SADLY SPLOOTLESS

Far be it from me to make strange sounds. Or squawk. My apartment mate, on the other hand, when I tried to throw away the wrappity substances, startlingly did both. Apparently stuff to pack fragile things is at a premium. I suspect that she has an entire goldmine of the stuff under her bed, and it's probably a good thing that ferrets are illegal as pets here.
Or we'd have one hiding there gloating over its trove and sneering at us.
Mine. I found it. Bugger off, big bipedal galoots.

The derivation of the wrappity substances (paper, zig-zaggy cut wood pulp webbing, bubble wrap) is Palo Alto, at the clay and glass festival. We took the train down there, spent a bit of time and a few hundred dollars, came back.

There are squirrels near the train station. Fascinating creatures. Which in hot weather sploot. It wasn't warm enough for that. So there was no splooting. Low seventies.

Besides, there's a whole list of things you are not allowed to do at the trainstation.
The act of splooting is not listed, but the quirrels are taking no chances.

I have never yet seen a splooting beast.
Still a splooting innocent, me.

There is, in fact, much of wildlife in California which I have not seen. Given that most of it is in areas much warmer than San Francisco, and I do not thrive in those zones, where there are also rattlesnakes, bears, mountain lions, poison oak, black flies, scorpions, plus a whole spectrum of mosquito-borne illnesses, ticks, big foot, republicans and rednecks, that is not particularly suprising. Brutal piggy boondocks. It's bat country; don't stop there.

I do not own a pith helmet. I wish I did. It would have come in handy.

Especially when I lived in Southern California, briefly, a few years ago.
The only wildlife there are rabid superficialists.
It's where plastic goes to die.


Upon our return to the city we took a taxi from the train station with our bags directly to a local Chinese restaurant near where we live. Shrimp with little cabbage (遠菜鮮蝦 'yuen choi sin haa') and steamed pork patty with fermented fish (鹹魚蒸肉餅 'haam yü jing yiuk beng'). Rice. A whole pot of tea. In some parts of California you can get none of that.
It's still wild country, quite untamed.
Far from civilixation.
Splooting.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================