As I’m writing this, I’m fighting the urge to take off my clothes, turn off the lights and snuggle under my covers. Dear sleep, please stay the hell away from me. I haven’t done any writing over the past weekend and I’ve been trying my best to keep my end of the bargain. I’ve already broken my promise of writing here everyday. Well, I figured that people get a day off or two from work and so should I from writing. I already skipped almost six days worth of writing but I’m doing my best. I’m bad at commitments, I know that. So sleep, please come back after an hour.
Let me just say that to describe the weekend I had as fun would be an understatement.
Why is it that sudden and spontaneous outings and hang-outs are the ones that fall into place while those which are well thought out and planned are the ones that usually get cancelled? The more you stage a gathering, contact people and hammer out the details, the more that the universe conspires against you and put whatever plans you made to burst into flames. Sudden outings are fun and more exciting. Plus, they leave little room for people to cancel on you because of the time pressure to give their yes or no.
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| Leon, our Little Prince |
Last Friday night, Gem bought a new laptop and as expected, it’s nothing but a piece of hot pink metallic paper weight; a useless piece of expensive metal without an OS (Operating System). It was kind of mine and Ivy’s doing anyway. We strongly urged Gem to not avail of an OS since she can save an extra 5K for something that we can easily find a workaround for. And Ivy invited us to stay over at her place in Mandaluyong over the weekend so we can fix Pinky (Christened name of the new gadget) up. She promised to cook us dinner and it will give us an excuse to once again see the first ever member of the second generation Brotherhood bloodline, Ivy and Paul’s son, our cute baby Leon.
I picked up Gem from her condo unit in Pedro Gil for us to go to Ivy’s place together. Naturally, she will be bringing her laptop along during the commute, so I prefer to join her for safety purposes. There is always safety in numbers. Plus, given my apparent lack of navigation skills, it will most likely seem that I’ll once again lose my way while trying to finding the place (though it's not my first time to go there). Gem’s more the traveler type than I am, so I will rely on her directional smarts for us to not get lost. Divine will go straight to the place since she will be coming in from the south and it will be a hassle for her to meet us in Malate. Unfortunately, Nikki isn’t available to join us this weekend as she has to go home to Pampanga and unless Em and Pong develop fins that will allow them to swim themselves from Cebu, they won’t be able to make it either.
Money is tight nowadays. Since Gem and I are out of work, we can’t usually throw money with ease the same way we used to when we’re still both working as call center agents. Looking back, I feel a tinge of regret knowing how easily we used to splurge on hang-outs like these by eating in expensive places and in over indulging on expensive foods and drinks. Back then, money wasn’t an object for both of us. We were earning call center salary and we are both single. Now that we’re both out of jobs, we simply can’t be as extravagant and wasteful in money as we used to. Every peso, centavo and crumpled twenty-peso bill definitely counts.
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| United colors of laptops and netbooks |
I realize that you don’t always have to go out in bars or go clubbing to have genuine fun. And buckets of alcohol don't always have to be the group’s main driver for you guys to enjoy the night. For the most part of Saturday evening, while we were juggling hard drive formatting and OS and drivers installations, the five of us just lied around in one small room together and shared a few good talks. Well, my characterization of a few is rather convoluted as we were exchanging stories for eight hours. There are really a few people in your life that you are so comfortable with that you can almost share anything and talk endlessly about everything under the sun. Thankfully, I am very fortunate to have those set of friends who never run out of crazy stories to tell.
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| Pinoy Henyo after math |
We also played Pinoy Henyo last night which turned out to be a total laugh fest. I thought they were kidding when they brought up the idea; but after I saw them arranging a marker, a stack of post-it-notes and a timer, I knew they were dead serious about it. Given Gem’s comedic laugh, Divine’s winning punch lines, Ivy’s naiveté and prodding and add Paul’s participation, the game definitely had me literally rolling on the floor in no time. And it proved to be the most insane and craziest version of the game ever played. Some of the mystery words items were: Paciano Rizal, millipedes, Fiji, Bangladesh, Great Wall of China, Nicole Scherzinger, Prinsesa Urduja, watermelon seeds, etc. Seriously, how is one supposed to guess that? and because of our nerdy nature, some of us unknowingly delivered equally nerdy questions to guess the word and these questions became punch lines on their own. Is this an anthropoid? Biped? Did this country experience a sort of military junta? Malleable? Is this astronomical in nature? Is he pre-colonial? It was complete and utter mayhem, I tell you.
We also shared a nice quiet dinner where we sat down on the kitchen floor and shared Sardinas (canned Sardines, my one and only request), Maling (canned Chinese pork), Century Tuna and home-cooked adobo. It was cozy at the same time,delightful. I felt that we’re so close and that it felt like just a normal family dinner among us. Sounds of silverware, laughing at jokes and listening to each other’s ghost stories. That has got to be one of the best dinners I have ever experienced. And we didn't have expensive food to enjoy the dinner. All it took was a few good friends, a few good drinks and a few good laughs.
It was also a good thing that Ivy’s place had unlimited Wi-Fi. It allowed us to download some of the programs that we need to install on Gem’s laptop and it gave us the opportunity to do one thing that we love doing the most: Youtube surfing. One of our topics that night was a scary show from Animal Planet called Lost Tapes that Divine told us about. It’s sort of a drama-documentary show about the paranormal and mythical creatures. We wanted to watch a few clips in Youtube but sleep got the best of us so we weren’t able to finish watching some of the videos.
We slept at around 5 AM and woke up a little over lunch time. It was raining hard earlier so we decided to wait it out until the skies clear for us to head back home. It stopped raining a little around 3 PM after we had another round of de lata (canned goods) for lunch but we decided to play another round of Pinoy Henyo while Ivy is doing laundry and Paul is looking after Leon. Before leaving their place at around 6 PM, we shared a merienda of pancit canton. I reckon that the theme of this particular hang-out of us is relief goods, obviously.
Divine, Gem and I still decided to wander around Robinson’s Place Ermita after leaving Ivy's. See, when you hang-out with your friends, you don’t want it to abruptly end so you find all excuses to prolong and maximize the time you’re together as much as possible. We grabbed some crepes for dinner. I also had to buy an adapter for my netbook charger since the one I have got busted when I was at Ivy’s place while Gem had to run some errands and buy groceries. Divine and I walked her home to her condo as we wanted to make sure that she gets home safely with her new hot pink laptop. Crime is rampant these days. After that, Divine and I had to call it a day and head separate ways home.
Now after travelling from Mandaluyong to Manila to Caloocan, I’m officially beat. Oh, it’s raining hard again outside. I want to watch some clips of Lost Tapes from Youtube but a scaredy cat like me knows better than to watch horror shows in the wee hours of the morning.
I think I’m going to call it a night. Sleep is getting the best of me. I’m only human after all.
Again, that was an awesome weekend!
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