And not in the good way! Of course, it wasn’t all that hard, more like a tad inconvenient. And yes, if that’s all I have to complain about, I’m a lucky man indeed!
On the way to my Tuesday grocery shopping expedition, I stop at an ATM to replenish my cash supply for the week. Lately, I’ve been using the ATM at the Baloy 7-Eleven because it is one of the few that will dispense a 20,000 peso withdrawal (most limit to 10,000 per pull). But yesterday, a line of five or six Filipinas was waiting to use the machine. I’ve never seen that before. Knowing how typically slow Filipinos are when doing ATM transactions, I opted to go to the 7-Eleven further up the highway. And it had an even longer line. Swan speculated it must be payday, but on a Tuesday in the middle of the month? Doesn’t make sense. Anyway, we went to the old standby ATM at the BPI branch at Harbor Point Mall on SBMA. The third try was the charm; I had the machine to myself and got the cash I came for.
So, we journeyed on to the YBC grocery store in Olongapo to stock up on the items we can’t get at Royal. Wow! The store was packed, and every cashier had a long line of customers waiting to check out. I still don’t know what was going on yesterday, but it made things a pain in the ass. We eventually got through it and moved to Royal to complete our shopping. Had to wait in line there, too, but not as long.
The third frustration of the day came when I messed up a wire transfer. I have an acquaintance currently undergoing chemo and radiation treatments for her cancer. I send her a hundred bucks periodically to assist with food and rent. I had been wiring the money to her cousin’s bank account, but yesterday, she asked if I could send her the cash directly. No problem, but since it was my first time doing so, I had to complete the basic information like the name appearing on government-issued ID, phone number, and location. Easy enough. Her name is Lina Erica, and I assumed that was her first and middle name. Nope, her first name is two names. And the cash dispensers would not accept how I rendered the name since it differed from her ID. I finally figured out after an hour of trying how to modify the name on the already-sent transfer, and she finally got her funds.
And hopefully, that’s as hard as it ever gets around here.
Everything else went fine. I opted to walk home from Royal and didn’t get squashed on the highway whilst doing so.
Anyway, I got almost 7K under my belt, and that’s more than I usually do on a Tuesday. I wasn’t done walking yet, either. Later in the afternoon, we did our weekly visit to Baloy Beach.
As usual, when the sun goes, so do we. Dinner at Treasure Island awaits!
When we got home, Swan made a cheesecake for dessert.
Today’s entry from the archives of LTG is this post from June 2005, sharing the views I enjoyed from the roof of my apartment building and lamenting the demise of a bar I enjoyed, named Lucky Strike. To be honest, I’d forgotten about both.
From Facebook memories come these:
Another enjoyable YouTube video from the Filipina Pea. To answer her question, why, yes. Yes, I am!
And then there are these:
And we’ll leave it at that. There’s only one way to find out what’s going to happen next, and that’s by living the moment. I reckon I’d best get to it. I’ll let you know how that works out for me tomorrow.
And hopefully, that’s as hard as it ever gets around here.
I can see how that would be annoying, though. On the bright side, you learned something about her name. So what’re her middle and last names? (If that’s private, no problem.)
I finally figured out after an hour of trying how to modify the name on the already-sent transfer
You’re lucky you were able to do that. If the money’s been sent, the transfer’s been completed. But I have to wonder: how was it completed if the name wasn’t right?
didn’t get squashed on the highway whilst doing so.
“Whilst,” eh? Gettin’ all British on us.
True, but why not have both?
Because half the time, you can’t remember the fun. Not a way to make memories.