Life in the Philippines

More about adapting to change! I’ve done ok with the weather here.  I usually just look up a weather report on a site with both temps shown.  But today I needed to gauge temperature for a different reason.  I think Ariel has a fever.  No problem, find the thermometer.  Now there are certain items that no matter what house I live in, some creature always hides them from me.  Nail clippers and thermometers top that list so of course we could not find our thermometer. I am sure I have one. I probably have more than one but gave up and went to buy another.  Two thoughts never crossed my mind.  It never occurred to me that a digital thermometer would not be readily available. Ok I remember glass thermometers and reading the lines but that was back when my eyes were not old! And the second thought that didn’t occur to me was the Celsius scale.  I wasn’t expecting to see the scale from 30 to 40 degrees.  I had to grab the computer and figure out what equates to a fever.  Then I had to get someone else to look at it because I could not see the line.  The good news is she does not have a fever.  The better news is, I can order a digital thermometer on line so I have it for next time!

I’ve mentioned before how much Duchess just loves have wild cats around -NOT! She barks and howls and lets the world know when they are in her space. Cat watching is her favorite outdoor activity lately followed closely by Carlos watching.  Carlos is the gardener and for some reason he and the cats are on equal footing with Duchess, she likes neither.

One night recently we went out for a short while and made the mistake of leaving the back door open so Duchess could go out if she needed to. It surely won’t happen again.  We returned home and Duchess met us with sad droopy eyes and that “I did something bad” look. We started looking around and I hear the words “bad dog” coming from the kitchen. If you read in the archives you can find Basset Hound versus Corning Ware and from that experience I can only wonder what was destroyed this time.Before I even make it to the kitchen I hear an expression with a less than publishable four letter word.

 I headed that way and was met by my husband heading out of the kitchen in a hurry.  His “bad dog” expression had come when he noticed a mess in the pantry floor and assumed Duchess had made it.  But when he walked in he realized the mess was honey from a broken jar. He thought we must have had an earthquake since the honey was much to high for Duchess to have knocked off.  As he was investigating he looked up and spotted a wild cat staring at him from the pantry shelves…that’s when the four letter phrase was heard and he made his way out of the kitchen.

What occurred next would have made a perfect funniest home videos if I could have gotten a good angle for filming it. The cat wasn’t budging, the human didn’t want to get scratched and be subjected to rabies shots.  Since the cat was way up in the top shelves, the human grabbed the pool hook on a long pole.  His first attempt to pull the cat down resulted in the crash of two more jars of honey, and a container of oats.  The cat came down, took one look at him and jumped back to the top shelf.

The second attempt cleared the shelves of cereal boxes and emptied a container of coffee creamer to mix with the honey but NO CAT.  So much for hooking the cat with the pool hook.  While the human plotted his next mission to rid the house of wild cat, the critter hopped down and slowly walked out of the pantry to the back door and outside….totally covered in honey!

On Saturday we had the priviledge of taking part in the flag placing on the graves at the Manila American Cemetery. The cemetery is the largest resting place for American veterans outside of the US. There are more than 17,000 buried at the Manila American Cemetery many whose identity is unknown. Flag planting starts at 6AM when the gates open and many volunteers were available to place both an American and Filipino flag at each grave marker. The Manila American Cemetery is located in Fort Bonafacio in an area where Fort McKinley was previously located.

As Memorial Day approaches, the cemetery hosts a large number of visitors for a ceremony and visits in remembrance of loved ones, either buried on the grounds, or one of the more than 35,000 who remain with a status of Missing in Action.

Yes, it’s another in the series of Manila traffic posts.  And yes, traffic is still out there in tremendous volume. When I was headed to Korea folks told me that I had to prepare myself for the traffic situation there.  Gotta tell you Korea doesn’t even come close traffic wise to Manila. And I was just amazed at the silence while riding. It’s odd not hearing the constant horn blowing.  The one thing that is the same though is the bus situation.  Those huge passenger bus drivers rule the road and they don’t care if you are around or not. You had better move for them because they intend to go where they please.

We almost made it with the vehicle in country for 6 months with no significant events.  Note I said ALMOST.  Last week as we returned from Christopher’s music concert we stopped to grab a quick bite of dinner.  As we left the drive through and headed to the road back to our place we encountered the event you really have to watch out for - that right hand turn by the vehicle in the middle lane.  I didn’t see it completely, and I am glad I was not the one driving.  I just caught the four letter words and felt the impact. It didnt wind up being so bad.  At first when I got out to look I thought the driver front end was going to be pretty messed up because of the way it pushed us over.  I guess the large bumper helped and we really don’t have a huge amount of damage.  What we did have was an hour or more delay to get home because you have to wait on security to come make their pictures etc, then go to the police station to file your report…which doesn’t declare anyone at fault.  Odd huh? That’s just how it is I guess, even when fault seems to be without any question, it is left to the insurance companies.

Such is life, and as long as no one was hurt vehicles are fixable and replaceable and it’s just another day in Manila Traffic with one more memory to file away.

As American Idol 2009 fans are waiting to see who the new Idol is, folks in the Philippines were able to see last years Idol and runner up in concert this weekend. David Cook and David Archuleta performed in concert at the Mall of Asia in Pasay on Saturday.  Last week’s news casts told the story of the two contacting their lawyers after being told to stay at their hotel rooms for quarantine purposes surrounding the Swine Flu scare. The two American Idol winners arrived in Manila on Tues and on Thurs took part in Manny Pacquiao’s victory party celebrating the boxing hero’s latest win in the US.

We didn’t head out to the Cook and Archuleta concert and thankfully I was in another part of town because the news reports said traffic was horrific.  Well traffic is horrific in that general area every single day so chances are it was barely moving at all when folks were trying to get into the area, and certainly when they were trying to get back home.

You can see TV video of some of the concert at http://www.gmanews.tv/video/41717