Ten Tips for Surviving Braces

The start of a perfect smile

3Po and Jammy have begun a rite of passage affecting teens and tweens all over the world. No, I'm not talking about their first crush (already happened). I'm not talking about smoking (never going to happen). I'm talking about braces. For the next 18-24 months they'll be visiting the orthodontist, craving popcorn, and slowly but surely, developing a killer smile. It's going to suck, and at times it's going to really suck, but the results will be worth it. I know, because I had braces myself.

Las Vegas with my sisters

On November 4, Alfie and I celebrated 15 years of marriage. It's hard to believe that it has been 15 years since Elvis married us in Las Vegas!  And how did we celebrate this milestone? With a trip to Vegas, of course!

The only thing was, I didn't take that trip to Vegas with Alfie. I took it with my sisters. One of them lives in Manila and the other lives in London, so we don't get to do this kind of thing very often. In fact, the last time we had a sisters' getaway was about 10 years ago. I can (and do) party in Vegas with Alfie whenever I want. But Vegas with my sisters? That's a once-every-ten-years thing. Fortunately Alfie understood completely, so the day after our anniversary, my sisters and I made our getaway.

A trip to Gretna Green (aka, my teenage romance fantasies come to life)

Do the words "Gretna Green" ring a bell?  If you've read a ton of historical romance novels, they ring more than just a bell, they ring a wedding bell!

When I was a teenager, I read a lot of period romances.  A LOT.  I combed the used bookstores for Barbara Cartland and Mills& Boon, and filled my head with fantasies of debonaire dukes, regency rakes, villainous viscounts, and the fiery ladies they yearned for. Sometimes I wonder if my taste for Georgian era and Regency era romances had any influence in my falling in love with an Englishman fourteen years older than me!

Things that suck (and rock) about being tall

Dear Pea

Yesterday I posted a photo of you on Facebook; it was taken yesterday at your dance concert.  I was so proud of your grace, your beauty and your height.... but I know being tall isn't something you're particularly enjoying at this moment in your life.  I know you hate being the tallest in your dance class, being as tall or taller than the 15, 16, 17 year olds at age not-quite-thirteen.  I know you wish you were tiny and petite like your friends, instead of big and gigantic (as you put it).

Believe me, I know.  You get your height from me, remember?  I was 12 once.  To make matters worse for a 5 feet, six inch adolescent (who eventually grew to reach 5' 8"), I grew up in the Philippines, where the average height for males is 5 feet, 4 1/2 inches, and the average height for females is 4 feet, 11 inches.  Back then, I felt just like you do now.

How Typhoon Haiyan affects us

photo credit: CAFOD on Flickr

In the Philippines, typhoons are a way of life.  Every June, classes started.  Every June, the rains came.  Every June, my classmates and I would start hoping for typhoons.  We were too young to understand the implications.  Rain just meant relief from the scorching summer heat (frankly, I don't know any Filipino who doesn't love hearing the sound of raindrops falling on the roof, and every kid I know loved standing outside and taking a shower in the rain).  Rain meant the chance to skip school.  Midwestern US schoolchildren have their snow days, Manila schoolchildren have Typhoon Signal #2.  Signal #1 was always met with groans because we still had to go to school (and possibly had to face some flooding along the way).  Signal #2 was great, because we got to stay home for the day.  Signal #3 was even better because it meant school would be out for several days.  Like I said, we were just kids.

Holiday Muppet Memories

I think I learned the words to the Twelve Days of Christmas from watching John Denver sing it with The Muppets in their 1979 holiday special.  Those were in the days when The Muppet Show aired on TV every week, and we watched it the way kids watch Phineas and Ferb today.  My aunt had the holiday special taped on videocassette (anyone remember Sony Betamax?)  so we could, and did, watch it again and again, year after year.   My cousins and I would sing it incessantly, aping (or should I say piggying?) Miss Piggy's part to perfection:  "Five.... Gooooooolden Riiiiiiiings!........ PADAM-PAM!!!"   Christmas just isn't complete for me without singing this song:

Seven Days of Dinner, Dec. 4-10

I've decided to give week's menu has a Hispanic theme. Maybe it's the weather, but I find myself craving hearty dishes with lots of onions and garlic. Filipino cuisine is heavily influenced by Spanish cuisine, and foods with Spanish names like adobo, menudo and empanada are very common. This week I'm breaking my 3 meat dishes per week rule, but these dishes are so yummy, I don't care.

Forty Before Forty Item #12: Sky High

Growing up in the Philippines, I towered over all the kids my age. Heck, I towered over kids older than me. From 1st grade until my senior year of high school, I was always the one at the back of the line, in the back row. I was always the girl who played Prince Charming in our all-girls' school plays. I was glad I wasn't short, but I felt that people who told me I was lucky to be tall had no idea what it was like. I slouched as much as I could. Heels? Hah!

School lunches of my childhood

Whenever I read books or watch tv shows or movies where schoolkids insult the cafeteria food, I can never relate. When I was a schoolgirl, the cafeteria food was always wonderful. It was always cooked on-site, from scratch, and piping hot, featuring basic but delicious Filipino or American favorites. Here are some dishes I remember from my schooldays:

Candy Cigarettes -- Playing with Fire

Do you remember those bubble gum cigarettes that you chewed as a kid? No, I'm not talking about the sticks of gum that came in a pack made to look like a pack of cigarettes. I'm talking about the bubble gum that actually looked like a cigarette. It was shaped into a slim, cylindrical tube and wrapped in white paper with a slim tan band at one end. I remember how much my siblings and I loved those bubble gum cigarettes. Getting a pack in a party goody bag or being given one by an aunt or grandparent was an extremely rare treat, to be savored and enjoyed.

I can't sew. Sew what?

Throughout my childhood I was never far from a sewing machine. We had a sewing machine at home, one of those old-fashioned sewing machines: a sturdy, black iron thing, with a foot pedal to turn the wheel. Later on, my mom bought an electric pedal and attached it to the sewing machine so it whizzed rather than clickety-clacked, but I always preferred the slow, steady rhythm of the foot pedal. Until I was about nine or ten, most of my clothes (school uniforms, dresses, blouses) were sewn at home, either by my mother or a seamstress she hired.

Forty Before Forty Item #21: Welcome to Facebook, Dad!

My parents are not what you'd call Luddites. They have cell phones. They have a PC. They use wireless broadband. I remember my mom signing us up for computer lessons when I was just 9 or 10, and we bought our first PC in my early high school years. This was back when you needed a floppy DOS disk to book the computer up, and the only useful programs were Wordstar and Lotus 1-2-3, when computers were not an integral part of middle-class households.

That being said, they're not exactly on the bleeding edge of technology. Their cell phones are still the basic models with no internet access. They use email and my dad browses the internet to manage his financial portfolio, but I'm still not convinced they know how to get to my blog, let alone share my witty and cleverly written blog posts with their friends (what good are parents for if not to brag about their kids' accomplishments?). I'm sure they have no idea what Twitter or Skype is, because none of their contemporaries use it.

Not so with Facebook.

Cauliflower and white bean stew

If you ask Alfie or the kids what my favorite vegetable is, chances are they'll say it's cauliflower (okay, they might also say eggplant or onion or broccoli or tomato, but I guarantee they'll say cauliflower by the third or fourth try). I love cauliflower, and my absolute favorite cauliflower dish is Cauliflower and White Bean Stew.

My childhood is filled with memories of the Pote Gallego made by my grandmother's cook (the best cook of all time), with Chorizo Bilbao (Marca El Rey, naturally!) swimming in a broth of white beans, chicken stock, garlic, onion and olive oil. When I went off to make my own way in the big wide world, Pote Gallego was one of the first dishes I tried to cook on my own.

Whatever happened to Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield?

When you think of the 80's, what comes to mind? Some of my nearest and dearest memories of that era are teased hair, flashdance outfits, poufy prom dresses, Duran Duran ... and Sweet Valley High. At some point during my tweens and early teens, my friends and I devoured Francine Pascal's series of novels about identical twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. We Filipino Catholic schoolgirls envied the twins' perfect looks and bodies, followed Jessica's crazy antics, fantasized about finding true love like Elizabeth, and dreamed of living the sunny, carefree California teenage life. Bikinis, beach parties, boys, and drama, drama, drama.... yes, it was shallow and silly, but hey, teenage girls can be that way sometimes.

My first long-haul flight

I took my first international flight when I was six years old. Nowadays, infants and toddlers fly everywhere from Atlanta to Antarctica, but back in the seventies, and living in the Philipines, it was a pretty big deal. My parents took my sister and I for a month-long visit to the United States, and just a few days before we left, my sister and I went down with a bad case of the flu. But even that couldn't dampen my excitement. What are fever and chills and nausea compared to your first long-haul flight on a Boeing 747? Everything was a source of delight: the enormous cabin, the plug-in headphones, the pillows and blankets, the airline food (even though I couldn't eat any of it).

Click here to read more ...

Paella made Easy, Paella made Special

I've always thought of paella as a Special Dish. When I was a kid, it was too special for me to even try; the only kind of paella my family (and the whole of the Philippines) ever prepares is full of shellfish: mussels, shrimp, clams, all things I'm allergic to. Even when I moved to the US and discovered Paella Valenciana (in Boston's best tapas restaurant ev-ahh), it was still a Big Deal: if you wanted it, you had to wait 40 minutes for it to cook. To add to its mystique, one of the key ingredients in paella is saffron, the world's most expensive spice by weight. To me, paella was kind of like that tall, dark, handsome, rich, exotic stranger that you can only have in your dreams. Trying to make it myself never even crossed my mind.

How to Dress for an Eighties Party

I've known for a long time that my friend's 40th birthday bash was going to be a Big Deal, but I had no idea how much until we received the invitation. It contained a big F Bomb -- Fashion Bomb, that is -- it was an Eighties Party, which basically upped the ante for the guests; instead of just showing up, we had to get in the spirit and come up with an 80's costume.

Now, I am the Queen of all Dressing Up (see any October/Halloween post I've ever done), so the 80's theme was great news. The 80's are my element -- all I needed to do for inspiration was look in my high school photo album and listen to the music on my iPod -- and I knew I could put together a Madonna-style outfit without breaking a sweat.

Cut-up shirt, miniskirt, fishnet stockings, leg warmers, heels, side ponytail, neon pink earrings, fingerless gloves, crucifix bling. Easy peasy.


But the dress-up element threw Alfie for a loop. I haven't quite managed to convince him that dressing up is fun, or that he won't feel ridiculous if everyone else looks ridiculous along with him. To make things worse, he hates 80's music and fashion, so he couldn't really get too excited about it. And it's not like you can rustle up a genuine male 80's outfit from your closet (unless of course you live in a trailer park). Do you know how many 80's costumes there are for men in your local costume store? None. Maybe a rocker wig or a mullet, a Michael Jackson outfit if you're lucky. I searched for weeks to find a good outfit (I must have hit every Goodwill store within a 20-mile radius from our home, searching for a Miami Vice white jacket or acid-wash jeans), and Alfie must have changed his mind about a dozen times. In the end he decided on an 80's rocker look, with acid-washed jeans and big, poufy hair.


I was spraying bleach on these jeans about 3 hours before the party. I used so much bleach, I'm surprised Alfie's legs didn't fizzle away along with the denim. And in case you didn't know, that hair is not his. No way I would marry a guy with big, curly mullet hair!


I think we did okay in the costume department. But as much as I enjoyed putting together our outfits, seeing what other people came up with was even more enjoyable! We saw some great outfits, and just in case you need an 80's costume idea -- or a good laugh -- I'm sharing them here with you:


Male
Men can pretty much put on a mullet wig and claim they're in an 80's costume, but frankly, I think that's kind of lame. To be truly in the (80's) zone, you need to put in a bit more effort, and I loved seeing all the effort that showed up at my friend's party. I do think Alfie was one of the male standouts, with his long, flowing locks, but there were quite a few other creative male outfits:

* Don Johnson in Miami Vice (white suit with pastel colored tshirt)
* Larry Bird (complete with #33 jersey and caterpillar mustache)
* Preppy boy (pastel Lacoste or Izod shirt with upturned collar, white sweater draped across the shoulders, khaki shorts or chinos with rolled-up pant legs, loafers without socks, wayfarers)
* Beat boxer -- neon colored shirt, baggy pants, Converse hi-tops or Vans sneakers, Sony Walkman (yes, the real thing! He must have a big attic to be keeping stuff like that).

Female
As I expected, we saw every variation of Madonna imaginable, from her grungy Suddenly Seeking Susan look to her corseted Like A Virgin lace getup to her sleek Vogue look with headset microphone and cone bra. And since the 80's look is creeping back into fashion, I wasn't surprised to see loose belted shirts, skintight jeans and heels. But I should have known that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun -- I was amazed at the other kinds of outfits my fellow females came up with! No detail was spared, from shiny blue eyeshadow to teased hair to lace gloves (fingerless, naturally) to Swatch watches.

* Krystle Carrington.
* Any and every variation of the hideous Gunne Sax prom dress and white, low-heeled shoes (the birthday girl even had a gigantic wrist corsage!).
* Acid washed jeans skirt and jacket.
* Shoulder-padded dresses and fringed, stiletto-heeled cowboy boots.
* Flashdancers (off-the shoulder shirts, leggings -- some were neon! -- and legwarmers).


The winning outfits for male and female would have to go to the Jane Fonda aerobicizers. "Jane Fonda" wore a headband across her forehead, wristbands, a thong leotard and shiny lycra tights (I couldn't wear that even in the 80's!). Her male counterpart wore exactly the same thing, except instead of a leotard he sported a midriff shirt with cutoff sleeves. It was absolutely horrific, and absolutely brilliant! Or should I say, totally rad....


Can anyone think of any other 80's outfit I need to add to this list?

Garbage

My dad still has memories of being able to swim (swim!!) in Manila's Pasig river. But even when I was growing up in the 70's, it was already so polluted that I wouldn't even want to ride a boat on that river. Sadly, things haven't changed: many residents still throw their garbage into the canals and rivers, resulting in dirty, polluted water. This is such a normal scene in Manila that I wouldn't normally take a photo of it, but Alfie was so apalled that he had to take this photo. Maybe we should all be as apalled as Alfie; then maybe we'd be more proactive in getting people to stop.

By the way, that red wall you see on one side of the river? There's a restaurant on the other side of it.

For more garbage, click here.

The latest Bad Mommy

I don't know why I didn't catch the story of Madlyn Primoff (mom who kicked her 2 bickering tweens out of the car -- and drove off) earlier. Maybe I was too preoccupied with my review blog and catching up with my Savvy Source posts. Maybe I was still a bit spaced out from all the medications I've been gulping down over the past two weeks. Or maybe I was just busy dealing with my own kids.

The kids have been pretty wild lately, arguing like crazy, making unbelievable messes and dawdling at bedtime. Which is pretty normal for kids, I guess. But when Alfie and I call them on it, they have begun ignoring us. Maybe it's because they've been sick, and in the hopes of giving their immune systems a rest we've kept them on a fairly tight leash, limiting active outdoor play and keeping them home from afterschool lessons. Or, because as parents we try to pick our battles, and we've been tolerating this particular battle for too long.

On Thursday, 3Po refused to cross the parking lot with me to get to the car, then dancing across like he was in a meadow full of daisies. The other 2 weren't much better. So I blew up. In the car I raved about not listening to me and safety and . For good measure I threatened to leave them on the curb the next time they tuned me out. I calmed down, of course, and I thought the kids had dismissed the incident as another of mama's rants. I was horrified to see that when we got home, 3Po greeted his daddy and promptly burst into tears. What I said had really stuck in his mind and he really was afraid I'd leave him next time. Boy did I feel guilty -- what kind of monster would say that to a 5-year old?

So hearing about Madlyn's story the next day really resonated with me. I'm not sure what I feel -- validation that I'm not the only parents who has threatened to leave their kids behind, amazement that Madlyn actually acted on her impulse, relief that some other mother is this week's Bad Mother instead of me? Maybe all of the above.

And I remembered my own childhood Madlyn Primoff experience. My sister and I were about the same age as Madlyn's kids, and we were fighting in the front seat of the car (shocking, I know, it was the 70's and we were living in Manila, you saw this kind of thing all the time). My mother stopped the car, reached over, opened the door and forced us out. Her anger was more frightening to us than getting out would be -- until she closed the door. She actually began to pully away. We started crying and banging on the door, and she immediately stopped and opened the door to let us in. I don't think she actually would have left us, but at that split second, even at age 10 and 11, we weren't so sure. That experience hasn't scarred me or anything; it's actually a funny memory now. I don't resent my mom in any way for doing it because I'm sure we deserved it -- my sister and I were notorious for our all-out catfights. but now that I'm reliving this memory as a parent, I'm wondering if my mother ever felt the kind of guilt that I do when I remember 3Po wailing his fright out in his daddy's arms.

I apologized to 3Po, held him tight, and told him I would never, ever do such a thing, but I still feel bad. It doesn't matter whether I meant it or not because he took it seriously. And if he were old enough to know I was bluffing, there would be no point in making the threat. So forget about that feeling of relief -- I'm this week's Bad Mother too.

Wordless Wednesday

My sister just sent me a cd with a whole bunch of childhood photos that she scanned into digital format. While it's been fun looking at the photos, I have to admit that after I had finished looking at all of them, one of my first thoughts was: I'm not as cute as I thought I was! I was comparing my reaction to Baby Bonggamom to our photos of Pea, 3Po and Jammy, and I was definitely coming up short on the cuteness factor. Which makes my reaction perfectly natural, I guess, since most parents think their kids are the cutest in the world. I wonder what my parents thought of me -- did they think I was the cutest thing ever? -- and how their children compare with their grandchildren? What will I think of my grandchildren?


Oops, this was supposed to be Wordless Wednesday. Oh well; I'm sure these people are better at Wordless Wednesday than I am.