GREEN, FUZZY, AND HANDSOME

When I was in college, I could eat pizza before bed and wake up perfectly fine. Saddly, this is no longer the case. Now I also require a cup of coffee. Age has crept up on me, I suppose.
It was, never the less, a surprisingly good pizza.

Cheese and grease on spongy dough.
What's not to like?

As circular food, pizza hugely outranks the Host, those little tasteless discs you get at church. And there's always more pizza, whereas there is never enough Host. Please sir, can I have some more? No!

I believe in pizza, but in all other ways I am an atheist.


The ideal late night feast would be a slice of pizza, a hot bowl of lean pork and preserved egg congee, and a shot of bitter orange rind liqueur to settle the stomach before going to sleep. Possibly followed by some ice cream.

I imagine that my doctor would look askance at this.
Possibly because his gustatory tastes are Chinese from Indonesia, and he'd want to know where to put the chilipaste (on top of the pizza, of course). Little nurse Mak would very likely disapprove entirely. See, stupid white man, this is why you needed medical attention!



All of this is at the forefront of my mind, because this year I have no idea what's for dinner on Christmas. For some years it was pizza, then for several years it was crab. Once or twice it was Chinese food. This year all bets are off. My apartment mate will probably pull us into something seasonally suitable, food-wise, but it's going to be a quiet celebration of the European Midwinter Greed Fest. And I'm okay with that.

Traditionally she would go over to one of her siblings, where the entire family would eat together, I would have a late lunch on Christmas Day in Chinatown (bittermelon omelette over rice, for instance, and cup of Hong Kong Milk tea), but that's out of the question this year.

I wonder how she'll put up with me all day. I'll be high as a kite on caffeine by noon, and except for regular trips outside to smoke my pipe in the cold -- forty five minute breaks -- she'll have to put up with my presence. She'll probably spend much of it in her room while her stuffed animals quarrel and poke each other.

My stuffed animals will also argue, but I will ignore that.


"You are ALL the handsomest amphibian in the universe!"

"Now kindly pipe down, you little heathens!"


I'll have to get dressed early, though. Otherwise they'll steal my wallet. As well as the "magic bowl of quarters" (laundry money), which is too heavy for them to abscond with.


If I remember correctly, the normal all-American white-bread Christmas Day observance is to head over to a shopping mall in large groups to sneer and eat greasy snacks, spoiling one's appetite for the roast goose and figgy pudding that put some poor person on the street among the livestock so that the Anglo Republicans might celebrate. Except for the maskless cretins, that's probably not in the cards this year.

Whatever will those people do?

TOBACCO INDEX


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