COLD AND NASTY AND DARK AND WET

It was necessarily a somewhat short and circumspect walk with a pipe this morning, given the downpour. And, naturally, once I had finished my smoke and got back home, it stopped raining. During my walk the only people I saw outside had been garbage men and electric scooter picker-uppers. People who had no choice. Theoretically, I had a choice.
Just outside for a smoke. Tobacco is not necessary, no one forcing me.

Well, no one is forcing vegans to eat flavourless crap, yet they do it anyway.

It was very much like the wilds of Scotland out there. With occasionally a hairy savage on the horizon. Wielding a haggis offensively and screaming "freedom !"

Their arses are painted blue with woad. Which is known to keep Englishmen away.

It must be working. Didn't see a single Englishman out there.
So in that respect it is actually not like Scotland.
Apparently the English love Caledonia.
That refreshing weather.

On non-inclement days I carry a blackthorn walking stick for whacking the weeds, or, this being San Francisco, the rabid vagrants and violently insane zombies collectively pooing on the sidewalks and setting trashcan fires according to commentators in the red states.
This morning, an umbrella. To shield the pipe.
Filled with Red Flake with Perique.
C & D Small Batch, 2023.


I have never been to the red states or Scotland. The latter is on my bucket list, eventually, sometime when it isn't haggis season -- having made haggis years ago I never want to see it again -- but there is no reason to visit the red states, given that I have scant interest in eating their cuisine (google "Altoona Pizza" if you're curious) or seeing the world's biggest ball of shoelaces. It's basically all Graceland, blue hair, and gun wielding overweight diabetics between the Sierras and the East River.

Plus bridezillas, monster truck shows, and fundamentalists.
Fortified hospitals, hundreds of miles apart.
Grunting Trumpites.



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