And yesterday was one more!
Swan wanted to join me on my Standard Saturday Solo Street Stroll, making it a Modified Saturday Duo Street Stroll. Always nice to have her along, though. And, of course, she wanted to hand out some sweets along the way.
When evening time arrived, I asked Swan where she wanted to hang out. She shrugged and said it doesn’t matter. So, that’s where we started. At first, I thought we had made a mistake because some guy on the other side of the outdoor seating area was holding court on the upcoming US elections. He was being so loud that he may as well have been sitting next to me. It was all standard lefty anti-Trump talking points: mean tweets, lies, not respected by our allies, blah, blah, blah. Someone at his table would state obvious counterpoints about how fucked up things have been since Trump left office, and all the guy had in response was it was worse under Trump. Illegal migrants? Trump didn’t build the wall he promised. And Haitians aren’t eating pets. High fuel prices? Not the government’s fault (ignoring the executive orders Biden signed on day one taking away our energy independence. Anyway, it went on and on. Swan told me to ignore him, but he was so loud I couldn’t even hear the music. If I had been sitting at his table, I’d have pointed out the ignorance of his arguments, but I wasn’t up for getting in a shouting match across the bar. Someone at the table next to the asshole occasionally interjected an inconvenient truth, but the guy kept insisting Kamala would be better.
The loser eventually ended his rant by saying something I finally agreed with: Politics makes people stupid. He was the perfect example of that.
Anyway, once he was gone, we were able to relax and enjoy our visit to IDM. Swan bought two lady drinks for the owner’s wife, and they had a good time chatting in that language I don’t understand. Later on, we moved to Green Room and hung out with our regular crew. We ordered some Sit-n-Bull takeout food and then triked on home.
What did all that fun cost me?
- Dinner: 1120 pesos
- Lady Drinks: 980 pesos
- Alcohol: 1060 pesos
- Tips: 350 pesos
- Snacks: 520 pesos (Angel’s Bakery)
- Trike: 200 pesos
- Charity: 250 pesos (Mama the Umbrella Lady and a beggar)
- Total for October 5: 4430 pesos
Facebook memories carried me back seven years ago when I visited Boracay Island.
I thought Loraine was going to share my upcoming life in the Philippines. Three weeks after our trip to Boracay she gave me the devastating news that she was in love with someone else. I wrote about that in an aptly named post, FUCK ME!
I took the time today to tweak my lefty friends on Facebook:
My old pal John from the UK left this comment:
Whereas in reality, your guy is a convicted rapist who has banned abortions and flies round in epsteins old plane. The end of civilisation indeed!
I usually don’t bother engaging this kind of ignorance, but I did say this: John, enjoy your Kool-Aid. It’s scary to think you believe those lies, but you don’t get to vote, so no worries.
Today’s YouTube video claims that once you go Filipina, you’ll never go back. It’s hard to argue with that. He also makes the point that the less the age gap, the better. He suggests a twenty-year maximum differential. I’ve got twenty-nine on Swan, which seems like nothing, especially compared to my fifty-one-year difference with Mary.
And now for some humor:
And now it’s time for those Sunday routines. Already got the Candy Walk done. Next up is the Hideaway feeding. Then I’ll treat Swan to dinner at John’s place. After that, we shall see.
And here is one of those “first time hearing it” videos:
Was candy distribution along the same route, or was this a totally different route with totally different kids?
Just shy of 5K on a warm morning
The route on that map looks hand-drawn. Is this my first time noticing that?
re: loud anti-Trump guy
No point in arguing with the insane.
called āThe El Padreā on the menu
Looks good and meatalicious.
re: your costs
You’re spending over $100 per day, aren’t you. Times 30, that’s over $3000 a month. Must be nice to be rich, but it makes little sense to be a conservative on the government teat.
Your buddy John’s another insane one. No use in trying to talk with him reasonably.
re: age gap
You’ve seen the “creepiness factor” formula: divide your age by 2 and add 7, and that’s the minimum age you should be dating. So for you, that’s (69/2) + 7, or 41.5 years old. That’s your non-creepy minimum, not 18.
I hope dinner at John’s went well. Pics?
Kev, Nope, it’s a different route altogether. Sometimes, on the group hikes, we’ll pass through a Candy Walk neighborhood, and the kids come running. I have to say, “See you Sunday!”
No, the map is from the Map My Walk app. I had to go back to check why it looked hand-drawn to you. I see a couple of places where the line got squiggly. I’ve seen that before. Sometimes, if I pause in one spot for a while, the GPS or whatever tracks location goes haywire. One of those weird lines is when I stopped to give Mama her money, and the other is when I went inside Angels Bakery for some buns to bring home.
As for my costs, I do tend to live large, at least in the sense that I don’t have to worry much about spending. When I go out at night, I always carry five 1000 peso bills in my wallet, but almost always come home with two or three. That five thousand pesos daily average (so far) includes other household bills. It will be interesting to see how that comes out over the course of a month. I’m not sure what you mean about the “government teat.” It’s a federal pension, but I paid into that retirement fund for over thirty years. Just like Social Security (which I’m not eligible for), it’s my money.
Yeah, I gave up arguing with people like John on social media long ago because made-up minds can’t be changed. The level of his ignorance was astounding. It is pitiful he actually believes the lies about Trump he regurgitated in his comment. The fact that he worries about American politics when his country is even further down the shithole than we are is also sad.
So, since Swan is forty, our relationship is only a little creepy! But I admit that the brief time with Mary creeped me out, especially when it dawned on me that she was the same age as my granddaughter.
A couple of food pics from John’s are coming up in today’s post!
I’ve long found it humorously ironic that you went from screaming liberal to conservative in terms of your political views, but you never quite left the government in terms of your work life, and you’re benefitting from that choice with a nice, fat pension from Uncle Sam. Hey, bleed him dry!
I have a conservative friend in New Zealand, another dude named John, who ran his own education business for years before retiring at the top of his game, then joining the NZ government. The Machine. There are, I guess, a lot of righties out there in the world who see no contradiction in working for the entity they supposedly hate. Human beings are paradoxical.
Government is good as long as it is benefiting me. LOL I am guilty of that reasoning to some extent, along with most people.
Nothing wrong with getting federal pension. Those were the rules when you hired on, and you are just playing by them. But, I am guessing that you will get a lot more out than you put in. Now, whether or not you could have done better by taking your contribution and investing it is the big unknown. With federal pensions being inflation adjusted, maybe not.
I am lucky that the company I work for offered a (non COLA) pension as well as a 401K match when I hired. Ten years or so, they eliminated the pension, but grandfathered in those who were hired before XX date. Sucks to be the new hires I guess.
Definitely alot of inefficiency in government, but difficult to get people to agree exactly what needs to be fixed. Cut back on X, Democrats bitch. Cut back on Y, Republicans bitch. (Especially if it affects their state/district, etc.)
Brian, I do hope to live long and draw way more pension money than I paid in. The funny thing is, not long after I was hired, the Federal government changed the retirement program to something very similar to what you have. Basically, new hires contribute to a Thrift Savings Plan and the government matches the contribution. Instead of a pension, you can draw Social Security (which I’m not eligible for). The powers that be tried hard to get us old hires to switch over voluntarily, but very few did, and we were grandfathered into the old program. Probably not many of us left now.
You are right, the RINOs talk a good game, but when in the majority, do little to implement the agenda they claim to support. Until the sheeple wake up and demand change, we will continue to slide down this slippery slope to doom.
Kev, yeah, my political views did a 180 shortly after 9/11. I was already halfway through my career by then, so it was too late to choose another course. I did escape from DC and the worthless Department of Education and moved overseas to work for the 8th US Army. That was a life-changer in a good way.
Like your friend John, there is something to be said for being the “inside” kink in the liberal hivemind. As an HR professional, I saw my role as putting a brake on stupid shit like hiring quotas based on race. EEO didn’t work for me, but I advised my counterparts to ignore their entreaties and always hire the person best qualified, regardless of their skin color or ethnicity. I wonder now how I would have dealt with woke bullshit like pronouns and multiple genders if I was still in the workforce. It might have got ugly.
And yep, I’m still sucking on the government teat and hope that continues for years to come. It’s been quite the ride.