I've mentioned The Island many times in this blog. It is where my grandmother has retired and it has been a family retreat on some weekends. Sometimes, while walking alone along the path, I think to myself, "This must be what heaven is like..." or "I want to hold my wedding reception here."

Now you can enter The Island too. We opened our family vacation retreat to the public for many years now and it has become a venue for team buildings and spiritual retreats for companies. Visit this site and see why my family loves this place and why you would fall in love with it too.

I received one of the greatest compliments in my life tonight while dropping off Seph, our Creative Designer, and her husband Ramon, who sidelines as our part time IT personnel, in Edsa.

Ramon said that the only FEMALE driver he feels safest riding with is me... and he has ridden in lots of cars driven by female drivers. The comment puzzled me because A thinks my driving sucks and I drive like a maniac. When I asked why he said that, he replied, "Kasi ang daming babaeng takot mag maneho." Seph interjects, "Malakas kasi ang loob mo," and Ramon continues, "May diskarte ka kasi."

As women, we always hear men complain, "Babae kasi ang nag-da-drive eh!" as if all women are baaad drivers. (Okay, I admit. Even I say this too as if I wasn't part of the female gender). But coming from a man (although he can't drive because he's handicapped), it mattered. I guess I owe the compliment to the fact that I just want to get to my destination sooner and faster!

That, or they just enjoy riding with me and hearing me curse crispily in Tagalog when cars are so slow and drivers don't know how to cut in.

I went to Megamall today. And more often than not, when you're in Megamall, you bump into those sales people who step unto your path to pester you to try their new product/ avail of their new promo/ sign up for a chance to win a huge cash prize, etc.

When we see these sales people, we usually a) walk faster, b) shake our head, telling them "no", c) wave our heads as if to say 'no thanks' or d) just plain ignore them.

As I was passing this section where these sales people were sectioned, I knew that it was coming. A guy fell into step with me and said, "Ma'am, wag kayo magagalit ha? May credit card kayo?" Without looking at him, I said, "Meron, pero di ko ginagamit," while walking faster. Then he thrusts 3 movie passes in front of my face. "Ma'am, free movie passes!" And then, I said, "Di ako nanonood dito." He replies, "Okay lang, Ma'am! Bigay niyo na lang sa iba!" I grab the movie passes and walk away fast. He calls me, "Ma'am! Sandali, pa- receive!" asking me to sign a receiving form stating that I accepted the movie passes. Hmmm, a marketing database generating scheme. I'm not giving any information away and have them bombard me with useless emails and letters! So I turned around and he calls me again, "Ma'am, pa-receive!" And then I tell him that nope, he goes to me. After all, he did need something from me. And then he says, "Ma'am! Bawal kami diyan! Huhuliin kami ng guard!" And again, I insisted that he comes to me. He said again, "Ma'am! Bawal po kami diyan! May guard!" He said it in a nice yet purely gay fashion, stamping his foot while pointing to the guard far away. In retrospect, I found it cute and amusing. I also couldn't believe that they couldn't go any further than that point. It was as if there was an invisible fence in that area that they couldn't cross.

To end it, I just marched back up to him and gave him back the passes and as I went back to him, I gave him a pissed off look, a death stare. When I gave it back to him, he repeated, "Di kami pwede diyan, ganda!" And I walked away. But the moment I did walk away, in my very business attire- y look of mini skirt, button downed polo and semi- trench coat (which was the same length as my mini skirt), high heels and multi- stranded pearl necklace that made me look like a high powered bitch, I felt awful. I felt terrible about the way I acted. Because I knew how hard his job was and I gave him an even harder time about it. I know people like him get it a lot and they're probably used to it but that doesn't give me a reason to act the same way.

I. Was. A. Total. Bitch.

I wanna go back to Megamall and apologize. In the mean time, whoever you are, I'm sorry.

Shock 1: He was 'shroom-ed!

It's not a life altering secret. I just found out that one of our VPs tried out 'shrooms in Boracay back in Holy Week. (In Boracay, there's no such thing as Holy Week. Instead of repenting and thinking of how Jesus Christ died on the cross, people party like the demons in hell.) Anyway, I thought that he was just dead drunk... so drunk that he passed out sitting up! I only learned this week that he took 'shrooms, the locally produced 'drug' ('shrooms are poisoned mushrooms that can only be found growing in Carabao dung. Locals harvest it and cook it and sell it at P2000 per bottle, the size of a regular Cheez Whiz bottle. It is eaten by the spoon (once is enough) and is said to look like Laing and taste like Laing, only it is sweeter. It gives people hallucinations ... I think). No wonder he didn't wake up when we were all stacking up bean bags behind him or that people took turns taking pictures with him.

Come to think of it, this VP is our resident GRO. When he's drunk he can go from table to table, meeting women and getting their numbers. So it should come as a surprise that that night, he passed out from the 'shrooms.

Other legendary 'shroom stories? Well, this was waaaaay before. There were these 2 foreigners who tried out 'shrooms. One of them took him 2 hours to walk from one end of our bar to the other end. I kid you not. While the other guy hugged a coconut tree for the same amount of time. I kid you not again. (By the way, we don't sell 'shrooms in our establishment. It's illegal!)


Shock 2: It's Not Giantism.

Last Saturday night, I was at our bar seated at a table at the top of the stairs. Suddenly, a humongous woman walks in with one of our regular guests. Now, when I say humongous, I don't mean fat. I mean tall. At my normal height of 5'8" (That's 5 feet, 4 inches and three quarters plus 3 inch high heels), I still had to look up at her. She was taller than any supermodel. But because of her height, her weight had to support her frame so she was on the chunky side... but not at all fat. She still had shape. And she was even pretty. People really stared at her because she was hard to miss. We just thought her abnormal height was caused by a genetic disease called Giantism.

This Wednesday, she returned to the bar but this time with a guy in tow. You could tell that he was her boyfriend. This guy was not only good looking but taller than her too! You could tell he was a basketball player. With that height, it was impossible that he wasn't recruited. Anyway, I was thinking how lucky she is to find a guy who is actually taller than her. Believe me, tall girls have a hard time finding guys who are taller than them.

But curiosity got to me. As the bar's manager sat at my table, I asked him, "Nakita mo yung babaeng malaki sa bar?" and even before I could ask anything (and to be honest, I didn't even know what to ask), he replied, "Oo! Operada yun!" I was shocked. "Ano?! Nagpa- sex change yun? Pano mo alam?" He replied, "Pinsan yan ng asawa ni (insert name of regular guest here)." So that validated the information as a non- rumor.

A few minutes later, I got up and walked to the bar where my Uncle was hanging out. I was gonna ask him something related to work when he suddenly volunteered information, "Kita mo yung malaking babae?" (I nod my head) "Operada yan at di alam ng boyfriend!!!" (I was shocked yet again that my mouth fell and my hand flew to my already opened mouth.) Apparently, the boyfriend was half Canadian and he tried out for the PBA Alaska team but didn't make it. And yes, unfortunately, the guy doesn't have a clue. Poor guy. The truth is bound to come out soon. As Jose Rizal put it, "Walang sekretong di nabubunyag!"


Shock 3: Why The Presidential Daughter Walked Out on Uncle

One of the things I love about my Uncle and his bestfriend, who is the 'shroomed VP mentioned above, is that as bosses, they're geniuses yet outside of work, they're funny and crazy.

I think it was last Holy Week as well when the Presidential Daughter, who we all know is by far, the most respectable one in the bunch of Macapagal- Arroyos, visited Boracay. The VP stationed in Boracay got a chance to befriend her and so when she dropped by our bar, he introduced my Uncle, as president of the bar, to her.

After the introductions were made, Uncle, who wasn't drunk yet but had a lot to drink already, suddenly gave his best impersonation of Ate Glo, the gay impersonator of Madam President, and said, "Ang saya- saya, noh?"

Luli Arroyo walked out on him.

To this day, my Uncle doesn't know what got into him, aside from the alcohol, that made him do that.

Tonight, when A left my house, he texted me this message: "Nice stars 2nyt..."

Flashback to two and a half years ago, before I'd go inside my house, we would always look up at the sky to look at the stars just to see how beautiful they are.

We don't do that as often anymore. In fact, we rarely do. I wasn't about to let the chance to stare at the sky together pass by. And so, even if he has driven off into the night, A came back.

And even it was just five minutes, staring at the sky, tilting my head as far back as I could, pointing the constellations I recognized, while A held me in his arms, that moment was just perfect.

Note: The letter below was written to my high school kabarkadas who attended the CSA Alumni Homecoming, which my parents' batch hosted, last Saturday, 27 August 2005. It was emailed to our barkada yahoogroups.


Dear Jeane, Glady, Migs and Allen (whew!),

I had so much fun at the alumni homecoming. It wasn't just the funky 80s music and dancing,

My parents, whose marriage is now annulled, swing dancing like it was back in the day.

or the candies and chips on the tables, or watching the audiovisual presentation and laughing at the outfits back then, or seeing me, an awkward, bad hairdo-ed, front teeth missing, 8 year old (God forbid my mother for submitting those pictures!), or laughing and teasing Jeane, the kilabot of Batch 73, while 'lolo' danced swing with her.

It was discovering the gradeschool gates were open and we could sneak inside. It was taking pictures at the quadrangle, a little part of us expecting that St. Augustine and his family would move (Remember that rumor back in grade school that St. Augustine's statue moves in the middle of the night?).

It was walking the halls of the grade school building, realizing how much has changed. Trying to see inside the computer rooms, science labs and art rooms but the darkness made it impossible. It was leaving our 'marks' in CSA. It was discovering that the classrooms were open.

It was Migs and Jeane stealing 1K's Comfort Room Passes. (Those poor kids probably got punished by their adviser because she thought the students lost them. Those poor kids don't have freedom at all. Gone are the days you could walk the halls without comfort room passes.) It was the picture takings at the bleachers where class pictures were usually taken.

It was the seductive poses at the gates,

the hanging out in front of the steps of the HS buildings.

How I wish Glady and I weren't wearing mini skirts that day. We would have gamely climbed over the gates of the HS building to do more exploring.
I also enjoyed our 'short time' orgy. Hahaha! Our 3 hour videoke stint in I.O., you green minded kabarkada who didn't go to the alumni homecoming! It was a lot of fun and I wish, wish, wish that our kabarkadas have gone with us.


Sana next time ulit!


Cat