Instead, I will write about the good things which make me smile and give me reasons to look at tomorrow as a new day and not a new burden. After all, one of my favorite songs to sing as a child was Favorite Things and a line from that classic goes "I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad." No, I won't be writing about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. But,yes, I'll spare our drapes from an instant execution because aside from the fact that they're dusty and heavy, my mother is going to launder me if I do anything to them.
Last Thursday (February 5), my grandmother and namesake celebrated her 80th birthday. It was not practical to make preparations for a huge party because of my grandfather's delicate state with us not knowing when his next landing in the hospital will be. Actually the nurses have been wonderfully humorous about it, calling him a "balikbayan" whenever he gets wheeled in. Aside from my grandfather's unpredictable hospital visits, the birthday girl herself actually hates huge parties. She would rather have small, intimate gatherings with family and close friends instead of something that involves a lot of lace and tulle.
So that was exactly what my Lola got on the day she turned 80 - a surprise birthday party which started with a thanksgiving service in our garage followed by dinner and capped with my grandparents huddled inside my room with my cousins, nephews and nieces as their ever-bibo great-grandchildren rendered an impromptu concert on the videoke microphone (and my TV's screen is, well, the cutest in our house).
The fact that I missed out on all the fun stuck out like a sore thumb and I really felt wretched as I walked from my first class to the next. I consoled myself with the thought that I wasn't the only one absent - my sister was here, Manang Apple and Manang Maya were both working abroad whereas Aiyee was on hospital duty. I dialled the house number immediately when I got home at 7:30 p.m. After about thirty minutes of talking to a very excited Aidagere (who began and ended every sentence with a "Manang!"), the phone was finally passed to my grandmother. She was laughing and sounded extremely excited on the phone, telling me how she was having so much fun...that it was great to have her daughter and three sons together...that almost all of her children and grandchildren were there...how my nephew Dane bit my cousin Lance in the middle of their dance number...that my room was now a complete mess...and she continued to laugh some more. I asked her what made her 80th birthday really special and she answered "Nothing really. It's just that everybody's here. I'm really having so much. Ka-sadya sadya guid tana!"
The day after (February 6), my cousin Aida Raissa turned 20. She had a Hawaiian-themed party Saturday night in our cousin Carol's house which everybody also attended, except for the abovementioned perennial absentees. Aiyee was pretty in her flower-print dress and I still can't believe she's grown up (and graduating so soon at that).
Birthday girl Aiyee (right) with Carol
Maybe my grandmother was still in party mood or something because, to the surprise of my mother, she joined all the "young ones" in dressing up like a Hawaiian island girl, complete with a garland of yellow blossoms around her neck and another flower stuck behind her ear, all freshly plucked from her garden.
And she didn't end there! She also went as far as dressing up my grandfather like Lito Atienza in a Hawaiian-themed shirt. And how did my grandfather like it? Well his face pretty much sums up how silly he felt but he seemed to have forgotten all about his getup when he got the chance to have a quick dance with the birthday celebrator.
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