sino ba talaga si malou francisco? hate it the way people misspell my name, inserting the letter "o"and  making me just one of those gazillion malous on over 100 pages of google search. it's a very personal thing with me, like saying I'm 55 instead of - ahem - 35. hahahahahahaha. sinungalin talaga si malou francisco.  

(I've always thought if you're gonna lie about your age, lubusin mo na, don't just chop off a few measly years, that's pathetic. Chop off an entire decade! or more, if needed. tee hee)

By the way, sent friend C the original uncropped version of pic below and he said we looked 'stressed'.

Cropping Chris

Alex finally sent me a proper remembrance of that magical evening at the T Ball. Cropped C upon request though (of my hundred million admirers. JUST kidding..).

The Night before SF

Twas the night before SF

and all through the house

all my nerves were a stirring, my white hair a-growing, my stress level rising...

YES it is the eve before our S.Ferragamo gala - the 80th anniversary, the culmination of months of stress, anguish, agony, panic.. tomorrow I will wake up and take a deep breath and thank God I am still alive to see October 22.   Tomorrow the sun will rise and I will go through a hundred million items on my checklist, from the delivery of more than 300 bottles of wine and champagne, to the adjustments in the VO script, to the speeches, to the briefing of the twenty usherettes who will surely be late, the seating plan, the color coded cards, every single detail that will leave me in palpitating, zombie-like, breathless, about-to-break-down mode all day.

But twenty four hours from now... I shall have a big smile on my face, heaving a sigh of relief  - only temporarily though...there's still the Cartier event on Oct.23 and then M.Jacobs on the 24th!  It never really ends, you know

Twas the night before SF

And all through the house

Peace and quiet reigned as I slept

and slept and over slept...  

And woke up just in time for ... Christmas!

(and lost my job in the process. oh no!!!)

Kythe

Today I thought of my Kythe kids and was dismayed to find out I had run out of leaves that would allow me to go back.   Kythe visits are every Thursday morning and so I would have to postpone that for February '09 when I get a whole new batch of leave credits from work. I stopped last March soon after Knowell passed away and I was too affected to go back. Now I'm longing to see them again, although I am sure it's a whole new set of faces to replace the old ones whom I had gotten to know and love and are now in a much happier place.  I am longing to go back to try to make the children happy again, read stories and play with jigsaw puzzles and 'kikay' kits again.  Many things are happening now at work and in my personal life that leave me anxious - ok - I'll even use the word 'sad' (pag minsan like now why kaya),  and something is now pulling me to go back to the kids.  The Kythe yahoo group emailed about their Christmas party on Dec.13 - which I will make it a point to attend.  Absolutely nothing should get in the way. 

It feels good to know that my blog entries are posted in their website!! http://www.kythe.org/volexperience.html I hope they inspire some of you readers. 

Visit the Kythe site to know more about how you can help kids with terminal or chronic illnesses. Or, like what some of us do, take the time to visit them and cheer them up and play with them once a week (just an hour or two is all it takes!) so they continue to feel loved and cared for. You can pretend to be a clown, a princess, a witch, a rabbit or just their big sister or brother or auntie who makes faces and tells stories ... whatever you think will make them happy and feel like ordinary kids again..To those who would like to help, there are many affiliate hospitals under the Kythe program, but if you would like to care for the kids at the NCH in particular, please contact Marian or Cynthia at 7240656 loc 59.  

This morning I suddenly thought of my Kythe friends, most of whom are probably in Heaven now. 

Mea culpa

I've just been working on the previous entry, snipping, cutting, cropping, abbreviating, making it absolutely google-proof.  In my excitement the other day I made the mistake of spelling out each and every word related to this high profile event - something I don't normally do - including the full name of the now-cropped person, AND full length photo to boot!   Everything's absolutely google proof now, with acronyms, abbreviations, cropped photo and all.  tsk tsk mea culpa.  No damage done, I hope.  No names are ever mentioned in this blog as much as possible. Everyone goes by abbreviations and codes -- UNLESS you're a ratwak. :)

Pre-party pose

I have absolutely no decent photographs to share of the 7th Anv TB which took place last night at the R B of the Mkti S-la.  Let me see if I can swipe some from Alex, Dindo or Mon -- get them to email me one or two...but in the meantime I shall just have to post the one and only pre-party pic taken by my daughter who forgot to put the flash on as she took a picture of me in my Ttlr finery in my humble dining room ...  no you don't have astigmatism or myopia.. it really came out blurry.  

The gown was black velour with silver trimmings and a decolletage just up to there. It had a bit of spandex and was very very tight, I actually had to do 100 crunches a day since September to do it justice.  quite different from the book leaf number I wore last year which was quite frou frou, my hips kept bumping other frou frou hips.  Of course with such a tight number it was a challenge last night to slither into zee waiting - ahem - 'sports car'. 

Anyway, by comparison here's last year's entry, which was more sedate, maybe more like..Sabrina in.. Sabrina  http://msfrancisco.blogspot.com/2007/09/channeling-sabrina.html

That's it!  Last night was a magical, enchanting, heavenly evening that only a ball of Ttlr proportions can achieve.  For one magical moment I and the other 499 guests lived in another world...