JDDavao

I'm sure you won't be going out, if you can reach.

As a wearer, I can attest that the face shield keeps you from touching your face as well as providing "splash" protection. I *doinked* my shield three times yesterday, absent mindedly reaching to scratch my face.

Watch out, man! They'll get her for money laundering!

And I've been tasteless my whole life...

My typical illness begins with a sore throat followed by a "scratchy" chest that make me cough and then a bronchitis-like interval. As I said, I've had variations of it since my first visit here in 2008. A head cold is rare for me so the sinusitis or whatever it was was bizarre. I've never *pulled* mucous from my nose in ribbons before. Sorry if that's too graphic but it shocked the hell out of me. I tried phenylpropanolamine hydrochloride with the sinus thing but only once as it's been taken off the market in the US and other countries. It didn't work so I didn't take any more. I also tried Phenylephrine which also didn't give any relief and have since looked it up to find that it doesn't work for a whole lot of people, to the point where it may be a placebo as a decongestant (it was used to replace the meth ingredients in OTC decongestants in the US). The Zyrtec antihistamines did nothing for me, either. The only thing that gave me relief was Oxymetazoline (Drixine) nasal spray which I used at night and which didn't give me the "rebound" congestion it does so many others. I also found that four shots of saline spray, a tilted head and a "farmer blow" over the sink helped rid me of the mucous as the problem was winding down. I've not used Seretide. A "Pulmonologist" here prescribed an inhaler that a little cursory research showed was incompatible with my BP meds. It might have been that. I have a salbutamol inhaler and keep Duavent for nebulizing when things get bad. BTW, if anyone needs a small, transportable nebulizer I can fully recommend the Chinese Olive mesh model OLV-N01. It runs on 2 AA batteries and works well for me, although you must hold it level or it leaks and you will wind up with a little wasted medicine. It beats hauling around tabletop models. I found it through Ali Baba but there is also a website: zzolive[dot]com. It was US$35 plus shipping and does not come with the DC power cord. Mine is not rechargeable as the website says.

I had a bad cold early on in Covidtime. It was so typical for me that I know it was a variation of what I have gotten here since my very first visit in 2008. I just had the nastiest of sinus infections. It lasted three weeks and the mucous in my schnoz was like rubber cement. Now my COPD is kicking up again so my lungs are irritated and I'm coughing. I've been out just three times since March 15th, wearing a mask, a face shield and carrying a pointy stick to wave at people's eyes when they get too close. I've not had it. I don't want it. And I'm trying like hell not to get it.

My wife and I were once at a resort down past GenSan here on Mindanao. The resto is next to a small grove of coconuts in which the resort had made a children's play area. (!) We were sitting there, waiting for the food to arrive when I turned to Menchu and said, "What kind of crazy person puts a play area among a bunch of coconut trees?" "Oh honey, they cut the coconuts off so the kids won't get hit." No sooner had she said that then *whomp* a coconut fell inside the play area. It made us both jump. We have two coconut trees in the yard here. A woman comes with a worker every few weeks to cut the mature fruits off. She pays us a small amount and resells them. That said, we had a pen for piglets in the yard that had a steel roof on it. One night while sitting out on the back patio, drinking, *boom!* a coconut fell, hitting that roof. It was loud to me with my bad ears. No one else paid it any attention.

Yep. I've been hiding a keg under my shirts for years but always the hunger question. It's probably like: She can see me walking around so I must be ok (after the fall) but she can't see hunger so she has to ask.

An hour ago, I made a fried-egg-on-toast sandwich (with eggs fried by the MIL and put in a container on the table for me). I made it and ate it in front of my wife who was sitting at the table next to me. Twenty minutes ago, she asked, "Do you want to eat?" "I just ate a sandwich in front of you!" "I thought you might like to eat because it's lunchtime." "No, thanks. I'm fine." Five minutes ago: "If you're hungry, we have spaghetti." (sigh) "Okay, honey. Thank you." "You want it now?" "No, later." It's part of the deal. What's funny is, a few months ago, coming into the house during a rain storm, I slipped, fell against the screen door and scraped a chunk of skin off of my head. Blood everywhere. Trip to the horsepistol. The next morning, nothing. She didn't even ask how I felt. But asking about food? Four or five times a day. It's weird.

The house is really beautiful, Tommy.

My advice is to answer the following honestly, to yourself: 1. If there are 12 million women in my own country that I cannot have a successful relationship with, what makes me think I will find a successful relationship in the Philippines? 2. Is it really a relationship I'm looking for? 3. Why the Philippines?

We had our guys fabricate steel frames with handles and then fill them with cement. Something you might want to think about.

Followup: Our two ShippingCart boxes have both now been received. On the site, the first, received last week, has been marked as delivered. The second , received three days ago, is still marked as being on the way.

Our barangay is still considered "moderate risk" for infection. So today, with our return to GCQ, I did...nothing. Correction: I did sit in the sun, in the driveway, for ten minutes, to get a little Vitamin D. Oh! The heady thrills of wanton abandon!

Ask our Scottish members about banter. I guess everyone does it but I didn't realize it for what it was until I watched Still Game.