34 more things

1. roses from the legal girls. of course they pretended it was sent by love of my life but still, made me smile big time!



2. black forest cake + pineapple juice surprise dessert the day after my birthday. since i was on leave on my birthday, it happend right after lunch on march 3. they'd been teasing me that since i'm the person who conjures up surprises, i should've texted them exactly what i wanted so that i could get the surprise my heart desired. i didn't, so the day i went back to work, they were all "o, anong hinahanap mo sa desk mo, surprise? naku, wala." right after lunch, as i was busy preparing the invitations for my goto party, they arrived, in the dark (the lights are turned off during lunch hour) with a cake and a pink candle. it was LOVE.



3. since the legal girls were trying to make me upset by saying that they weren't able to prepare a surprise for me, anji gave me a pink heart shaped pillow. it was one of her "extra" gifts last christmas and it had been in the legal filing cabinet since december. when i got back thursday, she was like, hey, here's my surprise for you. funny cause it was she who got surprised when i opened it and it turned out to be pink, rather than the red she had expected. not so funny on "paper" but funny if you were actually there.



4. change in numbers. while crazy tedious, sometimes it's fun to inform people of changes in your contact details cause all of a sudden, people you haven't talked to in ages (but still happen to be in your phone book) would reply and ask how you are. and, since it was my birthday the day before, they all followed it up with a belated happy birthday greeting. did i time the change in number near my birthday? probably. wait, knowing me, most likely! hahaha.



5. sun cellular prepaid stash. while it took forever at the sun shop to get my phone line cut, once it was, i made a beeline to the cashier to get my stash of prepaid stuff - a P29 sim card, a P20 prepaid card for my new prepaid sim, 4 P25 3-hour internet card, and 2 P50 one day unlimited internet browsing card. last week i had run out of these internet card things and was horribly upset when i found out you couldn't buy them from just anywhere. thank goodness for dek who not turned out to have a P100 three-day unlimited browsing prepaid card, but also was generous enough to send it to me. my friends -- GB notably -- are the best.



6. thursday kaberks party. it's a staple -- we celebrate birthdays on the thursday nearest the celebrator's actual birthday. in my case, i shared my birthday with kuya benny who brought a whole lot of food (on your birthday you actually get "treated" ... in this case, kuya benny balked tradition by bringing most of the loot!) and we ended up with two cakes, one of which i got to bring home "unscathed" and bring to work the following day.



7. special mention to the cake i got to bring home. in a bout of pseudo creativity (hahaha!) KE "decorated" my cake with a single white rose. it was sweet -- i remember two birthdays ago he also brought a white rose to give me on my birthday.



8. picking the first pasalubong. since it was sort of still my birthday, i got to pick the first bag from the stash my boss brought home for us.



9. foot everything courtesy of ann. enamored with ensogo, ann treated us all to an evening of foot spa, foot scrub, foot massage, and pedicure at this place in qc. the experience -- v. v. horrible -- left much to be desired, but i appreciated the bonding time with the legal girls outside of work.



10. realizing that my katarayan is nowhere near my boss' ability to stare people down. i'm in good company, i tell you.



11. the ability to fly from qc to alabang. i was planning on being absent from the prayer meeting because of the legal girls' bonding activity, but ate ketty asked me to do the sharing. i said i was going to be late, but i didn't figure i was going to be THAT late. thanks in part to my ability to drive my tiny car in speeds way above its limit, as well as the traffic gods smiling down on me, i actually made the 34 km drive, on a friday evening, in an hour.



12. a sharing that touched a heart. i knew what i wanted to share but between all the mini-celebrations and work, i never really got to put down on paper my thoughts. i must've had a maximum of five sentences typed down. i believe the holy spirit was at work that night cause i had verses, i had honest-to-goodness realizations that came only right there and then, and my heart was swelling with joy. it was a good night.



13. saturday morning it was raining, and then it stopped, and then it was raining again. by 10 am, i was crazy worried that it was going to rain the entire afternoon. guess what ... it didn't. or at least it didn't rain until i didn't matter anymore whether it was raining or not. why was i worried? cause it was ...

14. my goto party! or, more accurately, my goto-tokwa-mami-pares party. it was eat all you can (or eat as much as my budget could afford). funny cause i tried reserving the place and the people there were like, why? hahaha.

15. theo's conti's surprise. thanks to theo, the waiting time for food was made better cause of the conti's goodies he brought to the party. so i may have had my party in a hole in the wall gotohan place, but at least i had conti's dessert. hahaha!

16. getting *slightly* drunk at central. yes, i may be almost twice as old (if not already twice as old) as the kids who frequent the place, but once in a while, my friends go visit to get *slightly* drunk and just have fun.

17. okay, fine, this time, i got really drunk. i blame erick. i'm usually the person who refills glasses when we go out. this time, it was he who did the refilling. so i kept drinking, and drinking, and drinking ...

18 ... but was thankfully able to get home safe and sound. i drove really slow.

19. drunkeness notwithstanding, i still went online and ended up chatting with friends. so my answers may have been fuzzy weird (and they apparently noticed, haha!).

20. new sheets!

21. relaxed sunday morning ... doing chores, like cleaning the bathroom and the laundry!

22. cooking brunch at home -- tuyo and brown rice ☺

23. trip to phase 1 supposedly to buy a usb port but couldn't find anything that i liked, so i ended up buying yet another mouse pad. so what if you don't really need mouse pads anymore, it was CUTE! i ended up just buying food for my AG -- popcorn with cheese powder! at least homemade na yung merienda na i-se-serve ko. hahaha.

24. "me" time at an undisclosed location. hahaha!

25. free service + 15% discount at undisclosed location since it was my birthmonth. yahoo!

26. getting a call from shy at undisclosed location. "where are you" she asked, "i'm a little bit early and i'm here in front of your house now!" told her i'll be done in ten minutes. when i got home, i was surprised that my entire AG was there already. apparently, they planned on surprising me and ended up being surprised themselves when i wasn't there!

27. more food! and, since my AG knows me really well, while they all had versions of tapa, they got me tuyo! wonderful!!!

28. my 4th birthday cake. i am LOVED!

29. my birthday honoring. right there and then, i realized that people actually watch my every move, that they see me do things and form opinions about what i do, and that my smile makes people happy. again -- i am LOVED!

30. 6:30 pm mass with my entire AG, minus faith. i especially appreciate how faith left the hospital for a bit (she was on duty! thank goodness she's 4th year resident na.) just to be at my surprise merienda.

31. coffe at starbucks BF with the forever 20% discount courtesy of ann ☺they did tease me about the frap light i ordered, but with whipped cream. bakit ba, birthday ko. hahaha.

32. swapping stories, anecdotes, and blatant hirits with one another. we must've been the rowdiest group there. i pity the girl beside us who was doing her thesis. (how did i know? i am curious that way. okay, fine, i am nosy that way. hahaha!)

33. a new crush!

34. the realization that i had four birthday cakes, one free dinner, four (3+1) roses, three surpise parties, one not-so-surprise party, threw my own birthday party, and countless of presents in a span of six days, not to mention sweet heartfelt greetings, the occassional phone call, hugs and kisses, and precious alone time on my 34th birthday. feeling ko artista ako sa ka-bonggahan ngayong taon na to.