The Convivial Gist

Travelling... leaving home for an exotic and unfamiliar locale surely evokes excitement. When I was growing up in the sleepy barrio in the Southern Luzon in the Philippines, I am always wondering what lies beyond the mountains and the seas that enclosed my little world. But this notion was in between my preoccupation of trying to get ahead with the childhood game of tumbang preso so that I won't end up being labeled as bagoong (salted paste made from shrimps and small fish). Later on in life, I developed an insatiable itch for discovering what lies further the confines of my abode. I considered those travels as one most important chapter of my adult life. These are experiences and memories that like education, are always portable and it goes with you all the time. I was wondering why to some people, travelling is such a daunting task, an interruption to their prosaic life. As if, they are about to leave their cocoon, that stepping outside their comfort zone is akin to doing ...

The time of  yuletide season is in our doorstep. The Christian world and other believers of Christmas will be in state of perpetual  tizzy.  Credit cards bloodletting will soon commence and the lists of gifts for loved and not so loved ones are like albatross hanging on every psyche of the gift givers. In this days of austerity, some people  are either mortgaged induced homeless or redundant/downsized casualties, be smart on gift giving.  I am not sure if I can practice what I am ranting in this blog  about gift giving but I am not buying any Christmas decor this year.  I would rehash, rework, recycle, reposition or any verb or word that has re as a prefix on it, all my existing yuletide ornaments. I will probably paint my much loved and much spoiled cat Pinay, Grinch green as part of my mobile noel decoration. I even contemplated deleting people from my fabled Xmas cards lists to save...

I am a tropical person, so much so that I dread the onset of cold weather here in the Midwest.  It makes  me lazy going out of my temperature controlled abode for it means putting on five to ten pounds of clothing. Shrink wrapping your body is no fun but getting pneumonia ain't no picnic either. When you used to live in a country which  is within the blistering range of the equatorial sun, any precipitations in the temperate zones sounds so nice and fuzzy. After living here for almost 6 years, I wish my sisters in the Philippines can send me barrels and barrels of sweltering sunshine to keep me warm on cold blustery winter time.  So its time to fandangle my winter caps. Last summer, I picked up a fleece cap and beanie cap. It was  the best time to buy these for the prices were outrageously cheap. The hats are kinda plain , a little bit of tweaking are needed so here's what I came up. Yellow fleece cap with felt flower pin....

Vertically challenged we the Filipinos are, yet we love the sport of basketball where height is definitely a might.  Growing up with my older brother in one television household,  my chances of watching my favorite shows were remote as me winning jueteng (local numbers game) when the pro basketball season was on. Boxing is another sport that Filipinos have affectation for.  I think we have better chances to succeed  in this sport, we have the physical built and mental toughness to survive in the pugilist arena.   Interestingly, a nephew of my husband, Manuel Mora recently published his book , Stanley Ketchel  A Life of Triumph and Prophecy , and it's out in the market.  It's an engaging story of an American boxer, I had read the rough draft of the book and I am pretty adamant that this will be a  good read. Check out the book especially if you are a boxing aficionado or just to learn the life of an unsung American Boxer -...