The CCP Grounds

What a surprise we were in for when we drove to CCP last night to view the exhibits of my husband's former student, Jomike Tejido. We thought we were lost when we made a turn. In fact, my husband thought we'd have to drive further to get to CCP although we were in the reclaimed area. Why?

Where before (Imelda's time) one saw mostly parking lots, right on the left side of the CCP were eating places, brightly lit ones. Then I saw a structure that looked familiar. I said, "Oh, I saw Tommy Abuel eating there before", pointing to an outdoor concrete cafeteria, when lo and behold, my son saw "CCP parking". That was a very tiny space where the entrance and exit were one and the same space, and again a tiny wisp of a girl (like in Fish and CO) pulled and pushed the heavy metal thing that blocked the spot. The space was really tiny. But other than that, we didn't notice much else as we were in a rush. We were one and a half hours late for the opening.

The girl pointed us to the entrance across when we told her we wanted to view the exhibit. We followed her instructions, only to be told it was the artists' entrance and while it had an elevator, that elevator led to the main theater's backstage. Whoa. So we were told to go to the Little Theater's entrance.

When we were near enough, I didn't see any ramp and was almost dismayed because years back, okay make that more than 20 years back, I had written the CCP director then, Bing Roxas, asking if they could install one and she complied ever so kindly. Now it was gone. Then my husband and son said in unison, there's a lift. Lift, sosy. Like in Power Plant but better. It was enclosed. It had a tall door like to a room; the lift in Power Plant has a half the height of a room door. So my husband and I boarded it as we would in Power Plant. Whoa, it "millimitered" itself up (as opposed to inched itself up) and the guard said it was good for the person in the wheelchair only. But it was too late for my husband to get out. Besides, the notice on the side said 750 pounds. While I'm sure the wheelchair may have weighed 50 pounds, I was also sure I didn't weight 700 pounds. SO why was it moving so slowly? My son suggested that my husband reach out to the top of the enclosure to help it up by removing some of his weight from the floor. That he did did hasten the upward motion but then the thing stopped. Then it went on again, then stopped. Eventually we were able to get to the landing, proceeded to the lobby of the Little Theater and were told the exhibit was on the 1st floor. We rode the elevator to the 1st floor, asked around and were told it was on the second floor. When we got to the second floor, boohoohoo, no ramps, just steps galore. So I told my husband and son to proceed to the exhibit: my husband did, my son chose to keep me company. My husband wasn't gone for long and I prompted my son to go see the exhibit. His pronouncement: the paintings on banig of Jomike Tejido are works he'd like to have in his home. Maybe, if I get to see the third exhibit (we saw the first in Serendra without our son) and there's a cheap one, I'll buy one for him.

We left before long and this time, I was put in the lift alone and it zoomed down. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but the trip down was pretty fast; gravity plus less weight inside the thing, I guess. As I was going down, I heard someone say, "Hi Mary An", the friend of two of my friends, but I couldn't see her, enclosed as I was in the lift. Then my husband and son exclaimed, "Si Sony/Tita Sony". True, it was my sister rushing up the stairs to catch the performance in the Main Theater (Madz, Noel Cabahug, etc.).

Anyway, as we wheeled to the space where the car was parked, I heard the blare of a honky tonk (think jukebox place, okay, cheap bar) singer (read "ka buki") and thought aloud, "Imelda would be flummoxed", even as my husband said, "There's a live band on the other end". If Imelda were six feet underground, she'd turn in her grave, but she's alive, so that makes it even worse. I mean, wow, what a turn of events for her beloved seat of culture. I felt disgusted, violated. Sayang.

By then it was past nine pm, but we had to drive to a party of the mother of my son's friend near North Edsa, the farthest end of EDSA. Traffic was super heavy everywhere and when we reached the road beside Camp Crame (Aguinaldo?), my husband made a turn, leading us to Katipunan, ignoring the saying "the shortest distance between two points is a perpendicular line"). For a while there, I was scared he had decide to go home because he was driving really fast without talking. I just closed my eyes and kept quiet, praying to God to keep us safe to wherever he'd drive us. We ended up in our friend's house, intact. Whew. By then it was almost 10:30 p.m, rather late for us but that made the birthday celebrator happy so okay na rin. What a night!

I now regret that I didn't take pictures of the CCP grounds last night.