Hell hath no fury

Just found out yesterday that a friend's seemingly happy marriage is now on the rocks because the husband was stupid enough to have cheated on her --and was stupider enough to have gotten caught!

You gotta give my friend balls for how she handled the whole thing -- she didn't get hysterical or manic. On the contrary, she calmly presented the evidence to the lying bastard, refuted all his lame explanations, and told him to pack his bags and move out. Which he did! Even though it was his familiy's house (i.e. my friend was living with her in-laws). Apparently, way earlier in the marriage, they had come to an agreement -- if ever the guy violates any of the marriage vows, he would move out while the girl would stay until they came to a settlement, which includes finding a house for my friend to live in, complete with household help and driver, and a monthly allowance. "I don't want to go back to my parents and be a burden to them," my friend rationalizes. "You married me, I'm your burden until the day you die."

Thinking about it, I wish I could be as sophisticated as my friend. At first, I thought I could be. I've told Eric way before that if I ever find out he cheated, he would never hear a thing from me. No hysterics, no blubbering tears. He would just come home one day and find me gone (with our kids, if ever) and he should just wait to hear from my lawyer.

But I thought some more last night, and I pictured myself in my friend's shoes, and wondered how I would react if I found out about my husband's infidelity the way she did (trust me, it's priceless). And I realized I don't think I can be as sophisticated.

"You know what, I've changed my mind," I told Eric last night. "Instead of leaving, I'm going to wait for you to come home and pretend nothing happened. I'm going to wait until you're asleep... And then I'm going to cut off your dingdong, feed it your dog, and then leave!"

Ha! I feel better already.

Marketing God

I have no patience whatsoever for telemarketers, but yesterday's caller ALMOST became an exception.

TELEMARKETER: Hello, is this [insert telephone number]?

ME: Yes...

TELEMARKETER: Good morning ma'am, this is [I didn't pay attention to the name] from [I didn't pay attention to the name of the company but it was some sort of Christian/Catholic/Evangelical society]. We'd just like to promote our Christian/Catholic/Evangelical/Whatever station on channel 59 over Sky Cable, we hope you can watch it.

ME: [Thankful that it wasn't some credit card company] Oh, okay, sure.

TELEMARKETER: Thanks very much, ma'am. Just so you know, our show is...

He started talking about how it's basically a 24-hour prayer channel, that they help people become closer to the Lord, blah blah blah... At this point, I was starting to tune out and wondering when the spiel would end. And then suddenly--

TELEMARKETER: Ma'am, I'd like to invite you to say a prayer with me. Is there anything in particular you would like us to pray over?

Eep. I was half-tempted to actually take him up on his offer, but the other half of me also felt this whole thing might just either be a sham or a scam and I wanted to get off the phone asap. So politely, I said...

ME: Umm.. I'm actually in the middle of something, can we do this later?

TELEMARKETER: Sure ma'am, what time?

ME: Uh.... 8pm?? [Me knowing that I wouldn't be home that time]

TELEMARKETER: Ma'am, that's already beyond our office hours. Are you sure you can't spare a few minutes for a prayer?

ME: Uh, sorry, but what I'm doing is really important e...

TELEMARKETER: More important that the Lord?

Oh crap. I simply stammered out another apology and without waiting for a reply, hung up.

I spent the whole day feeling bad (Did I really just turn my back on God when He was calling on me???) but when I told Eric about it later in the day, he brushed off my worry and said the guy had no business calling me up at home in the first place. He says the conversation would've probably ended up with the guy asking me for a donation. "Scam yan," he assured me.

I said I should have told the guy I was a Buddhist or Muslim from the get-go, but Eric says he would've probably tried to convert me!

But okay, assuming the call was legit, here are the 3 things I would most likely pray to God for:

1) A safe delivery and a healthy baby
2) Good health for my loved ones
3) Peace on earth

Most expensive fight ever

Eric and I have had tiffs conducted via text messaging before, but never when one of us was out of the country. Well, chalk up another "First" last night (yes, we like to keep track of milestones in our relationship).

I was here and he was in Hong Kong, where every outgoing text message cost him P25, every outgoing call P90 per minute, and every incoming call P20 per minute -- plus whatever surcharges levied by the service provider.

What we fought about was irrelevant, so just start computing: text messages continuously being sent back and forth between 10pm to midnight, highlighted by a call somehwere in the middle punctuated by many moments of silences that were, basically, money going down the drain, so we eneded up hanging up after about 7 minutes and just resumed texting.

Thankfully, we finally made up around midnight, which was also when we both realized that yes, this was our most expensive fight to date. Which I think is nice--that we're both able to laugh afterwards, I mean.

Team Jolie

I've been feeling guilty about my current couch potato state, so when I went to Powerbooks over the weekend, I went straight to the "serious" section (i.e. Politics, History, Biographies, etc.) instead of "General Fiction." And even thouugh the books there were more expensive (not to mention thicker and heavier) than the usual chick lit, I resolved not to leave the store without buying one from the rack.

I chose Angelina's Jolie's "Notes From My Travels" because:

1. Say what you want but I LOVE Angelina and I can totally understand Brad leaving Jen for her
2. The workings of the United Nations has always fascinated me and the book, which was about Angelina's work on behalf of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is as close as it gets
2. At P600+ (less 20% because the branch was having a sale that day), it was cheaper than the other books I was interested in

Overall, it's not exactly the kind of book you'd like to read when you're pregnant (and like to be surrounded by happy, uplifting feelings rather than depressing ones), but it's still a good read, and a nice way of calling attention to things going on in the world that we should know about but don't, as well as things that we should be grateful for.

Yeesh

I always assumed that there existed some universally acknowledged rules of etiquette:

-- Elderly passengers should always be offered seats in public transportation.
-- Gentlemen don't kiss and tell.
-- You don't smoke around pregnant women.

Apparently, some people still need a crash course in lesson #3. And to think they consider themselves friends! Argh. They're definitely not making my shortlist of godparents.

You know you're a certified West Wing addict when...

You have a dream that you're part of the cast...as a Secret Service agent!