My Birthday

I didn’t have anything planned and I approached this day the same way I do regular days. Maybe it was because I never realized it was going to be my birthday until the weekend when Jaye greeted me. Maybe it was because I had another day in mind – December 27, Jaye’s birthday. Maybe I’m getting too old.

I wasn’t expecting much on this day other than the clinic telling me to go have my annual checkup (they send those memos on your birthday). If life gave me lemons the past few weeks, this day it threw me curveball after curveball after curveball (in a nice way). Here are the highlights for the day:

My “Noah’s Ark” meal. Gea, Lui, Lei, TA, Nats and I ate out at Delmonico’s for lunch which is a few blocks away from the office. It’s set up like a buffet but you have to pay based on the weight of your food. I walked around and wanted to try everything getting two of each (ergo, Noah's Ark). My favorites were the crispy shrimp and the catfish.

Uncanny. When they greeted me and asked me how old I was, I told them to guess. No one got it wrong. Wow. Imagine if I didn’t shave my 3 week old moustache that I started to grow when the Red Sox were down 1-3 in the semifinals (I stopped shaving and they never lost again. They won the World Series. Welcome to the world of Boston Red Sox fans and weird superstitions.)

Celebrating with the project. My project mates visited me in my cube with a cake and a balloon. They tied the balloon around my wrist and they cut up the Mint Chocolate Ice cream roll cake from Baskin Robbins. The ice cream was rock hard and we ended up “sculpting” the cake. Delicious!


“Hoppy Binthdy Arnold!”

“Something’s Waiting For U”. I received an email with this subject from Lei (Hufana), Ate Jen and Rache. The body of the email just tells me to check it out in the 5th floor pantry fridge. There it was, a Baskin Robbins Chocolate Chip ice cream cake. I was full but Arn passing up a chocolate chip ice cream cake is like Arn passing up a free burger (don't you hate it when you use the same thing in an analogy and it still makes sense?). The three of them with John, Arvin and RJ dropped by and ate the cake from my cube. 2nd cake of the day. Diet Schmiet.


“Huppy Birthdyy Arnold!’” (that guy over at Baskin Robbins must be drunk...)


Party at my cube!

Fogo De ArnArn. I can’t think of a place where I can have my birthday dinner out with friends (without me having to wash dishes for a week) so I decided to just fry up whatever was in my fridge. I had enough to marinate 1.5 pounds of beef and invited whoever was available over. I cooked the one thing I can make consistently delicious – my (now famous) beef tapa.

They said my tapa was very good. I’ll pat myself on the back for that one. After all the failed tapa marinade blends I made, finally I nailed one on my birthday. If you've been reading my "Cooking with Arnold" series in this blog, I'll pat myself on the back for you.

Classic Arn. What’s dinner without a kitchen blooper by Arn. I decided to fry the first batch in a little butter to give it a little flavor. I heated the pan and tossed in the butter. I didn’t have my spoon thingie yet so I just picked up the pan, shook it and the butter was gone. Where’d it go?


It went UNDER the sink?!?.

The Brown Basket-like thing. Rico brought it out of the shopping bag encased in clear plastic. What the…? Is that a…? Why that’s a…


One WHOLE Portillo’s chocolate cake?!?

I’d crawl all the way to Portillo’s for a slice of their chocolate cake. For one whole, I’d do it in just my hearts boxers in the freezing gusts of Chicago.

“Galing ke Jaye.” he said and I just smiled. Wow! My favorite cake from my favorite girl.

Most loved thing. My gossip magazines (I bought them for my mom ok?) and Wii Tennis. Lianne was convinced to get one for herself. Lui, Gea and Leah were glued to the magazines.

Most hated thing. I brought out my digital weighing scale. Almost everyone weighed in and it received loud gasps and screams. Anonymous person 1 gained 5 pounds. Anonymous person 2 pushed me before I could see his/her weight while screaming. Anonymous person 3 declared my scale defective. Funniest moment of the night.


Class picture before eating the cake


With Li and Gea (while waiting for the others)


With ‘Ta Lei


Gea, Me and Lui

Gifts. I’m too old for material gifts. I didn’t get showered with boxes and shiny things but there are so many things I extremely appreciated on this day:

- Everyone had calls and yet they still came over for dinner.
- Gea had a major production issue but took her meetings in the hallway.
- Rico carrying the heavy cake in the cold.
- Louvre taking his call from his room (instead of in the living room where he usually takes it) and he cooked the garlic rice.
- Lianne cooking better eggs – the one thing I couldn’t master.
- Jude covering for me during the meeting that night (I requested permission to skip it for this night).
- Jaye, the cake, the greetings, the messages, the love and the warmth. She reminded me the meaning of this day and what it meant to us.
- Everyone for coming and taking time to greet me.

I’ll take all those over any wrapped box anytime, anyday. ‘twas indeed a very happy birthday. Thanks guys! =)

They say the older you get the less festive and less special this day becomes.

Less festive? Maybe.

Less special? Not one bit.