Losing My Head Again

February 12th, around 3 pm I was mindlessly walking up and down the aisles of Video City while my mom checks for the VCDs that she plans to buy as pasalubong for my uncles and aunts in the States. My sister Angelee was with us and she was doing the same thing I was doing except that she’s disappeared into the side of the store. It was a typical Sunday afternoon for me and my family ever since we started to implement the family lunch-outs that started sometime in January. Or so I thought…

A couple of hours earlier, I found myself inside our parish church to hear mass. That was against my will, mind you. I mean, it’s not like I have a choice what with my dad hell bent on getting our entire family to do something simultaneously. I certainly would’ve loved to pass up on mass and proceed with doing everything else after that but alas, that was not the case.

As soon as mass was over we headed over to the car and started to debate where we’re going to eat. My sister Louise’s stomach was quite queasy and there was a unanimous decision to go back to the house first. We continued the debate at home and eventually settled on Heaven and Eggs over at Glorietta. Before we left the house, I changed my footwear – from the Mendrez kitten-heeled thong slides to my two-toned Fornarina pointed ballet flats. Smart move, Leslie.

Brunch at Heaven and Eggs was okay and we spent about a couple of hours enjoying our meal and the usual family conversations. It was even more enjoyable because it was my sister Louise who was paying for it ;p After our tab was paid, my dad took my sister Louise to the office and then dropped me, my mom and Angelee over at Megamall.

Fast forward to 3 pm – I was killing time by going through the disks displayed on the different shelves while waiting on my mom to finish picking the things she’s supposed to buy when I suddenly heard my phone’s ringtone go off. It was a text message from Amy inviting me to -- what?!? Okay, am I reading this right? Yep, it was for the 4th Annual Enrique Zobel Memorial Polo Cup.

Amy’s next message was to wear something fabulous. Fabulous?!? ‘You should’ve given me the invite BEFORE I left the house’ was the first thing that popped into my head. I then went on to describe what I was wearing to see if it would pass for what the other people at the Manila Polo Club would be wearing – a stripped, yellow sleeveless shirt with a collar from Anonymous (thanks Louise for letting me borrow that); my pleated, asymmetrical denim skirt from Mink (Chocolate and Company); my expensive-looking Theme satchel shoulder bag that I got from the ukay-ukay over at Lawton at such a dirt-cheap price (yay!!!); the scarab pendant that I bought from a stall in Santa Monica beach a couple of years back and my shoes *wink, wink*

I got a thumbs up from Amy, told my mom where I was going and went on my merry way to meet Amy. When I got to the Manila Polo Club, I went through the registration process and crossed my fingers that I’d win in the raffle – I wouldn’t mind getting a pair of Rayban sunglasses J I then went to the courtyard and proceeded to find Amy who was seated on the second to the last row on the left hand side. She introduced me to Bobby Aguirre, the friend that invited her to see the game. Apparently, his son was one of the polo players.

I’m more or less an ignoramus when it comes to sports since Physical Ed was never my favorite class. It was interesting to see how the game is played, how the players managed to focus on doing two to three things. Namely: riding the horse, chasing the ball and trying to score a goal.

The team wherein Bobby Aguirre’s son belonged to lost to the team composed of guest players like Mark Field, David Stirling and Mark Austin. The winning team was headed by none other than Inigo Zobel who turned out to be one of Amy’s friends. From what she told me, she became friends with him during the time that he was dating one of Amy’s model friends (Amy was a former beauty queen/NY model).

The whole thing was very surreal – I got to meet all of the polo players during the cocktails and several other interesting people. I was, in a way, star struck because I this was just way out of my league. I was hobnobbing with luminaries from the upper crust of Manila’s business and society.

Amy, being the eternal party girl, said yes without any hesitations when the news of an after-party at Nuvo in Greenbelt started to spread. She met up with an old friend, Ito, who took us to the venue. Over at Nuvo, Amy settled on the table where her friend Inigo and all the other polo players were.

It was very unnerving. I was seated with new acquaintances Fred, Malou and Ito and I was basically having a great time but my thoughts were somewhat focused on Inigo’s daughter Bianca. She was chatting with the female polo player and I could imagine that they were talking about me and what the hell was I doing there. Am I being paranoid? I can’t answer that question since I didn’t have any clue as to what Bianca and her friend was discussing.

I was pretty much buzzed that night as the wine didn’t stop flowing from the cocktails at the Manila Polo Club until we got to Nuvo. Amy’s friend Ito chatted me up the entire time that we were in Nuvo. The conversation started with him explaining to Fred (who was sitting on the adjacent table) what the tattoos on each of his hands meant. He asked me where I live and then followed it up with how am I going to get home when he found out that I’m from Marikina. He offered to give me a ride since he said that he lived in White Plains.

To be continued…