WHAT DO I WANT TO EAT ON SATURDAY..., AND SUNDAY

When you pass Ping Yuen Estates on Pacific Avenue late at night, the bright lighting gloriously illumines the yellow ginkgo leaves. Altogether very lovely. Had I been by myself at that time, I would have paused a while, lost in visual splendour.

San Francisco, despite some ugly bits -- the weekend beer and vodka youths around Broadway and Columbus come to mind, as well as the flibberty-gibbets who flock to Polk on Friday and Saturday evenings -- still has a surfeit of beautiful sights and charming places.
That alone makes it hard to consider living anywhere else.

When I first returned to the United States I did not think it so. All of the Bay Area seemed so much uglier than what I had been used to, but in retrospect that must have been both unfamiliarity as well as a manifestation of loss or homesickness. I am much more attached to the place now.

Still have doubts about the people.

Folks, many of you are rather crass, and I despair over your reading habits. And some of you eat unspeakable things, in between your bouts of heavy drinking.
There is overmuch pretension among you too.
You are un-uniquely unique.
Really.

There is no reason to compromise. Why do some of you accept what is less than appropriate and fitting? Why the inadequacies in what you buy, what you eat, and whom you have affairs with?
Just because it was convenient, does not make it 'right'.
It makes for vulgarity and bad relationships.
Some of you are too eager to compromise your principles and subdue the ethical backbone. Shape up, people, we have high expectations!

Don't merely settle, but pursue, question, and explore.
Your mind will eventually thank you for it.
And you'll probably be happier.


That said, and contradicting my own strong inclination to try new things regularly, this evening I shall eat at a familiar place, because it's just too cold to do otherwise. This is the middle of winter, it is raining, and windy, I'm by myself, and I know exactly what I want. Regular readers will probably be able to hazard a guess, because I've mentioned all the elements often enough.

Afterwards, which is also entirely predictable, I shall light up a pipe filled with some tobacco. Though this time it will be filled with something I have not smoked in over three decades: Rattray's Accountants' Mixture.

It smells delicious, decadent and sinful.

"This mixture of dark-fired Virginias, smooth Black Cavendish and Latakia is full-bodied and spicy without being strong or sharp."

Sounds rather as I fondly imagine myself to be.
Full and spicy, but not strong or sharp.
As well as nicely fermented.
All in a good way.


CAN'T TRUST FURBALLS

When I came home from the monthly meeting of the pipe-club Thursday evening, I found a scene of discord and wailing at home. My roommates had gone APE while I was gone. Well, just one ape. One out of four.

The one-legged monkey whom the head of Marketing abused many years ago as part of the company pumpkin carving contest, had trashed my bed, ripping a sheet, scattering pillows, detritus, and wrapping paper along the side where I do not sleep.
There were books everywhere.
Several volumes of Calvin & Hobbes. Gujarati Reference Grammar. Twerski on Chumash. The Great Indian Mutiny, by Collier. As well as the Chinese-English Dictionary, Cantonese in Yale Romanization, Mandarin in Pinyin, by Chik Hon Man and Ng Lam Sim Yuk, published by The Chinese University Press.
Fortunately I have TWO of those.

All I can think is that Urasmus (the one-legged) monkey decided that while big stinky guy (me) was off puffing pipes with his pals, he would ransack the place for bananas and raid the bowl with laundry quarters. He had no luck whatsoever (can't climb), and he also must have been very upset to discover that I do not hoard bananas.

Evidently the Control Monkey was a disconcerted witness.
As well as an ineffective admonisher of the criminal.
He's been surprised at the level of miscreance.
Especially on my side of the apartment.
We're a badly run household.

I've already told him several times that the chaos in my room is entirely the fault of the more rowdy roomies -- now including a Hello Kitty that I was forced to adopt over the holidays, lordy what a twisted piece of work that feline is -- but he tends to believe that I have a hand in it.
Which I strenuously deny.


I do not hoard bananas.
Merely pipe-tobacco.


I still do not know what I am going to eat tomorrow.
Open to suggestions, though. Something fun.
As long as it does NOT involve bananas.
And I can smoke a pipe afterwards.




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