Tell me Fuzzy, how does it feel to be Little No Limit’s Favorite Toy?
(silence)
I mean, you’re clearly her favorite toy. She drew this:
Quite the likeness, no?
(silence)
What, you’re not going to talk to me?
(silence)
I see you trading secrets with Little No Limit all day long.
(silence)
I don’t like your attitude! What’s with you, you think you’re too good for me?
(silence)
Listen here, Fuzzy, if you don’t start talking, you’re going to find yourself on a one way trip to the dog house.
I call dibs!
Forget that, I always get dibs.
Fuzzy, what do you have to say?
(silence)
I see.
***
What is it about stuffed animals that every child in the world can carry on a conversation with them but no matter how hard I try, all I get is silence?
It is a real testament to my ability to laugh at myself that I am giving in to your requests on yesterday’s post for a couple of my debutante ball photos.
Unfortunately, while I did have a nice set of professional photos taken, I seem to have misplaced that album. These are the photos that didn’t make it into the album, but reside in my Box of Photos That Don’t Make It Into My Albums.
First up, our snazzy program:
I dare you to find a traditional Filipino dress without big sleeves. DARE you. However, you will notice, few of us debutantes took the big sleeve route. We were way too cool.
See? Too cool. (Like how I’m looking down? I’m concentrating on my next dance step. But hey, I’m still smiling.)
The Cake Shot. I’m the third one in from the right side, lost in a sea of shadows, smiles, and white.
I had a third photo for you, of me standing with my parents, but I decided against it, because my dad’s glasses should only be made fun of by me.
On another note of obscure Riley trivia, the same year I debuted I also appeared on the local cable access show Pinoy Talk, as one of their choices for “Ones to Watch” Pinoy teens. That’s right. I was one to watch. And for what, you wonder? For my acting abilities. Oh yeah. I performed a monologue on the show, from Laughing Wild by Christopher Durang, and I was hilarious, I tell you, Hilarious! Oh, how I wish YouTube had been around then…
Goodness, goodness, goodness. I haven’t thought about either the Debutante Ball or Pinoy Talk in years and now it’s just all coming out of me. Good thing I have this blog, or else, who could I have actually shared this information with?
P.S. Regarding yesterday’s post on cleft lip/cleft palate, the First Coast News team of Jacksonville did a segment on the post-first-surgery. If you read yesterday’s post already, you can watch the follow up segment here, and see how sweet Angelito’s first surgery recovery is going. If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, then you should go to it, where I have edited it to include the follow up news segment.
Perhaps this isn’t something everyone does, but years ago, I was in a debutante ball. The Philippine Medical Society of Jacksonville puts on a debutante ball every year to introduce all the vibrant, smart, and beautiful Pinays of Jacksonville (I didn’t go overboard on those adjectives, did I?). I wore a fancy white dress, learned a fancy ballroom dance, walked around a fancy room and ate a fancy dinner.
Would you like to try some fancy sauce?
And the biggest, most-often given instruction was one word: “Smile!” Show off those pearly whites, beam at the camera, and around the fancy room. Smile, smile, smile.
Sounds simple enough.
I recently talked to one of the women in the Philippine Medical Society and learned about a project of theirs that is so touching I had to share it with everyone. I knew I was a debutante with some good peoples…
In the summer of 2007, the Philippine Medical Society (East Coast Florida chapter) sent a volunteer group of forty-plus doctors and personnel on a Medical Mission to offer medical assistance to people living in rural areas of the Philippines. This is an entirely volunteer mission. These doctors and personnel pay for their entire trip out of their own pockets. Among the 2,613 patients they treated in those four days—including ninety-six surgeries concerning hernias, thyroid issues, and cleft conditions, et al—the Philippine Medical Society met Angelito and Genrev.
This is Angelito:
As you can see, Angelito was born with a severe cleft condition. Genrev has a tumor between his eyes against his forehead. These two boys were in such a serious condition that the facilities in their rural home areas were insufficient to accommodate their needs. It took a year and a half of communications with the US Embassy in Manila to get Angelito and Genrev Visas to come to the US, and they are finally here, living with host families, and currently undergoing surgeries, with free facility use at the Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville and volunteer doctors from the Philippine Medical Society performing the surgeries.
First Coast News in Jacksonville did a piece on Angelito, which you can watch here:
The First Coast News Team did a follow up after the surgery also:
Lastly, here is a three part video series about the Philippine Medical Mission, which documents the whole mission: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
The next Philippine Medical mission takes place at the end of this month. If anyone is interested in donating to them, shoot me an email at nolimitdevoe at gmail dot com, and I’ll put you in touch with the appropriate people.
Now, smile!
Philippine Medical Society Debutante Ball, 1994. Me. Smiling.
Who among you have read a book and wished it was real?
I want to see Inkheart for the premise alone. Inkheart offers the type of storyline that is so simple and appealing, I am jealous I didn’t think of it myself. I’ve spent a lifetime reading books wishing certain characters were real (Mara Jade) and thankful others weren’t (Hannibal Lector).
Inkheart is a family friendly fantasy adventure about a man and his daughter reading books and bringing the characters to life, you know, that old chestnut. It stars none other than everyone’s favorite family friendly fantasy adventure star, Brendan Fraser (been crushing on him since School Ties).
Over the holidays, I had the opportunity to watch two Brendan Fraser movies: The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Journey to the Center of the Earth. They were about what you’d expect: quick action sequences, seemingly indomitable obstacles overcome with surprising ease, and witty words from Mr. Fraser. And I have to admit, I loved every minute of them. Let me just say, any movie that brings in a team of fighting yetis without any explanation whatsoever is top notch entertainment in my book. That is what all movies need: more yetis.
Inkheart may not have yetis, but it does have unicorns and ferrets. In other words, Inkheart is giving me the two animals my third grade self wished to have as pets rolled up into one big happy film, with a shirtless Paul Bettany playing with fire to boot. Along with Brendan Fraser and Paul Bettany (and the unicorn and ferret), Inkheart co-stars Helen “The Queen” Mirren and Jim “Bridget Jones’ dad” Broadbent, as well as Andy “Gollum” Serkis as the bad guy.
Inkheart comes out January 23, and I can already tell you, Inkheart is awesome. Lack of yetis notwithstanding.
So a while back, I saw the Lego cake mentioned on Beck’s blog, and I knew that I had found the cake for The Boy’s birthday party because I was able to make a cake for everyone. The green one is my favorite as far as looks go. The big yellow cake is a traditional yellow cake. I was a bit disappointed in the icing, which came out more liquidy than it should have and I was kind of in a rush, but it tasted great nonetheless. The two smaller ones are one gluten free, vegan cake split in half. The green icing is made with soy milk and vegan butter and the blue icing is made with hemp milk and coconut butter. The icing was tasty (although the coconut butter makes for a bit gritty a texture) but the cake itself wasn’t so good. Do any of you GF cooks know why it tasted great and bread-like fresh out of the oven, but after a couple hours of sitting around kind of took on a solidification in the middle that made it hard and chewy in a bad way?
(I know this was supposed to be my Wordless Wednesday post, but, what can I say, I’m chatty today. More WW pics here and here.)
Parents arrive in town, Dec 23rd. Imagine lots of hugs and smiles.
Knott’s Berry Farm, Dec 24th – the muggy weather did nothing to stop The Boy from riding his very first adult roller coaster. Yes! He’s tall enough! When did he grow so big? I sat on the sidelines and watched him, fretting over and over, “He’s actually TALL enough?!!!” which led to another realization: I turn every moment into an opportunity to be a weepy mother who can’t comprehend that time passes on for her children just as it does for everyone else in the world.
Video of The Boy on his first roller coaster ride, mind the cheesy music:
Little No Limit is still not tall enough for the big rides, but big enough for the kiddie thrill rides:
Put your hands in the air like you just don’t care!
Disappointingly, I have no photo of me nearly getting stuck on the kids ride I was too tall to ride, but tried to ride anyway, because Little No Limit was scared to go at it alone. But trust me, you wish I did. I looked totally ridiculous (excuse me, could you help me get my leg out of this contraption?).
Christmas Day, Dec 25th – The Family Christmas Gathering was cancelled due to my mother-in-law’s unforeseen ailments, and moved to a later date. My sisters-in-law and niece came over to celebrate with me, the ‘rents, Husband, The Boy, and Little No Limit. I wound up introducing them to Flight of the Conchords. They introduced me to Andy Samberg’s “Rap song!”
The Boy Turns 6! Birthday party, Dec 27th – Remember how I mentioned a couple lines ago that Mother in Law was sick on Christmas? Yeah, sothe whole family showed up at The Boy’s birthday party and to celebrate it. So in addition to boys and girls and running amok and gathering piñata treats, we also had adults and relatives running amok, and many, MANY presents being exchanged between all the attendees. My cousin just got her license and she left to go to Starbucks with my 15-year-old-has-a-learners-permit-niece, and I think it might have been an awesome experience for them. I requested a venti white chocolate peppermint mocha and when they returned, everyone else had ordered the tall size, and my niece said, “Yours is the obnoxiously large one.” That’s right, I told her.
In irrelevant but serendipitous news, it turns out the mother of The Boy’s friend from school knows the artist who painted the abstract painting on my wall that Husband and I bought on our honeymoon 7.5 years ago in Santa Barbara. I know Santa Barbara isn’t that far from here, and that such a coincidence doesn’t sound sooo coincidental, but she knew him from when she lived in Switzerland. And that, my friends, is a coincidence.
Oh, and as for gifts, does The Boy have enough Wall E toys?
From L-R: “I’m the biggest!” “You can plug your mp3 player into me!” “I’m mobile!” “You can bring me everywhere because I fit in your pocket!”
Austin, New Years Eve’s Eve and New Year’s Eve – I hung out with my friends from college the first night. Imagine all the fun of a reunion and none of the anxiety. I love my friends. Among other things, I saw David Garza at the Continental Club, raided the mini bar at the Hotel San Jose, drank Jo’s fair trade coffee, strolled the Capitol, ate at Moonshine, Guero’s, and Doc’s, saw some thought-provoking art exhibits at The Austin Museum of Art (more on those provoked thoughts in a later post). And, of course, attended my dear friend’s wedding. I would love to tell you what Dear Friend walked down the aisle to, but without knowing him, it might give you the wrong idea.
…
…
Okay, I’ll tell you anyway: “I Want to F*ck You Like An Animal” by Nine Inch Nails. You should know, though, no lyrics were involved, and he is the biggest NIN fan you will ever meet (which makes it all the funnier that he used to hope and wish to meet Trent Reznor walking around New Orleans and then one day got in line behind Trent at the ATM and was so struck, he said nothing at all. Alas… youth is wasted on the young). The wedding was among the most romantic, intimate ceremonies I’ve ever attended, the kind that remind me what a wonderful thing it is to be in love. And after they were married, they walked back down the aisle together to “All You Need is Love” and their wedding dance was “Here, There, Everywhere,” and, well, you can’t argue with that.
The true highlight quote of the night (although there were many) was this: “If anyone has any reason to believe this man and this woman should not be joined together in marriage, then meet me and the groomsmen outside and we’ll take care of that.”
Me and Hubby celebrating Dear Friend’s marriage:
On that note – I am home and everyone is sick but we are ready to kick it into high gear for 2009!!!!!!!! Happy new year to y’all! (dang, I sound like I just got back from Texas!)
