Sand, Ocean ... It Must be the Beach

Shelly shifted her holidays around this weekend. Rather than taking January 2 off, as her colleagues will in Maryland, she took today off, when not much is happening here, and we headed to the beach. It was officially a work day at the plant, so we had Bobby drive us to the beach. It would give us a chance to relax, and him a chance to sit around and wait for us at the beach rather than sitting around at the plant.

We headed to Matabungkay, about three hours south of Manila, and home to white sand beaches, if not to a lot of good snorkeling or swimming.

The beach was certainly scenic, but the water was too shallow to swim very much. We did find some water deep enough to snorkel. While most of the coral was dead, we did see more starfish than either of us had ever seen before. It was a nice day to get out of the city, we had a nice lunch, and had plenty of time to sit and sleep or read on the beach.

Any Help with Zombies?

Bobby and I spent today in Manila, picking up my computer -- believe me, after paying the repair bill, I hope I never drop this thing again -- and getting Shelly's sewing machine fixed.

Now, Shelly's sewing machine belonged to her great grandmother on her mom's side, so finding parts for it isn't easy. Fortunately, Bobby used to be a Manila taxi driver, and seems to know where to find everything. He took one look at the sewing machine and said, "oh, it's a Singer. We'll go to the Singer shop."

And so we did.

Around on the back side of the building, we found a combination Singer repossession sale and repair shop. I had no idea that Singer makes television sets, refrigerators and washing machines. (Perhaps they don't in the U.S.) I signed the machine in with the guard, and a service manager took it away. Bobby and I settled down with the security guard and few other assorted people to watch parts of three movies blaring on the probably-repossessed large screen television set, including the end of some movie starring The Rock on HBO and then, on Star Movies, the end of Bruce Almighty, the movie where Jim Carrey ends up with all of God's powers. After that finished, we were back to HBO to a movie where a group of people were trapped in a shopping mall, trying to remain out of the reach of the rest of humanity, which had all turned into zombies. (Remember, I missed the beginning of this gem.)

Actually, I was totally into this movie, so much so that I didn't notice that a clerk had gone around behind the TV, until he disconnected the cable from the big screen TV and hooked it into a smaller set that someone wanted to buy.

"HBO, HBO!" someone called out.

"32! 32!" someone else cried.

"Hurry up," I thought. "I want to see what happens next."

The clerk switched the channel, grimacing, probably worrying that zombies on the screen would send the old lady interested in the set scurrying out the door. We watched the zombies on the small screen. The lady bought the TV, and the zombies moved back to the big screen.

Ten minutes later, the sewing machine repair was finished. Unfortunately, I'll never know how to defeat an army of zombies.

Mmmmm...Crispy Pig

Here are a couple shots of some crispy pig -- lechon -- that was served at a company Christmas party last week. The crispy skin, while the tastiest part, is also almost certainly the part that is the worst for you. Unless you count the layer of fat that comes between the crispy skin and the juicy pork.

Lechon is a Big Deal, but it also must be a fairly common food, at least among those with money. Most of the supermarkets where the middle and upper class shop have lechon stands where you can buy it, every day of the week.

Christmas in the Tropics

Our Christmas vacation turned out to be a very nice couple of days. We started with cinnamon rolls from Cinnabon, and then opened gifts from each other and a few from our families. More are expected this week from Kathy and Carol; it will be nice to stretch Christmas out.

Turns out we gave each other some pretty cool gifts, I think.

I bought Shelly a couple of hand-made baskets/end tables that we'll take home

and she bought me the coolest gift I have ever received: tailor-made shirts.

Yes, I look like a dork, but I have never had a tailor-made shirt.

After opening presents, we headed to Makati to pick up John and Divina, Shelly's friends from Saipan, and brought them back to the house, where we all cooled off in the pool for a couple of hours before Shelly and I made a psuedo-American, psuedo-Filipino Christmas dinner. We had pork chops, after not finding any affordable American hams in the neighborhood, salad and a potato casserole, followed by Shelly's fantastic peppermint ice cream-frozen brownie Christmas dessert. After dinner, we all ended up turning in early: I had been up late going to church and wrapping presents, John and Divina were on Saipan time (two hours ahead of the Philippines) and Shelly, well, Shelly was just sleepy. Plus, we had an early wake-up call for our trip to Pagsanjan Falls, about 2.5 hours south of home.

***

On Monday, we got up early -- too early for a holiday, I think -- and headed south to Pagsanjan Falls, with a stop first to pick up Bobby to drive us through the province. Our destination was the site where Francis Ford Coppola filmed the final scenes of the movie Apocalypse Now, and a great spot for banca rides through the rapids on the Bombongan River.

Driving into town, a large road sign warned us not to "stop and deal with illegal boatmen flaggers along the road!"

Not far from the sign, we saw our first "illegal boatmen flaggers along the road!"

"Boss! Hey, Boss!"

"Boss!"

"Hey, Boss!"

Taken in by their compelling sales pitches, we stopped to talk to one of the flaggers, who thrust a pile of laminated photos of Pagsanjan Falls at Bobby. After a brief conversation, the flagger hopped on the back of a motorcycle, and we began to follow him, first down the main road, then a smaller road and then a smaller road still, until the motorcycle turned into the driveway of what appeared to be someone's house. Bobby rolled the window down about a two inches when the flagger came back to talk to us.

After another brief conversation that I couldn't understand, Bobby rolled up his window and put the car back in gear, leaving the flagger cursing behind us as we wound our way back to the main road through town. Another couple of miles, and we found our way to a hotel resort.

Several years ago, tourist numbers in Pagsanjan declined precipitously as banceros (boatmen) demanded larger and larger fees for the three-hour trip up and back through the rapids, so the government stepped in and set official rates for the trip: P580 per person, plus P50 for the mandatory life vest and P30 for a seat cushion.

We stepped into two bancas, or small, wooden boats, each with two banceros, Shelly and I in the lead, John and Davina trailing behind.

The trip started slowly. The Bambongan was slow and wide at this point, so the upstream paddling was easy for the banceros. And then we went around the bend.

The river narrowed and sped up noticeably as we entered an awesome gorge, with sheer cliffs towering overhead and rapids popping up every few meters. At the first rapids, we watched a downstream banca sail through, before our banceros hopped out and began to pull our boat over the rocks. These guys are experts: they know when to jump in to the river to push, and when to leap from rock to rock to pull. Through at least a dozen sets of rapids, they pushed and pulled until we were just shy of the falls themselves. (We had been warned that the water was too high for us to go under the falls, which is usually part of the trip.) We got out of the bancas and stretched our legs before getting back in and shooting downstream and back to the resort.

When we got back to the car, Bobby said he had done some investigating while we were gone and had uncovered the scam along the road: the unlicensed boats would take us part way to the falls, then demand more money to go the rest of the way.

On our way home, we stopped for what turned out to be a very good Japanese lunch at Hana, a restaurant we had noticed on the way into town. Of particular interest was the California roll which, rather than being made with crab, cucumber and avocado, was made with crab, cucumber and mango. The lunch, while delicious, must have been full of MSG, as all four of us slept most of the way home, and Bobby said he had been sleepy, too.

I somehow left the camera in the car when we went to the falls, but, fortunately, John had his along. Once he gets back to Saipan and e-mails the photos to us, I'll post them.

Merry Christmas

Just back from the late service at Holy Trinity -- by myself, because Shelly is well-known to turn into a pumpkin after about 10:00 p.m., and because we also went to the 4:00 service this afternoon in anticipation of her not making it to tonight's service.

It was a nice service, with a hymn in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, that I didn't understand, but found very beautiful.

We'll be opening gifts in a few hours, then picking up Shelly's friends John and Davina at their hotel in Makati and spending a couple days with them at our house. They're in the country from Saipan, where John is a teacher.

I still have some gifts to wrap. I know that my early-to-bed, early-to-rise bride will be waking me up much too early on Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Sir!

Christmas in the Philippines brings out the, ahem, opportunity to give cash gifts to those who perform services for you.

This is not all bad. It's a chance for those who have to share with those who work hard and still don't have much. But drawing the line is difficult.

Shelly has been advised not to give a gift of cash, lest we become a good source of "loans" down the road, so we've given booze to the male service employees in our lives and shoes to the female service employees in our lives.

Bobby, our driver, got a good bottle of his favorite brandy. The pool cleaner and the gardener each got a bottle of rum. The guards at the village gate got a bottle of rum, too, which I suspect they'll share at their own Christmas party or by splitting up the gifts that neighborhood residents have given them. The housekeepers got shoes. Each of these gifts is worth at least one day's salary. Bobby's is worth close to two days' salary.

The telephone company courier gave us an envelope for his cash gift. The mailman also gave us an envelope for a cash gift. The telephone company courier, when he delivered this month's phone bill, asked me if he could have his "Christmas envelope." The way I look at it, he's not doing us a service; he's doing the telephone company a service, and that's where he should look for his gift.

But then I feel guilty. What's a hundred pesos to me? What's it worth to him? But, we've held the line there.

One guy who did get a cash gift from us this year was Cris, the helpful guy who is seemingly *always* working at the bank after hours, providing security and customer service to those using the ATM. He's there so often that we're on a first name basis now. Cris always stops traffic for me to back the car up, he's always friendly (genuinely, I think) and he studies an English dictionary while at work so he "can learn more difficult words so he can speak with foreigners better."

You can tell it's Christmas time at the grocery store, too. It's nearly impossible to get out of the store right now without one of the ubiquitous baggers carrying your groceries to the car for you. Most of the rest of the year, it's easy enough to bypass them, but right now they're working hard for tips. And at a tip of 15 or 20 pesos (25 to 35 cents), I'm glad to let them carry my purchases for me.

As I said, it's Christmas, the time of giving -- giving cash. It's part of life in the Philippines.

A column by John Mangun in the December 15 Business Mirror says that the Philippine Bureau of Immigration has implemented a new policy "instruct[ing] all immigration supervisors at the airports to refrain from extending holiday greetings to passengers lest this be misconstrued as asking for gifts or money."

"At first glance, this certainly seems like a silly idea," Mangun writes. "What is wrong with a government official welcoming arriving passengers at our international airport with a casual holiday greeting? Most foreign international travelers might even see this lack of greeting as an indication that the Philippines is not as warm and friendly as our reputation leads them to expect. But we all know the truth.

"Christmas is a time in the Philippines when everyone becomes your friend. The security guard that normally considers lifting the gate at the village entrance an inconvenience suddenly runs to accomplish the task. Smiles fill the faces of city employees behind the glass windows at hte office servicing the public. 'Merry Christmas' is not a greeting; it is a reminder of your holiday obligation to give. It is almost as if you are expected to pay for someone wishing that your Christmas is merry.

"The foreigners coming into NAIA do not know that is part of our culture, but we all do. A public employee with a 'Merry Christmas' on their lips usually has their eyes on your wallet."

So with that, Merry Christmas, sir! Merry Christmas, ma'am! I accept both cash and checks.

Are You Still There? Hello?

It's been far too long since I last blogged. It has been a very busy two weeks.

My period of non-blogging began with great news, perfectly suited to a blog entry. So, here it is, as it should have appeared two weeks ago:

***

Results came back from the test I took at the IRS in September, and I passed Part 3 of the exam, which means I have passed all four parts and am now eligible to apply to become an "Enrolled Agent."

What does this mean? Essentially, once the IRS completes its background check and makes sure I haven't filed any fraudulent returns for either myself or my clients, I'll be licensed to represent anyone who is having a dispute with the IRS. In other words, if you get audited, I can represent you, even if I did not prepare your tax return. (Currently, I can represent you only if I prepared the return which is being audited.)

In reality, there's probably not much call for this license once I'm back in Salisbury, and probably not that much in Manila, either, but it may help me find some tax season work here. Things are changing so quickly in the tax preparation world that I don't know how many more years I'll be able to make any money preparing other people's taxes. More and more are preparing their own taxes online (which is what I'd do, too, if I wasn't already a "tax professional").

Doing your own taxes can be a good thing or a bad thing. Sure, you'll save the hundred or two hundred bucks that you'd pay me to do your return, but you might not get back all the money that you're entitled to. Shelly will kill me for telling this story, and she might disagree with some of the details in my version of the story, but here's the story I always tell potential clients when they tell me they can do their own taxes:

The first year that I worked for H&R Block, I offered to do Shelly's taxes. (This was before we got married.) She declined, saying that she had always done her own and could do them very well herself, thank you very much. She finally agreed to at least let me check them over before she filed.

Shell worked through her 1040, and presented it to me with a rather smug look, as I recall (this may be a point she differs on). She was getting a refund -- $1 -- and was quite happy with that.

I looked at it for less than a minute -- honest! -- and said "Great! You're getting a dollar back. What about the thirteen hundred dollars that you're entitled to, but aren't asking for?"

I tell this story to potential clients not to harass my wife or to make her look bad, but to demonstrate that the extensive training I've gone through gives me knowledge of tax credits they may not be aware of. I snagged a $300 credit for Shelly that year through the "rate reduction credit" that is far too boring to go into here, and a $1,000 through an education credit she qualified for.

Back to the present. I took this test for three reasons:

1. The IRS is slowing moving towards requiring some sort of certification or licensing of professional tax preparers. Being an enrolled agent should meet this need for certification, which will put me at a competitive advantage versus other tax preparers, providing there's still such a thing as retail tax preparation when that day rolls around.

2. I took the test for the first time last year, when I was unemployed and had ample time to study. (Did I study enough? Obviously not, or I would have passed all four parts the first time around.) I like multiple choice tests, and I can usually do quite well on them. I hate studying, which is why I failed Part 3 last year.

3. As more and more people do their own taxes, the future of the tax prep industry may well be in defending people who have decided to do their own taxes.

Sometime next spring, the background investigation will be completed and, unless there's something in my background that I'm unaware of, I should be, officially, an enrolled agent. Yay!

And, Shell, if you think I've maligned you with any aspect of this post, the comment link is below! :-)

***

I'm trying to figure out how to structure this post. If I make it too long, you'll get bored. Since that might happen anyway, I'll steam ahead.

***

I had checked the IRS Web site on Sunday, December 11, and found the results that day. I had been checking periodically for a couple of weeks, and was flying high when I got the results.

That all came crashing down, quite literally, the next day, when I broke my laptop. (For a second time in the three months that I've been here, Shelly's advice to bring my old workhorse of a laptop proved prescient.)

I learned at least four things from breaking the laptop:

1. Never put your laptop on top of a stack of dirty clothes in the laundry basket. If you want to put it in the laundry basket, you're better off putting it under the clothes.

2. It doesn't take much of a drop to really mess up the LCD screen on a new laptop. Mine slipped off a laundry basket that couldn't have been more than three feet off the ground.

3. The LCD is the single most expensive part on a computer. I did some research before calling a nearby Apple Center, and knew I was looking at something in the neighborhood of a thousand bucks to get it fixed.

4. "51,000 pesos" sounds a lot more expensive than "925 dollars."

***

So, between a broken laptop, writing Christmas cards, wrapping Christmas packages, attending Christmas parties (one more tomorrow night), going out for multiple farewell dinners with the three Americans who were here working with Shelly and completing three freelance projects, we've been incredibly busy.

Things should quiet down for a while. Larry and Jamie left last Sunday, Jim left this afternoon, and my three freelance projects will be done before I go to bed tonight. There's a company Christmas party Friday afternoon that I'll be attending with Shelly, and we have visitors from Saipan staying with us December 25 & 26, but it will be a far less-hectic pace than the previous two weeks.

Driving (Legally)

Shelly has been, I regret to inform you, driving around the Philippines without the proper documentation. She ran out of time before leaving Maryland to get an international license, and used up her 21-day driving grace period weeks ago.

But I'm happy to announce that, as of last week, she is now legal.

When her visa was finally processed last week, we headed out last Thursday morning to get Shelly a license. You can't get a license until you have a visa, but it's taken almost three months to get her visa. You can only drive legally without a Philippine or international license for 21 days after your arrival, which is how she ended up driving illegally for all these weeks. (And me? I did not get a Philippine license on our Thursday trip because I don't yet have a visa, but I did pick up an international license before leaving home and can, therefore, drive for a year until the license expires.)

***

The driver's license office is in a dark wing of a mall that has seen better days. Most of the stores are closed, but the corridors of the mall are jammed with kiosks selling everything from dodgy cell phones to pirated DVDs. There's a Jollibee, a Shakey's Pizza and a couple of other small restaurants, but the escalators don't work, and most of the lights in the mall have been switched off. I'm glad we have Bobby along to navigate.

We fight our way through the masses, past row after row of chairs of people, snacking, dozing, chatting, but mostly waiting, and find ourselves negotiating with a fixer, someone who will help speed up the process for us. Using a fixer, despite prominent signs forbidding them, is essential, as it's just a few minutes before noon and it seems the office closes at noon so everyone can take lunch at the same time.

Our fixer, a tall, lanky man wearing a blue t-shirt, finds a clerk who will let us start the paperwork, even though it's 11:55. But first, we need photocopies of Shelly's license, passport and visa. No problem, says Bobby, because one of the kiosks in the corridor sells 2 peso (US$0.04) photocopies. Shelly fills out her paperwork and presents them with her photocopies, and the fixer, the clerk and Bobby begin a lengthy negotiation in Tagalog. Bobby is trying to get the clerk to waive the required drug test, but it seems that can't be done today.

The fixer leads us around the corner to one of several medical offices. Bobby pulls me aside and, in hushed tones, explains what's going on:

"You have a choice," he says. "You can wait until later this afternoon, or maybe until tomorrow. Or, for a fee, you can have faster service."

"How much do we need to pay for the faster service?" I ask, glad again that he's here to help us.

"They wanted 4,000 pesos (US$80), but I got them to take 2,500 pesos ($US50). Is that okay?"

Not wanting to spend the day at the driver's license office, much less return tomorrow, we quickly agree, and I dig through my wallet to come up with the cash.

Meanwhile, Shelly returns from the small bathroom and hands her sample to the nurse. The bathroom is dirty, the specimen cup was reused and it was, well, difficult for a woman to aim into the cup's small opening. There's no sink in the bathroom, so she washes her hands in sink in the waiting area. Shelly shells out P450 for the drug test, and five minutes later we're on our way to the vision test, which she quickly passes.

There are just two steps left, Bobby says: having Shelly's photo taken for her license, and then waiting for the license itself to appear. The rest of it "will be taken care of."

We leave Bobby behind as we head out to do some Christmas shopping, only to be called back 20 minutes later. The photograph hadn't worked, and Shelly needed to return for a second one. That taken, we're both ready to head for home. Bobby offers to remain behind to wait for the license and deliver it to Shelly at work on Friday. We quickly agree, glad to be on our way out of the mall.

***

After our lengthy, expensive experience, I'm not sure that I'll be getting a driver's license anytime soon, though it would make a cool souvenir. But, all in, it ended up costing something like $65, and for something I don't need, that's a lot of money.

Stinky the Monkey

We welcomed Stinky the Monkey to our home yesterday. Shelly has apparently been sending a photo of Stinky around to her family, so I may as well include it here, along with the story, convoluted though it may be.

I have always wanted a pet monkey. What boy hasn't, really? They're fun to watch, and intelligent, too. Now, obviously I wouldn't actually want a monkey -- a monkey would be a handful around the house, to be sure -- but monkeys have always been fun pet to fantasize about.

After adopting Mister Tanaka, I decided that, to match my personality, I would consider him to be a sarcastic cat, much like Bucky in Get Fuzzy. For all of his blustering, aggressive outside, Bucky also has a soft spot in his heart for his plastic bear, Smacky.

It's really because of Bucky that I started to think, sometime that last year, that maybe Mister Tanaka would like a pet, too. And what better pet for a cat than a monkey?

"Mister Tanaka could train him, and groom him, and the monkey could get snacks for Mister Tanaka out of the cupboard," I said to Shelly sounding, no doubt, like an eight-year-old after an afternoon of Pepsi and cotton candy.

"I would guess," said The Voice of Reason, "that the monkey would end up training Mister Tanaka. I think Mister Tanaka would probably rather have a pet goldfish."

I couldn't argue with Shelly's logic, but since I didn't actually want a monkey for Mister Tanaka, I didn't have to argue with her.

After seeing all those macaques last week, my trip to Subic last week re-ignited my burning passion for a pet monkey.

"I showed Mister Tanaka my monkey photos," I told Shelly. "He reminded me that he wants a pet monkey. He's going to name him Stinky."

"Neither of you are getting a monkey," The Voice of Reason said.

"But Ross had a monkey on Friends," I whined.

"Friends was a TV show," she said. "And Ross was a dork. Do you want to be a dork?"

And that was the end of that -- who wants to be dork, after all? -- until Sunday, when we were shopping for Christmas presents.

"Greg, come here," Shelly said, pulling me into the wood carvings department. "I found Stinky! You should buy him!"

I had been looking for a box or something similar to toss my spare change into each night. Stinky cost less than $10. He would make one heck of a cheesy souvenir.

Are you on my Christmas gift list? Don't worry. They only had one of them in the store, and I kept him for myself.

Go Hawks!

I woke up this morning to find that Iowa has been invited to the Outback Bowl in January -- despite a 7-4 record -- for a rematch of the 2004 Iowa-Florida Outback Bowl. The Hawkeyes got the nod over Michigan even though Michigan beat Iowa in Iowa City.
This is payback for 1996 when, despite finishing the season with a better record than Michigan and a victory over the Wolverines, Iowa was snubbed by the Outback and ended up in San Antonio at the Alamo Bowl. Who's headed to the Alamo this year? None other than Michigan. Go Hawks!

Holy Trinity

We found a church. It took a while, but it didn't take much looking.

Something like 85 percent of the Philippines is Roman Catholic. There are Catholic churches everywhere you look. Within a five minute drive of our house, there are at least two. We've even been to one of them, before we got settled in enough to start looking for a Lutheran or Episcopal church. If you're not interested in a brief discussion of my religious background, you'll probably want to skip the next paragraph, and possibly the rest of this post.

I'm a Lutheran. Shelly is a non-denominational protestant. Her parents go to an Episcopal church, mine go to a Lutheran church. She was raised Presbyterian, I was raised Methodist, and joined the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in college. We were married in an Episcopal Church. In South Carolina, we went to an Episcopal church, in Maryland we go to a Lutheran church. Some Lutheran Churches (though not the LCMS) and Episcopal Churches are "in communion with" each other, which allows the churches to share clergy, fully recognize each other's members, ministries and sacraments. (Which branch of Lutheranism you subscribe to is a big deal to some Lutherans. For me, not being raised as a Lutheran, I've been comfortable floating between the LCMS, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Episcopal Church, as all three have very similar services. The differences come in the doctrine, something I was unaware of until I joined the Lutheran Church of Guam, which is a joint ministry of the ELCA and LCMS. Here's an explanation of the differences between LCMS and ELCA, from the LCMS point of view, if you're interested.)

Anyway, enough of the backstory. It may be helpful if you're interested in how we ended up where we did.

On Sunday, we filled out the new member paperwork at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Makati, a 30-minute drive from home on Sunday morning. We couldn't find any good Lutheran options, but we agreed that we wanted that same Episcopal/Lutheran liturgical service. The vicar has held posts around the world, and the congregation is very multi-cultural. I think we'll be very at home there; it's nice to have a church home in time for Advent.

High-Flying Cat

Hopefully this is not an adventure that Mister Tanaka will ever have. Thanks to Tatyana for passing on the link!


Stowaway cat arrives home from France
'She's bigger and heavier than before'

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- Emily the cat is back -- after flying home in the lap of luxury.

The curious cat who wound up traveling to France in a cargo container touched down at the Milwaukee airport on Thursday, greeted by her family and a horde of reporters.

A Continental cargo agent handed her over to 9-year-old Nick Herndon, son of the cat's owners, Donny and Lesley McElhiney. Emily meowed and pawed at reporters' microphones as the family answered questions.

"She'll be held onto a lot all the way home. And then when we get home, too, she'll be cuddled a lot," Donny McElhiney said.

Her sumptuous return in business class on a Continental Airlines flight was a sharp departure from her trip to France, where she was found thin and thirsty but still alive.

"She seems a little calmer than she was before, just a little quieter, a little, maybe, wiser," said Lesley McElhiney, 32.

Emily vanished from her Appleton home in late September. She apparently wandered into a nearby paper company's distribution center and crawled into a container of paper bales.

The container went by truck to Chicago and by ship to Belgium before the cat was found October 24 at Raflatac, a laminating company in Nancy, France. Workers there used her tags to phone her veterinarian, who called the McElhineys.

Continental offered to fly the cat home from Paris after Emily's tale spread around the world and she cleared a one-month quarantine.

"This was such a marvelous story, that we wanted to add something to it," Continental spokesman Philippe Fleury told AP Television News at Charles de Gaulle airport.

After one Continental employee escorted Emily from Paris to Newark, New Jersey, cargo agent Gaylia McLeod accompanied the cat aboard a 50-seater from Newark to Milwaukee.

"I know it's close to the holidays," a tearful McLeod said. "I'm happy to be a part of reuniting Emily with her family."

On her flight home, Emily passed up a menu of peppered salmon filet and "opted for her French cat food" and some water, airline spokeswoman Courtney Wilcox said.

Apparently all that French food did Emily some good.

"She's bigger and heavier than before," Nick said.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I Feel Like I'm Back on Guam

I feel like I'm back on Guam.

As I was editing and finalizing this week's worth of posts (I don't usually post a week's worth at once, but it's been a busy week!), the power went out. On Guam, it was a weekly occurrence, and it was nearly always blamed on a brown tree snake crossing over from one power line to the other, creating some kind of arc, and shorting the system out. I had other theories for the frequency of Guam's power outages, as did most everyone I knew. But the brown tree snake was the official reason nearly all the time.

This is the first power outage we've had, or that I've noticed, at least, since arriving. We noticed when Merlyn tried to make a phone call on the cordless phone, which was suddenly not working.

I plugged a fan in. It didn't work, either, so I checked the breakers, all of which were okay. I tried the fan in the kitchen. It didn't work, and neither did the overhead lights. I wandered across the street to check with my neighbor, to see if he had any power. He didn't, either, so I know the problem is not in our house.

UPDATE: The power was out for about 3 hours, during which time I wrote until my battery was drained, then read a book while eating leftover turkey. Shortly thereafter, the combination of tropical heat and Tryptophan put me promptly to sleep.

I Feel Like I'm Back in Japan

I feel like I'm back in Japan.

We had these nasty centipedes in Japan that were able to climb just about any wall and seemed to take great delight in dropping onto unsuspecting gaijin as they opened the closet door. They were also good at biting. Though I was never bitten, my friend Phil from Australia was bitten one night when he was visiting Yamanashi.

Last night, I had called Tanaka to come to bed. Although he's not a dog, he knows the routine and usually sprints to the bedroom to spend the night with us. Last night, however, I could not get his attention, no matter how hard I tried.

So I went downstairs to see what was up and found that he had cornered a very evil-looking centipede in the dining room.

Not wanting any of us to get bitten, I had to take Tanaka's new plaything away from him. After scooping it up in some tupperware, I stored it for the night in order to photograph it in the daylight. Plus, I wanted to find out what it was and would need to see it while looking for it on the Internet.

It seems to be a member of the scolopendromorpha family. Here's a blurb from the Emporia (Kan.) State University Web site:

Order Scolopendromorpha (3 families) - "epimorphic" forms with 21 or 23 pairs of legs and pedal segments, with a low degree of tergite "heteronomy" [segments are more-or-less uniform]. Includes the largest centipedes - the aggressive, intimidating species known to the general public. Occurrence: Worldwide.

After spending a night in tupperware, he seemed sluggish in the morning. I shot a couple of photos in the tupperware and then, going for a better view, dumped him and the nickel onto a piece of white paper. He took off at a mile a minute, forcing me to recapture him, as I really didn't want him wandering back into the house.

I hesitate to post this photo, as it may dash any hopes we have of anyone coming to visit. So, let me post it while reminding you: We have a cat. He caught a centipede last night. He'll get the next one, too.

I Can't Believe We Missed It

Digging through a backlog of newspapers this morning, I see that we missed the Fifth Annual Baguio Province Tossed Salad Festival on Sunday.

According to a story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, this year's Tossed Salad Festival was dominated by thousands of children "enjoying their greens" at the Baguio Convention Center.

Their Styrofor bowls were filled with slices of carrot, lettuce, cucumber, tomato and bell pepper.

A woman said her three grandchildren quickly consumed two bowls each. A bowl cost P20 (40 cents).

Organizers earlier announced that this year's festival would try to break the record by feeding 30,000 people. But only 10,000 servings had been offered to the public as of 3:00 p.m.

Yes. There's an actual record for this. According to the Inquirer, the first giant salad broke a record previously set in Utah by feeding 5,000 people. The second fed 12,800 people, the third 29,000. (Only 9,000 people showed up in 2004 when the Tossed Salad Festival was held on the heels of a meningococcemia outbreak in the city.)

If any province is going to hold a tossed salad festival, Baguio would be the one. Much of the produce in the Philippines is grown in Baguio, which has cooler weather and better growing conditions than much of the southern part of the country. We often buy string beans, strawberries and lettuce labeled as being from Baguio.

Still, who would have thought that a tossed salad festival would be so popular?

Subic Bay, Baby

My alarm went off much too early this morning. 5:15 is too early just about any day.

But it was worthwhile, as I spent the day at Subic Bay with a couple of Shelly's colleagues who were headed there on business and invited me along for the ride.

Subic Bay is a natural deep-water port that was once home to the U.S. Navy and, before that, the Spanish fleet. Today the former navy base has been turned into a free trade zone and tourist destination.

When the Navy moved out, it left behind hundreds upon hundreds of old buildings, most of which remain in use today, and the infrastructure to support a small city.

This sign from the Public Works Commission just has to be a Navy remnant. Mr. Kool is affixed firmly to a huge air conditioning unit that appears to be in dire need of a visit from, well, Mr. Kool.

One of the largest tenants at Subic is FedEx, which hubs at least part of its Asian traffic here. The FedEx presence was of particular interest to me because, when I bought my computer, the shipping details showed that it was sent from China, where it was built, to Subic Bay, and then on to the U.S. I tried to take a photo of the tail of a FedEx plane to illustrate this paragraph, but a guard hustled over and told me that photography was "not authorized." So we drove around the corner and shot this one instead, which is all the better for being taken in front of a sign indicating that photography is, indeed, forbidden.

Part of the tourism development includes Ocean World, a small-but-informative Sea-World-like park though with, I think, more emphasis on education than Sea World. Walking through the aquarium, I discovered that while our digital camera was just not hacking it when it came to taking pictures of the fish, the camera on Rose's cell phone was taking good shots. Though I have yet to figure out how to use most of my phone, I have mastered the camera function.

As we wandered through the aquarium, we were met by Jeff, a park guide who explained each of the different tanks on display to us, and then invited us to come see the park's sea lion-painting show. Not a show where sea lions were painted, he explained, but a show where the sea lions did the painting.

"What kind of paintings do the sea lions make?" Elmer asked, quite reasonably.

"Abstract," Jeff joked.

Actually, Colby's painting was not nearly so abstract, as here he is shown painting the "L" in his name. We were told that the sea lions at Ocean World are South American sea lions, "the dumbest of all sea lions."

"Yet they can paint," Rose pointed out.

"Yes, but we have to feed them after each trick," Jeff said. "The California sea lions like you'd see at Sea World will perform without being fed after each trick."

"Sounds to me like it's the South American sea lion that's the smart one," Elmer said.

Subic is also home to thousands of macaque monkeys which live in the dense tropical forest. Ocean World has a rescued animals exhibit which includes a new family of macaques, which are actually a group of rescued individuals from which a new clan is before formed after the monkeys are nursed back to health. If released individually, a guide explained, they would be shunned by other groups; by releasing them as a family, they should survive in the wild.

A Little Bureaucracy

The Philippines is a receipt-mad nation. I end up with a receipt in my pocket for practically everything.

Of course, I end up with cash register receipts, just like anywhere, but how many times have you bought a whopping 12 dollars worth of household cleaning supplies and had your receipt checked not once, but twice? The cashier rang my purchases up, the bagger stamped it with the "checked" stamp on the right hand side, and the door guard stamped it with the "released" stamp on the top, but only after checking -- and circling -- the number of items purchase. (You can always click on these photos to see a larger version if you want to see the detail.)

Just about anywhere you park your car, you'll receive a receipt when you enter the parking lot. Some of them are single-use,

and some of them are used over and over again.

Whether parking is free or not, you'll more often than not get a receipt. Bobby explained to me why there are so many parking receipts: they're intended to keep vehicle theft to a minimum, the theory being that, without a receipt, you won't be able to exit the parking lot. In fact, your license plate number is usually scrawled on the receipt in generally unreadable script by a guy who has been scrawling tag numbers on little pieces of paper for the last seven hours. I'm thinking, however, that if I were intent on stealing a car, I wouldn't stop and get out of the car just because a lone receipt-taker told me to.

But the Granddaddy of All Receipts has to be the "gate pass" Jim brought with him to Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. But first, the backstory: we needed a cooler for the party, and didn't really want to buy one we'd either have to leave behind or ship home, so we asked Jim to borrow one from the hotel he's staying at. He's been there for a couple months, they have his credit card number, they all know him and, most importantly, they were willing to loan him a cooler, so it seemed like a good deal all the way around.

Then he showed up at the house on Sunday with this:

There were, no kidding, TEN signatures required to loan Jim a cooler that couldn't cost more than fifty bucks.

Numbers 1 and 2 weren't signatures so much as the names of two hotel employees who would be responsible for the cooler if Jim didn't bring it back in time. It reads "Please allow the bearer: Mr/Ms ________ of _____ to bring out of the hotel premises the following item/s temporarily/permanently.

Number 3 is the signature of the person who prepared the form.

Number 4 is the department head who "noted" the preparation of the form.

Number 5 is the cost control office representative, who also "noted" the preparation of the form.

Number 6 is the signature of approval from the Financial Controller/Treasury Manager, and Number 7 is the signature of approval from the general manager.

Number 8 is the signature of the security officer on duty, who witnessed the changing hands of the cooler, while Number 9 is the initials of the security manager on duty who acknowledged the witnessing by his security officer. Note that, if more people had been on duty that day, there are spaces below Number 8 and Number 9 for their signatures and initials, too.

Finally, Number 10 is Jim.

What a paper trail! But I think, perhaps because of all the effort put into borrowing the cooler, that the beer was colder and better tasting than any beer I've had since arriving in October.

Or at least that's what I'll tell Jim.

Three Day Weekend

We're celebrating Bonifacio Day today, in honor of one of the founding fathers of the Philippine Revolution for independence in the late 1890s. The actual holiday is November 30 but, like the Americans, Filipinos have moved this holiday to Monday to create a three-day weekend. No complaints there!

To celebrate, Shelly rousted me out of bed to make pancakes. In retribution for waking me up early on a holiday, I shall post this series of photos of Shelly eating her pancakes, topped with her tightly-guarded stash of George and Esther's limited batch, Northern California applesauce.

Thanksgiving Rehash

It's over.

As the host, I probably shouldn't say so, but I think our housewarming/Thanksgiving/pool party was a success. We ended up having 15 or 16 people over, which was a good number. A few of the recipes didn't taste quite right, but they were all good.

First, the pumpkin pie. I don't think any of the Filipinos had ever had pumpkin pie before today. They seemed, generally to like it, and it passed muster with the Americans, so it must have been okay. I could have used a food processor, as the texture was occasionally a bit chunky, but the flavor was good. And, when it came to the pie I overfilled and, therefore, had to bake for 90 minutes instead of 60, the pumpkin chunks that weren't quite mashed were soft enough not to notice. Granny Esther's pie crust recipe turned out great, as usual, even with my much less-skilled hands making it.

The stuffing also turned out well and, because of a last-minute stumble into a health food store at the mall last night, were made with actual dried cranberries rather than blueberries or cranberry-flavored cherries. The only weird part of the stuffing was the longanisa sausage, which is sweeter than what I would use at home ... and redder than what I would use at home.

It was packaged in red plastic, but when I opened it up, all the sausages were red, too. I hoped some of the redness was due to being raw and that it would turn brown as it cooked, but the sausage stayed the same red color. If that was my biggest problem, well, that's not much of a problem at all.

You want to hear about a problem? No, Shelly isn't putting on a synchronized swimming demonstration for our guests, she's cleaning dead earthworms out of the pool. The earthworms have, recently, been making nocturnal journeys into the pool, only to be unable to get out once they get in. Mary Ann and Maricel showed up three hours early after misunderstanding our starting time, so Shelly ended up putting on an earthworm removal demonstration for them.

We ate, we drank, Jim collapsed on the couch after eating and drinking...it turned out to be a pretty accurate portrayal of Thanksgiving. Now, if we had just had some snow...

Hot, Hot Kitchen

You know, today would be a great day for it to be cold. By mid-morning, the kitchen was stifling hot, and the oven will be on almost non-stop until tomorrow afternoon.

In the oven today:
Baking pumpkins, for pumpkin pie
Baking pie shells
Roasting two chickens, to serve cold tomorrow

In the oven tomorrow:
Roasting a turkey, from about 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Baking two pumpkin pies (separately, as they won't fit at the same time)
Baking a dish of stuffing

There have been a few, um, substitutions necessary. In addition to giving our dinner a nod to the Philippines with some noodles and rice, I'm baking pumpkin pies from scratch. After scouring the area supermarkets for canned pumpkin, I started to think about using fresh pumpkin.

"Do you think it'll be worth the effort?" I asked.

"Probably not," Shelly said. But she doesn't eat pumpkin pie, anyway, so I don't know why I bothered asking her. She's baking chocolate chip cookies, instead.

I sought a second opinion. Mom has been good at suggestion time-saving substitutions for dinner, most of which I rejected. Using a frozen pie crust, for example, would actually be a great idea if I was using pumpkin from a can. But I can't make the filling from scratch and cheat on the crust.

"I wouldn't see why using fresh pumpkin would be much more work than using canned pumpkin," Mom said. "When you read the side of the pumpkin can, all it lists for ingredients is pumpkin."

So I was off to the market to make what might have been the store's largest-ever single purchase of pumpkin. These aren't the big, orange pumpkins I grew up, but actually a much tastier, much smaller green pumpkin that I first ate in Japan but have started to see in the supermarkets at home.

Pumpkins, fresh from the oven

Mashed pumpkins, soon to become pie

I'll let you know how it goes. Brad's stuffing recipe will be getting a work-out, too, substituting dried blueberries for dried cranberries (my other choices of dried fruit seem to be mangos or bananas, neither of which would be any better than blueberries), walnuts for pecans and Filipino longanisa sausage for pork sausage. But, like I said to Jim yesterday, the Americans at the party will just be glad for the Thanksgiving dinner, and the Filipinos at the party probably won't realize anything's wrong if the taste isn't quite right.

Garbage

The garbage man, er, men just left. And it was quite a production.

Where else has the detritus of my life been attended to by eight garbage men?

Not at Mom and Jerry's house, where there's two plus the driver.

Not in Yamanashi, where I burned my own trash in a barrel in the backyard.

Not in Salisbury, where a single truck driver would extend a robot arm from the side of the truck to lift and empty the garbage can.

But in Manila? Yes. Seven men came to our house each and every Friday to haul away our refuse.

I have to do some sorting of our recyclables ... aluminum in the green bin, paper in the orange bin, plastic in the yellow bin, that kind of thing. Then, dry trash is put into a green plastic bag and it's all put out on the curb for Friday collection.

It's a well-choreographed operation. Two guys walk alongside the truck, tossing trash bags and recycling containers onto the truck bed, where five guys sort and re-sort everything into appropriate piles...cardboard here, newspaper there, aluminum cans and plastic bottles in a plastic bag hanging off the back end of the truck. And, if you happen to accidentally put something that could be recycled into your trash bag, don't worry: They'll rip the bag open and make sure it's all in the right pile before heading down the street to the next house.

At the end, just to make sure the garbage collectors aren't missing anything, is a guy pedaling a bicycle behind the truck, picking up anything that didn't make it into the truck bed.

Kitchen waste goes out three days a week. We have a small, green bucket with a lid that holds apple cores, rotten lettuce leaves, mango peels, egg shells and anything else that can composted. Fortunately, they do pick this up every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, as it could quickly become very smelly in the tropical heat.

So, what goes in the dry trash, you ask? Yeah, I wondered, too, since it seems like everything is either "recyclable" or "kitchen waste."

That's when I discovered that, placed right next to every single toilet in the house, is a small waste basket intended to hold, um, used toilet paper.

Our house is by no means unique. In fact, plumbing and sewage treatment systems across southeast Asia weren't designed to handle that decidedly Western concept called toilet paper. Traditionally, southeast Asian bathrooms came with a bucket of clean water to wash your backside with, meaning there was no need for a sewage system robust enough to handle toilet paper. (I don't know if this was true in the Philippines, or if the country's sewage infrastructure is just too old and fragile to handle toilet paper, but when traveling through the countryside in Vietnam a decade ago, I encountered a number of public restrooms that still employed the bucket of water method.)

Emptying the bathroom trash isn't nearly as bad as it sounds, especially since I mentioned to Shelly that it would make my job much easier if she would place her recyclable items next to the wastebasket, rather than in it. Emptying the kitchen waste is a far more unpleasant task: It only takes a few hours, in the heat, before the decomposition process begins.

Wait...She's the Robbing President?

A recent poll suggested that 60 percent of Filipinos want President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to leave office. An printing error on a batch of fresh 100 peso notes has given her opponents even more ammunition.

According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a European contractor misprinted the bills, spelling the President's last name with a v, rather than a y. The contractor was printing extra 100 peso notes to ensure a sufficient supply at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas throughout the Christmas season, when they are frequently used as gifts.

"I hope this is not deliberate," said Rep. Rolex Suplico. "My Spanish teacher told me 'rovo' sounded like 'robo,' which means robbery in Spanish. This is from 'robar,' which means to rob someone."

Another variant of the word, 'dorobo,' is used to describe a thief, burglar or robber in Japanese, said Rep. Benjamin Agarao.

"It's a national joke," he said.

The lawmakers suspected that the heavens might be conspiring against Ms. Arroyo, the Inquirer wrote, "because the circulation of the newly minted bill would be a constant reminder to the people of the 'cheating, lying and stealing' charges hurled against her connection with alleged ballot fixing in 2004."

This is not the first time the national currency has brought controversy to the GMA administration. Two years ago, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas began circulating new 200 peso notes, complete with a picture of Ms. Arroyo being sworn in as president, complete with a portrait of her father, former President Diosdado Macapagal, on the other side.


***

If that weren't enough grief for the embattled president, she was recently Google bombed by groups demanding her removal from office.

(You might have heard about the June Google bombing of George W. Bush, when searching for "miserable failure" brought up the official GWB biography as the top result on Google, Yahoo and MSN.)

The Khaleej Times reports:

[Y]oung Internet-savvy Filipino militants mounted what they called a revolt on the blogosphere to discredit Ms Arroyo and her deputies through a "Google bomb" attack.

The groups Youth Demanding Arroyo’s Removal (Youth DARE) and the "young radicals" Internet blog staged an online campaign to "Google bomb" the websites of Ms Arroyo and her most rabid supporters.

In the bombings’ wake, Google search queries for ‘pekeng pangulo’ (fake president) now directs a surfer to Ms Arroyo’s website (www.kgma.org). Type in ‘sinungaling’ (liar), and one gets to the site of her Press secretary and spokesperson. The word ‘sira-ulo’ (fool) is a surfer’s ticket to the website of Ms. Arroyo’s Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez.

There's an interesting list of successful Google bombs on Wikipedia.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving from Greg, Shelly and Mister Tanaka!

I had forgotten, from my three years on Guam, how un-Thanksgivingly Thanksgiving feels in the tropics, with the sun shining, the air warm and the pool beckoning. It's even less like Thanksgiving when you realize that, aside from fellow Americans, nobody even realizes that today is a holiday at home, when families are gathering and, at least where I'm from, enjoying a chill in the air.

In Japan, there were enough Americans in Yamanashi that we'd get together, along with a few rogue Brits and Canadians, for Thanksgiving on Japan's Labour Day (which was, in late November, close enough to Thanksgiving to be the perfect day to celebrate). Turkey was hard to find -- and harder still to fit in a miniature Japanese oven -- but we always managed to find some tasty ham or something and most of the fixings for a big potluck. Plus, in Yamanashi, it was cold, so it felt like Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving on Guam was sort of like home, but mostly not. Being part of America, we had big, air conditioned feasts with turkey and stuffing, along with local favorites like fried rice or kelaguen (a delicious, spicy Chamorro salad made with chicken, beef or, my favorite, octopus). And if the feast was followed by a trip to the beach and some snorkeling in the bay, who was I to complain? I never said cold was good.

So to wake up this morning and wish Shelly "Happy Thanksgiving" on a decidedly non-Thanksgiving-like day was, to say the least, odd. I'll make it seem like late November by fixing a dinner that approximates a much scaled-down Thanksgiving dinner from home, with some chicken, a chilled pumpkin soup and some corn or string beans, depending what's in the refrigerator. In fact, the pumpkin is roasting in the oven right now.

Our real Thanksgiving will be on Sunday, as part of our obligatory housewarming/pool party. Depending on my ambition level on Friday and Saturday, I'll make a couple pumpkin pies (from scratch, as I can't find any canned pumpkin or frozen pie crusts at the stores), mashed potatoes, stuffing and, if all goes well with the cold pumpkin soup tonight, some more of that, all topped off with a sort-of smuggled turkey from home.

Myra asked me on Tuesday why I wasn't having the party catered. On Sunday afternoon, I'll probably be asking the same thing.

But it wouldn't have been Thanksgiving.

Thanks for Your Feedback

Thanks for your feedback on Sunday's post. I've fixed things -- at least for now -- by changing Blogspot templates. After I get done taking my fall income tax classes, I might just teach myself some basic HTML, so I can figure out what the problem really is.

How Does this Blog Look to You?

I'm not talking content....though comments on that are always welcome.

Shelly recently noticed that, when she views the Blog on a Windows XP machine, using Internet Explorer, that the sidebar is now all the way at the bottom of the page. When I view it on my Mac, in any of three different browsers, the sidebar appears at the top, right where it should be. (The sidebar is the area with the Manila weather and links to recent posts.)

Please take a moment to e-mail me and let me know how the page appears when you view it. I'm especially interested in other Windows users, but would appreciate hearing from Brad, Mom or other Mac users, too.

Thanks!

American Idol Comes to Manila

If I were a fan of American Idol, I'd be all a-twitter right now.

In fact, I'd probably be in line at one of the nearby malls, waiting to see Constantine Maroulis light the Christmas tree.

Even better -- if I were a fan, mind you -- I would be thrilled to know that Constantine himself will be lighting a Christmas tree just FIVE MINUTES from my house tonight.

His visit to the Philippines is big news, as you can tell by how he's plastered across the front page of the Philippine Star and other newspapers.

Hmmm. Maybe I'll try to convince Shelly that we need to go out for dinner tonight. How could she resist?

The Cat Earns His Keep

We're in the tropics, so we have those really, really big roaches that scare the hell out of you when you walk in on them.

It doesn't matter how clean you keep your house: With no winter freeze, those suckers are everywhere.

Okay, they're not really *everywhere* -- that's me taking poetic license. The house was sprayed just six weeks ago, so there aren't that many of them. But they *are* here, and they do make themselves known from time to time.

Which is one reason it's a good thing to have a cat. Especially a cat who is just beginning his career as a roach-catcher.

Twice this week, Mister Tanaka has caught a roach and played with it for the better part of an hour.

He has quite a sadistic streak, which I fully endorse when it comes to pest control. He bats the roach around until it ends up on its back, then carefully flips the roach back onto its belly. As the roach dashes for safety, Tanaka pounces and flips it over again, repeatedly, until the roach gives up and dies.

Unfortunately, Shelly threw away Tanaka's freshly-slaughtered roach yesterday before I thought to take a picture of the hunter and his prey. Next time the cat goes hunting, I'll go along on the expedition, this time with the camera.

Christmas Comes Early to Greg's iPod

Yes, that's Andy Williams over there in my "Recently on iPod" playlist. No, I don't listen to Andy Williams outside of Christmas. Yes, that means I'm listening to Christmas music already.

I buckled to local culture and tradition and added my holiday music, including cheesy old Andy Williams, who does a better version of "It's the Holiday Season" than anyone else.

Don't worry too much about my musical tastes, though. I also listened to Weird Al Yankovic's "Christmas at Ground Zero."

Or would knowing that make you worry more?

Well, I Did Pay for the Whole Thing...

Here's the fish I bought for Monday night's dinner party.

Now, I didn't have to cut it myself, though I could have. If I knew how. Or had the right knife.

But the man at the supermarket fish counter was more than happy to do it for me, and who was I to argue? He weighed it, gutted it and sliced it into some nice yellowfin tuna steaks for me, then stuffed everything into a plastic bag, sealed it up and handed it over.

Needless to say, Shelly was less than impressed when I brought the head home.

"You could have left that behind, you know," she told me.

"Sure I could have, but it's a fish head," I replied, as if that would explain why the head was now sitting on the counter, looking at her.

"I thought Mister Tanaka might like it," I added helpfully.

Turns out Mister Tanaka wants nothing to do with raw fish. He's an indoor cat, after all, with refined tastes. (He did do his little begging act at dinner once the tuna was grilled. The way he was pawing at everyone, our guests must have thought we never feed the poor cat.)

Actually, I just wanted to poke around inside the fish head to see what it was like. I discovered I don't have a knife sharp enough to slice through tuna skin, so my autopsy was short-lived.

Buying meat in the Philippines can be interesting. Depending on where you're doing your shopping, you'll find all manner of packaging. At PriceSmart, it's all prepackaged in styrofoam trays. At ShopWise, the meat is all behind a counter, and you're expected to point at the piece you want so the clerk can put it in a bag for you. At the Makati Supermarket, the meat is all out in the open (in a refrigerator case, but still out in the open). You can pick it up -- tongs and cross-contamination optional -- and bag it yourself, or you can have the clerk do it for you.

Or, if you're downtown, you can go to the meat market, where I unfortunately did not take any photos.

"Never buy our meat at this place," Shelly warned me, as we walked past row after row of stalls, each showcasing a different hunk of meat, sometimes on ice, sometimes not.

"Do you realize how much bacteria is on that cutting board?" she asked, as we watched a butcher pick up a hunk of beef and plop it onto a well-used wooden cutting board. This is the kind of conversation you have when you're married to someone in the meat business.

"Millions of people buy their meat this way every day without getting sick," I pointed out.

"Not me," Shelly said. "And not you. And if you do, don't tell me."

And with that, we walked past a stall selling fresh pig entrails. You know, I don't think she has much to worry about.

"This Feels Dirty..."

Sunday found us downtown shopping. Christmas is coming, and with corporate visitors in from the U.S., it seemed like a good opportunity to spend a day out with friends.

Except for Jim. He had to go to work, but he did want to make a purchase. Three of us were recruited to purchase DVDs that weren't necessarily, shall we say, legal.

Edwin, who seems to know everything there is to know about getting around Manila, knew the area around the Green Hills mall would be a prime neighborhood to shop for DVDs. Until recently, he said, DVDs were actually available at the mall but that, well, because it's illegal to sell pirated DVDs, mall management had evicited the vendors from their stalls.

But they haven't, apparently, barred them from sending touts into the mall. We were peppered with come-ons from the moment we arrived: "You want DVDs?" "DVD? DVD?" "New releases!"

Eventually, Edwin settled on one of the touts, and off we went, around a corner, through a grocery store, out onto the street, around another corner and down a hill, the tout remaining a constant 10 meters in front of us throughout, with Edwin, me and Shelly following, in a single-file line.

"This feels dirty," I remarked quietly.

"That's because it is," Shelly answered, falling silent again.

Edwin and I must have had the same vibe, because about the time I was thinking there was no way I would be doing this without a Filipino along to help, he stopped to ask a security guard if we were actually heading towards a DVD shop.

We dodged traffic crossing a street, stepped onto a sidewalk, and watched as our tout disappeared down a narrow, shadowy alley full of stands selling produce and jewelry.

"DVD, DVD," a toothless woman smiled at me, jabbing her finger in the air after the tout.

At the cross street, where the alley narrowed, we were met by a large woman in a billowy pink-orange mumu. "You want DVDs? I have them," she said. "Come with me. Trust me, trust me."

Trust me? Trust me, those words tend to have the opposite effect when you're about to purchase pirated merchandise.

We followed the woman and her tout into her store -- which doubles as her living room -- and were immediately presented with four boxes of DVDs. Shelly plopped down on a white plastic chair next to the front door, watching the endless stream of customers pop in and out of the store.

"These DVDs aren't illegal," the woman explained as I leafed through the box. "They're from Malaysia."

Ah, well that explains it, I thought. She's simply located her store in her living room to cut down on her commute.

I kept my mouth shut.

A bit of bargaining later, we finally reached a compromise on the "non-illegal, Malaysian" DVDs, and began running them through the living room DVD player. Edwin collected the working DVDs while I dug discreetly through my pockets, looking for the right amount of cash. Satisfied they worked, we paid our tout and beat a hasty retreat into the alley, looking over our shoulders all the way back to the mall.


Postscript: This shopping trip, with the tout and the ever-narrowing alley, was, without question, one of the most interesting things I've done in my life. It's also the most illegal thing I've done since the night I smoked pot in college. Yes, my life is that sheltered.

I'm glad I went. I'm glad we met the tout, went down the alley and into the store. A good writer cherishes off-the-beaten-path adventures and the expansion of his world. But, as a writer, I earn my living through my creativity, much like the writers and actors in the movies. And the writer in me wishes I hadn't followed through with the purchase.

I feel dirty.

Honorable Househusband

I read, somewhere, that expat spouses who were accustomed to having a job in their home country -- typically wives, but not necessarily -- tend to make elaborate meals while living , and not working, overseas.

The theory, I suppose, is that spending several hours in the kitchen every day breaks up the tedium of staying home and not going to the office every day.

It's true, in my case, that I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen, and I do look forward to that mid-afternoon time when I can start whipping something up for dinner. I haven't been terribly elaborate yet (though I have been making my own sauces for pizza and lasagna, so that's a start).

But, am I bored?

On Wednesday, I got an e-mail from a friend back in North Carolina:

"I like the house husband idea," Mike wrote. "Work is overrated. Maybe some day, I'll have it as good as you."

I mentioned to Shelly, completely in passing, that Mike thought my life sounded pretty good to him, which prompted her to ask, "but does it sound good to you?"

It does sound good to me, at least for now. I'm doing some freelance work, so I've still got a hand in my craft, and I've probably written more in the past month than I have in the past year. More importantly, I've enjoyed writing more than I have in a long time. Certainly that's a result of writing for my purposes and the needs of my small blog audience rather than for the needs of an employer.

So far the lack of employment has not been an emotional difficulty.

I had a long conversation with Mom about this when I was in Iowa in September. Being unemployed and trying to find suitable work after moving to Maryland was a problem, no doubt about it. I think the main difference now is that I'm not expected to be able to find a suitable job in the Philippines and, further, any job I do find is likely to pay me on the order of eight or nine dollars a day.

So, for Shelly, for Mom, for those of you who have asked, holding the temporary title of Honorable Househusband is, so far, to my liking. But ask me again in six months.

Computer Update, and My Life as a Driver

Believe it or not, my computer is fixed, and we should be reunited this afternoon.

I called the Apple Center repair line yesterday, which referred me to Jeff, whom I had met a couple weeks ago. So, I called Jeff.

"Your computer has been ready for about four days," he said.

"Really?" I tried not to sound too irritated.

"We tried to call you, but there was no answer. We called both the cell phone and the landline numbers," he said.

I find that hard to believe, but you never know. Maybe they did try to call, but none of the calls went through.

Going into the city today with Bobby actually works out well, as I've been recruited for a couple of driver jobs this weekend.

On Saturday night, I'll be making my first trip back to the airport since arriving to pick up one of Shelly's colleagues who is arriving from Maryland, and on Sunday, I'll be one of the drivers -- and the sole male -- on a shopping trip. Today will give me yet another chance to leech information off of Bobby, who used to drive a taxi in Manila.

Happy Birthday, and The Long, Hot Walk

Yesterday was a day of celebration, with Shelly turning the ripe old age of 34. Something like 13 years ago, when I turned 25, she wrapped my presents in paper that said "Happy Birthday, O Ancient One."

While packing to move to the Philippines, I actually came across a sheet of that paper, one that I stored away for future use. I didn't bring it with me, but if we're back home next November, "O Ancient One" wrapping paper would be perfect for her 35th.

From the sounds of things, Shell had a good birthday celebration at work, complete with a surprise birthday party and, as she pointed out at least three times, "balloons with [her] name on them."

Shelly celebrates with tacos, beer, personalized balloons and Denver Broncos-colored combs.

I made tacos for dinner with homemade tortillas -- simple, but her request -- and a chocolate cake for dessert, and we'll go out for dinner this weekend, perhaps to Italianni's to hear their birthday song again. All in all, she had a good birthday, I think.

Our tacos were completed with some Herr's salsa that we bought locally, imported from Nottingham, Pennsylvania, all of 20 miles or so from Brad and Laura's house. Mom, Jerry and I even took a tour at the Herr's plant a year or so ago.

My day began with the realization that I had not gone to the supermarket last night to buy hamburger, cheese and lettuce for the tacos, which meant that I would need to make a trip to the store before making dinner. This was not a problem, but fixing our DSL connection (PLDT never did show up; I fixed it myself) and getting Vonage set up again took the better part of the cool part of the day, which meant I was off to the supermarket in the midday sun.

Walking to the store is nothing new -- I lived in Washington for more than a year without having a car -- but my sedentary suburban lifestyle means it has been a while since I've walked for actual transportation purposes. We're only 20 minutes from the gate, and there's a store ten minutes from there, so it really wasn't a bad walk there and back. Including shopping, the whole outing only took 80 minutes. But that doesn't mean I didn't try to use it to my advantage when Shelly got home.

"Wow," I said. "I walked all the way to the store just to celebrate your birthday tonight."

"It only took you an hour," she said.

"Yeah, but it was uphill both ways, and there was three feet of snow on the ground," I said.

"More like 100 percent humidity, wasn't it?"

"You're right" I said. "What I would have given for three feet of snow."

Don't Worry. There's No Sugar.

That's the Pepsi Max slogan ... don't worry, there's no sugar!

Pepsi Max, which tastes almost exactly like Diet Pepsi does at home, is a tasty soft drink I had all but forgotten about since leaving Japan in 1997. Depending on where you are, you can buy a single can of soda for somewhere between 13 and 25 pesos -- 13 pesos (about 25 cents) in the grocery store, 20 pesos from vending machines, 25 pesos last weekend on our tour of Corregidor. It seems like a good price, though the cans are slightly smaller here, weighing in at 330 ml instead of the 350 (354?) ml we have in the States.

Interestingly -- or not, depending on your perspective -- the Diet Pepsi made in the Philippines tastes nothing at all like the Diet Pepsi made in North America.

Housekeeping, or the Lack Thereof

The housekeepers are here.

It's an odd feeling to be an employer, although it's one that I've dealing with for the last month. We don't employ Shelly's driver -- the company does -- but we do employ the pool cleaner and the gardener. And now we employ two housekeepers.

We're actually just borrowing Myra and Marlene from one of Shelly's coworkers, and they'll just be here a couple half-days a week. As I type, Marlene is cleaning the kitchen and Myra is vacuuming upstairs, the gardener is working outside and a couple of people who work for our landlord are here installing towel racks, fixing the garbage disposal and a taking care of a few other miscellaneous chores.

Ah, the joy of not cleaning my own house.

Frankly, I'm glad to give up most of the work, but when Shelly and I were listing all the chores we wanted to pay someone else to do, I found myself in a strange position. "Doing laundry is my job," I said. "Emptying the trash is my job." When Marlene started cleaning the kitchen this morning, I started helping her put the dishes away.

Wealthy Filipinos hire domestic help for a couple of reasons, I've been told. In a country where there is a huge gap between rich and poor, hiring domestic help allows those with money to spread the wealth and provide employment opportunities. Of course, it also gets them out of doing the house work and yard work.

My good, hard-working Iowa upbringing is clearly at odds with hiring domestic help, but I'll never again be in the position to do so little work in a house so big. Before I know it, I'll be back home, scrubbing floors, washing sheets and wishing Myra and Marlene were there.

Check Your Firearms at the Door

I did a doubletake when I saw this sign near the national elections building in Intramuros a couple weekends ago.

It's appropriate though, as nearly everywhere I go -- hotels, the mall, the bank, tourist attractions -- there are security guards armed with shotguns, such as this guard at the old fort in Intramuros.

When Bobby was in college 25 years ago, he told me, he worked as a shotgun-toting security guard in Makati, Manila's central business district. I wondered aloud whether he had ever shot anyone.

"I never shot at anybody," he said. "Just over their heads, to scare them."

For the record, in my one short month in the Philippines, I have yet to feel threatened. Whether that's because of all the armed guards or in spite of them, well, I'm not sure.

I Shall Return

I may well return one day to Corregidor, the World War II island so closely associated with Gen. Douglas MacArthur. After a short visit there today with Shelly and Jim, there's plenty left to see.

MacArthur never actually said "I shall return" while he was on Corregidor. That most famous of MacArthurisms was actually spoken from the safety of Darwin, Australia, after President Roosevelt had repeatedly ordered MacArthur to leave the island before it fell to Japanese forces.

One of the first stops on our tour was a U.S. enlisted-men's barracks, bombed by the Japanese in 1942. Ironically, while the steel rebar used in the barracks was from the U.S., the concrete had been purchased from Japan. Barracks for Filipino soldiers, less than a mile up the road, was left almost untouched by Japanese bombers, as the Japanese were hoping Filipinos would become allies.

After MacArthur's successor, Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, surrendered to the Japanese in May 1942, Corregidor remained in Japanese hands until MacArthur did return in January 1945. The bombed out buildings, huge guns, caves and tunnels still remain and are a popular day-trip destination from Manila.

Buildings across the island are pockmarked by machine gun fire, such as the holes on the rear wall in this photo.

Visiting Corregidor on a tour bus was the natural next stop on my tour of War in the Pacific battlefields, adding it to Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Majuro Atoll, Pohnpei and Palau. But Corregidor was a completely different experience than in any of the other places. On the island of Peliliu, in Palau, Shelly and I took a tour on which we were the only tourists. On Pohnpei, Mom and I nearly walked past a cluster of Japanese tanks, they were so overgrown with brush. On Tinian, where there are no tour guides, Mom and Jerry and I climbed through an old Japanese administration building -- complete with the toilet facilities intact, but with no roof overhead -- and then sped at 100 mph down the same runway the Enola Gay used for her atomic-bomb-dropping flight to Japan. On Corregidor, at least on the guided tour, there was much less time for the sort of exploration we had done on Tinian, but with a tour guide, I learned more than I had anywhere else.

And would I return? Absolutely, especially if we end up with visitors who are interested in that sort of thing.

If you visited Corregidor a decade ago, there were no handrails on this building. The rails, along with a rope barrier on the roof, were installed at the insistence of the U.S. Secret Service in preparation for a 1994 visit by President Clinton.

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Guards on the island today wear replicas of the World War II-era Philippine Scout uniform designed by MacArthur.

MacArthur said he would return. He did, three years later, when he liberated Corregidor from the Japanese Empire.

* * *

Our trip to Corregidor coincided with my first time driving outside the neighborhood where we live. Thanks to Shelly's excellent navigational ability, we were able to negotiate our one detour and my one wrong turn with no problem at all. I swear, though, that when I take my new driving skills back to the states, the DMV will probably want to revoke my license. Never in my life have I been so good at switching lanes without signaling, turning left from a non-turn lane and passing on the right.