Elle Marie and Bien Mary are Turning 8 and 4 Years Old

Elle Marie will turn 8 years old tomorrow while Bien Mary will turn 4 years old this coming Saturday, November 4. Time has wings. All these photos I got from the fb album of my wife.

Here, taken last Saturday at the Maharlika Artists and Writers Federation (MAWF) gathering in Intramuros, Manila. My wife was invited, she tagged us along on our way home from Divisoria.

Another view, same event. Venue was The Collectibles building I think, 3rd floor. This is just behind the Manila Cathedral.

In one of the regular outings of the mother-daughters. Usually when it's malling, I don't join them. Am too lazy to visit the malls until now. 

Elle Marie at one year old, seven years ago. She enjoyed bubbles then. Until now actually, though not as passionately as before.

I would jokingly tell Elle that she should grow fast so that when she's big,  she can drive me someday as I am getting older. Will become a senior citizen less than a decade form now. :-)

Below, a charming, pretty and tall Elle. She's slightly above my nipple already.

Taken last Friday at a nice bakeshop in our barangay in Makati.
While they both like sweet food, sometimes they are choosy. To balance such unhealthy appetite for sweet food, I feed them banana  often. They like banana. Sometimes mangoes (but mangoes now are expensive) or orange.

And this is Bien Mary now....
She sees herself as a fashion model or ballerina, or a singer ("Let it go, let it go...")

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See also:
Elle Marie and Bien Mary, Part 3, August 21, 2013
Elle Marie is 7, Bien Mary is 3, October 06, 2013
Elle Marie and Bien Mary, December 2013, January 12, 2014
Bien Mary's Moving up Day, April 05, 2014

Elle and Bien at Camp John Hay, Baguio City, June 29, 2014

TSAA's Family Day

Two Fridays ago, September 5, The School for Academics and Arts (TSAA) held its first Family Day this school year. Venue was the Makati Coliseum, not far from the school in Davila St., Makati City. I was not there as I attended a round table discussion by Citizen Watch at UP Diliman.

My wife and our younger daughter, Bien Mary, accompanied Elle Marie (Grade 3) at the event. The grade schoolers showing their Filipiniana dance number. They also performed a musical number using  bamboos and other local materials.

The kinder schoolers showing their talent too.

Co-parent Mike Luis, lead singer of a famous local band, Free Style, singing a song. His son joined him.

The games, funny.

Another game. The kids and parents were having a great time.

Fathers and their kids. I really miss that...

Other parents. Gilbert Maramara (rightmost) and Dean Gioia (beside him) are my usual chatmates whenever we see each  other at the school picking up our kids. And Noel Sandicon too, not in this photo.

Elle Marie, Bien Mary, Elle's two classmates.

All photos above from Dean, Dee Oh and my wife's facebook pics.
Good job TSAA. I honestly miss that event.

* See also, The School of Academics and Arts, July 07, 2014

Uly Veloso's Sculpture

Last July 26, 2014, I attended an arts exhibit -- paintings, sculpture, artistic lights -- in a building at the FTI Complex in Taguig, Metro Manila. A good  friend since the early 90s, Uly Veloso, was one of the exhibitors, showing his recent metal sculptures.

Uly's spacecrafts. Space shuttle Discovery in the front, two "Tora Tora" (WW2 Jap war planes) at the back. Stainless steel on granite base. Discovery is 36 x 86 x 36 cm while Tora Tora is 36x 74 x 36 cm. 

He is using this metal that cannot be bent, so hard, yet there are curves in these planes. How did he do it? A different  kind of delicate, complicated and time-consuming welding process so that the various pieces are attached to other pieces as if they were one piece of metal. Fantastic.

From a spacecraft and planes to the outer space. Constellation Ursa Major or the "Big Dipper". Stainless steel on granite base with glass beads. Again, these are delicately welded and the rounded joints in the middle of those short metal sticks represent the huge stars or formation of stars in the galaxy.

Constellation Leo, Stainless steel on granite base with glass beads. This granite is hard and will not easily break.

Constellation Aries. I took this photo of the sculpture in between  those two nice paintings on the wall.

Back to Earth. Uly's trees.

This one is cool. "Infinite narratives from a Bonfire". Ala UP bonfire after UP Men's basketball team won one game after two years of straight losses at the UAAP. 

44 x 30 x 27 cm.

painted stainless steel 

Below, the artist on the left, and our common friend from UP, Jun Realica in the middle.

Uly and our friend in Congress Mountaineers, Kristin Paredes.

We are the gliding airplanes :-)

Not Uly's work, another artist's work. I like them, cool.

Lots of food and beer that afternoon. Thanks again Uly for that invite. My art-barbarian mind is imbibing the beauty of arts through friends and my daughters.

Those pieces are for sale. I think many of them are still available. If interested, the artist can be reached at uly_veloso_camp4@yahoo.com.
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See also stories here that include Uly:

Mt. Pinatubo, 1994 and 2006, March 08, 2006

Mt. Pinatubo Climb, December 1994, January 24, 2014

Gen. Nakar, Quezon, Mountaineers' Outing, April 30, 2014

Veloso Ancestral House, Baguio City, June 03,  2014

A problematic friend...

A friend has a rocky marriage for several years now. He and wife have discussed separation several times in the past, but they have small kids, their priority was staying with the kids.

My friend says the wife has a machinegun mouth and can be violent sometimes, punched him a few times in the past. His cell phone also contains many angry notes from her, but wife would creep and get his cp, deleted many of such angry, angstful and seemingly paranoid text messages.

He started saving those text messages, but only the recent ones because the older angstful SMS have been deleted already. He emailed this to me and asked to put this online as he does not have a blog, for his reference someday.

2014 text messages by the wife:

Nasaan na ang mga anak ko?  (Aug. 2, 4:43pm)

(anak nya lang daw, di anak ng tatay)

Wag ka na bumalik ng bahay… (Aug. 25, 6:56pm)

(walang helper, walang driver, hindi marunong mag drive, sino kaya maghatid-sundo sa mga bata sa school? Magbantay sa bata habang sya ay nasa work or meeting with her friends?)

Umuwi ka na!!!!! (Aug. 26, 10:18am)

Umuwi ka na at late na ako!!!!!! Wag mo na ako alitin at funder konka mtg ko!!!!! (Aug. 26. 10:27am)

(too many exclamation marks, reflects how loud the shouting and screaming if face to face)

Ngawngaw ng ngawngaw e ikaw? Hangin! Kayabangan (Sept. 2, 8:53pm)