YOU WILL EAT WELL!

There are some people on my Facebook friends list whose posting themes, if there are too many of them, make one feel unclean. Only one "children are like pure little angels" post per month, please. Preferably even less than than that. Same goes double for e-mail or social media warnings about kidneys and bathtubs straight out of The Vanishing Hitchhiker.
Years ago I had a boss like that at a law office. She was a blistering idiot.

Some people need a life, as well as a bottle of liquor.

Other post pictures of their cat.

Or rat, mouse, hamster.

I also am obsessed with my cat. It's a ghost cat, no one else has seen him or her. It lives in my apartment, and occasionally shows up just before dawn. For some reason, which is probably quite explicable, I do not know its gender.

So any name would have to be either way applicable.
But 'Fluffy' does not appeal, however.
Maybe 'Boojums'.

Yes, I'm definitely thinking 'Boojums'.

Do not trip over boojums.
Do not put your coffee cup there, Boojums will knock it over.
Boojums will steal your sardine.
Pet Boojums. It's quite okay.
Boojums likes your fish.


This tells you that if you ever visit, a cup of coffee is almost guaranteed, and I might also give you a sardine.

I am surprised that Boojums and I have so few visitors.
Doesn't every one like cats?



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THINGS IN THE MIND

Two years ago it got over ninety degrees F in the city on this date. Today it will be far from that. Which is good. It makes it possible for a slug like me to actually move around. Weather extremes don't. And people have been, in bland say-nothing attempts at conversation, remarking that we're having wonderful weather. Two years ago at the beginning of October they were saying it was wonderful too, because there wasn't anything they could do about it and it's traditional to praise ungodly heat here. Not entirely the same people. But those of us bellyaching that it was horrid and someone should do something the fault of capitalist pigs ruining the planet time for bloody revolution if only it wasn't too hot to move and oil the guillotines darn it all back in our day sonny were a minority.

Common sense and decency safly always is.
Even in San Francisco.

Tomorrow it might hit eighty degrees. Which is still pretty awful, kindly see aforementioned need for bloody revolution and guillotines, plus lubrication of moving parts. Particularly grooves with fatty build-up. And replace the basket. Something bigger.

One of the things I remember from several years ago is the time we found a snake inside the building under one of the cabinets. Very tiny, when it curled up in fright it was smaller than a silver dollar. It freaked out my co-worker, who has a phobia. So both of them were terrified. Unlike him I thought it was cute. I gave it some water and put it outside in a shady place.

This illustration does not relate to any of that. Flooding in a subtropical region following a typhoon. Something I did last week, but couldn't tie in to an essay. Really, what interesting data could I provide? Typhoon, wet. Much wind. Very wet. Yay.

I'm sure you already knew that.

We've had extraordinarily good weather this summer. Hardly any overheating, no freak storms, no plagues. And fewer tourists.


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A SHINING LIGHT

Most of the usual disgusting rightwing dillwads weren't in today, probably because they were being wheeled around by their minders and nearest and dearest. Which was a great pity; they could have enjoyed watching Fox News. It would have brought cheer to their miserable lives. Which today were devoid of delicious stupidity and cruelty. At the end of the afternoon the fat boy came stumbling in. He's among the worst of the lot, being quite demented, but if you don't poke him he simply sits there quietly mumbling, no trouble.
He has only one nearest and dearest, a teenager.
Wife divorced him years ago.

If from this brief foregoing passage you conclude that I despise rightwingers, you would be wrong. I love them. They serve a useful purpose. Every one of them is fully compostable!
Compost improves soil health and is good for water usage and climate resilience. Many insects thrive in compost heaps, as do numerous amphibians, reptiles, slime molds, and interesting disease-causing organisms. All of Marin County, particulary Mill Valley, is a testament to the blessings that a huge pile of stinking garbage brings.
Slime molds are better for you than a local church!
Decomposition is a miracle!

If the landscape in your neck of the woods is NOT dominated by huge heaps of festering rightwing refuse, you risk Pam Bondi's goons or Kristi Noem's slope-browed fascist trolls coming to turn over the soil and improve drainage.

At this point the entire world has seen coverage of Kristi Noem's pet lizards breaking into an apartment building and ziptying crying children in the middle of the night. Nothing says "land of opportunity" and "beacon of freedom" like brutalized kids. Just ask Russia. It's also fairly common there. And everybody loves Russia, right?

Plus teargas. Throwing reporters violently to the floor. Slamming people into walls. This is a GREAT look for the United States, and gives people warm wet feelings.
Everyone named Bubba. Red staters.


We're a stellar example to the rest of the world.
They wish they had such splendid brutality.
Hah, we're showing them we have it!
And in abundance, too.



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OUR BRAVE BOYS

From my vantage point in an ivory tower in San Francisco, which is well-known for being a hotbed of violent liberalism-fuelled crime and appalling scenes of human despair, a theatre second only to Chicago, I spent all day yesterday reading, dreaming up plots against the god-fearing Christians of ICE, and the soldiers being sent to fight and die in Portland.
Portland.
Portland.
Portland.
You know, you rightwingers look kinda stupid sending troops to Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.

As well as Chicago and Memphis.

And JD Vance bellyaching about wait times recently in emergency rooms because of illegal aliens seeking medical attention, well, he looks kind of stupid too. Maybe he shouldn't go to hospitals in the trash belt states in hopes that he won't get recognized seeking treatment for unclean diseases.

Oh, and stay out of Utah too, JD. They shoot rightwing dilwads there.
Or so I've heard. Mormons and guns. It's a bad combo.
What evil lurks in America's heartland?

Instead, perhaps he should go to Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.
Fully staffed combat zone operating theatres at warp speed.
Lightbulb extractions, sutures, and penicilin.

Lots of troops. It's a war zone.

Kristi Noem's boys bravely fighting off an Antifa protest outside the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in downtown Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.

Oh, the humanity. It's horrific.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement rounding up the foreign rapists and drug dealers at the farmers market adjacent to King Elementary School.

Heartache. Despair. Doom. And operatic wailing. In Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.

Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, all in the valley of death rode the six hundred. Precisely like at Helm's Deep, where the Marines stormed ashore in 1965.

These men are true heroes. One can only imagine the horrors they face.
There are witches and hippies among the ranks of Antifa.
Plus non-Christians! Socialists! Little children!

Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.



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DON'T CRY FOR SOY BEAN FARMERS

It is with exultation that I read that America's soybean farmers, who overwhelmingly voted for the orange dickface, are going broke because tariffs have shot them in their collective foot. No sympathy whatsoever. Same goes for the food poisoning outbreaks because DOGE cut budgets at the FDA, CDC, plus the Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service. Since January I have grown increasingly meanspirited toward the red states and everybody who voted for that chump. We are NOT all in this together. I wish them ill, and won't shed any tears if half the country turns into a Mad Max dystopia. Screw them.

Particularly Texas and Florida.


"I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military."


What kind of mush-brained moron says stuff like that? And seeing as neither Comrade Krasnov nor Kegsbreath have a brain between them, this represents Republican gangster group-think. It is un-American, un-Christian, and precisely what brutal dictators would do.
The Russians would do that. Slobodan Milošević would do that. Erdogan would do that.
Stephen Miller and Ted Cruz would do that.

In a few years we'll probably put such people in front of firing squads.

Fox News and the rightwing influencers are cheering this on.

They're traitors and criminals.

Of course none of this distracts very much from the Epstein list. I wonder how damned many Republicans and religious preachers are on it? I think I'd be okay with all of Epstein's friends and clients lined up and shot. Wouldn't you?

By the way: this administration has shown itself to be incompetent, perjurious, corrupt, and complicit in crimes on a massive scale, along with their cohorts in Congress, the Senate, the courts, and Republican state governments. And for the past six months they've been doing their damnedest to distract everyone from the Epstein list.
Have you wondered why that is?


The world deserves to know what was in those files sitting on Pam Bondi's desk back in February, and what she's been trying to sweep under the rug since then.
Before we even think of bailing out the soy bean farmers.
Or that shithole Argentina.


America's soybean farmers, who voted for hate and racism, are now upset that there was more to the Republican platform than just screwing other people.
Oops. Mmm, own petard much?


Did I mention the Epstein list? I really should have. I may have entirely forgotten it in all the tumult and Republican histrionics. An oversight. Oopsie. And 'tssk, tssk'. Sad. Bigly.



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INSTEAD OF TOURISTING, ZOOM NEXT TIME

Pete Hegseth ranting about fat generals is most unfair! What could better represent this country's ideals and values than a grossly overweight person labouring up a gentle incline? There were well over twenty of those, all white, of both genders, in Chinatown yesterday. Over a four hour span, admittedly, so they aren't quite a majority except by volume yet. Slow enough that I could hear them speaking (sometimes panting) in American English with their family members (some of whom take after mom and dad, bigly).

This why the whale is our national bird. Animal. National animal.
Whales are intelligent beautiful creatures.
Pete Hegseth isn't.


As you probably suspect, I am a very judgemental person. I tend to sneer at certain people. Especially if they are covered in Nazi gang tattoos and have rancid ideas. Not naming any names. Let's just call it what it is: Fascist ideological garbage.
Which is represented at the highest levels.


Again, let's concentrate on fat, white, and panting. Plus why do their children look half-moronic? They should strive for perfection, full moronicity! I'm sure they can achieve it.

I also wish to praise the noble skunk, most unfairly maligned of animals. Nature's adorable little fart badger. Not only stubbornly independent, but also at times a perfect pet.
The ideal emotional support animal for people like me.

If I had one, I would take it with me wherever I went. Municipal transit vehicles. Church revival meetings. Marketing departments. Red states. Say 'hello' to my little friend.

Why are so many Americans so frightful?
Is it something they ate?



Please note: I would never actually go to the red states.
I'm not that fond of banjos and lard.



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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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WAR FLUFFIES

The president spoke to his generals yesterday telling them our troops need to practice their killing skills in the Democratic cities (San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and others) and his secretary of war demanded that they cease wearing skirts and being black. They sat there stone faced listening to the two men. In Quantico Trump and Hegseth proved to a roomful of brass that they are utter morons. Honestly, that could have been an e-mail.

Per National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) signed recently, common political beliefs are indicators of terrorism. Anti-Christian. Anti-American. Anti-capitalism. All defined according to the rightwing. Essentially, local law enforcement is being instructed to arrest people if and when based on their ideology. Everybody more liberal than Fox News and The Heritage Foundation is lumped as "radical left democrat", the "enemy within".

Key architects are Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka.


This is all something that your chuckleheaded neighbor with the red beanie supports. For all the right Christian reasons. Because "Amurikka!" He bought the branded merchandise sold at every rally.

Meanwhile, in the war-torn city of Portland, Oregon ...

Trump has also declared war on electric vehicles and windmills. No doubt these have some connection to the Democratic Party in his mind.
Along with acetominophen.


By the way: I got my flu shot and covid booster yesterday. And I took a Tylenol. Nanochips, and five G. Also, I wear a mask when not smoking my pipe, especially on public transit, where there are so many dubious people from the Midwest, the South, and Texas.


Do not travel to the Red States. They're unclean.
There are idiots and soybean farmers there.



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RABBIT RABBIT OCTOBER 2025

Rabbit rabbit. Per ancient tradition, one must say that first thing on the first day of the month. Which this is. It coincided with returning home from the regular pub crawl with my friend the bookseller, which is also an ancient tradition. During which at some point Monty Python refences will be made. During a hymn to the Yellow River, we mentioned Britain's top goalies and their fascination for China's mightiest watery scourge. On the way to the bus stop afterwards, we delved into the eloquent beauty of statements about dead parrots.

Upon disembarking I noticed it was sprinkling. According to news reports a few days ago, the Bay Area will be deluged by the first storms of the season this week. One inch. Back to back fronts, swamping city services and infrastructure. One inch. Biblical proportions, mudslides, a commute from hell. One inch. Once in a hundred years, never seen anything like it at the end of September. One inch.

That's one inch of precipitation, cumulative for the week.

A minor inconsequential sprinkle this evening.

I have no doubt that the heavens will open up and rain come bucketing down, drowning everything in a massive one inch flood the likes of which have never been seen.

My apartment building is on a hill. I should be fine.

RABBIT RABBIT

Three people sang at the karaoke bar, badly, in Mandarin. Par for the course. Better than an entire squawling marketing department of twenty something white folks, which is usually the case. Chinese people singing badly is considerably better than yuppie caucasoids doing so. There is an endearing hesitancy there, rather than an arrogant confidence. Please excuse my efforts, instead of suck it up all of you bitches.

Keep on singing, Mandarin speakers.
It keeps the white folks away.
That's good luck.


My friend had a beer, then a whiskey.
I had green tea, then black.



The pipe smoked while waiting for him to get off work lasted exactly half an hour.
Cornell & Diehl Virginias in a Dunhill 59 F/T Bruyere group 4 billiard.
It looks nothing at all like what the rabbit is smoking.



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REWARD YOURSELF WITH A COOKIE

The lipid levels are okay, there is no protein in the urine, and Vitamin D is excellent! And if that isn't the most enchantingly magical opening for an essay, I don't know what is! This is part of what we discussed in the follow-up visit to my full physical when I was at my doctor's appointment in Chinese Hospital. Oh, and my bloodpressure is excellent. We also did the pulse oximeter thing before she came in. Judging by the fact that the nurse didn't scream and run out of there, I am NOT a zombie.

A few years ago it was cold weather, and because of Raynaud's phenomenon, the pulse oximeter didn't register bupkes. Whereupon I gently explained what was going on to the administering person. And by the way: the mobile living dead would also show oxygen levels in their digits, unless those had fallen off already, because mobility means energy usage. Hence oxygen. With the deceased demographic, things are, necessarily, different.

I'm fairly certain they don't use pulse oximeters on demised persons.
I'll have to ask the mortician I know about that.
Or a forensic pathologist.

One very small seed of a kidney stone, and very minor fibrosis in the lungs.

Which is where this lovely schematic of a lotus root cross-section comes into play. Lotus root is exceedingly good cooked with fatty pork, providing a warmish flavour and a very appealing textural element. Fibrosis won't be a significant problem until it actually starts interfering with breathing and absorbing enough oxygen etcetera etcetera to prevent me venting spleen occasionally as is my wont.

In any case, my next appointment is in several months (continuing to ascertain that I haven't come close to cessation of bodily functions, non-existence, and zombification). I'm fine.

I also picked up refills of the Atorvastatin and Losartan HCTZ while I was there.
That may be the first time a patient packed a pipe while at the pharmacy.
Lit up shortly after leaving and strolled down the street.

The bookstore that the Taiwanese lady ran is gone. She was old and in bad shape the last time I saw her. The herbalist where I purchased salvia miltiorrhiza pills (丹參片 'daan chaam pin') before I had medical insurance is still there. And there's yet another boba place further down. Work is being done in the space where the Shanghai restaurant used to be, it's going to be a Xi-Jiang (西江) bistro soon. The West River (西江) extends through Yunnan to Canton. They're promising that Szechuan taste food will also be available.


While on the bus back across the hill, a Toishanese speaker sat nearby and started hollering on her phone. Probably remembering the volume she needed on the vast prairies of home, when huge herds of buffalo thundered past and made communication hard because of their noise. I tried listening in (hard not to), but her dialect was so deep and down home that she was nearly unintelligible despite shouting. She probably did not have anything interesting to say, but whatever it was the entire bus heard it. Including the driver.
Who gently expressed dismay.


Sometimes I also have it on speaker and shout. When I'm at home. And there is a Spam artist calling me. Such as "Steve", from something something Solutions. Who, being very Indian, does not understand me when I answer in Cantonese (喂，你係邊個？'Waaaei!
Nei hai biiiiin go?'). Which is very sad. I hung up on him.
Honestly, I wouldn't expect him to answer.


Post Scriptum: The framed picture on the wall in the room at the hospital where I saw my doctor is still crooked. I tried straightening it before she came in, to no avail.



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SUGARY BRAIN

The search for jacaranda trees (a South American flowering tree now spread world-wide, even gone native in some places) as if by magic got the eye twitching at surprising things. Because of misreadings and half-noted statements. No, you cannot keep it in your clothing, that was a site advertising 'maintain your plants'. Plants. L. Not pants. Please imagine the wonders of today's headlines with that going on. which meant that the coffee was hitting parts of the brain but was not fully diffused throughout.

Best take a walk through the neighborhood for the length of time it takes to smoke a pipeful. That way full mental uniformity will have happened when I return to doomscrolling.


The brain did things during that time. Caterpillars in the mist. A virulent non smoker dancing away in a wide curve. Two crows, a bonded pair. A grinning dog. The song 'Safety Dance' earworming. The first refers to earthmoving equipment further down, the second was a white person of a certain puritanical type, the third listed were familar feathered faces whom I have seen many times before, then a pooch doing the needful, and the last a video of Pam Bondi and Donald Trump prancing on an imaginary stage. And no, there is no such thing as 'father and son carnage day'. Sorry Don Junior, you loose again.

Caffeine, nicotine, highly refined sugar. And the brain.
A recipe for mild mental mayhem.

The gently glooing landscape of North Brabant in late summer. Greens, golds, and dust on dirt roads. There is a path from one area near the watermill to the Luikerweg beyond town, lined on both sides with old trees. In another few weeks it will be covered with leaf-drifts.
There is a somewhat tannic fragrance then.

Please note that though the landscape is often described as 'glooiend', that is more or less a poetic exaggereration. It only gloois very mildly if at all. Whereas the landschap here in San Francisco gloois quite violently. Walking uphill is sometimes laborious.

On the plus side: there are no cows.
One the downside: no cows.
Moo.


There are no jacaranda trees here or there. But we do have red puff-ball trees that line some blocks. Their rusty dander may stain your collar in early autumn. Depends on the moisture in the air at that time.



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NOTHING BAD DOCTOR

As you know this blogger is always keen to hear sound medical advice. So I have spent a good ten minutes listening to a paragon of health wisdom speaking sincerely and from the heart. Let me quote:


"Nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen. But with Tylenol, don't take it. DON'T TAKE IT! And if you can't live with your fever is so bad you have to take one because there's no alternative to that, sadly. The question "what can you take instead", is actually there's not an alternative for that, and as you know other, other uh, of the medicines are absolutely proven to that I mean they've been proven bad to the Aspirins, and the Advils, and other drugs and they've been proven bad ... "
[Donald Trump, 09/29/2025]


Nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen.

This blogger approves of good happen.

Bigly good happen. Oh yes.

Medical advice meets beatnik poetry. This happens such good! Profound.

Much inspiring is it, huge.

Many people say.


For the benefit of my readers in foreign climes, I have taken the liberty of translating it into their language.

"Hij kan nooit averechts gebeuren, hij kan alleen goed gebeuren. Je hebt paracetamol nooit nemen. Neem het niet. En als je niet weet waar je naar op zoek bent, is dat de enige manier waarop hij het kan nemen, hij wil dat het een alternatief is. Droevig. De vraag "wat kun je in plaats daarvan nemen?" Het is dat hij geen alternatief heeft, en zoals altijd, andere, andere medicijnen geloven er absoluut in. Ik weet het, het is slecht voor de Aspirine, de Advil en de andere medicijnen, het is slecht, het is slecht ... "

This is as inspiring in Foreign-Climese as it is in English.




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THE CHEESE HAS GOTTEN BETTER

The overseas tourists aren't coming so much this year. Longer visa wait times, ever-present racism, and the horrible news that comes out of the United States are keeping them away. Instead, they're visiting other countries with renewed curiosity, and simply avoiding the hassle of dealing with rude Americans. Plus it's the food. They've got hamburgers themselves now, and there is nothing else here.

Well, okay, we've got Italian and French food. But it's better in Italy and France, cheaper too, and Italians and Frenchmen are considerably nicer.

How about Mexican? It may surprise you, but Mexican food is better in Mexico. Cheaper too. And Mexicans are extremely nice people.

Canada?
Nice!

When I first came back to the United States I was appalled at many things. Rude ignorant natives, pervasive ugliness, and, as you would expect, the food. The bread was awful. The beer undrinkable. Horrid cheese. Lousy coffee. And once I finally found chilipaste and spices, many people told me that it was bad for me, not nutricious, would rot my insides and give me ulcers, and lead to idiocy, the plague, and very un-Protestant lifestyles and behaviours.

Which is all true. They got ulcers and other diseases, and many of them are idiots. More than ever before. All because I finally ate well. Yes, that must be it. Correlation equals causation.

You know, telling a Dutch American negative crap about chilipaste and spices is an exercise in stupidity, arrogance, and cultural disrespect of monumental proportions, don't you? Do you have ANY clues about our history? Even one iota? Are y'all completely ignorant?
We committed appalling crimes all across the world to get those things!

The bread here is still mostly frightful, as is the beer. But the cheese situation has improved immensely. And fairly decent coffee is no longer as uncommon as it once was.
Sambal (chilipaste with or without other stuff) can be easily acquired.
Even restaurants often have Sriracha or real hot sauce now.
Though that may be only in San Francisco.

The Germans, French, and Italians are still coming. Less than in previous years. But they're crazy and adventurous. So far I've barely heard any Dutch speakers on the streets. They're adventurous but not crazy. Plus they may not have heard that sambal or its equivalents are more widespread. They probably still think that good bread and cheese are unknown here.
As far as beer is concerned, that has remained a horror story they scare little children to sleep with over there. Pallid undrinkable slop.

American bigotry and fascism scare people off.
Besides the food and drink.



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PITY THE POOR TECHNO-YUPPIES

Promptly somewhere between seven thirty and eight o'clock the racket started on the street. Multiple Caterpillars. Orange visibility vests, and from the garbage men electric green.
I caught the bus, then ended up walking for several blocks.

Because I had an early appointment the first pipe of the day was delayed. The bus broke down after a couple of blocks, so I walked the rest of the way. Turns out they had no record of my needing to be there at that time, despite the appointment card (their mistake), so the appointment is now tomorrow and a little later. I had arrived with plenty of time to spare because I always show up very early for appoinments, what with being quite neurotic about things going wrong. I ended up having a pastry and a cup of milk tea down the street. Filled my pipe, and stepped out for a walk. Darn good thing I had popped a Tylenol before leaving the house. Legs painful.

But the pipe was good.

It's a GBD bulldog I've had since the Drucquer years.
Pauline sold it to me. Fine hunk of briar.
First smoke after ten.

No power to the overhead lines, vehicle battery below twenty percent.
A major cock-up on the public transit front.
Office droogs huffing.

It turns out that a bus problem is a major lifestyle disaster for downtown office workers. They lament. They whine. Their pressed togs are not what they wished to hike in.
The heartache. The humanity. The woe.

Steep slopes require effort.

Life is hard.

Additionally, there is NO coffee between my apartment building and Chinatown, so you can just imagine the pinstriped despair. Honestly, my piles bleed for them and their immeasurable discomfit. Did I already mention that I arrived for my appointment with time to spare? I really must stress that. Things can go wrong, and you should keep that in mind when you need to get someplace at a certain time. It also helps to have one or two strong cups of coffee before you leave, so that you, like me, are bright eyed and bushy tailed upon arrival twenty minutes early despite municipal transit mishaps.


Tomorrow morning I may leave at the same time as today. Those caterpillars and the men in orange vests are still out there.


Meanwhile, I've been up at the crack of dawn, it's gloomy outside and looks like a grey morning on the moors, and I have zip diddly scheduled for the rest of the day.
Laundry perhaps, then cheung fan across the hill and another pipe.



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USE A SHOVEL

Apparently the match did not go well. The numerics (the San Francisco team, including one fellow with a noticeable paunch) lost the game. There was consequently no loud enthusiasm emanating from the backroom today. No screams issued. No inane cheering. Just sour rightwing grumbling. Which matched the general gloomy air outside. Fog. Mists.

The weather has gone Gothic on us.

On the other hand, I was insanely cheerful. I figure that having discovered the fabulous miracle of acetominophen (pronounced "acetominophen", politicians take note), which can make life so much more comfortable if used wisely, I have probably ingested enough of it over time that I have an autistic foetus. Somewhere. Don't have a womb. And I'm male. Past womenopause age. It's probably in the Little Nanook beer chest. I shall name it "Freddy" when it finally pops out. Irrespective of gender.

Because that's how we do things in San Francisco.

I am looking forward to the happy event.
Freddy the Golem. My offspring.
Heir to the estate.

Really, I'm going to have to find out more about football; I didn't know chonks could play. No wonder the lardos in the backroom are enthusiastic. It demonstrates that maybe someone will want them. Despite being undoubtedly unhappily married right wing ghouls.
With paunches, wrinkles, and troll-pattern baldness.

I am so happy for them. Because I don't want them.
Please take them off my hands.


If nothing else, harvest them for body parts.
They're Magaites. No earthly use.
Ambulatory compost.



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PLENTY OF PARASITES

There was fog near the coast all day yesterday, which was pleasant and interesting. At this time of year we have often experienced madness around the mid-nineties, instead of sanity it high sixties Fahrenheit. So the clement greys and reasonable temperatures were most welcome. It's high fifties outside right now. And quite foggalicious.
Much of the rest of the country will be high eighties today.
They are welcome to that weather.

The places where you catch tropical diseases and die are all that way.


No, I'm not obsessed with horrid ailments in jungly places (like Miami and New Orleans).
But I do enjoy reading about them. Such interesting and colourful symptoms!


By the way, it seems that most of the hotter places of this country are awash with venereal diseases and idiocy. Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Plus Arizona.
I wonder why that is?

The idiocy is easy to understand. All that damned inbreeding.
Perhaps the veneral diseases have the same root.
It would explain a lot, don't you think?

Good old fashioned Christian inbreeding. Part of their unique cultural heritage and pride.

Haze thickening to soup in parts. Moisture in the air, and the smoke from the first fireplace usage of the season. Cigar and pipe weather. Smoked four bowls at work, swilled over half a dozen cups of tea too. Discussed briars and flakes. Dealt with a few entitled pricks.
Took an extra strength Tylenol around mid-morning.
The effect lasted into early evening.


It was a rather decent day.



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LISTENING IN ON MEDICAL DISCUSSIONS

The neurosurgeon on a conference call mentioned cerebellum. Which naturally prompted me to think of cerebrum, and immediately also saveloy. Which is a sausage available at British Fish and Chip shops. It's related to the low-Dutch and Belgian Servelaet, a similar sausage, small chopped pig meats and spices usually available at the local frietkot. The connection is that the word derives from Latinate cerebrus via cerebella. Pork salsiccia. The Italians have cervelatto. Of which one version is considered the Swiss national wurst. Usually written as servelat, derived from Milanese zervelada, a pork and brain sausage. There are many regionalisms from Northern Germany all the way down to the Mediterranean.

It is a priceless example of Britain's cultural splendour.
An heirloom to be passed on to generations.


Yeah, I've never had it.


So the next time I head over to England and the continent, I shall be on a mission.
There are mysterious things there that bear complete gustatory investigation.

One can learn a lot from listening to surgeons. I wonder how many variations there are in the old world of pork, porkfat, bacon, and smoke flavour stuffed into sausage skins. One can eat quite well in Switzerland, but one must bring one's own sambals, as the Swiss, unlike the Dutch, didn't have a colonial age and didn't romp around engaged in rape, pillage, and conquest. Leavened by developing a taste for chilipaste.

Alsatians eat such sausages split open after cooking, with cheese and bacon.
There, also, sambal is virtually unknown.
Sad.


Belgians would like to forget that they were right bastards as colonialists, and consequently do not have any sambal at all. Which is extremely odd. What on earth is wrong with them?



AFTERWORD NOT IN ANY WAY CONNECTED TO THE FOREGOING

The apartment mate just spent an hour gleefully finding out about men doing stupid things in court, and also opening their traps when the wise choice would have been to keep silent and look like an innocent goober. Some of those examples, oh my! It always seems to be men. My gender is badly represented by all the rest of you. Please stop that.



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RELEASE THE AUTISMS!

The people who invented the phrase TGIF did not know what it meant. Or they would have done something else instead. Friday is the day that the repulsive rightwing sadists of Marin County get out of senile education, the retirement homes, or the office early. And congregate in the back room venting hatred and pooing everywhere. And to praise president Trump, who is the second coming (Charlie Kirk was the third) as well as parrot talking points lifted directly from The Western Journal, The Dialy Caller, Fox News, the nasty parts of scripture (Leviticus, Judges, Kings) and the klavern meetings of the local KKK.

Venomous dementia reigns. As in Washington.
I rather can't stand the bastards.
I'm probably biased.

They spew.

"The Lord will bring a great plague on your people, your children, your wives, and all your possessions, and you yourself will have a severe sickness with a disease of your bowels, until your bowels come out,
because of the disease, day by day."

I work a full day on Fridays. And then some.

By the way; Kash Patel is the Fourth or Fifth coming. Not sure which. They love him. As well as Fifty K Homan, Brain Worm Boy, Snake Oil Oz, Netanyahu, and the rest of the cabinet.

Over the past several years I've taken so much acetominophen that I'm probably carrying an autistic foetus. Or at least an anal-retentive brainiac.

Yessir, Extra Strength, 500 mg, baby!
You bet your sweet patootie.


"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."


Amen to that.



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