… when you get giddy about household items you just purchased, just like this pink kettle I bought from Lazada.

While we were without power for almost a week, I realized that I can’t continue boiling water using pots/casseroles. I already burned myself by spilling scalding water because the pots don’t have spouts. I had been dependent on my electric kettle to boil water for coffee and tea for years and I never found any use for the stovetop kettle.

Now I do. I bought a cute one so I can just leave it on the stove and not bother getting it out of sight. More frequent strong typhoons are the norm and this is not going to be the last time we will be out of power for an extended time. We have yet to recover from that bitch Kristine/Trami, and here we are, facing another disaster…

We have now a supertyphoon barreling its way to Taiwan. Signal # 5 is hoisted over Batanes and Typhoon Leon/KongRey is not even going to land in the Batanes/Babuyan group of islands.

The eye of the typhoon is big and clear—an indication of the strength and speed of the winds that KongRey is bringing. Typhoon Haiyan, which I covered for my former media outfit in 2013, had a very clear eye but KongRey’s eye is bigger.

Haiyan/Yolanda = 315 kph winds

KongRey/Leon = 240 kph winds

Now that Typhoo KongRey has made landfall in Taiwan, it has lost the eye, so likely it has slightly weakened.