Birthday celebration part 3

And the celebration goes on!

A couple of Saturdays ago, I celebrated my birthday with my college friends and group-mates – Mitch, Anna, Mike, and Gary and Winnie. Mitch was sick the week leading up to it, and with her 2nd son Rory being just a few months old she isn’t very mobile just yet. So we decided to just have the party at her place and I would just bring all the food.

Because she was sick, we decided to meet up earlier in the day, which is kinda unique coz when we meet up, it usually is for dinner. We got there at around 4-ish, and so I just brought palabok, chicken empanada, and the new Marjolaine cake from Red Ribbon (is it obvious where I stopped over on my way to Mitch’s place? =)), as well as the partially eaten 96% fat-free ice cream from my celebration with office friends a week before. It was still merienda time, so I thought that I could just bring merienda food first, and if we stayed around til dinner then I could just have food delivered.

We also got there right in time for Game 2 of the UAAP finals. Gary was the only one who was really and truly into it, having gone to Ateneo for grade school and high school. Unfortunately for him, right before the game could actually start (we caught the junior game before that I think as well as the awarding ceremonies where the Adamson guy – apparently I am not all that into the UAAP – won MVP), Aidan came in with Fergus and wanted to watch Ice Age 2. Obviously a 5 year old will trump a thirtysomething when it comes to TV-watching, so we all ended up congregated over the dining table while Aidan took over the entertainment system. Of course, once Ice Age was over, Game 2 was deep in the third quarter with UST having a sizable lead. Ateneo managed to get to within 5 points and the momentum seemed to be theirs but I guess UST managed to take control back. Needless to say Gary was not happy with the result.

It isn’t really often that the 6 of us get to spend time with each other (at least not as a group, and obviously I do get to see Mitch and Anna quite a bit more than the rest of them) so obviously it was great fun. Winnie is expected to give birth a few months from now and so she was getting lots of pointers from Mitch. And that isn’t the only change going on in their lives as she and Gary are in the process of renovating the townhouse that they are going to be moving to. We were also quite surprised to find out how nationalistic Mike felt after some discussion involving someone we know who seems to really feel that returning to the Philippines would make him more miserable, even after going through a lot of truckload of horrific experiences that would make Lemony Snickets’ unfortunate series of events look like a lovely stroll in the park. Of course, the discussion invariably led to reminiscing about college days, where we recounted the good, the bad, and the ugly. Well okay, actually it was mainly the good and the funny.

We were having so much fun that we ended up extending ‘til dinner. We were trying to order from Shakey’s because Mitch had a free pizza for every pizza purchase, but it seems that the Shakey’s 77777 number was congested or was still down due to the typhoon. So we ended up ordering from Domino’s (which is probably my favorite delivery pizza). Mike had to leave by 7 though, but the rest of us ended up leaving around 930 I think.

So we’re halfway there. A few more installments and my birthday this year will officially be over. =)