It was the summer of 1971 and I was just getting to master the Paris Metro. Since my first address was posh Avenue Foch, it was a regular route for me to pass by the Opera Garnier stop because I could only find giant bottles of soft drinks in nearby Galeries Lafayette’s big supermarket.
My neighborhood Felix Potin had minimal choices and was so tiny that I couldn’t even find fresh meat! Little did I know I had to go to a boucherie for my pork chops and rice was only a boxn of Uncle Ben’s instant long grain variety. There was no soy sauce yet and I had to settle for moutarde de Dijon.
Anyway, I was looking or rather playing with the subway map which lighted up one’s route to your destination when I had the urge to look at my right side and there was this girl staring at me.
“Hello, aren’t you Edward Garcia from Bacolod? We danced together in Kahirup.” Standing before me was Annie Carmona who wore the shortest mini skirt during rehearsals for our palabas, “Fool on the Hill”.
She was going to study in Paris, too and was going out at that time with Bertrand, a handsome blond, blue eyed son of the President of the Banque de France.
We were best friends from then on, and still are, except that she lives on the Left Bank since time immemorial while I’m on the Right Bank now in the Marais. Anyway, we recently discovered this new Mediterranean restaurant in my neighborhood called Malro that was recommended by another Paris old timer, Lucel Lopez of the days when I worked in UNESCO.
Actually, I lasted for just a month. My dream job of just typing documents, no brainwork here, went down the drain when I was requested by the Philippine Embassy to act as interpreter for Preciosa Soliven in her presentation of the Montessori school method for children to the UNESCO director.
Dahlinks, I couldn’t say twigs in French when Mme. Soliven used them to teach basic math for kids and got flustered wracking my brain for what seemed like forever.
We were joined by my neighbor and muse, Melissa Lopez and my partner Pål. The place was hip and jumping with young eye candy, while we devoured the fusion of Middle East and French cuisine. Nothing like old friends to pig out with…
Jetting in from Manila was socialite Allana Montelibano and top lady lawyer Connie Aquino, daughter of my classmates Noel and Girl Jimenez. Connie just finished a mountain biking tour and both ladies had waistlines to die for.
The glam duo was feted by my fav Parisian socialite Erwan Le Gouar who whipped up champagne cocktails and an exotic curry dish he learned from his childhood days in Côte d’Ivoire where his father had huge holdings in Total France, which is the French version of Shell gas.
Heirloom porcelain, crystals and silver added glitter to the dinner that ended with a huge slab of vacherin ice cream. Summer is heaven in Paris!
MY PRAYER
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:35, 37, NIV.*
