I feel like I’m making up for lost time whenever I go out with my high school friends during these past few months. One of my regrets from college was always being “busy with orgstuff” that I wasn’t able to properly hang out with Gail, Lles, and Ruby. I never got to sleep over much, never got to bake with them — I never enjoyed weekends or weekdays with them, and I should have made more time for them. I’m grateful for them for a lot of things because they’ve been with me for so long, taught me so much, and never gave up on me even when I’ve been neglectful, needy, clingy, and spoiled.

Last Wednesday was Gail’s birthday, so Lles and I accompanied her to go shopping for ingredients and cooking and baking at her house in preparation for her birthday dinner. I met up with her in Katipunan then we went to Farmer’s Market to buy raw salmon and tuna. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to go there dressed up as we were, but it was only for the fish anyway.

We met up with Lles afterwards at Rustan’s, to buy some other food and fruit from the grocery. I kept on taking pictures and documenting the whole day and at one point, I asked Lles to take a picture of  me, for my typical What-I-Wore-Today photo. But while I was asking her to take a picture, we didn’t notice that the three of us and our cart was blocking the isle and there was this guy who needed to get something from one of the shelves. So I told Lles to move, since there was a guy behind, but embarrassingly, he said we should finish taking the picture first. D: GAH IT FELT SO EMBARRASSING FOR A STRANGER TO WITNESS ONE OF MY MY PARTICULARLY SILLY-VAIN MOMENTS. And he even made a joke about it after, when we were done. And I couldn’t keep a straight face anymore afterward either.

It was funny, but made me equally self-conscious and felt exceedingly mortifying.

We made two other trips to a baking store and a Japanese grocery shop in Quezon Ave. before going to Gail’s house. His boyfriend’s mom came over to teach her how to cook some of the food from the menu (buffalo wings, seafood pasta, kani salad, sushi) and also brought with her Gail’s cake!

After hours of standing and cooking and preparing and baking, we could finally eat! We finished around 6 or 7pm, and some of Gail’s guests have arrived already. They even got to help make sushi!

It was a small evening party and I think everyone had fun. I feel happy for Gail. I’m glad she had an enjoyable birthday, and things went well for her. I have this irrational dislike/fear of my own birthday, so really, I’m just so relieved things turned out great for my friend. I hope it will be an exciting and blessed year for her! <3