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Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Hello Vermont For Real

Manila time : 1:30 pm, March 1, 2004. This is the time of Bananaducky’s interview for her US Visa. She is set to visit here in the US of A to attend an academic conference in Vermont. If good fortune is with her, then she gets to come to the conference and stay with me here in NJ for a week.
5am NJ time.... I got a txt message from here.... “Hello Vermont for real....”
Yipeeeee!
I am now on a mission to plan out an hour by hour best ever 1 week you can spend in NY!!!
I often daydream ma and Banana walking down Soho with coffee in one hand and just enjoying the neighborhood...
Thank God May is but 2 months away. I can’t wait Ican’t wait I can’t wait.

Banana-Rama

If there was one thing that made it harder for me to leave Los banos on my last trip, it was having to leave behind my friends particularly Bananaducky.
When I came home in ‘02. Banana was still holed up in UP Diliman finishing her studies. I didn’t see much of her except for the perfunctory barkada dinner everytime a balikabayan is in town.
This last visit, B dismissed most of her classes early and we usually spent a few hours together. I even met her good friend and great writer Tekstong Bopis.

It was a nice little dinner over at all-time fave hole -in-the wall only Vietnamese eatery in LB... Phoung’s.

Aboard Mimi, B’s refurbished vintage VW beetle, it seemed we were never apart. It’s like grade school all over again.
Me and Banana go a looong way back. Way back in Kindergarten no less. We only got separated in first and fourth grade. The years we were together were irreplaceable.
In second grade, Banana was already reading Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie. She got me into Nancy Drew of course, but I wasn’t as fast a reader. Together with another classmate , Joy, we made a pact to become detectives when we hit high school . We vowed to solve the mystery of LB’s very own moving statue... the statue of Maria Makiling by Palma Bridge. Local talk has it that every few years the statue would "change" the position of her arms. After school our trio would often go to CEM and gather some “wild berries”. We even attempted to make “wine” out of it. My “wine” was no more than water and sugar, but Banana’s concoction turned out really good. Muck like Ocean Spray Cranberry juice.
Banana’s Nanay was an excellent cook. Back when apples was a luxury because it was very expensive,Banana would share with Nanay’s homebaked apple pie. It was actuall made of upo but it tasted way better than Mc Do’s apple pie. Nanay’s lasagna (which is actually more of Mac N Cheese come to think of it) was a winner too. Banana’s baon is also my baon. Yeah, we were tight like that.
Our singing careers took off as early as second grade. Everyday our class had a mini-program. Me and Banana would take turns singing Ocean-fucking Deep and If You’re Not Here By My Side.
We have yet to discover the “blending vocals” of Wilson Philips, B 52's and Indigo Girls.
Banana was in a different class in our freshman year in RHS. I remember getting really jealous of her “new” friends. I had the nerve, as if I wasn;t having a ball with my own newfound friends in my class. By the end of second year, our core group of nine became 13. And we have been inseparable ever since.
Because we took different courses, we inevitably went on with our own exploratory adventures in college. We hardly saw each other. Banana was quite busy studying (she finished cum laude in econ). I was quite busy balancing my studies, 2 orgs, a relationship with P and our college band.
Banana went to Diliman to pursue her other passion : Comparative Lit. I was left behind in LB back in our beloved high school alma mater, this time as a literature teacher.
I eventually found myself back to Banana’s company in the summer of ‘99 when P and I decided to try our hands on Comparative Literature. I stayed with Banana in the Ipil Dorm. That was one of the best summers I’ve had. We would spend late nights drinking coffee talking about life and shit. We often took food trips to Kenny Rogers and Bacolod Chicken. Haaay.... I miss those summer days and nights with her.
And so when I found out the US embassy granted her entry here to attend a narrative conference in Vermont, it was as if I was the one granted the visa. I am counting the days til she comes here in Jersey. I have written down a list of places me and Banana can visit wh ile she’s in town. Well, at least the places I can think of now.
a.) Nuyorican Poets’ Café
b) Angelika Film Center
c) The Strand Bookstore
d) Gray’s Papaya
e) Serendipity
f) Chinatown
g) Sephora
h) H and M

And many other places I’m sure I’ve forgotten. I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait.

From bananaducky: I'd also like to add to the must-see places:
a) the Conde Nast cafeteria, designed by Frank Gehry
b) all those little neighborhoods with lots of cheap buys and cheap but good food

Sigh.