Friday, August 15, 2008 Dinner and coffee By Rene Lizada Papa's Table
LAST week, Chona and I had dinner with three very close family relatives. We had dinner with two first cousins and the sister of my father.
Actually the dinner was the consequence of a request I asked from my Tita Dandie. Everyone in the Lizada family knows that if you want to have good bopis, you ask Tita Dandie. So one day about a week ago I asked her if she could make bopis for us.
And being the generous person that she has always been, she gave us not one but two batches of bopis. And as usual it was good. When we picked up the bopis and we ended up talking about a lot of things. I guess it was a natural offshoot of that conversation that we continue talking so we decided to meet again. This time we would be asking some cousins to join. A few days later we had dinner.
There were just five of us but you would not have guessed it because the place where we were having dinner would have kicked us out because of our loud voices.
Plus, of course the laughter and the teasing. Jing our eldest cousin treated Chona, myself, Tita Dan and Mayen, her daughter, to a chicken dinner at Papa Ching's. We had not seen each for a long time so the food and the conversation went flying. We really had a great time talking about so many things that we hardly touched our food.
Conversations, Lizada style is something else. So after we had dinner, medyo bitin. So we ended up having coffee at Kangaroo. There we continued talking about so many things ranging from the really strange to the funny to the outrageous. There were revelations and confessions.
Jokes and more jokes. We talked about events, circumstances, swimming pool attire, dog food, usufructs, the bracelet story that is a favorite of Chona and so many things. One really cannot predict when we meet and talk.
But I guess our conversation had to turn to my father, the sister of Tita Dandie. And when we talked about my father I was nostalgic and a little sad. My father was such a good man, a decent man whose values were that of family and truth. He was very principled and he stood his ground on a lot of things.
You did not want to mess with my father when it came to his family. My father being a gentle person was someone who placed value and meaning in his family. His family came first. He will be celebrating his birthday on August 20 and again I will miss him. I miss so many things about my father. As I said a lot of things died when he died.
During the exchange that we had I learned about many things about my father even if I had heard some of the stories before. It seemed that listening to them gave me a new light to those events, new points of view and better lessons.
A few minutes after nine and yes we were still at it after three hours, Eps arrived. He sat down and listened to everyone. He probably was wondering what kind of relatives he has. He sometimes joined in the talks but it was us who were mostly doing the talking and the laughing and the joking.
A few minutes after ten and yes we were still at it, our tongues and our bodies got a little tired so even if we did not like it, we had to call it a day. After all we were all working people. When we stepped out of the coffee house we started talking again.
This time we were planning, of all things, a party.
Chona's birthday is coming up (I will not tell you kasi she might get mad!) and Tita Dandie's birthday is close. So we thought about having a joint party. We asked Jing to give the lechon and I could not hear what he said but judging from his face, he was resigned to that reality. And besides now that it is in print, he really has no choice.
So we decided on the date. The only issue now was where we were going to have it. It was a choice between Tita Dandie's house or ours. Just prior to this writing we finally decided to have it at Tita Dan's place.
I am looking forward to it. My cousins and my Titas are a great bunch. They are fun to be with and you can be yourself with them. My cousins are loud and fun. They are boisterous and real. They eat a lot; oh you should see how they eat. We have so many characters in our family. They care. They know what family is. Their parents have taught them well. (Even if half of them are scared of plane rides, hospitals and sea crossings!) They are bona fide Lizadas as far as I am concerned.
And so I am looking forward to Saturday because I know that there will be lots of food, stimulating conversations, mind boggling revelations and other surprises. I love the Lizadas! Well....
