It's Jill's World

The Unfadable Class of 2000

2010-07-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

The day of the reunion, I dropped off all the decorations into the ballroom. Then checked into our hotel room to get ready while I waited for the rest of the girls to get there to help decorate. I was already tired, and the party didn’t even start yet. I was up at 5:30 that morning, because I had a hair gig for my friend’s wedding in Berkeley, but I was too nervous to even realize that I was running on fumes. LOL As soon as all the girls got there, we headed down to the ballroom to start decorating and placing the place cards and name tags in alphabetical order. We blew up balloons to make balloon bouquets for each table, and bigger bouquets for the DJ table. We stacked the donated text books in the middle of each table, and tied it with a silver glittery ribbon; we placed tea candles around the books; we tied the balloons onto the books. Before we knew it, the party was going to start in 20 minutes so we all went upstairs to finish getting ready.

(Our clever color coded place cards and name tags.)

(Our creative name tags.)

(Our text book center pieces.)

(The DJ Set-Up)

(Our Giveaways. Home videos from our Senior year of high school.)

When we got back downstairs there were already a lot of people mingling. Dorothy and Carmen were manning the check-in table passing out place cards, name tags, and DVDs. The DJ was already set up with two LCD screens set up on each side. He was the sh*t!!! He played songs that were played when we were in high school, accompanied by the music video. The photographer was already taking pictures of the guests. Teachers were already catching up with former students. I can honestly say, it felt like we were in a reunion they have in movies or on TV. It was great! Milan was the MC for the night, and might I add, the best MC ever!!! He was cracken jokes and getting people to participate. Lots of people were saying they remembered him being quiet, and here he was 10 years later, a terrific public speaker. I’m not surprised that he’s now one of the leaders of a fraternity in San Jose State. During dinner, we gave a preview of the DVD that was given out as favors. You would hear a lot of laughing, a lot of “eeewwww”, and lots of “oh my god!” Hahaha. We had a slide show of pictures people sent to us from high school.

We even had a mini rally! I’m happy to say that every single person participated. It was the perfect ice breaker. We had to walk around and find a partner to talk to (preferably someone you haven’t spoken to in a while), first topic was, “what did you wear in high school that you would never wear again?” Then you moved on to be a group of three and the topic was, “what job did you have during high school?” Then you moved on to a group of four and the topic was “who was your high school crush?” Hahahaha! We found out many girls loved them some Mr. Baham, and the guys were crazy over Ms. Kulkarni. Finally we ended up in a group of eight and had to sit at a table. At the table we found two packs of Bubble Yum gum, index cards, and toothpicks. The goal was to make a sculpture with the gum, then have the best sculpture of the group be presented to the whole class. All I gotta say about that is, there are so many “creative and artistic” people in the Class of 2000. LOL The final game was pass the lemon using no hands. Honestly, I suck at this game. LOL That’s why in high school I refused to participate in it, because I knew that I wasn’t any good at it. 10-years later, I still suck at it. My boobs held up the lemon longer than my chin and neck put together. LMAO! I was willing to cheat for my team and pick up the lemon with my hand and place it back to my neck, because there was no way I was gonna have my friend Johnny grab it from my boobs. Hahahaha. Even with his wife’s (She’s one of my BFFs.) blessing! Hahahaha! F*ck that! No thank you! LOL After the rally, we opened up the dance floor, while everyone continued to mingle and get drinks at the bar. Everyone had so much fun, that no one wanted to go home. After we closed off the ballroom, everyone shifted to the bar in Houlihan’s down the hall. Everyone stayed there until the bar was closed. Some people still didn’t want to go home, so the party migrated to IHOP across the street. LOL

(Mr. Sal and his unforgettable Burton P.E. jacket.)

(The bar made lots of money that night. LOL)

All in all, this was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. It was a roller coaster ride to get there, but it was all worth it at the end. Jenille and I had nightmares for months. Each night was a different nightmare always with the worst case scenario. We had so many doubts that we could pull it off, and it turned out way better than expected. What did I love most about this reunion? There were no groups. Everyone was spread out. Everyone was mingling with people they didn’t hang out with in high school. People reconciled. It was my ideal reunion. The next day, I found people were adding each other on Facebook. Seeing that made me feel like this reunion served its purpose. So many people were able to reconnect that night. Everyone kept asking us, “What are we going to do our next reunion?” or “When’s the next reunion?” I kept telling myself, “Never again.” But with the bond that Class of 2000 has, how can you say “I quit?” I chose to go to my 10-year reunion, because years ago I taught myself that tomorrow is never promised. People come and go everyday. You never know what tomorrow will bring. So if you have an opportunity to experience a milestone in your life like this, then don’t pass it up. You’ll just be left with the whole “shoulda,” “coulda,” “woulda’s.” Who wants to live like that? Not me.

PHILLIP & SALA BURTON'S CLASS OF 2000's
10-YEAR REUNION

July 10, 2010

The Making of a Reunion Part II

2010-07-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

( . . . . . continuation.)

Feeling more motivated, I started searching for our former teachers via Google. I was successful to find a little over 20 teachers. Some were still teaching at Burton, while a few transferred to other schools. I emailed, called, Facebooked, and even visited teachers at Burton dropping off invitations on my days off. Jenille also managed to find teachers on LinkedIn. We succeeded on getting five teachers to attend: Dr. Dorman, Ms. Haines (who flew all the way from New York to see us), Mr. Kim, Mr. Salvemini, and Ms. Santiago.

Eventually deposits were slowly trickling in. We had to give a few extensions, but it still worked. Half way through our journey, we came across another bump in the road. In our contract, we said we could get 100 people to go, but we could barely get 60. Jenille and I emailed Laura once again. I scheduled another meeting with her hoping to renegotiate the number of people that would be attending. Lucky for us, Laura was very understanding, and agreed to drop our number down to 60 people, and still let us keep the ballroom, only rather than the whole ballroom, we would get to use 2/3 of the ballroom instead.

As months turned into weeks, we found that we only had 55 people who left deposits, basically not the 60 people we agreed in contract. To make matters worst, the last two weeks, seven people decided not to go anymore even if it meant they couldn’t get a refund. We were down to 47 people. OMG! What were we going to do? We started texting those who mentioned before that they were interested in buying a ticket closer to the date. We changed our Facebook statuses reminding people to buy tickets. We even instant messaged people convincing them to go. SUCCESS! With two weeks to spare, we managed to get our final head count to 66 people. Six more people than we anticipated.

With that solved, we started finalizing on our given tasks. Milan was able to get us a DJ. I managed to get my good friend Iz to be the photographer. Both were willing to hook it up big time and work within our budget. Melvin worked really hard on trying to get more guests to go. Jenille continued to handle our money, and send out monthly reminders about the reunion. We couldn’t think of a good souvenir to pass out, until I remembered that I had a tape from our Senior Year. The miracles of Facebook I tell ya, minutes after posting that I’m looking for a place to transfer an old VHS tape to DVD, my friend Richard tells me he can do it at home. Richard was nice enough to edit our ancient VHS into a brand new DVD, along with a couple of surprises of his own. LOL I was in charge of making place cards and center pieces. As soon as we knew how many tables we would be having, I sent out posts asking people if they were willing to donate their old text books. We had a stack of books in the middle of the tables, tied by a silver ribbon, holding down a bouquet of balloons in our school colors. Jenille, Elsie, Audrey, Cecilia, and Bern were nice enough to come over my house and help me wrap some of the books like how we used to make book covers in high school. They even helped me stick the names of the guests on the proper place cards of their meal choice. Even my 10-year old son helped! He scanned ALL our pictures for the slide show. Audrey had this whole box of candid pictures that she kept from high school! She brought them over and sorted through them, while my son scanned them. LOL Elsie thought of games we could play for our mini-rally at the reunion, while Bern was nice enough to make a run to Target to buy a couple of gift cards as prizes. Elsie also made the cutest name tags for all our classmates. Rather than using stickers that read, “Hello my name is . . .”, Jenille suggested using our old school IDs. LOL Luckily Elsie still had her Senior ID. We even had gifts for the teachers who came. Gotta love BevMo. I found great deals on bottles of wine. Everything turned out great!

The Making of a Reunion Part I

2010-07-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, July 10, 2010, I had the privilege of attending my 10-year high school reunion. Oh what a journey it has been to reach this eventful day. Last August, me and about a little more than 20 of my former classmates, all met for dinner at BJ’s in Tanforan. The purpose? To start planning the 10-year reunion of Phillip & Sala Burton’s Class of 2000. Everyone had great ideas. Bottom line? We wanted a semi-formal event. Basically a reason to get dressed up nice. Our goal? Recreate our Senior Prom. LOL Because honestly, our Senior Prom was WACK!

After months of surveying other students, visiting numerous venues, and playing with numbers that we didn’t have, we finally decided on booking the Holiday Inn SFO. I had been there for a wedding a few years back, and remembered it was actually nice. Jenille and I looked at so many packages the hotel had to offer, and finally settled for the second best package (after all we weren’t planning a wedding lol). With the cost of the hotel (included one-hour open bar, appetizers, three course meal, seat covers, contribution for the deposit to hold the date, and free rental of ballroom), DJ, photographer, and other extras, we configured that we would need to ask everyone for $75 a ticket. This is where we hit a major bump in the road. Not many were willing to pay that much, despite how good we made the package. It was a big let down. I decided to go back to Holiday Inn and see if I could negotiate a contract with them. After about an hour of negotiating, the coordinator, Laura, offered us a great deal. Rent the ballroom for $500, and a choice between: steak, salmon, or pasta for $38 a plate. SOLD! Let’s sign this contract.

You would think dropping the ticket price to $60 would make people happier. Nope. People still weren’t happy. We did everything we could. Offered payment plans where they could pay bit by bit each month, or just pay the whole balance to get it over with. Just collecting a $25 deposit was difficult. It was really discouraging. To top that, we were getting a lot of negative feedback. Here I was missing my lunch breaks doing research to find places. Using my days off visiting different venues, when I could be spending it with my family or sleeping in all day. Then all I would get in return, was words of discouragement, or negative feedback. It was heartbreaking. Then you had Jenille, who had a family of her own too, a full time job, and classes after work, trying to configure numbers to make the reunion happen. Then there was Melvin, using up so much energy to get people hyped to go, only to get the same words of discouragement or negative feedback in return. I honestly wanted to quit. I think if it weren’t for the advice my friend Chris gave me, who actually helped plan the reunion for Class of 1999, I would have said, “That’s it! I quit. Screw this!” Thank you Chris for that motivation to keep going. It really did help.

(To be continued . . . . .)

Send Me to Rehab! Sook-A-Holic Right Here!

2010-05-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

So after months of having a writer’s block, I’m officially back! My inspiration? The day I got to meet CHARLAINE HARRIS! For you non-Sook-A-Holics, she’s the reason why HBO has the show “True Blood.”

A few weeks ago, I was just messing around with my phone reading peoples’ statuses on FB. When I saw that my friend Sandra was talking about the Sookie Stackhouse series and how she was excited about the newest book coming out soon, and the new season to begin in June. I just HAD to make a comment about it. LOL So I commented with “I ordered my book months ago! It’s already on it’s way!” Sandra responds back with, “Are you going to come with me to see our favorite author when she comes here?” Hold up! What? Charlaine Harris is coming here? OMG! Christmas came early this year! Hallelujah! Automatically, I open up a browser so I can google Charlaine Harris coming to San Francisco. **singing “Haaaalll…lelujah! Haaaaalll…lelujah!** There it was, “Charlaine Harris ‘Dead in the Family’ Book tour dates: Tuesday, May 11, 2010, 7pm at Borders – Stonestown.” Aaaaahhhhhh……..I was like a kid in a candy store. My first thought, “Crap, I got Hula and Tahitian practice. F*ck it! I’ll go late. Into my calendar you go.” LMAO!

So with weeks of anticipation, the day finally draws near, and I’m super excited. I couldn’t even concentrate on work or other things. Never mind that. Forget that I have a wedding to prepare for the following Saturday, and a couple of Tahitian shows I have to practice for this month. I want to meet Charlaine Harris damn it!

So the day of the book signing, I had to work until 5pm Luckily, my friend Sandra arrived to Borders early, and she was nice enough to grab me a ticket to fall in line to get my book signed. THANK YOU SANDRA! LOVE YOU FOR LIFE! I get to Borders, and goodness gracious was that place packed! Where the heck did all these people come from? As I’m looking for Sandra, I hear the workers say, “If you have a ticket, she will sign two items!” What?!?! Out comes my phone, “Jon! Grab my other book in the car! She’s signing two things!” (I’m in heaven. LOL) I finally find Sandra and her son sitting in the middle of a sea of people. So we’re chit chatting, while we wait. Catching up since we haven’t seen each other in a while, when the worker comes out, and tells us Charlaine Harris is ready to come out! Woo hoo! Outside comes this cute woman dressed in tan and white. Her hair color wasn’t the red that you would see on the book jackets of her novels. It was more of a strawberry blonde? But omg! The minute she opened her mouth and started to speak, me and Sandra look at each other and say, “OMG! She sounds like Sookie Stackhouse!” She had that adorable Southern belle accent. Charlaine Harris had a 20-minute Q&A session, before she started signing any books. Boy was it worth it to be late for Hula practice that night! Not only does Charlaine Harris have a friendly bubbly personality, but she’s funny too! She practically answered everyone’s questions. She only stopped for a second, to complain about the TV that was on in the store and say, “they should really turn that thing off.” LOL One girl, oh my freaken goodness (even my 10-year-old son said she didn’t belong in this crowd), really made a fool of herself. She kept mentioning “Sookie’s niece” even after everyone kept yelling “nephew” at her. I don’t know if it’s because she just started reading the books, or whether she was just nervous to talk to the author, or she was just plain dumb, but she sure did get the crowd to all yell “NEPHEW” in unison. LOL One more dumb comment out of her, then I could have sworn all these Sook-A-Holics were ready to carry her out of the store. LOL After dozens of questions, the inevitable question came up, “Why are you so good at writing about sex?” Charlaine Harris’ response, “I don’t know. I guess I’m just good at it.” Woooooo….the crowd went wild! LOL For those who don’t read the book . . . . . the lady is a freak! LOL

I waited about an hour to get my books signed, but it was so worth the wait. I promised my friend Der that I would ask Charlaine Harris about her fave character Quinn. Me: “So my friend wanted me to ask you, is Quinn coming back?” CH: “As a matter of fact he is! He’s going to be in my Sookie novella that comes out next February. So you can tell your friend that you heard it yourself, straight from the horse’s mouth, yes he’s coming back.”

Oh what a night! Honestly, it was one of the best nights I’ve had in a while. LOL Thank you Charlaine Harris!

According to urbandictionary.com . . . . .

2010-02-02T23:25:00.000-08:00

1.	Jillian	286 up, 18 down
	This is a complex name to understand let alone define. The reason this is so complicated is because the many theory's experts have come to. One of the theory's states that this name is only used for people with extreme power and or abilities like a goddess or pharaoh. The extent of this name cannot put into perspective for the simple fact that a word has not been created that fully describes her. Philosophers say Cleopatra was going to be named Jillian but once the power of the name alone was considered they decided she could not fulfill such large shoes. We have been graced with few words/phases that describe Jillian. Jillian is an incredible friend, who's loyal and wont stab you in the back. She has an amazing sense of humor and loves to laugh and have a good time. She may come up with some ideas that simple minded humans cannot see the point or concept, these ideas takes someone else who's name shares the same magnitude as hers. Because of this some may consider her and some of her ideas crazy, stop yourself from thinking this because this type of crazy is far past your imagination and should be thought of as a good thing. Shes a beautiful woman to say the least. Hot/sexy would also be another good term to address her appearance. Her intelligence is far beyond anything a simple mind can understand so don't even try to venture down that road. Simply put Jillian is awesome for lack of a better word. Jillian. there is nothing that accurately describes her but this is as close as we can get.

Makes you think. . . . .

2009-11-10T16:38:00.000-08:00

"When a good woman's love goes cold, it never comes back." - Tracy Morgan

I had to write this down somewhere; just in case I wanted to read it all over again. It really made me stop for a sec just to think. He's so right, it's scary.

Munchkins, Smurfs, and Oompa Loompas?

2009-10-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

So I was bored at work yesterday, and when I'm bored I like to surf through Wikipedia. For those not familiar with Wikipedia, it's pretty much an internet encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Meaning if you can type in sentences, then you can use Wikipedia. lol Anyhow, I decided to look up the city of Tracy, because I wasn't exactly sure where it was located. After learning that it was a suburb of Stockton, CA, I decided to read about Stockton next. This is what I found:

"The first human beings to settle along the streams and riverbanks in and around what is now Stockton were countless generations of munchkins, including members of the smurfs and oompa loompa tribes, who lived in the delta's waterways, using them for grub and transportation."

WTF?! LMAO! Moral of this story: Wiki isn't a very good source! LOL

P.S. I went back on Wiki to see if It's been fixed. lol They changed it. Someone must have caught on.

In Remembrance of Yaya Aly

2009-09-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

It’s been twelve years, and I still remember the day like it was yesterday. I was coming out late for lunch, due to a math quiz I had to make up for missing. As I walked out the double doors to the court yard, I saw that none of my friends were to be found. My cousin comes up to me and tells me to go to the office. I ask her why, but she tells me that she doesn’t know, and that all she knows was that everyone was there, and she saw some of them crying. I run back into the building, run up to the second floor towards the main office. No one is there. I run down the hall to go to the other side, thinking, “Damn, she meant the attendance office.” As I’m running, I see my friend Erick walk pass me crying. I tried to stop him to ask what was wrong, but he just ignored me. I keep running to the attendance office more worried. As I turn the corner, I see all my friends standing outside: hugging, holding each other in comfort, and crying. “What’s going on?” is all that I can think of. I make my way toward them. I looked confused. Neil comes up to me, “Jillian, I have to tell you something.” I yell out, “What’s going on? Why is everyone crying?” “Yaya passed away this morning.” (I feel blank.) Tears start streaming down my cheeks. My legs felt like they were going to give. In fact, they did. You know those people in the movies where they find out that a loved one has just recently died, and they just fall and lose it all together, and everyone is trying to help them up? Well that was me. I just lost it. I kept crying and crying. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t think. I totally forgot that it was lunch time and that I was hungry. Yaya was gone. I’d never see him again.

Yaya and I have been friends since we were in the 1st grade. We were friends throughout elementary school; we lost contact in middle school; in high school, it was like we never went to different schools. That’s how much of a good friend he was. He wasn’t one of those people where I had to reintroduce myself to him all over again. He was the same boy I played kickball and four square with every day. Except this time, we were teenagers in high school, and did nothing but sit around and talk with our friends. One of my funniest memories with Yaya was when we were making fun of our friend Neil. LOL Neil was trying to trick Yaya into saying that he went to elementary school with us. So after catching Neil wink at me. I decided to go along with him. I said, “Yeah he went to Paul Revere with us. Except you probably didn’t see him because he was on the other side of the building from our classes.” Yaya burst out laughing. Neil looked confused and asked what was funny. Yaya’s response, “Dude she just called you retarded!” Hahahaha! (For those who didn’t go to Paul Revere Elementary School, they had classes for students who were slow learners, and their classes were usually separate from the regular classes.)

If there was one thing from Yaya’s passing that I learned, that would be always take the time to say “hello”, “good-bye”, or even “I love you” to your friends and family. I strongly believe in that now, because I made a mistake of not doing so with Yaya. The Friday before he passed, I was in a rush to get home, because I wanted to get ready for the Lowell Homecoming Dance. Usually when I get out of class, he would be the first person out in the court yard. He would usually be sitting under the same tree where all of our friends would meet and say good-bye. He was always the first one to give me a big hug good-bye. I didn’t see him that day. I also didn’t stop to wait. I said to myself, “I’ll see him on Monday.” I didn’t see him that following Monday. Yaya, I’m sorry. I should have stayed.

So it’s 12 years later. He passed on September 22, 1997. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. You don’t just forget a childhood friend like Yaya Aly. Yaya, I apologize that I haven’t come around to visit you, but please know I think about you every day, and you will forever be in my heart. I love you.

Sumo, we <3 you, but don't ever do that again!

2009-08-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

OMG! So last night, me, my sisters (Drea & Jaymie), my mom, Jon, and our friend Tauwee spent the WHOLE night searching for SUMO! My sister Drea’s 8 month old Akita. Wait, wait, wait, before you get all panicky, we found him! So what had happen was Drea brought Sumo out to go do his business, and after he was done, instead of running back to my sister, he spotted something and went chasing after it. Before she knew it, he was no where in sight. GONE! At the time, me, Jaymie, and my son Justin were at the movies. My mom and my daughter Jaelyn went to Pak & Save to shop for stuff to make smores. So the only one at my mom’s house was Jon. WITH NO CAR! So Jon had to wait for my mom to come home, and when she did, him and my mom rushed over to Drea’s apartment to help her. As soon as we got out of the movie at 11pm, we had all these texts from Jon that Sumo ran away. So me and Jaymie brought Justin to my mom’s and rushed to help Drea. So basically we walked around the whole freaken E. 3rd Avenue of San Mateo until 1AM! We called SPCA hella times, nothing. So finally we decided to try again in the morning and put up posters. Tauwee decided to stay and keep Drea company, while we all went back to my mom’s house. Once we got home, Jaymie decided to go on Craigslist to get ideas on what to say on a missing dog poster, she clicked on the “Lost and Found” section, and behold, the first entry was “FOUND DOG” so Jaymie clicked on it, and OMFG it was Sumo! They put “large friendly Chow mix found on overpass by E. 3rd Avenue.” (They couldn’t tell he was an Akita because Drea shaved him for camping.) So right then and there we knew it was Sumo. Turns out, when he ran off, this young couple saw him, and saved him! OMG And the whole time we were thinking the worst! And my mom wasn’t helping either. She was making us feel worst and made us want to cry. She was all “he must be hungry and thirsty.” So I kept imagining him scared in the dark curled up somewhere. OMG! My heart was literally breaking! It's like losing a child! Turns out, stupid Sumo was having the time of his life! He freaken got to ride in a convertible! (The people lured his fat ass with food) They fed him tons, and gave him plenty of water. And while he stayed with them they played with him and cuddled him ALL NIGHT! Hahahahaha. Here we were the whole time, roaming the streets, and there’s Sumo having the time of his life! Aaaahhhhh…..omg. omg. LMAO! Funny because after we made Drea go home, me, Jaymie, Jon and my mom decided to drive over to the dog park even though it was closed, just in case he went there. And I kept telling Jaymie “I hope this ends with a Disney ending.” And Jaymie was all, “Unless there’s a cat and another dog involved, this won’t be like 'Homeward Bound.'” LMAO! But OMG! Drea did have her Disney ending. She said the minute she walked into that couple's house, she burst into tears and Sumo ran to her and they were hugging!!! OMG! I’m tearing. lol

Sookie, Sookie now

2009-07-16T15:49:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that I’m a big TwiFanatic. Twilight made me crave for vampires to be a part of my life. After reading all four books, plus the unpublished-not-even-done-because-it-was-leaked-on-the-internet-by-an-obviously-bad-friend-would-be-book of Stephanie Meyers, and then reading Twilight and Midnight Sun simultaneously so that I can see what both Bella and Edward were thinking at the same time just because I couldn’t get enough of it, I needed to scratch my itch for another vampire to be part of my life. (Sad, but oh so very true. lol) So I decided to ask my girl Rach aka The New Mayor of Forks, whom happens to also be a TwiFanatic, and one of the writers for the blog “What The Forks?!” (Check them out: http://whattheforks.wordpress.com/.), if she knew of any books that I could read, since I was in desperate need of a vampire fix. (Makes me sound like a crack head, doesn’t it?) Anyhow, Rach recommended the Sookie Stackhouse Series (also known as the Southern Vampire Mysteries, or for you HBO viewers, the books responsible for the show True Blood) written by Charlaine Harris. Automatically, I asked her, “what’s it about?” Her response, “It’s like Twilight.” SOLD! That’s all I needed to hear.

So off to Barnes and Nobles I go with Jon, searching for this Twilight-like book. After wondering around with no success, because honestly, I didn’t know what the heck I was looking for, Jon decides to ask one of the workers. Surprisingly, there was one at the information desk (does anyone else have issues with there never being anyone at the information desk of both Barnes and Nobles and Borders?!?). Jon asks the worker if he knew where the Sookie Stackhouse Series books were, and after pointing me to the right direction, and me seeing HELLA books by Charlaine Harris all with the word “dead” in them, I realized I didn’t even know which one was the first title. So Jon goes back to the guy, and asks which book is first, and Jon comes back, “There are nine books!” DUH?!? That’s why I needed to know which one to get first! Hello?!? Sheesh! (Goodness, that my Mr. Man. Gotta love him for his effort. lol)

After successfully finding the book, Dead Until Dark, I immediately started reading. Rach was right! It was just like Twilight! EXCEPT, it was sooooo obvious that this woman, Charlaine Harris, was not mormon like Stephanie Meyers. LMAO! Seriously, OMFG! I’ve never read anything so graphic before in my WHOLE life! LOL Goodness gracious! The way Charlaine Harris writes, I felt like I was in the freaken bedroom with Sookie, and I was invading her privacy! Let me give you a little taste of what made my jaw drop and eyes pop out (LMAO!):

“It was so sudden that I cried out, but he casually rubbed a finger in his own blood, and then before I could tense up he slid that finger up inside me. He began moving it very gently, and in a moment, sure enough, the pain was gone. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I'm better now.’ But he didn't remove his finger. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Would you like to do it again so soon? Can you do that?’ And as his finger kept up its motion, I began to hope so.”

Oh man! Isn’t that some shit?!? Wow. I’m used to reading freaken Harry Potter stories and Bella and Edward’s high school romance. I was so not prepared for anything like that. LOL

I finished the first book in ONE day! ONE freaken day! That, when I was down to the last few chapters, my ass drove to Barnes and Nobles dressed in my freaken tsinelas (slippers), beater and pareo in drizzling weather (I was on my way to Hula/Tahitian practice, and no, I would never go out in public looking like that on purpose! lol), just so I can go straight to the second book as soon as I finish the first one. While at work, I was almost done with the second one, so when I was only a few chapters away from the end of that book, I walked over to the closest book store from my work to get the third one. (Do I sense a form of addiction forming? I think I do. lol) Lucky for me, my girl Der had ALL the books! So she was kind enough to lend me books four to eight. Boy, did I go through those books fast! Unfortunately, Der didn’t have the ninth book, AND they only had the book in hard cover! Meaning it would be more expensive. I was on a mission. I couldn’t sit still. All I could think of was the ninth book! Instead of working, I found my self surfing the web trying to find the book for less. I even went to the San Francisco Main Library across the street from my work, signed up for a library card, only to find out EVERY single copy was already checked out, and was put on a waiting list for the book. I was freaken No. 57!!! WTF?!? I needed the book right then and there. (Can we all say “Sook-a-holic”? LMAO!) So I’m on gmail, chatting with Der, we’re both thinking of where we could find the book for cheap. When I decide to go on Target’s website, and behold *chiming sounds, bright light shining at my computer monitor*, Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris is 40% off online! Holy Mary Mother of God! That was music to my ears! LOL Immediately, Der calls Target in Colma asking for the book, unfortunately some Filipino woman who barely speaks English takes her call. lol The lady kept calling the book “Gone and Away, Vol. 9,” when the book is actually called Dead and Gone. That telephone conversation eventually ended with a, “no ma'am, we don’t hab.” LMAO! Poor Der. That just pissed her off. Hahaha. I went to Target anyway and took my chances. *Here come the chiming sounds again and this time the bright light shining on the book. Lol* I bet that lady didn’t even really look for the book, because there were hella of them when I got there. The book was 30% off in stores, but oh well, beats no discount at all.

I think I read that whole series in about a week! So that’s that, my new found addiction. I barely ate or slept. When I would come home from a night of clubbing, I would read instead of sleep. With this, I can honestly say, “Edward Cullen and Sookie Stackhouse, you both have officially ruined my life.” lol I will never look at a relationship with regular men the same ever again, because of what expectations Edward has given me, and never think of sex the same after all the “gourmet sex” Sookie experienced. LMAO! The following sequel for the Sookie Stackhouse series isn’t supposed to come out until next year! Aaahhhh…..what am I going to do with myself until then? Stephanie Meyers, can you please finish Midnight Sun, so that I can have something else to read, while Charlaine Harris works on her next Sookie book?!?

Bienvenido a Miami. Part Numero Cuatro.

2009-06-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

. . . continuation

Day 4 – May 31st

Day 4 for me was kinda like Day 3 still. Mine and Dana’s flight had been moved up to 7:35am, rather than 8:05am; thus, we weren’t allowed to sleep anymore. There was no way we were going to be able to wake up if we went to sleep after the club, since we had to leave the hotel at 5:30am, just so we can make it to the airport by 6am. Luckily I packed most of my stuff before we left for the club (Yes Der and Jai! I packed early this time! LMAO!). So Dana and I changed back into our San Francisco/Airport comfortable attire, and just ate our pizza while we waited for 5:30 to come around. Rosal and Jas stayed up with us while we waited. Anyhow, April just kinda went straight to the couch and knocked out in her dress and everything. So Rosal felt that it be best that she help change her into her PJs. OMFG! Out of no where, April starts ballin! Like crying like a little baby. So we start to panic like, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Why this girl say (all while crying), “I don’t want to take off my dress!” So we’re like, “why?” (Still looking at her worried, like something bad happened and we didn’t know it happened.) “Because if I take it off, it means this is all over! And I’m never going to wear this dress again! And I don’t want to go home, because this weekend will be all over!” Hahahaha. OMG! OMG! LMFAO! We all just looked at each other, and burst out laughing! Even when she came upstairs to the room, she started crying again, saying the same thing. It was hi-la-ri-ous!

So 5:30am eventually came, and me and Dana were out the door, in a cab, and headed to the airport. After a long weekend like that we were more than happy to go home. LOL But of course, Dana and I didn’t have a direct flight home. We had to stop at Atlanta for two hours. We ended up just having lunch there, Popeye’s! Yummy Popeye’s! With lots and lots of Louisiana hot sauce! LOL Then on to the plane we boarded, and to beautiful San Francisco we went. Aawww….there’s no place like home. Seriously, no place like home.

THE END

Bienvenido a Miami. Part Numero Tres.

2009-06-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

. . . continuation

Day Three – Saturday, May 30th

Even though most of us probably really wanted to just sleep in, we couldn’t because we were scheduled for both a boat and van tour of the city. Luckily instead of the original plan of up and ready by 9:30am, the tour guides pushed it down to 11:30am. First stop was the boat tour. The best part of the tour I might add. We docked at this place that looked like would be their version of San Francisco’s Pier 39. The boat tour was kinda like the Bay Cruise we have here, but 10x better! The boat tour brought us to see celebrity homes. Basically the portion of the tour they call “Star Island.” The first house we saw was the house used to film the movie “Scarface.” It looked exactly how it did when the movie was filmed! On the left of that house is Rosie O’Donell’s house. We also got to see the following houses: Gloria Estefan, Julio Iglesias (some of you might know him better as Enrique Iglesias’ dad), Shaquille O’Neil, Vanilla Ice (before he became broke), Elizabeth Taylor, P. Diddy, Phillip Frost (he’s the CEO of a big pharmaceutical company called, OPKO Health, Inc., and basically the man who provides every man with Viagra LOL), and houses they used to film Miami Vice. Along the tour, we also went pass this island called Beer Island. It’s basically an island, where you don’t need to bring anything but a cooler of beer, and when I say you don’t need anything, that’s clothes included. LOL It’s known as a nude island. Another island we went pass was an island where it basically has everything you will ever need to survive. The cost to stay is over a GEE! People who are known to stay there are stars like Oprah and Mariah Carey. One interesting useless fact that I’ve learned on that boat ride was that the Hard Rock Café by the water is the only Hard Rock Café in the world without the giant guitar in the front, because one of the Hurricane Wilma took it, and they decided not to replace it. LOL That’s all.

The van tour wasn’t that interesting except for the fact that it made me wish I too had a freaken $1Million house, so I’m not gonna even bother write about it. LMAO! Although we did get to drive through Lil Havana, where you will find all the Cubans, we didn’t bother to stop there either. We were all too tired and hungry, and I think the fact that the mosquitoes made a buffet out of us the night before didn’t help either. LOL So we just had the tour guide drop us off at the restaurant where we were planning on having dinner for that night, Texas de Brazil (www.texasdebrazil.com). Texas de Brazil will get you full! It’s like the Espetus we have in the city. Same concept. Waiters walk around with swords of meat, and you just grab what you want. Delish! Jon and I have been to Espetus in the city, so I already knew that it wouldn’t be a good idea to fill up my plate with the stuff from the salad bar. So I kept telling everyone, “Don’t fill up your plates!” But did they listen? Nope, they all filled up their plates. LOL So when the swords of meat came, everyone felt overwhelmed. LOL Other than that, we all left there really full. After Texas de Brazil, we headed back to our hotel, and decided to just lie in the beach before it was time to get ready for the last club of our vacay.

(Pic: The "Scarface" House.)

(Pic: Al Capone's body guards and securities house. LOL That's his house in the back.)

(Pic: The House of Viagra. $10,000 a palm tree! Imported from South Africa.)

The last club we went to was Club Karu & Y. This club was supposed to be the club all the celebrities and athletes go to. Let me tell you now, I didn’t see anybody famous. LOL Right when we got there, I already got a bad vibe. The stupid valet guy opens his big mouth, and with his luck, I was the one beside him, and he says, “I’ve never seen so many Chinese people in one place my whole life.” Oh hell! Here we go again! I turn to him and start yelling, “We ain’t no fucken Chinese! We some fucken Filipinos! Get your facts straight before you say shit!” And here come my cousin April from behind, “We fucken Filipino! You just gone insulted us with that shit!” LOL That fool was backing away “Filipino. Okay. Filipino.” I don’t know what’s wrong with these people. They like seriously never saw a Filipino before! Vanessa Minnillo is Filipino. Vanessa Hudgens is Filipino. Heck! Even Tia Carrere is Filipino! What’s wrong with these people? So freaken ignorant! What I should have said to him was, “And what are you, Mexican?” Shit, let’s see how much he would have liked that. We had bottle service again that night, but I think I would have been happier without it. I wasn’t feelin the vibe inside. They had their strobe lights constantly on! I swear if I suffered from epilepsy, I probably would have had a seizure right then and there. And it was soooo hot! I didn’t even get a chance to dance yet, and I was already dripping sweat. Luckily they had this nice set up in the back. White couches everywhere…..open cabanas…..very nice. So Dana, Goldie, Roselle and I ended up kicken it outside most of the time, because it felt more refreshing to be outside rather than inside. Before you knew it, our whole party was outside too, and we ended up just having fun out there. Sheesh, if we only knew it was gonna be like that, then it would have saved us $50 each.

(Pic: The other girls were laggin, so me and Goldie (the only two in Miami who have the hardest time getting tan) decided to take pictures.)

(Pic: Jas, Rosal, Jaimie, Roselle, April (The Bride-to-Be), Dana, Me, and Goldie at Club Karu & Y)

After the club, we got hungry. So before going back to the hotel, we asked Victor (He was our tour guide earlier during the day, but became our official driver after that. LOL) if he could bring us somewhere to buy food. We ended up going to some pizza place near our hotel. OMG! Worst pizza place ever! EVER! All the workers were possibly drunk. In fact, I think they WERE drunk, because I saw some of them with cups of beer in their hands. They seemed more focus about what we looked like, because one of them kept asking Jas if she was from freaken Thailand! Anyhow, even just buying our food was so irritating. Okay, you got 10 girls in there ordering (Rosal stayed in the van with April because she was finished for the night, and two of the other ladies left the club early.), and you have all 10 girls ordering different kinds of slices. Common sense now, wouldn’t you think that each girl who stood in line for a pizza was going to pay for their own pizza? Why these fools ring it up all together? What if we didn’t even know each other? Then the way they gave it to us, was they just put it on top of two paper plates. If it weren’t for Jas to recommend putting all the pizzas into one big box, then we would have all been holding pizzas on our laps. OMG! I don’t know. It was just all a big mess. I wish I got the name of that pizza place, because I would tell everyone never to go there. The pizza wasn’t good either.

To be continued . . . .

Bienvenido a Miami! Part Numero Dos!

2009-06-03T18:49:00.000-07:00

. . . continuation

Day Two – Friday, May 29th

Surprisingly, everyone was able to “rise and shine” the next morning. The best part was waking up to a beautiful sunny day! After everyone was ready, we decided on heading down to Ocean Drive, which is one of the big tourists’ strips of Miami Beach. First stop was Wet Willie’s. It’s a place that sells nothing but frozen daiquiris filled with alcohol. You just kinda point at which one you want on the wall. They pour them like how you buy icees from 7-11. LOL Unfortunately, there were too many of us, and it was going to take 45 minutes just to be seated. So we decided to just press on and move forward. Next stop down the strip, Mango’s Tropical Café (www.mangostropicalcafe.com). I think this was the best restaurant we went to the WHOLE trip. The other ladies I went on vacay with obviously didn’t believe in eating, and just wanted to drink, drink, and drink. But me, as stubborn as I can be, refused to eat without having anything in my stomach. LOL So one of them asked the bartender for me if I could just order my food at the bar. But then I started to feel bad so I just ordered a salad and a mango colada. BUT OMG, I think that was the best salad ever! I obviously didn’t make a mistake on my order, because even my cousins were feelin the salad and were grubbin with me! (Shoot! Three days later, already back home in the city, Dana and I were still thinking about that salad! LOL) I ordered the Mango’s BBQ Salmon salad. It was this fat piece of salmon, smothered lightly with BBQ sauce, with diced sweet mangoes on the side, over a green salad. The dressing was to die for! It was their house dressing. I would have to describe it as a type of milky Caesar dressing with a hint of mango in it. So if you’re allergic to mangoes, then I’m sorry, but you’re gonna miss out. LOL The ambiance of the club was so nice too: very tropical looking, with lots and lots of neon lights. The servers get up on the stage and salsa dance while you eat, and they have a house band, which were great! The bride-to-be, already super faded, got up and stood center front, dead right in the middle of the restaurant, and starts dancing away by herself for the whole restaurant to see. LOL It was hilarious. I think they were all getting a kick outta her too.

(Pic: My mango colada. I'm not into drinks that end with colada, but damn this drink was good and refreshing.)

(Pic: Mango BBQ Salmon Salad the best salad ever!)

After our excursion through Ocean Drive, we headed back to our hotel, so that we can do some swimming and sunbathing at the beach. Dana, Rosal, and Jas went straight to the water, while I decided to just chill and work on getting a tan, all while choppin it up with some of the other ladies. While we were talking this guy randomly comes up to us and asks us if he could draw a picture of us. We were all hesitant at first because we thought all he wanted was money, but apparently he was sick and tired of drawing trees and buildings, and wanted to try drawing something else. But hey, he said “free,” so we let him draw us. LOL After drawing our friend Goldie, by herself, we asked if he could draw the cousins in one picture together. Whatta artist! He drew me with my big ole earrings and giant stunnas, Dana with her fedora hat, and April taking a nap on the beach. We learned that his name was Greg, and he was from New York on vacation by himself. While he was drawing us, Jas decides to teach him some Bay Area slang. LOL By the end of the session, we got Greg saying “hella” in his sentences. LMAO! And Greg kept mistaking us as coming from L.A., just because we said we came from California. So I said to him, “Never say to anyone from San Francisco that they’re from L.A., because it’s not even close.” He just kinda looked at me confused, so Jas says to him, “So Greg you said you were from New Jersey, right?” And he hella tries to correct her, but stops mid-sentence, “. . . point taken. I get it now, people from SF don’t wanna be mistaken as people from L.A.” LOL

(Pic: Beautiful sunny day on Miami Beach!)

After unsuccessfully getting tan on the beach (seriously, I have the hardest time getting a tan. It took me a whole week just to get tan in Hawaii.), we walked back to our suite and decided it be best that we just buy some food around our hotel, rather than go to another restaurant, since we were going to another club that night with bottle service. The cousins and I got some paninis, and went gelato happy, sampling all the flavors they had. LOL Then we got ready for the club. It was theme night for us. All of us were to wear black and red, while the bride-to-be the only one in white. It looked like we were the devils and she was the angel, which seemed cliché since she’s probably the naughtiest one of them all. LOL

(Pic: Gelato happy! LOL)

The club we went to was Club LIV. It’s supposed to be the hottest newest club in the city of Miami. And they seem to live up to that name. I think that was the best club we went to all weekend. Bottle service was grip though! We spent a whopping $1500! We got a big ole bottle of Priv, Bacardi, and Grey Goose. It was expensive but they took really good care of us. The hostess would come into our cabana and mix our drinks for us. Cups, ice, straws, napkins, juice, and soda was always replenished without us having to remind them. The music was on point. The lighting was great, and best of all no hating females. And according to our friend Mark, it was obvious we were from the Bay because supposedly we were the only ones jumping up to get hyphy when “gangsta” music came on. LMAO! But of course, everything can’t be perfect. As Dana and I were headed back from the bathroom, we were having a hard time getting through, so as Dana was trying to wedge her way through these guys, this one guy says, “Aye, that Chinese girl is trying to get through.” Oh hell muthaphucken no! Me and Dana started screamin in this guy’s face, “We ain’t fucken Chinese! We’re fucken Filipino!” He must have been so drunk he still didn’t get that shit straight. He started pullin on my arm, “Where are you from? Where are you from?” Aarrghhh….so irritating. Another thing that was irritating was that this one fool kept coming into our cabana! He would wait for the security guard to leave for a minute, and come in our shit and try to dance with us, while drinking out of the bottle from his cabana, and trying to stick it by our mouths so that we could swig out of it too! Gross! And this other fool, comes in our cabana and hella grabs our Grey Goose and pours some into his cup, and I hella give him this dirty ass look to get fuck out, and then he looks at me like I’m the crazy one? Anyhow, after a long night of partying (clubbing ends at 4am in Miami), we were ready to call it a night. Until Jas noticed that there was still some Bacardi left over, and for $1500, you know we had to find a way to bring that bottle home! LOL So Jas grabs the bottle and being her dress was too tight, couldn’t hide it in there, Rosal grabs it and hides it in her dress. LMAO! Then you have the three of us walking close together trying to hide the fact that there is a big ass bottle of Bacardi in Rosal’s dress. LMAO

(Pic: Me, Rosal, April (The-Bride-to-Be), Jas, and Dana outside the Club LIV.)

(Pic: Yes, $1500 people! $1500!)

(Pic: And yes, getting your moneys worth will make you start kissin' bottles. LOL)

(Pic: Rosal was gone for the night.)

(Pic: A bottle of Priv will do that to you. LOL)

Oh man, and the cab drivers! Oh the cab drivers! They are nuts! First off, he immediately tried to rip us off! Starting fare there is supposed to be $2.50. Why this fool start it at $4.50?!?! If it weren’t for Jas to notice and say something, he would have gotten away with it and wouldn’t have reset it. Second, I’ve never felt so scared in a vehicle all my life, and this is comin from a girl who was hit by a drunk driver head on once! The cab ride back to our hotel was ssccarry! He was driving in between lanes, swerving, stopping at green light! Madness I tell ya. When Jas tried to ask him if he was alright, he had the nerve to fucken say, “Just let me drive!” WTF?!?! And why this fucker ask us how to get to our hotel??? How are we supposed to freaken know that? I gave him the two main intersections our hotel was on, and Goldie even googled up the hotel to give him the address! I swear he was just trying to pull a fast one on us, and trying to make himself lost so that we would have to pay him more. To top it all off, he “baby locked” us inside so that we couldn’t open the door ourselves! Solution: NO TIP ASSHOLE!

To be continued . . . . .

Bienvenido a Miami! Part Numero Uno!

2009-06-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, May 27th, my cousin Dana and I hopped on the red-eye flight to celebrate our cousin April’s Bachelorette Weekend in South Beach Miami. Oh what an eventful experience. Let me tell you, Miami is like the Vegas of the southeast coast. People there just don’t sleep. It’s non-stop partying. Drinking 24/7. I’d feel sorry for anyone’s liver after a visit to the city of Miami. I thought it would be nice to blog about my whole experience, and started writing, when I realized there was so much to say. So I decided that I'd break down my days in Miami, as a three-part blog, so basically, if you wanna see what happens on my trip you have to read the first part, and stay tuned 'til next time. LMAO! Anyhow, on with the story.

Day One – Thursday, May 28th

Before reaching Miami, Dana and I had one stop to Philadelphia. Oh man, does Philly have a nice ass airport! They were voted cleanest airport in the United States! So while in Philly, we went exploring around the airport in search for breakfast and perhaps souvenirs. As we were walking around the airport, I couldn’t help but notice on the difference of employees compared to the San Francisco International Airport. SFO is full of Filipinos. Like FOBulous Filipinos, where they’re trying to help me check in, but yet I don’t understand a word they’re saying to me. LOL Philly, on the other hand, was just about all Black folks. Anyhow, while in Philly, Dana and I thought to ourselves, “Hey we’re in Philly. Let’s get a Philly cheese steak.” Well that was the original plan, but after finding the Philly cheese steak spot, I saw the breakfast, and totally forgot what my target meal was. So I ended up getting breakfast instead: two buttered pancakes, two scrambled eggs, diced potatoes and three pieces of bacon. YUMMY! While I was grabbing my salt, pepper, and putting ketchup on my eggs and potatoes, I couldn’t help but listen to the workers talk. I kid you not, I thought they were talking another language, but nope, they were talking in English. Their accents were just so thick! Where I had to stop and think to myself, “Damn they sound funny.” But hey, to them, I must sound funny.

We arrived at the Miami International Airport at 1:30 pm (E.S.T) (30 minutes later than our expected arrival). It was raining, and automatically people started feeling bum, but not me, because I’ve been to Florida before, and I know that the rain only lasts about an hour or two. So I didn’t let that bother me. It took forever for our luggage to come out of that stupid carousel thing! But luckily ours was one of the first to come out. Lucky for us, there was a shuttle taking trips to South Beach. Saved us $7, because a taxi ride from the Airport to South Beach is $32 flat rate. The shuttle charged $25 for two people. So off to the Sagamore Hotel (www.sagamorehotel.com) we go. You know what I saw on the freeway? This man, driving his scooter on the freeway, wearing only cargo shorts, no shirt, tsinelas (slippers), and get this, NO HELMET! Yes folks, NO HELMET! It was raining too! So you got this fool in one of the middle lanes, squinting through the rain, shirtless, with freaken tsinelas on! OMFG!!! From there on, I already knew Miami was going to be something else.

When we finally got to the hotel, the other ladies who arrived before us were already faded. LOL Apparently they’ve been drinking since before they even got to the San Francisco International Airport. LOL So of course, they made Dana and I take shots with them, so that we could get on their level. After our shots, the first thing we did was get into our swimsuits and swim in the rain. LOL Shortly after, it started to clear up. So we decided to start getting ready for dinner, and by that time, some of the other girls have already arrived. We had two joint suites, but only two bathrooms for 14 girls! Solution: Dana and I pair up and shower together, while Jas and Rosal pair up and shower together too. LOL We felt like little kids again when our parents would make us take baths together. Miraculously, all of us managed to get ready on time. Make-up, hair, dressed and everything. Our dinner menu for the night…..crab and lobster from Joe’s Stone Crab Restaurant (www.joesstonecrab.com). YUMMY!!! Dana and I shared our meal, so we ordered these big fat crab claws with creamed spinach, while Jasmine shared some of her sautéed mushrooms with us. Even the bread was good! Everything was so good, that I decided to forget the fact that we were at an expensive restaurant and ended up eating with my hands Filipino style. I was straight up just dipping the crab in all the sauces and eating with my hands. LOL The only thing missing was some vinegar and steamed rice. LMAO!

(Pic: Jas, Me, April (The Bride-to-Be), and Dana getting ready to go out for dinner)

(Pic: Rosal, Jas, Me, and Dana waiting for our dinner to arrive)

(Pic: Yummy, yummy crab claws! Bring on the butter!)

After stuffing our faces, we headed out to a club called the Mansion. Oh, but before I go on, let me just say, Miami is full of haters. They just love to hate on the group of pretty girls. It’s truly sad. As we were trying to get into our cab, a car full of (obviously ugly girls) rolls down their window and yells out “Hookers!” We let it slide though, because we know that they’re just jealous. So we get to the club, but unfortunately, we didn’t know that the clubs didn’t open until 11pm. So we had to find a place to chill, because it didn’t seem like a safe place for us to be wondering around on our own. We went into some Japanese restaurant and decide to have some sake and fried banana. LOL As we were walking in, there was a table with four people just staring at us, and one of the guys had the nerve to say out loud “What the fuck? What are they? All prostitutes?” This was a really dumb thing to say, since all the ladies I was with either worked for the bank, built computers, are attorneys, worked for the government, while the majority are all RNs! Even while we were seated at our table, one of the ladies in that other table decided to turn her whole body so she could just stare at us. So my cousin Rosal turns her whole body and yells “hi!” LMAO! With Jas ending it with, “why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer.” Yeah, they never turned to look at us again.

When we finally got into the club, we got to walk right in because apparently someone knew the owner, but of course, as we walk in, you got them people hatin again, “how come they get to go in?” LOL The club slowly got packed. Will from Day 26 was to make an appearance that night. The music was coo. They played a lot of Top 40’s and occasionally some old school songs. But sheesh, their drinks are expensive! It’s like buying a drink in Vegas! Dana had a Red Bull and vodka, while I had a Long Island….the grand total of that…..$29! Yeah, I didn’t buy anymore drinks after that. LOL Oh and let me clarify, remember how people were calling us hookers? Well there were other females dressed more risqué than we were! I’m talkin ‘bout booties and dedes hanging out! It was cellulites galore up in there, and you got them hatin on us? Come on now.

To be continued . . . . .

To my beautiful family . . . . .

2009-05-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

ALOHA everyone!!!

I just wanted to thank you all for helping out Saturday. You guys were hands on even though I didn't ask you to help. It made me so happy, as I was running around scrambling all over to place, to see some of you guys in the kitchen helping my mom, and some at the food table helping put chaffing dishes together. You guys are truly the best! Honestly, I don't think there is a family that could ever fade this Pallera Mafia we have.

To April and Ron, thank you for staying until the very last minute to help us clean out the kitchen. I promise, I will be your #1 helper on your wedding day. As promised, I will make sure the schedule goes to plan and smoothly that day.

To Dyna, thank you so much for coming early to help me decorate and to get the "saing" started.

To my sisters Andrea and Jaymie, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything. These two ladies stayed up ALL night (seriously ALL night) wrapping spam musubis for the party! And basically thank you for helping Mommy out at the South City house, while I was busy running around doing other errands. (And Drea, thanks for still doing the games, even though we had no more time. Obviously Johnny was anxious to play. He hurt Justin while playing! LOL)

To Dana and Jasmine, thank you so much for helping out in the kitchen, and helping put the food out on the tables. People would have been hungry much longer without you guys. (Oh, and thank you Dana for helping me get all the money out of my dress. Seriously, you guys treated me like I was a freaken stripper! LMAO!)

To Duane, thank you for helping set up the chaffing dishes. You don't know how happy it was for me to hear you say, "What can I do to help?" Because those were the words I truly needed to hear at that very moment. (P.S. I was watching from the corner, YOU ROCK'D WITH THE POI BALLS! LOL)

To Rosal, thank you for bringing the balloons and getting it organized to have them tied down. And thank you for getting everyone to help my mom get all the food out of the car. I heard you from the other side of the hall "Hey guys! There's more food in the car!" Hahaha.

And to last, but not least, Rich! You're a freaken ROCKSTAR! Thank you so much for performing that night! Everyone loved you (even though you were running on straight fresh off the airplane Filipino time)!!! I wish I was able to sit there and watch, but from the sound of it, everyone enjoyed it.

All in all, THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU GUYS (or MAHALO)! I am truly blessed with the best family ever!!! I was bragging about you guys to everyone! Basically trying to show off that my family was better than theirs. LMAO! I love you all!!! I promise, when you guys have kiddies of your own. I will be first up in line to say "What can I do to help?"

Love, love, love you all!

<3 Jill

Why would you name your child that?

2009-05-08T18:33:00.001-07:00

It’s Friday. It’s nice outside, yet I still managed to drag my butt to work. It didn’t help either that there was barely anyone in the office today and it was extra quieter than usual. When I got to work, I did my same routine as always: turn on my computer; check my work email; and then open up my Gmail and leave it open. My friend Rach and I started talking about the old singer Buffy (remember her popular cha cha song “Give Me A Reason” back in the 90’s), and I mentioned that Buffy’s real name was actually Bernadette and her family calls her Badette. Then after saying that I wouldn’t want to be called either Buffy or Badette, Rach says to me, “From now on I’m going to call you Badette.” My come back, “Call me that and I’ll call you Gertrude.” LMAO! So that’s when it hit me, one way to make it through this Friday, ask everyone I know on FB and on both my AIM and Gmail chat lists to come up with every single ugly name they can think of. LOL

Before I give out the names others gave me, let me share names that I don’t find appealing at all:

Girls: Bruhilda

Guys: Redentor, Montalban

Here are the names of the people who participated, followed by the names they thought of:

Charrie – Gretchen

Dana - Girls: Allegra; Guys: Norbit

David – Girls: La – A (Pronounced La Dash A), Punani (A girl he met in Hawaii); Guys: Gunther

Den – Girls: Caligula, Magdalena; Guys: Egbert

Drea – Je’Hari, Resbuesha, Bonquisha

Dyna - Athel, Allister

Elaine – Bathsheba, Hildegard

Gerald – Shaniquwalynalenn Marie

Heather – Gidgit

Jai – Pilar Peling

Jaime – Lulane

Jane - Ursula

Jaymie – Girls: Eunice; Guys: Ashley

Jeff – Girls: Mildred, Belula; Guys: Chad

Jill – Dick, Bob

Kelly – Palajuniqua

Kristine – Gertrude

Mon – Helga

Nancy – Uniqua Unique

Rain – Belinda, Melinda, Olga

Ray – Margaret

Rosal - Girls: Zenaida; Guys: Dominador

Stepfanie – Tanquel

LMFAO!!! Thank you guys for participating, and making my Friday go by fast! You guys are the best!

Here is a YouTube video titled "Top 60 Ghetto Black Names" sent to me by my girl Jane. Thanks Jane!

Pastry Thief

2009-04-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

For dinner tonight, Jon (MY MR. MAN), the kids, and I decided to go out to Fresh Choice. After a Caesar Salad, Chinese Chicken Salad, two pieces of a sausage mushroom pizza (that was some good pizza!), a baked potato, and some chicken soup, I was ready for dessert. I wasn't in the mood for ice cream, so decided to see what their dessert section consisted of - cantaloupe; honeydew; chocolate pudding; vanilla pudding; strawberry creme pudding, basically a lot of pudding. Same ole, same ole. Although, one thing did catch my eye, "Lemon Shortcake." Looked like a winner to me, so I grabbed one, and some strawberry creme pudding just in case I didn't like the shortcake. When I got back to the table, the first thing I tried was the lemon shortcake. OMG! Soooo good! It was probably the best thing they had on their menu all night! It was so good, I told Jon to go back and grab me FOUR! LOL That's when I became the "Pastry Thief" I unfolded some napkins onto my lap, and slowly (with the help of Jon blocking anyone's view) started packing up the extra shortcakes, and quickly stuffed it into my purse! LMAO! Jon was so surprised with my actions. LOL He was all, "you must really like those things, because I've never seen you do such a thing." Hahahaha. If you know me well, you would know that I am probably one of the most honest people ever. One time a restaurant accidentally charged me $0.35 for a $35 meal, and I had the waiter correct it, because I'm just honest like that. So you should know that I would never in a million years steal anything, but OMFG! These damn shortcakes! I just had to have them! Hence in the purse they go! LOL

Pet Peeves

2009-04-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

The other night, I was at my parents’ house having dinner, when all of a sudden my sister Jaymie and I started talking about pet peeves, and boy do I have a lot of them! LOL

Let’s list them down, shall we:

- I CANNOT stand wet towels left on the bed. OMG! Is it so f*cken hard to hang the damn thing???

- I HATE it when people put back empty ice trays in the freezer. Just fill it up with water again, please.

- Why do women carry two giant purses to work?

- I CANNOT stand that some people still choose to wear white denim. It’s not 1996 anymore people!

- I CANNOT stand people who choose not to blow their nose, but keep making that sniffing sound during tests in school.

- I DO NOT like it when a stranger calls my children “their baby.” I didn’t see you lying there crying in pain when they were born. And unless you are one of my girls, then please don’t call my son or daughter “your baby,” because I don’t even know you.

- I CANNOT stand it when someone tries to sound all intellectual by using big words that aren’t even words to begin with. For example, people who use the word “conversate.” That’s not even a real word.

- I CANNOT stand skinny b*tches who CLAIM to be FAT!!! OMG! I’ll show you fat!

- I CANNOT stand people who talk about the end of the movie as they are walking out of the theater spoiling it for whoever might be waiting outside to see the next showing. Please don’t ruin it for them, and when I mean them, I mean ME!

- I CANNOT stand it when people stand on the wrong side of the escalator! You STAND on the right, and WALK on your left. Same goes for the elevator and BART, you wait for everyone to get off, and then you go in. Sheesh!

Anyhow, that’s what I managed to come up with (for the mean time LOL). So, what are your pet peeves?

It's All About ME

2009-04-13T16:41:00.001-07:00

So as a second blog, I decided it would be nice to talk about myself. After all, this is “Jill’s World.” LOL And what better way to be in Jill’s World, but get to know who I truly am. Anyhow, I’m 26 years old. I have been with my man, Jon Salangsang, for 11 years and 3 months. We have two beautiful children together. Our son, Justin Dominic, is 9 years old, and our daughter, Jaelyn Desiree, is a 13-year-old trapped in a 3-year-old’s body. LOL

I’m always super busy with either work, school, Polynesian dancing, my son’s karate, etc. Seriously though, friends have to book me at least one or two months in advance if they want me to make an appearance. LMAO! I’m probably one of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet, though people often tell me that I look like a “bitch” when they first meet me, but later we become the best of friends. Although, please note, my kindness is not to be taken lightly, because do me, my family, or one of my friends wrong, and I will make sure your existence around me is extra uncomfortable for you. My Pallera Mafia is the best. I believe you can have more than one best friend, because there are many stages in your life where you come across people that are just worth keeping forever. My best friends and close friends are like a second family to me. I look forward to my “Girls’ Breakfasts/Lunches/Dinners/Nights Out” with my gal pals. I anticipate my nights out partying or just staying home watching DVDs or playing Mario Kart with my guy pals. But most of all, I love my family days with Jon and the kids. Those surely take the cake.

My guilty pleasures (though not in this particular order) are FOOD, DVDs, FOOD, dancing, FOOD, karaoke singing, FOOD, Harry Potter books/movies, FOOD, scary movies, FOOD, surfing through Wikipedia coz I be bored at work, FOOD, the Stephanie Meyers Saga (Has Twilight ruined anyone else’s life???), FOOD, spending money I don’t have because everyone deserves to take advantage of retail therapy every once in a while, FOOD, video games (I am super addicted to the Sims 2, and anything that has to do with Guitar Hero or Rock Band.), FOOD (I’ll admit it, I’m a heffer, get used to it.), and my DVR. LOL Can’t imagine life without it.

When I write, I write like I’m talking straight to you, so don’t expect me to be using big words or to have any of my blogs to be free of any errors, because shit, it’s not like I’m getting graded on this. LOL

Anyhow, that’s a glimpse of Jill’s World. So love me, hate me, whatever, I don’t care. I’m just here to express myself. If you don’t wanna hear what I gotta say, then don’t, I’m not going to get all butt hurt about it. LOL PEACE.

I have arrived!

2009-04-12T23:24:00.000-07:00

So hell has frozen over. I'm now on Facebook and Blogger. Over and over I told everyone that I would never sign up for one, but look at me now. I have both. LOL So why now? Well, after giving up my Myspace, I've discovered I'm always out of the loop. I keep getting these random text messages, IMs, etc. about random things going on with everyone, and I don't even know what the heck anyone is talking about. So I felt so out of touch with the world. So why join Blogger, well it's simple, I got hella shit going through my head that I sometimes need to just bitch, rant, express, and basically love sharing my thoughts and experiences with everyone. And through the inspiration of my girl Rach, whose blogs I am constantly reading at work to save me from my boredom (Thanks Rach!), I decided, "hey, why not, might as well sign up for one too." So look out Blogger World, Jill has arrived! LOL