Tri-State Tales Tinged by Patis

It happened in June 2006, when the opportunity to move back
to the outpatient setting presented myself. Much as liked the staff of the
Rehabilitation Department of Christ Hospital I had to realize that I was not a
good fit for hospital-based therapy. Here I am I find myself in Fort Lee, and that is a story to be told in
the future as well.

The month of July, associated with Independence Day, fitted
my situation well. For too long I was in fear of the steering wheel and bless
my wife, she has put up with it admirably. But after a series of fortuitous
events, I gathered the wits, then asking the fine folks at the New Jersey DMV,
that gave me permission to operate an automobile. Sad for a 28 year old I know,
but that is a story that either Tequila, or Therapy shall expose later on.

July also brought much happiness and fun to our family, as
Consie and I were able to go to Cancun, Mexico for the first time. The azure
blue beaches, the balmy weather, the warm hospitality of the staff were all
nice, but I think it was the all-inclusive food and drink part that really got
to me. That kind of trip is really best when shared with friends.

Speaking of friends, one of the greatest blessings our
family obtained this year was the gift of friendship. At an Easter Vigil Dinner
celebration we spent with the priests of OLM we met Armel and Boots and Joey,
unbeknownst neighbors of ours. The evening was spent talking about all sorts of
things: politics, religion, and food, with bouts of singing in between, typical
of a Filipino attended party. Little did we know that this day marked a big
turning point in our social life in Jersey City.

This was the summer of 2006!

Turned out that Armel and Boots had a lot of interests in
common with us: like shopping for Boots and Consie and animation and movies for
Armel and I. Then we really got to know Joey, and further expanded the circle.

Right about the same time, Hans and Karen immigrated to NJ
with kids Karl and Ika in tow, with Dad a.k.a. Mr. Beltran. Ate Apple and Kuya
Bong knew them from Las Pinas so that further enlarged the network. With Bubut
flying in from Michigan to Jersey as well, it became a merry band of gatherings
and as we say, gimmicks.

This group started hanging out, and between the impromptu
cooking, DVD watching, shopping, volleyball playing, and just plain hanging out
we consider this to be a truly blessed summer.

Now with summer over, the kids are in school, and everybody
starts bracing themselves for the changing seasons. Its funny to me how summer
was such a fun time for us, how we made a lot of new friends, and did a lot of
things we did not do before. (How were we supposed to know Bayonne Park was
right there?) We really made an effort to go out because of Joey.

Joey pointed out a great thought: “ How many weekends do we
have in a lifetime? How much time are we going to spend together? The time to
do it is now. “

Never pegged him as the Carpe Diem type, you know?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.