Serendipity Sunday on a Mother's Day

Tracy, San Francisco, USA at 02:42 am PST - I just couldn't go to sleep without posting a short note on the amazing day I had on Mother's Day here in San Francisco.

I'm sharing this before I fall flat on my face since I have a 6:15 am appointment to wake up for.

I arrived here on Saturday but I have been so busy that I have not posted any additional photos or wrote any replies/emails etc. since I left Cincinnati. I fully intend to of course, so let me just recount this wondrous tale -

Roehl and Jerry, both my colleagues at good ole "House of Sara Lee" way back in the 1990's settled here in the US. There were other system supervisors which passed thru this company before, during and after my time..but these two, along with Louie were the ones I had more interactions with...between the three of us...we had lost track already of the number of sleepless nights, database errors and fixes, countless reinstallations, cabling and other very exciting nocturnal activites at the branches (all related to IT, mind you!...well okay..might have included a drink or two *grin*)

Today, Roehl and Jerry gallantly accompanied me to Napa Valley.

Our first stop was at the Robert Mondavi winery where I had my first ever glimpse of an honest-to-goodness wine- making facility. I was googly-eyed and bushy-tailed at the sight of all the wonderful rows of wine bottles and other expensive memorabilia..and then they dragged me to the second one - the V. Sattui winery, whose wines are "exclusive"! i.e. they are not sold at the stores or shipped outside of USA.

After "oohs" and "aahs" on my part over the facility and the wine cellar, we chose to postpone the wine-tasting till we got our bellies to stop moaning.We had to satisfy our hunger and we sat down on the damp but verdant green grass under a sheltering tree where we happily munched on some italian sausage and pizza margherita and enjoyed a refreshing reisling (off-dry) and some sparkling water...

Some very necessary strategic picture-taking tasks followed. And finishing our humourous reminiscing about the different people we had known at Sara Lee and where they were now working, living or how they were doing, we then stood up to brush off the dampness and grass to get started on the wine-tasting.

I was sauntering lazily after them when I heard the most surprising sounds in that place - the vigorous calls of - "Cat!" "Cat!"...

Since I don't know anyone in Napa Valley and the only few people I knew that well in Sanfo happened to be with me at that time, my eyes turned as big as saucers when I turned back to face cautiously a table near where we were previously sitting - only to see this tall and pretty, impishly smiling woman say succinctly the word -"Choie!".

I was utterly dumbfounded. I think my mouth was hanging open for all of 2 seconds when she added for good measure - "Multiply Choie!"....and then...like pieces of a puzzle, everything started to fall in place...

Wow, I bumped in Choie, who happens to just be part of my network here in Multiply...thanks in part to Boboy (hugs to Hugzone!).

We never met in person but have only exchanged posts and comments here in this site. Of course, Bananaking offered Cyfunk's services when I wrote I was going to Sanfo (ah..he is a man after my own heart,that BK69, hehe!)

.

Thanks in great part to Choie's photographic memory, she was able to match my face to the pictures I've been posting here at Multiply and to figure out that I was the Cat she had torn sheets and sheets of paper for a couple of times *grin*

I don't have that talent for picking faces from the crowd...and so if it were left to me...Choie and I would have emulated Evangeline and her belowed..and we'd have been just like "ships passing in the night" (apologies to Longfellow for this abuse).

What are the chances of this happening? With so many wineries here at Napa, and with so many people going to visit it today...how could we have ended up to meet each other in this fantastic place?

But the tale does not end there, my good friends.

This tale truly exemplifies a song snippet which goes this way "its a small world after all!".

Get a load of these snippets of info -

Boboy was my classmate at AIM. He became my connection to Choie.

Jerry and Roehl and I previously worked at Sara Lee (direct selling arm of the multi-national which got bought by Tupperware).

Jerry works with Chevron. Roehl works with Philips (ok, some changes there, but essentially his email address is still Philips). And I? well...let's just still keep it a secret, okay? Permit me my supersitious idiosyncrasies...call it the comfort of the old...

Glenn, who is Choie's equally charming and kind-looking hubby (well he certainly suffered thru my girlish excitement and trills of pleasure over this incident but never once gave me a glare hehehe)...is currently working in a building in the same compound as Jerry which is Chevron's campus, a stone's throw away in fact from Jerry's building number (take ur pick from A to Z)...

Not only that, but he also worked in Philips but back in the Philippines. See his connection to Jerry and Roehl?

When we mentioned that we came from Sara Lee,  Glenn lets go of the name Maciel Sunga...and its quite familiar to us...so we all chimed in unison that we knew of her. Choie then calls Maciel who confirms this.

Now what are the chances of 5 people meeting up on that sunny, wine-tasting day in Napa and getting connected this way? My goodness, if we had also been able to bring Louie and Bong with us...who knows what mutual friends and acquaintances we may have shared?

And yes, I'm now going to sleep coz I have said and written my piece .....(drools over the pillow).

- May 14, '07 5:42 PM