SOUNDS LIKE MACHINERY

By the time the bookseller arrived nearly two whole blocks had been generously treated to a moaning unintelligible rendition of 'Country Roads', and when we passed the karaoke place someone was loudly doing something not quite singing in the crowded dive. Which was filled with white people. An unwell-boding sign. After the burger joint we headed over to the beer place -- too crowded -- and then directly to our customary bail-out back-up.

Miss Vivien is looking a little more preggers than last week.
I figure in another month or two she'll be a mommy.

Which means all of you hosebags better behave!

Mentally I am not prepared for a bar tender to actually be an adult. It's a new thing. They're supposed to be delinquency-ennablers, for craps' sake!

Shortly after sitting down a voice behind me happily said "ah maa teen, lei hou". Tat Yee had entered. For the next half hour he and someone who looked like the "most dangerous man in Chinatown" had a loud jovial discussion at the far end of the counter, which combined with the music and the teevee made it quite impossible for me to seem like a rational man because I couldn't understand everything being said. Which is okay, I'm used to being an idiot in such places. Three sources of ambient noise. We probably all sounded berserk.

Besides, there was baseball on the telly. The Giants either did something or failed at it. Attention spans were fragmented, and trains of thought were derailed because of that.

My leg has been throbbing off and on all day. I know that we will have to do the peripheral angioplasties on the lower extremities sometime soon, after which I will be young and spry again. Dr. Tran (陳醫生) will likely lecture me to stop smoking -- which I shall probably try for two or three weeks to promote recovery -- but pipes are too much a part of me to give up.
I thoroughly enjoyed my pipe in Chinatown this evening. Other than the hellish sounds from the karaoke place a block away, and the alley with disturbed crazy people nearby, it was remarkably peaceful. Imagine a state of zen-like bliss. Om.

Aged Virginia, smidge of Perique.


The last time I was in the hospital I didn't have a pipe for five days. But that was because my appendix exploded. The stent was an overnighter, as will also be the periph-o-plasties. Even though theoretically these are both in-and-out procedures they often give the patient valium to keep the bugger from twitching on the table. So they will not let you leave on your own steam for several hours. You might end up driving or operating heavy machinery.

Yeah no. No one wants me doing that.



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