The tree on the right is the Miracle Tree. If you look closely, you can see the Mama behind the rose bush. The First Husband gave the Mama a package of seeds that a Native American tribe had sent him as part of a fundraising campaign. Mama, always the curious horticulturist, sowed them in her backyard. From those seeds grew the Miracle Tree, which today is more than 20 years old. It would be monstrously huge  if the Mama did not cut it back nearly every year. She can't stand the idea of the branches hovering over the roof or even being near the gutters. No matter how much it gets hacked back in the late fall, its branches are full and ready to provide sufficient shade for the summer heat. During its early years, the Miracle Tree produced a lot of seed pods. Let me repeat: A lot of them. The seeds are flat and shiny and difficult to clean up once they're on the ground. Every year, Miracle Trees sprout some where new in the yard. Most times, the Mama pulls them out. T

Check out other A to Z Challenge participants by clicking here .  I never heard the parents address each other by their names.  They also didn't refer to each other by name when they talked about the other. The Mama would just say lakai which was old man in Ilocano, while the Daddy would say baket for old lady. For many years, I wondered if they even loved each other. When I became curious about how they met, they said they had an arranged marriage. The Daddy said, "Your grandmother said she liked the daughter who lived next door for me. 'Okay,' I told her." The Mama said, "My mother said to marry your daddy. 'He's a good man. You're old. This may be your last chance to marry.'" Both the Mama and the Daddy lost their fathers at a young age. So, it was their mothers who met and discussed the terms of the dowry. Several weeks later, the Mama and the Daddy were married. It was not until I went to the Philippines with the Dad

C heck out other A to Z Challenge participants by clicking here . This post was originally entitled "Talking About Sex with the Mama" and was published on June 18, 2010 on my previous blog, This and That. Here and There. Now, Sometimes Then . Yesterday the mama asked me to explain something she was reading in an AARP flyer. It was a short article about what a woman can do about vaginal dryness so that intercourse isn't so painful. Uh. The mama is a voracious reader. She likes to learn. Both things I didn't know until the husband and I became her roommates several years ago. English is not her primary language, and I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, her English reading comprehension is about a 4, more or less. She doesn't let complicated or unfamiliar words get her down. If she's interested in a story, she plows through it. If she's really interested in what words mean precisely, she asks me. So, she asked me.  Hoo boy.

See the flowers outside. The Mama snips off dead blossoms every few days to make sure the flower bushes are bright and cheery for everyone to look at. And, Molly the Cat makes sure she sniffs them every time she is out there to show her appreciation. Check out other A to Z Challenge participants by clicking here .

Check out other A to Z Challenge participants by clicking here . A few months after the Daddy died, the Mama needed me to uncover the septic tanks in the back yard so that the service guys could come and clear them out. So, one weekend I drove down from San Francisco, where I lived at the time, to do her bidding. The Older and Only Brother lived a few minutes away from her, but she rarely bothered him with such tasks. "He's busy. He has to work on Saturdays. He has a family."  The day of digging was the same day that the Mama went to Reno with the local Filipino club. Her friends had convinced her to go. It would be a good change for her, they told her. I was very relieved that she would not be home. Back then we were always on tense terms. And, if I was doing physical work, it was best to leave me alone. There were two septic tanks in the Mama's backyard. I had no idea. I thought there was only one and I knew where it was. I dug out the tank just like that

The apricot tree had fewer blossoms than last year. "You pruned too much," said the Mama. Sigh. I needed to cut the low branches so I wouldn't get stabbed in the forehead or the Husband wouldn't get poked in the chest as we wandered through the ya rd while following Molly the Cat. I also wanted to clean up the tangle of branches now rathe r than later when it would be too difficult to do. I want to think the Mama understands all that. But, all she can think of right now is that we will have fewer apricots to eat this year . Check out other A to Z Challenge participants by clicking here . " N ext year the tree will have a lot of blossoms , " I said . Sh e didn 't say a word.  We can o nly hope.

A glorious first day of Spring to you, dear Readers. It's overcast with the hope of more rain, rather than just sprinkles, in my neck of the woods today. Having a nice steady, but gentle on the fruit blossoms, beat of rain would be perfect for right now. Yesterday, the Mama sowed her bittermelon seeds in a pot. That means the time for the Husband and me to start preparing the Mama's veggie garden plots is very, very near. If the Mama still had her strength and endurance, everything would've been done a few weeks ago. That's okay though. She has been distracted with transplanting different flowers from elsewhere in her back and front yards to the one particular patch of ground that you see in the photo below. "I want all flowers here," she said."Lots of flowers." It's gonna look amazing.

Garlic cloves all in a row—kinda. The Mama definitely has something-to-plant radar. This morning, I decided to plant the garlic cloves that were sprouting on the kitchen counter. I always wanted to grow garlic, just for the heck of it. Hmmm, I may have inherited the "mad horticulturist" genes from the Mama. Anyway, I put the chosen garlic in a yogurt container (which was probably the clue to the Mama that something was about to be planted) and put the container out on the back step. I would plant them after I picked some lemons. The lemon-picking task quickly created the additional task of pruning the branches that were touching the tops of the apple tree. To the Mama's delight, because that meant she'd have something fun to do in the garden. As I was walking by the Mama at one point of fetching pruning tools, she had this where-is-that-thing-I-wanted? look on her face. I thought it was the empty basket  for the lemons that I was holding, so I gave that t

Last week, I planted my first banana trees. That's another Doing 60 for me. The banana trees are transplants from the Mama's banana grove in another part of the yard. Click here to see where they originally stood. They were the clump on the far left side.  Usually, I dig out the banana trees and leave them for the Mama to replant. No more. Not that the Mama can't do it. But, why let her have all the fun, right? Besides, I need to increase my strength, if I want to keep up with her come veggie gardening time. The Mama supervised the job. I lugged them across the yard, one by one. In the photo, the banana trees look like they weigh nothing. Hah! The Mama marked the spots where she wanted them. And, I dug.  Ping! Rock. Ping! Another rock. Ping! Ping! I enjoyed the challenge of getting the rocks out. It was so much easier than sitting in front of the computer screen and trying to think of a word that would precisely describe what I needed to say in a sentence. P

Molly the Cat aka Molly the Kitty Cat aka Miss Molly by Golly. These days, she's also known as Molly Girl. Last week was her first anniversary with the crew. We, humans, had no idea it would be such a pleasure to have a cat that lives indoors. We hope the sweetie pie is just as happy as we are about living together. Molly Girl plays no favorites. She adores the Husband. He is the one who plays with her before giving her dinner. She likes me because I am the human who mostly takes her outside to wander and offer her a snack at lunch time. And, she cherishes the Mama because this human massages her and gives Molly food to break her fast every morning. The Two Ladies Molly the Cat and Mama are so cute together. After a year, I see similarities between the two ladies. Both are picky eaters. Unless they feel ravenous or truly like the food in front of them, they'll leave just a little less than half on their plate. Will they eat the leftovers the next day? Ha! They l

I am very fortunate that I have met not one, but two gentle men, both of whom I married. Of course, not at the same time. When I met the current husband,  I told him that I didn't date. I went on adventures, but not dates. I rarely dated before the first husband, so why begin then. But, today is not a story of either husband. Instead, my ramble is about the man who would not be my husband. He was the first—and last—man that the Mama and the Daddy dared try to match me with. Yes, I know. So old country. At least, they did not attempt to do an arranged marriage for me.  I was in my late 20s, an old age to still be unmarried, according to the old ways. I lived alone in San Francisco, over 100 miles from the parents, which were two other no-no's for young women. The man in question had a name that some women would think romantic. I thought it was just sappy. Other women would've described him as very dreamy. I saw him as looking superficially slick. One who would have n

When we meet up with friends, they eventually ask about the Mama. They've come to expect a doozy of a response about the tiny, not-so-frail 90ish gardener.  For example, one time I replied:  We were gone 90 minutes to do errands. Only 90 minutes. Do you know what she did while we were away? She whacked off the tops of the banana plants. With her machete. Ba-dum-bump. Tishhhhhh. And then there was the time I got to tell our friends this story. We were gone most of the day. We came home to find that the Mama had pruned the apple tree next to the small shed. "Did you use the ladder?" I asked. "Only my small one," she said. "You'll have to prune the top. I couldn't reach the branches." I looked at the tree. I couldn't figure how she got the middle branches without climbing the taller ladder. "How did you get those middle branches?" "Oh," said the Mama. "I stood on the roof of the shed." Ba-dum-bump. Tis

The theme is still the inability to get started. That is, the brain of my mine.   Plutter... Pletter... Splutttttt... .The sounds that the brain of my mine has been making. So, on Saturday, I tried to jump start the brain of mine by snatching up the camera and going outside. Some of the Mama's roses are in bloom. Take that cold weather, they seem to say. And, yes, the roses, the snapping of photos, the doing of something creative seems to have sparked something in the brain of my mine. Of course, dear readers, I must share with you the Mama's roses. © 2013 Su-sieee! Mac . All rights reserved.

My strategy used to be: Wait until all the leaves have fallen off the trees and then gather them up. Sure, it would be one murder of a day, raking and bagging literally tons of leaves....I say literally because obviously tons of leaves do not fall from less than a dozen trees. Maybe, thousands of leaves, but then I would just say that and not "literally thousands of leaves" because there are thousands of leaves on the ground. Yes, I think people overuse the word literally. Okay, back to leaf-gathering strategies. The Mama's strategy: Pick up leaves every morning. Depending on the season, it may take her less than 30 minutes to several hours before she is satisfied that her garden is neat. The Mama dislikes the sight of leaves on the ground. She actually grumbles and shudders when she passes people's yards that are full of leaves. "If that was mine," she always says. "I wouldn't stand it." The husband or I usually respond, "Look away

Holidays. Here they are. Again. In a few hours, I will get up to make the dressing to stuff the turkey that will roast for several hours so it is ready for our regular mid-afternoon meal. As it roasts, I'll put together a few side dishes—mashed parsnips and potatoes, plain Romano beans, and sauteed red cabbage and persimmons—while the Mama makes the gravy and maybe a pot of rice. I hope she cooks rice. I like the taste of her gravy on rice. I could just eat that.  The annual turkey feast will be for the three of us. No, the four of us. I can't forget Molly The Kitty (T.K.) Cat. She doesn't like turkey though. Spam is more her style. I'm not kidding. I found that out last night.  Holding on to the kitchen counter, Molly stood on her hind legs and gazed intently at me as I sliced the canned delicacy (every now and then, we have a yen for spam with eggs). She'd just eaten her expensive raw food so it wasn't like she was famished. But, she was insistent that

Pain. We take painkillers for the pain. My question is this: Is the pain still there even though we no longer feel it because we're on the painkiller? Okay, another question. How does the painkiller know which particular spot to de-pain? Or, is it just our whole body has become numb? What, still another question? Molly the Cat. She's a bed hogger. Sometimes, by the time I go to bed, Molly is  sleeping in the middle of my side of the bed. She likes to sleep on my side because I drape an extra blanket over me. It's  a fleece blanket. Ah. Just got it. The softness and warmth of fleece must remind her of her Mommy-Cat. Molly likes to knead it into that perfect now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep spot. Doesn't matter if I happen to be under the blankets. The Mama. Two weeks ago, the Mama was in the hospital for dehydration and pneumonia. The bacterial infection had jut begun, but because her body was dehydrated, it couldn't tackle the infection. The Mama had gotten the bug

The Mama may be coming home from the hospital today. The ambulance took her there on Monday afternoon. All of a sudden she could not move her legs or arms, no matter how hard she tried. She had caught the nasty bug that the Husband had been fighting for a few days. On her, it turned into pneumonia. What made it worse was that she was dehydrated. Stay hydrated, folks! Hydration, however, is not what today's post is about. Nope. After two nights alone in her hospital room, the Mama got a "roommate" who has a loving extended family to visit her. The Mama, in contrast, has loving me. The husband is sick so obviously cannot visit and Molly the Cat is not allowed in the hospital. The Mama had forbidden me from telling her friends where she was. Before I go any further, let me say this: I have nothing against visitors in hospital rooms. But, I also expect visitors to act appropriately—such as talk quietly, be considerate of other patients, and recognize that a hospital i

Several days ago, the Mama fell twice as she was watering her vegetables. I didn't see either fall, but fortunately she told me about each one just after it happened. I had gone out to give her a juice drink. It was a hot day and my mission was to keep her hydrated whether she liked it or not.  As I waited for her to gulp her drink (Sipping? No such thing when she's on a task), she mentioned that she was wet because she slipped and fell on top of the beans. If she hadn't said anything, I wouldn't have noticed she was wet. When I looked at the beans, I couldn't tell that anything was wrong. The woman is that light. "Here, let me finish watering," I said, reaching for the hose. "No, I can do it," she said, swerving away from me. After three times of going back and forth, I let it go. After nine years of living with her, I have finally learned to choose my battles. Assured that she hadn't hurt herself, I went back inside to work. Ab

"Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right then it's not the end." That is one of my favorite lines in the  movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel . After doing a Google search to find out the correct wording, I learned that the phrase has been around for quite a while. Who said it initially? Someone named "Unknown" comes up a lot. Who ever you are, thank you! A lot of not-so-cool stuff has happened this past week. And, that phrase has been my mantra. It is keeping me insanely sane. So is having immediate access to the Internet.   There is the work. As some of you know I make my living as a writer. The project I'm currently working on requires me to write on many different topics, of which I'm no expert. Too many topics to research, understand, and write about that I've taken to whimpering just before giving in to sleep that I'll never ever see the glimmer of light on the other side of this tunnel.  "Ever

I'm old. Old. Old. Old. Old. Old. Well, we're both hold. The Husband and me. Oh, he won't like me saying that. But, it is true. We are old. Yet. Yesterday, we pedaled our cruiser bicycles against that defiant wind for several miles to buy three pounds of freshly-picked locally grown, sun-kissed cherries. Very yummy cherries indeed. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about getting older. As wise folks say, "What's the use of complaining?" I'm just stating the fact today to myself, and you happen to be in on it. Still, no matter how old I am, the Mama is older. As many of you know, nothing is going to stop her from doing what she wants to do.  Example: The back yard that is her jungle of a vegetable garden. The better description is the mad scientist's horticultural sandbox. Any day, I expect her to tell me that she tore out all the bean plants and sown new seeds. Why? Because she can't stand that the plants are producing