A flawless Sunday

All those five and a half years I did Showbiz Lingo, I never had a Sunday for myself: No Sunday family meriendas, no Sunday afternoon get-together with friends (Sunday dinners were difficult to schedule because everyone else was working the next day, except me) and definitely no Sunday out-of-town trips to Tagaytay, Laguna or Batangas where you leave in the morning and return at night.

Now that I’m finally free on Sundays (I’m currently a willing Saturday afternoon hostage to Startalk), my theme song these days is Never on Sunday (from the 1960 Jules Dassin-Melina Mercouri movie set in Greece).

If I can help it, I don’t accept any work or commitment on Sundays. The only two exceptions were the interviews I had to conduct on Lea Salonga (for a national treasure like her, I’d get up any time) and Mandy Moore (when she admitted that she and our own Billy Joe Crawford had a nice little past). As much as possible, however, I want my Sundays to myself (that was how much I’ve been deprived of Sundays).

A few weeks ago – while on the set of Startalk – Lolit Solis asked me what I was doing the following day. "You mean a Sunday?" That was my first reaction. In my head, I tried to think of all the excuses in the world that would be acceptable to her.

"It’s for Forever Flawless," Lolit immediately told me. "In that case, okay," I reluctantly shot back, while dragging the O in my okay.

"It’s in Pampanga," she added. I still said okay, but there were already two O’s and an H in my okay. It was like Ooh-kay.

"And you have to be there by 12 noon, which means you have to leave your house before 11 a.m.," Lolit said, excitedly waiting for my reaction. (She knew too well that getting up before lunchtime was the ultimate sacrifice for me.) To that I still said okay, but it was a hardly audible okay that I said and she had to repeat the question and had to drag a witness (Belinda Felix) to make sure I didn’t take back my okay once the whole scenario (traveling to Pampanga, waking up early, etc.) had sunk in on me.

Okay! Okay! I’ll go! I assured her. In my mind, I was asking myself, "What does this woman want – for me to cut my wrist and sign in blood?"

Actually, I would do anything for Forever Flawless, which is one of my favorite establishments – particularly the one in SM Megamall.

Of course, I’m a Belo baby (although I don’t think Dr. Vicki Belo will find it cute hearing me calling myself one) and I rush to Belo Medical Center in Greenhills for my skin problems. Unfortunately, all Belo Medical Centers are open only until 7 p.m., which is practically just midday for a late-riser like me. Every time I have a pimple that needs to be injected (have it pricked now and it’s gone the next day) and I can’t be at Belo before 7 p.m., my next best alternative is to go to Forever Flawless and I can no longer count with my fingers the number of times they’ve saved me from the embarrassment of going on-cam with a pimple on my face.

So I will really do anything for Forever Flawless. If I have to go to Batanes for Forever Flawless, I will. But wait, I really want to go to Batanes, so that’s not really a sacrifice for me. Let me just say that I will travel seven mountains and seven seas for Forever Flawless. (After traveling through all that dirt and heat, I would really need to go to Forever Flawless.)

That Pampanga trip for Forever Flawless a few Sundays ago was for the establishment’s opening in San Fernando – at the SM mall there. Guest of honor, of course, was Forever Flawless endorser Lorna Tolentino. Mark Herras was also supposed to be there, except that he had to leave for New York that very day for his new GMA 7 TV show.

Traveling to Pampanga that Sunday morning wasn’t really a hassle. (Of course, I didn’t sleep anymore the night before because nobody could wake me up if I did.) The best thing was – I didn’t have to drive. They were picking me up from my house.

We left before 11 a.m. and with me in the car were StarStruck survivor Bugs Daigo, Febe Meneses (Pepita Smith of Startalk’s Tigbakan and Da Who), Issa Aguirre (Fayatollah to Startalk viewers) and Belinda Felix.

Another Forever Flawless endorser, Yasmien Kurdi is from Pampanga and she shouldn’t have trouble getting there, while Lorna had left the house early and was already there way before 12 noon.

When we got to the Forever Flawless center in SM Pampanga, we only had to cut the ribbon and enjoy ourselves. Forever Flawless big boss Joey Santos offered us facials and I chose the one that would relax me (they used seaweed on me). Some had foot spa treatments and a Forever Flawless client from Lubao (some customers traveled all the way from Marilao, Bulacan and even Pangasinan) was so thrilled getting the royal treatment from the Forever Flawless staff right beside Yasmien Kurdi. (In other Forever Flawless branches, you also have the chance of running into other celebrities because they have their treatment there.)

Too bad, Lorna had to leave early because she was playing dutiful wife and nurse to a beloved patient – husband Rudy Fernandez, who was still in the hospital that time (he finally left Cardinal Santos Hospital yesterday). She missed all that pampering from the Forever Flawless people (especially from Gigi and Rhea).

Well, there’s a lot you can say about Lorna T., but as a wife and mother (and now nurse), she’s certainly flawless – forever.