IT'S A COLLAGE

Apparently, doing my laundry AND having lunch at my usual Wednesday place will take gumption. Or so I have been told, by a gentleman who will be a prisoner in his own home tomorrow. Not, as you might think, because this is San Francisco and dominatrix perversions are involved -- we're well known for stuff like that -- but because he is expecting an artwork which UPS has informed him will get there before seven in the evening.

It has been years since he has had lunch. Reason being that his work schedule does not permit doing so at a sensible hour, which I'm not quite sure is what. I believe he has a pint instead, two or three hours before his shift ends. Having sustained himself during the hours before with scone and a hyper-caffeinated beverage.

For me, lunch is always after three in the afternoon if I can help it. On days off sometimes after four. Because my Wednesday lunch place is closed by then, I will head there before two, and we'll call it breakfast.

Today's lunch (breakfast) was at five thirty. After teatime.
Minced beef rice (牛肉免治飯 'ngau yiuk min ji faan').
Very Hong Kong. With a cup of strong milk tea.
Fortification for the howling beast.
Followed by a smoke.

A few hours later I was back in Chinatown waiting for my friend (the no-lunch fellow) to get off shift and start his weekend with our customary pub visits. And again I was smoking a pipe. It wasn't particularly cold out, so the number of unbalanced individuals floating by was greater than the last time. Among which I'll include a shopkeeper who unlocked his store so that he and a friend could have a few drinks without the wives knowing, surrounded by the staring eyes of Hello Kitty all around them. Which, I think, would drive me insane.


We could hear country western squawks coming from the karaoke joint, so we ended up at the back-up bar, where three Toishanese gentlemen to our right were engaged in animated conversation, and half a dozen young fellows behind us were having Irish carbombs.
You know, I still can't understand Toishanese.
It's a failing, I know.


When we headed to the bus stop, a crazed white chick strode past, loudly complaining about something in her head and someone else being in the hospital. She was underdressed from the waist down, and not feeling it. Which is very San Francisco.


For some reason I remembered Amou Haji.


It had been a good evening.



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