A VISA PARADOX

A decameron at least.

That is the required number of days in applying for a non-immigrant visa for Thailand.

It was chaos until finally, the online payment button was discerned by The Ironman while engaged in the apprehension of Ted Kaczynski amidst a slew of emailed correspondence.

But in lieu of a visa, 10 bottles of ice cold beer crushed an Entered Apprentice's frozen slices of salmon sashimi instead.

The decameron looms.

A champion emerged in the podium of Comparative Bid Analysis to qualify for a substance screening and an outline review. 

But the entry permit remains in limbo, an eerieness that spooked the weekly catch-ups, scary enough to resurrect a lost driver's license --- rabies-free and decorated with a refrigerated bunch of grapes and reheated litsong manok bathing in a cup of kinamatisang kalabaw and a saucer of menudo that were imbued with the gaminess of carinderia dinakdakan and kilaweng kambing. 

The Royal Thai Embassy acknowledged payment made, enough assurance for the The Phantom Biker to keep to his morning routine of clandestine disposals and provisioning for the evenings.  

A scandal of Korean nipples and butts packed printed travel documents in a 2-page note about the ritual of the First Degree.

For the first time, breakfast at the San Lorenzo Sunday Market tasted of uncertainty.

Yet we walked on along car-free Ayala Avenue where I lose my thoughts counting joggers with the sexiest outfit and those with the darkest armpits. 

It may be a tough call, chewy like the casing of New York-style hotdogs at Paseo de Roxas.

But when life is pelted with lemons, have a ramen feast and that's what we did before checking in my Philippine departure and Thai arrival cards...

POST-HABAGAT LIMERICKS

Fiery and dark, the god of wind and rain got extinguished
Dry and trampled, in the pavement of Ayala it lay vanquished

Sunday Markets applaud its extinction 

Whores came out for mass in Poblacion

Age is a fine wine but not Chava whose beauty time has ravished

The Phantom Biker purge daily wastes from the inbox

Slags, a trimestral conversation spiced with clever angst

A willowy seller, a lanky barber 

Chained, wheeled like clingy lovers

Visions of the age of AI conjured from a routine podcast  

Three champions emerged from the jungle of the fourth round

Victors of a fortnightly learning that weigh less than a pound

Bangkok booked for departures

Emails for the oculist in Melbourne

The Ironman counted hours and planted stubs all around

Charred marinated chicken devoured by a red horse in a hotdog

A final payment and the second disputed account is flogged
An extension card misspelled 

One application reactivated

Old pussy flicking the bean like a downstairs DJ on the phone 

THE DELEGATION

There were the usual Docusign requests and a couple of sign-offs.

The delegation to the Bretton Woods annual meeting in Bangkok was finalized but I'll be representing in September instead of October as a possible pink badge pulled me closer to Anatolya, a consolation for missing a workshop in Singapore that could have spiced up a boring regional meeting. 

The assigned collection agency was relentless but I've made my last payment and they will get nothing because Killing Eve during an Interview with the Vampire detonated Macondo.

A loan was remitted and brunch, as assigned to the boys, turned out to be chewy French lamb shank, delicate Hainanese chicken, and tender American roast beef.

Dissecting critical mineral in Singapore and performance tracking dcumentation were delegated; an updated budget, a draft contract amendment, and a self-service ticket to fix broken interactive forms were conveyed as requested; the ASEAN mission was expounded and exploratory impact stories conceived; instructions for a team building were deployed.    

Through all that, the Monday meetings were spiced with crunchy dilis that smelled like fried tilapia stuffed with boiled peaputs and litsong manok then steamed in the way of siopao, siomai, and the purging of an inbox.   

Apprently, a certain universal bank is a farce but another was able to email an assessment; old shoes were restored and a new debit card activated wth two insurance policies; digital departure and and arrival cards were inscribed in domestic chores as a reimbursement carried the Phantom Biker through the Bakal 1-3 loop into the market and a Jollibee breakfast.   

The eye and skin doctors of San Jose melted into the crowd of the Legazpi Sunday Market so we took off to offer our prayers and gratitude to our patron at Our Lady of Guadalupe's National Shrine before placing our weekly lotto bet and crawling through a flooded highway.

The Grab driver can't find the hotel lobby so I asked to be dropped off by the street, walked around with my luggage, found it and checked-in, before bearing with a bullshit 7-11 microwaved dinner for my first meal in Bangkok after a long while.

THE PHNOM PENH DELEGATION

Community, equality, inclusion.

Thus is the culmination of a reluctant trip to Phnom Penh within a 7-day spread that started as a pop-in to those who cease to sleep in the Science City of Munoz, they who spoke about the day of the moon through three consecutive conclaves.

On Day 1 of the Phnom Penh Workshop, such context was confirmed by the Garbage Man from a reunion in San Miguel, the last pilates session deferred as PR 2621 took off from an avalanche of Chilean red wine and Filipino beer.

Gems of wisdom and magic recapitulated Day 2 of the Phnom Penh Workshop --- rainbows of colorful fruits and rice pastries reflecting in the afternoon sky, domed to protect a Khmer beef steak and cold Angkor beer from the deathly embrace of summer.

The donor is a warm morning whose innocence elevated a consultant procurement into contract signing through a catch-up Georgian lunch that turned out to be thunderously heavy platters of khinkali and khachapuri, and loud as the traffic of  craft beer pints near Bassac Lane.

Love and marriage? 

The Bali Workshop intervened but a lovely Pakistani lunch of mutton biryani, nan bread, an array of bowled curry, and a tall mango lassi was wedded with a sky bar dinner of Khmer beef steaks, fried rice and corn, vegetables, and fish before vociferous Chinese pasengers were herded to Shanghai by PR 2622. 

The streets of Phnom Penh smelled of burning meat and docusigned requests that were guaranteed by The Divine Madman whose phallic amulet repelled demons, malicious gossip, and the evil eye that hounded the nubile clientele of the Salcedo Saturday Market.

In Bakal 2, the delegation concluded with the liberation of time by the Son of God, by hikers under the patronage of San Sebastian, and a cache of cold beer a day before fleeing to  Osaka...   

BREAKFASTS AT DUSIT THANI (The ASEAN Gender Week)

After the minster was cleared of foreign exchange traders, the laicized cleric instructed from the mountain in the Town in Heaven that "GEDSI must be embedded in energy project design and delivery to drive gender equality and inclusion in energy employment, and build capacity on socially inclusive and gender-responsive energy transition" --- words so esoteric that the spy, instead of gathering intelligence for the Phnom Penh Workshop, opted to usher a welcome dinner at The Pantry, consecutive breakfast buffets so tedious that Lawson's was obliged to host the Last Supper. 

The Secretariat proposed during a huddle that Dusit Thani's breakfast buffet be reimagined as Aling Sosing's freshly grilled pork liempo that can be chopped into an Amorsolo sisig after the morning shift, that its noodle station be exclusive for displaying Japan Town's ramen selection.  

In Little Tokyo, the geishas of Ramen Nagi and Misaki seduced the Phantom Biker with an overpriced sashimi breakfast platter and ramen bowl that hinted of cold sake and two mugs of Suntory highball instead of The Pantry's nubile roving barista, all that for a hefty P4,18 price tag that coud have covered a seat at Michelin-selected Umu.  

Breakfasts at 5-starred Dusit Thani are overrated.

Indeed, the bachelors of Bakal 2 and their dogs preferred slurping balut and penoy higop with inutak at San Roque's church in Pateros to start the day, or a double plate brunch of Nanay's Pancit Malabon with the traders and merchants gathered at San Bartolome's massive church, or even grill an imaginary gilik-flavored bangus for the devotees of San Jose de Navotas' universal church.

Breakfasts can be Maundy like a birthday present of tokwa't baboy and litsong manok wrapped in the Bali Procurement --- 17 years in the Craft celebrated with a Black lager and merlot --- or even an Easter kosher dinner for a vigil to keep an 83-years old soul from wandering and guide him into the spirit world...

THE KUALA LUMPUR FORUM (1 month to Japan)

There were three gentlemen from the Philippines and one each from Timor Leste, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

Four of them made it to the hotel lobby photo and perhaps, one of them will be invited to pay homage to Santa Marta, sister of Mary and patron saint of housewives and restaurant workers, the portkey to an audience with the ghost of Simon Bolivar somewhere at the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino where the Magdalena River passes through before diving into the Carribean Sea for a long swim across the Atlantic Ocean to deliver a communique to the guardians of the Anatalya coast along the Mediterranean Sea. 

That disptach was conjured from the mist of a muddy confluence of two rivers that created the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and inspired the transformation of Petaling Jaya from a 486-hectare rubber estate into a satellite town. 

A day before, the Kuala Lumpur Forum received a doctor's prescription for a confirmed hotel booking and a rush travel insurance procurement, an inbox purge and quarterly timesheets at the transit hotel, and a $100 ransom for a passport that almost got left behind. 

It was also decided during a hotel restaurant huddle that the two meetings bumped off by PR 525 be compensated with a plastic bag of mutton rendang and egg panotta for lunch, and a dinner of overladed Kambing Bhukara Briyani.

Thus was how the declaration for Santa Marta and Anatalya evolved: 

• a report submission before the ambassador checked in
• a campaigner's overview of the Belem outcomes and how the adaptation of just transition might get lost, damaged, and possibly compensated with climate finance 
• unlocking the airline gates to Colombia in a month's time and Turkiye in 8 months with an incantation from a shared agenda for the content gathering interviews

The welcome dinner was sober and dominated by a conversation about ASEAN member state beers, an abstinence whose dullness was punctuated with a cleavage spied around Independence Square, the abundance of subtle hustles at the River of Life, the erect phallic symbols of Kuala Lumpur, and a nuked beef rendang dinner at the Central Market.

It was also announced at the ensuing press conference that the Phnom Penh Workshop as well as the Bali Assembly are now in the advance stages of procurement despite a slight delay in Manila, to ensure that CSO key moments are as harmonious as the flavors of sup kambing and buttered chicken with naan bread.

In Poblacion, Supergirl and Wonderwoman dressed an old-time burger and vanilla milkshake with two cups of red wine from PR 526, bloody enough for the Blues Brothers to croon how an extra service under the red lights of Padre Burgos was politely declined, skewered into crimson pork barbecue, and marinated in 2 bottles of Red Horse Stallion. 

The morning after, the Phantom Biker crashed a car-free Sunday in Ayala Avenue to chase after bikes of various makes and collect sweat from nubile runners of diverse sizes to season an adobong baboy breakfast at the Legazpi Sunday Market.

The Holy Week went live and palm branches go on sale after the Sunday mass at San Pedro de Macati.

Pugad Baboy delivered fresh clothes but missed Marilyn Monroe at the Filling Station during a lunch of half-burgers, pizza, and root beer floats. 

Catholics officially embarked on a visual fast as the saints of Guadalupe Church were covered with the color of penance that foretold of a death in San Jose City...