“It’s my birthday. Bah.” That is my usual behavior when it comes to that day. What possessed me to change that attitude?
Through the years I have discovered that the less I care about my birthday the better the day will be. The more effort I put into the stupid day the worse the day will be. For some reason this year, I decided to plan my Birthday and make it special. That is unusual activity for me. I planned this “special” day ahead of time. Friday I decided to go out with a few friends after work for some drinks for my Birthday. Then on Saturday, the actual day, I planned to go to Disneyland with my husband and daughter. Sounds like fun. Sorry to disappoint you, but some stories are better left untold. However, I feel comfortable telling past stories that I had already gotten over.
The Planned Birthday
I was turning 21. What a special day, I have to celebrate and have a drink. I planned to meet my friends at a bar and celebrate. Yes, I drank and hung out, but I had a terrible time and it kept getting worse as time went by. During the night, my boyfriend at the time, decided to pursue conversations with other people other than me. I hardly saw him that night. I spent almost the entire night I found myself always looking for him. At the end of the night, when all my friends had left, I decided to go look for him because I wanted to leave. Searching. Searching. There he is. He was talking to a girl. They weren’t doing anything, just casually talking, but for some reason this just put it over the edge to me. It’s my 21st Birthday, why can’t he have spent that night with me. To top it off, I found him talking to some chick. So, I decided not to approach him and leave it be. I took off and went for a walk to decide what in the world to do. “I could find my own way home,” I thought to myself. I don’t need him. The crowd at the bar was lessening greatly. Walking back and forth away from the bar and then back to the bar. I was extremely indecisive. He finally noticed me. Well if there is no one left to talk to I guess it is only logical that he would now pay attention to me. By this time I was so angry and hurt. I am not the one for hiding my feelings. I definitely let him know it and it turned into a huge fight because according to him he did nothing wrong. So, that is my memory of my 21st Birthday.
The Unplanned Birthday
I was turing “Sweet 16.” This is a big day for most girls. I decided that I do not want to do anything for my 16th Birthday. I told all my friends that I am not going to have a party. I do not want to do anything at all for that day. I just did not want to make a big thing over it. It’s really not all that important; it is just another birthday to me. Of course, my friends could not understand my reasoning. On my Birthday, I just treated it like any other day. My friend told me to come over. I was always at her place, not an unusual thing to do. When I entered her house, her grandmother told me she was in the backyard. When I stepped into the backyard, I was immediately greeted with a big “Surprise!” All of my friends were there. There were balloons and food. I was so surprised, I had no idea. That was the best Birthday I ever had. That is an example of a Birthday, which I did not plan.
What is the lesson here?
Those are my only two memories, for my birthday. That is because one is extremely bad and one was wonderful. My other birthdays, I would do my usual, “It’s my birthday. Bah.” So they were all pretty much treated like normal days. Maybe someone would take me out to eat, but that is as far as I would let it go. It is safer that way. I learned through the years that the more I plan, the worse the day will be. The less I plan, the better the day will be.
I am writing this post to myself to remind myself “DO NOT PLAN YOUR BIRTHDAY!” The outcome of the activity of planning my birthday will be a bad one. That is my curse.
On April 23, 2009 my husband, Gil, and I decided to take a trip to Hollywood to try to see Depeche Mode. Gil is a huge Depeche Mode fan, so he was psyched. He has seen them live twice in the past, Music of the Masses at Madison Square Garden NYC and Violator Tour at Jones Beach Long Island. I on the other hand, never saw them live. I was so excited at the slight opportunity to check them out live. I have always enjoyed their songs and now to see them live! I was super excited. However, I was still uncertain if we were going to have a chance to see this free concert provided by Jimmy Kimmel. According to news reports, they were expecting 10,000 people to show up and we did not have tickets. I was not too sure of our chances, but I figured why not. If we get to see them, awesome! If not, we are in Hollywood, we still can have fun. Let’s go!
After driving about 50 miles from Fontana to get to the Metro Red Line, we parked and rode. Now we do not have to worry about finding a parking spot in the expected chaos in Hollywood. We were amazed at the beauty of the train station. First thing we saw, rows of brown leather looking seats in a room with a high ceiling and tremendous antique looking chandeliers hanging down. We found the machines to purchase the tickets. Those machines were similar to the MetroCard machines in the NYC train stations. Just a little tip, make sure you have cash because that machine could not read any of our credit cards. Anyway, it was a good thing we had cash. It was a short ride, about 15 minutes and we were there in the Hollywood / Vine train station. The first thing I noticed when we were going up the escalator was the ceiling. The entire ceiling was decorated with a copper color metal, sculpted into a pattern of old fashioned film wheels. What a beautiful station.
We arrived at Hollywood around 1PM. As soon as we stepped outside we were able to see the event preparations going on. We easily found the stage and the VIP section, which was fenced in. There were random security guards that directed people in the right direction to get in line. We walked around the entire closed off section for the event. The section was gigantic, enough to fit a few thousand people. The line formed was already about a large block long (roughly 200 to 300 people).
We situated ourselves at the end of the line, which happened to be right in front of a bar. This bar had an outside porch where you can relax and have a drink. Those people that arrived in big groups took turns holding the spot in line and chillin’ on the porch for a quick drink. Too bad there was only two of us, so we were unable to take advantage of being in front of a bar. At 3PM a squad of police officers arrived to help control the line and the line started to move up. The line stopped in front of an apartment building complex. There were about 5 items of garbage in front of this apartment complex and the owner of the building starting bitchin’ and whining about the small pile of garbage. “This is a big event. Do you expect 10,000 people to obey your petty house rules?” I thought to myself. He threatened to call the cops while holding his cordless phone and several people on line said, “Go right ahead” and pointed at the squad of cops he can choose from. Litter is always expected in events like this. He should be thankful that the crowd was calm and behaved. Then a tow truck and a police vehicle arrived and they started to tow away every car parked on that street. I am sure glad that is not my car.
Five o’ clock rolls around and they started to let some ticket holders in. Everyone had to have their IDs and tickets ready. They let a good amount of people in and stopped. All those people were held in another section, but they were inside. Then Depeche Mode started to rehearse one of their new songs called “Wrong.” Then a little while later they began to rehearse “Personal Jesus.” A while later after that they rehearsed “Never Let Down Again.” What a nice little plus to be entertained by Depeche Mode while waiting on line.
Our first reaction was to run in trying to get as close as possible to the stage. We were squashed like sardines and all I can see are the backs of people’s heads. At around 8:30PM an announcer came on stage to let the crowd inside and outside of the closed off area that there is room for more people and they will be opening an additional gate to let more people in from the streets. That is good news, which means our friends on line will be getting in after all. I was happy for them. Standing there uncomfortable with barley any room to move, my back began to hurt on top of my already aching feet. “This is torture!” I told my husband. He agreed as he was in just as much pain as me. “Never again, I prefer to pay for seated tickets,” I suggested. My point was well taken. They decided to torture us even more by making us all scream one too many times. It was getting sickening. Well except the one brief moment the camera hung right over us. I screamed and waved with excitement at the chance of being on TV. One last bit of torture, they decided to do a practice run introducing Depeche Mode. It sounded so real that even though they told us it was just practice, I was disappointed not to hear Depeche Mode next. “Ha ha ha,” I laughed to myself. The crowds reaction insured me that I was not the only one fooled. Finally, the real introduction came.
Gil felt that playing too much video games may damage her eyes. I on the other hand was not sure about that. Considering she is only three years old I became concerned about it as well. So I looked it up.
We were walking home from the playground. When I say “we,” I mean my two daughters Angelina and Laila and my husband, Gil. Angelina, my eldest, is 3 years old. Laila who is still a little baby, she is 10 months old. As we got closer to home, we ran into my Aunt. She was walking to the mailbox to pick up our mail. Angelina wanted to stay with my Aunt while she picked up the mail. Gil, Laila and I continued walking to the house and Angelina stayed with my Aunt. All of a sudden I hear my husband “Angelina,” he screamed. I was pushing the stroller and I turned around to see what was going on. I turned around to see Angelina running across the street and at the same time a minivan heading right towards her tiny body. I screamed frantically, “Angelina!” I tried to run towards her in the attempt to save her. I felt like I could not run fast enough. I wasn’t going to make it in time. I see my husband, also running towards her. He was closer, but he was not going to make it either. The minivan stopped dead in the street, my husband got to Angelina and swept her off the ground immediately. That is when I stopped running and my heart started beating again. Oh my God, she is okay, safe in my husband’s arms.
I was relieved, but at the same time angry. I was angry at everyone, thinking of how this should not have even happened. The strangest thing was that I had a bad feeling about cars right before this happened. Right when we left the playground, my husband was pushing the stroller and I was holding Angelina’s hand. My husband was a little ahead of us and he started to cross the street. There were two cars headed towards the crosswalk, one in each direction. Angelina and I waited on the sidewalk until the cars stopped. Then we proceeded to cross the street. I said, “Gil, you really should wait for the cars to stop before you decide to cross the street with Laila.” He reminded me that there is a stop sign there. I said, “Do you really want to put our lives in their hands and assume they are going to stop. You never know. There are times drivers do not see the stop sign.” I don’t know why I was making such a big deal about it. I thought to myself. It was apparent the cars were slowing to a stop. Why am I so bothered by this? Horrible thoughts haunted my mind. I pictured a car heading towards Angelina. That image was so disturbing that I had to talk about it with Angelina. Angelina and I continued to walk hand in hand. I decided to talk about cars. I mentioned how fast they go, how they can run you over, and really hurt you or even kill you. I mentioned to her that she should not go in the street and it is dangerous. Then, we turned the corner and we saw my Aunt walking towards the mailbox. Now, you know what happened next.
My husband and I would like everyone to know that we are pregnant! Our “little angel” will be having a baby brother or sister. Our estimated due date is May 21, 2008. We will have a more accurate due date when I see a doctor.
We finally decided on a hospital and doctor. We took a tour of 
In this picture you should be able to see the baby’s head. You can only see the bones, so the head will look like a scull. Baby is looking down, so more like the top of the scull.
Now here Baby is looking straight ahead. So you should be able to identify the scull and part of the body.
This one is hard. I just don’t see it, but this should show the foot.
These waves show that the baby’s heartbeat is normal.
In this picture the technician put a tiny little arrow in the picture to point out the sex of the baby. It’s A Girl! Another little girl, I am so excited. Angelina is going to have a baby sister to share her clothes and toys with. Ha ha ha!
In this picture I am at Emilio Aguinaldo’s house in the Philippines, Cavite. My mom’s side of the family is from Cavite and 
We are in the pool in the hotel we were staying at in Manila Philippines. Angelina was so cold in this picture. The water was freezing. She enjoys the water so much that when we told her she had to get out of the water because it was too cold she said with her lips looking all blue, “N-n-no I’m not cold.”
