Super spidey bat

I HATE it when TV shows try their darndest best to make you cry.  I hate it when they relentlessly wring your lachrymal glands dry just to get that solitary tear to fall.  That’s why I had never had the patience for teleseryes (with all due respect to thecorporateteener whose written works I adore!).  I’ve never really successfully sat through even just an episode.  If anybody would force me, I would demand strong drip coffee – on an IV – and quick!

Fortunately enough for me, I’ve found a few shows that do manage to sustain my interest.  On my friendster account – waaay back in the day! – I shamelessly sang peans for these TV series I claimed as my favorites.

And this past week, a couple of these shows – Ugly Betty and The Big Bang Theory – managed to bring to mind three very special people in my life.  My own superheroes.

“Ugly Betty”, being the multi-awarded comedy series that it is, surprisingly tugged at my heartstrings as the re-interpreted Cyndi Lauper original “Time After Time” cued the closing scene of part two of the show’s season three finale.

“Sometimes we’re fated to meet certain people who can change our lives.  People who really make a difference.  They make you a better person.  They push you to grow.” – Daniel Meade, Season Three, Episode 24

It was after hearing that – and feeling a solitary tear finally falling – that I got reminded of my three superhero best friends.  And I was so surprised how a quote from Ugly Betty would bring back flashing scenes from season one of “The Big Bang Theory”… scenes rife with superhero references.

And whether in the protagonists’ superhero fashion statement t-shirts, or in their actual lines, I would always get reminded that out there are at least three people who I was fated to meet.  They have changed and are changing my life.  They make a difference.  They make me a better person.  They allow me to grow.  And the best of all, they make me feel that I matter.

So here’s a shoutout to you.  To Batman.  To Spider-man.  To Superman.

 

The Dark Knight

The Big Bang Theory, Season One Episode 13, “The Bat Jar Conjecture”

“Hey, check it out.  I got you a Batman cookie jar.” – Leonard

“Oh, neat.  What’s the occasion?” – Sheldon

“Well, you’re a friend and you like Batman and cookies…” – Leonard

 

The Big Bang Thoery, Season One Episode 11, “The Pancake Batter Anomaly”

“My spare glasses are in my bedroom, on my dresser, next to my bat signal.” – Leonard

Spidey!

The Big Bang Theory, Season One Episode 14, “The Nerdvana Annihilation”

“My spidey sense tells me this has something to do with Penny.” – Sheldon

 

Man of steel

The Big Bang Theory, Season One Episode Nine, “The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization”

“What’s this?” – Penny

“That’s the bottled city of Kandor.” – Leonard

“Uh huh…” – Penny

“You see, Kandor was the capital city of the planet Krypton.  It was miniturized by Braniac before Krypton exploded and then rescued by Superman.” – Leonard

    

A masterpiece confection of edible art

[This post has been a long time coming. Finally, I got a picture to accompany my short prose!  Thanks to my good good friend Rizzie Ocampo Lontoc for allowing me to write about this.]

 

Bom & Rizzie's three-tiered wedding cake by Ms. Judy Uson

WAY NEXT to the radiant bride, it is the cake that takes the center stage in any wedding celebration.  Center stage or whichever side of the stage the coordinators decide to perch what has long been touted as a symbol of a newly wedded couple’s willingness to share with each other (they feed forkfuls to each other, don’t they?!).  But regardless of the position, the wedding cake takes its rightful place of unquestionable prominence and importance.

That’s the reason why I always – always – take a good look at the wedding cake.  I don’t really remember relishing a piece of these cakes as there would almost always be no opportune time to get a slice (Note to self: eNTeNG, you’re not part of the happy couple! Quit stalking the cake! Hahaha!).  But good thing that the sight of these cakes was always enough to satiate the craving of the eyes and the grumbling of the stomach.  It is safe – and fair – to say that I’ve never seen any “unpretty” wedding cakes.

But there is one wedding cake that has stood out in my mind up to now – over six months since I saw it.  It was my good good friends’ Bom & Rizzie’s wedding cake – a Judy Uson original!  It was a three-tiered, three-flavor white fondant-covered cake of mocha, chocolate, and carrot, beautifully festooned with sugar blooms of peonies, calla lilies, and roses, among many others.  More than anything else, I look back and see a wedding cake that successfully reflected my friend Rizzie as a bride on her most special day – stylishly simple and understatedly elegant.  The edible sugar flowers – not your typical commercially available dull sugar roses – exploded in shades of purple, Rizzie’s color motif, while managing to not really scream “color motif”!  That’s quite a feat for Ms. Uson who clearly is more than a pastry chef, she is a cake artist – to the truest sense of the words!

Bom & Rizzie’s wedding still comes back to me as one of the best I’ve ever been to.  And from the many spots where I stood as their reception emcee, I would always see just how perfect the Blue Leaf Pavilion set-up was.  But I would always vividly recall just how their wedding cake managed to help put focus to such a joyous – breathtaking for the most part – occasion, as it mirrored the lovely bride, my good friend.

That's me with my good good friends Rizzie & Bom.