Mr. Mom

While Bethany was working her tuchas off – pardon my yiddish – on her assignment the last two weeks, I've been Mr. Mom. Well, sort of. I've done my best anyways. Admittedly, there are still some skills that I lack if I intend to be a house wife. The term "house wife" strikes me as offensive; like a bastion of 1950's sexism, standing defiantly in the face of the juggernaut that is the feminist movement. I'm already getting off topic.

What I mean to say is that I have done my best to serve Bethany by doing the laundry, doing some of the reheating (I mean cooking), bathing and changing Promise, and all that jazz. Frankly, I was glad to help Bethany, but I fear that I suck at "keeping house". I'm a lousy cook, and more often than not Bethany is up and feeding the baby before I've even heard the 3am crying. I wish we had carpets: I'm a really good vacuumer (yes, I know that's not a word, but I had a choice between that and "vacuumist", and the latter just sounds silly).

Regardless, Bethany finished her 75 page assignment on time and she did very well on today's semester exam. I'm very proud of her. Meanwhile, I had a wonderful week with Promise. Hopefully I will get better at the housekeeping stuff as we move forward, but if any of you hear me expounding the latest Oprah episode, please organize an intervention.

Yesterday, as Bethany was putting the finishing touches on her assignment, I went out to the shop to check on the guys and do a bit of work. I took some pictures (see below) of the new renovations that we did. Things are looking very good. We tore down the old house that was on the lot, built a new smaller house for Jun to live in, put up a roof with insulation, and paved the entire floor. We are currently trying our best to "save up" some filters for a big order of 80. Unfortunately, the guys are complaining that other smaller trucks just keep showing up to take away as many as 20 at a time. We sure are popular. We have delivered 391 filters to date, and there are another 47 filters waiting for that big truck.

I also went with Toti to insure the truck. You will never believe what a year's worth of car insurance costs in this city. I paid P3500 (75USD) for all of my registration fees and insurance for the year. For the year! Toti refused to believe me when I told him that I used to pay nearly $200 per month to insure my Ford Focus. I was further shocked to discover that the deductible in this country is only P1000 (22USD), which seems very reasonable compared to the $500 deductible on my Canadian policy. The truck passed the emissions test, which disappointed me a little because I was hoping for another chance to engage in the great Filipino pastime of bribing.

Cheers,
Tim

This was the space they used to build filters in.There was no roof and the house was in the way.The new roof keeps things nice and cool.We've got more than enough space now.