Franz Marie Cruz’s Diary

One day at a food court of one shopping center, I saw a group of 6 gray-haired elderly women, all looking healthy, well-to-do, and not-matronly but quite glam indeed.  They looked a lot like each other, most had short cropped silvery-gray hair, all had a pair of glasses perched at the tip of their noses, and some had a habit of looking over and not through it when talking to the other.  They were all appropriately and conservatively dressed for their age.  One had on a crisp white collared button down blouse, a pair of colored pants and flats.  While they found themselves a table in that mid-afternoon, a guy in his late 40’s (probably a son of one of the women and I imagined assumed the role of the driver for them that day) ordered drinks for them at a store.  When he finished ordering, he took a separate table next to the ladies not joining their circle. He was later joined by an elderly man with a full head of grey hair and presumably the same age as the 6 women.

I keep craning my neck to their direction, unabashedly looking at each personality in the group.  I am very much fascinated by them.  I too am a part of a close group of 6 girl friends.  Three of these people I have known and been good friends with for more than half my life.  And my fascination on these 6 elderly women stems out from my fantasy of seeing us 6 still together and going out for coffee when we do get to their age.  I envision that we too will still look completely glamorous and elegant despite our graying hairs, wrinkles and the puson.  By then we have witnessed so much more in each other’s lives.  More than our own proms, graduations, debuts, and weddings, there will be the birthday parties, basketball games, piano recitals, and graduations of our children.  For it is indeed one of life’s blessings to have a solid set of real good friends you have known for a long, long time.  There is only a myriad of sweet, touching, delightful and funny memories you have growing up with them.    I remember the countless sleepovers, GNOs, and cups of coffee we had together as we discussed “life” (school, parents, siblings, boys, career, etc) and the milestones in life we were there for each other from proms, graduations, planning each other’s debuts, first boyfriends, first break-ups, engagement news, wedding to a birth of the next generation. 

Hopefully, I’ll be able to eventually write more about each of my friends forever for these girls are among the big influences in my life.  Yet, I will start with one.  A piece that I have written no so long ago and had published as a testimonial to this one friend’s great character.

“Just as our friendship has evolved, she too has changed a lot over the 13 years we’ve been the best of friends.  We did not have so many things in common in the start, besides maybe the common barkada, shared passion for theater/musicals and books and the same dream to go to medicine.  She was no-nonsense, serious, sporty, tomboyish, astute, strong-willed while I was giggly, girlish, crazy-impulsive, outgoing and flighty.  She sees the glass as half-empty, I see it as half-full.  Her usual get-up would be a simple T, comfortable blue jeans and Nike rubbershoes while I was color-coordinated and matched from head to toe in skirts and blouses.  My bestfriend.  We later attended the same pre-med course, same med school where we became roommates for 3 years and now we will still  be taking our residency training at the same hospital albeit different departments.  Over the years, she has bloomed and changed.  Shopper na rin sya eventhough she often ends up buying gadgets more than clothes.  She’d sometimes try a different hair style from her usual one-length cut; would go out to get pedicures but no paint.  She has crushes now, a boyfriend and an ex too.  She is a dreamer, a romantic, a Maria Clara beneath that want-to-play-ball/no-fuss-no-nonsense façade and stance.  We’ve become the best of friends.  We may not always see eye to eye on all things, but I’ve always trusted her judgment and objectivity.  She has become one of the strongest influences in my life.  I know I can always count on her whenever, whatever and wherever and she the same way.   I know we will always be at each other’s sides.

But between the two of us, she’s the prettier, kinder, nicer, braver, more diligent, more cultured, more athletic, more talented, the one with the nicer hair (and legs), the better daughter to her parents, the better speaker, a helluva lot better singer and has one million times more admirers.  A major heartbreaker she was.  She is the kind of person who will make you want to become a better daughter/sister/friend/doctor.   This girl is very much blessed in so many ways and yet she has always remained grounded, generous and only willing to share her time, talent and blessings to everyone around her.”

Sigh, shopping, perhaps it both genetic and has an environmental component.  I remember my mom bringing me along quite frequently when she went shoe shopping when I was too young to appreciate, enjoy and have enough patience with it.  (She had most of her dresses made then so instead of clothes shop we went to fabric stores.  And I loved the dresses and skirts she had made for herself.  I loved the fabric she picked out, silky, smooth and soft, in nice pastel colors, and the pattern or cut she had them made, flowy skirts and A-line dresses. Too bad too that I never got to salvage them when she gave them away as they all looked quite heavy on the shoulders, with the padding and all and are already outdated and out-of-style some 15 years later.) But she’d regularly buy me dresses from Cinderella and shoes from SM Department Store in my grade school years.  I remember her coming home one day with 3 new dresses for me and also a number for my brothers.  I remember my aunts opening my closet when I was 9 and gushing to the abundance of dresses they found in there.  I grew up with the impression that all moms have plenty of shoes and in all colors.  In the late 80’s, my mom with her big permed hair had pink flats to go with her pink and blue floral skirt and pink knitted top. She had red flats, violet pumps, gold stilettos aside from the usual black, blue, brown, taupe, and burgundy shoes.  I believe she was the most fashionable

OB

resident/young consultant during her time (and maybe until now).  In senior year in HS when my class was required to watch a play at Shangri-La, I allowed my mom to dress me up in her green/black/maroon paisley jacket with my black fitted top, green pants and black shoes.  I sure did get compliments for my get-up.  And I dressed that way –  Color coordinating and matching — for the next decade.  (Perhaps my mom is my style icon.) And so over the numerous shopping years and my mom and I sharing the same shoe size, the only color of footwear we are lacking in our combined shoe collection is green! We have red (pink and burgundy), orange, (oh, no yellow), blue, lilac, gold, silver, bronze, white, black and various shades of brown.  Unfortunately, she’s one size larger in the clothes department and so I don’t raid her closet as much as her shoe rack.  But my closet has become an extension of hers, she borrowing a few of my tops and skirts she can fit in. While I sometimes borrow non-expensive jewelries and accessories her patients give her.

Ironically, my mom and I don’t shop together.  She’d sometimes text to inform me to check out the sale in this and this store, or check out the shoe she has reserved for me at Nine West (which I didn’t like so much for the price it was selling for).  I also rather shop alone so I don’t feel guilty of making some poor soul wait while I try on lotsa stuff and no guilt too with the purchases I make, so magastos!  Besides, I’m not the kind of shopper who needs consultation with a confidante whether to buy an item or not.  But I find out na mas napapabili ako when the salesladies are nicer and more maasikaso (nakakaguilty if you don’t buy the item) or they’re the gushing kind, complimenting you on how great you look in that item they are selling.  Anyway, that is of course, if I have the money to spend.  I prefer the tiangges in Greenhills more over any shopping mall.  I like buying nice stuff for a steal and I’m not as brand-conscious as I was in college.  I suppose I get more value with my money there.  Probably the same reason too why I enjoy shows like The Look for Less.  Same reason din why I probably enjoyed shopping at

Bangkok

(tiangge everywhere)  more than in

Singapore

(where everything is branded and expensive).  Now, my occasional splurges however would include something from Rustan’s or Mango.

My friend, J, recently published an article on her blog about, probably, one of our greatest passions in life – books.  J and I have been friends since first day of first year highschool at the Philippine Science High School where we spent 4 geeky years of our adolescent lives.  We read almost the same books and together enjoyed and splurged on the biannual booksales at National Bookstore,

.  Every first week of the month, we’d each go for a trip to Goodwill Bookstore in SM North Edsa to purchase the latest book of the Sweet Valley Series.  We witnessed the price of a

Sweet

Valley

book climbed up incrementally from P30 something to P59.00.  Through different influences later on, she digressed to read sci fi (Star Trek, Star Wars, Isaac Asimov) while I preferred trashy romance novels (Judith McNaught, Amy Tan, etc).  We both acquired a large collection of books over the years.  During early college, we both scrounged to complete each of our Erich Segal collection.  I was satisfied with the newer reprints of his book, but she would buy the older, hardbound versions from various booksales.  Until now, she would buy nicer reprints of books by Dan Brown as coffee table books while the only coffee table book I bought for myself was that of defunct HBO cable TV series, Sex and the City.  Books were our first common interest.  Shopping was the other.

I think our first real shopping started in third year high school.  We frequented kamiseta then and spent a fraction of our stipends each on a blouse.  Prior to clothes shopping, our trips to the mall, mainly SM North Edsa (as it was the nearest and farthest commute we can go), during the first 2 years of HS consisted of sprees at Blue Magic and Papemelroti. Our shopping proficiencies were brushed up most especially during summer vacations.  Together with R and sometimes with E, we eventually learned to commute to SM Megamall and Shangri-La.  We’d usually meet up at Jollibee Philcoa in the morning, take a bus to our destination and be home before the sun went down.  Aside from National Bookstore, Goodwill Bookstore and kamiseta, our other “favorite” stores then were Traditions, Personalized It!, Odyssey, Gift Gate and Marcella (where we bought our matching birett).  We discovered the tiangges in Greenhills together and rode the bus as far as Glorietta in

Makati

.  We rarely shop together now.  J does it now with her fiancé at

Singapore

while I prefer to shop alone at various tiangges and bazaars here in

Manila

.   

Long before we started to waste our time away at coffee places such as Starbucks,

Seattle

’s Best, etc, J, R and I would frequently hang out at Red Ribbon ordering 1 slice of cake each and chatting the afternoon away.  We’d stay there for 2 hours or so, sometimes after a day of walking around the mall or after and in-between classes, taking the smallest bites to our slices of cake.  Sometimes we have other friends over (R2, R3 and R4) and we just enjoy the lazy pace of the afternoon, each other’s company and kwento and the sugar-rush.

Boo-hoo. My team in The Amazing Race got eliminated in today’s episode.  Draaaatt….  Ijust checked out their official site on the web and learned of the sad development.  =( It should have been the Weavers.  I suppose that Gaghans’ luck finally ran out.  The husband and wife are twice as strong as anyone in the race.  They paddle, pedal, saw lumber, push and pull a rickshaw twice as hard as anyone.  And the kids are the cutest!

Symptom that I had enough of vacation and bumming around: boredom.  After 5 days of staying at home, lounging in my parents’ bed all day, drifting in and out of sleep with the TV on and stuffing myself with junkfood during wake periods, I have to get out, go somewhere and do something tomorrow.  I was too lazy the past 5 days to even go out for a jog! 

Well, I didn’t exactly stay at home yesterday, 1st day of November.  We did what we usually do as a family on All Souls’ Day.  We drove to my lola’s house in Bulacan for lunch then visited our dead relatives post-prandial.  On our way back the cemetery, my mom buys puto-bungbong and bibingka from the same person every year.