All my troubles seemed so far away.  And they still do for that matter.

Anyway, I began my day with a long walk out to the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, also known as the Freeport Zone or the old Navy base.  It’s a good hour out there along the highway and is always exciting what with the buses, trucks, jeepneys, trikes, and cars frequently encroaching on the narrow shoulder.  Honestly, that’s why I only make that hike a couple of times a month and only on Sunday morning when traffic is somewhat lighter.

So, I said “fuck that!” and made my way down to the beach.

So I made it home safely, got some rest, and then headed out for the Sunday afternoon dart tourney.  Drew a strong partner and we walked away with a first place finish.

Marissa came out so I could buy her some beers to watch the action, and after darts I invited her home with me to enjoy the pot roast I’d left cooking in the crockpot.  She agreed and off we went to Alta Vista.  Along the way I got this text message from Jessa:

Glad ur happy now gwapo. And for the record john is not my bf so stop saying that … 
Just saw u and marissa walking holding hands

Damn, I told you this is a small town!  Can’t get away with anything.  But yes, I am guilty of holding hands while walking along the highway.  I guess Jessa’s feelings were hurt, but it’s not like she ever gave me a chance.  For example, not once did she ever go out with me without bringing her girlfriends along.  We didn’t date, I was the sucker paying for girls night out.  The John she references is a guy I saw her with in a FB photo, so I’d tease it was her boyfriend.  I guess she didn’t see the irony.  Oh well, I wasn’t going to pursue it with Jessa regardless.  And for the record, holding hands does not a girlfriend make!

Anyway, back to the important stuff, like my pot roast.  You know, back when I was using American beef the meat came out of the crockpot so tender I could pull it apart with just a fork and some tongs.  Yesterday’s roast was still so tough after 8 hours I had to use a big ass carving knife to saw through it.  What a disappointment!  Now, the flavor was excellent and once you cut the meat into bite sized morsels it was easy enough to chew.  Just not what I’m used to, but not a total fail either.  Quite good actually.

And you know, when meat quality is the biggest issue you have to complain about, life is pretty damn fine!

It’s been awhile since I’ve re-composed some song lyrics (you’re welcome!) but I couldn’t help myself this afternoon.  Feel free to sing along…

Yesterday I took a walk so far away.
All the way to the SBMA.
Oh, I walked so far yesterday.

Suddenly, I was on the beach along the sea.
I have no idea what came over me.
Oh, yesterday I walked along the sea.

Why did I have to go?
I don’t know, at home I couldn’t stay.
I still need to lose those pounds
So I took a long walk yesterday.

Yesterday I took a hike out to Subic Bay.
Dodging buses, trikes and jeeps along the way.
Oh, but I survived it yesterday.

(with apologies to Lennon/McCartney)

…easy like Sunday morning.

So I’m not sure if this is the end of my week or the beginning of a new one.  It’s been so damn long since I’ve had a day off I’ve lost track.  But seriously, the days here all have a sameness about them which makes one day pretty much indistinguishable from the next.

Like my walks for example.  Sure, I try and mix them up a little.  It helps having the Hash and Sausage Walkers in that regard.  But a walk in the park or a walk on the highway is still a walk, right?  This was my week:

• Sunday–21,000 steps (I round up/down at 500)
• Monday–22,000 
• Tuesday–14,000 (had to do the grocery shopping and blew off the morning walk)
• Wednesday–24,000
• Thursday–28,000 (not sure why I was so inspired)
• Friday–23,000
• Saturday–25,000

All in all not a bad week’s work.  Here’s some stuff I saw along the way:

What else?  Well, I got to feel like a proud grandpa this morning:

And that’s what’s cookin’ here.  Oh, and this:

Life is good.

Why in the world
Would anybody put chains on me?
I've paid my dues to make it
Everybody wants me to be
What they want me to be
I'm not happy when I try to fake it!
No!
Ooh, that's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning

I mentioned recently how much I *think* I’d enjoy having a girlfriend to Hash with.  And it’s not like I haven’t had opportunities, such as they are.

EDITED:  Sorry, upon reflection I deleted the photo of “Celia” and “Josie”.  I don’t know that I have any readers here in Barrio Barretto, but given the what a small town it is and my desire to avoid trouble I’m playing it safe.  Not my style to self-censor like this, but I just had a bad feeling in this case.

I don’t recall if I’ve talked about them [Celia and Josie] here before.  Shortly after I moved to the PI I met both at a Hash event and we became Facebook friends.  And not surprisingly they asked if I would be their Hash “sponsor”.  That just meant I would pay  their weekly Hash dues, which amounts to the equivalent of $3.00 each.  No big deal, glad to help.  I’d sometimes buy them some food at the after Hash gathering as well.

Anyway, back in August we did a special Hash in Angeles City and the girls asked if they could ride down with me.  Of course, I didn’t have a problem with that.  In fact, I was growing quite fond of Josie.  So I was looking forward to spending an out-of-town weekend with her.  Alas, it was not to be.

I was staying in a hotel near the bar district, and Celia and Josie were staying with “friends” on the other side of town.  I assumed we’d be meeting up at the Hash circle, but they never showed.  And afterwards I expressed my disappointment to them both.  Josie promised to make it up to me the next day, and then did the same no-show act.  And of course at that point I was done with her for good.  Apparently she got a better offer from one of the Angeles Hashers.  Anyway, I chalked it up to it is better to find out her character now as opposed to later.

Now, Celia seemed to be hooking up with a Subic Hasher, Anal Retentive.  At least he started paying her sponsorship fees, which again, was fine by me.  I don’t really know much about AR other than he is building a house in my neighborhood, I see him in the girly bars now and then, and he took my helper’s friend Gina out a couple times.  So my impression is he is not serious about having a steady girlfriend.  AR is currently visiting the USA and Celia has been contacting me via Facebook with increasing regularity.  

I honestly don’t know a lot about Celia (or Josie for that matter).  Celia tells me she is going to school during the day, I’m pretty sure she has at least one kid, and now she has a new job as a dancer at a bar called Coco Lips.  She’s been pestering me to come visit her there so the other night I dropped in.  Celia wasn’t working but to my surprise Josie was dancing on stage.  Wow!

Josie looked really hot in her sexy dance costume and of course I brought her down for a lady drink.  She was friendly enough but really didn’t have much to say.  Maybe she was a little embarrassed to be working in the bar.  I couldn’t help but thinking “damn, she chooses a life of prostitution over being my girlfriend!”.  Oh well, looks like I dodged yet another bullet. 

But back to Celia.  She kept after me to see her at the bar, so I made it back on Thursday.  Not as hot as Josie, but okay I guess.  I bought her a couple of drinks and she gave me a back rub.  I passed out some chocolates to the dancers and wait staff so everyone was happy.  Well, Josie was giving me this look like “aren’t you gonna buy me a drink too?”  Nope, I’m not.  Celia tells me that Josie is one of the more popular girls in the bar and gets barfined (taken out by customers) frequently.  Well, good for her.  If you are going to fuck for money it’s nice to have clients I suppose.

I left Coco Lips after buying Celia two lady drinks.  She told me she would see me at the Hash on Monday.  I guess with Anal Retentive out of town she needs a sponsor.  That’s fine.  Later she sent me a message saying next time she wants to massage me with no clothes on.  I’m not sure if she meant me or her (or both).

Anyway, I don’t have any illusions regarding what this is all about.

Not to worry, I have no interest in Celia other than perhaps a carnal one.  But since she’s now entered the realm of prostitution it sort of puts me off on even that aspect.  I might take her up on that massage offer though.  We’ll see how it goes at the Hash this Monday.

What a life, eh?

Did the Sausage Walkers thing today. A little different in that we drove in the Hashmobile about 30 minutes out into the vast countryside and started from there. And as seems to be the norm, we took a couple of detours and dead ends before finding our way to the designated creekside lunch location for, yep you guessed it, sausages.

Alright, I must confess to having wimped out at the very beginning. There was this suspension bridge we needed to cross to get to the other side of the river. I got about half way over and it started swinging to and fro (I can handle the up and down) and I retreated. It just felt like I was going to topple over and into the river, which would have resulted in serious injury or death. So I chose discretion over valor and walked up river where the banks were less steep then waded across.

Ah well. Here’s some photos.

Let’s roll!

A view from the truck…

The bridge of my shame.

Everyone else made it across just fine. But once I reached the middle span where the handrails were ropes it just all felt so unstable to me. I took several steps, saw my life pass before my eyes, and retreated like a wimp.

After wading across down river I rejoined the group.

They didn’t laugh at me. Much.

No one home.

We only climbed one mountain today and about 3/4 way up we discovered we were going in the wrong direction and came back down….

…to walk along the river….

Trying to decide where to cross…

Ride ’em cowboy!

At our lunch site we came across the skinniest dog I ever did see. Shared my lunch with him but I doubt he’s long for this world…

Sausages roasting on an open fire. Well, bed of coals anyway…

A creek side picnic it was!

Anyway, got my steps in and saw some new sights, so it is all good.

A relatively easy 5K Hash yesterday, with only one smallish mountain to climb. The real challenge was lots of low hanging branches so I was stooped over quite a bit. And then there were these damn vines crossing the trail that had an uncanny ability to wrap around your ankles and trip you up at the most inopportune times. I didn’t fall that way but some others did. A goodly portion of the trail was through some ramshackle neighborhoods I hadn’t experienced before. Lots of kids out playing and they seemed delighted to see an old white guy walking through the ville. Here’s some pics:

The runners and walkers all loaded up on the Hashmobile, making it quite crowded indeed. The runners got off first for the “long trail”.

It’s “on-on”…

…and on up!

Pretty steep going back down and coupled with them damn vines it was treacherous in places.

Safely down to the flat lands and this peaceful pond.

Over a rickety bridge and back into civilization. Such as it is.

The straight and narrow.

A disgustingly filthy creek bed. Yeah, I can empathize with being poor, but that’s no excuse to trash your own neighborhood.

Life is hard…

That’s Tinkerbell. She was one of the runners and finally got up to me about 3/4 of the way back…

Some folks live like this…

And I live like this. “On-home” at Midnight Rambler.

We all just need to do the best we can I suppose. Life ain’t fair.

Facebook reminded me of the anniversary of one of the major milestones in my walking career:

It was quite a day and one that is unlikely to be repeated in this lifetime.

These days my goal is to average 20,000 steps a day and that’s something I generally achieve. Of course, much easier here than in a place like Manila. Also, doing the Hash and the “sausage walks” gets the weekly step count up.

This is the “high season” in the Philippines. Lots of tourists in town, Barretto seems to be especially popular with the Swedes for some reason. Kinda funny sometimes to see the bargirls with their boyfriends, or at least the guys who have been sponsoring them (i.e. sending financial support in their absence). Hey, I’m all about more power to them–a fool and his money are soon parted and all that. Also quite a few “two week millionaires” blowing into town and throwing big bucks around in the bars. They are very popular and then they are gone. Ha, at least it keeps the drink pressure off of me!

I can see why this is the time of year people visit. The weather has been fantastic! Not so humid, no rain, moderate temperatures, and usually a nice breeze to keep things comfortable. I guess I better enjoy it while I can because the hot months will be here soon enough.

What else? Well, my blog buddy Kevin Kim has been cooking up a storm. I’m going to see if I can up my game next time I prepare short ribs using some of his techniques. Haven’t been at all satisfied with the results I’ve been getting since the move. About the only thing I’ve cooked that is as good as it ever was is my crockpot pulled pork. Cooked up a nice big batch yesterday in fact:

Eight hours slow cooking, pulled, and ready to go…

…along with some corn-on-the-cob…

…broccoli with butter and cheese…

…and of course corn bread muffins!

Put it on a plate and eat it up! Actually, I put some leftovers in a tortilla for lunch and that was a tasty treat as well.

Hey, and speaking of Kevin “Don’t forget the hyphen” Kim, I’ve been studying up to improve my writing skills. Not that you’d know by reading my rants and ramblings here. In an effort to make the written world a better place, let me share these tips with you:

Its all their. Your welcome.

I tease of course. Sometimes it is all just a matter of perspective:

See what I mean?

Anyway, thanks for reading. Having nothing of substance to say is really quite a blessing. I’ve not been cursed with an interesting life!

I hear some people
been talkin’ me down,
Bring up my name,
pass it ’round.
They don’t mention
happy times
They do their thing,
I’ll do mine.

Walk on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gALPWW9QByQ

Last night I attended and judged the weekly Sons of Baccus dance contest. It’s been awhile since I’ve done one, so it was a good change of pace. Sorry for the poor quality pictures, but hopefully you’ll get the flavor of the event:

The show started with all the competing dancers on the stage…

Wet Spot hosted the event this week and is the custom, their dancers went first.

Next up was the Man Cave dancers. They put on a pretty fun to watch hip hop routine….

Thumbstar is the newest bar in town. Their gals did a good job, but happened to dance to the same song as the previous dancers from Man Cave. They were simply not as hip in their hopping. Ahem.

Arizona always puts on an elaborate dance show, with costumes and props. Honestly, I prefer sexy dancing but who am I to judge. Oh wait, I AM a judge!

The girls from Lollipop did a nice job. I enjoyed their routine.

Whereas the Rum Jungle only sent two dancers and they basically just went through the motions. Well, I guess that’s what dancing is, but you know what I mean. A lack of enthusiasm.

Last up was the Hot Zone team. They were last week’s winner and they always put on a hot show. Last night was no exception…

…no ifs, ands, or butts about it!

So, on my scorecard I had Hot Zone first, Man Cave second, and Lollipop third. My fellow judges saw things differently (stupid bastards!) and the winners for the night were Alaska first, Hot Zone second, and Man Cave third.

Oh well, it was a fun evening and I came home pleasantly drunk. What a life!