Manila has been kind 18 Mar 2025, 12:50 am

Going home is always a mixed bag for me. There’s the chance to sate cravings and longings, and there’s the hassle of travel and my love-hate relationship with the nuances of life in Manila. I’m talking about the traffic, and the heat, and the traffic. But when you factor in all the friends and family and the food that see the days fly by so fast, it’s a welcome trade off.

I mailed my first set of postcards heading towards the house in San Juan. My next set will land in New York. Or I can just have the local post office cancel the stamps, which I would have done today, except that I got to the Greenhills post office after it closed. I dropped off my stamped letters and will just deal with the rest tomorrow, if not early next week.

Then it’s back to New York for me, back to my routine, and back to life as I know it.

I have slowed down remarkably with the engagements during this visit. I fully realize that some people might be busy. My fluid schedule doesn’t help at all, but I like the lower stress level of going at it day by day. I keep saying there will always be a next time. That’s how I frame my invitations, and I mean it.

I knew that there was a chance this would be an emotionally heavy visit, but I couldn’t bear to let my mom’s 85th birthday pass with me being 10,000 miles away. I had to make it happen. My health challenges in 2024 have totally changed my views about my own mortality, and has made me more conscious of the uncertainty of tomorrow. I’m not being melodramatic here. There are just some life events that change the lens you look through when you see what may or may not lie ahead.

Of course, the big issue is that not everyone will see “tomorrow” the same way you do. I was just like most everyone else before my health challenges, thinking I have at least two decades more to go. Then it hit me that I don’t have any guarantees I will get that minimum, and then the vista shifted. Why is it that most people only take life more seriously when they are told they have an expiration date? Just because we feel healthy now doesn’t mean that we will always be as spry and fit as we are today. Time will catch up with us and our gait will slow down. So while I’m still able to move about and take the long haul flights, I decided I will go home and celebrate my mother.

It’s still home to me. I walk the malls like a tourist, unfamiliar which end this or that store is in, but once I get it all figured out, I am a local again. I can still commute unaccompanied and blend into the crowd. I can haggle my way through a sale like I wasn’t calculating how many dollars it was equivalent to.

Yes, I will be back. Not soon enough — but knowing there is at least the next time to look forward to makes me smile. Taking it a visit at a time.

The journey home 7 Mar 2025, 11:15 am

I’m on a 2 hour and something layover in Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, en route to Manila, slated to arrive minutes to midnight. Mama is turning 85 on Sunday. While she is the reason I go home every year, the occasion made me come home earlier than usual to coincide with this birthday. I have long been trying to find the right fare to spend Christmas in Manila, but unless I go way earlier or leave way after the New Year, it’s costing me an arm and a leg. Such is the price of trying to be with Mama as much as I can as she is in her twilight years.

I was ambivalent about this entire trip but in the end, I decided I was doing it for me. Nothing would make me happier than celebrating the woman who made me who I am now. No matter how rocky our relationship gets as she gets older and time is starting to whip her body and intellect, she remains to be the mother I’ve cherished all my life. So on Sunday, we celebrate.

I’ve always been big about birthdays. No matter how small or how big a party it may be, I believe in celebrating the person whose natal day is coming to pass. I am not one of those people who don’t like birthdays. No judgment on them for feeling that way. Me, I love to make the person feel special— of course, unless you’re not on my good side. But Mama is on top of my list.

It was not easy making this trip happen but make it happen, I did. I had my niece help us find a place, my brother paid the down payment. My niece, a visual artist, rendered the invitation. A cousin who does balloons is gifting us with a balloon arch, and I rendered the birthday sign. I’m bringing the giveaway chocolate, and my niece is rendering the thank you label. We decided to invite only my mother’s side to make it a more intimate celebration.. we wanted to keep it simple and yet meaningful. Shooting for 50 guests total.

I picked a nice white lace dress and matching shoes for Mama. Her feet are wider now so I played it safe by bringing two pairs she can choose from. I am almost sure she will tell me she doesn’t have a white purse— I don’t get the chance to get her one, but I do remember one of the more recent bags I gifted her was off white.

I was just there last November, after more than a year since the birthday trip this month in 2023. I think I’ll stick to trying to plan around her birthday from here on.

I’m excited.. She has no idea but will have a sense of the party when she sees me walk in the door after midnight Friday. No matter what she says, I’m sure she’ll be happy her baby is home.

All words 5 Mar 2025, 4:27 pm

First of all, if you’re wondering why my graphics are so sparse, it’s because I’m having difficulty transposing my Flickr photos to this platform, mostly because I’m using the phone to write my posts. It’s one of those instances when I can’t help but wish that technology was not so efficient. I just want a browser to open in another browser instead of jumping to the app. Too long a discussion that’s not worth the short time I have to type — so I hope you’ll be patient with my lack of photos. (I will find a way around it, in time.)

I just deleted three posts from February that didn’t quite make it. I tried. So I am trying to be optimistic about finally picking up the writing this March. I have quite a lot planned the next couple of weeks, so I’m challenging myself to write one post a day until this golden girl turns 59 in April. (Even I rolled my eyes on that thought. Ha!)

Life has been so busy lately that even the content creating for my Youtube channel has considerably slowed down. Maybe it’s the impending trip home. Yes, I’m heading back to celebrate Mom’s 85th. There is some ambivalence about that but I finally took the plunge and told myself I’m doing this for me. I would give anything to celebrate her.. not only is it a milestone birthday, but at her age, there’s really no telling if there will be an 86th or what not. As the wise and poetic remind us: “we are not promised tomorrow.” So I will settle for Sunday, March 9.

I hope the weather will be better there. I thought we were heading to warmer weather, and we plunged to freezing again! I have always said I’m one for warmer weather.. no matter how punishing the heat can be back home, it feels better than the cold winter here or the oven-like atmosphere here in the summer.

Like they say, there’s no place like home.

When it’s one of those days.. 16 Jan 2025, 8:58 pm

It’s a very cold day in New York today, the kind of cold that makes you want to just crawl under the covers and hibernate. But work and the world awaits. Even if it’s one of those days when I just want to disappear and hide — I can’t.

My week has been a bit of a challenge with life catching up with me. The good news is, I finally finished the jeans for the son, and he’s thrilled about how it turned out after I did the worn pockets with blanket stitching and sealed the adhesive patching. And last night, I decided a ball and a half of yarn after, that I would redo the cardigan I was working on and change hooks. (Which means a total do over..) Such is the life of a crocheter.

I’ve also managed to resurrect / redo the craft blog, which I’m really proud of. It took some effort, and I’m not totally set on the current theme, but I’ve scrubbed the older posts and started fresh.

I don’t know what it is about the beginning of the year which sort of makes us pause and slow down. Perhaps it’s the world recovering from the frenetic pace of the holidays just ended. I used to make a list of things I hoped to accomplish in lieu of resolutions, but I had stopped that in the more recent years — I think because the pandemic hit. (I can’t even remember the reason why.) I’m seriously thinking of reviving it, so that would mean a “25 for ’25” list. (Jotting this down on the to-do list.) Still considering it.

It’s a different way of looking forward to the year ahead. One thing I am going to try to do is be more intentional with my planning. I used to be so good at keeping up with birthdays and such — but I’ve sadly fallen short the last couple of years. Even with the Christmas cards! I’m all for spontaneity, but there are things that should be scheduled and planned. Like birthday greetings, gifts and celebrations. For starters, I have already marked my days off for my birthday and the son’s, and other relevant dates to give my boss the heads up.

I also want to start counting my correspondence — and not just the postcards I send out as part of my hobby. It would be nice to be able to write more like I used to. I always look forward to the happy mail that lands in my mailbox. Part of the joy of writing is imagining how the recipient actually savors the words as written on an actual card or stationery it arrives in. Because that’s the joy correspondence I receive brings me. In this day and age of electronic mail, I try to savor every piece of snail mail I get from near and far.

I’m hoping to finally write that letter I was hoping to write, and continue with the crochet project. I was almost done with the second ball of yarn when I decided to switch crochet hooks half a size up, meaning I was going to start over. No regrets.. I like the weave better and I think I should’ve followed the recommendation on the label.

Looking forward to sleeping in.. chilling .. and just relaxing.

My Blog Inventory 9 Jan 2025, 7:59 pm

I usually access this space through my phone — through the app — where I draft and edit my posts, and where I try to keep track of whether or not there has been traffic into the site. (Not that it matters.)

I have long forgotten when I started this blog, originally in the now defunct blog.com platform, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I was able to completely import the first iteration of this blog here to WordPress. It’s not easy to go back to the beginning, if only because the blog has almost 3,000 posts. (I am now writing the 2,830th.) Today, I finally found time to visit the dashboard from my desktop and patiently scroll back to the beginning. It took quite a while as the post directory lists the newest posts first, but has no way of reordering what I see to start from where it all began. I had to scroll through the monthly post log until there was nothing more to scroll to. And there it was.

I have to admit that all that scrolling back to the posts of August 2004 blew me away. I would occasionally stop and read a paragraph here and there — or pause when I see a name or a topic — until I got to the first post of August 4th, saying I was joining the blog community.

The truth is, I wanted to sift through my posts to pick 100 of them to self publish, just to tick off one of my goals off the bucket list. Of course, that was until I had to grapple with the reality of having to sift through all the versions of me I put into words here — and picking out that batch from posts going back twenty years. With not a single post chosen, I already knew who I would ask to write the foreword. But then it meant getting a copy of the 100 posts to this friend to read and then give her space to reflect, and then write. (I haven’t seen her in years but we are on each other’s social media feed. I am hoping she will indulge me this favor.)

It was a very different Pinay New Yorker who started writing that August. My now 20-year-old son had just been born. I was still adjusting to my failures as a step mother. I was trying to embrace my new life on this side of the world. Even the way I wrote was definitely a younger me. This inventory is going to be quite the task, but more than that, it will be like revisiting the younger Pinay New Yorker from a lifetime ago.

With over 2,000 posts, it falls upon me to read through what’s been written and make the decision of which ones will see print. Seriously, who would have the patience to to read through all the 2,830 posts that saw the light of day? (As of this writing, there are just 67 drafts — at least 60 of which will likely be trashed.) Yes, there was a time that I was quite prolific. I’m hoping to find the same inspiration again. (“Hoping” being the operative word here.)

There is a specific block of posts falling under the category I’ve called “Lawyer Wannabe” which has had a robust engagement from law student hopefuls. Although that corner of this space has not been updated since 2020, it has been some of the most meaningful posts I penned in the life of this blog. Go and visit and you will see. Nothing compares to the sense of gratitude I feel for having helped someone make a decision to pursue a dream, go through the rigors of law school, and then write me at some later point in time to tell me they passed the Bar, and that they are grateful for the guidance I had given them.

That subject matter brings me to one of the most challenging — and at the same time, most fulfilling — juncture in my life. Those who have kept tabs here know I went to college just to get to law school, started working in my freshman year. Almost got booted due to getting dangerously close to not meeting the quality percentile index requirement, so chose instead to take a leave of absence. Took the Bar as a leap of faith, with no formal review, only self study and the pre-week. And yet, managed to pass the Bar at my first take.

I have come so far since then. I only have to look at my son and see how he has grown to come face to face with the reality of how long the journey has been. And I’m still plodding on.

And now I have decided that the journey entails going back to the beginning, to move forward towards what would probably be my last two decades. I am about to turn 59, and I’m just being realistic. The past year or two has made me look at the future differently. I no longer feel like I’m ages away from the sunset of my life — instead, I am now looking forward to embracing walking towards it, knowing fully well that my time is past the halfway mark.

Many who hear me speak in this vein tell me I’m being morbid. I disagree. I am simply being realistic. I am living in the “now.” I want to be able to live the next two (or maybe if I’m lucky, three) decades, with happiness and contentment. Two gifts which, I have discovered, are a choice and a goal. I’m already on that journey.

And perhaps it is where I’m at in this journey that has now made me look at going back to what I had written, once upon a time. August was followed by December. I am almost doubtful that I didn’t write for three months, but that is what’s there.

I have a ton of reading to do as I try to lay this out in a printable format. I figure I will just delete the posts that “don’t make the cut.” And no, I don’t have a timeline or a deadline, although it would be nice to get this project tied up in a pretty bow by the year’s end. When it does, whatever it is I come up with will be available here.

Fingers crossed.

48 hours into 2025 4 Jan 2025, 4:40 am

And yes, I’m still hopeful. Optimistic. Feeling positive that this will be an even better year.

I have an idea churning in my head which made me check my post archives here. While I thought that 2024 was one of my slower years in writing in this space, I just counted the same number of posts for 2023 — sixteen in all for each. That gave me pause and caused me to forget about the crochet project for now and just start another post — basically to chide myself for the crawling pace.

What gives, Pinay New Yorker?

There’s always that voice that whispers in my ear, dictating the words to write. I hear it when I brush my teeth, as I ride the bus to work, or in the hum of the morning rush as I walk into Grand Central to start another work day. I hear it faintly as my brain tries to wind down as I lay in bed, eyes closed, and I try to get myself to sleep.

So many words have faded away. I have to try harder, I know.

It’s the official start of my work year. I set up some meetings, sent out the invites, and while I’m working remotely this week, I’m actually excited to return to work on Monday. (A smile just crossed my face after I finished typing that sentence.)

I must be getting old or I simply love what I do, so much so that I actually look forward to Mondays. Save for the waking up early part, I actually enjoy getting ready and dressing up to trudge into the city, and get to working on my desk.

First, there’s the weekend. I’m going to make some flan this weekend, and hie off to New Jersey on Sunday to be with some childhood friends.

Laundry finally done, I’m looking forward to two more days of lounging around. Well, one more day. The trek to NJ will need me to start off early, and the trip back will be long. But I am looking forward to the food, the wine and laughter with my high school friends. We have known each other since grade school and moved on after high school.

Such joy.

I am making a mental plan to write one letter and several postcards. I want to restart this mermaid beanie I am making for one of my cherished nieces via a dear friend. I had begun it using a too chunky yarn for the stitch count that defeated the design aesthetic. (I will write my beanie story when it is done!)

I’ve also started patching up one of the son’s jeans. I’ve fixed it up before but there are new rips. Not quite an easy task, but something I enjoy doing for him.

Too short a weekend? nah… It’s been a long weekend since before Christmas. It’s time to get on with life as I usually live it.

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An extended silence broken 2 Jan 2025, 4:14 am

Not for lack of trying, I feel bad that I haven’t been “here” for months. I think this is one of the longest spells I’ve been silent in this space.

A lot has happened in that period and I really don’t know where to begin, and I’m determined to break the spell.

My feet have not been at their best so my forays into Manhattan have been planned and confined to a smaller radius, plotted with the least walking involved. Being driven around has its benefits, and being a city girl has helped me to stick to the plan. I’ve also stayed indoors mostly this past week, affording my feet some much needed rest. That is, until I managed to break a fall, tripping and seeming to have re-injured one of my precious peds. I always say I’m such a klutz —- so much so that I’ve become an expert at breaking a fall is concerned. But enough of my feet.

I’m not going to say how time has flown, because time has been punctuated with a lot of worthwhile experiences for me in 2024, particularly in the latter half of the year. (Pausing to reflect.). My year has been loaded with life changing events, both endings and beginnings, every one of which I am grateful for.

The year just ended — my 58th on this earth, my 24th as a New Yorker — has been a remarkable one, indeed. While I am not planning to write about each experience and meaningful event here in this post, I will try to memorialize them here in the days to come. As always, more for my personal benefit than anything else, so I can savor the gift of each experience.

It wasn’t all a bed of roses throughout. I had to deal with some health challenges, as well as major transitions at work. The thing I am most grateful for, though, is that I emerged from them a better person. I got reaffirmation that I am good at what I do, and I think I’ve managed to continue to be resilient as I moved forward after each challenge. I still need to remind myself that I have to be nice, but for the most part, I think I have succeeded.

Perhaps it’s the process of learning through the years. Life has a way of teaching us to pause before jumping into the fray. Or perhaps it’s simply a lack of energy to wage the wars I used to fight. I say my piece and I hope for the best, and if the answer is a no, I move on and accept it.

I have bright hopes for 2025. Someone asked me how my year has been the first 24 hours, and I replied that 2024 was good— 2025 can only be better.

Happy new year, everyone..

Tomorrow, a day after 4 Sep 2024, 12:24 pm

I remembered my promise to continue writing yesterday, but the day got away from me. I tried not to push too hard as I tried to end my day before 11pm to wind down. So I thought to myself, I will do this “tomorrow”. Here I am..

I’m on my way to work, slouching in a two chair row on the express bus, calculating I should make it to work way ahead of time. I usually walk into the office just before 9am, well after I would’ve started the work day on the bus, checking emails and yes, replying to some. I am trying to calculate how busy a day it will be, and what “me” time I will be able to carve out. Of course it always turns out much busier than I hope it would be, but I’ve been lucky to have been immersed in a “good kind of busy” lately.

It’s a sunny day in New York but the temperatures have started to go down. We’re in jacket weather now— not quite ready for coats yet. The shrubs and trees are still green. And just like that, we’re going to welcome 2025 before you know it.

Isn’t it uncanny how time seems to slip by so quickly. I was just discussing this with a friend over lunch, and reminded her that we have crossed middle age and should look at how we live during the probable time we have left.

I’m 58. I reckon I’d be lucky to live another 30 years the way life expectancy has been getting longer for this generation, but I’m looking optimistically at another 20. While it is not front and center in my daily musings, it’s a thought that makes me pause, every now and then.

Time has a funny way of getting in our face. It’s a thought bubble that lingers and then fades.

The tunnel has been rather slow the past week or so. And we aren’t even in UN week yet! I look at the clock on the upper left hand corner and see that I should have enough time to get to my desk, even as the bus crawls out.

And so starts another work day..

Healing in progress 3 Sep 2024, 3:22 am

You know how I hate it when silence takes over this space. I have been meaning to write more often, and perhaps September is the month that will happen.

It’s been 2 1/2 months now since the surgery and I’m still tender on my right side— some days more than others. The scars are now a dark shade and hopefully fading as the days go. Some days I still have to remind myself I have to take it easy and not carry too much or tug too hard. Let’s just say my body has been reminding me.

Meanwhile, work has been busy in a good but exhausting way. My body welcomes the prospect of sleep as the evening descends upon me and it has happily submitted. Each day has been busy and heavy, but manageable in all respects. There are the usual bumps along the way but I have considered them manageable.

I will write more tomorrow. This golden girl needs her beauty sleep.

Over Sunday Pancakes 4 Aug 2024, 6:50 pm

Please note that PinayNewYorker (moi) might earn commissions if you click on the links in the post below, whether your make a purchase or not.

I don’t know if it’s more for the calories or the time it takes to assemble a pancake breakfast (at least the way I like it), but I consider the quintessential pancake breakfast a treat. Nothing fancy — I use the complete mixes, but I do mix in some grated Parmesan cheese and sometimes just a wee bit of vanilla flavoring. (I’m out of vanilla extract and decided to try this vanilla flavoring I found on Amazon.). I usually do this with either slices of banana or strawberry or both, but I unfortunately, have run out of fruit.

This weekend’s pancake breakfast makes for Sunday brunch, here in my quiet corner, typing away.

I’m trying to make a mental tally of the things that I can do with what’s left of the weekend. Correction: Things I must do, before Monday creeps up on me. I’m actually one of those people who look forward to the start of the week. Perhaps it’s because, like I told my new boss, I love what I do. Despite its challenges and bumps, I can try truly say I like my job. That’s why I am good at it.

I am trying to get my storefront together for Amazon, but this is a side gig that plays second fiddle to a host of other more important undertakings. So I haven’t been able to devote as much time to it as I would’ve wanted, because there are only so many hours in a day. Not to forget that I now have only so much extra energy to expend after a long day at work. And yes, I’ve really been working.

I’m not one of those who have the option or who have opted to do hybrid work — it’s something I have an option to do occasionally, but not regularly. And working from home is not exactly easier — or gives me more time for other tasks — because I’m fully connected and supported in my own home office. It’s a pretty efficient system so I have no excuses not to be able to connect or do the tasks assigned to me.

I’ve decided I will work on some postcards that need prepping and sending. (Yes, I collect postcards. Please go to the “Me” page above to see what PinayNewYorker is about!). Postcards have been a lifelong passion, a hobby I began over 40 years ago when I was just a teen. I’ve become more discerning with my collecting interests, but I have never stopped. In a world where we are all heavily reliant on electronic communications, any form of hard copy correspondence deserves a special place. But that’s for another blog post.

The United States Postal Service recently released the Dungeons and Dragons Stamps and I got this boxed postcard set of Dungeons and Dragons, hoping to make maxicards. The boxed set is actually 2 copies of 50 designs of the various illustrations rendered for this famous game series, and around 5 designs are suitable for maxicards. All in all not a bad buy for a postcard collector like myself.

I’m going to send a set out to the post office that handles special cancellation requests to create my maxicards, and then I will take care of disbursing that to fellow collectors. The ones I’m preparing were from maxicards I had done last year. More on that on another post.

I haven’t quite weaned myself away from the crochet bug and had actually bought a crochet pattern book which turns out to be quite a find. It was a tad difficult to get to that point where I would actually considering buying a book, considering the millions of free resources available online. However, the diagram patterns I favor against word patterns (even if I can read and follow them with the same ease) tended to be incomplete, if not low resolution. I also wanted to have the option to have the full spread and all the information in front of me, which were usually only available for paid patterns. (And I have purchased a few in recent years.)

I ordered a copy of 3D Granny Squares: 100 crochet patterns for pop-up granny squares which arrived in the thick of a thunderstorm, but which, thankfully, was well packaged by Amazon. (!!). I have browsed through the book and I must say I am impressed, given the variety and quality of the patterns offered, in addition to the fact that both diagrams and word patterns were provided. In addition, there are several project suggested. My plan is to actually do the patterns for my craft vlog to help guide other crochet enthusiasts like myself.

I actually have two or three other crochet projects in the works but they would both need a separate post dedicated to that alone. So let’s leave it be for another time, another post.

I hope you all had a nice weekend, and I’m wishing all of us a not so wet week ahead. Rain is forecasted for New York and I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will be the happy kind of rain.