Celebrating the Kin-dom

Today is the birthday of one of the kindest and most gracious people I know. And I'm extremely happy and proud to call my friend.

Happy Birthday Kin!

Among Kin

If there's one person in SMC-CAO that's most loved, it's definitely Kin. 

No surprise there. To everyone who knows her, Kin is one of the most kindhearted, humble, inspiring and understanding person there is. I think the adage "not a mean bone in her body" was done with Kin in mind.

That's why when we were told that there was a surprise birthday dinner for Kin, the CAO gang made it a point to be there. While most of the people have already left SMC and moved on to other companies, we're more than glad to come back for Kin.

This group is actually a combination of almost 3 "generations" of SMC-CAO folks. The earliest members would be Elsie and myself, followed by Lu-ann and Leah, and the last generation would be Bunny, Aggy, et. al.

We forced Kin to make a short speech after dinner, and her first sentence captured who she is as a person.

"I don't know what I did to deserve a group of friends like this."

Humble as always. That's trademark Kin.

Best. Birthday. Ever!!!

With Kin's birthday happening on a weekend, the CAO gang decided to celebrate it in advance and met up at Chili's tonight. Since Kin is much loved by the SMC folks - both past and present - we arrived in full force.

Her favorite color is green, that's why Maricar instructed us to wear a touch of green. As they say in corporate parlance, it was "100% compliance." From emerald green to moss green to seafoam green, everyone came in different shades of green. And it complemented the birthday girl's pink shirt.

Since it's a birthday celebration, we decided to live dangerously. And for old folks such as us, living dangerously means having margaritas on a Thursday night. I think we had 5 pitchers, which explains why everyone was red by the time the celebration ended.

By 9pm, our table was already rowdy and noisy shouting "Best. Birthday. Ever!!!" to the amusement of the servers who were assigned to our table. We didn't mind the stares, though.

After all, we were all busy being happy for the Best. Birthday. Girl. Ever!!!