Joy

At long last, I finally met with JMC, a very good friend from the distant past who I have not seen since she moved down south of the country.  She has a very fascinatingly interesting life story from being a lost soul who defied every societal convention there is to becoming a very successful career woman, doting mother and loving wife.

Years have passed and I was unsure how the reunion would turn out.  I was worried that we would no longer have much in common, if any, to talk about.  But I was so wrong!

I have always believed in spiritual connection.  Our spirits see what our naked eyes could not.  We agreed to meet at Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street.  She was still a good kilometer away, there was quite a crowd as it was Saturday, I had the faintest idea of how she would look like in person and I did not know what direction she would be coming from.  But I knew exactly where to look, I saw her silhouette and I was so sure it was her.  From the moment we were cheek to cheek, the long years that have separated us did not seem to matter.  We never stopped talking.

Like old times, we are still stingy so we decided to cross the great divide and headed to Market Market for dinner.  We went to Sbarro and as we were looking at the choices, she couldn’t quite decide what to have so she asked me if there’s any place in the area with buffet.  Apparently, despite her newly found interest in long distance running, she could not care less about her diet.  She wanted to pig out big time!  So off we went to Brazil! Brazil!

Brazil! Brazil! is located at Serendra and offers buffet dinner for 625+.  This includes five or so viands, do-it-yourself salad bar, around five to seven flavors of ice cream and wide array of roast everything.  Diners are given a yoyo, one side red, the other green, which you need to put on your table.  If the green side is up, the staff will barrage you with roast pork, beef, lamb, chicken, fish, sausages, pineapple and sweet corn in two-pronged metal skewers.  We would always forget to turn the yoyo green side down so the roast whatever kept coming.  It was quite stressful but a lot of fun.  And she got some appetite I have not seen before.

fried wanton wrappers

crab and corn soup

fresh greens

clockwise: fried rice, fish fillet, tofu with beans, chicken

roast all you can

clockwise: coleslaw, crab and corn, macaroni, brownie, fruit salad

avocado, vanilla, strawberry

During the dinner, we updated each other with what we have been doing as well as we got planned out for the future.  But what stood out was how she is as a family woman.  Her liberal ways in raising her kids is so interesting I can’t write a detailed account in this blog.  I understand that it is coming from the kind of youth that she had, getting very little guidance from the people around her that eventually pushed her off the edge.  She wanted her kids to be as informed about the kind of world we really have so they would be better prepared to handle things on their own.  She also talked about his wonderful husband who decided to be the stay-at-home dad and be actually very proud of it.

After spending three belly busting hours for dinner, she asked if we could drop by Fully Booked.

She is a passionate reader, I could tell because she was like a child that entered a candy store.  She could not stop talking about the books she has read and hopes to read.  We sat down for coffee first before finally hitting the shelves.  She was prodding me to start reading which I might try one of these days.  I am more into motion pictures than flipping pages.

That night proved to me that friendship never forgets no matter where life takes us.  That true friends may not always approve of the things you do but love you just the same.  That true friends are those you meet at the bottom because you are sure you are not kept around for what you have.  That the truest friends are those that saw your worst but did not give a damn.

JMC, it was a JHOI to see you again!