NOT Married at the Supermarket
The blog is back after an extended absence. I had a lovely extended visit abroad to visit family and friends, and while it was wonderful to see everyone it left me with very little time to sit down at a computer with the mental clarity to blog. Now I am back on the island and catching up on all I missed. For one, it looks like I missed the worst of the heat, though it is still quite strong.
After all the excitement and comments on the last post, it appears that it was all for nought. When I tried using my card this week, it turned out it was not linked to M’s card after all. We went to complain, explained the situation, they called the person in charge (a different one) and basically went through the whole thing once more. They would not link the cards because we do not have the same surname. Ridiculous! M asked several times what they do in the case of a woman who does not take her husband’s name, which is very common these days. They did not have a real answer but eventually said that perhaps they would put both names on both cards. Then they suggested they could do that for us, but we would lose all of the points accumulated so far. That was not exactly fair. In the end, it seemed to be a battle not worth fighting. They insisted that any two people can pool their points when redeeming them, but I did not believe that for a moment. If that was the case, then friends would be grouping together to redeem and the supermarket would have to give things away for free all the time. So, we will simply use one card from now and deal with it. So much for our symbolic victory!
On to another and more serious topic, the recent earthquake in Peru . Thank you for all the e-mails I received showing concern about my family there. Fortunately, everyone is fine, though they did feel the earthquake quite strongly. The epicenter was further south so Lima did not bear the brunt of the seismic activity. Also, most buildings in Lima are earthquake-proof so that helped to minimise the damage. What you are seeing on the news are mostly poor areas where people could not afford to construct their houses properly. As always, it is the poor who suffer the most. If you are feeling generous, please donate to the relief charity of your choice in order to help the victims. Many of them are now homeless and destitute.
With the news of the hurricane in the Caribbean , it looks like there will soon be even more victims of another natural disaster. I suppose these things have always happened, but in today’s globalised world we are more aware of what happens in other countries. The positive side is that we can also send help no matter where we are.
