2. Friends who can be as mean as or even meaner than you, like Paula, and together we bitch about how astoundingly dumb some people are in our previous employer, and the folly of people who live beyond their means and put up weddings they can’t afford just to keep up with the Joneses
3. Friends who wake you up with BlackBerry chats at 6 AM to bad-influence you into travelling to faraway continents, and when you complain about being all maxed out, they try to reassure you with classic lines like: ‘Invest in memories’. (Spoken like the 2000 No. 1 Bar Topnotcher. You da man, Jon!)
4. Friends who stay at your house way into the night to fix and update your boys’ gadgets. Only Thom visits while Ches and I are still in the office, joins us for dinner, plays with the boys in our bedroom, and doesn’t leave until they have every single app they demand from him, even if this takes him till midnight. Only Thom.
(Yoshi generously informs me: ‘Mom, ‘app’ is short for applications’. Grrr. I could’ve figured that out.)
5. Office staff who appreciate what you do for them and write heartwarming (fake) stuff in their evaluation forms. Sob.
6. Pollo Loco. Res ipsa loquitor.
7. Hearing your favorite song in the soundtrack of a movie that’s not itself half bad, like Viva La Vida in The Big Year. (“I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing, Roman Cavalry choirs are singing, Be my mirror, my sword, and shield, My missionaries in a foreign field …”)
8. A boss who bequeaths his kick-ass gadgets to me when he moves offices. I got a Canon SLR (you’ll probably make better use of it, he tells me, me The Girl Who Lugs Around Her Pink Lumix Everywhere hahaha), some brand-new computer accessories that I promptly turned over to Ches, and two celphone units that I gave to Anji and Thina. Winner.
9. The Kite Runner. Omg, why did I wait so long to watch this movie?! It’s an eye-opener, so heartrending yet still so beautiful. And I love that the actors seemed to be real Afghans as they easily switched from English to the native language.
10. We Need To Talk About Kevin. This is one of those movies that are too painful to watch but you watch anyway bcoz it’s just too darn good. It’s so disturbing bcoz it takes the nature side in the whole nature vs. nurture debate. Tilda Swinton is amazing, as usual. I guess you can do no wrong after playing The White Witch in Narnia so powerfully, right? The real stars tho are the little boy and teener who played Kevin. One word: creepy.
11. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. By far the most affecting 9-11 movie I’ve seen, next to Reign Over Me. I love how the film showcases the beauty of New York City despite the horror of the event, and how it shows that we can still find some goodness in us even after we seem to have lost all hope. I’ve been a big fan of Jonathan Safran Foer since Everything Is Illuminated. To think he’s only in his thirties.
(The Descendants, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – it’s only February, but I already know it’s The Year of The Good Films.)
12. Three buffets in one week! There was the Cravings lunch with the soup and salad bar with my Legal gang, the dinner buffet at Zero Degrees with the PMS kids, and the seafood buffet at Macapagal with my boys. (Did I hear someone say ‘pig’?)
13. Catching up with dear, old friends - Babette at our favorite Cibo, Sherry my favorite SM friend at Chili’s, and Rosa and Gigay (the three of us together for the first time) at Sentro. I think the reason I am so brutally honest is that I have more than enough amazing friends – I don’t care if everyone else hates my guts and turns into my enemy.
14. Trying out new things, like Zero Degrees in Antipolo. It was Eycee who found it, and we all loved it. (Good job, Eycee!) The buffet was hit-and-miss, but at least there were more than enough dishes to choose from. We also went to the music lounge, where the band was no stronger than the vodka (hahaha). The main feature was the Ice Bar where the temperature was supposed to be – you guessed it – zero degrees, but we weren’t appropriately dressed so we had to pass. Haha. The best part was the view, of course, and hanging out with the kids. Robert and Eycee we get to see regularly, but it’s always special when Robby joins us. It’s an effort what with his work and law school, but that’s what friends do, right? Friends make the effort.
15. Perfect gifts, like the M&S Swiss chocolate from Babette, Cath Kidston toiletry and exotic jewelry hanger from Gigay, and a pink, floral compact mirror from Robert and Eycee (bcoz in Coron I always needed one to fix my contacts). (Omg, Gigay, you gave me a Cath Kidston?!)
16. Getting my corporate law right after all these years and my pretend legal advice affirmed by a kick-ass external counsel. It would be majorly embarrassing to be found out to be a poser by no less than my favorite boss, right? Groan.
17. Sharing good news with relatives and friends whom you know would share your joy and take pride in your little successes. Hats off to my Ate whose FB post was already trending according to Thom (hahaha) and who single-handedly reconnected me to cousins and other relatives in the US whom I haven’t heard from in ages. (Thank you, Ate! I love you.)
There was also the big boss in the office who found it in him to send me a lovely message even if he himself is on his way out. I told Ches, that’s what you call grace. That boss broke my heart. Sob.
My other favorite greeting came from an owner who called me ‘valiantly ethical’. Ok, I’ve been called a lot of things, but valiantly ethical? I’m not worthy.
