AND PLEASE DON'T SING

It cooled down to the seventies after dark, and I left the house feeling much more human than when I had stumbled in over six hours earlier. And it promises to be cooler during the day on Wednesday.
Though having been fooled once -- the internet assured me that it would be mid eighties at most, and it turned out to be ninety five -- it may be optimism to assume accuracy.

Now, for the record, my feet still hurt, I was born to bellyache, and I wish to hurl blame at Republicans, Yuppies, Tourists, and the Bilderbergers for this horrible state of affairs.
Pointless, because only three of those things are actually evil.
But at least we got that out of the way.


There is a discomfort in my legs from several days of excessive heat that knows no bounds. Almost like everything between my sit-upon and my toenails is sick to its stomachs. Tonight was the customary pub-crawl with my friend the bookseller. Neither of us are excessive drinkers, and I don't drink alcohol at all. I had tea.

But first, a smoke.

There were no rats in Spofford. It is more brightly lit than before, and the little beasts are shy.
I miss my small disease-carrying friends. Are they all right? Are they going hungry?
Should I perhaps pack a hunk of cheese in my pockets?


A white man reeking of cheese would exite comment in Chinatown.
Which is where Spofford Alley is.


One thing that speaks favourably of the rats is that they do not sing karaoke.
That shows immense good taste and common sense.
Breeding.



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HEADING POSTERO-MEDIALLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THE CHIASM

Popped out of the house this morning for my eye doctor appointment, and got there forty five minutes early. It's an airconditioned building. This is relevant. Eye pressure checked, vision checked, cataract checked. Everything as fine as can be expected. The pressure in the left orb has stabilized at a safe level, thanks to Latanoprost. My optic nerves are bigger than normal.  And I might need cataract surgery in several years.

From Wikipedia: "Cataracts are most commonly due to aging but may also occur due to trauma or radiation exposure ... "

Must have been the radioactive gorilla in the lab.

I think that what she may have meant when she referred to the optic nerve was the retinas. Big ass retinas. BRE. Big Retinal Energy. They're big. BIIIG. I never really though about it before, now I can't get it out of my head.

Sexiest text on Wikipedia: "The optic nerve -- is composed of retinal ganglion cell axons and glial cells; it extends from the optic disc to the optic chiasma and continues as the optic tract to the lateral geniculate nucleus, pretectal nuclei, and superior colliculus."

[Also from that same Wikipedia article: "The optic nerve is composed of retinal ganglion cell axons and glia. Each human optic nerve contains between 770,000 and 1.7 million nerve fibers, which are axons of the retinal ganglion cells of one retina. In the fovea, which has high acuity, these ganglion cells connect to as few as 5 photoreceptor cells; in other areas of retina, they connect to many thousand photoreceptors. -- The optic nerve leaves the orbit (eye socket) via the optic canal, running postero-medially towards the optic chiasm, where there is a partial decussation (crossing) of fibers from the temporal visual fields (the nasal hemi-retina) of both eyes. The proportion of decussating fibers varies between species, and is correlated with the degree of binocular vision enjoyed by a species. Most of the axons of the optic nerve terminate in the lateral geniculate nucleus from where information is relayed to the visual cortex, while other axons terminate in the pretectal area ... "]

And now I know what Fundus Photography is.
眼底 ('ngaan dai'): Interior rear of the eye.
眼底张照 ('ngaan dai jeung jiu').
眼底照片 ('ngaan dai jiu pin').


TERMINOLOGY; THERE WILL BE A TEST:
Optic nerve: 視神經 ('si san king').
Optic chiasm: 視交叉 ('si gaau chaa').
Ganglion: 神經節 ('san king jit').
Optic tract: 視束 ('si chuk').
Photoreceptor cells: 感光細胞 ('gam gwong sai baau').
Eye socket (orbit): 眼眶 ('ngaan kwang');
* note that normally 眶 is pronuounced as 'hong'.



An hour and a half later I was at the hospital discussing results of the tests taken during the full physical (making sure I am not a zombie, daemon, or space alien ..... errm, blood, urine, tomography, sonography, and running uphill on a treadmill). Only two blocks away from my eye doctor's building, but I smoked the "pipe for visiting my eye doctor" in between.

The name is because I have it with me on every visit to the eye doctor.

It's round, and looks like an eye on a stalk.
I think it's appropriate.


Scarcely five minutes after I was supposed to be at my second appointmet, I was out for the day and heading to lunch. Showing up early often pays off, and I think many medical people appreciate it. It leaves time for kvetchy old folks who emphasize that they could have been doing something far more worth while why are they waiting good gracious why is everything so slow it's close to my nap time, and the crazy white people who want a horn installed in the middle of their forehead because they're channelling for a mythological beast that they were in a past life, or their most recent tattoo got infected.



Lunch was excellent, albeit much earlier than I normally eat.
By the time I left, the temperature was 95° Fahrenheit.
It was SUPPOSED to be barely over eighty! If that!
This is why air condition was relevant.
I'm blaming the yuppies.


Fahrenheit: 華氏溫標 ('waa si wan piu').



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TREASON CULT

In a truly righteous universe, Orange Squabbo would have been beaten to death by his parents or teachers before he even entered high school. Which conclusively proves that there is no god, and the Christian Fundamentalists are full of horsepuckey.
Further shown by their Mamon-like worship of the dude.

One sincerely wishes that he and they would shut up.

Just shutty.

Shut the motherloving F up.
Be silent, scumbags.
Hush already.



A polite reminder, in case you forgot: the treason states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.


By the way: Biden won.



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IT'S TEN DEGREES COOLER THERE

The plan was to hightail it out of here around mid-afternoon and have a snack and milk tea in Chinatown. And the plan vaguely circled around the concept of 春捲烤豬肉粉 -- Vietnamese spring rolls and grilled pork rice noodles, served cold -- with perhaps something cool and refreshing to drink, to fortify myself for a smoking session in a tourist free alley. The plan came to naught, because at that time the temperature outside was 95° Fahrenheit.

I like food, I like smoking a pipe afterwards, but I do not like heading out into an oven to wilt and pant far from my own front door. And although it would only be just across the hill, in this weather with high blood pressure meds coursing through my system AND arthritis in every joint or socket of my right leg, that's so far as to be a lifetime.

There's a Dutch song fondly reminiscing about burning sands in a lost country and a life filled with dangers. They are nuts, my people. I remember the countryside of North Brabant as green, verdant, wet. No burning sands. No scorpions. Seventy degrees during summer. Occasional rainstorms to add a note of welcome coolness.

I haven't seen a rainstorm in so long I would probably throw stones at it.

So I stayed home and made myself some 菜泡飯 ('choi pou faan'; Shanghai style vegetable and rice soup). Innovation: use a grilled sausage, chopped, as the meat element.
Plus some slivered green chili for the taste ante.

Didn't have any chives on the premises, so I omitted the chives. Salt, yes. And I added some dried dill. Also thinly sliced onion, just a little.

The procedure is simple. Parch some chopped vegetables with rendered porkfat in a hot pan (frequently from diced fatty pork sautéed with ginger till fragrant), seethe with ricewine or sherry, add stock and cooked rice, simmer a few minutes till it looks good. Eat.

豬油是上海菜泡飯的靈魂 ('jyu yau si Seung Hoi choi pou faan dik ling wan'): rendered pork fat/lard is the soul of Shanghai poached vegetable rice soup.
Quoted from the classics.



Walked around my own neighborhood for a while afterwards smoking my pipe. It had cooled down to eighty eight degrees by then. When I finished, my feet and calves felt like crap. Feverish and swollen.

As of this writing, it is ten degrees cooler in Shanghai.
It will get up to eighty eight later today.
It's still morning there.



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A DAY WITHOUT SPAM CALLS

Today is the perfect day for Chinese noodles and egg rolls for many Americans, because most of us live in crowded coastal urban environments and don't have back yards in which to barbecue and swill beer. And the nearest beaches are crowded and smell for all the world precisely like Grinder's Gym when the hulks are bulking.

A few Labor Day thoughts:

There is a great overlap between barbecue country and where the assholes live.

If it weren't for Mexicans and Chinese, Labor Day wouldn't exist.

We worship sugar with red food colouring.

Layers of fake cheese.



Sadly, none of my favourite places in Chinatown serve bacon cheeseburgers, and a number of them are closed on Mondays anyhow. The rest will probably be crowded around lunch time, packed at dinner. Because tourists and heat refugees are in town. I would really love a bacon cheeseburger, augmented by sugar with red food colouring and hot sauce today.

All of this is relevant because my apartment mate is off today, and I cannot smoke in the apartment. Like the heat refugees I will head to Chinatown, where I'll probably have a mid-afternoon meal somewhere quiet -- the nice thing about the regulars at a few places is that they thin out between lunch and tea time -- after which I'll find an alleyway for a nice pipeful of aged Virginias before desperately seeking a clean place to pee. In the evening it will still be pleasant outside in my neighborhood, and I'm far enough uphill that there should not be any holiday drunks clustering; they cannot stagger that far.


Tomorrow, everything returns to normal.
Well, except for the temperature.



And the spam calls. Dave from your friendly neighborhood airduct company, Shawn and Arthur with American Senior Benefits, Allison about my extended warranty, and others.
Mostly American Senior Benefits, about cheap burial insurance.
I'm on a list that seems to want me dead.
After I purchase.



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FLIES LAZILY BUZZING ABOUT

Sometime after midnight one wakes up to the sound of sirens, because in a heat wave some people don't sleep, and may drink too much. The street outside the apartment building isn't a war zone by any standard -- there's almost no one outside other than a rare dogwalker because Fluffy needed to poo -- but is more threatening than it should be. And one blesses the person who invented airconditioning, which allowed one to function normally at around seventy degrees for an entire day at around seventy degrees Fahrenheit while at work.

Until three years ago I didn't know we even had functioning air conditioning.

The two oldests coworkers are tough he-men who will happily put up with extreme conditions in summer and winter because they can take it unlike you pansies who wilt or freeze. Hah! They are not limp woossies! Manup, all of you!

Bloody Yorkshire men.


Proper hydration requires more tea, made weaker to compensate for the increased volume, and consequently more leakage. Along with air conditioning, good plumbing makes it possible to function normally for an entire day.

Years ago, for funsies, I would smoke the nastiest aromatic I could find just for the reaction of my purist coworker on Sunday, who would withdraw to the most distant part of the building with an anguished wail: "why are you DOING THIS to me?!!!" Howl, moan, whimper.


Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?


Because, Hector, it's hot, I'm bored, my feet hurt, and you have been far too gentle and humane to those senile Republican dickheads in the back room. I need entertainment.

Mmmm, delicious! Exquisite!


It actually tastes like a tropical swamp with a dead elephant fermenting in the mud, not too far off, but I'm really enjoying your tantrum.

Bleagh.




This apartment does not have air conditioning. It's in San Francisco, and most of the time that isn't necessary. Today is going to be extremely hot elsewhere, and many folks will visit the city for a respite from the temperatures.
I do not like crowds.



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DEEP THOUGHTS IN A HEAT WAVE

In discussing men who "go commando" -- meaning that they forego undies -- the roommate speculated on burning, chafing, skin wearing through, raw, painful, and severely damaged privates. And we both agreed that some men need that; it would help them control their bestial urges.

What I didn't mention is that for my people (Dutch Americans with a common sense bent, of solid upstanding severe Calvinist antecedents), that would be unnecessary.
We may be murderous, but we are not bestial.

NOTE: This holds even when the Calvinism as a religious pattern had waned to the point of non-existence four or five generations ago; it's a lifestyle and behavioural aesthetic. We are the cold fish at the orgy who remain fully dressed, and say stern things like "what's all this then", and "this is most unseemely", and "you are all going to hell".

I, personally, would not be caught dead at an orgy. Largely because if I were dead I could not drink in the shockingly Brueghelian or Goyaesque scenes of depravity for future reference or possibly blackmail.


Never having been invited to an orgy, this remains an intellectual conceit, of course.


No one organizes orgies based on cups of tea and pipe smoking. That is to say, when pipe smokers gather, there will be tobacco and very likely cups of tea, but there is no disrobing or unseemly behaviour. Provided that they are fond of clean tobacco, not aromatics.
If you smell rancid vanilla and raspberries, run away.
Ignore any proffered cups of tea.

The sixties and seventies may have been a wonderful time to be alive. Well, if we're ignoring patchouli, a world wide shortage of soap, laundry detergent, and carbolic, and the looming threat of the eighties, Ronald Wilson Reagan, and America's moronic fundamentalists.

As well as the proliferation of aromatics and herbal teas.
Polyester, skin tight bell bottoms, bad hair.


Actually, upon sober reflection, the sixties and seventies, AND the eighties, were an absolutely gawd-awful time.



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A OFF-PUTTING MILKY HUE

What really staggered me yesterday was that I did not see many more people poncing around wearing a tee-shirt and boxers. Of course, I do not know whether they had any underpants on at all under their shorts. I am glad I did not view them sitting down.

Some people are fishbelly white on all their previously unexposed parts. We white people probably do glow in the dark, as a few of my friends (who are of a pleasing hue between ivory and old meerschaum themselves) keep insisting.

Jeffy, who needs to be deprogrammed because he's drunk the Maggot kool-aid, has legs that are frighteningly dairy coloured. I've seen far too much of him these past few weeks, most especially his calves. Now that he's retired he keeps showing up indecently dressed. Which is a very white Marinite thing to do, and I wish he wouldn't, more than I wish he'd shut up about the outrage of the FBI executing a search warrant on the mansion of the fat oaf.

For reference, these two illustrations of meerschaum pipes:

Now, don't you agree that these would look better in boxers?
Plaid or paisley, whatever, I'm quite okay with either.
And that raid on Mar-A-Lago was justified.
The man remains a liability.
Cretinous fool.



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THE HELPFUL DIAGRAM

This blogger is a firm believer in visual aids. Many people benefit from a visual component to an explanatory text that helps throw everything into sharp relief and provides clarity. Newspapers and textbook publishers discovered this along time ago.

Even "narrative", such as might be the chosen format for billable hours on a lawyer's invoice for simple people -- work performed for a governmental agency, for instance -- is made much clearer with a helfpful graphic.

There is probably not a single subject on earth that does not benefit from a helpful illustration or a diagram.


As the example below clearly shows.

This is something I should print out, fold, and insert into my passport. It will streamline things at international airports, and make customs and immigration a breeze.

I recommend that you do the same, although if you are NOT a Dutchman (or Dutch American), you should probably insert the correct ethno-cultural identity for yourself.

Avoid the word 'Hobbit'. Some officials are Orcs.



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BLACK BEAUTIES

A product that looks like a bowling ball is available now. And I'm tempted, after seeing it at a market in Chinatown; the black beauty watermelon. I was initially taken aback by the name sign: 美黑人西瓜 ('mei haak yan sai gwaa'). The fruit itself lurked darkly in the bin.
A Satanic presence among the vegetable matter.

A new thing. I am curious. Crow-like.
But I don't really like melons.
And it's big.

Random thoughts while outside smoking, as a lagniappe: welcome to Fogtember. Now piss off you dogs and yakkity dingoes. Oh look, a silly person. Allergies. Dog poo. Beer bottle.

It must be really blazing inland.
The season of discontent.



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IT'S A BALLOONING ADVENTURE

Cholesterol? Good. Bloodpressure? Excellent. Treadmill test? Aced it, because I am a ruddy he-man and can grin stoically during the worst leg pain, gosh I'm butch. Arrived fifty minutes before my appointment, got dealt with thirty five minutes before I was due, and rolled out in time for an early lunch in Chinatown, followed by a pipe, early tea, and another pipe.

The treadmill test, also called a stress test, necessarily involves the leg. The right leg delights in presenting a whole variety of painful sensations, and will be dealt with.
It is a needy spoiled brat.

Got two more medical appointments before I can call it a day for the year. Eye doctor in the morning sometime next week, regular care physician around noon same day.

Cardiologist: 心臟科醫生 ('sam jong fo yi sang').
Optometrist: 眼醫 、眼科博士 ('ngaan yi', 'ngaan fo bok si').
Family care physican: 家庭科醫生 ('gaa ting fo yi sang').

These are abbreviated terms, though commonly understood.

Barring any unlikely bad news -- "sorry to tell you this old boy but a ten-thousand year old tree daemon has taken up residence in your arse and is devouring your liver, we have to operate immediately" -- the rest of the year should be an easy slide, apart that is from the peripheral angioplasty of the lower extremities, which is a simple in-and-out procedure.

Ten thousand year old liver-eating tree daemon: probably 萬年古(萬歲的)樹妖 ('maan nin gu (maan seui dik) sik gon syu yiu'), but an image search for that simply brings up health food, mooncakes, and the Cincinatti Bengals. Devouring the liver: 食肝 ('sik gon').

Angioplasty: 血管再成形術 ('huet gun joi cheng ying sut'); basically shoving a balloon on a flexible stick up the old artery and shouting boo to make stuff go away.
A ream and clean, as it were.

A catheter with a balloon at the tip goes into the artery in the groin or leg and wiggles around playfully, while the patient is immobilized and possibly wide awake.
The procedure might take all of forty five minutes.
Recovery as much as six weeks or so.
Probably far less.


經皮腔內周圍動脈成形術
['Ging pei hong noi jau wai dong mak cheng ying suet']
"Skin pass-through internal arterial-environment fix-dimensions procedure"


Am I looking forward to this? In a way yes, because the alternative is walking painfully and swearing under my breath in Dutch (my other native language) augmented by terms from various linguistic sources. Because after one or two blocks the damned right leg hurts. And I'd like full bouncy vibrant mobility back. On the other hand, the prospect of more medical intervention, which this is, does not thrill me. And neither does the inevitable lecture about the evils of smoking etcetera wich will come with it.



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CLEAN PANTS!

Later today I have an appointment to see my cardiologist. As part of the regular routine of proving that I am neither a zombie nor a hopping vampire. The full scale check-up happens once a year and is split between two clinics, the stress test (running on a machine with wires attached to my tits) takes place at the cardiologist's office. I'm seeing my regular doctor for discussion of the results of this, blood and urine tests, tomography, and ultra sound scans, sometime next week.


"Run, it's alive, it's alive!"


Naturally I expect to hear that I am not an evil supernatural entity.

I think I have been succesfully mimicking normal behaviour and facial expressions all these years, and silver doesn't turns black when I am near. And I put clothes on, frequently.

Reports that I am an evil undead bunny rabbit are false.

Or any case an outrageous exaggeration.


Naturally I will be wearing clean pants, I made sure of that. And I won't have lettuce stuck between my teeth. I often have clean pants, because I remember when I was little being told that if a nuclear holocaust happened and they found my radioactive corpse among the rubble wearing dirty trousers it would be horribly embarassing and I would never live it down.


Rabbit rabbit.



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WHAT'S IN IT?

My doctor put me on certain meds over three years ago. So I asked him at that time if, all things considered, I could still indulge in coffee. The answer was a cheery "oh go ahead, it's full of antioxidants, good for you". The news this week is that regular consumption of tea is a good thing and decreases the chances of dying. Which was already known, of course, but now there has been even more research. Tea also has antioxidants.


Coffee and tea are my recreational drugs of choice. I cut out alcohol entirely (could react with one of my meds to wreck my liver), and have changed the subject whenever anyone mentions tobacco. Because reasons.

Start the day with two cups of coffee. Maintain cruising altitude throughout the day with tea. Sometimes Hong Kong Milk Tea. More tea (strong) in the evening, or another cup of coffee.

One of the likely side effect of my medication is stronger more intense dreams. Combine that with the caffeine late in the day, and the results are ... interesting.



Generally speaking, both coffee and tea have beneficial effects on the digestive organs, in moderation. But the diuretic effects of coffee are more marked, the "high" provided by tea seems to be somewhat longer lasting.

That may account for so many office-Americans being total coffee heads. They're full of something, which needs to come out. Coffee also prompts peristalsis.
And they need to talk about sports for hours.
Or Real Housewives.



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AND PLEASE, STAY AWAY

Underneath a post written by God on Facebook about American tourists in Europe (yes, you can imagine what that was) I mentioned that us San Francisco folks dislike all tourists, generally speaking, whether they're Euries or Americans.

[In all fairness, when someone is acting normal they fly under the radar, and you can't even tell where they are from. There are tonnes of undercover Yanks in Europe, quietly enjoying the place.]


Francine P., from Sydney, Australia, chose to tell me I was wrong, and had a "sucky attitude".

Okay, add Australians to the list.


For several years I worked part time at a restaurant as cashier/bookkeeper. Europeans don't tip. The English sneer (and don't tip). Americans have impossible demands (and frequently don't tip). I often had to explain to the staff at the end of the evening that it wasn't that our tourist customers actually wanted them to starve, they were just odious people.

Australians, as is well known, are usually drunk.
And don't tip.

All of you talk funny, smell bad, and eat too much.
Plus you ALWAYS need to use the bathroom.
Please pee before you come.
Thank you.



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AMERICAN SENIOR BENEFITS AGENTS

It must be open enrollment time again; the number of phone callers identifying themselves as contacting me from "American Senior Benefits" in the last several weeks has been incredible. And I have to give it to them, their telemarketing scam operation has hired the most diverse team in history. Men, women. Filippino and Indian staffers included in bucket loads.

Inividuals from all across the country, all possible backgrounds.

Desperate to get at people's personal details.

Such splendid enthusiasm!


Eight of the hosebags this morning. Godverdomme!


Very well then. Here goes:

This blogger is a black teenage lesbian who voted for Trump because she likes seeing the Republican Party slowly, agonizingly, self-distruct. She banks at Well Fargo, where she has multiple money laundering accounts, and owns a spacious ranch style suburban house as well as a fully equiped trailer on a sandlot, where meth is made.

Oh, and she's an antivaxxer running for the school board in Marin, former shaman and yoga instructor. Very spiritual, a vegan, into natural fabrics, kombucha, and ayahuasca.

Om, baby, om.

Personal mantra: Juicy burgers, crispy fries, and decadent milkshakes.

My 'happy place' is luxuriously wallpapered with inspirational posters from the seventies and eighties. Kittens in predicaments everywhere!


Meanwhile, from SFGate, this happy blurble:

Folsom Street Fair, Sept. 25

The legendary clothing-optional street fair that draws 200,000 fetish players from around the world is back for its 39th year — and what organizers are dubbing their “daddy phase.” The world-famous (and in some circles, infamous) fair is a celebration of all things leather, kink, BDSM and fetish with a mission to create a safe and inclusive space for alt-sex communities while centering equity for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people.
[ENDCITE]


Oh, it will be fabulous! Low cost medical, funeral, and burial plans, covering one hundred percent of bagging me up and shoving me in a woodchipper. And an all-wood casket, which my survivors can use for stylish interior design projects or show and tell at school.
It's multipurpose and fully recyclable!

No, I'm not telling you my age.
I'm still young, bitch.



In other news, John who lives in Smyrna, is keen to show everyone his eggs.

John is older than I am. His eggs are fabulous. Not my favourite shape, but I appreciate his passion. He's already retired, him you should be calling. He'd cuss you out good though. As a former research librarian and a college graduate (besides living in the South), he knows opportunistic crap when he hears it, and can give you an earful about your scam targeting gullible old folks. I would love to hear what he tells you.


See you at the fair.



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JOHN OLLIVER MARRIES A CABBAGE

The image that defines this month has to be the inevitable result of a vegetable and a distinguished British gentleman finally tying the knot: John Olliver getting married to a large green cabbage, with Steve Buscemi officiating. What makes it remarkable is that Britons and vegetables so seldom actually get along, except of course for the longlasting English love affair with canned baked beans. Or peas, when they're "eating around".

Soft lighting, beautiful music, a chapel inundated with flowers.
Steve Buscemi looking soulful and kind. Touched.
The cabbage looked lovely.

Oddly, no relatives of either the groom or the bride. I guess even in this day there is still a certain amount of bigotry out there. His parents probably don't approve. And his Aunt Ermintrude has a recipe for stuffed cabbages. Golubtsi. A beloved family heirloom.

[British version: cabbage leaves rolled around Heinz Baked Beans, lard, and mushy peas, nuked in the microwave, and served in a puddle of ketchup with limp fried potatoes. Exquisite.]

The range of vegetables in England is NOT very diverse.

It's a rather repressed enironment.


One of my favourite veggies just would not be tolerated.

Might send the natives screaming for the hills, convinced that there was evil witchcraft afoot or attempts to overthrow the class system and install a workers Soviet. The Welsh are taking over. Soon we'll be forced to eat parsnips and speak with a weird musical cadence. There will be cheese covered rabbits everywhere. The Scots will invade! Wielding haggis and blancmange! Repent!

Sorry, fit of free association. Don't know what came over me. First cup of coffee.


In any case, I wonder what the Brits would do with bitter melon.
Probably boil it in white sauce and serve it on Sundays.
A way of inducing repentance among the young.

Perfect for a candle light supper.



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A PROPER BREAKFAST SANDWICH

From a friend I learned that a local restaurant's baked pistachio crusted Brie was divine. The same friend, for some reason, now pines for liverwurst on white bread. So his food tastes are eclectic and very broad. Something I can well appreciate. Another friend likes Thai, Burmese, Italian, and once a week a cheeseburger at Sam's. Not sure how he is about bacon or caviar. Bacon AND caviar. The San Francisco sushi roll that has yet to be invented.

This is a preamble to mentioning the Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich. Something that has never till now cropped up on my gustatory horizon, given that there are several television shows which I do not watch, and have only grudgingly accepted hoagies and Philly cheesesteaks as, arguably, food.

Sometimes, a man needs a bucket of grease on a toasted bun. Especially after midnight when one is still in one's teens and twenties and had way too many 151 rum and cokes.

For the record, I am no longer in my teens or twenties, and never developed an affection for rum and coke, no matter what the rum was. That's far too centre-of-the-country-red-trash for me. Singlemalt Scotch, one cube. Which I now abstain from, as I do all alcohol, because it might combine badly with my pills. And a nice cup of tea two or three times a day decreases one's incidents of death, per scientific research over the past twenty years.
Consider having tea instead on your next riotous night out.
You'll probably end up dead far less often.


This isn't Chicago. We don't swill Malört, don't support lousy sports teams, and don't go back to our neighborhoods in the wee hours with high powered rifles for some casual drive-by shoot-outs, because we're civilized. Faugh on deep dish pizza. Inedible!

But we do have Chicago style Italian Beef Sandwiches.

Which sound like a nice healthy alternative to a bacon chili cheese dog for late at night. Might even be good for breakfast. I don't eat breakfast, because the best way to start the day is caffeine, nicotine, and bad news from elsewhere read with minor indignation.

An Italian Beef Sandwich (which is quite unknown in Italy) consists of thinly sliced roast beef simmered with its juices ("gravy", jus) served on a French roll with giardiniera (mixed pickled vegetables) and / or pickled Greek peppers (called Italian peppers, or pepperoncini), then sloppily augmented with the pan juices (aforementioned gravy or jus).

That actually sounds pretty damned good.

Add a squirt of Sriracha.




BY THE WAY: The last five spammers calling from "American Senior Benefits" (or: Services, Agency, Offices) were Alex, Jack, Wayne, George, and Michael. Must be open enrollment time again. Somebody should go all Chicago neighborhood drive-by on their rumps.

At least two of them sounded like Surinder or Vikram from some sleazy identity theft outfit in Hyderabad or Jabalpur. Where the monsoon has started. He and his colleagues are probably bored out of their minds with the rain and the Americans they're trying to scam.
Poor bollocky bakrichodes.




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I SAY BERTIE, PIP PIP!

Over the years I've subscribed to a number of smoking pipe pages and groups. The people most likely to irritate me there are, of course, the ones with strange and pretentious fake names and affectations, for whom smoking a pipe is merely a prop in their exciting identity. One of whom I used to know. Whom I haven't seen since he blew through his trust fund after dropping out of college. The local community has forgotten about him at this point, along with the albino space man, and bib overalls guy.

The person whom I sort of miss was the writer of gay detective pornography set in the Great Depression. Hard and gritty Noir, featuring a hero who smoked big BIG pipes. Big BIG pipes. BIG pipes. Like the writer himself. Who spoiled the effect by huffing cherry cavendish.

[Out of politeness I tried reading one of his tales once. Gave up after a few pages. Just as badly written as The DaVinci Code, but much better researched. The Bridges Of Madison County, written for sadomasochistic gangster fetish freaks.]


Trustfund guy had built his image on illustrious ancestry, fictitious membership in European nobility, and eccentric wardrobe choices appropriate to a nineteen thirties upper class twit.
He liked English mixtures because he believed them far more ruling class than Virginia blends (so so shopkeeper!) or Burleys (those horrid colonials).

[English mixtures are called that because they were often imported from Britain, where they had been invented. They have a significant inclusion of smoky Syrian leaf (Latakia) over Virginias (flue cured) and Orientals (small leaf resinous tobacco from Greece or Turkey).]

Being appalled at reality is something I can understand. But the real world is something one has to deal with, and one's coping mechanisms have to be a bit more practical.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong with Virginias and Burleys.
Some of them do make the world much nicer.
Great with a spot of tea.



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