Dear mouse,
I was tempted to blog the entry about the more than fifty thousand nurses needed in Saudi Arabia.
As part of their development plan, the government established hospitals which are for opening in
the next months to come. I just did not like the comment that there will be a decline in the demand for nurses in the United States. The only problem in the employment of nurses in the United States is the processing of green cards of the nurses who are hired.

Here in the United States, hospitals are attracting the RNs with sign-in bonus, high pay and excellent perks. The job fairs give applicants to win cash and prizes.

MILWAUKEE - Please, please accept a high-paying job with us. Just swing by for an interview and we’ll give you a chance to win cash and prizes.

Sounds too good to be true, especially in an economy riddled with job cuts in nearly every industry. But applicants for nursing jobs are still so scarce that recruiters have been forced to get increasingly inventive.

One Michigan company literally rolled out a red carpet at a recent hiring event. Residential Home Health, which provides in-home nursing for seniors on Medicare, lavished registered nurses and other health care workers with free champagne and a trivia contest hosted by game-show veteran Chuck Woolery. Prizes included a one-year lease for a 2009 SUV, hotel stays and dinners.

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Dear mouse,

Do you twitter? I stopped twittering. I have nobody to twitter. I don’t even use my plurk account.

For the last few days, the accounts of Barack Obama, Britney Spears and other celebrities were hacked, sending false and inappropriate messages. Bah!

Over the weekend, the Twitter also suffered a vicious phising scam by tricking the Twitter used into logging in to a page masquerading as Twitter front page. Tssk tssk

For the last few days, my website was very slow. Yesterday, I was informed by my webserver that
they were hacked themselves. Ugh.

The Ca t

Dear mouse,

It had been more than two years that my small circle of friends and I have not met for
Christmas get-together.

Since I moved here in the East Coast, there was no more coordinator to decide where, when and what time would the party would be.

The last time we had it was with a friend who was “pressured” to buy a 50-inch TV for our scheduled karaoke.

It was not her turn to host the party but last minute, the assigned host backed out. She was a former roommate of my friend who was forever complaining about her bills before she got married to a wealthy businessman.

After not seeing her for many months we were intrigued to meet the husband so we accepted her invitation to her new house where she volunteered to host the next Christmas party.

We were met by the husband who was carrying himself like he could summon the whole army with speed dial or with the flick of his fingers. He just nodded his head when we greeted him HELLO. No shaking of hands, no smiles for welcome greeting. Bad vibes. My friends and I did the eyebrows and large eyes things.

Our friend led us to a room. It was a home theatre with deluxe home theater seating for half a dozen people.

We were so in the WOW-moments when the door opened behind us and the husband entered with the body language that he liked his wife to tell us to remove our shoes. The carpet was crème-colored and so were the theatre seats. What I just need was some music so that I can imagine I was in the clouds and my friend was the angel playing the harp. Her eyes were rolling like a roller coaster that I could almost hear the sound.

We did not enjoy the snacks served by our friend while she was trying to entertain us. The husband was acting like he was ready to catch whatever food crumbs that we may drop on the carpet.

A month before Christmas we’re having second thoughts of celebrating it in the friend’s house. A few weeks after, we learned that my friend left the husband. She signed a waiver not to claim for any share in the community property as long as he signs the divorce paper.

I thought she would join the queue of martyr-wives. I was wrong.

The Ca t

Dear mouse,
We went for a drive in DC yesterday. Did not get much picture because parking is a ” rare commodity” even during Sunday. We can’t drive near the Capitol. Bawal.

Ito pinagtiyagaan ko ang Washington Monument

Kodak ko from the the car. I was fascinated by the sun and the sky.

After the drive, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant. All of a sudden I missed the noodles. We had spaghetti for breakfast and miki, the previous night. hehehe.

I do not know if it is recession or what but the bowl was small compared to the bowls in SF restaurants that after eating the noodles, you feel like you can skip another day meal. BURP.

This is the cold refreshment made from coconut milk, gelatin and ice. My brother ordered iced tea.

And this is their version of lumpia. I liked the sauce.

When I was in SF, our office was practically a “United Nations”. During birthdays, we ate in different restaurants.
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Dear mouse,

My male friend was complaining. He called me while he was in a store looking at the different brands of tv stands.

His gift from his daughter was a 60-inch HD TV. Puzzled, I asked him why he’s complaining. Isn’t it, he should be happy? His daughter did not only remember him on Christmas but gave him a very expensive gift. Or was it his way to tell me about his daughter’s thoughtfulness without having to impress that he’s bragging?

He chuckled when I reprimanded him to be appreciative of having a thoughtful daughter. Shame on him! I made him known that my eyes were rolling as we talked. He said that because of the gift, he has to spend more than a thousand to buy a new TV stand and to pay a hired hand to have his 52-inch HD TV moved from the living room to their master’s bedroom.

He said she could have just given him the cash. Was he sure it was purchased in cash?

Years ago, a former roommate of mine received a 32-inch TV as Christmas gift from her boyfriend. It replaced our 20-inch TV in the living room. She had also to replace the old rickety TV stand with a huge one which was called an “entertainment center” since it also housed the VCR-DVD and stereo/cd player . It occupied a big space in our small living room.

I had my own TV in my bedroom.

After a few weeks, I noticed that the boyfriend was hanging out more often in our place especially during football and basketball seasons.

He even brought some friends with him; did some drinking and created a lot of noise.
If I were muscled enough, I could have thrown that TV set outside. The noise was depriving me of my sleep. I had to legislate a law about house guests.

I thought that he would get back the TV and bring it to his own apartment. It didn’t happen.

After they broke up, I learned that the boyfriend merely paid the down payment and the rest was charged to my friend’s credit card.

The Ca t