Here Comes the Sun!

I woke up in an unusually bright morning today. When I looked out the window, lo and behold the sun was shining. It started drizzling towards the afternoon, though - it's 5:30 pm right now.

Our workers took advantage of the weather and worked on outside projects around the house, pouring concrete on the driveway and the backyard walkways. Our steel fence contractor sent a couple of workers to install the rest of the fences. He's supposed to deliver the service gate tomorrow and that would complete the order. Our closets are also scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. Like I said in below blog, a whole lot will be completed in the next couple of weeks.

We've booked Father Bobet (who's a Bishop now, BTW) and Apu Sito to celebrate a 10:30 am mass on our December 23 house blessing. Keep this in mind for those of you who will be attending our house warming.

Donna and I are regular customers of Herbs and Greens restaurant now. We try to have dinner there whenever we can because of their great salads. We've also discovered another seafood restaurant by the Friendship Gate of Clark, called Shinbi Restaurant. One of Donna's "classmates" celebrated her birthday and she treated everyone there. On weekend nights, they have a P495 all you can eat Japanese (sushi/sashimi) and shabu-shabu. The latter is where there's a pot in the middle of the table and you pick your food (mostly seafood, veggies, etc) and boil it in some stock that the restaurant provides. This is one thing that's good here in Pampanga good food is plentiful at reasonable prices, the Shinbi dinner figures for less than $10.

TYPHOON GLENDA

July 25, 2006

Last night I took Donna to Ichiro Salon to have her hair fixed. This is actually the other half of Ichitosh Internet Café. She wasn’t too happy the way her hair turned out.

Early this morning Kong Naring sent me a text message waking us up saying they were on their way to work in their tricycles but it was knee deep in flood waters in front of the barrio chapel so they turned around and decided not to proceed to work. I told him we’re still sleeping and I’ll text him back later.

All through the morning Donna kept waking me up afraid our household will get wet. I told her it will be fine and that Paking will never let that happen. It was actually the noise of the rain on the roof that finally woke us up at around 10 am!

After getting showered up we headed to the site. Only my nephew Joven, the painter, made it. We got them some food and then we took off and had lunch ourselves. We went to the SM Clark Hypermarket and got me some fruits and stuff. Then we went and got a rotisserie chicken and headed on home.

I sent Jack a text message asking how they’re doing and if their house is flooded yet. She said it’s about ankle deep on the street in front and that they’ve already taken stuff into the upstairs section of the house. I guess Glenda’s left the Philippines. But it might be another one that’s dumping all these rains.

July 27, 2006

Today we took Apu Sito, Father Bobet and his assistant Fer to lunch at Fortune’s in Angeles, below Robinson’s in Nepo Mart. We had some quality time together before, during and after lunch. For some reason, priests have a lot of good and meaningful things to say. I wonder why?? We discussed everything from poverty to relationships and of course our decision to retire early. Apu Sito liked what I had to say about marriage and relationships in general, so much that he said he’ll use it for his homily!!

It barely rained all day, the sky was cloudy and the sun never did shine, however. I don’t think we’re out of trouble yet as far as the rains. Just as soon as the sun comes out, we should be able to install all the washout finish for the driveway. The garage is all done, all that needs to be done is for the guys to treat its floor with acid to clean it out. Rommel said the installation of the spandrel should be completed by Tuesday next week, the day our windows are scheduled to be delivered. I’ve instructed Armin to schedule the installation of our laminate flooring for next week as well. The closets for the bedrooms will be delivered this Saturday. We wanted them delivered soon because they’d only fit through the windows while the windows have not been installed. The ceiling all through the house has been finished as well. They’re working on finishing the doors right now. There will be a lot done in the finishing phase of the house within the next couple of weeks. Not sure if I’ve mentioned it in previous blogs but the steel fence in front have all been delivered except for the service gate. Once they’ve installed and welded all of them into the posts, we should be able to let Indo go and he wouldn’t be leashed as much.

I'm having a hard time posting pictures again. Better luck next time I guess.

Elaine's Visit

Last Thursday July 20, Elanie text’d saying she’ll be at King’s Royale Hotel on the Olongapo-Gapan Road at around 4:30 pm. We were in Angeles at the time looking to buy hinges from NCR Hardware. At around 5 she text’d again saying they just got done eating at Holiday Land. We told her we’re running late and that we’ll pick her up a little later.

She was with her Mom and two uncles when we got to Holiday Land. Several of her sisters have arrived from King’s Royale by the time we were ready to leave. This is kind of weird because Elaine and her sisters resemble each other so very close that it seems like one’s watching the movie “Return of the Clones” when they’re together!!

Rene sent a text message saying he was still in Manila at the time.

We took Elaine to the site and gave her a tour of the house, took a couple of pictures and we headed to SM Clark to just hang for a little bit. A little later we had dinner at Gerry’s Grill. She picked up some pasalubong from Red Ribbon along with a buko with all kinds of goodies in it from the SM Hypermarket food court. On the way back we picked up a bunch of baluts for her Mom and her sisters. They were still chatting away when we got to the King’s Royale villa that they rented. They all didn’t fit into it so some of her sisters got a couple of rooms. We said goodbye to everyone after talking with them for a bit and Donna told Elaine we’ll see her during their reunion so we can give her the ube she’s supposed to bring back to the States for the JASHS Class ’70 picnic.

Lita came from Manila Saturday. We didn’t get to see her because they were showing Fumio’s daughter Chiori around but she promised we’ll take the time to meet when she comes back from Tokyo at the end of the month.

Hey Reg - watched Lady in the Water the other night, M. Night Shamalan(?) does not disappoint!

We dropped by in Masamat yesterday to check out the bamboos that Kong Naring and the crew cut down for the Jacuzzi gazebo.

Today, Monday July 24th, Glenda the 2nd typhoon to hit our area started its rains. It's almost 10 pm now and it has been raining steadily since this morning.

Bummer - can't view Blogger again today! Hope Elaine's pictures above are accessible.