THE RICE BASKET

The rice baskets were invisible on that particular day, sheathed in cheap Christmas wraps to be traded as gifts.

Large baskets for a tub of pinispisan na kambing and a drum of inihaw na bangus, medium sized for a pot of sinigang na hipon, and small ones for a case of  light beer and a flask of Irish whiskey, refreshments shared with friends as antidotes for a scuttled  meeting in Bangkok that exposed the fickleness of the RoP and rudderless boats lost in cash strapped currents that should be enough reason for tansformative partnerships to step in as the EU trends and cuts for Asia loom.  

Strava worked once but went kaput thrice despite a precautionary safeguarding broadcast of a late night JET narrative to a community of practice about a case and and a scoping, synonyms of weekly and fortnigtly meetings that were convened to ritualize a change prospectus, accept edits to an influencing strategy, and address the remaining vestiges of Kuningan.

There was an extension before the interview on how Malayantoc's crisp currency teleported a case of red wine to Lupao.

Christ's blood drawn thrice not from green bottles but tubed as glycated hemoglobin, fuel for an azure beam of light that burned glaucomic eyes with the aroma of toasted leftover lechon and kaldereta in Bakal 2, gaudy as the Munoz holiday lights but fatal like fried siomai, cheese sticks, flavored french fries, dull nachos, reheated barbecues, and pretentious shawarma.

Thousand bills were disbursed from city hall on Sunday but one is not enough for a rice basket of a month's medication that a lotto win can have by the truckload, ample like a butcher's mammary glands, flavorful like a chauffeur's nilagang baka, haunting like a headmaster's carnal soft lips...   

KUNINGAN, OUR 27th YEAR, AND CHRISTMAS IN LUMANG BAYAN

Kuningan is a soft rain accompaniment of the Merokok Man's ballad about how a Lucky Cat licked foams of Bintang and Prost from the food stalls at Plaza Festival where residents of the Menteng Pulo Public Cemery confer with financial managers while rifling through the 8th ASEAN Energy Outlook for 6 shots of  Teacher's Highland Cream and a power map as the ladies in Luang Prabang  disrupted an MCP review learning trajectory with a computer handover that is the public narrative of two Padang dinners, a dessert of sate kambing, and an Indonesian carnivore set. 

Sleep is a teen-faced Eurasian (most probably Spanish with Filipino ethnicity) whose ancient wrinkled hands slithered from JS Luwansa's Room 910 to race with a Bluebird to CGK, a red eye flight to Manila, and a morning bus trip to Tuguegarao.

27 is "100 years of Solitude", not in Macondo but in Bakal 2 where the Ciencias not the Buendias scrambled to rescue a failing structural engineer through Oplan GSIS by deploying a barrage of emails from the turrets of a team collaboration app that fired 100 sandwiches and juice packs to appease 100 recruited liberal conservatives, not from Macondo but those gathered in Hogwarts where happy hocruxes were relived 27 years after Fr. Apolo not Fr. Nicanor served potent undiluted mompo, to Baby Liza not Ursula, 27 years before the nights of patatim and inihaw na bangus in Bakal 2. 

There  might have been incidents with a horny capidua but not with Pilar and Amarantha, and there will be "tapon ebak" rides but not being restrained under a chestnut tree.

Lumang Bayan is almost Macondo and pogaca can pass as Pancit Cabagan, not the steamed rice for the adobo and pinakbet-flavored ice cream that were manually cranked in Bakal 2, hollowed concrete blocks of waknatoy for the Christmas lunch, snack, and dinner of aging once upon a time dreamers of Hogwarts whose ultimate thrill is concocting kalderetang kambing from a magically real potion of soju, pinot noir, and merlot.

It's almost like the chikin melting with the sun as gifts were traded for bluetoothed music that ignited the holiday lights in Munoz and stories of love found and lost...

 

A CHRISTMAS IN BALOC

Lugaw is perhaps the most popular Filipino comfort food, and Marilou's delectable goto and A&M's tangy arroz caldo from Baloc are it's ultimate representations.

Lechon too, of the suidae and bovidae families, for St. Ambrose's Christmas feast that was celebrated in Baloc through a pinky swear with the gentlemen of Pantabangan.   

Like the signed-off way to power and invoice for  November.

Or acing the Jakarta bookings and COP 29 reporting back. 

But the Aussies want an audit and D is likely to extend me. 

That's why S appears confused as the quill was being filled with ink. 

And the due dates, these were mostly met and tucked into a purple hot pants as whiffs of sardinas na bangus, lumpiang shanghai, and leftover kaldereta and dinakdakan.

They were non-lugaws, like Emong's pandesal or Lucky's egg caldo or an overload at 24/7 before a partnership conversation and a Saturday morning meeting with the guardians of the rainforest.

Or a coffee bar where the parseltongues are barred from mixing beer with wine and whiskey because only those who are loyal are allowed to share their stories around the Chirstmas buffet table in Baloc on the eve of PR 535's flight to Jakarta...    

THE NARRA TREE

We were Batch 89-B, saplings like the narra tree.

The narra tree that accepted us after the final initiation.

An initiation that relegated the 7th edition of the AWG to a welcome slap to the face and a paddle upon the posterior thigh where purple theories of change popped out.

Changes that drew carnage from my palms and cultivated bruises in my back as the ASEAN was spoken to about JET and civic space.  

Spaces, like a 2-minute station for catching up on SP that was rewarded with a royalty of $1,650 as full payment (October) for elevating the I-JET project. 

Projects that are the equivalent of a mental torture prompting refreshers on the code of conduct for an Indian Run and a GDPR package.  

A package that smelled of Samar burning from 5 biking raids to the dilapidated park and a barrage of pledges for a catered lunch codenamed Oplan SSS for me and her. 

Her unemployed, my stale peanuts, reheated paksiw na bangus, tinned corned beef, a birthday party for the dead, and deep fried lapu-lapu  within the vicinity of Bakal 2. 

It's been 46 years and the Narra tree has matured.

Matured and dead but not the old friends I met again after 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or even 30 years.

Years of absence that were crooned by a fat pussy singing into half-empty brandy bottles amidst the crunch of danggit from Lubang Island, the sweetness of patupat from Pozzorubio, and the acidity of kinilaw na bangus from Manaoag...