Birthday away from home

February 5, 2001

Yesterday's my Bday. My friends surprised me with a party last night. Everyone who doesn’t have a flt came over. I was planning a Bday dinner, but didn’t expect my friends to pitch in. Marie (my flat mate) didn’t go to church with us that evening. She was secretly planning to fix the flat while I’m gone. She tied baloons together and taped the strings on the ceiling like hanging mobiles. It looked very festive.

I already prepared prawns and spaghetti that afternoon. Marie had a bucket of Kentucky delivered while I was gone, and Maricel (the Bicolana) also secretly baked me a choco cake. After the mass I bought 2 flavors of Magnolia ice cream (which is expensive here) at a Filipino store, so there’s so much to eat. Marie has a new video camera and took videos of the event starting from when I entered the flat. They turned off the lights with only the birthday candles lighted. The Living Room was already prepared. Tekla and Marie were calling each other to synchronize their acts to get the whole team prepared for my coming. I never had a surprise party before. I didn’t expect everyone to be there and we all partied till we dropped dead tired. No booze though.

The night before, Feb 3, I came from a flight and we landed 930PM. Beth, also from GrandAir, picked me up the the airport. They prepared dinner for me at her place and had some friends over. Beth lives with her husband apart from our "singles" company owned residence. So Feb 3 PM turned out to be a party for my friends living outside the staff house, and Feb 4 for resthouse residents. Bethe made a lot. There was even smuggled pork ribs. Most of it they already ate because I came late.The best gift I had - Beatles Anthology Book from Kuya Tony (one of our elder Pinoy friend w/ the US army based here). He ordered it from Amazon.com. He learned from Marie that I'm into it.

All these to entertain ourselves. What else can you do in the desert?