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.

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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.