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.

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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.