The people on Facebook have been amazing in their efforts to help in the aftermath of Ondoy. Lorie, Manolo and Lizette are unceasing in their posting and reposting of appeals and updates.

I was worried for a second about my own family in Manila but I had a feeling they were okay. Eventually my mom emailed me (after forcing Mel to text Mom to see if they were safe) and said she was stranded for a few hours at a friend's house and finally made it home late in the afternoon.

I told her to just give away (most) of the clothes I had left behind. Her response was, "Of course I'm giving it away! What did you think?" Sigh, that's my mother for you. My only appeal was that she not donate my wedding dress.

Donating my clothes is pretty much the only thing I can do over here. Aside from pray of course.

***

As for me, the job hunt continues. I don't want to talk about it.

***

Meanwhile Walter, the cutest cat in the world, suffered minor injuries while presumably fighting other creatures of the night. He didn't exhibit much damage save for a sprained paw. But like new parents, we rushed him to the vet and got some anti-biotics (he had a fever) and a pain reliever for him.

A day later and he's back to normal but the vet strongly recommended we keep him indoors at night from now on. So no more gallivanting for Walter.

***

Some people out there might want to hear about our exploits in Manila and Europe so here's a brief summary:

A day after Marc arrived in Manila, we flew to Boracay to take in a little sun and breeze. There was definitely a breeze but alas, no sun. I'm not a beach person so that was fine with me. There was a lot of wasted time though, because the airport in Caticlan was closed so we had to fly in from Kalibo and drive another 2 hour to get to the island. This meant having only a day in Boracay.

I lived it up and made use of the hotel's fancy spa. I'm not used to such luxury when it comes to massages. Meanwhile Marc went diving. Not as exciting as Anilao but at least his gear got wet again after a year stowed away.

Then, back in Manila we had our own version of a Polterabend. Marc never heard so many squealing girls before and I think it overwhelmed him a bit.

The plate breaking was fun but I think you guys had a little too much fun with throwing those plates on the ground. Maybe it should be a custom from now on, even if no one's getting married. Just meet up to break stuff. Fun!

Then off to Singapore for 10 hours. Thanks to Zak's recommendations we were able to make the most of the little time we had. I like Singapore. Marc liked it even better once we went into Sim Lim and a toy helicopter flew past his nose. I just turned to him and said, "You want that, don't you?" He nodded and then rushed off to the store and came out with a big box under his arm.

Hmm, this post is too long now. So I'll save Europe for some other time. Hope all is well with you!