Happy New Year 2009!

Ended the year by going to the doctor to get my annual routine physical exam results and to find out what is up with this cold that I've been nursing for 11 days now. I received a clean bill of health (Whohoo!) and antibiotics for this cold. Being drugged up with codeine, I really didn't feel like partying like it was 1999 earlier in the day. But since we were entertaining friends visiting from Canada & Mexico, we felt compelled to go out and party. Ended up getting all split up from each other during the countdown...Sigh. Forgot to jump up and down so I could grow taller for the new year...Double Sigh. Then had to bribe the bouncer to get in the club without having to wait in line. I guess, "face value" has also gone down with the economy...Triple Sigh. The bouncer then did not card me to check if I was over 21 years old or not...Quadruple Sigh!...LOL

Happy New Year!

For Besi & Birdie's greetings, please click HERE.

Happy Holiday Greetings 2008-2009

From my family to yours,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taon!
Feliz Navidad y un Próspero Año Nuevo!
Joyeux Noël et Une Bonne Année!

Make the Yuletide Gay!

Happy Hanukkah!
Happy Kwanzaa!
Happy Boxing Day!
Advanced Kung Hei Fat Choy!

iPostcards from Survivor X'mas

For the past few years, we've hosted Christmas gatherings for both sides of the family living in California. This year was different. With Bill's mom now in a retirement home and not fit to travel down from Oregon, and with my sister & niece celebrating with my siblings in the east coast, we were left not knowing what to do. It was our first year that we didn't go out to buy our live X'mas tree. We entertained experiencing X'mas in Hawaii, the Caribbean, or with friends in Paris. But we then felt guilty about parting with our "girls", Besi & Birdie, so soon after our trip to South America. So, we decided to go on a road trip and take them skiing. But at the last minute, we got an invitation from a friend to go up to her home in Tehachapi. As soon as we arrived, it started snowing. Yehey! It was the "girls"' first white X'mas. The guests were composed of Americans, Scottish, English, Brazilians, and a Filipino. Talk about conversations filled with different accents.
Just as we were getting ready for dinner, the power went out. With the outage, that meant no gas for the stove, no hot water, no heat to keep us warm, no phone line, no cell phone signal, no Internet connection. We were snowed in - no way out! Dinner was delicious, albeit cold, and in a way romantic, with the candle light and fireplace as our only source of light & heat. It was actually very nice and refreshing. Kinda like Jesus' first night in a manger...LOL.
Then all of a sudden a family argument developed right in front of us in the dark between our Brazilian host and her spoiled 31-year old son. I've always found Portuguese to be a very sexy sounding language. Not this time. I guess the holidays wouldn't be complete without any family drama. Ayayyay...LOL


or please click HERE for a bigger slideshow of the album.
If you prefer to view the thumbnails, please click on the link below:
iPostcards from Survivor X’mas 2008

Happy Hanukkah 2008!

Our friends, the Boroditskys invited us, once again,
to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah.
It was a lovely festive affair at their beautiful home.

Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish friends!
If there was such a thing as a Filipino Jew,
this is how he may look like...LOL

iPostcards from Venice Canals Holiday Boat Parade 2008

or please click HERE for a bigger slideshow of the album.
If you prefer to view the thumbnails, please click on the link below:
iPostcards from Venice Canals Holiday Boat Parade 2008

Happy Halloween 2008!

Please click on the title or HERE for Birdie's costume.

Last Dance as a 30-something

She has never admitted it, but my youngest sister, Sari's wish for her 14th birthday (aside from getting big boobs) was to have another brother. So God decided to truly bless her by sending me to this world a day before her birthday.

10 years ago, a week before both our birthdays (29th for me and 43rd for her), we had a family reunion in the Philippines to celebrate our parents' 50th Golden Wedding Anniversary. During the reception, all of their children and grandchildren rendered a song or dance number for the couple. Since the theme for telling their love story was "dance of the past five decades", Sari and I decided to represent the 70's (the decade of my childhood) with a disco swing dance number to the music of Donna Summer's "Last Dance", as our present to our parents.
If you wish to see what possibly could have been the inspiration for "Dancing with the Stars",
please click on the video below:
(Note to the judges/critics: This was choreographed and rehearsed in only one hour the day prior to the festivities and I had to be very careful since she wasn't wearing any panties...LOL)


By coincidence, exactly 10 years later, the only big show in town was An Evening with Donna Summer at the Hollywood Bowl. So my sister and I decided to celebrate our birthdays (39th for me and 53rd for her) by watching the disco queen perform live. Our poor respective partners, Bill and Richard, both disco haters, had to sit through the whole ordeal...LOL. Donna's finale song was naturally, "Last Dance". We had a blast!

When I said I wanted a bike for my birthday...

... this is not what I meant...LOL

@ the launch of
Indian Motorcycle Apparel Collection at Fred Segal:

Evite

Sean on a 2009 Indian Chief motorcycle

Sean modeling an Indian motorcycle jacket & helmet

Bill’s Surprise Big "New" 40th Birthday Party

Please click HERE for posting on
Bill’s Surprise Big "New" 40th Birthday Party.

Lucky 13

More often than not, instead of saying or exchanging, "I love you!"'s,
we usually jokingly say to each other, "You're so lucky!".
After thirteen years of togetherness,
the number 13 does feel like a lucky number.

My Grandaunt Iris' 95th Birthday

I was very young when I lost my maternal grandparents. In fact, two of my earliest memories were of their respective funerals.
Five years ago, I had the opportunity to meet the only surviving sibling/sister of my maternal grandfather, my grandaunt Iris Zabat-Simon.
So when her 95th birthday came, I was excited to drive down (along with my sister, niece, and aunt) to San Diego, CA to have a reunion with my mother's side of the family, the Zabats, and celebrate my Lola's birthday.

For more pics of the celebration, please feel free to click HERE.

Happy 4th of July 2008!

Friends usually ask if we are having a BBQ party for this specific holiday, since we have a strategic view of the fireworks at the marina. I felt exhausted from the trip to NYC, so we decided to just chill. We hung out with our friends, Pat & Michele, at their place in the Venice Canals, and then headed back home to watch the fireworks.

or please click HERE for a bigger slideshow.
If you prefer to view the thumbnails, please click on the link below:
4th of July 2008

Happy 80th Birthday Mom!

Happy 110th Independence Day, Philippines!

For the 110th Philippine Independence Day, a friend asked a bunch of his friends to submit a video greeting to promote one of
Ayala Foundation, USA's flagship projects, GILAS.
Gilas means ability in Filipino. GILAS also stands for
Gearing up Internet Literacy and Access for Students.


Happy 110th Independence Day, Philippines!

Happy 10th Birthday Birdie!

Please click on the title or HERE to be directed to the posting.

Happy Easter 2008!

at an Easter celebration at our friends' house
by the Venice Canals, CA

29 more years to go until full retirement

Turning 38 feels so insignificant,

until I realize that I have

29 more years to go until full retirement.

Yehey!...LOL

I only started feeling happy a few days later

when I had a reunion with some of my buds from high school,

who now live in Seattle,

and their families were sweet enough to give me a party.

Please click HERE to see pics.

"Love is like a box of eggs"

If "Life is like a box of chocolates." ...

then, for me, "Love is like a box of eggs."

"... you've got to take extra care not to break it."

Here's to a dozen eggs

to represent each year of our 12 years together.

Our friends, Patrick & Michele Calderigi

were wonderful enough to grace us with their company

in our romantic celebration.

I'm gonna live forever!

As a young child, I always had the fear of the concept of death. Not of my own but of my parents, since I came to them at a rather late age in their lives. Well today, I realize that I should have not worried. We celebrated my Dad's 85th Birthday. (That's right...my father had his youngest when he was 64...LOL.) Well, technically and legally it is his 84th, since his birth records were lost during the WWII, thus his recorded birthday is off by a day and a year.
For his celebration, my family and I took him out for dinner and dancing at The Alpine Village. In spite of the fact that my dad still continues to smoke his Camel cigarettes and drink his Johnnie Walker Black Scotch whisky, he is still very spry and has outlived a lot of his peers. He is a medical anomaly. If ever you saw him "bust a move" on the dance floor, you wouldn't think he was an octogenarian. Both my paternal grandparents lived beyond 100. If ever I inherited my father's longevity genes, then I have to prepare to live a very long life and save up for my retirement and golden years. I feel very blessed to still have him in my life.
Happy Birthday Dad!

Age is just another number

I do not know what happened, but when I turned 29, something suddenly changed...I stopped being carded to check if I was 21 or older, when I would enter a bar/club and/or order a cocktail. Once my age number surpassed my waistline number, which I proudly maintained since college, I got the feeling that it was the sign that it was all going downhill from there.
Then when I turned 35, commercialism made me keenly aware that I was no longer part of the marketable young demographic.
Nowadays, I have to stop and think to remember how old I actually am. It now seems just like any other number...
I guess until I reach the Big 4-0.
Now at my age, especially since I came to my parents' lives, with my mother having just turned 41, I feel simply blessed to still have them with me. Fortunately, they are still relatively quite healthy in their late 70s-mid 80s. However, that does not stop me from worrying about my elderly parents since the vast Pacific separates us. It's a good thing that my father has this lifetime benefit, for both my mom and himself, of flying first class free during their lifetime, after my dad retired from the airline. Thus they are able to visit their kids abroad at their pleasure. I have not seen my Dad in a year and my Mom in two, so my birthday was extra special, since they decided to fly over here to be with my sister, Bill, and me, for our successive birthdays in August.
That's the best gift I could have asked for!