Happy New Year!

2023 went out with a bang. Literally. For me, one of the least comprehensible aspects of Filipino culture has been the love of all things loud and the apparent joy in finding creative ways to disturb the peace. And a holiday like New Year’s Eve is the perfect excuse to raise the volume to a whole new level. The most irritating are these hollow tubes that somehow emit a sound like a gunshot, only louder. Then there are those plastic horns that blast a nerve-grating “tune.” Add in the videoke machines and music being played at ear-splitting volumes and you have the unique experience of the local folk welcoming in the new year. And almost every other day of the year. Yeah, yeah, I know. In many US cities, the noise would be coming from real guns and the explosions that come with “peaceful protests.” I’ll continue to count my blessings living here.

Here are some scenes from my 123123:

Swan invited me to join the New Year’s celebration with her family, but I’m just not “up” for midnight celebrations. So, she spent the afternoon making preparations and I tended to my Sunday feeding at Hideaway.

With the feeding completed, I strolled out onto the beach and made my way to the Arizona floating bar. Swan joined me there.

Are you ready to watch the sun go down again?

Swan wanted to take a picture of us together.

Once it was dark, I could see that the mountain on the Subic side of the bay was on fire.

I’m pretty sure it was the annual grass-burning ritual, but I hesitate to call it a “controlled” burn. I have no idea how they manage not to burn it all, but looking at the mountain this morning, I can see the fire is out and can’t detect any evidence that anything was destroyed. Go figure.

Swan and me had our nightcap at BarCelona. We were supposed to meet a friend of hers there, but he didn’t show up. Got back home a little after eight and the noise from across the river was already crazy loud. I closed the door to my bedroom patio and turned on the seldom-used aircon (I prefer fans) to drown out some of the sounds so we could get some sleep. Swan set her alarm for eleven, and her brother came and picked her up to join the family gathering. The partying/noise-making going on outside now made it impossible for me to get back to sleep, so by golly, I was actually awake when the new year rolled in.

And at the stroke of midnight, all hell broke loose across the river from my place.

Anyway, around 12:30, things died down enough that I could go back to sleep. Swan returned home a little before 4 a.m., crawled into bed beside me, and that’s how our new year together began.

I came across this article about age gap relationships and kept thinking: you ain’t seen nothing like what we have here in the PI. I’ll be 69 this year, and Swan will turn 40. And Swan is one of the oldest gals I’ve dated since moving here. Regular readers will recall my brief fling with an eighteen-year-old last year. That was too weird even for me–especially when my granddaughter celebrated her eighteenth while I was still with Mary. Nope, no can do.

Then I found a link to this article about tipping culture. Now, back in the USA, I was your standard 20% tipper unless I received poor service. I soon discovered that other expat nationalities despise that American custom and revile us for spoiling the ladies. I don’t give a shit about that, but over my time here, I’ve made some adjustments in my manner of tipping. Ten percent is my baseline, but there are exceptions. One thing I learned early on is that in many venues, you are not tipping your server; it goes into a community jar. And when I found out that some businesses take a cut of the tips, I changed my strategy. Now, if I can’t tip the girl directly (usually by sticking it in her pocket or cleavage), I only leave change in the tray. That’s just the way I roll these days.

Speaking of rolling, it’s Hash Monday. And today is a special one for me–my Hashaversary. Yep, it was six years ago today I lost my Hash virginity. I blogged about it here.

I was still a tourist back then. The woman next to me is Gemma, a gal I met on one of the dating sights. I saw her a couple of times after I moved here and thought we were friends. Until she scammed me for a thousand bucks (the biggest of several times I’ve been scammed). Last I heard, she was in Israel. Let’s hope her bad Karma didn’t follow her there.

Anyway, for today’s Hash, Leech My Nuggets is the Hare. His trails are never easy but always well-marked, so it’s hard to get lost. Scott sent me an advance look at the trail, and it will be a challenge.

Assuming I survive, I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Alrighty then, on with the year! As always, thanks for dropping by.