While smoking a pipe.
No, it wasn't loaded with the clean pure substance grown by little green men in the Amazon Rainforest who hug dolphins and recycle, approved of by all Californians in touch with earth spirits and their aura, which is therapeutic, but good pipe tobacco. Because this was a meeting of the local pipe club.
Hopping vampires (殭屍 'keung si') come about because the dying person harbours a grudge or is irritated, and will consequently catch or hold their final breath, thus preventing the body from going completely dead. Unless kept in line by a taoist master who will escort them back to their home village, with talismaninic spells written on yellow paper stuck to their faces, they will seek out victims and 'inhale' the life force out of them. Because of rigor mortis they are too stiff to walk normally, and locomote by hopping.
The hills of West Marin are full of them.
While all of this was being discussed, one of the members happily discovered "that grey goop". It was his first time experiencing pâté. Which is homogenized duck liver. Excellent on pita bread or crackers. I wish I had some in front of me now. Neil who is in charge of the refreshments knows I like it, and brings it to the meetings.
HOPPING VAMPIRES DRESSED IN SCHOLAR-OFFICIAL GARB SUITED
TO THE HIGHEST RANK THAT THEY ACHIEVED IN LIFE, WITH TAOIST
SPELLS STUCK TO THEIR FOREHEADS WHICH IMMOBILIZE THEM
One of the tobaccos on the table for trying out was Folklore by Cornell & Diehl, a Jeremy Reeves masterpiece. It is only sold in one pound bricks. Curiosity had gotten the better of me and I purchased some on Friday. Nice stuff. Medium bodied. A panoply of flue cured leaves with some Perique and a little Kasturi from Indonesia. At my current rate of smoking it would take me two to three months to go through if I smoked nothing but. I shall probably acquire a second brick. I provided a jar of it, rubbed out, for tasting.
Seeing as hopping vampires find you by smelling you breathing, smoking a pipe may provide appreciable safety benefits. Carry pipe tobacco around with you at all times just in case.
糯米 ('lo mai'): Spreading raw glutinous rice around your bed also keeps them away.
FYI: Taoist priests probably love pipe tobacco.
One should always be on one's best behaviour around people who are dying, so as not to set the buggers off. Be gentle and courteous. I'm telling you this because I like you.
Seeing as it's my brick of Folklore, I smoked that tobacco all-day yesterday and today. I really like it. Kasturi tobacco from Indonesia may suggest spices to the nose, which might explain the name, which it borrows from Fenugreek. Normally it's used in clove cigarettes and as filler in local cigars. It does not resemble Sumatra wrapper leaf or Besuki filler.
It may be my first bowlful tomorrow, after coffee. But as soon as she leaves for work I'm snecking her door, opening the windows, and lighting up a Padron cigar.
Because we had dicked around with the date of the meeting (due to Easter), only eight of us were present. All good people. There was also good wine and good whisky, and, as you would naturally expect, a variety of good tobacco.
None of us got attacked by hopping vampires. Thus proving what I said above.
And I assure you that the hills of West Marin County are full of them.
If you do one thing in life, avoid West Marin at all costs.
I went once; that picture above is a memento.
I consider myself a lucky man.
Little White Nipple dude wasn't in attendence this time, though he does occasionally drop by to tell people about his expensive lighter and the special butane cannister for same. I'm not sure if he knows about hopping vampires. Maybe he is one, in addition to being an astronaut ex-marine podiatrist and Buddhist monk. As well as a nuclear physicist and brain surgeon.
If you listen to him too long he'll suck the life force out of you.
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