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“Pura Vida”

“Pura Vida  is a lifestyle without stress, worries or negativity, and of gratitude for the things you do have.”

Translated literally, the term means ‘pure life.”  Colloquially, it could mean either ‘Enjoy Life’ or ‘Live Simple.’  This is the everyday greeting one hears in Costa Rica. The term is used like the Italian “Ciao”  or the Hawaiian “Aloha” so that one can use it to greet someone or say goodbye.

In this fast-paced and hi-tech world we live in, shouldn’t we just take the term to heart?  That is, ENJOY LIFE!

As we awaken from our slumber, let us greet the world with a smile, slip out of bed, stand up to stretch and yawn, breathe in, breathe out… you are now ready to face the world!  Umm…not yet?  Remember, you are your best friend…or your worst enemy.  If you put your mind to it, any ‘routine’ stuff you do that feels like it is unimportant or something so ordinary and ho-hum can be turned into something interesting and extraordinary!  But, it is –  up.to.you!”

Life is what you make of it.”  I am sure you have heard someone say this phrase more often than you like. All I can say is – “Make your own life.”

“The Experience”

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Nowadays, it is not enough for one to buy a ticket to a concert/play or even just to book a flight or make reservations at a hotel and/or restaurant.  Once you click that “Pay” button (or confirm the purchase with the person on the other side of the phone line), the opportunity for an “up-sell” arises and you are asked whether you would like to “increase the pleasure you derive” from watching/eating/whatever it is you just paid for, or to borrow their phrase, “Expand the Experience.”

Why expend money and effort for the opportunity to intensify a feeling, a sensation or just a moment?  Whatever you are doing, wherever you may be, and whomever you may well be with – BE TOTALLY THERE!  Enjoy that specific moment, let the ‘experience’ envelop your whole being, or just be ‘involved’ in the experience!  Be present in the moment!

That is why I was so blown away by my 18-year old niece, Bea, who is visiting the United States for the first time.  As I was dropping her off (with her parents & younger brother) at Universal Studios, she blurted out, “Fair warning! If I burst out in tears, please ignore me because I would need to express my extreme joy somehow.”

Wow!  The honesty of her words and the simplicity with how she expressed her feelings about visiting her most favorite place in the world are such a rarity nowadays!  She had been wanting to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction since it opened in Florida.  Now that there is the same attraction in Universal Studios Hollywood, coming to Los Angeles for her graduation gift fulfilled her most ardent wish!

Juxtaposed against those who are offering an “expanded experience,” I cannot help but wonder if our society has robbed this generation of something important – the ability to delight in simple things.  That not everything worth ‘knowing’ has to be spectacular, sensational nor singularly exclusive.  All it needs is –  to BE.

From the mouth of babes…

2018 05 22  Highlight of my day:

I get on the freeway to bring them home.

Lala: “whenever papa takes us home, he gets on the freeway. I always hypothesize that it will be moving slow because of traffic and I am correct. Papa tells me, Lala, you are so right” 🤣🤣

(And really, she said hypothesize)

 

Credits:  Kim G.

A Slice of Heaven

The plan was to take the 72-mile shoreline drive of Lake Tahoe – but with the fog that has descended on the Ridge Resorts building I am billeted in, it was not likely to happen.

Waking up at 0630 hours, I could still see the building tops shrouded by the fog.  However, after 4-1/2 hours, it had gotten worse.  More like the dusky gloom of morning sun trying to peek through the fog failed completely.  It is now more of white screen as I look out the window.

Coming up to Lake Tahoe, my group started out early on Saturday morning by leaving Los Angeles at around 0600 hours using the “BackWay,” as my family calls it – taking the Fwy 134 East to Interstate 5 North to the Antelope Valley Fwy 14 North then the Fwy 395 thru Hwy 207 up Kingsbury Grade and finally to the Ridge Resorts property.  Except for 2 quick pit stops and one for lunch at Erick Schat’s Bakery (where my brother-in-law, Raffy, took over the wheels), the drive was calming and filled with beautiful panoramas.

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We’ve been here for two days now and we already enjoyed the recreational activities being offered by the resort – played racquetball, badminton & volleyball in the courts; used the sauna & Jacuzzi.  We also had encountered a very jovial catholic priest at Our Lady of Tahoe yesterday – who pulled a practical joke on us by telling us that the church had been sold to a Christian church called “Witnesses of Christ.”  He even offered us monetary enticement if we join their congregation.  It felt like the 3 times that the devil tempted Christ at the mount!  But no matter, the temptation was rejected and we are all safe!

If you are staying in a place that has at least a refrigerator & microwave, eating in would be the best option. That is, unless you are on a perpetual “foodie trip” and are focused on the next big thing in culinary arts!  Well, we weren’t.  We stocked our refrigerators with chicken & steak, filled the pantry with groceries & snack foods.  This way, we are in control of what, when & how much we ate at a given time.

But, that fact does not deter us from going to those “Must-stops” like the Sno-Flake Drive-in where the burgers are moist and delicious while the milkshakes are sinful and oh-so-worthy of taking in all those calories!

Yes, staying at the resort while the precipitation lifts is not a hardship for us.  There are still those many trails to ponder over, the swimming pool to dip our toes in, mini-golf to win and a lot more to discover!  After more than 20 years of my family and I vacationing up here, my expectations have always been high – in terms of activities, dining, relaxation and more.  And this time is no different.

A Farewell to Reason

Rarely do I find articles – either sent to me by email, text or referenced – that I would share and be all gung-ho about it.  This “repost” which was sent to me by my sister-in-law embodies my frustration with today’s  predilection for the “black-and-white” – the lack of ‘insight’ into what should be read “between the lines.”  But, I digress, so let the article speak for itself.

To put it in perspective, this was published in The London Times and I googled it but could not find the actual obituary for it so I could not give credit to whoever wrote it.

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(paperclip) Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

– Knowing when to come in out of the rain;

– Why the early bird gets the worm;

– Life isn’t always fair;

– And maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death,

-by his parents, Truth and Trust,

-by his wife, Discretion,

-by his daughter, Responsibility,

-and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 5 stepbrothers;

– I Know My Rights

– I Want It Now

– Someone Else Is To Blame

– I’m A Victim

– Pay me for Doing Nothing.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

Memorabilia

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Who doesn’t pick up seashells when they take a leisurely stroll along the beach – watching the waves lap up the sand you are walking on?

At an early age, I was hooked on stamp collecting when our neighbor showed me the beautiful stamps she had collected during her travels as well as those stamped envelops she received from her pen pals from different countries!  [Yes, Virginia, we used to have pen pals – and snail mail during the late 1960’s took almost a month to get from the Philippines to other parts of the world – on average!]

Although I did start a meager collection of stamps myself, I moved on to collecting books since I loved to read. My Dad started us off with his purchase of the Britannica Encyclopedia with Aesop’s Fables volumes offered at a discount. Then I latched on to the Nancy Drew series, the Hardy Boys, then graduated to my Dad’s collection of Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason, Dannay & Lee’s Ellery Queen and Ian Fleming’s James Bond series (which I could not touch until I was ‘of age’).

 

 

The early 1980’s came and my family immigrated to the USA, the ‘habit’ continued and I started buying the teaspoons & pins from each state we visited.  Then, like a true-blue Californian,  my more serious collection of anything Mickey Mouse became an obsession!  Well, the Starbucks mugs were so appropriate for a coffee drinker while the ref magnets from each country/city visited are so much easier to carry when you want to tote only one luggage from one country to another.  Anyway, my collection went hand-in-hand with the stages in my life…and they became more creative.

Since I entered the exciting world of travel, I had built up voluminous amounts of maps, itineraries, postcards and personal photos which translated themselves into several scrapbooks….until I discovered a photo album service and I was hooked.  Scanned all of those materials and have “published” about a dozen of them so far!  The good thing about it is that I get to dispose heaps of  travel stuff and minimized the amount of documents and paperwork I had to keep. And so, I had come full circle – from collecting the books I read to compiling and publishing my very own photo books!

This reminds me of a statement my brother, Bing, made when he saw the number of photos and video footage my husband and I accumulated through just a few years of travel –  “Wouldn’t it be better if you enjoy everything around you, take snapshots with your eyes, and fill your being with the beauty of what’s out there?  You’re missing out when you see through the lenses of a camera!”  Those words stuck with me – and I continue to refer back to them whenever I get too busy recording important moments when I should be “in the moment”!

And that brings me into the why and wherefore of collecting per se.  I believe that it is normal for us humans to keep close anything we consider ‘important’.  Our desire to ‘have and hold’  is but an outward manifestation of what is really our motivation for collecting anything – in short, memories.

When everything else is said and done – and all else is just gone – the only thing that no one can take from us are our remembrances.  Each one of those collectibles can bring me back to that specific moment in time and would conjure up memory-slices that may give me either a smile or a frown…even a tear.

So, my advice?  Wherever you are – enjoy the moment and give thanks for being there!

 

 

 

Treasures both near and far

At an early age, I had always wanted to transport myself to certain locations which I believe to be more exciting, that is, having something more to offer than what or where I was.

It is not a matter of physical locations or sites, it is more of a desire to be “somewhere else”.  Understand that being a city-girl for more years than I could remember,  “going out of town” has a ring to it that beckons.  I can picture all the numerous resorts with long stretches of beach frontage – the choppy waves smoothly hugging the sand and showering it with water droplets.  Or,  the vision of fresh growth among the age-old trees whose long branches provide both sustenance and shade to both human and non-human species.

Having been born and bred in the Philippines, an archipelago located in Southeast Asia, there are a number of vacation options to choose from.  The beach is but a jeepney’s ride away from Manila while air-conditioned buses ply the main highways going to and from far away locations where one can enjoy the fresh sea breezes or inhale the pleasant smells of trees growing by the wayside.  There are mountain paths to hike, deep seas to explore and much more to discover.

Hence, having been uprooted from Manila and re-planted in Los Angeles, it felt like I never left the Philippines.  The city traffic congestion, the noise, the daily grind of human bodies going to work and getting back home….then comes the weekend when everyone seems to leave the city.  One would think that there are enough venues for everything that one may want to do with their free time in the city but the lure of being “out-of-town” always beckons.  Just like in Manila, Los Angeles is close to everything – the beach, the mountains, museums, parks – you think it, the city has it.

The take-away here is that no matter where you are, be adventurous in your own backyard before you set your eyes on something far away.  Knowing what you have in terms of hidden local treasures would surely make you appreciate other locales you may visit, or vice versa.

Happy travels!

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

It will be well worth your while…since you had taken the first step towards your destination the moment you opened your eyes.  Yes, the world is yours for the taking.  Nothing is beyond your grasp.  Only you can create the wall that would block the reach that your mind can achieve.  So let go and soar!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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