EGGPLANTS FOR SANITY

Life is hard these days for many Californians; they aren't used to the depressing, despair inducing, grey skies and rain, unlike us tough and resilient Netherlanders, for whom suicidal gloom outside is mother's milk. We revel in weather that turns other people despondent, we thrive on emotionally draining dullness and climactic conditions. Which is why we have so many drug addicts. Americans, Germans, Frenchmen, and others, come to Holland, and then once the rainy weather hits they can't handle it. They turn to horse, crank, or bath salts.
And the entire smörgåsbord of opiates that we are so famous for.

That also explains the addicts on the streets of San Francisco.
They came for the "flower power". They got the fog.
Should've stayed in Texas and Florida.
And elsewhere back east.


Also, here on the West coast we don't hold by climatologically gifted rodents. If Taylor Swift says it's going to be a short winter, we'll believe her. Also, we don't have groundhogs, we have "weathermen"; ambulatory sentient beings which speak in clearly intelligible terms. They're an improvement over rodents, and far easier to anthropomorphise.

Basically, what I'm getting at is that the weather is miserable. It's been precipitant since Wednesday, and looks to be awful for at least the next week. And it's raining right now. It rained when I left the house this morning. Indoor pipe smoking weather. Two Dunhills and a Castello. One of the bowls was Greg Pease's Géométrie: Smyrna, Basma, and red Virginia. Slightly floral in effect, mild and bready, faintly like hay in a nearby field. I think the Turkish leaf is there in a greater quantity than I would have originally suspected. Quite enjoyable. Tomorrow morning I'll slice some more off the plug. Good stuff.

It very much suggests a different climate, and sunnier weather. I'll have to smoke some more of it when Spring finally comes to see if that mental shading holds.

The picture above is NOT anywhere in Northern California.

Good pipe tobacco is one of the things that keeps me on an even keel. Other aides to sanity are caffeine, highly refined sugar, capsicin, baked goods, and eggplants. The monotonous droning from the cigar chomping Marinite yutzes in the backroom is definitely not on the list. Today they discussed naked women, the Czech Republic, and Dubai. Incessantly from tea-time onwards. I suppose if you're down because of the horrible weather, obsessing about naked Czech women in Dubai will take your mind off the rain. In Dubai it probably rains so rarely that they think it's witchcraft or a Jewish plot.

The picture above isn't Dubai either. Please note the absence of naked women.
Naked women, in any quantity, have not been part of my life in ages.
But unlike bourgeois hosers, I do not obsess about it.


The picture shows a street in Sham Shui Po.
Where it showers occasionally.

Stop thinking of nudity. It's bad for you.
Follow my example on this.


By the way, one of the things I had for dinner was Chinese style braised eggplant (紅燒茄子 'hung siu ke ji'), which was delicious. I really should have a pipe to follow, as an aide to digestion, but it's raining outside, so I think I'll go to bed instead.
It's pleasant to doze while listening to the rain.



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