And not altogether wrong. Just one of those days that was a little bit off. Hey, you need the not-so-good to fully appreciate the good ones, right? And if yesterday is as bad as it gets, I am indeed a blessed man. Here’s the story of my Bluesday.
Headed out for the weekly grocery shopping excursion at Royal. My first stop is always the ATM at the nearby Harbor Point Mall, where I stock up on cash for the coming week. Except this time, the ATM was offline, requiring a detour to the ATMs on the other side of SBMA (I use the BPI bank machines because they allow 20,000 peso withdrawals). I extracted the needed cash, and we reversed course back to the Royal supermarket, where the shopping took place without further incident. No big deal, but still not quite right.
So, now that the floating bars are no more, Swan and I need a new Tuesday evening routine. If we can’t be on the water, we at least want to be able to view the bay from our seats. We weren’t that thrilled with the Kokomo’s experience last week, so I thought we’d try something new. On the far end of Barretto, there is a floating island resort. I’ve never been, but there is a sign out front saying the restaurant is open to non-guest customers. I was thinking it might be similar to the Kon Tiki experience, only closer. Only one way to find out, right?
We had the typical afternoon rain shower (I’m not complaining about the rainy season–yet), but the rain stopped just before we left home. We did carry umbrellas just to be safe. It’s a little over 2K from my house to the venue, and I was tempted to grab a trike using the weather as an excuse, but I persevered and got in the steps. We arrived and walked through the front gate. A guard stopped us and asked where we were going. Swan did the talking in Tagalog. So, despite the signage inviting guests, the restaurant wasn’t open. It seems that if the resort has no customers, they don’t open the restaurant at all. And on a rainy Tuesday, the floating island had no guests. Swan asked the guard if we could walk through to the beach, but he wouldn’t allow it. So, guess what? You can keep your fucked up resort, we won’t be back. It was a disappointment, though.
So, I didn’t really have a Plan B, but as we walked back to “downtown” Barretto, it occurred to me that I hadn’t dined at the Arizona Resort for quite some time. Back in my tourist days, I often stayed there, and early in my expat life, I dined there frequently. I’m not sure what happened, but after a change of owners and the COVID scamdemic, the place seemed to go downhill. Oh well, we wanted to eat on the beach, and Arizona fit that criteria, so in we went.
Our waitress dropped off the menus, Swan ordered red wine, and I asked for a San Mig Zero.
Swan ordered a steak sandwich, and I went with a chef salad.
After our meal, we continued up the highway and popped into It Doesn’t Matter. There was nothing to complain about here, but we moved on after one drink. We chose Wet Spot for our nightcap. It was early, and the place was not very busy. Swan’s friend Aine wasn’t at work, but I kept our regular waitress Irene from going thirsty. I used my “buy one, get one” SOB coupon and drank my money’s worth. The Sit-n-Bull waitress came by, so we ordered some pecan pie to bring home with us.
When we got home, Swan was feeling a bit tipsy, so we went to bed early. Later, after some exercise, I had a breathing attack. My oximeter said my blood oxygen was at 89, so I opened my air tank for the first time in quite a while and breathed its contents until I was back to a comfortable 96 oxygen level. A suitable ending to a day that was not quite right.
There’s an election coming up, and Facebook is back to playing it’s censorship game.
I reposted it in a group of non-political hiking pictures, but the Facebook censors found it again and sent a message threatening to restrict people’s access to my future posts. Heil Zuckerberg, mien Fuhrer!
Speaking of Facebook, here are some memories from this day in history:
What a world.
Oh, that Aeta video I posted yesterday wasn’t the one I intended. This one is much more interesting and now (I hope) the closed captioning is working so you can understand what is being said by the natives.
And now for some not quite right humor:
That rusty beer bottle top doesn’t look too unappetizing to me, John. It’s more food I’d have a problem with than a well-needed drink! When I’m on a bender the weight just drops off – even on beer alone – because I hardly eat, and when I do eat it’s just a little snacking here and there. I’ve gone a week and more, before, without eating a ‘proper’ meal when I’m deep in my cups. Then the shit passing through me has to contend with malabsorption, from destroying my guts with alcohol, so when I do eat I can’t even extract the full calorie/nutritional content of it. It also doesn’t hurt that, not being a driver and not having the funds to Lyft all the time, I usually have to walk every day.
The only time I’ve ever gained weight when drinking was last autumn, when I was smoking weed semi- regularly as well and got major munchies.
Glad things are working out for you, Thompson. I remember those late-night runs to Jack-in-the-Box and Taco Bell in my pothead days.
There’s an election coming up, and Facebook is back to playing it’s censorship game.
Spot the error!
Heil Zuckerberg, mien Fuhrer!
In German, “ei” is pronounced “eye” while “ie” is pronounced “ee.” And “Führer” (“leader”) has an umlaut over the “u.”
mein Führer
Moving on…
Three years ago, I was walking a lot farther than I can these days. It’s scary how much I’ve lost.
But you’ve had some long days recently, haven’t you?
Enjoy the rainy season as it intensifies.
Shit, that damn unneeded apostrophe in “it’s” mistake again. Ignorance abounds!
Also, it’s good to know I’m fluently grammatically incorrect in German, too. Although I don’t have an umlaut option on my keyboard. At least I don’t see one.
Some longer than usual days, but nothing like what I was doing three years ago.
If you lack an umlaut option, add “e” after any vowel that would normally take an umlaut. “Fuhrer” -> “Fuehrer.”
But on a Windows machine, the “ü” character is ALT-0252. (Press and hold the ALT key while typing 0-2-5-2 with your keyboard’s number pad.) You can find alt-key code lists for all the weird letters online all over the place. On a Mac, press and hold the letter “u” until a little menu appears, then select “ü.”
Thanks for the tip. Never knew that. One less excuse now.