a bora christmas

Just got back from Boracay with the whole famille. We're all so tired from the trip but we're tanned and happy! I miss blogging, so I'm dropping by to write a few lines before I catch up on my sleep. Didn't want to ruin the vacation by sitting in front of the computer in Boracay so I wasn't able to blog for days. I just enjoyed the sea, the sand, the sun -- what else is there to do? Will resume my blogging when I'm already in the right frame of mind (er, but will that ever happen?...). In the meantime, here are some photos:

a wet but fab christmas in boracay


tanned and happy in bora


she's fearless! yes, she's floating in the middle of the ocean
and didn't want Dad to hold her.


who cares if i'm swimming? i want my milk!

zak is always cam ready while pling-pling looks peeved


sunning at bora with my best gal

santa's coming (well, at least for now) according to my friend maroo

I just wanted to share this with you. My long time friend Maroo Punsalan Quintero who's now based in California couldn't have explained it better. To you moms out there who need answers to the same question I had, here is Maroo's unedited 2 cent's worth on Santa:

"Oh, I feel you, Girl. Efrain & I just told Adrianna a couple of weeks ago. She was being teased mercilessly at school coz she was the only one who still believed in Santa. We wanted her to able to respond intelligently to ignorant children's taunts.This is what we did:

1. We asked her if she REALLY believed that the Santa in the red suit who lives in the North Pole was real. Her response was, "No. I know that's just the fairy tale TV version of Santa. But I belive that there's a REAL REAL Santa."

2. We supported her faith in a REAL REAL Santa by telling her that we believe in him too. YES, Santa is real, but not in the way that Mom & Dad are real. Santa is real in the way that angels are real. The way that we know there's a heaven & hell. He's not tangible but, YES, HE IS MOST DEFINITELY REAL! She's already familiar with the story of St. Nicholas so we just refreshed that for her. St. Nick is Santa. A real person who did a lot of good things for poor children. The tradition of parents secretly giving presents in Santa's name is to keep St. Nick's spirit of generosity alive. To honor him & to carry on his work os spreading joy. Santa is the spirit of GIVING. He's supposed to serve as a reminder that we should embrace the spirit of giving this holliday season.

3. Did we LIE about Santa? Lie is a strong word. Mom & Dad wanted you to experience MAGIC. The idea that some benevolent being chose to bestow gifts upon you brought you such exitement & joy & wonder. Magic & fantasy should be part of every child's life. Santa, Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, that's how Mom & Dad brought magic & fantasy into your life.

4. We told her that telling other kids that Santa wasn't real would be the cruelest thing she could do. Those kids who teased her were cruel. They took away a certain amount of innocence from her. Santa is real. He's a real part of all of us who still believe in the goodness of humanity.

5. The day is called CHRISTmas for a reason. It is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Santa is NOT Christmas. Although we should keep Santa's giving spirit with us all year.

I advise you to hold off on telling Zaki this year. Lay the foundation first. Cushion the blow, so to speak. Start talking to him about the real meaning of Christmas. Tell him about St. Nicholas. Tell him the fat dude in the red velvet suit is bogus. There's no elven sweat shop in the North Pole, but there is a REAL Santa. He's just not the way he's portrayed in stories and movies. And after you've laid the groundwork, tell him next Christmas. Tell him to be a good big brother & keep the magic alive for Ripley for a couple more years. You can start telling her about St. Nick now & also that the TV Santa isn't the real Santa, but I wouldn't tell the whole truth just yet. Let the little ones have their magic & fantasy. The real world will weasel its way in far too soon anyway. The longer we can insulate them & keep them carefree & innocent, the better."

Well, said Maroo. Keep reading this blog! Love ya and thanks!

is santa coming or what?

Finally, I can breathe. After a hectic week of parties, projects, and the usual pre-Christmas panic, I can now relax. That is, until I finish buying a few things for some people for our traditional Christmas eve gift-giving.

What is foremost in my mind right now is whether or not I should tell my 2 kids that Santa Claus does not exist. Hubby thinks it's cruel for me to reveal this and told me that I should just let nature take its course. Eventually, he said, the kids will find out for themselves. Hmm.. why would I feed my children lies? Can I just tell them that the gifts they will receive this Christmas are from Mom and Dad and from people who love them? Why would I tell them that some judgmental, fat, bearded guy wearing a red suit gave them the gifts because they've been nice instead of naughty? Besides, we don't have a chimney, just a kitchen vent.

I'm torn. I need your help, Oh learned people.

j low

Lowest of the (J.)Lo
what the hell was Cavalli thinking when he made this atrocity?

This is what you'll look like if you deny your pregnancy and when you've been impregnated by your undead and underfed husband. I came across this photo and I just couldn't get over how utterly MENTAL Jenny from the block looks like with this 70s get up gone totally wrong. Har-har-har! She looks like she's gone over the edge! And what's with the shoes?! Gah! You can take the girl out of the Bronx but you can't take the Bronx out of the girl. I think she wore this horrendous get-up in a concert just recently. Sorry J.'Low' fans, even if you give me a ticket, I'll never be caught dead in any of her concerts or watch any of her movies. No matter what she does, what she wears, and how much she has in her bank account, she still looks cheap! Just goes to show that you can't buy class, dahling!

delayed gratification

If you've been reading my blog you would've come across a caption I wrote for a picture in Boracay (the one where I was with some people for a fashion pictorial for a local magazine I used to be Editor of). I mentioned about this wannabe who has the audacity to call herself the editor/publisher of this 'has-been' magazine (or should I say the magazine that went kaput after 6 issues?). I mean, if you can't freakin' write even if your life depended on it, don't quit your day job. But this wannabe quit her job as a glorified saleswoman (probably of some non-BFAD approved meds) and decided that she wanted to become publisher and editor of a magazine. Anyway, this intellectually-challenged biatch hired me to resuscitate her magazine. Apparently, after a few issues of attempting to write, she became the laughing stock of the whole city because, yes, Virginia, she can't write!! I mean, it would have been forgivable if she just had a problem with her writing style because she could actually work on that. But the thing is, this two-faced lunatic had (and still has) a problem with grammar that was sooo bad it made me 'want to puke' (to quote the late National Artist Francisco Arcellana after a classmate of mine submitted her super trite poem in Poetry class in college).

Anyway, I joined this magazine and I actually had a great time editing, writing, and styling the fashion shoots (even if the latter was not part of my job description). After my last issue (my contract said 6 mos. or roughly 3 issues), this idiot wannabe asked me if I could do another one. I said yes (huge mistake) but told her that I'd be editing via email since I was going on a trip to the US. We agreed that she would pay me half of my professional fee considering that I wouldn't be able to do half of the job. So, I went to the US and waited and waited for articles to edit but nothing came. When I got back to the P.I., predictably, I ended up finishing the job (overseeing the layout, following up the writers, editing, proofreading, etc.). The only thing that I wasn't able to do was the fashion shoot (which was not even part of my goddamn job description!).

To make the long story short, when payment day came, Ms. Cheapskate still paid me half! The gall, the guts, the lack of conscience and honor -- my gawd, I wanted to slap her face 1001 times! I mean, yes I know we talked about her paying me half, but that was because of the premise that I would be doing half of the job via email! If she had a conscience and some semblance of dignity, knowing that I busted my ass doing that last issue, she should have paid me my usual fee! Actually, the money was not important (it was measly, proof that she is in fact a cheapskate who could not afford publishing a magazine), it's the fact that she had no HONOR, no delicadeza, and no sense of integrity that really irked me.

I still have a lot of things to reveal in the next few days about this girl and her bogus magazine, but for now, I just want to say that last Saturday, after watching Hitman with hubby dearest, I came face to face with the fugly loser and guess what, I didn't even recognize her! I don't know if it's just me and my short term memory, but I think it was because of her generic, unquotable, dense, plain, and dumb face -- I mean, who the hell can remember a face like that?! Aside from the generic-ness of her fugly face, she was wearing a baseball cap. Was she hiding from someone? Rumor has it that she's been borrowing money from people because she can't pay her office rent. Although that is actually not a rumor as a friend of mine told me Ms. Publisher tried to borrow money from her. Karma, karma, karma!

Again, to make the long story short, Ms. Dumbo said hello to me. The gall! And I thought I was the one with the short term memory. After everything that happened between us, she says hello and that's it?! She expects me to go all mushy, shake hands, kiss and make up? Nevah! She is C-R-A-Z-Y!

After 5 seconds of memory lapse, it finally dawned on me that the git who said hello to me was actually the lowlife publisher that I wanted to lynch a year and a half ago. Of course, I went ballistic. If I had a gun, okay, make that 2 guns, I would have shot her brains out ala Hitman (the memory of Tim Olyphant was still fresh in my mind). So bitchy me approached the gutless git and told her that she makes my skin crawl. I said I haven't forgotten what she has done to me and the fact that she had the audacity to say hello to me is the clearest manifestation of how thick-faced she really is, blah, blah, blah! The whole time I was spewing invectives at her, she just stood there like the idiot that she was with her mouth open sputtering incoherent words. Pathetic!

What I did last Saturday gave me a sense of satisfaction. I know I should have done that a year and a half ago, but I guess delayed gratification is much, much better.

30 pages and still breathing

Whew! I just finished 30 pages of research today (an excruciating task that I had to do as part of my 5-year plan so I can't complain because I brought this upon myself) and I'm pooped. It's 1 am and after sitting in front of the computer the whole day, it's a miracle that I still have the energy to write. These past 2 days have been quite hectic for me but I feel good because I was able to finish my column early (it will come out on Monday and probably ruin some people's appetites -- oh, how I love to be obnoxious!) as well as the 30 pages I was talking about. I've been good, so tomorrow I think I shall reward myself with a lot of testosterone blasting action (hmm.. sounds kinky but it's not what you think it is, although that too would be fun). I'm watching HITMAN! Of course, my ever steady date will be my movie addict husband. Nothing like hard core action to make me forget that I still have tons of things to do.

For sure, it's gonna be one hell of a weekend for me and the whole famille. I have errands on Friday and Saturday, house-cleaning (of the very serious variety) until Sunday, and Zak's Family Day in Assumption also on that day. On top of these, my brother, his wife and two kids will be arriving after 10 years of absence (although I stayed with him last year in NJ so it's not really as bad as it sounds) in the P.I. (that's Philippine Islands!) For sure, I'm going to gain extra pounds while they're here. Groan! Groan!

quotable quotes from the incorrigible Ripley

"I've got beauty, I've got brains, I've got personality!"

"Mommy, I'm a beauty queen!" (after putting her plastic cup on top of her head)

"I love you mommy, I love you daddy, I love you aswang." (now this is scary especially at 2 am)

"I want to drink Tanduay." (either she's watching too much TV or she's got a drinking problem I don't know about...)

"I'm sexy mommy!" (after putting on my clothes, heels, and jewelry)

"Grandpa I want to be the president of this country." (did GMA ever say this exact line to her grandfather?)