My Sunday started off right; I had brunch with my cousins, the Ayao sisters. Now, even though, I already know how they are, I still gave them the benefit of the doubt. We went to Noble SF on Polk Street for Sunday Brunch.
After polishing off 3-4 jugs of Mimosas, I was feeling rather good, more like brave. We decided to continue our drink fest elsewhere (Noble only gave us a table limit of 90 mins.). However, at the last minute, 1 of the sisters, decided it’s time to go home to be with her kids—no problem, I understand. A voice inside me said, “you should go home too; but if you opt to hang out with the other cousin, so be it—don’t worry, we’ll take care of
you.” Cool—I decided to go with my other cousin and her friend. We headed to North Beach, specifically, the Northstar Bar and Café.
We got there and I thought, cool—I love dive bars. I took shot after shot of chilled Raspberry Stoli Vodka. I usually can handle my vodka…but not that day, especially after a few jugs of mimosa, mind you. The last thing I remember was walking outside, cross-eyed and chucking up ALL OF MY BRUNCH on the side of the bar. Yuck! I know.
I woke up sometime after 8 pm, fully-clothed, in a strange (but clean apartment); for a minute, I thought I was in Manila…Philippines! What The Heck?! I walked around the apartment a la Hangover 2 and saw it was clean, but no one was there. Low and behold, the tenant “Greg” walked in and said “Great, good to see you’re feeling much better.” I was like,“so I’m not in Manila?!” He was like, “ummm, no. You’re in my apartment in North Beach.” So as The Hangover goes, he gave me his rendition of what happened. He told me that my 2 so-called “friends” and I interrupted him to inform him that one of them was my cousin—he gave me a strange look. Anyway, he told me that he was holding me up outside of the bar by the tree for 10 minutes while the 2 took off for Golden Boy Pizza. He was so pissed off at them for leaving me with him that he knocked the pizza out of their hand upon their return. From there, we all proceeded to go to his apartment so I could rest. But all in all, he was the one who took care of me. Thanks, Greg—or shall I say “St. Greg” for it took a Good Samaritan to care of me when he could have easily taken advantage of me. Right there, I knew God had my back.
So after all of that, we walked back into the bar to inform our gentleman bartender that I was OK and that we would be heading home. The drama didn’t stop there. My cousin and I argued all the way to her place because I wanted to go home. She won. I ended up staying the night at her place, reluctantly. I hardly slept because all I could think about was sleeping in my own bed.
So what’s the moral of the story?! What did I need to learn from this?! Besides, drinking responsibly—I learned that whatever choices I make in life ARE ALL SUPPORTED and not to dwell on the past for more than 2 days; to count my blessings and appreciate all of my loved ones (blood-related or not) because the ones that do count would have taken care of me as I would have taken care of them, if placed in this situation. But, most of all, NOT to go out with one and/or both of these sisters unless I’m chaperoned by the rest of my loved ones. I forgive, but I will not forget as NOT to make the same mistake twice.
So today, I went to pick up my phone at the bar and ran into Greg and thanked him for taking care of me. I feel
GREAT now. Until next week, I bid you all Love, Light, Blessings & Compassion.
Maria