Family news

We have had heavy rain for the last two days: A storm is going through the Visayas. This is good for our rice, if we don't get too much and end up with a flood.

Ruby is getting all her shots so she can get into high school. Since her father didn't want her to get her vaccinations as a child she was behind in them, and hadn't gotten some of them at all. (she got some of them when Joy took her on the sly after Lolo and I pressured her to do so).

So now she has sore arms but otherwise is okay, even though one of the shots was for typhoid, which made me sick when I got it for medical school. I think it is a newer vaccine with fewer side effects.

She also had a positive TB skin test: she did have BCG vaccine but this was larger than expected from that vaccine. Her chest x ray is negative, so that means she had been in contact with TB but didn't get infected, so now she has to go on INH for three months just in case there are a few dormant germs in her system. (When I took INH I had to take it a year... they found you don't need to take it that long).

They bought a pizza for supper, so I am in heaven. We now have an Italian restaurant/pizza place at the mall,  and you can buy warmed over cardboard pizza in the palenke.

We also can buy Chinese, Sushi, Siomai, Turkish pita sandwiches, etc. at various places around town: all of which are new.

I am reminded of Tolkien's snide remark that when the Americans take over the world, that you won't have to travel any more. The spread of American culture, from TV to food to cellphones to jeans/tee shirt is all over nowadays.

Yes, some of it is now "Chinese" (or Korean drama), but you know, even the Chinese modern movies (and music videos) show American type cities and clothing and often American capitalistic yuppie culture... at least the historical K dramas still have Confucian values. And the Philippine dramas and commercials often show the importance of the family ties to a person's life, instead of a plot where they "follow their own dreams" and discard their families.