Baker's Dozen

Here's twelve things I learned during the holidays:

1. Takezo Kensei?! Takezo Kensei?!!!
2. A lateral patellar dislocation really looks awful. (Apparently, it also hurts like hell.)
3. It is not that easy to look for an orthopedic surgeon on Christmas Day. It also pays to personally know the hospital owner.
4. The Olongapo City government has spent my taxes wisely. Either that, or I just never had the opportunity to really appreciate public property before.
5. Sedatives have interesting effects.
6. Spending Christmas Day within the confines of a private hospital room is not as nice as it is made out to be.
7. Emergency medical care is freaking expensive.
8. When driving on the South Luzon expressway, time and space are distorted, and the Calamba exit will be farther than it appears on the map.
9. You can overtake slow vehicles at Bitukang Manok (otherwise known to locals as Zigzag Road, or Eme Road; otherwise known to me, as the scariest highway ever created or imagined by man). It is not advisable. It is not wise. It does not even make any sense. But, it can be done.
10. Welcoming the New Year is not the same when it is raining. Hard.
11. You can (a) get an unlicensed copy of NBA Live 08 for PS2, (b) get a DVD copy of Enchanted, (c) buy toasted siopao from Naga Restaurant, (d) get a copy of the Inquirer, and (e) buy Tenderloin Tips, Cordon Bleu, and Pork Kebabs from Bigg's to go, and be back home in less than an hour.
12. Isarog Lines can traverse the distance from Naga to Manila in less than seven hours.

* * *

[13.] HB, D(+).