Family news

Raining again, and Kuya reports the irrigation water has now been released so they can start planting.

the bad news? The roof is still leaking, although not as badly as before.

Some checks sitting in the bank for months because there was no courier service to take them to the Manila office for processing, have cleared, so I now have money in the bank. Except for one check from the US that had the ink deteriorate so much that it can't be read. The bank told me to send it back to them, but there is no mail service or courier service for me to do this? WTF? I've talked to them twice and emailed them a copy showing the problem but they won't replace it or do an electronic tranfer until I send the check itself back. WTF? Oh well...

yes, I understand the banks worry about fraud, but when you hear about hundreds of thousands or even billions of dollars disappearing from banks, one does wonder when they hyperventillate and won't approve to clear a simple pension check.

After my personal checks cleared, I had enough money to replace the heater for my shower. For the last two months,  I have had to take a shower in Joy's room or just wash from a bucket with a "tabo" to rinse off.

this type of heater will heat only water you are using, and this one, unlike the one in Joy's room, has the shower on a hose so I can take a shower sitting down and move the water to where I actually need it. it is similar to the old heater put in by Lolo 20 plus years ago. This one is Chinese made, so I hope it lasts: It has a five year warranty, meaning it will die in five years and one day from now.

The puppies are all alive and opening their eyes, but not eating yet: Kuya's dog has six and our dog has five.

Here, dogs don't live very long so it is always easy to give them away. Even our dogs have died at a young age of various reasons; Heat stroke, distemper, various infections, kidney failure, etc. especially the dogs we got from the farm (who tended to be malnourished as puppies) but since we now have a vet and I have an income, I can afford to get them their baby shots, so the dogs that Lolo and I took care of lived over 10 years of age and died of old age/cancer.

The present batch of dogs in our house are all descended from a puppy I found crying in the drainage ditch after she fell in there: She had been poisoned either from eating trash or from the toxins in the ditch, and it cost a bit to have the vet treat her. She belonged to a neighbor, but he said he couldn't afford to treat her, and that I could have her.

She is a small dog and had three sets of puppies before I got her fixed. Luckily most of her puppies took after their father, so only 2 of our dogs are short (think Corgi), two others are tall and thin and resemble the thin dog from down the street who herds sheep who wander around eating grass in the vacant lot, and the third generation dog Goofus, resembles the secretary's dog: medium sized with longish hair and floppy ears.

None of them are as vicious or frightening as George, the cat killing Labrador, but when they attack in tandem, they can be dangerous, so we have to herd them away into the back yard when we get visitors.

we also have a bunch of cats who migrated here; they tend to live in the bodega where there are mice and lizards to eat, and just come out to steal dog food. Several live in the house, but I had to banish Petunia from my bedroom after she had kittens on my bed (and now she's pregnant again). The bad news? I now have a mouse in my room who sneaks out at night to eat the dog's food. Sigh.

Churches are now "open" but old folks are told to stay home or stay outside of church during the service. Sounds okay to me. 

By the way: Numbers of cases of the batflu are not accurate, since that relies on testing, but the death rate does give a clue. 

The USA numbers are going up, but the death rate is stable: does this mean the virus is weaker or that more mild cases are being diagnosed? I don't know. 

I do know that I am not going inside stores right now.

Ruby is in the US on school break: The ICE regulation that she has to attend classes, not just streaming classes, won't affect her since her college will have regular classes. Sigh. I understand the reason for the rule, which long predates Trumpieboy but is being blamed on him: It's to prevent students from claiming they are attending class but they are not, they are simply trying to immigrate illegally.

Actually immigration illegally doesn't bother me too much, but when my son in Colombia can't get a visitor visa to visit his family in the USA, it sort of bothers me that others just ignore the law.

Ditto for importing workers: My neighbor in Oklahoma learned to code and was hoping to get a job; but then you hear about a lot of these companies bringing in workers who work more cheaply... not to mention the outsourcing of telephone help.

on the other hand, importing hard working people is an asset to the USA, but when people can't get jobs you can see why they resent illegal immigrants, who by the way are often exploited by their employers by underpaying them and not getting benefits.

Trumpieboy is talking about legalizing DACA but unless there is a compromise (build the wall?) it won't go through. And with the toxic politics in the USA nothing will get passed by congress.

Reminds me of Mike Duncan's book on the fall of the Roman Republic: The Gracchi brothers who used mobs and violence against a Senate who protected the rich, and things didn't work out very well.



Full audiobook here.

of course, one of the problems is outsourcing jobs, which was done deliberatly so big corporations could make money. Hey, it lifted a billion Chinese etc out of poverty, so what could go wrong?

Here in the Philippines, a lot of people work in the telemarketing etc. type jobs, including one of our neighbor's daughters.

On the other hand, ten percent of the population of the Philippines work elsewhere: immigrants, OFW, on ships etc. and that is bad for families, but is one way to get the entire family out of poverty. With the backlash against China, some suggest to move factories to the Philippines. But wages are a bit higher here, and there is a lot of corruption (albeit Duterte is trying to get it under control). 

The good news? there are a lot of people with the needed skills who can work: and might be willing to come back to the Philippines if there were jobs here. And the improvement of roads and rail mean jobs to places outside of metro Manila, all the way up to Pampanga (Clark) or even Subic (a freeport that has now reopened).

One does hope China won't decide to start a war here to distract their people from all their problems. 

Keep the people affected by the terrible floods in your prayers. 



a story about telemarketers:

I used to fix my old Dell computer, and once when I needed to order a part (under warranty), I told the Indian telephone helper what I found what was wrong by opening my computer and she gasped: but you can't open your computer it breaks the warranty. Duh. I asked for an American, got a guy with a Texan accent and he laughed and approved it for me. Another time, I got a lady with a Filipina accent, and when I asked if she was in Manila, she told me snappily she was in Las Vegas thank you. Oh well.