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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BRIANWORMS

One of the rightwing hose bags whom I see regularly, because I work in Marin, and attend to poisonous senile old gila monsters, is disturbed by some recent paintings I have shown him. He says that I am propagandizing for the kommoonis and the gestapo should question me. Which is utter nonsense. My paintings are art. Not necessarily good art, you understand, because I am a draughtsman and have a rather pedestrian eye, but nevertheless art.

And, if anything, they highlight the dangers of fire in a state (California) where everything can and does go up in flames. Leaves, garbage, religious pamphlets. All kinds of stuff.

Also, the message is "rake your forests".
Like they do in North Carolina.
Or even Texas.


I like to think of myself as a modern day iconographer.


I paint what I "see", child. Art imitates life.

Just to piss him off I've been doing a lot of trash fire illustrations lately. You will kindly note that no people or kittens have been harmed in any way, unlike my food illustrations which should only be studied by trained professionals. Who are emotionally prepared.

No vegans. No glutenphobes. No apple cider vinegar nuts.
No Secretaries of Health and Human Services.
That bozo should see this:

Think of it as necessary needling, Robert.
Perhaps you should get vaccinated?
Or shown a silver crucifix.
Damned vampire.



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UNORTHODOX CHICKEN

It bothers me no end that one of the old rightwing blisters calls his seduction dish 'Chicken Marengo', despite it not being Napoleonic in the slightest; no crayfish, no eggs. Of course, with him being Jewish, the orthodox version would be out of the question, maybe. I'm not sure. His Judaism is more free-style than even New Age Reform, and it's doubtful that he knows much Hebrew. I've asked him what his bar mitzva parsha was, and then had to explain that concept to him, but that might simply be old age and the doddering.
Still. The correct version of Chicken Marengo has crayfish and eggs.
And Austrians weeping after their defeat.

Also, as the elderly delinquent in question is married (to an anticommunist harpy with anger issues), it makes one wonder who he intends to seduce with his misnamed Provençale stew.

Far be it from me to ask. I have no desire to know more about the putrid private lives and social crimes of the wanna-be bad-asses in the backroom than I already do. Their frequent presence at work is pollution enough to last for a life time.

One of them was exultant about transgendered mice in Afghanistan.
That touches on several subjects he know nothing about.
He is a staggeringly stupid man.

Several times during work this past period I was glad that I do not know any of those people socially, and that my friends and loved ones are not exposed to them ever. They are one of the main reasons why I consider Marin a festering swamp of Karens and brattitude.

I often wonder how the members of the pipe club who live there stand the place.
They are hardy men. I admire them. It takes a resolute soul.
They've had all their shots.


People who live in California and nevertheless still smoke pipes, and furthermore steadfastly avoid nasty aromatic tobacco mixtures except for those times when they wish to torment the cringing purists like Hecky, are largely liberals, stubborn and intellectually independent, and precisely the kind of person who would prepare a totally correct version of Chicken Marengo with no intent whatsoever to use it for seduction purposes. Although they might in fits of excess add mushrooms besides crayfish, not instead of.


My apartment mate, a stubborn and intellectually independent woman who is sadly not a pipesmoker, might do it without the chicken. With a lobster instead. Homard Napoléonienne, À La Manière De Poulet Marengo. Garnished with crayfish and mushrooms, no eggs.



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BURNING WHEELS

The last time I saw that person she had a bottle of hooch with her. She's resurfaced, again with a bottle of hooch. Hungover this time rather than in a grim party mood. A glib talker, with something "off". There are some people who are exciting, but the frequent drama is just a little disturbing, and one wishes to actually keep them at a distance because of hints that all may not be right, there are just those things you know, and why does there always seem to be something that does not quite compute? Can't put my finger on it. Don't want to be that involved. Interesting. Might read about it in the paper.

Myself, I am not a thrilling person.
But I get along well with people who are. I am capable of being a diplomat.


Despite never having been to charm school, I can smile and blandly murmur.

Some people I am glad I don't know more than just in passing.
It is best to be merely background, temporary.
Don't mind me.

I suspect that people who are always the centre of attention may be good at that. An ego thing, rather than any actual talents or achievements. Like a can of gasoline and a spark, rather than careful polishing and a hard surface.

They gravitate toward richer circles, because that's where the circling is rich.
There isn't a shred of plain cabbage in their lives.
It's all sardine, baby!


I suspect that the next time I run across her there will be liquour in the handbag.



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STATISTICALLY IMPORTANT SAMPLE OF SCUM

Several of the poisonous lizards that I tend to did not make it in today. I expect their wives forced them to change their incontinence diapers and do family things. I did not miss them. Their kin are welcome to their company. Instead of having to devote my considerable talents to shutting out their noise, I repaired a Peterson that Herb smokes on his boat in the middle of San Francisco Bay, as well as cleaning up a rusticated Dublin which belongs to Robert.

They're decent men, about my age, educated, with iffy smoking habits.

No clue whether either man is married.


Jeff wasn't in today, thank Providence. He's drunk the Kool-aid, and is not only physically hard of hearing, but mentally as well. And he whines. A very MAGA piece of work.
He's been voted most likely to die of acid indigestion.

I enjoyed the peace. Smoked four pipefuls. The briars were Charatan, Gubbel & Zonen, Comoy, Peterson. The tobacco was from C & D. So it was a good day at work.

One thing overheard: "Anything can become a fight club if you try hard enough."

That was, more or less, pursuant the President's cabinet.
Particularly the tattooed bigoted freak.

Try harder, dingos.



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THE REAL AMERICA

Really, this blogger is baffled at the furor over setting fire to cybertrucks, when there is so much else that can be beneficially torched. I am surprised that blazes are not more wide-spread. What is wrong with you people? If Democrats had done even half the stuff that the Trump regime did in the first two months, you'd be burning everything down by now.

Damned well everything is combustible.

Oh, and that chat group thing? So much worse than Hillary's e-mails.

Y'all practically shat yourselves over that.


A can of hairspray and a lighter can be combined harmoniously. Remember that. Of course, what with climate change, the red states are going to burn up before they get destroyed by tornadoes and hurricanes anyhow, as we're seeing with the start of the fire season in places where previously they had not had a fire season. And with FEMA on the chopping block we'll need Elon going down there and pissing over everything to combat it.
He'll do it without even being asked.

If everything between the Great Lakes and the Gulf Of Mexico burns, no biggie.
Nothing but sadistic retards there anyhow. Single brain-celled organisms.



A large part of the United States consists of highschool bullies and the blonde mean girls. Plus Christians. Christians. Christians. Effing Christians. Christians. And Christians.



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THE DIET OF THE AMERICAN SLOTH

In slightly less than one hour, within a two block stretch, I heard Toishanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin. That's better than yesterday, when in that same amount of space I'd heard three crazy people erupting. So it's not my animal magnetism. Probably the weather.

Which today has been grey, with sporadic precipitation, not requiring heavy raingear or an umbrella. Per the weather report mid fifties with overcast periods, and sometimes sunny.

Apart from my outside coat the only protective gear was my mask, because public transit is a rolling petri dish, I dodn't know where you people have been, and you never known when or where you'll encounter a Texan spreading measles or Marjorie Taylor Greene.


There are diseased Americans from elsewhere everywhere.


Including seven Caucasian types besides myself at the place where I had lunch, so you can never be too careful. I wasn't really paying attention, but I saw one plate of electric hued sweet and sour something, as well fried noodles with muck on top à la Detroit.

If I had stayed any longer I'm sure I would have also seen Kung Pao and General Tso.
Plus, quite possibly, egg rolls and deep-fried wontons.


薺菜豬肉水餃

Unfortunately, they were out of the dumplings made with shepherds purse (薺菜 'chai choi; capsella bursa-pastoris), which is newly featured on their menu, and I was keen to taste it. It's traditional for Spring time, metaforous for domestic tranquility and harmony, and beneficial to the circulatory system. Which is something I have.


Still, lunch was good. They have Sriracha.
Which makes everything happy food.
Even that American stuff.



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EGREGIOUS IMAGERY

You may have noticed a few burning illustrations here recently, yes? Because this blogger is news-reactive. Unfortunately, the images of dunces texting details of a military strike is not particulary illustratable. I suppose I could do drunken frat bros partying instead, except that one of them would have to be bare chested, tattooed, and yelling stupid crap like "warfighting, man, that's what life is all about", while another feels up a couch.

Six packs of shitty beer, cinnamon whisky, and supermarket pizza.

I am not good at illustrating red state dude behaviours.

They do that perfectly well themselves.

It's something that you can find all over the internet. The dominant aesthetic of this nation. Frequently at football games. Goes with corn dogs dipped in cheese sauce, twirly fries with bac-o-bits and ranch, and deep fried peanut butter sandwiches.

So instead, this.

Perhaps nothing is more American than a good old fashioned marshmallow and weenie party, it's positively boyscoutian. Ah, the smell of accelerant, caramelization, and questionable materials consumed by flames. Unhealth made flesh.

That also describes American junkfood, by the way.
The fragrance of a stripmall foodcourt.


Actually, I do not have good memories of the boy scouts. Baden Powel was responsible for some pretty nasty behaviours in groups under the supervision of damaged adults, and still is. He may have been totally unaware of that, even though as a public school boy he probably wasn't. But, you know, boys will be boys, and youth must out.

Per E.B. White, author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little:

This is what youth must figure out:
Girls, love, and living.
The having, the not having,
The spending and giving,
And the meloncholy time of not knowing.

It's inspirational or something.
Literary, like, you know?
Feel the vibe.



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HALF AN EAR

So the conversation went almost nowhere. I mentioned that place down from Broadway on Stockton that used to sell roast meat. "Sold meat?" Roast meat. "Meat?" Meat. Roast meat. "On Broadway?" No, on Stockton near Broadway. "The corner of Stockton and Broadway?" Not on the corner. "At Pacific?" No. On Stockton. It was there for a long time. "Meat?" Roast meat. "Oh." Well, it looks like they're doing something with that space. "On Broadway?"
It was not on Broadway, but on Stockton Street.

And to further clarify, I mentioned that they had sold roast meat.

I am certain, fairly certain, 100% sure in fact, that he hadn't a clue what I was on about. In any case, something may be going into that place soon. I had earlier mentioned to Robert that Dai Lee is on vacation again. They are just around the corner from the bakery where we were. He had agreed with Russ five weeks ago that it was too tightly packed in there.
So I knew he was familiar with the place. I also knew that he had shopped there.
He also was quite clueless.

After that I got to hear about KFC on the mainland, a golf course with lockers, a very popular coffee shop chain bankrupt bought out and expanded, and a provincial city half an hour away from Guangzhou. Plus the vegetable markets at an intersection in the Financial District before the war, and all about the hot weather on Monday and Tuesday.

With that latter I agreed. I had been here. I knew.

Mentally I noted that one of the two ninety year olds was wearing the same number of layers as he had been when it was over eighty degrees two days earlier when I met him on the bus. It was mid to high fifties today, and he was still overdressed.

As conversations went, it was a dumpster fire. It was the first time in several hours that I had spoken English. Maybe I was out of practice. That would explain why it was so difficult.

Also, I was watching the tyke at the corner table with her daddy. She's probably close to five years old now, and just like two years ago she's calm, not loud, and very very small. I stress that latter characteristic, because there had also been a white infant of the same age and possibly twice that size in the place, looking at the displays. Had I been a pastry I should have been terrified. "Oh lawd, she's gonna eat us all!" "Bun away, bun away!"



Anyhow, I enjoyed talking with the two gentlemen, as I do everyweek. It's a different take on life, and frequently references things I am familair with, but from a different vantage point.



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RESERVATIONS

Though the day was quite warm -- since Saturday I have not worn the customary garb, and the winter coat which I needed a week ago has been back in the closet -- this evening it was rather chilly. A cold wind was blowing, and the fog is back. Which presages an early summer.

Naturally I did not begrudge the fellow sleeping in my customary doorway where I wait for the bookseller to get off work while smoking my pipe. And when I tapped out the briar I did so at the curb so that the ashes would not blow all over him.

Lunch a few hours earlier near there had been quite enjoyable. Shrimp sauce three shreds stifried rice noodles (蝦醬三絲炒米粉 'haa jeung saam si chaau mai fan'), in which textures and flavours combine harmoniously into a comforting but not heavy dish. Savory, very Canto, very American Chinese. Despite being light and snacky it was still far too much for one not particularly large middle-aged Dutch American to eat, so half of it went into a little box for sometime later, when it will go well with a braadworst (bratwurst).
Add sambal to the pan when re-heating.

Sambal makes everything better.

A DUTCH AMERICAN

The bookseller arrived about ten minutes after I finished my pipe, and we walked past the karaoke joint on the way to the hamburger place fearing what we would find there later. And indeed, it was not inviting later -- the discordant notes of someone butchering John Denver's most famous song made that clear -- so we went directly to see miss Vivian near the chop house. Whole bunch of regulars, civilized blokes, with a white couple at the end of the bar sucking each other's faces completely privately despite being in full view.

Something with balls on the teevee.
Two of the four screens.
Sound off.


Guiness. Jameson's. Hot black tea.


At one point the female half of the face-inhaling duo fell off her stool. Something must have taken her breath away, possibly the intensity of the smooch, maybe a marked lack of sufficient oxygen. The vapours. Or Jägermeister shots.

Maybe combining a public display of whatever that was, with alcohol is not such a good idea.
Not that I would know. Generally speaking I have avoided Jägermeister, and my ex and I are both on the spectrum, so the whole face sucking phenomenon wasn't, strictly speaking, ever on the menu. Discreet pecks on the cheek. A gentle squeeze of the hand.
That whole tasting the other person's spit thing, no.


Not the usual crowd on the bus back over the hill. An old man with a walker, who got off at Hyde Street and trudged up the slope, a black guy muttering to himself, and a youngish Caucasian dude with a white rose.

In the two blocks after I got off, I remembered a girl I was quite smitten with back in Valkenswaard. She was three or four years younger than me. Reserved, petite.
We hardly ever spoke to each other in five years.
I wonder what became of her.



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THINKING ABOUT KITTENS

According to Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, burning Cybertrucks is an act of pure terrorism. And either encouraging or organizing such a crime is also a punishable act, which might net you twenty years. Possibly in a brutal Salvadorean prison run for profit. Let me therefore state, categorically, that I neither engage in any of those things, nor condone them.
Seeing as there possibly might be kittens inside.

Will no one think of the kittens?

Oh heartless world!

Kittens!

In a great many places criminals have torched Cybertrucks, in public, innocently parked along the side of roadways, or in lots, or harmlessly stashed in showrooms. There are in fact three Tesla dealerships within easy reach of San Francisco, a city which is known for and filled with kitten-hating terrorists.

Well, maybe they hate kittens. I don't know. I'm simply going by what our political leaders are saying. Who are undoubtedly worried sick about the kittens. As who wouldn't be?

Good right-thinking Christians all over the country are concerned about the kittens.

Kitten slaughter is a horrible thing. It's what those folks in Greenland do, then they skin them and wear them as slippers. Nasty! That's why we need to take over Greenland, so that we can bring them the words of Jesus and they'll stop killing the kittens.

Or Venezuela, where they eat them!

I've even heard that in some truly barbaric countries people (savages) give them Molson and Poutine, as if it's the most normal thing in the world, totally unconcerned with the pain this causes poor little baby Jesus! Canada is an awful place. Bigly.


And that's why should never torch a Tesla Cybertruck.

I strongly oppose torching anything.

Because of the kittens.



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TAKE A VILLAGE

They may have changed cooks, because I do not remember fish fragrance eggplant (魚香茄子 'yü heung ke ji') disquieting my delicate digestive organ quite so much previously. I did not finish my lunch. But nevertheless I enjoyed it immensely. The waitress is a hard working busy girl who does not look like she's anywhere near drinking age with a nice well-proportioned face, rose bud lips and prettily blushing cheeks who, apparently, IS old enough. Judging by the fact that her parents came by with her little daughter to say 'hi'. So there's that.

Students must be rewarded with food. Whether it's kindergarten (see above), grammar school (the mommy sitting at the opposite wall with her kids), or junior high (innocent looking fellow with his Mandarin-speaking girlfriend one table over). As well as the kid two tables over with her uncle, who was busy reading his texts while minding the child. Food.

There were no other Caucasians there, and I speak Cantonese, so I was sort-of invisible, and with my deep-set eyes no one can tell if I'm observing, cross-eyed, or asleep.
Actually, I am looking at my food.

That sauce! I disapprove of it. It suggests having read somewhere what the dish is supposed to be, and then taking a mad stab at doing something not too very dissimilar. The cooking techniques employed were fail-safe, but the sauce was slapdashedly half-assed.

It's supposed to be spicy tangy savoury sweet, with ginger, bamboo shoot, spicy fermented bean sauce (豆瓣醬 'dau paan jeung'), pickled chilies, scallions, and garlic. Plus vinegar and sugar. It did have bamboo shoot. A little dried chili. Plus red colour, sugar, and cornstarch.

I wonder what they'll do when I order mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐 'maa pou dau fu') next time.


Afterwards I dawdled at the edge of Portsmouth Square with my pipe for a while, observing the senior citizens playing cards and chatting in Toishanwaa (臺山話), as many of the older villagers do. When I left, having finished my smoke, I heard one of the old ladies emphasize her point with 'maa ge hai'. Which I shall not translate. It would have gotten her fined in some places in Hong Kong. Bad, auntie, bad!


That illustration is not of somewhere in the Pearl River Delta, but a scene in Flanders.
In case you were wondering. It seemed appropriate. Seeing as I discussed food.



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DISTANT INSECTS BUZZING

In addition to Elon Musk wishing to steal your Social Security data, there is also Allison from Right Guard who wants to do the same. Kindly F off, sweetheart. I am an eighty five year old transgender black lesbian from Iowa with arthritic knees, one foot in the grave, and horrible indigestion, who wishes to terrify your eleven year old daughter in women's restrooms all over the deep south.

Gas stations. And Waffle Houses.

Actually, I am currently on a village road in Indonesia. Due to horrific windstorms, it is blocked by fallen greenery in the middle distance, and the villagers have sought shelter.


There is no place nearby where they have rendang. Not safe to set fire to the kerosene stove in this weather. Could start a conflagration. Rendang takes several hours to prepare, and no one wants to risk the kampong going up in a giant ball of petrochemicals, beef tallow, and coconut grease. With or without freshly made shrimp sauce chilipaste. Mmmm.

Actually, some ayam goreng jowo would be nice too. Pieces of chicken, simmered in coconut milk with turmeric, lemon grass, and galangal (and a pinch of sugar), for about half an hour, drained and rested, then deep fried golden brown and served with steamed rice, atjar tjampoer, and that same lovely shrimp sauce chilipaste.


Lukewarm tea, not so much sugar, to wash it down.


Followed by a pipe filled with Capstan, smoked under the awning of the shop while watching the sudden downpour drench the road. It will be over soon, and fifteen minutes afterwards there is no evidence of the rain. Just a slight increase in the humidity, which was already quite high. If you think about it, your skin feels like it's brushing against hot wet velvet.
And you itch a bit. Small bugs love parts of you.


Here in San Francisco it's only sixty degrees, more or less, heading up to about seventy by teatime. And there is nowhere to get ayam goreng jowo or rendang. On my days off I like to eat good food. Not something that happens often when I work in Marin.
Capstan Gold today. Soon no longer be available.
They've stopped making it.



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BANANA REPUBLICANS

Question: Those folks who were deported on that plane to El Salvador: how do we know they were violent Tren de Aragua members, or even Venezuelans? Was there a real passenger manifest? Was there a record of due cause arrests? Correct procedures? Transparency? They were probably just Latinos caught up in a sweep of people who "fit the profile".

And how is sending them to a horror prison any different from what Russia does? And why is this not a crime against humanity?

Frankly, much as the rightwing are crowing about this, it looks very much like the United States ended up with massive egg all over its face, because there is no way in hell that Venezuelans who broke our laws are within the jurisdiction of El Salvador, and by dumping them there whatever happens to them is, ultimately, our responsibility.


Quote from Human Rights Watch: "A state of emergency adopted in March 2022 that suspended basic rights remains in force. Authorities have committed widespread human rights violations, including mass arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, ill-treatment in detention, and due process violations."
[SOURCE: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/el-salvador . ]

That report details things which would make even Ron De Santis blush.


Yeah, I know, MAGA doesn't give a flying intercourse about the human rights of any brown people, and the end justifies the means yada yada yada, but just casually dumping arrestees in some random Latin American hellhole is an egregiously despicable act which will tarnish our reputation for generations. At the very least be held against us when we travel abroad.

And by the way, our reputation was already pretty lousy after we decided to use Guantanamo Bay as a torture facility where human rights did not apply.

Essentially, we've become the biggest baddest banana republic there is.

I suspect for some people this is a reason to start proudly shouting that we're numbah one. We're number one! We're number one! We're number one! Yay! Ammurica! Oo! Ess! Ay!

This is a competition that rational people did not want to win.




AFTER THOUGHT: There was a protest at the Tesla Dealer on Van Ness Avenue yesterday. Apparently only middle class Caucasians. The brown people may not have wanted to run a risk of being disappeared and dumped into an El Salvadorean hellhole.

The White Folks have not yet grasped that this could also happen to them.


Random word advice: Don't leave fingerprints and avoid security cameras.




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FAT AND SASSY

One of the things I tend to observe upon leaving work and heading home is the buzzards (turkey vultures) circling over the salt flats, scoping out the smörgåsbord that undoubtedly lies far below, provided for nature's scrappy clean-up crew by a benevolent providence. Cadavers in many stages of decomposition and putrescence. Yummy!


One of these days I'll take a boat out there with a giant bottle of steak sauce.
Introduce the little fellows to the finer things in death.

The problem with a flat expanse of slick sticky mud is that one cannot really get a foot-hold. Hence the boat or skiff at high tide. Something tourists should do, instead of getting stuck, and their motel wondering a week later why they haven't seen Guido, Lucinda, and the little tykes Giorgio and Liliane in a while and how long do they have to wait before they sell the luggage along a street in the Tenderloin.

At least the swamp things appreciate tourism.
The rest of us are still on the fence.
Watchful and apprehensive.

European tourists tend to be adventurous. Most American tourists simply waddle a bit around Fisherman's Wharf or Union Square, then sink exhausted upon the nearest clean surface to swill thirty two ounces of ice tea. With six or seven extra packets of sugar.
"Why, Precious, nobody told me there where hills here!"

Grass-fed Europeans are in any case better than junkfood-fed Americans.
Less likely to lead to swamp thing gout or hardened arteries.



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