75 petals.
may it take another 75 before it wilt away.

(pictures to follow)

at this time last week, we are lunching at mamita's house. the second lechon in 12 hours is lying fat on the table. all 34 of us cousins, and 9 of them sons and daughters, with all 9 spouses in full attendance, are spread out in mamita's house. the women ate lechon and mangoes for dessert (anyone?) with their hair already set by willing hands and strong, suffocating hair spray. time is running. we have to be at the hotel by 4 pm for the family shots in the makeshift studio. mass is at 6:30 pm (6 pm in the invitations for the late comers). later, we head on to the grand ballroom because the studio apparently can't contain all 53 of us. 34 cousins, 18 fathers and mothers, and 1 wonderwoman whose birthday we're all celebrating.

the priest emphasized in his homily that mamita's turn in to her 75th year and the celebration it called for do not level in importance as all that mamita has brought to this side of the world. it doesn't matter after all, he says [taking cue from the famous cliche], how many years a person has lived through, but what he made of those years.

if mamita's bloom is fueled by what she's done in her life, she would be the most beautiful flower of all. a tulip at that. a callalily. a most beautiful of all. i could barely hold my tears while swaying and singing to ben taylor's vocals-less "i will" with my cousins under 12 in front, us big girls in the second row, and them big boys, formed a neat but wacky row in the back.

who knows how long i've loved you
you know i love you still
will i wait a lonely lifetime
if you want me to i will

'cause if i ever saw you
i didn't catch your name
sing it loud so i can hear you
make it easy to be near you
all the things you do
endear you to me
oh you i will

i love you forever and forever
love you with all my heart
love you when we're together
love you when we're apart

our parents followed with kapantay ang langit, a pilita corales' original that they purposely chose to give a rightful segue to a touching gimmick. when the last note of their minus one faded, pilita made her entrance, repeating the last phrases of the lyrics in her oh so famous husky sultriness in a capella and THAT bend [my cousin carlyn has perfected it by the way].

maica on her right. melissa on her left. mamita let out a big laugh along with everybody else's big applause. outside the apos and fathers and mothers, nobody knew pilita was invited. 

after around 8 songs, there was a loud request for an encore, and she gave an encore. after we gave her a rightful segue, she also gave a rightful segue for the band, singing with them in their first song. pilita didn't disappoint.

the open bar didn't disappoint. the band did disappoint (we were asking for 80s music, but beatles came up instead). but we were all still up on our dancing feet until 1 pm.

in mamita's 70th party, we just got initiated into drinking, and getting drunk was a secret kept among friends. in mamita's 75th, all secrets were laid out. bottles of san mig beer, champagne glasses of blue kamikazee, 3 bottles of jose cuervo (what i managed to count anyway), a bottle of tequila rose (for us ladies, and the other half i bet my brother tingtong consumed), and bowls of teasers, chasers, and (weirdly enough) vinegar for joben.

mamita approached our crowded table before she left, and we cheered her on. we cheered our grandmother. we cheered our wonderwoman. we cheered her 75th year. and all the goodness that came with it.

there's a song playing at this very moment. i thought i'd never miss it for some time, but it started with, "who knows how long i loved you, you know i love you still..." and realize, i do miss it already.

i just got my hair permed again. i look fluffy now. the good sir from bridges gave me a cut. now i'm trying to forget how much that cost me because i love everything he did to my hair. snip snip here. snip snip there.

"who was the last one who did your hair?" he asked.

"um, me, sir. why? is it that bad?" i answered.

"hmm.. it's wavy so i couldn't really tell." he replied.

aww... he was nice enough to say "how horrendous!" in a very nice way. thanks, francis.

i do think i look pretty with my pearls on.

I spent the rest of my lunch break today reading my friend Vera and emptying the small, white, and relenting bucket with the autumn-colored chili sauce (really, they reminded me of the falling leaves at the small village in Australia where the Blue Mountains and the autumn colors are) that I requested to go with my Chowking Siopao. Not everybody would agree (what with KFC’s Hot Shots, Jollibee’s Jolly Spaghetti and McDonald’s sundaes), but Chowking’s Naicha is the best treat to come out of a fast food chain. I’m avoiding cold drinks these days, but this one has to go semi-frozen to be extra loved. It’s the frozen goddess of cold, tea-pretend drinks. I could finish 2 in one day.

It’s a mix of sad and happy news that the past days catered to. A writer of a column that I always read thru at Sunstar Daily committed suicide. Apparently, she also teaches my cousin Eduardo. And she’s a good friend of my good friend Vera. It’s intriguing that you’ll know a person more in a moment’s reaction to suicide than you ever did in her many, many years as a writing, public-ing figure. Well, we react faster to suicide. More than we do cancer. Or a car accident. With cancer and car accidents, you’re up against the forces of nature and of the rest of the world. With suicide, you’re against your own force. What drives it? Why drives it.

… (three dots)

At the other tip of the scale (slanting towards that sky blue, orange, yellow happy), tita Rita arrived with her size 2, with tito Mar with his golf bag, with Marty with his second shirt tucked in his pants’ bum pocket, Francine with her mechanical puppy that licks on its mechanical milk bottle, and Eduard with his “Any number multiplied by zero is zero, DUH!”.

Mamita’s birthday on July 10 was a bash in itself. It was an UNtearful but nevertheless warm reunion (tita Rita with her family last visited 2 years ago), but what it [also] was WAS a bloody (brown) but glorious chocolate feast, that two days after, still caused my stomach a relentless bloating and moaning for the Brookside Chocolate Bowl’s Almond Nuts with UNsugar-rich chocolate coating. I’m pretty sure by my 100^th nut, it was chocogasm at its sweetest tendencies.

I wonder how she does it, but even my sister’s close-to-no-eating eating lifestyle did not cave in to the chocolate bowl. I want to be ashamed of my 100 nuts, but hey, it’s chocolate, chocolate lovers!

The actual bash for Mita’s 75^th will be on Sunday. My cousins and I settled on the song “I Will”. But I’m pretty sure (again) that we’ll just go second in this year’s collective murder contest to our parents’ rendition of a Corales original. [Fair results report later.] We also settled on a P9500 painting as gift to our lola. If we can shell out P900 for Haiavanas in just 1-2-3 seconds, why would our wallets mind weighing P500 less in 10-11-12?

So there’s the story. 20-21-22. August 29, here’s to you!

I was just showing a couple around the showroom. They’re quite a lovely Howard-and-Jan-into-the-oil-industry-Tan duo. They were turned on by the furniture alright, but they also happen to be the best patrons of Filipino art this country could possibly give birth to. Based in Singapore, their collective hobby (next to “I’m pretty sure”, this is my favorite usage of the post) is looking out for potential Filipino artists they could introduce in the Lion City. They’re not just oh-i-understand-that-abstract-thing-ee; they actually push for the promotion of the Filipino greatness to the world.

Now, that’s a turn-on.

apparently, everybody knows i am leaving. no date. no face of the day. no august 31s, september 30s. just that i am leaving. i was quite surprised when allan informed me today that sir kenneth approached him one day and stated/questioned "vita is leaving" (period and question mark). boy, aren't we getting ahead of my story far too early?

since i am to you what honesty is to an honest man, yes, i am leaving. i was recently given a raise, but no amount could have smelled better than that promise of living each day to the fullest. not that i'm 100% sure i'm going to get it at the next job i land in (God knocking on the wood now :) but i'm sure i would love to give it another try. i will find it.

i believe each one of us is destined to find a place in the world that would not make work seem like a selfish company's only benefit, but also one's benefit. work should give us as sense of worth. i do feel that at where i am working right now, but my worth is not worth my day. this must explain why from 8am to 6pm, i am just looking forward to the final bell of the day.

"vita, i understand that this is not really in line with your field... but people are really happy with your work here..."

"well, except for the tags sir..."

"no, no, don't worry about the tags."

"sir, the people i work with really compensate for it."

believe it or not, i am going to miss ms sheila. i called her a witch here and she still could be these days, but she's taught me just that -- how to deal with the office witch. how she taught me made me see the un-witch in her. she's a tried and tested exporting maestra who rarely forgets things, who loves kidding around, and who gets upset and grumpy (who doesn't?).

i am going to miss ms marichu. these two have stretched their patience long enough for me. i am going to miss... and the mostest of these is just being there. it's going to take some getting used to not having emails from all over the world. and filling up 1x40 containers that could cost more than a million peso each and ship at P200,000 fee. and having that responsibility to get it right always. and owning the trust. and being a 21-year-old money-making machine. cool. the money's not just for me.

same with the job.

there are blue eyes. dark blue eyes. blue-green eyes. sky blue eyes. and just gorgeous eyes.

when you have both -- case in point, the sky-blue and gorgeous eyed john hopkins -- then you are gorgeous. even though most of the 45 minutes with him i was against furniture ABCs-challenging questions, you can't miss the eyes, and you can't miss loving it. it's almost like loving the voice at the other end of the line without knowing how the rest goes.

setty my colleague drove him all the way back to shangri-la this afternoon. in 3 minutes, curiousity beat and pushed her to asking how he got such gorgeous jewels right smack in the second most visible part of the human anatomy (at least to me; fact goes the most visible is the nose). apparently, he has a half black mother (he's black by the way; it's hard to picture sky blue and brown to blend gorgeously but that's the challenge for you) and welsh-irish father. he says his daughters (5 & 6 with his green-eyed wife -- and i mean literally green-eyed) and always always cause red light traffic along the streets. setty, the ever smart, witty, spontaneous, outright commented, "oh boy you're gonna have problems when they grow up."

i am going to marry sky blue and gorgeous eyes. i don't want to draw the rest of the picture. after seeing john hopkins' blue eyes, at the moment, up there is what matters more. most. 

it's hard to start on why these past few days i look at the empty page here at blogdrive and look at nothing back. no words to type. my hands are suddenly numb. yet here i am. (haha, no consistency here). but when was the last time i was here? one week ago. i am me again. always starting something and ending nothing. i am such a fusser who is of no use at the end of the day. at the end of the day, fussing is fussing, useless.

since tuesday this week, i've been struggling to let loose myself to our USA officer. i've said a thousand more words to john hopkins whom i met just today and just very shortly than to this rowdy and robust officer whom i met thrice and for long span of times. it's like my english is a kindergarten student when i'm talking to him. he must think i'm a dumb bimbo, except that i'm black-haired. 

"do you have a balou easy armchair, outdoor, natural fabric that i take with me when i go back to states on sunday?"

"um, ah, well, let me check, um, ahhhhh, i'll check."

seriously. part of me wish SO MUCH to clear who i really am to him (bata of more than kindergarten caliber english), part of me just don't wish -- majorly because sunday might be the last i'll be seeing him (not until the universe conspires to make us meet when he's 50 and i'm 30).

in this grown-up world, i cannot make use of the "i'm only 21 years old, i've got lots to learn" excuse. well, that's true, i'm only 21 years old, i've still got lots to learn and a long way to go. but that's not and shouldn't be synonymous to "i am only 21 years old, i can be dumb".

after all these years, after dreaming and dreaming and assuming, i really have no idea what, who, how i want to be. and it has to take a confident, rowdy, robust, US officer to make me realize that. 

5. phone. i've been processing my papers at SM to get a free one care of Smart (for being a plan 800 subscriber), which i'll be using while the original is getting a major fix.

4. late night movies. suddenly i remember i bought several bootleg DVDs with 10 movies in each. i've seen borat, little miss sunshine, just friends and just last night, you, me, and dupree (bad) straight out of it. borat is recklessly hilarious (like really, did they have to show that nude fight?). little miss sunshine is a discovery. it tells the story of a dysfunctional family. i believe there have been movies made of the same social problem but little miss sunshine is made different by the characters, the plot, the honest humor, and (winner) the soundtrack, majorly provided by devotchka. they're my number 3.

3. devotchka. take a hike at devotchka and listen to some magic. they're coming to me as fast as broken social scene had. for info, go to wikipedia.

2. lunch with pita. pita with tuna and cheese, pita with fried chicken and cheese, pita with barbecue and cheese. i've never professed love for cheese this way ever.

1. education. my number 1 teacher is my colleague daisy flores, who (really) knows so much that i am WOWed. like, she knew a theremin is a russian instrument before we looked it up at wikipedia. and that she doesn't sound know-it-all makes her interesting. that's that.

i bought a green apple notebook for my little big moments. a green notepad and a pilot pen for my little remembrances.

yesterday, lola alice celebrated her 87th birthday and got a balikbayan daughter and a grand daughter, reunited nieces, and a chocolate fondant cake as gifts. the chocolate cake was no big deal, but the fondant saved it. a lesson from my cake specialist tita goes: do not eat the outside coating of the thick fondant, eat from the inside. check. i finished two slices.

lola alice's daughter, tita mayanne, is one of my favorite aunts. she's funny, she's friendly, she's talkative (ok, this is relative to all my aunts), she's perky and she's cool (she's always inviting us to manila to party). now, she introduces me to everyone as "my niece who works for that famous designer who designed brad pitt's bed". in a few months, i will just be her "niece".

tita lily, my mother's sister, invited me to australia again. like for the thousandth time. she travels for free, so she's going on her second trip this year at the end of july. pre-party, she had one of those fall-outs she with her kapraningan always get caught up in with her sisters tita mae and tita baby. but post party, she was already standing cheek to cheek with them for the family picture. i hope tita lily will learn to start enjoying her wealth and stop fussin about it.

my parents and bienni left for ormoc yesterday afternoon. i am alone again. but july will start in a week, and july has A LOT OF surprises and already known facts stored. tita rita on her july 10 arrival is expecting lechon. pilita corales will sing with my uncles and aunties a song (surprise) and we, the apos, are on our own.

yesterday at the jeep, i was sitting across a raymund from everybody loves raymund look-a-like. he had on a pair of shoes that quickly reminded me of that "blue suede shoes". honestly, i don't know how a blue suede shoes would look, but i'm hoping it's shiny, sleek and black. like what the man sitting across me at the jeepney had on.

jackie, my classmate, on the last day she reported for work to that rich chinese businessman told me, "this is my independence day."

my little moment in every minute pines for that day. one day, it will be my biggest little moment.

Still dont know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought Id got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But Ive never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
Im much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Dont want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I cant trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
But stil the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
Theyre quite aware of what theyre going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Dont tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Wheres your shame
Youve left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you cant trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Ah changes are taking the pace Im going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Oh, look out you rock n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now youre gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I cant trace time
I said that time may change me
But I cant trace time

changes by david bowie.