[Joy in the Little Things] August 10, 2008

** Gym with the Dela Ramas and Grouchy last Thursday. Suzie is a part-time fitness trainer. She designed a program especially for Grouchy. Of course, being Grouchy's pro-bono wedding consultant, I tagged along. A few minutes on the treadmill, and a couple of rounds on the muscle building machines. We proved last Thursday night that if Grouchy wears the "Tabang Hangin" crown, I wear the "Tabang Muscle" proudly on my head. After the workout, Grouchy and I rewarded ourselves with a filling dinner at Galileo, this nice Italian resto along Pasong Tamo. We were really in search for Lambrusco wine, but we ended up chatting and chatting (and being our dirty-minded selves). I'm a sucker for dinner with a glass of red wine and great conversations. Thanks Pao, Suzie, and Grouchy.

** Kare Kare, Pizza, and Ice Cream. Had a lamon day last Saturday. Spent it mostly with Ate My, helping her with the preps for Elise's 1st birthday. We had lunch at Tito Mar's. Kare Kare with veggies on the side. And for dessert, three pieces of Almond Rocca. Perfection. For merienda, I treated the folks at home to two large pizzas from Shakey's. I've always loved their thin crust pizzas. There's just something joyful in eating good, comforting food.

** Conversation with Irene last 08-08-08. Arief just arrived from Jakarta then. She and I have had several conversations about relationships, and I'm just happy that my pep talk (when we had dinner at Banana Leaf the first time I saw her) wasn't all B.S. She said she'd fill me in, and she just plain loves me for talking some sense into her.

** Lola's teary thank you when I handed her flowers. Ate My visited Lola last Saturday. She recently suffered from a mild stroke, and we visited her. She appreciates the little things. We got the flowers in one of the flower shops in Las Pinas. I can't remember now what sort of flowers they were. They weren't Malaysian Mums, and they smelled awfully nice.

** Tagaytay Sunday with Ate Love, Ina, Iris, Yssa, Tito Mar, and Tita Alda. Lunch at Taal Vista, then went to see animals in Residence Inn and Paradizoo, then merienda at Rowena's. My girls are all grown up now. Ina's as fashionable as the girls in "Babaeng Tsismosa", Yssa is thinking about her gown for her junion prom, and Camille.... Well. She's still our baby. Haha. We've started planning for more activities in the future. Wall climbing and a post-Christmas trip to Baguio.

** 2008 Olympics. What a show. What a sight. It's just nice to see that everyone can actually get along well. And it's quite a thrill to be playing for your country, I could only imagine.