my weekend of Korean telenovelas, chilling out, window shopping, and the fine art of trash talking

warning: nobela na pala ito...

friday, april 29, 2005 5:00 pm - the wedding

i was really excited to go to bernie and mon's wedding at fernwood gardens, not just because i was happy to see them finally get together but also because i wanted to see how the place looked like while the sun was still up. (the first time i was there was for an evening wedding)

for those who haven't been to fernwood gardens, it's a garden venue (more like a rainforest venue, actually...) that has several greenhouses/sky domes for the reception areas. even the chapel is housed in one of the domes. it's a really enchanting place w/ lots and lots of foliage, beautiful landscaping w/ matching falls, ponds, and even a fog machine. and let's not forget the fishes, ducks, and swans (which i wanted to take home with me. our dog could use a friend, really).

anyways, joy, donna, flor, and i went to the place together. we were actually early so i wanted to look around first while the ceremony hasn't started yet. so there i was, walking aimlessly around the gardens by myself. hmm...this must be what eve felt like...now if i can only find adam...

oh wait. where was i?

so there i was, walking aimlessly around the gardens by myself when i heard somebody call my name (God, is that you?). wait. that voice belonged to a girl. it was joy, screaming at the top of her lungs. it sounded urgent. uh-oh. not good. i was torn between ignoring her and waving at her (just waving. hehe. sorry joy :p). but hey, i'm a risk-taker now right? so i waved at her...and approached her (cautiously, mind you).

to make a long story short, the commentator could not be found, the wedding was about to start in 15 minutes, and i suddenly found myself standing in front of the podium and barking (uy, di naman. reading lang pala...) instructions from the misalette.

before i go on, i just need to share this. my first experience as a commentator was extremely memorable. the pages of the misalette i used were mixed up. so i ended up reading parts that were saved for the latter part of the wedding at the wrong part of the ceremony while trying to ignore the glares of an irritated priest. that certainly kept me at my toes. ironically, the person who saved my life then (i had a feeling that Father wanted to rip my throat apart) was bernie. she approached me and gave me another copy. the correct one. so i owed her one.

that fact did not escape me. here i was, standing in front of the podium once again. bernie and mon were surprised to see me there instead of the real commentator. surprise!

so how did i do? compared to my first experience, this one was less traumatic (notice that i used the word less...). the misalette was actually correct (thank God!) but somehow the priest decided to be spontaneous and not follow the script. fantastic. again, i was on my toes trying to catch up with the priest. well, in fairness to him, he did follow most of the lines but there were moments when he alternated the misalette with the one from the church (i think). plus a few ad libs here and there.

[note to self: never, EVER, do anybody a favor during a wedding. unless it involves food and me doing the eating.]

well, the good thing was, most of my friends noticed the fact that Father knew more about Korean telenovelas than i did rather than my bloopers on stage. i swear, i could not relate during his homily. he was talking about the characters of Full House. showbiz pala tong si Father...

friday, april 29, 2005 10:00 pm - night shift at joy's

after the wedding, we dragged two of our friends (reg & rex) to joy's house. after taking a joy ride around mindanao avenue (or was that visayas avenue??) to buy some drinks and junk food (talagang sa 711 pa gusto ni rex e...), we headed straight to her house.

a few rounds of drinks - well, just a round for the girls...oh and another one for me. (salamat sa vodka mudshake, rex! :) ) - cable tv, good ol' snackage, and non-stop kakulitan kept us up till the wee hours of the morning. of course, joy just had to have a teleconference at home with her teammate (huu, teammate ba talaga yun??? ;) ). with a full stomach and lots of juicy stories to take home with us, we bid our goodbyes to the guys (kasama ka dun, donna! :p) and took our much-needed rest.

we still had a full day ahead of us.

saturday, april 30, 2005 10:30 am - the misadventures of the mean girls

we were late.

we were supposed to be at flor's house by 9 am so we could get to the nearby resort before most of the village population arrived. buuut, due to unforseen circumstances (you know, not hearing the alarm, ignoring the alarm, hurling your cellphone to the other side of the room to make the irritating noise stop. that sort of thing.), we were late.

good thing the resort was just a stone's throw away. over-the-bakod lang sya. literally.

so flor, joy, mildred and i were off to go swimming. when we got to the Remedios Garden Resort, the place was packed. (flor, dapat di mo na sinabi na dadating tayo!!) because it was a saturday, practically the whole Novaliches population was in the pool, hanging out by the umbrella tables, or hogging the videoke machine. and speaking of tables, we ran out of the ones that had an umbrella on it. luckily, flor knew half of the species there (hehe) and this group of guys offered us one of their tables and just took a wooden table to replace it. well, just before i was about to say, "Chivalry is not dead," i found out that one of them was the father of flor's godchild.

after a very sumptuous meal of Andok's chicken, Baliwag liempo, flor's rice, indian mangoes w/ bagoong, and later, grilled tilapia and pancit (both courtesy of our new friends. thanks!), we headed for the pool to take a swim.

now, i haven't swam, as in really swam, in a long time. i was really excited to do my laps and so were the other girls. when we finally went in for a swim, the pool was not as congested as before. we had enough room to swim from one end of the pool and back. in between laps were the usual kwentuhan and tsismisan. and for joy, some coaching on the side (we spotted her giving a little girl swimming pointers. tsk, tsk, tsk. flor was practically screaming, "Pedo!").

we didn't notice anything at first. but after a few hours, one of us realized that a particular group of guys were actually talking about us and making fun of how we swam (she saw them swaying their shoulders to do an exaggerated freestyle).

aaaaahhhh, away na to!

well, girls are normally peace-loving beings. but when provoked....

girls turn into....

MEAN GIRLS.

and we can be mean. very mean.

uh-huh. that's right.

those guys messed with the wrong girls.

so while they were at it, we huddled together to do some serious trash talk.

flor: hmp. kala mo naman marunong silang lumangoy! hindi naman! nye-nye-nye-nye-nyeeee.
aby: sige mildred. pakitaan mo nga sila ng back stroke mo!
mildred kicks against the side of the pool and executes a perfect back stroke (naks)
joy: kala nyo ang gagaling nyo ha!

this went on for a long time.

never mind that they didn't actually hear us. the point is, we did a fine job of trash talking those Gutter Boys. hah!

actually, they actually picked up on it and whenever one of us swam to their end, they'd fling their arms in a lame version of a freestyle. we were smug enough to notice that they always stayed at the sides of the pool or hopped around (i'm not kidding). they even joined hands to form a circle and went around and around and around...it came to a point when one of them proposed a race among themselves. i was listening to their conversation and watched as they ran in the water to the other side of the pool. men.

when we joined forces again, we began plotting our revenge on the Gutter Boys....only to realize that one of them was the one who gave us the grilled tilapia and pancit and that they were the ones who offered their table! (hu-whaaaaaaat???) the whole time we had our lunch, the two persons we noticed from their table were her kumpare and the guy in the gray shirt (mr. grilled tilapia and pancit).

they were the nice guys after all!

after we had a good laugh and gave an apologetic (oh, was it?) smile when we saw them after swimming, we trooped back to flor's to freshen up.

by the time we got in the car, we saw the Gutter Boys watching us from the balcony across the street. of course, this didn't stop the Mean Girls from laughing ourselves silly until we sped off.

saturday, april 30, 2005 5:30 pm - from Mean Girls to Mall Rats

our day wasn't over yet.

after our escapade in flor's resort, we still had the energy to go (window) shopping at megamall.

hey, girls always find time to shop.

as expected, the mall was overflowing with other mall rats, most of whom had money to spend. unfortunately, we weren't one of them. but we still had our sense of humor.

after a few hours (around 4 hours) of walking around the mall, we finally called it quits. flor's arms were aching from our swim, joy was a walking zombie (she only had a few hours of sleep), and i was getting more depressed about the fact that i couldn't buy anything i wanted (Nike Air Max...magiging sa kin ka rin!!)

that was then that i realized we actually spent more than a day together. eew. (just kidding)

aah, i just love hanging out with my gal pals.

so....to hoochie-mama flor (it's all in the bathing suit, dahling), swimming-coach joy, and backstroke-extraordinaire mildred...

till the next trash-talking/window shopping/pool hogging adventure!

p.s.

to soon-to-be-jet-setter mildred, pasalubong ko ha! bon voyage! wag mo kami masyado mamimiss! :)