Verandah

I usually read on the verandah.

In rural Ibaan, Batangas, Philippines, I was eating jackfruit in the verandah, as my Uncle Boy said that jackfruit would taste more delicious if I were speaking in Tagalog, insinuatingly than in English.

"16" reminds me of the 16 Basic Rules of Esperanto Grammar, as today is the 16th of April of 2025. Esperanto is more popular in places like Brazil, China, Indonesia, Korea, Congo-Kinshasa, and others. Around 6 in the morning, I brought my lime green sack with a green lizard illustrated thereon. Therein, I usually carry my Esperanto book, Tra Lando de Indianoj, by Tibor Sekelj, about life in Native Indian territory in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. I read it in the cafés. Firstly, I was at Tim Hortons café here on Lulu Island to drink Earl Grey tea with oat milk and eat a sausage English muffin. Gurpreet the Punjabi woman was my vendor. Then I walked to Starbucks café to drink steamed oat milk in a white ceramic mug. Jam the Filipino was my barista, and Jessica the petite Vietnamese was my vendor. For early lunch at home, I ate chicken and fried spring rolls with noodles and drank hot lime water on my sunny verandah. Later, after 11 in the morning, it was my second walk of the day. I was then at Tim Hortons café to drink another Earl Grey with oat milk. Rajvinder the Punjabi lady who has a similar profile to my cousin Myra in the Philippines was my vendor. Gary the Cantonese fan of Vietnam was in the hall. It was sunny outside, with blue sky, but with a bit of chilly wind.

This 17th of April of 2025, I walked to Lulu Island's Tim Hortons café, early morning, after 5, there to enjoy an Earl Grey tea with oat milk and a sausage English muffin. The vendor was Sukhman, the elegant Punjabi lady. A big white man with tattoos on his legs was standing by the till. He was wearing a black and blue checkered shirt. Ken, also a big white man, but with white hair, sat in his usual corner. It was still dark sky outside the bay windows. Jack the Chinese man in a brown jacket rendezvoused for his coffee. Before 10, with sunny weather, I walked back to Tim Hortons café this time to enjoy a Chai tea with oat milk and a croissant. The vendor was Rikku, the affable Punjabi lady. Gary, my Cantonese friend, a fan of Vietnam, sat at the long table etched with lines of an ice hockey rink. He was wearing a black leather jacket and green camouflage Vietnamese military pants. On my way home, I met Michael L. J., my Dane-French ufologist friend. And he showed me on his cellphone another video of mysterious lights in his bedroom; he attributes them to extraterrestrials. I kept to myself my thought about the Zoo Hypothesis. For lunch at home, on my sunny verandah, I ate barbecue pork on a bed of salad with red-tinted rice. Afterwards, I was eating a Tohato-brand matcha-flavoured Japanese Caramel Corn snack from a green plastic bag. Mama has Chef Tony Buns with Egg Yolk Lava in the freezer. They are black on the outside, I think, because of charcoal or something.

After 10 o'clock in the morning, I headed walking to Starbucks café, after I discovered that Tim Hortons café was jam-packed. It's Saturday today, so it's unusual. At Starbucks, I enjoyed a Grande Summer-Berry Lemonade Refresher. It was festively blue and red in colour with raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry flavours embedded with raspberry-flavoured pearls. There were this morning 5 baristas active: 3 Filipinos, 1 Vietnamese, and 1 Mandarin Chinese. I like it at Starbucks, too, due to the dimmer cavern-like ambiance. At the Clam Temple, I like the wide, vast emptiness in the worship salon. At Tim Hortons, I like the sun rays beaming from the bay windows. After Starbucks, I walked to the nearby Kin's Farm Market to buy a bag of 10 Mexican guavas, which were already yellow. I want to take pictures of them sliced and accompanying my tofu fish cuttlefish corn potato tangerine pork rolls from 852 Kitchen food boutique. I might wait until it's sunny on the verandah to photograph there. It's a cloudy day, this 14th of June of 2025.

In the afternoon of the 29th of June of 2025, I ate Filipino purplish ube pancakes on the blue-sky sunny verandah. I walked to Tim Hortons café to enjoy an Earl Grey tea with oat milk and a Turkey Bacon Club Artisan Sandwich. There was a handsome Filipino mestizo with his family. There was an Eastern girl in an elegant white dress. There was a First Nations man. On my walk, I saw my ufologist Dane-French friend Michael in a hurry to get home, so that his ice cream in his knapsack wouldn't melt.

[…]and yet, though desirous to be gone, she could not quit the Mansion House, or look an adieu to the Cottage, with its black, dripping, and comfortless verandah, or even notice through the misty glasses the last humble tenements of the village, without a saddened heart.

Therefore the safe return of the Roper party was the usual topic of our nightly conclaves in the verandah.

It is almost impossible to say what the heat is in the sun, but in the shade of the verandah it rarely registers more than 80° to 85° , and inside the house it is usually in the daytime 70° to 72°, and at night in the house about an average of 68°.

There was no moon, only stars set brilliantly in the soft black onyx of the sky : a black night and very silent on Cimiez ; and a black and silent prospect from the verandah […]