Strange people

The reading lady Last week, when I went to mass, I managed to sit across a woman in the jeep who was intently reading a book. She was completely out of touch with what's happening around her, focused mainly on a paperback in her hand. I bet she was reading a love story because she had that kind of expression on her face -- you know, that kind of half-smile, partly hopeful, partly hurting, and that embarassed, dreamy faraway look that you acquire when the helpless virginal heroine is shamed at having the patronizing handsome hero discover that she loves him, and is struggling hard to explain herself without sounding too pathetic... Anyway, as I said, this woman is totally oblivious to her surroundings. Her bag and paper bag were placed haphazardly on her side, almost spilling off their contents on the floor. The woman was wearing a calf-length skirt and was sitting with her legs apart, as if she she paid a fare of P21, instead of P7. Each time the jeepney braked, she'd move her leg and knee forward to balance herself but never once looked up from her book. What's funny was her expression changed about three or four times, getting more revealing each time. That must have been a really interesting love story; she was probably on the sex part. Whatever. By the time I alighted at the corner leading to St. Andrew, the woman had turned the page maybe twice. There was no traffic so it was a quick trip, and it was a quick read. But she was soooo into it. Those who are first will be last I sat at the second to the last pew in church. The mass has already started when I arrived. When we came to the homily part, a few minutes into the homily, a mother and son hurriedly entered the church and stood by the aisle of my pew, looking for a seat. The mother then glanced back, apparently signalling to her husband to follow, and pulled her son forward, walking bravely through the aisle amidst the sitting churchgoers. I immediately realized they were aiming for the very front pew, and I also noticed at the same time that the pew they were targeting was completely empty while the other pews behind it were fully packed. The mother and son reached the pew, stopped, stared, turned around and walked briskly down the aisle back to where they stood earlier. I knew it! I think there was a "reserved" sign on the seat, explaining why the pew is totally empty. A few minutes later, a very proud looking peacock in red spaghetti-strapped backless blouse and heavy mane of brown dyed hair strutted down the aisle towards the same pew, head held very high. A woman, who seems to be her mother, followed the teenager. They, too, stopped, stared and turned around. This time, the peacock walked rapidly down the aisle with head bowed down. More like an ostrich ready to bury its head. A third group--a whole family--reached the pew after offertory and did the same turn-around move. (They're very late and they still want to stay in front! Tsk tsk. Lord, forgive me.) By this time, the church staff probably noticed that people going front were being prevented from sitting by something in the pew. I didn't know at the time but during communion, I noticed that the front pew was already full. Unfortunately, the mother-and-son, the strutting peacock in red, and the large family were not among them. Strange how these first three groups of people never noticed the unusual emptiness of the pew, and strange how it took a while for the church staff to notice there was something wrong. And I noticed them all. Made me ask myself later if I was paying attention to the mass or not. Almost burned I decided to pass by McDonald's in the corner of Reposo and JP Rizal streets after mass to buy chicken nuggets for Marthe. She was craving for it and had mentioned it several times during the day. It took some time to be ready so it was relatively quiet when I finally alighted at Zapote St. I'm still not allowed to take the tricycle so I walked. On my side of the street, I passed by several cars of jeepneys that were parked on the sidewalk: a common sight. As I was walking past Marthe's school, I looked up at the sign of the preschool and reread the text that I've read several times in the past months: announcement about the registration and others. An empty jeepney was parked close to it, to my left. I was walking past the jeep, mind preoccupied, when a hand suddenly shot out of the jeep window, almost into my face. The hand shook the excess ash from the tip of the cigarette it was holding. I jumped sideways to the right. I looked at the jeep but saw only the arm. Apparently, there was somebody lying down in the jeep bench and he shot his hand out to shake the cigarette ash without even considering that somebody might be walking past at this hour. Somebody like me. If that hand had hit my face and burned my cheeks with that ash, I would have twisted it back to its owner and ram it into his mouth before he'd ever know what hit him. Sometimes, I wonder how God survives every moment of being God. I wonder how he can look at, listen to and empathize with these strange people who can get into your nerves if you're caught off guard. I guess that's why He is God. And I'm just human.

Blue hospital gowns and a hunk in maroon

This happened on August 20, 2007. I woke up yesterday with this strange dream hanging over my consciousness. I know there was a problem but I could not point my finger on what it was. I was in a place away from home, in the company of officemates and friends. I didn't even see any of my friends in the entire dream, but there was one person who stood out very vividly -- and I have no idea who he is. All I remember was that he was lean, muscled in the proper places, has moderately dark complexion, slightly long hair and a face that I'd like to bring to mind every so often. His being a stranger to me in real life did not disturb me as much as the wonderful feeling of having my arms wrapped around his torso and his over my shoulders. It was a comforting, very reassuring circumstance. In my dream, I wanted this man. And when I awoke from the weird dream in which he figured into, I wanted to meet him in the flesh, if he, indeed, exists. But I'm jumping ahead of my story. The focus of my strange dream was not him. It was a hospital that appears to have been built behind or above a posh restaurant inside a grand hotel. How it came to be, I have no idea, but there it was, with an entrance door right at the top of a glittering staircase that opens to the restaurant. The dream starts with my awareness that I was with friends, having some kind of teambuilding away from home. I was troubled and I went out for a walk in the late afternoon (I think, judging from the lighting of the scene). All of a sudden, this hunk of a man in maroon shirt approached me and seemed to ask me what the problem was. He was a bit "chinito" and kind of boyish in features, but I know he was not so young. In the dream, it appeared that we were close to each other and could tell each other anything. I talked about whatever it was that bothered me and he comforted me with kind words. Then he gestured for us to go somewhere far from the group, where we can walk and talk some more. He placed his arms over my shoulders and pulled me closer to him as we walked. And I naturally wrapped my arms around his waist. It was so natural that I didn't think twice or feel embarassed at all. We walked and walked and talked and talked, but I couldn't hear what we were discussing and there was no topic that popped up in my mind while the dream was going on. Then we came upon a building and I noticed that we were already walking over wooden floors. There was a doorway to the right leading to a hall, and the door was open so I could see the corridor. I then said to him, "Hey, this was my old dormitory. This is my college, this was where I studied and stayed for four years." But the place didn't look anything like my college dorm; not even my college. Still, it was the first time I heard me talk about something definite in my dream. He wanted us to go through the doorway but I gestured for him to be quiet and to just proceed with me to a staircase in front of us. I seemed to have warned him that it was late and people might be preparing for dinner or something. We climbed the stairs, still close to each other, and the scene changed. We were climbing up a set of very elegant steps made of gold and black-and-brown marble, about three flights. At the top of the stairs was a receiving podium standing to the right of a carpeted floor. To the left was a glass door with translucent print but I can sense that behind it was more elegance. I remember looking through the glass and seeing several round tables neatly dressed in delicate beige cloth, with flower arrangements on the center of each. Beyond the tables was a lobby. That gave me the first impression that I was standing behind a hotel and restaurant. It was around this time that I noticed that the character of the hunk-in-maroon disappeared from my dream sequence and that I proceeded on my own without surprise or perplexity. It was as if his sudden disappearance from my side was as natural as the air I breathed. I walked beyond the podium and proceeded to another flight of shiny, glittering stairs that was much higher than the first three. At the top of it was a metal door. I pushed the door and found myself inside what looked to me like a hospital. The only thing I vaguely remember now is that I wandered around the halls and hospital rooms for some time, looking for something (or someone) that was unidentified in my dream. The next scene startled me. I woke up lying on a hospital bed, wearing a blue patient’s gown (Blue gowns are worn by medical interns; patient’s usually have white gowns. But in my dream, the patient’s gown was blue). I was inside what looks like a laboratory that’s being used as a storage room, because there were boxes of supplies around, some old hospital equipment and some wall-mounted shelves. When I looked down towards my feet, I saw a janitor at the end of the room mopping the floor, his back to me. He was finishing up and was moving towards the light switch, and I sat up and called to him, “Manong, manong!” He couldn’t hear me at first, but I jumped down from the hospital bed and felt around for my slippers, calling louder to him this time. “Manong, sandali, andito pa ako! Wag mo akong iwan!” He whirled around, seeing me, and was a little bit surprised – judging from his expression. But he didn’t say a word and waited for me, standing by the light switch. I finally fit my feet on a pair of slippers under the bed, which I can’t recall how it looks, and walked rapidly towards the door. I thanked him and went out ahead. I walked on and on, getting frantic about how I’d get out of the hospital. I have a vague feeling that it was late and dark outside and that I have to move on. I also had this feeling that no one should see me. I ran through short corridors and several rooms that looked just like the one I left until I saw a flight of stairs. I went up and up, about three to four flights. As I came near the top of the last one, I heard someone sobbing. When I reached the top, there was a hospital bed just beside the staircase with a dead body lying on it. I didn’t stare at the body, but in my dream I knew it was dead, it was a very old woman, and it was lying uncovered, dressed in something printed, its feet visible in the periphery of my sight. My senses, however, were not focused on the body but on the sobbing. I was frozen for many seconds from the awareness of a dead body, and the realization that the crying was coming from somewhere else. My left foot was on the top step and my right foot was in the second to the top step. My left hand was holding the rail near the dead body’s bed. Several feet beyond the dead woman’s bed, invisible at first, was a woman lying face down on the floor. When she started crying again, her body began crawling across the floor towards the bed and towards me. She never looked up, her face—and her whole body it seemed—was still flat on the floor, but she was moving towards me! All my popped-out eyes could see was a long white dress and blue patient’s gown with unkempt wavy hair moving across the floor in my direction. And then I noticed the pool of blood under the moving body, being wiped by her moving dress and hair as she moved. Waahhh!!! That snapped me out of my dream, and I woke up sweating, crying and very frightened.

Second Chance

I will take note of yesterday (July 19) because it's one of the best days of my life. The day when I received the answer to my question. I was requested by Dra. Diane Sarmiento, my ob-gyne, to come to her clinic yesterday because of a call from my office's HR department. Our HR manager wanted her to revise the medical certificate she issued, allowing me to work from home. Dra. Sarmiento said she wanted to check me up first before she will issue the new certificate.

So I went to her clinic, expecting a regular checkup. When she summoned me to her room, she waved at Mama as well. She wanted Mama to join me. I thought it odd, although I recall that during my last checkup, she also inquired about Mama and why she didn't join me in the room. Anyway, she asked me about my stitch, how I felt, etc. She then examined my wound and conducted IE. Then she told us to sit down and said, "I'm obviously trying to delay what I'm about to say."

Then she showed us the biopsy report from the lab and asked me if I had seen it. I said yes, and I have read it, but because of the technical and medical terms, I couldn't understand a thing. Ok, she said. The mass that was removed from me was given a biopsy procedure. She said they cut it up to many pieces and from each piece, they took a sample, placed it on a slide and looked at the sample through a microscope. There were 12 slides in all. Dra. Sarmiento said they found something inside the uterus. It was microscopic, not visible to the bare eye, but it was unmistakable.

It was cancer. Cancerous tumor on their early stages. I had cancer of the uterus.

At that point Dra. Sarmiento cried, even ahead of me. She was filled with emotion because she knew all the doctors who handled my case were guided by a Divine hand. They tried so hard to simply scrape the myoma but they couldn't do it; I was starting to bleed. They waited desperately for Mama during the operation (she was on her way to the hospital) because they thought I was too young to lose my uterus. But when Mama arrived, Mama told them the decision is theirs, whatever they think is best. She signed the waiver and allowed the doctors to do what's best. They decided to remove the uterus.

Doc was crying because she thought: What if she had decided to do something to save my uterus just to allow me to have another baby -- only to find out after the biopsy that she had signed my death sentence by saving it? What if she had retained the uterus, and had to cut me up again to remove it after finding out there were malignant cells in it? What if she had retained the uterus and someday I would come back to her bleeding profusely with the cancer spread out already? Or what if the pathologist was not thorough enough with his procedure and happened to have discarded the samples with the cancer cells on them? She said it could have been missed! It wasn't impossible if a lazy pathologist handled the job.

It was now clear why Makati Med was taking so long to release my hospital abstract and biopsy report. The pathologist who handled the case took care not to release information that will unduly distress a patient. After his findings, he referred the slides to the department head -- who was semi-retired and was no longer looking at slides, according to Dra, but he looked at them for a second opinion -- and the head agreed it was cancer in the early stage.

Dra. Sarmiento and the other doctor had removed my cancer without knowing it. I had the answer to my questions.

After the operation, I asked God why He didn't grant the petition that we were all praying for. All of us in the family and my friends were all praying for a simple myomectomy, to allow me to have another baby. I was wondering what life-changing purpose a large myoma had that God allowed it to grow in my uterus to steal away my happiness over a brother or a sister for Marthe. And now I know.

It's true, everything happens for a reason. And the reason is not always obvious at the start of a long process of understanding. But eventually, be it sooner or later, the reason will surface. And when it did for me, inside Dra. Sarmiento's clinic, all I managed to do was open my mouth, stare at my doctor and let tears streak down my face freely. I couldn't utter a word. I was more shocked at the sudden realization of why one thing led to another, than at the knowledge that I had cancer and it could have spread somewhere else.

For now, it was enough for me to know that it was there, in my uterus, and some medical angel had removed it without even knowing. I saw an oncologist after my session with Dra. Sarmiento and she assured me that the operation was indeed adequate, and that the cancer has been localized to the uterus and removed. No chemotherapy and additional cancer treatments required, and no likelihood of it spreading to my ovaries (which are still here inside me).

When I first heard the word "cancer", all the things I won't be able to do when I'm gone flashed in my mind and I panicked at the thought that there were plenty of things I would leave unaccomplished. But as the doctor explained to me that her oncologist friend said the hysterectomy was adequate to stop this kind of cancer, I realized I still have time. I won't wait until I have none.

Whatever happens in the future, this still serves as my second chance at life. I should choose my activities well and dream the dreams that are worth running after. I should take on hobbies that will fulfill my soul and relish the moments of every single day. I should nurture my friendships and deepen the ones that are quite shallow.

And I should continue to ask the questions that bug me, though they may remain unanswered for some time. Because God will give me the answer in the end. Only, He will give me the solution first, and then He will answer my question after He has solved my problem.

On the sex and cash theory

RETROSPECT
On June 13, my office friends and I had an email discussion about the sex and cash theory, which states that creative people maintain a stable job that pays the bills but requires another one (whether permanent, full time or part-time/freelance type) that allows them freedom to experiment, create and express, even if it doesn't pay much.

Here's a draft reply I wrote but never got around to sending that day. I'll just post it for whoever finds them here one day. ;-)

*****
I used to run around the country and outside, having free lunches and dinners, business class trips and executive club rooms, watching plays and ballets, driving homemade planes, riding yachts and cruise ships, and swimming with the fishes at no cost on my part. Then i get to see my articles printed and my bylines all over the pages. And when I walk into a room and introduce myself, there's recognition in people's eyes. HEAVEN!

But, like I told Rose earlier, during those times I had never spent a decent summer or Christmas vacation with my family; no two-week leave during which I could go island-hopping without deadlines; no looking forward to non-working holidays or extended weekends; no concept of overtime or undertime or office time. I was working almost 24 hours with story ideas swimming in my head and I didn't mind.

My vacations were tied up to my work and my companions were always my colleagues. Back then, when you're single, it was OK. It was fun, no matter how small your basic pay was. You don't feel the smallness of the salary because your junkets were all paid for by your interviewees. You don't feel the need to consider the cash part because you have no responsibility to put food on the table and pay bills.

It was OK to work during holidays because you were always in the center of activity and you thrived on the fast-paced life. It was OK to get really serious about that investigative report you're writing, and time could fly by for all you care, because your focus was on how to squeeze the truth out of that travel agent who stole her clients' money and was being sued for estafa. I could have jumped from 21 to 71 years old and I wouldn't even notice.

But today, can I go a whole year without having a vacation with my own family? And go swimming and cruising and dining with only my colleagues as company? Each time I'd go somewhere, I'd probably wish Mel and Marthe were there, then I'd get depressed that I'm far from them. Can I live on a starting salary of P4,000, when one week's groceries already cost almost P2,000? Can I agree to be paid a P9,000 salary as section editor, as I used to, with Marthe going to school? Can I forego holidays and warm moments under the Christmas tree, and the opportunity to whip up a good New Year's Eve meal?

More than the cash, it's also the thought that you have a routine and a solid schedule around which you can build other plans. There's more to life than your 8-5 job and it's the more that counts most in the end. It's about you and everything you really care for.

Maybe back then, I chose the sex because I was young and free and raring to conquer the world. Maybe now I still want that because I don't feel the least bit old. Maybe back then, the cash could be had if I had wanted it but I was busy with the sex part to seriously pursue it. Maybe now what I chose was stability and the cash came with it but the sex did not.

Whatever, I agree with the sex and cash theory and the points emphasized by my friends Jason and Rose.

I'll be on leave from work from June 25 to August 24 to have a surgery and to spend time at home for recovery. During that time I will have less of the cash, but I'm dead set to pursue the sex part. Who knows? The cash might come with it too. =P

Marthe's Toddler Photos

Just to clear up some of the space on my PC. I'll post Marthe's old and recent pics.

The ITK Principle

Yesterday, another storm started to brew in SP. The storm has not hit land yet, but it's already picking up speed. As of yesterday afternoon, it already promised to claim at least two casualties. But I will not let the storm rage to uncontrollable levels. The storm must be calmed, if we cannot divert it.

But if it should hit full-force, I will stand by my ITK Principle and implement it in full as well. Here are five, initially:

• I will teach the basics but not more than that. What I know beyond basics is something I learned on my own.

• I will protect what I know because what I know will protect me in times of crisis.

• I refuse to do any hand-holding. Teachers can only show the way.

• If the person succeeds without my help, he is worthy of my admiration and respect. If the person fails without me, then I cannot trust my career to him. If he cannot take care of himself, he cannot take care of his team--and that includes me.

• I will continue acquiring knowledge--knowledge that will help me gain a better working environment, knowledge that will help me gain respect, and knowledge that will help me gain my boss's position if he refuses to acquire knowledge himself.

Juggling

March 6, 2007

Last Saturday, a local variety show had two amateur jugglers for guests. One was in his early 20s and the other was a child -- both males. The older guy was better at juggling three bottles, while the young boy showcased his talent with a bottle and shaker glass. While the older sailed smoothly through his act, the boy dropped his bottle twice. He showed promise, though. With a little training, he could become better than his older competitor.

It’s not about the holding; it’s about the juggling.

Everyday, we juggle many things. We juggle money, roles, tasks, jobs. We move from place to place, person to person, dream to dream. And many times we drop one and pick another.

These past days I’ve been juggling my money to pay bills, buy personal needs and survive the daily gastronomic requirement for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Screw taxes! Screw the deductions that never get back to you as benefits! Salary raise? Whose salary? It’s not about the salary these days, it’s about buying power. Nobody can buy anything decent with just a few hundred pesos nowadays.

And it’s not just happening in the Philippines, according to my aunt, Tita Yorn. Even in South Africa, it’s the same thing. Their family lived there for five years. Things used to be better. Now she said prices have shot up. If you can buy a loaf of bread for One Zimbabwe dollar in those days, now it costs about 1,000 Zimbabwe dollars, she said. WHAT!

And then there’s the matter of juggling my roles as a mother, wife, daughter and employee. And even in the role of employee, I had to juggle deadlines between deliverables for SP, ELEC, Training for the New Hire, and Style Guide Review. In just one day, I experienced running to the office to beat the time, having lunch with Mel for one hour, rushing back to check the lasers for SP, doing the backlog new product reports for ELEC, meeting up with the SG committee, and going to the grocery for home supplies.

It’s so tiring!!! Sometimes, I pity Marthe who’s working to corner me for a game with her dolls or a round of SIMS on the computer. I’m busted. I just lie down in bed after dinner (or in the sofa in front of the TV) and doze off. And Marthe will wake me up when she’s ready to turn in to bed and I’d jump up and realize I’ve missed all the teleseryes and it was midnight.

Juggling….keeping control…not letting things drop. It gives me migraine all the time. And yet, I just have to do it to survive in the long run. Otherwise, I’ll be dropping everything…including myself.

Lynnie's Birthday Surprise

February 23, 2007

We planned Lynnie’s birthday surprise today. In her car at the basement car park of Antel. The surprise consisted of letter cutouts of “Happy Birthday”, to be placed on her car hood.

Stephen Yeo, who lives in Antel and who owns the car park slot Lynnie is using, accompanied Cecile and Marco in the afternoon to paste the letters. Stephen wrote a “Wash Me” on the dusty windshield glass of the car with his finger.

Monch and I were busy with EPP, and we also had to keep a ‘busy’ front so as not to attract Lynnie’s attention.

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Nina arrived at 9:00 am.

I had an early lunch with Rech, Jason, Nina and Monch. Marco opted to eat at 1:30.

After work, I had dinner with Mel, Monch, Lynnie, Cecile and Marco at Mixxlada. Our orders were in pairs: pasta, sizzling plates and toppings. I ordered a Beef Champignon, Melanie ordered Thai Bagoong Rice, Monch ordered T-bone Steak sizzler, Marco ordered Beef Tips sizzler, Cecile and Lynnie both ordered pasta dishes, which I forgot to ask. Melanie secretly asked the waiter to give our plate gift to Lynnie.

Sadly, we couldn’t think of a reason to accompany Lynnie to her car just to be able to take a picture of her surprised face. So we each went our ways—Cecile and Melanie to Buendia to take a ride to the MRT station, and Marco and I to Ayala. Monch stayed behind to have a smoke with Lynnie.

As we walked away, we secretly smiled at the thought of Lynnie wondering what those papers were doing on her hood, and realizing that it was her birthday greeting.

Oh by the way, we would later learn that Monch, after restraining himself for so long, finally said, “Let’s go. I have to take a picture of your surprise.”

And nobody would know exactly when Lynnie’s stunned expression began.

Rush, rush

February 22, 2007

Marco’s birthday. I was wearing a blue linen dress and a denim bolero.

Rech and I had lunch together. Jason followed, he was finishing Mayann’s send-off powerpoint. Topic was about sins, 10 commandments, being a kept woman, etc.

Mayann’s send-off: 15/F conference room. Jason’s send-off slideshow was great! Tugging into your heart at some points, making you laugh at other points. The pancit palabok and barbecue from Ambers were delicious. Cecile ate platefuls of palabok, ignoring most of the other fare. There was also puto, lumpiang shanghai and cake.

Nina was not in the send-off party. She wasn’t feeling well. We saw her and Emper peek at the conference room but backed away. When we came down later, I saw Nina briefly and then she disappeared again. She was absent for about two hours and we were getting worried. Her bag was on her desk and it appeared that she had not shut off her computer.

When I went to the ladies room much later, I saw her shoes from my cubicle. She was in the next cubicle and seemed silent. She had vomited and was there all the time.

We took her to Makati Medical Center after work: Emper, Jenny and me. When Nina’s husband, Knell, arrived, we stayed for a while at the waiting room and left after about 30 minutes.

Emper showed me the SMS she sent to Jambi when he started getting sick of chicken pox. And she showed his response too.

The three of us went to KFC at the PeopleSupport building. I bought a chicken burger meal and a chicken burger solo for Marthe.

I walked back across Buendia and through the Makati Fire Station, and took the tricycle home. It’s not safe to walk here alone late at night. I won’t do this again.

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By the way, tonight was also the night the pregnant Kris Aquino was rushed to the hospital when she collapsed. Her husband’s “other woman” Hope Centeno has agreed to be interviewed on GMA-7’s Startalk. This was too much for her.

Making a difference

February 21, 2007


Today is Ash Wednesday. Many of us managed our workloads in the morning in order to have time for mass at noon. Len, Emper, Ria, Nina, Regie of EETA and I heard mass in Chinabank. On big church events like this, the mass is held at the penthouse (looks like a conference room or executive lounge). There were plenty of people but we were able to stand near the front where we could see the priest well.

The priest had a funny story about a local priest who made one of his Ash Wednesday masses memorable for those who attended. Our priest did not know if that priest was licensed to do what he did but he did it anyway because that was his nature. The priest in the story is Fr. Sonny Ramirez, who usually holds masses for showbiz celebrities.

During one Ash Wednesday mass, he asked the people to line up for the imposition of the ashes on their foreheads. But instead of dipping his thumb on a small container of ash, he placed a large bowl of ash on the altar table, dipped his whole hand in the ashes and applied the handful of ash on the faces of the people. According to our priest, this was the traditional way of imposing ashes on Ash Wednesday in the old days. Fr. Ramirez then requested the surprised mass attendees to bring out their handkerchiefs and wipe the ash off the faces of the persons beside them.

Thankfully, our priest did not imitate Fr. Ramirez. =)

After mass, Nina and I waited for Rech and we all joined Len, Ria and Emper for lunch at Chowking. Regie went out of the mass early but we didn’t see her outside.

---------------

We are all excited about what we plan to do for Marco’s birthday tomorrow. We had agreed on a scavenger hunt and the clues will be given to the five accomplices: Van, Rose, Ria, Emper and Nina, in that order. Why them? Marco had played the biggest practical jokes on them in the past and they would have been more than willing to get back at him.

They would each keep an item that will be taken from Marco’s desk and when he comes to claim it, they would make him do something as ransom payment for his things. And after claiming the item, they would hand him a piece of paper containing the clue to the next item he was supposed to search. Everything was set. We just had to wait for him to leave—which took some time, because he was preparing for his training session with Chie tomorrow.

But it did not turn out the way we planned. It was better. The accomplices were willing to take part in the game but in the end, they had second thoughts about making him suffer on his birthday. Good girls. They agreed that once he figures out who’s holding what item, he’s free to claim it without a “ransom”. In addition to the five girls, Monch also wanted Dennis to be part of the scavenger hunt as an accomplice and Cecile will be the last person in the list, and the one who will hold his gift.

I started preparing the clue sheets right after Marco left. Monch and Cecile went off to give the thing-nap items to their respective keepers. As we were doing this, Allyn came to Marco’s workstation and decided to rearrange his stuff. Moving some of his things on one side, she got Lynnie’s stuffed toys and Melanie’s bonsai plant, Harvey, and transferred them to his desk.

Other officemates, seeing what she did, volunteered their own desk decors—stuffed toys, picture frames, pen holders, small pillows—until Marco’s monitor and keyboard was surrounded by several mementos and desktop personal items. It began to look like a girl’s desk. But it was so pretty we had to take a photo of it.

Unfortunately, we’re not sure if any of us can come to the office early enough to capture Marco’s expression when he marches into the office and sees his desk all dressed up.

Rock It

February 19, 2007

Today, I wore a rocker’s outfit to the office. Black leggings, white sheer see-through dress that fell down to my knees, black thin leather jacket with a fur collar. It attracted everybody’s attention. I don’t normally dress much at work; just the usual acceptable “professional” attire, with a blazer to make me appear ‘serious-looking’.

But today, without the bosses (they’re on vacation because of the Chinese New Year), I fancied a little spice in my get-up. And I was pleased that everyone else noticed. Fortunately, the boys were also in shirts and ties. Not all of them, just some of my friends—Marco, Monch, Ren and Aldwin. They had talked about dressing up like salesmen on a Monday several days ago, and today happened to be that day. I wasn’t out of place then.

Lynnie saw me while I was walking down Makati Avenue and she told her cousin “that girl’s attire is cool.” She was so surprised when I walked into my workstation. Hehe.

Nina didn’t see my outfit. She was absent. She sent an SMS on Sunday that she was in the hospital, having herself checked. She had eaten something on Saturday dinner that produced rashes all over her face. It must have been her allergies, which began about two years ago when she had a business trip to China and ate too much mushrooms and chicken.

The new hire for the EBU Content Development team—the new team where Lynnie will be moved—arrived today. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why the boys are in ties. =) Her name’s Kristine Sales but she is known as Chie. There are now two girls named Chie in the office. Lynnie and Cecile took her out to lunch as a first-day privilege.

Tonight, the Christmas Party Committee of 2006 had dinner at Dad’s/Saisaki/Kamayan in Glorietta 3. Blue plate. Yummy. I ate mostly Saisaki fare, especially the tempura and the salmon. I loved the chocolate ice cream and the brazo-de-mercedes like dessert with a chocolate syrup inside. I got a yellow duck with soft hair and an orange beak free from my bottomless iced tea. Marthe was happy. ;-)

Mayann announced she’s leaving for Singapore on Sunday. Still in GS and the same department. It’s kinda sad but it’s also for the better—she has been dreaming of this for some time, and she also wanted to be back in tradeshow marketing in the future.

Mel fetched me after the dinner.