My two-week Christmas vacation was a blast! I had to work on a CPA though, but no biggie... My folks are quite alright. Both are in good shape. Still addicted to scrabble... and I think that Bowling game that we had December 29th might make them bowling addicts as well! You should have seen them... we (my brother, sister and me) were all beat and ready to go home --- but my folks were still out there. Among us 5, they were the only ones who had strikes. It was great to see my folks all smiling and active! Anyway, at the start of the season, my father was in this cloud of disappointment... disappointed over the turn-out of his cabbage farming attempt. He thought that if that did good, he would buy for himself a multi-cab. So it was going to be no multi-cab for him this xmas. Then he talked to me about not wanting to go to the US anymore... I've been saving some money for their plane tickets (his and mom's)... so I thought well, why not buy a multi-cab if you don't want to go. And that we did the day after xmas! My Father was so excited. He was like this little boy who just got a really cool toy! It was quite a pleasure to see him happy. This business of making other people happy sure is wonderful! The other folks that I also wanted to see happy were my favorite Uncles from both my Father and Mother side. Uncle Mundo is this street-smart, wide-eyed, jeepney driver from my Mother side. I haven't seen him in years! When he showed-up 2 days before xmas, I had to give him a share of my xmas bonus. My mom said, "iyang nawong kay warag gi-bayaw sa langit" (his face looked like he was lifted to heaven -- i.e. my attempt at translating the visayan dialect to english). He was going to use the gift for his family's noche buena. Cool.... my Uncle Bebe from my father's side is this good-looking, drinking, retired mechanic who just fascinates us with his stories of war and what not. When we went to his place on Dec 30th, for this mini-reunion to commemorate our Grandmother's death anniversary, one of the first things he said to me was... "you look at this watch... this is my grandson's... I only get hand-me-downs these days"... he was giving me a hint. Good thing I packed a Ninoy Aquino bill... it can't buy him a watch; but it sure gave him this really wide smile in the face. A highlight of the season was this High School Class Get-together at Ging2's place. It was well attended, and was quite fun actually. Now that we are older, one can ask really tough questions which would be answered in all honesty i.e. no falsehoods, no dodging, just pure, basic honesty. People had also become quite comfortable with each other --- the married ones especially. They would just talk about s_x almost like the way we were talking about movies or cute boys in highschool. It was really cool. And as if the reunion wasn't enough, there was also this series of get-togethers with my closest friends.... kookie, ging2, jean, and baweng ... basically, to get in touch. There was just so much to talk about! Anyway, from these gatherings, I found that each of us 5 friends, all of the same age, are in different stages of our lives. Kookie was just recently separated from her husband, but is blessed with little, smart, Caloi. Ging2 just got engaged to Rene (this dude from Butuan City) and is going to be married on April 17th or 18th this year. Jean is this glowing beauty (in love) who now is in this serious relationship with Toton (also a good friend) and will soon celebrate two years of togetherness. Baweng is in this seriously complicated relationship with Bob for 4 years --- Bob is Chinese, a pure blood and the only thing that holds them together is well (excuse me for the mush), true love. Meanwhile, Karyn, who is me, is still blah.... The key persons who were absent in these gatherings were: 1] Bambie, who is in the US expecting her first born of twins! & 2] Titing, who is in Manila on medical duty. I never thought that things would be the way it is 11 years after highschool. As Kookie would always say... "You can never tell..." I wonder how things are going to be next xmas season... God help me if I'm still blah...!