(Following is the entry I made in my company's essay writing contest.  The contest was entitled "The Most Inspiring Woman In My Life", and was published in my company's intranet site on March 28, 2007.  I named the piece "Does It Have To Be Just One?")

Does It Have To Be Just One?

It shouldn't be too difficult, to write about the most inspiring woman in my life.  After all, there are now more women in the world than men, at least according to the most recent international surveys.  And since who we are is shaped, at least in part, by how people interact with us, and how we interact with people, then I should have an easy time picking up an anecdote or two to write about.

But I have to ask the question: does it have to be just one? One woman that is the most inspiring?

I can talk about my mom, and memories of my childhood, when our mother would buy us our favorite Taho as a Saturday afternoon treat.  I would come back to our house, sweaty from an afternoon of play, and she would be there proffering a glass of that wonderful snack. Such things would begin to shape in my mind the value of sharing and caring.  But does it have to be just one?

I can talk of my teacher in elementary, she of the pretty smile and stern countenance, as she helped me puzzle out what multiplication is, with patience that bordered on sainthood. The multiplication tables became like a mantra to me, and I realized, through her kind harshness, the value of perseverance. But does it have to be just one?

I can talk of my old ex, and in her own inimitable and beautiful way, show to me that one can find beauty in all things.  I can talk about how she would savor the smell of a flower, or wax lyrical about a book she had read, or how wonderful the sunlight is on a lazy December day, and I realize that the world will never lack for wondrous things.

But does it have to be just one?

In this world where people make and shape you, teach you the ways of the world, through both the good things and the bad things, there cannot be just one.  Collectively, the women in my life have been the most influential, more so than the men.  Men teach you to be tough, to do the hard thing, to be a MAN.  But it is women that make one see the colors of the sky, feel the rain while on an afternoon walk, smell the aroma of brewed coffee in the morning, smile at the antics of children.  Yes, I am a man, and I strive to do things as a man would.  But does it end there?  There is indeed a need to define yourself by comparing yourself with the opposite of you – you struggle to know your limits by constantly comparing yourself to standards.  But if there is only one standard, then how would you be able to?

I remember looking at my mom and my dad, and comparing how they arrive at family decisions.  My dad would argue for the practical – we should go to this movie house because it’s nearer, or go to this restaurant because they have larger servings.  My mom would be more apt to say something like, we should watch a movie here because it has nice ushers, or we should eat in this restaurant because that’s where they serve my brother’s favorite fried chicken.

Such direct opposites, you would assume, would never get along.  But surprisingly they did.  Until the very end, they did. I cannot help but think, up to now, how this can become possible.  But it was.  I guess, in my mind, it showed how, in the end we are influenced not by just one, but by many.  And I think it is patently impossible to answer the question of who the most influential person, singular, in my life is.

Working in Globe, one is often under pressure to perform.  I suspect, more than if I were working in another company.  But it takes a certain kind of person to get you through a tough day.  Most times you would, at the end of a long day, turn to your office buds and go to the nearest drinking spot, whether it be somewhere in Pioneer or somewhere in Valero, hoist a few cold ones and mellow out the day.  That is the Guy Thing to do.  But, there is another side to coping with stress.  A kind word of commiseration as you work side-by-side with colleagues and labor to meet a deadline; a pat on the back when you most need it. And it usually is a girl who is doing the commiserating and the patting.  Far be it for a guy to do the touchy-feely thing.  Right now, I am thinking of a team-mate of mine, one of my staff who I will not mention by name lest this article gets to her, who had resigned and gone off to the States, married to her sweetheart, and probably already has babies (she said that she wanted at least one).  If not for her, I probably would have resigned several times over.

I also remember my former boss, also in Globe (she still is at Globe), and how she would give me a workload that I could barely cope with.  But then I found out that it wasn’t the “barely coping” that was important, but it was that I COULD cope.  She showed me leadership by example, not asking you to do overtime if she wasn’t prepared to do likewise, not asking you to follow rules and policies if she wasn’t willing to follow them, too.  Such things cannot be belittled.  For me, she is the epitome of the Globe employee, a standard I strive to match.

I also remember an old friend of mine, from my childhood days, and how we had innocently experimented on the things that matter between men and women.  Such innocence has long gone from me, but in the intervening years, for me, the image, the ESSENTIAL image, of what a woman is, will always be hers.

There are many facets to a life, and for each facet, there are many that helped shape that.  Both in life and in death.  I remember the time when an uncle of mine, the husband of my favorite aunt on my dad’s side, passed away.  Though they were far from rich, and they were not fortunate enough to have been gifted with children, my auntie coped with the loss of a life partner.  Today, she copes with being alone, and surrounds herself with her friends so as to keep busy and feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.  And even in the midst of all of the things that she does to keep busy, she still keeps a light burning for my uncle, and I can just imagine her thinking that, when she passes away, she’d be reunited again with him.  Such is the stuff that chick-flicks are made.  But I found out that even chick-flicks are based, at least sometimes, in reality.

As a final vignette, I will tell you about my mom, and her last days on this Earth. My mom was a tough old bird, and I will always remember her being this paradox of gentleness and toughness.  And I still cannot believe that such a wonderful person would be visited with such a burden which ultimately was the cause of her passing away.  My mom had cancer – a form of Leukemia, called in medical circles, “multiple myeloma,” or something like that.  My brother, my dad and I labored to keep her comfortable in her last days, and, though we knew it in our heads, we had not accepted it in our hearts that it was indeed her last days.  Up until the end, that is.

Throughout her struggle, my dad stayed steadfast, staying with her through the troubled days and nights, never leaving her side.  For a career military man (my dad was a general in the army), it is unusual to see such a man acting so.  But he did.  I and my brother quit wondering how he can be inspired so.  Because it was love in its purest form.

When she passed away, my dad was inconsolable.  But only for a while.  After a few minutes, he pulled back his shoulders, as he always does, and went on with life.  Doubtless he missed her, but he hid that pain from us, showing us only the stoic face of the general, the man.

During my mom’s death anniversary, or during her birthdays or during Christmas, my dad would become unusually melancholy, and asked, subtly, if my brother and I would care to visit her at Loyola Memorial.  What can we do but say yes.  We have learned not to say no to him when we were small.  It’s no different now.

My dad, AND my mom taught me about life, about death and about unconditional love.  She is but one in a long line of women that have been influential in my life.  Though I suspect she won’t be the last.  The answer to the question, you see, is that, no, there’s not just one.

 

An old friend came home for a visit several weeks ago.  I didn’t even know she was back until she called.  What was amazing was that I didn’t have the same number at the time when she left for the States. So she actually made the effort to look me up. The thing was, we weren’t that close to begin with.  She was more Gina’s friend more than mine.  But, hey, she was still a friend, so I agreed to meet up with her at her temporary flat near Greenbelt 1 Makati while she was here.

 

And when I went up to the doorman and asked to be announced, I heard a voice saying she’ll be right down, I immediately knew it was her.  I sat at the comfortable couch in the front foyer thumbing through a worn and tattered copy of Sports Illustrated and waited… and waited… and waited…  Well this is one thing I didn’t miss about her.

 

But when she stepped out of the elevator, it was a totally different person.  I mean, it was still her, but, she cleaned up real good.  She wasn’t much of a looker before she left for the states, but, now…  What can I say?  She didn’t have any plastic surgery done or anything, but when girls start putting on makeup when they didn’t used to, start wearing their hair stylishly, and change their just-graduated-from-college wardrobe for more trendy threads – well, wow.

 

She gave me one of those hugs girls like to give when they haven’t seen you in a long time, and we went out for a late breakfast.  Chili’s this time, as it was the closest place that she remembered from the old days.

 

Well, everything started out very awkwardly – after all, she was a friend of Gina’s -  and we cautiously felt each other out, looking for topics to talk about that were safe.  We talked about old friends, old things we used to do with the guys, movies we saw, places we went (for me and our old barkada, this inevitably included the old QC Parks and Wild Life, Tagaytay and, yeah yeah, don’t laugh – Luneta).

 

The thing was, aside from the stylish new do and trendy clothes (and a slight American twang to her speech), it was still the old her: still easy to talk to, still slightly nerdy, and still fun.  And soon, we got comfortable with each other again, with no forbidden topics to talk about (save one).  And, after a lengthy breakfast, which she paid for (hooray for equal rights, which allowed me to not be embarrassed about her picking up the tab), we decided to walk a bit.  However, she felt a bit ill-at-ease, as Makati felt different but just familiar enough to make her feel out of place.  So we ended up driving, going around, with no particular destination.  Once, I ran out of gas, and it was a good thing we were like a few feet away from a gas station and the attendants were game enough to push us near one of their pumps.

 

As the smiling gas station person filled up my little car’s tank, I couldn’t help but sneak some looks at my friend.  She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but definitely pretty.  She used to be chubby before (in fact, very very chubby), but now, she was sporting curves in all the right places, and thank goodness her dieting didn’t affect her… upper torso much.  It was all I can do to not stare.

 

And for the girls out there who would call me a pig, well, I can only say two things in my defense:  first – well, I am a guy, after all; second – you had to have known her before to see how much she’s changed, and not just physically.  

 

Pulling away from the gas station, I felt quite tongue-tied.  Here was an old friend of mine, a platonic kind of friend, and I was actually attracted.  It brought to mind that argument of Harry’s in that old movie, When Harry Met Sally, where Harry said that men and women can never be just friends.  It never used to sound true, but now, I am starting to rethink the argument.

 

But despite being suddenly struck by shyness, we had a heck of a good time, just talking and getting to know each other again.  Amazingly enough, we ended up in Enchanted Kingdom in the afternoon, and we never really went on any of the rides, except the bump-car ride which has always been my favorite, and we stuck around for the fireworks in the evening.  We then made the 2-hour drive back to Makati, and had dinner at Shoemart’s Food Court before I dropped her off.  All in all, an amazing time.

 

After dropping her off, I couldn’t help reflect on the fact that I never really tried to be close to her “in that way,” not that I ever was good around girls.  And this was my pal, after all – definitely not girlfriend material.  The following day, I joined her in an impromptu reunion with the guys, and the others had the same reaction as me.  I had the upper hand though - I was more than at ease around her, having spent the previous day with her.

 

I never did catch on to what the guys were thinking, but apparently everyone thought there was something going on between us.  And the only reason I know this was because my best bud from the barkada took me aside and asked a few “innocent” questions.  It made me reconsider the idea again, and actually made me think that I had a chance.

 

And then Gina walked in.  The glacial silence that accompanied her was obviously caused by me, so I made a lame excuse to go to the bathroom.  What can you do?  And when I walked back into the living room, everything seemed normal again. Sort of.  But Gina was full of catty remarks that night, and actually left early.  I couldn’t help wonder if she was acting jealous.  And the mean side of me went, “mwahahahahah!”  But then, should she have some reason to be jealous? Hmmm… ponder ponder…

 

Well, my friend had to go back to the States a few days later, but she told me in confidence that her contract was up by December, and she had decided not to renew it, with plans to move back home.  Well, that gives me around four months.  Maybe by then, I’d understand it all better.  And maybe even be prepared.  If only things could be like the movies.

 

p.s.  As you can see, I tried keeping names out of this to “protect” the innocent.  But, although if any of the barkada should happen to see this, I’m sure they’d figure out who’s who.  Well, they all know about it, anyway.  And, I’m hoping that if she does read this, I hope she keeps an open mind, and that she remember Harry and Sally.

 

I got inundated with lots of stuff this Christmas, as I am sure many of you were, too.  But I seem to have noticed that, as one grows older the quality of Christmas gifts become less and less good...

Perhaps "good" is not the right word to use.  What I am trying to say is that, the kinds of gifts one receives seem to become less fun over the years.

I am still not being clear, I think.  Let's try this:  When you were a kid, the stuff you got were probably toys and stuff, things of very little utilitarian value, but extremely fun - like dolls for little girls and teddy bears and stuff for boys.  When you get to elementary school, the Christmas haul would probably include toy cars, games, maybe a Lego set (very highly-prized back in the day), and maybe a T-shirt or two.  In later years, it would probably be more clothes, books and things like that - distinctly more utilitarian.  And even later, more clothes, perhaps a new pair of shoes, a couple of paperback books.  And later on, maybe a bottle of cologne (or a bottle of perfume for a girl), etc. etc. Good stuff, most of ‘em. Useful, too.

But fun stuff?  Not really... Only if you're lucky.

My personal view on gifts, Christmas gifts or otherwise, is that a gift should be something you would want to have for yourself but would not, or cannot, buy for yourself.  Perhaps too expensive, perhaps hard to find, perhaps embarrassing to buy yourself, perhaps it didn't occur to you to buy it for yourself in the first place.  Whatever.

So if it's regular stuff that you usually get for yourself, then it's not a good kind of gift.  My dad regularly gives those kinds of gifts though. Darn... But I love Dad's gifts, simply because they came from my dad.  Not from anyone else though... So don't get any ideas.

Anyway, what does all this have to do with the blog?

Well, "useful gifts" are mostly what I got this year, as well as last year, and the year before that.  In keeping with my "philosophy" (naks, I have a philosophy!!) about gifts, it's becoming an untenable situation.  But what to do?

While I was walking around with my bro at the Podium a couple of days before New Year's (he had just returned a shirt in the Lacoste store), we made a quick run through Toy Kingdom.  While there, we saw some of the salespeople demoing a little toy plane.  It was about four inches long, with maybe a six-inch wingspan.  And the sales clerk was apparently flying it via remote control!!

Good god! an itty-bitty plane that you can control! I was watching the saleslady fly it around with my mouth agape.  Cool!!  She obviously wasn't good at flying it as she kept on crashing it.  And if she wasn't careful, sooner or later she'll crash it into a someone. And since it uses propellers to fly, watch out for spewing blood!

And, yeah, she did crash it into someone, eventually.  I cringed, waiting for the tortured cry of a majorly wounded shopper, but there wasn't anything. 

Seems that the little flying toy's propellers, though they looked really mean, were soft and completely bendable.  The little plane was so light that even these soft propellers provided enough thrust to make it fly.

I was actually pulling out my wallet, readying myself to pay the no-doubt exhorbitant price for the incredible toy when my eye fell on a little display right beside me.  It was a little helicopter, of the same type as the little plane. Even better!

But will this fly like I hoped it would?  Well, the lady, probably smelling a sale in the offing, grabs one and demoes it.  And, whaddaya know, it flies!  Horizontal, vertical, clockwise and counter-clockwise.  Wow!  And when the lady demonstrates hovering with the little flyer, I was hooked.  The little chopper was called a Picco Z (or something like that, I am not sure anymore).  It was made by  made by a company called Silverlit Electronics.  If you didn't know, this was the little toy chopper getting a lot of exposure on Utube on the net, and it was locally available!!!

So, the lady demoes the Picco Z, and as I was about to pay for it, she points to a larger version, called a Gyrotor, so I go and buy that one instead! (see pic)

It wasn't all that expensive, I guess, as far as RC toys go, but it was more than what I had budgeted for the month.  But, I justified to myself that this is MY gift to myself, seeing as I didn't get any cool gifts this year.  True, it was just another way of rationalizing to myself this unbudgeted exercise in excess. But I did get my new toy.

As is usual for me, I took some time studying the thing before I flew it.  The rotors were made of some bendable kind of plastic, but my Gyrotor sported two sets of blades, one above the other, instead of just the one in the Picco flyer.  The main body of the chopper was made of foam plastic, painted to look like a helicopter.  The boom that attached the rear propeller to the main body was just some stiff metal tube, about the diameter of a cheap transistor radio antenna, with an attached paper decal to make it look like a chopper’s tail. 

All in all, the thing didn’t look like much.  But it was incredibly light, and the fact that you can fly it without all the smoke and noise of a real RC, and not being able to accidentally chop anyone’s body parts off, made it more than I would ever have expected.

So I got a rechargeable nine-volt battery for the control, charged up my Gyrotor, and went out in the yard and proceeded to fly the thing.  Or tried to, anyway.

Though I mastered the trick to hovering, and flying my chopper to the top of our two-storey house, I couldn’t reliably control the direction of flight.  I continuously bumped into walls, plants and other stuff.  At least I was able to scare one of the neighborhood cats out of one of his nine lives. 

I spend hours and hours flying the little thing, and my brother when he and several other relatives visited for the usual New Year lunch and gift exchange of the family.  I have had more success since, and am now able to predictably control direction of flight now, despite how erratic I was with it.

It is a little disappointing, though, as I am the only one I know who has one of these.  Hopefully someone else will be buying one of their own, and we can have some sort of aerial dueling or perhaps a race or something.  These Silverlit things come in three channels, (marked “A,” “B” or “C”) so that owners can fly these things without interfering with each’ other’s RC signals.  If anyone is intending to buy one, can you check with me first so that we won’t end up with the same RC channel?

It’s great fun, you guys should get one. 

   You know when you go to a coffee place and you give your order to the person behind the counter, and you tell him (or her) your name?  The guy (or girl) would write your name on your cup, and you go back to your booth or table where your friends are, and wait for your name to be called.  And then they call out your name so you can pick up your drink, you rush over to the counter, all eager for your hot cafe latte, or perhaps a tall iced mocha capuchino. And then you start wondering... who the hell is Berle?

I think this is how coffeehouse people get their revenge on snooty, demanding customers that take baristas for granted. You have more of that kind of people at coffeehouses, I guess.  So you can't really blame them.  I don't. Well, not much anyway:  On their feet all day, slaving over steaming coffee machines and noisy blenders, with customers yapping at them the whole time.  So if they wanna get back at these people by deliberately making a "mistake" over people's names...  I guess it isn't that big a deal, being Berle, at least for a while.

Anyway, all my life I've had people call me weird permutations of my name, and I've more-or-less gotten used to it.  Berle is just another name in a long line of mistaken names. I've been called "Bart," "Birt" and "Bort." or the the most memorable one: "Boort." My family doesn't call me right, too.  All of 'em.  Without exception.  Even my sister-in-law calls me with a new variation of my own "family" name - her own particular version that she's made up.  Trouble is, she does a lot of corporate seminars, and she had recently conducted one for my company's sales team, and she's actually told my officemates her new pet-name for me.  Ah, well... What's a couple more people? Actually, a couple of dozen more... *sigh*

You know, I don't even know why I was given my name by my parents if they couldn't even say it right.  All I know is that they wanted a "B" name.

But that's what it's like to have a name like mine in a country full of people that have a hard time pronouncing the letter "U"... Or a country with most of the professional population having been weaned on Sesame Street and Ernie & Bert.

My new favorite show is called "How I met Your Mother," (by the way, thanks for the downloads, Ian) and the gimmick of that show is that it's about this guy named Ted telling his kids, twenty-five years into the future, how he met their mother.  It's sorta like a smarter, edgier version of Friends. Anyway, in one of the episodes, Ted was talking about the day he and his friends hung around a coffeehouse, and on the coffee cup of his friend Barney, the coffee girl wrote Barney's name as "Swarley." The funny about this episode is that Ted and the others kept on calling him Swarley. Despite how much he would protest, they still called him Swarley.  They'd play tricks on him, like call their favorite bar with messages for Swarley (ala Bart and Lisa Simpson), or introduce him as Swarley to people, tape signs on his back that say "Call Me Swarley," subscribe magazines under his new name and so on.

I feel for the guy.  In this one instance, at least.  (The Barney character in the show is probably the most disgusting person you can ever meet.)  At least the friends and relatives I have didn't really go after me like they did Barney.

But, on the other hand, I think it's actually somewhat cool.  My name's memorable, at least.  And most of my friends and relatives do it in jest and affection. 

The closest I ever got a stranger to say my name right from the get-go was when someone called me "Bert."  Which is the actual name of one of my old friends.  It's fine for him, since that is his real name.

In the end, though, names are important because they act as labels - this is Jake, this is Arlene, this is a can of Spam and this is a bottle of Budweiser.

Labels, though they don't really say who you are, are a convenient mnemonic device.  After all, humans instinctively categorize things. Examples:  Fred - programmer, star trek fan, works in San Fernando for months on end.  Not to be confused with Ian - has two Volkswagen beetles, plays tennis, has own consultancy company, nice guy but cannot be serious when being photographed.  JB - my former boss, now works in Saudi Arabia, has a system for playing craps, cool guy but gets lost all the time. Not to be confused with Paul - used to have an old red Honda but now has a BMW, but just recently married and relocated to the states (also gets lost all the time). And Lola - works for the largest bookstore in the country, gets advance copies of cool books thereby making her cool by default.  She's not Sr. Iris - real-live honest-to-goodness nun, teacher, niece of famous scifi author Arthur C. Clarke, gives my dad copies of detective and mystery novels. 

Labels are but a convenience.  So, I guess what I'm saying is, we should all not take names too seriously, but at the same time, try and be careful of how you pronounce people's names.  And, if you should go into a coffee house, which is where I am currently in, don't take it too badly if they don't get your name right.  And hope you don't end up being called Swarley.  (Oh, by the way, they got my name right this time. See the picture.)

First off, I apologize for not posting for the longest time. I could claim the usual excuses - blocked site, too busy, nothing to say, or just plain lazy. But I won't, as you have probably heard them all a bazillion times before.

Suffice to say, I am posting again.

Actually, the reason that I am posting at all is because I am in Ian's and Myna's place. Because Ian's a web consultant and works at home, he decided to outfit maybe half of the first floor of his place as a data center: on one side are his servers in environment-controlled cabinets, and on the other an air-conditioned room filled with at least ten workstations, one part of it set up like the bridge of the Enterprise (I forgot to say that he is a die-hard Trek fan).

His place just oozes tech appeal, making you want to sit down to surf. Hence, here I am, surfing and posting a new article in my blogsite.

Another reason why I am also here at Ian's is that today's the birthday of one of my friends, and she's celebrating it here. I guess we're friends again, as she apparently has forgiven me for that snafu I made weeks back. (Apparently, it was a lot of hullabaloo over a non-issue. I think...)

It is a good feeling, to be surrounded by friends, as it makes you feel like you belong. Surfing is essentially a solitary activity, but if you do it at the same time as a lot of your friends, and in the same room even, exploring the internet superhighway has suddenly become a contact sport: talking about downloading a certain file; strategizing so that you'd be on the same page of a game; blogging about the same thing at the same time; or huddling over one station as all of you look at new YouTube video (I sorta imagine a football or basketball team huddling over their coach as he sketches on his pad). Cool, huh?

And to do it at a time when a super-typhoon is supposed to make landfall any minute - it makes one feel cozy. At least in Ian's hermetically-sealed, environment-controlled, UPS-protected lair.

I don't feel like leaving, actually, but I hear from Marge that her part of the city has had a brownout (in the Philippines, we call partial blackouts in the city "brownouts"), and I fear not being at home lest my elder aunt start panicking if the power suddenly shuts off. So I guess I will shut down in a while.

Surfing the net = contact sport. What next? Chess as an official olympic game?

What's in a name?  Shakespeare said a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.  Hah!

I wonder what Old Bill would say if he grew up as a 2nd-generation Chinese-Filipino in the Philippines?  Trust me - this statement will be clearer in due course in this little blog.

I am sure you guys remember that old and very hackneyed joke about the new English teacher:

"Good morning, class...," the new english teacher says, introducing herself to her new students, "My name is Miss Pruki - remember the 'R!'"

The class replies: "Good morning, Miss Pruki!"

"That's good! Don't forget the 'R.'"  Then she randomly points to a little boy in the front row.  "You!" She exclaims.  "What's my name?" 

The hapless little boy trembles in fear.  "Remember," Miss Pruki, then says sweetly, "don't forget the 'R.' So what's my name again?"

The little boy squeaks out his answer:  "Miss Prek-prek?"

Well, whether or not that's a true story, it sounds true.  And I guess that's what counts, right?  After all, I know of many stories that are similar, and they are all bona fide true stories!  For example:

Have you heard of this guy named Edgar Allan Pe?  Or how about Charles? Mind you, that's his nickname - his real given name is "Charlie."  Even more funny, his full name is Charlie Brown. Tan. 

There's Raggedy Ang (I'm sure she preferred barbie dolls when she was young).  Or how about Hellokitty Chua. There's Magic Tiongson. (Basketball, anyone?) There's Jonathan Livingston Sy, and his brother, Washington Dy Sy... God, I can go on with these names forever...

Then there are the famous family-name snafus.  Do any of you know of people who graduated from AMA?  If you do, I'm sure you've heard of the very famous street named after a famous Filipino general, right at the corner of the campus where there's a jeepney stop.  The thing is, it's embarrassing to tell the driver where you're getting down -  "Mama, sa kanto Tinio ako!"  The street is, of course, General Tinio...

And there are those that are just funny to hear, like the family name, "Punginangina."

The most achingly, embarrassingly yucky name is the name of this person I know called "Johnef Kenne."  You wonder why his parents were so mean that they would saddle a child with such a name.  That is, until you learn that the family name is "Dy."

Or how about this family, who wanted their son to get immediate respect from his peers, so they named him "Mister."  There is a certain twisted logic to it, though.  I mean, right off the bat, he would be called Mister.  If that isn't respect, then I don't know what is.

Then there are those more subtle funny-name-isms.  Like a teacher I had in college, with a family name of "Yu."  He loved Ellery Queen mysteries, just like my dad.  Of course, he's old already so he's a little bit hard of hearing.  So, we'd ask him, "Sir, what are you reading? Another Ellery Queen mystery? Sir? Sir? A Mystery? Sir? Sir? Mister Yu? Sir? Mister Yu? Sir? What are you reading? Misteryu? Sir?..."

And there are those cute-name stories, like my classmate in first grade, who was named "Joy."  Of course, he was a guy...

And I know of a Bambi and a Thumper.  Also both guys.

If it seems I have a fixation about names, well, lemme tell you about MY name. 

My mom and dad wanted a big family, and dad wanted to have lots of kids.  He was planning on naming us in alphabetical order.  So the first one had to have an "A" name, and the second a "B" name, the third, "C" the fourth, "D," and so on. 

But fate wasn't too cooperative, and mom n dad only got up to the B's.

Story was that, when I was born, mom and dad were stumped thinking up a nice "B" name.  I don't believe that they couldn't think up a nice B-name.  There must be thousands of them.  Anyway, they were stumped, supposedly, until my Tita Tessie had this brainstorm of naming me after Richard Burton, who was a big movie star then.  And, being pressured to come up with a name for the birth certificate, they agreed.  Hence I will forevermore be "Burton."  Grrr. 

Many will say it's a nice name.  Well, I guess. It's just that I, being born this side of the equator, never hear it pronounced right.  Ever.

Believe me, I've heard all the possible permutations you can think of: "Berton, Barton, Boorton..." sigh...  And, of course the family is no help: I'm called Bart by most of my close relatives.  Even those that know better.  And it never fails to make my brother's fiance's day to call me Bart.  Even more so if she gets to call me Barton. 

But sometimes I'm lucky, and someone actually correctly calls me "Burt." And then I find out they thought my nickname was "Bert."

Recently, when I bought my favorite Mocha Cappuchino Decaf from the Starbucks near my office, the attendant wrote my name as "Purt" on the cup.  My officemate Dyna just couldn't stop laughing at that...

But that's okay.  I've lived with this name all these years.  I think I can take it.  All I have to do is think of poor Edgar, and Charles, Raggedy and Joy.  And I will know that my name's not so bad. 

In an old song of the Apo, Danny once said, "Epol, mansanas - pareho lang 'yan." 

Ain't that true.

I wonder what my brother, Adel, thinks of his name... hehehe...

Early yesterday morning, I brought my brother to the airport.

No biggie, really - just doin' my bro a favor.  Typical sibling stuff.  Of course, no fool I, I got my bro to drive as I tried to get forty winks (more like twenty winks, given how lacking in suspension my little 4x4 was).

And, as is typical, as he was driving us to the airport, we got to talking about stuff.  Nothing of any seriousness - just a lot of family stuff, catching up on each other's goings on et cetera.  As he drove, Adel munched on a ham-and-egg sandwich that our dad whipped up special. (Dad's taken on some of mom's habits after she passed away, which of course I and my bro are subtly happy for.  And one of them is fixing us stuff to munch on while on the road, especially when someone's going on a long trip.  Maybe it's Mom's ghost guilt-tripping Dad... hehehe.)  So he ate the sandwich, keeping the sandwiches that Monica, his better half, made in reserve, for eating at the airport while waiting for his flight to be called.

I guess it is kind of a major operation, this kind of thing:  Adel calling to say if I can bring him to the airport; I calling my dad from the office to make sure he woke me up on time; and of course the trip out to the airport. (As an aside, Dad is the family's walking alarm clock - his sense of time, and his ability to wake up at the time specified without the aid of an alarm clock, honed after a long and distinguished military career, is legendary.)

And it's not even a real major trip.  My bro lives in Diliman.  I and my dad live near Katipunan in QC.  It's, what, a 30-minute drive to the airport, tops.

Still, that's the way we are in my family.  I guess it comes from being a small family, that we need to depend on each other more.  Also, perhaps it's the influence of our mom, she of the strong arm but the gentle nature.  (Not to mention the golden touch with salads, pasta and chicken... y'know I'm getting hungry).  And now that Mom's passed away, it's just me, my bro and my dad (plus my Tita Estar who's sorta our second mom). We have to watch out for each other even more.

And Adel was saying that Monica was so "nahihiya" that I was doing this for him.  Whattheheck... Ain't no big thing!  Just another of many I and my bro do for each other.  I mean, if I don't mind, and I'm available, sure.  Same with Adel. 

Adel said that maybe in other families, this is not such a small thing.  I mean, getting up before the crack of dawn, driving without even the sun being out yet.  Dad waking up just to wake me up, and make us up some munchies. 

In truth, I guess I was a little bit put off by it.  But let me stress the word "little."  Sure, I may grumble, but, really, it ain't no big.

Still, I guess others may think it a little bit above-and-beyond.  But, hey.  That's what it means to be family, right?  And what comes around goes around.  I remember the times when I was small, my brother would bring me to watch movies, just the two of us, or him showing me his latest article in the newspaper and me beaming with pride (and perhaps maybe a little envy).  Or me showing him my latest programming opus, or me treating him out to a siopao-and-mami at our favorite chinese restaurant.

One thing that I remember was when we were short on cash and there was no ready money to pay for my school tuition.  Mom told me much later that Adel sold his beloved Nikon F1 just so I could go to school.  And it sorta clicked in my head - I never did see Adel taking any pictures during much of my high-school days.

And it was my brother and I that supported each other when Mom went to the hospital.  And we lent each other strength to go on, especially when Mom eventually passed away.

So, driving Adel to the airport?  Pshaww...

Y'know that old seventies song by the Osmond Brothers? "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother?"  Well, it sorta captures the feeling that I have now.  "The road is long, with many a winding turn that leads you to who knows where or when."  And, yeah, my brother's there to lend a guiding hand.  To me, he's always been there.  The funny thing, though, is that my brother IS heavy... literally, hehehe...

Yes, he's heavy: he's my brother.  Love you, bro.

I have been cycling off an on for a while now, in a vain effort to keep fit and loose weight.  And, like many a lazy, overweight so-and-so, I have always grabbed at any excuse not to do my weekly quota of exercise.

Over the years, these excuses have been most inventive, indeed.  One of the most plausible ones that I ever came up with was that I did not have anyone to exercise with.  Indeed, it's true that exercising is a lot more fun if you had a friend with you instead of just doing it on your own.  It keeps you motivated, it takes out the monotony of the thing, and so forth.

This argument seemed quite reasonable, actually. And I have been using it for a while now, milking it as much as I can.  The net effect is, of course, fewer bicycle outings. Which was the whole point, anyway...

I would, of course, moan to my friends that it's so bad that none of them wanted to bike with me, which is, indeed true - most of them prefer badminton and going to the gym (which are currently the two top-ranking regimens-of-choice by the exercise bourgeoisie).  Which was sort of good for me hehehe...

But last Sunday the excuse would not work - Emil, my Judo-practicing friend (he was one of the judges for the Judo events of last year's SEA Games) texted me to say that he was biking, and was willing to accompany me... Arrgh!!!  I'm going to be doing something disgustingly healthy!! Nooooo...

But then again, I get to wear my bike paraphernalia - safety helmet, bike gloves, fake Oakley safety road glasses, trip meter-computer on my wrist, my Seiko diver's watch on the other, et cetera, et cetera.  I guess most geeks like me find something appealing in all of this gadgetry, which is also probably the same thing that my scuba-diving friends feel when they put on their gear. Sorta like a tricked-out James Bond, but this time with a bottle of Gatorade instead of a Walther PPK.

I, of course, wore the prerequisite bike shorts, but because of my, ahem, less than flattering gut, I wore a regular t-shirt to camouflage the embarrasingly-tight garment.  (Washboard abs is one thing but washbasin abs?)

So there I was in U.P. Diliman on a bright and sunny early-Sunday morning, making circuits of the university oval on my junior-size eight-speed mountain bike and wearing my blue helmet, a red F1 t-shirt, and my stretchy-pants.

Since it was a Sunday, the university police cordoned off the oval, allowing people to roam the campus like it was a park.  And I was there with a suprisingly large contingent of joggers and fellow-bicycle-riding people.

I was thinking that this is sort of fun, riding around and biking in a completely safe environment.  But where in heck is Emil?  Did I get faked out again?  Grrr.  By Lance Armstrong's yellow jersey, I'll... wait! There's Emil!  So we did meet up, after all, and did maybe six laps of the oval. 

Our route was a clockwise route around the campus main road, and after going around for a while, you can't help noticing details of your ride.  The side near the AS is an easier ride - it eases up near the College of Education, and it only becomes harder to pedal starting at the College of Music. It's doubly harder as I told myself I won't shift gears and keep it at gear zero.

All in all, it was a pleasant morning, shooting the breeze as Emil and I rode around the campus, and catching up on each other since it's been a while since we saw each other. And it was early enough that the temperature was just on the pleasant side of sunny, and and there were enough trees to provide a nice dappled kind of shade.  And the people were pleasant enough for the most part, and there were some stalls selling chichiria and stuff.  Probably no one's told them of the effect of salt on a dehydrated body.  Still, most of them have Gatorade on hand, so it sorta evens things out: you can have a choice of fainting or peeing in your pants...

Emil insisted that we have breakfast at a tapa place called Rodic's in the Co-op - excuse me, I meant "SC" (seems my age is showing - most UP people nowadays call that bunch of shops and carinderias near the tennis courts "SC" whereas back in the day, we called it the Co-op, as in "cooperative").  The plain but tasty fare at the famous Rodic's was up to it's usual high standards, and and it was especially good that time, since we've just had a relatively strenuous bike ride, and we were both hungry.

This Sunday bike outing was fun, actually, though it tuckered me out a lot, especially since I got home the previous night at around two in the morning - three hours of sleep didn't really prepare me for it.  But I think I'm gonna make this a more regular part of my routine.  This next weekend, I think Emil and I will have another round, but Emil's being Emil again - not able to say yes or no...

So, anyone want to have a Sunday bike ride?

Friends are hard to come by, especially for an SOB like me.  But that’s the way life has been to me.  And in the rare times that I do unearth them, I think of these good and true friends like the little baubles that my mom kept in her prize jewelry box – little pieces of jewelry to be cherished and to show off, but not to be taken out of the box too often lest the luster fades.

 

There are those beautiful diamonds that have a hundred facets that refract the light in so many ways that they seem to be alive with their own kind of life.  I liken these to those kinds of friends whose brilliance and wit are such that you can’t help but admire them as they liven up your drab existence with the light of their own brilliant lives, refracted into a dozen rainbow hues by the prism of your own life. 

 

And there are those other gems – like rubies or emeralds that, though have less brilliant fire, are nevertheless to be cherished just for their simple loveliness.  And I guess these are like the kinds of friends that stick by you through thick and thin, that get you through almost anything, that you would never give up - not in a million years.

 

I guess, as I sit here at my desk in my office, randomly surfing and pinging the odd website or two, surrounded by the inevitable mess of papers that accumulate over the week, I’m feeling melancholy after another tiring day.  I happen to catch some posts from some of these friends, from that little jewelry box in my head, had just put up. And I start reflecting.

 

There’s this one friend – I cannot say old friend, as I have only known him for a couple of years – whose strength of character, and whose wit and intelligence I admire greatly: a uniquely erudite individual, with a very academic turn of phrase.  Even his internet handle, “Tybalt,” speaks volumes on this trait of his (Tybalt is, of course, Juliet’s cousin from the Shakespearean tragedy; a man ready to live, kill or die for honor.). 

 

In one of his latest posts, he talks about his inability to follow a beat, of not being able to follow a tune.  Somehow this reminds me of the movie, “White Men Can’t Jump.”  In fact, I know a few people afflicted with this, too, but the way Adrian described it in his blog put this unique malady in a perspective I hadn’t considered.  And how it could be symptomatic of a deeper condition in him (shades of Calvinism, predestination and Saint Augustine), and how it’s affected his life.  (Though I could get the meaning of it from the context, I actually wanted to google the word “Arrhythmic” just to be sure.)  I haven’t checked his blog in a while.  Maybe I should tonight while I’m not doing much yet.

 

Then there’s this other friend of mine from college - still a friend but definitely an ex-something or other (nuh-uh, I won’t get into that particular story), that continuously shows me, in that inimitably feminine way of hers, glimpses into the female psyche – how fundamentally different a girl thinks from a guy and how really in touch with feelings, and how kikay girls can really be – frilly clothes, an obsession with being clean and well-scrubbed, of finding out the “whys” behind things when guys get stuck with the “whats” and “hows,” of wanting to dress pretty, of how primping and batting an eyelash can get a guy to do things her way (and believe me, I know).  Plus she’s pretty, and smells really good… hehehe…

 

We aren’t together anymore, though we are still very much friends.  I just met up with her and her sister Gina this morning (who is also a close friend), and had a cup at Starbucks, where Gina held forth on her opinions about Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter (give her a break – she’s barely seventeen).

 

In fact, last October, we celebrated the opening of Gie’s little fashion boutique in Alabang.  Hope it does well.  But then, this is Gie, who can turn failure into something that looks suspiciously like success.

 

Then there are those ruby-friends of mine, who over the years, have remained good and true friends. 

 

A few weeks back, I got an opportunity to meet up with some of these rubies and emeralds from the box:  One of our old officemates came home for a visit, and it was a good excuse as any to meet up. 

 

For once, I got there ahead of a few of them, which is a rare occurrence, indeed. 

 

And we had a good gab-fest, as is usual with us, and reminisced about old exploits and the old care-worn stories from our old days in IBM.  Like Paul’s penchant to be so scatterbrained that, one time, they drove from the office to Greenbelt for a bite of lunch, and actually walked back to the office because he forgot that he brought his car.  Or when Dyk (yes, that is not a typo – that’s really how he spells his name), had to “relieve” himself and the only convenient place was against this parked truck’s wheel. But, as he did Number One, the truck pulled away, giving the people on the other side of the truck a good view of his pecker…

 

Or of JB’s extremely poor sense of direction, or whom Bong’s and Marie’s kids take after more, or … you know, I can go on and on - the fund of jokes that we’ve accumulated is inexhaustible, but I won’t since it’ll just bore you to tears.

 

Cienna and Jen enjoyed these stories, of course, as it gave them the more humorous side of their partners’ past – much to the chagrin of Paul and Dyk, I’m sure.

 

Lest people think I’m picking on my friends, they also gave as good as they got, bringing up stories where I was the featured character: such as the time when we went to Enchanted Kingdom, and scaredy-cat me just rode the dodge-em bump-car ride.  Or the magic phrase, “next time, ha.”  But, since this is my blog, enough about embarrassing stories about me.

 

We had a fairly good time, but there was a big shocker – When Dyk confirmed that he’d be coming, he said that he’d be bringing his fiancé!  Woah!  Fiancé? Aryan, Ysa and I couldn’t believe it, but when Dyk brought Jen (that was the first time we met her), Dyk proudly flashing the ring on Jen’s finger, it wasn’t a joke. 

 

I guess people do change, do move on, as you yourself do.  (Yup, Gie’s got a boyfriend now, too  - a pox on that guy!!! Wups, sorry…) And it makes me feel a little sad, because I have this sneaking feeling that they are not the friends that you got to know, but are mutating into things that only look like your friends, but are really impostors. 

 

But when you get a chance to hook up with them again, you find that they’re fundamentally the same, that underneath the patina of new things, experiences and events, they are still the same rubies and diamonds that they’ve always been.

 

But, like I said, we shouldn’t bring them out too often, as they may loose their luster.  The wonderful old stories might become trite and corny after too many retellings. 

 

So, I’m closing the box for now. 

 

I guess the trick is to make more stories to add to the old.  So my old IBM gang are going to the Balloon Festival in Clark next month, and maybe add another bauble in the jewel-box.  And I’m meeting up with Gina next week cause she has a new DVD she wants us to watch (hopefully it’s not Narnia, LOTR or Harry Potter. Again). 

 

 

This is a common occurrence nowadays.  But it never occurred that it would happen to me. 

Well, it did.  And I'm paying the price for my cockiness, and not backing up regularly.  Yep.  I lost all of my numbers in my phone's address book.  Seems I downloaded too many freeware programs, and one of them jammed my cel, and I had to do a hard reset... Bye-bye phonebook...

So, I am asking all of my friends, relatives and acquaintances - if you can email me privately, or send me a message with your name cellphone and/or telephone numbers, I'd greatly appreciate it.  (If your no's an international no., please include country and area code numbers)

Would really appreciate it. Thanks!

You know how it is - It's the last working day before Christmas, and you've already bought gifts for everyone you wanted to give gifts to, gone to a dozen or so Christmas parties, and you keep pushing back and pushing back the time when you have to buy gifts for your family, somehow thinking that you'll have time to do this.

So. You end up with the inevitable - needing to buy about a dozen people Christmas gifts, with practically no time left to do it in.

You find yourself grumbling, as you do at about this time every year, asking who invented this tradition of buying gifts, and what has this have to do with the birth of Christ anyway, for Christ's sake? (eh??)

Dreading the crush of people in the malls that are in the same pickle you are, you think of a place where there would probably be less people, and to ask someone to help you pick out the stuff to buy.

For me, I decided on Tiendesitas, the new tiangge on C5, which is in close proximity to Megamall and Eastwood.

"Tiangge," as any shopper in Manila knows, is the colloquial for a flea market, but as for "Tiendesitas" - well... In Cuba, Mexico, etc., "Tienda" is a booth, stall, or shop where merchandise is sold. So, with the "sita" at the end, it means "little shop".

I was also able to dragoon my brother to help out (I had an ace up my sleeve - he needed a lift home). I told him that I needed to buy just a couple of things only.  Little did he know, hehehe... So, after picking him at his office and a short detour, we went to Tiendesitas.

You know, it took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to get from Palm Village near Rockwell to Tiendesitas?!? Grrr... Still, we persevered and threaded our way through the holiday traffic jam and got to the place.  It was a good thing my little 4x4 SUV was so small - we were able to squeeze into a parking spot right away.  Hah! Take that, you hoard of shoppers, you!

So there we were, in budget-shopping heaven, looking for last-minute gifts.  However, after looking through the different little tindahans, I realized that the prices weren't really budget-sized...

The story that's been going around about the shops in Tiendesitas is that these were the same set of stalls and shops that were kicked out of nearby Virra Mall in the adjacent San Juan district.  In fact this "pseudo-fact" has become something on the level of an urban legend.  I was therefore expecting the same low prices, but this place was too upscale for my depleted pre-Christmas wallet. Still, we were there already, and I'll be damned if I'm going through all of that mumble-mumble traffic again without having anything to show for it.  What the hey, go for it!

So I got a set of aromatherapy candles for my brother's fiancée that he said she likes, a pair of those poncho-style shawl-things that are so trendy nowadays for my two cousins, a nice ornate abanico for my tita, two nice short-sleeve polos for my dad (my dad always gets two gifts at Christmas 'cause his birthday is on the 26th - St. Stephen's day, also called Boxing Day in England) and a budget-busting expensive little purple purse for my niece, which I hope she uses.  Of course, I didn't let on what I was buying for my brother, as he was with me.  (I ended up junking what I did buy him, and gave him what he said he wanted - a set of DVDs of the episodes from the 70s TV show Nightstalker.)

I also bought a couple of other things, some for me and some for friends that I forgot to put in my list.

While we were there, my brother looked for a special kind of leash for his doggies at home in the pet shop section (Tiendesitas has a row of pet shops that have a big selection of stuff that pet owners will love). Lots of people were milling about these shops carrying or leading around their pets.  I gathered that this is a new in-spot for pet owners.

After all of this shopping, my brother turned to me and made the remark that if this constitutes "a couple of things" to me... So I said I'll treat him out to dinner or something to make up for dragging him around.  The fact that it was way past 9, and he won't make it home to dinner anymore probably convinced him.

So, we decided on, what else? Mami n Siopao!  (read my previous blog, "Ma! Moon! Look!" so you can put this in the proper context)

While we were having a nice sit-down Chinese dinner, I was snapping up pics of the place, and eventually put these pics in the blog, too (see "Dumplings and Stuff")

We did eventually get home.  I dropped him off at his house at around 11:30, and I got home near twelve. 

So.  What has this taught me?  Have I learned the lesson of shopping early for Christmas?  Has it shown me that procrastinating is not a good thing?

Probably not.  'Cause next year, I'm probably going to go through all of this again...

(This is something that I should have posted earlier. And since it's another slow day at the office today, I decided to finish this off and post it.  Anyway, better late than never, right?)

I have a confession - I enjoy Mami and Siopao. 

Doesn't sound so wierd, right?  I mean, branches of Luk Yuen and Chow King abound in the metro.  So, what's so unusual about mami-and-siopao?

Places like Luk Yuen or Chow King do not differ much from other fastfoods - people queing up in neat little lines behind the cash registers manned by starched and uniformed attendants, waiters with neat little caps moving around bringing steaming plates and bowls to their hungry patrons: Very organized and neat, with a set menu and formula for their procedures, their spiels with the customers, and the food.

The food, though probably tasty in a homogenized kind of way, feels and tastes like it came from a production line or conveyor belt, with the broth measured to the ounce, and the pieces of chicken counted to the last morsel.

Very neat, and very precise.  Also very boring.

Well, I like the ones from Ma Mon Luk.  That's right!  Smelly, dirty ole Ma Mon Luk! 

I grew up in the Murphy district of Quezon City, at a time when going to Cubao was then thought of more as a treat than a mission into no-man's land. And there were lots of places you can go then, and feel OK doing so.  You can prowl the spanking-new Ali Mall with all its trendy shops and stores, or the cavernous COD with all the nifty toys and gadgets on the third floor, or catch a movie at the New Frontier Theatre while you lick a nice soft-serve ice-cream cone, or have a biiig bag of buttered popcorn (with real melted butter!).

For our little family, typically on sundays after mass, we would go to the more traditional and ho-hum places that my mom and dad liked.  One of these places was Ma Mon Luk. 

It wasn't outré then to go and eat in Ma Mon Luk, although it has gone to pot in recent years - its branches being eaten up by the newer, cleaner and more high-tech cousins of Jollibee.  In fact, the only two branches I know left running are the ones near Banawe in QC in the Quiapo area.

Anyway, I and my brother cut our teeth on the dimsum and dumplings that old man Ma Mon Luk served.  Back then the servings were huge, especially to my younger eyes - the siopao looked like it was bigger than my big brother's head, and the soup bowl for the mami bigger than my mom's tea kettle.

And the taste - well, what can I say.  It was, to me the epitome of chicken-mami, all others paling in comparison.

There was a trick to eating them - the sauce that you put in your siopao is the same sauce that you would put in your mami.  As well as your siomai.  Indeed, I would put so much of it that the mami's broth would change to a light brown color because of it.  And I would slurp it all up.

But then, there was the story that started circulating, that their siopao was made with, gasp! cat meat!  Ye gods!

It is most probably not true, just the stuff of urban legends, but it drove people away.  Including my little family.  I wondered why we didn't go there anymore, and mt Tita would tell me, with eyes ablaze, that they use Pusa in them buns!!! Arrggh!

So I didn't mind that we stopped going.  There was a little stray pure-white cat that roamed our neighborhood then, and we called it Siopao.  Innocently, I wanted to hide him away somewhere and keep him safe from old man Ma Mon Luk, but I never did, and he survived to a no-doubt ripe old age.

Today, there's still an all-white cat prowling around, which I also call Siopao (could it be the same cat? if so, that would make it older than my cousin Phoebe...)

Today, Ma Mon Luk's not what it used to be.  Seedy, and run down, it's patrons not the same kind that used to eat there.  Still, nowadays, as an adult, I would, if I could (sometimes with my brother and even my dad), sneak to the Banawe branch for a bowl and a bun, surrepticiously looking left and right lest I be recognized by people I knew.  

Still, I have come to think of myself in good company - aside from the regular man-on-the-street, some urbanites in shirts-and-ties would be there, and I spotted a couple of well-known public figures slurping up the noodles: I once saw Senator Lim there (and by the way he palled around with the waiters, you knew he was a regular), and I saw, or though I saw, Danny Javier of the Apo Hiking Society.

On a whim, I brought a friend once to Ma Mon Luk after we finished a project we were doing.  To this day, I'd wonder what Fred ("Icheb" to those that know him) thought about that.  He was probably wondering if he would need a a couple of Diatabs after...

Recently, my brother told me about a new place in the Greenhills area that Jessica Zafra told him about.  It was a mami house put up by the nieces (I think) of Ma Mon Luk, serving authentic Ma Mon Luk fare!  Good god, an upscale Ma Mon Luk!!! 

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a fine-dining kind of place, but you wouldn't be worried about catching dysentery or something in a place like that - sort of a little more upscale than a fastfood joint.

Authentic Ma Mon Luk siopao and mami, with authentic Ma Mon Luk siopao sauce.  Of course, the sauce wasn't in those ketchup squeeze bottles that I was familiar with, but in little bowls with their own serving spoons, and the tables were wooden formica-top tables instead of the chipped marble-top tables in Banawe (those tables sort of reminded me of cemetery tombstones), and there was bottomless iced tea instead of just coke in those thick drinking glasses.

Thank goodness.  It looks like Ma Mon Luk has a new lease on life, and perhaps it will go on to entrall a new set of dimsum-lovers with its no-nonsense, no-frills bowls of goodness.  Looks like I'm gonna be in the Greenhills area more.

I'm gonna keep the name and location of the place a secret for now, lest it get drowned out by a flock of people, and I won't get to have my mami-and-siopao.  But if you really want to know, how about dropping me a line, and we can go to the place for lunch or something, and have a bite of the real thing.

I've gotten "my" first ad in the newspaper!  

Well, not mine, exactly... The guys in my Camera Club were tapped to take pictures of the 23rd SEA Games, and several of our pictures were included in the advertorial.  Anf I was lucky enough to get two of mine in there.  So, I guess the guys won't mind if I say it's "my ad."