Well, when I say double trouble, I’m talking about darts. But I’ll get to that in a minute. I like to keep things chronological around here; that’s what comes with being old and set in your ways.
So, let’s start with the shopping. No incidents or issues, and I came up with a new way to pay for my groceries without a credit card. I transferred money into the local BPI (Bank of the Philippine Islands) account Swan set up for me. That’s cheaper than ATM cash withdrawals and also more convenient. Then I used the debit card tied to the account to pay the cashier at Royal. Easy peasy. Once my new credit card arrives, I’ll just keep it in a safe place for emergencies. Oh, I just now thought of something: the debit card has Swan’s name on it. When I paid, I followed the standard procedure and handed the cashier my card and ID. She glanced at the ID and processed the transaction without comment. Hmm, I thought the purpose of checking the ID was to ensure the card belonged to me. I wonder how often I’ll get away with the name discrepancy. Not that it matters as long as Swan is with me.
Back at the house after shopping, I headed out to do my 4+K neighborhood walk. Nothing new or even worthy of a photo. Then it was the usual routines of a nap and a blog post. With those tasks completed, I broke out my darts and commenced to practice.
I’m not saying I threw all that great, but I beat the Dartbot twice (501 and Cricket). Last time the bot kicked my ass, so there’s that. Then it was time to head out to Alley Cats for the Tuesday dart tournament. And that’s where the troubles began.
Billy, the tourney organizer, told me it would be doubles and asked if I still wanted to play. Well, I had to break that ice eventually, so I agreed to join despite feeling bad for whoever drew me as a partner. When the numbers were drawn, I got paired with a woman I’d never seen before. When we shook hands, she apologized, saying she was new to the game. I also apologized in advance for not being very good at the game. We were the perfect pair for my return to doubles! No pressure, no expectations, no disappointment!
Our first game of the night was 501. We didn’t play well, but we were decent enough to keep it close, and we had a couple of shots at the double-out, which we failed to execute. The second leg was cricket, and I played embarrassingly badly. So, two games, two losses, and down to the losers’ bracket.
When our turn came to play again, things hadn’t improved much. A loss in 501 followed by another beating in cricket. I did manage to hit the double bullseye twice, but that wasn’t enough make up for the otherwise shitty darts I threw.
So, it was two and out, and my doubles debut was a double dose of bad darts. I’m not giving up. Yet. I will try again on Friday.
After darts, we stayed on the same side of town and popped into Gold Bar. There were no dancers on stage, and I wondered why. Then I saw a “two-week millionaire” had them all tabled. That’s a dream come true for the gals, and I’m happy for them. When he got up to go to the CR, I noticed the shirt he was wearing had a Kern River logo on the back. Wow! I spent many happy times camping there when I was growing up. When the stranger returned, I mentioned how much I’d enjoyed my time on the Kern. We introduced ourselves, and he told me he lives in Bakersfield, the nearest city to Kernville, and that he visits often. He hopes to retire and move to Barretto within a year or two. Nice to meet you, Jeff. Thanks for the memories and good luck with your Philippine dreams.
We did our nightcap at Queen Victoria.
We triked home, and then things got a little heated when I looked out the bedroom window.
Anyway, the fires never seem to burn out of control as they do in California. This morning, I could see the blackened landscape but no apparent collateral damage.
So, I took a stroll through my photo albums and enjoyed the memories of happy times on the Kern.
And now to the more recent past, but still feeling like a lifetime ago, a post from the June 2017 LTG archives where I write about becoming a biker again after the move to Pyeongtaek.
Today’s YouTube video discusses “bitter expat syndrome.” I suffer from occasional grumpiness, but I’m not bitter about it. Life in the Philippines is the best life I currently have.
Maybe these will dissolve bitterness:
Not bad for a Tuesday, eh? We’ll try to keep the joy alive with a visit to Kokomo’s floating bar later today. Lord, keep these days coming!
Oh, and at Queen Victoria last night, the girls were “dancing” to their kind of music. Then, a customer wanted to pick a song for them, and it was some hip-hop crap. Well, I figured if he can pick a song for the gals to dance to, so can I. I don’t think they were expecting this:
Yeah, I know I just posted that song on Monday, but it is worth hearing again. I even did some swing dancing with Swan when it played at Queen Vic last night.
Here’s a song for today:
Don’t take freedom for Granted!
I had to wonder whether that quote was fake, a modern fabrication. Here’s what the AI god has to say:
Is the above an AI hallucination, or is it real? This National Park Service website seems to confirm the quote is real.
Anyway, the fires never seem to burn out of control as they do in California.
I’m guessing you’ve got a lot more green wood and less dead wood for tinder than they had in Pacific Palisades. Of course, those California fires probably took care of a lot of that dead-wood problem, which won’t be a problem again for a while.
We were working-class poor, so it was always camping vacations for our family. You could catch fish fairly easily in the river, and I recall fresh trout on the grill almost every night.
Nowadays, everyone by the lake would be jonesing for his/her cell phone and griping about the lack of a signal.
Thanks for the memories, Mom and Dad.
Your dad looks a little young for your mom in that pic. But the love of age-gap relationships has to come from somewhere, right? Could you imagine being 18 and dating a rich, 65-year-old woman with a beer gut?
Today’s YouTube video discusses “[bitter-expat] syndrome.” I suffer from occasional grumpiness, but I’m not bitter about it. Life in the Philippines is the best life I currently have.
I’ll give you that. Life smacks you down, but you usually get up, optimistically ready for more abuse. I’ve developed a certain cynicism about living in Korea, and there are aspects of life here that drive me crazy even after all these years, but I also know that if I were living in the States or in France or in Switzerland, there’d be aspects of those countries that would drive me nuts as well. No place is problem-free.
Would you say your general attitude comes from a native optimism or from wisdom you’ve learned along the way? I ask because, when I think about my father, I came to realize that, in his case, his own persistently cheerful sunniness and publicly pleasant demeanor came from a native stupidity: the man faced every new day as a fresh challenge because yesterday’s troubles would just wash off his back—nothing new learned, no wisdom gained… just reset to the default, which in his case was always a Gomer Pyle-like optimism rooted in forgetfulness and a constant need to be liked. I sometimes envy his simple-mindedness, but the problem is that Dad was often the cause of a lot of the strife and trouble in our lives, and he really should have been more serious about learning lessons from his mistakes. He should have grown in wisdom. Instead, it was the same mistakes over and over and over again because he apparently didn’t have the mental and/or emotional capacity to learn anything from experience.
I guess the abstract form of the above question is, “Where do you fall on the spectrum? Do you lean more toward ‘People can change’ or toward ‘People never change’?”
Good luck as you continue practicing with those darts.
Kevin, thanks for the verification that Grant really said the quoted words. I wondered about that, but then decided if it is on the internet, it must be true.
Nowadays, everyone by the lake would be jonesing for his/her cell phone and griping about the lack of a signal.
Sad, but true. Those were simpler times. Of course, nowadays, I’d be bitching about the lack of internet, too.
Actually, my father was five years older than my mother. As for dating an old woman as a young man, you had me at “rich.”
As for where I fall on the spectrum, I’d say I lean towards ‘people can change.” Granted, I’m a slow learner, but I’ve made progress along this road we call life. At least, most of my mistakes these days are new ones. I don’t think I’ve ever been an optimist, but acceptance is worth striving for.
It sounds like your father wasn’t totally worthless; at least he served as a bad example. You are blessed to have achieved a level of awareness to have avoided living that way.