hello hello!

I’M BACK IN THE PHILIPPINES!! YAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!

To be honeset, I wasn’t expecting to be this happy. I was feeling nervous all the way on the plane because it was going to be another huge change, and God only knows how badly I did the second time that I moved here. Fortunately, those nerves turned out to be nausea, cause I felt much much better after threw up my chicken noodle soup on the plane. ^_^d I think the thing that I was most nervous about was my dog. We weren’t really sure how she’d cope spending that much time in the crate that she hated, so after the first five-hour flight to Vancouver, we checked her out and took her for a bit of a walk. She was highly agitated but that was to be expected since she absolutely despised her crate and she’d never ridden a plane before. Other than that she was perfectly fine and starved for both food and attention. It was the 14 hour flight to Manila from Vancouver that got my mother and I exchanging worried looks. Not only was I looking pale as a ghost and unable to walk properly due to nausea, I was really worried about how Yumi was doing. Apparently the cargo hold was temperature controlled but I wasn’t sure if it was heated or if they just made sure that it wasn’t as cold as it was outside. My mom even questioned the quality of their control over temperature when she found out that the outside temperature was in the range of the minus 30s (celsius). So when we arrived and we found the baggage claim, I made a beeline to the start of the conveyor belt where the luggage was coming out from. I waited there for about fifteen minutes and then all of a sudden the luggage coming out dwindled and eventually died. Anxiously, I stepped between the two people in fornt of me and peeked through the rubber flaps that the luggage was coming through. YES I WAS THAT NERVOUS XDDDD You would be too if you heard rumors about airport people stealing dogs! But more than that we were worried that by some unfortunate occurrence, Yumi died during the trip. I was about to demand an explanation from someone, but then a door behind me opened and Yumi’s crate was hurried out. Three old airport workers stood by and one of them casually asked if it was my dog while I ignored him and just opened her crate and let Yumi’s joyful reaction answer his question. As soon as she came out, there was a chorus of “How cute!!!” from surrounding airport people. XDDDDDD (I was slightly weirded out by the fact that he didn’t even ask for Yumi’s documents just to prove that I was the owner, so thankfully I got to her crate before anyone else did XDDDDD) With Yumi succesfully in tow we went out to meet my dad, brother and cousin who were waiting for us.

However, I was dismayed to find out that during the trip, my grandmother had died. She wasn’t actually my father’s mother, she was my father’s aunt but she was still my grandmother. The mourning period for her death wasn’t going to start til about 9pm and we got out at 7:30 so we went and got a bite of dinner before heading to the funeral parlour. When we got there, it was only my aunt and uncle in the room. We brought Yumi in in her doggy backpack so they didn’t notice her (we didn’t want to leave her in the stifling car). I put the bag down for a sec to greet them, but then Yumi started making her complaining sounds and they were surprised to find that there was a dog in the room. My aunt cackled and pointed out that no pets were allowed so we all ushered into the small blocked off eating space that had been provided and everyone bustled around Yumi there. After a couple of more people arrived, we prayed for a bit then we left for home. It felt kinda good being in the Philippines again. Despite the blatant poverty it felt weirdly good to be able to see the reality of the situation instead of just hearing about it from secondhand sources. So here I am in our little scungy house that I have to clean and do some laundry and keep an eye on my dog to make sure she adjusts to the heat properly. Sorry I haven’t been keeping up with y’all. ^_^ It’s been pretty hectic and whatnot. It’s good to be back. ^_^d

God Bless you Lola Seb. You were a hard-ass, chain-smoking, tobacco ash chewing woman of iron who loved yelling obscenities at teleserye villains. But you did everything for your grandchildren. We’ll miss you.