SECOND SPRING

Yesterday was the second day of spring, Grant Avenue was awash with non-Chinese visiting the neighborhood for the sights and general good cheer, and it was beastly cold. A month ago I put my Canadian overcoat back into the closet, but two days ago I pulled it out again. These old bones just don't deal well with frigidity. It's not the humidity, it's the lack of heat. That is to say, I could deal okay with anything between fifty five and sixty five.
When it's forty to fifty, it get's me badly.

Please imagine that this was Texas. I would thoroughly understand Ted Cruz bailing out to Cancun in cold weather. Reptiles need warmth. A heated rock or terrarium.
Plus bugs. Lots of bugs. Slugs. And hotsauce.

In addition to all the white people, there were also many little Chinese girls looking like happy muppets in their New Years finery. Adorable. Chinese New Year is perfect for them.
Decorativity, lovely clothes, red packets, and good things to eat.

Noodles, dumplings, and new year's cake (年糕 'nin gou').

At the bakery after tea and a pastry I purchased some packets of fried dumplings (油角 'yau gok', or 角仔 'gok jai'), litle crunchy crescent shaped peanut puffs which are common at this time of year, and gave some to my landlady who lives below me. On Tuesday I brought the elderly Chinese Indonesian lady who lives in the front apartment oranges. So I have more or less observed the holiday. Please expect me to revert to grumpy old coot again next week.

It better warm up by about ten degrees then, or there will be an angry letter to the editor, complaining about the younger generation and their quite irresponsible and heartless average temperatures at this time of year. Dear sir, in my day, and all of that.
Plus people these days, no sir, and tell you what!
Savages! They're savages!


Mid forties when I left the house for a smoke. Unheard of. My teeth chattered clenching my pipestem. Back in the day you could seek sanctuary in the comfy heated cafe on the station platform while waiting for the morning train to Tilburg, warm among the greasy mechanics, workingmen, and jovial college students smoking handrolled dark shag cigarettes, and no one would mind your pipe. Light it up inside nowadays, and some bloody vegan will try to lynch you. And you cannot get there from here.
It's sad.



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