The Life of Me: Collector's Edition

California State Tour Part One of Six!

Holy shizzle, this past week has been hella crazy.

I guess I should start with my sister's graduation party on Sunday, 22 May. That was pretty awesome. I got to see people from my mom and dad's side of the family that I have not seen in years. Back in, like, the '80's, all my female relatives started popping out babies like there was no tomorrow. What can I say? Filipinos tend toward Catholicism. Anyway, these kids are teens now and they're a lot more interesting to interact with rather than when they were drooling babies. So I reconnected with a lot of these kids and had a great time. Aside from all the family, Sister #2 (she was the second of the three of us to be spawned) invited all of her friends from elementary, middle, and high school in addition to her undergraduate and grad friends. Her female friends are, of course, hot. Unfortunately, they were all spoken for. Plus, the ones that knew me from waay back in the day remember me as her fat little brother with the cheeks...and nothing more. Where is the justice? There were also kind speeches made by me, my dad, and Sister #2. Very sentimental. There was even some salsa dancing!!!! My best dance was with my bratty and evil 12-year old first cousin (once removed) Jenny. She actually responded well to my unique salsa style, which can be best described as...flashy.

As far as the food goes, yes there was mounds of it. We had the buffet thing going on with 10 buffet selections, salad, bread, and the graduation cake. Mad scavenging always occurs after a Filipino party ends, so we ended up with nothing left, which is truly an excellent thing. Who wants five pounds of fried rice? Certainly not the disciples of Dr. Atkins.

As far as the drunkeness and violence goes, there was none. My dad ensured that only cider would be served at the party b/c he didn't want to be held accountable for the aforementioned. Good move dad. Speaking of father, he actually did a decent job of planning this thing out! It wasn't perfect and I would have done some things different, but what really is perfect when it comes to these things, anyway? There was some ill will, though. According to my dad, I was to be the M.C. for this shindig. ME!! And who else steals the mic but manong (an illocano term of respect afforded to older male relatives below the rank of "uncle") Junior??? That guy is always trying to steal the damn show. This was a MORALES event and it was MY SISTER's party!. Not a Miem event. He's not really the one to blame, though. He only did that at the behest of my own mom. Urgh....I'll pay her back for this.

Initially, my sister said "no gifts...no gifts!" But my the Morales and Quides families are a violently stubborn lot and brought some tidings along anyway. Sis raked in the cash. Which is good b/c grad school left her broke. She is the archetypical starving student. I laugh at her station in life. But (sigh) she'll be one of these super rich professors with tenure at a University of California one day and then she'll be laughing at me!

There was even some electric slide. Holy cats. I wanted to throttle something.

posted by anthony fuego @ 9:12 AM