Friday April 25, 2008

Once again the weekend rolls around. Actually it's Friday morning and after a session online I realized that I haven't posted anything since Monday. I was able to see my mom on a video call but as I've said before the internet connection isn't great when it comes to phone calls so our visit was brief, good to see her but brief. Jim is going to have to work on that. This week has been close to normal considering we are in another country. The first couple of days I worked on finding a doctor and received good responses from the Yahoo community as well as my new friend Janet who I met last weekend. After Tuesday I was just feeling completely unsociable so I stayed close to home with the exception of going to the grocery store. I played around on the internet and watched tv mostly. I was really happy to find Oprah and the Ellen Degeneres show airs here. They are old episodes of course, probably about 3 months but they're episodes I haven't seen so they are new to me. Because everything on tv is behind here it gives me a chance to watch shows I normally would never have watched in the States. Like right now I'm enjoying the O.C., season 2 of Prison Break which I stopped watching at home because it conflicted with another show I liked, Last Comic Standing, Friends, and How I Met your Mother which Jim and I used to watch and loved but somehow got too busy to watch. So hopefully I won't turn into a couch potato...that is if I had a couch!

Janet had sent me an email earlier this week giving me advice on several things. One that I thought was interesting but never pointed out to me was the use of Hippos. I've mentioned several times about the humidity and apparently you have to take steps against it when it comes to your clothing and shoes. Janet said that when her and her husband moved here originally they lost a bunch of clothes and shoes due to moisture building up in their wardrobes and their things getting moldy so someone told them about Hippos. They are like disposable dehumidifiers, you place them where ever there is danger of something becoming moldy like your closets and cupboards. So I found them at the grocery store and they come in a 3 pack and look like quarts of ice cream. I had to get several because in our bedroom I have 3 wardrobes and in the spare room Jim has 2 plus he keeps his shoes downstairs in a cabinet. But you just put them inside and keep an eye on them and after 2-3 months they should have collected water and you throw them away and replace them with new Hippos. Thanks Janet for the advice because if we weren't made aware of this we would be calling home for everyone to send us new clothes as we can't find anything that will fit us here.

The highlight of my week was getting my new washer/dryer delivered. I told Jim that I was not going to any laundromat to wash clothes especially walking so we bought one last weekend. It's the coolest thing! It's a combo unit which means that it's a washer/dryer all in one. You don't have to wash your clothes and then put them in the dryer, it starts drying when the spin cycle ends. It's great because I can put in a load of clothes and go shopping and when I get back they're dry. This is one thing I will be bringing home with me whenever we move back. I did have a scary moment this week and it involves Oso. The other day when I was leaving the house I noticed that there were pieces of wood leaning up against our security gate on the outside and at first I thought Jim put them there so Oso wouldn't sneak out. Come to find out, our neighbor across the street put them there ( the one with 20 cats and 1 dog ). Jim was leaving one day and the neighbor stopped him to let Jim know that Oso had gotten out of the gate and was in the street, almost got hit by a bus. Instead of getting hit by the bus, apparently the bus just drove over Oso!! So he put up the wood against our gate to prevent Oso from squeezing through again. I was shocked and thankful that Oso had gotten out but wasn't hurt. I was inside the whole time and thought I could trust him out in the front yard by himself so needless to say Oso has lost his priviledges and has to be chaperoned. I haven't had a chance to thank our neighbor but will make a point to go and visit.

The other thing I experienced this week out of the ordinary was the neighborhood fumigation. I was sitting upstairs in our office and I heard a truck go down the street with a guy talking on a bullhorn announcing something but I couldn't understand what he was saying so I ignored it. Several times during the day this happens, usually in the morning there's a truck that just drives down the street honking its horn 3 times as it goes, still haven't figured out its purpose, so when I heard the guy on the bullhorn I didn't pay it much attention. Shortly afterwards I hear this noise and it's loud! So out of curiousity I go look out the window. There is a lot of construction going on the neighborhood, at the mall and also at my next door neighbor, so I just expected to see something related to that. Instead I saw a man walking down the street holding something that looked like a leaf blower and wearing a gas mask. He was blowing white smoke at each house on the block. So I rushed around the house to close all the windows and doors as fast as I could! I made it in time by the time he got to our house and good thing too because before you know it our house was engulfed by white smoke. It looked like the neighborhood was on fire it was so cloudy. I managed to take a video of it but I'm having problems downloading my camera to my computer so as soon as I figure out what's wrong I'll forward it. One thing I thought was weird was that people were actually coming out of their houses instead of staying in and I thought maybe I was wrong in closing all the windows but after I got a whiff of the air I decided that I was right in closing them. There is an issue here with mosquitoes. Sometimes if you get bit you can contract dengue fever which can be fatal if left untreated. Supposedly you get flu like symptoms and there have been more than 26 deaths already this year so I'm assuming that the fumigation is a precaution against dengue fever. Don't worry everyone we are being very cautious especially if we get bit by something which seems to happen often to me.

I have a contractor coming this afternoon to take a look at one of our air conditioner units. Everytime we turn it on, it blows the fuse for the whole house. It's the one in our office so it hasn't been a priority considering the way our house faces we hardly ever get the sun shining directly into the house. Surprisingly if I just turn on all the ceiling fans it stays cool inside so the only time I have an air conditioner on is when we are sleeping at night. Later on tonight we are going to check out a place called Brewballs. I think it's located in Mid-Valley mall ( isn't everything inside a mall ) and Jim found it on the expat website. Hopefully we'll enjoy ourselves and possibly meet some new people to play pool with.

I was able to mail my Dad's package successfully on the third try and it just made me realize how far away from home we really are. There are some things going on at home that I wish I didn't have to miss. My brother Justin in graduating from college soon and my brother Nicholas is being deployed for the 2nd time to Iraq from Germany and he went home to visit with everyone before he leaves. Congratulations Justin and Nick I'll continue to pray for your safety and well being. Until next time...Cheers!!