TAKE note of these details,? I wrote in a Facebook message to friends who were once with Women for the Ouster of Marcos and Boycott (WOMB).

The details included the where, when, what, why and how of the 25-year-old organization?s homecoming party for film and stage actress Gigi Dueñas.

Dueñas, famed for her roles in Francis Ford Coppola?s ?Apocalypse Now,? Ishmael Bernal?s ?Himala? and Peque Gallaga?s ?Oro, Plata, Mata,? among others, has been based in Guadeloupe, French West Indies, with her French husband Thierry de Beaupre since 1991. Her last visit to the Philippines was in 1997.

We knew something was the matter ? women having senior, or pre-senior, moments ? when we received inquiries like ?Where is Baboo?s condo na nga?? although the address of Ms. Mondoñedo, in whose place in Greenhills, San Juan City, the party was held, was in the note, including landmarks leading to the building.

Co-hosts Maita Gomez and Joji Raviña-Lourence announced that the affair was potluck, but asked party-goers to state before the event what food they intended to bring to avoid duplication.

I said I?d bring Baguio greens and jam because the party might stretch to merienda. Maita requested that I bring down five kilos of Baguio longganisa, coffee and tea, too. By the time I wended my way to Cubao via Palispis Highway (the new name of Marcos Highway) from Baguio, my satchel bag was smelly from two kilos of Tuvera pork sausages (I explained that was all a freelance writer could afford, and weren?t we all having health issues anyway?), Benguet-barako coffee blend, Tantamco strawberry jam and Iggy?s Inn pickled siling mahaba.

Englishman Jeremy Baer, Margie Holmes? partner, brought the tea.

Longer list

The FB note was two weeks stale already, but the published comments amounted to more than 30, about the number of people who turned up at the party on August 16. Each time someone confirmed she was coming, the potluck list grew longer, until the balikbayan honoree exclaimed: ?I shouldn?t eat a couple of days before. I?ll do a fruit diet first. Ang liver ko.?

The dessert table alone was groaning from bilaos of muscovado-sweetened saba (in laywoman?s lingo, banana cue without the bamboo stick), assorted kakanin from Cainta, tamales and suman from Pampanga, Conti?s cakes, tubs of ubeng halaya and a glowing mound of cucumber-pineapple gelatin made by Maita.

The cakes were a story in itself. Gilda Cordero Fernando called to say she had no time to have the pancit that Maita requested made. She was calling from the hospital where her husband had been wheeled in for a major procedure.

I passed the phone to Maita. Gilda was allowed to bring cake because, as Maita said: ?When we say potluck, 12 people bring cake. So we asked everyone to say what they?re bringing beforehand. This way, we don?t end up eating cake for lunch.?

I knew I had stumbled on the right party when I worriedly texted Joji to ask if it was okay to have the longganisa cooked in Baboo?s kitchen. She texted back that not only was it okay, they would bring their maids along for the party.

Maids? Yeah, this was WOMB indeed.

Stuff for sale

Maita, a former Economics lecturer at University of the Philippines Manila and De La Salle University, gave the go-ahead for those selling stuff to bring samples and displays for additional income.

It was the same Maita who was seen at a WOMB meeting at Dr. Mita Pardo de Tavera?s house in Dasmariñas Village in 1984, selling bags of dried fish. Gigi?s comment then was: ?When the going gets tough, the tough sell daing.?

Gigi?s recent comment was: ?I?ll bring jewelry. Tindera pa rin.? She laid out pairs of earrings from Kathmandu.

Her zingers and one-liners rang out all afternoon. Someone raised a pair of earrings, asking what the name of the semi-precious stones was. Gigi the tindera answered: ?Onyx. As in Onyx Olmedo!?

Margie, the ebullient sex-advice columnist, told Gigi: ?I?m soooooo glad you?re here. Now I can look conservative again!?

All afternoon, as I walked from table to table, I overheard remarks like ?Remember when they used to say ?The best communist is a dead communist??? or ?Sumasakit ang tuhod ko.? This was followed by a concerned ?Did you take your glucosamine??

The remarks indicated the political color of the group and their current concern of aging gracefully.

While tapping her handbag, a gray-haired lady with eyeglasses said: ?The security guards at the malls take one look at me and let me in. What if I were a sympathizer of an extremist group and I had a bomb in my bag and were ready to be a martyr for the cause??

Before WOMB members and sympathizers played second fiddle to Baboo?s roast turkey (her sweet cranberry sauce was mistaken for jello and put on the dessert table), they posed for group photos in the event they?re called to regroup and resole their rally shoes: Maita, Joji, Baboo, Gigi, Gilda, Margie, Arche Ligo, Lilia Fabregas, mother and daughter Violeta Bondoc and Vikky B. Cabrera, Hilda Narciso, Maybelle Koch Guzman, Carmen Razon Arceño, Olive Tripon, Marivi G. Dizon, Myrna Arceo, Mila Reyes Garcia, Marie Marciano, Irene Donato, Judy M. Taguiwalo, Adelaida Lim, Helen Mendoza, Nympha Saño, Andie Celestral and Anna Leah Sarabia.

Bonding

Accompanied by her French children, Amihan and Marcel de Beaupre who are staying on in the Philippines to rediscover their Filipino roots, Gigi went up to Baguio City to bond with her oldest son Karlo Altomonte and his family.

Amihan and Marcel, born in Manila, want to sharpen their English-speaking ability, learn Filipino and pick up other skills, he in photography and videography from his Kuya Karlo, she in singing and drawing.

Both are taking an academic year?s leave: Amihan is a Contemporary Literature major at the Faculte de Sciences Humaines in Saint Claude; Marcel, a Law and Political Science major at the Universite Antilles-Guyane in Pointe-a-Pitre.

Before she knew it, homesick Gigi, who never gave up her Filipino citizenship, was packing again for her return to the Caribbean to teach theater in a high school back at the Louis Delgres Lycee Technique in Le Moule, where she also runs her own theater workshop, Studio Ado of Theatre de Quart d?Heure.

She told me: ?I would love to come back for Christmas, but let?s see how things go when I get there. I?m supposed to have a production around this time with Studio Ado. I?ll rehearse for ?Huit Femmes? (Eight Women), an English play translated into French. I?m playing Pierrete, a role played by Fanny Ardant in the film version that also starred Catherine Deneuve. I won?t be the same when I leave after this visit. You all spoiled me to death. I?ll have good memories to take back and great stories for Thierry. Love you all. I?m crying already!?