The three of us arrived five minutes late to a five-year old birthday party held at a chicken coop near the SJC airport because I took the route where Mexicans usually converge to shop at our local flea market on the weekends. Maw got pissed because I didn’t take the nicer route.
There were lots of overweight White and Filipino people eating already by the time we got there at 12:40pm. We had fun talking with the local parishioners at the “reserved” table, near the table with three cakes. The “mother” of the boy wore tight clothing of baby blue that her flab was hanging out and an array of plastic bejeweled pieces – crown, earrings, necklace, bracelet and rings. She’s overweight too.
Manong Ben joked about how a Mexciano stole a whole tray of burritos for $0.65 each, how another guy was stealing from one of his neighbor, who is an FBI agent, and how a police asked for his identification while he dressed like a dirty gardener working on his son’s front yard up in Manteca, CA.
Manong Carlos was one fed up old man about the Vietnamese at our local church and Gloria can’t seem to stop him from being VERY humorous at the table tonight. “I don’t care what people have to say or what they about me. They should be worried what I say about them.” He said so boldly to the other three Filipino couples and me.
Manong Erik is very humorous. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus, an offshoot of Masons (much like Jehovahs are offshoots of Christians). But Paw wouldn’t want to participate in their affairs and declined being an usher, too. This was the second time he was offered a chance to “serve the Lord”. Yeah, right.
He seemed so excited to speak with us and practically took over the conversation at the table. He knows about the Filipino culture and talked about the tendancy for people of the Malay language to repeat the words or phrases twice in a row as an emphasis, such as “araw-araw” for “daily”.
I mentioned to him we have relatives in Batangas, Antipolo, Rizal, Lumbang and Bicol, which I pronouced with my thick Western accent as BYE-KOHL. It really should be pronounced BEE-COAL. “You’re okay!” he told me as he stepped back to laugh out loud.
Manang “Minh” handed me a yellow container of chocolate with a red ballon tied to it. And like a kid, I took it! Later on that night, I should have given it to the little White boy who had asked for it. Boy! Talk about greedy! But I took a picture of it and it’s now sitting atop my computer workstation upstairs at home!
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