One aspect of living a life filled with everyday routines is the unexpected disruption that occurs when those routines are stymied. Tuesday is my grocery shopping day. I’ve been shopping at the Royal supermarket on SBMA since moving here almost eight years ago. Yesterday, this sign was posted on the door at Royal:
I assumed it would be repainting or something similar. Nope. Once inside, I started encountering signs like this one throughout the store:
So, those old habits of knowing which aisle to find an item in were worthless. I used to have a routine pattern of aisles I’d walk to fulfill my shopping needs. No more. I’ll have to relearn and readjust my shopping methods. I’m not sure what motivated these changes, but I noted that many of the non-food items (appliances, toys, etc.) had been eliminated, and the grocery items expanded. They have also widened some of the aisles, so there’s that. Anyway, I’ll adjust, but it was a shock not to be able to find my way around the store. Yeah, if that’s the worst thing to happen to me, I’m doing alright.
I got my third high-dose injection of Ozempic, and things are trending in the right direction. I lost three pounds last week, which puts me down eleven pounds overall since I began the treatment. No severe side effects other than occasional bouts of acid reflux. My appetite remains noticeably suppressed. So, I’ve still got a long way to go, but so far, so good.
Then it was on with my Tuesday routines. That currently includes participating in the dart tournament at Alley Hideout. My inability to regain any passion for the game has been disconcerting. I was on the fence about attending the tourney yesterday, but I still had four beers already paid for on my beer card. So, I went to Alley Hideout, drank my beers, but didn’t play. I’ll have to make a decision soon about whether darts will remain a part of my life.
With the beer card exhausted, we said our goodnights to the crew and players, then moseyed across the highway to Mango’s for dinner.
After dinner, we paid a visit to Gold Bar.
We moved on to Queen Victoria for our nightcap.
And as 8 pm approached, I successfully maintained my routine of going home.
Still exploring the January 2019 LTG archives, I reminisced in this post about all the Filipinas I had loved before. Well, maybe love isn’t the right word. And there were several more to come before I finally found a worthy partner in Swan.
Today’s YouTube video talks about eight “strange laws” in the Philippines that most expats don’t know about. I don’t know, none of them surprised me. I don’t smoke, drive, carry a pocketknife, nor do I have any desire to marry or own property here. Guess I’m safe.
Yeah, time out for humor:
Okay, now I heard the song about a minute ago. And you are fixin’ to as well (assuming you care enough to hit the play button). I honestly didn’t understand the darker meaning of the lyrics until I read about the song here. It’s nice to learn something new at my age.
True drunks like us are relatively rare, John, and we hide it well from other people. Last time I checked, ages ago, about 10% of the US population are diagnosed as suffering from AUD (alcohol use disorder). In terms of unit intake alone IIRC the weekly threshold to be considered “problem drinking” is far below what you and I consume for lube just to endure getting fucked by life on the daily. There’s bound to be far fewer of us than the garden-variety topers normies imagine when they think of alcoholics, or those boozers who only just about inch over the line into ‘official’ alcoholism.
Then there’s the secrecy and how we (mostly) don’t announce we’re total drunks, for obvious reasons. One could be in the presence of functioning alkos or crippled alkos and not know it because they’re fresh on this road to damnation of ours and/or they comport themselves better than others. Also, not every drunk like us is 24/7 blotto – there’s quite a few folks out there who can restrict their drinking to nights and weekends or any time off. You could also encounter a boozer such as you or me who’s on a dry spell and otherwise presents as a normie.
A person’s social milieu and the circles they run in could affect their chances of being around boozers as well. Someone living a comfortable, middle class, life in the suburbs with a loving family, decent social network, and a good job is less likely to be mingling with drunken sots than, say, a homeless person.
For my part, most of the fellow hardcore drunks I’ve known – aside from our merry band of us here, of course – were homeless veterans at the various camps I lived at. Aside from that there was my drunken Dad; a childhood friend who’d already drifted away from our crew by the time I heard he’d allegedly become a wino; and a girl I dated in California, who had the most delicious eye makeup I’ve ever seen and a penchant for pissing the bed after she passed out drunk – and I still wouldn’t have thought she was a crippled alkie until she passed out at work in the toilets and someone spotted a pint in her purse.
Cheers!