one at a time, people!

Little pieces:

One:

The other day I was teaching class in a new room, Palawan boardroom, and I was having trouble with the speakers that I had attached to the computer so we could listen to call recordings and assess the good and the bad points. So the two guys at the end of the table Ramon and Annelie Hermee ("Mon" and "H") fiddled with them together, wiggling the wires, and teasing each other that the other one had "the magic touch", and as soon as we heard the voice of the agent come in, they gave each other a crisp, almost military high five, without even looking at each other, they just both had the instinct to do it. The class was giggling at the dead serious expression on their faces, as if they had just lifted a car off a puppy. So cute.

Two: as an addendum to this, I went back to that same boardroom, which is in a separate building than I usually work in, across campus, around 3 AM that same day, to get the room ready for my late class, and I pushed open the door, my mind a million miles away. There in the room, which was by now ice cold since the air was on high for me, was a guy I've literally never seen in my four months over here. He looked up as if shot with a .38 and I laughed- did you book this room too? I asked sympathetically.
No, I was about to take a call- he indicated the phone, which he was indeed leaning over, about two seconds away from dialing into to a bridge line. His most standout feature was several gold rings on each hand, giving him a kind of potentate look, so when he waved me in I suppressed a grin. Take it, I'll find another room, go ahead! He toddled off graciously, rings twinkling.

So then, about 3 hours later, I was hanging around the poker room having a Caiprini and a burrito with Davie and this group of Indians busts in and takes over the billiards table. Once again, dudes I've never seen, except for one, who has a familiar glitter about his person. Could it be...?
Davie becomes oddly animated, waving like he's on parade float and does this thing that people do in certain circumstances: when they feel they "must" greet someone but they don't want them to come over and they don't want to interrupt you: he "mouthed" out an enthusiastic "Hi [so and so]!! HIiiiiii". Seeing as I've never seen him act this way (other people, yes, but not him), I turn around to see what the fuss is about. To me they're just four slightly disheveled Indians wearing rather ill- thought -out pleated khakis and heavy striped Polos or rumpled dress shirts with visible undershirts below.
The guys take their place, laughing and ordering beers and talking in what I recognize is a typical mix of vernacular and English; English for when you're speaking business, vernacular when you want to make a point or say something scandalous.
Are those [company men]? I asked.
Davie all of sudden becomes an E entertainment gossip host and nods in a circumspect way and then whips out his *cell phone* and texts me (since the billiards table was right behind us, to the point where the back of our bench acted as a beer ledge for them) with the account name, and waggles his fingers in a gesture I took as "don't look now. Don't. Look. Now."
I've heard, let's just say, a lot about some of the people that were there. Of the four, two of them had figured highly in some less than flattering stories at "white people gripe session", and one of them was....yes, you guessed it, the guy from the boardroom. An odd coincidence but it sort of makes sense, since if you think about it, once you meet someone, you have a tendency to more easily spot them later.
Do I know them? I asked Davie.
His answer is one I'm still pondering:
No, but theyyyyyy knowwwww youuuu. He says in a stage whisper with waggling eyebrows.

Seeing as every once in awhile Davie will tell me gossip I've told him as coming from Anne, I chalked it up to typical Davie brain vacation, but it did give me a chill for a moment. How do they know me?

I racked my brain for similar circumstances to when I "met" Ryan; which was the following: on my first weekend here I went out with work friends, and we were at some wretched hole in the wall, our last stop for the night, and there across the room was a tall, good- looking man wearing a WOOL SWEATER.
He had the most imperious, infuriating look on his face I've ever seen and in my state (let's just summarize it as "not sober") I had the uncontrollable urge to take him down several pegs and show him what's what. Side note: still have that urge, but sadly the Indian Ocean is now preventing me from doing so, as it is between us.
"LOOK AT THAT HIGH- TONED F*CKER OVER THERE WEARING A SWEATER!" I shouted to Anne. "WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?!"
Anne, to her credit, didn't turn an eyelash. "Oh, him. He's a complete wanker." she concurred.
"So,want to meet him?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." I growled.
Now, neither Ryan or I remembers this. ANNE told it to me after I told her about "meeting" him in the work lobby. "Don't you remember insisting I introduce you to him last weekend at Pony Tails( or wherever the hell it was, still don't have the foggiest)?" she asked, a sympathetically confused note in her voice. Thus history is made, little ones.

Anyway, I was pretty nervous that something similar had occurred with these dudes, but I think it's more likely that Davie was teasing me that they had "seen me around" and thought I was "cute" or whatever.

Three:
I got a series of oddly worded text messages from Ankit, who had been "on hiatus" since the Phillies "incident", meaning I wasn't texting him and he was doing his usual workaholic "and whooooo are you?" routine, until I got a text from him "what's going on, hon?"
I was a little peeved, but I was like "eh, work..." whatever. Why bother trying to change someone who clearly is so clueless you don't even know where to start?
So he texted back "I'm so upset and I don't even know why."

It took me several attempts to answer this without being sassy. Basically, I can tell him *exactly* what the problem is. Recovering from a stomach infection brought about by having too much ALCOHOL acid in his body, he had to stop drinking for 10 days, which made him dry out for the first time in probably two years, causing him to take stock of his life: working all day and night, no girlfriend, no real friends, far from home, working in a pressure cooker stoked by the fires of relentless capitalism, feeling restless, no plans....etc. He was astonished to find that "life wasn't going the way he wanted" as soon as he pried his lips OFF the perma- Red Horse/ Jack and Coke that had been there for the last however long. Sigh. So I told him we could hang out and talk about "it" (knowing full well that incompetent coworkers and money hungry gold digging girls would most likely be blamed for the brown study he found himself in), so we'll see if Baby Boy has a revelation. Heh.

Anyhoo...good night and good luck.