It’s amazing how fast time flies.
Just this friday, I attended a reunion of sorts with some of my childhood friends from the Sta. Cruz area. What’s it been, a decade or something? I can remember when I was just a snotty, mop-haired kid who had bad taste in shorts (for which I blame my mother) who was new to the place, and these guys welcomed me warmly into my first real clique (neighbors and homeowner’s associations don’t count – you’re stuck with them whether you like ‘em or not!). We were just a bunch of kids who went to the mall to go bowling and watch movies and riff on each other until closing time.
Now, a handful of us are already married, have started families, or have had children (defined by some as a great opportunity to screw with someone’s life from scratch). When there’s such a huge gap in between face-to-face meetings, the dichotomy is incredible once you really look into all of what’s passed.
But of course, what I appreciate the most is the fact that a lot of us are still juvenile delinquents when it comes down to it. Ha!
It was great. We met up at Greenbelt 3 for dinner at CYMA, where we had the CYMA Ceasar Salad, Gourmet Hummus, the Solomos Angel Hair and Pastisado – Greek Osso Bucco pasta, and a whole leg of Lamb (I was also looking for a place to buy insulin, but couldn’t find one). The food was awesome. I’ve eaten at CYMA a number of times already and I’ve yet to order anything I didn’t like. Also, after drinking around 7 glasses of iced tea, I wanted to attach a catheter to my bladder already. But I digress.
We wound up spending around P7600 or something. But it was a pretty good deal, considering that amount fed 16 people all that good food. Ayus na yan pareng pusit. 475 per person lang naman e, nyehehe.
After dinner, we were debating whether we should go see a movie or just do the videooke thing. The movie was the first choice, but since the Metro Manila Film Festival was on and Attila, Jill’s hubby, doesn’t understand Tagalog, that was later shot down. We then started throwing around whether we should hit Red Box or Music 21 on Jupiter Street. Red box was the classier choice (more varied song selections and a more modern ambiance) but it was too expensive at that time of day, so we decided to just drive over to Jupiter Street.
The place wasn’t too shabby, the room we got was huge, and sound sytem was pretty good. The song selection was to be made via a giant remote control whose functions you first had to divine via animal sacrifices and interpretative dances. Once the gods of good and bad singers and knife-stabbing-drunkards had answered you, you could then proceed to select the song of your choice onscreen.
The song selections were a bit behind the times, mostly catering to people who’d like standards more so than current and alternative hits. I really had no idea what most of everybody else was singing since I’m more of an alt-rock guy. Also, on the songs I sang, let’s just say that I sounded like a constipated duck (immoral ammounts of ice-cold tea can do that to you). I had a feeling people were just waiting for me to sing “My Way” to get an excuse to stab me. Anyway, Sherrick totally killed everybody (so to speak). Ang tindi magperform ng kumag na ‘to, wahaha!
After 3 hours of singing (or trying to), we wound it down and said our goodbyes, and went home. Good times.
