Today, I had lengua for breakfast. "Guiltless chocolate cake" from Coffee Bean and Tea leaf for a mid-morning snack. Blue Marlin, beef mechado, stuffed chicken, mixed vegetables and chocolate fondue for lunch. Banana split at iceberg's for a mid-afternoon snack. And Shakey's pizza + mojos for dinner! Whew. And I didn't spend a dime! :p
That's largely because today was driverless day, which meant a default mommy-baby day for me. Not that I'm complaining--my mom's actually pretty cool, and it helps that her job is very interesting for me too.
So we started off our day with a visit to Araneta, to buy tickets for the BeeGees concert. While waiting for my uncle to find the best available seats (apparently, it's nearly sold-out), my mom treated me at the nearest coffeeplace, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Amazingly, as I was about to sit down, I see Robin Lucas (syempre, kelangan buo. K'se there's also Robin Sebolino, and Robin Garcia)! At around 10 a.m., at Cubao! I couldn't believe it, since... well. I never thought of him as a morning person (although he's been telling me he is. It still strikes me as odd that he is though), and I *know* he lives far away (in Valenzuela) and works far away (at Eastwood, near my place). Gah! I was REALLY shocked, and I think I was speechless and well, flabbergasted, for awhile.
Not that it wasn't a good surprise. Robin's quite fun to talk to (as most debaters are), especially when he starts mocking his French students. Heh. Anyway.
I also ran into Tet, whom he was meeting up with. So I got to introduce them to my mom, and I managed to embarass myself in front of both Tet and Robin by forgetting my mom's bag in the coffee shop, and then later on running back to retrieve my water. O.o
The unexpected morning surprise + forgetful boo-boo would've been enough to keep me happy and smiling the rest of the day (yes, I'm that easy to please) but my day was just beginning! Mom then told me we were going to go to Intramuros for a ribbon-cutting event. Apparently a building was being named in my grandfather's memory (the Blas F. Ople Development Center for OFWs, under the OWWA office), so we were invited. The news filled me with excitement and dread at the same time-- while I love my grandfather, and I generally like it when people remember him and honor him even after his death... I don't like ribbon-cutting events much. Blame it on previous bad experience, but when I hear ribbon-cutting, I immediately think of the word "boring" (There's a lot of waiting around, and posing taking place, and when the ribbon is cut, there's a lot of chatter and then *more* waiting).
But NO, this was easily the best ribbon-cutting event I've been to ever. In fact, I whispered to my uncle, this is easily one of the favorite "functions" (if you can call it that) that I've attended!
That's because it didn't only have an ati-atihan (i really love ati-atihan, mostly because of the beat. I had a smile the whole time, even if the beat/dance was a bit repetitive) performance, it also had a chinese-dragon-performance (sorry, I don't know what it's supposed to be called)! And it was so cool, because there were parts when the Chinese Dragons seemed to be kissing (french-kissing, at that)! And it was just so silly and weird that I had to laugh and smile and be plain happy.
The Chinese dragons also gave away coins to the crowd, and of course I made sure I received some. I'm hoping they're lucky coins, so I won't be spending them anytime soon.
The food was also delicious: the blue marlin, the choco fondue, the stuffed chicken. What was even better, though, was the fact that I didn't even have to line up for the food! The food came to us (courtesy of the nice waiters and waitresses, of course)! Which I appreciated so much I decided to take note of the catering company (eloquenta. if you guys have an event, you should get them. and then invite me! hehe).
While I was eating and chatting up my uncle (my mom was busy in the other table, talking to people from OWWA), the guy beside him speaks up and asks: "yan ba si Estelle?". I was shocked. Aside from my relatives, and those who worked with my lolo long enough to see me grow up, I didn't expect anyone else to know me, or at least, know my name. I spoke up and said, "opo, bakit po?" Apparently, he's the uncle of one of my favoritest people in the world, Ate Nina!! He told me his niece from San Francisco (one of my chatmates from when I was 12 years old) told him stories about me. And I told him wonderful stories about his niece (Ate Nina is one of the sweetest people I know. I told her in passing that my favorite painter was Badon, and even if she was in the United States, she sent me a gift for my birthday--which she didn't even have to do. It was a Badon painting. It turns out Badon is one of her uncles. This is but one of the many sweet and memorable things my Ate Nina has done, not only for me, but for other people too. And I just met her from chat!). I found out that the house I've been visiting at UP Village whenever Ate Nina would be in the country (she tries to visit the Philippines every year) was his! So I asked him about his guinea pig, and found out that it passed away... and we chit-chatted some more about Ate Nina and how both of us met and again, it was such a wonderful surprise, as my mom also knows him and what a small world we live in.
After the sumptious lunch, my mom and I went to Harbor City to meet up with another one of my uncles. He's one of my mom's more interesting friends. He's one of the attorneys of the Oakwood mutineers, and it was an honor sitting with him and my mom and my other uncle, listening to them talk about politics over ice-cream. And it was at that precise moment when I felt extremely blessed. To be the daughter of my mom, who didn't mind me tagging along while she did her work, who wasn't embarassed that I was giggling and taking cell-phone pics of the ati-atihan dancers and was wearing jeans at a formal function, who didn't mind taking me to school, even if it meant some alterations in her schedule. To be in the company of my mom and her friends, who are some of the coolest people ever, people who are old and wise and have the credentials but who are down to earth enough to talk to a 21-year old about the pains of Chemistry class. To simply be me, whose standards for happiness are quite shallow, allowing me to be happy and giddy and cheerful and upbeat most of the time.
I feel so lucky, lucky, lucky.
And this day, was just a slice of why I feel that way.
+ = + = + =
This post is long already, but I just had to add that my lucky-streak didn't end that afternoon at iceberg's. My lucky-streak extended far beyond, because of my mom treating me to shakey's pizza (fave!) but also because of gems of conversations with precious, precious people: robin-chemistry-seatmate, duds-chemistry-seatmate, ND-bestfriend; JP and the mystery spaghetti man, pirates causing climate change; Alex; Obbie, the killing-time dude; Max. And of course, the cold storage sales girl, who never fails to brighten my day with text messages and random hugs and the like. Thank you, thank you. Ati-atihan or not, sumptious lunch or not, I'd still be lucky because I have you guys to share my life with. Yey!
Currently reading: Huntington, "Who Are We?"
Currently feeling: super happy and blessed
