Reluctant Blogger

Ha! I have finally succumbed to the call of blogging, despite my year-long reluctance to spill my guts out and allow the plugged world do a voyeuristic one on me. What the hey, I'm sitting my ass on my pretty little chair, straining the veins in my eyes, waiting for the people at the office to decide where's the best place to have dinner. What better way than to while away the after-office minutes by coming out of the proverbial shell and blog it out.

... And I think somebody shouted Red Crab.

...And my 25-year old colleague is beyond herself when I tell her "I'm blogging!" And she throws invectives at me: "Blogger!"

Oh, Eff It, deary, I have arrived.

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Fast forward to tomorrow morning. Dinner last night was nice, lots of -- you guessed it -- crab!! and they’ve been pre-cracked, hence we were spared the agony of pounding and splitting the shells just to suck out the flesh. And I learned that male crabs had less fat than female crabs. And I thought the injustice applied only to humans. Dang.

Flashback to Drinks After Dinner. The rest of my colleagues went home and four of us pretty young things were left behind to lug it out on alcohol. We waited for our boss, Kami, who had to go back to The Bat Cave (read: office) to make a conference call and come back to join us. The man must be put out with work. He’s been in Manila for more than a week and will be staying for about another week plus a few days before he flies back to the Washington D.C. office. And I think he wants to socialize. I think he needs his alcohol fix. So we had a few bottles - uhm, two actually – one light beer for Tanya and a Vodka Cruiser (melon flavor that tasted like green mango shake but a bit more bitter) split among Diane, Aireen and myself. Yep. We sure can hold our alcohol on a Monday night.

Half an hour later, Kami sends an SMS.

“Ok, wer r u?”

I reply: “2 tables away from red crab. In front of boca boca bar.”

He replies back: “Lots of progress. C u in a while.”

It was a Monday night.

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Fourteen years ago today, we saw my first nephew see the world for the first time. He was the cutest boy I’ve ever seen. One minute I’m holding him in my arms, changing his diapers. I blink and fourteen years pass by and he’s going to the prom next year. Breaks my heart. When he was about 5 or 6, he and his younger brother were so into syndicated Japanese action tv shows. Young as they were and with such impressionable minds, they have practically memorized the lyrics to the theme song of the show “Five Man.” It was in Niponggo. I can still sing it in my head:

Bong bong bong bong mayseska
Almosoayden Aysisilakikamo
Paesi suna bobobiyang ito
One, two, three, four, Five Man,
One, two, three, four, Five Man!

And you wished you can hold them in your hands forever.