on the eve

Last night, the eve of my birthday, I was walking along the sidewalks near our office, heading home, feeling the breeze of the cold wind (which later I found out was the tail-end of a cold front). I got a call from Ate Wowie inviting me to join the dinner with Siriporn, our guest from Thailand. Siri is the Corporate Communications manager of Oracle ASEAN. Earlier in the morning, I finally met her during the press briefing which was attended by Oracle Phils.’ country manager Francis Ong and two of the directors.

I thought it would turn out to be a bad day because I lost my friggin’ worn-out belt. I arrived late and was shocked to see the VIPs in the function room already, all primed up, tousled and looking anxious. They were quite early or should I say I was late. Thank God the media arrived late so the presscon didn’t start until 8:30am. The industry-participated forum followed in the ballroom of Marco Polo. It was a grueling morning. I had a headache by lunch.

The real blast was during the evening when we went out with Siriporn. It is interesting to meet other nationalities because you have a lot to talk about. I learned that her name means ‘good blessing’ in Thai and the Sanskrit version was incredibly short. She was friendly and felt really at home during the dinner and she was so amazed by the food that was ordered (lechon kawali, pinakbet, tinolang manok, kinilaw… indeed very Filipino), that she took pictures of it. She said she’s going to brag about it to her friends. We were driving around when Kuya Dicky asked her videoke bars were popular in Bangkok. Indeed it was, and off the four of us went to a famous KTV. So that’s why she like singing, she didn’t prove disappointing at all as she hit the right notes. We drove her to Marco Polo after our throats got parched, thanked her profusely, promised to exchange emails and bid farewell.

I went home past 12 and thought about Bangkok. How I’d love to be there. I thought of Siriporn’s promise to take us around whenever we come there. How I like it to be now. As in right now. That would be a perfect treat. Just before I went to sleep I got the first text message from a far-away friend greeting me ‘happy birthday!’ Gawd, I’m friggin old. A friend told me 23 is a magic number. Well…