Ana G's Big 3(Oh)

Pink bear helmet. 'Nuff said.

Just ten hours earlier I came home from Ana Gonzales' 30th birthday party. For someone like me, getting home at a quarter-to-two inna morning from a late-night party held in Makati while my parents weren't out of the country and not unable to buzz/bug me on my whereabouts is about as ballsy an act of social rebellion can be. And for the first time I went stag, an idea that's partly liberating and risky, but came about due to circumstances beyond my control (i.e. my "wingwomen" flaked out).

The party was at 10pm, so I had lots of time to kill beforehand. Had an early-evening swim, got dressed up in line w/ the Pink theme Ana G. wanted (T-shirt for me), then hung out at Diana's place to shoot the breeze and exchange a used tube sunblock for dark chocolate imported from Hong Kong before driving out to Makati (w/ a pitstop for a Chicken McNugget meal).

One thing I like about Makati after 9pm is free parking on the sidestreets, something I don't take advantage of often, since I usually come here much earlier in the evening and park at the malls. But the party's venue at La Maison Condo was several blocks away from said malls, so I hoofed it after leaving the CRV along Legazpi Park.

As my first solo-flight to a late-night party, the term "fashionably late" was something I needed to work on. With bottle of wine and birthday gift at hand, I made it to roofdeck to run into the birthday girl --dressed in a pink halter-top and a white tutu-- and found out I was only the 2nd guest to arrive, next to guest dee-jay Bob. Another guest (human rights lawyer Jessica) was nice enough to pour open and share her bottle of Prosecco. The party's hardly started and already I was feeling a buzz.

It took another 15 mins for the guests to really start pouring in, and speaking of pouring in it was important to hold on to your first plastic cup, as those suckers ran out fast. Some guests were forced to finish whole cans of Red Horse before being able to refill on lighter fare. The place was now divided to a loud dance studio hall for revelry and the balcony for crowded conversing, and I dove in on the latter and managed to mingle w/ gusto. (Also, I may have met more English people tonight that I have my entire lifetime.)

There was the British Biology teacher (name escapes me but reminds me of Brendan Gleeson) who came here 6 months ago w/ his wife Meena (also British but of Indian descent). Francis the English webpage developer who moved here 3 years ago. His business parter Natalie, who lost her beer cup and almost reused someone else's before the original owner stopped her. Carol Sun of Cathay Pacific. Cookie, whose bowtie didn't get as much attention as his pink bear helmet in keeping w/ the party theme. Liz, who quit her job in advertiseing 6 months ago and dreams to work on a luxury yacht. Peter, the second person in the party who thought we've met before (we haven't), then hugged me by the head for some reason. (Pretty sure he wasn't even drunk.)

Anyhoo, I was an hour and fifteen minutes past my "Cinderella Time," and as awesome as staying longer would've been, I didn't. Boo. Hour later my allergy to "excessive" alcohol consumption acted up again. Boo and itchy!

Fulooking Around (An Ad EATremum Event)

For this year's EDSA Anniversary only students got the day off today to "celebrate." Luckily for Irene she works in a school, so she got to "celebrate" by sleeping late and bum around the house. Oh, and get a chance to see batchmates again for dinner.

It seems scheduling a small Batch '94 dinner around Irene's free day was just as good an excuse as any to get it done. (Hell, worked the first time.) This time it was supposed to be at Greenbelt 5, but I couldn't find a place w/ reasonably priced food and conducive for good conversation. Someone suggested Mann Hann, but the one near Glorietta was closed for good, and the main branch in San Juan was spacious but a b*tch to find sufficient parking. I settled for the SM Mezza branch across the street from Centerpoint.

After picking up Mona and Irene, we were the first to arrive at Mann Hann. When everyone else finally showed it was clear that we could not be fit at one table, plus those f#%kers were bolted to the floor so we couldn't move them. So imagine 15 adults, after some chatting and not ordering (but still holding the menus), getting up to leave after one of them explains to the manager that we'd opt to stay if they had longer tables and benches. Darwin's suggestion? Luk Foo Restaurant along E. Rodriguez corner Araneta Avenue. If I knew we'd be this close to my house I might have hosted this dinner there.

We selected Set Menu B, and out came Chinese dishes so unremarkable it was like they wanted to emphasize how less interesting their food was compared to Gloria Maris. But I've said it before: the quality (and price) of the food is secondary to the interaction around the table. Tonight I met Cheryl Dy and Wendy's husbands and Darwin's wife for the first time. Tonight I learned a bizarre rumor concerning the spawn of a couple of Ad Extremates. Tonight I learned almost all of them want to enroll their kids in Saint Jude Catholic School. Poor Irene, more paperwork for her.

School Ties

Free time last Friday found me going to Jehan's office at Tytana Plaza in Binondo to attend a meeting of the Saint Jude Catholic School Alumni Association website committee. (Good luck fitting all that on a business card.) Surprise, surprise, the website's been lacking in oomph and updates. I was there to offer some insight and suggestions, if not actual material worth publishing online. Jehan was nice enough to order Uno takeout for us in the form of various rice topping meals.

Speaking of suggestions, ones like having an open forum board or the site hosting some blogs were tossed around. Nice on paper, but as I told current SJCS AA President Johann Tan, things like a website require passion (or monetary incentive, w/c isn't likely here as the site was put up by volunteers) to keep it going. Hell, I have batchmates unable to sustain a maximum 140-character typing habit, much less updating blogs. And even if they did have the enthusiasm for it, the SJCSAA website would have to compete for attention of those who prefer using Blogger, Facebook and/or Twitter to voice their opinions.

That being said, the meeting was more of coming up w/ material for the site. Sports was a given, w/ all those games the alma mater's been winning (and losing) lately. (Johann was strangely fixated on highlighting cheerleaders.) Another was a monthly feature article of high-profile alumni, or at least those w/ interesting jobs. Tim Yap was mentioned twice or thrice, but I suggested holding off on that idea. He's a friend but it's not like he needs more exposure from us.

For the Features Section, I suggested --as a joke-- someone writing about what it's like marrying a Judenite. After the guffawing died down I suggested a more logical (and possibly less offensive) article would be about Judenites marrying other Judenites, be they of the same batch or otherwise. (Batch '94 has six and counting.)

Next meeting we should have selected someone to do the website's redesign (they're leaning towards Richard, whoever that is).

Thrice of Me to Love, Thrice the Love to Give

Pre-Weekend Come & Go

Meeting up w/ The Contessa is never boring, because it seems --at least from her anecdotes-- her own life rarely is. Many a time she had to learn the hard way about how "you never really know a guy until he's trynna get in your pants."

This Thursday night was our first meeting since last year's Quiz Night, and boy was there a lot to catch up on. In between her bites of ravioli laced w/ truffle oil and my salty crab sammich, tales of intrigue, money, betrayal, disappointment, outrageous spending, forbidden text messages, awkward confrontations, and breakups were shared. And all this was on her end. All I had was, "Well, she likes Nicholas Cage," and "She thinks I'm too smart for her?!?"

She also gets me to try new things, like Quiz Night or Smashed Potatoes, and my experience w/ the former definitely beat the latter. This time it was karaoke, and at the risk of sounding like a foreigner, it's the first time that I'll be doing this in The Philippines. (KTV was one of 3 things I first experienced abroad, along w/ getting drunk and passing a kidney stone.) After our gelato dessert we went to Red Box to pass the time while waiting for the rest of her friends, like Rhea who joined us after we ordered the comp drinks (though at P498 per head I'd call it really expensive SML and Coke Lite) and finished our renditions of Jay Chou and Barenaked Ladies songs. Unfortunately I had to leave "early," missing their subquent nightcap at M Cafe.

* * *

Tonight was special for me. I finally introduced 2 of my Favorite People to one another. They are fellow bibliophiles, movie-geeks and fans of British period dramas. All that and they traded girly shopping stories, too. This encounter can only by rivaled by Siskel's first meeting of Ebert, Scooby Doo to Shaggy, and to some extent Thelma & Louise, sans that suicide run ending. (Spoiler alert.)

We met up at the Shang Mall and in between bites of Wham! Burgers, one told her tale of horror working in the glossy publishing world. Water-cooler summary of this could be Dilbert-meets-Cathy-meets-The Devil Wears Prada (minus Anna Wintour's competence).

This morning she had just finished meeting w/ her bosses and came out unscathed, w/c was more than anyone could say about her immediate boss, an old-hand socialite who (IMO) is threatened by this young upstart, not appreciating the irony that she had a crusty old hand in her being hired in the first place. For every disparaging accusation of lack of professionalism, my friend deflected then w/ Brandon Routh Superman-like grace, only she used facts instead of her eyeball to stop the proverbial bullet(s). It didn't hurt that her boss's boss more or less took my friend's side, w/ almost The Apprentice-style tactics. ("Come sit next to me," her boss's boss said to her.")

After hearing her story both Lola and I encouraged her to stay longer, in only to see if she can outlast that big ball of Crazy called her boss.