Visita Iglesia in California, Etc.
Wow, we’ve already been here for three weeks tomorrow! Like they say, how time flies when you’re having fun!
Donna’s out right now having her hair done so I thought I’d kill the time by blogging. After lunch I’m going to go to a much needed visit to our dentist in Norwalk. A patient cancelled out the first time we dropped by at Dr. Pabalan’s so she did Donna right there. Then at around mid-afternoon we’re having our taxes done. No, we didn’t wait for the last minute. This actually was the appointment our accountant gave us. Hopefully our returns wouldn’t take more than a day to do. Otherwise we’ll be in hot water with Uncle Sam since Tuesday is the deadline!
Once all this is over with, we can start planning our road trip. Our friends at Hooter’s in Las Vegas have already sent us an invite and I want to visit our friends and relatives in the Bay Area. After all Donna is about 98% done with her painting. Nido is so thankful that we arrived otherwise, “…we wouldn’t have been able to finish it this quick by ourselves!” He works nights and Emy puts in a lot of hours at her work as well.
Several days ago Daniel won a video game competition held at Cal Poly Pomona. Someone had it videotaped and he’s all over youtube.com now. I’m not sure if he’s come down from his high but I heard he watches it every couple of minutes or so and he wanted his roommates to watch it with him! It was a pretty big deal. Quite a few people bet a lot of money on him and he took in a little bit of cash himself. If you’re interested in watching his matches, check out youtube.com and search for the tag line clockw0rk. Then click on the video “Dark Prince vs Clockw0rk Money Match”. Or you can try clicking on this tag. There’s also a short video where his opponent, the so called Dark Prince, was talking all kinds of trash before the competition. But Daniel kicked his royal butt!!
We’ve already visited Donna’s former work a couple of times, the 2nd time of which is when she put in her job re-app. We found out that the mother of her co-worker and friend Vicky has passed away. Please say a little prayer for her. Last night Donna talked with Kathy, another friend and co-worker, who we once took with us on vacation to the Philippines and Japan. She’s getting married this month! We’ve dropped by Goodrich as well and a couple of days later we had lunch with my former co-workers Deo and Sharon at my favorite Salads 2000. This is a small place that serves strictly salads, some stuffed bake potatoes and maybe soup, that’s it. I always order my favorite, tuna salad.
Since we’ve arrived, Nido and Emy have taken us around to check out the various sushi places in the neighborhood. Of course, to me, they’re all great! Japanese restaurants are a little pricier than most so we had to space them out a bit.
I’ve had a couple of hands-on swings at Eph’s lawn in Long Beach. It’s in a really sorry state but I think it just needed a little TLC, primarily water. My biggest problem was allergies. The day we arrived, they started acting up, even more so when we’re in Long Beach. The first time we got there, I had full blown symptoms: runny nose, itchy eyes, sneeze attacks. So I figured the next time, I’ll have to pop a couple of Benadryls and wear a dust mask. That’s exactly what I did, but when I finished and took off the mask while Eph was locking up, here it comes again!! Their neighborhood is not so different from others. It’s just that they have a lot of huge pines along the sidewalk. I hope I’m not allergic to lawn work in the States as I’ve been doing a lot of it in Greenfields!
This actually was my worst allergic reaction because we had lunch at a nearby Japanese restaurant and I felt the burning sensation in my mouth from the wasabi and soy sauce paste but there was nothing whatsoever in my nasal passages!
We’ve made several phone calls to friends and relatives. I’ve talked with my old friend and Navy buddy Pareng Jess from Hawaii. I learned my godson Jeremy is going to be graduating from nursing in December and Michelle is getting married in November. Speaking of Hawaii, we were also able to get a hold of Dr. Angel Cunanan (Kong Ely) and our Komadre Imee, one of Eph’s ninangs. All of them are inviting us to stop over in Hawaii on our way back to the Philippines.
During Holy Week, Holy Thursday, specifically, Donna said we’ll go to church at 5 p.m. at St. John of God in Norwalk. I took a nap and somehow when I woke up it was already 5 so she said, we’ll just do Visita Iglesia. This is an old Catholic tradition in the Philippines where one visits a minimum of seven churches and pray a little bit in each. Alan’s son Diego (Jegs for short) and his wife Billie were going to drop by to pick up some of the stuff that we brought for them from their folks. So they came at around 8 or so and he introduced his new wife to us. We talked for a bit and it was already past nine when we left for Visita Iglesia. We took Giancarlo with us but Adrienne chose not to go. We needed Giancarlo to show us where the different churches in the neighborhood are located. Our first stop was St. Pius V in Buena Park. When we got there they just barely started mass so we thought we might as well stay. It was a fairly long one especially during the “Washing of the Feet”, all kinds of people participated as opposed to the usual twelve. Next was the church of Beatitudes in La Mirada. Afterwards, we were going to go to St. Paul of the Cross but after a couple of turns, Giancarlo has realized that he’s forgotten where it was so we proceeded to St. Linus in Norwalk instead, then it was St. Pius X in Santa Fe Springs, St. John of God in Norwalk, Holy Family in Artesia and last was St. Dominick Savio in Bellflower. It was already past midnight by the time we got back home.
Somehow the experience wasn’t quite the same as the Philippines. (Check out my blog from Holy Week of 2006.) First and foremost, it was really cold as opposed to the heat and humidity of the season in the Philippines! Then there were the churches themselves. In fact, on most of them, the Blessed Sacrament wasn’t even exposed in the church itself but in the nearby main hall of the church and there was utterly no decoration to speak of as compared to the elaborate retablos of the Philippine churches. But most of all, it was the people. In the Philippines, the roads and streets leading to the churches during Visita Iglesia were just clogged with people walking to and fro which snarls traffic big time! Over here, there’s no traffic whatsoever and there’ll be a handful of cars parked and a few people sitting down in silent prayer.
Good Friday, Rachel had all of her wisdom teeth pulled out. Saturday was the get together with our Kapampangan brotherhood at Kong Paing’s place in Bellflower. The President, Mr. Ernie Turla, from Oregon was in attendance along with friend Ed from LA and Ray Tanjoco, Rolly de Jesus and Pids Rivera from San Diego. It was a pretty fun and productive gathering. Obviously, the main topic was the sorry situation of the Kapampangan language in the Philippines, especially in Pampanga and how to prevent it from future and eventual extinction. And of course we just had to discuss the historical candidacy of Ed Panlilio, a Catholic priest running for Governor in Pampanga in the coming elections next month.
For those of you full blooded Kapampangans, who’re interested, (new members are always welcome, join now!) you may visit our group site at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AmanungSisuan/
If you want to know the history behind his decision to run for Governor, here’s Fr. Ed’s website:
http://www.amonged.org/
..and below is his blog:
http://edpanlilio.blogspot.com/
Easter Sunday, Rachel's parents invited us for dinner at their place in Norwalk. Poor Rachel had to suffer watching us feast on a sumptuous spread prepared by her Mom.
Eph has already opened an account for me at Flickr.com, which will allow me to post pictures in my blog again but I can’t get a signal here for my lap top so I’ll have to post the pictures later when we move to their place in Long Beach. I’m doing all my posts right now at their PC here in La Mirada.
I watched Blood Diamond on our first visit to Pechanga in Temecula, great movie! The first chance I get, I’ll watch Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse. We’ve been renting DVD’s here and there. We’ve seen The Departed, Last King of Scotland, Curse of the Golden Flower, Blood Diamond, The Hills Have Eyes and Smoking Aces, The Good Shepherd, The Prestige. I miss my music room in Greenfields so bad!!
I found out that youtube.com is accessible here on their PC and I’ve been going crazy with it, watching all kinds of stuff: from old Eagles concert video footage to the Beatles’ Let It Be, etc. I can spend lots of time just watching all kinds of short videos. There’s a very funny spoof on Eating Sushi at a Sushi Bar - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc6v8IUe_0g
Then there’s wikipedia.com. Here’s another site where one can practically find any story behind any kind of subject on the surface of the earth. I stayed up till 2 in the morning the other night reading up on the Eagles! So amazingly awesome, COOL!
On Sunday, my cousin Josie and husband Rey are coming from San Diego to pick up the goodies her sister Alma sent with us. Our friend Ed will come as well and we're going to meet and have lunch at a nearby restaurant.
Donna’s out right now having her hair done so I thought I’d kill the time by blogging. After lunch I’m going to go to a much needed visit to our dentist in Norwalk. A patient cancelled out the first time we dropped by at Dr. Pabalan’s so she did Donna right there. Then at around mid-afternoon we’re having our taxes done. No, we didn’t wait for the last minute. This actually was the appointment our accountant gave us. Hopefully our returns wouldn’t take more than a day to do. Otherwise we’ll be in hot water with Uncle Sam since Tuesday is the deadline!
Once all this is over with, we can start planning our road trip. Our friends at Hooter’s in Las Vegas have already sent us an invite and I want to visit our friends and relatives in the Bay Area. After all Donna is about 98% done with her painting. Nido is so thankful that we arrived otherwise, “…we wouldn’t have been able to finish it this quick by ourselves!” He works nights and Emy puts in a lot of hours at her work as well.
Several days ago Daniel won a video game competition held at Cal Poly Pomona. Someone had it videotaped and he’s all over youtube.com now. I’m not sure if he’s come down from his high but I heard he watches it every couple of minutes or so and he wanted his roommates to watch it with him! It was a pretty big deal. Quite a few people bet a lot of money on him and he took in a little bit of cash himself. If you’re interested in watching his matches, check out youtube.com and search for the tag line clockw0rk. Then click on the video “Dark Prince vs Clockw0rk Money Match”. Or you can try clicking on this tag. There’s also a short video where his opponent, the so called Dark Prince, was talking all kinds of trash before the competition. But Daniel kicked his royal butt!!
We’ve already visited Donna’s former work a couple of times, the 2nd time of which is when she put in her job re-app. We found out that the mother of her co-worker and friend Vicky has passed away. Please say a little prayer for her. Last night Donna talked with Kathy, another friend and co-worker, who we once took with us on vacation to the Philippines and Japan. She’s getting married this month! We’ve dropped by Goodrich as well and a couple of days later we had lunch with my former co-workers Deo and Sharon at my favorite Salads 2000. This is a small place that serves strictly salads, some stuffed bake potatoes and maybe soup, that’s it. I always order my favorite, tuna salad.
Since we’ve arrived, Nido and Emy have taken us around to check out the various sushi places in the neighborhood. Of course, to me, they’re all great! Japanese restaurants are a little pricier than most so we had to space them out a bit.
I’ve had a couple of hands-on swings at Eph’s lawn in Long Beach. It’s in a really sorry state but I think it just needed a little TLC, primarily water. My biggest problem was allergies. The day we arrived, they started acting up, even more so when we’re in Long Beach. The first time we got there, I had full blown symptoms: runny nose, itchy eyes, sneeze attacks. So I figured the next time, I’ll have to pop a couple of Benadryls and wear a dust mask. That’s exactly what I did, but when I finished and took off the mask while Eph was locking up, here it comes again!! Their neighborhood is not so different from others. It’s just that they have a lot of huge pines along the sidewalk. I hope I’m not allergic to lawn work in the States as I’ve been doing a lot of it in Greenfields!
This actually was my worst allergic reaction because we had lunch at a nearby Japanese restaurant and I felt the burning sensation in my mouth from the wasabi and soy sauce paste but there was nothing whatsoever in my nasal passages!
We’ve made several phone calls to friends and relatives. I’ve talked with my old friend and Navy buddy Pareng Jess from Hawaii. I learned my godson Jeremy is going to be graduating from nursing in December and Michelle is getting married in November. Speaking of Hawaii, we were also able to get a hold of Dr. Angel Cunanan (Kong Ely) and our Komadre Imee, one of Eph’s ninangs. All of them are inviting us to stop over in Hawaii on our way back to the Philippines.
During Holy Week, Holy Thursday, specifically, Donna said we’ll go to church at 5 p.m. at St. John of God in Norwalk. I took a nap and somehow when I woke up it was already 5 so she said, we’ll just do Visita Iglesia. This is an old Catholic tradition in the Philippines where one visits a minimum of seven churches and pray a little bit in each. Alan’s son Diego (Jegs for short) and his wife Billie were going to drop by to pick up some of the stuff that we brought for them from their folks. So they came at around 8 or so and he introduced his new wife to us. We talked for a bit and it was already past nine when we left for Visita Iglesia. We took Giancarlo with us but Adrienne chose not to go. We needed Giancarlo to show us where the different churches in the neighborhood are located. Our first stop was St. Pius V in Buena Park. When we got there they just barely started mass so we thought we might as well stay. It was a fairly long one especially during the “Washing of the Feet”, all kinds of people participated as opposed to the usual twelve. Next was the church of Beatitudes in La Mirada. Afterwards, we were going to go to St. Paul of the Cross but after a couple of turns, Giancarlo has realized that he’s forgotten where it was so we proceeded to St. Linus in Norwalk instead, then it was St. Pius X in Santa Fe Springs, St. John of God in Norwalk, Holy Family in Artesia and last was St. Dominick Savio in Bellflower. It was already past midnight by the time we got back home.
Somehow the experience wasn’t quite the same as the Philippines. (Check out my blog from Holy Week of 2006.) First and foremost, it was really cold as opposed to the heat and humidity of the season in the Philippines! Then there were the churches themselves. In fact, on most of them, the Blessed Sacrament wasn’t even exposed in the church itself but in the nearby main hall of the church and there was utterly no decoration to speak of as compared to the elaborate retablos of the Philippine churches. But most of all, it was the people. In the Philippines, the roads and streets leading to the churches during Visita Iglesia were just clogged with people walking to and fro which snarls traffic big time! Over here, there’s no traffic whatsoever and there’ll be a handful of cars parked and a few people sitting down in silent prayer.
Good Friday, Rachel had all of her wisdom teeth pulled out. Saturday was the get together with our Kapampangan brotherhood at Kong Paing’s place in Bellflower. The President, Mr. Ernie Turla, from Oregon was in attendance along with friend Ed from LA and Ray Tanjoco, Rolly de Jesus and Pids Rivera from San Diego. It was a pretty fun and productive gathering. Obviously, the main topic was the sorry situation of the Kapampangan language in the Philippines, especially in Pampanga and how to prevent it from future and eventual extinction. And of course we just had to discuss the historical candidacy of Ed Panlilio, a Catholic priest running for Governor in Pampanga in the coming elections next month.
For those of you full blooded Kapampangans, who’re interested, (new members are always welcome, join now!) you may visit our group site at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AmanungSisuan/
If you want to know the history behind his decision to run for Governor, here’s Fr. Ed’s website:
http://www.amonged.org/
..and below is his blog:
http://edpanlilio.blogspot.com/
Easter Sunday, Rachel's parents invited us for dinner at their place in Norwalk. Poor Rachel had to suffer watching us feast on a sumptuous spread prepared by her Mom.
Eph has already opened an account for me at Flickr.com, which will allow me to post pictures in my blog again but I can’t get a signal here for my lap top so I’ll have to post the pictures later when we move to their place in Long Beach. I’m doing all my posts right now at their PC here in La Mirada.
I watched Blood Diamond on our first visit to Pechanga in Temecula, great movie! The first chance I get, I’ll watch Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse. We’ve been renting DVD’s here and there. We’ve seen The Departed, Last King of Scotland, Curse of the Golden Flower, Blood Diamond, The Hills Have Eyes and Smoking Aces, The Good Shepherd, The Prestige. I miss my music room in Greenfields so bad!!
I found out that youtube.com is accessible here on their PC and I’ve been going crazy with it, watching all kinds of stuff: from old Eagles concert video footage to the Beatles’ Let It Be, etc. I can spend lots of time just watching all kinds of short videos. There’s a very funny spoof on Eating Sushi at a Sushi Bar - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc6v8IUe_0g
Then there’s wikipedia.com. Here’s another site where one can practically find any story behind any kind of subject on the surface of the earth. I stayed up till 2 in the morning the other night reading up on the Eagles! So amazingly awesome, COOL!
On Sunday, my cousin Josie and husband Rey are coming from San Diego to pick up the goodies her sister Alma sent with us. Our friend Ed will come as well and we're going to meet and have lunch at a nearby restaurant.
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