Ramblings

It's been a bit since my Boracay trip, and it feels like something is brewing inside. Perhaps writing here will help release it? Perhaps not!

First of all, is the U.S.A. Social Security Administration run by First Graders? Must be. No matter how many appeals I make saying that I'm not, in fact, working, they still keep rejecting my appeals to have benefits reinstated! Another trip to the Embassy this morning. Chatted with another American who said it is the only one in the world that has a Social Security Office. Well, here here! Now if Baltimore could just read English! So we tried again!

Funny, he also said that he's been here for 2 years, and can't say he loves it. Bureaucracy! Corruption. "The Filipinos do as their corrupt government does." Interesting and probably true. And the American Bureaucracy isn't doing much better, in my experience.

Yesterday I played Magnet at a mall. I was "invited" by two people to part with cash. One a very muscular man, claiming to be a masseur who would gladly come to my apartment for a P500 massage. (Friends warn: "and all the cash he can find, too!") Then a woman who saw me eating in a restaurant, and was in fact working there while I ate, making big rounds of pasta, suddenly appeared when I left, willing to help me find things, gracious as all get out, friendly, then, whammy, "I really need money because my company won't send me my pay until the end of the month" yadda yadda!

What? Did I have written on my shirt "YOUR PERSONAL BANK"? I swear, I'm going to have a t-shirt or 10 say "Sorry, I've Given All My Bank Allows for the Day!", or "Who was your sucker yesterday?", or, well--you can make up your own to entertain yourself for a few hours! Feel free to send your ideas in "Comments"! I'm always so innocent looking, must be! Or so dumb!

It's been pretty hot here, probably about like Georgia or Florida. But I am still overjoyed that I didn't experience last winter in Massachusetts! I'm planning on a visit in August-September, which will include a joint recital at my old church in Amherst! I'll get to play a few 2-part inventions of Bach that I started working on since moving here, as well as other things, including some organ and piano duets. And I'll finally get to play on the Steinway I helped raise money for restoring.

Go to Stars and Stripes and look for articles by Michael Gisick, my son. Actually, just go to Goggle and type in his name. He writes beautifully, and his stories from Iraq are written from a very different perspective, I believe, from what we hear on TV. I wonder how much he's using the Arabic he started learning years ago in Beirut and in Syria last month?

Be happy, if you will, sad, if you must!

Sir Rod (as I'm often called here by telephone receptionists).
"Sorry, not knighted!" Yet!