first meeting with old friends

i got to meet pebbles and mike, tin ni roland and mai last night. we had so much fun!

a few days ago, i saw a series of tags in mike and pebbles' wedding blog - pebbles was inviting everyone to an EB while she's here in manila and it seemed like everyone was interested in going. "everyone" included me. excited to meet my blogmates, i checked pebbles' website every day. i was almost giddy when she posted that she was already in manila. i felt so happy when pebbles posted that she was available to meet everyone on tuesday, wednesday or thursday.

on tuesday, i tried to access pebbles' website from the office. i couldn't enter the site as our office server blocked our access - the site allegedly had something to do with the occult. (since when did a wedding become an occult practice? mai thinks that it is. according to her joel, their wedding has turned mai into a detail monster. on the other hand, mike's theory is that their website was blocked because his picture was in it.)

i didn't get to surf tuesday night as i'm having major problems with my unit at home. i was so happy when my unit worked yesterday morning! i saw pebbles' e-mail asking us to send her our numbers. after a few text messages, pebbles, tin, mai and i agreed to meet at 8 in uva! i was also able to contact clarice and laine. unfortunately, clarice was working on her thesis and laine had to work overtime.

while i was in the office, i was informed that we were having a department meeting at 6:30. like a good associate, i attended the meeting, which extended til 9! it was a good thing that the meeting was at gloriamaris, which was a few meters away from uva.

when i got to uva, i immediately recognized tin (she was waving at me.) i got introduced to mike, pebbles, mai, and mai's friend, berty (or was that rebecca? our wedding has made me deaf!). we spent the night drinking wine (which was pretty good) and exchanging stories. it didn't feel like we were meeting for the first time - there were no akward silences, we weren't exactly shy with each other and there was just so much stuff to talk about! we wanted to linger some more but mike and pebbles had so much to do the next day, mai and i still had to go back to work, and tin had to find her car.

i am so looking forward to the next meeting! (notice how i avoid calling it an EB?)

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for mai and i, the meeting had another purpose - mai was supposed to give me her share in our group purchase of gift certificates for diamond peels. (a diamond peel is at least P1T but if we purchase 26T worth of certificates, each treatment would cost only P500.) but after the stories and all the fun, she forgot to give me her share. but since i was so excited to have my cheapo power peel (and the office sent us home early because of typhoon yoyong,) i decided to bring our share to nice's office (mai will just give me her share tomorrow.)

traffic was terrible but it was fun meeting nice. she looked so much like her picture in her website and i enjoyed chatting with her about our florist, boy mahusay. i would have loved to stay and chat some more but rey has been bugging me to go home early.

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on my way home, i asked rey if he remembers mai (during the dinner last night, mai mentioned that she thinks she knows rey.) then he told me that i should remember mai because we were all working out at titan gym when i was reviewing for the bar in 1999. and then i remembered snippets of my conversation with mai 5 years ago where she was telling me that she knew rey because rey found her wallet.

so, i sent a message to mai asking her if she worked out at the titan gym 5 years ago. she replied that she did. she also remembers losing her wallet and rey returning it to her.

ang galing!