I’m not a party animal but this weekend was something. I attended 3 parties. Two were birthday celebrations while the other was a high school reunion . I feel so bloated with all the food and the yummy desserts which I couldn’t resist.

manila_reunion1.jpgI have never attended a single high school reunion because going to Cebu seemed depressing. Whenever my classmates would hold a Cebu reunion, a family member recently died and I didn’t feel like socializing. The thought of a reunion used to bring me anxiety. In the back of my mind, the image of the catty classmate or the popular mestiza
loomed. Those were the days when my inner child issues weren’t resolved yet. Healing my inner child addressed my child-self’s wounds and freed my adult-self to make decisions based on the present. Good thing I got rid of that emotional baggage.

I looked forward to meeting some of my classmates whom I’ve never seen since high school graduation in 1974. A number of them flew in from Cebu just to meet up with a balikbayan classmate. Talk about embarassing moment. My house is just 2 blocks away from the party venue and I was late. I lost the address and I ended up driving in circles. It seems like half of my classmates in that reunion didn’t age at all. It’s like I never left high school. Maybe Cebu is not as stressful as Manila. It was also difficult for me to shift from Tagalog, English to Cebuano. The change of accent is not easy. Time ran so fast and before we knew it , we were yawning. The sign of old age beckoned. Much as we wanted to continue our girl talk, the sleepy brain refused to cooperate.

Congresswoman Neri Soon-Ruiz couldn’t make it but sent us lots of bibingka (rice cakes) and budbud (the Cebuano term for suman, gelatinous rice delicacy wrapped in banana leaves)
cebu bibingkabudbud

And just some of the food I devoured over the weekend celebration:
alimangopancit
mixed dishbuko pandan

I have so many food photos that I’ve decided to talk more about these photos at my Pinoy Food Photoblog.

About Noemi Lardizabal-Dado

You may contact Noemi (noemidado @ gmail.com) for speaking and consultancy services in the following areas: Parenting in the Digital Age (includes pro-active parenting on cyber-bullying and bullying) ; Social Business ; Reinventing One’s Life; and social media engagement. Our parenting workshop is called "Prep to Prime (P2P): Parenting in the Digital Age (An Un­Workshop)" P2P Un­Workshops are conducted by two golden women in their prime, Noemi and Jane, who have a century’s worth of experience between them. They are both accomplished professionals who chose to become homemakers. This 180­degree turn also put them on a different life course which includes blogging, social media engagement and citizen advocacy. They call their un­workshops Prep to Prime or P2P, for short, to emphasize the breadth of their parenting experience. They tackle different aspects and issues of parenting ­­ from managing pregnancies, prepping for the school years of children, dealing with househelp, managing the household budget, to maximizing one’s prime life and staying healthy through the senior years.

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