Tara a.k.a. Luxor Villas

My fortress, my home, my shelter, my castle. My Tara, my Camelot. (it looks ugly only when viewed from a satellite. See yellow thumbtack mark where I'm waving from my roof deck. haha)

Victorious Vida

ok, we're on a roll here...After getting a high from Harriet's 'self care' seminar last weekend, I had such an inspiring lunch yesterday with a woman who lives and breathes self confidence -- who else but my dear friend Vida. This is one lady who just has it all together, and who has never let anything faze her; I have always envied that kind of positive energy Vida radiates so naturally and which has made her successful in many areas - her career..her personal life.
By the way, she just got married and now has that honeymoon glow to boot!! (the sweetest, most romantic story -- Rolly her very devoted husband passed away in 2002. Somehow, in the process of keeping herself busy and picking up the pieces of her life, she and her very first sweetheart Aru from 40 years ago got together. He too had been widowed many years earlier. And so...boy courted girl once again. They fell in love, and then got married last month!!)So here I was having lunch with this lucky lucky lady, but then she made me realize it isn't really luck that we need in order to draw positive experiences to us. Vida has always had a very heightened sense of self worth (not like yours truly who most of the time enjoys wallowing in muck and self pity)... When you have self worth, you open yourself to receive blessings ...experiences and people who will do you good.. You filter out the bad stuff, the stuff you don't need, the hurtful things, the negative forces. You have a healthy outlook on life, an unwavering faith in God, and just forge ahead knowing only good things will happen. And they do!
Read or watch The Secret. I guess that's victorious Vida's secret...

http://www.thesecret.tv/home.html

HURRAY FOR HARRIET!!

Yes, that's Harriet Hormillosa, President and Founder of RCW (Reintegration for Care and Wholeness) Foundation. I just came from attending her seminar workshop on intrapersonal healing and am still on an all-time high. I feel reborn and like I just grew wings and unloaded a block of s__t. Really.. The value of this 2-1/2 day workshop is priceless. Entitled 'Reparenting the Child Within', it has helped me understand myself better.... a lot of griefwork, healing, forgiveness, self affirmation takes place...and now it's a whole new Malu, ready to tackle on the world for the next..40 years?
Encouraging everybody to attend! There's one every month. I believe the next one is on June 15-17. Visit their home page http://rcwfi.org/home
Call Mae Sotacio at 436-0710 or 426-6832 now!

Here's my class -- batch 274.













I think the child within just got out...





More pictures here...
http://malufrancisco.multiply.com/photos/album/7/RCW1_batch_274

Nikki at NAMFREL

Nothing much happening. Call it blogger's block (like writer's block) but there seems to be nothing worthwhile to blog about these days -- about myself at least. I think my children are having a much more exciting life ....

My daughter, my little Nikkita, is actually a NAMFREL volunteer! She's been going everyday since the elections to the Namfrel headquarters at La Salle, for her afternoon to midnight shift! She is doing her bit for the country, and am immensely proud. Wasn't it only yesterday when her mother stopped the tanks in EDSA? (just kidding, I wasn't there. I was there earlier during the day -- before it happened, and unfortunately left before the exciting part. I watched it on TV.) Wasn't it only yesterday when her mother honked her horn repeatedly during the noise barrage for Ninoy? (THIS I did.) And wasn't it only yesterday when her mother helped in shredding yellow phone books to throw from the windows of Insular Life? (I did? I can no longer distinguish between what I actually did and what I imagined myself to have done especially during those days when everyone had the chance to be a hero. I remember going to Insular Life building but can't really recall what for. Maybe it was to watch a Repertory play.) ANYWAY, here is my hero in action... don't mind the first pic - I think she was getting for action... Here's...Nikay...doing her bit for the country!!! Maybe she's calling South Cotabato.

Continued from The Banquet.....

...a continuation from yesterday's entry...the gastronomic orgy last May 9 at Chef Gene Gonzalez's resto...

Posing with the graduates...

the dreaded 'rating sheet' (these are my ratings) first page of the 12 course menu (each course was made up of 2 items)

5 more courses of desserts to go! zzzzzz with couzzzin Peachy
with Chef Gino, son of Chef Gene The "Panel"

the "connoisseurs".... Jomie, Lia, Johay, Al....

The Banquet

The invitation was vague. Johay merely told me we were going to a 'chef's table' at Chef Gene Gonzalez' resto last Wednesday, May 9. Well, "table" turned out to be a pagan banquet, a mega - lavish spread, a bacchanelian feast...an orgy of different tastes and textures. Actually, "in fairness" - it was intentionally ALL of these BECAUSE that evening happened to be the final exams of the graduating class of the Center for Asian Culinary Studies, under their teacher - Chef Gene Gonzalez (good friend of Johay and Al's. thus the invitation)! So, there they were...6 budding young chefs, all nervous, all armed with their pots, pants, ladles, AND creativity..churning out some 24 different food items for us - the panel of judges - to scrutinize, criticize, and rate. There were about 12 of us in the panel..among whom were my connoisseur brother Jomie (hehe), Lia, and cousin Peachy.. The students were tasked to work on the concept "Four Seasons of Italy" and came up with ...a visual feast as you can see by the photos, and a 3-1/2 hour gastronomic orgy...Criteria ranged from originality to taste to texture to appearance..which was fine in the beginning, but towards the end..my taste buds had totally spaced out; something was indeed very wrong with me when the sole and the lamb started tasting the same... by the time we started with the 5 different courses of desserts...I was copying the ratings of my seatmate, as my brain had ceased to function. The four seasons just melded into one. By midnight, I was totally gone. I was like a bear wanting to sleep for the next 12 months. But it was such an interesting evening, one I had never experienced before, I really wouldn't mind going thru it again, this time though, with pre-psyching for two days prior (a.k.a. not eating)...

Mwah-ther's night out..

Mother's Day today...but before that...let me share with you my ...Girls' day! or rather my "Girls Night Out" LAST night with my ever constant group of kikay kerengkeng cousins Peachy, Ichi AND Johay. Johay blew into town the other week, and OF COURSE we had to have our traditional girls night out... this time...at CLUB MWAH!! (you're huli sa balita if you don't know what this is. Visit www.clubmwah.com ) What a fascinating, fantabulous, over-the-top show that was .. There have been too many rave reviews about it, so no need for me to say anything. We did have some kodakan galore from the minute we alighted from our cars..posing by all the decadent looking interiors…the pillars with the roman goddess sculpture, the beaded curtains, the disco balls, the grand staircase at the entrance..

We flirted outrageously with Paulo our 26 year old mestizo waiter – as we were firmly convinced he was a hunk / model / movie star in waiter-costume for the night. I had to ask him pointblank if he was gay of course - which he vehemently denied. And then we pretended to offer him…a car, a townhouse, and…cellphone load. The evening ended with everyone on the dancefloor, dancing to…what else but decadent eightees music.. ..Peachy dancing with one of the gay chorus dancers (complete with feathered headdress), Ichi with a gay D.I., and me with a very young kid -- I think he was the adopted son of Pocholo, the owner of Club Mwah (who also happens to be my neighbor).

So that was it! Our Girls Night Out.... Mwah!!



































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Celebrating Sunday on a Tuesday...

Another acting-on-an-impulse moment. Last Tuesday, we all suddenly decided that Sunday's birthday would not be complete without a blast from his childhood past. So.....since the likes of Mamonluk and A&W were nowhere nearby, we all just decided to jump in the car and head for the nearest....McDonald's!! So here we all are, posing like - ehem - beauty queens, but feeling like kids of course!
That's Corinne, May Anne, me, Eliza and our 'debutante'.... Sunday Alcaraz!!

Nigel Barker's bark

Now this has got to be the most charming, dashing, and absolutely the handsomest American who has ever set foot on Philippine soil... and I just don't mean outward charm or pogi-ness, honey...He just simply wowed all of us women in the audience yesterday during the press conference with his eloquence, his depth, his wit, his warmth...charisma...magnetism...sighhhhhhh.....we drowned in his eyes.. ANYWAY..I speak of none other than Nigel Barker - judge of American's Next Top Model. So what was I doing in the press con? SSI happened to be one of the major sponsors of the mall activities - we're doing the DKNY show on May 10 and the AX Armani Exchange show on May 11. And so little ole moi showed up at the press con because my boss Anton fortunately couldn't make it! So let me immortalize those moments with Nigel.....











America's next top ....matron?

Insects at Intercon

Another weekend of creating memories... My children and I checked in again, this time at the Hotel Intercontinental! I won a gift certificate last month during the metrowear fashion show..and had another wonderful 'vacation' with my two darlings last weekend... We spent most of the time alternating between sleeping and clowning around in the room..but managed to wedge in a trip to glorietta mall. Here are the two insects, striking a pose...



And of course, the usual poses infront of the mirror...