— “Children are the most desirable opponents at scrabble as they are both easy to beat and fun to cheat.”
— “Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.”
— “Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.”
My friend and, for quite some time, coworker, Kenny, perished after a fairly long bout with cancer. But that did not keep him from appearing in a dream I had last night. In the dream, I found myself walking down the street of an unknown city. I was a little uneasy because I had lost my cellphone. Just as I turned a corner on a sidewalk in a residential part of the city, I saw my friend Kenny walking partway down the street on the opposite side. Naturally, I called to him and waved.
He stopped and allowed me to approach. “Kenny! I
have not seen you for ages. How are you?”
“Doing great,” Kenny answered, smiling.
“I’m having a bad day,” I admitted. “I lost my cellphone. But you look fantastic. Really good!” I found myself amazed by how fit he looked. He had a notable glow of health about him. Kenny is not the hugging type, so I gave him a playful punch to the shoulder. “What have you been up to?”
“I started two trucking companies,” he said without hesitation. “I threw in with a partner on one of the companies, and we are in the process of selling it.”
“That’s good. Who is your business partner?”
“Normal Instructor.”
I paused, squinting a little, as if the meaning might come into focus if I adjusted my eyes. “Your business partner’s name is Normal Instructor?”
“Yes. Normal Instructor.”
I cannot quite decide if it was good fortune or bad
timing, but that is the precise moment I woke up, left standing there with him,
and with that name, like a door that had just begun to open.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Alejandro Cambronero Albaladejo is angry. No, he’s not angry about the syllabic train wreck that is his name, though he has every reason to be. He’s miffed because he no longer holds the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of Tomb Raider games.
He was unseated by Amy Dyson, a British woman who bested the Spanish collector with a count of 291 unique copies of games in the franchise, including special editions, the same game across multiple consoles, and foreign-language releases. AL (for the sake of ease, I’m calling Alejandro Cambronero Albaladejo “AL”) had a collection that tallied 215 back in 2017.
Amy said the video game helps her deal with functional neurological disorder, which causes symptoms including brain fog, tics, tremors, and paralysis.
Interesting, the brain fog and tics. Might that explain why Amy purchased so many copies of the game, propelling her to a world record?
Maybe so.
But how do we explain AL?
—Mitchell
Hegman
Source of Original
Story and Photo: UPI (Ben Harper)
At no point as a creek-fishing, apple-throwing, bike-riding kid in East Helena, Montana, did I entertain any thoughts about buying dirt. Well, as an adult living on a pile of rocks, I find myself buying dirt on a fairly regular basis. And just yesterday, Desiree and I bought a yard of it for several spring planting projects.
First up, we planted an October Glory maple in front of the house. Desiree has been dazzled by fall colors since joining me here in the North Country, where autumn declares itself in dramatic colors. Maples, especially, have held her attention, their leaves turning like quiet signals from another season.
To plant trees around my house, you need to begin by digging a hole (read: prying out rocks here) so you can surround the root ball with some semblance of dirt. In this case, once we had an appropriate hole, we dropped the tree in, and I shoveled dirt down from the back of my truck while Desiree tended the tree and kept it properly oriented (leafy side up, thank you).
I’m sharing photographs of our work.
Up next: fall colors.
—Mitchell
Hegman
“All thumbs” is one of those phrases that stumbled into English in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, a modest little expression for the universal condition of clumsiness. If someone is “all thumbs,” they are fumbling the small mechanics of life, missing buttons, dropping screws, or turning a simple task into a train derailment, as if their fingers had all fattened into a bulky array of thumbs.
In light of all this, I need to share my absolute amazement at the ability of many young people I know to text on their smartphone with a single thumb. Not only do they text, but they do so accurately at lightning speed. I have witnessed some people one-thumbing a flawless text while driving. Never mind that they should not text and drive at once.
This skill is utterly beyond me. Just for fun, I tried a practice text a few moments ago to check my skill level. Here is what I thumbed on my smartphone: “Do hoof ddigg.”
An all-thumbs English conversion.
Here is what I was attempting to write: “Do good stuff.”
—Mitchell
Hegman
Desiree and I smoked an 11-pound pork shoulder roast. The strategy for smoking meat is to cook at low temperatures while infusing smoke flavor. Smoking meat is less cooking than persuasion, a quiet agreement between low heat and drifting smoke. I generally try to operate at 225°F, which can lead to extended cooking times, especially when targeting an internal temperature of 195°F to ensure maximum tenderness.
In this instance, I slipped the roast into the smoker (with an internal temperature of 40°F) at 5:00 in the morning and didn’t pull it out until 9:00 in the evening.
Sixteen hours is a long vigil for a piece of meat, but that is the bargain we struck.
One of the things that extends the cooking time is “the stall.” The stall is the pork roast’s way of hitting the pause button around 150–170°F, when moisture rises to the surface and evaporates, cooling it like a built-in air conditioner while your smoker keeps trying to heat it up. From the outside, it looks like nothing’s happening, but inside, collagen is slowly melting into gelatin and the meat is quietly becoming tender. Eventually, the moisture runs low, the cooling effect fades, and the roast wakes up from its little spa day and starts climbing in temperature again. The temperature of our roast held stubbornly steady for several hours before it began to rise again.
When it was finished, the pork was tender enough to fall apart at a suggestion, wrapped in a dark, lovely bark formed from little more than salt, pepper, and time. I’m sharing photographs of the roast with the requisite Cold Smoke beer alongside.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Given the title of this blog, I owe a bit of explanation.
We are, in fact, discussing a houseplant. A five-finger plant, to be precise. It recently endured an overwatering incident of some consequence and, in what feels like a small act of protest, shed its final two leaves. What remains is a living thing, certainly, but also a bare stalk with aspirations.
In an effort to spare it from drowning and suffering the slow creep of root rot, Desiree tipped the entire operation sideways on the floor, allowing the excess water to seep away.
Practical, yes.
Still, there is something faintly unsettling about coming across a plant lying on its side, as if it has simply decided it has had enough of vertical life.
I’m hoping it rallies, finds its footing, and produces a leaf or two in defiance of recent events. I feel a little sorry for it. For now, though, I can live with naked and sideways.
The sky is my garden, though it refuses all fences. By day, the wind tends it, herding clouds and scattering birds across an open blue field.
By night, it blooms righteous. Stars press outward, electrified above the dark strokes of the mountains, steady and unhurried.
They call this Montana, “Big Sky Country,” but the phrase feels far too small. In summer, the air shimmers and bends, sending ravens warping across the prairie. In winter, at twenty below, the sky sharpens to crystal while the frozen lake below groans in reply.
Clouds rise. Clouds scurry. Clouds roil. Clouds pause. Clouds drift away.
It is a garden that grows in motion and color and gesture, and we are only ever passing through.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Flying from Manila to Seattle is a strange proposition. On paper, our most recent flight between the two points, with an aircraft transfer in Tokyo, required only one hour. That’s pretty astonishing for traveling 6,650 miles.
There are a few dynamics involved here. For one thing, you are flying against the sun, passing backward through various time zones. Also, somewhere near the midpoint, you cross the international date line and encounter the very beginning of the same day you just left behind.
In our case (see the photograph of our itinerary posted below), we departed Manila at 10:05 a.m. on Tuesday, April 2. After 16 hours in the air and in transit, we arrived in Seattle at 11:05 a.m. on Tuesday, April 2. One hour later, by the clock.
I can assure you, it did not feel like merely an hour had passed by the time we landed. Even now, two days on, things remain slightly out of joint. My Rocky Mountain days are still trying, stubbornly, to be Manila nights.
Our Itinerary
—Mitchell
Hegman
Desiree and I have returned from over a month in the Philippines. I have settled back into my place in the Rocky Mountains, reclaiming my sofa and my own peculiar brew of coffee.
Montana, being Montana, saw fit to greet me properly. I woke early this morning to a skiff of fresh snow and a clean-edged chill in the air.
This is why I love you, Montana. No one tells you how to behave when it comes to springtime weather. You do as you please. Thank you for the welcome home.
Today, I’m sharing a few final photographs. Two are courtesy of Desiree’s daughter, Bea. The last features Desiree with a spread of dry goods and other treasures she gathered in the Philippines and we dragged home in our luggage.
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—Mitchell
Hegman
I love the ringing voices of the half-feral children in provincial Malabugas.
I love the families that bind parent to child,
brother to sister, cousin to cousin.
I love the elders receiving the respect they
deserve.
I love the soft weight of freshly picked Philippine
mangoes.
I love the sting of flavor delivered by a
thumb-sized calamansi lime.
I love the city street cats and the curly-tailed
dogs commanding the province.
I love the muscular fish, metallic and fresh from
the sea.
I love the hum and crawl of the city forty stories
below me in my tower.
I love riding tricycles in Bayawan.
I love the sea grasping at, but never claiming, the
white sands on the beach.
I love the palm trees.
I love my island wife,
and her girls
and
everyone they hold near.
—Mitchell
Hegman
The American singer-songwriter Roger Miller famously proposed, in the form of lyrics, “you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd.” As someone who has seen my share of buffalo herds, I would suggest this is sage advice. Along similar lines, you would not travel to the Philippines to see Venice, Italy, but it’s actually more plausible than the skating thing.
As a point of fact, you can find a small chunk of Venice in Metro Manila.
If you happen to land in the bustle of Taguig’s McKinley Hill, you might bump into the Venice Grand Canal Mall. The mall is a playful, pastel-tinted echo of its Italian namesake. Inside, you’ll find cobblestone paths, arched bridges, and Italian-styled architecture gathered around a winding, aquamarine canal. Here, gondolas drift beneath striped mooring posts while gondoliers occasionally break into song. It is part theme park, part shopping haven, part daydream, where cafés spill out onto the water’s edge and your mind can drift untethered.
It’s Venice.
The day before yesterday, Desiree, I, and her girls spent an afternoon in the mall. We wandered along the canal, nibbled goodies from a few small eateries, stopped in a few shops, and, of all things, Desiree had her feet checked for possible orthotics. I enjoyed the time there. We interacted with several street performers, including one of the stilt walkers, who graced us with a selfie for a modest tip. All enjoyable.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Today I’m sharing photographs of some particularly sketchy wiring found in Manila. The first photograph features a temporary wiring scheme inside an apartment building under remodel. If you look closely, you can see exposed connection points and bare bussing feeding the various circuit breakers, everything open to the touch.
This is entirely “ungood.” We are talking live 220-volt current here, the kind that you likely negotiate with only once.
The following two photographs are drive-by captures Desiree’s daughter provided me. She calls them “post overload.” In the photos, you’ll notice a pair of ladders extended into a rat’s nest of cables and wires, a dense, sometimes looping tangle that continues to grow.
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—Mitchell Hegman
For the last half-dozen years, I’ve battled
recurring ear infections, unwelcome little visitors that know my address too
well. The last time one showed up, about eight months ago, it brought along
something extra: what is essentially athlete’s foot (a fungal infection) in my
left ear.
Welp, it appears that same fungal squatter has returned, setting up house in my left ear a few days ago. I had no choice but to seek out professional help, not something I wished to do while vacationing in a foreign land.
The Filipino health system is not like ours. It largely operates on a cash basis, a kind of pay-as-you-go arrangement where, in the case of more serious medical issues, the burden is often shared across an entire family.
Access, however, depends on where you are. Venture out into the provinces, and finding a doctor or meaningful care can become difficult, sometimes even unlikely. But here in Metro Manila, help is close at hand. In my case, it was as simple as dropping by a clinic tucked inside the mall at Market! Market!, alongside a game arcade and fast-food eateries.
The visit itself required about a half-hour wait and cost 1,000 pesos, roughly $16.66.
The prescription, which included an antibiotic, a
painkiller, and anti-itch medication, came to 1,530.50 pesos, or about $25.50.
All told, the experience was efficient, accessible, and surprisingly affordable. I’m going to say that, in this instance, I’m deeply impressed.
—Mitchell
Hegman
The Philippines is still, as a whole, a developing country. And while the area where we are staying (Fort Bonifacio) is quite modern, affluent, and safe, a short drive through the city will deposit you in more dangerous places in Manila proper. You know, places tourists are told to avoid.
Naturally, we went there. Specifically, we went to Divisoria.
In Divisoria, history and commerce tangle together in a kind of permanent motion. The district began in the Spanish colonial era as a literal boundary, a “division” separating the walled city of Intramuros from the communities beyond, where Chinese merchants and local traders built thriving markets. Fed first by river trade and later by the rail lines converging at Tutuban Railway Station, Divisoria grew into a vast commercial engine, one that today draws immense crowds into its narrow streets and packed malls. Within that crush, the variety borders on the absurd: wedding gowns beside plastic pails, toys spilling into walkways, bolts of fabric stacked next to kitchenware and electronics. It is crowded, chaotic, and often overwhelming, yet beneath the noise runs a kind of rough efficiency, a place where bulk deals are struck, small businesses take root, and nearly anything imaginable can be found if you are willing to press into the tide.
Is it really dangerous?
Yes.
Desiree’s oldest daughter, Bianca (Bea), has been working near there for some time. One of her coworkers witnessed the kidnapping of two young girls there (a third escaped). Three other people she knows have had their cell phones snatched.
We went to Divisoria to buy curtains for our bay window. Before going, we stripped off all jewelry. I did not even take my smartphone. As a tourist-looking sort, I might be a target. All I had on my person was my requisite wad of toilet paper (another story). Additionally, Desiree, her daughter Bea, along with her cousin and aunt, made sure someone was always in front of me and behind me any time we had to thread our way through crowded streets and vendor stalls.
Thankfully, nothing extraordinary happened, and I actually enjoyed the adventure. I am sharing a few photographs provided by Desiree and Bea.
Education in the Philippines does not swing to the same schedule as that in the U.S. In the Philippines, basic education is divided into three main stages under what’s often called the K–12 system. Students first complete Grade School (Elementary), which runs from Kindergarten through Grade 6. This ends with a formal graduation, marking the transition into secondary education.
Next comes Junior High School, covering Grades 7 through 10. This is roughly equivalent to what Americans would consider the sophomore year of high school. At the end of Grade 10, students graduate again, closing out their foundational secondary education.
Finally, students move into Senior High School, which includes Grades 11 and 12. This stage is a bit more specialized, with students choosing tracks such as academic, technical-vocational, or arts-focused paths. After completing Grade 12, they have their final graduation, which is comparable to a traditional high school diploma in the U.S.
Shanaia, Desiree’s youngest daughter, graduated
from Guadalupe Catholic School at the junior level yesterday. Guadalupe is a
small but highly regarded private school known for its academic rigor. She
graduated with honors, of course.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Market! Market! sits just a few minutes away by Grab from where we are staying, a sprawling mall that seems to contain every kind of store imaginable. Just outside it, under a vast canopy, is an adjacent stretch claimed by small vendors, each one adding a note to the low, steady hum of the place.
Concerts and other festivities find their way here as well, the space doubling as a kind of open-air stage.
This is also where you’ll come across the blind band, a group of musicians who play throughout the day, their instruments working on your attention until you realize you’ve stopped to listen.
It’s good stuff. Desiree has a maxim for people like those in the blind band, people doing everything they can to help themselves. She says they are “stretching their bones.”
On a recent visit, I stood in front of them for a while, taking it all in. I had Desiree pass me a few peso bills, which I slipped into the collection box.
There’s a lot here worth admiring.
—Mitchell
Hegman
We have two options for trash disposal at the rooms where we are staying in Manila. One option is to catch the tower employee sent to the floor each evening for room-by-room collection. The other option is to drop down to level B5 in the elevator and find the trash bins for yourself.
B5, it turns out, is an amazing place.
Before we drop down to B5, though, let’s talk about the street cats in Manila. The city is filled with them. They are all skinny, sometimes a little battered, and living by their wits along the busy boulevards and side streets.
I bring up the cats because the first time Heart, Desiree’s daughter, and I tried to find the trash bins in the B5 basement, we got lost. It is a vast, mind-bogglingly bright and spotless parking garage, one of the cleanest places I have seen anywhere in this island country. After failing to locate the bins, we took the elevator back up to our room, trash still in hand. On a subsequent elevator ride to the ground floor, I bumped into a pair of tower employees who told me about the far corner of B5 where we could find the elusive bins. At the end of the conversation, one of them quipped, “Just follow the cats.”
I’m sharing photographs from our second, successful venture to B5, along with a typical street cat.
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—Mitchell
Hegman
One of the small curiosities I’ve encountered here in the Philippines is the money, which is valued in terms of the Filipino peso. At present, our U.S. dollar is worth something near 60 pesos. The curious thing is the manner in which some of the peso bills are produced: they are partially see-through.
The first time I noticed it, I thought it was a trick of the light. I could plainly see my fingers through the bill. You turn the bill slightly in your hand, expecting the effect to disappear, but there it is: a clear window built right into the note.
These bills are not paper in the way I’ve always understood paper money. They are made from a thin polymer, a kind of flexible plastic that gives them a slightly slick, almost waxy feel. They don’t crumple quite the same way. They don’t seem to mind a bit of moisture— a practical approach in a place where sudden rain showers appear out of nowhere and humidity hangs permanently in the air.
The transparent window, it turns out, is not merely a novelty. It is a defense. It can hold detailed designs and security features that are difficult to reproduce, making counterfeiting far more challenging.
There are other advantages as well. These polymer notes last longer than traditional paper bills. They resist dirt and wear, and they don’t absorb whatever happens to be on your hands at the moment you pass them along. Given how many hands a single bill might travel through a wet market in a day, this too feels like a thoughtful adjustment.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Some things should not change. Clocks must find their way back to 12:00. Birthdays insist upon recognition. And certain small but important rituals ask to be kept.
I moved into my prairie home the week of Thanksgiving in 1991. Each spring since, I’ve marked in my journals (and now my blog) the arrival of the first bluebird of the year, returning to my swatch of Montana ground after wintering somewhere to the south. It is a modest observance, but a steady one, usually unfolding in mid-March.
This year, in my conspicuous absence, my brother-in-law Terry kept the tradition alive. On Sunday, March 22, he spotted the first bluebird. He even managed a photograph of a male inspecting the bluebird box along my back fence, which I’m sharing today.
Welcome to spring!
—Mitchell
Hegman
Desiree purchased a small bamboo cutting board for use in the kitchen in the place where we are staying in Manila. The board, of Chinese manufacture, looks to be well made, but something has been lost in the English translation of the printed information that came with it.
The English text is filled with misspellings and does not exactly make sense to me. The text reads exactly as follows: “High quality bamboo, spccial artwork, natural green, envirenmental protection and sanitation penple need bamboo ror inhabiatancy under the circumstance eating without meat.”
I gave this sentence to AI and asked for a possible translation. This was the answer:
“This sentence reads like it went through a linguistic blender on ‘optimistic mode.’ Let’s decode the intention hiding inside it.
Original:
‘High quality bamboo, spccial artwork, natural green, envirenmental protection and sanitation penple need bamboo ror inhabiatancy under the circumstance eating without meat’
What they’re trying to say (cleaned up):
‘Made from high-quality bamboo with special craftsmanship. Natural, eco-friendly, and hygienic. Bamboo products are ideal for a healthy, sustainable lifestyle, especially for people who prefer a plant-based diet.’”
Apparently, the original message took the scenic route through the English language on the way to me, but it got where it needed to go eventually, with a nudge from other sources.
—Mitchell
Hegman
Today, I’m sharing a photograph of Ashwin, also known as Win-Win. Ashwin is the provincial Filipino version of a 15-year-old boy. He is also Desiree’s nephew. I’ve been hanging out with Ashwin for the last two weeks, but yesterday he flew back home to his province.
I’m going to miss him. He’s a bit goofy at times, but Ashwin’s a really good kid. He’s respectful, pretty good with English, and not afraid to laugh at himself. You can’t ask for much more than that if you’re an old guy from Montana visiting the islands and looking for pleasant company.
I hope to see you again soon, buddy!
—Mitchell
Hegman
At the top of my list for adventure when I’m in the Philippines (any Asian country, really) is wandering through a wet market. The inputs feeding into you there can be overwhelming at first.
First and foremost, the great discordance of sound created by the market as a whole feels less like something heard and more like something encountered, closer to a wall than anything else. Once you step inside, everything arrives in a rush: hundreds of voices talking at once, knives and cleavers thwacking cutting boards, cubed ice pouring into bins, the bustle of traffic still reaching in from the streets.
Visually, it’s no gentler. Displays rise vertically and stretch horizontally, each one asking for your attention. I’m drawn to the fruits and vegetables, bright and varied, many of them unfamiliar to those of us confined to the Rocky Mountains. The fish and meat section can be more challenging for anyone accustomed to thinking of chickens, fish, and four-legged animals as things that begin and end in tidy packaging. Here, their parts hang in displays like trinkets on a macabre charm bracelet. Fish are stacked into shining heaps. Everything is being reduced, piece by piece, as you watch.
And the scents refuse to settle. They shift and layer as you move along, never letting you land on any one thing for long. Fruits and vegetables offer sweetness and earth, while the meat and fish press in with something heavier. You are reminded of damp stone, of overturned soil.
Given all of this, I love the wet markets. This is honest stuff. Life without the courtesy of packaging.
—Mitchell
Hegman
