestly, there is no room for meaningful discourse in this dialogue. Because there is just one uproarious laugh after another.
See that yellow spot on the carpet? (SCREECHING LAUGHTER)
See what time it is? (SCREECHING LAUGHTER)
Know what my name is? (SCREECHING LAUGHTER)
At first self thought, they’re young and giddy because they’re so excited about being in San Francisco! San Francisco is the Golden Gate, the Dragon’s Gate, the Ferry Building, Golden Gate Park etc. And we’re young! And WE’RE HERE! AND WE’RE SO COOL!
Self is gratified to know that somewhere in the building next door, there are girlfriends who know how to be girlfriends. How to simply LAUGH. It must be such a joyous feeling to have laugh fest with your roommates, at 5:58. To know that, at the drop of a hat, at any hour of the day or night, you will have hilarious interaction with your roomies.
(Self recognizes your individual laughs, girls! She knows the one that goes: gasp/hiccup/HA!/gasp/hiccup; as well as the one that goes HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!)
If self were the mother of teenage daughters, would she have to endure this type of giggly on a daily basis?
BTW, self read somewhere that “giggle” should never be used, in any form of writing. Never. Because, according to advise dispenser, no one but no one giggles.
Self will now hunt for that writing website, so she can tell the author of the article that she lives next door to girls who really know how to giggle. Non-stop. Now, that level of giggle takes commitment.
Stay tuned.
September 7, 2014 at 2:01 am (Books, Links, Places, Recommended)
Tags: Berlin, discoveries, Home, music, novel, praise, Saturdays, weekends
Yesterday, while standing at the check-out line in Whole Foods on Jefferson, self saw a CD by Ed Sheeran. She was curious, as apparently he is a great favorite of the writers on fanfiction.net So she bought his CD and listened to it at home and, you know, it reminds her of old rock. But it’s pleasant. Something new to listen to while driving!
Today was peaceful. She mostly watered.
She’s very much enjoying Dark Star, by Alan Furst. He writes ridiculously well, for someone who writes spy thrillers.
SPOILER ALERT!!!
On p. 52, the hero of the story, Szara, lands in Berlin (after a particularly nasty encounter with some hired assassins — he escapes by the skin of hist teeth). This is what he sees of the city from his hotel room:
Szara stared out a high window, watching umbrellas moving down the street like phantoms. It seemed to him the city’s very own, private weather, for Berliners lived deep inside themselves — it could be felt — where they nourished old insults and humiliated ambitions of every sort, all of it locked up within a courtesy like forged metal and an acid wit that never seemed meant to hurt — it just, apparently by accident, left a little bruise.
Lovely writing, isn’t it?
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
March 19, 2014 at 5:19 am (anthologies, Books, Links, postaday)
Tags: Christmas, Filipino writers, Manila, Manila Noir, museums, postaday, postaweek, short story, weekends, Wordpress
Wow, self continues to be madly inspired by the WordPress Photo Challenge this week: INSIDE.
Heartfelt thanks to The Daily Post for the fantastic prompts!
Here’s a picture of one of self’s Stanford chums, Penny Jackson, as she emulates a Yoga pose in front of the Asian Art Museum. Her arms are pressed together above her head, she is INSIDE the pose. Get it?
It is always a lot of fun hanging around with Penny. She is so spontaneous, pure Nitro.
Self has always had an enduring fascination with snow globes. Here’s one she bought about 30 years ago.
Christmas is a great excuse for nostalgia . . .
2013 was a special year: Manila Noir, a collection of “dark” stories about the city of Manila, and edited by Jessica Hagedorn, was published. Self has a story in this anthology: The story is called “Desire.”
She’s not a big name, like the others in the collection, so her name didn’t get listed on either book cover. But, still. Open to the Table of Contents, her name is there. She is INSIDE the book.
Manila Noir (Akashic Books, 2013): The covers of the U.S. and Philippine editions
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
February 19, 2014 at 4:01 pm (Books, Family, Places, postaday, Recommended, Weather)
Tags: indulgences, photography, postaday, postaweek, San Francisco, weekends, Wordpress
Let’s talk about how sweet it is to have a really, really good nail salon in the neighborhood.
Self decided to get a mani/pedi yesterday afternoon, at 5 p.m. (As parking fees don’t apply after 6 p.m., she ends up paying only 50 cents, for 1 hour) When she walked in, the entire row of humongous massaging chairs was full, but she only had to wait a little while before they called self to a chair.
One of the women there is taking classes from a San Jose community college, and she and self began gabbing about our favorite books. A few weeks ago, self dropped off a copy of her Ginseng and Other Tales From Manila. Today, the woman gave her a copy of her favorite book, pictured below. Which she will consider (Ta-ra!)
TREASURE # 3.1
Self’s First Book Exchange: with a young woman from her favorite nail salon, Belle Nail Salon in her hometown Redwood City
TREASURE # 3.2: Memories of her last trip to visit son and Jennie in Claremont
Son and Jennie have a backyard! It was so sunny, her last day in Claremont, a week ago.
TREASURE # 3.3: Ocean Beach and The Great Highway. No matter what the weather, there’s always something to see . . . And the San Francisco Zoo’s right alongside.
We always take the Great Highway when we visit the Legion of Honor.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
February 8, 2014 at 4:53 pm (Family, Places, Recommended, Traveling, Wall Street Journal)
Tags: destinations, discoveries, exhibits, museums, plans, Saturdays, travel, Wall Street Journal, weekends
The plan for today is to visit the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. Self is so glad that son and Jennie were down for that, as she’s been wanting to visit the museum for a while, ever since she read a write-up about it in the Wall Street Journal. The article focused on a new exhibit called “Becoming Los Angeles.”
The exhibit, which covers “14,000 square feet of gallery space . . . tells the city’s history primarily through a display of 250 objects and images, from canoe carvings of the Gabreleño-Tongya people to a Stratocaster guitar (As the first museum in the city, this one became the repository for family heirlooms, keepsakes and homely artifacts that might otherwise have been lost to history — and in that catch-all function alone broadened, from the outset, the definition of a natural history museum.”
There are “six major sections” that comprise “key moments in the Los Angeles story.” There are “artifacts from the Indians who cruised the islands off Los Angeles in sewn boats and first greeted Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542,” and “a series of paintings” of the first “Spanish missions in California . . . by the British landscape artist Edwin Deakin.”
There’s more, lots more, but self has to check on her on-line writing class students.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
February 8, 2014 at 4:28 pm (Books, Family, Lists, Places, Recommended)
Tags: advice, Saturdays, travel, weekends
Jennie invited self to attend a Women in Business Workshop yesterday on the Claremont campus (Self doesn’t know why, but she never noticed before how beautiful the campus is! Especially Scripps). Here’s Jennie looking oh-so-prepped in black jacket, purple top, grey tailored pants, and pumps.
Jennie, Yesterday: Scripps College
Anyhoo, the workshop was so very, very interesting. Every participant got to take home a free book. There were stacks of choices. Self picked Doing Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, by Brené Brown.
The Introduction talks about the value of living “wholeheartedly.” There’s a list of 10 Guideposts for living “wholeheartedly”:
One of the great things about visiting son is that, since he and Jennie are psychology grad students, there is no dearth of reading materials that address various subjects having to do with self, the psyche, etc. The speaker yesterday, Michelle Bauman, is a Personal/Business Coach. She talked about how most people’s mindsets lie on a continuum between “fixed” and “growth,” and how the proportion between one or the other changes as we learn from experience.
They served lunch. Ohh, the mango and coconut mousse was so great.
Seated next to self was a striking woman who introduced herself as “Music Watson.” Self couldn’t resist asking her where she got her first name. Her response: “My parents were hippies.” Self asked if that meant they liked Carole King and James Taylor. She said, “More like The Doors.”
Yesterday, in the milling around between panels, a student named Yael, who self guessed (correctly) was from Tel Aviv, and was a grad student in Information Systems, came over and introduced herself. Then another student came up. Self thinks this is because they assumed she was a Claremont professor. Self was wearing black pants, a black jacket, grey pumps, black stockings, and a beige top. I guess no one could be blamed for thinking she was a professor! She bought the clothes special for the trip, when Jennie told her the attire for the Women in Business event was “business casual.” A saleswoman in Anne Taylor Loft on Santana Row brought out the grey pumps, on sale for $19.95! Self used her own black jacket, but she did buy the black pants which — she didn’t notice until yesterday — had zippers down the calfs. Cool!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
September 7, 2013 at 11:11 pm (Places, postaday, Traveling, Venice)
Tags: discoveries, postaday, postaweek, Saturdays, travel, Venice, weekends, Wordpress
The vaporetto stop on Ca’ San Toma, early morning, May 2013
San Marco Cathedral, early morning. Self was waiting for the rest of her tour group to arrive.
The Lion of Venice in San Marco Square, April 2013 (That appears to be a pigeon resting on the lion’s head. Self just noticed it a few minutes ago!)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
September 1, 2013 at 1:20 am (Philippine History, Places, postaday, Writing)
Tags: inspirations, memories, postaday, postaweek, Saturdays, short story, summer, The Philippines, weekends, Wordpress
What kind of emotions does the sea or ocean make you feel? Do you remember the first time you went in the water?
— The Daily Post Photo Challenge Prompt for the Week
* * * *
When self posted her first set of pictures on the theme of “Sea,” she forgot to address what emotions she felt while at the shore. Because for sure she felt many intense emotions — the sea always conjures them.
She explained to someone who left a comment on her first “Sea” post that the archipelago she referred to in the post was the Philippines, which is said to have 7,100 islands.
The sea or the idea of it permeates all of self’s writings. For instance, here’s an excerpt from her “Don Alfredo & Jose Rizal,” which she first began to write almost 10 years ago, and which Sou’wester published in 2007:
George Dewey. I would always think of him in connection with the man who had invented the Dewey decimal system, but this was not that man. This Dewey was an Admiral, an adventurer with dreams of empire, who entered Manila Bay on 1898 on a great American battleship, guns pointing at the crumbling embankment of Manila’s old city, Intramuros.
I suddenly pictured the blue water of the bay, the panic of the few Spanish soldiers watching on the gray stone battlements.
The residents of the city would be sleeping, peaceful. Their breath rising in stagnant clouds over their heads as they slept beneath the mosquito nets draped over their mahogany four-posters. The dogs would be sniffing in the lanes, the pigs rooting in the backyards. Roosters would be crowing from various parts of the slumbering city.
Six o’clock in the morning but already the day would be hot, the sun’s heat falling like shards on the still-empty streets.
And now, back to the WordPress Photo Challenge.
A private piece of the wonder that is the island of Siquijor
Self has said it before, and she’ll say it again now: Nothing is as beautiful as a Philippine sea.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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