Our Priscilla of the Desert

I tagged our Priscilla in the above photo posted on Facebook by Cindy, a former co-worker in Saudi Arabia now based in London. I was so excited to see Priscilla's name in the billboard and associate cactus and Arizona to a desert. The photo was posted late February of this year. I was so excited when I saw what was photographed seven months ago in person. I took the photo below during daytime, when the lights were off and the cast in this musical are elsewhere and away from this West End Theater in London. I took the picture below in loving memory of our Priscilla who used tell me about the wildflowers of spring in the desert.



I never actually tried the find out what the musical was all about. All it mattered was Priscilla was the queen of the desert. What you don't know can't hurt you but it's too late. I am telling you anyway. The musical tells the story of two drag queens and a transexual. Priscilla is not one of the drag queens, thank God. Priscilla is the lavender bus that take the two drag queens and their transexual friend to Alice Springs, a resort town in a remote Australian desert. The musical was said to be funny and features what used to be my theme song: "I will Survive".
Speaking of LGBT's, the day before Priscilla died, I went to the San Diego Gay Pride Festival to photograph drag queens. Below is a three-month old photo on my blackberry to prove that I did go photograph homosexuals at San Diego's Balboa Park the day before Priscilla died.



Going back to Priscilla who is the straight one, knowing myself better than anyone, one of my fondest memory of her was her coming to my defense upon a rumor that I was gay. We haven't met in person back then. One afternoon as I was set to go for a walk, she called me on my cell phone and told me about how FreshEmerald insinuated in a blog that I was gay among other things. Priscilla never asked, neither did I tell!


There's our Priscilla of the desert above. I took the picture. She brought me to the Phoenix botanical garden, sort of her sanctuary. She looked forward to the wildflowers of spring. She will forever be our Priscilla of the Desert.

Sugar catches more flies than vinegar....

Meeting Vocera in London

I said goodbye to that man with a funny hat at 12:20 pm, London time at London Heathrow Airport. It was 8:20 am in Philadelphia and 5:20am in San Diego. He is an Englishman, obviously. If I was talking to an American who spoke English the way Piers Morgan did, I would have told him he had a fancy accent.
"I come from New England," the American would say.
I was so glad to be back in London after a quickie visit to Turin, Italy. At Stansted Airport, I asked an Englishman at the ticket booth for bus and train which would be the better transportation to take to central London for sight seeing purposes.
He seemed to be listening intently to my question.
"Don Andersten."
Sounds like a Swedish name. I am in EU alright.
"Say that again?"
Instead of saying pardon me, I sometimes phrase my request to repeat what the other person is trying to tell me thinking of a funny way Jules, a former colleagues, used to put it:
"Come again?"
But the Englishman was beginning to look bewildered like he was trying to tell me something in simpler English any Asian would easily understand.
"Don Andersten?"
Hmmm...
Eureka!
I'll have one bus ticket for London Victoria Station, please."
Now I have a name for my Vocera when i return to work: Don Andersten.

Bridges at the Thames River

Cousin Sue said she had never been at the Tower Bridge. She had been living in London for the last twenty-eight years. If I did not visit, she would not be seeing the engine rooms of the Tower Bridge for the first time.
Aunt Pauline, who has lived in London for the last thirty-eight years and Cousin Sue's mom, explained to me that the London Bridge referred to in the nursery rhyme is actually the Tower Bridge. The Tower Bridges folds up to let big sea vehicles into the further end of the Thames River.
There's something literary about Thames River.
More poetic than nursery rhymes:
"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down...crap!"


I chat with my husband online and tell him that I was at the London Bridge during the day.
"What you saw is a replica of the original London Bridge. The real London Bridge is in Lake Havasu, Arizona", my husband told me.
If my husband says so, as usual it would be a fact that London Bridge is in Lake Havasu, AZ.
"LOL."
"Don't LOL me, google it up."
My babe would be in Ire land if I don't stop ROFL.
I did google London Bridge and indeed, it is in the States, at Lake Havasu, Arizona.


"That would be a silly picture," an Englishman remarked as Aunt Pauline instructed Cousin Sue and I to get our hands closer to make a picture that would look like we were pushing a big building with our bare hands. We were in the middle of the Millenium Bridge.

"Mind your own business, this is a free country," Cousin Sue retorted to the Englishman.

The Englishman just kept walking as other pedestrians did. It was just another busy afternoon in London.

Blogging on a burp bag

This US Airways flight 250 readies for take-off. The exact time as I scribble on a burp bag is 6:55 am. No electronic device is allowed until the plane is airborne. That explains the burp bag. This is the burp bag blogger seated on F by the window. F stands for falcon which pho-eating Asians pronounce as Pha Khin.

Pha Khin burp bag blogger seated on F by the window scribbling on a burp bag!

More pho, Djeline?

I am about to rip the burp bag so I have more space to scribble on. The marks made by a chicken looking for stray grains on the ground would look better than my scribbling.

Pubic address (PA) says we are almost at Phoenix. Pardon my scribbling, I meant public. How can pubic be public? I could hear Ka Orly's favorite reply to my constant queries when I was still his student: "That remains to be seen!"

Ka Orly was my professor in community organizing at Asian Social Institute in Manila. He is now a peace worker on Afghanistan. I was brimming with pride when I learned about his work when I tracked him at Facebook. May he live long and thrive as I hope every peace worker in Afghanistan should.

I just ripped the burp bag so I could scribble on the other side of the durable paper that burp bags are made of. My scribblings now look as good as then scratches made by chicken as they looked for treats of worms and stray grains on the ground. Funny how scenarios from my rural origins in the Thrid World come up alongside the cosmopolitan facade of fellow passengers in this US Airways flight 250 bound for Philadelphia.