Good morning. When I sit in the lanai with my iBook facing out to the yard, angled just so, I can just barely pick up a tiny trace of signal from a “linksys” WAP. It is via this tenuous thread of connectivity that I radiate this message out to you.

I spent most of yesterday hunting for a last-minute gift for my brother in “V-Mall,” the shopping center formerly known as “Virra Mall,” whose last pre-renovation days I captured two Christmases ago. Given some time, I will go around there with my camera and take matching “after” photos.

Today is the 24th, Christmas Eve Day, and also the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Roman Catholics this weekend must attend two masses to cover two holy days of obligation: the standard Sunday Advent Mass, and the Christmas Day Mass, usually celebrated as a Midnight Mass here in the Philippines, which means Filipino Catholics will likely be going to church twice within the same day. (My home church, FBCDC, will be having a special morning worship service to segue from Advent to Christmas in one grand event.) In addition, I would like to try and visit early worship at GCF, my old evangelical church in Ortigas, to see how things are going there, so I’ll be attending church in one form or another no less than three times in a day. And I have to go out to V-Mall one more time to pick up gift bags, because I ran out of those last night and I wasn’t able to pack the Morbid Snowmen for lack of room.

Merry Christmas, then, in case I don’t see you. Comments are back on!