GHOSTLY BEASTING

The rains will come soon, probably within a month. Which, while it's still not ice-cold, remind me of Northern Europe. When it turns frigid, I remember and regret the bad choices I have made, of course, and bellyache ferociously. One particularly bad choice was wading through thigh-deep water on the way to work, because the intersection that could not be avoided was flooded. Crossing couldn't be avoided; doing so would have put me in freeway traffic.

On the other hand, a deep overhang and a thick coat with a pipe after lunch and milk-tea are not so bad. That's a little slice of all right. There are at least three of those in C'town not far from both the hospital and either a welcoming bakery or a chachanteng.
The fourth one has been boarded over to keep the bums out.

Don't worry, they're all defunct businesses. I would not wish to haunt a shopkeeper's daytime dreams, or piss off their clientele. So none are on Grant Avenue or Stockton street.

In my own neighborhood such deep overhangs are a little rarer, but I'll probably be discovering them as time progresses. And the problem lies in maintaining safe social distance from the diseased throngs during the pandemic, naturally, as well as obvious cases of influenza, typhoid, and cholera.

Normal people do not need to lurk in porticos.

The normals can rush home all splitterdy-splatterdy, or seek shelter in a warm bakery and have a flaky pastry and a hot beverage while happily listening to Toishanese conversation all around them, and feeling profoundly superior to all those crusty smokers braving the elements in front of that abandoned store front around the corner ......

Well, that ended over seven months ago. I'll be keen to see what C'town is like this winter, with fewer people on the street, no warm bakeries or restaurants, and all the old geezers avoiding even the entryways to their own dwellings.

It should be hauntingly beautiful.
Even without milk tea.



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