LET US NOT SPEAK OF SUCH THINGS

The one thing I have do today that requires leaving shelter is picking up more latanoprost. Which means being in the middle of the deluge. So I might as well have lunch while doing it. And it's a good thing that A) I have a thick coat and a sturdy umbrella, and B) there are at least three awnings over empty storefronts within two blocks of the pharmacy.

Yes, I could shelter during in the area in front of the hospital where the pharmacy is located, part of which is recessed. But that would mean being more social than I would normally wish to be, and not smoking my pipe while there.


For me, one of the great functions of Chinatown is as a place to smoke without Karenesque mostly Caucasian earthmothers yelling at me for killing butterflies and little kittens.

A life avoiding the Karenesque Caucasian earthmothers is a good life.
An excellent reason to avoid yoga studios and vegan restaurants.

An added benefit is that it's nowhere near the flood zone.
On a slope, well above sealevel.

It strikes me that one cannot have a civilized conversation with a person keen to show off what an unique, caring, and artistic individual they are, and lecture people about kale, apple cider vinegar, and manuka honey. Which is why the sensible person avoids karaoke joints (erm, I don't follow my own advice there, because I like watching disasters unfold) as well as many coffee shops (poets, writers, deep thinkers, and more unique individuals than you can shake a stick at).

At a Cantonese bakery one seldom runs into totally unique individuals. The patrons are usually there primarily for snackipoos and hot beverages (港式奶茶 'gong sik naai chaa'), secondarily to be undisturbed by creative types. Leave me alone, you crazy bozo, I am snarfing a cocktail bun (雞尾包 'kai mei baau'), I don't know a damned thing about kale (羽衣甘藍 'yu yi gam laan') or gluten (麵筋 'min kan'), besides, everything here probably has gluten anyway, and your meaningful tattoos are really quite appalling (睇到眼都可反感 'tai dou ngaan dou ho faan gam').

In short: Het spijt mij, ik wens niet met u te spreken over die dingen.
Zoals velen hier bent u waarschijnlijk hardstikke dwaas.
Mijn sterrenbeeld gaat u geen klap aan.


對唔住，我唔想同你講呢啲嘢。
同呢度好多人一樣，你可能完全黐線。
我嘅星座唔關你事。



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PLENTY OF THEM ON GRANT AVENUE

The problem with old people is that one of them doesn't listen and the other one is deaf as a post. The third is absent minded and grumbles. And I say this because I am better than two decades younger than all of them. Still, they are rather nice dudes. And on the whole fairly liberal. Cheap, crotchetty, strongly opinionated despite sometimes not having many clues what they are or should be opinionated about. But open minded secular humanists.

Which brings me to the lantern festival. Which today is. In Jakarta and Den Haag it's known as 十五暝 ('sap ng ming', Hokkien: tjap go meh), here in a far flung suburb of Guangzhou it's 上元天官誕 ('sueng yuen tin kun daan'), 元宵节 ('yuen siu jit'), 上元節 ('seung yuen jit') and various other names. Concerning which there is a whole lot of legendry and blah blah blah, but it's the final day of the Spring Festival, so that's probably all you really need to know.

The Spring Festival this year is cold, wet, and miserable.

In the words of one old fellow: 'Taint spring!

I am presently in the room where the computers reside, wearing two layers of underwear, a plaid flannel shirt (thick), a sweater, and a warm garment over that. Drinking a hot beverage of the Mandarin Duck variety (鴛鴦 'yuen yeung') with plenty ginger.

Elsewhere people are freezing their Maganuts off.
Ted Cruz has probably gone to Cancun.

This weekend is both the parade and some basketball thing. So the city will be crowded, and wherever the tourists are expected to go the drug addicts and homeless people are being persuaded to go elsewhere, and turds are being picked up.


Good thing it will be raining. Both of those demographics and their refuse will get washed, and the tourists may dissolve.



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WHERE KANGAROOS COME FROM

A video shows two Australian healthcare workers promising to kill Israeli patients and uttering other anti-Semitic sentiments. And over the last few years there have been quite a number of crimes down under that indicate that Australia is, as you already suspected, a pretty damned unpleasant place. In recent decades there have been many anti-Subcontinental occurences there, anti-Chinese outrages, and generally despicable acts against anybody and anything which isn't sheep abusive descendant of British criminals.

Yeah, I wasn't planning to go there.
And I don't like Vegemite.

Besides, I've met Australians. They're all over South East Asia. And they're drunk.
We have drunken people here too, and they don't talk funny.
Plus I think they're cleaner.


Okay, now that the sneering is out of the way, I must admit that I'm charmed by their videos featuring Australian magppies and parrots on balconies.

Most Australians whom I have spoken to were actually rather decent people.


And the succulent Chinese Meal man was a prince among men.



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THE GREAT TUNDRA EXPEDITION

A late jaunt with a pipe in the cold of evening. Dinner had been fatty roast pork chunks with tau pok (火腩豆腐飯 'fo naam tau fu fan') with strong milk tea. Fortifying. But too brisk outside for real comfort. Two layers of undergarment, a plaid flannel shirt, sweater, scarf, and a heavy Canafdian overcoat. I felt thus garbed like a refugee fleeing the red army.
Also, two layers of woolen sock, each foot.

The cheerful natives on Nevsky Prospekt (Waverly Place) seemed nearly nude. That is to say, quite underdressed for the arctic chill. They will do well in Siberia. Teenagers!

I caught a bus going up the hill with a mother and her two lovely daughters, then finished my smoke on the steps of my building.


Further down the block between the parked cars opposite a gentleman was peeing into the street while talking to himself. Probably continuing a conversation that had started in a bar on Polk. The beer had cheered him up, the cold air outdoors when he left stimulated his bladder, and the alcohol coursing through his veins fuelled a discourse now sadly internal, though he may not have been aware of it changing.

Judging by the length of time it took, it had been a sixpack's worth. Coupled with the first stages of a prostate problem, so I'm guessing mid to late middle age.

Somewhat elderly drunks relieving themselves on frigid streets is in many ways an important signature feature of San Francisco. You should take pictures.
Something to show the folks back in Iowa.


Aunt Martha on the Golden Gate Bridge.
And here's aunt Martha at Coit Tower.
And also in front of a peeing man.
Aunt Martha on Folsom Street.
With jazz musicians.


Tell everyone how much you enjoyed your trip.



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A NEW GOLDEN ERA

Trump wants America to become more Christian. Okay now! As someone who is hereditarily Dutch Calvinist, because my first American ancestors were born in Nieuw Amsterdam, I will welcome the banning of repulsive heresies like the Methodists, Baptists, Southern Baptists, Jehova's Witnesses, Millenialists, Cathars and other pescatarians, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, and all manner of charismatics, fundamentalists, evangelicals, and pentacostals.
As well as so-called Prosperity Theology and similar idolatrous heathendoms.
Pitchforks and torches, dudes, pitchforks and torches.

I would like to remind everyone that the greatest period in Western civilization perfectly coincided with the Dutch Golden Age, when all those odious heathendoms and their occultic practices were held in check, repressed, outlawed, and burned at the stake. The sensible Netherlanders were in charge. Biggest trading company, the world's bankers, scientists artists, poets, and the best organized military under Stadholder Prince Mauritz.

Leave it to us, you heathens. We'll make this world work yet.
As well as telling all of you what to think.

I particularly look forward to repressing those folks in the Southern States, because they're all basically violent incest-practicing idolaters with pickup trucks, and largely illiterate.
With the highest numbers of STDs, high school dropouts, and psychopaths.

I cannot think of any American region with a more pressing need of stern treatment.

Just think of all those pale milk-white backs, purulent and blistering in the hot sun on our thriving tobacco plantations. Trailer parks with windmills for electricity. Proper dikes and levees along the Mississippi. And New Orleans finally free of alcoholism and syphilis!

No more "American Football" ever!

I thrill at the thought.



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BUT WE NEED THE RAIN!

According to the news a ferocious earthshaking monumental apocalyptic storm is heading to California, which will hit the areas mostly down south where life is tacky and all-American. It's going to briefly touch the Bay Area, but we are on a different planet, so meh and whatever. This means that if you want to do your laundry this week it would be best to do so Monday or Tuesday. If you're in a different part of the country that is unimportant, because you eat too much, smell bad, and your mom dresses you funny anyhow.


As I understand it, the rest of the country eats buckets of fried food, vegs out in front of their televisions watching lifestyles of the rich and famous, and is addicted to weight loss pills and fentanyl. And mostly lives off manufacturing methamphetamine in their Christian trailer parks. While wishing that they could still put lesbians and those woke wheelchair users to work in the cotton fields, like in the good old days. Occasionally they look at all those foreigners infesting the big cities and think lustfully of the shapely native wimmins.
While banning dragshows and books about evolution.

It's Chick-fil-A country out there.
Cold, greasy, and dark.

Note to self: Don't hang your clothes out to dry on a nearby convenient structure (pictured above), don't eat at fast food joints, and don't think about watching the parade this coming Saturday evening because there will be over half a million people along the route making noise and being damp.


Late yesterday I was wondering what to do for lunch today. Chachanteng, rice noodle rolls, or claypot rice with chicken and lapcheung? I think I'll save the claypot rice for Thursday when inclement weather will suggest something comforting.


I've considered asking my apartment mate to go have claypot rice with me, as she has likely never had it. But the place that does several versions of that has all of the choices written on the wall in Chinese, which she doesn't read, and though she speaks Toisanwaa, which is the language of the people who run the place, my Cantonese is probably more fluent than she is in her parent's language so she might look bad, and in any case there are some issues with a smarty pants kwailo going into the heart of Rue Du Toishan with a female companion who is not very Chinese though looking the part. There is only one Chinese restaurant where we ever eat together. The proprietess is also from here, and is quite nice and understanding, American born. The claypot place is not very English-speaking, too Chinese. So I hesitate considerably. I should probably be far more comfortable there than she ever could.

[Also, Chinesy Chinese usually assume that two people of opposite genders eating together are romantically involved, and then start wondering what they see in each other, especially if she's Asian and he's white. How are they matched? What does she see in him? Is she "strange"? And what did it really take to tame him?]

Yeah, I actually don't know anybody I could go there with.
But claypot rice is quite ideal for single diners.
And I am not even seeing anyone.
Perfectly single.




Look at my picture in the top right hand corner. Does that look tamed to you? Domesticated? Capable of being house-trained? I assure you not! Quite uncivilized, possibly feral and rabid. And I probably read horrid stuff like political tracts and Dutch literature.




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AND WHAT SHAPE DID YOU SAY?

The best superbowl posting on social media right now is someone mentioning that he was smoking a pipe while watching. He had red vagina in a Peterson Dublin. Which leads me to assume, once again, that spellcheck is a mixed blessing. I myself have an open tin of Red Virginia Small Batch from C&D near my chair. It's good stuff. Vir. Gi. Nia.
It's tobacco, dude. Not... that.

Vur. Gee. Nee. Yah.

Cornell & Diehl's Small Batch Red Virginia Deserves better than watching jejune garbage on teevee. Now if Taylor Swift and Donald Trump were to have a knock down drag out dust up, I'd watch. My money is on Taylor Swift. She younger than the old fart. And she's not wearing a leakproof garment. Those things limit mobility and rather drag one down, I hear.

Of course, a golf player benefits from a lower centre of gravity.

I'll watch the Dorito commercial tomorrow.
The goat was priceless.

Virginia tobacco is a trade crop grown in many countries. Golden seed stock, cultivated in a warm humid environment with good sunlight for three to four months, then immediately after harvest hung in flue-heated barns for a week to kill the leaf quickly, which preserves a lovely yellow hue as well as leaf sugars. With slightly lower heat and one or two days longer curing it becomes red Virginia. Which has an appealing, mellow flavour.

Doritos are an American product loved by goats.


I think tomorrow I will smoke my Peterson Dublin, shape #120.
That pipe is nearly sixty years old.
Very nice. Rewarding.



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WHEN PIG FLIES

Later today several people, allegedly adults, will scream and soil their diapers. While eating piles of unhealthy stuff that probably involves bacon. And drinking suds. I shall not be part of that giddy crowd. While I approve of bacon, and derivatives of pig in general, I have no need to wash down high salt and fat artery cloggers with crappy American beer while admiring shiny spandex clad rumps getting pounded into the astroturf.
I have no horse in this race. I never do.
Football is a stupid game.

I'll check out the Doritos commercial when it's all over.
During the game I shall be somewhere else.
There will be no pigs there.


Without a doubt red blooded Americans will ask me what I thought of the game tomorrow, and spout insane and boring drivel about the plays, the long shot, the comeback, the surprise twist, and how one side romped all over the other side like totally and pummeled them into oblivion how marvelous.

Rather than admitting that I am not a red blooded American -- what with being a transduced Netherlander with green reptilian slime running through my veins and barely hidded fangs and sharp sharp talons -- I shall change the damned subject. To food.

The picture above represents slabs of stewed fatty pork nestled in salted vegetables with soy and molasses. Which is far more appealing than a flying pig skin.

Stop waffling about abused porcine dermis.
You're all obsessive and neurotic.
Clearly clinically insane.

Psycho goobers.




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THE SEVERELY EDITED MAN

Somebody I thought had a brain seems to have lost the capacity for rational thought as well as any sense of perspective since he married a Vietnamese American anti-communist just before he retired. I stopped respecting him during the first Trump administration, which was right around the time they got married. I'm attributing his near-total moronicity to his having gotten hitched to a cute little pit viper.

Some men are just weak.

I'll ascribe his loss of sense and ethics to the she-demon.

[He's also become much more xenophobic and intolerant over the past several years, and I don't know whether that's the baleful influence of his wife, who is very pro-Trump and "patriotic", or a tendency that was always there, made far worse by everything as well as an enlarged prostate and chronic digestive problems.]


Through no actual planning on my part, I am myself unmarried and not involved with the opposite gender. Part of that is that I'm a stubborn old git, part of it is that my former long term girl-friend was and still is also stubborn and strongminded, and part of it is that having been told be several wellmeaning and very misguided people that if only I would change many things about myself I could be up to my eye-brows in married bliss.

Which sounded then, and still sounds, like a recipe for disaster.

I am quite capable of being happily miserable without self-torture.


One suggestion which struck me as insane at the time was that I should hang around at the Marina Safeway scoping out the single women there, and attempt to strike up conversations with them. Erm, eh, ah, urk. Because that was were the single women were. Either that or join a yoga class. A friend who conceived of it as her mission in life to get me hooked up, eventually gave up, conceded defeat, and moved out of state with her husband.

So you can probably understand why I have little respect for the man who changed his insights, morals, and ethics to be more acceptable to his new wife and her kinfolk.
I wonder how the adult children from his first marriage feel about that.



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IT'S TOO COLD FOR THAT

Because of the weather, the business was bad. But the waiter welcomed me and took my order. He seemed like a relic from a distant era in his neat clothing that would have been perfect for one of the Chinatown restaurants back in the fifties. Stylish even. Black pants, pressed shirt, waistcoat. Also, his shoes were polished I believe.

Possessed of an old fashioned reserve.
A man with self respect.
Professional.

The kind of man you address as elder born (先生 'sin saang'; mister), rather than uncle (叔叔，阿叔 'suk suk', 'aa suk'). And whose surname you should find out, because a correct adress softens the distance. So and so elder born. Still formal, but by using his surname indicating that there is a respectable distance but not an impersonal gulf.
Definitely 'sin saang' instead of 'ah sook'.

Indeed, I shall go there again. The food was good, the ambiance suits me.

And neither one of us reacted to the occasional salt-of-the-earth language issuing forth from the kitchen. Not dining room suitable, but not expressed in the dining room.
It was a private discussion, so to speak.


Next time, I'll just sit a little further away from the kitchen.


It had been barely raining when I arrived. It had mostly stopped, barely a sprinkle, when I left and lit my pipe. I caught a bus after a while and finished my pipe on the front steps of my building. It was too cold to flutter around like a gay little butterfly.



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A DAY TO AVOID LAWYERS

Neurotically I am obsessing about three things right now. The weather, a Comoy Tradition from the early fifties, and what to have for lunch today. The weather especially; it was low forties late last night when I stepped out for a last pipefull, and I cursed under my breath in several languages repeatedly. It's only mid forties right now. And it's a good thing I have an umbrella, a thick coat, and two layers of socks. My ancestors tromped through the snows of mediaeval winters wearing woolen longjohns, and I pale in comparison. What I really want to do is spend all day under the blankets arguing with my stuffed animals swilling hot tea and occasionally smoking a pipe. While reading trashy fiction or reference books.
There are stacks of reading material on my bed.
Normal bachelor style.

The Comoy Tradition is what is known as a billiard shape. I've recarved the mouthpiece and worked on the rim, as well as dealt with the inside of the bowl. But I haven't smoked it yet. It was a project I had delayed a while. The previous owner probably puffed it all the way into the nineties, then it sat in the bin for a quarter of a century. Caked up, sooty, neglected.
But it has that lovely old wood. It's time to bring it back.
I'll probably smoke it this weekend.

FLOODED STORM DRAINS

The rain will impact my lunch. I do not intend to go more than a block from the bus stop, although smoking afterwards may be hazardous because that restaurant, which has finally reopened since the pandemic, is in a stretch with no awnings sheltering the portices and entryways of defunct businesses, and no convenient overhangs nearby.

There are two law offices. Lawyers are notoriously kvetchy and contentious.
So those buildings are out of the question.
Professional Karens.

Either chicken and noodles in broth with cilantro, scallion, and ginger, or stirfried chicken with bittermelon over rice. Probably the latter, as I can use Sriracha to my hearts content.
Washed down with Vietnamese coffee.

I'm looking forward to it.



Last night's midnight snack was the same as what I'm having with my second cup of coffee: thin little Chinese cheesy crackers. These things would be great with some cheese.



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VEHEMENT WAFFLES

A scrap of conversation I caught at lunch perked my ear: "I apologize for being eighty percent wrong". To which the response was, naturally, "and I apologize for being eighty percent right". "That's NOT what I said!"

They were too far away in a busy restaurant to overhear much else.

So instead I concentrated on my cup of Hong Kong milk tea, and people watching.
Lunch had been good. I looked forward to lighting up my pipe outside.


Although today was dry and sunny, it wasn't warm by a long shot. Random tempers seemed short and choppy, and the street crazies are more berserk than ever. The cold temperatures and wetness are getting everyone down. We can't wait for this horrid spell to finally be over. Not me of course, as I am as bright and cheerful of mood as ever, a veritable ray of light ... get away from me you hound!

That is to say my peaks and valleys are not as high or as deep as everybody else's.
They are moody, depressed and temperamental. I am equanimous.
A veritable iceberg of phlegmatism.

I bought my downstairs neighbor some snow pears (雪梨 'suet lei') and for myself got various other semi-essentials, then went to the bakery for tea and a snackie. Forty five minutes or so of conversation later I left and lit another pipe. The bus was not overful, but I'm inclined to think that most people on it were somewhat coarse, nasty, and brutish.
Maybe the horrid weather IS affecting me.

Possibly twenty percent.



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FOWL WEATHER

Today it rained in spades. Bucketloads. It was a good day to stay indoors and not do laundry. Perhaps I will have nothing but slightly smelly clothes for my workweek. Which will be rare treat for the noxious old farts in the backroom, although they may not notice over the stink from their loathsome cheroots.


Lunch was stirfried meat with satay sauce, veggies, rice. While I was eating a friend joined me at my table. I've known him since before my stent was installed, back when I was still a grumble-womble instead of the lovable old elf I am now. And all of you in the back row can stop giggling over my self-description. We exchanged mutual news and chatted cheerfully while I ate. He seems more worried about diabetes than I am -- a reasonable amount of physical exercise puts it much further away for me, and I get plenty of walking done as a pipesmoker with an active life -- and he mentioned something about rice being disadvised. Which is somewhat amusing, as the old folks I see in the waiting area at the clinic are the same people I might encounter an hour or so later at a bakery furthering the progress of diabetes. If I don't pass them smoking a ciggie on the way to their midmorning pastry.
My friend was eating a baked product as he spoke.

A few years ago near where I smoke my pipe before our pubcrawl I observed a crow landing on a ledge under an awning, scattering the pigeons perched there, and very deliberately stealing an egg for dinner. It scooted a little bit sideways, looked at me knowingly, and flew off with the egg in its beak. Ten minutes later it returned. Another egg. Oddly, I remembered this because a shivering streetperson was huddled in the niche nearby where I usually ensconce myself with a pipe one evening a week. I did not begrudge him. Or her.
I have not seen pigeons or crows all day.
And hardly any street people.
It's beastly cold.

Yes, I spend time in bakeries. In Chinatown. A small pastry and cup of milk tea is a lovely afternoon indulgence. And because I smoke my pipe afterwards, which you can't do indoors, I get an awful lot of walking done. So it's healthy. Fresh air, physical exercise, and benefits to the digestion. I would recommend that everyone smoke a pipe for their health, but I vastly prefer not having any of them bumping into me or bumming a pipe cleaner, so no.

When I leave the house my left breast pocket has a notebook, a pen, a pipe tamper, and seven pipe cleaners in it. The right coat pocket has a pouch of tobacco and two pipes.
I might smoke both. That would mean using four or five pipe cleaners.

If I was absolutely certain that I'd meet a friendly crow, I'd also carry an egg.
Or maybe a more convenient less potentially messy snack.
I like my corvid fellow citizens.




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SAD BITS OF BOSTON BUTT

This rain looks to continue till the afternoon. It's been coming down all night. And seeing as one likes to smoke a pipe after that first cup of coffee and downing one's pills early in the morning, when the apartment mate is still home -- because she works normal hours and doesn't leave until shortly after eight o'clock -- one does not venture far with one's umbrella, merely to the nearest awning of a shop on Polk Street which is no longer in business. Where one gazes with a sour eye at the yuppie yobbos wandering past with their dogs and their donuts from a donuttery that has achieved yuppie cult status. Which was altogether enjoyable, because in addition to having mad umbrella skills I also own a coat.

At the moment I am writing this, I could smoke another pipe.
Two windows are open for ventilation.
Her bedroom door is shut.

I think I will.

Before waking up I was speaking with a tourist at the chicken itch pavilion.

It's the dry season down there right now, with fairly warmish weather. Eight five degrees or more during the day, more or less, and low seventies down to high sixties at night. There are more German tourists than Americans. Irrespective of gender or country of origin, they marvel at the ancient ruins and despair over the natives ever becoming civilized, because all of them smoke like chimneys and eat exceptionally spicy food. The best things to order at one of the local restaurants are the ham and cheese sandwiches.

One of the local cafes has Starbucks coffee.

One cannot find a McDonalds.
Nor General Tzo's.


It was a strange dream. Not because of the Germans or whining Americans, or the dearth of gustatory excellence at places catering strictly to foreigners, but because I have never even once been to Mexico.

As a side note, I am extremely fond of carnitas.
I've had carnitas made by Anglo Americans.
It was quite uninspired.



Cook the Boston butt for around four hours plus in it's own fat with a little extra lard and some good stock, plus garlic and spices, till the moisture has almost entirely gone and the meat is nicely oily-greasy. The collagen will have broken down by then, and it can be pulled apart easily. Browned almost charred areas on the bottom are essential. Served with rice and some atjar timun plus lots of sambal this is the breakfast of champions. A cup of strong coffee and a pipe or halve corona afterwards, and you are fortified for a rainy morning.
Trust me on this.

Also good with frijoles refritos, salsa cruda and salsa de guajillos secos, and some heated flour tortillas, or added to your huevos rancheros.



Cumin, black pepper, maybe a dried chile, garlic, an onion and bay leaves, plus squoozen orange and lime (to replicate the bitter oranges you should actually use which are, sadly, unavailable here). Good stock, and a little water as necessary. Simmer on low for a few hours till the liquid is severly reduced and the undersides are caramelizing and getting crusty. Pull the meat apart roughly after cooling, and if necessary return it to the pot to brown on the bottom, or stick it under the broiler for the same effect.

If it turns out well, tell guests that you learned a secret recipe in the Yucatan.
But if it turned out inedible, chuck it on the compost heap.
Then say no more about it.



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RED STATE SWILL

In solidarity with Canada and Mexico, because of the idiotic tariffs, I shall henceforth abstain entirely from certain things characteristic of the red states. Specifically Bourbon Whiskey, grits, and Tabasco. As well as the big four canned American beers.
Consider it a protest against dumb-ass-ism.

Well, actually ....

The only reason I ever had Bourbon in the house was because of Bart Simpson, who in one episode mixed Manhattans for the members of the Legitimate Businessman's Club. That lasted less than two years, and was well over a decade ago.
And I also made a few Old Fashioneds.

MANHATTAN COCKTAIL
Two ounces American whiskey.
Up to one ounce Vermouth.
Dash of bitters.
Cherry for garnish.

Shake the liquids with an ice cube, pour into a suitable container, garnish with the cherry.


OLD FASHIONED
Two ounces American Whiskey.
One sugar cube (or a teaspoon of granulated sugar).
Dash of bitters.
An orange wedge.

Muddle the bitters and sugar well in the bottom of a glass tumbler. Add ice cubes and pour the whiskey over. Put in the orange wedge as a garnish.

Seeing as I never touch grits anyhow, that boycott will have no consequence. Sad. I now wish I was a major consumer of grits. Same goes for Tabasco hot sauce, which I haven't bought in a quarter of a century. Ditto on American canned beer, which is swill.

Actually the only things from the red states I consume are the tobacco mixtures from Cornell & Diehl, and the considered opinions of Pipe Stud (Steve Fallon) in Texas. And I will not change that. So, um. Pipe Stud is right ninety nine percent of the time.
And Cornell & Diehl makes some seriously good stuff.


First pipe of the day was C&D Small Batch Carolina Red Flake w/Perique.


Threw out the container of grits two decades ago.
It was still mostly full.



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GLASS SHARDS

Dammit, the price of eggs is still skyhigh. How is anyone going to fill their tank? And at least two Canadian provinces have ordered bourbon yanked from the shelves, which will inevitably lead to riots and starvation in a few red states which don't produce darned well anything else worth buying. In solidarity with my Canadian cousins, I too shall abstain from cornmash and similar swill.

Of course I already did that, so no biggie.

I've always mentally associated American whiskey with disgusting drunkards, perverts, and inbred teenagers out behind the levee brutalizing their cousins like rabbits. No, I've never been to those states. No interest. Never even saw the movie 'Deliverance'.
Which apparently is based on real events.

By the way: The Beverly Hillbillies was just an attempt to make those people likeable.
It ultimately failed. Of course. Inbred stupidity is just not nice.
Even as the target of sneering laughter.
J. D. Vance.

What can I say? I'm just a mean old cuss, with a tonne of reasons to look down upon and loathe almost every state in between the Sieras and the East River. Bad food and hygiene, staggering ignorance and self-righteousness, and savage heathendom coming out of their pores. Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and the sewage bucket that is the Midwest?
Zij kunnen allemaal de klere krijgen.

Also, seeing as due to my medications I do not consume alcohol anymore, there is no reason to purchase American liquour. No old-fashioneds, no Manhattans.

So rather than marinating the orange peel or the maraschino cherries, I'll just eat them as is. Nom nom nom. Fruit salad! Nutritious!



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THE STIRRING BEAST

This is the year of the snake. As a person who has been familiar with computers for over thirty years, naturally everytime someone mentiones 'snake', I think of something else.
I can't help it. The curse of meme.

Badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, mushroom mushroom! Badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, mushroom mushroom! Badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, mushroom mushroom! Aargh here comes a snake! Oooh, a snake!

Badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, mushroom mushroom! Badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, mushroom mushroom! Badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, badger badger, mushroom mushroom! Aargh here comes a snake! Oooh, a snake!

Are we cool on that?

So I just watched something involving 'casabososaccas' followed by Lydia the Tattooed Lady. Inevitably this led to Katyusha. First cup of coffee synapse sparking.

A mind is a terrible things.



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RABBIT RABBIT FEBRUARY 2025

Rabbit rabbit. For good luck. Goodness knows we need that now. It's not even been two weeks and already things are going to hell in a handbag with the chuckleheads in charge. Egg prices have gone up, not down. There was no hell to pay by Hamas for holding hostages way past the expiry date set by Trump. The Ukraine Russia war did not end on day one.

Food supplies in the coming months may be somewhat haphazzard, seeing as we're now imposing tariffs on imports from Mexico, and destroyed the water reserves of farmers in the San Joaquin Valley for Trumps blusteringly boastful propaganda op. Besides which, many of America's farmworkers are illegals working under near slave-labour conditions, and the entire food processing industry relies on similar situations. Pork production in the great heartland could not survive without brutality in the plants. Or bestiality on the farms.


Apparently, the Communist Chinese turned our chickens into woke transgenders, which is why they're not at home laying. There was something to that effect today from one of the senile old codgers in the backroom.

Could be worse, I suppose. My apartment mate is still traumatized by an old lady flapping a breast at her. Must have been something Christian. My apartment mate, who is actually a well-brought-up Cantonese American girl, is easily traumatized by such things. As a tough and resilient Dutch American myself, whose ancestors came over years before Nieuw Amsterdam was sold to the British, I am abundantly used to Christian madness.
It's been part of this country since inception.

[My apartment mate takes offense at being described as well-brought-up. She insists that she is common peasant stock, and also asserts angrily that I would have had the bloody vapours dammit if someone waved their white meat at me.]


Rabbit rabbit. Don't eat corpses past their prime.
Sorry, cadavers. Not corpses, cadavers.
Beef, chicken, lamb, pork.
No rabbits.


There are still several tins of Spam and other luncheon meat in the kitchen shelves, and let us not speculate what Iowa will put out after their employees are shitcanned back to Guatamala and points further south.

Apparently Bald Eagles will soon no longer be on the protected list. But they aren't, strictly speaking, edible. Unlike Florida alligators, Texan varmints, or swamp rat from Louisiana.
Or lab-grown meat from Alabama.


Rabbit rabbit. It's for luck.
First day of the month.
Rabbit rabbit.



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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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