My Mom’s Green Thumb
In a previous post, I wrote about how my Mom had the greenest thumb around. I’m not kidding when I say that. She can grow anything. Even dead plants come back to life under her care. Dried pieces of tree trunks grow leaves even when they have no roots. She can cut off a branch from any random bush, stick it in the ground and it will grow. Back when I was I kid, I remember that she had numerous planters sprouting all sorts of flora all over the house. There were beautiful pots, old ice cream cans, old milk cans, anything you can plant on, she planted.
Lately she’s been into growing Gumamela flowers and calamansi. Proof of her prowess is what I call the OA Calamansi because it has been producing fruits non-stop in the last year.
And she’s been practicing organic farming with this tree…only compost (from the village Eco-Center) and water. True to form, with the amount of fruit the calamansi has been producing, my Mom has not bought a singearle calamansi since last year. And this doesn’t count my occasional kupit when she’s not looking.
My Mama’s Garden
If there is one thing that I inherited from my Mom, it is the love of gardening. Although our taste in plants run in different, she has a taste for decorative flora while I prefer the edible kind, we sometimes meet in the middle. We both love flowers. We love planting them. My first experience with planting flowers was when she bought me seeds for petunias and zinnias. She gave me several pots and made me plant those seeds and had me place them on top of the “defunct” barbecue pit in our old house. This experiment proved to be the birth of my green thumb. My petunias bloomed profusely. But my green thumb could not match my Mom’s. She is know to literally stick a dead twig in the ground and it will grow. Dead driftwoods (anchors for her orchids) have come to life under her care. And even my husband (then boyfriend) would bring to her his half-dead house plants for her to rescue. Which she did, by the way.
But this isn’t about my green thumb or my Mom’s green thumb. This also isn’t about our shared love for flowers.
This is about what I found in the trash…again.
The story begins with me going to my Mom’s house to pick up “paper” for shredding which would go to Adi’s “paper drive” in school. As I was going through the pile, I chanced upon a sheet of yellow pad paper that had a masterpiece neatly written on it.
The piece was written by my Mom. Yes, she writes too and has in fact expressed her desire to go back to writing.
It’s a pretty lengthy piece. I have to commend my Mom for being so diligent in handwriting it. I can’t, for the love of me, imagine writing a piece today unless I do it on the computer.
My Mom’s masterpiece goes live tomorrow…in another post.
The Beauty of a Vintage Terno
This is a story about how I found myself falling in love with the old terno all over again.
A few weeks ago I had the good fortune of being invited to a ball. Yes, a ball. The kind that you have to dress up for.
Other than prom, this was the first time I needed to “prettify” myself for a party. Not counting my wedding, of course. But I’ve never had to don a gown for a party in a looooooooooong time.
Just like any girl, I was excited to go. I wanted to dress up. I wanted to lose weight. I wanted to call my make-up slash hair stylist right away to make an appointment. I was in a frenzy, obviously. And my biggest problem, I didn’t have anything to wear.
For someone who hasn’t been to a chichi party in a long time, my wardrobe just wasn’t ready for this onslaught. I didn’t want to spend on a designer made gown. Heck, I can’t even afford it..hahahaha!!!
Then I remembered, my late great Lola had a stash of around 2 dozen terno’s just lying around in her old cabinet. The very next day, I was at the old house rummaging through a sea of old terno’s. I was marvelling at the exquisite detail that my Lola’s seamstress put into each piece. I was running through old memories of my Lola in her terno complete with a stiff “alampay” that was meticulously folded and pinned on to her shoulders.
Then it dawned on me, I can’t bear to alter these at the drop of a hat. These dresses needed the careful eye of a good seamstress to bring them back to their old glory. Never mind that some of them had holes left by some nasty moths, they were still beautiful dresses. Read more
A Painful Discovery
Sometime last month, my 72-year old mother asked me to accompany her to an eye specialist to have her eyes checked. Apparently, she was having a bit of blurred vision on her left side. We’ve been trying to convince her for the longest time to get Lasik surgery done on her eyes so she could see better. Up until last month, she was hesitant saying that she wasn’t having any trouble at all.
As I was saying, she asked to see an eye doctor for a check up. I brought her and they did a routine check. But her check up came out ok. For a 72-year old, she had small cataracts and did not require surgery. She only needed new glasses. Then what happened next frightened me.
The eye doctor suggested we go see a neurologist because he suspected that my moth er had a mild stroke.
Fast forward to a yesterday. After a series of tests involving MRI’s, carotid scans, ekg machines, and halters…it was determined that my Mom had partially clogged carotids and had a mild stroke on the right side of her brain.
To say that I was in a state of panic is an understatement. Maybe it didn’t seem obvious but I was shit-scared. I wanted my Mom to be ok. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. I lost my dad prematurely 5 years ago. I don’t want that to happen to my Mom…not now…not yet.
Luckily, her doctors agreed that her condition did not require any form of surgery. Just some lifestyle changes. No more smoking. Less stress. Medications. And no more daredevil driving of her golf cart “Lola Machine.”
She seems to be taking it well, to be honest. I’m glad she’s ok. And I’m determined to help her be ok..no matter what.
Beating The Flu Bug
We just got our flu shots yesterday…and when I say “we” I mean myself, the hubs and the kids. All of us vaccinated for flu and AH1N1.
This is the first time that we did this together as a family. Previously it was only the kids who would get shots. Then for the last 2 years I started getting vaccinated as well. And this year is the first year that the hubby got it. Actually, my husband was hesitant at first. Truth be told, he doesn’t like needles. He would rather get a colon cleanse than a shot. But after some convincing, he relented.
Until the next virus comes along….we’re pretty much covered.
