THE PERKINESS

Woke up feeling remarkably chipper. Which I shouldn't be, because I will be at work all day today. Dealing with venomous old fossils, more toxic during an election season.
I wonder what they'll be whinging about this time?


If their sputtering screeching anger and indignation weren't so predictable and repetitive it might be (somewhat) amusing. Refreshing, even. But they have no imagination.

They are perfect examples of what one should not be when grown up.


With a bit of luck I can casually interject something that will upset their digestion.
A conversational dead rat, for instance.
Rhetorical roadkill.

Given that I'll be high as a kite on caffeine by mid-afternoon, it's quite likely.
Pity that they are all too dull to really appreciate it.
They aren't very bright.


If all else fails, remark about what an intelligent and capable woman Kamala Harris is.
Which will get them squawking and choking. Tried and true.
Dyspepsia, gout, and senility.
At full roil.


I do hope they're all wearing their adult diapers.




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MISSING OUT ON THE TRIBULATION

One thing I will freely admit is that I do like rotten weather. Which we don't usually have in September. A few years ago this month was warm, hot even, and for a man with crappy circulation in his lower extremities it was quite unbearable. At present the temperature isn't even sixty Fahrenheit in my neighborhood. Good man, that Fahrenheit. Sixty degrees F is doable. Several miles inland it's over eighty, and the desert starts. Camel caravans, trailer parks, gila monsters, rattle snakes, and election deniers, stretching all the way to the outskirts of Chicago. A vast region filled with Texans and Floridans.

Screaming fnundamentalists as far as the eye can see.

Plus vegans and anti-smokers.


Apparently The Rapture was supposed to happen yesterday. Darn, I missed it. That is to say I did not see Jesus, nor was I uplifted with thousands of others to the heavenly city to sing simple-minded praise songs for all eternity at the foot of the elephant throne, and there were absolutely no angels with trumpets sounding for all the world like a Southern university football band at the great game. Shoot. You can tell I'm disappointed.

Didn't find out about what didn't take place till today.

We're at the far edge of the continent here, so the news gets to us late. Folks probably found out earlier on the East Coast. And in The South.

We had San Francisco weather. It delays things.


Oh, the humanity!


Well, seeing as the Tribulation ain't gonna happen, I think I'll go have lunch. Somewhere in Chinatown. Possibly cheung fan (腸粉). Or maybe har gow (蝦餃), or little pork siu mai 豬肉燒賣). Something appetizing and hearty. To match the weather. And the lack of Jesus.




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A CUNNING PLAN

Blood pressure pills. Coffee. Tobacco. And cat feeding. Meaning that the apartment mate is downstairs feeding our landlady's cat, because she is in Greece (the landlady, that is, not the cat), and will be gone till next week. My apartment mate is not familiar with cats. She does not quite "get" that motorboat sound. But she understands the claws. She herself thinks in terms of claws.

She has been training a coworker on the database. Claws would be useful in that regard. You've seen those internet videos of a parrot pestering a cat? Precisely so.
The coworker is rather of like that parrot.

Parrots need attention.


Cats just want to drop a dead mouse in your lap and be done with it. "Here, it's defective, wind it back up or install new batteries. Do something!" I'm not at all sure how the cat feels about my apartment mate singing to it. But she wants to swat the coworker with a dead rodent. Repeatedly. And bat it away fiercely.


The coworker is a Filippina whom I have dubbed 'Jessie Belle' because that sounds like a Filippina slash Southern woman type of name. Sweetness, light, butterflies, and an intensely saccharine irritational factor. I have worked with Filippinas and do not particularly wish to relive those moments. Though I will say that Filippino food can be extemely nice.
Great sugary snacks, too.

Crows are quite trainable. Give them food, and they'll eventually try to establish an equitable relationship. "Give me snackies, big biped, and I will give you shiny things, or nice pebbles! Here is a bottlecap!" And to the crow, that's a fair trade. We can now line our nest with a collection of comfort pieces.

A crow would be quite happy with a freshly dead rodent.
Remember to have one in your pocket.
Just in case.


Heading out for the first pipe of the day soon. There are crows in this neighborhood. I haven't established a nodding familiarity with them, what with not customarily carrying any recently butchered small critters on my person. Sad. But perhaps if I become friendly with the cat downstairs, things may change. Wish me luck.



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SLINGS AND ARROWS

Years ago when I left a particular computer company that the owner was shoving up his nose, pharmaceutical grade, I acquired a beeper. Which I finally ceased using when it had become apparent that the only times I could call someone back was when I was home or at the office. Beepers stopped making sense in San Francisco when pay phones disappeared.

For over two decades everyone except terrorists have used cell phones. They are, obviously, not popular in the Arab world. Or Pakistan.


"Get rid of it, Abdoul, it attracts missiles and bombs and drones and people of other religious or cultural traditions who have threatening auras!"


And, dutifully, Abdoul would put it on silent and hide it in Saleem's coat pocket. Because.

The other day, every doctor and drug dealer in Lebanon had an exploding pocket. Because they had switched to pagers so that the Sinaloa cartel couldn't track them. Pharmaceuticals are a major Lebanese industry. They're more enterprising than Northern European Turks or Albanians in that regard. Sleazier, too.

It's so sad. All those fancy blue jeans ruined.
They were stylish, and skin tight.
Hip huggers.

Instead of pagers and walkie-talkies, perhaps use carrier pigeons?

Or maybe not.


Please, talk among yourselves.



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MENTAL DUSTBUNNIES

The name Max Leberoff was stuck in my head. Possibly one of the other tenants, I think he passed me as I was talking to my landlady about the two midle-aged lesbians moving into the apartment at the end the well-lit side hallway down the steps from the main passage. And there were cars constantly circling up in the parking garage structure. Going outside I saw that it had been drizzle-misting, the gaps between the main trunks of trees in front of the childcare centre a couple of streets over were a light grey.

This is unseasonal. September is usually hot as blazes.
Tropical and unpleasant.

Who the heck is Max Leberoff? And what had that dream meant? There is no well-lit hallway with comfortable looking lesbians in the building, and that parking garage had certain absurd features, like for instance a sunny living room with drafting tables quite open to traffic. I had been determined to tell the guard at the gate to stop allowing drivers to go up that far.

The drizzle mist was real. Quite beautiful.


This may have been caused by the caffeine before bed last night.
Not the weather, though. That was real.

To the best of my knowledge I have never even met anyone named Max Leberoff. But in my dream I remembered him as a likeable man, though irritating because of an obsession with details which I knew were unimportant. Neurosis or aspergers, and very typical of his class. Possibly a talmudist or pipe collector, maybe both. It had been years.

There is a fair chance that the excess of chocolate I consumed late last night formed this dream. Theobromine is not particularly known for psychoactive effect, however, and is far less of a mood enhancer than commonly believed. It does have short-term beneficial influence on blood pressure.

More investigation is needed. Tzarich iyun.



In case you were wondering, I have acquired another pack of illegal cigarettes, which I shall be enjoying periodically over the next week or so, in addition to my pipes. Everyone should have a vice, it's good for the mental equilibrium. I have several.
Ask your doctor.



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TAKE A WALK

Two young fellows of Indian or Pakistani heritage got on the bus at the same time as myself. They conversed animatedly using words that indicated education and a high level of mental activity, and I listened in with interest. When they got off, both of them thanked the busdriver nicely and wished him a a good night. Splendid chaps. Refreshing.

Especially when contrasted with the slovenly white slobs sitting nearby. Who had spent their money on piercings but not on improving themselves. Which seems to be the standard for caucasians in these times. You have money for tattoos, metal studs, and marijuana, but not a penny for decent jeans, surgical masks, or charmschool? Your parents must be proud of you.

Oh wait, they don't wear masks either.
They're from Florida.
Freezums!


There is no way I would visit the rest of the United States; it's filled with people from Florida. Sadly, that doesn't mean they don't visit San Francisco. Especially this week.
Dream Force is in town.


The chachanteng where I had lunch does not cater to that type. What I ate was typical Hong Kong, washed down with milk tea. English was not the operational language because all of us there were regulars and did not need it. Dutch is one of my other languages, but I didn't hear that either. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The weekly pubcrawl was scuppered somewhat by a crowd at one place and white women singing karaoke at another -- they sounded too sober to want to leave anytime soon, it would probably take three to six more drinks each before they left in search of pizza -- so we went to the back-up place, where it was reasonably calm, and very civilized.

While I was waiting for the bookseller a disturbed individual had come around the corner screaming obscenities. He headed off down the block after cussing out the instateller machine, and was still audible for a bit. He had an unimaginative vocabulary.
We really must educate our unbalanced fellow Americans better.

It did not interfere with my enjoyment of my pipe.
Which induces an almost zen-like calm.

The screamer may have headed to the waterfront, maybe to vocalize some more.
I wish him luck. He lost his head in San Francisco.
Possibly just visiting.




The bookseller has finished reading Franz Hessel's seminal work Spazieren in Berlin, and does not quite know what to say about that. And it made a strong impression on him. I would recommend exploring Der Kramladen des Glücks, which has inspiring things to say about the bachelor lifestyle in a worldly urban environment, such as he himself is engaged upon.
Art. Literature. Culture. Junk. Und so etwas.




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STEP AWAY FROM THE DEEP FRYER!

Some things probably don't taste better with bacon. Or sambal. Despite the most creative efforts of the cook. Sad but true. Wedding cakes, for instance. Or lovely fresh peaches. Although a Southerner might add bacon to the latter. Bless their hearts.

The English are notorious for inventing strangely creative variants on inedible stodge. Mushy peas, for instance. Or "chips" and mediocre curry gravy good lord what is that horrid muck?

My own ancestral culture, the Dutch, are no slouches in that regard.
If there is anything, ANY. DAMNED. THING, that can be balled up, breaded or battered, or both, and deep fried, the Dutch will do it.


Anything.


Fried Chinese Indonesian noodles. Balled up, rolled in egg white and crumbs, deep fried. Served at Dutch fried fast food stands during the sixties and seventies, eaten by many people on beer-fueled whims, with great gusto and sometimes sharp mustard.
For some bizarre reason nobody else has copied that.
Which is very hurtful of them.
Bastards.

DE BAMIBAL

Although it would not surprise me in the slightest if the English eventually do that with mushy peas, and somewhere in the Midwest someone thinks "hey, that's a great idea for macaroni and cheese!"


And to be fair, we Americans did invent the corndog.
Often the only way to pep up a turkey frank.
Or, gottenyu, a tofu sausage.
Still not edible.


Best served with mustard.


Now I'm thinking of deep-fried peaches.
Probably good with bacon and sambal.



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MORE FUN WITH MEDICINE

What does the stubborn, even pig-headed, old coot do after a meeting with his cardiologist, upon returning to his own neighborhood? Everything he shouldn't. Lunch of fatty stuffs disrecommended for people of all ages irrespective of their medical status.
Followed by a long pipe smoke.

Having gotten to my appointment early I was as you would expect also out of there early. The stress echo test left me a little bit peckish. And by the way, I think the nursy-wursy or other medical techician doing it was pregnant. I got that impression from the after images burned upon my retinas while lying on my left side before and after while she took pictures of my heart with the electrocardiographic thingy to which I was connected.

Blood pressure is excellent, and I'm probably as close to normal as I've ever been. Further details when I see my regular doctor for a follow up and a review of all other results of the yearly physical. Conclusion: I'm alive, not a zombie or a werewolf, and she's pregnant.

Oh, and many people on the bus in the early morning hours are weirdoes.
I base that on dispassionate scientific observation.

Fatty foods and smoking are generally speaking not recommended.
Bad for the cholesterol and a truly frightful example.
That nicotine! The horror, the horror.
Mmm, I feel good.

Thick chunks of streaky pork simmered with salted dried mustard greens (梅菜焖五花肉 'mui choi mun ng faa yiuk'). Totally divine, soul food. And a side dish of cucumber cooked with ham (青瓜火腿 'cheng gwaa fo teui').

Followed by aged Virginias in a forty year old Dunhill bruyere 253 group 4.


When I left the hospital where my cardiologist works I noticed a surgeon having a smoke off to the side while looking at his cell phone. I refrained from telling him that that was ill-advised. Though I was severely tempted to do so. He probably needed it after being wrist deep in someone. Nicotine and the internet both have risks. Or so I've been told.
But they satisfy the beast within.



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THE BEST PART OF WAKING UP

There are clearly visible street signs indicating 'don't park here, motorcycles and mopeds only', as well as 'no parking between blip o'clock and blap o'clock on preebday for street cleaning'. Yet, evenso, and never-the-less. It's sheer anarchy, teel you what. Of which this blogger severely disapproves just after dawn more than any other time.

As I stumble up the dark early morning street smoking my post first cup of coffee pipeful.

At such an ungodly hour I am a sour disapproving old cuss.
In my day, people did NOT disobey no-parking signs.
What IS this world coming to?
Heretics!


The morning routine scarcely varies, irrespective of actual time. Pee. Coffee. Smoke outside. Today it's taking place earlier than normal on a Monday, because I have things to do.
Reading the news and grumbling about the state of things is part of it, but has no set place in the order of things, and is of flexible duration.


The world is going to hell in a handbasket, which is all the fault of the Christians / Republican Party / Australians. Or it could be the Russians and Hindu Nationalists. I'm not picky.

Those thoughts are mostly caused be body chemistry temporarily lording it over reality and common sense. It's a necessary part of waking up and becoming fully functional. Minor wisps of that attitude may resurface during the day. Dependent on blood sugar levels.


Oddly sour variations may randomly occur.

If cats normally throw up because they eat too fast, is not throwing up a sign of ill health?

Seeing as dogs instictively sniff butts and eat anything they find on the ground, how did their species survive so long? They should be extinct by now.

Surely little children's noises and racketing draws predators?

Historically, head choppping solved all the world's problems.



Good morning, I guess.



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DINOSAUR PETTING ZOO

Sportsday. Which excites the reprehensibles. And their hanging strings of poop. Fortunately the disturber wasn't in, given that there was a second attempt on the worthless life of the small handed rotten pumpkin that lost the election. Third time's a charm. and how hard is it to hit a large barely moving orange target at four hundred yards? Yes, he's hepped to the gills on Jesus and adderal, but he's also carrying the weight of a full adutlt diaper.

The disturber would have riled up the others. And the noise would have been beyond belief. They're already convinced that the Democrats want to kill him. Listen, boyo, if we really wanted to do him in, he'd be dead, buried, and grave pissed upon by now. Okay?


Oh, and the Forty Niners lost today. Good.
Screw them and their supporters.
Rightwing yobbos.

The boys in the backroom are repulsive and scarcely bearable. The kind of people on whom you instinctively wish ill. Damnation and calumny. Debilitation, disease.
Them, their kin, and their damned sports team.

There was also a dead rodent in the parking lot. I think one of the repulsive chaps dropped his lunch. Picked it up with a baggy and disposed of it. Deceased animals are sometimes (often) the nicest part of the job. And so much easier. A sheer joy.


Anyhow, stress-echo test tomorrow, after which a spot to eat in C'town and a smoke before returning home. The weather ought to be nice. Low to mid sixties, somewhat overcast, very un-Californian. Yes, I know you were expecting tropical, you've seen both Bay Watch and Columbo, and several other American television series. They weren't filmed here, this ain't there. Sorry. And you look perfectly ridiculous in those shorts.

Take them off.



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COME FOR THE MEAT

At the end of the day there are things at the edge of one's vision, especially here in San Francisco. It's either crazy people or fog. Or, worst case scenario, tourists turning blue with cold because they presumed that this was California and wore shorts and thin tee-shirts.
One of the local streetpeople said "hey man I thought it was supposed to be eighty degrees today!" as I passed, but he may have been tuning to the wrong station.
As a great many people do.

This morning heading to work, I could not see the bridge.
In the evening heading home, ditto.

It was dark and gloomy when I got home, though nightfall was still a bit away. The weather forecast for tomorrow is more fog, plus overcast, and gloom. The temperature will hover around low sixties Fahrenheit, fourteen degrees Celsius. Perfect.

It's 'work on your tan' weather.
Use your sunscreen.

As well as your LumberJack Premium Bearspray.
Applied liberally around your oxters.
Keeps J. D. Vance away.

As well as any creatures that resemble him. Of course I may be thinking of the bears on Polk Street. Most of whom are actually decent fellows, who will not try to eat your pets, what with not being Republicans and thinking longingly in those terms.

Most Republicans I know are psychic vampires and alligators, however, lamenting how few golf courses and mangrove swamps there are around here. One of the bastards longs for the Malarial lowlands of North Carolina, where he imagines that more of his kind live, a massive infestation. He may be right. Chihuahua werewolves. I do not know how he came to be. I've heard of dobermans crossbreeding with goats and camels, but I find the idea of a werewolf deciding that a rat-dog was a perfect date hard to swallow, even though those vicious little ambulatory turd machines would be easy to dominate. The mental image is quite distressing. In any case, the Carolinas are his spiritual home, and they are welcome to him.
A balding nasty rabid swamp thing.

Republicans, as is well known, like red, white, and blue nailpolish.
On their talons. It's both patriotic and threatening.
So very very butch, you know.


As I undertand it, the Carolinas are also chock full of cougars.
Apparently they are all like Martha in Baby Reindeer.
And every one of them is named Karen.



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FAST-ACTING ENERGY

It's taken half a decade, but I'm finally rediscovering parts of San Francisco where I haven't been in a while. After two hospital stays and a list of several pills I take daily, my stamina has improved considerably. Yesterday I walked all over hell and gone. Which has changed.
The right leg hurt like blazes several times -- circulatory issues -- but it was fun.

It was not something I planned to do, but I had loaded up my pipe and did not feel like letting it go out to catch a bus further up the line. A few years back I told my regular care physician that I was walking more, and his face lit up. Because of my pipe. At which his face lit down. He went back to school four years ago, and my current regular care physician is more realistic about crusty old farts and their smoking and has not pushed the issue.

Speaking of crusty old farts: The bus driver who retired several years ago is now wilder than ever, and looks quite disreputable. His cantankerous companions ditto. The gentleman one table over, who is even older, has the mannerisms and appearance of an evil supernatural entity, possibly one that dwells under the cap of a giant amanita mushroom.
He probably evicted the toad that was there.

These are things that came to mind while I was eating a late lunch at a C-town chachanteng where I hadn't been in a while. Because I needed to get out of the house and smoke a pipe.
Also, I needed a cup of milk tea.

In all honesty, I also wanted to smoke a pipe I had put into one of the storage boxes among the many other briars not presently in the rotation. One which I fondly remembered from the last two years before my coronary stent, when walking for more than three or four blocks was tiring and often gave me a screaming headache. As well as more recent times. It's a pipe of which I am quite fond, and for regular lunch related reasons it reminds me of delicious pork chops at another chachanteng nearby.

If from this you conclude that insanity is common among Dutchmen, you may be right.
At least not very far of the mark.



I take immense pride in the idea that Dutch neurotics are high functioning, almost spectrum re-defining, and like a person with a mild bout of pneumonia, ambulatory.
Fueled by caffeine, nicotine, and highly refined sugar.

The pipe in question is more Dutch than I am.
Made for Amphora decades ago.



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EXTERIOR SCENE

When the apartment mate is at home, I must go outside to smoke. Which is problematic as there is no ashtray there. Where, as an example, do I dispose of my pipe cleaners? How about the ashes when I have finished the bowl? Where do I sit contemplatively while earthmothers scream that I'm ruining the planet and killing butterflies and kittens?

There is a bench across the street from a grammar school.
I can be an example to the little brutes.

If any Karens come to scream I will point out that I am more than the legally required distance away from operable doors, windows, air vents, ventilation systems, and screaming brats. I am, in fact, across the street entirely, a different time zone, another planet.
Near a restaurant, yes, but around the corner and down the street.
I am a rugged outdoorsman.

And I haven't had lunch yet. So, seeing as breakfast is not something I do, my bloodsugar level may be low and my mood not foul but fragile and near the border line. Could get foul at any moment if you karenize. Please don't be karenicious. My spirit animal is a grizzly bear.

Karenocity is not appreciated. Let this be a karen-free zone.
Save your karenating for the suburbs.
Boo!

Except for the pipe and smoke, the scene above could be an advertisement for hunting gear or tofu. And, in the fifties and sixties, it well might have been. Such scenes alternated with domestic interiors showing a clean cut man wearing a houndstooth sports coat relaxing in an easy chair after coming home from work with his pipe and his newspaper, bourbon on the side table, wife thing wearing a no-nonsense apron visible in the kitchen preparing meatloaf and a delicious canned mixed vegetables casserole, boy and girl child on the oval rug in front of the victrola playing with a toy train and a doll, dog and cat dozing, gold fish in bowl, stationwagon in the drive way that can be seen through the picture window.

Smoke Old Bag, drive a Houndbanger, eat delicious Splong.
And have a chilled Rancid Bogman cocktail!

Cheese in every mouthful.

Cheese, Karen, cheese! What could be more American than that? Your sneering disapproval of what I'm doing is un-patriotic! Are you a commie? This country was founded on cheese



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SHINY THINGS

The phrase "I feel like a baked potato" is not one that normally should come to mind. I am cognizant that in the morning, the mind doesn't function at an optimum level until coffee has been drunk. And for many people it doesn't until they've picked up their little teacup fluffball's excrement. Which is probably why Facebook is so fascinating at an early hour. People are preparing to go to work, and hurridly posting any old thought that comes to mind.
I am a parrot, see me roar.

My apartment mate, on the other hand, is wide awake and snarkily inclined at an impossible hour. She should have been a doctor. She has called in sick, which means that at today's meeting the defective person will be representing the entire department. About which I hear amused speculation upon my return from smoking a pipe outside while wandering around the neighborhood.

Because she has called in sick, I cannot fart around in slovenly fashion like I would normally be inclined to do. I shall have to make a pretense at being at least halfway human.


Which is hard. And requires more coffee.

The Australian magpie is a remarkable bird which lives happily in a place where the ten most dangerous things on the planet are native and move about freely. Among which are the blue ringed octopus, the Sydney funnel web spider, the estuarine stonefish (synanceia horrida), the saltwater crocodile, cricket players, spaghetti sandwiches, and vegemite.

It can fly away from all those things, but chooses not to.
The Australian magpie has not fled in droves.
As the only sentient creature.
You'd think.


Just you wait. Once it discovers coffee, the existential angst and paranoia will kick in, and it will start worrying about self-preservation. And also realize that neither vegemite nor spaghetti sandwiches are actually edible.



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PECKING AT THEIR LEGS

So my apartment mate has suggested that I bring the stuffed turkey vulture to my next medical appointment (cardiologist, on Monday in the morning), he'd have such fun there! Treats! Spare body parts! Random dead people lying abandoned in the hallways! It's two busrides away, and I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with a feathered ghoul for several hours that early. I'd have to explain to people in the waiting room that they shouldn't worry when he's pecking at their legs. If they can feel it, it means that they aren't dead yet.

See? It's a good thing!

Perhaps it's time for them to find religion.

I never knew that requiring the services of medical professionals would be so stressful and require so much effort. If I had, I would have stayed in my twenties or thirties longer.

On a different note, I've asked my apartment mate if she would like dinner at a nearby restaurant which we both like sometime next week. No reason, but she puts up with me and the turkey vulture, and lord knows it can't be easy dealing with Dutchmen. Which is why my ancestors came over here. We were surrounded by our kind over there, and it must have proven traumatic. The Belgians and Germans stayed, and look at them today.

There are no Dutchmen in Florida, and life there is splendid. Good food, simple normal people. That's why they're in the news all the time. Honestly, it's a total paradise.
The weather is nice too. And the best education on the planet.

No hurricanes, no flooding, no rising sea levels, no iguanas falling out of trees during horrid cold spells. Which happens in Holland all the time. Just look at their mediaeval art.
Pieter Brueghel is notorious for painting that stuff.


Florida does not need additional healthcare, nutritional programs, publishing safeguards, or any police oversight. People are just happy to be there.

It's an American kind of place.



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PUMPKINS AND RABIES

According to nativists within the paranoid party, foreign gangsters have taken over important parts of Colorado, and people of colour are eating pet cats, dogs, ducks, and mutated giant lizards in Ohio. And we must do something about that! Save opportunities for all-American gangsters! Only lily white people should eat pets! Send in Kyle Rittenhouse!
Unmuzzle the Marjorie Taylor Greene!

In an ideal world, instead of being Republican idols over which mothers in Florida wet their panties, both of those cretins would be facing each other naked in a mud-wrestling pit.

No, I didn't watch the debate last night between the decomposing pumpkin and the human being. Better things to do. I may have picked my nose briefly during that time.

At some point I smoked my pipe and had a cup of tea.
As rational well balanced people do.


Elsewhere people were having self-induced fits of mouth-foaming.
Them shiftless furriners are stealing our jobs!
Think of the cats, and Colorado!
We could be eating that!
Outrageous!

The picture above has nothing to do with pets in Ohio or irresponsible slum landlords in Colorado, or anything that gives the Republicans orgasms such as we're celebrating today (nine eleven), but shows typhoon Yagi on the waterfront somewhere in Asia.
Finished it a day ago. Might as well share.

The accusation that some group that white people and Irish immigrants despise eats cats and dogs is a hoary trope that's been trotted out in every era, and used against everyone that allegedly civilized folks look down upon. And foreign criminals establishing little spheres of influence, that too. Why, here in san Francisco, in certain areas transplants from New York and Philadelphia have notoriously taken over pizza parlours, and I've heard that in some neighborhoods all you can get to eat is flavourless Midwestern and Southern food, with nothing but salt, pepper, and ranch dressing for spice. It's shocking, is what.

As a Dutch American, I am stupendously outraged at all those English speakers overrunning the place. Why, the Bowery and Staten Island are filled with them! Soon Michigan will have nothing but bangers, potatoes, and haggis! Personally, I blame Canada.

We should build a wall around California to keep Midwesterners, Southerners, and Canadians out. As well as Texans and the Irish. And anybody from Florida.
We've got our own problems. We don't need them bringing in more.
And we grow pumpkins here, so we don't need Trump.



No one here eats cats, dogs, or mutated giant lizards. You're thinking of frat boys.
They also eat babies. On a bet, when drunk.



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THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE EAGLE

Please. Don't allow John-boy anywhere near the microphone. Or any other white people. If you know what's good for me. White people doing karaoke is often worse than encountering loonies, such as the bozos with a giant pup tent in the alley, the pilgrim asking people if they had change for a hundred, or the two gentlemen arguing about car keys out on the street in front. Both of whom were plastered, but at least one of them was ready to admit that the other one was.

John-boy began to sing 'Hotel California' just as we sat down. While howling, he rubbed his big hairy hands (figure of speech) all over his chest, languorously and intently, taking joy in how his fingers felt through the thin cloth. Yeah, um. The next white guy singing did John Denver's Country Roads. We did not dawdle over our drinks.

One of the other patrons had told us outside that it was auntie's (the owner's) birthday. So we had to have at least one drink, and wish 姑媽 a happy happy. What with the infernal shrieking of karaoke patrons that proved well nigh impossible. So I wrote on my drinks napkin "有人說是你的生日。是了嗎？生日快樂！"Which proved instantly intelligible. Despite the screaming eagle and his nightmare hotel.

It still surprises me that no one there has ever done "Vor der kaserne, vor dem großen tor, steht 'ne laterne und steht sie noch davor, dort wollen wir uns wiedersehn, bei der laterne wollen wir stehn, wie einst Lilli Marleen, wie einst Lilli Marleen".
Male or female voice, kein unterschied.

Actually, I'm rather glad that Lili Marleen has never been sung at the karaoke joint. I like that song, and a drunken yuppie has no business killing it by screech. I had hummed it while smoking my pipe earlier down the street.

It's bad enough when they sometimes butcher Mackie Messer auf Englisch.

The bookseller remarked that he liked listening to some songs in foreign languages, because they sound better when you can't understand the lyrics. I can understand, but I still like them.


Fortunately no one sings at the other bar. Nor do they have big drunken egos.
And no one has ever tried to make us do a number there either.

But it was a good evening.



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OUT OF HAND

A crazed person was throwing bottles at a parked car down the block and shouting gibberish when I stepped out of the house with my pipe this morning. Good thing I lit up while still in the portico, as that shielded the sudden flare from his attention. One would not want to catch the attention of unstable fellows by standing out in the corners of their eyes when they're having a moment. As lighting up a full bowl of pipe tobacco inevitably might.

It's probably going to be hours before he has his coffee, smoke, and perhaps any necessary unprescribed medication. And I keenly wished him to head much further down the street towards the donut shop. Not trot uphill towards me.

As I headed up the street calmly puffing, a teenager listening to rap at a low volume on his cellular device passed me, probably on his way to school, judging by his weighty backpack.

Also, the somewhat snippy looking young lady whom I see on the same bus as myself every Friday. I am off today, she probably works the usual weekdays.


Where she works there probably aren't any unstable eccentrics with bottles.

Where I work, they're all unstable eccentrics with bottles.
But fortunately not very mobile, or physically active.

At the end of my workweek I am probably somewhat loopy. Partly because I've had far too much caffeine over several days, partly because I've listened to hours and hours of rightwing nonsense being whined, droned, shouted, bloviated, vituperated, and snarled, by a roomfull of incontinent mental defectives who are just full of themselves. Which is typical for older Caucasian Americans in the suburbs.

It's the wave of the future. In another ten years or so it will be nothing but long suffering Filippina nursing staff patiently pushing wheelchairs filled with crazy old white men around well manicured lawns with ear plugs in gated communities. They acquired the earplugs originally because Pablo would be doing the walkways with a leafblower before daybreak, but since then happily discovered that those things tune out the mobility impaired old Anglo fascists gibbering non-stop about liberals stealing elections and biting off Trump's right ear, they've seen the videos, it was a black boxer hired by Pelosi, what was the world coming to, and black helicopters spraying vaccines over the crowd. Aliens! Not only that rapist wielding a leafblower, but also Xercto-B from planet X. Can't even afford a burger anymore!

The thin band of textfeed on grandpa's technosunglasses scrolls an evenly spaced stream of paranoid disinformation from Florida, tailored specifically to his interest, the algorithm knows what he likes to read based on his previous searches. His gibbering is only a repitition of what he sees, there is no need to respond. Conversation is impossible anyway.


I suspect that the crazy man breaking bottles either wishes he could live like that, or is an escapee from Belvedere or Tiburon. And probably needs a burger.


We have no burgers here. Meat is murder.
Go on, have glazed donut.



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THE REAL DEAL

Right around tea time it struck me that what we need is at least one more mixed bakery and chachanteng in Chinatown. Well within easy walking distance of a bus stop. With a modest selection of pastries and cooked dishes -- baked Portuguese chicken rice, salt fish chicken fried rice, beef chow mein, porkchops, dumplings in soup with a few stalks of yauchoi, stuff like that -- clean tables and actual crockery. Where one could dawdle over a pastry and a hot cup of milk tea on and in real crockery. Rather than paper cups and plates. There are in fact a couple of places rather like that, but I need an extra one. So that, hypothetically, on a day when I had to be in Chinatown early in the day, I could have tea down there late in the afternoon preparatory to smoking my pipe while wandering around.

[Baked Portuguese chicken rice: 焗葡國雞飯 ('guk pou gwok kai faan'), salt fish chicken fried rice: 鹹魚雞粒炒飯 ('haam yü gai naap chaau faan'), beef chow mein: 牛肉炒麵 ('ngau yiuk chaau min'), porkchops: 豬扒 ('jyü paa'), dumplings in soup with a few stalks of yauchoi: 韭菜湯餃 ('gau choi tong gaau').同其他。]

I need to emphasize the real crockery aspect. Ever since places reopened after the height of the pandemic paper cups and plates have been widespread. Which makes me feel that I'm paying too much for milk tea, and I dislike the picnic office party drunken frat boy pizza night similarities. Crockery. A cup and saucer.


Yes, I know that with San Franciso's raised minimum wage it would drive up the cost of doing business, because it takes a team of a dozen people to get actual crockery from a table to the dishwasher good lord the labour involved will put us all out of business we can't afford to hire even one more person! But the places that do use real crockery are already on my list of places I will go to this week, and lord knows there must be hundreds of old folks at the two or three senescent fossil facilities who would appreciate a nice chachanteng within two blocks or less. Where they could have some refreshment and gather their strength before going out to play gin rummy at Portsmouth Square. Real crockery.

This morning after my eye doctor's appointment (眼科服務；眼科醫生預約 'ngaan fo fuk mou'；'ngaan fo yi sang yiu yuek') the place where I had breakfast and milk tea had real crockery. I had a smoke afterword. The place where I plan to have a late lunch tomorrow (followed by a smoke) has real crockery, same for wednesday. Real crockery.

And surely there are many crotchety white pipe smoking gentlemen who would also appreciate that right around tea time. The real crockery.

Oh wait; I might actually be the only one.


Still, think of your Chinese American fellow citizens, especially the older ones.
Real crockery is so much more inviting and gemütlich.
They'll appreciate it.



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FUZZY AROUND THE EDGES

Up before six, out of the house at eight. Eye doctor appointment at eight thirty. Forty five minutes later I wandered into an eatery for congee, a fried dough stick and a cup of milk tea (豬肝瘦肉粥、油條，同埋一杯熱香港奶茶 'jyu gon sau yiuk juk, yau tiu, tong maai yat pui yit heung gong naai chaa'). Remarkably, everyone spoke to me in Cantonese. I guess I have reached that age where if people don't look carefully they don't quite notice precisely how profoundly kwai lo I really am. It's hardly likely that they recognize me, because all Caucasians really do look alike.

This is not so much disturbing as it is baffling.

Perhaps it's the complete absence of tattoos, piercings, and eccentric clothing (both artistic AND "ethnic") that expresses how unique, creative, and spiritual I think I am. Which is how many (probably most) Caucasians make sure people recognize that they are deeply unique, creative, and spiritual beings surrounded by butterflies and powerful auras.

Yes, that must be it; I have a bland aura.

Also, I am fuzzy around the edges.


Either that or it's the lack of a man bun and a goth or heavy metal tee-shirt.

It turns out that the left eye is marginally more glaucomatic than it was. Still, the likelihood that I will be able to look someone straight in the eyes when I finally croak a quarter century hence, and exclaim "hey, I know you, you still owe me twenty bucks" is pretty good. This will be because of good clean living, the therapeutic value of smoking Virginia pipe tobaccos, and latanoprost eye drops to relieve the intraocular pressure.


眼壓係眼球內容物對眼球內壁嘅壓力。呢個係青光眼嘅危險。
['Ngaan ngaat hai ngaan kau noi yung mat deui ngaan kau noi bik ge ngaat lik. Ni go hai jing gwong ngaan ge ngai him.']


I think part of the reason for going to eat congee was a notice from Mui Kee in Hong Kong on my Facebook feed about being closed because of a typhoon last week. In San Francisco we usually don't have storms that necessitate closure. Anyway, it probably put the idea of congee after my appointment into my head.

[Mui Kee: 妹記生滾粥品，旺角花園街市政大廈3樓熟食中心11-12舖。Shop11-12, 3/F, Fa Yuen Street Market, Mong Kok, Hong Kong, Hong Kong.]

Chinatown is lovely in the morning. Some old gentlemen puttering about having their first cup of coffee and a smoke, plus old ladies out grocery shopping, or having breakfast with friends. The usual San Francisco bums and crazies are still asleep, and very few tourists out at that hour, probably because of bad hangovers and their addiction to fried food and acid indigestion first thing in the day. Only locals at the congee place.

My next eye doctor appointment is two months hence at nine in the morning.

下次去眼科醫生預約，係兩個月後朝早九點。

Which means more congee.



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COMPLETELY!

One thing that struck me over the work week (which includes Saturday and Sunday) was that A) there are good sound reasons for not associating with many Republicans, cigar smokers, and Marinites during my days off, and B) if I had listened to the medical opinions of the delusional old bastards in the back room I would be dead now, and going blind.

Let's just say that cayenne-ginger water, manuka honey, apple cider vinegar, special vitamins for eyes, sitting yoga, and avoiding vaccination, are complete and utter horsefeathers.
Same goes for glutenphobia, kombucha, and most, almost all, popular diets.

Most days there are repulsive people on the premises.


I am completely normal.


Okay, I used that phrase ("I am completely normal") in conversation with my apartment mate, who expressed undiplomatic surprise at the intensity of my reaction to the box of cookies falling over, whereupon she said (paraphrased) "the heck you are, you are completely Aspy, no one acts like it's a horrid car crash with fatalities when cookies fall". Which is just wrong. If they don't, they should. Crumbs! Imperfection! And if anyone here is on the spectrum it is her. Whereas I am completely normal.

Today was the meeting of the local pipe club. Who are all normal people. Meanwhile the cigar-huffing rabid old swine in the back room were drooling over tight football buns and spewing loud and venomous disagreement over politics, economics, the medical profession, the media, everybody who disagrees with Trump, modern society, young people these days, climate change, various minorities, and milk bottle white calves visible because the retired member of the judicial branch was present, wearing shorts.

They're basically all on the same page, but instinctively they snarl, snap, and growl. Being foul tempered is their natural state. Which is why their surviving relatives of much younger generations drive them in and push them out of the car with pitchforks and cattle prods.

Because I am completely normal, I do not wear shorts.
I value other people's sensitivities.
And I'm very kind.

The pipe smokers, being creatures of sweetness and light, much like myself, were patiently tolerant of the stinking distemper on the other side of the building. As usual we had cheese, preserved meats, and pâté. Plus sundry bottles. Being an abstemious man I had no liquour, but took satisfaction with the pâté. Of which I had more than anyone else.
Yes, I even toasted with it.

Several members were sadly missing. One of them is currently in Africa, another had sent word that he couldn't attend, and a third may be off in the wilderness shooting or drawing ducks. Two others were simply not there. A pity. Maybe next month.


Did I already mention how normal I am?



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A CONNECTION WITH CHOCOLATE

When I was nine or ten years old I drew the entire human urinary system for some of my classmates, minus the final foot or so of the urethra. Which disturbed them, and their parents even more. I was gently told a day or two later by the headmaster to please not do that again. Because it upset the public order. Simple peasants and all that. Thereafter I would occasionally describe for them what dying of the plague or various diseases was like, and point out while doing so that they were so lucky to live in the modern era when the ships barber would not dose them or attempt to cure their symptoms with hot irons or leeches.

A boy with good reading skils and access to the Merck Manual plus a scientific encyclopedia is, manifestly, a joy to be around. It makes you entirely overlook the fact that his social and conversational skills may be somewhat lacking. If you are grammar school age.

It is no wonder that I bought my first pipe when I was thirteen.
A thoughtful young man or woman naturally needs a pipe.

Especially when said pipe winks at him or her from the shopwindow of the tobacconist next to the bookstore where he spends several hours a week reading in the stacks. Historical comics, mostly, set in the middle ages. But also Suske & Wiske (Belgian zaniness) and Asterix and Obelix. The latter set in the Roman period.

One of the scenes that kept spoofily cropping up in many of those comics series was a famous painting (The Raft Of The Medusa/ Le Radeau de la Méduse) by the French painter Théodore Géricault. Anytime, in fact, that a shipwreck was part of the story in the comic, even if only a minor detail. It was an image with which I was already familiar since I was eight or so, when I was starting to explore reading material in English, having utterly exhausted the selection of Dutch books in our house and my school reading material in that language being small in comparison.

The painting that illustrates this essay does not relate to that at all. It shows coastal flooding in a tropical country. The aftermath of a storm. Imagine the shipwreck far in the distance, several dozen miles offshore, and too small to be seen.
Desperate men below the horizon.

I don't think I would have liked Géricault if I met him. Too much an obsessed and neurotic oddball. Plus he was confrontational and peculiar. But I like his painting. The Raft Of The Medusa would have made a great illustration for a chocolate bon bon box cover.

Very many paintings would make stellar bon bon box covers.
The majority of the illustrated western canon, in fact.

Much of Rembrandt and Caravaggio looks like chocolate.
In the case of the latter, filled with fruit purée.

I am extremely fond of chocolate.



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