CHECK YOUR EYES AND EARS AT THE DOOR

Both vice presidential candidates will be facing off in a debate soon, watched by millions of people because there won't be any other sporting matches at that time. With popcorn, chili beans in the Sears electric crock pot, taco chips and (mild) salsa. It promises to be a slug fest. Epic. Both of them weigh in at chunky boy. One of them looks like Drew Carey with a beard, the other one doesn't.

Prepare for splatters.

Being, as you've probably recognized by now, a gifted occasional channeler for Roseanna Roseanadana -- it's an affliction -- naturally I do not intend to watch, but will read all about it later for the gaffes, falsehoods, and sheer bubbling bull puckey that Fox News and the alt-right sewers will spew during and afterwards.

That way I'll be well-prepared for the venomous slime-droolery of the rightwing morons when I go into work again.


Spoiler alert: The Democrat will win the debate.


Further alert: There will be loud stupid illiterate grunting from the red states as a direct result. There is always loud stupid illiterate grunting from that quarter, naturally, but this time it will be about how deftly and eloquently Vance scratched his balls and boils, how unprepared Walz was for that splendid big ape-like display of alpha maleness. How pheromonic!

Further to eyes, ears, and Roseanna Roseanadanatude: I'm not sure at all what the headline about mudslides in North Carolina actually said, probably something about the next president using a giant faucet to keep the water flowing so that the Canadians don't win, but I read it as saying something about a super bat lobster. Hence the picture above. Which should be the next confederate flag when the idiots insurrect again.

Better than that stupid "don't tread on me" banner featuring the rattlsnake.
Flying lobsters. Nobody objects to flying lobsters.
Have the melted butter ready.


Banana for scale.



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PLANS! THEY HAVE PLANS!

Naturally I am not thrilled by the heat wave. My legs will probably be unlivable for much of the next four days, and it will be an understatement to say that mister charming and I won't have anything in common. But here in San Francisco we won't have flooding, normal in The South. Just tropical heat. Birds of carrion will ride the thermals overhead, their keen eyes on the lookout for Parisian elderly not surviving in the absence of effective air conditioning while their younger relatives gaily gallavant around the Costa Del Sol among the naked Dutch and Germans, or sell off their children in the souks of northern Africa. As, one hears, is standard. Also, climate change does not exist. That's just a liberal Chinese hoax. Temperatures will return to normal, we've been assured, when all the looters in North Carolina get shot
During what respected politician Donald Trump calls "one rough hour".

One presumes that all-American hero Kyle Rittenhouse will be driven there by his mother and unleashed upon the unsuspecting populace. He'll slide into the stagnant water and swim, like Florida Man, barely below the turbulent surface, deploying his massive jaws on the bare legs of French-speakers, biting and snapping ferociously, infecting them with rabies.

What neither Trump nor his fellow travelers understand is that this will create an army of zombies preying on the natives. So we might as well write-off North Carolina for the next generation, nothing but poor people there bleeding from infected wounds and trying not to drown when they get to the voting booths -- which, for security reasons, won't be in their neighborhoods, they'll have to drive for miles or take non-existent public transit.

POLLING PLACE

Normally I try to stay as far away from the deranged maga-generated sexual fantasies of the red belt as I possibly can. But what usually happens after such disasters in the slope browed part of the United States is that refugees end up in the Bay Area, where they are generously housed and fed and engage in crime. Drugs, rapists, and problem cases.
Also, one presumes, a few good people. But not their best.



I'm sorry. Non-existent climate change and election-year rhetoric bring out the venomous liberal trailer parker in me. The heat, especially, infects me with a desire to become a childless cat lady. It will be over soon.

Only five more weeks and I'll be a gob-fearing christian again.
And in a week or so, civilized weather ought to return.

Till then expect lapses in logic and continuity.
And often bananas for scale.

I have never seen any of the 'Purge' movies.
But I really should sometime.
They're a blueprint.

I hate heat.



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TEMPERAMENTAL RODENT!

The plug-in mouse to this computer keeps acting up. In consequence of which I lost three hours worth of work. Attacking electronic rodents with hammers is just not a good idea, but might be emotionally satisfying. And no, I do NOT want somebody with an Indian accent to call up offering tech support. Even if they do know all the words to 'numa numa'.

The working day was frustrating. A dozen men in the backroom screaming at the ball game, when they weren't screaming at each other. Some of the crotchety old codgers I associate with are, obviously, less functional than my mouse. I must remember not to attack them with hammers either. Also, they smell bad.

I am far less human than I pretend.

This would have been a rather pleasant painting of moist greenery in a rainstorm. Except for the damned rodent. This is what remains. I'm beginning to think that perhaps I should start using real paints again. Despite the space limitations here.

Question: Do pet iguanas steal bananas?

A local monkey wants to know.



If you are baffled by the question, you can blame the mouse.



In other news, there is speculation that a person we both know may be on the spectrum. There are clues.



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DON'T GO INTO THE BUSH!

Please, desi tourists, do NOT rent a bicycle during your trip to the San Francisco for a fun jaunt across the Golden Gate Bridge on a clear day. You will have such a good time when you get to Sausalito on the other side that you will head back when it's too late. You will wait for nearly an hour at the last stop on the north side. Surely you can take the bus back to SF in smooth warm comfort? No. No bikes allowed on board. The rack on the front of the bus only has room for three total, one of the other passengers already has his there, and there are six of you. Four of you will have to ride back under your own steam in the freezing cold mists and brutal wind, while Rajeev and Vasanti sit inside. Warm! So heartless! When you get back to Chandragandanagar you will tell everybody how heartless they were.

We were freezing, and assaulted by bhutas and dushtvale rakshasas!
Jinns and howling bearded Republicans! Oh, it was awful!

Rajeev's mother is a badbuhwalli untni!
They are horrible people!

It's so sad. Your trip to California ruined by Rajeev conspiring with the bus company to give you palpitations and a cold. Perhaps he should be pelted with eggs. Perhaps you should have asked probing questions of the bicycle company proprietor before you set out.

Of course, you're still lucky. Further north, beyond beautiful downtown Sausalito, it was high tide and there was also flooding from Hurricane Helene, streets under water with alligators swimming into people's front yards, trailer parks, and refuse pits. A very real danger of malaria, if the Cajuns, reptiles, and Marin County hippies didn't get you first.

The North American alligator can grow up to five hundred pounds (roughly the weight of an adult redneck breeding couple) and live for four or five decades. They have big glowing eyes and can see in the dark, or disappear into the shrubbery if they sense a threatening aura.
They eat shivering foreign tourists for breakfast.
Yummy! Tastes like chicken!

The boogah boogah lives out there.
It's a jungle.


Note the banana for scale in the picture above.



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TROPICAL SHOWERS

Now, I could detail how the retired judicial person interrupted his long whiny harangue about Kamala Harris and how Trump has admirable, admirable! ethics, a very moral man indeed, to go to the bathroom. Where he spent too much time because of his prostate. It was the employee bathroom. Dude, get out. Get your darned prostate fixed. Or tied.
Oh for crapsakes, clench! Pretend you're at a baseball game!
And cease that incessant bitching.

To a large degree he resembled Beaker from the Muppet Show.

When he returned and resumed his squawking I tuned him out.

Some bourgeois dingos in the suburbs are perpetually peeved at nearly everything, dislike progress, feel that they were cheated, CHEATED! because no one worships their idols or their asses, what is this world coming to with all those melanin types getting ahead, and dammit, why is it always raining on their parade? So, as I said, I shan't detail it.

If it's raining on your parade, you very likely deserve it.
Maybe you should get yourself inside?
How stupid are you?


He probably wouldn't move out of the way of a speeding truck because why should he?
It's his right! The principle of the thing! And somebody should do something!

His current wife probably married him because of retirement benefits and life insurance.
Yeah, okay, he smells bad, but he does shower occasionally.
His parents taught him how.



Some professions in the United States are largely populated by unmitigated swine.
All branches. Vulgarians, crass oppurtunists, and illiterates.
Amuck-runninng heathen.




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THE PERFECT TIME TO VISIT

There are worse things than a category 4 hurricane. Natural disasters like Trump, De Santis, and the abysmal performance of their football teams. By comparison, a tiny little cat four is perfect strolling weather. And the water is fine!

There are alligators, snakes, and red necks swimming in the flooded streets.

But at least they don't have black history, gays, or refugees.

They've got Jesus. In their souls. And schools.

Hallelujah!

I'm sorry, even though two of the nicest bill collectors I know are based in Florida, it's hard to feel any sympathy for that state. Besides, I'm an unpleasant person, and I would hate their sports teams if I actually gave a rat's ass.


Years ago a friend from Holland bought a home in Florida.
I hope he's alright. On high ground at least.
We Dutch know about flooding.

And frogs. We know about frogs. During some parts of the year the highways are covered with frogs, so many that the asfalt is slimy and damp from the carnage. It must be the frogs, that's why my friend moved there. He'd feel out of place without the comforting presence of frogs. Frogs make any place seem like home.


Frogs, a little weather, and Jesus.
Life can hardly get any better.
It's just about perfect.



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HARK, HE DECLAIMS!

The loony gentleman exposing his plumber's bits, described a few days ago, was on Kearny Street screaming at invisible people. With gesticulation. And more plumber's bits exposed.
I saw him after purchasing some fancy ciggies (Yellow Crane Pavilion: 黃鶴樓煙 'wong hok lau yin') at a place which lacks a license to sell smokes. Two packs. Quite pleased with that. Once more the tax man has been flummoxed, Brendan Behan would approve, even though they aren't Woodbines with the lovely old-timey label art. The working classes (me) have to be kept happy, otherwise they will bloodily revolt.

I had strolled past the place after having lunch at a different place than I had originally intended, because I dawdled too long before leaving the apartment, and felt certain that the fatty pork would be all gone when I got there. I'll save it for sometime next week. The place where I ended up seems to be popular among the kwailo. Which is understandable, because it's bright and clean and cheery. At one point us foreigners outnumbered the Chinese two to one. And the nearest Chinese person couldn't read Chinese so he ordered in English.

蠔油窩蛋碎牛肉飯 = oyster sauce minced beef with a raw egg over rice. I think next time I'll ask them to not include the egg, as timing is everything and the egg had no chance to even slightly unraw itself.

For a second I considered that fancy parties with a chocolate fountain -- which is vulgar and tacky, and that chocolate is probably garbage -- are just begging for people to dip their fried chicken legs from the buffet in it. Which is neither here nor there, and doesn't actually relate to lunch in any way. And absolutely nothing there is chocolate.

On a different note entirely, always pat down a man of god, any damned denomination, before allowing him into the building. Which also does not relate to lunch.


Yellow Crane Pavilion Cigarettes were the prefered smoke of famous poets Li Bai (李白 'lei paak') and Cui Hao (崔顥 'cheui hou'). As is well-attested! Unlike many habitues of the Caffè Trieste, who spouted bad verse beatnik-style at the drop of a hat, both gentlemen were known for a keen sense of rythm and rhyme, and crafted excellent lines.
They are sadly lamented since their passing.



Plumber's bits dude may or may not have the gift of poetry, in addition to a ready tongue for screamed calumny and obscenity. He will undoubtedly establish a gilded reputation among the easily excited clientele of the coffee shops in North Beach.
He is creative and theatrical.
An artist.



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IT'S GOT EVERYTHING!

A friend asked last week about a good place to eat in Chinatown. Well jeez, I wouldn't know anything about that. As far as I'm concerned there aren't any. Primarily because I doubt that most people would like what I like. Where, truth be told, I really don't want to see outsiders ordering general Tzo's chicken and Sichuan chow mein, only to be told later "yeah, I tried that place, no good, sumpin' wrong with your tastes boy".

I like dumplings, congee, and stuff over rice that might kill me.
Fatty pork with mui choi. Steamed salt fish pork patty.
Bitter melon with black bean sauce fish.
And chachanteng food.


Imagine, if you will, a lovely woman tucking in to a plate of porkchops and spaghetti which is totally hidden by a layer of hot bubbly melted cheese, while guzzling something electric pink. It's a heart attack on a plate. How can she eat all that? Her aunties AND her doctor told her to avoid it, it will kill her, clog her arteries, give her zits, add weight, and make her smell like a white woman! She will never find a husband like that!

Mmmm, delicious!

Hello Kitty just loves cheese.

Maybe she doesn't want a husband. She's perfectly happy with her cat, or perhaps a pet iguana. She tucks into the goo, savouring each yummy mouthful. From my table near the back I enjoy the view, and adjust my spectacles. Odd. They misted over.
Must be all the Sriracha I dumped on my food.

Oh look, there's an elderly couple eating similar stuff.
Obviously not worrying about their digestion.
Gotta have fun occasionally.

No doctors here.

The place where I'm thinking of having lunch today does not have milk tea, or cheese, or real hot sauce, or porkchops. And lovely women younger than the fossil layer rarely go there.
But they have mui choi kau yiuk, and black bean spare ribs over rice.
And I have an urge for something fatty meat today.

I do not object to cats or iguanas.




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PERFECT TERRARIUM CONDITIONS

You could feel the moisture on your face last night. It wasn't foggy, but foggish. Down at the intersection someone was singing, somewhat off kilter. I had woken up and decided to go out for a bit. My sleep patterns are askew. It may be the weather -- it was beastly hot on Monday, chilly on Tuesday night with dense fog at times, and cool on Wednesday -- but waiting for the test results (yearly physical) also probably has a part in it. We know that I have blood; that was established with little vials for lab work. But what does it say? Had an upper torso scan and a thyroid scan, no one has called me in a panic. The stress-echo established (I think) that the heart is still working reasonably. And so far it's too early to know if I have cancer of the arse. The urine has also been examined. No idea what that said. Refer back to the absence of panicky phone calls.


"Hellooo, damned Dutchman, your pee disolves metals!"


So yeah, it's the weather.

Probably not the chili pepper derivatives and break-down products coursing through my veins, eating away at precious brain tissue, and causing my lower digestive tract to slough off and wrap itself tightly around my lower tentacles. As just an educated guess. There is no visible evidence that I'm an alien from 'Planet Glob' here to investigate human beings' suitability as food, spare parts, or slave labour. No. Visible. Evidence!

I'm leaning toward unsuitable for food. They smell bad.

Definitely the weather.

It veers wildly between unpleasant summer and glorious autumn. Humid, either way.

News reports are suggesting catastrophe and disaster on the gulf coast soon. Which has no impact here, though it may be linked to our conditions. Climate relationships and climate change. Which you either believe in or not, depending on how you plan to vote.
And whether your brain is functional or defective.

A trailer park Trumpite I know in Marin is convinced that there is no climate change, it's all what they want you to think which is why they've injected vaccine nanobots into people to influence their minds he's done his own research look it up outer space aliens built Babylon and there's a secret group inside the government!

I'm thinking of going to get my flu and covid shots ahead of my next doctors appointment, because it's at the end of my weekend that week. The last two covid vaxxes and the RSV shot back in August left me limp for a day immediately afterward.
I'll let my doctor know ahead of time.

In this weather I need my nanobots.



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THE AUTUMN CHICKENS

The third man wasn't there because he and Henry were going off to a dance. Or something. It was something that a family association or benevolent society organized, the giddy social whirl of elderly American Born Chinese long since retired. I am, naturally, imagining a party with spry little four and a half foot tall ladies still trim and active, silver hair and twinkling eyes. Such as the ballroom events at a nearby restaurant a few years ago.
The older generation was shorter.

My mother, of Scots-Irish and Dutch ancestry, was a giantess.
Four foot eleven. But nearly a foot less than my father.
She was two inches taller than his mother.


And, speaking of such things, little Bo' Peep got on the bus when I was heading home.
Well over six feet tall. With a five o'clock shadow. And a frilly parasol. Okay?
Not all cross-dressers are equal. Some are more so than others.

It stands to reason that back in the day cross-dressers were more petite.
I miss the days when a cross-dresser was a lady.
A kinder, gentler era.

Seeing as I felt quite dwarfed with this humongous little shepherdess standing right next to me, I couldn't wait to get off the bus. I'm just not very comfortable with large people standing quite so close. And I wanted to relight my pipe and breathe. Rush hour busses are always too crowded, and if you're sitting down in some seats that puts your eyes at crotch or arse level. In San Francisco, the less said about that the better.

Still, that's better than establishing eye contact. With someone wearing a poofy blue velvet mini-skirt and flouncy petticoats. I would not have been able to establish eye contact anyway, because of the height differential, and I tend to not do that even with people my own height. The perfect date, in other words, would be with someone who might hold my gaze.
Even though that could be uncomfortable.

Life often consists of exercises in looking elsewhere.


The handsome briar I was smoking after tea is of the some vintage as all the gentlemen mentioned earlier. Who probably had young sprightly four and a half foot girlfriends back in the day, tall willowy creatures for that time and that place. Somebody sporting that particular pipe would have been quite dashing and Bohemian then. Foxy, ooooh!

I would probably have had to learn how to dance.
It was much more common then.



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TIME, PLACE, HOT FAT, AND RAIN

The Dutch have not yet realized that with their stellar fried snack culture they're set for the breakfast of champions. The snackbars and fry hutches, sadly, don't open till ten o'clock at the earliest. Imagine you get up at five or six, enjoy a cup of strong coffee which perks you right up, and at that point you wish for something hearty and appetizing.

The Dutch breakfast is sandwich-like. Bread and cheese or meat. Boring. Stodge.

At seven in the morning it's raining outside, the streets of Eindhoven are filled with soggy bicyclists, some dude just tromped past wearing two raincoats and smoking a cigar -- that explains the two rain coats, as he has to go outside to smoke in this era -- there is a cluster of vegans with brainwashing pamphlets in the entrance to the trainstation, and the working men's cafe in the passage has been replaced with tofu shack, which is run by hippies.

That, more than the outcast cigar smoker, is a sign of the place.
Holland still has hippies.

What you want is deep-fried, dingus shaped, hot and juicy.

FRIKANDEL

Approximately sixty percent meat, plus spices, binders, texturizers, breaded with paneermeel (fine rusk flour) and eggwhite, deepfried till mahogany. Great with sharp mustard, although a bit of sambal would not be amiss.

Obviously this is why students in such places as Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Leiden, Nijmegen, Tilburg, and other metropoles, don't get up much before noon. The neighborhood fry-food place (frituur, friet kraam, friet kot) won't be open till then, so what's the point?

The serious student, whether male or female, requires a hearty breakfast, followed by a leisurely cup of strong coffee and a cigar on a covered terrace, to start the school day.

Why don't frituurs open at six? That would make everybody happy.
Good for both morale and productivity.


A place to smoke inside is another matter. Pneumonia rates in Northern Europe have gone through the roof since tobacco restrictions were put in place, perfectly healthy people have expired on the streets gasping because they were soaked to the bone in freezing cold, and hordes of sanctimonious non-smokers are everywhere forcing people to eat tofu.



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WHO IS YOUR DUTCH UNCLE?

When I remembered that they were closed on Tuesday I headed over to the dumpling place and had a late lunch there instead. The women who work there treat me very well, probably because an inoffensive old white guy who tips decently, acts with reserve, and reads Chinese in addition to being able to speak Cantonese is on the one hand a rarity and on the other hand may actually be a customer you would like to see come back repeatedly. I mean, it IS a dumpling place. So why do so many tourists order electric-hued sweet and sour things, and chow mein? Plus they're screwed, tip-wise. The local Chinese barely tip, and Europeans have all decided that America is barbaric in that regard and they will not stand for it.
They've revolted, to teach the savages a lesson. Tip like the Dutch. Miserly.

Dumplings!

Being a Dutch American I have the best of both worlds. And having been in the food service industry, I refuse to be a cheap bastard. I want to be remembered favourably, so that I'm welcomed the next time and can get my favourite table.
Plus I like dumplings.

Also, I have never understood why so many Europeans act like we should all understand French, German, or Italian, instead of English and Cantonese. It's not quite as bad as the Spanish, who treat everyone who doesn't speak their exact version of "Castilian" like swine, but it still grates a bit. The English are better, as they're largely overjoyed that they can understand our patois. All those hours watching Kojak and Bay Watch paid off!

[En Nederlanders verwachting doorgaans nooit dat iemand hier hun taal verstaat; vandaar dat ze soms de vreemdste dingen onderling zeggen. Of rare opmerkingen over de inboorlingen uitkramen.]

A good meal in a comfortable environment.
Plus a darn good cup of milk tea.
And a smoke after.

My friend Neil often mentions the pleasure of having a cup of tea on the back terrace in the morning, with his pipe, and his cat for company, while keeping a wary eye out for the local coyote who regards the cat as potentially an ambulatory breakfast. I think I have the same pleasure smoking my pipe in Chinatown while alert to possibly interference from our feral loonies. After a cup of tea.

It's not the local Chinese I worry about, they're sane and normal. It's my fellow whites, blacks, browns, and indeterminates. Some of whom redefine "alternative universe". Such as the idiot who asked me while I was smoking there after dark whether I had any crystal.
Dude. Do I look like drug-addled dingo to you? Or a yuppie?


In retrospect, I may have seemed somewhat odd this evening. I mentioned church reformers at least three times in conversation with the bookseller. 1): A man afflicted with chronic gout, acid indigestion, and migraines. 2): An unpleasant German drunk. 3): And a fat brit monarch with syphilitic sores and brain-rot. And that's not even getting into American millenarianism, MAGA, or the Mormons.


BY THE WAY: a lot of Americans are stupid, some are braindead. And far too many don't speak Dutch at all. The rot started when all those English speakers crossed Wall Street and headed into the Bowery. Also, when we paid the Indians, we got the entire shebang, lock stock and barrel. That did NOT include any bloody Anglos! Send them all back!



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CONSTANTINOPLE

There are some pipe tobaccos that you used to smoke occasionally, that after years have passed you all of a sudden remember, and wonder what happened. They've disappeared, things have changed, and perhaps some company should bring them back. Or, barring that, what is close enough? My associates sneered at 'Constantinople', but it was actually pretty darn good.

There was a tobacco shop underneath a parking structure (with groundfloor retail shops and a passage way) that sold a number of English non-filter cigarettes, plus some oddball pipe tobaccos, and a selection of cheap nasty mouthrotting cigars. After browsing at Shakespeare or Moe's, I would head over to Topdog for "dinner", then down the street for gelato, and into the passageway for ciggies. Three Castles or whatever. Browse a bit. Buy a tin at whim.

Then off to the Caffè Med to read and smoke.
Please understand that nonsmokers didn't exist.
And angry vegan types hadn't been born yet.
It was a golden age.

Yes, I understand now that delicious grilled wurst and gelato kill the planet and exterminate whales. They're evil and horrid, and I should have insisted on Tofurst and Tofutti instead.

My bad.

Syrian Latakia, Xanthi, aged Virginias, black Virginia ribbon. A rather nice drawing of one of Sinan's famous mosques at the skyline as the label art.

The black Virginia was, if I remember correctly, not a flavoured product. The smoke was slightly below medium in Latakia content, the Virginia component was somewhat dominated by the black, the Turkish element nicely perfumy so probably at over twenty percent.
Great with an espresso. Or two.

Xanthi tobacco combines well with Smyrna leaf.
As in State Express London Mixture.
Now also long gone.

Some people wouldn't know fine tobacco if it came up and bit them in the arse. Earth moms. Vegans. Tattooed people. Potheads, artists, rightwingers, butterfly and kitten loving girlie types, Greta Thunberg, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and fascists in the red states.

Gluten-free tofurkie snarfing cretins.

冚家鏟，佢哋。



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TOOTLING PROSPECTS

There are times when you wake up that you realize maybe you added too much sambal to your meal the evening before. For instance, if it was rice stick noodles with slivered porky bits salted vegetable, addition of pressed pickled mustard cabbage root. All of it fry-stewed with a little onion-scallion-ginger. What happens then is that the rice stick noodles, being easy on the digestion, disappear first. Leaving the stomach to deal with protein saturated with chili.
Okay?

梅菜肉絲炆米粉
['mui choi yiuk si man mai fan']

Should have had more vegetables.
And perhaps some cucumber.
Still a bit achy.

But it was a very enjoyable dinner, and the walk afterwards through C'town while the heat of the day lessened was glorious. Saw several disturbed individuals near the square, one of them vocalizing obscenities, another with his trousers down near mid-thigh leaving his plumber's bits and more completely exposed.
Of which he was quite unaware.

One of the elderly gin-rummy players puffed occasionally on a bamboo waterpipe. I have noticed him many times before. He's a regular. And that is a handsome piece of peasant smoking equipment he has. I myself sported a Dunhill billiard group four, and I'm sure my tobacco would have been too mild for him.

The painting above does NOT represent Portsmouth Square Park, or plumber's bits, but what my digestive machinery feels like at present: craggy. With weather.
And please do not try to imagine it, it will strain you.
That's why there is a picture.

If you wish to imagine the Bersaglieri trotting through an ancient Italian city tootling their trumpets as the soundtrack, that's entirely up to you.


It's going to be a good day. Not as hot as yesterday, shirtsleeves for most of it.
Might even be overcoat weather in the evening.



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BLINKY THINGS

Something in the middle of the night reminded me of the fragrance of a pipe tobacco long gone. It was a product available in Berkeley decades ago at a tobacconist that my friends did not patronize, so over a period of one or two months I bought all that they had, enjoyed it at the time, and now I miss it. A precursor to Frog Morton, which came out years later, which I think was and is vastly overrated. And that brought back memories of opening a fresh tin of Balkan Sobranie when I was a teenager, and how richly divine that seemed back then. So good with a cup of tea! So redolent of sunlight and the smoothness of certain oil paints adding a dark luster to a landscape I was doing at the time, not yet aware of the disappointment I would feel days later when looking at the results.
No longer enamoured of the newness and my cleverness.

There are several good reasons why I'm not sad at no longer having any of those early paintings. Upon sober review weeks or months later they were garbage.

There were foghorns all night. They woke me up.


"FOG IN THE CHANNEL, CONTINENT ISOLATED"


That headline expresses British insularity. And it's probably apocryphal. But it just as well might apply to pretty much everything I painted or drew many years ago, which now I would probably look at with distaste. Much the same distaste that some friends had for certain tobaccos which I still think were actually pretty darn good.

And it's probably just as well that none of the poetry I wrote then survives.

Like many teenagers I often thought 'gosh I'm so clever!'

In hindsight that may have been an overestimation.

Same goes for a lot of my paintings from my early twenties, most of which did not survive a basement flooding in the storage space one winter. It was several years after that before I started painting again. Garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage.

One coworker from the old toy company has 'screaming man and fish' (which he thought was the coolest thing he had ever seen), and another has the giant spider transporting the five Pandawa heroes from the Mahabharata, a wayang kulit influenced painting, which she thought was perfect for the kids' room. I'm still chuffed as topsy that they liked them.

My apartment mate particularly like a crab I did three years ago.
She has a framed copy of it in her room.
Meh, okay then.



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THAT WAS NOT AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE

All day long I was wondering why people were acting off. Part of it was the ballgame -- for most of which the sick old crotchetts in the back sounded like a revival meeting, till their team lost -- part of it was the weirdoes on the bus in the morning, including a twitchy chap banging the back of my seat and picking his unwashed nose. Naturally I moved. Didn't want to have Tweaky-Boy so close behind me. Then the talkative troll woman got on in Sausalito, which as previously discussed is an accursed place. Having been importuned twice at the busstop in San Francisco before the bus came, it looked like I couldn't catch a break today.

When I got back to the city this evening a heavily twitching stoned out of his mind person ran past and started fighting with the metal barrier between the bus island and a lane of traffic.

He wasn't as bad as the naked loony who attacked me several months ago, who was so berserk he would have swung at anything including streetlamps and ghosts.
Not as violent. But considerably more drugged-out insane.

I think they were all celebrating Hobbit Day.
By being unbearble.

Personally, I cannot stand hobbits. That frightful book would have been considerably shorter and more entertaining if they had all died of the plague in the first chapter.

Instead, they moved to Marin and established artist's communes and yoga studios.

There are several Trump supporters and a troll woman living in Marin.
A large part of the reason why Sausalito is accursed.


The angel of cutesy-poo walks there.


Hobbit day. Feh!


The precious, the precious.



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ORANGES!

There are three people I haven't seen for a while that I wonder about. Two of them, worry. The former journalist in his eighties hasn't been around since April, and we haven't heard anything. He was a bit poorly then, so the question whether anyhing happened is valid, as it also is for the retired photography professor of the same vintage. He's been out of contact since early August. Both of them are good men. The first is deaf as a post, the second had trouble with his legs. The third gentleman is 'little white nipple dude', and he might simply be a bad penny. Never-the-less, because all evidence shows that he is quite incapable of functioning on his own, one wonders.

If his caretaker had a medical event, little white nipple dude may be hungry and desperate about opening those cans of Spam. Disconsolately he stares at the can opener. How does it work? Why is there nothing in the rice cooker? It used to be full! Oh woe!
And how come everything smells bad?

Seriously. I worry about him. There is so much that in half a century he hasn't ever figured out. He knows everything there is to know about ten gallon hats and personal helicopters (he doesn't own or have access to one), as well as nuclear fusion and the bones of the feet (in a mystical and lord-of-the-rings sense, of course), and so little evidence that he can actually fend for himself, that he might be completely helpless in that last regard.

I also miss his gibbering. Sort of.

Sometimes there is little that one can do.

The weather will not cooperate, the wildfire rages too intently, the pot of spaghetti was out on the counter too long, and the fuel ran out. The emergency airstrip is snowed under, there's a blizzard in the rice paddy, and the grizzly bear doesn't go all the way to the top.

I'm starting to think that investigative telephoning might be good.

It is unlikely that any of them have been abducted.


I rather like the first two mentioned.


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DOROTHY IN THE FOG

The bus was quite crowded this morning with tourists gaily off to see the cutest little artsy fartsy suburbia we boast in the Bay Area. And surely all the foreigners love Sausalito, its so Europäisch, gemütlich, künstlerisch und Böhmisch! Frankly, I'm not impressed. I do not like la di da. In fact, much of the area north of the bridge is Mau Mau territory several different ways in my estimation.

No, I will not solicit donations so that the nunnery can have lobster for fish Fridays. Or caviar. As far as I'm concerned religious types need to suffer and do penance, because they come from horrible backgrounds for which they have to make up. Non-Catholics also.

We never should have cancelled the beatings. They improved morale.


I've had a long day dealing with senile delinquents.


On a brighter note, we've had dense fog mornings and evenings. The bridge was covered in grey on the way back. You couldn't see anything. It was lovely.

Somewhere out there are flocks of pelicans.
Flying parallel to the bridge.

Very photogenic.

So one of the dingoes in the back tried to start a conversation about the Chinese in C'town, how they're thinner and healthier which is why you don't see walkers or wheelchairs there. Dude. There are plenty of walkers, they often block the isles on the bus going there. And wheelchairs mean someone is housebound because you can count the number of residential building elevators on the fingers of one hand. How the heck do you think they're going to get that thing down the narrow stairs?
He also asserted that they don't have diabetes unlike Midwestern tourists or other whites.

Public health statistics flat-out contradict his assertion.


Basically, he has a bug up his rear about white lard-butt tourists, which I can understand, but his statements were unfounded and based on his praeconceptions. And he wanted to score cheap points. Whereas when I make generalizations like that I do so specifically and deliberately because I want to insult people from places like Kansas.

Who are all heffalumps rolling around on Little Sherman Personal Mobility Devices clogging up the sidewalks. And their overweight six or eight sallow complexioned no-neck children.



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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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