Family news

Ruby left for college, and her mom is going along with her to get her settled in.

Sort of like the scene of "My big Fat Greek Wedding 2", where the young girl, whose family finally allowed her to go to a college away from home, settles in to her dorm room, and finds her entire extended family outside the door making sure she is comfortable.

except we couldn't all afford the air fare, so it's just her mom (who will make sure she meets the local Filipino community so she is not alone). She will be attending college in Minnesota, and the nearest relatives are in Chicago, but there are friends (or friends of friends) nearby, so no problem.

In her Canadian boarding school, Ruby tended to have friends among the Africa/ Muslim and South American students, all of whom are family oriented. She said she was the "mother" of the dorm, especially the growing boys who knew she always had a stash of food (including ramen noodles and snacks) that they could raid if they got hungry in the middle of the night.

Hmm... sounds about right. Here, they are always giving you food: nearly every month has another fiesta as an excuse for a party dinner, and even when you visit wakes to console the family, they give you snacks and a packet of fruit juice. And of course, on All Saints day, when everyone visits the cemetery, you stay there and eat and drink for a couple hours...

So for the last few days they were packing, and since we live a 3 hour drive from Manila, and you have to get to the airport 4 hours in advance, they left in the middle of the night for the morning flight.

Our dogs, who haven't figured out they actually live here, barked furiously every time they left the room to get stuff for their final packing. And when the driver came to the door to pick them up, all the dogs (our 4 watch dogs and the 3 watch dogs from the business side of the compound) went hysterical and it was even worse. Alas, the poor neighbors probably woke up too, but luckily the concrete wall surrounding the compound probably made it sound louder inside here but cut the noise to the outside.

But anyway, it mean my sleep cycle, which had finally recovered after being up helping Joy in the hospital during the night, has crashed again.

Luckily I have no work to do, so can sleep all day. But it means less blogging, since when I "have a life" I tend not to be on the internet.