A HEDGEHOG? SCRAMBLED EGGS?

Ten years ago I woke up from a dream in which I was arranging cigar boxes neatly across a street in the suburbs. Perhaps the screams of all the outraged earthmoms had awakened me. Earthmoms (Karens, Berkeleyites, and concerned health fascists) generally speaking do not approve of cigars. Or tobacco. Or smoking. Unless it's weed, which in addition to being highly therapeutic is beneficial to the planet, and grown by little green men in the Amazon rainforest who hug dolphins, save orphaned wild animals and kittens, and recycle.
Just ask anybody outside the dispensaries on Polk Street.
If you can get them to talk to you.
Instead of gibbering.


I am mildly in favour of tobacco. Not of pot.


Tobacco has been shown to improve mental function, notably in people on the cusp of senility, creative types, writers and geniuses, plus medical students pulling an all-nighter studying for a test tomorrow. Whereas marijuana scrambles your brains, makes you attack that very reasonable middle aged chap walking home from work while you are almost completely naked on Van Ness Avenue, and leads to communism and syphilis.

People have died from communism and syphilis.

It's spring. Sort of. Things are green. The temperate zone is verdant, and in Germany those people who do not need to go to work or protest furiously in the streets are heading into the forest to undress and become one with nature as Germans are wont to do ruddy nudists.
You cannot see it in the picture, but there are naked Germans everywhere.

Perhaps the crazy man who assaulted me on my way home a few months ago, when it was raining, had escaped from Germany. More likely he had addled his brain with green stuff.
You can perhaps understand why it concerns me that there are five pot shops in my neighborhood, but only one tobacconist.

Nudity!

Also, I am not a dolphin.

The only person I wish to see approaching me would be sparkling and female, and only indoors after we had been properly introduced, and had, after a few conversations, tentively negotiated the disrobing -- mutually agreeable terms and such -- and no violence was involved. Nor mind-altering substances. A kitten or tobacco might be.
But are not fundamental to the situation.
All hypothetically.


It's still far too cold for nakedness outside.
Barely sixty degrees Fahrenheit.
Please abstain.



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NOT FATTENING AT ALL! GOOD FOR YOU!

An author whom I like appears to have a pet bunny. With whom she has conversations. About cheesecake. The bunny disapproves of cheesecake late at night as a casual snack. Which I agree with, because nothing about cheesecake should be casual. It should be eaten with great deliberation, in a contemplative state of mind. That way, if you decide to have a second or a third piece, you know what you are doing and have weighed all the options, seriously taking into account what your relatives might say, and there are no crumbs or witnesses.

There should be late night coffee shops with pie and cheesecake next to twenty four hour fitness centres. That way you can reward yourself for doing the treadmill plus the stretches and lifts. In this neighborhood, we don't have that -- our pretense to be civilized is only haphazard at best -- but we do have a cult favourite donut place opposite the gym.

I have never been inside that gym. No need to, I am a scrawny man.
And I had a big wedge of cheese cake before bed.

When I was in my early twenties there were several times when I ate nearly an entire cheesecake. I still feel good about that. Cheesecake builds healthy bones because it's filled with calcium. Which, as the years advance, is something to which you should pay attention. My doctor at Chinese hospital particularly told me that I should up my calcium intake as I was getting older, and when I asked him what foods he recommended, he mentioned 'cheese'. Well, dairy in general, but he did say 'cheese'. Which is odd, when you consider that generally speaking almost his entire patient demographic is averse to cheese.

Most Asians are. Except for the Japanese, who have raised cheesy poofs to an art form. Canto teenagers, who love pizza and boba tea. And Hong Kong folks who crave porkchops on spaghetti carbonara with a layer of melted cheese on top that would stop your arteries dead in their tracks. And cheesy biscuits, chips, crisps, crunchies, etcetera made for the Asian market. Plus scrumptious cheesecake at several Asian American bakeries.

[Many times I have seen patrons carrying boxes of pizza into bars and mahjong parlours in Chinatown at night.]

They still haven't discovered cheese in a can yet, but it's just a matter of time.

As a Dutchman, naturally this gives me great pleasure.


By the way, that illustration of the Raspberry Crown Borer (pennisetia marginata), a moth the larva of which damage valuable plants like Blackberry, Boysenberry, Loganberry, Raspberry, Salmonberry, Thimbleberry, is there only because Armand mentioned that it sounded like desert. There actually is a pastry called the raspberry crown.
Which can in fact be delicious.
Late at night.



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MY STREAMS AND SWAMPS

Russell was outside enjoying the sun when I left the restaurant. I had not seen him since February, when I heard he had been in the hospital with pneumonia. He was there for three weeks, and now seems more or less recovered, though still not up to one hundred percent. And he has somewhat given up on the bakery, because the others don't go there till late afternoon, when it's almost time for supper. I too have not been going there as often.
I like space to sit down at tea time; they're often crowded till well past then.

Lunch was excellent. Didn't go to the usual place. Had an egg on top. Found out that the simplified version of 窩 is 窝 (two strokes less, big deal). Five strokes for the radical (穴) under which you'll find it in the dictionary, then seven more strokes for the easy version.
Or nine more for the right version.

No idea what the table of Europeans thought about their lunch, and they spoke too softly to listen in and figure out where they were from, which was disappointing. One of them had a claypot dish, which may have baffled him somewhat.

I always find it interesting when tourists stroll into a chachanteng.
It's not standard Chinese like in suburbia or Europe.
Or, saints preserve us, Iowa.


Halfway down Russell's alley three grammar school girls were enchanted by a kitten which found them equally fascinating. I watched the four of them for a minute, then proceded further, encountering another young feline plotting to scale the wall and seize the fluttering pigeons, not fully aware of how impossible that plan was. Beyond there, more tourists.

You will find Asian Water Monitors near nullahs and streams, and even by the shore. They consume amphibians, crustaceans, carrion, and fish. Some people consider them lucky. The Cantonese name for them (水巨蜥 'seui geui sik'; "water monitor") differs slightly from the Northern Standard, 圓鼻巨蜥 (yuán bí jù xī; "round-snouted monitor". The two part term for 'monitor' simply means enormous lizard in both languages.

They are not eaten, I don't know if they taste just like chicken, and some berserk individuals have kept them as pets despite the bite being quite dangerous and often leading to horrible infections. They have an affinity for streams and inlets. Hong Kong is, largely, too urban, so you'll have to go into the New Territories (新界 'san gaai') to run into them.

Kittens and silly little lap dogs are just the right size for a mature monitor's dinner. I have never heard of a pet being snatched, but it probably does happen. I wouldn't let my child near them if I were you. They lunge if they feel threatened. Or hungry.

I mention this because I feel somewhat grumpy when I'm on the bus heading down to Chinatown for lunch. And snappish. It's that low blood sugar before eating.
And I hate packed buses.


Also, I feel somewhat threatened by tourists stumbling around my habitat.



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FLUFFY PARADIGM

It is axiomatic that many little girls love Hello Kitty. Especially little Chinese girls. And Chinese girls between early teens and mid-thirties, as well as several mature women who have never grown up. Which is why I will not have my Hello Kitty backpack with me whenever I head to Chinatown, which I often do for food and milk tea, because I do not wish to be arm-wrestled for it by fearsome little minxes whom, as a properly brought up fellow, I cannot kick in the goolies to prevent them from winning. It would be ungentlemanly.

Also, I am not the stuff of nightmares. That little miss who has EXACTLY the same backpack? She will never know.

An additional factor is that after the Hello Kitty backpack started wearing out I graduated to a Minions backpack, followed by an angry death metal red panda. Neither of which are with me when I go anywhere in the city anyway, because I only need something to carry extra pipes and tobacco when I go to work across the bridge. Normally I have two briars and a small leather pouch of flue-cured leaf in my coat pocket.

That little girl will probably grow up to be a geologist out in the dessert with a rockhammer and a hand lens busily whacking stones and dodging gila monsters at some point.

One fervently wishes that if this happens, she has a supply of cookies with her. Because even though there are enterprising Cantonese people everywhere, running restaurants that provide the only edible food for several miles around in the most heathen and unforgiving environments -- like Iowa -- they're probably spread out considerable in the Mojave. Hardly a large enough customer base (and gila monsters), so there's probably just one of them there. Next to a gift shop that sells Hello Kitty holding geology equipment.
And cute little pans for gold.


Windsor Castle is ringed by Cantonese restaurants.
Bet you didn't know that, eh?


Whereas on a middle aged man a Hello Kitty backpack says "mature Dutch American man with pipes who reads habitually", on a middle aged woman, Hello Kitty anything just about screams "I have many screws loose and am emotionally unstable". It's a different dynamic. The first mentioned has it because it's practical, carries anywhere up to a dozen tobacco related items plus emergency teabags, and cannot be accidentally left behind in a food or drink establishment because then everyone will yell "hey, senile old geezer, don't forget your granddaughters bag, what, are you out of it?" The second person simply advertises that she is emotionally about eight years old, loves cutesy crap plus butterflies, flowers, and little fairies, and still wants her dolly and some mango pudding!


I also like mango pudding, but I do not need my auntie to make it for me.


MANGO PUDDING

¾ Cup boiling water.
1 TBS gelatin powder.
2 TBS sugar.
1 Cup mango puree.
½ cup coconut milk.
1 Tsp lemon juice.
1 Cup chopped mango.
2 TbS evaporated milk.
Plus a drop or two of vanilla extract.

Dissolve gelatin powder in hot water, stir in sugar. Add mango puree, coconut milk, lemon juice, and vanilla extract, and mix until smooth. Then add most of the chopped mango and pour into a pyrex pie dish. Cover with plastic and let it set in the fridge for a few hours.
Strew remaining mango on the top and drizzle with the evaporated milk.
Sago pearls can be added for more fun.


I'll be heading out for lunch at a chachanteng soon. Sadly, there will be no mango pudding. But there is cheesecake in the refrigerator for when I return.



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THE JUNGLE IN THERE AND OUT THERE

There are too many skeevy tourists wandering around at night. As well as people missing screws. Item: the black dude who fingered the railings in the shallow wall niches of a bank, in between mewing, and dithering back and forth. Item: the guy with bright hued jogging shoes that skipped and hopped whenever he got close to parked cars along the street, circling them while doing his silly walk. Item: the scrawny fellow who used his own spit to slick back and style his hair, who passed by several times. Item: the two hispanics who may have just been stoned out of their calabazas pequeñas. And all the German and French speaking goobers who walked down the street while I was smoking my pipe.

The Chinese people were fine. A few of them smiled and nodded in greeting.
I'm just the white man who smokes a pipe in the neighborhood.
Which is a normal activity. And clearly harmless.


Of course a few of them probably expect me to be drunk and staggeringly crazy at some point, because that seems to be what white people do. What berserk weirdness will be manifested then? They're probably quite keen to find out.

IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!

You know, I miss the stupendous wall of dildoes that one of the places in North Beach used to feature. It was an eye-opening monument to the hunger of some people. But for both the bookseller and myself the only real reason to visit the palace of pink rubber was to converse with the likable Russian refugee who worked there most days, who was, with an impressive academic background, quite "overqualified" for the job. But didn't mind, as it exposed him to interesting people with most of the time just one thing on their mind.

The bookseller and I went there because we were local.
The bookstore was just down the block.
And the conversation was good.


Which cannot be said so much for the beer place or the karaoke bar, because it's usually too loud. But they're interesting. While at the first we observed two very charming young ladies wandering around outside with an extra large pizza, who passed by again, and the only thing that I can think of is that they were looking for conversational partners who relished peppers and anchovies. Or perhaps a likely looking night spot to snarf down the dinner of champions, not too crowded, but gay and bright without loud music. And maybe nice gentlemanly men. Personally, I think that damsels wandering about with pizza is delightful.
So I hope they decide to have pizza every week.
Pizza is good. Brainfood.


And, speaking of such things, there were several folks at the karaoke joint who will remain quite safe during the zombie apocalypse. A disappointing eventuality.

The bus back across the hill reeked strongly of eggs.
Not nearly as attractive a fragrance.
Mmmm, pizza!



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FOOD THAT LEADS TO QUESTIONS

If you are East Asian or Guamanian, you naturally prefer your luncheon meat ('Spam®') with a mound of rice and a fried egg or two. Or, for Hong Kong people, in a bowl of instant ramen, add one or two spears of yauchoi or some bokchoi. Classic. Could be lunch, could be a late night snack in front of the teevee. Or possibly eaten on the fire escape or out in the concrete paved courtyard of your auntie's house in a densely built-up village in the New Territories near Gin Drinkers line. Perhaps your uncle's old house just off Route Twisk.

Late at night. The heat has gone down ten degrees or so, so it's mid seventies instead of mid to high eighties. Later in the year that corrugated overhang will be useful, it will shield you from rain while you eat.

You are wearing flip-flops, pajama pants, and an A-shirt.


Uncle Tung hollers from across the fence "wai, Pok Jai, yau mow yin aaaaah?" He's run out of smokes, and the nearest store is a mile down. You wave a cigarette over the top edge and a ghost hand takes it. It's imperceptable, yet you sense the flame, the deep inhale, and the radiant satisfaction from the other side.

Life stays good.

CRYPTOTYMPANA AQUILA

蟬 ['sim'] Cicadas

Sometimes people sweep their outside areas obsessively. Poisonous creepy crawlies, large centipedes, giant spiders. Sometimes there are harmless creatures, that may simply be observing you. Yes, big eyes, but not glowing malevolently. They're just curious.


Caucasians of the North American type have entirely different ideas about food and luncheon meat. Here's a recipe recommended one time by Family Circle that in any climate would clog your arteries, but in the sub-tropics might lead to gout, acid indigestion, acid reflux, perhaps apoplexy, and definitely a prolonged spell of existential angst.
Did you make the right decisions in life?

It looks like a delicious heart-stopping overload. Surely that's a serving for a dozen people?
It sounds great, should I cook this? Will my doctor want to talk to me afterwards?

It would probably go great with sambal.



Cautionary note from the internet: Vincent Price was a trained chef. Don't try this at home.



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AND ALSO THOSE PUFFY FRIED SHRIMP

A friend mentioned on Facebook that he enjoyed lunch at Kedai Tjikini in Menteng, followed by coffee and a cigar. You can still smoke indoors there, and it's ventilated enough.
High ceilings and louvers above the windows for air circulation.
This time of year Jakarta is mid-eighties.
Here the temperature was twenty five degrees less than that, we have almost no traditional Indonesian food, and you cannot smoke indoors except at a place that many local politicians dislike for doctrinaire reasons, where children are not allowed.

Ventilation louvers are not standard here.
They are, in old buildings in Jakarta.

My lunch was dumplings in Chinatown at a place where they know me and always address me in Cantonese. But I have to remind them to bring the hot sauce. Pursuant which, it looks like there is going to be another Sriracha crisis, but this time oh boy am I prepared! I bought six large bottles of Huy Fong. Which should generously carry me into the next year.

Went out to purchase sauce and have lunch after posting a sneering comment on a science page anent an anti-masker and doing my laundry. I'd rather trust the doctors I deal with, the professionals at the hospitals that I deal with, and the critical reading I've done, than some paranoid anti-mask rando nutball on the internet. But I sympathize with his immense suffering and the heartache that the masks caused him. Poor baby.

Lunch was perfect for people watching. One table over a young lady with her boyfriend and her parents were enjoying several dishes together. She made sure he got plenty of the fried shrimp, he then placed several of them on her plate -- well-mannered Chinese people serve the person next to them, which both of them did by doing that, and her parents avoided the fried shrimp because, and this is just a theory, such thing are not quite so appealing to the un-Americanized older generation. It's very Canto-American suburban restaurant style in a way. And they were all speaking Mandarin, so there is probably a long history of despairing over the Chinese food in America there.

She was a round-faced bright-eyed young lady, he was an angular intellectual looking fellow, and they seem perfect together. But I suspect that there is a height difference, which was not quite evident while they were seated.

At a table opposite three younger people were enjoying different soups and shared small dishes. I could only really see the square-faced girl with the specs; a very readable face.
One table over from them a birdlike middle-aged woman and her husband or lover were having siu lung baau (小籠包) and noodles. They happily took photos of their food and the menu for their social media posts. That, too, is a very Chinese thing.


"Hi, we ate at Dingbats, here are three pictures of our food plus thirty more."


By the way: the reason I'm writing this in the middle of the night is because I woke up after taking a nap. It's presently under fifty Fahrenheit. Terlalu dingin sekali! This does not feel like spring weather at all. It may be time for another angry letter to the editor.
Must be climate change. Darn younger generation!

Lunch was 白菜豬肉水餃 (white cabbage and pork dumplings).
They were delicious with dabs of hot sauce.
An excellent meal.



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ALL BEAKS AND ATTITUDE

Contrary to what you might think, they do not hang out near sushi bars or seafood centres. And if you saw one on the public bus, you'd want at least three prosperous looking tourists between you and him, one of them a chubby Midwestern potato holding a hotdog. Blockage, defensive obstacles, and airbag. You can usually tell who the tourists are, because they are speaking loudly in Mandarin, Tagalog, and German. Well, not so much in this city -- those could simply be natives -- but elsewhere.


Wir können nicht in diesem sheithol bleiben, wir müssen promptlig zu Nebelsumpbad zurück kehren!


Because, of course, neither they nor the tourists like seafood. They're on vacation, they've had that seafood culturally and historically shoved up their whazzoo, it helped them drive the Flemings and English out of the far oceans and conquer the Spice Islands (plus wiping out the population of Banda for sound business reasons in the process), and they're sick of it. They want red meat. Artificially red. Hotdogs and bacon!

Well, except for the Midwesterners. They've grown large on copious amounts of surströmming and lutefisk at church suppers. But they too want red meat.

Random thought: The Japanese largely depended on seafood for generations, and invented sushi. The Scandinavians for centuries relied on the sea for food; they invented surströmming and lutefisk. This proves something.


Seagulls look like they want a bite of your burger. They'll beak-wrestle you for it. Not arm wrestle -- no arms, really -- and rochambeauing you for it, in the style of Cartman from Southpark, is also out of the question.

That may be why every McDonalds and In-n-Out in the Bay Area has at least one seagull lurking outside. Best get back into your car pdq. But push the infant in first, or else the bird will try to seize it. It looks fat and juicy.


Yes, I am wondering what to have for lunch today.



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SORT OF MEDIUM

Because today was Mothers Day, it was quiet and peaceful. Years ago when I still worked at a restaurant part time it was like being in the trenches during war. People are very protective of their old maternals for one day of the year, and start to slaughters strangers at random if momma's soup is not just perfectly bland yet salty. They told the waiter! And they're stressed out because despite doing laundry and scrubbing the plates for once in their life they are still a horrible disappointment! They should have become a doctor! They'd be married now! "Where are the grandkids I expected?" She wails despairingly at the next table over.

Their cousin Vinnie is an architect who owns real-estate and has fifteen kids!

But my day was peaceful. No bloodshed.

No mothers.

Instead, there was calm pipe smoke like you could have expected if your mom had married that dashing Latin scholar and gone on to get her degree in ancient Greek sexual practices like she intended. You'd have been born ten years later, when she heard her biological clock ticking over the ruckus of academia. And you'd have a tattoo just like hers, except the text would read "Iulia Agrippina", in homage to ambitious women. You wouldn't know how inappropriate that was.

I rather enjoyed the peace and quiet.

People told me that till about five o'clock traffic into the city was absolutely horrendous, because there is nothing good to eat in Marin, not an edible crumb anywhere that's 'mom-appropriate'. By the time I was in a bus crossing the Golden Gate it was still slow, because some mothers are actually late owls and stay up all night, or their idiot only son couldn't get a reservation for the cocktail hour and started drinking early. Nothing says Mothers Day quite like being sweaty and vomitously blotto on cheap champagne by early afternoon.
After a long morning of fixxing the washer because you overloaded it.
Suds everywhere!

Not being in any way involved in the festivities, I had a good day.


I'm proposing that for Fathers Day next month, wives and daughters fix the power mower and the outdoor grill. A few sharp blows with a hammer ought to do it. And feed him breakfast in bed, perhaps a well-done steak, side of broccoli, and a can of Coors Light.
He might not understand the delicious irony.
But you will.



They are ridiculous holidays.
Quite loathsesome.




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IT IS BEASTLY! BEASTLY, I TELL YOU!

An aquaintance in Marin, where I work, is very much afraid of mutant Mongolian Death Worms. Which derive from nanites injected in the covid vaccine that develop first into arm worms feeding off their human hosts before escaping and becoming the fearsome Mongolian Death Worm that can kill you instantly from several feet away because it reads your mental emanations and knows, KNOWS! that you are a truth seeker purely filled with the Occidental Mysteries so rife in Marin. This is because the CDC wishes to replace us all with driverless taxis and similar artificially intelligent entities ready to take over the world.

The Occidental Mysteries of Marin.
Mutant Mongolian Death Worms.

The "Mongolian Death Worm" is a rumoured cryptid occuring in the most inhospitable parts of the Gobi. No one has ever seen one. There is NO evidence that such a creature exists. Which PROVES that they're real. Remember, they kill from several feet away?
No one who saw a Mongolian Death Worm lived to tell about it.

Approximately two to three feet long. Deadly.


"It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor leg and it is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death. It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert."

...... The Jalkhanz Khutagt Sodnomyn Damdinbazar, son of Tserensodnom, titled Samadi Nomun Khan, prime minister of Mongolia February 1922 till July 1922


How this aquaintance found out about the Mongolian Death Worm baffles the heck out of me, seeing as he scarcely reads, but I have assured him that he has nothing to fear as his mental emanations can't possibly reveal a damned thing.

There are reasons I don't associate with many of these people outside of my work, when it is necessary to do so. A belief that the CDC released a version of the Mongolian Death Worm on the world to elliminate humans and replace us all with robo-taxis is just one reason.
Albeit an excellent one.


No, it isn't the spiritual fellow who dates only psycho lady chiropractors (reliably described as batshit insane). Which is as Mill Valley as you can get. He's another good reason.


Anyhow, heading off to work in somewhat over an hour or so. Perhaps I should wear a garland of gluten to ward off the crazies?



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AN EVEN HEAT

As you probably expected, it got too hot for a few days, during which people said things like "I think I'll go outside it's so lovely", "well, winter looks to finally be over", and "I am from Detroit". To all of which my mental reaction was a snarl. But I hid it extremely well.
In hot weather my legs hurt. So a pox on everyone who likes sunny days.
The ideal climate is slightly too cold for comfort.
Just above Raynaud's syndrome.


Naturally I made sure to stay hydrated. Lots of tea. Much like when I'm freezing my goolies off in the arctic temperatures of winter, except then I claim it's to stay warm and alert, rather than curling up on the snowdrift and hibernating. In the frozen hinterland of Marin County, where there are polar bears and snow weasels for five months of the year.
Because of which I sent angry letters to the editor!
Bellyaching is its own reward.

[Please note: very minor exaggeration for poetic effect.]

Seeing as I live in San Francisco, I am looking forward to summer.
Three solid months of fog. Perfect for taking walks.

My cardiologist has impressed upon me that circulation in my lower extremities can only get worse, I'll need peripheral angioplasties eventually, which will solve a multitude of problems which I don't even know I have my heavens I will say why didn't I do this sooner and life will be good again! Hosanna!

I am determined to prove him wrong. Wherefore I am exercising a bit more, increasing the number of slope up and down of which I tromp every week, so that when I do the treadmill thing the next time I see him I will ace the test and astound him.


Aside from being idiotically stubborn, which is typically Dutch of me, I don't want another overnight stay in the hospital. Five years ago, when I woke up at nine in the evening there, there was a dreary moaning from the next room. It was allegedly an in and out procedure, but they had put me under to keep me from twitching, so they kept me overnight. I switched on the animal channel and watched hyenas hunting down a fat zebra for dinner. When they made the kill, there was a dreary moaning from nextdoor. Two hours later, lions were fighting the hyenas over the kill. Blood everywhere. And dreary moaning. At four in the morning the hyenas were finally enjoying a well deserved feast. With dreary moaning. Then, when finally a nurse came by with coffee just after six, the vultures were circling over the remains, and there was a dreary moaning.

So I asked: "what's going on next door?"
"Oh that's just a demented woman, there's nothing wrong with her."
"Why is she moaning?"
"She's upset about her surroundings."

When they suggested that if I wasn't up to it, they could keep me over for an extra day, I was up, dressed, and out of there in a flash. Downstairs getting into a taxi before they could blink.


If all that was wrong with that woman was dismay over her surroundings, she's probably still alive, and still there.


Within several weeks I shall have enough stamina to hike across the hill with no problems. Grit. Determination. Orneriness. No sweat, no heavy breathing, a pipe in my mouth.
Key is keeping an even burn in the bowl, no excess heat.
On the cusp of going out, but staying lit.



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GETTING FRIED

Yesterday was incredibly nasty. It was hot and bright. And too many people exclaimed that it was a gorgeous day, can you believe this weather, oh how lovely. Those people were rabid slime and I hope they boil in hell for an eternity. By around seven o'clock in the evening it was far more bearable -- low sixties -- and despite there being too many folks underdressed exposing their pink puffy flesh because of underclothedness, this blogger felt well enough to venture out with a pipe and some tobacco.


It might hit mid seventies today. Time to work on your suntan.
At present it's mid fifties and just about perfect.
And the breakfast pipe tastes fine.


A weird sounds contest: hacking and hairballs when you smell my tobacco while walking your nasty yippy terrier. Or is it an ugly turtle? A carved buddha? Please hurry up and make it poo, so you can get out of my life.


I am not drawn to sunlight.

DRYOCAMPA RUBICUNDA, SMOKING A PIPE

I have bushier eyebrows than a female, which allows me to sense their pheromones, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Which may not be entirely accurate.

At this stage in my life I am mostly solitary

Apparently I am partial to maple trees, including red maples, sugar maples, silver maples, and box elder maples, as well as oak trees.



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THE ALGORYTHM IS WRONG

For some reason Microsoft Start wants me to read about Columbia. Which I have absolutely no intention of doing. Not planning to go there, ever, and I have no interest whatsoever in reading about a place run by cartels. Same goes for Florida.

Ditto for most of Latin America, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa.

And Dublin, and Glasgow, and London.
Plus Malmo.


Most of the world smells bad, eats too much, and talks funny.


If I actually wanted contact with savages determined to destroy civilization there are any number of places I could visit. My shots are up to date, and I'm sure I could find something edible with effort. The folklore show with colourful native dances is easily avoided, and not getting into political discussions with the natives is, at this point, automatic.

The welcoming committee and the local political opinions are totally in synch. To such an extent that someone from the United States is usually blamed for everything wrong in the world, the high price of penis gourds, killer bees, and witchcraft.
As well as bad sports and hamburgers.


So, to sum up: screw Columbia. It's a nasty place with rabid hippopotamuses.
Vulgar Miami make-up slags, and gun-toting illiterates.
A smelly suburb of Venezuela.



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HOUSING FOR ACADEMIA

Per a recent news article, there is not a single encampment of ten pup tents or more in the city. Reason being, one suspects, because anti-Semites at Ivy league universities, decent schools, and Berkeley, have driven the price up and made them unaffordable for the average pavement-dwelling needle freak. As well as rednecks made homeless by tornadoes.


This may well be true. I shan't head into the Tenderloin to find out. Too many Fox News reporters down there reportaging on Republican politicians and influencers.


At the beginning of the pandemic I looked at an employement opportunity down there, and decided that close association with that neighborhood and those people would not be conducive to my mental health. An office with no masks and little ventilation.
If they haven't had Covid (yet), they caught something else.

Life is too short to hang around people from the interior spreading disease.

Which, of course, is why I am not in the tourist business.
Or employed by Fox News Corporation.

ANTI-SEMITE LODGINGS

And it should be pointed out that pup tents are inherently racist, because there is no way your average grossly underclothed overweight tattooed lardbut can comfortably fit in there, even if the poor Midwestern refugee of either gender but mostly female, overwhelmingly female, could actually bend over and crawl in. Instead, those people are running loose with nowhere to go, exhibiting themselves at every cake shop and icecream parlour in the city, swilling boba tea, slushies, and 64 ounce sodas because of the heat we're having.
Oh, the humanity! The morbidly obese tattooed humanity!
Pink and quivering Kansas!


Saw over twenty of them yesterday. I hate tattoos.
It looked like a women's prison out there.
The Aryan Sisterhood section.


This isn't fat-shaming! I have nothing but admiration for people who weigh well over four hundred pounds who are still ambulatory and active. Kudos. Save the whales.
One of these days I may visit them in the Midwest or South.
See them in their native enviroment.
Feed them peanuts.



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WATCH OUT FOR THE WILD LIFE

The first few hours of being out and about were the same length of time as the last few hours. But I got a lot more done, because it was cooler. The stretch between Walgreens and the well-stocked grocery store to which I weekly go was torture, and after tea the amble up the street from the bus stop to the bench outside a restaurant I like was like climbing Everest and rafting the Amazon combined. I finished smoking my pipe in a calm and relaxed manner while my legs tried to kill me or occupy the campus. Due to circulatory problems down there, those limbs are rebellious and terroristic when the weather is hot. As it was today.

Tomorrow promises to be more of the same. But worse.
I believe it should be around eighty degrees.

The question tomorrow is NOT "where do I eat lunch" or "where shall I go for teatime", but rather "should I leave the house at all, or simply stay at home bellyaching about global warming and what the hell is this world coming to, why back in my day .... ?"

Perhaps I should acquire a pith helmet. If these excessively hot days are going to be a regular thing. It probably wouldn't help, but it would give me the proper attitude for the occasion. As well as a certain cocky arrogance.


More white colonialists die of climate events in hot places than anywhere else.
That is why the British crowd in Hollywood no longer exists.
It was their food and the ghastly heat.
Plus tigers.



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HE AND SHE

When a bear raids your storage locker, he (or she) is probably looking for bacon and cheesy poofs. It stands to reason. As a smart animal, albeit with juvenile delinquent tendencies, he (or she) associates honey with unpleasant little buzzy stingy things, which get in his (or her) nostrils and ears and are altogether a pain in the ... mmms. Yes. Bacon. Cheesy poofs.

The only bear I often come into contact with is Ms. Bruin, the senior roomie, who lives in my apartment mate's room. Who is a stern overseer in control, more or less, of the other animals. That are sometimes rambunctious, and occasionally steal my wallet.
They have plans, and the leafy things inside of it will enable them.
Either that or the plasticky thing for internet purchases.
Sometimes the magic bowl of quarters.

[The magic bowl of quarters contains my laundry money. Which they pooh pooh. "Surely," they insist, "the old geezer never does laundry. He's content to be stinky and stew in his own funk." Besides, no delicate young things will come close so it's useless! They'll just take it and ..... That reminds me that I have to do laundry today, by the way.]


Ms. Bruin is, mostly, on my side. That is to say she'll utter a reprimand when the other critters are too bold. And remind them that no matter how pointless it is, I do make the effort to be clean and presentable, and in any case, theft is wrong.

Ms. Bruin does not smoke. So who is that poking around near my box of pipe tampers? What with generally not having any pockets, I can easily understand how he (or she) left the house without a tamping device -- something I used to do, but as I worked for over a decade around the corner from a tobacconist I would simply buy one on my break -- and I'm quite okay with him (or her) borrowing one. But how did he (or she) get in? Did Ms. Bruin give it a key?


Must be an old friend. Someone she's known since college.
Looks like rather a decent sort.



After the bear left I got up and made myself some coffee. I need to be alert and wide awake when doing laundry. And take back my bowl of quarters.



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BOO, KARAOKE!

After lighting up my pipe I ran into gangster uncle going into one of the mah jong parlours. Hadn't seen him in ages, and my first uncharitable thought was "oh good, they released him early for good behaviour". But I doubt that he was in the big house, he's too wily for that, and he probably delegates, so he very likely has plausible deniability in any case.
Sadly, he and the others no longer frequent the same place.

Back in the day several "iffy" gentlemen went to that dive. And strange things happened. The current owner is much more stable than her predecessor was in the last years, and does not tolerate people acting up. But it's okay if they sing badly.
Karaoke is a truly absymal thing.
Though profitable.


There were too many people enjoying karaoke this evening so the bookseller and myself headed toward saner shores. A more mature place, even though the "most dangerous man in Northbeach" often patronizes it. He's a pothead, and goes there relatively early.
The karaoke fans are mostly shiftless honkies who stay up late.
The most dagerous man is out of it by then.
And there is no karaoke there.
Nor many honkies.

I rather doubt that gangster uncle ever goes there.
Or Michael. Or Fatty. Or the titty groper.

For some reason karaoke always makes me think of vehicular fires. Maybe it's the lack of sound judgement, the similarity to alarms going off, or the spectacular disaster of someone singing badly at the top of their lungs for a rapt or petrified audience.

Maybe it's because karaoke calls for a jerrycan of petrol.


Thank you for pouring your heart into it. Now get help.


Other than that, the other thing this evening that struck me, during my first cup of tea, was that someone really needs to buy all the rights to Capitol OK Whiskey and bring that brand back. If only so that they can use the pale fleshy nude as brand ambassadrice or mascot.

Also, why is karaoke permitted indoors in commercial establishments?
But pipesmoking, which is much more tolerable, isn't.
This makes little sense.



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SOMETHING ABOUT TEETH

Half a year before the United States entered the war, my dad went to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. As he put it later, he wanted to fight the war sitting down. Which, as a bomber pilot for three years, he did. Substantially. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I fully appreciated what that took. Flying over Germany while someone else was trying to put anti-aircraft fire up your behind would have left me clenching for the next twenty years.

Which does not explain why I had his pipes re-stemmed after he gave them to me.

That was a sharp corner tooth. And a few decades.

Being quite neurotic, I concentrated on having a gentle mouth-grip on my pipes, especially after I found out that replacing them when we lived in the Netherlands took six months and meant that a pipe factory would do a crappy job on such things, sanding down the shank and redrilling it just to fit one of their factory stems into the briar. Which horrid butcher job, to my surprise, they charged and arm and a leg for. Here in the United States we are luckier in that regard, as there are still slightly over half a dozen repair guys active, but Russ who worked in Hayward passed away two decades ago, and for a long time he was the best there was.

I have carved a few of my own stems. Not having the proper equipment, it was a laborious effort. So I will emphasize the necessity for a gentle grip. You are relocating your kittens.
Not chomping through the steel bars to get at the juicy diver.
Mmm, fresh red meat! Delicious.

SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND

Of the pipes he gave me in the last months of his life, I only smoke three semi-regularly. The others are carefully put away because they bring back memories, and they still possess the fragrance of his tobacco, despite my having borrowed them when he went off on a two week vacation to London with Marianne, and my smoking Balkan Sobranie in them while he was gone. He had a wonderful two weeks. I had a wonderful two weeks. Some of the funds for household expenses and food went, as you would expect, for good pipe tobacco.
Teenagers desperately need a supply of good pipe tobacco.


Many of my fondest memories of growing up involve tea and pipe tobacco. Tea time is the respite from the day, a welcome pause for either a meal or just a stimulating hot beverage that lends one more energy and time to gather one's thoughts again. And, with a bowl of tobacco, one is happily fortified for the next several hours.


I've recently sent a Sasieni Billard out for a brand new mouthpiece (the original has a goofy moisture baffle stuck in the tenon, which that company was quite proud of), and I'm keen to see what the repair man does. He's actually quite good. So it should be splendid.
The pipe looks like something someone would smoke in the Fifties.
Which is, in fact, the era in which it was made.

May have to shave it down a bit.
I have a soft grip.



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LET US COMPLAIN ABOUT THE MODERN WORLD

Sometimes it's a bit too cold and biting for proper enjoyment smoking that post-prandial pipe outside. Though I was wearing enough, it almost felt like the fabric had withered on my body, like autumn leaves. There was a frigid wind on the streets despite the bright clear sunlight, sharply defining lines and dark blobs, when I left the restaurant where I dined at teatime.
The elderly lady seated at the nearby table had struck up a conversation about Chinese restaurants, recommending one near my apartment which I may try out soon. I had been mildly interested when she sat down, because of her Hermès scarf. It's a classic look. Quite suited to a white haired matron, but seldom encountered on a younger crowd.

My parents and grandparents generation were more used to it.
The current crop of women have nose piercings.
Not even a Hermès style tattoo.


Lunch had been claypot rice topped with bitter melon and blackbean (涼瓜排骨煲仔飯) at a place that opened perhaps three years ago, but I've known the proprietress probably for nearly ten years. She's very kind, and a diverse crowd of regulars enjoy eating there. Excellent HK milk tea (港式奶茶).

I note, by the way, that a herbalist up the block is now out of business.
Rather a pity, that. They had been there for a few years.

NOT WAVERLY PLACE WITH CHILL WINDS. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The breeze was a little too cold to thoroughly enjoy my smoke. It stang my face. Wisely, most people must have been indoors. Chinatown lacks both a reasonable number of pipe smokers as well as enough doorways and awninged courtyards or unpoliced parks where they might shelter during unconducive weather. For all I know it may be overrun by gentlepersons with fine briars and decent taste in pipe tobaccos, but they're hiding. "Gosh darn it", they probably mutter to themselves, "this temperature is not suited to tromping around with a squat bulldog clenched between the lips, so very much unlike Kwuntong (觀塘), Lam Tin (藍田), or Yuen Long (元朗, specifically Hung Shui Kiu 洪水橋), at most times of the year!" And I'd have to agree; it's eighty degrees there right now, a slight chance of rain, only very mild wind.


For contrast, both San Francisco and Eindhoven are barely cracking sixty.
Indeed not at all like the furthest reaches of Kowloon.
We should do something about that.


It speaks volumes about San Francisco's lack of consideration for pipe smokers and the elderly that there is not a single smoking room in Chinatown! Time for an angry petition!

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SANER PEOPLE, BETTER FOOD

One individual with whom I am in sporadic contact, which I somewhat regret, firmly believes that the government is deliberately injecting people with "nanites" and "arm worms", in order to control the population with five G and bring about the era of black helicopters and United Nations Police. Plus make the sheep vote for Biden. As you would expect, I am somewhat skeptical of his assertions.

His almost instinctive gut feelings tell him that if authorities claim something, then it must be wrong there is a plot afoot and the free spirits on youtube claiming something that contradict it in new and unusual ways must be right.

Consequently, he comes across as stark raving nuts.

Which, in effect, he is.

[The arm worm thing is basically soreness in the arm after a vaccine being conflated with labs using certain bug larvae to develop large quantities of different vaccine material and other bio-components (mostly experimentally) along with badly referenced (berserk trailerparker interpretations) maggot and worm skin infection videos. The nanite thing is based on imaginatively interpreting descriptions of modified ("programmed") lipid nanoparticles used in immunization coating as "ohmahgerd they's injection us with microscopic compooter technologies!" Nano in this usage refers strictly to size.]

He also has novel theories about pizza and space aliens (they're connected), and absolutely rejects the idea of global warming. So he's amusing. In very small doses. Nanoparticles.


People like him are a major reason that I'm glad that I do not live in Marin County, and don't need to go there on my days off. There is more sanity and better food in San Francisco.

Those yellowish things in the illustration above are NOT government arm worms but slivers of ginger. For some reason when I was drawing this I did not strew them higgeldy-piggeldy but all more or less in similar direction. Slivered ginger is essential, cilantro is optional, sambal is desirable (as well as highly recommended).

Unfortunately the restaurant where this was one of the regular lunch offerings, made in one person servings, with some veggies, over rice, with a bowl of lo fo tong (老火湯), is no longer in business. The old lady who owned it retired. I could make it myself. But I am far too lazy to do that, and I rely on exposure to normal people speaking Cantonese and a pipe smoked after lunch in Chinatown for my sanity.


Especially after hearing about gluten and apple cider vinegar for several days.
Or Palestinians and Guatamalans. Wise men in the Andes.
Spirituality. And Chiropractic.
Vegans.



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DID YOU WEAR YOUR SPECIAL HAT?

Nothing says 'Cinco De Mayo' like a taco bowl from the Trump Tower Grill! It's a fiesta in your digestive tract. And to zip it up a bit, here's a genuine Iowa recipe for guacamole stolen from the internet:

GUACAMOLE

One large avocado, peeled and cubed.
6 Ounces Cream Cheese.
2 Tsps. Lime Juice.
½ Tsp. Worcestershire.
1⁄4 Tsp. Tabasco.
1⁄4 Tsp. Salt.

Blend together till smooth.
Note: Cottage cheese may be substituted for the cream cheese.
And the Tabasco can be omitted if it's too spicy.

This, too, is a fiesta in your digesta!



"I LOVE HISPANICS!"
......Donald J. Trump, 5 May 2016


Nothing says "partay" like Anglos in straw sombreros getting squiffy on cheapahooly cerveza and tequila. Which makes me damn' glad that we Dutch Americans don't have a special day. Just have a donut, okay?

By the way: To celebrate the anniversary of the poorly equiped Mexicans defeating one of the most modern military powers of the time, whupping their ass, wiping the floor with them, and seriously kicking froggy butts, dinner tonight was pork-fried rice made with chilipaste. Chilies are of course Mexican, and don't feature in French cuisine at all. The Iowa-style guacamole above would be too much for them. Substitute ketchup for the Tabasco.

Washed down with a cup of strong coffee.
I don't drink with frat boys.



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