You don't bring me flowers anymore...

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.
~ Elisabeth Foley


You used to bring me flowers. You never failed. Always, on both anniversaries, January 15 and April 14 - a bouquet of sweet-smelling roses with a lovingly written note would be found on the bed, on the dining table, in your hand. I thought it was sweet of a boyfriend and later, a husband to never miss giving flowers to his wife not just on their wedding anniversary but on their friendship anniversary.

But last year you forgot! I was hoping to wake up today to the sweet smell of roses but there was not a single one in the house!

You don't bring me flowers anymore....I should be sad. But really I'm not.

Because you constantly bring the sunshine in with your funny jokes (and corny ones!)...
You brighten up our hum-drum days with your rich baritone, singing my favorite songs...
You lighten my load with your unceasing support and encouraging words...
You patiently put up with everything that's annoying and unlikeable about me....
You honestly tell me what you think of me and my ideas...
You comfort me when I am down...
You give me tight hugs and warm embraces even when they are not expected...
You always tell me, on a daily basis, that you love me and all other things that make you love me...
You inspire me with your faith in God and in humanity...
You are not Mr. Perfect, but you are Mr. Right!

You may not have brought me flowers these past two (friendship) anniversaries but I'm not complaining. I am not even disappointed. The flowers may be a good punctuation mark to our story and the splash of color to the memory of our love. But it can never match the blessing that you are to me.

Flowers do brighten my day. But you light up my life!

I love you, Gani!

Just being

Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass.
Euripides

Monday....no rain. In fact, it was a bright sunny day, this part of the world.

After breakfast, I decided to laze for a bit and watch EAT. PRAY. LOVE. Lovely movie! Valuable lessons there. Then I decided to spend the rest of the day with my best friend. It is not unusual that I would, as we are almost always together, whether we're working or not.

But today turned out to be a really nice day for me and my best friend. Nothing awesome. No fancy resto, no shopping spree. Ate lunch at some new diner which was a fiasco as the food was nothing to exclaim about, except negatively. Paid bills. Bought a few items from the supermarket while my best fiend got a back massage at the barber shop. Then we headed home. So how come it was a "really nice day?"

I guess because we just let ourselves and things be. We laughed and joked the whole time. And every chance we got, we held hands. Comfortable in each other's company. No busted tempers, no annoying comments. Nice. Sweet.

I'd like to have more of this kind of day.

Thank you, Gani! You made my day!

Hot chocolate is not white!

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~William James



It was the perfect day to order a steaming cup of chocolate drink. After lunch on a rainy, cold Monday in January, my family and I decided to drop by a coffee shop. Glad to finally get in from the rain, we excitedly ordered hot chocolate, imagining sipping slowly the dark brown liquid, foamy and rich, with maybe a topping of marshmallows or cream with a swirl of chocolate syrup.

To our great disappointment, our cups were served, not steaming at all...worse, the whitish creamy liquid looked and tasted more like milk laced with what seemed like chocolate. They had to be taken back. But we were served with basically the same look and taste the second time! By then, our hopes of ever savoring hot chocolate on that cold January afternoon were foiled! "But this is how we make our hot choco: fresh milk with two teaspoons of chocolate powder!" the store manager explained. No matter. Their recipe for the drink would in no way ever create even just a shadow of what it ought to look and taste like.

The consolation to it all was that the manager did not argue with us or insisted on some store policy that would have turned us off all the more, We were offered another item as compensation for the disappointing service. Not bad as a compensatory act.

But hotchocogate was not about us being demanding and difficult. We were neither. It was simply a matter of how the proprietors of the store failed to create a concoction whose simple and common recipe could be modified but whose basic taste must be retained.

A lot of times, establishments forget that their customers have perceptions and expectations which must either be met at the least, or exceeded.

Deliver what you promise!