Well, just like last year (and the year before), Santa Claus came and went and forgot to leave me any presents. I thought I was pretty good this year, but I guess not good enough. Santa must be holed up with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy because I haven’t seen them in years either. Come to think of it, since I’ve moved to the Philippines, I have not seen Jack Frost either. I do see a lot of Mother Nature living here though. She always seems to be changing her mind about what kind of weather she wants us to have. I guess that her prerogative though. I know better than to try to fool Mother Nature, I saw the commercial as a kid. Mother Nature Commercial. A good thing though is that Father Time doesn’t seem to be hanging around very much. I don’t feel a day other than I did last year. I know I’m already handsome, just ask my wife. No, wait! Don’t ask her. Ask my mother, she’ll tell you that I’m handsome. I’m told that I look younger than I am. People say that all the time, so I don’t know if it’s true or they are just being nice people. I’d like to think it was true but I’m not the type of person that makes an effort to look younger. I am what I am. If I look younger, so be it. If I look my age or older, that’s okay too. I refuse to do all that hair dying. When/if I start getting wrinkles, I won’t do a thing about those either.
I was able to talk with my son and my mother today. My son actually called to wish his mother a happy birthday (her birthday is January 1st). She was happy he called but she was not feeling well and did not talk long. I did all the catching up. I have not been able to talk with him via a video call for quite some time. My mother called later. I just talked with her the other day, but I’m always up to talking with her, as long as she is not harping me about moving back to Texas. She hasn’t done that lately. She’ll probably call back again tomorrow. It’s not that I don’t want to move back to Texas. I love Texas. I think it’s the greatest state of all the United States. It seems that things are a bit out of control in the US right now though. Besides, my paychecks go way further living here. I actually have money all month long and a little bit (not much right now) left over. I do miss driving in the countryside on roads that don’t bounce you all over the place. Even the seldom used backroads of Texas are better than the main highway here in the Philippines where I live. I noticed that in the bigger cities, the highway is much better though. I think they treat our island of the Philippines (Samar) like the red-headed stepchild of the country. We are always missing out on the funds when they come up. Even when they do manage to get some funds in, it takes years to get anything done and by then a lot of the money intended for the project is diverted elsewhere.
I think my niece and her daughter will be heading back to Australia in the morning. I’m pretty sure they said they were returning on 2 January and, usually, when someone is leaving here, it’s early in the morning. Unless they are taking a flight straight out of Calbayog, which they probably are. I believe those flights leave for Manila around 10:00 am. Most likely I will see them before they leave in the morning if that is the case. My niece will be back next month anyway. Here is a quote as to why she will be back next month: “Filipinos who practice Catholicism will say a rosary for nine days after the death of a loved one. Another rosary is said 40 days after the loss, and then again on the one-year anniversary”. She’ll be back because of the death of her father.
It’s time for bed now. The first day of 2024 is almost over for us here in the Philippines. Tomorrow everything will go back to normal, but I hope to do something different for this next year. I’m not sure what yet, but I’ll be thinking of something.
Thanks for reading. I hope you all have a great year and a great life.
Salamat Y’all
Photo: Pixabay – Artist: clker-free-vector-images
