Bulletin 208/Holiday Greetings/From CPW..Bridgetown...and Beyond

I pen this Bulletin from dad’s desk overlooking Central Park on a sunny, brisk, Christmas Eve.

We celebrated Christmas a week early this year, after much juggling of schedules around work, Nick and Julie’s team sports practices, and commitments to other extended families—that was the weekend we could all be together.

One highlight of the weekend was a game of baseball trivia, where in order to make up for dad’s vast knowledge of the sport, the rest of us were allowed to offer “Seinfeld Clues” to help each other deduce a possible answer. As dad is one of the few New Yorkers to have barely seen two Seinfeld episodes, this evened the playing field somewhat, but dad and Matty still emerged the victors—with dad naming some obscure players from the 30’s and 40’s to close out the match. The game was tough enough it even had a category that involved knowledge of “famous baseball umpires”, which seems an unlikely combination of words.

Bill and Nick placed second, based on their combined knowledge of baseball and Seinfeld, while Julie and I came in a few squares behind in last place. Julie now knows to pick me as a teamate for NFL trivia rather than MLB.

I just finished saying hello to Vincent and his family (via SKYPE Video) in Manila where they just returned from Christmas Eve Mass. I will be headed back to the Philippines at the end of January for the wedding of Vincent’s Sister Mae….this wedding puts the icing on the cake of Jon and Mae’s civil marriage which I stood witness for in the Bronx. I have cleared things with my boss to work long distance, and after the wedding celebration, I will work from Manila for the month of February.

Vince has picked up more work in the Philippines. He is still doing contract work for a San Francisco research group, and he is also setting up an outsourcing company at the request of another former New York employer. The goal remains finding a company to sponsor his return to the U-S of A. That may happen with the San Francisco company, but they are going through a reorganization at the present and aren’t ready to make those kinds of moves right now.

As for our condo, our wonderful tenants asked if they could keep renting our place until September. The timing sounded about right, so we gave them the green light. Meantime, I have been sticking with my plan to spend at least a week of every month, someplace other than dad’s apartment.

Earlier this fall, my longtime Tulane Pal Bob alerted me to a 300 dollar round trip fare JFK to Barbados—where he is currently working as a media consultant. So I grabbed the fare, loaded my work gear, and spent the week working out of his office and finally getting to see his island. Bob had come to visit us on St Martin back when we were in college, and I had been planning to visit him one year when he was back in Barbados…and some 30 odd years later we finally got it done.

The headline photo for this Bulletin is Bob (aka the Dabs) and I at the Kensington Cricket Oval in Bridgetown, where I viewed my first ever Cricket match this fall..

One of Bob’s better heeled clients is Sandy Lane, the resort you may recall as the place Tiger Woods rented (as in every room) for his ill-fated wedding. I tagged along for one of Bob’s grueling assignments—the morning Sandy Hill took delivery of two new Rolls Royce Phantoms.

It was the morning I was set to depart back home to JFK…and in the old days, Bob probably could have swung a ride for me to the airport, but those days are long gone.

Heck, it turns out Sandy Lane charges its own guests three hundred bucks for the airport run in the Rolls. And you know what, the mega-wealthy folks they cater to, seem happy enough to pay it.

There is much to be grateful for as we near the end of 2010. My family and friends are in good health, work has been steady, and Vince and I have found ways to say hello to each other every day even when we are miles apart.

This Skype thing is really simple and amazing for those of you who have not tried it. I am conservative about making technology changes, and kept my old landline the first two months I had Skype—but the sound quality is excellent, so good in fact, that I know do all of my work on Skype—and that means I have to drag around about half as much equipment when I take my work on the road.

For 2011 I already have one trip planned to visit David and Ruth Pardoe at their lovely home on Joy Hill in Huntington Massachusetts. Dave just turned 93, so there is plenty of cause to celebrate. He was my political science teacher and Ruth was the librarian at Syosset High—my school. They are wonderful friends and I will be up there in a couple weeks. And then, sometime this spring, I hope to get down to New Orleans. The HBO series Treme made my heart ache for my favorite city and real home, so I want to take at least a month and spend it there this spring.

Merry Christmas 2010 and All the Best in 2011!

Philippines Part II (Penned during the voyage…but due to backlog of work upon return, only able to post now).

The waves are crashing ashore only 50 yards from the dining room table, of the open walled villa where Vince and I are now staying on the private island of Mangenguey Our hostess Helena advised us at breakfast that we should be mentally prepared for the possibility that our stay on her island, which she likes to call Utopia, may be extended, as a result of Typhoon Megi which is currently waddling its way to the Northwest of us in the South China Sea, and sending large waves and occasional bands of heavy rain showers. Helena says we are now conserving diesel fuel for the generator, so power will be only on briefly at one pm today and then turned off again until dinner. I have an hour and 24 minutes left on the computer battery and am will use the current cloudy spell to catch up on the Bulletin.

As with any good tropical vacation, the days have started to all run together, so at this point, it seems best to write from today backwards to where I last left off.

Our current digs consist of a main house which is built into the side of a slight hill which looks onto one of the island’s three beaches. Helena moved onto the island five years ago from New York where she owned a self-named tapas restaurant which she describes as located between the Blue Man Group and Indochine on the lower East Side.

Helena is Catalan which explains our menu which has varied from almond croissants and fresh fruit to seafood Boullabaise(?) and last night a chicken and sausage paella. Once again the tropical mindset, has allowed me to bury the lead—as only hours after arriving and coming all this way—we learned that in New York Helena and her husband turn out to be our neighbours. Their apartment is at 147^th and Convent which is only three blocks away from our condo on 146^th and Riverside Drive.

We are sharing Utopia with a couple from London who we formed an easy bond with during our rather harrowing adventure getting to the island. We met at the dock on the Island of Coron, on the day Megi was upgraded to a “Super Typhoon” and was crashing ashore to the North of Luzon, the biggest island in the Philippines. Coron Island is 40 minutes to the south by turboprop, which meant we were more than a couple hundred miles from the eye of the storm, but I was still a little bit surprised when I saw the 17 foot wooden catamaran that that arrived at the dock to take us to the island.

Alan and Peter did their best to make the boat storm worthy, erecting a makeshift plastic wrap barrier that rose about three feet in front of us, then they handed out umbrellas which our hostess Ruby Ann unfurled and poked out under the canopy in front of us to shield us from the worst of the rain. We rode in heavy rains for more than an hour, and then when the rain let up, we next encountered rising sea swells—as the nose of our little boat crashed up and down—as the waves grew from three to five feet and higher. It was around this point in our journey that I remembered that I had placed my passport in my right hand pocket of my now soaked shorts, expecting that I might need to show identification at some point. It was still thankfully there, but somewhat curled and very damp. It will be interesting to learn whether the nifty new electronic strip Uncle Sam now includes in the passport still works when I try to get back Stateside next week.

Anyway, during all the pelting of rain and crashing of water from the deck into our open cabin, we got to know our British companions. Matty works in the computer technology industry and Thea is an IBM consultant.

Flash forward to the present—“My gosh” Vincent exclaims, looking up from his copy of Obama’s Wars as the sky has opened up with another band of rain showers. We have moved to the far side of the dining room, as a good bit of the rain is making its way onto the beach end of the long dining table.

We had about an hour of sun yesterday, enough time to get in a nice swim and to walk the beach in front of the main house.

In addition to Helena there is a staff of three men and three women on the island. We were originally supposed to stay in one of the small cottages, but Sanjee the main housekeeper suggested that Helena “upgrade us” and the British couple to the main house, where we each have a private bedroom upstairs at opposite ends of the house connected by a library that doubles as a small dining room, where we enjoyed a candlelight dinner.

We intend to return to “Utopia” again someday soon…hopefully with friends and family. Helena is a wonderful hostess, should would have forced to sun to shine all day—were it in her power. Instead she RubyAnn, Belinda and Danji gave us the run of the place, it is a wonderful spot…and we wish them all great success.

Bulletin 206-Mike in Philippines Part I

October finds your humble correspondent on a two week visit to Vincent at his family home in Quezon City one of the cities in Metro Manila. I had a mercifully easy 19 hour flight from JFK via Tokyo to get here and have had a wonderful adventure getting to see his country for the first time.

Mealtime at Vincent’s is prepared by Alma who has been the family housekeeper since before Vincent was born. She is a wonderful cook, and when things are quiet, will slip a plate of some new Filipino delight before me to try. Alma and her daughter Althea are considered to be members of the family and have joined us on many outings.

To get from place to place we are driven by the family driver who actually is a family member, a cousin named Des-Des. One look at the main drag into Manila—which is at times 6 lanes wide and filled with cars, busses, scooter, people on bike, people standing in the middle of the traffic trying to sell things—and you can see why it is wise to have a driver.

Our second night found us at a five star hotel and a birthday bash thrown by Vincent’s rather well to do in-laws. Vincent’s twin brother is named Victor, and Victor’s mother-in-law “Tita” Fely threw the birthday bash for Vincent’s 7 year old niece Keisha It was an event that could make a Wall Street Hedge fund manager blush.

The gala included Hello Kitty characters, a magician, famous Filipino actors and actresses, an elegant buffet dinner and more balloons, gifts, and pomp than I had ever quite witnessed in one place.

Happily Keisha, who underwent no less than three designer dress costume changes during the course of the four plus hour evening, seems to have come through it all with good grace.

She and her younger sister Sophie Bella seemed to have just as good a time the next night when most of Vincent’s family took me to a local restaurant in Global City in an old fort that is now a new mall.

As an aside, Starbucks and Gap’s presence here nearly rivals that of New York's UWS.

Monday found us headed to Tagaytay and the Taal Volcano. It was a day spent in the countryside, on the water and the backs of mule like horses.

This particular volcano is nested in a thousand foot deep lake inside another volcano, so first you

travel by boat toget to the base of Taal.

Next, a guide leads you on horseback, up narrow, rocky trails.

Sometimes the guide is on foot, then the next thing you know they inquire, “together?” and before you can answer they have hopped on the back of the horse and are now urging it double time up the volcano.

It is a beautiful spot and well worth the ride both up and down

Afterwards we headed to a restaurant Vincent and his mom found called Sonya's Garden that specializes in dishes prepared from vegetables grown on the property.

It is lovely restaurant, hotel and Spa that Matty, Nicolle and Ben

(the Vegan wing of the Longman family) would most enjoy.

Next Vincent had a surprise in store that would have delighted my step-mom Karlene—a stop at the spa which is attached the restaurant’s garden where Vincent treated the family and your humble reporter to a massage—good move, as it greatly reduced the impact of saddle sores.

And so that pretty much gets you up to speed with my first four days in the Philippines. In addition to showing me around to his favorite spots, Vincent is also making sure I partake of

some of the best local bargains, like a trip to the dentist where you can get your teeth cleaned with the utmost care for 500 Pesos, or about 11 dollars. Before the gala he also took me for a relaxing oxygen facial, so I would look my best for introduction to the extended family. For the inquiring mind that runs about 25 dollars in this part of the world.