POST-CHRISTMAS GRUMBLING

Whenever Devonshire and Cornwall are mentioned, the intelligent person naturally thinks of afternoon tea. This is a given, because the intelligent person has read Wind In The Willows as well as all of Beatrix Potter's books, and connects the dots of provincial comfort exemplified in those works with all the English literary references to summer days and pots of clotted cream. Plus scones, fruit preserves, and Dundee Cake.

[NOTE: Dundee Cake was first made commercially by James Keiller & Son, a manufacturer of Scottish marmalade, but rich fruit cakes studded with blanched almonds are a traditional and beloved Caledonian confection.]

I strongly suspect that the intelligent person also automatically associates such things with cups of Lapsang Souchong tea and a discreet tot of Scots Whisky.

Mr. Badger and his friends were probably not averse to a wee nip in late afternoon. Followed by a pipeful of aged Virginian tobacco out on the veranda. Or under the eaves, if it was rainy weather, which it often is in the British Isles.


BUT IT IS NOT SUMMER!

Here in San Francisco it is winter, the day after the Feast of Consumerite Excess, which every year falls or culminates on December twenty fifth.

Consequently it is frigid outside, and rain threatens. Instead of sitting in a cane chair outdoors, one vastly prefers to snuggle up under a warm comforter inside. Maybe with a nip of sherry.

I have run out of Lapsang Souchong tea. I wasn't thinking ahead. And it is far too early in the morning to indulge in sherry. Also, because my apartment mate is off work today, I cannot smoke indoors.
I shall have to hide out in Chinatown, either nibbling pastries with a cup of hot milk-tea, or wandering alleyways puffing on a briar by myself.

Precisely like snuggling under a warm comforter, the whole caboodle of pastries, milk-tea, and a pipeful of aged Virginia, are infinitely better with a similarly inclined person.
But there are none such. Particularly not in Chinatown.
The reason I hide out there is that I won't get clobbered by wheatgerm-snarfing earthmammas violently opposed to all manifestations of tobacco, or sensitive moondaddies who find the smell of cigars and pipes highly objectionable. Those people do not dominate in C'town.

My apartment mate spent all day yesterday in bed, suffering from a malady that strikes once a month. Which, when she briefly ventured into the teevee room, she described in uncompromising detail.

Lucky me.

I sometimes wish she would share that stuff with her on-again-off-again boyfriend, but he's a delicate soul, and there is no place for her to lie down and be miserable at his place.

Note that she is a non-smoker.

A minor flaw, yes?

But it is a characteristic that bedevils my own desire to hide from the world, or spend an entire day comfortably ensconced.
I cannot do that when she's around.
She would object vociferously to the aromas.
Wherefore I must flee.

I've often thought that I should find someone delightful who has fond associations of pipe tobacco and pipe-smokers -- either a male relative who smoked, or her own personal praedilections -- and together we could spend all day on the couch bundled up warmly in rugs, reading and drinking Lapsang Souchong. While twiddling our toes. All ten of them.
Perhaps sharing an ashtray.


But this is SF. It is never summer here and multiple obstacles abound.
Wheatgerm-snarfing earthmammas and sensitive moondaddies.
People who drink herbal tea and practise yoga.
Creative types, who do not smoke.
Ick poo, I say, ick poo.
Curses.


I dream of clotted cream and cake.
And warm summer rain.




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