the 4-day party hearty (day 1)
the "there is life outside your apartment" gods must have read today's section in the metro saying that manhattan could be the country's loneliest metropolis having the highest percentage of people living alone of any county in the country. as though to prove the statistics wrong, the gods have decided to give me a good sprinkling of socializing for 4 straight days starting with last night. (tonight a birthday celebration for a college friend at a tapas bar in the east vill, tomorrow a "Double Trouble Birthday Bash" for hong kong friends of old roommate nik, and on saturday, a one-year-anniversary-in-the-US house party in jersey.) the gods must be crazy. took ages for them to though but id gladly take it.
last night's celebration was quite basic and simple actually. no booze. no grand food table. no dancing. no big crowds. not the type of party that eventually ends up in the society pages or has people arrested.
sammy, one of the 2 newfound filipino friends who work at pomme frites, was celebrating his 38th birthday. i decided id pop in the store and surprise them. showed up in the store, caught sam in the middle of feeling a bit sad at how this could be his loneliest birthday ever.
"balita ko birthday mo ngayon, a. o ito para sa atin." [i heard it's your birthday today. here's a little something for us.] i go, lifting a bucket of kentucky fried chicken i had just bought. his face lit up and the sad feeling disappeared. never thought fried chicken could bring so much joy.
"that's perfect with the fries. go take a seat there and tell me what sauces you want," he goes in filipino. as i stationed myself in one of the tables. good thing it wasnt that busy when i got there. the three of us were able to eat together in the middle of them serving the occasional (sometimes nonstop) customers. felt quite good actually coz i knew they enjoyed the nice impromptu little salu-salo we had.
the store eventually got really busy after dinner. but i stayed on and hung out a bit. once it settled down, we were able to chill. khris, a friend and buildingmate of sam's (yes with an h, and yes that's quite jhologs for us arrogant areneans), also popped in. he was sharing how it was his day off from hotel mercer and so he went to the doctor to get his health checked. turns out the fellow's been drinking a little bit too much and the doctor's advised him to back off a little bit from the buds and coronas. funny nice character, khris is. inspite of all the drinking, he stays really sober though when it comes to days of worship (samba).
spent a few hours at pomme frites. even got an invite from sam that if i do decide to pass by narita (japan) again, he'd gladly meet up with me and show me the night life in chiba (should be good for december). and when it was time to go, i felt quite good about deciding to pass by, creating the nice small surprise party for sammy.
"sobra mo kong napasaya. salamat uli, pare." [you made my birthday. thanks again.]
if last night's party is an indication of things to come, this 4-day party hearty'd better get extended to a 365-day one. otherwise, im leaving this big sad metropolitan. (HA! no, i still maintain, one's life or city can be as sad or as happy as he/she wants it to. as my late great great grandpa used to say, "it's all a choice. rock on! chill 'em *BLEEP*ers out!")
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here's another pre-release spread from spreek je filipijns, a personal book which will be available for everyone's viewing on monday, sept 4th. labor day!
posted by jason pacheco @ 10:29
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