I used to endure bad asthma attacks and emergency hospitalizations at Kaiser. At that time, Kaiser prescribed ProAir and Albuterol, which fight against each other, and the victim is me, gasping for air from uncontrolled asthma. It worsened as I experienced the stress and traumas of a highly toxic workplace in a state agency.
My husband got assigned, years later, in our retirement, to do a post-doctoral teaching sponsored by Fullbright in Leyte. We took a trip to Baybay, Leyte, his next research seminar assignment. I also was doing an all-day seminar on ‘Ethics, Spirituality of a Quality-Conscious Professional.” I had an asthma attack coupled with allergies and bronchitis. I was gasping for air with every sentence I uttered.
My husband suggested I reschedule, but I pushed through, knowing folks were travelling from faraway campuses of Tolosa and more. I completed the seminar. At the end of the seminar, this academic personnel was so motivated, and I asked for volunteers to share: one said she would make love to her husband more and folks laughed, while another said I would wake up to my life and pursue my doctorate.
When we returned to our condotel, I couldn’t change clothes. This was when my husband said; I am taking you to an emergency. By the time the ambulance came, it was an hour later, as they had to find a working battery for their hospital ambulance. Being the journalist I am, I wrote a full-page newspaper story in Taliba; my editor then was Suzan Rosal, and that story was leveraged to get more funding for the infirmary.
A good doctor, Elwin Jay Yu, conscientiously researched what meds to give me. His service was impeccably professional and first-class quality care, even though his third-world surroundings of an infirmary had worn-out sofa springs, torn upholstery cover, leaking plumbing in the toilet, and termite-infested ceiling rafts.
He got me back to normal so that I could breathe again and braved dawn morning masses for Simbang Gabi in Tacloban, Leyte, a week later.
When I returned to the US, my husband put me into a regimen of juicing fruits and vegetables. I did not like it as it seemed I lived to see the bathroom all the time. I didn’t understand the concept of cleansing my body from the insides. That was in 2008.
I went back years later to visit and the infirmary was upgraded to Level 1 hospital.
During the 2020 peak of the Coronavirus, Dr. Yu immediately imposed quarantine and, with proactive university authorities, decided to keep the students in campus dorms safe and safer. Now they are vaccinating them.
Fast forward to 2021. I am now juicing 2 cups wild blueberries, 2 cups apples, and 2 cups spinach, my anti-inflammatory drink, each morning. I have only been doing this juice this year.
Today, knock on wood, I have more healthy days than sick days and no emergency hospitalizations.
This year, we were fortunate to drive 3,677 miles and visited five national parks: Great Basin, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Capitol Reef, and my all-time favorite now out of 29 national parks we have visited, Glacier National Park.
Still with all these, I had allergies in May, that led to uncontrolled asthma. Kaiser, this time, through their asthma and allergy clinic, prescribed the right meds for me: same inhalers, of Flovent and Serevent, the equivalent to the Swiss drugs prescribed by Dr. Yu, and allergy meds for the evening.
Thanks to Kaiser’s Dr. Joyce Lee, VSU’s hospital’s Dr. Elwin Jay Lu, and my juicing blueberries, which keep my asthma under control for me to keep living to the maximum.
My lesson: To not settle for hospitalizations, that I am more than my asthma!
We laughed so much, enjoyed the performers, enjoyed our picnic and socializing limited to hi and poses with community friends: Denise Dador, Ishmael and Deena Ileto, Chris Navarro, Annie and Ed Nepomuceno, Rachel and Paul Estuar, John Mina and partner Scott Burrus, Glenn Picardal Dabatos and Mary Jane Southerling Saldana, Lina Paredes. Thank you for your special friendship Ana Burog and Padsy Padre – the best folks to enjoy a concert, as they sing with the tunes they know. Thanks Ana for these photos.
Two decades ago, I watched Ted Benito act in a Filipino Cultural Night at UCLA aka PCN. We regularly took our 2 teenagers then to expose them to Filipino culture, year after year. I recall yelling bravos. The back story then was Ted had a hand in the script, as well as acting about the heroes of our own Filipino history in the Philippines and in California.
Fast forward to Aug.29, 2021, Ted is the uber- talented producer and impresario of Pinoy excellent stars onstage. You couldn’t say one star was better than the other. They simply shined their brightest at the Ford Amphitheater, where they brought their best selves to perform and where sound engineering is at its best to showcase their talents. One might improve though in how to spotlight the stage so we can see the performers well, not drowning in light as to bleach their brown faces.
These artists brought gifts from their warm hearts, taking cue from Ted Benito’s sterling, pure intentions, who gave his mighty 200% to give the community a lineup like no other and to allow these artists to perform on a mainstream venue with 1,200 capacity.
I admit I had no idea how comedians and dancers would co-exist with rappers and original composers, arrangers and musicians. But, Ted had a crystal clear vision of highlighting the theme of Pinoy excellence – unabashed, bold, fearless and performed like they owned every plank of that stage.
My descriptors will not do justice as to how they were all brilliant, but I will try.
From the opening act of Erik Esteban who spoke of his experience of being moved by Luis Alejo, a state legislator then who brought a state resolution to apologize for the discrimination and hatred by white folks towards Filipinos, he made us remember but also laugh that laws were passed to legislate against Filipinos’ sexiness, that we are often mistaken for Mexicans or Bangla Deshi, not for who we truly are.
And when JR de Guzman, Lila Hart and Rex Navarrette got into their acts, these comedians got us roaring, belly aching in laughter, that I had to reach for my asthma inhalers as literally, every sound, every walk, every word their jokes worked and got us laughing. Of course, the OG comedian of 30 years, Rex, whose first encounter for me was at FilAmArts, was his usual, masterfully done. He gets the crown of comedy king.
There were many gifts to speak of: original compositions debuted on this stage, the rapping of Ruby Ibarra in multiple languages – a rapping that is so seamless that she hardly pauses; an unexpected duet of the very versatile AJ Rafael with his beautiful fiancee Alyssa Navarro, who came out in bright orange dress, so visibly attired to take part onstage, singing pitch perfect Disney songs; the beautiful Tagalog song sung by Jules Aurora, VJ’s rendition of an original and the harmony of Bruno Mars song sung by Jules Aurora, AJ Rafael and VJ Rosales.
AJ shared he reached 1,000,000 youtube followers after 14 years. While he was the host, he also accompanied the performers onstage with his band.
I loved that AJ was so authentic that when he couldn’t reach a high note, he asked to retry again and he did, successfully. Alyssa Navarro, a non-professional singer sang pitch perfect notes and you wonder she really is not singing fulltime and why not?
But when Apl.de.ap was closing the night’s excellent display of stars, one is reminded that while the Milky Way is lighted up by the trail of luminescent stars, there is that unmistakable brilliance, there is that lone bright star whose shimmer gets our attention captured, Apl.de.ap. Perhaps his radiance comes from building classrooms, donating retinal eye equipment to operate on pediatric blindness and his continuous granting of college scholarships to help raise scholars and their families out of poverty?
The audience looked to him for every word and note he sang as he performed with his newly discovered star, Reiza from Laguna, mentored by him on Voice Philippines.
When the closing song, ‘I am Filipino, Bebot, Bebot’, Apl.de.ap was joined in by all the artists who performed, while most of the crowd stood up to join in and clapped not just with their hands, but danced those few moments we all felt free. We were all free and moved by excellence onstage.
Yes, free to enjoy the heartfelt gift to the community by Ted Benito and this lineup of artists who gave their best selves to perform with excellence.
When 9 of us got inside the elevator, I boldly asked folks: “How did you like the program tonight?” A tall woman with curly hair spoke up and said, “I loved it. I am Filipino too, half Pinay, half Black and with a finger pointing to the back, “That’s my mother.”
She felt proud, so did we!
It was a night we all felt proud to call ourselves Filipino, as we all were with these brilliant, shining stars who performed seamlessly and mostly, flawlessly. Thank you po, Maraming Salamat sa inyong lahat!-@Prosy Delacruz, Aug. 29, 2021
Thank you so much to everyone. Yesterday, when my daughter came by for dinner and another community-based entrepreneur/adopted daughter stopped by plus delivery of the most beautiful red Rose’s from Hydee Pichai and Dev Pichai it felt like heaven opened its doors of blessings for me.
But then, my beautiful daughter asked that her 6 yo daughter spend the afternoon with us plus dinner and bath. Who in their right mind would say no to that gift from the heavens? Then, capped by just admiring the ocean and listening to my granddaughter share her observations, it feels another blessing.
Then, capped by reflections by my beautiful soulful Republican attorney friend who is blind but sees golden hearts in people, we spent half an hour dissecting what is phenomenal about his blind triplets and himself.
I said, ” Ollie Cantos you see the world as an infinite horizon of possibilities and gifts. I truly love you my friend!”
Thank you all, it was more than the half a hundred Facebook, messenger and IG greetings, texts, but they came from a Bishop, three priests, seven entrepreneurs, a banker, three musicians, 2 chefs, a baker, a haute couture entrepreneur, several journalists and a writers, two publishers, and mothers, sisters, sons and all, and warm hugs and time and attention from family, I hit the jackpot in 2021!
I am surrounded literally with love with towering ensaymadas, bibingkas, cassava brulee, pandesal, suman, food for the gods and a case of Manila mangoes. Hubby said “She made it out like a bandit.”
More like, family, friends have made my birthday day and days before like heaven on earth. Thank you so much to be the recipient of so much love from Japan, Philippines, Washington, DC, New York, Flo rye Idaho, West Covina, San Fernando Valley, Glendale, and Los Angeles.
Muchas Gracias and the best part, my granddaughter sang Happy birthday in 3 languages: English, Spanish and Tagalog.
There’s never a dull moment with our Padre de familia Enrique de la Cruz we love you and appreciate what you do for us all, but most importantly being a supercool playmate of #princess2015la, a summiter of mountains with our children, the organic composting gardener and juicing man for the family and community, the bicycle builder from scratch and repairer, once our auto mechanic to 5 old Peugeots, whose car parts got traded for a functioning white Peugeot that saw 120 miles daily for a friend’s job to Palmdale and back.
He is the fisherman of yellowtail, snapper, bass, barracuda and we ate fresh sashimi decades before Japanese food got popularized.
He took us to Baja California and where we camped, 8 hours beyond San Diego into Mexico, in the late 70’s and 80’s to eat freshly harvested oysters, clams, lobsters and caught halibut, of course paired with cerveza, Corona brand.
I don’t think there’s anything he cannot repair nor bring back to life, he is the original recycler, reuser of vintage stuff, collector of vinyl records, and movement for civil rights organizer, educator, sustainer and donor.
Happy Father’s Day, 2021, Enrique! We survived the #CoronaVirus pandemic and even got to visit New York 2021. We treasure you in our family. Keep making us believe you are aging backwards because of your biking, walking, juicing and eating salads and kimchi daily.
For decades, standing up for truth, social justice and diversity requires role models to fuel constancy of mission and substantive mission-focused actions.
You watch folks, how they respond for years to issues like Bill Lanh Lee, former Assistant US Attorney General; now CA Attorney General Rob Bonta; your own family and friends-my husband, my dad who all fought for the marginalized; my friends like Jorge Emmanuel- the very first environmentalist who introduced the concept of electric cars at least 2 1/2 decades ago; Abe Ignacio whose archival collection gave birth to the Forbidden Book cataloguing the images of the media from 1800s to 1910 – illustrating how Filipinos were ridiculed, demeaned and compared to savages, monkeys and more – supremacy in America and white supremacy fueling racism, with some Blacks too.
Blacks are my role models for how they respond to challenges with grit and determination, just like Barack Obama and now, VP Harris and our 46th US President who is a steady, inspiring, pragmatic, unifying leader.
Don Nakanishi, who at UCLA mentored academics, including myself, a non – academic, wife to an academic nurtured potentials of all ethnicities. I miss coming to him and in turn, he gives you a strategic plan of action.
One day, at lunch, he shared me a list of potential Master’s and PhD graduates but have not, all Pinoys and Pinays. I volunteered to follow up, took responsibility for 3 folks whom I will follow up with.
Happy to report to you, Don Nakanishi may his soul rest in peace, two finished their doctorates, are teaching while another is about to finish writing her dissertation. We all have blockages and sometimes, sitting down with them to figure out that personal barriers are temporary: death, cultural gaps, diminished self confidence and even sexual assault. Pay attention to them, but keep their confidences!
My son is also a sensitive caring person – he referred two of his peers, I sat down with them, and like Don, listened for hours and gave them a challenge. One is now a tech entrepreneur and author of at least two books and even founded an organization of techies. It doesn’t take much to listen – only a courageous, open heart that can see potentials, not judgment.
Another is the generous, caring community of musicians who are so generous and positively harvest goodness and generosity.
I am also inspired by my #princess2015la who has the right attitude of knowing who she is – loved, living, smart, kind and compassionate. She draws and creates and works with nature, an influence from her grandpa and her parents.
Congress, let’s move with President @Joe Biden! We need jobs, jobs, jobs and blue collar job training and development in community colleges. Let’s move America forward towards the light!
