32nd Wedding Anniversary

I have to admit, friend and high school buddy Mike Estacio has always been my most consistent nagger about updating my blog.

The following are some of his messages either through text, YM or eMail:

"I guess, there's nothing new yet, it's still on typhoon Frank."

"Nope, nothing this morning yet, it's PHS Graduation Ceremonies."

"Hey, what's going on? I'm tired of seeing Indo's butt all over my screen?"


Let me explain, Mike lives here! He's from Villa Victoria - about 10-15 minutes drive from our place depending on the traffic. So Donna goes, "Why doesn't he just call you on the phone and talk to you and get updates that way?"


Yeah, Mike, why don't you?


On the other hand I have to thank him because he's one of the reasons why I push myself to post my updates...

Before I left for the States last April, I was torn on my schedule but one thing was certain. I was not going to miss our wedding anniversary. Donna's always maintained that annivesaries are more important than birthdays because birthdays will come and go no matter what. Whereas anniversaries are special because each year there's no guarantee you'll still be celebrating it with your spouse. As I've mentioned in my previous blog, I was at a loss on what to give her. When we were in Spain last year and we visited Ronda, she bought this poster of a picture of the place taken in the early 1900's with water flowing in it's now dried up creeks. I thought of having the poster framed for her gift. I arranged it so my niece Jack will pick it up from the frame shop once it's done because I may not have the time to do it myself when I come back from California.



Along the same lines, have I mentioned that I also had a bunch of my digital pictures blown up through COSTCO? We had them framed and they came out GREAT! We even had a quilt framed. It's a gift Rach and Eph received on their wedding last year. It had a silhouette of a bride and groom in the middle. We had one of their wedding pictures printed and had it mounted in that spot instead.

Anyway, back on the Anniversary..

Neither Bishop Bobet nor Apung Sito were available to celebrate mass here at our house so my sister-in-law Gay got a hold of one of her priest friends Fr. Mon Torres to do it on their behalf. He brought with him three choir boys one of which was a keyboard player. Friend Nelia Gonzales did the reading.



After the mass Donna brought out a couple of big bags of those fun sized chocolate bars that we used to give away during Halloween and gave them away to our guests. People went crazy on those goodies, including the priest!


Donna had already contracted cousin-in-law Malou of Fisherman's Grill for the catering. There was all kinds of food. She and her crew came the day before to set up the tables and chairs.


And since it's my birthday, Leda baked and decorated several cakes for me. Aren't I special?? :-)


Donna invited a lot of people. Our high school classmates JASHS Class '70 came. It so happened that Dandy and husband Tan from California were in town on vacation so they made it. Dandy's flight was for that night so they hung out till late. Her flight was at Clark. Joy Pangan came all the way from Manila where she lives nowadays. Dan Garcia came late because he had to tend his grocery business.


Donna's nursing school mates and comadres Didi and Mergine also came along with their families.


Our banking buddies both from BDO Guagua and Sindalan came



and there were also a few of our Greenfields neighbors who made it.



Donna's "school" mates and a bunch of friends and relatives also came along with Mary's sister Ate Lynn and Emy's cousin Kit and her Mom.



I had to visit SFELAPCO the other day to see friend John Andrade. He took a lot of pictures during the event and I picked up the picture CD.

Flickr Rules

As if on cue, Eph renews my Flickr account! Thanks a bunch, Eph!

What a coinkidink!! Now I'd have more pics for my previous blogs - for Lucban, Subic and Capas National Shrine. Check 'em out a bit later, still uploading 'em into Flickr.

Ok, now I've posted the pictures.

Woo Hoo!!

Movies, Karaoke, etc., oh and Donna’s Birthday, Lucban, Monasterio de Tarlac & Subic

I was talking with Donna in the car today on how I seem to have some kind of writer’s block. When I’m anywhere other than in front of the computer, I have all kinds of things I wanted to blog about but once I start surfing the net, they all seem to fly away into oblivion, to some space in blog land! It’s not like I don’t have the time, or I have to sleep early because I have to work the next day! I really can’t explain it, so she suggested by saying, “It’s so hot in the MB2, why don’t you turn on the AC? Perhaps then you’ll be more comfortable and will be more apt to blog.”

So here I am, with the AC’s thermostat set to a nice 73F. So far so good.

We just came back from watching M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening. I think the jury’s still out on this movie. I liked it. It’s weird in a good sort of way. I’ve always admired his style of film making. Yesterday, we watched Will Smith's Hancock - cool special effects, typical July 4th weekend blockbuster. We saw Wanted last week. Now, that’s a good movie. It’s asking for a sequel but I’m not sure since the movie ended the way it did. We’ve also seen Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with a very old Indiana Jones, The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton, good one and a predictable chic movie called Made of Honor which reminded me of My Best Friend’s Wedding.

We try to watch movies on weekdays because the mall can get so crazy on weekends. Here's a shot I took during the previous Holiday season. It's pretty much like this every weekend though.

And then there were those who go to the mall just to cool off. You can hardly find an empty spot in its few benches.

I’ve been watching a few DVD’s in my home theater lately: The Matrix, Forrest Gump and I started watching Desperado last night, didn’t get to finish it because I had to pick up Donna from school. I’ve also been singing Karaoke every so often, when the mood strikes me. As you can see, movies and my home theater is a critical part of my retirement.

Summer is officially over in the Philippines since school started last month but the hot season doesn’t really have anything to do with summer season over here because it's still hot during the rainy season. It rains mostly at night, at least every other night or so. You see, the Philippines is so small that whenever there’s a typhoon anywhere, it rains everywhere else. But during the days, it gets really hot and humid, one of those you’re-not-sure-if-it’s-sweat-or-water-you’re-wiping-off-yourself-after-a-cold-shower kind of days.

When it rains hard enough, the water overflows in the trough around the house so I had our gardeners, Ramiro and his son Michael, take out all of the gravel and put back just enough to cover the bottom. Now, I have about a hundred sacks of gravel that I don't know what to do with!


I've decided to kill off the decorative banana trees from one side of our bahay kubo and replace them with a latundan variety. I have one plant so far and once it grows shoots, I'll replace the ones on the other side with it as well. The latundan banana is one of the most common table banana here in the Philippines.


I’ve gained so much weight I feel I have to walk it off somehow so I make it a point to walk every morning for at least an hour and most of the time during the early evening as well. Indo loves it because I take him during my walks and to give myself a little ‘cardio’ workout, I sometimes run a block or two with him. I can never keep up with his four legs, however. Now, Donna is another matter. She can’t seem to find the motivation to be consistent with her morning walks. This morning after my alarm went off, she was still half asleep when she whispered, “I’ll pass.” For some reason, I dialed her cell by mistake a couple of times. I still don’t know how I did that but it seems to be a blessing in disguise because when she picked it up on the second ring, that finally woke her up so I told her since she’s already awake, she might as well walk with me. So now I know how to wake her up in the mornings!!


We worry about losing weight and stuff sometimes that it seems so shallow while we're witness to all the poverty around us. Working class people literally put their lives in jeopardy all the time bicycling to and from work in the highways. At night, it's always a white knuckle driving experience for me trying to avoid them in the dark. And then there are these guys, carrying all sorts of things, from furnitures to closets/wardrobes, bed frames, etc. hoping to sell them and risking NOT selling them and yet they walk around as if with crosses on their backs.

Doret, our neighbor and walking buddy, and his children got a bad case of dengue. All of them (that’s himself, 3 daughters and a son) got confined except for his oldest daughter. They’re all fine now. When we visited him, his son and daughter at the Mother Theresa of Calcutta Hospital, all of them had a high fever and were shivering. He said it’s really painful. By that time, his daughter who first had it has already been released from the hospital. They suspect she contracted it from Porac. She’s a student nurse and she was on duty in one of the clinics there before she got sick. There were reports of a few people from Porac dying from it. It’s fatal to mostly poor people who can’t afford treatment and hospitalization. One of our neighbors who is a friend of the mayor convinced the city’s health department to spray our subdivision with chemicals to kill the mosquitoes. I saw a lot of dead cockroaches afterwards.

Yesterday was Donna’s birthday. Her niece Len was the first one to greet her by sending her a text message. She also got a call from Mary from Spain, from my cousin Josie from San Diego and eMail messages from Alyce from London and Lits from Rome. Our comadre, Malou from Cerritos left her greeting as a comment in my previous blog, Frank. Mike E. from nearby Villa Victoria sent a belated Ecard after reading my blog about her birthday. Donna finally got to talk with Eph last night. It turned out he, along with Reg and Dan, have been trying to call during the day but couldn't get through somehow.

Reg, tell Manami we miss her!



Last May, Nestor and Glo's son Lester married his fiancee Julie. I was supposed to be one of the sponsors but Eph and Rach went in my behalf.



I found out that in a marriage, especially one as long as ours, it gets to be more difficult each year to find gifts for special occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries. A friend of mine, Ruston Banal Jr. and his girlfriend Rona has started a photography service business, Ronz Darlhynne Design and Photography. Part of the package is an album of the event. But this is not just an album, it’s a book really, not unlike a coffee table book. So I had this idea of having him layout our pictures from our 30th Anniversary wedding in 2006 and make it into the book. Along with it is one blown up picture of us, which he digitally created to appear like a painting. If you check out their website, that's the picture on the top left of the home page. (Note: 12-28-08, Ruston has modified the website a bit so it's changed appearance since) I had the picture framed and I gave that to her Sunday, midnight of July 6. Yesterday she took a few of her school mates to lunch at Gerry’s Grill and that’s when I gave her the book. I had my niece Jack’s friend Remy help me get it gift wrapped at SM. Donna loved it. It had a couple of typos, something that we can live with.


Last Saturday, Leda and her kids along with my father-in-law, had lunch here, sort of Donna’s pre-birthday party. We had crabs, prawns, barbecue, spaghetti and all kinds of dessert. Donna’s nieces Len, Berna and Mike’s wife Ayrin and their children also came. They must have watched at least four and a half movies (3 horror, 1 and a half animated) while Donna and Leda were playing kwaho with Sister Gay dealing. We got to sing Karaoke after they had them interrupt their fifth movie of the day!

I think I've written in one of my previous blogs that one of the perks of retirement is the freedom one suddenly gains. Last week Donna and I woke up and said, "Let's go visit that monastery in Tarlac."
So, we did.

It's called the Shrine of the Risen Christ AKA Monasterio de Tarlac Ecotourism Park. It's located on top of a mountain in San Jose, Tarlac past Capas. We even got to see Barangay Aranguren in Capas, the old place of Capampangan Poet Laureat Renato Alzadon. I think it took us about two and a half hours to get there. We had several stops asking for directions. The roads on the way were good except for a few spots of dirt and/or broken concrete. Past the highway, the scene was rural, a lot of farmlands, rice fields mostly and since there was a lot of rolling hills, the rice fields are similar to the rice terraces of Bontoc, just not as high. The scene got to be so beautiful as we got closer to our destination. But the view on top of the hill was just gorgeous. We got to hear mass when we arrived. The little chapel has a relic of Christ's cross, from Germany, we were told by one of the monks. One thing we learned about the trip - we have to pack lunch next time. There's no restaurant nowhere near the place. They have a small store but all they sell is soda and chips and religious articles.

On the way back, we passed by and visited the Capas National Shrine. This is like the Washington DC's Vietnam Memorial where they have the names of WWII dead carved up into granite walls. It's a really cool place to visit. They even have a boxcar displayed where some of the soldiers of the infamous Bataan Death March were transported.

Towards the end of May, Ate Mila, a sister of one of our comadre Mergine celebrated her 60th birthday. We went along with Mareng Didi and family. The catch? Ate Mila lives in Lucban, Quezon with her German husband who passed away recently. She owns one of the fattest cats I've ever seen. Beautiful place, although it took us almost four hours to get there from Valenzuela. I drove us to Mareng Didi's place where we transferred into their huge Toyata Hi Ace Grandia. Ate Mila's place is very nice. She has all kinds of plants in her very spacious lawn. They prepared quite a lot of food.

They had a lot of guests in Lucban so they didn't have room for us at the house. We ended up staying at a nearby hotel but since they have a whole wedding party checked-in there, we had to stay at the rooms in the hotel attic where they didn't have private restrooms and no air conditioning. Donna and I went to hear mass at nearby Kamay ni Hesus church. There's nothing extraordinary about the church itself but on a hill next to it is a huge statue of Christ and the Virgin Mary and on the way up are the mysteries of the Rosary. We didn't go up because, 1 - it was really hot and 2 - we didn't have time. But we told ourselves like Ahnold said, we'll be back!

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Subic via SCTEx - short for Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway. We took friends and fellow retirees Myrna and Vir with us. The trip took less than an hour through the hills of Clark, Porac and Florida Blanca of Pampanga and on to Bataan and Olongapo. The Clark-Tarlac part of the freeway is not open yet but the one going to Subic has been open to the public for a couple of months, I think. The toll costs P124 one way and there's another P19 charge at the Tipo exit which dumps into Subic itself. Subic is unrecognizable to me from my Navy days of the '70s. We had lunch at the Gerry's Grill by the beach and we bought a few things at the duty free shops.

Incidentally, I won't be able to post any pictures I took of above places because my account with Flickr.com expired and until it gets renewed by Eph, I can no longer upload pictures. So those of you who know him, kindly give him a nudge (or nag) so I get to post pics again.