WE ARE NOT IN THIS TOGETHER

Naturally you would expect that I know an awful lot of white people. What with being white myself. Most of my Facebook circle is white, most of my real world circle likewise. So I know white people. I've got the necessary background and knowledge sets.
None of the people I just mentioned were there.


Other than myself, not a Caucasian in sight.


And I'm rather glad of that. Lunch was fabulous. Dang. Stupendous in fact. Also, given that so many white people in red states voted for the present regime, I am glad that they don't have anything comparable, and that everything they want to buy will soon be much more expensive, and that unemployment will go up in their areas because they don't produce anything the rest of the world really needs, and with tariffs, sales will drop.
Also, their weather will be worse this year than last.
Floods, hurricanes, and wildfires.
Screw them.

There are times when I take pleasure in being a mean-spirited crabby liberal. Sitting here with my cup of Hong Kong Milk Tea in one of the few civilized cities in the United States, more than a mile away from the nearest Egg MacMuffin washed down with a diet coke.

I really don't think those people are properly housebroken.


Anyhow, they're stupid, eat too much, and their moms dress them funny.


Anyway, to repeat: lunch was just about heavenly.
Oh boy. I'm still smacking my chops.
Enjoy your Spam surprise.



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THE ALL-AMERICAN DIET

That stuff that nobody can afford anymore just started getting a lot more expensive. Soon only the rich will buy it. Because the tariffs will affect the price of everything except grits. And insta-grits. Which used to be only a Southern thing, before it became the chosen sustenance of college students and starving artists everywhere, and those Latin-speaking drug-addicted Islamic criminals crossed the border and started setting fire to cybertrucks for grits.
Because grits are Jesus. Even insta-grits. Insta-Jesus.


It’s such an old-fashioned term but a beautiful term: groceries. It sort of says a bag with different things in it, it’s a sort of simple word, but it sort of means, like, everything you eat. The stomach is speaking, it always does. Sort of.
------Donald Trump


The man is a profound genius. Big brain. Bigly.

Have some eggs with your grits.

This is what George Washington ate at Valley Forge, before he slept somewhere. Wrapped in an American Flag. Can't hardly get more All-American than that. Flags, you should know, don't really protect you from the weather. It's the heat inside that counts.

The hurricane season looks to be a lot worse this year.

What you really need with that is some chilies.

Chopped chilies. Vegetable fibres!



Tariffs, boys, that'll learn 'em! Grits, eggs, hog jowls, and chilies are grown on our farms! Those Euries can't get that! Darn sight better than all that fancy cheese! Covfefe!



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A DAY OF YEUK

Some days are yeuk-filled, others less so. Before stepping out of the building with a pipe for a smoke around the neighborhood this morning, I swallowed some yeuk. That was while waiting for the coffee water to boil. I always do that first thing.
Keeps the pressure normal.

Later, before going to the bank, I will pick up more yeuk.


"Ah sin saang, yiu mat a?"

"Heui yeuk fong."


When the lady at the door desk asks me what I want I'll tell her that I'm heading to the pharmacy. Because I need more yeuk. She'll nod. Many people go there.
For precisely that. Yeuk (藥).

有重複藥單 ('Yau chung fuk yeuk daan').
Have refills. Blood pressure medication.
Otherwise I will explode. Okay?
The yeuk daan repeats.

THE WORD FOR MEDICINE IN ITS SEALSCRIPT FORM

Two blood pressure pills, aspirin, and a statin in the morning. Amlodipine around tea time. It's a regular routine from which I do not deviate.

One of the people I know in Marin, a very silly bugger, keeps telling me that if I just ate right, increased my turmeric and apple cider vinegar intake and avoided gluten, I would not need the pills. He's given me totally unasked for medical advice several times over the years, including sneering disapproval of vaccines, to none of which I have paid attention.
Everyone is entitled to their own rabbit holes.


Trusting doctors is a whole lot better than the alternative.
Doing so provably keeps you alive.


Oh, and RFK Jr. is an idiot and a huckster.



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LET US PLOT TO OVERTHROW THE SALT MONOPOLY!

After two attempts to get through to the pharmacy I simply went down there myself to order my refills. Sure, I could have used the automated system -- unlike me they have joined the modern age -- but they're close-by, and geared toward old farts who don't take kindly to anything newer than carrier pigeons and town criers. Which sort of describes me.

Their demographic is weighted toward elderly Cantonese speakers and Toishanese villagers. I am none of the above, although I do speak Cantonese. Enough to get by, plus. And I only vaguely know where 臺山 is, a county level city far to the west of here in 廣東 north of the tattooed tribals in Viet South. Last bastion of civilization before the frontier areas.
Where disruptive officials are sent to catch malaria.

Which, sadly, we cannot do with our people. There is a whole list of Republicans and MAGA drooges who would benefit from being posted to the plague zones. Which coincides with my personal list of guillotine candidates.


"I have merely heard of killing the villain Zhou, but I have not heard of murdering the ruler."
-----Mencius.


Remarkably, the history of China is filled with burning chariots.

It's almost like China invented Thomas Jefferson before we did.

Anyhow, after arranging three refills to pick up tomorrow, I went to have lunch. The usual Wednesday chachanting was packed, but I managed to get the table that Fried Egg Dude vacated, so no more than a five minute wait. And I got to observe interesting Cantonese behaviours for over forty five minutes.

Which is one of the main reasons I go to places such as that. Watch, listen in, eat.
Occasionally say something.

The old fellow at the table to my right was enjoying what looked like a delicious chicken curry. Which I may order myself next time. It looked much better than what I sometimes get on Thursday around the corner at the place where the loud Toishanese old folks often go.

I am convinced that some of them are plotting to overthrow the salt gabelle.
It is shocking what the wealthy in this country get away with.



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COMING HOME TO CHOCOLATE

Yeah um. So we went directly to Miss Vivian's for hot tea (me), Guiness and Jameson's (the bookseller) after the burger joint. Where we talked about stinky tofu, everything deepfried, and heart attacks. And why the bookseller is glad that he isn't personally involved in food service. Which I have been. I still fondly remember slow evenings at the Indian restaurant, when bored Punhabi staff would start arguments to entertain themselves. Immensely.

Punjabis, especially if things are dull, like to be contentious. Nothing is quite so pleasing as irritating a coworker to the point where he or she is screaming about your mother or sister.

A stubborn Dutch American will naturally join in. The bulk of my remembered Hindustani is unprintable language. Oh, plus some polite greetings. Hardly the material for a sustained conversation about Gandhi's pacifism or existential angst.


I'm somewhat better in Cantonese. At least I can talk about food. And why you should choose the soup noodle dish. Specifically, braised pork noodles (燜肉麵 'mun yiuk min'); slow simmered meat with noodles in broth. Add a few drops chili oil for fragrance.
Then find a quiet place to light up with a book.


Which was not today. I got caught in the rain when I headed out to lunch. After meat over rice (牛肉免治飯 'ngau yiuk min ji faan') with a cup of milk tea, I headed to Portsmouth Square, where I got drizzled on. Fortunately I had an umbrella, because, of course, one does not wish to get one's pipe with red flake and a touch of Perique wet. One is picky that way.

In the evening one of the places where I buy ciggies after seeing my doctor (to reward myself for being a good little patient) was still open, so I went in. They were surprised to see me so late, and didn't say anything about the pipe. I guess they're used to white people being odd. They've long since gotten over the fact that I speak Cantonese. It's almost like we're in a settlement somewhere out near the edge of the world, and some of us are just the weird phenomena you should expect in such a place.

Anyway my pipe tobacco is not objectionable. Everyone here either has a relative who still smokes, or is the relative who still smokes. And it keeps the bugs away, you know.

Besides, Cantonese are cool with any amount of eccentricty.
The more of it there is, the more entertainment.
It's much better than picking fights.
Or acting like a Punjabi.



After having drinks at the bar we were wide awake, and headed over to our respective abodes to sleep. Which, as you can tell, I am not yet doing.



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RABBIT RABBIT!

Rabbit rabbit! It's the first of the month, one must say 'rabbit rabbit' for good luck. So I do. When I got up there was a crow in the airwell making crow-noises. Probably the equivalent. First cup of coffee, then out with a pipe. Which, this morning, was a squat tanshell bulldog filled with Atalaya. Perfect for Springtime weather, which this isn't. It had rained overnight.

And it was cold.

Yesterday after leaving the restaurant where I had a late lunch there was a flock of parrots on Trenton Street (登頓街) being loud and cheerful, much like an eatery filled with Cantonese people enjoying lots of good food. As there had been, moments earlier, where I ate salt fish and preserved meats claypot rice (鹹魚臘味煲仔飯 'haam yü laap mei pou jai fan').

When I got there, it was empty. It takes approximately half an hour to do claypot rice -- which they are known for and list a score of choices on the whiteboard -- and when my order came all the tables had filled up. The nearest ones occupied by people speaking Toishanwaa (臺山話) including four well-behaved kiddies, everyone mildly overjoyed at the prospect of eating home-town food made by home-town people. The Cantonese speakers at one of the further tables were probably not even cognizant that they were a minority at that point. In many of the Chinatown restaurants there will be di or triglossic cacaphony in any case, sometimes even different languages at each table. And because I eat alone, my table (middle-aged single man, no companion, with clackity chopstickes) gets to listen in on all of that.

But don't worry. If you aren't speaking in Dutch, English, German, Indonesian, Cantonese, Mandarin, or Toishanese, I won't understand more than a word or two, and unless I know you from Adam I won't keep it in mind for the next time I see you. Well, excepting Shanghainese; I will recognize about a third of the words surrounded by your leaky radiator speech, and build an imaginary situation around them. Much like my appartment mate does when watching a Taiwanes soap opera on the television.

Which is on the telly because I'm watching it.
Mostly observing patterns of behaviour.
Weeping jag, anger, weeping jag.
Despondency. Despair.
And repeat.


Shanghainese (上海話，滬語 'seung hoi waa, wu yü') and related regionalects are quite different from Cantonese and Toishanese. They are from the Wu (吳語 'ng yü') branch of the Sinitic languages, whereas the latter are forms of Yue speech (粵語 'yuet yü'). The relation is like Ostrogothic versus English and Dutch. Yes, for clarity I should also mention how these all compare to Mandarin, but it would muddle the water. Which is troebel enough already.

Like most of yesterday it is low fifties at best right now, with a windchill factor because of the wetness. Very disppointing, I had thought that the end of the nasty weather was in sight.
I shall grumble. Rabbit rabbit.



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