christmas post

last night's noche buena was the weirdest yet. you know what we had back home for christmas eve dinner? beef steak! hahaha. who has beef steak for noche buena?

so i was rocking my nephew to sleep when it suddenly dawned on me that i don't know almost half the lyrics of all the christmas songs i know. i sang wacky jingle bells and i couldn't get pass "laughing all the way..." i sang him "here comes santa claus, here comes santa claus, here comes santa claus way/sleigh/hey???", yeah, you get the point. we never really sit down and talk about the correct christmas song wordings, do we? so i settled for "if you could only see" by TONIC, and well, wacky sort of loved it. when he grows up, he's gonna be a real cool kid.

i think i will talk about the things i got plenty of this holiday season. no, not presents but christmas text messages! gotta love it. when they said the Philippines is the text capital of the world, they weren't kidding at all. leave it to christmas to make people feel the need to splurge on messages they most likely received from other people. i don't like sending text greetings myself simply because my budget seldom allows it. text or no text, however, i would like to believe my friends know i'm thinking of them during the holidays. they better.

anyway, these are the five best text messages i received:

5. Have a blessed Christmas! -- simple, but sincere
4. In this joyous season of merrymaking & endless parties, remember this: "Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator." -- pretty easy advice if you have a cooler for a fridge
3. MEWY KWIzMAZ..Ei,mowez hr..dnt u dare 4get mah gift..hehe..tnx 4 d fwnzhp/c0mpany.. -- christmas greeting in a foreign language... cool...
2. mery xmas! nla pud louella, imo papa bianca brumel! -- this one's from chammy, so sweet to know he knows everyone in my family (my pop's name is leonidas, by the way)
1. A boy was asked "Did u get everything u wanted for christmas?" He said, "Nope. But then it's not my birthday but HIS, isn't it?" -- exactly!

and the most outragaeous message is:

Nag community singing na mig "Joy To the World"!!! GET ME OUTA HEEERE! PLEEEEEZ!

to all the people who sends me these messages, thank you for adding color to my holiday. and to you who is reading this, thank you, too. God bless you!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

to gladys

it's an age-old story
of a love that has ended
before it has begun,
but allow me the temerity
of retelling it
on kodak xtralife paper

she only wished to know him more
than how he allowed himself
to be known,
she only wished to portray
the scene she has time
and
again
played in her mind

of the swift waves
of the nasty sand
of the moonlit night
of the bikini she bought just for the occassion

she had chased him in between deep breaths
she had played the game
she had been a faceless warrior
bereft of shame

but he will not allow himself
to be known,
instead he ran away
to a place she will not go

and now it has ended,
sad that he had not known
that for a good nine months
he and she (for there is no 'they')
have shared a story
on kodak xtralife paper

christmas party

christmas party

if there is one thing i like about the block now, it's the lack of pretensions. not that i hated the block before, but i love the block more now. people are freer to talk about anything, they feel comfortable with themselves, they suddenly like decided to get rid of any preconceived notions of themselves (and each other) and just basically hang.

Act I
Setting: Seajoy Seafood Restaurant (how's that for a name?!), around
7pm to 10pm

Scene I
after a record-breaking attempt to ditch traffic, my brother managed to get me at the venue thirty minutes late. right, like it mattered. when i got there, there was a total number of two people, myself included. gradually people started coming in in trickles.

Scene II
ms wade arrived and the first of five reserved tables got full. conversation started and the topics varied from yucky food to the inevitable SEX talk (what was that again about conversations always ending at this topic?). leave it to dick to supply all the details of all possible acts of intimacy, including one suspiciously named after a kitchen utensil.

Scene III
everyone came and we prayed then ate. ms wade ordered red wine for everyone, and i heard complaints that it tasted like medicine. hahaha. come to think of it, it did. but ali seemed to enjoy it. i remember what jimvic said that the taste for liquor and wines is an acquired taste: they don't really taste great, they taste like good times. ah.

Scene IV
chika minute with mari. this was the part where people talked about anything on top of their head. it was great except that mari decided to call on unsuspecting people to share their thoughts and feelings (jerah! camille! faculty!). sir ralph said our batch is intelligent (ha, nailad ka sir). ms wade said our batch was the best, recounting the preposterous ok-ok incident.

Scene V
manito-manita! this year, after the traumatic a-gift-from-the-heart number last year, we decided to bounce back with a charade-inspired manito-manita. it was very funny. imagine guessing a manit's gender from four choices: girl, boy, pagirl-girl and paboy-boy. hahaha. and that's just the gender!

(crizzy, bless her heart, gave me the bob marley Legend cd. thanks crizzy, too bad you couldn't make it to the party. thanks.)

Scene VI
photo op. an interesting side note: gladys got her picture taken with sir ralph. attagirl!

Act II
Setting: K1 Family Videoke, crossroads, banilad. around 1030pm to 130am.

Scene I
waited, waited and waited for a room. the group was divided into three: the aiko-ali group who were drinking beer, the maemae-alain group who were playing truth or consequence and then reverted to charades later on, and the kim-raneil group who were talking about nanie's battery-operated lollipop swirler (there's no other way of describing it). i belonged to the last group.

to prove his undying love to kim, raneil showed us some magic trick which involved two rubber bands and a hand. gladys made a nasty comment which involved nanie's battery-operated lollipop swirler and some self-love. they wanted me to teach nanie the "hula" song, but i decided not to. i was really in the mood to teach everyone the "mah-chapeta" song, but i guess nobody wanted to hear it.

Scene II
yay! we got a room. it was the same room we had during the tribu after-party. we sang and sang and sang. gladys sang her all time favorite song: i've never been to me. attagirl! when she got to the monologue part, i really felt she was telling me HER story. it almost made me cry.

all the songs we sang during the tribu after-party were basically revived. too many walls, smooth, barely breathin. while singing 214 i caught banne having a MOMENT. yup, leave it to rico blanco to cause an otherwise contented individual to suddenly crave for something (or someone -- chika minute!) she can never have. i shall hitherto address to this phenomenon as the 214 MOMENT.

it wasn't really until the Sheryl Crow (pronounced She-ryl' as in Sheryl Cruz) songs came up when we really brought the house down (did i just write 'brought the house down'?!). hahaha! that was fun. everyone was on his/her feet screaming the chorus of 'if it makes you happy'. at one point a waiter came in as everybody shouted 'then why the hell are you so sad' and, i tell you, i have never seen a more genuine look of shock on anybody's face before! hahahaha!

Scene III
gladys once again had her picture taken with sir ralph. this time, sir draped his arm around our gladys. can you say Merry Christmas?

Scene IV
time to go. sir gave us 500 bucks and we pooled money to defray expenses (did i just write 'defray expenses'?!). nobody wanted to go home as it was almost time for Simbang Gabi. i took the leftover pizza and wrapped it in tissue paper.

Act III
Setting: East, West cafe. Ayala Center Cebu, 130am to 230 am.

Scene I
we arrived and nobody wanted to serve us food because the kitchen was already closed. later on, the staff decided the cook can still be bitch-slapped to consciousness so we can order food. yay!

Scene II
nanie and i decided to order beer and a lumpia/sausage/ham number. everybody else ordered strong coffee. awit ordered pasta because she was hungry. i discretely unwrapped the leftover pizza and nanie and i ate it corkage-fee-free.

Scene III
dick decided to go home. i think he felt guilty because he had to go to church. ryan went with him. astrid was really sleepy, she almost forgot to pay.

Scene IV
beer breath, while virtually unknown to the breather is almost always noticeable from within a two-feet radius from said breather.

Scene V
everyone parted ways in a cacophony of Merry Christmas greetings.

Act IV
Setting: taxi, on the road, 230am to 3am.

Scene I
nanie, reggie and i decided to share a cab. when we entered the car, we were greeted by a most beautiful voice emanating from the car speakers. after much milling about as to who the artist was, we finally decided to ask the driver. 'bamboo,' he said. whoa! beautiful album. just perfect. bamboo early in the morning.

Fin

[thanks a lot to nanie for the pictures. you can check her out at static perspective.]

overcompensating

"The fabric of reality is stitched together with a fine thread of lies. 'No more tears shampoo' won't stop the pain." -Jeffrey Rowland

huh? wha? i love this guy's talent! check him out.

seasons of mao

after waiting for almost an hour for her, i dragged my mother to Big Mao for some good 'ol chow down. funny thing, my mother, she loves good food but she has trouble eating anything that (1) she cannot pronounce, (2) she cannot cook herself, (3) did not resemble anything she would actually recognize in its natural state, and (4) is not too salty, too sweet, too sour, in short, something that will not give you an ailment ten years after consumption. but because of some consistent referrals from friends to try the place out for some weeks now, i finally gave in to my inner connoisseur and took a bite off the Big Mao, to the dismay of my mother.

allow me the indulgence of a critique.

upon entering the place, my mother immediately declared the food bad since there were very few people dining. the fact that it was four in the afternoon was lost in her. we were greeted by a smiling waitress who promptly greeted us and directed us to a corner table. i hated the fact that the whole interior design was of the same color as my mother's uniform -- orange. it was like she totally belonged there! the whole play on my psyche was all too familiar: it has long been discovered that orange has the tendency to make a person hungry. hmmm...

waitress once again arrives with the menu and introduced herself as Em-em. like, "before anything else, my name sir-maam, is Em-em". Ooo-kay, Em-em, my name is brian and this is my beautiful mother louella, we are very glad to meet you... before anything else. i'm not kidding. she really introduced herself.

as i was not particularly hungry, i ordered the seasonal mixed vegetables (i like veggies), japanese siomai (i love siomai, and a japanese rendition is just too intriguing), and scallop and shrimp dumplings (... why not!). Em-em took notes, repeated the order and left with the customary expression, "for a while, sir-maam".

what is it with the whole sir-maam idea?! after careful philosophizing, i have come up with three probable reasons: (1) Em-em thinks i am a hermaphrodite, a veritable he-she. the whole while, she had been referring to me and me alone, for she has not seen my mother who was completely camouflaged by the interior design. (2) Em-em thinks my mother and i are one person, i.e., we are one and the same, therefore we, as one entity, must not be given the distinctive pause between 'sir' and 'maam'. (3) Em-em is sick and tired of the more common variation 'maam-sir'.

after three minutes, Em-em returns to the table. "I would like to apologize, sir-maam. but we cannot serve the seasonal mixed vegetables." I told her that was too bad and asked her why. she said the ingredients have not been delivered that day. i asked for another copy of the menu and was quite intrigued with one item: ‘mixed vegetables’. i inquired what the difference was between 'seasonal mixed vegetables' and 'mixed vegetables'. Em-em informed us that the former has seasonal vegetables while the latter did not. this greatly intrigued me, as (1) the Philippines does not have a seasonal climate and (2) we do not have seasonal vegetables as a result. Maybe that is why there were no seasonal vegetables delivered that day. mother ordered the other vegetable mix variation anyway.

the food arrived and mother hated the dumplings, ate one japanese siomai (which turned out to be just siomai but wrapped in sushi seaweed wrap) and ate all the broccoli and cauliflower from the veggie dish. oh well. thirty minutes into the dinner i forgot the food and was totally caught up in the conversation. it was a pretty shallow conversation.

that should speak something of the food.

children's hour

i went to volunteer for the children's hour 'a weekend for the children' at the ayala last weekend. i didn't do much really, i was stationed in a booth selling children's hour caps. the idea was to get people to donate money to the unfortunate kids. in exchange, they can get freebies. you can say it's basically selling stuff, but that's just you. if we get a donation of 200 to 299 pesos, we give the donor a free cap and a chance to choose the cap's color: white or brown.

in my shift (11am to 4pm), my partner and i were able to sell 10 caps. that's some 2000 smackeroos for the kids. right, it's not much. where could a measly 2 grand get the hungry? fortunately, children's hour does not rely on baseball caps alone. there's the company donations (all totalling 2 million last weekend), and all the donations from all the donors' hours.

donors' hours?

you see, the idea works this way: in your regular nine to five job, you can donate an hour of your earnings to the children(hence the name). an hour is really not that much, considering you spend almost an hour a day fixing yourself, eating quick snacks, chatting with co-workers, aimlessly spinning your chair until you puke -- and all these in company time! i don't know about you, but you weren't actually hard at work during this hour.

getting people to donate is really not as easy as it looks. first, you have to smile all the time so people will generally feel that you are a very happy person who is very glad to meet them. after you have acquired their volatile attention with your gleaming white teeth, you then begin the obligatory small talk, "Donate to Children's hour, sir? You could get a cap, you know." After this, you can then wallow in shame and humiliation as people after people nod, refuse, or worse, simply turn away. really, it was embarrassing. but soon, you muster enough confidence, or desensitivity, to do it over and over again.

with all the people i "met" last weekend, i was able to come up with a demographic of people who are most likely to donate money to needy children. it's not the caucasian foreigners, they simply smile at you and move along in a hurry. it's not the asian foreigners, they simply ignore you (it could be in their travel brochures to ignore the locals who attempt to make a conversation). it's not the rich chinese families, they hate delay. it's not even the rich filipino individuals of the hoity-toity sort, they would rather pretend to talk with each other and look at me like a vermin. believe it or not, it's the middle-class filipinos who are most likely to donate. you know, those types of families who go to the malls together in droves, dressed simply in shorts or jeans, without the least pretentions. they listen to what you have to tell them, ask about the project, and then get a kick out of fitting the caps and then annoying each other as to what color doesn't suit them.

proof that when it all boils down to it, only we can look after each other.

was it good for you, too?

it certainly was for me. the long break from blogging that is. anyway, i'm back and i certainly hope i can stick with this. after all, i have just gotten pass my 150th hit mark! ha! and you said nobody's reading! take that banne, suck it all in!

been up to so many things lately. i can't tell you every nasty thing, though. but i will be glad to share with you TEN THINGS I LEARNED WHILE I WAS NOT BLOGGING:

1. i can sing a pretty mean rendition of "Too Many Walls"
2. the dynamics of friendship, however stable (as in bestfriend material) or shallow (as in 'hi-hello' terms), will inevitably change after knowing one friend has a crush on the other. note that the operative word is 'change': for the good or bad, time alone can tell
3. you can never get rid of viruses until you get a good anti-virus software
4. jay leno is a funny guy, but conan o'brien is too hilarious for his own good
5. an old tire will magically transform into a great christmas wreath if you have a cool father with some of the pre-correctional martha stewart's genes
6. babies will laugh at you if you look funny
7. it sucks when people tell you the truth in your face
8. guilt hurts like hell
9. the true test of a person's patience is a non-working clicker (formerly remote control). it can also test how many expletives a person knows
10. the speed travelled by a car upon a sudden turn is directly proportional to the nerves one gets upon discovering that the steering wheel is very difficult to control during said turn. note to self: slow down when turning

there you go.