Street Shot [Everyday Life ATW]

A late afternoon street shot at Calle Crisologo in Vigan, Ilocos Sur

Taken on 28 August 2010

Posted for Everyday Life Around The World

Food Quote

Jellyfish with vegetables

It is important to watch you eat.  Otherwise, how are you going to get it into your mouth?  

~ Matt Diamond

Posted for Food Quote hosted by Arlene

Lilium/Today's Flowers #5

@ mirandablue
Lilium, Stargazer

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.  ~ e.e. cummings

Posted for Today's Flowers 

Rainy afternoon

My cable connection is down.  I called the cable service provider, even pretended to be pissed, but truth be told, I don't really mind.  It would save me from being a couch potato for a day.  So what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon?  The first thing that came to mind was to take a nap.   My bed  beckons!

It made me smile and remember the time when a nap was the last thing on my mind.  As a child, I hated naps---the afternoon naps imposed by my mother were always met with much resistance.  I would invent a thousand and one reasons not to take a nap.  I felt that it interfered with the fun things I'd rather be doing.   Especially on rainy afternoons when all I wanted to do was to find a giant puddle to play in and dance in the rain.

Photo from:  http://todayillsay.wordpress.com

My mother did not appreciate my idea of fun---she was probably thinking of the muddy laundry. Thank God for grandmothers! My grandmother, bless her benevolent soul, allowed us to play in the rain, would even point us to the downspout to take a shower.  My brothers and cousins played ball on the muddy trail and we would slide on wet grass using  a thick layer of banana trunk down to a small pond.

Sometimes, I would borrow my uncle's bike and ride around in the rain.  The constant rain falling down on me and the splashes from puddles and mud made the ride more exciting.  The muddier, the merrier.  And when nobody's looking, I would dance to My Sharona playing in my head.  

We would go home shivering, lips purple and fingers wrinkled from the cold.  Our lola would dry us off one by one with thick,  sun-scented towel and feed us with something warm like champorado or ginataan.  Ah, life's simple pleasures!

Do you remember the last time you danced in the rain?

Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain.

Posted for Nostalgic Marveling

Signs [Everyday Life ATW]

Taken during a red light near the intersection of Julia Vargas and Meralco Avenue 

Posted for Everyday Life ATW

Pink Hibiscus

@ mirandablue

Hibiscus (Gumamela)

Give and take...

For to the bee, a flower is a fountain of life

and to the flower, a bee is a messenger of love

and to both, bee and flower,

the giving and the receiving is a need and an ecstasy.

- Kahlil Gibran

@ mirandablue

Posted for Today's Flowers

Reflections [Everyday Life ATW]

Theme:  Reflections

Sunset at Manila Bay

Posted for Everyday Life ATW

Peace Lily/Today's Flowers #3

Peace Lily

Faith sees a beautiful blossom in a bulb, a lovely garden in a seed, and a giant oak in an acorn.  - William Arthur Ward

Posted for http://flowersfromtoday.blogspot.com

Leftovers

In early June, U and I made a pact that whoever gains more weight after  July will pay for our body massage at The Spa in Bonifacio High Street. We’re weighing in  on Saturday and I’m getting nervous! I don't think I could back out from a birthday dinner tomorrow night, and I’m gaining weight as I type this!

I've been eating nothing but salad, soup, a small portion of pasta or half a sandwich for lunch everyday and I still feel stuffed! I guess as we grow older, it isn’t so much about achieving our ideal weight but eating our favorite food without guilt! I skipped dinner last night, but at 2 am, I opened the fridge---another dead-of-the-night dining extravaganza for me! I ate the leftover coleslaw salad, some queso de bola…I reached for the leftover  cake but stopped myself. I enjoy my late night/early morning binges…everybody’s asleep except me, eating without rules. I like the quiet and comfort of my thoughts. I thought of leftovers, in their less visible form are called memories---stored in the fridge of the mind or in the cupboard of the heart.

A few of mine came up…hearty laughter shared with friends over pizza, the last embers of a bonfire by the beach, the long glance of love (from someone who used to love me) from across a room full of people, a long lost melody of a childhood song---Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, from glen to glen and down the mountain side, that brought me to sleep in my father’s arms, and a chunk of poetry I learned in high school---Tiger, tiger burning bright/in the forests of the night/what immortal hand or eye/dared frame thy fearful symmetry?

I am not often aware that I am happy. But I often remember that I have been happy. Especially on nights when I sit eating leftovers, wrapped in an invisible patchwork quilt made of the best moments I had. I thought of you---where were you at this moment? Or some other people who might be at the same place in their kitchen at this very moment, hungering as I hunger, wondering as I wonder. King Solomon must also had been suffering from a sleep disorder and got hungry at 2 am when he wrote---'Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love...'

 Posted for Nostalgic Marveling hosted by Rose

Yellow Door [Everyday Life ATW]

Theme:  Door

When you follow your bliss...doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else.  - Joseph Campbell

Posted for http://everydaylifeatw.com

Passion Flower/Today's Flowers #2

@ mirandablue

A flower's appeal is in its contradictions - so delicate in form yet strong in fragrance, so small in size yet big in beauty, so short in life yet long on effect.  ~Terri Guillemets

@ mirandablue

Passion Flower at the Carl English, Jr. botanical garden in Seattle.

Posted for Today's Flowers