LET YOUR INNER LIBERAL OUT

From the internet we learn that Republicans and other fascists love bad pizza, shitty pillows, pure Aryan mermaids, Jew-hating Swedish nazis, and sickeningly aromatic pipe tobaccos.

Actually, the Jew-hating Swedish nazis are more open-minded than that; they also hate immigrants and foreigners and want to keep them out. To a certain extent I can agree. It's not just Okies, I myself don't want anymore Floridans, Mid-Westerners, or Texans here. They're smelly and uneducated, and take jobs away from hard-working Californians. In fact, we also need to ban people from places where they eat lutefisk, East Coast pizza, or Swedish cuisine.

Sickeningly aromatic pipe tobaccos? Christ on a crutch!
The nerve, the effrontry, the sheer bad taste!

A lack of standards, tell you what.

Yes, I know that at least two of my friends in the West Bank are benevolently inclined toward such people -- Jonathan won't shut up about how they're better Christians than the scientists, or how here in California we're not redneck enough -- but it speaks volumes that he and the chap who defriended me on election night 2016 live in the Middle East, and habitually associate with fundamentalists thumping some book or other.

Per Jonathan: "there might be something to the apple cider vinegar thing but i don't do it myself. this is not because i don't accept the biological chemistry behind the idea (which, i hate to break it to you, exists) but because i have no interest in living any longer than i have to.
you, on the other hand, think that appeals to authority or even consensus constitute "science" and i envy you your faith."
End quote.

Clearly he's a very good old boyish shit for brains.
We have far too many of those here.
They should all go back.

I am convinced that if he had the good sense to smoke a pipe, he'd have the bad taste to smoke aromatics. Molto Dolce or Blue Note, for instance. OR even SG Firedance Flake.

That last, I have been reliably informed, is flavoured with blackberry brandy, fruit essences, essential oils, and apple cider vinegar. The only thing missing is seasonal pumpkin.
He'd really like Sutliff's popular Autumn blend. Bleagh.


The barbarians are at the gates.
Pour boiling oil on them.



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THE LACK OF SEAGULLS

On a late Summer day, when it is overcast, and mercifully not hot, one seeks self-indulgence. That being a pipe filled with a fine English style flake Virginia pipe tobacco, a mystery novel by a somewhat prolix author, and a cup of tea. One wishes one had a crumpet.

I don't think I've ever had a crumpet. What the heck is that?

It's defined as a small unsweetened English griddle bread, which when toasted is allegedly perfect for melting butter. Rather like a commercial brand of muffins which I haven't eaten since my grandmother passed away. Good as a basis for marmalade or melting Cheddar.
On second thought, if I haven't had them in so long, I probably don't need a crumpet.
Bugger the crumpet.

I am, however, now also fondly remembering the croissants made by that splendid bakery in Valkenswaard, slightly over a block north from the Stadhuis. Flaky, crisp enough to hold up, not like the greasy wads called croissants over here.

Best stick with the tea, pipe tobacco, and shitty novel. The detective appears to be an idiot. He has ignored several crucial bits of evidence, and seems unnecessarily focused on the delicate underwear found in the bushes of the estate. Which, given that there is nobody in residence there who would wear them -- other than the public schoolboy of dubious predilections home for the summer -- seems peculiar on his part. Rather.
Does he have a 'thing' for underwear? How very British!


We Dutch, as is well known, have no dubious predilections.
And most of us habitually wear underwear.
This must be said.

Perhaps I should put some on?

I haven't shaved and showered yet. Still in my sleepgarb. There's a turkey vulture sitting on my clothes clutching my wallet and screaming "it's mine! My baby! It's mine!" He is convinced that at some point I will yoik it out of his grasp, perhaps distracting him with a shiny object or the prospect of dead seagull for lunch (he hates dead seagulls), at a moment when I'm planning to leave the house.

He is correct. Instead of the dead seagull, I will use something else, and like crumpets there are no dead seagulls here. They are not conducive to happiness.

There are also no vegetables. Which will suffice as a pretext for heading over to Chinatown and having a pastry in late afternoon followed by a smoke while wandering in the alleyways. As if I needed one.



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THE CHRISTIANS ARE INSANE

America's Christians have lost their marbles.
Jesus effing christ but they're nuts.
And stupid, too.

Meanwhile, Lavern Spicer in Florida, a rightwing politician and certifiable batshit dimwit, wrote: "you will never catch me using pronouns".


Also: "Jesus Christ never introduced himself using pronouns."


And: "There are no pronouns in the Constitution."



....................... um.





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COURAGEOUS SOLID PURITY

Watched an old man ordering, sequentially, three dishes from the kitchen, while I enjoyed a hot cuppa and a snack at a bakery-chachanteng in C'town. He'd eat a bit, and put the rest in a take-out container. From which one can deduce that he lives by himself in a single-room occupancy hotel, and has a refrigerator and a microwave. As the most likely scenario.

Judging by how little he ate, he had enough for six more meals there. They seemed to know him at this establishment. So he isn't entirely without connections or community.
And he acted like he had all of his faculties intact.

Old people don't eat much. It's hard to have a fully balanced diet when you don't have a large appetite, and lack your own cooking facilities. The tendency is to snack, nibble, and have bags of fried dry salty kibble around for those late night gnawings.

Years ago, 'Uncle' would occupy one of the tables at Mike's place, dozing in between beers. When he woke up we'd be treated to his social talk. "Mongolian beef, hot." "The Forty Niners, huh." "How about Hooked on Phonics?" "Wang computers, bankrupt." We probably heard all of those statements, with minor variations, several hundreds of times.
Other than Mongolian beef, I don't know what he ate.
Three or four beers a night, though.

He wore a hat (trilby), and was always neatly dressed. Shirt and jacket.
His kin, as far as I knew, had moved away from Chinatown.
Most of the time he was asleep.
A nice old chap.

He'd be well over a hundred if he was still alive.

Milk tea, egg tart. The waitress there has interesting eye-brow tics. Scrunch blink, scrunch blink. She's small and birdlike, with a peppy personality. Speaks Toishanese. Quite probably everyone at that place and a related establishment is originally from Toishan, certainly many of the regular customers are. Dynamite baked goods. Decent Hong Kong Western style food, although the baked spaghetti chicken leg or porkchops, flooded with melted cheese, would frighten anyone who knew how to spell 'cholesterol'.

The Chinese name for cholesterol (膽固醇 'daam gu seun') is actually quite positive: courageous solid purity. It's warm and comforting, not scary at all.

Mister "Three boxes to-go" did NOT order any of those dishes. One of his plastic containers had bitter melon and fish with black bean sauce over rice (涼瓜斑球飯 'leung gwaa pan kau fan'), very healthy. One had some kind of chow mein (炒麵 'chaau min) with lots of onion (洋蔥 'yeung chong') and meat, and one was unidentifiable from a distance.
He left about ten minutes before I did.


I may have overdone the grocery shopping. Those last six blocks were painful. My right leg belongs to the dark side at this point. Dang. Had to rest and relight my pipe several times.




Mongolian Beef (蒙古牛肉 'mong gu ngau yiuk') is not, strictly speaking, Cantonese home town food. Invented in Taiwan in the fifties. Sliced beef and onion, a few dried chilies, plenty brown gravy. But Cantonese people have an adventurous streak. Hence all the old folks in Chinatown living alone after their retirement. Some of whom are fans of the Forty Niners (三藩市四九人足球隊 'saam faan si sei gau yan juk kau deui), or evince similar eccentricities. "Our team, you know."



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DRINKING WITH THE EAGLES

Probably the best karaoke evening ever; nobody sang. And we got to see a Mandarin song about chili peppers, which may explain why the East is red, and could also be a commercial for a valuable food supplement.

All the familiar communist propaganda tropes in service of a vegetable.

Which, combined with something else, makes me think of mee pok (麵薄 'min pok'). With fish balls and sambal. With a dressing that I make by frying chili paste with bacon grease, dark vinegar and lime juice, and dashes fish sauce and soy sauce. Plus sugar.
Plenty of hot chili paste. AND an oily sambal.
Cucumber and chopped scallions.
Fried peanuts.

Mee pok are irregular thin ribbon flat wheat noodles. Often used as a basis for a splash of soup or a semi-salad.

Chilipeppers, of course, are the vegetable just loaded with vitamin C, much beloved in exotic places like Iowa and Ohio. The entire Midwest, in fact. Where they alleviate the boredom of lutefisk and church supper casseroles.


辣妹子

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGKIGQ4l7qE. ]


Red is such a happy colour!

The great thing about nobody singing at the karaoke place is that we didn't have to suffer through dude-bros reinterpreting Frank Sinatra or The Eagles. I hate The Eagles, man.

I may have had too much sambal with my salt fish and chicken fried rice (鹹魚雞粒炒飯 'haahm yü gai naap chaau faan'). Belly feels a bit. But it was sooooo goooood!

I do not have patience for bougie white boys singing.
Or their inebriated female companions.
They make my stomach hurt.



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TRUMP CLITORIS

Normally I stay away from big words on this blog, because they scare people. One such word is 'clitoris'. Any conversation in which that word is bandied about may end badly.
And at the very least might lead to mixed dancing.

But, from Facebook, this:

Please imagine the comments underneath. As probably the best example, this gem:

Clítoris is a liberal hoax.
There's no clitoris in the bible.
European have clitoris but these are no free countrys.
When I was young there are not clitoris and today everybody have one.
Clítoris cause autism.

[Insightful comment by "Mr. Dunhill", a fellow pipe smoker.]


The clitoris is, in many ways, precisely like Latakia tobacco or a pipe tamper if put into use.
A little bit goes a long way. I do not know if there is anything more I need to say about that.


Please forget I ever said anything.



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SPPOOO IS GOOD!

That sppoo is looking pretty good right now. Having just hung up on Chris (415 251 0508) from American something or other who clearly wasn't listening when I informed him that I had already received hundreds of calls about benefits, and persisted in trying to engage me after being told his call would go nowhere, he was wasting his (and my) time, and he should stop just stop, I saw a cartoon about alternate universes.
Yep, that spooo is looking good.
Trr is a good parent?

Oh, and candy corn is becoming even more fright-inducing than ever before. Good gracious, blueberry cheesecake? Y'all trying to ruin our mature years now too? Plus there is a stripper in clown make-up trying to explain how she ended up in the storm drain.

She is holding a red balloon.

Life is becoming byzantine.

Alternate universes are here.

You know, Chris at 415-251-0508, there might be a nice big bowl of spooo back at the ranch. Please watch out for clowns with red balloons lurking in storm drains while you trot on over there. It sure would be horrid if something happened to you and your passionate need to quote benefit and burial insurance rates while taking a well-deserved sppooo break.

I wish the same for Brad in Georgia who called with exactly the same advantageous death payment news. Sppooo is good. One can get very fond of sppooo.



You know, boys, I live in San Francisco. I am not dependent upon sppooo for my eatie fun. Chinatown is just across the hill, where I can get a baked porkchop on top of spaghetti in tomato sauce covered with melted cheese, juicy pork dumplings, rice with spare ribs and black bean sauce, preserved egg congee with a yautiu for dipping, wonton noodle soup, cheung fan, bitter melon omelette, roast duck, dragon tongue fish with garlic butter.
Chicken and salt fish fried rice, steamed pork buns .....
All of it with a nice hot cup of milk tea.

After my cup of coffee and pipe.

Enjoy your sppooo.



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AS BEFITS A CITY SLICKER

One tradition that I cannot get behind is "Taco Tuesday". The alliterative quality is not sufficient reason, it does not justify the practice. Margerine Monday? Thermidor Thursday? French Fry Friday? Among pipesmokers, some of us celebrate "Cob Tuesday", and post pictures of ourselves smoking a corncob pipe once a week. Yes, no, not a fan.
And totally baffled about how that custom came about.

As with tacos, I go for a corncob pipe when I feel like it.

I'm still working on a tin of Haunted Bookshop that I opened over a decade ago. In regular briars it wallops me, but as a Burley forward blend it sings in a cob. Please imagine me at some point channelling for "Ole gramps in his bib overalls on the tractor doing the back forty down at the farm" with a battered corncob pipe sticking out of his grizzeled face, starting every conversation with the crowd of gawkers saying "back in mah day, son, we shot revenooers on sight. We knew they was revenooers coz they wore city clothes."

No, I am not exceptionally smoking a corcob right now. The pipe shown here is NOT what's sticking out of my grizzled face. I'll leave that for Jonathan in Israel, who seems to have an affection for Americana and downhome hillbillies. Though I'd advise him to smoke something good. If Haunted Bookshop is too intellectual for him, I would recommend Briggs Mixture.


Even though I am like a sophisticated city city slicker, I am fond of both of those products. The latter also performs very well in a briar, and I particularly enjoyed it after my treatment at Saint Mary's, when the old ticker needed a little medical help. Dozed sporadically after the drugs wore off, and watched the Nature Channel during the long hours of the night. Hyenas killing a gazelle? Dolorous moaning from the room next door. Lions later fighting hyenas for their dinner? Dolorous moaning from the room next door. Hyenas bring down a juvenile zebra? Dolorous moaning from the room next door. Lions again Bogarting the hyenas? Dolorous moaning from the room next door. Sweet everloving Jayzus!

[Saint Mary's: Over three years ago. According to the internet, it was so easy that usually it's just an in-and-out procedure. They put me under because they didn't want me twitching on the table and making rude comments.]

When a staff member came at six o'clock with coffee and a brief vital signs check, I asked what was going on. "Oh, that's a demented woman; she's upset over her surroundings.
Now, do you think you're able to leave under your own steam?"

Oh you bet your sweet bupkes I am!
Where's my damned shoes?


This comes to mind because last night I left the house for a stroll with a corncob, and the sounds from Polk Street, even when I was a block away, were precisely like that moaning from next door. I am reasonably sure that there weren't any hyenas down there.
I'm not absolutely 100% certain, you understand, but reasonably sure.

Maybe they only come out at night. Like the opportunistic lions.
They probably won't down a man smoking his pipe.
Just the fancy city slickers vaping.
Comme il faut.



Smoking pot and drunk besides.
Easy targets, lots of flesh.



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A NEARLY NAKED BLACK MAN

When I left in the afternoon for a late tea time or early supper, there was a dissolute looking gentleman lounging in front of the building opposite. I studiously avoided looking at him, not wanting to catch his eye and end up in a conversation that I did not want. After all, what does one say to a black man wearing next to nothing? "Nice weather we're having"? Well duh. Had it been inclement or stormy, I doubt he would have been there.
Or showing off so much skin.

It's probably ungentlemanly of me, but to my eye he didn't look particularly clean, or sober. This is San Francisco; one knows to avoid unnecessary talk with very strange strangers.
Oh, and avoid waterbuffalo. They don't like our smell.
Even in mud, they're pretty fast on their feet.
I'm just mentioning that in passing.


There was a waterbuffalo at Lapang Landut airfield. Consequently I spent three hours safely off the ground, flicking bugs off my trousers while high on a tree branch. And smoking my pipe. The others were very much amused by my predicament.
When the truck finally came the beast wandered off.

I tried explaining that I had hoped that tobacco smoke would change my smell, but none of them swallowed that. Instead, they argued that lazing up a tree smoking was about as useful as they had expected me to be, damn' lazy Dutchman. Obviously I had just wanted to smoke my pipe in peace.

Well, yes. I do like smoking my pipe in peace. For that reason I walked down to Waverly after finishing my meal and cup of milk tea. Where halfway through my bowl of tobacco a young lady with a camera stopped, opined that I was cool, and would I mind if she took a photo. In all honesty I don't mind being disturbed by a well-spoken miss telling me I'm "totally cool".
So yes please, feel free to snap a picture. I'm "totally cool" with that.

I'm probably also totally a picturesque old fossil, though I'd rather be cute and photogenic.

At least I don't look skeevy and daemonic.
Or like a crazy naked guy.



Or, concevably, like a grubby and pissed-off Dutchman up a tree.
With beetles in my underwear that I cannot reach.
And a waterbuffalo underneath.
Angry.

Nesa-nesu sekali, dia.



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RESPECTFULLY, HANG UP!

Over the past few months I have received several phone calls trying to get me to compare rates for medical, life, and burial insurance with a view to making me switch. Reason being that a while back I was researching dental insurace -- which went nowhere, because the American insurance industry does not want people to have teeth, they'd only bite someone with them -- and consequently ended up on a list passed on from one computerized hand to the other, all across the English speaking world.

There have been calls from people with all manner of accents.

Who sincerely do not want to take "no" for an answer.

I am very good at saying "no".


Whatever you are wanting, bhai, we are not having. Please to be going away. Hark, is that your elderly mother hollering that the chapathis and sabji are ready? She sounds shrill, you had better attend to your roti shoti most promptly. Thank you, do not call again. Or words to that effect. Sometimes terminating in something impossibly gutteral, for all the world like a tiger coughing up the mother of all hairballs. Which is Dutch. My other native language.

The reason why I do not hang up immediately is because I used to do phone work (business to business collections, often to speed up payments so that they could get another shipment of our priceless merchandise and continue a long and mutually fruitful relationship), and now these new people are actually volunteering for me to waste their valuable time.
The shoe, so to speak, is on a different foot.

Besides, I have infinite patience.



Maybe I should try to sell them something instead?



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AMONG DONALD'S ENABLERS

The consensus between the Irish policeman and myself is that the old boys in the back are all stupid rightwing bastards. Admittedly, that's only two of us -- four if you also count in two other people who are subcontinental -- but intelligence-wise we've got the stupid rightwing bastards outgunned. The reason why I'm hesitant to include the two fine subcontinental gentlemen is two-fold: One I haven't actually asked them if that is in fact the terminology they would use, and two: both of them like arguing, as do many Indians, as a form of intellectual exercise, as well as verbally poking at the idiots. Plus unlike the Irish policeman and myself they aren't infuriated and filled with a distaste toward the stupid rightwing bastards, and have actually at times acted as if they liked the stupid rightwing bastards in some ways.

One of the stupid rightwing bastards is as Irish as the policeman.
I suspect the policeman holds that against him.
Letting the side down.

I am more fortunate; no Dutchmen in the lot. On the other hand, my group sadly must admit Betsy DeVos and several other Michigan Dutch as fervent supporters of the disgraceful orange blob, but that bunch there are mostly verkrampte religious types whose families emigrated to the US from the stupidest parts of the Netherlands to get away from intelligent people, and to practise their retro and inbred version of Dutchness surrounded by miles and miles of hairy slopebrowed dumb savages in the great American outback. Possibly the stupidest part of the United States at this point, gee whillikers, bat shit.


The Irish policeman has not mentioned that to me. He's not a bigot, and while he holds the stupid rightwingism against a fellow Irishman, he does not hold my fellow Dutch Americans against me as he could.

He would vote for guillotines, however.


Those folks are brainless and not using their heads anyway, they might as well be rid of them. A trim would do them proper. Take 'em down a notch.



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QUALITY TIME WASTAGE

Underneath a recent Facebook squawk about alternative ways of dealing with reality, a friend commented: "i think there might be something to the apple cider vinegar thing but i don't do it myself. this is not because i don't accept the biological chemistry behind the idea (which, i hate to break it to you, exists) but because i have no interest in living any longer than i have to. you, on the other hand, think that appeals to authority or even consensus constitute "science" and i envy you your faith."

I shan't take issue with that. That commenter has alternatively dealt with reality for years. So getting into a discussion with him on the subjects mentioned would be quite pointless.
And I am both particular and arbitrary about how I waste my time.

On the other hand, the lack of proper capitalization is irritating.

It points to a severely compromised mind.

Cluttered with empty cans.




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FILLED WITH CHARITABLE THOUGHTS

A calm day. People happy that the heat wave seems to have ended. With a bit of luck, Autumn can now start. Dews. Damps. Fog. At least in San Francisco and nearby coastal areas. The smell of woodsmoke on the breeze.

Which probably means that everything to the north of here is on fire, and perhaps, as we were advised to do (by an "expert"), we should have raked the forest.

An elderly gentleman drifted by, smelling faintly of pooh.

Sometimes I am not fully vested in this.


The unpleasant news is that the Renaissance Fair is back, along with another one of San Francisco's Music Festivals for the people from the hippie generation. Traffice jams, probably the smell of pot, and stringy corpse-like fingers gyrating to the antiquated melodic stylings of graybeard wheezers who had their heyday years before I was even plotting high-seas piracy with my kindergarten classmates.

A two foot tall beardless Captain Blackbeard.

Let us enslave that bunch on the see saws!

And enjoy their pretty marbles for ourselves.

What do I remember of pre-school? Nutritious biscuits, milk, paints, and nuns. And the meanness of children. Which I see in strictly verbal form replayed by the senile Republican swine becoming vegetables in the backroom. Venomous old bastards. Paunches, shiny pates, and at least one of them smells ..... vaguely ..... disquieting.

Old age is wasted on them. As Patrick put it the other day, "they need to go back into the mines for twelve hours a day, that'll set 'em straight". I envision them pathetically pecking at the rock face with pickaxes too heavy to handle, weeping at their own ineffectiveness.
No watery gruel this evening unless they fill a barrow.

I can see myself, Indiana Jones-like, whipping the elderly miscreants.

Dammit, old fossil, did you forget to wipe?!?


I would have made a great nun. I am filled with very Christian disapproval.
Despite no iota of faith, or belief in the idiotic narrative.
These old fusspots need correcting.



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BIG SAINTLY ENERGY

Yesterday was a learning experience. I neglected to tell several deserving individuals to go congress themselves on the internet. Largely because I've reached the age where I do not wish to fight people who are rectums. I will simply ignore them until they either are wiser or have passed on. Let someone else rip their heads off.
After all, I can ghost them, while passive aggressively making fun of them on my blog or saying meanspirited things about them.

Or both. All of the above.

Basically my same response to the old intercoursers in Marin. With whom I must deal while at work. The gentlemen who use their spongy sit-upons more than their brains while huffing stogies in the backroom and pontificating ignorantly.

Right-wing cigar smokers.

AND INTERCOURSE THEIR STOGIES TOO

Today is a work day. I want you all to know that I am a ruddy saint, a goldarn fabulous solid gold diamond-tipped saint. With halo and bells and totes awesome saintliness.

Because I have not killed anyone yet.



I'm surprised no one has written a book about me.
Or lights candles and incense.
BSE, babies.



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RADIOACTIVE TERROR PIGS HAVE TAKEN OVER!

That title is unique. So I stole it from a doomsday article. And I feel we need to release the spider men to combat this menace. Because. For the sixth day in a row dammit the heat was a barrier. A high of 89 or 90 degrees, sapping appetite and energy, and leading to unruly scenes of nudity in one man's apartment where a single Dutch American disported himself grouchily in the buff while vociferating about inhumane conditions. In San Francisco.

Before going out to have a cup of Hong Kong milk tea tea and a pastry at a bakery, because after all why should I let a climatocaust derail my customary practices?

From the immortal corpus of German literature comes an apposite quote: "das ganze scheißhaus steht in flammen". Which, roughly translated, means 'vacate the premises and seek fresh air', or something. Very wise people, those Germans.
It is presently sixty degrees in Düsseldorf.
And raining.

Düsseldorf is a veritable paradise. I have just realized this.

AND, it's close to the Netherlands.


Due to the heat and circulatory issues, my calves and back are a pain in the gand. In fact, my entire rightleg is a pain. Probably shouldn't have left the house, but I enjoyed my tea time as well as a snack, and managed to dodge the tourists. Most of whom appear to be German, other than very big women who were obviously American. Big, BIG women.

The Germans at the next table decided to have seconds on the egg tarts, and also took a few of them to go. An admirable decision of which I approve. The egg tarts at that place are indeed superlative.

The big American women came in, looked around, and left.
Ain't nothing like this in Mississippi.
There's no bacon!



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JUST STUFF IT

Today Queen Elizabeth joined her ancestors. Which was not entirely unexpected. On Facebook a number of people are posting comments that, at the very least, can be considered opportunistic and snide.

They should shut up. Now is not the time. Stop being ungracious.

[Photo taken from newsfootage circa 1945. Copyright probably Pathé.]

The British monarchy is a symbol of continuity and endurance quite as much as it is a vestige of the middle ages, and as such represents much that is bright and good in modern England. And that is a lot.


Queen Elizabeth fulfilled her assigned roles admirably.
Britain and the Commonwealth were blessed.
As were their allies.



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BOXER TIME

Sometimes it is distinctly better to be a man than a woman. For instance, there are two people in this apartment, a male (me) and a female (her). We live in separate rooms. We share the teevee room, where both of our computers are. After she has gone to bed in her room, I can strip down to my boxers and laze about on the computer with much of my body mercifully cooling down from the hot weather. And without shocking my roommate by my immodesty.

Women never have boxers. Women rarely have boxers. Sometimes women do have boxers.
Whatever.

If she were to strip down to a hypothetical pair of boxers and ponce around the teevee room late at night it would be startling. Perhaps unseemly. Unladylike.

I have the liberty of being unladylike.

She, sadly, does not.

It's more something in her mind than anything else, because I have trained myself to look away unless a crazy person outside on the street at a safe distance so that there is no accidental eye-contact is making a public spectacle in this heat.

Such as poncing around bare except for boxers.



I shall be strutting around most of the time that I'm home today naked as a jaybird wearing boxers. Although I wonder why I have a compulsion to wear boxers when there is no one else here? It just seems right. Perhaps a question of self respect?


A young lady would of course have to wear bra and panties if she were wandering around the apartment naked. Even when at home. Especially at home. That's just what one does.


While at one's computer.



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MIRACULOUS BEANS

Food. It motivates. A club sandwich and fries followed two hours later with an old wife biscuit. Given what went into the club sandwich, that there were fries with it, there is lard in Chinese pastry dough, AND all of this was washed down with cups of milk tea (mmmm, sweetened condensed milk), it would have propably horrified my cardiologist. He was probably spinning in his office chair. It is a good thing that although he is Chinese American, he does not know what goes on in Chinatown. A very good thing.

Club sandwich: 公司三文治 ('gong si saam man ji'). Fries: 炸薯條: ('jaa syu tiu'). Old Wife Biscuit: 老婆餠 ('lo po bing'). Hong Kong Milk Tea: 港式奶茶 ('gong-sik naai-cha'). Condensed Milk: 煉奶 ('lin naai'). Office Chair: 辦公椅 ('baan gong yi'), 轉椅 ('juen yi').

[Note: while in this context 'gong si' (公司) means "club" or "association", an older meaning, usually it means "company". Fries are usually just called 'syu tiu', the "frying" (炸) is implied. Biscuit is as much a misnomer as cookie would be, it's a flaky pastry crust around a sweet filling. Condensed milk is usually a sweetened product, often not specified as such on the label in Asia. Office chair (辦公椅) almost looks like a task description in the classics; "manage public seat".]



豬油是很神奇的！

In a previous post I mentioned that pork grease is the soul of Shanghainese parched veggie rice (豬油是上海菜泡飯的靈魂 'jyu yau si seung hoi choi pou faan dik ling wan'). Which was incorrect and too specific; pork grease (豬油 'jyu yau') is almost certainly the soul of all Chinese food (豬油是中國菜的靈魂 'jyu yau si jung gwok choi dik ling wan'), period.
Not just vegetable rice soup(菜泡飯 'pou choi faan').

Jyu yau si han san gei di! Pork grease is amazing!


Questions: why is that infant staring at me in fascination? Is it because I'm white, or is it the fries? Why is that local born Chinese fellow at the table across the aisle talking to himself and repeating variations on the same five or six phrases in English? Mental? Why did that little girl wave at me in a friendly fashion? Do I look familiar? Why do most Americans put ketchup on their fries when everyone knows it should be hot sauce or peanut sauce?

Why is that old man obsessively sucking the red bean fragments out of the bottom of the glass that his iced drinkie came in? Sense of personal acievement? Sheer deliciousness?
Pleasure in irritating the spit out of his haunted and now berserk looking wife?

Another question: Is there an actual character that means 'pyek' in the dialect of Toishan? The most likely candidates are: 迫 ('pek'; persecute, oppress, force), 擗 ('pik'; beat, break off, cast away), 劈 ('pik'; chop, hack, strike), 擊 ('gik'; attack, assault), 踢 ('tek'; kick, kick away). Pyek in Hoisan seems to imply all of those.

I am obsessed with the term 靈魂 。 The first word shows whirling and a shaman with flaring robes underneath a rain cloud and precipitation, the second has a phonetic on the left side with a daemon on the right. Spirit, soul, spiritual part of something.

Smoked afterwards, while painfully stumbling through the antique district with my groceries. In hot weather my feet from the mid-thigh down feel like they came out of a war I don't remember. Throbbing, painful. Softened with a mallet.

You know, I'm not that keen on red bean ice drinkies. It's a mental thing. One of these days I'm going to have to try it. That old man spent over half an hour making those bottom of the bucket sucking sounds with his straw.


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