Lots of “S’s” in my day yesterday: shopping, shots, sand, sundown, Snackbar, and some shit. Now you can suffer while I recount how it went down. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it short.

The grocery shopping was a good indicator of where I’m falling into that expat lifestyle creep (spending more because you can until you can’t), mentioned in the YouTube video I posted the other day. I spent $113 at the YBC supermarket, which was primarily for the cookies and candies we hand out every week. Next up, I paid the quarterly visit to the PureGold supermarket to look for some hard-to-find items and spent $75. Then it was on to Royal for my regular weekly groceries, and I dropped another $154 there. So, $342 doesn’t break the bank, but it does exceed my $250 weekly grocery budget. It could have been worse, but the exchange rate is now over 61 pesos to the dollar, a near record.

Then it was off to see Dr. Jo for my highest-dose Ozempic injection yet. That set me back almost 9000 pesos. I struggled with some acid reflux last night, but my appetite was suppressed (no craving for dinner). So, going into month three of this treatment, I’ve lost thirteen pounds thus far.

I’ve given up on resurrecting my darting life, so instead of Alley Hideout, we headed to Baloy Beach.

The Kokomo’s floating bar is gone for the season, but we walked to Kokomo’s anyway to check out their newly renovated Tiki Beach Bar. It is nicer than it was and will be an option to visit when Swan needs her beach fix.

We paid the too-rare visit to Harley’s next.

I thought I’d get hungry, and Harley’s has a good food menu. The hunger never came, so I never ate.

Swan had an appointment to meet up with her girlfriends, and I decided to do my nightcap at Snackbar. Something about our parting triggered some tampo shit from Swan. Luckily, it seems to have resolved itself now. Two beers at Snackbar, then I was home alone.

From the June 2019 LTG archives, I was walking old paths in Anjeong-ri and gaining new insights into the life I had left behind. Too bad I don’t seem capable of figuring shit out until it is too late to do anything about it. But, that’s the story of my life.

It’s been quite some time since I last checked in with Smart Girl Philippines. In today’s YouTube video, she ranks the value of foreigners to the various types of Filipinas they are likely to encounter. From my observations over the years, she is pretty much spot-on.

And you knew these were coming:

It seems there was this couple from Minneapolis, Minnesota, who decided to go to Miami Beach for a few days to thaw out during one particularly cold winter.

The airlines have crazy frequent flyer rules, and the wife ended up on a flight the day after her husband.

The husband made it down to Florida and arrived at his hotel. Upon getting to his room, he decided to open his laptop and send his wife back in Minneapolis an email.

Unfortunately, he didn’t notice he had misspelled his wife’s email address

In South Carolina, a widow had just returned from the funeral of her husband, a Methodist pastor of many years, who had been called to glory just a few days earlier.

She decided to check her email because she was expecting to hear from relatives and friends. Upon reading the first email, she let out a loud scream, fainted and fell to the floor.

The woman’s son rushed into the room and found his mother on the floor. He glanced up at the computer screen and saw the following email message:

To My Loving Wife: I’ve just been checked in. Everything has been prepared for your arrival here tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then.

Your Devoted Husband.

P.S. Sure is hot down here.

And there you have the story of the “S” in my TueSday.

I don’t visit Snackbar often these days, but I had to smile when the waitress welcomed me back by playing this song on the music box: