“Somewhere, beyond the sea ...”

Sal has been back in the "old country" since early September. It was bad enough that she chose the rainy season, but between two big tropical storms and one lesser one, The Philippines has suffered its worst flooding in over forty years. The water reached the family homestead for the first time, but they managed to save just about everything. The past month has hardly been a vacation, as she has been supervising the laborers doing the recovery work.

She was one of the lucky ones, as many in that country suffered much worse. In the midst of this tragedy, the one bright spot of late has been the victory of welterweight boxing champion and national hero Emmanuel Dapidran "Manny" Pacquiao, over Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico. "The Pac Man" thus became the first boxer to win a world title in seven different weight classes.

Manny has also been very generous to the people of his homeland, many of whom have lost everything. We here at mwbh want to give a shout to the many relief organizations who are working tirelessly in the Philippines. We want to give a special Tip of the Black Hat to Cathoilc Relief Services, which has pledged $250,000 to the relief efforts. To find out more, click here.

Meanwhile, Sal is running out of excuses (to say nothing of money), so after changing her mind at least four times, and finally ignoring the pleas of her ostensibly grownup daughters to remain in a country where she has no future whatsoever, other than to stay home and take up knitting -- oh, yeah, kittens, she's an American citizen now, go figure! -- she is returning to her adopted homeland one week from today. If I can just sweep everything under the rug in time, she'll think I didn't revert to living like a crazy old bachelor. I've seen what happens to guys like that.

Never again.
.