New Years day text message

I received tons of text messages on my phone last new years day but one struck me the most:


Making a thousand friends a year is not a miracle. The MIRACLE is to find a FRIEND who stands by you for a thousand years.

Birthday of Tess

Tess' birthday

Tess called me up sunday morning requesting if she could celebrate her birthday with a small party in my condo. Can I say no to a good friend? I just cant imagine how much I will need to fix it for I have so much things there. I didnt tell her that the last working day of the year, I already emailed a reminder to our group to make sure we treat tessie on her birthday jan 3.

There was a year that we all forgot it was her birthday! Since its usually the first working day of the year, everyone is busy with work.

Anyway, such a blessing in disguise since I was forced to really clear lots of stuff so our friends will have a place to sit in this tiny studio.

Tess brought some mouth watering shrimps, crabs, tasty noodles from Amber, chicken and lechon! She didnt even forget the dessert.

Frankly, I focused on the crab and shrimp and got so full that I was not able to try the others.

An interesting topic during luch was --- retirement from the bank :)

New Year 2005

newyear2004

Still reeling from my allergies, as usual I woke up late, perhaps due to the effects also of my medications. Had a quick late lunch, hurriedly showered and got dressed for we had to go to makati and fetch the priest to say mass at mom's grave.

We fetched another priest seemingly of indian descent like the one who said mass on christmas day. When we reached Heritage park, beverly and aling miguela also just arrived. After setting up the mass tables and chairs, apparently the readings which the priest brought were for Saturday, not Sunday. Dad wanted an anticipated mass so he will not have to go to sunday mass again. I guess he had not been feeling well the past week.

He asked me to get Sunday readings at Sanctuario at Forbes Park but when I was about to leave, he chose to ride with me. Off we went not to Forbes but back to Don Bosco instead. He asked the guard to get the readings and we went back to the park.

Unfortunately, when the priest started the mass, he noticed the missalette was saturday. This just means that God wanted us to hear the sunday mass. The priest realized Dad may not feel that well and said, he is exempted from this being beyond 60 yrs old.

After mass, we proceeded to Italiannis for dinner. I really wanted Via Mare for I had been dreaming of the pansit luglog, bibingka and puto bumbong but dad said the priest might not like local food.

When we were seated at Italiannis and about to start our order of soup, we noticed that Fr Jun with a companion just entered. Dad asked them to join us. Apparently he was with his brother.

The Indian priest, Fr. Fernandez, turns out to be a native of Goa just like the one who said mass previously. He related that this is where the incorrupt body of St. Francis Xavier can be seen. He said that the place looks more western than indian due to the spanish and portuguese influence.

He also mentioned that several tagalog words are similar to theirs including food such as bibingka, espasol and puto!

He related how the priests in Don Bosco got surprised when he brought Bibinhka and Puto from Goa thinking its something new here and realized we have similar food fare.