THOUGHTS INSPIRED BY A CAT

My apartment mate has gone downstairs to feed our landlady's cat. And I think I've realized why they get along so well. They're both dysfunctional. Well, they are also both Cantonese Americans, which does not mean dysfunctional, necessarily, but I believe there is a higher degree of on the spectrum type characteristics among that ethnic group for their gender. No, I shan't state that aloud in the presence of either woman (or any other Cantonese American female), because I do not want something thrown at me. My experience is that they aim well, with great force. And don't ask.

As a Dutch American, descended from New Amsterdammers, I am naturally at least one hundred percent normal. Despite my family tree being more like interlocking shrubbery than an actual tree. About which we shall not talk because our interrelationships and cousins of cousins are none of your business.

In their cases, it's generations of salt smugglers, gamblers, and counterfeiters fleeing to the Southern borderlands to get away from snooty Northerners and imperial authority.
That, inevitably, concentrated certain genetic material.


I also have unique theories about people from the British Isles and their lack of tastebuds, as well as the French and their skunk-like body odour, but we shan't go there.
This is a clean blog, family friendly.

My first experience with Vietnamese drip-coffee years ago was at a place where everyone spoke Cantonese and the staff were all women. That was back in the day when every Vietnamese restaurant had a stack of State Express 555s Virginia straights no filter, smuggled in from HK or Singapore. You'd purchase coffee and a bánh mì, plus a fresh tin of ciggies, and then after eating you would dawdle over the coffee with your smokes.

This is mentioned in follow-up to my previous post in which I more or less expressed the desire that there be a Vietnamese coffeeshop nearby. Ideally with sandwiches with generous shmears of pâté in addition to the meats and pickled veggies. As well as sliced Jalapeños.

The lovely Virginia straights in their yellow tin are probably entirely gone, which is very unfortunate, but part of the old atmosphere can still be recovered. And this city is, thank heavens, totally filled with brilliant dysfunctionals.



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