Surprises and Unicorn Birthday Cupcakes

I’ve been friends with Sari for as long as I can remember.

Okay that was a lie. I’ve been friends with Sari for approximately seven years, but it would’ve been nice if I had known her for as long as I could remember. Being as competitive as I am, I always feel slightly frustrated when I hear people say that they’ve been best friends with someone since the first and second grade, and I scoff it off as a friendship lesser than the one I share with Sari.

Of course, I’m joking (partly), seven years is a long time in Lisane-friendship years. I’ve had several best friends prior to her: I think I had 40 best friends in the first grade which is basically my entire class (I had just come back from Australia, and was eager to make new friends in my new school), one in the third grade, who I proceeded to be friends with until the 6th, but she eventually left the picture, and the country simultaneously, and two from the third until the fifth grade, a bitter-sweet friendship composed of three-way telephone calls, night time cartoons, and multiple-sleepovers. I think we stopped being best friends after they came over my house for my birthday party in the fifth grade. I don’t remember the particular reason, but I do know it had to do with getting chocolate cake on their pants, or something else, forcing the three of them in the bathroom. The point is, I was not in the bathroom with them, hence the betrayal, hurt, etcetera, etcetera.

Anyway, the brief history of my past BEST friendships, only leads to the fact that keeping a best friend wasn’t part of my expertise, well at least until I met Sari. (So terribly cheesy, but I had to! I HAD TO!)

We talk about how we met from time to time. I sat adjacent to her on the first day of school in the seventh grade, and it escapes me how teachers never run out of things to say on the first day of school, about schedules and rules, and how I never tried to rip my hair off of my skull from just sitting there, since they never really let you do anything but sit straight and listen. Except Sari wasn’t sitting straight and listening, she was crouched over her Brights college ruled notebook, coloring in a drawing. Mental truancy on the first day of school, I should’ve known she was bad news from day one.

She would sometime later ask me:

“Do you have a green crayon?”

And I will reply:

“No” and she’ll give me a disappointed look, and go back with her face buried in her notebook.

We wouldn’t be friends for at least another six months, but I would, from time to time, sit with her in the covered courts after school, waiting for our rides home, and I would sing her my “Sari-Sari-store” song[1], but that was it. That was the extent of our friendship. I had lunch with my own homies, and she had her own foreign-looking best friend.

We began being friends after an incident in school, when a very gossip girl-esque email circulated in our class, and in it, Sari was supposedly this overly vain girl who was in limerence with one of the other girls in class. I wasn’t in it, but I was appalled and vaguely intrigued by it, and for some reason, something possessed me to call her up to ask her if she was okay, if she had read it or if she was affected at all.

I’m still quite confused whether or not my phone call had helped pave the way for our friendship of seven years (and counting), but I do know that it made her think I was the suspect for sending that email[2] and at least established a part of myself beyond concrete courts and annoying songs.

After my innocence had been given back to me, and a Saturday spent at school for high school entrance exams, we would be officially lunch-eating-secret-sharing friends. Our friendship has a solid foundation of old obscure animated films like “The Pebble and the Penguin” [3] and “Thumbelina”, notebook shopping, and exchanging letters despite being only 10 feet from each other everyday, Later on, there would be this whole dramatic spectacle over someone sabotaging our friendship, and us having this strange fight right before summer break, but then we would find ourselves in the same classroom the next school year, and we’ve never been apart since.

Sari and I in 2nd year, trying out dresses for a battle of the bands *facepalm*

Sari and I have gone through braces/mouth guards, battle of the bands, break-ups, plays, entrance exams, summers apart, and summers together. Sometimes we would talk too often, sometimes we talked too infrequently; it never mattered, because we never felt the distance affect our friendship. It would be an understatement to say I was sentimentally happy that this was the 7^th time I got to celebrate her birthday with her, so for her birthday, Bullet, Relyn and I, the occupants of three-fourths of her heart’s chambers devised a plan.

Though we had been invited for dinner night before, we arranged to meet in Sari’s house early in the morning to surprise her with breakfast. Relyn had the pancakes, I had the birthday cupcakes and Bullet had his denim jeans and his Beatles’ song. We put up post its from her room to the first floor, and set up a table for four, with the pancakes, and cupcakes.

To our dismay, the surprise was curtailed, because she had been called over the intercom that Relyn was at their house, and Relyn, being the (not-so) skillful liar that she was, tried to salvage the situation by calling her up, which actually ended up making the situation much worse. [4] We gave up, and just asked her to come down, and eat breakfast with us.

We blew out the candles, ate the pancakes and the bacon, until there was only one pancake left. We talked and open gifts, until I had to reluctantly leave for school, and the best part was when all three of them walked me to my car with tired (only bullet had sleep the night before) eyes, but with quiet satisfaction. They looked funny in a line next to my car, and I gave them goodbye hugs one after the other, greeted Sari one more time, and then I finally left.

Happy Birthday Sari! Here’s to your twenty years of existence, and to the seven years of our “unbridled” friendship. By my standards, we’re doing a great job Livin’ It Up.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Which she, would tell me later on in our friendship, found repugnant, and reprehensible. Also, she would compose her own song called “Dear Lisane”, which I have forgotten the origins of, unfortunately.

[2] I was proven innocent when they realized that my email was present in the recipients of the letter according to the hardcopy of the said email They ended up pinning it on this one girl in class who was the ONLY person whose email was not present in the email recipients, which is pretty stupid, because if I were to send a scandalous gossip-email I would definitely send it to myself to seem inconspicuous. Not that I ever sent a shady email before. In case you are curious, she would never fess up, but we would all continue to think it was her, just to give ourselves a peace of mind.

[3] She is still the only other person I know after all these years who has watched it aside from me and my sisters.

[4] She accidentally said “HERE” instead of “THERE” when she referred to Sari’s house, but her efforts were commendable.

Nighttime

After a long day of making unicorns, rabbits, and turtles out of royal icing, my sister took me to Cubao X for a very interesting exhibit visited by very interesting people. We then proceeded to have our rendezvous with the rest of Cubao X for the remainder of the night.

I think I’ve only been to Cubao x in the daylight once, in the fourth grade, a time when Cubao x, had rows and rows of shops filled with shoes and mostly only shoes, so you could say I only know the place by its nighttime face.
The main street is lit by the lights spilled by the few open stores, and the disappearance of Cubao’s daytime busy sounds of cars, and people. I love how quiet it can be there at night, even with the significant amount of people hanging out in the streets, talking, drinking and eating.
At least half of the shops are closed, almost like they’re sleeping, and my sister and I stroll past them, only looking for a second at the ones with vintage apparel and merchandise, just in case someone or something decides to be awake inside.

I mostly like the open stores, and how they’re never lit invasively, except this nice bookstore we went to, but it was okay, since you need ample light to read. We didn’t go in all of them, I’m not particularly sure why, but we would point (appropriately) at things we liked from the outside of the glass windows, and occasionally step go into stores we really felt like going in.

My favorite store would be the We Are Triangle pop-up-shop right above the famous Heima. My sister and I went up, and looked around. They had this one “painting”, where the canvass was backwards, and it had this pink creature sewn into it that I really liked, but I was afraid to ask how much it was, or at least afraid to have someone confirm the price guesstimation in my head. The shopkeeper was nice (and PATIENT) even though we were a bit rowdy, touching and wanting to buy everything. He sided with me when I told my sister to treat me to an Outerhope pin (an opportunity to make a sale, but he played along nonetheless), and accommodated us until we were happy with our purchases.
Later, I found out that he was Michael Benedicto of Outerhope, the same band I bought a pin of, and was LSS-ing audibly in the store, causing a feeling worthy of a face palm which I proceeded to give my face repeatedly for the rest of the night.

I really liked We Are Triangle, and my lonely card (my sister had this one with catci and I’m forever envious of her now), my silver whistle (my sister and I match), postcard, and my cute pins (which I had attached to my dlsr strap, until my dad and I exchanged cameras for the week).
I had initially promised to myself that this blog would be a food blog, prominently things I bake, but sometimes life happens to me, I get excited, and it’s such a shame not to share all the other beautiful non-food things that I go through, especially it’s quite the rare occasion. (haha)
I had every intention of writing about my best friend’s birthday on Valentine’s day and all the cupcakes involved in the event, but I have an exam tomorrow, and it isn’t all that fun to fail, so I guess that’ll have to wait for now.

Strawberry Strawberry

In 2010, I turned 20. That’s two decades on Earth, and supposedly a one-way ticket to adults-ville. The plural on ‘decades’ is probably the most daunting thing I have ever seen, and if we’re talking about the world’s expectations of me, I should have been equipped with a certain pretentious level of maturity by now, or gathered enough “wisdom” and focus to be really taking on life on seriously. Alas, reality as we know it, is a lot harsher than that. It’s like I’m playing dance dance revolution with everyone else, except I’m tripping all over the dance mat. I’m too awkward and incapable to keep up with everybody else.

The point is, sometimes I wonder why I’ve turned out so much different from most girls my age.  Sometimes I wonder if I’ve grown up the right way at all, because I see almost everyone and I know, and they’ve got the whole “growing up” business under control. They have social skills sharper than shurikens, and they’re planning big events, plotting their full blown plans in the futures in ink, going through job fairs, and somehow, they’re all pretty assured of an okay future at the least. And me? Oh, me.

Let me tell you something: I’m interested in the most trivial things. I believe writing on adorable stationery and stickers makes the letters I send to friends abroad makes them twenty times more compelling. I get frustrated when I miss Phineas and Ferb on the telly, even though I had specifically written it on my hand that day. I genuinely like unicorns, stars and rainbows together (I doodle stars on my rainbows even though I scientifically know of its impossibility), apart, real (unicorns are real, I promise) or not. My affinity for dinosaurs has affected my headwear (thank you Sari), and I like it when my plates are in the shape of funny or adorable objects. To top it all of, I’m terribly obsessed with romantic comedies from a decade I didn’t even exist in. Goodness, I’m such a freak of nature.

But hold up.

I’m not trying to hide how bewildered I am about this whole idea of moving on to heavier and bigger things, because I’m working on it. Don’t misunderstand; I’m not all of a sudden ready to embrace a future of boring responsibilities such as car loans, taxes, and trips to the grocery (Who am I kidding? I love going to the grocery and buying produce, and no I’m not being sarcastic). This doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up on my fondness for cute stickers, or my Little Twin stars planner. I’ve never gone to a college party, joined a career shaping organization, had copious amounts of alcohol and gotten pissed drunk, or done anything remotely wild or adventurous, but I don’t think that I’m all that naïve, sheltered or inexperienced. I don’t think I’m boring at all. (Okay, maybe I’m a LITTLE naive)

I choose to read children’s books in Spanish, sell cakes that are adorable, and celebrate themed birthdays (my friends have dressed up in Cheshire cat, 50’s celebrities and mad scientists costumes), because I try to cope with the inevitability of growing up the best way I can. (I know I make it sound like a terminal disease, but you can’t blame me for pointing out the similarities in their inescapability.)

Take my strawberry cupcakes for example. They are (non-) living proofs of my (more than) 7-step-program-to-becoming-a-well-adjusted-grown-up, because it was then I clearly knew (an epiphany if you must) that nothing made me happier than being caked in icing sugar, fingers red from food coloring, and playing with edible clay on a Friday night. Knowing that alone (and admitting it to myself), gives me five points for maturity right?

(Ah, here comes the conclusion)

I have no intentions of clearing out my room of the coloring books, the silly hats, or my Disney linens during general cleaning, because I’m ready for whatever comeuppance that comes with liking this stuff. I like who I am, and I’m pretty sure I’ll like who I’ll be if I keep liking what I like now (so many ‘like’s!), and if somewhere along the way I stop doodling rainbows or having really awesome costume parties, do me a favor, and bake me some strawberry cupcakes, that’ll do the trick.