about the talking fish

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Writer. Wheelman. Occasional DIY mechanic. Walking collection of hang-ups. Hopeless romantic. Old-school. Analog soul in a digital world. I am all of these things and more.
Showing posts with label other birthdays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label other birthdays. Show all posts

Monday, January 04, 2010

Beginning 2010 in a drunken stupor

People who know me well know that I don't drink much, especially the hard stuff. I'm more of a red wine kind of guy.

So you can imagine what happened to me when Uncle Butch sent in 750mL of Patron's finest "Silver" agave tequila for the consumption of me, my dad, Uncle Gerry, Uncle Joey and my cousin-in-law Miguel on Bianca's birthday.

In hindsight, I took it pretty well, I guess. I paced myself as best as I could. I can definitely say that tequila is not something to drink the same way one would drink wine or whiskey. You don't smell it, you don't check its "legs" (as they say in whiskey tasting), you don't let the flavor linger in your mouth. None of that gubbins. You take the shot glass and chug it down as quickly as you can, then hurriedly reach for a lemon or lime slice and lick some salt. You don't drink tequila to enjoy its taste - you drink it because you want to get drunk as quickly as you can!

And drunk did I get. I am perpetually afraid of reaching that humiliating point where I can no longer control myself, nor can I remember the events that transpired in any part of my life when I should really be fully conscious. All that happened was that I nursed a heavy cold weight in my head for a pretty long while, and my loud-by-default voice got even louder. Heck, I could even park Aibo in reverse back into our garage from the church parking lot across the street - inch-perfect.

At least that's all that happened while the party was still happening at my house. When all the guests left, I finally took to the sanctuary of my bed...and felt dizzy and ill. Fortunately for me it lasted only as long as the first piss I took in the toilet, which was about an hour later.

At least I now know my limit in the safest possible environs because I got drunk in my house, not somewhere I should be driving back home from.

Happy new year. *hic*

Sunday, January 18, 2009

The grim and the merry

A couple of my friends have been struck down with pretty serious illnesses.

Francis Javier of JACU has had a pre-existing heart condition, but following the January 2009 EB he reportedly collapsed and had to be brought to the ICU. His heart had been palpitating and beating very fast---I believe the condition's called tachycardia, which literally means "racing heart." It didn't help that his heart was enlarged and wounded from the inside.

He's now out of danger, but another friend, my ex-team lead Jenny Layugan, has been confined in Asian Hospital for a while now due to dengue. Apparently it was the more serious hemorrhagic variety, because this morning I got a number of text messages asking for type B-positive blood to help her make it through.

My prayers are with both of these people.

On a happier note, a belated happy birthday goes out to Dynee Balleza-Sheafor of Madison, Wisconsin.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Preparing for April

I made the 32.5-kilometer drive to Frisco once again this morning. My Kenwood head unit is back, after a week and PhP1,100 of repairs, and its CD player finally works like a charm. I was rocking along to The Darkness, Feeder, David Bowie and Garbage along the horrendous traffic of EDSA southbound.

Tita Vik invited me to lunch at their place, as my dad, Tito Kiko and my grandma were going to Baliwag on their usual weekend jaunt. Around the time I got her text message I was crawling just a few minutes away from White Plains, so that was a nifty bit of perfect timing. Grandma's kare-kare is deelish.

Off I went braving the traffic yet again, this time on C5 southbound. My next stop was Glorietta to buy gifts for my folks. While I scouted for and bought them, I eventually ended up buying myself a little gift for myself: a pair of white and red Puma Fluxion sneakers. They're similar to the Speed Cats I have from a couple years ago, in that they're motorsport-inspired. This time I made sure I'd fit these babies properly before buying, and accordingly I got them in the 9.5 size to fit my larger left foot.

By the way, did I mention the Jazz returned 13 km/L on its last fillup? Despite the traffic and the aggravations of slow drivers I'm slowly recouping my fuel economy.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Sneaking out

The DLSU Pops Orchestra's Saturday gala concert ended at 10 p.m., but I didn't go home just yet. I navigated my way through EDSA and White Plains to Tita Vik's house to bring her my little gift, a copy of Bill Dare's hilarious novel Natural Selection.

I barreled along C5 at a fast enough clip to get to Petron Bicutan for a fillup and make it home before midnight.

Happy birthday, Hedwig!

Sunday, February 18, 2007

First of summer

It’s sure gotten hot all of a sudden. After a couple of weeks of unusual February chill, the summer rushed into our open windows and cars parked outdoors with its stinging heat. The air conditioning of our old Honda struggled to cool the smoldering interior despite being turned up to near-maximum settings.

My grandma and Tita Vik got a two-month-old pug puppy to succeed their big Rottweiler Zero as their house pet. They hadn’t thought of a name yet, but over my grandma’s birthday lunch a while ago, they thought of naming the fawn-colored little guy “Cosme.” What started out as a joke soon turned into reality.

Because of Cosme’s vulnerable little body, they came over our house today to pick up one of our dog cages we used when Chico and Cooper were still small. They were able to see our furry little friends up close and personal and at least had a laugh or two. After they left for home, I had a long-overdue haircut myself as my head of hair’s already too thick for the coming season.

The aftermath of my Valentine’s Day stunt wasn’t as desirable as I had hoped. Increasingly I found myself getting impatient and forgetting the whole rationale behind it, and I guess I started to act strangely. I may even have pressured Jona into talking with me, even if I didn’t mean to. She told me she’d have something to tell me by tomorrow, and to be honest I felt the same sinking sensation of dread all throughout last night.

I’m trying to push this all away by distracting myself. Funnily enough, I found one such distraction this morning, when I decided to check tire pressures and inflate all our spare tires to 36 psi for storage. Odd, but it was effective. Nothing like a little manual labor to get my mind refreshed.

Session three of the Choral Singing Workshop went very well. We now know how to sing the timeless love ballad “Ewan” in four voices. It’s a shame it was Warlito “Potpot” Yalung’s last time teaching us though, as his group, the Philippine Madrigal Singers, had a Visayas-Mindanao tour and someone else would be teaching us next week. He did tell us that the "Madz" were accepting auditions now…but I don’t have illusions of being able to make it there just yet.

On a side note, Aileen told me about her little plan to take us to Puerto Galera on the weekend of March 10. Right now we’re just working out the dates and other details. We already brought it up a month ago, and it’d be fun to get drunk without anyone knowing who I am except my friends. That might just be the place to break my alcohol cherry. I can’t wait. I hope it does push through on the 10th.

Since it’s the onset of summer I think this song is most appropriate for the occasion.

Parked car, this night sky
Makes city lights shine like diamonds
Our song plays on the radio

We’re living it up, make this night ours
We own the world, I wish this lasts forever
Alone with you tonight,
Further in you feels so right

Parked car, this night sky
Makes city lights shine like diamonds
Our song plays on the radio

We’re giving it up and just a little more
This heartfelt leap, I surrender
With arms raised, tonight
Arms raised…

We’re giving it up and just a little more
This heartfelt leap, I surrender
With arms raised, tonight

Anywhere, with you
Anywhere, with you
Anywhere, with you…

Drive me away
‘Cause the night just feels right
Take me away with you tonight
Anywhere, with you

Drive me away
‘Cause the night just feels right
Take me away with you tonight
Anywhere, with you

Parked car, this night sky
Parked car, this night sky
Makes city light shine like diamonds
Our song plays on…


- Urbandub, “First of Summer”

Sunday, January 07, 2007

An ode to my best 'fwend'

It's that time of year when I honor the girl who got me back to blogging back in November 2003, after I effectively left this blog to rot for five months.

We've never met offline, and we may never do, seeing as she's from Leyte and I'm from Manila. But I am forever grateful for the email she sent me that fateful November night, proof that I had an audience as far away as Visayas and someone cared about the stuff I posted. The YM conversations and the text messages have kept our friendship alive over the years and I'm pretty sure we won't forget each other.

Happy birthday, Cher! I hope you have a great one, fwendie. *HUGS*

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