the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

...as cris said. so here are the post-birthday presents that still made it in november, in order of arrival: 1) from jemi - a Jude Deveraux book (about three women who have the same birthday and travel back in time to change their lives =), reminiscent of high school and the classic A Knight in Shining Armor) and a Maya Angelou card 2) from mama (who likes to give in excess) - aside from a balikbayan box of clothes that actually fit me, gummy candy, the november angel , and some other stuff that came in september, plus the bill for my birthday dinner , this package arrived last sunday: a denim jacket, a black purse, clinique lip gloss, birthday candles, other little things, and food (which you can no longer see in the picture) 3) from cris - flowers (with silver dust and beads of water to boot!) that arrived yesterday. the delivery guy even got lost because of a wrong address and started calling all the houses in our compound looking for me. sent from a cebu flower shop, t...

like all first-time mothers, i was a bit anxious about my baby's first plane ride. but as before, i was more anxious than she was. she was so behaved, and eventually treated her carrier (which again i had borrowed from ana , who bought it when she had to bring caesura from manila to cebu as a baby) as if it were her private bedroom. (gave her a warm bath the night before, with more neighborhood kids trying to help out). you can check out the photos in my album .                                                      and of course, everywhere i go, she's always a conversation-starter. i had to check her into the live animals section, and a mean man at the airport was saying, "gamay pa man ni. mabuhi kaha ni?". other popular questions...

DAY 3 and 4 in Davao - October 31-November 1, 2005. My apologies for this very overdue post. Anyway, brought my family along on this camping trip i'd been planning with my friend, fe-ritz, in samal, where she's from. Canibad is a sitio, a cove on the other side of the hill, facing Davao Oriental, so not a lot of tourists come here, because they usually stay on the Davao City side. Had to take a habal-habal, and then a short trek going down. It was really camping, because I didn't know there would be no electricity or running water. Or accommodations. Jo and Papa even took forever packing that morning because they kept arguing about what to bring and what not to bring. So here are the photos of the trip--by bus, ferry boat, and motorcycle. Have yet to write a feature on this. Coming up next: photos from my Zambales trip the other weekend (Feb 4-6). NOTE: the first part of this album was taken with a digital camera (when i firt got it), the second half with my manual SLR.

at church, in a jeep, at the office, at the beach...check out the Traveling Cat in my journal ;-)

with two cellphones, 16 seconds of expoure time, and a bottle of beer =)

here are the photos to match the birthday journal entry. i don't think i need to explain, but i think i should warn you about the graphic self-portraits =P really, the things you think of doing when you're alone with a tripod and a camera. i tried my best to post only the most decent ones. brace yourselves.

it's just been a week and a half since i found ashley, and wow, her teeth have really grown. and claws, too. the scars on my hands are proof of that, especially when she's really hungry. but we've adjusted to each other better, especially after our trip south for my birthday. surprisingly, she wasn't afraid of the waves, which were quite high last week because of a typhoon somewhere in surigao. she didn't mind the bus ride as much as i did, either. a summary of my birthday weekend: 17-18: took a leave from work to rent a cottage by the sea in south cebu. went snorkelling only three times because of the bad visibility the first two days.  and with a portable tripod and a digital camera with a self-timer, you can just imagine how i spent my time   moon was full, though cloudy. took some long exposures of it with my trusty manual camera and tripod. 19: woke up to catch the orange (this time) sunrise on my birthday  was supposed to go diving on the day itself, but so...

lost and found by Jeneen R. Garcia to be published on November 19, 2005     Because this is supposed to come out on my birthday, I had started writing about something else entirely. And then SHE walked my way.   So there I was, taking a stroll after a solitary dinner. I was supposed to be hurrying home to write this column, but I had deliberately gone round the long way, in the hope of bumping into someone I knew. Instead, I bumped into her. She was shrieking on the sidewalk, too tiny to feed on anything but milk. As I am wont to do in these situations, I picked up the filthy ball of fur to return her to wherever her mother was. Problem was, no mother was to be found. Someone had dropped her there, a man on the sidewalk said. She would just die if I didn’t take her home, he said. What else was I supposed to do?   After a quick stop at a convenience store to buy powdered milk, I carried her home, quite appropriately, on top of my “Poetry for the Earth”...

Start:      Nov 16, '05 1:00p End:      Nov 16, '05 5:00p Location:      Audio-Visual Room of the Medicine Building of Southwestern University, Villa Aznar, Urgello St., Cebu City On December 20 of this year, Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide, Jr. will reach the mandatory retirement age of seventy years old. Davide’s retirement will pave the way for the appointment of his successor, the 21st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the appointment of a new associate justice to fill the seat he will vacate in the fifteen-member Supreme Court. In our country where the powers of government are allocated in three distinct branches – executive, legislative, and judiciary – the Chief Justice wields significant influence in settling controversies involving the people’s constitutional rights, and in determining if there has been a grave abuse of discretion or excess of jurisdiction in any of the branches of government. In the interest o...

Description: UP ICW ISSUES NEW GUIIDELINES FOR WRITERS' WORKSHOP LIKHAAN: The UP Institute of Creative Writing (UP ICW) recently announced that it is now accepting applications for the 45th UP National Writers Workshop to be held in Baguio for one week in the summer of 2006. UP ICW Director, Professor Vim Nadera, also announced that 12 fellowships are available and that these are open only to advanced writers. He explained that since there is a proliferation of creative writing workshops on both the national and local levels, beginning writers now have many other options. Said Nadera: In keeping with its mandate of taking the lead in the development of Philippine literature, the UP ICW has decided to re-conceptualize its annual workshop to address the changing needs of writers as well as constraints brought on by the current financial crisis. Nadera also announced the new Workshop Guidelines. Ingredients: QUALIFICATIONS To qualify, applicants: (1) must be writers in English or Fili...

DAY 5 in Davao - November 2, 2005. Went to visit my lola's grave at the cemetery up the hill from our house. Brought a camera for the first time. It was a perfect afternoon: sunlight golden, clouds gray with rain for the evening, and a wind blowing through the vines that had grown over the peacefulness in the past year.

november 9, 2005 11:45 PM   though it lasted nine days, that last vacation seemed shorter than usual, as if i hadn’t done anything at all. and to think i managed to stick to my resolve to not go on the internet and check my mail or turn on my computer for work that whole time.   but i suppose there were some noteworthy things about it, like:   1)       finally got my own digital camera! it’s a hand-me-down from my younger brother (so does that make it a hand-me-up?) 2)       spent two days watching kids and japanese practice aikido in loyal support of my youngest brother. i took a video of the whole exhibition, and now he wants to sell it. 3)       because taxis were few and far between (and because i thought it would be much more fun), took a motorized trisikad across town at 11pm to meet up with my father and relatives on my first night home. 4)       sped through the rai...

DAY 5 in Davao - November 2, 2005. After going to the cemetery, we go home and hear a puppy crying. But we don't HAVE a puppy. Turns out our most demure doggie, Aska, has given birth even though her tummy's still small. She just lies there as if unable to move, while her two puppies cry in different corners of our laundry area. I have to get them both, still wet from the placenta, and bring them near to her. Thirty minutes later, I hear another crying. A third puppy has popped out. It is a few inches away from Aska but it seems she has no plans of getting her baby. After the inital indifference, though (first-time mother, after all. she was probably dazed from the experience), she's been a dedicated mommy doggie, as you can see here. Meanwhile, the two other doggies, Hi-Ro and Shaira, Aska's half-siblings, have been getting jealous of the attention she's been getting from us. We have to tie them up because they'd just love to play with the puppies in their mout...

couldn't sleep again last night. could've been the humidity. could've been post-vacation stress. anyway, decided to start reading the neil gaiman picture book that cathy  lent me. The Wolves in the Walls--"when the wolves start coming out of the walls, it's all over. everybody knows that." love the art. it's a montage of watercolors (i think) and photos. great story, too, as probably only neil gaiman could conceive of. i mean, i've read some of his Sandman stories, as well as his novel Neverwhere, but i never thought he'd be great at writing children's stories, too. after, i still wasn't sleepy, so i thought i'd start a few chapters of the other neil gaiman book cathy lent, Coraline. of course, as usual, i ended up reading the whole thing, even though my eyes were already stinging a little from tiredness. this one i'd love to see as a movie. just like Neverwhere, it was about a parallel universe. and it was just as scary, even thoug...

at the market, at the mall, visiting relatives.... just random shots to match the journal entry =)

My first shower back at home, and I find our longest-surviving cat (must be five years old at least, but still looking young and pretty ;-) sitting in the bathroom window. So i go out and get my digital camera before closing the door.

DAY 1 in Davao - October 29, 2005. Papa and I are at MTS wacthing josrique practicing aikido with some visiting japanese. I finally get my hands on my hand-me-down digital camera! And so, first shots--papa practices his camera smile, while I try out the different settings.Now we can have perfect smiles. Thank God for digital cameras. After, I take some hazy self-potraits with josrique as we wait for dinner. And this is only the beginning...

DAY 1 in Davao - October 29, 2005. The moment I walk into the house, Belen says, "You have a phone call." Turns out it's my mother in New York who's asked to be alerted of my arrival in Davao. She asks, "What are you wearing right now?". And I say, "I'll show you." All photos taken by Josrique, whom I forced to be photographer.