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.]