FELLOW FEELINGS FOR THE FROZEN

If you fry the chopped meatballs with oily chilipaste and add plenty of hot sauce for the gravy, that meatball sandwich is a balanced meal; there's plenty of vegetable in it. Heck, it's good for you. Sound nutrition is very important. I also added some chopped ginger.

In solidarity with my fellow American's in the snow belt (everything from Reno to Greenland), I ate what I had, rather than putting on my parka and mukluks for the long trek to the corner store for a box of microwave pizza.

My friend Mordechai, a New Yorker living in New Jersey, had a meal so good it made him openly weep. Here's a partial quote: Butternut Squash Carpaccio, Dubai shake, lemonana, mushroom ravioli, linguini pomodoro, tiramisu. He probably had a triple espresso after all that, because he's a major coffee head.


It was low twenties during the day where he lives. We had low sixties.
We ponced around wearing our brilliant beachwear.
And sang happy songs.

There are upsides to not living in New Jersey.

Still, I'm slightly jealous.

He went out for lunch, obviously quite uncaring about snowmageddon.

In some parts of the country the snowpocalypse has brought normal life to a standstill. There's ice on the breakfast grits, ohmahgerd! the pipes are frozen, the minnesota hotdish is solid, I can't find my car, there's a mailcarrier's frozen corpse on the lawn, the shelves at the liquour store are entirely bare, they've boarded up the piggly wiggly, we're going to starve.
Not in New Jersey. They're used to a bit of cold. They'll simply wear undergarments.

And did I already mention the balmy low sixties in the Bay Area?

Such colourful beach clothing, festive!



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RABBIT RABBIT FEBRUARY 2026

Rabbit rabbit. It's good luck to say that first thing in the morning on the first day of the month. I do not know why this is so. Had I been in charge of handing out superstitions, it would have been "meatball meatball", because everyone loves meatballs.

In recent weeks I've seen several short videos from a gentleman who adopted a wild coyote because he believed it was a homeless puppy. These are rather entertaining, because the canine has gradually learned how to interact with his dog, cat, and wife, all of whom can snap, growl, and defend themselves.

Good thing he didn't have a family rabbit. Or other small fluffy critters.

That coyote actually seems quite nice. But a bit feisty. And it has teeth.

If there ever were pet hamsters and gerbils (or even rabbits) there, there aren't anymore,and in any case we'll probably never know.

Imaginary conversation: "Son, sometimes sacrifices have to be made."


That coyote has personality!

See, in this instance I count myself lucky that I do not have a cat, dog, or even hamsters or gerbils. If the opportunity presented itself I could adopt a wild coyote with no problems.

In later videos that coyote no longer has a lean and hungry look.
It seems happy and it's coat is glossy now.


Rabbit rabbit.



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DO YOU SMELL THAT? DO YOU SMELL THAT?

My apartment mate is convinced that our landlady is on the spectrum. She herself is on the spectrum oh boy bigtime, and I'm convinced that the old lady in the front apartment is also on the spectrum. Which makes me the only normal person building, and I've got some bad news for me. Which I'm not going to like one bit.

A few weeks ago when I made a Monty Python reference it was explained to me that many people born in this century just wouldn't get it. The bookseller, my apartment mate, and the landlady would. Spectrum and age.

[I've had several rewarding and informative conversations with people which where little more that extensive Monty Python quotes.]


A coworker significantly younger than mysef compared me to Grampa Simpson. Which means that next week when I see him again I shall have on onion tied to my belt.
Just because. The little snot.


A good place to start the long journey to becoming like me is the Monty Python Cheese Shop Sketch. Which will additionally introduce you to the terpsichorean muse and familiarize you with several different fine fromages. Assuming that you want to become like me.
Which perhaps you should. It's a hip and with-it gestalt.

Cheese was mentioned an awful lot at work recently. Delicious artery clogging heart-stopping cheese. Parmegiano Reggiano, twenty year old cheddar, New York Sharp, Edam, Gouda, Ilchester, Stilton, and various stinky Frenches.

Partly this may have been due to a fresh bag of snacks, crisy-crunchy, that were cheesy and delicious, but I like to think that it was mostly because of an inherent caseophilic tendency instinctive in many people.


Cheese-love is a natural and beautiful thing.

It humanizes the French.



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ALL DANCING OUTSIDE

All things considered, it could be warmer. Having gotten up before five o'clock and made the first cup of coffee, I stepped outside briefly and realized that although by the standards of Boston or the Great Plains it was positively tropical out there -- no snow drifts for the thousandth plus day in a row but who is counting -- it wasn't actually warm.
Not really tee-shirt weather.

In the good old days fifty degree weather was a good excuse to smoke the first pipe of the day indoors. Good thing it's not raining. I guess modern society, with its neurotic insistence that we step outside and enjoy a brisk walk and fresh air is healthier. It probably keeps our generation fit and militarily trim. Gosh darn I feel vigorous. Circulation going, alongside the smoldering bowl of red Virginia with a touch of Turkish and Perique, oh golly yes!

Actually there is no real need to get up so early or arrive at work an hour and a half before start-time, but I seriously hate rushing. It leads to mistakes and dropped stitches.
Dropped stitches are hard to pick up.

Plus I enjoy the quiet.


In theory I could make use of that time to dance a bit on the table tops with a lamp shade over my head, as was common during the fifties and sixties, but what I actually do is set some tea, turn on the machines, and get ready for work. Before anyone else gets there prattling and stumbling, and gets in the way.

Did people ever actually dance on table tops with lamp shades, or is that just a story? A fond idea of possibilities in an ideal world? It would presume that tables were stronger, and people had a better sense of physical coordination and balance than they do. Also, no glass areas within falling distance that they might crash into. Nothing breakable. So no computers or office equipment, no crockery or stacks of plates, no non-child safe drinking vessels or bottles. A version of the stone age, but with more plastic and rubber.

I note, by the way, that many coffee tables are glass topped.
Obviously not entended for dancing upon.


Also, pipesmokers in mid-burn do not dance. We glide serenely from ashtray to ashtray.
Like birds of prey. Graceful and harmonious. Contemplative.
I haven't danced in several years.


My lamp shades are not suitable for wearing.
So it wouldn't happen in any case.



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NEVER ON SUNDAYS

Looking over the memories from ages ago that Facebook thinks I need to revisit, I am struck by my own irredeemable nastiness. I am not a nice person, not family friendly, and excessively mean-spirited. Good lord, I could be a Christian!

Either that or I live in San Francisco.

Oh, wait.....


Item one (over a decade ago): Trying to flag down a cab at 2PM, I realize that most 20 somethings are scum who do not deserve to live. You guys are scum. Utter scum. You parents probably hate you also. Please die.
You are worthless pieces of garbage.

Item two (over a decade ago): Comment overheard on the bus: "you can tell a lot about a person by their underwear".

Item three (barely a decade ago): 1:20 AM: young Chinese woman with highheels, miniskirt, and Saturday night special, walking her squire down the street backwards. Will this end well?

Item four (pre-pandemic): Phone call from a sales centre in India offering me a stupendous deal on Viagra and Cialis, which they were certain I had been taking for a long time. Aside from not ever having used those substances, you can imagine how damned uncomfortable I made the gentleman on the other end of the line. Just because I have a land line does NOT mean I'm an alter kacker with limp dangle issues.

Item five (post-pandemic): An idea so bad it deserves to be made: Indiana Jones enlists the students of Hogwarts to fight Orcs.


A friend who lives in Israel has a nice calm life, with nothing exciting, ever. The closest he's come to any of this is that two mystics dropped by for dinner, per Facebook. Another friend, sometimes in New York, sometimes in New Jersey, has run out of good coffee beans. See, there can be excitement and interesting stuff happening without drunken taxi rides, underwear, guns, erectile function or dysfunction (your choice), or Harry Potter.

Well, maybe not the underwear. Wearing underwear is kind of necessary, as it prevents chafing, and provides an extra layer of protection in case you ride taxis or run into guns, erectiles, and Harry Potter.

I am certain, 100% percent, without a shred of evidence, that both of those friends wear underwear. Often. Probably regularly. And no I'm not going to ask them.

When I was a lad, my mother would tell me that clean underwear was very important in case I ended up at the emergency room. Which was a lecture many people received as children. It was probably the essence of proper parenting back in the day to warn kids to stay away from emergency rooms if they weren't spotless. The take-away is that you do not deserve medical attention otherwise. And, consequently, there may have been thousands, millions, of young people running around scrupulously avoiding anyone in hospital scrubs because somehow the nurse or technician knew that they hadn't been as protestant in their ablutions as both ironclad neurosis and the law absolutely required.
Deathly scared of ambulances too.

Correspondingly there were also fewer taxis, young Chinese women, and bad movies.


Nowadays we know that bad underwear is alright too.
Evil ruffles, daemonic lace, clips and straps.
The road to hell is paved with it.
Oh, the naughtiness.


It is to be hoped that the fellow being frogmarched backwards by the young Chinese woman (with highheels and a miniskirt) had, anticipatorily, put on his best underwear.
The stuff he usually wore on Sundays.



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I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE

He had seen her last week in Hawaii, and he was extremely surprised to now see her at the counter ordering a cake. She didn't come down to Chinatown very often, whenever he went to Hawaii she picked him up at the airport. She had a condo over there. But she didn't live in Hawaii all the time. They were old friends. Classmates. He didn't go further into the subject, and the other gentlemen may have realized he shouldn't ask anymore. The third gentlemen was distracted by his new phone. The algorithm kept giving him Maga crap, how did he prevent that?

Apparently, and I'm mentally filing this for possible future use, you need to log into your own youtube account. That way your preferences come up more often. And seeing as I myself never use my cellphone for internet browsing, or anything, really, that may not be quite as useful as it otherwise could have been.

The only thing my cellphone gets used for is barking brusquely in Cantonese. Wai! Nei hai pin go? Nei dim gaai koh ngo? 喂，你係邊個，點解你𠹭我？Hey, who are you, why are you calling me? Because, you see, I never take the accursed device out of the house and it's always spam. Often with an Indian at the other end if a live human being comes on. Which given that they don't recogize the language is rare, it usually hangs up before then.

I am not Indian. I am not Chinese. I am a Dutch American with a bad attitude.
And I enjoy frustrating AI and subcontinental pork.

In case you didn't realize it, I am adept at hanging up mid-sentence. Neither the bookseller nor my apartment mate, or many other friends, habitually carry their cell phones with them, and if we need to communicate with someone further away than the next room, e-mail or insta-message is best. Texting is a total waste of time.

People do send texts to my phone. I look at them days or weeks later, and do not recognize any of those people, also my name is not Martha or Ralph or Kevin. And I'm not bringing the Walters file this morning or any other morning.


I am so glad I missed your call.



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MMM, PROTEIN!

At one of the stores on my route today there are three juvenile cats. Almost full grown. Lazy. And unbearably lovable. Naturally I stopped to pet them. Twice. They were lying in the bins for plastic bags of some dried product which I cannot remember. Whereas their eyes, colouration, and the feel of their soft fur is still crisp and sharp in my mind.

Seeing as I like animals you can only imagine what my feed is like.
Crows. Raccoons. Foxes. Plust capybaras, coyotes, and rats.


The mountain lion which was roaming through another area of the city a few days ago, was, fortunately, not in my neighborhood. Pssp, pssp, pssp, does extra large puddy tat want scritchies? Come to papa! Wuzza, wuzza, wuzza!

Yeah, um, that might not have gone well.


It's hard to calculate where nice scritchy-witchy human ends and dinner begins.
Especially when the feline in question isn't habituated to humans.
We are, must not forget, ambulatory protein.

Probably taste just like fish.

The little girl and her dad were at the long table when I got to the bakery. She waved hello after her dad told her to, then returned to her electronic device. Which seems to be in English. He and I spoke Chinese. Many Chinatown kids start life in Chinese, and by the time school comes around switch to English. Sometimes second year of kindergarten. While that means that their relatives end up more able in English -- got to communicate effectively with the little creatures -- it also means that the children's abilities in Cantonese are not quite up to par. Leastways, they aren't that comfortable with it. Maybe it's because all of them have an elderly relative who only speaks Chinese, smells a bit of camphor and menthol sore muscle lotion, and has dried things hanging from the ceiling in their cramped Chinatown quarters. Fish, vegetables, and what the heck is that thing with eyes?

You will be pleased to know that while I do indeed have dried foods in my apartment, they aren't hanging anywhere, aren't staring right at you, and have plastic bags. And I threw out the laap yiuk (臘肉) from a few years ago; it was probably past its prime. The duck liver sausage (膶腸 'yuen cheung') is in the refrigerator, and was acquired more recently.



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THOSE THINGS, YOU KNOW, THINGS

While watching a video of a social celebration in which younger people, probably Spanish judging by the music, were dancing together without touching each other, I became aware of the various different ways people carry their breasts. Some women push them forward, aggressively, like a statement, while others seem almost apologetic that those are there. A number of them are conscious of them, almost regretful. As if they fear that they might be crippled by them. Others are baffled; what do I do with these things? Almost like people wondering what to do with their hands, but with double the quandary.

Meanwhile, there's that fast thumpy music informing their constant movement.


I suspect many pipe smokers experience something similar during the first few years, as they figure out how to be themselves despite having a wooden object defining their face and their presence. Where do I put it, how do I hold it, are people looking at it, why do I feel the eyes of the world upon me? Do I look like a silly person?

It's been years since I felt that way. Decades. One can't smoke in public anymore, and social gatherings these days aren't marked by the exquisite fragrance of your tobacco choice OR the brand of cigarette that expresses your unique individuality and adventurous spirit -- and that suave air that says you're a man or woman of the world and know the finer things -- but by something else, almost indefinable, such as your piercings, tattoos, and personal choice of body wash.

At meetings of the local pipe club the preening is rather subdued. Most of us do not have extroverted 'look-at-me' briars, almost none of us huff aromatics which make curvaceous women fall at our knees exclaiming that they LOVE the aroma of our pipe tobacco such as happened in advertising illustrations during the nineteen seventies, and not a single one of us have a Hugh Heffner thing going on. And by now most of us have figured out how to hold it in our mouths or hands so that it's enjoyable but not in the way. We are not conscious of people looking at us. Or being silly.


For some reason none of us have breasts. Or man-boobs.

Which is sad, because the presence of women would definitely add something, and as so few women smoke pipes most of us would be charmed by it. Possibly one or two would go home after the meeting and casually mention to their wives that they'd look quite splendid with a pipe here's a lovely old Dunhill group three billiard with a bruyere finish suitable for some nice soft luxurious flake precisely like Sir Bertrand Russell smoked ooh sexy! Albert Einstein preferred mostly virginia tobaccos with a mild slightly fruity top dressing.
And Gerald Ford smoked plain simply topped drugstore burley blends.
William Faulkner was a medium-full English-Balkan man.
As you would expect.


I imagine that many women take the simplest way out. They borrow their husband, boyfriend, or girlfriend's briar, maybe when he won't be home for a few hours, snag some of his tobacco from an open tin, then sit on the back porch with a cup of coffee enjoying the sunlight and a mystery novel. A few of them probably live alone with smoking equipment from a relative who quit years ago and a supply of tobaccos from the internet (probably Rattrays or Peterson's old Dunhill blends) and light up when they need to really go through that chapter on ommatidia and photo receptor cells.

Which is really a very great pity. We would like to have them over.
I'd love to hear about ommatidia and photo receptor cells.
Not surprisingly I'm fascinated by abstruse subjects.



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UNSEEN THINGS

It's raining now. Slight rain, more apathy made moist than anything else. The predictions are one tenth of an inch or something like that. Nothing to pop the champagne over. Earlier when having a smoke after dinner it had started while I was spying on the rats in the park. It did not disturb me or them. The leaves overhead shielded me, the shrubbery in which they scurried about must have kept them dry. Droplets. Inconsequential. Not as cold as it was over the weekend, when upon arriving home I noticed that my apartment mate had already gone to bed. She claimed it was the cold that made her do that, I suspect that she simply likes the company of her stuffed creatures, who are rambunctious and sharp-tongued toward each other.

It is not cold enough at present to force me into my own bed. I too have stuffed creatures. Including Norman, a hedgehog. And various frogs, in addition to a skunk (Irmgard), a raccoon (Gunther), and Prendergast.


Lunch had been something listed on the white board: bitter melon and fish slices with sauce over rice stick noodles (苦瓜魚片濕河粉 'fu gwaa yü pin sap ho fan') which was absolutely delicious. The waitress was suprised that I ate fu gwa, which I can understand, as many white people and little children largely loathe it. It's one of my favourite vegetables.
Great with fish or fatty pork and chilipaste.

The bookseller and I passed by the karaoke joint and a street preacher on the way to the burger place. Bear in mind, no one listens to barkers or street preachers except ironically.
It takes a degree of utter goobusness to shout about crucifixion on a dark street at night when its raining. Perhaps he lost a bet? Maybe his homies were taping him?

Hello to Tat Yee at the bar, where he had been for several hours already. Two cups of hot tea, one while the bookseller had Guiness, one during his shot of Jameson. Curling on teevee, for which the sportscommentators ideally should be The Swedish Chef and Groundskeeper Willy. I would follow it avidly throughout the year if that were so.
Everyone would. So it needs to happen.


There was a young lady sitting much further back in the bus with that type of ivory skin Northerners often have. From that distance I could not tell whether she had pouty lips or kissy cheeks. Probably not, because there wasn't a cluster of men melting around her. But the skin hue was clear and obvious, and quite interesting. I do not think that the bookseller noticed. If he had, I would have reminded him of Ayumu Kasuga (春日歩 'chuen yat pou') from Azumanga Daioh, called 'miss Osaka' by Chiyo Mihama.
Seen below smoking some Rattray's Marlin Flake.

At least, I assume she enjoyes Marlin Flake. Or possibly Capstan. Which means that the handsome Charatan pipe she is holding has to be pre-Lane, because the later Charatans were all so darn large. Much too extroverted, as if advertising a deficiency.

I have several Charatans that are of a sensible size.

One seldom (never) sees women smoking pipes in this city. I suspect that they do that in private so as not to startle the horses or the elderly. Discreet, diplomatic.



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IT'S PROBABLY THE DUTCH

Reading the Dutch news sites is always instructive, especially when they're discussing stuff that happens in the United States. Apparently those Dutch are now calling our beloved Vice President, J. D. Vance, who regrettably hasn't a drop of Dutch blood -- or any blood -- the "second bitch". How insulting and disrespectful for that baboon! I am utterly offended!
That's "Vice President Second Bitch" to you, mynheer!

The intercoursing nerve of those kaaskoppen!

And naturally that makes either Mike Johnson OR Stephen Miller the "third bitch". With their official titles. "Cringing House Speaker Third Bitch Mike Johnson" or "Secretary of Evil Third Bitch Stephen Miller". Respect, please!


Bear in mind that they're using English terms in some of their Dutch texts. This is to make sure that slow Americans will get the drift. They're good that way. And while there is definitely a Netherlandish word for 'bitch', it doesn't have the same flavour. Teef is just bland.
Tweede Teef means nothing. Unless you're breeding dogs.

The Dutch word for Texas is quite neutral. We have many words which start with 'sch'.
Not surprising, given how close Dutch and German sometimes are.

In other North America related matters, Raw Story reports that our beloved Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been more or less covering up the deaths of migrants in its detention facilities which do not at all resemble gulags or concentration camps. This is undoubtedly to protect us innocent Americans from facing the harsh realities of life.
Under our First Bitch, Second Bitch, and Third Bitch.


"I am not surprised that ICE, in addition to lying about its murders and leading smear campaigns against its victims, is also under-reporting deaths in its custody."
------ Robert Garcia, House Oversight Committee


For all we know, there may have been hundreds of deaths, but we'll very likely never know. Years from now we may discover mass graves, probably in Texas, which we will ascribe to space aliens, mercifully zapped by lord Jesus with death rays so that we were unharmed.
Because our government said so. And we can believe them.


In any case, Greg Bovino, Tom Homan, and Kristi Noem, as well as Gregg Abbott, will have been pardoned by the president, so whatever happened is immaterial.

A dead issue.



NAWOORD

Geraldo Lunas Campos died in ICE custody on Jan. 3 at Camp East Montana, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Several detainees at a Texas immigration detention facility claim in sworn court declarations that they heard a Cuban immigrant, whose death was later ruled a homicide, pleading for medication shortly before hearing what sounded like guards slamming him to the ground.

He is the third detainee to die at the detention center since it opened last year as a tent facility on the grounds of the Fort Bliss Army base outside El Paso.

Cuban immigrant's death at ICE facility ruled a homicide, autopsy report says: In an autopsy report released last week, the El Paso County deputy medical examiner determined that Campos died from "asphyxia due to neck and torso compression."

Quoted from ABC News.




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WANDERING INTO THE PERVERT APARTMENTS

There are times when the gay young blade strolls into the darker side of town, down near the rail road tracks, where sailors and loose women throng, lurking in the shadows and shaking their curvaceous legs. "Come on, big boy" they whisper, "I've had my shots, I am no longer infectious". They reek of cheap perfume.

This blogger, as a pipe smoker, likes to read about old tobacco blends that were common at drugstores and establishments that also sold liquour, chewing gum, and notions. In addition to the cheap perfume favoured by sailors and loose women.

Things like 'Maple Pinstripe', 'Rum Floozy', and 'Prince of Welsh'. Vanilla, chocolate, caramel, and a faint hint of lavender to suggest refinement. On a base of heavy Cavendish-treated leaf and steamed and toasted burley, made milder and easier by that processing.


There's yellow crime tape stretching around that entire corner. A man in a cheap business suit smeared with lipstick is sitting with his back against the wall, mouth slightly open, drooling. His eyes look vacant. Like a stockbroker.

It is unclear whether the person who engaged him, provided certain key services, and took payment, was a nautical person or a beatnik chick. Smoking imported cigarettes. Drenched in cologne. The entire intersection reeks. Fermentive, alcohol based, intoxicating.

At present I am looking at a container with an old codger blend in the newest iteration of the blender's art. Decades ago Middleton, then already a division of R.J.Reynolds, acquired the rights to Royal Comfort and added it to their portfolio of offerings for the discerning smoker.
A few years later a match blend was created for the by then discontinued product. Then the vikings raped, pillaged, and conquered, leaving many elderly pipe smokers bereft, hunkered down and beaten in a blasted landscape, without the products that they had relied on for their humble joy since Noah landed the Ark. The match blend was no longer made.

In the past year, Arango purchased the name, and tasked another company which does not wish to take responsibility with duplicating it. A few days ago I bought a tin, having fondly recognized it as a renewed version of the corner-stone of existence.

It's a cloying "European style cavendish". Brown, black, and a touch of blonde Virginia. Extremely mild and smooth. Vanilla, chocolate, and perhaps a hint of caramel. I've smoked a few bowls with great enjoyment. Little tobacco flavour or punch, and the added perfumes do not particularly impact the taste when one smokes it. It is, in a word, the perfect tobacco for tormenting Hector when I work with him again, as I love his reaction when he notices what I'm doing. His little face scrunches up in anguish and he wails, heart-broken, "why are you doing this to me?!?" His misery is palpable, audible, operatic.
He hates aromatics. Passionately.
Delicious.

This is a product which many old codgers on the pipe forums missed. Several of them have said that the best way of starting the day was with a cup of black coffee and a pipe filled with Royal Comfort.

Like many aromatics it is overly moist, damned well drenched, there is a faint chemical whiff to it, and it should not be smoked by educated people. It appeals to risk-taking teenagers, wanton women, and ex-Marines, plus other dubious types. It may take me very little time to go through this tin, I'll probably have to order more in a month of two.
I look forward to torturing people.


Perhaps I should drink my coffee black like a psychopath.



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THERE ARE MANY OTHER WORDS

Per Greg Bovino, there will be consequences for using terms like "gestapo", and "kidnapping" for actions that ICE takes. So henceforth I will not use those terms. Furthermore, he says that the name of the thug(s) who shot ten bullets into Alex Pretti will never be released. So effectively we have a secret police very much like the Gestapo, Stasi, or Cheka, but NOT actually "gestapo", just a kinder, gentler, and more red-blooded American Stasi and Cheka, operating on the streets of America, who can bust down doors, and shoot people at will.

Which is something we have always wished for. We looked at places like East Germany and Stalinist Russia for decades with envy. "Oh", we exclaimed, "if ONLY we had a gang of badly trained schoolyard bullies to terrorize people we don't like, such as for instance Anne Frank or Kurt Weil, even Albert Einstein, so that we could feel like our collective testicles were even half that size!"

Well, now that big tough he-men like Bovino, Noem, and Patel have stepped in, we do.
Truly we are blessed. Praise Jesus.


Terrible things happened during this past weekend.
It snowed on an important football match.
And it was Burns Night.

Plus Kyle Rittenhouse is horribly upset that people are using him for rage-bait (again).
Kyle is the gift that keeps on giving, why won't we just realize that?

Well, admittedly he's like that haggis you dumped in the trash after midnight and all of your drunken friends had left, but he's certifiably an all-American boy, and therefore manifestly chosen. An example to all of you horrid, HORRID! gay black communists. If ONLY you could be like him. Or like Greg Bovino, a man of stature and importance and whititude.
Who is NOT head of the gestapo OR a child kidnapper.

Those ethnic kids somehow instinctively recognized the goodness of those uniformed men, and willingly, almost lovingly, walked into their arms. It was the goodness of Christ that magically motivated them.


Also, J. D. Vance wishes that we would all co-operate with ICE, so that all-Americans like them can eat in peace in local restaurants or pee in gas stations. Why are we so cruel?


And there is no climate change. Snow in Texas proves that.

A handful of Republicans may be developing spines.



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FOND THOUGHTS ABOUT BURNS NIGHT

Last night was Burn's Night, which is an opportunity for people to celebrate bad poetry, get drunk, and clog-dance for Jesus while wearing no underpants underneath scratchy woolen skirts. For men a particular problem, because their delicate parts are not used to hard fibres irritating the flesh, unless they're religious penitents with a hair shirt thing going on. Which simply illustrates that many North Americans of European descent are a bit goofy. I mean, if you want to punish the flesh, why don't you simply eat standard white folks food? No flavour, no spices, and a vast array of repulsive textures ..... Oh wait, that explains both lutefisk and haggis. Plus Detroit pizza, but that stands no chance of ever becoming widespread.

Lutefisk and haggis, on the other hand ..... As good an excuse to get blotto as any.
You might want to make it last, because there will be left-overs.

As a Dutch American, I am certainly open to culinary practical jokes, because our entire cuisine is basically founded upon that. Or has names which indicate that the person in the kitchen was high as a kite or stark raving mad. Rather like the English with some of their dishes. In mediaeval times it lightened the burden of dried fish, salt pork jerky, fermented cabbage, and coarse ground groat porridge. But please understand that since then we got our hands on things like nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, and above all sambal, and we've never been the same.

Whereas Scotland and Iowa doubled up on severe culinary horror.

A better argument for there being Wisdom In The East is that China, India, and Japan have no version of haggis. Perhaps Tibet does -- apparently they thrive on boiled tealeaves and rancid butter poured into a goat hair bag (shag in the inside) shaken until frothy there -- but the vindaloo version of haggis was invented by Scots-Irish in Manchester, the healthy matcha or apple cider vinegar and tofu version hails from Berkeley, and the unbelievably popular vegan haggis are all white folks inventions. Typical.


Perhaps haggis needs to be aged. Like cigars, wine, and cheese. It's a Scottish answer to casu marzu. If you need to take a day off for your digestion to get back in order, we'll understand. We'll plan an intervention while you're gone.

I have not touched haggis in years.
Deservedly.



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TUMULT

In Minneapolis, Alex Pretti went to the assistance of a woman thrown on the ground by an ICE agent. Which resulted in him being peppersprayed and shoved to the ground, assaulted by a mob of ICE, and then being shot with at least ten bullets. Whereupon the Trump gang went into full spin and put out numerous lies trying to make themselves look good.
In what is, no bones about it, an extrajudicial killing by hired thugs.

Fascist hacks, patsies and flunkies went public with lies flatly contradicted by witnesses and numerous videos. Noem, Patel, and rabid chihuahua Bovino spun themselves silly.
Backed by Putin's bitch Bonespur Boy and the cretins at Fox.

All of this cheered on by the bot army, of course.
As well as Kyle Rittenhouse.


Every single work day this week I've had a full house of senile Nazis baying in the backroom. A herd consisting of a few demented Jews, several vicious Goyim, and an insane sober Irishman who might be a Cro-Magnon or full Denisovian.
Plus a libertarian who lies and obfuscates.
When he's not sneering.


You know someting? I'm a saint. An effing saint.
I have not killed anyone yet.


I watched the videos. I saw a murder. It was the second ICE murder I've viewed. And I've heard the Republican talking points. There are several Republicans who deservedly feature on everybody's "Feed These Bastards To The Sharks" list.

It's a Venn Diagram with substantial overlap.
We know who they are, and where they are.

At this rate, it may be incredibly soon.



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IT GROWS ON YOU

It strikes me that I currently do not eat the same as when I was still in college. Part of growing up is, necessarily, growing away from juvenile crap that one snarfed down with gusto as a teenager and early adult. And I should mention that certain things in that category no longer exist. Doggy Diner, source of marvelous chili dogs, is long gone. Kung pao beef isn't on the programme anymore. There was a chocolate place I fondly remember, and gelato is a fond memory but I still wholeheartedly of it.

Haven't had a burger in a heck of long time. Do you remember Zim's? Done in by fast food chains. As was Hungry Hippo. As well as a few dozen other groovy burger joints.

Think in terms of a milk shake, bacon cheeseburger, good fries, and no screaming kids with a free toy or a frightening clown. Mmm, baby.


When the interventionary cardiologist who did the angioplasty on the lower dexter extremity lectured me about correcting my sinful ways, he zeroed-in on smoking. Totally ignoring decades of extremely unwise dietary choices. Which included North Indian food very frequently, which meant meals that provided a stick of butter in every serving.

And pizza.

Pizza is one of the world's most perfect foods, suitable for students at university pulling an all nighter, the football squad celebrating a stellar victory, childrens' birthday parties, weddings, and office workers being thanked and incentivized by their generous employers. Anciently it was hunted down by wiry Roman legionairies galloping across the vast veldts of Emilia-Romana and Tuscany, grazing in the shade of majestic boabab trees, dodging lemurs..... nearly extinct in its homeland, but fondly introduced to the new world by settlers and explorers. Sometimes adorned with unorthodox vestments (pineapple).

On superbowl Sunday vast mounds of it will be consumed, fresh and bloody.

By stalwart righteous men cheering on the noble Seahawks.



Myself, I do not intend to watch the game at all.
But I might venture out for pizza.



Pineapple?



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TASTES LIKE CAKE

You know, if someone decides to shoot some rightwingers in the guts, like many people in this country I have a list. The gentlemen in the backroom spent too much time over the last two days justifying ICE breaking down doors, kidnapping children, gassing bystanders and arresting them, and shooting people. As well as Trump's schoolyard bullies acting like Russian soldiers. So guess who is on my list. Yep.

They are all "self-made men". And like many "self-made men", they refuse to acknowledge that they benefitted 100% from a system rigged in their favour.

I suspect that many (most) of them are not welcome at family get-togethers anymore. And that probably explains why these days I've got several of these rabid bastards raising their voices in the back, vehemently advocating for police brutality.

[Jeffy, does your daughter still even talk to you?]

Plus they're still bitterly disappointed that the Forty Niners got their ass kicked and won't be in the Super Bowl, despite their prayers and passionate fandom.


Largely I keep quiet now, because I know that I would be insufferable since the Seahawks wiped the floor with the Niners, defeated them horribly, deepsixed their hopes, ruined their chances, annihilated any possibility of this ending as a victorious year for them, destroyed them utterly, and danced around on their graves.

Without self-control I'd wipe the backroom boys pasty smug faces in that defeat.

With all that in mind, you will understand why I am not programmed to enjoy my lunch when I'm in Marin, and largely consider it merely fuel. Uninspiring white folks muck eaten in proximity to unpleasant scumsuckers, the very quintessence of the white life.

On the other hand, I do have a fondness for mediocre pizza.


Crappy food is totally a Marin thing.
HOA Karen kibble.



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THE TEA IS COLD

Somewhere in the South, a gentleman probably named Jethro or Joe-Bob (so lets call him 'Jeth-bob') is pouring himself a large glass of sweet tea to go with his donut. It's the breakfast of champions. Every morning. Wakes him up right, soothes his soul, and keeps him regular. He stocked up before the snow hit. He's got enough tea and sugar to last at least a month. One teabag daily, which makes about a gallon, and five one-pound bags of cane sugar.
No, he's never worried about "dahbeets". That's something only Yankees get. Half of his neighbors have it, probably secret Yankees. They won't go the clinic in this weather.

[Clinic: Early stage renal disease because of 'dahbeets', all that sugar. Dialysis twice a week, subsidized insulin. ]

Shoot, he forgot about Momma. She's probably still on the back porch in her hammock!

He goes outside, where it's freezing and totally arctic, and sees a large snow-covered lump in the sagging hammock, all four hundred pounds of her. It snores gently.
Snow didn't even wake her up. She's got plenty of insulation.
Besides being a damned secret Yankee.
Dahbeets.


It strikes me that if you pronounce 'diabetes' with a Southern accent it sounds kinder and gentler. Dahbeets. Kind of soothing, not like something that could harm you. Go on, have another BIG glass of sweet tea. Don't worry your pretty little head about a thing, now.
Everything is gonna be all right. There there.

Dahbeets.

Does your pickup truck start in cold weather? Maybe you should take public transit, it's nice and warm with all those once-in-a-blue-moon passengers wedged together.
Sure, there's that smell, but as long as it's warm.

They smell sour underneath the deodorant, the perfumes and the colognes. Pockets of stale air. There's a buildup of ketones, including acetone, in the blood and expelled through breath.


Yeah, okay, I have no idea what the South is like.
I'm imagining all kinds of things, though.
I'll pass on the sweet tea.

I've heard it makes people crazy.



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I ACTUALLY LIKE PEOPLE

While I was walking down the hill with my pipe after lunch an exceedingly pretty woman gave me a very heartfelt "ni hao, hen jiao bu jian" (你好，很久不見). Which indicates three things immediately; 1) She recognized me from someplace, 2) We had spoken Mandarin there, and 3) the impression I made was excellent. The problem in all of that is also three fold; 1) where on earth had it been? 2) Had I really spoken intelligible Mandarin? 3) Good lord, favourable impression? Me?

I tend to think of myself as a rather grumpy goober most of the time. Perhaps I should start considering myself as a likeable old git instead. And the major problem is that I cannot for the life of me remember where we met.

Being warmly greeted by a pretty woman is nice.
If I behave it may happen more often.

My Mandarin is pretty lousy, most of the time in a Chinese context I rely on Cantonese. But in the case of charming intelligent women I will step out of my comfort zone. Problem is that that is thin ice. The borderzone between comfort zone and danger zone is rather slim.


Maybe it was my deodorant. Which is sporty and youthful.
That may have made a positive impression.
Doubtful, but not impossible.


And, speaking of deodorant, I found out yesterday that there is one that smells like snickerdoodle. Why on earth would anyone want their pits to reek of a bakery?
How seriously nuts are people? Americans?

Lunch had been excellent. But I've realized that what this world -- or at least San Francisco Chinatown -- really needs is a place with spicy pork rice noodles, cilantro, slight hint of lemon grass (咖喱豬肉河粉湯 'gaa lei chü yiuk ho fan tong'). Ripe red chilies. It would be something that might give my cardiologist nightmares, but which they couldn't resist sampling often.

If you have it more than once a week you might be dead within a year. Or suffer from gout that goes all the way from the ball joint to the torso. Same with the other great idea I had, namely dried oyster rice sheet noodle rolls (蠔豉腸粉 'hou si cheung fan').



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