Somewhere over the --

Our queen Sunday A. was regaling us recently with yet another hilarious nakaka-"hika" story... He(she) said once upon a time there was a gay-bashing priest who in his sermon firmly announced that gays had no place in Heaven. God made man and woman, but nothing in between. Therefore gays could not enter the pearly gates! Hindi puwede!!- his voice boomed thru the microphone. To which an entire tropa of gays in the back pew melodiously trilled .... Ok lang Father!! Sa RAINBOW nalang kami, pa slide slide EVER!!!

waaaah... I really love them.

Google needs Sense

Google Ad Sense (the guys in charge of posting all those banner ads you see here) has this new feature called 'Ad Sense for Content' where they claim they 'crawl' all over the contents of your site and then post ads that would be appropriate or are related to your blog's topics. Like if you were blogging about cooking, recipes and such, they would post ads that pertain to kitchenware, oven thermometers and other scary sounding topics..... which now leads me to wonder...WHY on earth do I see an ad on this blog, on this page, with the title "Find Hot Black Men". WHY.

Big people suck

That in a nutshell is how daughter Nikki (who is, herself, one of the 'big people' at 20 y.o.) empathized with the very solemn and depressing thoughts I shared with her as we drove home from NCH after spending another Thursday morning with the Kythe kids. "Can you imagine, it's so sad to think that none of those small kids will ever grow up to become big people." And the reply was "Big people suck anyway." The one liner sounded insensitive and not at all funny, but I know she felt affected by her first visit - especially since she got assigned to the cutest kid in the ward - a 2 year old patient named Kim Espiritu who danced, giggled, sang and showed no signs at all of the leukemia threatening her still energetic body. See how pretty little Kim looks like a china doll with her cute bangs.

As for my friend King Galero (remember him? from Aug27 blog entry http://msfrancisco.blogspot.com/2007/08/hail-king-galero.html ), he was once upon a time the most mabungisngis and cutest, 'smilingest' baby in the hema ward - just like cute Kim now. I even took a picture of him and posted it in my entry last August! I learned from Cynthia the Kythe officer that King passed awy two weeks ago. King has finally joined his King!

I did not have time to grieve, although the news saddened me immensely and the empty feeling has hovered over me like a dark cloud the entire weekend. I quickly embraced and cherished my time with all the remaining familiar faces that still greeted me in the three wards... they were still there. There was Knowell Placero the 'feeling guapo' guy who kept wanting to have his pictures taken last month (and I took some more this time! See him here playing with a hotdog balloon)... I thought he looked healthier, but then I was told that the added weight was more a result of the steroids. There was Lougie Ibarra, whose foot finally stopped bleeding. There was Laurence Gumba, who, true to form, still loved to eat and eat and eat like there was no tomorrow (well there really is none if you think about it). His tummy though was much more bloated now. See him happily eating spaghetti and jollibee chicken. Oh yeah, John Ligurdo still pouted at me and wanted to attack me and throw crayons.

I made new friends. Kyla Caber, I am told, does not have much time left. She has brain tumor and is completely bald... oh but see her here, so very very proud of the jigsaw puzzle she completed!! Kyla Enriquez has leukemia and had dolls all over her crib...here she is clutching one. And there was fair and pretty Laurice Bernadine Fernandez, battling lymphoma, but still looking very much like a fair, 'chinita' princess in her picture..

But the one I spent the most time with this time was 9-year old Kimberly Saure - the very pretty leukemia patient I met on my previous visit. Her wish list then simply said "kikay kit" and so last Thursday I gave her one of those inexpensive eyeshadow/makeup kits for children ...the ones you find in the toys department. I quickly put on some light lilac shadow on her eyes and pink gloss on her lips. When I held the mirror up for her to see, my goodness, her face could have lit up the entire room! Her eyes twinkled and she was so happy, feeling like she was the most beautiful girl in NCH! Kimberly really is beautiful. She has very expressive doe eyes and the longest lashes. Here we are, smiling sweetly for the camera..

I do not know why I feel compelled to single out each and every one of my little friends and spell out their complete names and post their pictures. Perhaps it is my way of immortalizing every single one of them, so they live on long after their giggles, smiles and cuteness have left the wards of NCH -- the way King Galero will forever have his picture posted on my Aug 27 entry, cute and energetic, smiling and mabungisngis - exactly how he was the first time I met him.

My little friends are happy when people take the time to play with them, tell them stories and make them forget their pains for a while. If you would like to help them, please log on to http://www.kythe.org/index.html You can make a donation that will help fund the chemos, the blood transfusions, the bone marrow procedures, the drugs, the painkillers... OR you could also just choose to give them your time.... a few hours out of a week or out of a month will make them happy and make them feel like they're the most beautiful people in the world.

Don't be one of the big people who suck. Please help little kids suffering from terminal cancer. Maybe there are those of you who can grant them their wishlists? (shhhh, Kimberly wants a piano, even just the toy one operated by 2 AA batteries.) There are many affiliate hospitals under the Kythe program, but if you would like to help at the NCH in particular, contact Marian or Cynthia at 7240656 loc 59.

Other posts:

http://msfrancisco.blogspot.com/2008/01/thats-my-new-friend-rose-ann-baluyot.html

http://msfrancisco.blogspot.com/2008/02/michael-pericos-favorite-color-is.html

http://msfrancisco.blogspot.com/2008/03/i-sometimes-ask-myself-how-much-longer.html

http://msfrancisco.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-friends-again.html

Let's face it, part two

Knew it. The day would come. Or rather the evening would come. Last night I attended two cocktail parties (the SPDV crowd just migrated from one venue to the other at the appointed time ... smart hosts, Myrza of MC magazine timed her Women of the World event at 5pm while Tina T. who 'facebooked' her Kiehl's invites, timed hers at 7:30pm), AND I actually heard people greet each other with "hey, my facebook friend!!". I was expecting that to happen. It was really very funny and very weird to hear publisher Lisa G ask Aurie M if she had 'friended' me already, and me replying I'd send her nalang a 'friend request'. Henri C said he didn't mind staying home on Saturday nights now because of this crazy phenomenon. People talked about throwing sheep and cows and posting on fun walls and super walls and joining crazy groups or networks like "Filipinos who get offended by Filipinos who get offended". Ruby G and I greeted each other like long lost sisters, for after all we'd been throwing cosmos, tequilas and high fives at each other over the past weeks, not to mention giving each other pet fish for our aquariums. Has this taken the place of traditional e-mailing ... or even - God forbid - texting? Hindi naman siguro. The novelty will wear off after a couple of months I'm sure, and by then we'll leave facebook to our kids, nephews and nieces where it RIGHTFULLY belongs. But in the meantime... let me just "select all" and super poke everyone with a round of drinks. Cheers!

Liz is ..... Liza!

It was dear sweet Liza's natal day today.. So our office of simple joys and simple minds chose to immortalize the occasion by borrowing a cool idea from the latest ad campaign of her namesake...
This was done in haste so do not mind the discombobulated heads (WHAT A COOL WORD! I don't know what it means but it sounds quite appropriate. It sort of says the heads don't match the necks in skin tone and size, and mine looks a bit grotesque.) From left to right that's me, Liza, May Anne - who by some stroke of luck is the only one who looks normal, and Princess.

The rest of the team Sunday, Michelle and Jeboy were not in the original layout since it could accommodate only four persons, so this is what they did and we ended up giving her this discombobulated double spread ad...

Waztakel

65 days to go before Christmas!! Here's amazing Ate Vi dropping a different kind of bomb to get you in the mood - a blast from the past, her jukebox hit from decades past... Ready? Turn your speakers on real LOUD, am sure your neighbors would LAVET!!!
Ena-5!... A 6!... A 5-6-7-8...and.. (do listen for the Waztakel line - and please tell me what it means)

chinitos, mestizos and in-betweens

My Saturday afternoon siesta took a jolt when son came into room and proudly shoved his newly taken grad pic infront of my face. omg a chinito!! an honest to goodness handsome chinito !! Where on earth did that DNA strain come from in my otherwise pinoy, indio family? Instantly I was transported back to the Arts & Sciences lobby of the UP Diliman campus almost three decades ago where giggly kikay girls (us) would regularly convene to dissect the male specimen parading about -- cute guys categorized into the aloof 'mestizo types' and the more approachable 'chinito'. For these two categories were the only ones worthy of our attention (then). They had that undeniable X, nakaka-kilig, can-you-carry-my-books factor.. While the rest of the male species that came in between (the pinoy indio types) had to have extra doses of personality to qualify. (Actually they were the ones willing to carry our books.) OR, they simply became male 'barkada' and nothing more. I remember having a very intense, take-your-breath-away, I-can't-eat-I-can't-sleep kind of crush on a 6-ft. tall chinito guy with glasses (yes! the glasses were an important accessory to complete the look) who didn't make me pansin because he had a hot mestiza girlfriend. The only time I got over my innocent lust (is there such a thing?) for Mike was when he joined a fraternity and he had to shave his entire head as part of the initiation. I just couldn't help but remember my history books and the Ming Dynasty whenever I'd see him pass. Calbo heads just weren't cool then, unlike now.

Of course evolution (of the mind, heart and soul) has taken place over the past decades and all that shallowness is just a blur .. my friends having gone off and married their mestizo,
chinito and in-between types. WHILE I... suddenly find myself realizing that my baby has grown up to be a true-blue cute chinito who I hope will not end up with some shallow headed gal like those girls of the UP Arts & Sciences lobby. Oh and by the way he wears glasses and is 6 feet tall.

Settling

Sometimes it takes a weird office to inspire weird minds. For the past year and a half, I have been stationed here at the ground floor of this building together with very straight and serious neighbors like 'audit', 'msd' and 'personnel' . For some reason management decided to distance my team away from the chika fa-shon girls of merchandising in our former office (the lifestyle section) and transfer us to - well, hard news. AND so, to survive in our new area, like the way early settlers quickly adapted to their rustic settings and pitched their tents, built their log cabins.. we have built for ourselves a little nest that boasts of eclectic decor and very strange but delightful props sourced from the hodgepodge of events and projects we've had thru the years... these run the gamut from old, unused cans of soda water that now line the wall of the conference room to empty wine bottles to beaded curtains to GIANT parols and wall decor that look like oversized brooches to old rotary dial phones, mannequins and body forms awaiting their turn to be sent to the stores or warehouse... The list goes on...
Recently we have enjoyed (and been inspired) by the presence of two tall, dark and handsome mannequins, completely naked, offering their wares to all and sundry... we are a total of 6 girls, 1 gay, and 1 real boy (who is the assistant of the gay). Let me immortalize the presence of our two visitors by posting them here in their full, naked (and - pardon the pun - headless) glory...

Of course I, as the head of the department, felt it was my responsibility to do something to prevent this blatant show of nudism, lest the likes of audit, msd and personnel complain (we weren't) .. And so ... here is our version of the fig leaf..

Again...as the young girls would say... LAVET!!!

4 cold, 4 hot, 4 sweet, the evil badings, and black trays..

Catastrophic! - from the boss. The first time e-ver!!! (with bading accent) - from a colleague. Flapcheeena! - from another one. Yet despite the fact that we ended up with attendance a bit, shall we say, 'below-par' at our mini-charity auction, I as usual personally enjoyed. So THERE. There were lots of juicy bits of scandal being tossed about in hushed tones within our cozy cocktail crowd (the kind of 'hushed' which everyone within five meters could hear)... and last night (by the way we weren't content with just one night, last night was the SECOND night in a row - the 'catastrophe' was too addictive) towards the end of the evening I finally met the group who pride themselves with their cute and chika name "The Evil Badings". What fun! I was introduced as hoy, bading rin si Malu! (hindi lang evil). A cute part of the encounter was when I heard them turn to I.C. a mutual friend of ours and say Hoy, join us na! You're more bagay with the evil badings than your gucci gang! Hilarous! My friend could only look at them sheepishly.. By the way, for the benefit of the international community who for some reason enjoy reading my blog for entertainment, inspiration, or simply to get a feel of what goes on in the mind of a third world country national, "bading" is the colloquial term for those lovable members of the third sex, the ones who pepper our world with large doses of their irreverent wit, humor and sarcasm... Sometimes they are the reason why I still manage to come to work each morning despite all the stress. They ARE my stress reliever.. can't remember a point in my career where there wasn't a bading in my work environment. Currently I have Sunday. That's short for Alexander. He's the queen of my department and we all adore him...her..
Now when a girl is called bading, it means she's real cool in the bading crowd, loves them to death, enjoys their jokes and kabastusan, and must have been a bading herself in a previous life.

Going back to last night, it wasn't all bad. We did get to auction off what we wanted to auction off, and we ARE doing our bit for humanity by donating the proceeds to Bantay Bata 163. A straightforward account of the evening was posted by friend Rica:

http://heart-2-heart-online.com/2007/10/18/tods-and-metro-society-give-back/

As for the food -- as usual -- Peninsula outdid themselves again and gave us such a divine spread, served our signature way of course: Canapes, bite size and compact, 3 inches apart. 4 rows down, 4 across. one type per tray. 4 cold, 4 hot, 4 sweet. Black trays. Glassware: for mixed drinks, 3 cubes of ice, for wines and bubbly, 2/3 of the way full, one type of glass per tray, 3 rows across, 3 rows down. Black trays.

Photos courtesy of Alex Van Hagen

Three Stars and a Sun

Am feeling teary eyed and nationalistic. This naman is for all my overseas Pinoy relatives... YEAH!! We're ready to defend the three stars and a sun!! Mabuhay this magnificent Monday morning..... (nationalistic na tunog egoy. pero ganda pa rin)

ANU DAW???

It's not just the pinoys...

Here's a modern (and imported) take on la diva Melanie!
And the answer is? - World Peace.

LIz food

Photos courtesy of Alex Van Hagen

These mouth watering treats were part of the delicious spread Peninsula prepared for our press friends during the Liz Claiborne F/W 07 show last Friday at the Rigodon Ballroom. It (the food) must have been truly spectacular for me to post pictures of these yummy delights instead of the clothes. Enough said. tee hee..

Mmmmm...My kind of food. Give me appetizers and a dessert, and I'm happy. (But I think the grapes in the pic look like they need a little washing.)

Let's face it...

I canNOT believe I got sucked into this Facebook deliria recently by my staff (all of whom are young, giggly, chika girls under thirty). First they 'invited' me. And then I invited a few...and then I got bolder and clicked on my entire address book, asking (begging?) each one to "be my friend" - I finally got the hang of it and started inviting friends of friends.. of friends. Over the past few days I've given and received hatching eggs, beads, beer, cosmopolitans, flowers and a beautiful christmas tree, complete with 'Feliz Navidad' in the background. Just this evening I spent 60 minutes doing the most inane, brainless things- I threw a cow at my nephew in Boston, a chicken at my niece and my daughter, and I found out what my stripper name was (Cindy Harleythighs, I am told).

I am not into this for the sheer shallow pleasure of it (although that's a welcome by-product); I am honestly trying to do some investigative surfing, clicking and cow-throwing to find out WHY Bill Gates has, over the past two weeks, decided to pump in $500 million for a 5% stake in this social networking phenomenon... yes folks, Facebook is now valued at TEN BILLION DOLLARS. Microsoft and Google are nag-aagawan daw over this.

So, excuse me while I go back to my cow throwing... There just HAS to be a fraction of that moo-lah in there somehow (cute pun! hehe).. http://www.facebook.com/


P.S. In case you're wondering, that eye picture you see is the "bumper sticker" in my Facebook profile.

Spaghetti but not a long (small unli)

As my daughter would say.... LAVET!!!!!
Click and enjoy your monday!!!

blessed....

I have NEVER been lucky at raffles. Good sign. That means I am blessed in other areas. But I wonder what happened when the stars aligned last Friday night during the cocktails of Liza I.C.'s magazine, when Johnny Litton all of a sudden called out my name and asked me to come upstage as he had just drawn my name... as the winner of...

(AUUURRGGGHHHH - just my luck - the one and only time I win a raffle prize and it just HAS to be one I can't ever use ....)

A free round of GOLF (!!??) for two persons at the Ayala Greenfield Golf Course

Sigh...I really think I am blessed in other areas.

Later that night I bumped into Marden Iglesias at the Motown party of magazine MS, he had also just been to Liza I.C.'s party and jubilation was written all over his face -- as he proudly announced he had won - A round trip ticket to L.A.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why? Why??

Black nalang

Maybe there should be some sort of governing body that party organizers can check with every time they book an event so that the SPDV (same people different venue) cocktail crowd of Manila will have an easier time. Take October 5, 2007 for instance. What IS with that auspicious date anyway? Three different publications (two glossies, one broadsheet) are each hosting their own celebrations at exactly the same time - and here's the best part - each one with 'themed' attire. One is a business newspaper celebrating its 20th year in the business with a "Disco Party - come in your best 80's attire" motif. We always work closely with their lifestyle section. The second one is a glossy lifestyle mag, also very important to us, and in the same league as PT mag who hosted the ball last Saturday. Raul M their EIC is a darling and this is their 3rd anniversary celebration. It's THEIR version of their ball -- a funky MOTOWN theme, asking guests to come naman in "70's attire"!! My goodness there can only be so many phone booths where this hired hand can make costume changes a-la-superman... And the third is a new glossy travel and lifestyle mag whose EIC, Liza I.C., is a good friend from way back, very supportive of our brands too. Buti nalang attire is just cocktail chic.

I've decided to stick to good ol' reliable black the entire evening. You can't go wrong with an LBD. (except get mistaken for an usherette/ receptionist - you know, those sweet young things behind the reg table asking you to drop your biz cards in the fish bowl or sign on the guest book. They're also the ones who hand out the goodie bags at the end of the evening.)

Oh WAIT -- and did I tell you WE (meaning our company) by some quirk of nature, also decided to book OUR event on this date? But it's over lunch, and it's a press launch for the FW collection of brand L.C. And it's strictly for press, NOT the SPDV cocktail crowd who will be getting ready for their 'cocktail marathon' that evening...