GOOD MORNING GMAIL!

A Babyonian greeting clay tablet was sent to St. Joseph on his death anniversay since no one was picking the phones in Bakal 2.

The front desk at the Manila airport lounge explained that they only have altar wine from the Sunday eulogy for the dead miners.

Outside the Techo airport, a chauffer flashed a signage announcing the sequestration of the 3rd Sunday of June.

On Father's Day, the lady cashier of a Khmer carinderia in Phnom Penh overcharged a solo lunch of grilled pork belly and boiled egg by $0.50.

An early morning Gmail ritual has preceded the daily basura rides but the dreaded bank notices did not come through, not yet, perhaps because the father-at-hand (AKA the Phantom Biker) had a door jamb updated through a payroll withdrawal that also paid for provisions of a renewed internship, not at the newly opened minimarket but for the replacement vehicle that was received with a housewarming and a sinadag.

Notebooks and jackets were prepared for inpress as the last visa was secured for the Phnom Penh Workshop, but what wil be the contract type, how will the confrontation conclude?

Daily Gmail checks punctuated catch-ups, a quickie from the Bali Workshop aborted project grants closure but spawned the Jakarta Assembly.

The bus driver serenaded Bulan with a birthday song from Munoz up to the Manila airport where 28 pairs of ice cream,  yogurt, beer, and wine were served. 

Gmail remained opened for the hawkers of the Chaktomuk Walk Street where fathers were treated with sweet meats, grilled fish, toasted bread, and lots of cold beer.

HOGWARTS RELIVED

This is the story of 6 angels and a mischievous imp, of dead cats marinated in formalin, beaus that came and went, and a frayed toothbrush in the back pocket that smelled of the BPI Enigma being escalated for mediation --- moments reminisced during a lunch of kare-kare, tiim na manok, and lumpiang sariwa at Lingap Kalikasan where once upon a time, a memory vomited Tanduay Rhum through his nose.   

It was unfortunate that the enthusiasm for a full reunion was hostaged by a petty domestic tiff whose intensity was measured by indicators of tinumis, kaldereta, and reheated lechon --- the prologue and epilogue for a compendium of impact stories and the procurements in Phnom Penh in response to the inquiries from Melbourne.

 

The acacia tree still stands, a Zen garden has sprouted from the seismic fractures of Room 305 where tilapia and carabaos are now raised for an aberrant ice cream that is sold at the Old Market --- a brand that will stay despite its relocation, an upgrade, and a post-evaluation angst that echoed from the walls of a diner in Munoz where the Water Boy from Bakal 2 supped on 3 cans of beer.   

 

Our Hogwarts predated Harry Potter by 6 years --- the Pensieve where memory strands from the last 36 years were revisited including the Phantom Biker's daily morning ritual of disposing trash on the way to the bazaar, to the Siever that now stands guard at the Main Gate near the place called Marketing where the ageless Polly Jacob holds court prior to the reenactment of a 1990 moment at the Admin that was celebrated with an ice cream-topped banana cake in Talavera. 

We are D'JARMMS and reliving us in Hogwarts concluded with Episode 5 in the shadows of a subterranean garage  where commuters traversing a cutoff road by-passed the community shopping mall for a direct route to a nature park and a legal counselling of the 3rd Degree.

THE BPI ENIGMA

Dear Bank of the Philippine Islands,

You should take down your slogan of "Building a better Philippines --- one family, one community at a time" because it does not reflect what your people actually do.

Pressuring me to pay 342,270.65 pesos of disputed credit card charges that I did not authorize, execute, and gained from despite plausible explanations, and premised on "archaic, and legally untenable adhesion clause" within your Terms and Conditions is a misanthropic, uncompassionate, and callous manisfesttion of your corporate parasitism that only reinforces the prevailing impression of banks being heartless corporate beasts.

I dispute, I depose, and I protest such inequity in the presence of Craftsmen and the Thursday Group.

This is gross injustice, a Strava glitch running over empty egg trays, an erronous water bill snatching a purple bag of provisions from the streets of Bakal 1 and Bakal 2 to evolve a final workshop and procurement in Phnom Penh into flavors of a reheated lumpiang shanghai, sweet pork barbecue, fried tilapia, and three interpretations of the pata.  

The evil shadow of thhis monstrous adversity stole the alleviating sense of relief from succesfully petitioning for reinforced concrete design, the approval of Year 5 goals, the resolution of a persistent reimbursement, and the confirmation of a hybrid work arrangement that got the inbox purged through the initiation of a consultancy extension and the clarification of indiators that will measure Swiss and Nordic donors.

I pray that the other bank will be easier and reassuring like a recent ultrasound result diagnosis that justified Friday's sinadag for a straightforward medical reimbursement submission to avoid the infamy of BPI,  a memory best forgotten and glossed with a surreal afternoon in the park one rainy Sunday afternoon in Zaragoza where the first episode was casted.

REPLACEMENT CARDS

A House of Cards shuffled 6 times was dealt through 8 seasons of the Outlander.

Thus was how the plastic replacement cards were activated --- through the conveyance of a final blueprint for the conceptualization of the future after a performance assessment and the definition of targets for the next 12 months under the patronage of San Geronimo.

Bills were settled partially and fully, bikes --- both motor and mechanical --- got fixed, accummulated  garbage disposed, the week's lotto bets placed in Baloc, but the stench of fraudulent transactions still linger at least for the next 10 or 45 banking days whatever is the case. 

Impact stories will be published in recycled notebooks and emblazoned in UV jackets.

Such will be the final procurement and disbursement of the last month, without the social protection of a confirmed budget, with the application of a couple of reactions, and the assistance of a shoe cobbler.

Leftover beer was paired with inihaw na hito, bones of adobong bibe and pinatisan piled after a visit to the dead, bingo cards were served in a nonagenarian birthday buffet on the day octogenarian music was played for the last time... 

CON AIR: THE AFTERMATH

A 10-headed monster goaded the Firedancers of Gabah to roast a primate for the solidarity dinner but the evil fire burned through fraudulent transactions instead to expose PAL's coded message that for a moment seemed like the triumph of righteousness over darkness.

Still, the acrid aftertaste of being conned lingered until it was finally drowned in a mountain of babi guling samsam, a bowl of delicate gulai kambing, 15 skewers of sate kambing, and a Tim Tam Slam.

Patterns then emerged from chaos to align themes and generate recommendations for multi-source feedbacks with red codified as an approved reallocation for Phnom Penh while olive green is a sanction for the Manila proposal --- the prerequisites for convening the Holy Trinity in Legian Beach for a a unified session on annual employee experiences. 

From the Island of Gods, a pouch of emails caught up at the Kingdom of Pee on a morning too early for the andrologist but just right for a first cut of next year's roadmap and the last remaining tiim na bibe in Bakal 2. 

On her exeligmos minus 33 days, budget constraints aligned with the beneficiaries of two impact stories from Santa Marta that were documented in a dozen Bintang cans and burning meat from an upper middle class warehouse club.   

In Alaminos, the sea breeze smelled of Japanese beer, Argentinian Malbec, and pinispisang kambing, a zephyr that pressed drunk early morning conversations into the crevice of the Old Scout Island's tiny beach where it echoed as a call to lunch for novice snorkelers who, after escaping from the suffocating throng at Pilgrimage Island, jumped from the cliffs off Marcos Island to harvest oysters that were steamed and and sold to the taklobo watchers at Governor's Island before the hurricane was unleashed from the walkway of Quezon Island. 

Then dinner in Binmaley after surviving a traffic jam at Sual, the incident aboard PR 538 obscured for the moment...

THE EXORCISM OF BALI 2023

In December 2023, a travel authority was tucked in 2 of what were supposed to be 3 luggages to fill the void created by an unexpected death in the family before Christmas, a haunting that lingered for almost three years begging to be exorcised. 

The dispossession of that sad memory finally occured in the 2nd week of May 2026 with a silent prayer to the deities of the Mehru Towers at Pura Taman Ayun requesting them to sanctify a procession through the beaches of Bali that culminated at the Gate of Heaven and the giant swings of Ubud.   

Pura Taman Ayun is a designated UNESCO World Heritage site that was first built in the 17th century "to worship the ancestral spirits of kings" of the Mengwi Kingdom. 

Being our first destination in 2023, it naturally was the first step of our own cleansing rite prior to the convening of a final preparatory meeting for the Bali Assembly. 

Our 2023 Bali holiday started with a walk to the Legian Beach, and concluded with beer, coconuts, and a setting sun at Kuta Beach before our return flight to Manila.

Thus in 2026, we revisited the chaotic maze of surf boards and a parade of g-string bikinis at Kuta and Legian that culminated in a debriefing of beer and coonuts in small tables with red plastic chairs as the sun burned off the waters of Seminyak Beach.  

The haunting of 2023 was fully exorcised at the Gate of Heaven --- the candi bentar that represents the boundary between the physical and spiritual realms.

That was the pinnacle of the ritual that reversed a 2023 exclusion and invoked the protection of the guardian of the east from its sanctuary in the Island of Gods, a catharsis that burnished grief with happy moments at the giant swings of Ubod. 

Bali is of course the land of babi guling, hot and spicy like that of Pak Malen's in Seminyak, subtle and mild like Ibu Oka's in Ubud. 

It is also about padang dinners at Sarimande Natrabu and Sanur Nusantara minus the happy hour cocktails and a firedance.  

So it was done.

The haunting of 2023 has been buried in the documentation of a stocktaking in preparation for annual reporting, the review and polishing of annual plans, and possible post-project scenarios. 

THE WEEKEND BETWEEN BALI

Then we got robbed, a surreal mid-air experience aboard PR 538 that stole the flavor of a complimentary champagne, a supernatural incident that the nubile servers and vocalist of Poblacion failed to banish. 

The palate did came through after walking through Ayala Avenue's car-free Sunday for a lonnganisa platter at the Legazpi Sunday Market that were presented in the luxurious buffet tables of the Vikings. 

As anticipated, the runaround strategy was applied by Philippine Airlines but the autogates of the I Gusta Ngurah Rai International Airport finally worked.