STOP TO SMELL THE PIGEONS

Left the apartment relatively early to head over to Chinatown. Wednesdays it's always lunch at a chachanteng, shopping, tea at a bakery around the corner from the hospital. Shopping is always at the same two places plus a fruit and vegetable store on Stockton Street though not always the same one. Bought pears and oranges for the old Indonesian Chinese woman downstairs, which is a diplomatic way of checking up on her.

Smoking my pipe between lunch and tea time is icing on the cake. Ein selbstverstendlichkeit.

I always have two pipes with me whether or not I shall be smoking two bowls. What if a nice young woman with a PHD in geology or physics wants to have a bowl while reading the latest essay on igneous strata in the foothills? A boy scout must be prepared. And a dictionary of geologic terminology is too heavy to lug around.
Especially when hauling fruits.

Remarkably, there were two young ladies doing their homework at the bakery. No, I didn't ask if they had PHDs and wished to partake of tobacco. They didn't look the type.

I really don't know what that type looks like.


I'm guessing early thirties at the youngest, and armed with a rock hammer, safety goggles, chisel, a loupe and different sized specimen containers. And/or 'Challinor's Dictionary of Geology', plus possibly 'Igneous Rocks and Processes; A Practical Guide'.

The pipe pictured above recalls Autumn weather, a rainy day, on Waverly, years ago. It seemed appropriate for a day that started off grey and precipitative. Which it still is, several hours later. The gloom outside can be cut with a fork. While I was walking home from the bus stop with my shopping bags it rained. This is unseasonal, and positively Netherlandish.

However that was long after tea time. I had arrived at the bakery earlier than usual, and the two old fellows who are usually there hadn't arrived yet. Ah Lam was frazzled from the dense crowd of customers, and made more so by regulars like myself who craved milk tea.
Which required being away from the counter, where the throng kept growing.

Dawdled over tea and a pastry. Filled pipe, paid, left.

The pigeons are getting more brazen. I noticed two of them trying to steal peanuts from bins along Stockton Street, and one actually inside my provisioners waiting till the line had thinned out so it could make a bee-line for jute bag with nuts along one of the aisles.
Clean intelligent-looking fowl. They were sleek and well-fed.

The early bird gets the metaphorical worm.

The later and lazier feathered opportunist gets the protein and vitamin D overloaded stuff, and looks happier in consequence.



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