Friendship Weekend

My daily routine comprises of home-work-home. It's seldom that I get to go out as I would rather spend it with my waiting son at home. That's why this weekend was a special treat for me as I got to see some good friends.

Capping the day at Bo's Coffee with Cessna

Cessna is a college friend who became a very good friend. She lives in the northern part of Manila while I live down south so it's really seldom that we get to see each other (though north to south is only an hour from each other through EDSA but that is only on Sundays or holidays). When she mentioned that she'll be in Taguig this weekend, we quickly made plans and resolved to meet up.

After class, I headed off to The Fort and parked at Serendra. I waited for her at Starbucks Fully Booked while staving off my hunger with a sandwich. When she suddenly appeared in front of me, we hugged each other very tightly that it brought tears to our eyes. I suddenly remembered why we are both godmothers to each others sons and why she is my BFF. I missed her so much and being with her reminded me of the good times that we've had.

We exchanged stories and quickly caught up with each others lives. Since we haven't had a decent lunch, we ate at Wee Nam Kee and had coffee afterwards at Bo's Coffee. It was the first time for Cess to visit both places which made our meeting quite special indeed.

When I dropped her off to her hotel, we promised each other that we won't let 2 years pass by again before we meet up. I hugged her as tightly as I did earlier and we both went off to be with our respective families.

rpgdlsu with Ching and her son

Today, my husband and my son joined me as I met up with my college barkada (rpgdlsu) and our honorary member, Ching (with her son, Liam). Ching was a colleague who became the girlfriend of a member of our barkada (I was instrumental in that pairing). When Ching and our friend parted ways, we continued to meet with her and still treated her as part of the group. Our friend has since moved to another country and has married. Ching has also moved on and married her soulmate and they went off to live abroad. When she found herself in town for the holidays, she contacted us and requested that we meet up.

So this morning, we left the house early to meet up with Rico and we headed off to Starbucks Greenbelt 3 -- the default meeting place of rpgdlsu for the last 10 years, I think. Ching arrived with her son and Allan, Jen with their son, Audric a few minutes later. After exchanging stories and taking numerous pictures of each other, especially of her adorable and happy son, we went to TGI Fridays at Greenbelt to have lunch. 

Eddie and Chris arrived and much to our surprise, Max with Nano breezed in together. It was a happy surprise as I haven't seen both for the longest time. Max seldom attends our Christmas reunions for unknown reasons while Nano has made a career of his painting. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay long as Basti was complaining of a headache and my stomach also felt unsettled. It would've been great to catch up with everyone. The above photo was also very sentimental as it's an almost complete photo of our college days together. 

Anyway, we have another planned meeting next week. Hopefully, we can have more time to talk. It was a good weekend for friends. Never mind if I still haven't cleaned up my Christmas mess.

Old Friends Meet Again

Allan, Chris, Rico and Sunshine at Audric's First Birthday Party
at KFC Banawe

It's seldom that you meet friends who you would want to be friends with for a long time and if you do happen to find them, you try your best to keep them with you until you grow old together.

I am fortunate to have such friends. Our friendship has lasted for more than 20 years now--almost half of our lives. We were a bigger group before brought together by our love for gaming. (Actually, I knew nothing about it then but when one of them took me under his wing when I was a College freshman, I was hooked.)

That big group of about 8 have now trickled down to 4 (sometimes, 5). Some have moved to other countries while others have pursued different interests. I'm glad that we still have this core group that gets together during special occasions--such as the first birthday of Allan's youngest. We don't see each other as much as want, moreover since two of us are already married and with kids, but I always look forward to meeting them when time permits.

There are still 2-3 of them that still meets to play and someday, I hope we can have a spare day where we can have one serious role-playing game. I miss going on an adventure with these guys--even if the adventure is just in our minds.

Puerto Galera

Since my cradle is not here, I have to make do with old pictures to post.

This one was taken two years ago during one of our group's first forays to Puerto Galera. A low-tech camera was used to take this really nice picture of us. I'm such a big standout in my white shirt.