BY WAY OF SPEAKING

On my days off I usually get up slightly more than an hour or so later than I usually do, so just around seven. Yet I am a night owl. Habit and my pill schedule demand a certain conformity. Karmically I'm still a night owl. When you're having too much fun you don't want to go to sleep yet, and I read a lot after dark.

I should also mention that the street outside had fewer crazy people and yuppies at night.
So wandering around occasionally with a pipe is less problematic.

Last night Mr. Siu was walking with his aunt to his car to drive her home. They're both retired, but still nimble on their feet. There are a wife and little dog in the family too, as well as a daughter in law, so presumably a son, but I haven't ever met him.

The daugher in law used to work downtown, but I haven't seen her in a long time.

Upon thinking about it, I wonder how old all these people are. Chinese seldom look their age. Unlike Caucasians, who have a craggy relief map of the Sierras all over their faces by the time they're forty. Bij wijze van spreken, natuurlijk. Minor poetic exageration.

When I take a walk with my pipe, I am the savage beast padding through the malarial jungles of the foothills looking for the bleating goat. Bij wijze van spreken, natuurlijk.

It actually means that my apartment mate is home and I cannot smoke indoors. A few years ago, my doctor was overjoyed to hear that I was getting plenty of exercise because of my walks. Good! Then I told him that walks meant smoking a pipe. Oh.
It overjoyed him far less then.

When she leaves for work I can smoke inside again. I shut her bedroom door, open windows, and become a toad happily puffing until early afternoons in the teevee room. It's my swamp.
I rely on ventilation and her bad sense of smell to cover my tracks when she returns.
But the tiger now needs to wear sweaters morning and evening.
It's getting colder outside.



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