here's to gibby

For Gibby's birthday I will recount a little story:

Once upon a time at the farm, we decided to take a ride out on Gibby's bicycle with a sidecar. We took turns riding and driving. Of course I rode more than drove...weighing up the given facts, of course.
We rode/drove past muddy dogs running through the rice paddies on either side, and we even passed a cow tethered to some form of anchorage along the side of road so it could eat freely without running away.
And then when we felt our eyes had feasted on enough rice paddies (the ONLY thing in sight, aside from the distant mountains and the blue sky and an occasional bahay kubo out in the middle of the paddy), and we'd had enough riding and driving, we decided to head back. This time the cow was sorta in the middle of the road, and we hemmed and hawed about how to get around it. Thankfully, some how, we managed and kept on going happily down the road ... for about two seconds.
All of sudden from behind us we hear the pounding of hooves on the dirt road. This tethered cow's almost-full-grown calf (forgive me if an almost-full-grown calf actually has a name...I'm not cow-savvy) is charging at us at full-speed. We're not really sure why, but we're really very sure it can't be a good thing. With no time to think, we both get behind the bike and push it, running for our very, very dear lives. I don't think anyone has EVER since Gabe run so fast. After awhile the almost-full-grown calf gets distracted by the tall grasses that line the sides of this rice-paddy road, and stops chasing us. Gabe and I, panting for breath (forget the sigh of relief), break out laughing our heads off, in a completely we-feel-like-completely-stupid-children way.
I think we were 17 and 18 at the time.

Now, as of yesterday, Gibby is 27. So, Happy Birthday GabeGuy!

Thanks for all the mangoes, and guavas, and pomelos, and other market-booty that you always save.