The pleasures and favors of a visit

When the children are grown and on their own, or married and living with their spouse or family, it is a huge treat when they visit. Every visit is like fireworks, and when the hoopla is gone, you want some more. It’s like Christmas in the fall or summer or spring. It’s like a celebratory feast each day of the visit, and you want to max your fill. Because this isn’t a perfect world, if or when any disagreement pops up in the interaction, the undercurrent is always love. The visit is still a gift. Many fellow baby boomers or parents would agree, I’m sure.

My daughter visited this week. Not to sound selfish or seem like I just wanted her home for pragmatic reasons, I am grateful that she was most helpful in driving me to far places that I normally would not drive to, for very important errands. Quite a “handy woman”, she even fixed the broken latch of the shower door. Since I shy away from freeway driving, she also took me, as on other visits, to my son and his family’s place to engage in family times with them, and attend church with them on the Cal Berkeley campus.

When all the errands were accomplished, my son treated my daughter and me to an afternoon at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. My first visit at that highly rated and popular museum that contains a rain forest, aquarium and planetarium. My surprise was that the Philippines figured prominently – on exhibit were rare forest trees, plants, butterflies, fish from that tropical country. It was breathtaking to watch fish of various sizes and colors swim over and around the spectacular Philippine coral reefs in the grand aquarium. The umbrella-structured jellyfish fascinated me. In the magical rain forest, Philippine yellow winged butterflies fluttered beside striped and big blue butterflies the size of my palm, often, whizzing by just above our heads or before our faces. A sign posted on the wall says, do not try to catch the butterflies; shake them off your hair or clothing, in case any alights on you. They’re so fetching that the urge to touch them is so tempting. Funny, I didn’t care to look at the slithering mammals. My son took the pictures shown here.

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Part 2: Snippets, teasers and cliffhangers

My auntie just lost her husband to an ailment that made him bed-ridden months before he passed. Though he was very sick, the loss is still hard for her to bear, having lived with him for some 58 years. Her loss brings to mind my own raw grief upon losing my husband in December 2015, after dialysis of four and a half years. Last night, I exchanged messages with my auntie. She was quick to respond to my comments. This exchange followed a video that I forwarded to her – a warm presentation about how to age graciously, mostly sound advice applicable to living life joyfully. One of the suggestions, however, intrigued me, as it did my auntie. It said – “If worry makes you happy, then go ahead and worry.”

That comment did not fare well with me.

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Relishing the magic of the outdoors at Shoreline Park in Mountain View, CA

Mountain View city, adjacent to Palo Alto, California holds one of the best lake parks I’ve seen, just around a 15-minute drive from my place. The park is located on a landfill beside the bay, a wide expanse that contains a man-made lake of around 2.4 acres, a golf course, a lakeside bistro fronting a line of sailboats, canoes, paddleboats and kayaks available for rent, and a path leading to the reclaimed bay lands for bikers, runners, joggers and walkers.

That Saturday, the hilly picnic area was fenced off for re-grassing. When the project’s all done, I’d like to go back there just to sit or lie down on the lush grass and feel the cool blades against my skin, or watch gleeful children recklessly roll on the low hills, or listen to picnickers’ laughter as they carouse over their food and games, or just look out to the lake where white sails and colorful windsurfs speckle the surface of the water over shimmers of sunbeams.

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An esoteric brainstorm on love and romance

Last night’s rousing discussion about love and romance carried through all evening till midnight. This Lola battled the wits of two female career singles in their near mid-30’s, in quite a stimulating intellectual bruhaha that ended on a plateau to agree to disagree over what a good relationship or marriage should be.

I engaged in a lively brainstorm with two highly professional women from two different countries, each, a medical doctor niched in solid careers. I do not know enough of the lovely ladies’ background or experiences in life, but I know enough to suspect that the impact of life’s circumstances wheeled them to the single-minded perception of the significance (or lack thereof) of love and romance.

Wouldn’t you have wished to be a fly on the wall to eavesdrop on our intellectual dissection of love and romance?

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