Several days of rains, 13 inches reported by the newspapers. Magically, two days of sunshine and on the day of the party itself, the skies cleared up, a bit chilly, and enough to get folks cozily in conversation.
After all, this party had some excitement built into it. Some friends and relatives have not seen the newborn, #maharlika2023la. A year before #princess2015la turns a decade and she’s in charge of the play outdoors and indoors.
It was a family oriented festival held in a cozy home, equipped with tunnels and miniature balls in a round pool for kids to dryly bathe in. The little ones enjoyed coming in and out.
A fun house for children to slide in and jump up and down and slide down again was a magnet for shrill voices and laughter. Next to it was an automatic photo booth where families and friends and relatives took photos with cowboy hats and sunglasses in different shapes.
Inside was a Boba bar with different kinds of teas: green, passion fruit and more. And on the kitchen counter was an elaborate spread of appetizers and homemade cookies. My daughter, C baked them. Outside, the taqueria was set up. In three hours, 86 folks have eaten, R remarked, “I ate 9 tacos, I should be full.” He bought 4 large pizzas 3 hours later for dinner for 20 more family members and friends lingering to chat and talk stories and plan travel.
All in all, the party was a great success. The hosts must be so exhausted that they will need two days to recuperate.
Several days of rains, 13 inches reported by the newspapers. Magically, two days of sunshine and on the day of the party itself, the skies cleared up, a bit chilly, and enough to get folks cozily in conversation.
After all, this party had some excitement built into it. Some friends and relatives have not seen the newborn, #maharlika2023la. A year before #princess2015la turns a decade and she’s in charge of the play outdoors and indoors.
It was a family oriented festival held in a cozy home, equipped with tunnels and miniature balls in a round pool for kids to dryly bathe in. The little ones enjoyed coming in and out.
A fun house for children to slide in and jump up and down and slide down again was a magnet for shrill voices and laughter. Next to it was an automatic photo booth where families and friends and relatives took photos with cowboy hats and sunglasses in different shapes.
Inside was a Boba bar with different kinds of teas: green, passion fruit and more. And on the kitchen counter was an elaborate spread of appetizers and homemade cookies. My daughter, C baked them. Outside, the taqueria was set up. In three hours, 86 folks have eaten, R remarked, “I ate 9 tacos, I should be full.” He bought 4 large pizzas 3 hours later for dinner for 20 more family members and friends lingering to chat and talk stories and plan travel.
All in all, the party was a great success. The hosts must be so exhausted that they will need two days to recuperate.
Several days of rains, 13 inches reported by the newspapers. Magically, two days of sunshine and on the day of the party itself, the skies cleared up, a bit chilly, and enough to get folks cozily in conversation.
After all, this party had some excitement built into it. Some friends and relatives have not seen the newborn, #maharlika2023la. A year before #princess2015la turns a decade and she’s in charge of the play outdoors and indoors.
It was a family oriented festival held in a cozy home, equipped with tunnels and miniature balls in a round pool for kids to dryly bathe in. The little ones enjoyed coming in and out.
A fun house for children to slide in and jump up and down and slide down again was a magnet for shrill voices and laughter. Next to it was an automatic photo booth where families and friends and relatives took photos with cowboy hats and sunglasses in different shapes.
Inside was a Boba bar with different kinds of teas: green, passion fruit and more. And on the kitchen counter was an elaborate spread of appetizers and homemade cookies. My daughter, C baked them. Outside, the taqueria was set up. In three hours, 86 folks have eaten, R remarked, “I ate 9 tacos, I should be full.” He bought 4 large pizzas 3 hours later for dinner for 20 more family members and friends lingering to chat and talk stories and plan travel.
All in all, the party was a great success. The hosts must be so exhausted that they will need two days to recuperate.
Adorable #maharlika2023la! While having breakfast, a bite of croissant into his mouth, chewed, then put his hands together, signed “more”, so I gave him more. He ate omelette, one whole orange, divided into bite sizes. He also finished his one milk bottle for the day. He needs more solids. He grabbed one of the sticks and hit the gongs. Then, he wanted to be cuddled, so we did. After, he took his shoe and said, “bye.” His mom has been teaching him sign language and it empowers him. He shakes his head to signal “enough.” He comes to me and says, “hi there.” He is now walking with Lolo using his left hand holding onto him. He played with the balance ball and pounded on it. We went for a 20 minute stroller walk. He didn’t quite sleep. So, we cuddled and he grabbed my vitamin container making noise as he shook it. He decided to pound it on my head. I said, “Oh, that hurts.” He immediately gave me kisses. Then, he smiled at me. At a young age, ge shows accountability. I just said no to him opening kitchen cabinets and he listened. So wonderful to give him focused attention, he responds with graciousness. #sweetgrandson #greatdaywithmaharlikala2023
Celebration of the Holy Child, preceded by sinulog, a dance mimicking the river flow, where waters are metaphors for God’s blessings and renewing waters for our soul.
What a beautiful celebration, ending with the message, “We are the Body of Christ.” I thought about that message for a moment, “it means the Lord is in our mind, our lips, and our hearts.”
We had a great homilist, Fr. Paulo Garcia, who started it with a joke, saying, Fr. Rodel said to me:”There goes my Santo Nino.” It elicited a laugh. Fr. Paulo has a short stature, a bit chunky and very approachable. It is like my Santo Nino, which my granddaughter refers to as Baby Jesus.
He continued, “A priest said to his congregation. Read Chapter 17, Mark. The next day, he asked, who read the assignment? Hands went up. But, Mark has 16 chapters only. More laughter. As we laugh more, we sat up straight and listened well.
Today is the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time as the Sunday of the Word of God, where the Lord speaks to us. May the Lord’s words be on my mind, lips and hearts. He reminded us of the prayer we all say with a sign of the cross, before reading the gospel.
Ash Wednesday is Feb 14, he reminds us.
What was the word of the Lord to Jonah? That Jesus is the Word made flesh.
Santo Nino is the Holy Child, where if you look at the statue, the whole world is in His hands, signifying that God’s always present with us.
Truly trust, try to have humility, to have the ordinariness, recall that the Lord chose fishermen who dropped their nets to follow Christ.
Come after me, Jesus said. Come – Jesus is leading…we can only follow if we are humble. I must decrease so Christ can increase. We maybe weak, but trusting the Lord makes us strong.”-Fr. Paulo Garcia
It ended with blessings of all the schoolchildren attending. I felt joyful after the mass.
With excitement, we all rushed to the pop-up vendors selling barbecue, taho, bibingka, and bangus sisig. I loved all these products, it saved me and hubby from cooking dinner.
Thank you Fr. Rodel G.Balagtas for this initiative of cultural celebration of Santo Nino, some Caucasians were actually singing the Tagalog lyrics, they were trying.
Thank you Fr. @Paulo Garcia – you are a great homilist, you leave us with symbols to remember your homily. It all matched up, the sacred holy child to a smaller stature for us to descend into ordariness and allow God to increase more in our lives.
Backstory: I was worshipping at two churches, one a chapel and another at a 100-yo church. I overheard a co-priest say to a fellow priest that the “Filipino priest is making Filipinos worship idols” as he, the culturally incompetent, superior-minded priest, asserted. Little did his ignorance reveal before his lips demeaned the culture of a fellow priest that the “The Santo Niño de Cebú is a Catholic title of the Child Jesus associated with a religious image of the Christ Child[1] widely venerated as miraculous by Filipino Catholics.[2][3] It is the oldest Christian artifact in the Philippines,[4] originally a gift from the Conquistador Ferdinand Magellan to Rajah Humabon (baptized as Carlos) and his wife and chief consort, Hara Humamay (baptized as Juana) on account of their Christian baptism in 1521. The image is the only canonically crowned image of Jesus Christ in the Philippines. [5]”.
Had he been humble enough to research what the Santo Nino was, he would have been enriched by approaching his fellow priest, “Hey, tell me more about the miracles attributed to the Santo Nino. How else is this sacred image Child of Jesus venerated?” That would have solidified their bonds of friendship. -@Prosy Delacruz, 2024.
“Your success in life will be determined largely by your ability to speak, your ability to write, and the quality of your ideas, in that order.”-@Patrick Winston
A week or two before, rains were coming down hard. Photos of ocean waters threatening folks by the beaches in Ventura were in LA Times and on Facebook. Knowing how Ventura was not that far from Santa Barbara, I was conjuring images that our weekend as foodies may not come to be.
But our intention to celebrate Maryjane Southerling Saldana and Mina Layba ‘s birthdays were known to the heavens above. Our prayers were heard, the weather was temperate, cool, blue skies, calm ocean waves. Thank you dear Lord!
It started with a trip to the farmer’s markets, a favorite ritual of MJ and Glenn, as mine to procure quality produce for the family. Santa Barbara is not just any other market, it is the dream market for any chef: best variety of vegetables, sweetest fruits, and a lot more stalls than those offered to us in LA. It was heaven!
A trip to the harbor made me miss my hubby Enrique de la Cruz – this was where we had our lunch for our 44th wedding anniversary. Thank you Rina Bentajado you were on my mind too for taking time to be our day’s tour guide then.
The harbor had lots of action from the lobster and crab fishermen to the uni sellers, meticulously opening red and purple uni with a long line of customers waiting. Uni to those who have not tasted it – it is buttery and smells fresh with even sand from the ocean. So delightful!
More walking steps until Brophy’s opened. We were the first and we got the choice corner seats in this very popular place: Sun behind your back and the bustling activities of men and women moving about, the friendly waitresses and boisterous customers standing literally just feet from us. It was so tight in space that a man has to stand up in the nearby table to make room for a person at our table to exit. Why – food is excellent! From cioppino, fish and chips to mussels with broth of thyme and oregano and everyone seems to be here – no vacant seat at all!
A walk on the Main Street was next to take a photo of what was once a Filipino Community Building, now a Thai restaurant. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Ma’am Sir’s Charles Olalia or a Kuya Lord occupy this space? A dream for the next generation of chefs to consider this, perhaps?
I shared the spot where Rina took me: tea and muffins in the patio of Miramar Rosewood Hotel, owned by Rick Caruso. Cora knew the place and had dinners here. Next thing we knew we were in the building, looking towards the ocean, admiring the well manicured lawns, open in design, and at the center, beach Adirondack chairs for three folks to soak in the sun. Mina treated us to merienda of affogato, cheesecake, apple tart and the restaurant brought two birthday cakes and take home coffee to go. How warm and generous!
Our conversations were on various topics: life, good health, change of pace, businesses, work conferences, and upcoming road trips to visit grandchildren and more planned adventures.
More walking until my cramps took us all to stop. Dear caring Mina bought me bottled water and after taking my multivitamins, bit of stretching, we were ready to go.
More walking….and more stories and before you know it, we were headed for our early dinner at Loquita. But not quite yet. We looked at their fish market where wild and local fishes were sold – fresh filets of salmon, tuna, bass, cod and whole branzinos.
What a beautiful place, with just a few tables occupied at 4pm. By the time we left, the noise had increased, but hardly disturbed us as we were seated in their patio with a gas fireplace. A very beautiful ambiance!
Delightful and flavorful, well seasoned dishes, I will share the photos here and allow you, the readers to guess what these dishes are.
It was a day of leisure and a wholesome full day of good weather, walking, and great food. It was just one of those days wherein you feel so grateful to have the good health and the good company of these warm, wholesome, positive, thoughtful, caring good folks who live lives not just for themselves, but for others, as well: running a business, running a household, part of a government facilitating businesses and government functions, caring for grandchildren, producing events, and running a community newspaper for 33 years.
On the way back, it was a very pleasant ride, windows ajar to let the sea breeze in and the most delightful conversations with Ted Benito and 2024 plans about community building, artistic endeavors, writing, producing, books, and more. It was supposed to be a 2 hour drive, but to me, it felt like 30 minutes as the conversation was upbeat and full of candor and shared observations.
Thank you so much for this day to celebrate two strong, empowered, caring, well-travelled women and the great company of caring friends!-Prosy Delacruz, Jan. 13, 2024
