maligayang kaarawan, saniata!

saniata is my mother, who is celebrating her 54th birthday today.

i miss her so much. i talked to her the other day. she has a new British-Armenian boyfriend, Tat, and she sounded happy. Tat is 60-ish and seemed like a gentleman over the phone. he said he is ‘enchanted’ with my mom. can’t blame him, just look at her! i’m really glad. she deserves to be happy.

i bought her a hand bag in divisoria, similar to her favorite hand bag which she left (and we lost) when she flew to the UK three years ago (has it been 3 years already? yay!). still figuring out a way to send it to her though.

the whole country is presently celebrating the Lenten season and again my mother immediately comes to mind. saniata is a very devout catholic. even in the UK she still goes to mass every sunday, during any of our birthdays, christmas, etc, etc. she tells us she prays about the same things — especially that someday we could all be together again. whenever we talk she always makes it a point to bring up that, if given a choice, she’d rather stay in the philippines where we can easily reach each other, meet up whenever we like, and not just content ourselves with weekly phone conversations and occasional email exchanges (saniata INSISTS that she is learning to use the internet. i give her another 6 months or so until we finally get to chat and view each others’ webcams. hehe. aside from being a devout catholic, my mother is also a closet techno-phobe. haha!).

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we are a very close-knit family, saniata, my brother and i. i can’t imagine my life without them, however far apart or independent from each other we’ve become.

so right now i am still reeling from the news that my brother, rj, is set to leave also for the UK, to study and mainly to be with our mother. his visa just recenty got approved and if things go as planned, he’ll be booking a flight first week of May. on one hand, i feel terribly lonely. my brother is my keeper (ha!). when saniata left, all we had was each other. and i’ve gotten accustomed to having him around all the time (he lives with me and my husband). he is also my best friend along with sinag, my sun and moon. on the other hand, the thought that he’ll be with saniata appeases me. so there.

more about my brilliant wonderfully-artistic openly-gay brother later.

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speaking of birthdays, today is also vencer’s 21st birthday. so young yet so old. har, har.

and, dennis, one of my dearest bestest friends is now officially a daddy to a beautiful baby girl, Isabel Konyap. congratz also to new mommy iris!

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what’s the buzz?

the Supreme Court orders the release of Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo upon a P100,000 cash bond. Ka Satur says that the government’s weak case ensured his liberty and that he is vindicated. Mabuhay si Ka Satur! (Long live Ka Satur!)

what’s gotten my beef?

prez gloria arroyo says that she is confident of a 12-0 victory for her Team Unity. if the latest Pulse Asia survey is to provide a basis, only six out of her 12 candidates stand a chance in entering the ‘magic 12’. so why the over-confident statements? is this a forecast to massive cheating ahead? why are we not the least bit surprised?

“Hello Ma’am?“