Thanks for your Kind Comments

Thanks for your kind comments about Mister Tanaka. Brad did a fine job of echoing my thoughts about how a pet really becomes part of your life:

I know exactly how you feel about a/OUR cat. We certainly get attached to pets that interact with us, love us, etc. They become part of the family (unlike fish and hamsters).

Not much news yet today. I visited Tanaka at the cat clinic this morning and made the decision to put him into surgery, where the doctor will remove the bladder stones that he believes are the problem. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and will visit again sometime in the next couple of hours.

Get Well Soon, Buddy

It's been a couple of busy weeks, and I've been neglecting the blog again. In the past two weeks, I've completed all or most of half a dozen different freelance projects, two tax returns for family members and most of our own tax return which, for overseas filing purposes, won't actually be sent to the IRS until October. (The extension we received for living overseas is only an extension of time to file, of course, and not time to pay, so I had to do most of our return now to make sure we weren't in Uncle Sam's debt.)

Our state of emergency was lifted 10 days ago, I've made four or five runs to the airport in the last 10 days, kept our housekeeper happy enough to keep cleaning the house, and am currently living the bachelor life with Mister Tanaka while Shelly gets some use out of her Japanese skills at a Tokyo trade show this week. Mom has a cancer check up at the Mayo Clinic today, but she's been feeling well and the swelling in her neck seems to be going down.

So, it's been busy, but not overwhelming, until this morning. And that's where we come to the next part of the story, the one that coincides with that headline up there.

Mister Tanaka is sick. He's spending the night at the Dog and Cat Clinic, and the house is quiet without the jingle of the bell on his collar. The rest of this post could be excrutiatingly boring for anyone who isn't a pet owner -- and, maybe for those folks, too.

Okay. I know that Mister Tanaka is a cat. I never think of him as our child or anything like that, even if I do sometimes tease Shelly by calling her "Mommy" in my falsetto Mister Tanaka voice. But even though he is a cat, he's also the first pet I've ever had with its own personality. We grew up with hamsters and gerbils and fish and turtles and, for a brief period, a garter snake named Jackson who lived in my room in an ice cream container.

But none of those pets can really be said to have a personality, and I think Tanaka's personality -- the fact that he has one, not that it's so sweet -- is what makes this so difficult for me. Because, you see, I know he's a cat, not a person. But he's our cat, and we do like having him around, and he does make us laugh, or feel happy or, occasionally, proud. (No, the happy finger-chomping traits of Brad's hamster "Buttercup" do not count as personality, though that little guy did hang on to your fingers with great relish.)

When I let Tanaka out of the bedroom at about 3:30 this morning, he was going full speed ahead, full of energy and apparently feeling quite well. When I got up at 8:00 and opened the bedroom door, he didn't come running, which was odd. He usually takes off running for the bedroom when he hears the door open. You know, because there's food in there.

I found him in the guest room, stretched out in the corner, in a spot where he never hangs out. I picked him up and he wailed so loudly that I immediately set him down on the bed. He settled down, but was still crying, apparently in pain. He then stood up and tried to pee, but without success. He jumped off the bed (moving slowly) and settled back down on the floor.

I went around the house to see if I could find any evidence of what had happened: half-eaten plants, critters he had done battle with, something he had gotten into. There was a big pile of food he had thrown up, but nothing in it that was strange -- it was just food. So I went back upstairs and sat down next to him to pet him. He seemed happy when I pet his head and scratched him under the chin, but he growled when I tried to touch his abdomen.

I went back downstairs to see what I could find on the Internet, and to call Shelly's parents and Brad for cat advice. I went back upstairs and saw that he had thrown up again, with a hairball this time, but otherwise just food. Tanaka was still just lying on the floor, moving only occasionally, and very slowly.

I started thinking. Obviously something was wrong with him, but what? I realized that he's been drinking a lot of water lately, but not urinating much. He had peed on the floor on Monday, but there hasn't been much of anything else in the litter box. I went back upstairs and ended up following him to the litter box. He hopped in and tried to pee again, but nothing came out. I sat next to him again and again tried to touch his stomach, which again earned me a growl. In retrospect, he's a pretty smart cat, showing me exactly what was wrong with him, and doing it twice, since I didn't pick up on it the first time.

So I called the vet, who came over about 1:30. (Does your vet make house calls?) The vet's assistant picked Tanaka up in a towel, got hissed at and wailed at for his efforts, and put him on the counter. The vet felt around and said that Tanaka does, indeed, have a very, very full bladder, and that he would need to go to the clinic to start running tests and to get the bladder emptied out. I'll visit Tanaka tomorrow morning, when I'll also get an update from the doctor.

I've spent most of today reading up on cat urinary tract problems. I'm guessing that he has bladder stones, which should be fairly easy to clear up since we're handling it early. Still, I'm finding it hard to deal with Mister Tanaka's absence, and am hoping that he'll be back home soon, with his head once again on my pillow, where it belongs.

Introducing...the Guapple

We had some guapple for dessert a couple nights ago.

I have to say that neither of us were impressed with this fruit. The problem is, our guapple knowledge in non-existent. Was it ripe? Were we supposed to eat the very, very hard seeds? Was it supposed to be so sour? Is it what it sounds -- and looks -- like: a fruit that is a little bit guava, a little bit apple?

So I went looking for information about the guapple. There's nothing at all on Wikipedia. (If it's not in Wikipedia, does it really exist?) But Google turned up a variety of Web site, most of them about guapple pie, and most of them bearing Web addresses in the Philippines. According to the Web site of Negros Occidental province, guapple pie "is a delicious pastry made from guapple fruit, a guava-apple hybrid."

That's one mystery solved, but I probably won't be eating more guapple anytime soon.

Unless, maybe, it's in a pie....

H5N1 Kills German Cat

According to the Associated Press, the H5N1 strain of bird flu was confirmed Tuesday in a cat in Germany. The World Health Organization says it was the first time H5N1 has been positively identified in a mammal in Europe, though tigers and leopards in Thailand have previously had the strain.

The dead cat was apparently found on an island in the Baltic Sea where most of Germany's H5N1-infected wild birds have been found.

State of Emergency Continues

There's an interesting dichotomy in yesterday's Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The lead story on the front page carries charges made by Sen. Joker Arroyo that there's more to come:

She's only just begun.

While critics slam her proclamation of a state of national emergency, President Macapagal-Arroyo is planning to issue yet another order to rout her perceived political enemies, Sen. Joker Arroyo said yesterday.

"In what form? We don't know but in this country, there is never a secret," Arroyo said. "What we should worry about is the third one. I don't know if it's creeping martial law but there's something coming."

Meanwhile, the lead story hed in the business section reads Peso surges to 51.65 to $1; stocks up 1.6%. The subhed says Investors see early lifting of state of emergency.

"The market is expecting an end to all the political turmoil," a currency trader said, noting Finance Secretary Gary Teves' pronouncement that the state of emergency could be lifted by Friday.

Hmm. Meanwhile, the state of emergency doesn't seem to be having much affect on most people's daily lives. Life goes on, with what feels to me like a sense of resignation that this is just what happens in the Philippines: an unpopular leader is forced out of office, his successor is immediately popular but then begins to emulate his predecessor's actions and begins to fall out of favor, eventually becoming very unpopular, at which time he is forced out of office, starting the cycle over again.

The Amazing Race Is Back

Yay! The Amazing Race 9 was on tonight, airing just twelve hours or so after it did in the States.

TAR is the only reality show I watch, and I was happy to find it on satellite TV here when I arrived last October. Like most other fans of the show, I was glad that they're back to teams of two rather than the "family edition" they had on last fall (though I did, by the end, have a family I was pulling for, and another I was cheering against), and that those teams are back to traveling overseas again, starting tonight in Colorado and flying, pretty much immediately, to Brazil.

If you're into The Amazing Race at all, read host Phil Keoghan's blog. It's a great behind-the-scenes look at the show.

Shelly's Wednesday night conference calls work out well for me. She can work, I can watch TV. :-)

Mister Tectonically Sensitive

As if the Philippines needs any more problems, what with the mudslides and political unrest, we just had an earthquake tonight. It doesn't feel like it was very big and, in fact, I'm not sure Shelly would have felt it if I hadn't pointed it out.

I was sitting here, typing, when I started rocking gently back and forth. It was so mild that I couldn't tell at first if it was an earthquake or if I was, for some unknown reason, feeling tipsy. Shelly was nearby in the living room enjoying a nice foot massage, but didn't seem to notice. I looked at the cat, since I've heard that animals sometimes freak out during an earthquake (or maybe that's before an earthquake, at which point I was too late), but he was dozing on the couch. Before saying anything, I looked at the chandelier and saw that it was swaying back and forth.

Ten minutes later, Google News was reporting an AP story indicating that there was, indeed, an earthquake near Manila.

Don't get me wrong: after living in Japan and on Guam, where they're very common, an earthquake is not that exciting. (Gee, lucky Mom, who hates earthquakes, had the pleasure of earthquakes while visiting in both places, including one that struck during the Old Testament lesson at church on Guam.) It's just that, between me, Shelly and Mister Tanaka, I never would have guessed that I would have been the one most sensitive to tectonic plates moving around.

Edited on Friday to add that the quake was magnitude 5.7, centered about 80 miles south of Manila. Thankfully, no damage or injuries were reported. One single story, in something called "Journal Online," which bills itself as "the online edition of the Philippines' biggest group of daily tabloids," ties the quake to a potential eruption of Mount Mayon, a volcano located well to our southeast. However, their Web site has been down all afternoon, so I haven't been able to read any details.

A Police Escort for Father Marc

Father Marc had a police escort home after Ash Wednesday services today.

I borrowed the car from Shelly today to go to the noon Ash Wednesday service at Holy Trinity. I had hoped we could go this evening, but Shelly always has a number of conference calls after work on Wednesday, and there was no way we'd get home from church in time for her calls, so I went at noon.

After the service, we were standing around chatting, and I offered them a ride. After a quick stop at a nearby shopping mall, we began winding our way through the streets of Manila, Marc in the front, directing me left and right towards their home, his wife in the back.

"Turn left at the next light," Marc said, "and then you'll turn right at the next light."

I made the left, merged smoothly into traffic, and heard a police siren behind me. A motorcycle cop pulled up beside me and blew his siren again. My mind raced, trying to figure out what traffic law I had broken. (I've been particularly careful while driving ever since having a run-in with Manila's finest after making an illegal turn onto a highway off ramp back in November. This was a non-blogged event due to my brazen -- and, I might add, successful -- attempt at police bribery.)

The thing is, I knew I hadn't broken any laws. He blew his siren again, and I said to Marc and Suzanne, "I wonder why he wants me to pull over? I didn't run any red lights. What did I do?"

Suzanne figured it out first: Manila has a traffic and pollution reduction scheme, where you're forbidden to drive in the city on certain days of the week, based on the last digit of your license plate number. Today is Wednesday, our tag ends in a five. That might explain why the cop was again blowing his siren and gesturing for me to stop.

"Shit!" I said. The fact that it was Wednesday hadn't even ocurred to me, despite it being, well, Ash Wednesday. Then I realized I had just said shit with a priest and his wife in the car.

I stopped the car, and the cop walked over.

"Today is Wednesday, your license plate ends in a five," he said. Suzanne was right.

Bobby told me last month that the traffic reduction scheme was only in affect during rush hour. It was only 1:30, so I said so to the cop.

"Not in Makati," he said. "There is no exception in Makati."

"Really?" I said. "I didn't know that." (I really didn't know that. I also know that ignorance of the law is no defense, but I was going to give it a shot.) Makati is Manila's central business district, and I assume he was telling me the truth, though I'll ask Bobby about it the next time I see him.

"Where are you going?" the cop asked. "You must leave Makati."

"I'm taking the Father home. Then I'm going home." It was the truth, of course, but I figured saying that taking the father home might be better than saying I was taking my friends home.

I'm not particularly proud of playing the "father" card, but I thought it might work in a country where 80 percent of the population is Catholic. Marc was wearing a collar, and Episcopalians do call their pastor "father," so it wasn't like I was lying. Besides, I still remember Pastor Randy telling me a story about how his collar once got him out of a ticket on Guam, a place with a similarly high percentage of Catholics.

"I'll escort you," the cop said. After getting the address from Marc, he pocketed my license and got back on his bike, leading us through Makati towards Marc and Suzanne's house.

It took only minutes before another motorcycle cop blew his siren at me. The first cop, our escort, pulled aside and said something to the second cop -- probably, "no poaching, he's mine" -- and the second cop disappeared.

A block from Marc's house, we stopped at a traffic light. Marc and Suzanne got out of the car, Marc stopped and said something to cop, and we pulled around the corner. The cop stopped again, walked back to me, and said, "we're one block from the highway. We'll turn left, then we'll pull over again, and I'll give you your license, and you'll pay your penalty."

Whew. I tried not to show my relief. I think the fine would probably only be 500 pesos, which is less than ten dollars, but it would also probably include a day at traffic school. While traffic school would probably result in an interesting blog entry, it would also be very inconvenient. I was glad that I would be "paying my penalty on the spot," rather than in traffic court.

(Now the cop and I both understand what's happening here. I know I'm not really paying the fine, but that I'm actually paying a bribe. I also happen to know that the going rate for a bribe is 100 pesos, but there was no way I was going to argue with him when he asked for 300 pesos. I may have been able to bargain the bribe down, but there was no way the two or three dollars I might have saved were worth the risk of the cop changing his mind and giving me a summons to appear in traffic court. I have mixed feelings on bribing a cop. Bribery is a bad thing, certainly, but it's also part of life here. And it was well worth it to me to not have to go to traffic school. But it's still a bad thing.)

We pulled around the corner, he gave me my license, I paid my fine, and I was on my way home. That's two encounters I've had with cops in five months, which equals the number I've had at home since I started driving 22 years ago. Hmm.

When I first arrived here, I regularly complained to Shelly about how drivers in the Philippines make a two-lane road into a three-lane road, and how they turn left from the right lane and how, when there's not much traffic, they consider traffic lights to be mere suggestions, rather than commands. A few weeks ago, though, as we were sitting in heavy traffic that was only using two lanes. "Come on," I said, honking the horn. "There's room for three lanes here! Move over!" I realized I drive like a Filipino.

And bribing a traffic cop? I think that just confirms it.