Proud birthday girl! Donaiza turns 14.

8.15.23

Despedida

The word means "farewell" in Tagalog; it is also the word used to describe a going-away party. Krizza was to leave for Manila the next day, and so it was the right time to give her a despedida. She will spend the last year of her elementary school years with her school buddies in the capital living with her aunt and uncle, then, if the plan plays out, begin junior high next year living with us in Cabanatuan.

Krizza found three of the friends she has made staying in Cab City -- Donaiza Raguindin, Donaiza's cousin Frinz, and Raguindin family friend Jasper -- and with me driving and Glenda navigating we made our way to a street-eats place near our ultimate destination, Nery's Resort. At Ferdie Javier's we picked up helpings of beef kalderata, the pork blood stew dinuguan, a vegetable pinakbet, and of course a big mound of rice. Bags of chips, soda, and lychee fruit we had bought the previous day.

I've written a little about Nery's, mainly about its exotic animals, but I haven't written about the cute setup of this place. At its center, in the middle of a pond teeming with koi, is a restaurant on pylons. It has a large bar and is one of the most popular watering holes in the city. On the north and west shores of the pond there are long wooden verandas with tables and chairs, and beyond these verandas there are four swimming pools with water slides. Between the pools and beyond them the exotic animals hang out in various kinds of enclosures: ibis-looking birds (I don't think they are ibises), ostriches, macaques, two huge Burmese pythons, a crocodile . . . . The enclosures are kept admirably clean, and while I'm not a big fan of wild animals in cages, these seem to have relatively decent lives.

Ahhh. I'm on my back with my eyes closed, most of the time, when I'm in swimming pools. In the three Nery's pools without a roof, I existed in cool darkness when the sun was behind clouds, and in a warm purply darkness when the sun was not behind clouds. I love the feeling of weightlessness when I'm floating. The children took to the slides, then invented games in the water. It was only after we got home, after a long afternoon of food and fun, that I realized a pretty good sunburn was setting in! I'm not a moreno; really need to remember to get some sunblock for these resort visits.

Anyway, Krizza was treated to a good time; the next day, I drove her and her mother to the bus terminal. Glenda will stay three days in Manila buying Krizza's uniform and school supplies for both Krizza and Francis, also spending time with the three sisters who live in Manila. Pic dump now . . . .

8.10.23

Subic

The two-day stay in Olongapo on Subic Bay was a relaxing one for Glenda and me, and I think a fun one for Glenda's children, Krizza and Francis. The Mangrove Hotel, which still has marvelous breakfasts, sits on the shore of the bay, on the bottom of which lie strewn the remains of five Japanese warships sunk by American bombers in the closing months of WWII -- sadly, one of them, Oryoku Maru, was transporting American and British POWs, more than 300 of whom were lost in the sinking. The breakfasts were excellent, yes, but we did not eat them on the patio overlooking the bay as I had on my previous visit. The southwest monsoon, the prevailing wind in the rainy season, had been enhanced by the passing of Typhoon Egay to the north; the Mangrove Hotel sits at the foot of the bay, the bay points in a southwesterly direction, and during the hours of the "monsoon enhancement," great waves bashed and damaged the patio. We ate at the tables of the hotel bar.

Before returning to Cab City on Sunday, we visited Ocean Adventure on the Bataan Peninsula, which separates Subic Bay from Manila Bay and has it own very sad WWII story, this one involving American and Filipino POWs. At Ocean Adventure we took in Wild World, where a number of Philippine animals were introduced to the audience, their habitats and behaviors explained succinctly by a woman who appeared no older than a college student. The fruit bat that made two large circles around the auditorium was a big audience pleaser, but my own favorite was the Palawan bearcat, known to Filipinos as the binturong. It is about three feet long and looks like a longhaired cross between a bear and a squirrel. It has a grumpy demeanor (or was I imagining that?), is arboreal, and spent much of its time on a rafter directly above us; sorry, I couldn't get a decent shot of it! Well, after that presentation, we scooted over to Dolphin Friends and were treated to a fine show by four bottlenose dolphins and their handlers. The dolphin tricks you've all seen before on TV or Youtube, I imagine, if you haven't been to a live show. It really caught my attention, though, when a handler hopped high out of the water and onto the dock on the nose of his finny friend.

The road trip to and from Subic Bay was irritatingly time-consuming. This is because elections of barangay councilors and captains are coming up in October. The logic of the preceding two sentences will escape non-Filipinos, I'm guessing. So: when barangay elections roll around, incumbent barangay teams become eager to show their constituents how hard they are working for them. Barangay officials are responsible for road repairs: when elections approach, every three years, the earth movers and jackhammers come out. Part of our journey was on an expressway overseen by the Philippine government -- but only part; the rest of the route was on barangay-overseen roads, where long stretches, every few miles, were single-lane, because the other lane was being worked upon. Lordy. Long lines of cars waiting for other lines of cars to come through before a barangay subordinate decides to stop the ones coming through and give the ones waiting a chance to move on. The ordinarily three-hour trip each way took us five hours.

7.31.23

Climate and the Philippines

                   Philstar.com                                                                                       MSN

Egay scraped along Luzon's northern coast as a so-called "super typhoon" and was responsible for dozens of deaths. A typhoon behind Egay called Falcon (intl. name: Khanun) is heading northwest to the east of Luzon and is projected to barge into the Chinese mainland as a super typhoon in the vicinity of Fuzhou. What's a super typhoon? Basically, it's an F3 tornado whose diameter is 100 to 150 miles. To give you an idea what a super typhoon can do in the Philippines, back in 2013 Typhoon Yolanda (intl. name Haiyan), with sustained winds of 175 mph, struck directly the city of Tacloban, the capital of Leyte. US Marine Brigadier General Paul Kennedy, who managed the American part of an international aid effort, took a helicopter tour of the city not long after the storm, and was quoted as saying, "I don't believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way – every single building, every single house." The Philippine government put the official death toll at 6,201, but it is likely many more than that perished.

Over the past several decades, the severity of typhoons in the western Pacific has increased. And the reason for that, according to

Yuei-An Liou, a professor at the Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research at Taiwan’s National Central University, is global warming. He is certainly not alone. Climate scientists generally agree that while the ongoing warming of the oceans may not increase the frequency of circular storms, it is causing circular storms to become more intense. The warmer the sea surface temperature, the more enhanced the circulation: if cyclones are not becoming more frequent, super typhoons, with their severe threat to human life and property, are.

Cabanatuan City, where I live, is about as inland as one can be in the Philippines; moreover, the mighty Sierra Madres stand between me and the eastern shore of Luzon. Almost all typhoons come out of the east, and they are somewhat shredded by those mountains before they make it to the center of the island. I'm not overly worried for me or my loved ones here; but millions of Filipinos do live on east coasts of the islands, folks in the Central Cordillera often experience landslides in lengthy deluges, and when a typhoon stalls over the islands, severe flooding can be experienced by all. As typhoons become stronger, disastrous storm events are bound to increase in number.

It is apparent now that the goal of keeping the world's average temperature rising no more than 1.5 C will not be reached. Hotter times than that are coming, and they are not far away. Have you heard of "wet-bulb temperature"? This measurement determines the heat-stress felt by humans by combining the effects of humidity with those of temperature. It's simple to produce: slide a wet cloth over the bulb of a standard thermometer; evaporating water from the cloth will produce a cooler reading on the thermometer; but the higher the humidity, the less water will evaporate, and the higher the temperature reading will be. Scientists feel that a six-hour exposure to a wet-bulb temperature above 35 C (95 F) can be lethal to humans. (That would be, for example, a 40 c (104 F) air temp. with 75% humidity.) Wet bulb temperatures above 35 C are becoming more and more common in certain parts of the world: central India, Pakistan, Mexico, and the Philippines, to name a few. The Philippines almost always experiences high humidity: it has ocean all around it and ocean within it! And many parts of the country have experienced air temps above 40 C. As the air becomes warmer, medical emergencies among Filipinos without air conditioning will certainly rise -- and right now Filipinos without a/c greatly outnumber those with a/c.

It gets better. As land ice near the poles melts away, the sea level rises, of course. Conservative estimates place the rise of sea level by the end of this century at more than a meter. Did you know that I live in the most populous city in the Philippines above 30 or 40 meters in elevation? Cab City, my fair home on the Pampanga River, with well over 300,000 souls, is on average 52 meters above sea level. Now, if one takes into account only population, Cabanatuan ranks 24th. That is because nearly every city more populous than Cabanatuan is on the ocean! Sixty-five percent of Filipinos, or about 70 million, live on the coast. That conservative one-meter rise I mentioned does not take into account Thwaite's Glacier falling into the ocean, which it appears to be about to do, or the exponentiality of Greenland's big melt. A great deal of resettlement in these islands will need to happen in the coming decades, it seems.

I'll end with a phenomenon that may cause more immediate mayhem in the Philippines. As you might have heard, the "El Nino" side of the Pacific oscillation has begun, and this will cause weather changes around the globe. For the Philippines, the stronger the El Nino, the less rain will fall on these islands -- and meteorologists say this is sizing up to be a strong Nino indeed. The government is already publicizing its worries about agriculture, water levels in reservoirs, and hydroelectric output in the coming years.

Precarious, I would say, sums up the position of the Philippines, vis-a-vis the climate outlook. I'm not moving anytime soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature

https://eos.org/articles/typhoons-getting-stronger-making-landfall-more-often

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan

7.24.23

Near Miss, Visa Time, Subic in the Offing

Typhoon Egay (Int'l name: Doksuri) does seem scarily poised to do our fair island some serious damage -- but PAGASA is telling us only inhabitants of the farthest northern tip of Luzon have anything to prepare for. Even Grace and her family in Isabela Province seem to have dodged this one. There is an archipelago of small islands belonging to the Philippines north of Luzon, however. They are collectively known as Batanes, and they are home to about 19,000 people who are in for a very rough night and Tuesday morning, it seems. The whirlagig will go on to brush the southern tip of Taiwan before barging into the Chinese mainland near the city of Fuzhou, if the Ventusky model is correct.

Glenda, Kreeza, and I traveled to Palayan Friday morning to get my first visa after the hapless trip to the States in June. Foreigners are allowed to stay 30 days visa-free in the Philippines; after that 30 days one hops on the visa train. The first gets you a month, and each subsequent visa gets you two months before you must go back for another. It used to be six months between subsequent visas, but the new immigration office chief changed that to two for unknown reasons. If I were married to Glenda, permanent residency would be only a little paperwork away; that will not happen anytime soon, as I explained earlier. Anyway, Palayan is not far from us, and visas are not inordinately expensive.

Francis is up in Rizal because he needs to attend a summer school class (he considers this a tragic ordeal; Glenda and I consider his attending summer school a welcome lesson in itself, if it will prevent the youmg lad from slacking during the school year). Fortunately, there is no summer school on Fridays, and so Glenda and I have planned a weekend at Subic Bay. The four of us will stay at the Mangrove Hotel, the place at which Jheng, her family, and I had a very nice stay more than four years ago (see 4.26.19, Floor 1).  Breakfasts are marvelous at the Mangrove, and the hotel's location, at the foot of the bay, puts it only a short drive from all points of interest in Olongapo, the touristy main berg of Subic Bay. The weather on that western-facing shore will be iffy August 5-7, however; the southwest monsoon is active now, and PAGASA is not expecting it to diminish or go away anytime soon. Well, we can hope for the best, and there are indoor venues if it is rainy!

7.18.23

Rain

Well, of course: soon as I make note of the unusual dryness of this so-called rainy season, the heavens open up! For a fifth consecutive day we have rain, and some of it has been close to torrential. Francis caught a cold, Glenda caught his, and I caught Glenda's. Much coughing in our little household. The progression of this transmission, the similarity of the symptoms among us, and the fact that these symptoms are clearly dissimilar to those I experienced under Covid, all tell me that this is not a resurfacing of a coronavirus that is proving long-term, but simply a head cold. Son Bart worried it could be the former; I assured him it must be the latter.

There is an area of low pressure about 200 miles southeast of Mindanao that the Ventusky model says will be a typhoon over central Luzon in five days. Something to keep track of, but the slow movers' paths are often hard to forecast, so fickle can be their movements: nowhere near time to sound an alarm.

Krizza and Francis don't like to see me doing housework. Krizza has taken over the washing of dishes; Francis sweeps. Glenda keeps the bathroom clean, does clothes, and makes masarap (very tasty) dinners. I sometimes make omelettes or grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches, sometimes take clothing off the line, but my chores are diminished with the arrival of these energetic munchkins. Feeling a little pampered. Well, I am the driver of the family, and I drive legally now with my new Philippine license!

Aiza came back from the hopital a few days ago with a small bottle containing her appendix, and gladly received the get-well gift of cashews, smoked oysters, and Danish cookies from Glenda and me. Her daughter Adelle has befriended Kreeza and Francis, who spend a part of most days out in the compound with her . . . .  The Philippines has more of a "homey" feel to it than maybe it ever had for me.

7.9.23

Kreeza and Francis Join Us

The occasional afternoon thunder-boomer has become very occasional indeed. What happened to the rainy season? The Pampanga River is more like a stream, and hydroelectric dams across Luzon are operating at minimum capacity. Is this the result of the growing El Nino to the east of us? Is it due to the more pervasive effects of a warming earth? Whatever the cause, rainfall for June and July in the northern half of Luzon, as characterized by PAGASA (the national weather bureau), is "way below normal."

Yep, Kreeza, 11, and Francis, 7, are now a part of our household

here in Barangay Bitas, Cab City. School let out in the first

week of July: Kreeza came up from Manila and Francis came

down from Rizal. Glenda's children are well-behaved and

considerate of old dudes like myself, I'm happy to say. Aiza

generously offered one of the bedrooms upstairs, and the kids are

now well-ensconced in the old manse.

Yesterday we decided to swim -- but Kreeza had not brought swim

clothes from Manila! So we decided to try a new resort north of Rizal

and stop off at the homestead to pick up swimming gear stored there.

We were held up in stop-and-stop traffic south of the bridge over the

Pampanga, and it was soon evident that a lane over the bridge had 

been shut down. I pulled a ewey and headed for the public market,

where we found a suit for Kreeza; then we went to the local Nery's

Resort, where we cavorted in the water for hours. We had packed a

loaf of bread, nutella, peanut butter, and a large bag of chips, which

we enjoyed during a break in our cavorting.

Aiza, the wife of Don-Don, is recovering in the hospital after surgery this morning, by the way. The pain in her side did not go away: it

was appendicitis, and of course that pesky, obsolete organ had to be removed. We'll find out when she's due to return today and buy her

some delicacies for her homecoming. In other news, I bought for the homestead in Rizal a fruit-picker: a 5-meter collapsible pole with

a basket on the end sporting a crenallated rim. Was relieved to see the contraption quickly put together by Glenda (I had failed in my

one attempt) and then put to use in Rizal. And now the four mango trees on the Torres property will be disburdened of their fruit more easily and safely than before!

6.30.23

Hello Cab City, Goodbye for Now, Glenda

Sorry to have let so much time go by before adding here. Considered myself fairly impervious to jet lag: give me 24 hours after landing and I snap into the new time scheme. Not so this time, though: for nearly a week I was waking three or four times during the night and felt generally groggy during the day. An after-effect of the bout with Covid? Don't know about that, but the nights are giving me uninterrupted sleep and sharp-minded (well, for me) days, now.

Of course, the trip was a disappointment. Finally tested negative for

Covid on the third-to-last day of my stay. On the second-to-last day, 

Bart dropped me off at Jeff and Anna's house -- Bart was still testing

positive -- and I spent the afternoon with my other son and his family,

observing social distancing. My granddaughter is babbling up a storm

and was very happy to see her Yeye in the flesh (Yeye is the Chinese

name of a grandfather on the father's side).

And about twenty people I had wanted to see during my stay were not

seen, thanks to a virus I had considered "no longer a big deal." Well, 

neither Bart nor I had a serious case, something for which I'm thankful,

and Bart is now testing negative and without symptoms.. Hopefully we

are tougher now against coronavirus, too, immunologically speaking.

Drove Glenda to the terminal this morning: it is sister Jenny's birthday, and Glenda will spend a few days with the Torres crew who live in Manila, before heading back to Cabanatuan with her daughter Kreeza. Kreeza will stay with us during her summer break and, fingers crossed, will become good buds with Adelle, the youngest of our landlords, who is just her age. Till their arrival, it'll be just me, Phoebe, and Sophie for a while . . . .

6.15.23

That Was Unexpected

For the past week and a half I've been waking to the calls of a mourning dove. I've tasted crunchy bagels with everything, butter walnut ice cream, and son Bart's remarkably good baked ziti. It's downright chilly here in Massachusetts, which I find fascinating.

And the trip, so far, has been a disaster. My second day here I felt under the weather and attributed it to the long plane flight. Was going to see my granddaughter soon, though, and seeing that my son Bart, with whom I am staying, had a leftover test kit for Covid, I proposed to test myself for the virus. It flagged a positive. We went out to get more test kits. Positive, positive. And I was feeling worse: cough, headache, fever, tummy trouble. I had Covid. The next day Bart started coming down with symptoms. And the two of us have stayed holed up in Bart's two-bedroom apartment since that time.

Contacted all the people with whom I had planned get-togethers: one brother's family, the other brother on Nantucket, my aunt in Chatham, an old friend, a former teaching colleague at Northeastern. Gave up on the idea of surprising former teaching colleagues at LHS during department meetings. Bart is about as good company as one can have during such a situation, in addition to being a very good cook. It smarted when he started showing symptoms, but Bart is wholly unfazed. He earned a PhD studying infectious diseases and his contraction of this from an unknowing source came as a matter of course, he assured me. It is mild Covid -- for me, four ugly days and one bad day -- and Bart's bout with it seems no worse. Now I've been without symptoms for four days, but a test taken last night still came back positive. My granddaughter may yet see me -- during the last day or two of my stay.

                                                                                                I do look the sourpuss. Will have to practice smiling.

6.5.23

Up, Up, and Away . . .

Reader, I'll be in Seoul in a few hours; from there on to Boston, to stay with family for a couple of weeks. Will be back to the islands soon! 

** Groceries for two people, here in Cab City, come to about $50 per week, and if I weren't something of a dairy freak the amount would be closing in on $40. "Foreign" cheese is my weakness. Three supermarkets now carry decent havarti, and cheddar and feta are generally available.

** With regard to driving in the Philippines: when someone flashes his lights at you, it means "I'm coming through!" In the U.S. the flashing of lights, at least in the northeast, is a signal that you will yield to the other driver. In my first weeks behind the wheel here, some time back, this difference in signaling almost got me into serious trouble a couple of times. I'm pretty much used to it now, and have even done some of my own flashing.

** Jheng's young Janniah certainly is affliction-prone. Today a lengthy stomach ache became so painful that mom took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with gastritis (inflammation of the stomach lining). She'll be on drugs for two weeks, and she'll have a follow-up examination next week.

** The tropics are becoming lively, weather-wise. Super Typhoon Betty (int'l name: Mawar) has been heading west, and its latitude is that of central Luzon. Wind gusts over 150mph, what one expects of a super typhoon, but no, we're not battening down the hatches here: all models have it making a right turn soon. It'll bring wind and rain to northern Luzon as it brushes Luzon's northeastern tip before threatening Taiwan and Japan.

** I have a granddaughter who is becoming more and more conversational, I've been delighted to see in my weekly video meets with my sons. In a little more than a week I'll be seeing her in person: that will be so much more delightful. Sons, brothers, daughter-in-law, ex-wife, other relatives, friends: it will be great to see you too. Glenda can hold the fort for the two and a half weeks I'm gone. It's time to be a New Englander in New England once again.

                                                         Phoebe and Sophie, one recent morning.

5.15.23

Dark Musings

Maybe I should be spending more time doing good Americano deeds about town, swimming in swimming pools, reading this Dickens tome, listening to history podcasts. I'm a news junkie first, however. And the news has not been good recently. The caca seems to be getting closer and closer to the fan, both in my native country (Trump's "American carnage" never existed, but the Republican front-runner seems intent on inciting something like carnage these days) and internationally. Beyond America's borders, a nuclear power, Pakistan, is falling apart at the seams, politically. Stymied in Ukraine, Putin may well turn to his stockpiles of WMDs. China is growing more and more pugnacious in the South China Sea, and is itching to bring long-lost Taiwan into the communist fold. The U.S. would likely intervene militarily, should the Chinese army invade or blocade Taiwan, and I guess if that should happen the new U.S. bases in the Philippines would become fair game for the Chinese. None of those bases is close to me, but the Philippine base of Fort Magsaysay, here in Cab City, does occasionally host American army personnel for joint exercises . . . .

In large swaths of West and Central Africa, as well as in Somalia, famine is setting in, thanks to crop failures. interdicted grain shipments, and civil strife. The gang problem in Haiti has caused food to become scarce there. And climate change? Its tangible effects have been with us for years, but carbon emissions have not yet been decreased; their increase has been slowed, merely, despite the brave "commitments" of national leaders. Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is about to fall into the ocean, and the melting of Greenland's icecap has gone into hyper-drive. Ice-melt with its attendant sea-level rise is just one tipping point of several involving climate change, as you probably know.

. . . Sorry about that. I just had a mango, and I'm feeling a little rosier. It just seems like, for members of our species, decisive action is taken only when catastrophe is upon us, resulting in actions that do not have desired results, or actions that are ineffectual, or actions that are disastrous. Couple that quality with nationalistic greed, or domestic political greed, seems nothing good can happen.

I'm well; Glenda has a cold, and I'm monitoring her for fever. It's something of a relief to finally be the nurser rather than the nursed. The Intertropical Convergence Zone (highfalutin term) is slipping north toward the Philippines, and wet weather is more common now. For the past week, isolated thunderstorms, in the late afternoon and evening, have been traveling southwest to northeast up the Central Luzon plain. So occasionally Cabsy gets dowsed, its residents becoming cringy at the ratapallax of close lightning strikes. The air seems so clean after a thunderstorm; I wonder why that is so.

5.5.23

The Crystal Waves Resort

Unable to find a private resort that hadn't already been booked for the 4th, The Day of No Electricity, Jheng suggested the BL Resort, which is near both of us. She second-guessed herself, and it's a good thing she did, for later she learned from a friend that the BL was crammed with people yesterday. She suggested we go instead to Crystal Waves in Talavera, the city just north of Cabanatuan. After cold-water baths, Glenda and I headed for the duplex at 9am. I'd purchased flotation toys and a pump at the mall the day before, which Janiah and Aaron were glad to see as they tumbled into the third-row seats of the Avanza. Mama Luz and I sat in the second row, baby Arsean on Luz's lap. Zheng drove with Glenda beside her. Sometimes trailing us, sometimes zooming past us, Arsean's parents, Sean and Zheng's sister Mariel, traveled by motorcycle. Upon arriving at the resort, we  encountered kind and accomodating resort staff; a trolley cart pushed by a staff member transported our large pile of belongings to our cabana (I tipped the guy P50). And the place was no more expensive than the BL; the cabana rental was P600 (less than $12) and the entry fee was P100 per person (yes, less than $2).

No more expensive, but Crystal Waves had something that the BL did not have: a remarkably large pool with a wave-making machine. Every two hours, the wave machine would run for a half hour, causing three-foot swells in the deep end that gradually dissipated in the fan-shaped shallow section of the pool. Mama Luz had made a large pancit dish and a huge pot of rice; we had stopped at one of the few open rotisserie joints in Cabanatuan to buy three chickens and a large helping of sisig. Some started right in on the food, and some took a dip first. The water was 24 or 25C, ideal.

For most of the 8 or so hours we stayed at Crystal Waves, I was in the water. In the first two or three hours the sun was strong, so I wore a visored cap; then a bank of clouds moved in. Was the only anglo there, and many people, especially young people, waded or swam over to try out their English and make my acquaintance, find out where I came from, how long I had stayed in the Philippines, etc. In the second half of our time at the Waves, whenever I left the water to spend time in the cabana, it was in part to rest facial muscles from all the smiling I felt compelled to do in this socializing with strangers.

In their first extended time together, Glenda and Jheng got along fine together. I had explained to Glenda that Jheng was through with men, but that we were still friends, and that her family felt like my Filipino family. Glenda acted a little distant at first but by afternoon was conversing self-assuredly with Javiers and playing  peek-a-boo games with baby Seany. Jheng, for her part, is happy I found a companion/helper/friend.

P I C   D u M P

4.29.23

"There Will Be No Electricity in Cabanatuan City . . ."

On May 4, every barangay in old Cab City will be without the juice between 6am and 6pm, due to "scheduled maintenance operations." Luzon's grid, the other grids of the country as well, rely on large, old, centralized fossil fuel power plants that can't seem to keep up with rising consumer demand. Moreover, wiring above the streets of Cabanatuan and other Philippine cities is haphazard, with many low-hanging and dangling wires. The revamping of plants and tending to faulty wiring require a yearly -- or in some places semiannual -- "day without electricity" during which most businesses cannot operate and many workers cannot earn pay. It's a problem the nearly year-old Marcos administration is beginning to tackle, and I wish them luck with it.

After learning of the upcoming day without power, I texted Jheng and asked her if she could reserve for us one of the private resorts in the area for May 4. These private resorts can be rented for a day for between P3K and P10K, which is within my means, and I could give the Javiers, Glenda, and myself the luxury of a private pool and a shaded cooking area for the day. And I could ask the Raguindins to join us. But no beans: Jheng texted the next day that all the private resorts seemed to be already booked for May 4. She suggested we go to the BL public resort, which has apparently added a third pool, olympic-sized, and which is pricier than most resorts and so may not have a large crowd. That is now the plan. We'll arrive at the BL early on the 4th and stake out one of the family cabanas. If the place is overcrowded when we arrive, we may drive for an hour north to San Jose City and camp out at a resort there.

4.22.23

Pig Food

. . . was our mission today. We headed up the Maharlika to the Rizal road. Riding over the river bridge, I noted that I had never before seen the Pampanga so low. Farmers must be feeling this very dry stretch. The inside of my nose cleared up after three or four days of antibiotics. Then came the ear infections. Awoke with sharp pain in the left ear one morning; on the same day I had a checkup with Dr. Claudio, my ENT doc, so I asked him to check the ear and he confirmed it was infected. Had had visions of a large needle being plunged into my ear to extract bright yellow fluid (such was my fate many years ago when I had an infected ear), but young Dr. Claudio said no, that is a procedure when the infection is below the eardrum, but my infection was above the eardrum, and a regimen of antibiotic eardrops was all that was needed. Glenda aimed the drops carefully, and after a few days the pain was gone -- at just about the time my right ear began to feel sensitive. Back to Doc Claudio, who was more than a little surprised. I was taking it in stride, though, convinced what I had was nothing less than a "general uprising of the face," and that multiple battles would have to be fought before the foe was vanquished.

Glenda and I spent a lazy hour with members of the Torres family sitting in the shade outside the sari-sari store. Joy-Joy and her antics were the center of attention. A lady selling fresh produce came by, and we bought some eggplant and garlic. The local numbers runner came by, and Novi and Glenda each bought a ticket. One of Glenda's aunties was paring palm fronds into long slivers with a sharp knife. Glenda asked me if I knew what she was making and I said I had no idea. Then Glenda pointed at one of those curious whisk brooms that every Filipino family seems to have . . . .  Ahhh. Okay.

4.13.23

Jeez Louise

Holy week was fun. Got to bond a little with Glenda's daughter, broke bread with Glenda's family. Was going to travel to the west coast (Pangasinan) with much of the family when I began feeling embarrassingly under the weather, so I handed over the Avanza keys to the boisterous Bong, who has a license, and received updates on their adventure from home.

Sorry about the long time away folks; I've spent the last week dealing with folliculitis up both of my nostrils. It became infected, and Glenda rang up the clinic at the mall to find out when the ENT guy would be in. Next day I went in and was relieved when I was told it was not shingles, my self-diagnosis. The ugliness and pain were due to a rebellion of hair follicles in both nostrils. Imagine chickenpox up the nose. I had sensitivity in my ears so had them checked as well by the good doctor. Impactions of dry ear wax up against both drums. Oy. So I'm treating the nostrils with a saline solution, taking clindamycin for the infection, and dropping docusate sodium in both ears twice a day to soften up the wax so that the doctor can dig it out when I see him next. Have been feeling old and very unwriterly recently.

A strong low pressure system will be moving over central Luzon tonight and tomorrow, and we'll be seeing our first steady rain in weeks. Before the follicular debacle, Glenda and I paid  a couple of visits to a local resort that contains quite a menagerie: a crocodile, two huge boas, ostriches, macaques, exotic poultry . . . . In lieu of writing more, let me treat you to some of the pics.

3.30.23

The Summertime

In the summertime, Phlipside, one feels sorry for the folks who have to work outdoors. One feels sorry for the many families that cannot afford air conditioning. Today's high will be 36C (97F), and for the next week the projection is for high 90's each day. The time just before the rains arrive in June is generally the worst -- I'll start looking for a pet-friendly place in Baguio so that Glenda, the kids, the cats, and I can have a respite for a few days in the mountains, away from sea-level swelter. Read somewhere that the all-time high for Baguio is 29C (84F). At the start of this school year, due to time missed during the pandemic, the government expanded the school year all the way to July 7, eradicating the customary April-May vacation for one year. Educators and a few senators have recently raised a major fuss about the change, though, arguing that school days at the height of summer would be torturous and unhealthy for teachers and students alike, so it looks like the April-May break will be reinstated. I'll just wait until a decision is finalized before booking in the mountains.

Glenda and I yesterday picked up a rotisserie chicken and headed over to the BL Resort where we dallied about in the water and had San Miguel Pilsner with our repast. Worried about the kittens, we made for home after only two or three hours there. Sophie and Phoebe were just fine, of course. The clothes basket is their favorite place to hang out, and, despite occasional slip-ups by Sophie, they have both learned to use the litter box. In case you've been wondering, I haven't smoked a cigarette for more than two weeks. The urge still occasionally comes; am pretty sure I've convinced myself that I'm bigger than the urge.

In a few days Glenda and I will ferry the part of her family living in Manila back to Rizal for Holy Week. We'll spend one night at the hotel we used last time, and after we drop off the sisters and their partners at the homestead we'll drive back to Cab City with Glenda's daughter Krizza, who'll spend the week with us. Well, I guess we'll spend many of our days in Rizal; Krizza will spend nights with us, it is more accurate to say. Should prove to be a busy time!

3.21.23

More River Dipping

More than 220,000 American expats live in the Philippines, and expats from Australia, New Zealand, and western European countries are here in abundance, too. They tend to be men, they tend to be older individuals, they tend to be widowers or from failed marriages, and they tend to remain single here not for long. The stigma against old-young relationships is not nearly as strong here as it is in most western countries, and many a white gray-beard has found companionship with a Filipina who may be no older than his own children. Such is my case, reader. It is probable that the outlawing of abortion and the social taboo againt contraception play a role in the great coming togather of older expats and younger Filipinas: there are more husbandless mothers here than there are in most countries, women looking for the kind of financial security that a western pension brings.

My problem is that the woman I fell for, and the woman who fell for me, is not husbandless. The man Glenda married, who currently lives in Rizal, is no longer a part of her life, but his presence does put something of a crimp in our lives. Until quite recently, divorce was impossible in the Philippines; now it is possible (they prefer the term "annulment" here), but the process takes 2 to 4 years and costs anywhere from P200,000 to P600,000. This is no small amount, even when translated to American dollars. We are in a holding pattern for now. Glenda's Krizza and perhaps Francis will join us once school is let out for summer break; there is time for us to mull over our situation together.

A couple of days ago we went to Rizal, picked up Glenda's parents, Novi (not Nobe) and Joy-Joy, JM, and a cousin named Adwin, and set out for the upper reaches of the Pampanga River in a town called Laur. The mayor there had set up a "bamboo village" along the shores of the river to please the masses on holiday, and, frankly, to make a buck. The bamboo shanties were all rented out by the time we arrived; we were sold the use of a table for P400. It was a fun time, though! We ate rotisserie chicken and a pancit that Glenda had prepared, then moved to the riverside. The water was refreshingly cool, the geology was interesting, and many people were interested in me! Western expats on Luzon are mainly in Manila and up and down the west coast; here in the east, away from Cab City and Baler, we are a rarity, and folks in the river wanted to know where I came from, what I thought of the Philippines, etc. Children especially came over to practice their English and listen to my halting Tagalog.

I neglected to bring the sun screen, and my face and arms were quite red the next day -- but it wasn't a bad burn, and the fun time with Glenda and her family was more than worth it.

My parents smoked, and I started the habit when I was sixteen. For a few years in my mid-twenties and a few months in my early forties I got off of them: both times I came up a backslider. My time in the Philippines has more encouraged than inhibited the habit: each pack had a troubling photo, but each U.S. brand pack cost me about 1/5 of what it would cost in the U.S. Glenda as soon as she came to live with me worked with me to reduce my smoking. I was down to eight butts a day when, last week, I came down with bronchitis.

With Glenda I went to the respiratory/pulmonary specialist I had brought James to see two years ago when James came down with TB. He checked me out, said I was a good candidate for COPD, sent me to labs for a chest x-ray and a blood workup. Knew what it was, but I let them do their pricking and picture-taking. Dr. Ramos gave me a script for an antibiotic and a beta-blocker. The beta-blocker I discontinued not long after it kicked in: have you ever before taken a beta-blocker? They are not for me.

And now the coughing is greatly diminished and the throat feels fine. It is my fourth day without cigarettes; I'm sucking on five or six pieces of Nicorette per day.  When the psychological part of the smoking addiction has departed, I'll slowly wean myself off the nicotine gum, as I've done before. But no backsliding this time.

We are slipping into summer, which in the Philippines consists of the three months before the rains start in June. Noticed the afternoon highs in Cabanatuan for the next week will be between 33 and 37C (93 and 98F), which is toastier than it's been for months here. Back in Massachusetts, the high school at which I taught for eighteen years had a snow day yesterday and a late opening today. Well, crocuses and daffodillies are on their way, teaching buddies: hang in there!

3.6.23

March Days

My landlord Don-don's older brother had a stroke at the age of 46 several days ago, and died soon after in the hospital; his embalmed body lay a few feet beyond my door for three days before it was moved to another relative's home in Barangay Masyapyap for another three days, prior to the graveside service and burial. It is the custom in the Philippines to keep departed loved ones in a coffin with a glass lid for a week, so that family members, friends, and acquaintances can all pay their last respects. I had not known the man; his relative youth struck me each time I passed his coffin. A teaching friend of mine at LHS had passed away suddenly due to a stroke ten or so years ago, at the age of 28; I ducked her funeral, realizing that I would almost certainly start bawling during it.

On Brad and Glenda's to-do list? I'm to have a general checkup at the clinic on Thursday. Have had tummy trouble recently and a strangely inflamed lymph node. Glenda is to get a student license so that she can be enrolled in a driving school. She has mixed feelings about driving -- who wouldn't in a country with roads like the Maharlika? -- but has resigned herself to being peripatetic on four wheels.

Five days to get an aching tooth attended to. "Filipino time" is not a term coined by aggravated white Northerners afflicted with the time-neurosis common to white Northerners. Rather, Filipinos came up with the term to help them explain their mindset and way of life to time-enslaved outsiders. Simply, it can take a long time to get things done here. A bus scheduled to depart at 7am leaving the terminal at 7:45. An entire morning to register for school. Hours of waiting past the appointment time to get a vaccination booster shot. You get what I mean. And if you're a Facebook buddy back in Massachusetts, these are things that can get your dander up, aren't they? On several occasions during my first months phlipside, my dander was floating way above my head! I'm over that, now. Well, for the most part.

Yesterday it was time for me to get a new prescription for a blood pressure med (I'm on the lowest dose, and my bp has been fine for years). Gave myself a whole afternoon to get the script and buy the drug. Traffic was as bad as it usually is, or maybe a little worse. On my way to the third-level medical clinic at the SM Mall, I stopped off at the second-level National Bookstore and bought two by George Orwell which I hadn't read before, Homage to Catalonia and Down and Out in Paris and London. Checked in at the clinic, expecting a nice read before I could be seen. Was on page 5 of Homage when a nurse informed me the doctor would see me. Got my 6-month script, paid the cashier, and headed for the car. At the largest Mercury Drug on the Maharlika, there was no line, and they had my drug in stock! And so I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself back in my digs after having been gone for only a little more than an hour.

It's hard to plan around Filipino time. It fluctuates, you see.

2.13.23

A Night in Baler

Glenda was brought up beside a sprawling rice field in a rural southern barangay of Rizal. Have visited the family homestead five or six times in the couple of months that I've known Glenda, and I've grown fond of the place. A breeze often blows in from the wide open rice field. Papayas, bananas, mangos, and limes grow on the property; there are two pigs, a large gaggle of geese and goslings, hens, and a rooster. Scarlet, Bruce, and Can-Can are the family dogs.

Could I live happily here? I think so. 

But I came to the editing site to write about the Torres family trip to Baler (pronounced Bah-LAIR) and the calamity that befell me there. Am typing this with a large abrasion on my forehead, a black eye, and a badly skinned knee, you see. It's what happens when a man in his sixties tries to keep up with men in their twenties and thirties during a night of carousing. Don't worry, Glenda is proving to be an admirable nurse: I'll pull through.

The food, after a morning with little eating, was delicious. After this late lunch the two liters of whiskey and small bottle of gin I had hunted down and bought earlier were broken out -- whiskey for the young men and gin for myself. Mario, who is my age, wisely declined; Glenda took an occasional nog of the whiskey. The sun slowly lowered over the vast island of Luzon behind us. At dusk we walked across the street to the breakwater and down stairs to the beach, all of us in varying states of inebriation. We made for the ocean. Baler is known as the surfing capital of the Philippines: the long fetch of the Pacific Ocean, combined with extensive shallows off the coast, makes for tall and powerful waves. And so one doesn't swim from the beaches of Baler; one gets knocked around by massive foamy waves! There is no use swimming beyond them: steep swells are found far from shore. We all laughed as the waves had their fun with us, and we stayed in the water until it was dark.

Walking into Charlie's Point, I noticed that though I had cleaned the sand off my feet, there was sand in my hair. A quick dip would take care of that. I bounded up the steps to the pool, not realizing the stairs were slippery, and quickly enough found myself prone and bloody at the foot of the stairs. I was immediately surrounded by Torreses. The attention and care they gave me, the heart they showed, were truly gratifying. No, I didn't need a hospital; I was just banged up a bit. No, I'll be fine. Mark Kevin applied an antisepsis. I'll be fine.

The next morning we all sat on the breakwater watching the surfers duck and weave far offshore, and watching the surfing lessons closer to the beach. My face, in the daylight, was closely examined by more than one Torres. We started back over the mountain road at about 10am.

Since the painful face-plant by the pool, Glenda has brought up the subject of lifestyle changes with me more than once. And she has good points. Yes, good points.