The Road to 40 Day 67/365: Field trips!

Vino and I spent the whole day out thanks to traffic mostly, but also to visit a couple of places up north.

Little dude did well in waking up early. I got up around 8am and left him a note on his iPad to say that he can get up at 9 or 10am. However, he was already walking down by 8:30am. The most familiar food for him for breakfast was the chicken, so that’s what he had first.

I finished the blog first and planned to leave at around 11am, thinking one hour was enough time to drive from Cainta to Caloocan City Hall. I was wildly mistaken.

Common chokepoints were still bad at this time, but once I reached EDSA, everything was fine. Still, it took about an hour and a half to get there. Vino tried, but ultimately couldn’t fall asleep at the back of the car. He kept tapping to the beat of his own playlist that I was playing.

I reached City Hall at around 12:30pm, but had a bit of trouble finding a parking spot. I’ve always wanted to visit Christian’s office to reunite with Team Vietnam earlier this year (sans Nicky) and it was a great chance as I had kandingga to share with my province-mate, Itoy.

We were able to see Christian in action and see their city hall that he has always been proud of. This wasn’t the old city hall that I passed by before when I was still working around the area. His office looked organized, and he got things done even with visitors around.

The guy always surprised us. We didn’t get to graduate together, but he took up law in UST. He never got a failing mark and passed the bar in his first try. He went on to different offices, and though it feels like he’s talking nonsense because of the way he speaks so casually, it actually makes sense if you listen to it.

So seeing him work is another bit of surprise. He looked like he deserved to sit at the table he was on.

Sometimes I like to do these kinds of trips with the boys so that they understand that we can have fun with or without alcohol.

Later, we set off to visit my old office – my uncle’s company.

I worked in the company for about five years, but because it was a relatively small company, I felt close with everyone I worked with. Even 10 years removed from my last day in that office, I still want to drop by from time to time to say hi to the guys.

My uncle was graciously Vino in the office, in the warehouse, and their house. Vino had three mini-siopaos as his snack while my uncle and I talked.

My uncle is mostly stoic, but we shared some similar interests so we do have a bit of rapport. At the start of my stint, it was still kinda fun because he was my uncle when we don’t have clients but my boss when we’re at the office.

At some point though, the line went blurry. It felt like he asserted his position as my boss and it spilled over in family gatherings. I hated that I was a bit intimidated by him in casual gatherings because he remained his stoic self when we talked. The ride-alongs also got a lot more quiet compared to the earlier days.

When I decided to propose to Che, we both knew that it was only a matter of time before I decided to leave the company as well. It was a tough conversation and decision for me because of how I cared for the company, but it was ultimately something I needed to do, which he understood.

After I left, I moved to Singapore shortly after. We’d see each other less, but in those short moments, he was my uncle again. I was happy that we could laugh together again about serious and dumb things.

On this day, I may have taken too much of his time sharing stories and hearing his, but we don’t get a lot of chances like this so I was making the most out of it.

We had early dinner but Vino was still kinda full. We went to Causeway for some dimsum. My uncle was the one who introduced the beancurd roll to me, and it has been my staple dimsum order ever since. Like he said, it’s done differently everywhere, but I guess my benchmark is my first.

After more stories outside their house, we finally left to go home. Again, sharing stories was the main goal, and I forgot to snap a photo of us for the blog.

On our way back, Vino and I were singing to his Spotify playlist inside the car.

It wasn’t a surprise that he felt hungry, so we were in another battle of “what do you want to eat?”

He had rice in the morning and afternoon, had some dimsum and noodles with my uncle, so bread base was the next on his list. We stopped over at Army Navy near my parents’ place.

While waiting for his order, I asked him about Sam and Cat (the show he’s watching). Sam, played by Jennette McCurdy, and Cat, played by Arianna Grande, exemplified different standards of beauty. So I asked which one he preferred. He said he finds Cat more attratctive because she’s a girly-girl and she’s silly. For me, I said Sam is more to my standard of beauty. 

Between looks and silliness, he said he preferred the latter. Naturally, I had to ask what made his crush from Vietnam silly, because I know for a fact that that girl was very pretty and looked prim and proper. He couldn’t answer me. I then asked if there were silly girls in his class, and he mentioned two names. I asked why he doesn’t like them as he liked the Japanese girl from Vietnam, and he couldn’t answer. 

I was messing with him saying I think he just likes the Japanese girl because she was very pretty, and his current classmates were just not as pretty. He denied it, of course, but I just told him it’s fine to like someone because they are pretty. It was amusing to watch him try to prove that he’s not just in it for the looks though. 

Vino doesn’t usually finish his food, so I was ready to eat leftovers if needed. He ordered the California Burger, and we were both a bit surprised at how big it was. However, he was eating away and actually finished his meal.

As we resumed our trip home, he reminded me that I promised to play Grow A Garden on Roblox with him and his Ate Tia but never got around to it. So I said we’ll do it when we get back and after he takes a bath.

As he was about to take a bath, he took a dump that took about an hour. I finished this blog 85% of the way through before he got done. Of course, I still had to make good with my promise, so we played Grow A Garden until half past 12am.

In the process of waiting for his plants to grow, he pulled out the joke book I got him and tried pulling off some of them.

He was still trying to make jokes while we were on the bed, so he fell asleep almost 1am already. I’ll need to stay on the bed at least until 9am tomorrow so that he gets enough sleep, as he’ll have another late night next day.

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