In the meantime, my life as an old man goes on much as it always has. Rainy season adds a twist of inconvenience, but that’s to be expected. Here’s a quick recap of how I dealt with yesterday:
There was the Sunday Sweets Stroll to start the day.
A guy I met during my trip to Bohol messaged to say he’s here in Barretto, so we got together at Harley’s on Baloy, where he is staying. As we were leaving the house, Swan asked if we should bring umbrellas. I looked up at the sky and determined that it would not be necessary. I was wrong about that. We had just exited the neighborhood when the skies opened up in a massive downpour. We took shelter under the roof of a sari-sari store and waited ten minutes or so for the rain to relent. We made it the rest of the way to Harley’s mostly dry, but we did have to engage in quite a bit of puddle-dodging.
Had a nice time chatting with Doug from Bohol. We are making tentative plans for a meet-up next month in Siargao.
Speaking of which, Swan and I will depart for Pundaquit tomorrow morning for our monthly get-out-of-town excursion.
After Harley’s, we had a pleasant visit to Jumpin’ Jacks for our nightcap. Then we were homeward bound. And so ended another day in paradise.
From Facebook memories, six years ago I shared one of my favorite passages from Ernest Hemingway:
It was all nothing, and a man was nothing, too…Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was nada y pues nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee…
–Ernest Hemingway “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”
Yeah, my nothing life is still better than nothing.
It is now October 2020 in the LTG archives. It took me a long time to find a post worthy of inclusion in “The Story of My Life.” Without the drama that comes with having a relationship, all the posts were about hiking and drinking. Hmm, that sounds familiar. Anyway, I did go on a rant about people taking advantage of my charitable nature. Such as it is. I’m still giving, but hopefully I’ve gotten a little smarter about it over the years.
In today’s YouTube video, a province-dwelling vlogger talks about his experiences that come with being the only foreigner in town. I wouldn’t like that lifestyle personally, but to each his own. I still encounter the “skin tax” issue, which is why I send Swan in to ask for prices while I stay out of sight.
Let’s get this bullshit out of the way:
And now it is time to prepare myself for another Hash Monday. The skies don’t look threatening at the moment, but as yesterday proved, you never know what’s brewing. Tell you all about how it goes tomorrow.
Re:video
I experienced living out in the boonies in Indonesia. Really enjoyed it, but was definitely ready to leave after a year. This was roughly 25 years ago, and home internet was pretty much non-existent along with cell phone coverage. So, read a lot and read some more. LOL. I did have a semi-regular nighttime ritual of going down to the guard house at the entrance of the housing complex and practicing Indonesian with the guard. Indonesian is easy enough that by the end of the job, I was semi conversational.
I had a car, but mainly used a bike to get to/from town. Never (at least knowingly) ran into the foreigner tax. But, being pretty much the only foreigner in town meant everybody knew who I was, even if I oftentimes had no clue who they were.
With connectivity being ubiquitous nowadays, I think it would be easier to do now. Who knows, maybe you would like it. LOL
Brian, nope, not the life for me. I like being amongst fellow expats and not standing out in the crowd. That said, I’m often greeted by name on my walks by people I don’t recognize. That freaks me out a bit. It’s also weird that so many of the trike drivers call me by name: “Going home, John?”
If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of work were you doing in the sticks of Thailand without internet?
At the time, I was in Indonesia, not Thailand. I was a technical advisor at an oil facility. I was seconded to Pertamina from my company. (Pertamina is the national oil company in Indonesia.) We had done some design work at that facility, so I was there to make sure that they pushed the right buttons and turned the right valves. LOL