It’s Holy Week in the Philippines, and that’s a big deal here in this predominately Catholic country. I remember my first time visiting I made the mistake of arriving during Holy Week. Landed in Cebu, checked into my hotel, went out scouting around, and was surprised to see that almost everything was closed. Asked the hotel receptionist what was going on and she said matter-of-factly “it’s Maundy Thursday, sir.” I’d never even heard of it, and I was raised as a church-going Christian, albeit Protestant. Maybe they had a different name for it. And of course, the next day was Good Friday so almost everything remained closed. I did find a couple of open bars, but it wasn’t the weekend I had in mind.
I walked the highway this morning and the traffic was insane. This area has become the go-to beach destination for the big city folks down south and with the arrival of a long holiday weekend, they are coming in droves.
Our team won the dart league match against The Curve bar, 9-4. My game didn’t improve much as demonstrated by the fact that I played a role in three of the four losses. I have no idea what’s going on with my darts, I’m just going to have to play through it and hope it improves soon.
After darts, I had dinner with a teammate at John’s place. I had the pulled pork sandwich and it was excellent–a little moister than the last one I enjoyed. Also got a double order of Korean-style chicken wings for takeout. Shared those with the gals at Hideaway bar and they were pleased.
I’ll be back at John’s later this afternoon as the venue for my first date with Grace.
And that brings us to the Wednesday Walkers hike yesterday. We did a nice 9K walk around Easter mountain. We’ll be climbing it on Monday so it was a good opportunity to get a view of all sides and speculate how the Hares will get us to the top and back down again.
That was my Wednesday. Let’s see: Walk? check. Darts? check. Beer? check. Seems I did everything. Except get laid. Well, there’s always tonight. Stay tuned.
I’m appreciating the Chinese numbers on the calendar shown in the first picture: 十三, 十四, 十五, i.e., 13, 14, 15 (literally 10-3, 10-4, 10-5).
There are Protestants who say “Maundy Thursday,” but that may be more of a “high church” thing (i.e., Protestant churches, especially Anglican/Episcopalian, that have an almost Catholic sense of ritual, robes, and Latin-style terminology, such as with us Presbyterians or with certain types of Methodists and Lutherans—in contrast with the “low church” sensibilities of more congregationalist or evangelical denominations like, say, Southern Baptists or charismatic Christians in the Deep South), or it could simply be that you never went to a Holy Thursday service, where such a term would be used. A lot of Christians are what are called “Christmas-Easter Christians,” visiting the church only twice a year, thus swelling the normally empty pews. Such Christians are generally not in touch with the overall rhythms of the church community, so they don’t know the terms. I myself have been out of touch for a long, long time.
Hey, Mr. I’m Paying More Attention to Commas:
Shared those with the gals at Hideaway bar and they were pleased.
And of course, the next day was Good Friday so almost everything remained closed.
What’s the problem with the above? (This problem occurs several more times in this post, just as it does in all your others.)
Use a comma-conjunction to separate independent clauses (or use a semicolon). If you still can’t recognize an independent clause after all the damn work I’ve done on my blog trying to explain what one is, then I’ve taught you nothing, and I’m a shit teacher. I keep saying that, if you master only Parts 1 & 2 of my series on commas, you’ll correct 95% of your errors, but mastery seems to be long in coming. Reread, reread, reread. Get to the point where you can teach me what an independent clause is. Then, I’ll know you’ve mastered the thing. I’ll be waiting.
I’ve been using that same style calendar for five years now and never noticed the Chinese characters before you pointed them out. Interesting.
We were definitely “low church” Protestants–Foursquare Gospel and Assembly of God. I’ll never forget how freaky it was when most of the congregation would start speaking in tongues!
I will go back and read the first two lessons again, promise! I can’t promise it will make much difference though. When I proof before posting I’m shocked at just how much I fuck up simple things; I’m like the Joe Biden of bloggers. In your two examples above, I can see now that I should have used a comma after “bar” and “Friday”. 20-20 hindsight and all that.
Maybe I should embrace my incompetence and be like e.e. cummings. Instead of using all lower case letters though, I will forego all commas all the time. That way my errors will seem purposeful. Eh, maybe not. I’ll go back and read up again and try to do better.