TOM SUGERLAND’S LAST MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS / By Ray Ramos / Copyright Ray Ramos / Page 11

Tom and Yasmine walked up to the front door of the lime green house off Braddock Drive
in Culver City. They could hear the all the commotion on the other side of the door of a family gathering. Tom gave the door a good rap. Rockquin opened the door with great panache, as expected.

“Welcome and Happy Thanksgiving!” The air was kind of smokey when Tom and Yasmine walked in the house, like somethig had been in the oven too long. Rockquin turned to his family. “These are my friends from the mall, beautiful Yasmine, and the sexiest, Santa Claus who ever came to town Tom!” Rockquin’s family all a waved at the two, then continued on to whatever they were doing. “Can I get you a Sprite?”

“We also brought a couple bottles of wine,” said Yasmine.

“Oh, how lovely,” said Rockquin.

Rockquin, walked the two over to a table loaded with various dishes of food; traditional Thanksgiving fare, but also traditional Filipino dishes.

“I hope you don’t mind we’re serving buffet style, too many people to have a formal sit down dinner.”

“This is fine; I did a little surfing down in Philippines,”said Tom.

Yasmine and Rockquin both looked at Tom impressed. Then Rockquin repeated in Filipino what Tom had said to his family, who all looked at the tall and leathery white man impressed.

“Very beautiful beaches there… nice break in the waves,” Tom said loudly over the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants game that was playing in the living room on TV. Rockquin’s family all smiled, but probably had no idea what he was talking about?

Rockquin handed Yasmine a plate.

“It all looks so exotic,” said Yasmine.

Yasmine noticed that a lot of the native food was just a little over cooked for her taste… a little on the charred side. She noticed some fish on the plate that reminded her kinda of what Fred Flintstone used to use as a comb. She tried to fill her plate with a lot of white rice. When Yasmine went to serve herself what she thought was beef, Rockquin smiled and said.

“I hope you like “little black dog Yasmine?”

Yasmine froze for a moment and looked confused.

Rockquin laughed; “old Filipino joke!”

“You ever had it?” Tom asked.

“Gross!” said Rockquin with a face.

“I had some in the Philippines… I didn’t know, I was eating at the time,” Tom laughed.
It was Rockquin who now froze;
"That's true? They really do eat little balck dogs?"!

After dinner Tom and Yasmine, got to know Rockquin’s family a little better. His father had pasted away ten years ago. He lived with his mother and his younger sister and brother. His mother said that he was good son, but she also tended to shake her head and roll her eyes when he got a little too flamboyant for her taste. Tom even heard her call him "little Liberace," once. Tom and Yasmine left Rockquin’s after about three hours and several glasses of white wine. It was a enjoyable evening, Tom looked over at Yasmine and smiled, he was truly was thankful he wasn't eating Boston Market takeout in his apartment tonight.