ANIMATE SLIMEY BOB

Several years ago a friend wrote: "attempting to comprehend the workings of Atboth's mind is like Theseus venturing into the labyrinth where Atboth's brain is the Minotaur. We mortals just have to make sure we have our ball of string with us so we can find our way out again." To a certain extent, that's what my apartment mate experiences every day. She's on the spectrum, more so than myself, and not in the same direction. And, for some reason, she's fond of me. Despite my bad habits, unlikeable personality, queer eccentricities, smells, hobbies, and slobbiness.

Good lord, this place is a mess!

When I was standing on the front steps having a smoke she returned from her grocery shopping. And asked me whether I was comfortable, did I need new jammies?
Perhaps a warm bathrobe?

Erm, I've got a warm bathrobe, you gave it to me two years ago, and it has not been cold enough to get it out of the closet where it's been fermenting since the last good storm. Besides, this early in the morning I'm still sluggish, my cold sensitivity is still asleep.

ANIMATE SLIMEY BOB

Perhaps it's my affinity for animals. Her room, which is neat and clean and where I rarely go, has a score of stuffed critters. My room, which looks like an ogre's lair, also has a score of stuffed critters. And, at times, I channel for an animate slimey blob.

Animate slimey 'Bob' up there should be portrayed with a pipe, but seeing as he doesn't have pockets, there would be nowhere to put the tamper, matches, and one or two pipe cleaners which naturally he'd carry with him while puffing.

Logic, and important details.




On a different note entirely, I have no idea what I'm doing for lunch today. The only things that are certain are HK Milk Tea, sambal or Sriracha, Chinatown, and no tourists, visitors, or APEC wallahs. Plus people watching. Since taking a scunner to one chachanteng, another being closed till next month, a third one still doing the disposable plates and cutlery that they started during the pandemic, and a fourth being off-limits because the waitress offered to set me up with a friend several years ago, and three others having closed down a while back, options are somewhat limited, and I've already eaten at them this week.

And no, I don't want to go out to the avenues or Oakland.



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AN IMAGINED TEAPOT

Years ago I would head over to Ping Yuen Coffee Shop and Bakery after work to get refreshed, read the newspapers, while away an hour or so, and be wide awake for the movies at the Great Star. It was wonderful, and one could still smoke inside then.
So for the non-smokers it probably wasn't.

Notes: Ping Yuen Coffee Shop: 平園咖啡店 ('ping yuen ga fei dim'). The Newspapers: The San Francisco Chronicle, The Examiner, 星島日報 ('sing dou yat pou'), 國際日報('gwok jai yat pou'), 金山時報 ('gam saan si pou'). The Great Star: 大明星戲院 ('daai ming sing hei yuen').

Essentially that was a continuation of my school years in Brabant. Pot of tea with homework and then the newspapers, while it rained outside and twilight faded to deep dark.
Pipe. Quietness. Peace. And caffeine.

Now that it's turning cold again, it strikes me that there should be a place where one can have caffeine, a baked item or cookie, and a nice quiet smoke. Indoors.

The awnings in front of closed or abandoned shops aren't quite it.
One might want to sit down. Perhaps with a newspaper.
Or a like-minded friend.

As you will readily understand, I am not a fan of smoking outdoors in the rain without a newspaper. It gets cold, you see, and my fingers sometimes go numb. It just isn't very comfortable, and when it rains non-smokers might also want to use those awnings.

One doesn't want refined non-smokers upset at one.
They weep so piteously.



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DIPLOMATIC FINGER FOOD

The bus stalled at Sacramento and Kearney for forty minutes during rush hour because some very important people needed to eat. It could have broken down because the battery was nearly depleted after waiting at Sacramento and Kearney for several motorcades to pass. Because some very important people needed to eat. There was a very real danger of that between Stockton and Leavenworth on Sutter (detour) because some very important people needed to eat. As it laboriously climbed Leavenworth on the way back to Sacramento, I prayed that it had enough power as stumbling up hill with my legs, and my groceries, would have been horrible, because some very important people needed to eat. And it was raining.

Legs. Slopes. Groceries. Rain. Darkness.
Important people masticating.

It made it. The antennas got reconnected. The important people presumably ate.

What is this, the goldarn third world? Central buggery America? Couldn't they have stayed in Kuala Lumpur or Bangla-bleeding-desh for that?

To be honest, I am overjoyed that very important people got to partake of some scrumptious nom-noms in our city in the sparkling company of other important people, without having to mix with the hoy polloi. I myself had a meal earlier in a pleasant environment distinctly without much of the hoi or polloi. It was nice. Should do that more often.

I feel like I should compose a strongly worded letter to the editor.



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SOMEWHERE NEAR THE TOP

The fellow-villagers from the place that's closed for a month have bailed out to where I had curry porkchops and rice. I could hear them talking animatedly about idiots, the communist party, the kuomintang, and vegetables, at the long table behind me as I ate.
When I came in there were two of them, when I left, six.

[Fellow-villagers: a term useful for describing Chinatown Toishanese, rather than Hong Kong or Kwangchow urbanites. And definitely not out-of-towners, tourists, or APEC visitors.]

Mostly in Cantonese, with frequent lapsing into dialect.
Which is transparent, albeit opaqueish.


The curry was excellent, the milk tea wonderfully powerful. The pipeful lasted till I had gotten down to Battery and Sacramento. California Street was blocked in various places for a very important motorcade, Montgomery Street positively vibrated from the honking by irate stuck motorists, and once on the bus I heard the bus radio begging drivers NOT to tell them about the riot on Market Street, they were already well aware of that thank you.

NOT NOB HILL IN THE RAIN

Sadly, the two important heads of state will not be impacted by tomorrow's rain, predicted to hit around lunch time. They will be 25 miles south of here with their handlers. So all those folks trying to storm the barricades will get wet for nothing. They won't disturb the heads, they won't even be noticed except by the riot squad, and they'll end up cold, soggy, and tired, hoarse from screaming into the vacuum.

I myself won't be there either. I'll be having lunch.
A far more worthwhile thing to do.



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PASSIONATE COMMITMENT

Going through my paintings for the last month, one thing that stands out is the number of pictures of caffeinated beverages. Years ago I asked my personal care physician when he put me on certain pills whether this might also mean decreasing or avoiding coffee and tea. Seeing as alcohol was contra-recommended, and he had tried lecturing me on smoking.
Necessary changes in my personal habits, life-style and all that.

Note: I smoke a pipe. He wore a nicotine patch.
So he may have had an axe to grind.

"It's full of anti-oxidants. Good for you. Go ahead."

Okay, if you say so. The point is, I've been relying on caffeinated beverages for better mental health through chemistry, the substance that got European civilization off the ground in the fifteenth century, wakefulness, good cheer, equilibrium, and important nutrients from dairy, since my early teenage years. Don't want to stop now.

It's good stuff.

NOVEMBER 14

NOVEMBER 10

NOVEMBER 2

OCTOBER 31

OCTOBER 26

OCTOBER 24

OCTOBER 17

Please understand that none of these illustrations picture anything with syrups, sprinkles, or soy milk. Nor tapioca balls, fruit extracts, jelly squiggles, and supplements. Those things all lead to tumours, alien babies, and disfigurement. Plus indigestion or communisms.

If all goes well, I shall be zipped to the tits till the day I croak.



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BRING A BUCKET

On the day when Biden meets Xi, it will, according to the weather report, rain. Some people are predicting an immense rain, torrential, huge. The biggest rain you've ever seen, why, everyone knows that this rain is genius level, very stable! All the pundits agree!

Sorry, I was thinking back to the dark ages for a moment there.

But I had best do my laundry today, instead of waiting.

The problem is that it's scheduled to rain when I go to a regular chachanteng for a lunch that I always look forward to, every week. Honestly, it's okay that it will rain on the Xi and Biden's little tête-à-tête -- should clear the air nicely -- but why is it going to rain on me?
I'm not the baddy here.

In any case, it will rain on all the protestors who will be trying to storm the security zone too. They'll be so busy with their hands holding signs protesting overfishing of Longo Longo, the war in Gaza and Northern Ireland, the price of wheatgrass and how it's now gmo and factory farmed, vegan breast milk, and overharvesting of patchouli, to hold any umbrellas. At the end of the day they'll be soggy and smelly (precisely like they were before) but much cleaner, and they will have accomplished precisely nothing other than leaving their pooh, urine, and empty macrobiotic energy drink containers all over. Then they'll go home and get on the internet to boast that they disrupted the meeting of fascists. Here are photos! See, that individual in the background looks Chinese, he could be part of the security detail! Or a shapeshifting lizard alien! Huzzah! No more vaccines ever! Green earth now! Pronouns!

HELPFUL ILLUSTRATION SHOWING THE AREA NEAR MOSCONE

Yeah, I hope they all catch pneumonia. Every single stinking Berkeleyite, Oaklander, and Marinite who shows up tomorrow. It's because of them and their potentially violent tantrums that there are guarded security zones starting a few blocks away, police cars all over the damned place, bus lines rerouted, and bomb sniffing dogs and barriers blocking traffic.

By the way: The bathrooms are for customers only.

Starting at seven A.M. at the Powell Street plaza, there will be "colourful and festive actions that will creatively block CEOs and dictators from meeting." So expect lots of angry radical Filippina lesbians and Berkeley earthmoms garbed in meaningful spiritual rags, along with the usual batshit Gays For Hamas, Nudists For Peace, and Turkeys For Thanksgiving.

Plus (of course) full-body tattooed coke snorting vegetarians.

And tie-dyed hippies from Santa Cruz.

Rainbow keffiyehs.



My plans for tomorrow involve baked fish with garlic and fermented black beans, rice, veg, lots of sambal. Strong milk tea. Errands and grocery shopping, smoking my pipe, upgrading my transit card, searching for something interesting in the sambal department, hugging the whales, more strong milk tea and a pastry in the company of some local people who think you are all nuts (eccentric, at a minimum), another smoke, taking a detoured bus home.
Then having some more tea. And another smoke while killing butterflies.


Actually, I'm looking forward to the rain.
I know how to use an umbrella.



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DONT'T WORRY, EAT HAPPY!

Like biriani, a good claypot rice must be savoured. Unlike biriani, it does not take neurosis and a whole lot of spices, voodoo, and labourious dingbattery to prepare. So it's better. One can order it and receive it same day. A plan of action, correct timing, efficiency. As well as a satisfying early dinner. Seeing as I had not eaten yet, and it was darn tasty, I enjoyed every bite. Preserved meats claypot rice (臘味煲仔飯 'laap mei pou jai faan').
Tender yauchoi stalks on top for colour and balance.

But I enjoyed my hot milk tea more, seeing as I had seen it prepared. Decanting, soggy sock squeezing, repouring through the sock, re-squeezing, and again. The waitress was working by herself (normally there are at least three ladies there), most ably morally supported by the grandfather sitting at his corner table keeping an eye on the door, and after he left an uncle with a cell phone and no interest in the small courtesy plate of chicken a kitchen auntie had given him. A group endeavor. The waitress was a whirl of activity. Everybody got ordered and served on time, the milk tea was finally ready, and came just when I wanted it.

It was darn good milk tea. Excellent.
An intense zen-like moment.

Happiness.


The smoke afterwards carried me through the horrible cold outside, plus up and down slopes on the way home. Should dress warmer, put away the summer coat. The weather has changed. When the cold affects me, non-level streets take longer and hurt more.
A pipe dispells the surreality and keeps me grounded, so to speak.


Autumn and winter are the ideal time for preserved meats casseroles or clay pot rice.
Comforting. The supper for the ages, a taste from the past.
Perfect with sambal. Of course.



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HONG KONG SHANGHAI PORKCHOP NOODLES

Sometimes a Dutch American with bad circulation in his legs needs to step out of the house and get a bit of exercise. Like, everyday. Good for the veins in his legs, his mental state, and his digestion. Late lunch in Chinatown, followed by a pipe of tobacco while avoiding tourists. Because, as everyone knows, tourists spread disease (covid if they're American, syphilis and a congenital sneering superiority complex if they're foreign, plus probably also covid).

You can probably see what I mean by mental state.

Rest assured, I'm in a much better temper once I've done that, and can even tolerate people again. I might look with a kindly eye at your multitudinous offspring. Despite the entire world knowing that American Anglo kiddies are the rudest creatures on the planet until they've had to deal with the real world for a few years. Early adulthood at the very least. Oooh, what a cute little monster! Kudos on spawning!

Nasty little dingoes.

What I would really like for lunch would be the porkchop noodle combo at a typical Hong Kong restaurant established by exiles, like Kam Cheng or the Wing Wah in Kowloon. Except that I am nowhere near there. The only things which are similar are the weather (low to mid sixties, very slight chance of rain), the presence of a lot of people who speak Cantonese and smoke like chimneys, and the availability of hot Hong Kong Milk Tea (港式奶茶 'gong sik naai chaa'). So I'll probably end up with a random fried noodle dish and a cup of milk tea.

But what I really want is those porkchops.
I just don't feel like cooking.

Easy and lazy way: Marinate the pork cutlets in rice wine or sherry and an equal amount soy sauce and sugar half an hour, then dredge with flour or 'paneermeel' (ground toasted rusk). Or dip and dredge. Your choice. Then deep pan-fry, like Southern Fried Chicken, till golden crispy crusty both sides (still tender and juicy within), remove and drain, slice and arrange over boiled Shanghai noodles (粗面) with some yauchoi and minced scallion or chives to garnish. The noodles benefit from a splash of concentrated chicken stock, a slight drizzle soy, and a few drops sesame oil only.

Shanghai noodles can be addictive. All over Kennedy Town and North Point you can see disheveled addicts sprawled half naked shooting them directly into their veins. Erm, oops, sorry, that's the San Francisco Tenderloin neighborhood and some other stuff, carefully arranged for Fox News cameras whenever the red states want to feel good about themselves again.

Still. Addictive.


Please note: A vegan version can be made with thick slices of cauliflower, if you're so inclined. And very white. And have no reason to live. Go ahead.


Two pipes to put in pocket before leaving the house:

Both are pipes I've had for a long time. Very old-fashioned. And perfectly suited to the mild-medium aged Virginia with a touch of Perique which I've got in my pouch. Very much like a kangaroo. With good tobacco instead of a joey. Because good pipe tobacco is very much preferable to the average whelp of many species. Just remember that. You made your choices, they were bad, and I respect that.



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BY WAY OF SPEAKING

On my days off I usually get up slightly more than an hour or so later than I usually do, so just around seven. Yet I am a night owl. Habit and my pill schedule demand a certain conformity. Karmically I'm still a night owl. When you're having too much fun you don't want to go to sleep yet, and I read a lot after dark.

I should also mention that the street outside had fewer crazy people and yuppies at night.
So wandering around occasionally with a pipe is less problematic.

Last night Mr. Siu was walking with his aunt to his car to drive her home. They're both retired, but still nimble on their feet. There are a wife and little dog in the family too, as well as a daughter in law, so presumably a son, but I haven't ever met him.

The daugher in law used to work downtown, but I haven't seen her in a long time.

Upon thinking about it, I wonder how old all these people are. Chinese seldom look their age. Unlike Caucasians, who have a craggy relief map of the Sierras all over their faces by the time they're forty. Bij wijze van spreken, natuurlijk. Minor poetic exageration.

When I take a walk with my pipe, I am the savage beast padding through the malarial jungles of the foothills looking for the bleating goat. Bij wijze van spreken, natuurlijk.

It actually means that my apartment mate is home and I cannot smoke indoors. A few years ago, my doctor was overjoyed to hear that I was getting plenty of exercise because of my walks. Good! Then I told him that walks meant smoking a pipe. Oh.
It overjoyed him far less then.

When she leaves for work I can smoke inside again. I shut her bedroom door, open windows, and become a toad happily puffing until early afternoons in the teevee room. It's my swamp.
I rely on ventilation and her bad sense of smell to cover my tracks when she returns.
But the tiger now needs to wear sweaters morning and evening.
It's getting colder outside.



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REPRESENTING!

Angry radical Filippina lesbians aren't my cup of tea. There were several thousand of them stomping down Market Street from the Ferry Building to Moscone Center today, if the reports are to be believed, protesting against capitalism, Bong Bong, Biden, Xi, and the patriarchy. As represented by APEC. Which is fine. Other than the folks who wish to see themselves on the news, it's just APEC attendees visiting the city this week (who are all being very well protected from protestors and real people). Run riot, ladies. APEC your hearts out.

And of course, angry radical Filippina lesbians are an important demographic.
Our many fine vegan restaurants depend upon them.
As do makers of snow-proof boots.

Blundstones. Chelsea. Clarks. And Docs.
Lovely functional expressive footwear.

San Francisco is ALL about angry radical Filippina lesbians. They are emblematic of the city.

Along with the angry old git in a wheelchair outside my apartment building this morning having a loud screaming fight with a filthy drooling and mumbling African American with matted locks streetperson who had tried to rob him. Which is why he had come back with a crowbar. They moved down the block loudly shouting, no one else around to witness their altercation, because all the local angry radical Filippina lesbians were elsewhere.
Filthy drooling bums, with or without wheelchairs, are also emblematic.
And something we are famous for.

On work days I leave around eight, so that I can deal with the sweet tempered non-lesbian drooling old farts in Marin for a full shift. It's a mission, a handful, my life's work, and a manly job. There was a ballgame on teevee early, so the backroom collectively shit their diapers several times, totally unaware of the angry radical Filippina lesbians, who might've been on a different channel. Ladies, screaming your hatred of capitalism, Biden, Bong Bong, Xi, and the patriarchy along Market Street during a Forty Niners game may be unproductive. Unless you start breaking plate glass windows, no one pays attention. And they wouldn't allow you anywhere near Moscone Center. So the APEC folk didn't know about it either.

Alas, I myself didn't find out about the Market Street protest march until I returned to the city in the evening, whereas I was extremely aware of the game.


Also, there was a meeting of the pipe club. Which was quite enjoyable. All of the attending members, about a dozen today, were remarkably non-Filippino men, with equitable dispositions, not particularly upset about Bongity, Biden, and the capitalists.
Mostly Balkan blends were smoked. There was cheese.
As well as red wine, and bottles of Port.
I drank tea.



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HISS AWAY, SILLY PERSON

It does not feel as cold outside early in the morning as it actually is. The circulatory system is still sluggish, and one stumbles a bit as one wanders around with one's pipe. Car traffic is sparse, as at that hour are also the dog walkers. The man with the placidly dignified pittbulls walks by on the other side of the street; the dogs recognize me better than he does, possibly because of their sense of smell. That is likely the tobacco.

The livid anti-smoker from last night would probably do that visually. She was too far away to smell bupkes. Quite likely she gets upset over many other things too, and is probably a real joy to live with.

I suspect she keeps a dead parakeet in a cage.
Her entire existence must be fraught.

Anti-smokers who have fits at fifty feet outdoors have too little going on in their lives. There is an emptiness there. The void howls. And, quite possibly, their little dog died, constipation and acid indigestion make their lives miserable, there is too much mixed dancing by far, and the happiness of little children offends them immeasurably. They belong in Berkeley.


Very many people in this city have "issues".
For some, medication is the cause.
For others, a cure.



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YOU CAN'T GET THAT THERE

On the internet, some supercilious sumbitch from Malaysia wrote sneeringly that you can't get decent fried rice in the United States. Well la di dah! Perhaps you were in the wrong place? Like deepest bumfudge Arkansas?

Unfortunately, because of APEC (November 11 to 17), San Francisco is presently filled with his type. We're awash with them. Plus the Secret Service and State Department folks.
And narco-terrorists from Latin countries. Errm, I mean 'dignitaries'.
From South America. Yes, that's it.
Dignitaries!

Nakende nondeju.

So sorry, boys, there is nothing here for you to eat, we have no culture and are fundamentally boring people. Also, most of us are unemployed drug addicts shooting up in our dank little apartments when we're not taking a dump on the streets. Best go home. Or to Florida.
Whichever has more trollops and catamites. You'll love it there.

Repeat: Nothing edible here. Please leave.

What I had for dinner was si jiu chicken and hong siu eggplant, lots of garlic sambal. I did not invite anyone from Malaysia, because there was no fried rice (nasi goreng). Why, as an American, I have never even heard of nasi goreng, ever, what is it?
Strange, exotic, and exquisite, no doubt.
Totally refined.

Other than multiple servings of burgers and fries (the American National Food), my diet this week has also included sliced machine cheesefood, very bad coffee, mac'n cheese, hot dogs made from mystery meat, donuts, energy bars and drinks, sugar-crusted fortified breakfast cereals, plus wheatgrass and protein shakes. All helped down with sambal ketchup.

Occasionally I had servings of cardboard. With lots of sambal ketchup.
Or clumps of compressed protein. With sambal ketchup.
Slabs of dead cow. And sambal ketchup.


Yep, best go home. There is no more sambal ketchup.
Salamat jalan and sampai lagi, y'all.



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NO SKIN ON MY CUP, BOYS

Ran into Henry (90 yrs old) and Stephen (mid 70's) when smoking after dinner in Chinatown. Waited for the bus with them while enjoying my pipe. The buses have been buggered up because of APEC, so it was a long wait. We are all inconvenienced. But not crabby.

My friend the bookseller is mightily inconvenienced. What with presently being in transit to the East Coast. To avoid APEC. Which is when very important people from other countries stay in SF with taxpayer funded security.
They've got all of Nob Hill to themselves, we commoners have been told to stay away, and we should feel honoured.

Do I feel honoured? Oh heck yes!

Largely because I won't run into any of them.
They won't come down from the clouds.
I shan't rise to meet them.
Apartheid.

杯鴛鴦

My dinner was excellent. The wait staff were all youngish and Cantonese speaking, and, it being still early evening, and cold outside, about half of the customers were non-Chinese.
I held my tongue and didn't mutter anything snarky about them. Though awfully tempted.

I'm not sure why there are often helicopters overhead during the day. To the best of my knowledge, none of those high flyers are likely to, or even able, to elevate themselves.

All of next week I shall eat peasant food. That way there is less to no chance I'll run into very important people. Cheap muck that costs under twenty dollars a plate. None of them would eat that. Too low brow, not exquisite enough, and surrounded by poor local shmoes.
Also, I am too common looking to photograph for the foreign newspapers.
Dreadful native eating badly cooked potatoes!
Oh, the drabness!



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PAINT, MEMORY

What's stored in the head is malleable, and sometimes covered with cobwebs. The interior of one's brain is like an attic with empty steamer trunks and old rocking chairs partially hit by shafts of sunlight. There is dust everywhere. And there are old photos.

The title of this post is taken from Vladimir Nabokov's memoir ('Speak, Memory'), the illustrations were drawn with the paint programme on my laptop.

Part of the 'problem' is distinctly Aspergers.

The mind locks into a routine, and then proceeds to beat a horse to death despite everyone else having moved on and wondering what you're gibbering about, why are you still talking about Nikes when they've already discussed recently found statuary in Mesopotamia which does have arms, and what pigments they were using back then, which, sadly, contained unstable elements that faded or caused chipping-off over time.

My apartment mate, as an example, has rediscovered a slew of videos on the internet which again fascinates her. Earwax extraction, black head removal, and cysts. So during the last several evenings, while I've been trying to read stuff, there have been a slew of disturbing exclamations. "Ooh, big one!" "Wow, that's a lot." "It must have hurt before." "Some men have really horrible skin." As well as: "Damn, it's all greenish!" Now, I really don't need to hear any of that. I've got my own mental treadwheels.

All flights must end at the unused hangar at the end of the runway.

Distinctly related thereto, situationally:

And perhaps I should mention that motion sickness is a state of mind. Years ago, on a channel crossing to Hoek, all the English speakers were unwell, whereas us speakers of Dutch were happily having coffee and other drinks and gabbing up a storm. We were heading back to civilization! Huzzah! This is fun! Would you look at those waves!


For some reason which I cannot explain I am reminded of things said by our 41st president.
Who was famous for not phrasing his thoughts particularly well.
And sometimes making little sense.


Remember what I said about unused hangars?



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TRAVEL AND LOSE WEIGHT

Over on social media someone mentioned that they're heading to Hong Kong early next year, and asked if anyone had recommendations for a dim sum restaurant? This pursuant another person saying that, regarding dim sum or Chinese food in general, their own section of the great American outdoors was rather dry, a desert, really, nothing but Icelandic bee honey and buggery dried fish. Strewth!

Sun Hing Restaurant (新興食家), Western District, Kennedy Town, Smithfield Street No. 8, Ground Floor. Good runny custard buns, very lively, great food. Sadly, Lung Mun (龍門大酒樓) on Johnston Road (莊士敦道) near the intersection of O'Brien (柯布連道) no longer exists. But I'd imagine people still stop at places near their office for a quick breakfast.
Typically, 一盅兩件。


Decades ago, here in San Francisco, merely mentioning dim sum had your coworkers looking at you like you were a freemason. Especially if they were from the suburbs.
People still do fabulous things with Hamburger Helper™ and Spam™ there.
As well as Rice-A-Roni™.

Sorry, fellow Dutch speakers, there's NO frikandel in this country.
I know y'all desperate, it's why you're on the internet.
And probably how you found this page.

SWAMP NEAR BORKEL AND SCHAFT

Outside of Hong Kong and SF Chinatown, good dim sum restaurants are on the fancy side and often have tablecloths. Very nice. A welcome oasis from the frightful muck most office workers eat for lunch, and far better than that soggy bowl of wheaties many people have for breakfast. My favourites nearby are the one that relocated recently -- haven't gone there since the move yet -- and the one on the busline with a lot of elderly Toisanese, near the fancy dried tonic herbs place. They're know for among other things pork stuffed peppers, and pots of garlicky black bean sparerib rice. Geezers from the projects and old folks lodgings nearby go there. One of their waitresses years ago was slighty batsh*t.
So it has ambiance.


Every damn' ghastly bucket burb in this country has a main street with a golden arches, chain pizza, and sporting goods store. You know civilization hasn't penetrated when there isn't a dim sum place, decent bookshop, or Dutch-style dark-interiored café.


There are reasons why when your kids come home from college during break they don't talk to you but spend the first day back screaming. You exiled them to Iowannee State because it was cheap and gave them a scholarship! They had to watch football and eat cheesy fries! Their dorm mates organized make-up tutorials! All of them were blonde!


A friend is heading to Baltimore and New York for two weeks to avoid APEC
Which is happening here from the tenth to the seventeenth.
I sure hope he's had all of his shots.
I've had mine.


East Coast Chinese food is goofy, but I've heard that they do have dim sum and cafés.
I know there are bookshops there. No frikandel, possibly no sambal.
Apparently there is pizza everywhere.



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AVERAGE AGE, AND NAME UNKNOWN

Allan is not a man, but either blue or an orchid, lilly, or fragrant throughwort: Ah Lan (阿蘭). A fairly recent addition. As is the little one whose name or appellation I do not know. Whom I'm just guessing may be four years old, and has a tea-time snack there almost daily there with her dad, also unknown. A nice mentally active little child, very neat, very well behaved, and rather pretty. She does not drink tea.

At our table, some of us drank tea. HK milk tea. Strong. The others drank coffee. There were six of us there, because Dennis was in town for a brief visit. He's adapting rather well to living in the barbaric sun-kissed wild lands surrounded by extremely few Chinese Americans, plus cowboys and elderly hippies.

I could not do it. Though white, I need a Chinatown for my sanity. Condiments, ingredients, and people who do not talk excessively loudly when in a group and know how to use the sidewalk without forcing everyone to the curb when there are more than two of them.

The condiments are very important. Hot sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, red vinegar, fish sauce, baau yü chiap (鮑魚汁), black bean sauce, and shrimp paste. Black bean sauce (豉汁、豆豉) is usually made fresh in the kitchen while the dish is being prepared. There are several others, but you will note that honey barbecue, sweet and sour, orange, and weird yellow mustard are not part of the programme, nor is mayonnaise, which is the favourite smoo of Dutch people, though a distinct second in my estimation to sambal.
Which I can also find there.

So yeah, I could not live in the gun-worshipping outback.
There is nothing there.

We left the United States when I was two, well before cheese sauce and melted cheese on everything had become common. It still had not caught on overseas when I came back, and where we lived, cheese was worshipped. So I was horrified those first few years. There was nothing to eat, and no sambal anywhere. When I moved to the periphery of SF Chinatown, both problems were eliminated. And no one made fun of my accent.

I suspect that the other five gentlemen have had more Mac'n Cheese by a huge margin. Their American experience had no breaks. Cheese glop is the quintessential US food.
And they're all considerably older, too.


All three of the ladies (Ah Lan, the kid, and a woman slightly older than me) may not have experienced it yet. They're in for a shock.


I kind of want to be a fly on the wall when they have their first bacon, cheese, and pickled jalapeño burger. It's one of the best things here.
Maybe blue cheese.



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REALLY, IT'S THE FOOD, ISN'T IT?

When I got home the plaintive voice of the turkey vulture came from the other bedroom, inquiring whether there were any fatty inner thighs. For a creature that normally should eat carrion -- and in his previous abode subsisted on dust bunnies -- he's developed some quite curious high fallutin' tastes. And I've explained to him that the likelihood of me whacking elderly drunks to harvest their edible body parts is, on the whole, rather slim.
There are laws against that. Apparently.

Those are still enforced, despite what you may have heard about the San Francisco "Doom Loop". And smug maga trolls squawking to the contrary. They've got unhinged jaws.


After a long wait, and a very satisfying pipeful, the bookseller finally showed up. Bus service for us common folk is already disrupted by APEC, and it hasn't even started yet. They're expecting twenty thousand people. Narco-terrorists, corrupt high level Asian functionaries, despotic third world politicians, and their ignorant and arrogant flunkies and lackeys, plus sundry wives, mistresses, concubines, bookies, catamites, kids, and spoiled brat teenagers whining "I want to go to Florida!" As well as asking what this dump is, why aren't there more burger joints, can we put caviar on that, and why don't they have roti canai with melted mentega dengan sambal bilis like they do in Kampong Busuk at the Haji's foodstall?

And of course there will be protestors. Because America just has to be embarrassed by self-righteous juveniles from UC Berkeley, and SF State, and pretentious middle-aged gits out of the suburbs who want a spotlight. So of course the Secret Service and Homeland Security will be all over the place, protecting the very important foreigners from the natives, and trying to limit where we can go, what we can do or think, and who we can talk to or be within three or four blocks of. There will probably be beatings.

I, personally, have no donkey in this fight. I have no need to speak with Datuk Ali Hassan Pencenderungmembunuh or any other Malay aristocrats and towkays.
Zij kunnen allemaal de pot op.

Fortunately, other than high security starting two blocks away, and my daily returning from Chinatown after lunch and shopping being rerouted, the visits of very important people will not affect me. Or my friend the bookseller, who will be out of town for a fortnight, and so will be blithely oblivious to Mentri Sri Baunajis' desperate need for adulation and obsequey.

I just hope the bastards don't eat all the precious sambal.

Or interrupt me when I'm quietly smoking.


It is unlikely that any of them will want to see Chinatown. They already know what real people look like. They tend to avoid them.


Welcome to San Francisco, all of you very important people!

Do you have fatty inner thighs?



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MY EVIL PLAN

During my early morning walk I stopped to observe half a dozen crows happily strutting around on the other side of the street. And now I'm wondering whether I should have a cookie in my pocket for them the next time. Do crows like cookies?
I hope so, because I'm not carrying carrion or stale pizza around with me on the off chance that I can feed our corvid American fellow citizens.

Do crows taste the same way humans do?

And what should they not eat?

Until I know more, I should probably not feed them chocolate chip. Some animals cannot process chocolate. I want them to thrive, so best not risk it.


Also, I do not want them making live sacrifices to the sun god.
Chocolate has been known to inspire that.
Carobs, not so much.

Best case scenario: I end up with a flock of friends. Non-judgemental, and more social than that bunch of people in Marin. Worst case: feathered Republican freeloaders.
Either way, the neigbors will be disconcerted.
The Dutchman is a wizard.


Last year I read about a girl who had a mercantile thing going with the neighborhood crows. In exchange for snackies they'd bring her blinky things. Perhaps I should smoke my Peterson System Standards every morning, so that these birds start finding me extras.
"Ooh, that's an excellent one, still warm!"

"Thank you so much! I've always wanted another one!"

I've already got several, but far be it from me to turn down a gift from an animal.
Don't want to disappoint them. They meant well.
It's very nice.


You will notice that there is a blinky band-cap ferrule where the stem fits into the shank. It's good engineering. These pipes are both practical and durable items which I highly recommend. Very pipish. Nothing says 'pipe' better.

First month I was back in the U.S., before school started, I bought myself one.



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