The Road to 40 Day 253/365: A Surprise 40th

We are in the Philippines to celebrate a good friend’s birthday, and it’s going to be the highlight of the trip.

We cherish milestones for people close to our hearts, and even if the trip doesn’t seem to make sense given that we were just in the PH last month, we thought this was worth it.

We met Kali and Neo in the morning for an early catch-up. This was a surprise party for Christian, so we’re trying to keep him out of the loop about where we were.

At least Vino got to spend time with Neo early in the day. They are about a year apart, but their interests and humor are practically the same, so they enjoy each other’s company most of the time.

The adults had lunch, and then we apparently had to get a new cake. The plan was to pick up the cake that we asked Ten to make and serve it at the party later. It was kept in Kali’s office since Tuesday.

Unfortunately, someone joked that Kali gave the go signal to eat the cake, and someone actually called the bluff.

We were scrambling to buy a new cake for the party. We settled on Big Al’s, which was one of our favorites.

Che went with Lia while I was with Kali and the kids. We played “guess the song” while we were on the way to the party. It was a quick, fun time with the kids, because Vino was enjoying looking for songs while Neo wanted to challenge himself by guessing.

For the party, our goal was to come in late and make Christian feel that we really weren’t coming. However, there were a lot of people who were running late, so Darwin and the guys tried to stall for as much time as they could.

In our effort to hide, we went to the neighboring restaurant to pass the time. Boy Nita was a growing brand of charcoal-grilled food before I left for Singapore 11 years ago. I got a few sticks of barbecue, hotdog for Vino, and soup.

Che arrived to wait with us. On the other side, Christian arrived and was genuinely surprised that people were there.

It was a good mix of people close to him. These same people are the ones we see when he has a big celebration, so they are practically our friends too.

The kids played while the adults drank. I was able to go around the room to catch up with some people.

The theme was black or white, and apparently, I was the only one in our group who wore white. I think years ago, I would have felt awkward in this situation. However, I’ve since grown with a quiet confidence and it helps that I basically knew everyone.

We talked, laughed, and even sang. There was a guy playing acoustic guitar for the crowd’s entertainment, and initially, no one wa paying attention to him. As the night went on, though, some of us were hyping his songs.

Even later, we were taking the mic ourselves.

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This was a typical party we would have. Good food, music we all grew up to, and friends we can just hug for no reason but appreciating their existence.

The party was still going on but we had to take the kids home. Lia and Carla took them and passed by a drive-thru McDonald’s before going home. I drove Kali’s car heading to Casa Cabusora with Che.