Lei Ana Hawai'i

  April Celebrations 

A lei a day keeps the boredom away... or something like that. - Anonymous

Lei Day is a vibrant Hawaiian holiday observed annually on May 1st.

Okay. So you're observant. The series is April Celebrations, why this? 

Because I'm feeling so lei-d back today? (LOL). Or maybe, I've run out of rogue April celebrations to write about?

Nah, I just thought, Why not? After all, Fav Granddaughter just celebrated the day by moving to dance music with precision and fluidity at Punahou School's annual Holoku pageant - and that's worth a blog.

Lei Ana ó Maui: Musical Celebration Of The Dark Pink Lokelani (rose of Castille). Photo: V.E.V., Punahou School: April 24, 2025

As you may have guessed, the day is dedicated to the cultural significance and beauty of the lei, a flower garland traditionally worn as a symbol of love, respect, and aloha (meaning love, affection, compassion, goodwill).

More than this conventional imagery, it has been said that whatever falls from the neck over your heart is a lei. An embrace from a friend is a lei.

That lei really brings out the aloha in your smile. Photo, Hughes Ohana Calendar: Compiled by P.D.H, Honolulu: 2025 

The sea that surrounds the islands of Hawaii is a lei.

When you look into the sky and see a rainbow, that is a lei. 

The birds that encircle above are making a lei and from their precious feathers we can fashion a special lei.

A young lady with arms around her grandparents, that is a lei. Photo: A.V.H, Punahou School: April 24, 2025

You don't have to be famous. You just have to make your Mama and your Dad proud of you.

A lei, any lei, is made with love.

All of Hawaii wears love as her lei. To give love is to give a lei.

To bring this series to an end, here's 

sending you a virtual lei, that you may

 adorn yourself with its fragrance, share its

beauty with others, and embrace the essence

of aloha!

Hauóli Lei Day! (Happy Lei Day!)

 

Couple Appreciation Month

  April Celebrations 

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. - Orison Marden

Did you know February isn’t the only month to love and appreciate your partner? April is Couple’s Appreciation Month. 

This observance was founded in 2010 by Blissful Escapes Company to encourage couples to do something special to re-enforce and celebrate relationships. Since then, the idea has caught on among both couples and singles who want to show their spouse or couple friends how much they enjoy their company.

So, what are some of the ways to intentionally connect?

Consider a floral bouquet, planning an at-home movie night, writing your partner a heartfelt letter, or arranging a picnic in the park.

Flowers Of April: 54th Wedding Anniversary. Waikiki: April 17, 2025 

Or shape your day by walking, even in the rain...

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.

... And doing random lunch at an oceanfront restaurant.

Fresh caught fish with furikake steam rice; flakey white fish and chips. Barefoot Beach Cafe, Waikiki

Or how about a night out at for gourmet French cuisine?

As Virginia Woolf says, One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

A gourmet meal without a glass of wine just seems tragic somehow.

à votre santé! Cheers! Anniversary Dinner. Ka Ikena Culinary School, Honolulu

It's remarkable how long we've tolerated each other.

It is said that all you need is love, but a pistachio raspberry mousse cake and a slice of chocolate dulce now and then won't hurt.

No matter how big or small the gesture, love is best felt in action.

There’s no time like the present to show your partner how much they mean to you. Regardless of whether your relationship may be like a walk in the park... Jurassic Park included.

The journey may not be perfect. Definitely will never be, but it's yours.

Stick with it till the end. 

No Housework Day

 April Celebrations 

Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance? - Anonymous

April 7 is National No Housework Day.

As the name suggests, this is a day to drop the vacuum, the laundry detergent, the dish soap. Just relax! 

Housework is evil. It.Must.Be.Stopped.

As tempting as it may be to sweep the floor or make the bed, the point of this observance is to give yourself a break from housework and do something else you enjoy instead. The cleaning can wait for a day. After all, after the first four years, the dirt doesn't get any worse.

Okay, so now you have a whole day free of housework. Here are a few suggestions to fill that time.

Binge-watch your favorite TV show. Don't forget the blanket and a few snacks.

Have a long and relaxing bath. A way to feel luxurious and spa-like in your own home.

Order some takeout. Cooking dinner can be considered a chore, so take the night off from that, too. As a bonus point, you won't have any dishes to wash.

No more blogging, too.

Warning pop-up:

Windows is shutting do...w..n!!!

Find A Rainbow Day

 April Celebrations 

Some days don't ya just wanna hop on your unicorn and fly somewhere over the friggin rainbow? - Anonymous

I've decided to go rogue this month.

In lieu of well-known and traditional full-bloom-of-spring celebrations, this series will feature lesser known holidays and observances in April.

Starting with National Find A Rainbow Day.

Each year on April 3rd, this observance challenges us to stop looking for a pot of gold and simply appreciate this colorful ray of hope cast across the sky.

Rainbow Over Waikiki Beach. Photo: V.E.V., Honolulu: December 2016

To celebrate the day, find yourself a rainbow. (Spoiler alert: you'll never find one if you're looking down). Or use the garden hose or a prism to make one yourself.

If you're feeling crafty, how about cutting out paper hearts? Tint them with every color of the rainbow, then string into an arc across a glass window. You just may be that bright beam in someone else's cloud.

What are you waiting for?

Go find your rainbow.

May your day be more beautiful than a unicorn farting rainbows!

80 Different Things: Big Finish

 Celebrating Me 

One of you didn't know many of the Different Things listing and have never seen my childhood photos with my brothers. Another knew only a few bits.

That's good. At least, I'm not repeating stuff. Continuing on.

71. Hmm... Maybe, I don't have to go through all these because...

YOU KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY!

Halloween In Phoenix, Arizona

Wrinkled was not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up. - Anonymous

When I was young, I couldn't wait to grow up. Now, I'm just waiting for my next nap. Life has been a series of, I can't believe this is my life now moments.

But I've been content thinking that nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember because that's how we fill our minds with memories, like thousands of stars in the sky.

Memories, such as those of my 80th birthday which has been comprised of several perfect days.

First, a day filled with

precious and most-thoughtful gifts.

Far left: A wrist watch and monstera-design gown through Second Daughter's Walmart gift card 

Above right: Grilled stufft burrito lunch after shopping with First Daughter and the cutest six-pack mini Coke topped with a mini red bow from Favorite Son-In-Law

An adorable umbrella from Kyoto with a pixie-face Japanese doll handle and a Ross gift card (not in pic) from First Daughter

No gift is too small to give, nor too simple to receive, which is wrapped in thoughtfulness and tied with love.

Left: Japanese parasol unfurled. Note new wrist watch in full view

Leftmost: Telefora red roses and chocolates from Youngest Bro (who now resides in New Zealand)

Left: Yellow and lavender tulips from Jach (including a rogue African iris picked on the wayside)

Secondly, a time for cuteness overload at Don Don Donki, a Japanese-style discount store.

As First Granddaughter comments, Woah woah woah.

And Second Granddaughter: OMG AHHGGGG SOO CUTE!!

Thirdly, a super sarap birthday lunch of fried pampano fish, kare-kare, monggo guisado and halo-halo at Seafood City.

Then, capping it all, a Thai dinner treat at The Sister by First Daughter and family.

I may not have it all together, but together with family here and abroad, I have it all. TOGETHER is my most-perfect day, and for this I'm grateful. 

Ho'onani i ka Makua mau,

Ke Keiki me ka 'Úhane no.

(Praise God, From Whom all blessing flow.)

THE END?

Nope.

Here's to MORE DIFFERENT THINGS

and BEYOND!

By The Light Of Tiki Torches. Photo: V.E.V., Outrigger Canoe Club, Waikiki: March 2025

80 DIFFERENT THINGS: Part Four

 Celebrating Me 

College And Graduate School

College is fun as long as you don't die. - Tsugami Ohba

49. It was UP all the way with free tuition through semestral scholarships plus a one-semester Sigma Beta grant which I earned after writing a sob story essay (financial need was the qualifier).

50. I was weird and awkward through most of my sophomore year.

51. I started looking better soon after, thanks to Pond's cream and Maybelline eyeliner and shadow.

52. St. Mark's basketball team chose me as muse. I intentionally arrived late on opening night of the game to avoid parading with the team.

53. I wore my first white pair of one-inch Cuban heels for the UP taditional coming-of-age-for-females ritual parade called Cadena de Amor.

Cadena De Amor. ManilaTimes  photograph: UP: 1963

54. Who knows? Perhaps, I was one of those in the foto above because 1963 was the exact year of my participation.

55. Scooping each side of the tea-length skirt of my pink outfit, I limped through the entire ordeal.

56. A totally awesome fact at the time: my 15-inch waistline (give or take). LOL

57. In junior year, I won second place in a college-wide essay writing on Maria Clara. I titled mine, Maria Clara: Caricature Or Paragon? First place went to a senior law student. 

58. This was also the year I met a certain Vicente Velasco III, first at Christmas camp and later on campus. I thought, What's with the III? Is he royalty? 

59. I had just turned 20 when I graduated from college with a degree in English and Comparative Literature, cum laude.

60. I was hired as an instructor thereafter.

61. While teaching, I concurrently pursued graduate studies toward professorship status.

62. I chose a local Rockefeller Scholarship over an East-West scholarship in Hawaii to pursue graduate studies.

63. I had just turned 26 when I earned my Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature.

Graduate, Master of Arts in Comparative Literature. UP Yearbook Official foto. March 1971

Wedding Bells

When we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness - and call it love. - Rob

64. I got married a month after commencement.

65. Wedding was presided over by three ministers: Pastor Meynardo Jose from would-be-hubby's St. John's Church, Pastor Nathanael Cortez from my church St. Mark's, and the Pastor from UP Chapel (whose name I forget).

66. Dadee and all six brothers wore traditional barong tagalog for the occasion.

67. My attire was an embroidered shift gown made of jusi (pineapple fiber) and raffia-covered heels from Rustan's. 

68. I carried a single yellow rose for my bouquet.

69. Our labandera (laundry maid) Aling Luring, who was a guest at the wedding, said that I looked like Lisa Lorena, a popular actress at the time.

70. My wedding gown still hangs in the walk-in closet of our Columbus home.

(To be continued)

80 Different Things: Part Three

 Celebrating Me 

School Days

School is like a zoo. Except the animals talk. - Anonymous

28. At five years, I went to kindergarten at Ang Ilaw (The Light), a makeshift school that was across the street from the Llenado house.

29. Teacher Mrs. del Rosario looked ancient, dressed in an old-fashioned kimona dress everyday.

30. She often slapped my left hand with a ruler when I wrote to train me to be right-handed.

First Brother's class pic at Ang Ilaw Kindergarten School. He's third from left on the last row. I don't have a class pic.

31. One had to be seven years old to start first grade but Dad, convinced that I was ready at six years, faked my birth and baptismal certificates (filling out a blank certificate from Lolo Gorio's book) and signing with flourish for two sponsors, the pastor, and Bishop Sobrepena.

32. Consequenlty, I got accepted at Moises Salvador Elementary which was walking distance from the Torio house, now built on the same premises as the Llenado property.

33. Mrs. Capili was my first grade teacher. From her, I learned all about minutes and seconds, and days, months, and year.

34. Miss Guerrero, my second grade teacher, was my Mum's favorite. She often gifted her with boiled saba bananas. Her dream was for me to be a teacher like her.

35. All I remember doing in Miss Losa's third grade class was polishing my side of the desk wih sandpaper.

36. Right around the end of fourth grade, I had chicken pox, so Mrs. Pasion exempted me from taking the final test.

I must be eight years old here and in 3rd grade. With brothers Rey (6), Dan (4), and Eddie (2). Looks like it was posed at a studio.

37. We all called my fifth grade teacher Miss Acosta kembot because that was how she walked, wiggling her hips.

38. Mum wanted me to be a folkdancer when in sixth grade, she watched my teacher Miss Bautista dance the tinikling during a school program.

39. I was elementary school Valedictorian for which I received a 100-peso award.

TEEN YEARS AND HIGH SCHOOL

They say teenaged years are the best years of your life. They also said Algebra would be useful. - Anonymous

40. I was 12 when I started high school at Ramon Avancena.

41. To go to school, I rode the Quiapo-Balic-Balic jeepney everyday for a ten- centavo fare.

42. I won several contests in my third year: first prize in Geometry construction and second prize for a Tagalog essay on Earth Day. I got second place in an inter-high spelling competition. The word I missed was apiary.

43. My best friend Victoria Posadas and I would buy for ten centavos an ice-cold coke to share at recess.

44. Although at first I thought boys were yucky, I made an exception that year with Jose Raneses, my first crush. I kept the Christmas card he gave me under my pillow the rest of the year.

45. That was the time when friendship meant you could spend the whole day doing nothing and still have the best time ever.

46. To this day, I still text high school friends Nini Rodriguez (she never married), Del Ballesteros-Gedang, Lita de Guzman, Pi (from the musically-renowned de Leon family), Amor Landas-Marcos, Sonny de los Santos, Romy Fayloga, and Tony Ejan.

47. I'd always been shy. I didn't attend senior prom when I learned that I was Prom Queen candidate and had to walk and parade for the competition.

48. I graduated valedictorian in high school for which I earned college entrance scholarship at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.

(To be continued)