A LOVELY GRID PATTERN

When the Dutch burgers of New Amsterdam started planning the settlement they laid out a lovely grid pattern, because they were logical and being Dutch, had both strong rectalinear instincts, accountant sensibilities, and an anal obsession with minutiae. My ancestors. Even though generations have passed since we did that, AND bought the entire damn continent for a little over twenty dollars all of the Anglos need to pay rent dammit seeing as it's probably too late to kick y'all out, as well as making a lovely contractual deal with a local tribe of one shiny coin for the scalp of one of those hosers over that hill yonder (superceding the previous lovely deal of a shiny coin for an ear, because who knows where that ear came from and each person normally has two of those things), were part of that group.

And seeing as for centuries marriages were substantially within the same creed and culture, until five generations ago we all still spoke Dutch, by four generations many members of the tribe could still read it -- old State Bible translation Dutch and either Datteen or Marnix van Sint Aldegonde -- and although we're now substantially Anglicised, we fondly remember that, technically, we still own the entire shebang all the way to the Pacific Ocean. A deal is a deal.

All of which partly explains why I was dreaming in spreadsheets. Sort by bill dates and open amount, with a formula calculating what that percentage that is of the original invoice figure (in case an easy deduction becomes apparent, defective allowances, agreed upon charges, testing fees, etcetera), and make sure that the notes field text wraps around in the allotted width so that pertinent facts about collection efforts are visible.

International sales, though huge, were the easiest. Prepayment by wire transfer before the goods were released for loading. East coast customers were largely a mess. No, I have no idea whatsoever what product we were manufacturing. But I knew that our English and Indonesian correspondents were in town, so it all had to be done by a certain time this morning, when I have an appointment with the physician who did the angioplasty.

At which point, if I'm on the ball, I shall seek confirmation of the names of the entire team in the operating room, so that I can send a thank you card. I had a lovely time, thank you, you were all very nice. Even though for three hours I was out of it.

[The astute reader will remember that Lotus 1-2-3 was followed by Lotus Symphony, both of which were the greatest thing since sliced bread until Excel came along, which was originally a Macintosh programme, before Windows were introduced. Since then Excel has brutally wiped the floor with its predecessors.]

Slight panic mode: could I get it all done before the CEO and his team met the heads of the foreign companies? Especially as the Indonesians kept interrupting to talk Betawi flavoured Bahasa with me (about food, and eating possibilities in SF), and the English had questions concerning curry places in the city (years ago I was connected to an Indian food enterprise, AND apparently I "speak like a civilised person").


Somehow this was all linked with and prompted by the rain during the night. A constant geroesemoes from beyond the window pane and distant-sounding drumming.



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HIGH CHOLESTEROL EATIES

A dream involving toasted tortillas, roasted chiles, grilled meats, pan juices, fresh herbs, crunchy bits, balsamic vinegar, red wine, good company, over at the country place of a friend whom I haven't seen in years. Happy people. Sunlight. Everybody having a fine time.
It was a remarkable experience.

No, I have no idea how I ended up there. Dreams can't really be exlained. Especially great food dreams. And kitchens that seem to involve several rooms, most of the ground floor.


It was a culturally and culinary diverse and broadminded group of people, so no people from you know where, or you know what backround. No snooty rich Anglos, no Ivy league Wasps.


I don't know about you, but my medication related dreams (from blood pressure pills) often involve food, and never involve Wasps. Unless you categorize Frenchmen, Italians, Greeks, and Dutchmen as Wasps. Which the last mentioned marginally are, but they speak foreignese, much foreignese, so they're kind of deviant in that regard.
Latinos, East Asians, the occasional Indian.
Plus Indonesians and Malays.
Regular California.

I'm trying to remember if I associate with any actual Wasps. Three I think. In Marin County. They're liberal, presently angry, and at odds with their surroundings and its dense populace. They would have enjoyed the party. I'll have to remember to introduce them to my friend. Whom I haven't seen in years. They're very much his kind of people.

All three are retired and intellectually vibrant.

Seeing as I'm recovering from a minor surgical experience, I haven't been in Marin this week. The hiatus has proven enjoyable. And I may have finally caught up on my sleep.

Haven't smoked my pipes in days.
This bothers me.



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DO NOT HOLD THAT THOUGHT

Some readers may wonder what I'm actually like. "Surely", they might say, "uncle Atboth isn't as complete a blister as his silly little essays paint him? That must be just an act. A carefully cultivated image".

Correct.

The reality is worse.
I'm actually a hairy ill-kempt savage.

You would not want to meet me. I might offer candy and make unclean suggestions. Come here, miss, you should really try this Commander's Rope Tobacco. It tastes deliciously like old sweatsock (that's Perique, from Louisiana, it adds a je ne sais quois). As well as this mead which has passed its prime. Great with a hákarl sandwich!

Hákarl is feremented shark from Iceland. It is a delicacy. Precisely what all sweet young things need to experience. Life is hard and miserable. Then you encounter hákarl.
Suddenly you have perspective! Life is sunny, and better than you thought!

I lurk in doorways offering strangers hákarl.
It's why you come to San Francisco.

Self portrait based on one of Jan Prokopic's characters.

Jan Prokopic has nothing to do with hákarl.

He animates with a computer.

I am strangely obsessed with fermented fish products. It reflects my Dutch heritage. Among our other peculiar comestibles, besides things which are not quite Icelandic fermented shark but confusingly similar, is salty strong licorice ("zoute drop"), and something called salmiak.
Licorice assertively flavoured with ammonium chloride. Which I like, but you would probably hate. Ammonium chloride is found in guano deposits, among other places.

The guano deposits act of 1856 allows the United States Government to take possession of unclaimed islands with rich guano deposits. Possibly so that the damned Yankees can commercially hold us Dutchmen over a barrel.

Guano is bat pooh.



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OFF AND ON

There is a grimness to early mornings in November. Especially when the weather is not cooperating. Yesterday was cloudy, rainy at times, and depressingly dark by teatime. Today does not look to be much better. But today I'm going to have to take the new leg out for a stroll, because the medical advice is that after one or two days of being a lazy ass with the leg elevated, I should gradually break it in to normal use.

Yeah, okay, no pipe smoking while wandering around the neighborhood. As a courtesy to the specialist who did the angioplasty. Also precautionary, don't want to jinx the healing process. But there are four lovely Peterson pipes from the nineteen sixties or earlier which would be enjoyable this coming week, along with three much more recent Petes. And I've sliced up some G.L. Pease's Géométrie in preparation. I will probably have a smoke once I get down to Chinatown after the follow up appointment tomorrow. If the leg is good enough to hike across town to the medical office, it's good enough for a slow quiet smoke.


Plus I need to be out of sight of at least two Cantonese women when I do so. The first one is my apartment mate, the second my landlady. Both know that nicotine is non-conducive to healing, and both sort of kind of in a way are disheartened by the horrible habits of men.
Most especially when convalescing.

Me is a men. I habitual horribilties have.
Especially when convalescing.

The Shanghainese woman who does dumplings probably assumes that men must have bad habits, why it's natural it's what the beasts do, so I guess I'll go get dumplings tomorrow. There is an area with sheltered doorways nearby in case it rains.


The combination of dumplings, tea, and a pipe afterwards is magic.
Sort of Dutch, English, Irish, and Hong Kongish.
Especially on a wet day.



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TOO EARLY FOR CLEAN LIVING

The view from Nob Hill toward the North East is rather beautiful, especially through foliage. But it was a dream, very likely influenced by blood pressure meds, that segued bafflingly from the landing of a restaurant in Chinatown where a mahjong game was in progress to an apartment at the upper level of the slope. Very spacious and sunny. My apartment mate would have loved the chambers assigned to her. As well as the faint smells of curry from elsewhere in the building.

There are very few Chinese who do not know how to play mahjong. My apartment mate is one of them, and I suspect both my landlady and my regular care physician are others.
I learned it from Filippinas in Los Angeles.

This comes to mind particularly because the current plans are to rip up Portsmouth Square and "improve" it, a project starting in a few months. Which will displace all the olds people playing gin rummy (in lieu of, and similar to mahjong) there for a year or two, then provide them with a lovely social hall where undoubtedly playing cards will be severely discouraged because we can't have that, and nickel stakes might be involved! And they'll quarrel and cuss as they do, and bring in a box of greasy take-out snacks, and what IS it with these old people why can't they behave properly, quietly acting dignified, colourful, and civilized?

Or in any case dress better, smile more, and be properly appreciative?

You haven't dealt with elderly Cantonese much, have you?
Games of chance are part of the program.
As are loud disputes.
And food.

Carefully supervised tai chi and art projects to keep their minds active do seem nice, and are sweet, but they'll rebell against that. They haven't lived this long to take well-meaning lectures and guidance from non-Canto fluent social workers kindly.

Don't be surprised to find cigarette butts in your clean space with all the no-smoking signs. As well as chicken boness, and a water kettle plugged into the nearest electrical outlet.

They won't like the civic art you put there either. There is NOTHING appealling about a child's picture poster telling theme to exercise more and avoid diabetes.

Grampa will be outside smoking some ciggies with his friends.
Smuggled-in no taxes paid luxury mainland brands.
It's what you do after snacking.
Pastries!


So anyhow, the proposed indoor space will have artistic displays colourfully showcasing Chinatown culture for the tourists, as well as well-behaved elderly people making a good impression, plus children being quiet in docented endeavors, all proper. The civic fathers (and mothers) will approve. This is what an ethnic community is supposed to be.

Not loud card games and Toishanese cusswords!



You know, the same old geezers I see in the waiting room at the clinic, I pass afterwards as they're lighting up on the way to the nearest bakery to further the cause of borderline diabetic living. Or heading to a dimsum place to cough over black bean and garlic spareribs and rice.

Before heading to a social club to play mahjong.
For several hours. With food to go.



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IMPORTANT LOCAL COLOUR

Are you beset by spam-callers? When you're at home recovering from minor surgery, do irritating subcontinental individuals call you about accidents you have not been in involving a vehicle you never had with another vehicle that also probably did not exist? In the last two years? For which you were not at fault, and you haven't received a pay out yet?
Steve and Cedric: very fine Tamilian gentlemen oh yes.

喂，死印度人，邊個想聽你嘅廢話？

If so, you too need to learn to speak Cantonese. Cedric hung up as soon as I spoke.
Of course, I could have reverted to English, and asked him or Steve why my groin was orange and prickly. For which the answer would have been that that is where they cut me open to insert a device to root out the plaque in my femoral artery (on the right side). Shaving and painting with a disinfectant was required. Unlike the coronary stent, they didn't fill me to the rafters with blood thinners, so there is no bruising where the medical grade rotorooter rested on my pelvis (unless that orange is minor bruising, but I doubt it).
And I did not wake up next to the moaning woman's room.

[The femoral artery (股動脈 'gu dong mak') runs from the upper thigh down past the knee, where it branches into the tibial arteries (脛骨脈 'ging gwat mak') providing oxygen and building blocks to the calves and feet. It is hugely important, and when not in prime condition can be a royal pain in the dotdotdot. Angioplasty: 血管成形術 ('huet gun sing jing sut').]

So I did not get to watch Animal Planet for seven and a half hours throughout the night.
Yes, I feel somewhat cheated. Hyenas and their breakfast are almost an essential part of the experience. That's what the moaning woman next door is for. Geek chorus (stet).
Apropriately miserable background noises.

The illustration above is NOT the vast African veld, there are no zebras being assaulted by hyenas or lions robbing the latter of their prey. It's a memory picture of what the Malpy Fens look like south of Valkenswaard.

It's a nature reserve. Bleak and scenic. Birds. No flying zebras.

A desolate expanse of heather, reeds, small dirt hillocks, tall grasses, quicksand, marsh fowl. Weasels. There are also lizards there, and small snakes. Plus feral natives. Hunting is not permitted; the hyenas are out of luck.


The advice after an angioplasty is to spend most of the two or three days afterwards resting, don't exert yourself much, keep your leg elevated, and abstain from smoking. And ignore the orange in your crotch. So yesterday I got dressed, fixed myself fried rice with small meat chunks and bittermelon, plus coffee or tea periodically.

What I wanted to do was head across the hill to smoke my pipe after a fatty lunch, but eh, no smoking. And I was not fit to deal with people, having been instructed to postpone showering or changing the dressing on the three new holes in my body till Saturday (today) at the earliest. I did not feel clean enough for the public street. Not grungy, mind you.


Six years ago I asked the nurse who came by at daybreak what was with that moaning next door. "Oh, that's just a demented woman". Well, why is she moaning? "she doesn't like being here. And she's demented".

No hospital visit is complete without a demented person.
I feel strongly about that. This is San Francisco.
We have standards to uphold here.

Alas, no hyenas.



AFTERWORD

My landlady dropped by yesterday with two kinds of jook (粥), an oil strip for dipping (油條), and some dimsummy items. So the invalid is recovering nicely. This was very kind of her.



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BEFORE THE AGE OF CANDY DRINKS

Having just listened to a friend on social media recite the berakha (Moroccan rite) for rain falling in huge quatities for the first time this wet season, it is ironic that sun is shining in through the window. And slightly insulting, too. Which is a datum that unless you are Dutch, fairly familiar with the Portuguese Synagogue in Mokum Alef though not Jewish yourself, a linguaphile as well as peculiarly Brabantish, and living in a culturally multi-facetted city, may not make much sense to you. It's a time, a place, a different place, and a personal thing.
It's the weather we're having.

After yesterday morning, it is obvious to me that both my apartment mate (the person who lives in the other bedroom) and I myself are more than a little bit borderline spectrumish verging on autistic. The medical procedure started around seven thirty. We arrived at the vein and vascular place for my check-in shortly after six. In a rainstorm. Plenty of time. Neither she nor I saw anything unusual about doing so. I know that I like to be way ahead of the appointed time for doctors. And apparently she sees nothing wrong with being there no ifsandsorbuts more than an hour early either. She had brought a book.

Yeah, you know, if it had been the last helicopter out of a burning city, both of us and several of our friends would be on the tarmac with full thermos flasks and umbrellas several months before the first bombs fell, at the right spot, with comfy blankets and correct papers. Plus foreign currency for lodging in wherever when we got there. And emergency numbers. Because someone would have told us to be on time.

In retrospect, the light and shade in the street outside the clinic, as observed several times through windows before and after surgery, was quite interesting. Blues, greys, and pinkish light on buff walls or reflected from smooth surfaces. Apparently the building dates from 1986. So it's four decades old, more or less. Oddly, I cannot remember the hole in the ground that must have been dug to lay the foundations, though that is a part of the city I am quite familiar with. There used to be a very mediocre pastry and donut place across the street.

There used to be many more very mediocre pastry and donut places in this city. Before the no-smoking rules went into effect. One could chain-smoke over a crappy baked thing for hours during rainy weather in many neighborhoods. The hot coffee was horrible, and the company often skeevy, but with two or three newspapers and an ashtray who cared?

One imagines the draughtsmen and engineers in bad donut holes slowly being replaced by nurses and surgeons, plus international tourists despairing over finding a decent croissant, from Geary Street all the way to the wharf. Before better coffee drove all the small greasy places out of existence, and Gauloises or Gitanes got replaced by surreptitious raspberry watermelon vapes and generous lines of cocaine in Starbucks bathrooms.


When ahstrays and newspapers started disappearing coffee shops and crappy bakeries with counter seating lost their allure. Almost all the skeevy late night coffee shops are gone now.
Neither Gauloises or Gitanes are imported anymore.
And they're no longer French.

Les temps ont changé.



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CONTEMPLATING GOOD WOOD

Today was a perfect day to head over to a medical facility while it was still pitch black outside and have men with scalpels and prongs root around in your lower insides. It rained all day. Perfect indoor weather. As a result of my angioplasy I now have a hole near my groing which should heal soon, and a peculiar other wordly feeling in my right leg. Plus general malaise and slight aches here and there.

The typical bachelor regimen for physical improvement after matters medical involves chilipaste and coffee. Unfortunately, a comforting pipe is right out, because nicotine ain't good for the healing membranes or some such. Gregor Samsa woke up from a disturbed sleep around tea time, determined to be the best cockroach he could possibly be. As always, the beckoning prospects of capsaicin, caffeine, and nicotine, promised cheer and improvement, a gilding of the dull light from the cloudcast sky outside.

With profound gloom in his withered heart he understood that mamselle nicotine would have to wait. His apartment mate (a human) was at home, and although asleep in her room, she would undoubtedly wig on to it if he stepped (stumbled) outide for a smoke. His pipes should stay cold in any case till walking was both a distinct AND unproblematic possibility.

Curses, foiled.

Somewhere, a sadistic vegan anti-smoker is cackling. Mean glee.

Tomorrow is also not very likely. I probably shouldn't stress things by wandering around the neighborhood. Healing process and all that jazz. Saturday and Sunday are obviously right out. Perhaps Monday after my follow-up appointment.
In celebration.


I will probably spend a lot of time crawling inside my head this weekend, meditating.


Maybe I shouldn't have had that cup of coffee. It makes me more keenly aware of the fact that the two nearest briars are a Dunhill Bruyere billiard, and a silver banded Peterson sandblast fatty. Splendid smokes. They cry out for attention.
There there, my lovelies, there there.



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THE ODDNESS WEATHER

Keep the leg elevated, and don't do anything stupid. That's more or less what they tell you after an angioplasty when they send you home. Being male, naturally I can't stop thinking of stupid things to do. I mean, why else get up at four in the morning if there's nothing stupid? Anyhow, I had delayed taking all my meds till after it was all over. They insisted that upon leaving I should use a wheelchair. I did not require the wheelchair beyond that.

Apparently they had to do a double-ender. Go in from both the groin AND the foot. One hell of a blockage mid-thigh. Took more time than usual too. So I was right to curse and swear in several languages when on my feet too long. And I can feel good about that.

And I can imagine the utterances from their side when they encountered a foot-long arterial clog down there. Probably something along the lines of "holy crap how did the old bastard even walk with that?!?" Magic. I am filled with the bad juju your mom warned you about.


Sadly, what all this means is that I no longer have quite as good a reason to cuss sotto voce in several languages obscenely to myself all the time.

Also, they had warned me that the leg would feel peculiar for a while.
Which it does. Quite. Not bad, just ... eccentric.

Now, the other thing is smoking. I am at home surrounded by fine briars, that wink at me and pose alluringly. An open tin of Red Flake by C&D in one direction, some Capstan I popped the other day nearby. Big jars af various blends in a bookshelf opposite. It's tempting.

My apartment mate is in the same room as myself, on her own computer. I think she knows I'm supposed to stay off the stuff while healing. I am frustrated.



Having finally had coffee, I am hatching strategems. She will eventually go have a nap. Our alarms went off at four in the morning. I caught up on my sleep while under anaesthesia.

I shall keep me posted.



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TRANQUILITY AND A SHOVEL

About ten minutes after I had given the Indonesian Chinese lady in the downstairs front apartment some fruits and fresh produce (and so making sure she's still with us), my landlady was knocking on my door to hand over some food so that I'll be strengthened and fed before the procedure tomorrow morning. I'll point out that she is older than me, but I shan't tell you by how much. One does not speak of a woman's age, and I don't want to talk about mine. We also discussed the possibility of quitting tobacco, because nicotine hampers the body's healing mechanisms in addition to being inflammatorial to blood vessels lining.

Yes, okay, I'll not smoke from midnight till four days hence when I see the surgeon for a follow up. Shortly afterwards, in all likelyhood, I'll be filling a pipe and lighting up. Because I'm incorrigible, and a bad-tempered fossil even under the best of circumstances.

The problem will be avoiding overly strenuous actions when I'm back at work.


Can one even be called 'alive' if one does not throw heavy cinderblocks at rightwing dillheads? Asking for a "friend", you understand, as violence toward the fascists of the world is not my thing. I am a peaceful even-tempered liberal murderous psychopath.

Far be it from me etcetera etcetera.

Om, shanti shanti, om.

Why, I just want to be alone in my garden with the gladioli and the chrysanthemums. Yes. Butterflies and hummingbirds. Sunlight. Daffodils. Smelling the roses. Lovely fragrant roses. Dense thickly overgrown rose bushes with inch-long sharp thorns that rip the living flesh off, the wargrade biohazard of plants, weapons of very painful mass destruction, aimed at religious freaks and dunderheaded rightwingers.

There are savage hamsters armed with razorsharp claws and teeth there.
Lego blocks to maim the unwary strewn damned well everywhere.
And juicy pineapple chunks for all their pizza!
Ham and anchovies!

A veritable pox upon their cattle!

Yeah, it's a darn good thing that I've taken off for a week. I shall be scarcely bearable, and putting up with the senile rightwingers in the backroom while I'm avoiding tobacco and not smoking my pipes would be impossible.



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WILD OLD PEOPLE

A site I do not want to visit advertised itself on my computer, with a slogan indicating senile passion possibilities and a picture that showed a smiling younger hugely bosomed woman. Good lord. How does she feed herself? Something that big in certain departments needs two pound of raw meat every meal. What do investors really think of older male Americans? Did some entrepreneur convince them we run around slobbering over ambulatory watermelon plantations? I am offended! Enormously!

Nurse Ratchett, I am ready for my tea now.

Just wheel me out to the municipal garbage heap so that I may smoke my stogies without disturing members of generation dingbat; they're offended by tobacco. And they think of my kind as unrestrainedly hormonal and lust-filled. Besides ruining the planet and supporting al the wrong causes, our generation was responsible for 'I love Lucy', 'The Honey Mooners', and two decades of plastic and horrible music. All of which left us addled and sex-crazed.

One major reason to not click on that site is that inevitably it would lead to being robbed of my life savings by fully breasted Slavic women, fully breasted Japanese women, tottering Carol Dodaesque Filippinas, hot Mamba Latinas, and both French and Nordic arguably female persons without a shred of decency in their impossibly voluptuous bodies.

There's a scene in a Hong Kong movie where our hero, a short pudgy fellow, is slow dancing with a tall overly busty Shanghainese lady. That came to mind, as well as that time a friend married a girl from overseas who as soon as she arrived in the United States ran off into the great American outback and was never seen again.

One imagines his wife roaming the vast forests hunting down possums and beavers for dinner. She's dreamed about that all of her big-breasted life, growing up in the slums of Slovakoganggat, kicking tin cans and helpless tourists who strayed away from the group. Blood dripping down her jaws onto her overly generous frontage, trails of ichor gleaming eerily behind her in the permanent semi-dark.


Nurse Ratchett! Nurse Ratchett! I want my tea!


When I stepped outside for a smoke much earlier today a shaggy person, male, no breasts, staggered off the doorstep where he had been sleeping. Quite as feral as the ladies on those Eastern European websites, considerably less cannibalistic and dangerous. And very likely not at all interested in senior bachelors.

Red Virginia flake from Jeremy Reed. It's what all calm and not male enhancement pill crazed mature adults smoke. In a very nice Dublin & London Peterson long shank.

Nurse Ratchett? I do NOT need any valium today.
Nor any restraint devices.
Just tea.



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SMALL UNPLEASANT THINGS

There is a fine line between enough cheap chocolate to make one happy, and just a little too much where it gives one an edge of digestive discomfort and affects one's mood adversely when it wears off. The science is still iffy on that, much further investigation is required. Do not expect a scientific paper; there isn't a large enough test group. Subjects would need to be recruited and their endocrine peculiarities charted, plus ages and weights.
And it's my chocolate, which I don't feel like sharing.


Maybe I should write up a proposal and buck for an endowment.


By the way: the less said about little aggressive dogs and their distaste for pipe smoking Dutchmen, the better. Stop yipping at me, you little bad tempered pooh factory. Both of you. What the heck is your problem? The dogs at work don't behave so. Are both of you just little turdy hosers? Meanspirited? Probably owned by vegan anti-tobacco fiends.

This is the start of my last day as a human, they will be airlifting me to my home planet soon where I will resume my insect-demon form and plan the invision. Oop, sorry, what I meant to say was that on Thursday extremely early in the morning I'll be having an angioplasty of the right leg, which if all goes well will improve my life immensely because I will not be cussing out my pedal extremities quite so much. Also, my friend the bookseller is flying to New York as he does every year to visit the old sod and indulge in kosher pickles, so the next late night tea and Jameson's pubcrawl won't be till December.

An angioplasty is where they stick a long wire down your leg artery and twiddle it to puff up a little balloon at each obstructed area to flatten the plaque into the wall. Technically an in-and-out procedure which doesn't take very long, but they'll be putting me under, because they don't want me twitching on the slab or talking, or, heaven forefend, doing a play by play.

Unregretfully I realise that I am not a pleasant creature, despite my loveable appearance and the anime backpack I often sport. Which holds pipes, tobacco, and extra pens, paper, matches, and tampers.

I'm still upset about that little tyke at the dumpling place who kept raising Cain. A very unpleasant child. As so many of them are. Probably a demon in disguise.
Undoubtedly too much sugar and spoilage.

Someone should take his parents out and spank them.



The bookseller and I discussed pinball, music, the fragrance of grilling meat, kosher pickles, bottles of wine and champagne, and my friend and fellow member of the pipe club, Neil, who supplies the charcuterie for the monthly meeting. Absent this past Sunday because he was in the hospital having valves replaced. Whom I hope is still a pipesmoker when next I see him, not because of the pâté but because I'm quite fond of him and enjoy his company. If he has to stop indulging in a bowl now and then it would be very sad, because of the pleasure it gives him.

Maybe we can just meet for cheese and pâté.
At least for the first few months.



Red flake in a Charatan after dumplings, while wandering around to Financial District. Capstan in an old Dunhill billiard while waiting for the bookseller to get off work.
Then two cups of tea. I have teabags in my coat pocket.
I'm a regular boy scout in that regard.



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PUDGY BRAT WORLD

The dumplings were indeed handmade, but the skins were weak and several of them broke. Such luscious interior fluid! The place was too bright and small for my to lift my plate to my lips. And I really wish the hot sauce had been better. Plus that little white kid having a tantrum may have amused his parents -- oh isn't he precious, the little darling -- but did not add to my or anyone else's eating pleasure.

Still, I enjoyed my meal. Good stuff.
Family-run looks like.

Did I ever indicate, subtly or otherwise, that I am not fond of tourists and their brats? Or just brats in general? Especially white brats. The kids of mah and pah Kettle, as wells as Chad and Janet. Basically anyone who could be a relative of Karen.

Honestly I just don't like people very much.
Alas, the planet is full of them.


Unless you make your own dumplings, you'll have to crawl out of your hole occasionally and associate with screaming brats because that's where dumplings may be found. It adds to the ambience, I've been told.

Also, humans are intimately involved in the production of every single ingredient in the average dumpling. They don't just grow on trees. Sad but true.

Almost everywhere in Chinatown there might be Caucasians with uncontrollable offspring. Some of the white people are very large. Those probably hail from the Deep South or the Midwest. The benefit of lard. And bless their hearts.

We like special people in this city.

And we also like dumplings.

Contradictorily.



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NOT PLAYING WELL WITH OTHERS

While outside with my pipe earlier I saw some one parking her vehicle underneath a sign that told them explicitly to abstain from parking there, this morning till nine o'clock, for street cleaning. That car was still there upon my return. Must be an out-of-towner, unused to the idea that public thoroughfares need the occasional sweep. Either somebody from the hinterlands or a New Yorker.

This disturbs me. I went out to check moments ago.
Yep. The vehicle is still there.
Anarchist.


Have I ever mentioned that, being of substantially Dutch ancestry (despite over three and a half centuries of my folks being in the States), and having lived in the Netherlands from two till eighteen, and therefore naturally given to pettiness and red tape conditioning (we Dutch pretty much invented red tape and all the little petty-fogging rules and regulations that make living in civilized society an exercise in neuroses and minutiae), as well as having been a pencil-pusher most of my adult life, AND being on the spectrum, such cavalier disregard for the norms and values of people who can write citations while tootling around in their little parking control golf carts around at an ungodly hour does not sit well with me?

We have parking rules in this city.

WHICH MUST BE OBEYED!

What is this world coming to? Darn heathens!

Before you know it, that driver will casually toss a paper on the sidewalk, remove tags from matresses, NOT exercise caution when the contents are hot, and start eating fresh pizza before removing it from the box first. Society will collapse because of behaviour like that.
And soon all of them will be fending off armed Mad Max style dystopians and people knocking at their doors demanding to talk about Jesus.


No wonder this generation is on our collective lawns.



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SENATOR BEDFELLOW

The following despicable politicians have no spine, no ethics or morals, and no actual reason to stay alive: Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Angus King, Jackie Rosen, Jeanne Shaheen. Very likely bribes from the Republicans or the insurance companies were so huge that they couldn't resist, equally likely is that Republicans had real dirt on them worse than the Epstein files.


Basically, the shutdown is ending because Fetterman and the other senators can be bought. Remember that when your insurance goes through the roof.

Hope they're happy with their new friends. Because the Democrats would probably lynch them if they showed up in public. Very justifiably. Scum.

They should end up in the gutter shooting unclean substances into their veins and swilling cheap liquour before blowing their brains out.


If we ever end up having a violent revolution in this country, it's people like Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Angus King, Jackie Rosen, and Jeanne Shaheen who will be the reason for it. Their heads should be on spikes.
Democrats must be ruthless. Not chickens pandering to Mike Johnson.

Everything I've read about Fetterman indicates that he's an unprincipled kiss-ass opportunist and a bigot. So that he caved is not surprising. And given that he stands so often with the Republicans, his membership in the Democratic party is a sham and highly suspect.
There is little evidence that he has values that are not dictated by expediency.
Maybe I should read something else.


But I doubt that there is anything that doesn't make him seem loathsome.



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RECOVERING NICELY, THANK YOU

It will be unseasonably warm today, which I do not relish. I had looked forward to putzing around in comfy clothes rather than loose garments, playing with my ceramic pumpkins before heading out to have lunch and milk tea. Yet here we are. Mid-November.
Weather more suited to the red-state hellzones than San Francisco.

This is extremely disappointing.

During the night I dreamed of Valkenswaard. Perhaps because yesterday afternoon the judicial member had complained about his big prostate and his weak bladder. When I was growing up in Valkenswaard things like prostates and bladders had not been on the horizon. Little boys are notorious for being able to urinate with great force and precision, why it's astounding, and many of them take great pride in their urinational achievements.
And can't understand why it isn't a competitive event at the Olympics.

Well, they did then. Decades ago. Now they have video games, which are kind of similar. And for little kids growing up in the United States, school sports programmes often take the place of micturation in grammar and high school, which pleases their parents immensely. Little Johny is off at baseball practice instead of drinking vast volumes of liquids with his weird friends. Good. Soon we'll send him to bible camp where he will learn all about clean living, which we failed to teach him, and the traditional roles of the opposite gender, which will stand him in good stead when he joins a nunnery or becomes an office drudge.

The opposite gender seldom engages in kindergarten pissing contests.
They didn't get the memo. Unlike the judicial member.
Who probably has it memorized.

Do elderly American men discuss their prostate and their weak bladders with their wives? Is it common to do so, or do only their medical consultants and baby sitters get to hear about these things? "Honey, my urethra is farklempt again. Call a priest."

It's my suspicion that a sensible woman would call emergency services and a good divorce attorney at that point. His obsession with football players and junkfood orgies was one thing, but lordy she doesn't want to hear about his renal crises. That's NOT what she signed up for. He was half-way human when he still had a job, but since the factory closed and he retired, he's been kind of off his rocker. Spends half the night staring at the toilet as if it's a mortal enemy. Goes outside with the dog and howls at the moon.

Drinks sixpacks to wash down the turmeric pills because he heard it does great things AND if he's drunk he doesn't care where he relieves himself. Subscribes to mens health mags.
The gym to which he belongs has complained about him.


When I was growing up in Valkenswaard I had no idea about the life American men in the suburbs lead. I still haven't drunk sixpacks habitually, nor stumbled home drunk out of my gourd after howling with the dogs all night. I think turmeric pills are ridiculous snake oil (and almost certainly do not shrink your painfully enlarged prostate, old man). The only things a sixpack of American beer are good for is either washing out your kidney stone (stop eating so much crappy junkfood, idiot suburbanite) or throwing at the ICE agents raiding your neighborhood to arrest the people repairing your roof.

The judicial member is not a pipesmoker, nor a speaker of Dutch. Just a typical suburbanite rightwing American male sitting on his duff watching televised sports and whining about his better half and his lower half. In both cases the plumbing is past its prime.

I am so glad I don't live in Marin County. I just work there.
My ken of suburban living is via senile delinquents.
With whom I otherwise wouldn't associate.
Aaargh, fttt! And p'tooie.



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SOMETHING UNDER PRESSURE

Make no mistake: I am very fond of my apartment mate. But she's on the spectrum. So am I. But her more so. Which means that I just listened to twenty minutes of something that went wrong several weeks ago (which I had already heard before, I remembered all the details) in full detail. Which was not pursuant anthing at all. Now she's on about the most common car colours. And a pink custom paint job.

Everytime I get home from work I'm a bit bushed and need time to recover. This isn't helping, especially because at work today during a break in the game I got to hear about someone's problematic prostate, which had required medical intervention -- it's surprising how many of those people have prostate issues, maybe it's political -- and please understand that I do not regard prostatatic thingy as a diverting subject of conversation, ever, but I had only myself to blame, because for entertainment purposes I've been timing the old fellows when they rush to the loo. Three minutes. Sometimes it's five. Or ten.

If you want to know more about the prostate, and how it's your friend, do visit the Wikipedia article about it. It's quite fascinating, you'll love it. Especially the bit about fibrous tissue, and enodscopic view angles.


Or you could invite me to your next boyscout meet, and I'll tell the little fellows all about it. With family-viewing suitable diagrams and schematics. Bright attractive colours!

Remarkably, the fellows over in the North-East corner (pipe club) did not discuss prostateries at all. Instead, the absence of cold cuts, fancy cheeses, and pâté was mentioned. Neil, who normally gets those for us, is in the hospital with heart valve issues.
We all hope he recovers and will be back soon.
That has nothing to do with pâté.

The condition of their prostates is unknown to me. I have not asked. They have not out of the blue volunteered any information. I know more about their pipes than their prostates. One of them likes Dublins and sleek billiards, another has a thing for Oom Pauls, and Nick has some Rhodesians of which he's very fond.

I think there were equal numbers of Balkan lovers and VaPer huffers.
Not a single aromatic. That lack was not keenly felt.


There was brief mention of dermoid cysts.
We shall speak no more about it.




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SALT OF THE EARTH

You know, I already disliked the Midwest. Then a cleaning lady got shot to death in Indiana by some suburbanite hosebag. Adding even more to my inclination not to visit. Which was already below zero. When foreigners talk about the insanity of our gun culture, they're right. Much of the territory between the Oakland Hills and Staten Island is filled with insane hardly literate gun-loving violence freaks.

Kind of a biblical homicide wonderland.


Old Bill wearing his bib overalls on the tractor out doing the back forty. Everyone hopes he dies soon because he's a cheapskate and a mean old bastard, and Buckaroo over there is thinking of sabotaging the station wagon to make sure of that, but Daisy Belle drives it to town regularly to take her chihuahua to doggie play dates, so he's holding off for now.
Every generation in that family are actually Bill's kids. Every single person, all seven generations living in that old farmhouse.

It's been that way for well over a hundred years.
They wrote an X-files episode about that.

This post is, more or less, a delayed reaction to the classmate decades ago, in my first year back in the States, who told me "we shoot people like you where I come from", and the fellow at work (same time period) who said I should go back to wherever the hell I came from.

This morning I woke up feeling sour. This country is populated in a large part by high school bullies, all of them good Christians, and they keep voting for the scunge. Miles and miles of trailer parks, meth labs, and strip malls, where people play video games and go to church every Sunday for the witchburning.

In the afternoon on weekends they watch the game and scream obscenities.
A vast expanse of creatures from the black lagoon.
Monsters in many examples.


They've all got Jesus in their hearts.



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