'Tis the season for frozen margaritas

From left: Vergel, Rolly, Chit and the blogger Photo by Kai Mykonos

We had dinner a few nights ago at The Manor's Le Chef restaurant with our journalism confreres from Manila, Vergel Santos and wife Chit Roces. It's almost an annual tradition for them to come up to Baguio for a whiff of our rarefied air in the few forested parts of the city.

Rolly Fernandez and Vergel have a history -- they worked together at the post-EDSA 1986 Manila Times and Manila Chronicle. They never run out of subjects to talk about when they see each other which is yearly. So their conversation goes on and on from the appetizers to post-prandial coffee and on and on until the waiters are already preparing the tables for the next day's buffet breakfast.

What are the waiting wives to do? Drinking ourselves blind is out of the question because we were still under the vigilant eyes of our partners. Chit has a history of passing out when under the influence while I tend to be a rabble rouser once the alcohol kicks in.

Lightheaded Chit

We settle for a strawberry flavored frozen margarita, a huge one, enough to be shared with Chit's son Tex and his wife. We each take turns scraping the mountain of ice and tequila with our respective teaspoons. Soon I complain about brain freeze quickly creeping from the front lobe of my brain to the back of my neck. Soon Chit is lightheaded with laughter. Vergel's eyes just grow bigger. Rolly is as usual silent.

Chit and I decide to quit early and leave the young couple to finish the rest of the margarita.

The guys get the hint. At close to midnight, very late by Baguio standards, we break up our little party, they to return to their rooms, we to drive home.

Paper, pen, ink, VOS and the art of the doodle

If I can do half as good a pen-and-ink portrait the way my former editor, Vergel O. Santos, does, I think I don't have to force myself to learn how to cook and I can live on serviette art for the rest of my days. Sorry I can't use the word "napkin" even if I attach the descriptive "paper" before it.

Someone said the reason people look glum in their portraits is it's hard to hold a smile. Although I wasn't posing formally for a sketch, in the strict sense of the word, the doodler captured the surly girl in me. My partner would rather use the word "mischievous."

That's Pablo Tariman, the music reviewer and impresario reborn, on the left; it doesn't quite capture his milky and white disposition that day.

VOS drew from memory his former colleagues at Manila Chronicle: Amando Doronila and Rolly Fernandez. If this were my work, I'd call it, "Seriously, guys" or "Two serious guys and a typewriter."

To complete the cast of characters who had a laugh-out-loud lunch on People Power Day (it fell on same day as the Oscar awards ceremonies, but the lunch was repeatedly postponed so it had to go through) at the mother branch of Milky Way on Pasay Road, Makati (clockwise): VOS, his wife Chit Roces, Pablo and the matron with the downturned lips. Can't wait for VOS to finally mount a solo show.