IT REALLY WORKS!

Earlier my legs had felt like crap while stumbling up and down the slopes of the hill. But on the way home tonight, they felt fine. The difference was caffeine and colder temperatures. To be precise: cup of strong tea before leaving the building, half a coke at the burger place, hot tea at the beatnik bar, and another hot tea at the karaoke bar. So I was hepped to the tits, and had energy to spare. Caffeine counters arterosclerotic difficulty when walking.
The colder air definitely also helps.


It is doubtful the four active teevee screens had any part in it. Sports, a Chinese kungfu series (episode 31), some stupid teen avengers or teen dingbats show on the third, and Hong Kong pop music videos on the fourth. Mercifully no one sang, despite there being about a dozen white people in the place, one of whom was holding forth authoritatively to the Cantonese gentlemen next to him, despite not knowing beans about the subject he was lecturing them about.

The great advantage of spouting idiotically when there are Chinese in the room is that most of them have tact and diplomacy. And do their damndest to keep their faces quizzical and attentive looking even when they're hearing complete horsepuckey.

"Do tell", they seem to express, "this is absolutely fascinating".
Rather than my own Dutch habit of showing a sneer.

We Dutch and Dutch Americans are not known for being subtle about other people's dumbassity. I've gotten better over the years, and have learned to keep my mouth shut, even when that chap in Marin opinionates about medicine, politics, or social issues -- only one time did I sort of indicate that putting up with his inane rambling was driving me up the wall, and I don't think he quite got that -- and I'm also good at playing along with the artistic types and poets, though I try to escape their chatter as fast as possible. But it's fairly certain that the old Republican blowhards in the back realize that I hold them in exceptionally low esteem, and consider them damned well mentally defective.

In those matters too does caffeine play a useful role.

My companion the bookseller is a believer in caffeine.
Though on our weekly pubcrawl he does not indulge.
I shall commend him for his extreme tolerance.
It would drive a lesser man to drink.



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