38 Feels Great

And so another year begins.

It's a cliche to say time flies when you're having fun, but I persist in the notion. And today, I was given the welcome gift of a meaningful way to celebrate the day I was born, thanks to RSM and the Samsons. She arranged for a group of us to do a Christmas carolling session at the Children's cancer ward at NUH. As I had been toying with the idea of taking leave, it was the final push I needed.

I was up at the crack of dawn to attend the 7am mass...make my connections as it were. Then it was back home to enjoy comfort breakfast of champorado and tuyo with T and life-long friend Rofel Brion of the Ateneo. Kids are on break, so they weren't up, before we left for the hospital. Picked up Celeste then drove to NUH. Not too many kids, but there were enough. And we kicked off everything with a Christmas poem and a Christmas story, before singing Joy To The World, Jingle Bells (twice) and We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Margo, Gina, Rofel, Celeste, Ria and I were all in red. And we had a surprise appearance from Ally Samson and her parents Mikey and Lou, who have been discharged, thank goodness for the holidays.(Please see WHERE I CLICK for updates on Ally). After gift-giving, one more song and an impromptu "Fruit Salad" dance...we said our goodbyes.

Then it was off to Melt at the Oriental for buffet lunch--a sumptuous feast finished off by a Willy Wonka chocolate fountain fondu. Came home to find that my son and daughter made me gifts and cards, and we settled in for a reading of a chapter of CS Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They then left me to nap while they went for a swim with "Nino" Rofel. Now we go for family crab dinner.

I couldn't ask for a better birthday!