Am I My Mom Yet?

The end of the month marks another year of the imminent, inevitable, and progressive loss of my physiological integrity. On the one hand, I remain quite sprightly despite my tragic telomere attrition. On the other hand, I just discovered that I am supposed to turn into my mother this year.

If last month’s breathless news reports and blogs prove correct, I will shortly transform into the all-knowing carbon-based life form who deposited my chubby little body into an unsuspecting world.

In the interest of science, I have created a checklist to determine the likelihood of this phenomenon affecting me. I have weighted each category in an arbitrary manner, as a shout out to organized religion.

Am I My Mom Yet? - Checklist

Category	Weight	Score
Cooks with too much oil	10	0
No filter between brain and mouth	20	20
Somehow always correct, or able to hypnotize others into believing so	15	5
Needy	15	15
Likes humans more than pets	10	5
Hilarious	10	10
Disregards personal boundaries	10	5
Voracious eater	10	10

I scored a 70. I believe that makes me more than halfway toward becoming my mother. All I need to complete the metamorphosis is a diagnosis of prediabetes, and an unrelenting terror of new technology.

Time to go to the Cheesecake Factory on a donkey!

PS - Love you Mama!

How to Have a Fabulous Birthday

Hello, readers! Today is my special day! Here are the secrets to having a Fabulous Birthday:

Step 1: Delight in Your Mother's Gift

I don't mean the gift of Life, which of course is the whole point of the birthday. I mean these bad boys, from bubbleflopUSA.com. Who in her right mind wouldn't wear these delightful statements to the endless inventiveness of mankind in the quest to push all fashion limits and make a buck? What deranged creature wouldn't proudly wear these to display her toned calves and shapely ankles on the streets of Boston?

Step 2: Ignore Disparaging Remarks
Someone will tell you that your 29th birthday is not special. When you shoot someone a glare, as you are morally obligated to in this outrageous circumstance, someone will backpedal and say, "Some birthdays are not as special as others." Ignore this. Remember that all birthdays are special, because you are.

Step 3: Obtain Perfect Weather 

This one depends on the celebrant's location. In this case, I'm in a part of the world where summer is blazing hot with clear blue skies, a.k.a perfect weather. If this were Manila, there would be a typhoon and I would  be canoeing in waist-high water down my street while avoiding falling trees. (I have actually done this, but in a car. We all survived. As an added bonus, my screaming friend swallowed floodwater. That'll teach her to doubt my driving skills!)

Step 4: Be Happy
This is the most important step, and should probably have gone up top, except mom's gift got here too early and as a historian by training I felt compelled to list everything in chronological order. Anyway. Happiness is key to inviting good karma, which leads to...

Step 5: Graciously Receive Gifts

Breeze into your office and show all your teeth to the kind co-workers who cheerfully greet you a happy birthday. Note that this step is only possible when you have dropped at least three hints about the exact date of your birthday. Those colleagues who fail to show up with a present first thing in the morning will compensate by popping out and getting you a pecan pie and a card. I love pecan pie. I love cards. I love brownies. I love sake.

Bonus step: Be Awake for Your Brother's Present
It was very sweet. Uh, I think.

Weekend, or How I Met Fat Charlie

Everything started off innocently enough -- on Saturday I did my all usual chores in true OCD fashion, overdosed on coffee that evening to prepare for the night of drunken revelry, and then danced madly as the fabulously gay people of The Donkey Show revived seventies disco. I was particularly enchanted by the woman who played Queen Titania, or rather by the butterfly pasties that were all that stood between her and toplessness. Costume technology is truly wondrous.

The boy in gold was in roller skates the whole time!

A mysterious tattoo.

After the show, we all went to drink some more and the next morning I found myself with a tattoo of my beloved Sheba in a place that I may not mention for fear of secret Internet censors. I didn't bother to waste my time wondering how the hell I got a tattoo and why it looked like the eyes were drawn in with yellow highlighter. It was clearly a God-given sign that I should stop wasting my life being a good little girl, performing such mundane weekend tasks as cleaning my apartment, going grocery shopping, and doing my laundry. Its miraculous nature was proven without a doubt when I took a shower, and these characters appeared on the tattoo's torso: エンゼル猫はチョーかわいい. They disappeared when I dried off, and another eye-opener came about when I exposed it to direct sunlight (a feat requiring all my gymnastics skills) -- the phrase, clear as day, Este gato es un ángel. El silencio es imposible.


Sheba's true nature was thus finally revealed: she is a chattyphim, a choir of angels that never shuts up, come from heaven to reveal to me the path to salvation. Delighted, I plopped her onto my shoulder and took her outside, so that she may show me the way. Guided by her unerring directional codes -- "mrow" for left, "rawr" for right, and "prrrrrr" for keep going straight -- I ended up at the North End, known for its fantastic Italian restaurants and snooty residents. In a park, waiting for me, was Fat Charlie.

Best birthday present so far!

Fat Charlie's owner was nearby, or should I say former owner, because he immediately came forward and proffered me the key, or whatever one uses to start up these bad boys. I think you press a button. Anyway, he greeted me happy birthday, and although the date was wrong, the month sure was right, so I solemnly thanked him and we stared at each other and then he kindly offered to drive me around on Fat Charlie whenever I wished and we went to a pool and swam and played and saw Japan beat the US at women's soccer and went home and watched HP7 part 1 and the entire time the wind was in my hair and the engine was threatening to burn off my slipper-clad right foot and Fat Charlie was between my legs. Wait, that sounded really wrong, but it is technically true, as Fat Charlie is a motorcycle and good luck riding him sidesaddle! Speaking of saddle, we tucked in Sheba nice and safe in one of the saddle bags, in case you were wondering what happened to her after taking me all the way to the North End on foot.

This blog post has no point, other than to have you speculate which bits of it are true and which ones aren't. But it's all true. Except the parts that aren't. But otherwise, all truth. Totes. I totes swear.

27 on the 27th!

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!

I woke to the sun streaming through my windows, banishing my fears of a thunderstorm that would cancel our trip to Lago de Oro, a place in Calatagan that my sisters had been chirping about since I got back. Here's Priscilla helping me pack by double-checking the contents of my handbag.

It took us a couple of hours to get to the place, and we all had to rush to the bathroom as soon as we stepped out of the car. The girl bathroom featured this sign, which sent me hunting for "foreign matters" the whole day.

Here's my birthday pizza. It had a super thin crust and had the yummiest cheese EVER. I had two beers with my slices, but only out of necessity -- a fly had landed in my first glass, and it was too drunk to get out on its own, so I had to get a whole new glass. I got a complementary iced tea as well, which Ate Au promptly chugged.

After eating, we trooped to Lago de Oro's main attraction: wakeboarding! Here's Ate Raine:



Ate Au and I are wussies, so we only did the "kneelboarding," where you kneel down on the board, pull the strap across your thighs, and hold on to the cord for dear life. On my first try, I got all the way to the first corner before the line suddenly snapped taut and the handle flew out of my hands, leaving me to sink to the muddy bottom. Fortunately, for the uncoordinated, there is a modified tractor that ferries you ever so slooooowly around the man-made pond back to the launching site. The boy who drives the tractor is full of helpful advice: "Next time, mam, kelangan diinan mo, etc etc." How to tell him that my triceps are completely unused to exercise, and it was a birthday miracle that I didn't drown on my first try?




We eventually finished, showered, and went to Tagaytay for dinner at Josephine's. This restaurant has a magnificent view of Taal Lake, but I had eyes only for the food: kilawing talaba, chicharong bulaklak, kare-kare, fired kangkong, and lechon kawali. We topped it off with a cappuccino cheesecake.

On the ride back home, we discussed the book "Who Moved My Cheese?" and I asked what exactly "Cheese" was supposed to be. It turns out that it's something that you pursue that makes you happy (or you think makes you happy). For example, for some people, it's their career, or their personal relationships. So they spend time running around looking for it, and when they find it, they get a sense of entitlement and become unable to adjust when the Cheese is gone (in the story, it gets eaten up). When my sisters asked me what my cheese was, I said, "Laughing Cow." Sadly, they were too engrossed in the conversation to notice my lame joke, which was an attempt to cover up the fact that I have no cheese. Boo hoo hoo. Something I pursue that makes me happy? Er?

Anyway, I like the question posed in the book: What would you do if you weren't afraid?

Right now, I'd stalk Jude Law.