boracay was so much fun. too much fun, perhaps; my eyes want more than anything to pop out of its sockets. they are very sour from the sleepless weekend, and perhaps even more of the nostalgia. they just want to go to bed again, and go against the rest of my body that needs to work. and work harder to pay for my absence in friday. i did not mention this: the boss when i asked his permission to miss friday's work, wanted to hear from me "oh forget it sir, i could miss the trip," but i didn't. heck, NO.

there was turbulence on the way. clouds are not only to love, but to loathe. that flight goes in the list of worst, beside canada-l.a. in 1999 and sydney-philippines 2004. but from a safe distance, like 50 meters from the plane or 10000 from the ground, i do i STILL ove seeing them all fluffy, and whitey, and just pure adorable. like diapered kids jumping on water bed. 

the only turbulence on the drive from calibo to catiklan were the males word-harassing each other; well, mostly, they were thrown at my cousin joevince's way. he can be such a pain. the weekend with him around made us see that the only thing that can be saved of his personality is his attachment to his brazilian girlfriend tabata, whom we ALL just love. carlyn said it right, "tabata, if joevince won't marry you; WE will marry you."

seriously.

we arrived in boracay late in friday afternoon wet and wild (as in tita rina's words: we all got wet from the rain, so we all got wild), all thanks to the harsh water and wind ride from catiklan to boracay. but that somehow (although it was a good try) didn't dampen our spirit at all. AT ALL. some arrived in jackets; but after booking in at the hotel, carlyn still went out with her mesh top over a sky-blue francis-gifted bikini. that's the spirit. that's what boracay makes of you.

moneyless we were, the first on the agenda was going around D'Mall (bought a really helpful tankini top and bikini bottom) and rainy it was, mango cinnamon crepes! that's the spirit; that's what boracay makes of you.

the first celebrities we saw out of the magazine were the tall and handsome jason webb and his heavily bottomed claudine wife. we also saw bianca araneta's UNbrother, paolo araneta. that's the spirit; on the lookout for celebrities is what boracay makes of you. though with paolo, there really isn't much to look out for. his height. his small face. thanks.

the skies were raining and the trees moaning, weather for the night. we had dinner at hawaiian barbecue (uhm, i'm not sure if it really go with that name). the ribs were the best i tasted since green house's. against the past few weeks where i ate the lightest meal that could still make my tummy happy, i ate with abnormal gusto in boaracay. for each meal, just one cup of rice. and a half of another. (liar)

we all headed to station 3's summer place after. we stayed at the back of the bar, even after the management asked us to move to the front and gave us two free pitchers of blue stuff to to keep the party going). well, it did go on until around 1 pm for us. the girls were all drunk, even tita chona! apparently, she used to work for a liquor company (that makes tequila!) so my question, "do you drink tita (in UNboracay circumstances)?" was not in place at all. she and tita rina were the cool of queens. queens of cool. have it in any way.

that was it and thousand of pictures for the first night. (i owe you two events now!) i have to get back to work.

til next.

it's hard to picture being in boracay against any background here in cebu city, but with an airplane booking and hotel reservation in tow, in 28 hours, we will actually be there. make it... we will actually be there!!!

(hopefully if the skies and the heavens and the universe don't see sending our airplane elsewhere the TIME -- what am i thinking?!)

here we come!
(p.s. the baby is not coming, so with 2 other high schoolers in the picture, one college freshie and one striving model)

but for the rest, bottoms up!

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.