“World peace.” Has any pageant contestant who answered that ever won a title, particularly a national or world one? Could that be why it hasn’t ever been achieved?  Cutting out hearts from paper and fabric helps me find zen, I discovered today. No questions asked, not by me. Wow, am I really not going to analyze why this is?  Ha, I finally understand my friend who said to me, “You make a federal case out of everything.” I was 10 or 11 at the time, I thought that was a bad thing. I’m still impressed that KT knew the term. Perhaps it came with the territory of having lived in another state and having a fire chief for a dad.   I don’t know. I could use that incident to spin a make-believe story about a first generation American kid growing up with two cultures, if I had the ambition. Who knows, maybe cutting hearts may help me find a steady spark of passion to wake up the ambition. Unlike last time, I’m letting you dear readers know that I’m meandering away from the blog for the rest of t

This is the first in my series of food and flavor memories.  Every so often, the Husband and I get a yen for fried chicken, usually when we’re out and about doing errands around town. Depending on which side of town we happen to be, we’ll stop in at the Lucky’s or Safeway’s deli for fried chicken legs and thighs, which aren’t too salty, greasy, or mostly batter. (Did you know that both supermarket chains are owned by the same company? That surprised me, too.)  Yummy fried chicken.  The best ever fried chicken that I’ve eaten was cooked by Daddy all those many years ago. He got an occasional yen for fried chicken, too.  First he’d butcher a chicken into 10 pieces. Whack, whack, easy peasy.  Next he gently shook the pieces in a paper bag with the right amount of flour, salt, and black pepper, and then he placed them in the right amount of fat heated at the right temperature in Mama’s  revered   Revere pot. Daddy didn’t use a thermometer.  He also didn’t crowd the pot. He fried one side o

I shall make a list, to check twice, sometime today. Any tasks undone by the end of the week makes me not naughty or nice.   The weather experts say our area is in for four days, more or less, of rain. Whoot, whoot! That means doing indoor stuff. I need to bring the outdoor carpets inside or drape them in such a way, the rain washes them. Methinks the latter. This morning we treated ourselves to a trip to the cafe for cups of mocha and artisanal pastries. What’s an artisanal pastry you ask? A flaky, robust almond croissant, for example, coated with toasted almonds and tasting of quality ingredients worthwhile of it being six dollars. I’m getting better at not flinching at the cost of treats.  “Baby, it’s cold outside,” the ants are singing as they single-file prance their way into the house. I caught them twice invading the tropical plants by the sliding door window.    So far the ants have laughed at the lavender and rosemary sprigs, the vinegar wash, the spray of citrus-scented house

I enjoy raking autumn leaves. Love it, to be precise. I like the rustle of the leaves, the scraping of the rake, the scrunching beneath my feet, and the crinkling as I shove them into a box or bag. I don’t rake up all the leaves. I’m not Mama, I tell the Husband. She had raked and picked up leaves nearly every day that she lived in her house, about 28 years. I’ve seen her pull drying leaves off the fruit trees. Be ahead of the game, I suppose. She would definitely shudder if she saw how unkempt both the front and back yards are.  Leaves, leaves, hello, leaves. Yep, I was that kid who loved to stomp through leaves.  P.S. Here are a couple of stories about Mama and l-e-a-v-e-s. Mama and the Leaves   Don’t Take My Picture  

Happy Birthday to meeeee!  I’ve written this post on Sunday. (How strange it is to write this post, which I’ll publish in the future, in past tense rather than present tense.) And now I lost my thread of thought because that parenthetical thought took a while to get the words in order. Only thing I can do then is to sing it again and sing it louder. Happy Birthday to meeee!  Seventy years ago, Big Baby me was born . Whoot! Whoot! Whoot!

Here are some of the highlights of my 69th adventure around Apo Init, aka El Sol, aka The Sun. For the wanna-knows, the first language in that sentence is Ilocano, the second, in Spanish, and the last, English, the  three languages with which I’m familiar (Spanish, a little bit, and Ilocano in memory). Without further distractions. . . . 1. Knee-haw! Sing, my left knee joint, was renewed with titanium and plastic parts. The 14th of December will mark the prosthesis’ first anniversary. The first step I took after surgery told me I made the right decision to trust Dr. G to open up my leg, saw off the bad parts, insert a new prosthesis, and close up the incision. Did I have to get so graphic?  2. For sale. Good friend L and I held two yard sales to sell our mothers’ collections of stuff. I’m already thinking about what to do differently for our next yard sale. This last one, which was on Saturday, for example, I got artsy-fartsy with the signs, one of which someone either stole or destr

Lately, I’ve been wandering around the house looking for my prescription reading glasses. I have two pairs, the red ones still yet to be found. Until 2020, I had worn eyeglasses, or contacts, for 50-some years to correct my nearsightedness. That year, the first year of the Covid pandemic, I had cataract surgery in both eyes. The clarity, sharpness, and colors of nature, as well as being able to see words, things, and views far away that I could suddenly see after each surgery was delightfully amazing. The downside was I could no longer see the finer things like tiny letters up close. I can live with that.   Blurriness began in third grade for me. I thought it was normal to see wiggling letters on the blackboard. In fifth grade, the annual school eye exam showed I wasn’t seeing normally, so off to Daddy’s eye doctor Daddy took me. Dr. Green was his name. A nice old man with white hair, smelling crisp and sharp like his white medical top. His examination room was interestingly odd with