Last May 8, the Ayayay group reformed anew. The hard core Ayayay members consisting of Celia Aurellano, Temay Padero, Noni Dolera, Tito Legasto, Tony Sotelo, Sonny Vicente and Oni Mayo invaded the privacy and quiet of Lydia Echauz's elegant digs and were all there by 7pm. If you notice, this hard core line up is not complete. Who is missing? The dramatic Cora Claudio, of course. As usual, she made her grand entrance after everyone had started eating. Give it Cora for taking on crusade after crusade that occupies her time.Hungry for a get-together after a long time, a sophisticated plot was woven by Celia just so that the party will happen. This plot involved the supposed retirement of Tito from his company - an event that merited having a party for the group. Everyone knew about the retirement except of course, Tito. Lydia's sumptuous prawns, lengua and salad were complemented by the contribution of others. Noni's humongous papaya mango was a hit. Tito was trying to get everybody drunk with vintage red wine. Oni's appetizer from Santi's was anti-climatic as he arrived late even at 7pm.
Table conversation consisted of the saga of Cora's new house, to Oni's US trip the next day, and let's not forget the backtalk about those that didn't make it to the party. Hear that, Chit, Ruben, Mon? An interesting topic was the issue of what is considered big money today. Lydia said P1B while Tito and Tony settled for P100M. Now we have an indication on why men are more harassed than women - there's more expectations from them! After dinner, Tony and Oni brought out their fancy guitars and the chorus concert started. Tony started it with his baritone rendering of oldies in his songbook. The sequence seemed mainly for Lydia as Tony ultimately did the Beatles tune "Hey Jude". Later Oni brought out his array of Minus Ones where Lydia was visibly beaming this time. It turned out that she was enjoying one of the songs. This was Cherish, a 60's number that brought back memories for her. Capping the show was patikim from Oni of his compositions from his songwriting hobby. Oni had wanted the group to experience his music before he became famous daw!
And then it was time to leave with Celia pondering whose retirement it will be this time to justify the next party. Or maybe it will be another esoteric reason about somebody else.
