Actually poor Iona hasn’t barked once since the surgery. Normally I would appreciate the silence, but now it is just disconcerting. She is obviously in pain and not feeling like herself. But something good came out of her misery… Miss Iona officially has a boyfriend! For several months now Samu has been admiring our girl from afar, and he has finally pledged his adoration. You can check out Samu, his poetry, and his love of wine here. It’s just too damn bad he lives in Manila. Well Samu, Miss Iona accepts your advances. Now pour her a bowl of wine and go find a human to pet her.

A couple things got me thinking about Manila today and missing my friends in the Philippines. The first of course is Samu and the people that love him. Every time I read an Alex blog entry I am transported back to his shop and hanging with him and Rain. Oh Rain, I miss you.

Another one of my friends was just married in Boracay over the weekend. I had so hoped to get back there to reunite with all my friends/coworkers and help Chino and Celeste celebrate. Selfishly I also wanted to get back to the beautiful beach and introduce Michael to the pretty parts of the Philippines.

It is so weird to think that I haven’t been back to Asia since May. Hard to get my head around all that has changed this year, so I expect that we are still in a state of culture shock. About the only thing that is similar between NC and PHP is their love of pork and the smoking. Now if only we could get the tobacco industry to employ warnings like the one below. Rain was kind enough to leave this pack behind during her visit here. While it hasn’t done much to stop the smokers in the Philippines, it does certainly get the point across. So much for subtlety.