Rainy Days And Sundays

It’s been raining cats and dogs since last night and I am glad that I attended an anticipated mass earlier. When I woke up this morning, it was again raining hard, a downpour that  you could do nothing about except to  look out of the window and count the splash brought by some cars braving the heavy downpour.  Yes, a hot cup of coffee would ease the sense of let-down that one feels  but this I guess is also the best time to let your mind wanders. There are things and events that are best remembered on rainy days, memories that give that smile on your face and lit your world like a 100-watt bulb  sans the pain of recalling  the sad times.

Music always brings  that glow of remembrance and the selections at YouTube come in handy when you are reminiscing the good old days. Perhaps you’ll agree with me that the rainy days are the best times to reminisce  or simply put, I may just be growing old. I don’t know but I am having a blast right now listening to Stars on 45  by the Beatles and the Carpenters before that.  And you guess it, my mom used to sing with the Carpenters while making peculiar dance steps alternately with  my baby daughter and her older cousin by a few months.  And you guess it right again, her favorite was Top Of The World 🙂 by Karen Carpenter, the best female vocalist of her time.  That was twenty-nine years ago and my daughter is expecting a son in a few months.  How time really flies!

I am never tempted to watch television on a Sunday, I’d rather catch up on my reading or update my blog, or chat with some friends at our closed group on FB.  So you see, that’s multi-tasking to the max.  I am looking for  more rainy day songs to borrow and upload here at WordPress.  And I remember the other blog I did a year ago, about having LSS when a favorite actor during my high school days added me up in his friend’s list.  So of course here’s first on the list, Rainy Days and Mondays by Karen Carpenter.

And don’t you just love The Cascades?

And this one is the best I think, from the Cascades, one of my favorite groups of the sixties.

And that’s how rainy days and  Sundays go, listening to music and remembering a period in one’s life with fondness.

(Thanks to Vinyl solution, Nelson Wilby  and YouTube for all these great songs)

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Purple

I actually have so many  photo collections of purple flowers but they would spoil the beauty of this one if I mix them here.

Meet my Sanggumay Orchids!

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There Is Always Something There That Resonates….And It Makes You Think, Life Is Worthwhile!

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.” –  Ayn Rand

I do remember the moment I took this shot more than three years ago. We visited  Our Lady Of Peace and Good Voyage after a nice lunch at Balaw Balaw Restaurant in Angono, Rizal. He just sat there, seemingly oblivious of all the people passing by. I  caught his eyes and he smiled so I gestured with my camera if it is okay to take a shot.  He nodded,  and when I showed him the two shots I took, he touched my arm with a silent “thank you” written in his eyes.

I don’t usually try my hand at  street  photography, for I am convinced that I won’t be able to capture that one particular look, depicting several emotions in one frame, but I thought this was good to  be included in my Life In the City album. It’s still one of my favorite pictures because it always reminds me that life, no matter how difficult it may seem, is full  of meaning.  It is really one’s attitude towards it that counts. And experience, no matter how mundane it may seem, always leaves us a lesson that we could all learn from.

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Listen to The Falling Rain, Listen To It Falls

It’s that kind that signals another windy and rainy night but there is a soothing feeling of being enclosed in a cozy place with one’s thoughts on overdrive. Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain just as much as I crave for the sun’s brilliance.  I can do more work when it’s raining although at times I am practically tempted to curl up in bed and read and read…. the weather is just fine for reading.  So I started on a book which has been relegated to the back shelf  for so long.  I bought the book a  long time ago based on what I read somewhere that it is included in the long list of books you have to read before you die. A Prayer for Owen Meany, here I go. Based on the countless book  reviews I read, it’s one of John Irving’s best books. Oh gosh, it’s raining cats and dogs now, I don’t like the sound of it, it’s somehow threatening.

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Today’s Quote

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A Glimpse At The 3rd SONA Of Pres. PNoy

I love to address the first few lines to those Filipinos who have nothing in mind but to badmouth everything that is happening in our present government. It’s as if they are all perfect and they exactly know how to run our country  and offer viable solutions and make the Philippines  a country we could all be proud of. If you are so smart enough, why don’t you  offer solutions to the problems besetting every one of us, why do you just stay in the sidelines and let yourself rant and whine or is that your way of pulling down the rest of us who still feel optimistic that there is a great chance for us to achieve our goals as one collective voice? Such a pathetic attitude. I didn’t vote for PNoy but I believe that he has that sincere desire to make it work. At saan ba nag-uumpisa kundi  dapat sa malinis at hindi corrupt na gobyerno?

It was delivered in Tagalog  which is more easily understood by Juan dela Cruz.  It took all of an hour  and a half, with around 115  applause in between, not that the applause matters much but  there are highlights in his speech that  are really worth-admiring for want of a better word. Walang hindi makakaya ang nagkakaisang Pilipino, he said. Nothing is impossible to a united Filipino nation. How true, we dreamed of a change, we dreamed of a corrupt-free government run by honest people we elected in office. He mentioned about responsible parenthood in relation to the shortages of classrooms, school chairs and books and it was the most applauded highlight of his speech. I wonder though if it equates to the controversial RH Bill which I hope will never be passed into law. There is a continuing opposition on the part of the Catholic Church. But I guess, responsible parenthood does not necessarily mean that you have to use  contraceptives, I take it to mean that you can plan your family the natural way so you can give them a good future in the end. It’s up to individual couple to observe the natural means (without using drastic measures to prevent conception) of family planning – that’s responsible parenthood for me. You can’t measure a progress of one nation by curtailing  a younger  generation which is the hope of a country’s future. And here’s Pres. Aquino’s stand on responsible parenthood.

He touched on economic reforms, agriculture, flood control, health care and the stable rise of the price index in  the stock market, tourism,  rehabilitation of NAIA 3, infrastructures, agrarian reform, criminality and strengthening the Armed Forces.  He has  a good vision for the Philippines which he wants in place before he leaves by 2016. They are doable as long as he stay focused and put it all into action. For now, the challenge remains but I am sure that if he has our support, everything is possible. It would have been more significant if he touched on the plight of our OFWs who for the past several years were  helping the government through their dollar remittances. Rising cost of commodities, fuel and electricity should also be given importance because they are everyday necessities for Juan  dela Cruz to survive.

Overall, the SONA was  very good, may he continue his unblemished records  for the past two years as far as corruption is concerned. We really need a president who is clean, honest and not corrupt. Ituloy ang matuwid na daan, we are following you.

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Dragon Fruit (More Practice with Macro Photography)

A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words. – Ansel Adams

More than the joy of eating this delicious and nutritious  fruit, I had a nice time practicing  macro shots. It’s a very colorful subject to photograph.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

 

Solace and serenity

Peace and quiet

Where else would it be visible the most

but here?

Hear God’s whispers in the silence.

And let your heart listen.

Prayers are echoes of your own heart’s desires.

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Tony Bennett And More

Love’s Theme, Somewhere In Time, Theme From Sunflower, Summer of 42, Percy Faith, Mantovani, Mancini, Paul Mauriat.

Or maybe I am an old soul, liking  instrumental music on a rainy night like this. There is something so nostalgic  listening to the music of old.  Last night, I visited my blog at Multiply and played most of the CDs  that I painstakingly uploaded from my collection.  How I’ve missed the  peace and quiet at Multiply, exchanging comments with a few close friends  compared to the hustle and bustle of  Facebook.  It gets to a point where you no longer want to read what a friend is having for lunch or dinner or what places your friends will visit next or the incongruous shout-outs from some online friends. Maybe I am getting old. I’ve just changed the music to You’re So Vain by Carly Simon and tapping my foot to the rhythm of the music.

The other day, I was delighted to receive a CD from a friend in the US. He sent it through his sister via mail. It’s Tony Bennett’s Duets featuring the likes of  Bono, Michael Bublé, Celine Dion, Diana Krall, George Michael, Barbra Streisand and other famous artists  from the sixties to the present. When I saw the music list, I was surprised to see the name of  Paul McCartney too and I thought, jazz, ballads and R & B  don’t simply mix in one album but it did. It was a beautiful collection, a celebration of the 80th birthday of Tony Bennett.

Music can make you feel happy, it can make you feel sad, it can make you feel like singing too but as long as the emotion is there, you’re okay. It can fill up the void  of feeling alone at times. Aldous Huxley couldn’t have expressed it better when he said ,”After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

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Reflection

Be a light to those traveling the same path with you. A smile, a pat on the shoulder or a few kind words may be just what they need to make their day complete. Be generous but sincere in your praise.

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