LOOKS LIKE VICTORY

While heading toward my apartment building I saw and heard a crow happily cawing on the high pole halfway up the block. It seemed postscient. Earlier on the bus an elderly Caucasian female had, for no discernible reason, picked a fight with a Chinese woman and threatened her with her walker while loudly cursing. The Chinese woman, while smaller, was ready to ramp it up to whatever degree necessary, of which I would've approved if it got that far.
The white woman had earlier shown that a few crucial screws were loose.
It had been a loud and interesting bus ride.
Quite educational.

Earlier, while lighting my pipe, I had nearly fallen over four quarrelling unwashed Caucasian nutballs after leaving the place where I had eaten breakfast. Normally I don't have breakfast, and when I do it's rarely right in Chinatown. Two cups of coffee and a pipeful while taking an early walk are enough. But I'd had an early appointment at the eye-doctor's (眼科博士，眼科手術專家 'ngaan fo bok si, ngaan fo sau suet juen gaa') -- the incipient glaucoma in the left eye is marginally worse, and I now need to use latanoprost in the right eye also -- and the place where I went does breakfast till eleven o'clock.
So I seized the opportunity.

One table over four women were having a gabfest while noshing. I've seen them there before. City Canto, though one of them has a somewhat more Northern accent. A few other patrons were examing their cell-phones while eating, a Mandarin speaking couple were having fried noodles, and a few early tourists didn't have a clue what to get.

Perhaps you should order pork liver and lean meat congee, a fried dough stick, and a cup of milk tea (豬肝瘦肉粥，一根油條，同一杯熱奶茶 'chyü gon sau yiuk juk, yat gan yau tiu, tong yat pui yit naai chaa'). Trust me on this, it's what the intelligent kwailo wants. Me.

It's right there on the menu, boys. Go ahead.

Fortunately, glaucoma (青光眼 'ching gwong ngaan') is so slow that with delaying tactics like latanoprost I should be able to look people straight in the face when I finally die of a heart attack thirty or forty years hence. Because that's what everyone needs, right?
The steely glare of a dead man at the end of his life.

The trick will be timing it just right.

I need to work on that.



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