I Am The Walrus

Gifts I Gave

Cojie, of course, was my first purchase — a mini-parking lot he is now so obsessed about. Didn’t eat Christmas dinner at all, pestered his kuyas to build the thing in my mom’s room while we finished up with opening presents.

Got my parents wallets (Girbaud. Wag isnabin.) I told them this is where they should keep the millions I give them. Haha.

Got the Beowulf 2-Disc edition DVD for Bojie, clothes for my Tita and my Ate, bags for my Ate’s husband and her younger son Jerry, and a 4GB USB Memory Stick for the older son, Garrett. (The UPCAT taker) He was ecstatic, wore it around his neck the moment he opened it.

Got David Cook and Regine Velasquez CDs for the GMA girlfriends, shoes — MATCHING SHOES — for my Math Club girlfriends (matching as in we bought the same pair of shoes in different colors). A coffee treat and chocolates for my officemates.

Also gifted someone with a Timezone card and the hope that he gets to use it someday.

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Gifts I Got

Sleepwear from Mom. Bedsheet from Mom & Dad. A really cool beige bag from Ate. The 3rd season of The Office on DVD from Bojie. Sleepwear from my Tita. I get sleepwear every year. I don’t know why.

For my birthday, I said I wanted lotion — “Basta mabangong lotion“, I told my friends. So I got two now, both Victoria’s Secret. I’ll be smelling differently by the end of the first quarter. I also got a Bath & Body works spray from one of the bosses so I’ll be smelling differently again by the end of the third quarter.

I also asked for a sports bottle, and I got that too. I also got a dress for what was supposedly a “first-day-at-work” thing but looks like it’s going to be a “first-day-BACK-at work” thing.

Two pashminas, two bag organizers (love these!), a Fully Booked gift card (awesome!), cookies, chocolates, leche flan, other sweet stuff, pencils, pencil holders, card holders, stationaries, bookmark from NAPA valley (whose background story I have yet to hear from secret girlfriend), coffee plunger, blouse, and a TBD wallet (to be delivered hehehe).

Somewhere in the world, there are four watches waiting for me, I have no idea how I’m going to get them.

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What We Had

Looking at our Christmas dinner table last night, I couldn’t help but sigh. We are so blessed. The year was turbulent, tearful, and another “T” word I will supply later. But still, here we are, with a table full of food, you wouldn’t know where to start:

1. Grilled Stuffed Squid, the hit of the night. Didn’t make it to morning.

2. Grilled Chicken Breasts. Not so much a hit. WIll be made into sandwich spread later.

3. Binusang Hipon. Favorite of the little boys.

4. Colorful Vegetable Salad which I’m mighty proud of. Got romaine lettuce and another type of green I now forget, some red cabbage, sliced oranges, julienned red bell peppers, tomatoes, some onions. I made a vinaigrette with olive oil and cane vinegar and a dash of basil and rosemary and oregano. It’s practically replacement for rice or bread. It’s all I ate with the chicken and the squid.

5. Fiesta Ham courtesy of GMA Marketing & Productions.

6. Garlic Mushrooms, my favorite.

7. Buko salad (that I didn’t touch. It’s 12mn. No sweets).

8. A Penne experiment. It wasn’t puttanesca. I just sauteed olives and capers and garlic in olive oil, added some spicy tuna, then added the boiled penne. It was like puttanesca without the tomatoes. I thought it was wonderful. I had it for lunch just now haha. I also told everyone else in the house that they can’t have any hahaha.

This is how I discovered that the best thing about puttanesca is the olives.

9. This morning, anticipating the many inaanaks of my mom, we cooked traditional spaghetti with hotdogs and sliced mushrooms and ground beef. It’s also the only thing Cojie would eat.

10. Boring lumpiang shanghai that I had no part of.

How I Am

Confused. Bewildered. Flattered. Worried. Excited. Relaxed. Anxious. (Nawala wallet ko. Wala ako ngayong ATM.) Enamoured. And needing to shed off 6 lbs. as quickly as possible.

Have a Merry Crazy Christmas.

That’s essentially the quote of the season.

It sucks that I have so much to tell but can’t tell the world just yet. Damn it. Eh, well. All in due time. Keep reading.

2008 ain’t over yet. But I think a lot of people can agree that it wasn’t an awesome year. For one thing, a lot of people died. Mothers and fathers left us. Some got sick, some had loved ones who got sick, some lost their jobs, some were, and perhaps still are, on the verge of losing their jobs.

And if you wrote down all of these bad vibes news this year, they may very well outnumber the good vibes. But the last quarter seems to find Good Vibes kicking major Bad Vibes ass:

1. A friend of mine is getting married. She doesn’t want to tell other people yet because she doesn’t want it to be a big office hoopla. But she’s getting married real soon to a good man who has become our friend. What’s great about it is that I’m a bridesmaid HURRAH! I’ve never been a bridesmaid. Imagine that.

2. Another friend of mine who had a miscarriage early this year is pregnant again. How great is that, right? She went through a difficult time when she lost her baby around August because she blamed herself for her stressful life. But here she is, pregnant again, like God himself saying “Buntis lang pala e, kayang-kaya ko yan.”

3. My dad is fine. God, you have no idea how much it means to me that I can say that now with confidence. I mean his heart is fine — no need to have balloons inserted in his artery or anything — and he’s fine. I just love saying that. My dad’s fine.

4. Money-wise, I’m having a good year. I didn’t win the lottery or anything, it’s just, well, money’s not been a problem. This, despite the fact that I had to put both parents in the hospital, and I took on the house rent, the electric bills and the broadband bills this year. Oh, and in case you forgot, I have a son! Who’s food and clothes and Pokemon action figures and tuitiion fees I have to take on all on my own! And I could still afford that Baguio trip in February, that Matabungkay swim in May, two Nike sportswatches (na hulugan hahaha) and Twilight. I’m pretty blessed in that department.

5. I was also blessed with two very intelligent women to join me in my freshman team this year. It’s a different sort of parenting I have to learn with those two. Being a boss is surreal — that’s why Michael Scott’s so crazy.

6. And then… there’s this thing…. well, not really a thing. More a situation. A circumstance that I’m in right now. Something I’m in the middle of. Like a slow cooking casserole I’m whipping up…. with someone. But, damn it, I can’t tell you. Doesn’t that absolutely suck? But I won’t go there.

Lots of good vibes.