The Love Shack

Lost Blog 4: April Visit

On a recent trip to Sacramento, we celebrated my nephew, Lennox’s, birthday. The venue, of course, was Chuck E Cheese. It seems to be a tradition in the family that started with my sister to have the kid’s birthdays have some big production to involve everyone crawling out of the woodwork.

Audrey’s memories of childhood birthdays were always the block party setup. When my mom lived in an apartment across the street from the park, she would orchestrate some large party that would sometimes involve the entire building, where the kids played in the park and the parents congregated by the BBQ. It seemed like the way to do it. After my mom moved, however, we ended up living in the condo on Florin, a bigger home they moved into for me.

At Lennox’s party, I saw a bunch of my relatives that I haven’t seen since my last family reunion event… Which I think was Audrey’s wedding… Anyway, it still felt weird. I remember having my birthdays at the same kind of place, where I just goofed around and enjoyed myself in the games. Now that I have graduated into adulthood, I walked amongst the crew behind the scenes, (setting tables, watching kids, socializing with adults), in other words, not my usual forte. So much has changed, like the original 3 children, (me, my cousin Ruben, and Audrey), had grown and more children have arrived. Ruben is off serving the country, I’m off at college, and my sister is now the mom. The new generation of adults is formed.

I wouldn’t be this nostalgic at all if I wasn’t reminded of it with every aunt, uncle, family friend, and child kept reminding me of it. They always bring up how small and puny I was, then how much I grew and filled out, and now how I’ve grown and lost weight. I don’t really feel it. I’ve been in school for as long as I can remember, doing the same kind of thing. No big deal to me.

So I tried to stay away from the family as much as I could. The one sure fire way to do this was preoccupy myself with a job I was legendary for: Collecting tickets. My mom ordered the family pack of tokens, a great number of which was given to me to spend wherever the tickets were. I hopped back and forth between machines, playing the game of chance and observing jackpots up until the point I got a few of my own. By the end of the day, I landed 2423 tickets.

After the party, I was supposed to meet up with Dustin somewhere unbeknownst to me. I figured out he was at a Firestone pretty close by, so I said for him to come and pick me up. After some phone calls and confusion, I waved my family goodbye and proceeded to wait for Dustin on the curb. I decided to walk down the road to see where I was in relation to the Sunrise Mall. It turns out that the Firestone where Dustin was at was literally in the same parking lot as the Chuck E Cheese. I got the phone call of his arrival, he was at the Chuck E Cheese. We walked across the parking lot and hugged each other upon our intersection point.

We got into the car and drove to Dustin’s sister’s house. His dad and his brother were there fixing up a truck while the sister lounged on the couch in the garage. Apparently I made the brother jealous because I had my goatee. Looking at the guys, there was the dad with a full beard, Dustin with a stubbly beard, me with my goatee, and the brother, bare. Dustin’s family kind of reminded me of some old neighbors I hung out with during my youth at 3613.

Rex needed something at the Autozone, so Dustin drove the four of us on a quick trip. Dustin and I hung out in the car while Rex and Alex went inside. Dustin and I hung out and talked about random things. We observed a guy with a Jafar goatee messing with his cell phone. We joked about how he might be sexting, an unlimited sexting plan, the usual.

After that trip, Dustin and I went to Folsom and saw Patric’s family. They fed us really good lasagna and salad, Dustin consuming twice as much as I had. Then, Dustin took a shower while I trolled around on their computer. I started Tumbling on Dustin’s account when he walked in with only a towel. I typed up the blog, “Jafar, Up to No Good” where Dustin read parts of it over my shoulder, obliviously unaware it was his account.

~

We were meeting a few of their friends at the Lollicup in Roseville to watch the talent show. My previous Lollicup experience didn’t turn out to well. It was when Taka took us on the day of a concert and I almost choked on boba in the tea. However, I wanted to go to the talent show because I remembered my friends, the Matutis clan, had performed here as well and I wanted to see their competitors. Last time, I had the strawberry milk tea, which was okay but the boba threw off the taste. This time around, I tried an almond milk tea without boba. It was very good, considering it was just almond and milk.

Dustin, Patric, and I were waiting until Charlene, Valerie, Jennifer, and Rachel arrive. Char and Val are sisters, Jen and Rachel are sisters, but they are all related, (Filipino families, go figure). I met Char and Val on a number of occasions, but Jen and Rachel were new. They all seemed pretty cool. Jen and Rachel seemed as much of a spaz as Char, so it was all good.

Charlene’s performance was pretty good. She sang a few songs on the keyboard while Valerie took a bunch of photos.

There was a girl, Sam, who needed to be egged on by the entire establishment to go and perform. She did an original poetry reading. You could tell she was nervous because she started sputtering her words until they came like a barrage of bullets in your face. I couldn’t get most of the words, unfortunately.

Then there were these three singers, Mona, Jenna, and… (forgetting name)… Francis Bacon. The three of them did some amazing songs and blended harmonies really well. I was impressed by Jenna, leading the group with her singing and piano playing. She also ended up doing piano for another guy… (forgetting name)… Moshark… And they did some renditions of popular songs. Hell, she did “I’m Yours” with him on guitar.

The rest of the night went pretty much like that. We enjoyed each other’s company and helped clean up after the talent show was all done. More of Dustin’s and Patric’s friends arrived near the end of the shindig. We all started goofing around in the parking lot, dancing, cuddling up to Dustin’s bosoms, the usual. Then we all started to leave to our cars, all three of them parked up right next to each other. Somehow, it ended up being crazy to the point where the three cars rolled down their windows and started blasting Kelly Clarkson on the radio. It was fan-frikken-tastic. XD

The three of us then started driving out of Roseville. Patric, in the backseat, started talking about their Jackson Rancheria weekend where Matt needed to go really bad while they were driving to the point where Matt grabbed an empty can of soda and a pillow and just peed in front of everyone. Patric, the lovely sheep that he is, started to do the same thing. He couldn’t get the pillow just right and apparently it had hurt because he was yelling very loudly. He didn’t go through with it, not that I wanted him to in the first place…

Then Love Shack played on the radio while we were at an intersection. Dustin and I sung out the lyrics, but apparently Patric didn’t recognize the song. What he ended up doing was rolling down his window and yelling at a car next to us. He was yelling, “Hey! Love Shack is on the radio! Hey why are you ignoring me!?” Dustin drove past them as fast as he could after that. XD

We decided to pick up Matt, so we drove to his place and knocked on his window. He was hungry so we decided to go to In n Out, (after Patric took a quick trip to the bathroom of course). Matt was always one to complain about his lactose intolerance, but, for some odd reason, he always ends up with the milkshakes. We hung out for an hour, talking about random stuff, force feeding each other’s food, and making Kirby faces on the paper ketchup cups. It got to a late hour where I needed to go home.

At the apartment, Matt gave me a wonderful back massage. I usually don’t let anyone do anything to my back, but I made an exception because, in my mind, I justified it as something that was long overdue. However, it had gotten so comfortable that I almost fell forward into the street. Then, they showed me this funny video on Patric’s iPhone of how Abraham Lincoln’s murder was justified in the end. I would’ve never guessed that Abe was so gangster to the point of insanity. XP

After an awkward hug, (from the front, behind, and below), I said my farewell… Until Dustin decided to use the bathroom. We snuck into my apartment where it was all dark but dimly lit by night lights. I had to take Dustin by the hand and show him the bathroom. After that, another awkward hug ensued, and then, as they were walking out, Patric dropped his pants and waddled outside to the car… Oh what the neighbors must think… And I was getting to like them, too. XD