Bestfriend Beverly + Bali Blessedness = Bliss!

Beverly and I knew each other from elementary school. We were both winners in a Manila-wide features writing contest, she in 6th and I in second, or so she reminded me. We went to the same high school but I don't remember saying a single word to her all those four years.

It was only in college that we hit it together. Hard. She made our two bedroom apartment in Tondo her second home. We ate the same food, bought and wore the same clothes, talked endlessly about the same interests and ideas. We belonged in a group of 8 girls, all other 6 of whom accepted the fact that the two of us, Bebang and I, will always be the two closest to each other. Even when she transferred from Sampaloc to Cavite, we continued nourishing that special bond we were forming. We shared family problems, boyfriend problems, health problems, makeup, thesis, shoes, bags, and yes, underwear. The only thing we did NOT share was religion. Obviously we found a way to keep its discussion at bay, and it was never a problem.

Bebang wanted to be a doctor too, but her family's finances then made it appear impossible. So when most of us went to med school, she was juggling jobs here and there. She got a lucky break not long after with a famous company, where she still works up to now. We were vaguely in touch during the four years I was in med school, and before I knew it a Catholic guy in her office was willing to convert to her religion so that they'd be together.

For good. They got married when my physician's license was only a few months old. A part of me was dying of envy for the prosperous life she was having, and that made me kind of turn away, especially since we found her husband Bombet a little aloof. I turned down several offers to visit their home in Sta Rosa, Laguna. I couldn't feel exact happiness when Bea was born.

That changed when Noy , my parents and family made me feel I had a lot to be thankful for. The next five years that I spent working in Laguna was then filled with twice-monthly visit to Bebang and her family.


Eventually after our wedding, where Bea was one of the flower girls, Bombet and Noy became good friends. Before long Bebang and I didn't have to worry about keeping our husbands entertained while we chatted and caught up with each other's lives.


(I had a hard time rummaging through my external hard drive looking for bevs & bombet wedding pictures - and I can't find any! how pathetic is that? i promise to update this blog entry with those beautiful wedding pictures by Chito Vecina. Yes, we got the same wedding photographer. I hired her make-up artist too =P)

Since 2006 however we didn't have the chance to really just be with each other. I had to admit, and I bet she would too, that it's quite different having husbands and kids around while we talked about our lives and other people. So I challenged her to meet halfway, aka Alabang, to catch up and be just like old times.

She brought me to this wonderful place called Kartini Spa, an events place/restaurant/spa/art gallery with a very relaxing Bali-inspired atmosphere that makes one forget it's really just within the Alabang Town Center complex.

We had callos and gambas in comfortable rattan chairs on a sweet-looking gazebo nestled in a nicely manicured lawn accented by a koi pond. The sound of water from the mini-falls combined perfectly with the soothing overhead music. We talked and talked and talked until we felt our bladders getting heavier. We found the quaint comfort room, which accommodated only one user at a time, but we both came in and peed in front of each other. Yes we were that close!

The spa place looked so inviting we gave in to the temptation despite the growing threat of a nasty thunderstorm. Since we were the only clients we had the luxury of chatting away mindlessly while the pleasant attendants pampered our feet superbly. I never felt so amazingly refreshed. If it weren't too late I'd have a full body massage.

Too bad I was so engrossed into conversation I forgot to take pictures. I came up with these lousy ones, but you can check out Kartini's website here.

I boarded the bus home with a smile on my face. Surprisingly invigorated, I wondered, was it the food? Maybe. Was it the place? Probably, what with the beautiful intricate details and such. Was it the company? Definitely. There's nothing like a familiar warm body to radiate enough goodness to make one feel great.

Cliche Time!

Love is sweeter the second time around. It's older than our forefathers' harana days. It has become a movie and telenovela staple story. And we've seen different versions of it, from the "almost kinda like it" to the "really?" versions that seem unbelievable but we choose to buy anyway, for the sake of kilig and as testament to our undying belief that love, however impossible the issues surrounding it, surpasses circumstances and will remain true & within reach, because love moves in mysterious ways.

I have my own version, and it came to a wonderful culmination yesterday.
Sing is a good friend of mine. We went to high school together and sang in the same church choir. we had different sets of friends then but our friendship stood the test of time. She took an engineering course at a different university and worked her ass off right after graduation while I dissected corpses and memorized generic names. We saw ourselves through boyfriends (although I officially had just one) and all the controversies the foolish guys brought, and I'm just so proud that she got over them - fashionably.

Until Obet came. I didn't see him coming. Sing & I were sitting at mass sometime in 2005. I was a fresh medical board passer & Sing asked me about her seemingly increasing appetite. I jokingly replied that maybe she was pregnant. She laughed. Two days later she called, telling me she was indeed pregnant. Obet the sperm donor did not want to acknowledge the poor little thing. It's the same old story at this point - girl goes through pregnancy alone, curses the father in between painful contractions (which didn't work anyway; Sing went through CS), gives the child her own surname, raises the child on her own, moves on and forgets the painful past.
Four years and a failed attempt to make another past relationship work out later (I just hate knowing these guys at all!), Obet slowly & painfully tried to introduce himself to my fast-growing godson, Julian Angelo, or Lian, as his Daddy. And he succeeded. Little did we, Sing's friends, know that building a relationship with Lian wasn't Obet's lone agenda. Sing & he became fast friends and good "parenting pals".

Sing called last holiday season, inviting me to her wedding. Her & Obet's wedding. A shriek, then a tear, that's what Noy recalls because we were driving to dinner with a couple-friend to celebrate his birthday that night.


It was a simple, no-frills wedding - only casually-dressed close friends & relatives in attendance. Papa was one of the ninongs. It was nice to come back to the church where all of us in the family used to serve. The priest knew Sing very well because she continued to serve as lector/commentator when our choir took a gradual dissolution. But that's a different story.

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Speaking of second time, my wedding & engagement rings breathed a new life at the start of the week. Noy had one of the missing diamonds (must have loosened when I started work at PGH) replaced on the wedding ring, and had it cleaned as well, including his. The engagement ring was cleaned and plated and looks very pretty now. It's a fitting pre-celebration of our "togetherness" next Friday. I'll surely blog about it next time =)

Lovin' my Friends BUT NOT my Lab Results

I had a lot of friends in high school. We didn't have permanent classmates so each year, I gain a different set of really close friends, which I somehow managed to maintain since we essentially all are close to one another. When we all went our different ways through college, I kind of lost contact with much of them, to my sadness. My friendship with Nhing, though, sort of lasted the longest and closest. We have very different worlds but here we are - exchanging husband notes. Baby notes later since I don't have one. That's another story, of course.
So I got this package the other day from Nhing who now lives in Melbourne with her husband and kids.



For a while I thought I was receiving vaccines. The bag looked very much like the kind we use to transport vaccines. How cute!


Instead, the little thermo container was full of yummy items that remind us very well of the land down under. Noy love those cheeses to death.


I love cheeses too, but I really want to rip open the Tim Tams the moment I saw them. It was so sweet of Nhing to send something I haven't tasted yet -


Sadly though, I can't eat them. Not yet, at least. Not when it got slightly worse instead of better.


Lousy picture, I know. The point is, based on these lab results, I'm still not in good shape. It's a pity, because since I started working in PGH I've actually felt that I had lost some weight. I do the Orbitrek each morning and I do an awfully lot more walking here than when I was working in Laguna. Plus, my husband and I have stopped breakfasting at McDonald's because I've managed to cook breakfast that doesn't require deep frying. This really put me down a bit, but I refuse to get carried away too much. Not when Noy and I are only a few hundred pesos away from one of these -



Another good friend of mine, Jazelyn, had some business to do in PGH the other day and decided to stop by for a visit. It was so good to see her after several months! We used to meet for coffee and shopping like once a month but I stopped inviting her when she told me that everyone at work were raring for her to finally obtain her MS by finishing her thesis.

So we squeezed in a light dinner onto her busy busy sked (she had to rush back to her lab to run some more God knows what tests) at Figaro.

We shared a bowl of (super yummy!) pasta a la carlo and my favorite, clubhouse sandwich, over gossip, sad stories, funny stories, silly stuff. We raved on her cool new haircut which worked very well. I realized meeting friends like this could be such a refreshing way to relax after work. I don't remember the last time I did. I don't even know if I did at all until then.

I tried their new Cinnamon Chai Latte, which is light and very good. Honestly though, I'd still line up for a chai tea latte at CBTL. Enough said. Maybe I'd try the one with raspberry the next time I'm in Figaro. I'm curious about the new set meals as well and I would like to know if those are good.

Nevertheless, wherever or whatever way I get my fix of chai latte, tim tam, or cheddar, I know it's always going to be better if enjoyed with a good old friend. Best if finally my lab results turn out normal next time.

Chances Are

On my last week of duty at the Calamba Medical Center, one of the medical secretaries, Ate Brenda, asked me to place a bet on her own little version of lottery, popularly known as "ripa" in the Laguna area (I think).

The lottery person goes around houses and public places to make people place their bets, which could be any number from 1 to 50, depending on how large the lottery person wants it to be. Of course, the bigger the prize, the more people can place a bet. In Ate Brenda's ripa, she has 40 slots for the betters to choose from, at 50 bucks per bet. She showed me her list and I saw the names of nurses, doctors, other medical secretaries, and some medical representatives.

here's Lizbeth placing her own bet on the number 10

The prize is a little package containing these goodies from Avon-

a bottle of lotion, lipstick, a purse concentrate of a popular scent,
a small bottle of edp, a jewelry set, and a wallet

Not bad eh? I don't know who won, though. In fact, I didn't place a bet because I won't be back in the immediate future to claim my prize just in case. =)

Friend

My college friend James is an up and coming radiologist. We call each other Friend (believe me, this didn't sound cliche when we started at that time). We shared a lot of college memories together even before Noy started to court me. We kinda lost touch in med school but still tried to catch up whenever we could. Now that he's topped the recent philippine board exam for radiologists, he spends his day studying at the UPCM Library when he's not in the clinic.

Hence, when I moved to work in PGH, we immediately set plans to have lunch together. For some reason, we kept on postponing this date, including one planned sometime two weeks ago. I was free, but could not reach his mobile. Thinking he was still busy and feeling tired somehow, I sent him a message to set the date another day again and headed home. I was walking from my building towards Pedro Gil street when I chanced upon Friend chatting with someone. In other words, our date got suddenly on. =)

He brought me to this breakfast place at Robinson's Midtown called Momo. It definitely looked chic from the outside. I liked the interiors too. It's modern and fresh and designed to perk its diners up.


However, the food was a little bit on the downside for me. I got their bestseller, their version of Eggs Benedict, which had two braised eggs and a huge serving of fries on the side. The bread was almost reminiscent of the oblong monay from the local panaderya, while the ham definitely tasted something out of my fridge on a lonely, make-yourself-a-sad-ham-sandwich-dinner night.



James had their version of a combined -silog; he chose tocino and tapa. I tasted both, and I visualized their pantry brimming with frozen cured meat from whatever brand is available. Did I mention the drinks were lousy too? My strawberry lemonade was weak lemon water with a dollop of strawberry jam sitting like dirt on the bottom. James' iced tea slush was half froth and half tea.



It was a good thing that we had a lot to talk about, enough for us to forget about the early dinner which seemed like a waste of money. Somehow, I had fun. I missed James, and the time we spent catching up was worth it.


Julie

Two Sundays ago, I bid goodbye to the staff of St John the Baptist Hospital where I worked for two years before I moved to Calamba Medical Center. At around 10 pm, Noy and I drove by with pizza and coke. Another car parked beside us at about the same time. I was so thrilled to find Dra Julie Ferraz getting out of it!


Dra Julie is a practicing Internist in that hospital. She has taught me a lot and have been the nicest consultant to work with. She liked to teach, and she liked to tell stories about her kids and life too. I really like her. When she made an effort to stop by the hospital to see me when I had chest pains, I was so touched because she didn't even have patients to do rounds at that time. She's always made it a point that my blood sugar is put on check. She was almost like an Ate to me. I'm so making her ninang when I get pregnant. =)