Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans. I don’t know that I feel particularly lucky, but I am thankful for the life I have and the blessings that surround me. It is easy to take living a comfortable existence for granted, but I am surrounded by reminders that many others are not so fortunate. So, on this day I will embrace the good life I am living and pause to appreciate all that I have.

I’ll be attending a Thanksgiving gathering at a nearby neighbor’s house later this afternoon. As is my tradition, I’ll be bringing a batch of my Aunt Pat’s Recipe World Famous Fruit Salad along with me. The Philippines version is always a bit of a challenge ingredients-wise. No pecans again this year, so I used walnuts. The coconut (buko as it is called here) is fresh out of the shell and not as tender and sweet as the stuff I used to buy in the bag. The sour cream here has a liquid consistency that doesn’t really hold the other ingredients together in the way I prefer. Oh, and I f’d up and bought a can of mandarin orange fruit cocktail instead of the actual oranges my recipe calls for. Yeah, you can call me Mr. President if you want. Well, keeping with the theme of being thankful on this day, my fruit salad is better than nothing. So there is that.

I’m bringing a batch of brownies too.

The only BPI ATM in town was out of cash yesterday. Had enough on hand to get me through the night, so I was thankful for that. I wound up taking a Jeepney into Subic town this morning to make a withdrawal from the BPI bank branch there. Filled my wallet with 20,000 pesos. The gals are going to really love that bulge in my pants tonight!

I also picked up my new passport with the entry stamp transferred from the old passport. I’m good to go now until December 1, 2022. I will have to exit the Philippines at some point prior to that date. Hopefully, the stupidity will be over by then and I’ll be able to come back home. Still, I’m thankful I was able to get all this done without having to make TWO trips to the Manila immigration office. Thank you for your service Ella’s Travel.

Yesterday’s dart league action was against the team from Blue Butterfly. I could tell from watching them warm-up they wouldn’t be much of a challenge. Well, there was one Filipino guy who appeared to throw pretty decent darts. But it turns out Filipino males are not allowed to play in our league–it’s for expats and females only. When our team captain arrived he reminded the other team of this rule and to our surprise and embarrassment it turns out the “guy” wasn’t a guy after all. Looks can be deceiving sometimes. The opponents’ captain offered to have the player in question prove her gender, but we graciously accepted her word for it.

Speaking of darts, my Facebook memories for today included this photo from nine years ago:

It brought to mind this old Beatles tune though:

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

Ah, well. I’m thankful for the memories of happier times. Mostly.

I promised some photos from yesterday’s hike, and here they come. As an added bonus, you can Relive the hike too.

I am truly thankful for your readership and indulgence. I’ll be back with more of this kind of crap tomorrow. Promise!