AND DINGUS, WHOSE NAME I DON'T REMEMBER

There are strange things on the street these days, which is probably because the weather is decent. On one corner a gentleman was seated at the curb looking remarkably dog-like from nearly a block away, which fooled me till I got closer. A few blocks later I saw another man at the corner who turned out to actually be a dog. A large patient beast patiently waiting for his inebriated human to stumble out of the nearby bar, which he did when I was a quarter of a block away.

Having spent most of the day putzing around at home I didn't get over to C'town for a late lunch till around teatime. Before I got to the chachanteng I passed 'Dingus' smoking his pipe (a Savinelli, recognizable shape). After lunch I lit up the pipe I had brought with me (Comoy, Canadian, old piece) and wandered into the bowels of the International settlement / antique district on the outskirts of the Financial District, where I encountered Tat-yee with his pipe (straight corncob). He's gotten older, and seems to be missing a tooth or two.
Nice chap though. I've known him for a long time.
His English has improved remarkably.

There were also a number of loonies in the blocks between then and the bus stop. All except the last were male. And very much out of contact with reality. The San Francisco Financial District is a good place for that.

Out of the house again a number of hours later for the weekly "pub crawl".
Which is always a sane, almost Lutheran, event.
We are sober individuals.

After leaving the burger place the bookseller and I encountered Solomon, who was smoking a beautiful bent Radice (excellent pipe brand) filled with Tree Mixture (by Robert Lewis), which is an extremely old-school English / Balkan / Scottish product. We chatted briefly about pipes and tobaccos, before heading on to the karaoke joint, which was filled with loud young drunks squawling. And we decided to go elsewhere.

My friend the bookseller recounted waking up from a recent dream involving his father and his cousin (?) or uncle (?) in upstate after a ballgame. Which was his alarm clock-radio rousing him in time to think of garbage.


I often think of garbage. That's simply how my mind is.


At the bus stop heading home we were treated to the sight of a crazy person offering a short-skirted restaurant worker food, then slinking away, followed within minutes by a young drunk coming up to assure her that a bus was coming soon, it was just two or three blocks away.

Again, it's probably the pleasant weather bringing them out.
Or the short skirts, but that's the weather too.


On the road home from the bus I encountered a young fellow crouching behind a parking meter who confessed that he was a New Yorker who had sipped too many Tom Collinses earlier. Nice chap. Very civilized. Quite drunk.



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