The Big 3-0!

My birthday was last Wednesday and it was the 30th ... damn just typing that out makes me feel old!  Some people were telling me that I should make it a big party or celebration since it's a big milestone, another word that makes me feel old ... "milestone."

I was going to try to plan a party in this place I found in the city but that didn't end up happening since the place never called me back and it would have been a good amount of money to put down anyways.  There was really no plans for that night, the only thing I knew was that my dad was cutting up the stuff for the lumpia that he was going to cook for me that night.

It just so happened that Wednesday was also my volleyball game night that I could not miss since we were already short a few people.  Here at work, I tried to keep it under wraps as much as I could because I didn't want them throwing me a surprise party at work, that's what we usually do when it's someone's birthday.  The plan was for me to go straight home after volleyball to have dinner with the fam, well we can plan as much as we want but that doesn't mean it's always going to go as planned.  Right after the game the team decided to go to a local bar and get me some shots for my birthday, and that they did.  After four shots, I had to call it quits and head on home, but I couldn't take the subway in my state so I decided to call for a car.  Arvin was with me and for some reason I had a weird feeling that something was up and planned.  When we were in the bar Arvin came from outside saying that we had to go because my dad just called him looking for me.  That was strange to me since I had signal but no phone calls ... but the liquor was working it's magic so I quickly forgot.

On the ride home I was joking with Arvin that I hope there isn't a surprise birthday party for me ... and he didn't respond.  I said it again and he ignored me ... my spidey senses were going off again.  Finally got to the house after traffic and as I was walking down the stairs to the front door, I saw people peeking in the window and thought that was strange but didn't really think much of it.  Diday has to open the door since I had my keys in my jacket and my jacket was all the way in my bag.  

In the traditional Simon routine I would start taking my shirt off right before I came through the door because it was hot, good thing this wasn't one of those times that I did that!  As I walk in through the door I saw a whole bunch of family and friends in my house, I don't even remember heading "surprise!" because I was in shock from everyone there.  

I think this was actually the first surprise party that I've had thrown for me!  I joked with Arvin in the car ride that I hope there isn't a surprise party because with my luck I'll have a heart attack from all the excitement!  There everyone was eating and drinking ... some of the food was already gone because I had gotten there two hours late!!!

Here I was in my volleyball clothes, smelling of sweat and liquor with everyone around me.  As I got my gifts, I started to wonder something ... why were all of my gifts food!?  I'm not complaining by any means, but is that what I'm known for, food? lol

The first gift was the "monwich!" which was insane!  To this day I'm still not even sure what was in it, but this is what I think was inside that monster of a sandwich.  There was McDonalds hamburger patties, clam strips and chicken rings from White Castle, Spam, cheese and I garlic mayo!  It was heavy when I held the entire sandwich in my hand, but oh so good when I got a bite of it!  The combination of foods doesn't sound appetizing to some, but it's good stuff.  Ody then handed me his gift ... the beast!  Damn people are trying to make me have a heart attack, but I'm not complaining!  I couldn't touch the beast that night, I had to wait until Thursday night to eat some of that beast.  There is still some of the monwich left, but that will be gone pretty soon.  Loan got me an M&M cake that I wasn't able to eat, but I did get a taste of that famous dip that she made!  Just a taste!  Apparently in my two hour tardiness, the surprisers consumed most if not all of the dip and also the chips!  I used the monwich to clean up the bowl with the remaining dip ... that was a good combination too!

Part of the family culture that we have liquor.  I've always tried to stay away from it and well when I do have some, you know that I don't drink much!  Here we were blowing out the candles and I was given a shot of some Southern Comfort.  Then another ... then another.  good thing there wasn't that much left or else I'm afraid the shots would have just kept on coming!  After a few minutes needless to say I was using the walls and other people for support.  There were instances of yacking but luckily I was able to keep everything down, it would have been a waste of all the wonderfull food I just ate!  

I'm not sure what I started saying but I hope it wasn't too revealing and it seems that when I drink and it starts to take it's effect, I end up on the floor for one reason or another.  Wednesday night was no exception.  

It was an awesome brithday party and thank you to all the people who came and put it together!!!  

I remember finding a nice spot on the carpet where I just stayed for a little bit until everyone ended up going home for the night.  But I still had people coming over!  G and his cousin were still on the way and we ended up going to Hooters for a little bit.  Chicken wings and sangria ... the combination of champions!

So here I am, the dirty thirty.  Just that word really makes me feel older ... I prefer this to be my one year anniversary of being 29.  

The next day was work and I still have no idea how I made it into work ... with the famous words of many individuals who have ended up on the bad side of a drunken night ... I'm never drinking again.  

+ mon

It's Been a While

About eight days since my last entry and it's because there has been a lot going on so here I am now ... posting about the happenings.

Over a week since my last entry and it's mostly because I've been trying to help one of my best friends go through something that I went through more than two years ago.  

As I was home I got a call from G asking if I could make my way over to NJ to help them out a bit.  Just some history, his father had undergone a triple bypass and was in rehab for almost two weeks.  There in rehab he was doing fine, we even went there to visit him and my dad and his dad were comparing scars from their bypass.  I felt left out when they were doing this, so naturally I walked to the foot of the bed and lifted my shirt up as well just to join in the comparison.  

It was extremely sudden when we heard the news that his dad had gone into a coma and there was no explanation as to the real reason why, I still don't think that there is one.  

When G called me Tuesday of last week, he told me that the doctors are only giving his dad about one or two days left.  Thinking back to my mom, the doctors had told us that she had about three to six months left and I think they always over estimate for the best case scenario.  When we got to the hospital in Jersey, I ended up taking Diday with me, just so I didn't go solo, we saw the family and everyone was understandably shaken up.  They were just going to spend time with him by his bedside until that time came.  

Visiting Tito Louie there and seeing him in the bed, it gave me flashbacks of my mom and I just tried to be "strong" for G and his family.  It's different for me now, I have a different view of death ever since my mom's passing, but regardless of my views, losing a loved one hurts tremendously.  

Seeing the family going through the various emotions that come with it, and trying your best to comfort them is always difficult, there are never words that are enough to help.  Tito Louie passed away later that night at around 12:25am.  The typical words of "condolence" or "I'm sorry" filled my head and that's what I wanted to say, but if I did it would just be because it was the normal thing to do.  I can never find the words when it comes to a friend of mine losing someone ... even that phrase "losing someone" speaks volumes of how we as a society view death.  It's not really losing a person when they die, it's a long vacation until everyone is reunited again ... yes I do believe that there is a heaven and hopefully we can all get there.  

There was nothing I could say, and all I could do was be there for them.  

When the wake came around, I went to give my respect and support, and remembered that the priest told us that the funeral and everything else is for the family and friends and not really for the one who passed away.  It was a time where everyone should be there and pray for the family now.  

One thing about wakes and funerals that I've noticed is that it's a big reunion, that always seems to be the case.  People who you haven't seen for years will show up and it will be like old times, even for those few moments.  

The sadness of having someone pass away is definitely there, but when I pass I think I want things to be different.  Instead of all the sadness, I want there to be laughing and smiling all around.  This is where my view of death is now, it used to be something that just sucked.  Where it's going to happen and we have to deal with it and also deal with "losing" someone.  But now I see it as a blessing, it happens when it happens and there isn't a way to stop it.  When it's your time, it's your time.  

I see it as a transition now, from this life we have here on earth to whatever it is that comes after.  Be it heaven with the white clouds and the golden gates, or something different.  I do believe there's something after and that all the loved ones are reunited during that time.  Although we will miss those that pass before us, there's going to be a time when we see them again and it's just a temporary thing.

When I was a kid I remember Tito Louie because I used to go to G's house a lot.  There were times when I would sleep over and the morning would be great with his breakfast cooked and ready to go as soon as we woke up.  There was also that basketball hoop that he made for G in the backyard, that was something that I also loved because I would dunk on it since it was our height.  So many different memories and one memory that sticks out is when I was at G's house and we were having a practice session for DJing.  He came into the room at around 1am and asked us what we were doing and took an interest in it ... his one remark that will play in my head forever is "where's your um-flee?" meaning to ask us where our amplifier was.  There he stood in the doorway in nothing more than his briefs.  The reason this is one of the moments that I won't forget is because this is how my dad is with me, very comfortable.  

With the passing of my mom, it opened my eyes to the importance of my parents more.  I guess that's one of the reasons why I push my friends and the youth I work with to be with their parents more because they don't know when the time is going to be up.  Ever since my mom, I've taken as much time possible to spend with my dad.  Just being at home and us watching the dumbest of movies, or watching a basketball game together means the world to me.  The first night after the wake we went home and it was just him and I again.  That night was the boxing match and there were a few places closeby to watch it, but he was tired and didn't want to go.  So we ended up ordering the fight to watch, just the two of us and it was nice to bond in that way.  My dad and I with my sister on the phone, screaming our heads off and enjoying the fight and moreso each other's company.  For me it's time well spent, instead of me going out and hanging out, I know that my time with my dad is limited especially since he goes back to Philippines often, so whatever time I do get with him is important to me.  

I know G had a lot of great memories with Tito Louie, and I do hope that I can continue to create more with my dad.  Tito Louie treated me like a son everytime I was around, and I will miss him dearly, from his cooking, to his carpentry, to his hats, and Christmas creations the list of the things missed will go on.  May he rest in peace and may his family find comfort as well.

+ mon

Fortunate Childhood

In the subway this morning I was thinking about what I could write about and was wondering if anything interesting would happen during that train ride, well nothing except me sleeping happened, but the only thoughts that did come to mind were when I was a kid and the childhood memories from 90th street - and there are a lot of memories!

So it brings me to this entry and looking back at how I grew up.  I didn't get that suburban childhood growing up in a house with trees all around and a culdasack where the kids from the neighborhood would play, even though when I was younger I would see that on TV and think that that's how I wish my neighborhood was.  But seeing it for what it really was now, my childhood was better than that of which I saw on the shows on TV, I grew up in Elmhurst, to be more specific 90th street.

This is the block where dreams happened and where you could do whatever you wanted, there was no limit ... well actually there was a limit, it's called parents.  

We did whatever we wanted, we ran things on 90th street!  Well maybe we didn't actually run things, but you know what I mean, it was our playground and no matter what we did, no matter what injury we had, no matter how in trouble we got, next day was a new day to start over again.

One of the main activities was the baseball games in the driveway to the garage, and if you were good enough to hit one off of the block and across the street, you had to deal with the lady in all black that was dubbed "get outta here" as that was the only thing we ever heard her say.  Those baseball days often ended because a ball would be fouled onto the room of the neighboring building, where we had no access.  But if that foul ball would just go over the 15 foot fence separating the two, we found a way to cilmb that beast of a fence and get our balls back.  One memory that really sticks out for me was when that fence was newly build to keep us out and keep us from climbing to get our foul balls, and it was my "turn" to get the ball ... as I was climbing back to the playing field, I found myself on the very top of that fence.  My apartment was in the back of our building so my parents bedroom window was right there and I heard it opening and my dads voice calling me.  If he had caught me on top of that fence, it would have been over for me!  So I did what any kid my age would do ... jump from that high in a panic!  I landed and stood there as my dad stuck his head out the window asking me a question, I stood there as if I had been standing there for a while and not just have jumped off a fence.  My feet were burning and I had to wait for him to go back in the window for me to take my shoes off and care for my feet.  

That's just one story from that baseball alley ... another quick one was when we played baseball with a basketball and I was the pitcher.  My cousin Michael swung and hit the basketball right back towards me, I didn't have time to react and it hit me right in my nose where I started crying as he rounded the "bases" with a homerun.

Another daily activity was skateboarding, ahhh yes, we skated way back before it was popular as it is now.  The first trick that I learned was the bunny hop which was simply jumping a little on your board as you hit a small bump from the sidewalk blocks.  Too many memories with this as well, but the one that sticks out and I'm sure we'll all remember had to do with my cousin Jay's board.  He had a free style board, similar to the ones that Rodney Mullen would use.  As we were skating outside, a group of other skaters came by and started talking to us.  They were saying how nice our boards where and we were flattered, but some of us were a bit cautious.  I remember one of them asking to see one of boards, it was the banana shaped yellow board (I can't remember who had that), and they said no.  They asked if they could see someone else's board and they said no.  Then they got to Jay and Jay being the oldest one of us said yes and let them see his board.  All I can remember is one of them saying ... "man nice board" and this was right before they ran to the other block and put Jay's board on top of the hood of a parked car.  There they proceeded to take the wheels off and steal part of his board!  We stood there not knowing what to do since these skaters were older than we were.  Needless to say, Jay was without a board that day and we had learned a valuable lesson in trust, even amongst fellow skaters.  

There are just too many memories to write about, I'll save those for another entry.  But growing up, being surrounded by family all the time was great.  Having cousins there everyday to play with, or just sit in front of the apartment doing nothing with was something that can't be replaced by suburban living.  Sure we didn't live in the best part of town, but we made it that way.  It was our block and we took full advantage of the fact that we were so close, physically and in friendship and family.  

This extended to the adults in our families too, where we had family gatherings together, but they didn't see each other as much as us kids saw each other.  Maybe that's why I didn't do too well in school?  I would rush home, and either finish my homework as fast as possible so I could go out and "play" or I would wait to do my homework later that night so I could get outside and figure out what the cousins would be doing today ... would it be throwing bottle rockets from John's basement, would it be sharing one bike that we would take turns riding around the block, would it be to play on the milk crate with the bottom cut out that Michael had nailed to the telephone pole, would it be to go to someone's house and play with our GI Joes or play bingo (yes bingo!) ... it was endless.  

My childhood is one that I remember and will always remember, even when I drive by the old block, new old memories come back.  It also paved the way to keeping the bond with us cousins tight, we don't do the same things anymore, but when we do get together, we sometimes reminisce and we always new memories.  It's good to be surrounded by family, good to have them around, and I miss those days where we could just be carefree and did whatever we want without having to worry about the consequences until they actually were right in our face.  

I sometimes wonder if everyone has a 90th street growing up?  

+ mon