The Friday group hike turned out to be more of an adventure than I anticipated. There were only four of us in attendance, so I led the group. My plan was to walk out through the Naugsol valley, then up the hill where the Virgin Mary statue is located, and finish on Rizal Extension. Except not much went according to plan. The valley road was flooded, which is unusual for this time of year. Finding a workaround proved more challenging than anticipated, but we eventually did find the intended path again and began our climb upwards. Except somewhere on the way up, we took a wrong turn. We found ourselves on the wrong side of a fence but eventually managed to make our escape.
Did the long march down Rizal Extension and then stopped in at Pugon Corner for a grilled meat lunch.
I’ll share the hike photos at the end of this post.
Another nice SOB last night. Wet Spot is probably the largest venue, and the place was packed; I didn’t see an empty seat. The people sitting around me were strangers but friendly. Introductions were made, and it turns out that they are all Alta Vista residents. The guy sitting next to me will actually be a next-door neighbor when I make the move to the Blue House in March.
I was lamenting not having a drinking partner for the show last night. Joy from Alaska came in and said hello, but it quickly became apparent that she already had a drink buddy lined up. As I sat there stewing in my loneliness, the Wet Spot dancers (the regular ones, not the competition team) came off the stage. One of them said, “Hello, John,” as she passed by my table. I didn’t recognize her, but damn, it seemed like the bar gods were interceding on my behalf, so I jumped up and went in search of this mystery woman. I was very surprised to see it was Aine, a gal I hadn’t seen in the bar for a couple of months.
I brought her back to my table and plied her with drinks while asking what happened to the man who “rescued” her from the bar earlier this year. Aine said he had taken her to Singapore, and after living there for two months, they returned to Manila. She said she left him because he was “crazy.” I responded in my usual caring fashion, “so are you.” She just laughed. Anyway, it was good to see her again and share an evening together.
I chose not to go to the Aftermath event, and as I made my way up the highway, I encountered Jerry, the owner of Alaska Club. When he asked where I was going, what could I say except, “Alaska, of course.” Word on the street is that he hired several new dancers, so I needed to check out the scenery anyway.
I was the only customer when I arrived, so I got my pick of the litter. I liked the cut of this one’s jib:
Shortly after I arrived, a group of big spenders came in and took the remaining dancers off the stage for drinks. I had good timing for a change. It was past my bedtime, and I was in danger of exceeding my drinking capacity, so I paid my tab, tipped the girls, and caught a trike home. Not a bad Friday night, all in all.
To those hiking photos, then:
It turned out to be quite the adventure, but at least we didn’t get bored.
You can Relive it here if you like that kind of thing:
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange A walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.
Oh, and the cole slaw had raisins in it, just the way my mama used to make it.
Weirdos. All y’all’s weirdos.
Nice pics. Good hike, good barbecue. And chance meetings in the middle of nowhere can be a happy happenstance or a spooky coincidence.
I was going to ding you about your use of the word “berm,” but after a bit of cover-your-ass research (don’t go correcting people if you yourself are wrong), it seems that your usage might be okay. I’d still argue that berms are generally much bigger than those walkways, and based on the research I did, most folks would say that, technically, those walkways are called levees. But I still saw evidence of other people referring to those paths as “berms,” so as far as I’m concerned, you’re off the hook.
In my normal line of work, we deal with usage-related questions all the time, so researching “berm” felt like an extension of what I normally do.
You know, it’s funny because I considered “levee” first but didn’t think the elevated strips in the rice field qualified. The levees I’ve seen were these huge structures controlling the water flow in a river. I even remembered a Led Zepplin tune called “When the levee breaks”:
If it keeps on raining, the levee’s going to break
If it keeps on raining, the levee’s going to break
When the levee breaks, we’ll have no place to stay
Anyway, berm felt right at the time, and I’m glad that it can be used in that context without being completely wrong. I just did a quick search to see if I could find a better word than levee or berm, and all I saw was “dike” which doesn’t sound right somehow either.
I am with John on this one. I have always thought of a “berm” as something rather small, while a “levee” seems to be on a larger scale. :shrug
It’s all about context; I’ll levy you that.