JUST ABOVE THE TREE LINE

Because of the current heat wave, inland temperatures have been over one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit (43°C.) in large parts of California. Which is not here. It's been low sixties for most of the day, going down to mid-fifties after dark. Warm air inland pulls in the fog, and by tea-time the wind can be ferocious, especially when a man has to step outside to enjoy his pipe. Which takes between half an hour and a full hour. Up to sixty freezing minutes.

I enjoy not having to deal with tourists in any way or outraged vegan earthmoms during that time, as well as the stares of little Cantonese kids who have never seen such a thing as they hurry home from school with their moms.

It is, by the way, almost impossible for a Cantonese speaker to be an outraged vegan earthmom. That just isn't something they do. Too Berkeley. Plus most of them love their tucker too much to veganate it. Eating tasteless crap is NOT part of the programme.


That was during daylight. After nightfall, when I returned to C'town to meet up with bookseller, the Bay was covered in white, and buildings uphill faded into the mists, as did the trees lining the streets. The wind was dying down.

Because of the weather there were fewer Caucasians about than normal.
Almost no Chinese of course, they seldom party that late.
Except for the regulars at certain bars.

What that meant was that there were no white tech-bros attempting karaoke at the usual place. Nothing but videos of Teresa Teng doing oldies. A few visitors, who left soon after we arrived -- it must have been something the bookseller said, though I don't know what -- and, remarkably, the owner acted almighty weird when I mentioned that I had had covid at the beginning of June, possibly because covid has become a bad-luck word.

I'll have to remember that. 新冠(病毒)肺炎 = 'san kun peng duk fei yim'. Ill omened to mention it. Like when you asked about someone who, it turns out, kicked the bucket, some people will pretend that they didn't hear the question and go off on a non-sequitur (不合邏輯推論) then talk about something else entirely.

We white folks are notorious for saying all kinda bad luck stuff.
San kun peng duk fei yim, san kun peng duk fei yim.
san kun peng duk fei yim, fei yim, fei yim.
san kun fei yim, san kun fei yim.
It has a rythm, sort of.



At the bus stop on the way home there was a homeless fellow with a suitcase and a potted palm tree. He seemed obsesses with the plant; it may have reminded him of normalcy. He did not get on the bus but remained there. With his luggage. And the potted palm.



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