Filipino wives . . .

These lists have gotten pretty tired, but I like this one's approach, it's really good.

I found this on 'Stuff Filipino People Like' : http://www.thinkunique.net/stuffasianpeoplelike/filipino/
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YOU MAY BE MARRIED TO A FILIPINA IF . . .

♥ your refrigerator is always full but you cannot find any food that you recognize.
♥ instead of a dowry, you got the whole bill for the wedding and honeymoon.
♥ most of the decorations in your house are made of wicker.
♥ you are expected to be able to read her mind just by watching her eyebrows move up and down and which way her lips are pointed.
♥ all her relatives think your name is Joe.
♥ the instant you are married you have 3000 new close relatives that you can’t tell apart.
♥ your house isn’t really on fire, but there is a very charred fish right on top of the stove burner.
♥ all the desserts are sticky and all the snacks are salty.
she eats her fruit with giant salt crystals and her fried chicken with ketchup.
♥ even the ketchup tastes weird . . . very weird.
♥ you throw a party and everyone is fighting to chop the leathery skin off a dead pig.
♥ all your kids have 4-5 middle names.*
♥ your in-laws take 10 years to acknowledge your existence and to call you by something other than “that white guy.”
♥ you try to call her up on the phone and someone tells you “for a while” and you want to know “for a while, what??”
♥ you are trying to go to sleep and she keeps asking for the comFORT’r, and you ain’t got a clue what she’s talking about . . .
♥ your first Christmas present is some funny looking baggy see-thru shirt made out of leftover lace doilies.
♥ your phone bills are all international and average 3 hours per call.
♥ she sweeps with something that witches usually fly around on.
♥ her idea of classy, expensive champagne is Asti Spumante
♥ the rice cooker is on 24 hours a day and uses up 50% of your electric and food budget.
♥ on your first trip to the Philippines, you have 18 giant boxes that weigh 1000 pounds each and your “carry on” luggage requires a small forklift truck.
♥ the same luggage is over filled with things that cost an average of 15 cents each like old magazines and M&Ms — the worst part is when you get off the plane, the same stuff you’ve been hauling around half way around the world is available in every store in the airport for half the price!
♥ all her pajamas look like they were worn by the Dalai Lama until they got too faded.
♥ the first time she’s pregnant you have to go out at 4:00 in the morning looking for some weird type of greasy sausages, green mangoes and bagoong.
♥ You buy a new $500 freezer so she can store 200 pounds of SPAM and CORNED BEEF that was on sale.
♥ everything in your house was bought on sale, even if you don’t need it .. as long as it was a “bargain” is all that matters.
♥ she gets really excited by sucking the fat out of pig knees.
♥ your daughter gets her ears pierced when she’s 2 minutes old but your sons are not circumcised until they turn 21.
♥ all your postage bills instantly double.
♥ you hire a yaya because your wife thinks you clean mirrors with soap and a sponge and the yaya seems cheaper than a divorce.
♥ the only “white meat” she likes is You, and that’s if you’re lucky . . .
♥ her favorite sauce is called patis, Americans call it turpentine.
♥ she actually thinks that bowling and golf and billiards are real sports and are more important than baseball and football.
♥ you were married 5 years before she explained to you that “ARAY!” doesn’t mean “ooh, baby!”
♥ she prefers bistek to beef steak.
♥ her idea of new upholstery is rinsing the bagoong stains out of the slip covers.
♥ she can eat and talk at the same time, in fact that’s her especialty!
♥ her favorite meal is leftovers, her favorite fancy dessert is Jello mold and for something REALLY romantic, she’ll offer you a halo-halo with 2 straws.
♥ you still don’t know what’s the difference between manong and manok.
♥ she and the kids are always saying “Daddy made utot” and you still don’t know what it means but they think it’s pretty funny.
♥ other than eyebrow raising and lip puckering, her next most expressive form of communication is grunts and pssst’s
♥ she goes to the movies just for the AC.
♥ her homeland has more Megamalls than islands.
♥ before every holiday and visit, her sisters fax you a 10 page “bilin” list which says “suggestion only.”
♥ your kitchen table has a merry-go-round in the middle.
♥ all the vegetables she buys at the Filipino store look like they were grown at Chernobyl.
♥ your in-law’s first visit lasted 5 years.
♥ her friends are named Chinky, Girlie, Boy and Bimbo and you are not allowed to smirk.
♥ her home economics course only taught shopping, eating and siesta; cooking, cleaning and sewing were not electives.
♥ her idea of edifying reading is gossip magazines.
♥ all your place settings has the silverware backwards and there are no knives.
♥ she washes her hair with a bucket and her car with a broom.
♥ she uses an umbrella even if its not raining.
♥ her favorite book (she has 3 copies) is “1001 New Recipes for Pig Parts You Were Gonna Throw Out”
♥ you are the only family in a 200 mile radius with 6 DVD player, 5 televisions.
♥ she’s done her best job planning a surprise party for you if she manages not to tell you about it until a week or two before.
♥ she “cleans” her closet by throwing all the crap into your closet.
♥ you are pretty proud of yourself because you think you snagged up for yourself some unique, rare, tropical goddess type until you go to the Philippines and can’t tell her apart from anyone else in the whole country (unless she’s taller than 5,,1″, then it’s a bit easier).
♥ there’s always singing in your house, even when the radio’s off.
♥ your own mom, who was lukewarm about your marriage originally, now calls you long distance…to talk to your wife, not to you.
♥ your family announces that in the unlikely event of a divorce between you and your wife, she will always have a place to stay, but you better find a new family.
♥ your wife asks to get a job so that you will both have a little extra money, then thanks you for not complaining about having to drive her to work.
♥ your wife has a contagious smile.
♥ you both decide to divide your spare income, and you spend yours on a computer game or a power tool, only to learn that she spent her money buying clothes for you
♥ she might not have had a second pair of shoes growing up, but she’s rapidly making up for lost time.
♥ everything in your house is “namebrand”.
♥ you have a Western Union “Preferred Customer” card. Really.
♥ you complain when your wife tells you that longaniza is only for breakfast.
♥ you learn to like rice, even plain.
♥ you have a budget.
♥ she may only tell you she loves you once in awhile. But, she shows you that she loves you in everything she does and says.
♥ you go to sleep each night knowing you’re the luckiest man in the world

I really have no idea what all this means.

Really bad dream John and I go to his work at night to meet his friend, Pete and another girl there. We then go to a strip mall with a coffee place and we all took Pete's car to get there. It's pouring rain, yet the place is packed. I feel pretty cool because I finally get to socialize with anyone of John's friends and also I'm out of the house i general. I also feel a little bummed because the rain is so loud that I can barely hear what everyone is saying. Also, they're talking about games and work which I can only speak very little about, so I'm actually a little extra bummed. Again, I am happy that we are just out with friends cuz that's pretty much my favorite thing. Going to get snacks and coffee with people. So I sit there sipping and enjoying my coffee, which is strange because I asked for half coffee, half ramen noodle soup (the good kind, not instant). This is obviously one of the more creepy, dreamlike elements of this dream - of which there seem to have only been a few. I feel glad that the guy actually only put in like a fourth cup of coffee, cuz it just tastes like soup, with a small hint of coffee and it's not bad.

I stop trying to hear John and the others and I'm looking around and checking out the place. There is a very cheap and ugly fountain that poor families are playing near and staring at. Then I see that there is a Tapioca Express and I get pretty excited and point it out to the group. The rain goes from steady to torrential every other minute or so. Then I overhear a word or two, which is all I really catch from time to time, and the girl friend (who I understand has an undefined courtship with Pete) mentions their plan to stay all night in the 24 hour TapEx and play WOW or some other video game. She is not proposing the idea, they have already decided that this is what the group is going to do. If a group decides to "bar-hop" and hasn't personally asked me, I really wouldn't care, after all, I'm just out to have fun. But here the situation is obvious. They play WOW online with headphones and mics just about every night. They play just to play, sometimes to really put time into their guild work, or mostly just to spend virtual time talking with each other. I suddenly feel very betrayed by John, because I either am going to sit and watch (which isn't going to happen, he knows I have little interest in it) or I'm gonna sleep in the Tap Ex while they play (not really an option) or I'm going to stay in the car by myself. I look over at John with my mixed expression of disbelief and some other unexplainable feeing, and he gives me this sly little smile, looks up and whistles as if to joke around like he didn't know what was going on.

I thoroughly fumed and yelled something and then stormed to the parking lot. I felt so bad and ran/walk the whole way. After a while I knew someone was behind me, I took a little glance and saw that it was John but with his jacket draped over my head. He caught up and hugged me from behind. I realize it's not John but some worker from the stores and I think I pushed him away and he left. I'm not sure. Then I kind of just remember waking up on the street part of the parking lot - not in between the cars but pretty much in the main thoroughfare part. The feeling of pure betrayal heightened even more.

I get up - it's almost sunrise or so - and storm into TapEx which is still has a line out the door. I spot familiar faces, more of John's friend's had shown up throughout the night, but I walk by them and have decided that I'm totally fine with all these people witnessing the crazy woman screaming and bawling and destruction that I'm about to lay down.

All I keep doing is crying and yelling to John, 'Did you just leave me to play a video game?' 'How did you not care about me being out there?' 'What the hell are you doing right now? I don't understand anything. Why is this happening?' . . . stuff like that. Although there's another more pitiful question that I kept asking him that I can't remember anymore. We get out of the store and my eyes are glued to his face and how he is responding in the worst way possible. My guess is that he thought I'd be better that he not go talk it out with and just allow me to blow off steam by myself (in the parking lot? all night? in the storm? with no keys to Pete's car even?). He never really answers my questions and I feel like this is exactly how John really would act but then I also equally feel that this is nothing that I'd ever imagine him to do. I can't decide, and the dream is pretty real feeling so I am thoroughly upset here. I wake up to my alarm and still feel all these shitty feelings - even the ghost feeling of my throat achy from the almost guttural screaming and my face plastered with frustrated tears. What upset me the most was that he had no answers for me. He just had an I'm Sorry I Did a Bad Thing look on his face. He tried to calm me down but never explained much. And all I needed was the answer to the question, 'Why?!'

One of the only other random, dream-like thing is that I go into a nearby grocery store with a cart. It's really small place and a lady is stocking bagels and tells me that she needs 2 more minutes and can't move out of my way even though I'd been waiting there for like a minute already. I come out of the store with one fresh bagel in a little bag and find John alone at a side table near another table with a lady eating. I commence another round of my yelling and screaming that is pretty much the same as my other one. I'm starting to look at how this five year, pretty much engaged relationship is falling apart for a stupid reason over an incident of which I have no understanding. In the middle somewhere I had woken up, but decided to sleep more to figure it all out. But, again, no answers.