Office cheer

My department's official christmas portrait. Sunday couldn't join us, but he lent us his two boys..

Amy, May, Liza, boy #1, Michelle, boy#2, and me. Cheers!

Incomunicado

The stars have aligned, and planets neptune and jupiter plus the rest of the constellation, including all the signs of the chinese horoscope have decided that today December 18 will be a day of complete rest, stillness, and zen meditation. I still have to pinch myself to make sure this is real .... our dear dear IT guys, bless their souls, decided to pull out my computer yesterday afternoon for 'isolation' and repair, and the service unit will not be available till tonight -- which means -- NO EMAILS THE WHOLE DAY! YAHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Out-of-office Asssistant - Monday, December 17, 5:00 pm: My PC has been pulled out for repair, and replacement will not be available till tomorrow afternoon. Thus I will not be able to respond to your emails till Wednesday, December 19. If urgent, kindly re-direct to either of my staff ecdrilon@rgoc.com.ph or pegomez@rgoc.com.ph. You can also send me an sms message. Thank you.

Ah...bliss!

Christmas won't be Christmas....

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled poor Jo lying on the rug. I remember reading Little Women one million times when I was 12, and that was the very first line of this classic story. I couldn't agree with Jo more. Christmas really won't be Christmas without any presents, which accounts for December being my most stressful month, I honestly wish I could strike it out from my calendar. It isn't the money, really, since you can actually find real cool stuff for only Pxx.50 now. (Found some super cute pot holders shaped like huge fish..where you insert your hand in the belly and your fingers into the head..and the mouth actually moves, so you can use it as hand puppet at the same time.) Pxx.50!!! Am giving it to sooooooooooooooo many people. In fact, I better erase the price now and just put xx's instead, in case they get to read this and think I'm a cheapskate. Another steal was this "mini spa" which, again, I got only for Pxx.75. I bought the entire mound of mini spas stacked one on top of the other in the aisle in Robinson's. It consists of a cute painted ceramic burner, 2 votive candles, and 2 tiny bottles of oil, in cute packaging. with ribbon pa, so you don't need to wrap the box. What a steal! I dread to think what the oil smells like...

So.. As i was saying, it isn't so much the money, but the TIME and ENERGY spent in looking for these 'steals' (because I don't have enough money).

Please don't ask me to explain.

A Ratwak Christmas

I'm tamad to make kuwento, it's enough that I relate the after-effects of the Ratwakan Christmas Party held last Friday December 7. Vicky never got home. She doesn't remember much, she just suddenly woke up in Carmi's house.


Q called the next day declaring he was about to check into Makati Medical.

I had to nurse a muscle-strained right arm for staying too long in one position (holding the airsickness bag right infront of Carmi's mouth) during the 45 minute ride from Alabang to Makati. My head was leaning against the window with eyes closed, but I was scared stiff she would vomit all over me. So I held the bag in mid-air the whole time.

It seems the only sane and sober person in the group was our unsung hero Ricky. Since it is his duty now to ferry all of us rat girls to and from ratwakans, we make sure he gets to drink ONLY diet coke during the last hour of the party. We call him our bus driver. Ginny is supposed to be his navigator or the only girl who cannot fall asleep on the way home. Part of her wifely duties of course.

The party was another record breaker in terms of enjoyment decibels. Shouting, screaming, laughing, guffawing, giggling, snorting, drinking, AND .. dancing to eightees music! -- See pics -- Carmi as Carmi and Malu as Alma Moreno!

Who killed my door?

Oh no, another question that's up there with the likes of Who killed Ninoy. This time, why is the door of my bedroom getting too big for its hole? About two months ago, Luis boxed the center of my bedroom door with herculean force when he lost his temper while engaged in a verbal battle with moi. So I guess instead of boxing me, he boxed the door, which is definitely the lesser of two evils I suppose. ANYWAY, nothing happened to the door - or so I thought. But we noticed that little by little, as the days and weeks wore on, the door became tighter and tighter.. as though it were expanding horizontally! The tightness was coming from the width, not the height of the door.. meaning it wasn't dropping. It was just growing sideways! We at first tried SANDING OFF a good portion - which improved the situation a bit for a few days, till it mysteriously grew again. And so, with a vengeance we borrowed a CHISEL and started slicing off layers of wood from the side. That improved things tremendously, what a relief ... till...after a week... just like some gremlin or monster or blob from a horror film, the door slowly started increasing its width again. As of TODAY, it WILL NOT CLOSE.

Luis thought of posting this very mysterious problem in yahooquestions - And so one fine afternoon I did just that, and voila..got a slew of mean replies ranging from I should have boxed my kid instead to why not enroll him in anger management courses -- all pointing to the fact that I screwed up this whole motherhood business...and THAT is why my door will not close. Total of eleven replies in 24 hours... Click on the link below and you be the judge.
My Yahoo Question

Cupcake wishes

The idea of making birthday wishes over lit cupcakes is not exactly an original but who cares, all 15 of us had such a warm fuzzy feeling this afternoon as we celebrated Mommy's 78th birthday doing the candle-on-a-cupcake wishing thing. The kids (we call them kids but they're ages range from 13 to 20 years old) organized everything with a little help from their youthful auntie Mel. And the result was a tear jerking, heartwarming ceremony where each of us recited our special message for Mom while holding our lit cupcakes. Mom blew out the candles after each message. And of course the most special candle was the one held by Dad who gave a lengthy, candle-melting, long and winding but very touching speech that left us all teary eyed. And he ended it with a passionate kiss ma-la Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.. pant pant... see pic below.

In memoriam

This is in memory of what would have been a successful party last night - something we, together with our Ayala Land friends, had been meticulously planning for months! We cancelled it shortly after lunch. To my understanding the attendance would have been stellar... a wonderful mix of fashionistas, society pillars, our press friends, the diplomatic corp, and the corporate world... all GONE because of some nutcase who stormed the Peninsula hotel yesterday and nag agaw eksena. Oh well. such is the exciting world we live in. Next, please.

My bagger boy

He explicitly said DO NOT TAKE PICTURES. DO NOT TALK TO ME. and DON'T EVEN SMILE AT ME.

Of course I did all three and more. It was a major shoot - with me taking pictures from every angle .. I was smiling and waving at him like a madwoman; I bought a loaf of bread and queued up at his counter, I made friends with the cashier and asked her how my son was performing, and proudly beamed at everyone, wanting to shout Hey this is MY son!!

Yes, my son the SM bagger at counter no. 34.

Every year, Xavier School exposes its graduating students to an actual work environment for four whole days. The 30 to 40 students per section per month take over as real, honest to goodness baggers assigned to specific counters (after getting a thorough training of course) for the entire eight-hour shift for four days. And so you have 30 to 40 families or excited mothers trooping to SM supermarket every month, acting like fans or paparazzi -- this, despite the very clear instructions in the school circular that state: You are welcome to visit your son. However, please do not talk, help or give food/drinks to your son or to his classmates during working hours. We request you to stay away from the counter ... we discourage your from taking pictures of your son while he is on duty.

Ha ha, sez who. Whoever wrote that circular has obviously never been a mother.

Village lore...

The mundane existence of the ten townhouse units here in our quiet neighborhood was given a jolt last Tuesday by the presence of a SNAKE that was slithering its way across my garage and towards my front door! It had come out of the drainage, and probably lived in the empty, grassy lot beside us. Immediately, no less than fifteen carpenters swooped down from the units under construction and started chasing the snake, pumelling its head and tail with large blocks of wood, steel bars, and whatever makeshift weapons they could find (see photo with squashed tail)...Indeed it was a scene straight from Beauty and the Beast - you know that part when the village suddenly comes alive as the angry menfolk head toward the beast's castle holding their pick axes and shovels, led by Gaston the guy in love with Beauty. There, of course, the analogy ends. The only guy who remotely resembled Gaston that afternoon was our maintenance man Mang Rene - not in looks but in role...he was the one who gave the orders to fling the dead squashed snake out into Santolan Road under the mercy of the careening jeepneys and G-liner buses travelling the Quiapo-Taytay route.

Anyway...the three of us - Niks, Luis and I - are now safely ensconced back in our castle awaiting our next fairy tale.. Such exciting times we live in!

Elixir

Eureka!! Thanks to friend Ginny B I've discovered the elixir to a sexy bod this Christmas. One tbsp. apple cider vinegar, one tbsp. honey and one tbsp. extra virgin coconut oil... simply mix together and take twice a day - morning and evening either before or after meals. Watch and see what happens. Strip and look at the mirror two months from now... oooh hey there sexy bod!! You know, the taste isn't so bad, for a miracle drug. It's like salad without the greens. In other words it tastes like vinaigrette dressing. The oil is supposed to line your stomach and make you feel very full apart from giving you the nutrients VCO is known to give, while the honey gives you energy plus a lot of other health benefits. Click on these three links and you'll KNOW this powerhouse trio is THE miracle drug to beat!

http://www.applecidervinegarweightloss.com/
http://www.benefits-of-honey.com/
http://www.thevirgincoconutoil.com/articleitem.php?articleid=160

Sunday A. and I have made a solemn pact to religiously take this combo every day till Christmas. Together our waist lines measure a TOTAL of 58 inches (I am NOT disclosing the "% share"). And we hope to achieve a combined waist loss of...hmmm...6 inches in 40 days - puwede na... Should be easy with this new discovery... And the diet starts NOW.

My halloween mask

Do NOT ask me what I was doing at a cocktail function of the "Spouses of Heads of Mission". I am not a spouse, I am not a head, I was not on a mission for anything. I simply had to represent our president a few nights ago and hob nob with a wonderfully different crowd..the genteel, diplomatic crowd that wasn't downing cosmos, martini and tequilas and wolfing down canapes. AND who had never heard of facebook. Apparently my boss had been generously supporting their various fund raising activities through the years and they decided to hold an intimate cocktail reception at the residence of the head of the European Union in appreciation for the donations. And so since she could not make it due to a prior engagement, I received my copy of the letter informing them that she would send MRS. Francisco, her - ehem - Vice President for Public Relations. So not only was I transformed into a respectable married woman that would blend in with the 'spouses' crowd, I was given a temporary promotion to boot! Of course I carried my new dignified spouse role with such elan that night, I almost believed it to be true... yeah..that was my version of halloween, a belated one, where I had the chance to wear a mask and adapt a totally different persona... I must say it was fun, and so refreshing to do everything in moderation - from talking to drinking to canape-munching... but I guess everything has its limits. I got home that night, immediately shed off this new persona and wolfed down a whole platter of adobo.

And now...

It's not that I want to make gaya the many bloggers out there who provide us with regular fashion news updates ... This is actually just an excuse for me to post a very pretty picture of a Marc Jacobs bag which we took in the office last Friday during one of our 'fantasy' moments. (The legs are -- ahem -- writer's own.)

The store opens next week.

The Man

Last night the Ratwak Gang got together at Carmi's place with a special guest, someone we have decided to induct into Ratwak membership as he seems to have all the required attributes - good looks, wit, intelligence, charisma.. and a goofy, shallow, dirty, irreverent, and weird sense of humor like the rest of us ...bwahahahaha!

He thoroughly enjoyed our company and we his, but he is a man whose name must not be mentioned.

We are all under oath. Sorry folks, end of story.

The Angels wear Prada

Fantasy \Fan"ta*sy\, n.; pl. Fantasies. [See Fancy.]
1. Fancy; imagination; especially, a whimsical or fanciful conception; a
vagary of the imagination; whim; caprice;humor.
2. Imagination unrestricted by reality; "a schoolgirl fantasy" [syn: phantasy]
3. Something many people believe that is false; "they have the illusion
that I am very wealthy" [syn: illusion, phantasy, fancy]


In our office of simple joys (and simple minds) "fantasy" means donning press samples head to toe before they go off to the magazines for shoots. Ahh...fashion bliss.. So here we are, my assistant Liza and I,  two women dreaming of another world, possibly another lifetime ..escaping from the trenches of day-to-day routine...dreaming of traipsing along the catwalks of Milan, or posing  for the likes of Barker or Demarchelier - an over-aged forty something, and a very ambitious five feet something... (or maybe we can be Miranda Priestley and her loyal assistant Emily?)

Prada 2007 Fall/Winter Press Collection

Ratwak rocks!

This just about says it all -
... Above photo was taken in the wee hours of the morning, after an evening with the most delightful company, a most congenial host, a truly sumptuous dinner, an endless stream of red wine, tequila, beer and scotch AND... the zaniest, most inane, irreverent, side splitting, howl emitting jokes only people of twisted, regressing, but absolutely brilliant minds (at 2am) are capable of spewing .... The occasion? to celebrate the Ratwak principal's return to Manila!!! Men are requested to come in dinner jackets,no need of tie, the text message read. We had also been asked if we preferred grilled lapu lapu or osso buco. It was off to a formal start with a special four course menu prepared by Billy King's The French Corner ... The seven of us gathered for yet another tryst at that memorable spot in Dama de Noche Street, Ayala Alabang -- Mr. Q's dinner table. The ladies in their cocktail wear, the men looking debonair in their dinner jackets .. sipping martinis, red wine, engaging in light banter first hour of the evening ... and then slowly, slowly letting our barbarian selves surface with each passing hour. The ratwaks, for everybody's information has an official membership roster of SEVEN (7), with Mr. Q as our Pinuno. The head. Don Vito. The Principal. Our tribal history dates back to the early 80's when some of us were but mere tribesmen at the Hyatt Regency, reporting to Mr. Q who was already then the chieftain (a.k.a. hotel GM). We acquired new members along the way.. Never mind the origin of the name Ratwak - too complicated (actually, too mababaw it's nakakahiya). Suffice it to say that we have 'formal' meetings such as this every few months and regardless of the state of the nation, we all have a blast and are able to regress and bring back the 80's and be our childlike selves all over again. By the time the clock struck midnight and we started playing Truth or Consequence (which was weird because we already knew so many scandalous Truths about one another), all hell had broken loose and our stomachs ached with laughter. When the arroz caldo breakfast was served close to 3am, we knew it was time to wrap up, cool down, and prepare to face the real world again. Eight hours (!!!) of non-stop jokes, kabastusan, irrationality, and just plain bigay-na-bigay laughter was such an unimaginable treat...and everything does have an end... sigh...

So we ended the evening by making plans for the next session -- Nilo's birthday? Send off party for Mr. Q's maid Arlene who leaves for Dubai? A Golf game? (only Ginny and Nilo play golf but we all agreed it was a cool idea) A barbecue at Nilo's place without Nilo? (this guy is ALWAYS late)... Whatever it is, this blog will certainly hear about the Ratwaks for years to come. Ok, roll call - the membership roster of seven consists of... the lovely ladies Ginny, Jeannie, Carmi and moi, and our debonair men Ricky, Nilo and of course, Mr. Q.