Twilight

Friday, Nov. 21, '08

I woke up early but Gian was already awake and he ended up taking Emy and Nido to the airport on their way to Texas to attend a friend's daughter's 18th b'day party.

Cong Paing and Cong Mansing came a couple of hours later after Cong Mansing dropped his grandson Calvin off to school. We went and walked around nearby La Mirada Park.


Dan dropped by from work and we took him to watch Twilight, a movie which I thought will be a good vampire movie but turned out to be a love story. Its special effects were still pretty good I thought.

After the movie we went and had dinner at Samurai with Eph who met us at the restaurant straight from work. A nice dessert of ice cream at Haagen Dazs and Melt (Gelato) at the Cerritos Mall across the street afterwards. Eph then went and picked up Rachel from the airport who came from New York on a work related trip.


I've been chatting with Sherwin from time to time and he mentioned he's extended his stay a few days more. I've also been in communication with niece Len and I've given her instructions on how to switch gas valves for our natural gas tanks in the utility room to make sure Rach's Mom will have hot water when she stays in the house on her vacation in the Philippines in December.

Saturday, Nov. 22, '08
We woke up at 4 a.m. to take Adrienne to the airport to join her folks in Texas and they're all coming back in the same flight tomorrow night.


Next will be the JASHS Class '70 USA meeting at Imelda and Dan's house in Cerritos.

Las Vegas, Nov ’08.

We quietly celebrated Emy’s birthday Monday night with Donna’s special spaghetti, fried chicken, garlic bread and a sinful dessert from Red Ribbon. It’s like a cheese cake with mango and peach on top along with a few chocolate sticks, very nice indeed. Come to think of it, I think she had the same thing last year. Sadly we didn’t make it to Maricar’s birthday.

Nido presented all of our accumulated mail when we arrived last week. There are a number of letters from casinos (from Lake Tahoe/Reno, to Las Vegas, including Pechanga) offering us a free stay in their resorts. Donna called and made a reservation to Harrah’s in Las Vegas. We were going to take Sherwin with us to show him around but he had some business transactions to attend to.

Donna and I dragged Daniel to the Enterprise Rent-a-car in Buena Park to get rates on a car for our Las Vegas trip. We were going to have Gerald hook us up with one but to our dismay we found out from Romar that he no longer works for Enterprise. Anyway, we got to Buena Park and they quoted us $39.99 a day plus insurance. They talked Donna into getting a medium sized car, discouraging her and saying they don’t recommend a small car for ‘such a long trip’. I told her to go ahead and keep the reservation, just in case. When we got home, I called the Enterprise in Norwalk and they said they’ll give me a small one for $28.99 plus insurance, no questions asked – sweet! I figured it’s a no-brainer, so Enterprise Norwalk it is! They usually rent new cars so I thought even a compact will take us to Las Vegas with no problem.

Tuesday, Nov 18, ‘08
Giancarlo drove us this morning towards Norwalk. We were surprised to find Enterprise was no longer located where it used to be, next to Norwalk Toyota. When I called, I was informed they’ve since moved across the street from the dealership.

The lady in the front desk wouldn’t accept Donna’s expired credit card so we had Daniel come over so we can use his card. Eph couldn’t find his Mom’s new card with the 2010 expiration date. After we got the car, a white Chevy Cobalt, a piece of junk of you ask me, (no wonder the three major US automakers are going bankrupt) we had a quick brunch at the Norwalk IHOP with Dan and then we were off to Las Vegas. Donna gave Sherwin a last minute phone call in case he’s changed his mind, but he just couldn’t get away.

Donna got a call from Mon David while we were on the road. When she talked with him a couple of days ago, she told him I’ll call him back, which I never did. Sorry, Mon! Anyway, he has a show on Sunday, Nov 30th at the Jazz Bakery in Culver City and was inviting us to watch him. He’s also appearing with various other artists to celebrate the annual Phil-American Jazz Festival at the Catalina Jazz Club on Sunset Blvd on Dec 27.

There was hardly any traffic on the freeways except for a bit of congestion on the 5 going to the 605. We had a restroom stop at the Barstow Station and we made it to Vegas in the usual 4 hours or so. Before going on the off ramp, Donna gave Onor a call to let her know we’re in town. Onor is Mary’s husband Robert’s sister-in-law. Her late husband Cesar is Rober’s brother. He passed away last year and we made it to his funeral service after our European trip.

We headed straight to Harrah’s and Donna checked us in. Before we left for the Philippines last year, we received correspondence from them saying Donna has been upgraded as a Diamond member. So of course, our stay this time is free along with a nice sweat shirt which Donna has already promised to Dan.

They gave us a room on the 27th floor with a nice view of Las Vegas.


We arrived around 5 pm but we wanted Onor to join us for dinner so we went to the Diamond Lounge to have some snacks. They serve an all you-can-eat array of chips, dips, soft pretzel, buffalo wings and all kinds of dessert. All it cost us was a tip to the lady who served us some diet Coke. They even have a couple of PCs in there already hooked up to the Internet which is a good thing because I couldn’t get any signal for my lap top up in our room.

Around 8 pm, Donna called Onor to check and see if she’s available for dinner. She was still tied up with whatever she was doing so we just went ahead and had dinner at Harrah’s buffet restaurant, Flavors. Harrah’s is not the best but it’s one of the better buffets in Las Vegas. Their dessert section is not for the faint of heart. I had me a brownie, a slice of chocolate cake and a scoop of chocolate ice cream which left me pretty chocolated up!! Hey, I just coined a word. Let it be known that I came up with the word CHOCOLATED!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a mint by the restaurant’s exit so for a couple of hours, I feel so full and bloated. I’m such a pig!!

Wednesday, Nov 19, ‘08
At around 10 am we went down to Flavors for brunch. I had a bunch of smoked salmon, some turkey bacon and turkey sausages. And guess what I had for dessert…. If you guessed chocolate cake, you’re right!!

We went to the Las Vegas outlet stores afterwards where Donna got a couple of things and I had the battery replaced for the Swiss Army watch I got from Goodrich at my 15 year anniversary in 1997.

Around 4:30 we went to the Diamond Lounge and had the usual snacks of buffalo wings. At 6:30 Onor called saying she’s on her way home from work. I told her we’ll be dropping by to check out their new Las Vegas home. It was touch and go for a while trying to find their house but after Donna got John C’s number from Dan, we finally found the house. Onor still had her phone on silent that’s why she wasn’t responding to our SOS for directions.

They have a 5 bedroom two story house off Blue Diamond Blvd. east of the 15 freeway. Of course a lot of talking went on for almost a couple of hours. Donna and I were still full from our snack earlier so we ended up just hanging out.


Thursday, Nov 20, ‘08
I woke up around 7 this morning with Donna whispering, “Let’s get up, I’m hungry!” So we quickly got dressed and went down to Flavors to have some of their breakfast buffet and I basically got more of the same from yesterday.

Donna checked us out and we were on the road a little after 9. We had a quick shopping stop at the outlet stores in Barstow on Lenwood, then straight to the Enterprise in Norwalk to return the Cobalt.

A few minutes before that though, we had to stop by Pico Rivera. When Donna worked as a nurse in Montebello and City of Commerce, her Hispanic co-workers introduced her to the dish called Nachos. It's basically a bunch of crispy corn chips topped with cheese, guacamole, chicken or pork and hot sauce. She's been craving for Nachos since we got here. So we thought of going back to look for Casa Garcia, a little hole in the wall really, where they used to get the stuff. I got off on Whittier Blvd from the 605. As we quietly drove along, I realized it's been years since I've been there and the place looked so unfamiliar. We had to make a couple of U-turns, a bit apprehensive and afraid the place might have closed since. But we did find it and she ordered some Nachos for her and a chimichanga plate for me. They made a mistake on the chimichanga and put beef in it instead of chicken so after I took a couple of bites I saved it for Dan. Donna and I just shared with the Nachos.


Dan met us at Enterprise and after we returned the car, dropped us off to La Mirada on his way to work in Fullerton.

Nido bought some pancit palabok from Red Ribbon as well as chicken empanada, ensaymada and lumpia Shanghai for Adrienne’s birthday dinner. She’s 17 today.

It's Warming Up..

When we first got here last week I was glad that we were able to get over our jet lag fairly easily. But now that we've been here for over a week, it seems as if we're being attacked by it. Donna woke up at 4 am today. Yesterday, I was sitting in front of the TV and I saw about four or five movies on the SciFi channel none of which I watched in completion. I was falling in and out of sleep. For those of you who've experienced jet lag, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say when you're sleepy, it's terribly difficult to resist!

I'm sure if you haven't been hiding in a cave somewhere in the woods, you would have heard of the raging Southern California brush fires devastating hillside neighborhoods of Santa Barbara, Sylmar, Anaheim Hills and from yesterday morning's news, Diamond Bar. There's been several structures with a great number of homes (800 at last count) burned to the ground. The smell of smoke is pervasive and the ash fall outside seems like snow on cars and on the ground. It's still cool at night but it's gotten warm during the days, warm enough for me to be able to go to church without a long sleeved shirt on. I woke up late yesterday so Donna, Adrienne and I went to the 11 o'clock mass in St. John, our old parish in Norwalk. It's nice to hear familiar songs sung by the children's choir. We had lunch afterwards at the Japanese restaurant across the street.

Emy and Nido went on a weekend getaway to Solvang. It's her birthday today. Donna is planning on cooking some pancit for her, a tradition on birthdays, for long life or so I was told.

Saturday night, Adrienne and her friends went to a homecoming dance.


Right after they left, the four of us (Donna, Nido, Emy and myselft) went to California Wok, a restaurant in Los Alamitos with a nice Karaoke lounge. The food (Filipino/Chineses) wasn't bad.


The three Karaoke hosts were pretty entertaining. I was able to sing one song before we had to go and pick up Adrienne.

Donna forgot her address book along with a few rosters inserted in it but gradually she's able to gather phone numbers and she's already talked with a lot of friends on the phone: QCMC friends Eddie Lising and Cecille Santos, Onor (Mary's sister-in-law from Las Vegas), JASHS friends Ed Sale and Pong Patawaran, among others.

Friday, we dropped by her former work at Davita Dialysis in Fullerton to say hi to her former co-workers.


I got a call this morning from my nephew Homer. He has a brand new daughter who came out of this world last October 24. He's one of my avid blog readers. CONGRATULATIONS Homer and Maricar! Almost forgot, it's also Maricar's birthday today, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Maricar!