DAWN OF THE UNDEPRAVED

While I was outside earlier, after pills and coffee, the moon was going down to the west giving a false silvery dawn, because of the fog and the dense trees at the top of the hill several blocks away. Birds were tweeting, very Spring-like. And Mila Kunis singing Pat Benatar's 'Love Is A Battlefield' in Russian was going through my head.

And I realized that the music of my generation is now further away than what my parents may have listened to when they were the age that I was then. So we're talking about some pretty antique stuff, which deservedly might not hit the airwaves now. As neither should what we favoured. Because in retrospect much of it was ghastly.

On the other hand, I now fondly click on Youtube's of singers from the thirties to the fifties famous for black and whites in foreign languages. Oh, that innocence. Even the faintly hinted borderline deparavity that glimmers at the edge of hearing is so much more fresh and sweet.
Our standards for depravity are more rigorous.

Punk, heavy metal, and tthe "easy listening"channel changed everything.
Personally, I blame Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher.
The Nineteen Eighties was truly horrible.

Still, I miss that time. Not because things were better -- for much they were worse -- but because of the perspective I had on life back then. My vantage points have shifted.
Victrolas, tape players, typewriters, landlines.
Possibly less cholesterol in food.
Very innocent snacks.


They still hadn't invented vegan and gluten-free back then.
And had barely discovered oats. As just minor details.
We had less Protestant guilt over things.
And spicier frissonage.



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NOT COOL DEVIANTS

Let us not speak of the anunnaki. Those being ancient middle-eastern supernatural entities often in conspiracy theorizing identified as ancient aliens who brought mankind fire, religion, pyramid building technology, and yeast for making beer and bread. Which one of the people in Marin wishes to discuss in great boringly repetitive detail but thank heavens (!) didn't get very much chance to do today.

If I can get through the working day tomorrow without hearing about any of that my life will be complete. Well, nearly complete. Somewhat. A little bit complete. Okay, that's a low standard for completion, but it will still be rather good.

What this really means is that there are some people you don't want to go for a walk in the forest with. Not because they might do something unspeakable, but because they will open your virgin ears to a whole berserk world of madness that you didn't want to know about and instantly recognize as such Mill Valley hooey that even pot-smoking hippies would open their eyes and mutter "um bad trip man. So not far out".

This is fuelled by strong coffee plus Honduran and Nicaraguan cigars.

Also, obviously, apple cider vinegar.
Which the anunnnaki brought us.


So on my right I have someone talking about all the inspiring slaughter and rapine in the Old Testament, and to my left a roomful of petulant whiny farts castigating China while praising the orange dungboy and his pet freak Musk. In all honesty, either discussion would have been better or more tolerable if done in a fake Swedish or Subcontinental accent.

Seriously. I'm thinking Swedish Chef here.

Instead of a mutant fartbabble inferno.

Hurdy gurdy. Mørk mørk mørk!




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EXTROSPECTIVE REFLECTIONS

Yesterday's tariff news was bizarre. There is almost no other way to call it. And, if the crayon-eating cretin in the White House holds firm, a lot of the things I buy will be twice as expensive soon. For your information, I do not purchase crap from Alabama, Florida, and Texas if I can help it. Or most things with corn syrup and corn by-products.
I strenuously avoid shitty American-made goods.
Which mostly come from red states.

If it's from California it's probably okay.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

USA: 4% of the world's population. China: 16% of the world's population. The world outside the United States is twenty five times larger than us. I hope the Chinese tariff the crap out of American goods. They don't need us. And, considering that we've gone rogue, neither does anyone else.

Let's see, most vegetables including chilipeppers are grown in California, we make good cheese here, and excellent wine, sugar comes from Hawaii, I don't drive and will not buy an American car in any case, and I despise most of the country and do not want those hosebags moving here or even visiting for conventions or vacations.

During the pandemic we learned that they're diseased and ignorant about hygiene, medicine, and microbes, religious nuts as well, who will take dangerous chemicals to combat illness because some damned preacher or right wing dunderhead on teevee told them to.

In the intervening years they've just gotten worse. Much worse.

More stupid. More ignorant. More insane.

Cattle prod worthy.



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BIG GREEN MANGOES

Where ever they're imported from doesn't matter. They were cheap, at one point, but soon they'll probably be astronomical because the big orange sewage balloon keeps playing with tariffs. And no one will want to sell them to us, because they don't know at the time of shipment if we'll pay when they hit the port. We're quite unreliable.

Why trade with a bunch of flake-a-zoids?

Green mangoes as an accompaniment to fatty pork work very well. Especially with a bit of stinky shrimp paste or dried fish in the stew, plus chilies. There are three Chinese American women in this apartment building, only one of whom is, maybe, familiar with that concept.
I know that my apartment mate (one of the three) would not automatically jump to that combo. Never-the-less, I bought a big green mango for each of them.
They're as big as a baby's head.

Mmm, mangoes, chilies, fish sauce, streaky stewed pork!
Paradise on your plate!

They can be sourced from Latin America, South East Asia, Mainland China and Taiwan, and the Heard and Mc Donald Islands. All of which have been venomously intercoursed with Donald Trump's dingbat tariffs.

And why would anyone even bother to try selling imported goods in a market operating so erratically? One just cannot trade with erratic inconsistent morons.

The Indonesian Chinese woman downstairs front probably enjoys mangoes. My landlady, Toishanese born here, loves them. My apartment mate, also Toishanese born here (her daddy is from Texas), I don't know about. And as a Dutch American with some rather Indonesian tastes I'm a foregone conclusion on that score.

Might dish up that previously mentioned pork over spaghetti noodles.
With some anchovies to accentuate the flavours.

Thinly sliced Jalapeños to garnish.
And cilantro.



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THE PRICE OF EGGS

Tariffs will impact a very large percentage of the goods that everyone buys, and as you would expect not everyone is looking forward to that. Fortunately I have enough sambals and chili sauce to last until well after the harvest season. But today I think I will invest in a few other condimental substances. Particularly oyster sauce (蠔油 'ho yau'), shrimp sauce (鹹蝦醬 'haam haa jeung'), and abalone sauce (鮑魚汁 'baau yü jap').
As well as various curry pastes.

All I can say is that my favourite stockists picked a lousy time to go on break.
Not their fault; ching ming (清明節) waits for no man.

Fortunately, Chinese American klugheit & innovativität will probably start production of all those things in the States sometime this year, and just like with soy sauce we won't have to rely on international trade. Which has been torpedoed by the stupidest administration ever in any case. I just hope that America's shitty and deteriorating food safety doesn't sabotage us like it did, briefly, about two decades ago when the damned Texans would have happily given everyone an incurable disease as long as the money for those ridiculous ten gallon hats kept rolling in. Fortunately the FDA (still extant at that time) and the health authorities (still extant at that time) stepped in and put a stop to that.

THOSE RICE FIELDS IN TEXAS WHERE REDNECK
PEASANTS SWEAT UNDER THE HOT TROPIC SUN

Sadly, when it comes to rice we're hosed. We'll have to depend on California, Texas, and the Carolinas for that. Where Uncle Ben holds sway. Most Americans know beans about rice.

Considerable less than about cuisine and acceptable headgear.

Fortunately the price of eggs will eventually go down. When the Red States get hit with the next pandemic, it will be several months before they panic because information will first not be divulged by RFK's henchmen, but then reassuringly incorrect in any case, and television hucksters will tell them to just take vitamin supplements, apple cider vinegar, fluoxetine and mebendazole. Buy the family pack, now conveniently priced. While supplies last.

[Very minor side effects at levels which are likely to supress virus-borne diseases: diarrhea, head aches, nausea, trouble sleeping, xerostomia, plus bone marrow suppression, vomiting, and sexual dysfunction. All of which are GOOD, and prove that they work better than masks.]

Then they will not be able to afford eggs, nor will they have an appetite.
And there will be a Jesus-man telling them eggs are evil.
All in all, you're better off not eating eggs.
They are the devil's food.
Canadian.



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SCREAMING FOR EDDY

None of us have actually met Eddy. But judging by the screaming from down the block while we were waiting for the bus, she has and blames him for a lot that is wrong with her life. Existential angst. Questions about the meaning of life. Bad hair days. Torpor.

From which I deduce that Eddy is a talented man.

Knowing Eddy is not high on my list of priorities. Nor is emulating him. The most I would wish a young lady to feel is kind of chuffed, and pleased to be eating cake with me. Black forest kirsch torte OR coffee crunch. Either or. Back in my early twenties, the phrase 'hip problems' suggested a weeklong adventure with a whiskey-swilling artistic type and an Underwood. Nowadays it's discombobulative creaking sounds upon getting up from a crouch.

In Chinese, "hip problems" are 臀部問題 ('tuen bou man tai'). After a certain age, those are amplified by circulatory (血液循環 'huet yik cheun waan') issues which you should probably discuss with your doctor, and which do not normally cause creaking.
Bad hair days, perhaps. No Eddies are involved.

I didn't have that adventure back then.
But I still own a typewriter.
Not an Underwood.

The idea of treating a nice person to a lovely slice of cake is charming, don't you think? Unfortunately there is no way of telling if a likely miss is suffering from a severe cake deficiency and amenable to the concept. One cannot trawl the waters at random.


As we have for many years, the bookseller and I met up after I had finished my pipe for our weekly pubcrawl, and, remarkably, his first sustenance of the day. The line outside the bakery this morning had apparently been too long. So he had had total bupkes in the way of nourishment, and a late night burger was breakfast. I had already eaten at tea-time and my blood sugar level was fine. The place to which I had gone is favoured by elderly Cantonese people, much like the place where I often have lunch on Wednesdays. So it's calm and good for people watching, as well as ideal for the single Dutch American grabbing a bite before heading out for a walk with a pipe.

For the last few days I've been filling my pipe with Atalaya.
A fine aged Virginia product from Cornell & Diehl.
It's excellent. I highly recommend it.


The beer place was filled with sparkling artistic types and Europäische Intellektuellen, the karaoke joint had people wailing in Country Western -- they sounded utterly miserable, as you would expect considering the ballads they had chosen -- so we headed directly to Miss Vivien's after his burger. He had stout and a whiskey, I had tea. We discussed 'Parks and Recreation', 'The Office', and Jimmy O. Yang, a comedian of great talent.

After which we listened to the female person hollering about Eddy.
Who must be a very bad person judging by her vehemence.
Quite the vile bastard. Heartless!
And somewhere else.



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THAT LOOK, YOU KNOW

When I returned from my walk around the neighborhood my apartment mate was on her computer listening to Zadok The Priest while typing. Zadok the Priest has been sung prior to the anointing of the sovereign at the coronation of every British monarch since it was written, and has become recognised as a British patriotic anthem. As you know, she is not English or British. But, being a San Francisco native (Chinese American), many of her tendencies and tastes are a bit Brit-like. Standards, boy! A person of whichever gender they identify with must have standards!

An idea with which I tend to agree.
Plus curry. Tea. And shaving daily.

Seeing as she is a woman, I do not expect her to shave daily. However if I don't shave every day I feel grungy. It's what an adult does. Along with teeth and a shower. Apparently having a five o'clock shadow is a sexy look, much striven for, which tells you something about modern society. Inexplicable. And anyway, it doesn't work in combination with a beard and mustache. Everywhere where the beard and mustache aren't should be clean and smooth, the actual B and M neatly trimmed.

Justifiably, not being presentable may elicit stern looks from a whole range of people.

And I'm sure that crow is wondering why I left the house without shaving too. That scruffy look is mildly upsetting, do I not have standards? What is wrong with me?

Corvids sneer at the skeevy look.
Somehow I am not suprised.

He doesn't understand the imperative to have the first smoke of the day BEFORE the second cup of coffee, only after which one will shower. It's not even fully light out, and people walking their dogs or jogging haven't shaved either. Please stop looking at me with stern disapproval, bird, at this hour very few people are fully presentable.

It's getting light out. And I've finished that pipe.
Time for a second cup and some doomscrolling.
And then go have a shave and a shower.



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LET'S NOT DO LUNCH

My next scheduled shift involves people whom I have not "friended" on Facebook and who don't have my contact data. Which is excellent. Precisely like the Republican schnucks with whom I come into regular and regretted contact while in Marin, I do not want them to see either my blog or my Facebook page and 'likes'. Casual conversation is good enough.
That forces me to develop a stronger resistance to idiots.
But news and social interaction, no.


What on earth gives people the idea that I'm social?


Do they not realize that there is a difference between being diplomatic or tactful and friendly? Please think of me as a rabid animal, likely to snap at you, drawing blood. So unless I have good reasons to think that we'll get along and that we have similar world views, casual chit chat will stay at that. It's different if you present solid evidence of critical thinking skills and being able to read, as well as perspective and a sense of humour.

Which very many ambulatory bipeds don't.

What people watch on the television kind of proves that.


The detestable cavemen in the backroom where I work spend an inordinate amount of time watching sports and whining about the Democratic party. I do not watch sports at all if I can help it (a pox on the Forty Niners, the Giants, the Raiders, and Warriors, et autres of those ilks) and don't waste a lot of time belly-aching about the pandering quislings in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party.

All in all, I think I would prefer the company of penguins.
We could talk about food. Seafood. Herring.

Herring is good.



Penguins are the most likable bipeds.



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THE FIRE SEASON

My feet still ache from work yesterday. Which is probably good. With the crappy circulation in my legs, staying active is essential. Finally scheduling those peripheral angioplasties in the lower extremities would alleviate that; leading probably to more activity, but I am somewhat hesitant. Six years ago when they installed the stent, which according to the literature should have simply been an in-and-out procedure, they knocked me out because they did not want the patient twitching on the table. When I woke up it was ten o'clock at night in a comfy clean room, with periodic moaning coming from the room next door. I turned on the animal channel to pass the time. Hyenas hunting down a zebra for breakfast. Moaning from next door.
It was kind of a heartrending Greek chorus. Pitiful misery, very audible.

An hour later the hyenas were fighting lions for the kill.
Still that moaning from the room next door.
Lions, it turns out, are lazy.
Opportunists.

Throughout the night the juicy zebra changed hands. Paws.
And there was constant moaning from next door.

A nurse came by at six o'clock offering coffee. So I asked what was with that moaning from next door. "Oh, that's just a demented woman. There's nothing at all wrong with her."
"Well why the devil is she moaning so?" "She doesn't like being here."

See, I have recovered remarkably in the last six years. Her dementia has probably gotten worse, and I bet she's still next door. And that's why I hesitate.

And she probably has no interest in watching hyenas eat. Whereas I'm merely on this planet to be entertained. Which is why I'm still chortling over Jeffy-poo ranting hysterically yesterday over us libtards pissing on his parade with our protests and wanton destruction of property. So I'm very much looking forward to his petulant kvetching the next time I go in to work.

Apparently we libtards are also blowing up the stockmarket, and what we're saying about the chosen one in the White House (unclear whether we mean Musk or Trump) is so unfair!

Suck it up, cupcake, class war is going to get a hell of a lot worse before this ends.

This what you and the other chuckleheads voted for.




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A BOURGEOIS TANTRUM

So it turns out that one of the Marinites with whom I regularly come in contact is outraged, OUTRAGED ! at the very idea of burning cyber trucks, My piles bleed for Jeffy-poo.
Poor baby. Mmm.

Obviously I haven't shown the schmo my recent paintings; I can imagine the screeching.
On the other hand, some of my friends think its some of my best work.

I myself think that the graphic image of a burning wankpanzer is an artistic theme for our time, a visual that really says "2025" like nothing else. It says it all. What's wrong with the world, the destruction of the fabric of our society by rightwing psychopaths, the egomania of trillionaires, the abject ethically crippled obsequiousness of Republican politicians, the sheer ignorant vindictiveness of their deluded voters, and the gutless amorality and complete lack of principles of the Republican Party in general.

Like nothing else, a burning wanpanzer represent a class war dialectic.
As well as a contemporary "religious" iconography.

Also, Jeffy-poo, it's a reminder for you to rake the forest. Wankpanzers, like fallen leaves, heretics, and gated communities, are infinitely flammable.

And will combust at the slightest.
It's all the dry weather.
Climate change.


When Jeffy-poo waddled in today he was sputtering about protests, swastikas scratched into vehicles, protesting idiots, and how the tariffs are a good thing. I've come to the conclusion that if it weren't for expensive cigars and vicious quarrelling, he would have a hard time maintaining colon heath and regularity. The poor dumb bastard.



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SETTING FREE THE PENGUINS

When I came home yesterday it was to discover that streets were blocked off due to a horrendous fire. No, not a cybertruck with drunken fraternity boys or other useless Republican trash, but an apartment house. Real people were affected.

There are no leaves to rake, okay?

That may have been the building of the pizza incident over fifteen years ago. In any case, just down the block from a favourite restaurant, as well as where Auntie Jenny lives.

Naturally I mind. Look, if it were a cybertruck, no one would care. Even if it were occupied. Worthwhile human beings don't drive those things unless they stole it for a joyride ending in its destruction. It was designed by a South African draft dodger with a small penis for people with small brains and big giant flaming egos -- which may be one reason why they just keep catching fire -- who would benefit from being brutalized, and one of those things parked in a driveway is just asking for it. But that ain't any business of mine.

If it were a fire in Tiburon, or even downtown Sausalito or Mill Valley, I wouldn't give a damn. Condominiums OR cybertrucks, es iz mir scheißegal. Karenstan starts once you cross the county line at the end of the bridge. It could just as well be Iowa or Ohio there.

I'm surprised no Teslas have gone up in flames there.
It's probably neighborhood watch committees.
Pointing guns at people.


"Drop the burrito, boy, we'll have none of that kind of stuff here!"


And before you know it, you're stuck in a holding cell in Louisiana surrounded by violent inbred bucktoothed slackjawed yokels guarding you. Some of them have banjos.



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THE HEARD AND MCDONALD ISLANDS

Our fearless leader Trump has in his righteous anger imposed a tariff on two islands in Antarctica inhabited by penguins. Very productive penguins. Whose cheap labour risks inundating the United States with something, they're taking advantage of us.
Which will drive American manufacturing over the cliff.

But no more! We have seized an advantage!
A tariff to make us all rich!

The United States imports more goods from the Heard and McDonald Islands than they buy from us. That is intolerable and untenable. Who the heck do those penguins think they are?


All I can think of is guano and herring. Both of which are strategically important, because we can definitely sell the herring to the Arabs good lord they don't have any, and the American Deep South needs more guano lord knows and bless their hearts.
The great state of Texas is founded upon it.
Precious, precious guano.

Why, if you really think about it, our society, our democracy, and the wealth of nations is built entirely upon guano. The White House itself is presently filled to the brim with guano.

You Anglo Americans are welcome to all the guano you can swallow.
We Knickerbockers will take the herring.
We're modest.



Next up: Competing with the Underpants Gnomes.



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DANGED HIPPIES!

There is almost nothing like early morning on Nob Hill. Dogs leading their humans to a place to pooh, street people flaked out in doorways further down, the odd pipe smoker wandering the streets and being antisocial. Well, only one of those. And the faint whiff of fresh coffee, because people are waking up.

And of course the bitter biting cold because it's still under fifty degrees and there is moisture in the air. Man I hate the cold. It's been nasty for most of the past four or five months and I'm altogether rather fed up with the frigid part of the year.

I'm looking forward to Spring weather and the start of the burning season. Leaves, unraked forests, and cybertrucks, spontaneously bursting into flames.

Meanwhile the smell of an aged Virginia with a touch of Perique perfumes the air. It's a very nice pipe tobacco, follows the first cup of coffee nicely and prepares the soul for dealing with elderly stodge butts in Marin whining about youngsters these days all illegal damned liberals protesting against god, christianity, and Trump why can't we all just get along and you guys be quiet?

They haven't been to the city in years, not since those coloured commies took over, but it's going to heck I tell you. It used to be so nice. They had an apartment in the lower Haight, only two hundred dollars for a month, and a big tittied girlfriend on those days.
It's not like that today, no sir! The times have sure changed!

Everyone's smoking pot nowadays! That's what!
Not like back in the day.



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WE ARE NOT IN THIS TOGETHER

Naturally you would expect that I know an awful lot of white people. What with being white myself. Most of my Facebook circle is white, most of my real world circle likewise. So I know white people. I've got the necessary background and knowledge sets.
None of the people I just mentioned were there.


Other than myself, not a Caucasian in sight.


And I'm rather glad of that. Lunch was fabulous. Dang. Stupendous in fact. Also, given that so many white people in red states voted for the present regime, I am glad that they don't have anything comparable, and that everything they want to buy will soon be much more expensive, and that unemployment will go up in their areas because they don't produce anything the rest of the world really needs, and with tariffs, sales will drop.
Also, their weather will be worse this year than last.
Floods, hurricanes, and wildfires.
Screw them.

There are times when I take pleasure in being a mean-spirited crabby liberal. Sitting here with my cup of Hong Kong Milk Tea in one of the few civilized cities in the United States, more than a mile away from the nearest Egg MacMuffin washed down with a diet coke.

I really don't think those people are properly housebroken.


Anyhow, they're stupid, eat too much, and their moms dress them funny.


Anyway, to repeat: lunch was just about heavenly.
Oh boy. I'm still smacking my chops.
Enjoy your Spam surprise.



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THE ALL-AMERICAN DIET

That stuff that nobody can afford anymore just started getting a lot more expensive. Soon only the rich will buy it. Because the tariffs will affect the price of everything except grits. And insta-grits. Which used to be only a Southern thing, before it became the chosen sustenance of college students and starving artists everywhere, and those Latin-speaking drug-addicted Islamic criminals crossed the border and started setting fire to cybertrucks for grits.
Because grits are Jesus. Even insta-grits. Insta-Jesus.


It’s such an old-fashioned term but a beautiful term: groceries. It sort of says a bag with different things in it, it’s a sort of simple word, but it sort of means, like, everything you eat. The stomach is speaking, it always does. Sort of.
------Donald Trump


The man is a profound genius. Big brain. Bigly.

Have some eggs with your grits.

This is what George Washington ate at Valley Forge, before he slept somewhere. Wrapped in an American Flag. Can't hardly get more All-American than that. Flags, you should know, don't really protect you from the weather. It's the heat inside that counts.

The hurricane season looks to be a lot worse this year.

What you really need with that is some chilies.

Chopped chilies. Vegetable fibres!



Tariffs, boys, that'll learn 'em! Grits, eggs, hog jowls, and chilies are grown on our farms! Those Euries can't get that! Darn sight better than all that fancy cheese! Covfefe!



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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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