So as not to suffer from holiday fatigue, I've made it a point to see my friends in batches of two, three, four, not more than a dozen. That way we could listen to whoever was talking about how the year went for her or him.
Jennifer Patricia A. Cariño and Karen Lee Hizola make up my extended family in Baguio although the latter is originally from Cebu. Jenny is my confirmation hijada, designer of my third book of poems Big Mama Sez: Poems Old and New and my forthcoming fourth, Moon Hanging Low Over My Window. Karen is illustrating the fourth baby. We have the first half of 2019 to complete the project.
Together Jenny and Karen have also done assorted collaterals for the Cultural Arts Events Organizer and Guacamole Productions whenever concerts are mounted in the city.
But our four-hour lunch yesterday wasn't a business meeting. It was catch-up time and an occasion to exhale. As we nibbled our pasta (mine came with a generous sprinkling of chicharon on top apart from the basil leaves and olive oil), chicken sandwich, bacon quesadillas and spicy shrimp burrito, I had time to admire our surroundings.
It felt like eating inside an aquarium or terrarium for Cafe de Angelo in Chapiz Village off Marcos Highway is walled with glass. The cafe looks out to a well-tended garden.
One persistent black butterfly flitted in as we were discussing a recently deceased person. The butterfly even hovered over me before flying to parts elsewhere. It certainly caught our attention, and I mumbled a silent prayer for the person who had passed on.
The cafe is my most recent discovery although it has been around, serving mostly Korean students of English and their Filipino teachers.
We ate slowly until the noontime temperature dropped, and we felt it was time to go to our halfway points before finally heading home. Thanks for a lovely afternoon, dear Jenny and Karen. It wasn't a coincidence that the three of us wore varying shades of blue.
No comments:
Post a Comment