A small little memory plaque for our Carolina beach trip: Borchers Family Vacation, Summer 2010

–disclaimer: lots of board game quotes and inside jokes below–

Borchers family tree:

Ron and Kay – Nick’s parents;  Nick (oldest) married to MOI, Isaiah is our cherub; Kelly (Nick’s sister) married to Tim; Keith (Nick’s brother); Jay (Nick’s youngest brother)

“She’s, uh, without parents.  Homeless.  She’s also small in stature.” – Keith, trying to explain who is “Little Orphan Annie” during ‘Cranium’

“Did you walk out on the balcony with Isaiah yet to see the ocean?  Just don’t pull a Michael Jackson.” – Kelly

“Did Isaiah take a tumble?  His elbows look pretty red.”  –>  “Um, no, that’s just his eczema.”  -Keith and me

“I don’t eat pasta, but I make an exception for angel hair.” – Tim

“Are you actually playing poker without your cheat sheet?” – Nick, making fun of my “poker guide” that explains the hierarchy of hands

“We walked in here [the condo] and she immediately turned the thermostat on fifty.  FIFTY!” – Kelly reporting Kay’s first actions when arriving at the condo

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO SPLASH THAT BABY!” – poolside parent, hollering at her 12 year old who cannon-balled into the water right next to Isaiah.  Kid starts bawling.

“Can you please not keep looking this way?” – Keith to the whole family, during dinner, when he and Jay ordered an enormous seafood sampler that took them 30 extra minutes to finish when we all had finished our meal

*Silent but enthusiastic thumbs up sign* – given to me by an onlooker when I fell backward in my beach chair while reading.   Legs up in the air, book held above my head while the waves crashed over me so it didn’t get wet.  Kelly, trying to help, but trying to secure the loose straps of her bikini top first.

“Is putt-putt golf?”  –>  “Well, it has the word golf after it.” -overheard in another room

“SPF 70?  I might as well stay inside if I put that on.” – Nick

“You have a conference call about an upcoming trial?  Can you tell the judge that you’re in a bikini and this call is cutting into your beach time?” – me to Kelly

“Is anyone else other than me kinda freaked out about how Keith was singing ‘Movin’ On Up’ and then the next humdinger song that had to be guessed was ‘Movin’ On Up?” – me, after playing Cranium

“I think Grandma is more fascinated with the toy laptop than Isaiah is.” – Jay watching Kay fiddling with the plastic keyboard

“Shut it up.”  –>  “No, it’s ‘shut it down.’  When you want to shut down a computer, you shut it down, not shut it up.” – Keith explaining to Kay

“Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” -Nick to me, after twice being the Tripoly runner’s up

“Hey Buster!” – Kay to Isaiah

“Hey Buster!” – Ron to Isaiah

“Why do you guys both call him ‘Buster?'” -Keith to Ron and Kay

Until summer 2011…

Taken from the soul-shaking anthology, Pinay Power.  If you need a definition of “Pinay,” use the FAQ page.

“Peminism describes Filipina American consciousness, theory, and culture, with the p signifying specifically Pinay or Pilipina, terms used in referring to ourselves as American-born Filipinas.  It demarcates the space for Filipina American struggles…Peminism thereby signifies the assertion of a specifically Filipina American subjectivity, one that radically refudiates white feminist hegemony…Most important, peminism is about loving ourselves and other Pinays, loving our families and communities.  Indeed, peminism is an inextricable part of our decolonization as a people: far from being a slighting of Filipino American men or Filipino American culture in general, attention to Pinay voices and perspectives demonstrates our commitment to the liberation of all Filipinos.”

And another important tid-bit of information about the Filipino/Pilipino culture:

“Linguistically, the f sound derives from the Spanish colonizers that named the islands “Las Islas Filipinas” (after Philip of Spain); the American takeover of the islands in 1898 reinforced the imposition of the f sound via the Anglicizing of that term to “The Philippine Islands.” – Melinda de Jesus, Pinay Power, pg 5.

Get it?  See why history is important?  The sound, the letter F didn’t exist until the country was colonized.  According to Anthony Pido, “None of the seven major linguistic groups in the Philippines have an ‘f’ sound; the people refer to their country as Pilipinas and themselves as Pilipino.” – Pinay Power, pg 14.

Mabuhay!

Taken from the undeniable bell hooks, which I found a bit refreshing from the feminist blogosphere’s latest trainwreck on Feministe:

The exclusionary practices of women who dominate feminist discourse have made it practically impossible for new and varied theories to emerge…Yet groups of women who feel excluded from feminist discourse and praxis can make a place for themselves only if they first create, via critiques, an awareness of the factors that alienate them.  Many individual white women found in the women’s movement a liberatory solution to personal dilemmas.  Having directly benefited from the movement, they are less inclined to criticize it or to engage in rigorous examination of its structure than those who feel it has not had a revolutionary impact on their lives or the lives of masses of women in our society. -bell hooks, From Margin to Center, pg. 9

July 27, 2009

I took these two photos on the west side of Cleveland during a lunch break.

I was at the end of my first trimester.

These pictures were taken before I had my new camera.

Nick and I had just returned from a vacation in Charleston, South Carolina.

My books of choice were The Zahir and Bastard Out of Carolina.

These words were in my journal: This baby is making me think of being my best, living my best, and simplifying my life.  Simplifying my life, I’ve found, means taking care of the most important things first.

Who were you a year ago?  What were you doing?  What did you care about?  How have you grown?

There is no milestone for this date.  It’s just an ordinary summer day.  No holidays, no anniversaries, nothing but a hot sun on a July day.  An ordinary day.  A perfect time to reflect.

When a fellow Filipino has some beautifully raging words about artistry, writing, craft…anything about the fusion of art and social justice, you know I’m lovin’ it.

Here are some beautiful thoughts by Filipino filmmaker, Lino Brocka:

“The filmmaker, like his fellow artists in different media, has now
realized that the artist is also a public person. He does not work in
isolation from society. Instead of working alone in his ivory tower he
is a citizen of the slums, of the streets, of the battlefield if need
be. The artist is always a participant. He tries to be true not only
to his craft but also to himself. For it is the supreme duty of the
artist to investigate the truth, no matter what forces attempt to hide
it. And then to report it to the people, to confront them with it,
like a whiplash that will cause wounds but will free the mind from the
various fantasies and escapist fare that the Establishment pollutes
our minds with.

To the best of our abilities, and even if we oftentimes fail, we want
to do works that will hurt, films that will disturb, films that will
not make you rest. For the times are really bad, and given times like
these, it is a crime to rest. We can not rest, and we should not,
while there’s a fellow Filipino starving in Negros, an Aquino or
Galman crying for justice, a salvage victim lying in a mountain of
garbage while a corrupt family rules the country with uncontrolled
power and wealth. While it is the duty of the artist to work for what
is true, good, and beautiful, first we have to expose and fight for
what is wrong.

In these times when most of the media hide the truth from us, when
most of what we get from the media are silly gossip and petty flesh
and sensationalized crimes, we go to the streets to find out
what’s happening. We listen to those artists who dare risk their
lives and livelihoods, who reiterate once more the utmost duty of the
artist — that the artist is a committed person, that he will always
take the side of any human being who is violated, abused, oppressed,
dehumanized whatever his instrument — the pen, the brush, or the
camera.”

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!

Being Captain Obvious here…Comments are working!
Go ‘head. Tell me what’s going through your mind.



I’ve begun to make my own baby food.  Gerber Head is a good veggie and fruit eater, provided that the vegetables are fresh and pureed at home.  What a food snob!  (He sooooo takes after me….)  His new friend is green beans.  He loves eating fresh green beans.  He loves spooning it across the room.  He loves wearing green beans.  He loves sharing green beans with the floor, tray, high chair, and the arms and face of whoever tries to pick him up afterward to clean him off.

Precious.

For the most part, Nick and I love owning our home.  It is a privilege and blessing beyond our dreams to own such a beautiful home on a gorgeous, tree lined street, surrounded with diverse array of people and families from all over the world.  The schools are excellent, the community is generous and protective, the traffic is manageable.

But, there are days, a few hours here and there, when Nick and I are lying opposite from one another on different couches, staring at the ceiling, ruminating the course of our lives when one of us says the dreaded word.  The word that makes the other close their eyes in frustration. The word that quiets the house with a its four syllable funeral bells:

PACH Y SAN DRA

Landscaping.  Overgrown.  Weeding.  Pruning.  Whatever you want to call it.

I call it aesthetic mush.  I have absolutely no investment whatsoever in landscaping, but here, in our beautiful community that loves trees, greenery, bushes, wild flowers, top soil, and a pair of worker gloves, landscaping is the outlying nuisance of homeownership which Nick and I have yet to adopt as our own.  We, literally, have been ignoring our landscaping.  Maybe it’s denial.  Maybe it’s because we’re hoping that one of these thunderstorms will send lightning down on our front lawn and burn the Pachysandra.  Struck down from God.  Similar to the Big Butter Jesus on I75 that was crisped to its skeleton last month.

So, last night, Nick and I finally bit the bullet and asked for a professional landscaper to come over, give us plans, an estimate, and hope.  John, our wonderful landscaper, actually had to lift his feet up and over the weeds and vines of our front walk to get to the front door.  And that’s with the weight of  work boots on his feet.  It was embarrassing to say the least.

We stood on the front steps, John, Nick, Isaiah, and I.  Even Isaiah was leaning over the see the plans.  He probably saw something he could fit into his mouth while Nick and I were leaning to steal a glimpse of the estimate.  He explained how pretty the Japanese Maple would be how the blue holly would accent the Seruke Berry and the Taxus would be low maintenance.  I nodded, repeatedly, waiting for the bomb.

Bomb diggity indeed.

Later, as we put Isaiah to bed, and went back and forth about the decision, we both came up with the same response: once we do this, we’ll never have to deal with this again.  The front lawn, at least.

And this is where I am convinced that certain aspects of homeownership is grossly inflated.  More and more research indicates that there is not much of a financial difference between renting and owning a home.  Take out the emotional investment, pride of ownership, and exchange it for hassle-free living, being free to roam and move if your career calls for it, and I’d call it an even split.

However, it’s the small things that are making me feel attached to our Tudor-laced utopia.  Nick and our friend Brian just added much needed cabinet lights in the kitchen so I don’t feel I am going to cut off my fingers when I am slicing veggies and cooking.  We just redid our main bathroom.  Our landscaping is soon to have its overdue makeover.  And, most importantly, our memories of our first son and growing family is slowly being etched on the walls.  That’s irreplaceable.   And it’s not about the attachment to home improvements, it’s the process of making a space your own.  The living and breaking yourselves into a house that was previously not yours and now has your creative decisions in every room.  It makes you slow-footed to move.

Back to the Pachysandra.

We decided to sleep on it through the weekend before we make the phone call.  But I know that the decision has already been made.  Neither Nick or I is going to the intense hard labor of managing the bodacious weeds that have snaked through our walkway or the persistent vines that crawl up the front bricks of our house.  And we’re in the dog house with our neighbors who are too kind to admit otherwise.  We’ve backed ourselves into a green corner and it’s time to, literally, dig deep and clean house.