Right now though, I feel I need to catch up on keeping track of my life -- and the most comfortable way for me to do just that is to write about it. The fact is, I miss writing and having conversations with myself. It keeps me grounded, and it reminds me of things in my life I feel I shouldn't ever neglect. I ought to write more often.
So what's new with me? Let's see. Three weeks ago, before our trip to Galera, I purchased a very interesting deck of cards from a snug little bookstore at an out of the way place near the office. It's called Talecraft, and it's meant to help writers weave out stories using various genres and character archetypes.
I never would have heard of it had a friend and I not unwittingly stumbled into that particular bookstore one Saturday evening two months ago. We wanted to have dinner some place different so we went exploring the back alleys of Eastwood. That was when I saw the bookstore. I have never been one to resist the lure of a concentration of books in a single place, so I asked my friend if we can check out what's inside only for a little while, with promises of free drinks and possibly a slice of pizza when we find a place where we can eat.
When we entered, we noticed a small gathering of people at the far side of the room. A lady from the group looked our way and beckoned to us with a smile, "Come in, come in! One storyteller has just finished his tale and another one is about to start! Come in!" My friend touched my shoulder, as if asking me, What are we going to do? I looked at him and whispered, "Let's finish one story. It shouldn't take too long." So we then approached the nice lady with the lighthouse smile and she offered us brownies and iced tea.
The next storyteller, a girl wearing glasses and a blue shirt, addressed the whole group, "I didn't think I'd have to do this in front of a lot of people." She gave off a nervous laugh as she shuffled and dealt the cards on a glass table front of her. She studied them for a minute, and began to tell her story. From the first sentence, all was mesmerized. The story was about a young and beautiful witch and her brother cursed with lycanthropy, and how her blood mingled with a mystical ruby would be the only means of saving him. The story was made even more rich -- and poignant -- by making it sound as if it were being told from the witch's point of view to her lover who does not know of her true identity.
There was a quiet moment after the story was finished before everyone began to applaud. It really was a sad, painful, but very beautiful story. I wanted to stay and listen to the other tales, but my friend and I were hungry and he was already kicking my foot to annoy me enough to leave.
Anyway, the following day I went back to the store and asked if they had any decks in stock. Turns out it wasn't available in the Philippines yet at that time, but they already ordered some for inventory and were expecting it to arrive within a month. It wasn't after five weeks though before I received a call from them, letting me know a bunch of decks just arrived. I dropped by after work and immediately got three decks -- one for me, one for Hono'o-chan, and one for R. One of these days, maybe -- hopefully -- I'll get to post a Talecraft-made story.
Two weeks ago, our team had a visitor from our client in the States. She was the head of the counterpart of our department in Florida and the impression she gets from her visit could make or break our team. We were all very anxious the week before her arrival. We made plans on how we would welcome her, where we would take her out for lunch, how we would do things differently while she was here, and other seemingly insignificant details. Considering how new our department was here in the Philippines, we desperately wanted to impress her.
The morning of her arrival, everyone in our team was restless. We were there early -- which was already in itself an amazing feat for some of us -- and making sure our workstations were clean, our bulletin board was all set up, and the flowers were ready and happy. When we received word she was already downstairs, our Boss Lai asked me and another teammate to wait for them in front of the receptionist's area while she fetches our visitor.
I was holding the camera while my teammate was holding the flowers. We were in the middle of thinking of what to say to her the moment she steps out of the elevator when -- ding! -- she steps out of the elevator. My teammate practically shoved the flowers to her face and I forgot that I was supposed to take her picture. At first, she looked like a stern and strict Japanese-American old lady especially when we heard her first words, "I'm ready to go to work!" with a very thick Nihon-go accent.
Boss Lai was explaining things to her while they were walking hurriedly to our area, and my teammate and I were stringing along behind them like virginal French maids. I was cursing myself over and over for not being able to take her picture. When we got to our workstations, our visitor was all business. She took a quick look at the layout on our bulletin board -- which I designed for her arrival -- and said with a face similar to a captain briefing her team for war, "I'm going to take this home." Boss Lai never wasted a moment and ripped the layout off from the board and proceeded to fold it neatly. A few seconds later, a folded up fraction of what was a sketch of a lady in a kimono among cherry blossom petals saying "Welcome!" was stuffed inside a brown envelope in betwixt our visitor's things. I was stunned, and I wanted to cry. I'm never going to last two days with her, my mind wept.
That's why it was such a surprise when she looked at the whole team and her expression softened. "You are all doing wonderfully, and we have been very impressed with your work," she said to everyone. It took a moment before her words finally sunk in (partly because we couldn't understand it clearly because of her accent), and we all laughed at the absurdity of our being a nervous wreck. Of course we were doing wonderfully! We have worked our asses off to keep things stable for our team ever since we were deployed, that we forgot how things have been turning out well enough on their own!
The rest of the week was spent wonderfully. Everyday we had lunch at the nicest restaurants with our visitor, and we even visited Tiendesitas the second day of her visit after the end of our shift to let her experience what it was like to ride on a calesa. Also, since her hotel was near my place in Makati, I get to ride with her car service home! During those trips, I would tell her all about our team and our teammates, and what it was like living in the Philippines. She'd ask me about the things she'd see on the road, and in turn I'd ask her what Japan was like. She said she honestly feels her real home was Florida, and she was very happy to have lived her life, as well as made a family there.
On her final day, we all planned a surprise party for her. We got her gifts and I drew a caricature version of her on an illustration board on which each of my teammates wrote a short dedication for her to remember us by. Every minute was filled with good cheer. We were stuffed with pizza and Pancit Malabon, and our hearts were filled with love. After the party, we all took her for a final bout of videoke where she cried when one of our teammates sang "Thank You." The night ended with our team's videoke anthem, "Total Eclipse of the Heart."
We walked her to her car and each of us gave her a long and tearful hug. We really were sad to see her go. And to think the previous week we were all nervous and agitated about what impression we would leave. Now we all wanted her to stay.
On the family front, things have been a little shaky financially. What else is new, right? This time, I'm involved. I don't want to go into details anymore since anything involving money just makes my head ache like hell, but I'm hoping we all get past this little bottleneck with as minimal casualty as possible. Despite this minor irregularity, our household has been relatively calm and quiet -- which normally I would have thought very suspicious, but now it's something I'm simply thankful for.
All in all, things have been going as well as they could, I suppose. I get home tired, sure, and my salary is never enough to cover for a lot of things, true, but I'm doing fine. I might even possibly consider thinking about becoming interested in dating again. LOL. Que sera sera.
