EXPAND IT TO EIGHT

According to Marjorie Taylor Greene, we liberals (or Jews, Freemasons, deep state secret government, Bilderburgers) control the weather. Which explains global warming, the rise of atheism, childhood obesity, and why so many Republicans suffer from disfiguring warts. Or things like that. She represents a district in Georgia where everyone votes for her because that's the law.

This explains why Rome, Georgia, is the town least likely to have fine dining, and why in the Bay Area we have six seasons. If four is good, six is better. More are planned.

At this time of year it's Early Fall, which means balmy temperatures, far fewer tourists, no hurricanes, and a zero chance of people from Rome, Georgia, roaming our streets.
They couldn't find their way to the buffet anyway.

Two weeks, in fact, till Halloween. I wonder if it will be warm enough for any nudity down on Polk Street. How the locals will combine exhibitionism with politics, which is an inevitable political theme this year, is a mystery. Lord knows I do not want to see any Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Green nudes, seeing as I much prefer Bo Peep and Zombies. Last year it was a bit too cold, and while I applauded the die-hards who were determined to show off their trim figures and body paint, there were very few of them, and they seemed insane besides. Maybe it was just the local drug addicts. In any case, it scared the children.

POLK STREET

What I really miss are the Mexican or Latino gentlemen grilling bacon wrapped hot dogs there late at night. The smell was heavenly, and the resultant product divine. Quite illegal, of course, the local health department severely disapproved of it, and San Francisco, as you understand, is all about law and order, so of course eventually there was a crackdown.
And instead of a veritable feast we ended up with as far as I know none.

There is no street food. Street drinks, yes. And pot smoking.

You would think.

No.



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THE OVERFLOW

When one of the entities that shares your living quarters is a turkey vulture, besides a magenta cat, a little orange beaver, a sheep of refined taste and sensibilities, and a stern teddy bear who keeps them all plus several others in line, you sometimes have to dodge the fates. Sydney Fylbert (the turkey vulture) knows that my feet ache. And he has a helpful suggestion. Turkey vultures in the wild release their bladders on the feet as a means of alleviating problems like heat, ticks, skin ailments, circulatory distress, and, to be sure, bladder overload.

I did not previously know that birds micturated.

He has offered to alleviate my pain.

I must dodge his mercies.


He has offered several times to pee on my feet, insisting that this will bring me great relief and solve all of my many problems. Foot-ache in nasty peds such as mine, he avers, causes psychological trauma, and that must be why I'm such a twisted mean old git. But a solution is at hand (foot), and if I would just stop scurrying around to avoid him, dammit, all of us will be so much happier! The other small roomies and he will no longer be subject to my sourness and bad temper! And I'll reward him with an all you can eat carrion buffet!

Eh, no, little fella. That's a very kind offer, but please do NOT pee on my feet. If absolutely necessary I can do that myself, or hire one of the neighborhood street people to do that for me. We are in a city with all the luxuries and amenities for civilized living, including a multitude of skeevy pee freely bums and loonies.

Now stop following me around flapping your wings.

And I am NOT a twisted old git!


Some of the other creatures observe with avid interest. They do not have sore feet. And they aren't traumatized sick old codgers with horrendous tempers. They are sweetness and light and good cheer, and perhaps if I let Sydney Fylbert take regular leaks on my nasty old lower extremities, I will eventually be like them. Stanky like a much used urinal, of course, and they won't come close, but that's just the price I'll have to pay.


They are willing to make that sacrifice.
Gee willikers, how "kind" of them.
My cup runneth over.



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DO YOU COME HERE OFTEN?

We need to have more foggy nights in SF. I realized this when I considered what one could possibly say to a young lady with an extremely short dress and no panties sitting opposite me on the bus home from the bar. Fortunately it was not my problem; she was talking to her boyfriend, and there were plenty of other places to look. Like at the crazy woman diagonally across. Or the sulky goober in the other direction. Or the floor. My friend the bookseller may not have noticed these things, what with not being on the spectrum particularly far. And we had had a good time at the bar where we went after the burger.

For him: a pint of guiness and a shot of whiskey.
For me: two cups of hot tea.

Walking home from the bus I passed two young ladies wearing pants and sportsbras. Naturally I looked elsewhere. On a foggy night everyone would have been better dressed, and there would have been fewer of them on the bus or wandering around anyway.

I've kind of gotten used to the bare midriff look.
Not comfortable, but I understand it.

How else can you show off your belly button piercing?

Nowadays, I assure you, I no longer drop my pipe when I see nipples.

It took a while.

But the only women I can actually look in the face tend to be fully dressed. I would prefer small women in baggy clothing to baggy women in small clothing. There's just someting about constricting tightness and not enough fabric that strikes me as deliberately unbalanced. Obtuse, even.

Lit my pipe near a favourite chachanteng, finished smoking it several blocks away. Observed several Caucasians strolling through Chinatown during that time. Some of them expressing their unique individuality in habiliment and tatoos. As well as lapses of judgement.


Honestly, a woman in comfy corduroys and a rumpled sweater looks much more dignified and like a real person than someone exhibiting many parts. I stress this.


One of the Chinatown alleys is a dumping place for refuse on Tuesday nights because of the mahjong parlours, one of them has a Christian mission instead of any mahjong parlours and consequently is far cleaner and pleasanter, and one of them has smelly white street people dossing down amidst refuse when not acting far more individualistic than normal folks do. There are also several invisible people tormenting poor disequilibrious types.



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NAPAGLAKAULAKAU

A friend in Java is currently experiencing heat near one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Which, given his dietary preferences, means omelettes, beans, beer, and cigars. Naturally, I worry about his digestive processes, and wonder if he's drinking enough liquids aside from chilled beer. I know from Facebook that he's wearing sunglasses a lot. Sometimes, because of ritual obligations, he wanders around in full ceremonial sarong (conservative old school patterned cloth precisely so) with an heirloom kris seated in a sash-like fold on his back.

One presumes that at those times he's not puffing on a Plasencia or E. P. Carrillo.

Sometimes it rains. Sheer buckets. A deluge.

Time for durian ice cream.


Eh, no.


As far as I'm concerned, it is never time for durian ice cream. Generally speaking our tastes often coincide. But at durian ice cream I must draw a line. The ossue is that whatever you eat comes out in your skin, more so if you are Caucasian. Whatever you smoke, also. A Fillipina of education (Berkeley) and refined sensibilities once informed me that I reeked of Latakia tobacco, and even the telephone which I had briefly used stank of it. I was considerably younger then and like many men of that age more "full flavoured". It was the same era that on a flight back to Manila from Mindanao I had plenty of space on the plane because I had eaten durian for breakfast.

It had not been a deliberate decision.
But in retrospect, I'd do it again.

Napakapraktikal nito.

In my friend's climate, at this time of year, I'd probably not even consider any ice cream. Too much of a jolt of frigid stuff makes the body compensate, so I'd also abstain from the chilled beer. And the durian icecream, eaten slowly so as to not shock the system, would be stinky dairy slurry half way through. No thank you.

The title of this post is sloyong sloyong in a Southern Fillipino language. Sloyong sloyong is a slow amble. Almost undulant. So that no excess energy is expended. Magsiyigsiyig.
Engkau mengerti?



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I AM A CROW

Yesterday, while bidding members of the pipe club adieu in the evening, I stooped to pick up a blinky thing that caught my eye. A shiny new quarter. This morning I saw something pretty on the pavement while smoking my pipe. A dragon fly pin with little facetted stones. Which I collected before moving on. A pipe which I acquire recently has a broad silver band. Nice.

The stuff my apartment mate gave me for my birthday, which we're celebrating today because I was at work yesterday, were very handsome pieces of ceramic by Hsin-Chuen Lin, one of my favourite artists, whose sense of shape is delightful. And an etching of a turkey vulture, which is striking. The bird looks confident and snarky.

Yeah, okay, birthday. I turned sixty five. Which I'm loathe to admit, because it basically means I'm no longer a bright young man. Even though I don't feel a day over forty.

Which is not uncommon among people on the spectrum when they reach any antiquity of age. My apartment mate, for instance, has rather teenage characteristics, despite being considerably older than a high-schooler. No, I shall not divulge details.

And for many years I rather fancied myself very much like the cheerful young college man at Harvard with his pipes and tweeds, tutoring bright young ladies in Latin and Algebra, for two reasons: It provided him with funds for delightful little pastries at tea time, as well as expanded his dating opportunities considerably.

Plus a bottle of sherry on ocassion.

Even at this age I do not feel grown up.

Nor do I wish to particularly act like it.

In fact, the chief bright note about it is that I now get Medicare part A and B, and those dreary phone centre wallahs no longer have any excuse to try and rope me in. Knowing full well that the subcontinental trickster hasn't been born yet who can understand Cantonese, I had taken to answering my cell-phone in that tongue, rather than playing in Hindustani -- which is rusty after all these years in any case -- and hundreds of depondent desis, Rajiv, Deepak, Mohit, and others have sadly been disappointed that they could not get me to grant access to my private information, banking details, numbers, etcetera. Better luck next life, ji.


"Hello sir, I'm calling from Medisham to speak to you about exciting changes in Medicare Part A and B, how old are you?"

"Wei, nei hai pin go? Ngo m-seung tong nei gong, ah."
喂，你係邊個？我唔想同你講啊！


Can I interest you in some Latin phrases?



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THE MURMURING MASSES

My apartment mate mentioned that everytime she heads to Colma/Daly City to visit her brother's grave, it's foggy, cold, a different part of the world. Which makes the cemetery sound like an alternate universe during hot weather, and I can thoroughly understand why there are Chinese restaurants nearby. Because nothing says "let's go eat" to Chinese people better than whole family together, especially when the temperature is conducive. I secretely suspect that for a mile all around the cemetery it's a secret Chinese American party zone.
I don't know, because I have never been. Regrettably, there are no buried Chinese Americans among my friends and acquaintences.

Well, actually, that's not quite true. I was at the funeral of a bar owner years ago, a man whom we all liked and respected, and another bar owner slipped and tumbled on the steep concrete stairs down to the storage area in his business, and there's a very good, even excellent chance, that subsequent to dying they buried him. Nice man.

Over the years I have been at probably less than half a dozen funerals and memorials. Way more than weddings, though. One wedding. Chinese. But unlike standard Anglo weddings, it wasn't an opportunity for spoiled brat behaviour, drama, and entitlement, from a bridezilla.

When my brilliant cousin's kid got married the first time, I was invited, but it was at Martha's Vineyard, and I live in San Francisco. So I sent a nice present and my regrets. The idea of a cross country flight, and several further transit stages, to surround myself with people many of whom I did not know having a grand old time for two or three hours in a place where good coffee, a place to smoke, and barring any decent conversation some quiet might all be impossible to arrange was daunting.

Besides, the chap in question is brilliant. That entire crowd is brilliant. I'm not.
I would probably have been a blot on the landscape.

Uncle Grumpy, by himself with his pipe out near the compost heap.

When I stepped out for smoke this morning it was foggy and Daly City-esque on Nob Hill. Thoroughly enjoyable. This would be a great place for a graveyard and several restaurants feeding off the crowds, but I am rather glad that it is not like that, for purely selfish reasons. Even though that does make a nice cup of Hong Kong Milk Tea or a glass of Vietnamese Coffee more of a hike.

I'm not really social enough for a cemetery.


According to a Los Angeles Times food critic recently, San Francisco is "apocalyptically empty". He missed the dense crowds of Los Angeles, the bustling urban masses of Beverly Hills, and the packed adulating fangirls in Hollywood, or something.
I don't know, it still feels a little full.



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NOT A SUBJECT

Sometimes my eyes play tricks on me. Briefly. Their slight of hand does not fool me. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was NOT a dead or sleeping bat. For one thing, they do not cuddle up on the bathroom carpet. For another, they are nocturnal, and it was after dark. And on the third hand, what would a bat be doing there, and how would it enter? Upon further inspection I saw that it was a discarded rubber glove, black and small, such as a woman with two elegant hands might use while engaged upon surface cleaning activities while I was at work.

My apartment mate, for instance.

Repeat: not a bat. Well darn.

There are several adorable bats in chance-shot videos on the internet.


Bats are by far a better subject than, for instance, prostates. Which remarkably came up several times today. A conversation that took place nearby: 'some times you slowly wake up in the middle of the night because your bladder requests relief. But in the twenty minutes before you are finally actually awake enough to go to the bathroom, your undermind keeps saying "don't pee, clench, don't pee. Then when it's finally time to pee, your prostate says "hah, not so fast, you loser". And refuses, absolutely refuses, to cooperate and allow any passage. So it might take another twenty minutes of embarrasing and painful discomfort while you hop from one foot to the other artistically in slow-motion, swearing under your breath because you don't want to wake the kids. And then, finally, apathetic piddling!'

Not having kids, I can just imagine. I have entitled the painting above 'flooded plain'. I hope it doesn't trigger anyone. Especially not the two gentleman involved in the discussion, neither the hopping one nor the fellow who has decided to just have it out, it's too much trouble, best get rid of the little fellow. His operation is at the end of the month.

I did not contribute to the small talk. Though I could have changed the subject. By mentioning the sebaceous cyst on my back, upper right hand side, or the test results of my recent physical. If we were going to keep the subject at hand medical.


The prostate is a walnut-sized organ that hides under the bladder.
As a man ages it becomes more temperamental.
No banana for scale.


Recent weather has not affected the prostate.
So I see no reason to dwell upon it.
It's not worth discussing.



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MEATBALL HEAD

Yesterday evening, after my Jewish friends had finished their fast -- some of them more observant (and starving) than others -- while I was toothpicking shreds of Chinese roast pork out from between two teeth, I read that one of them had even abstained from coffee. And yes, my heart bleeds for him. I couldn't do it. Stuff like that takes conviction, determination, and, in the case of me and caffeine, a streak of masochistic self-punishment a mile wide. You wouldn't like me if I had gone twenty four hours without caffeine. Wars have been started over less. Of course the aggressor lost, because they were the side without beans.

Naturally some people do not benefit from caffeine. The dreadful old bastards in the backroom at work in Marin, and the people in charge of Florida, for instance.
That's a basket of loathsome irredeemables right there.


I am an equitable man.


I wish all of them ill. Biblical floods, the plague, bowel incontinence, and many water borne diseases. It's too bad we don't have alligators and pythons in Marin, to go along with, or devour, the precious little brainless fluffy dogs and trophy wives.

If I didn't work in Marin, I would never visit the place again.

Well, maybe to visit a friend who lives there among the housecats and coyotes (one of each), and has a cup of tea in his backyard in the mornings with one of each for company. I'd have to find out how to get there on public transit without too much walking. It's probably doable.


Note to self: tolerate the cat. Bark at the coyote.



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SOMETHING INCREDIBLY NASTY

A man whose politics I despise requested that I argue with him over Trump. In front of other fellows whose politics I also despise. Honestly, I cannot see the point of that. I do not have to deal with these people when I'm not at work. Nor do I think any of them are worth it.

Furthermore, why bother debating anything at all with gentlemen whose manners, morals, and ethics I do not respect? Just hearing them whining and yammering for hours at a time is acid-indigestion inducing. The less, the better.

And in his case, he's become precisely the type who would turn one in to the Gestapo.


On the plus side, I got to kill a black widow today. Yes, I know, that was untenable violence toward a creature whose only desire was to feast on pesky bugs, a benevolent shy animal, whom I should have carefully caught and released in the wild unharmed .....

Look, if I did not do so it might have run afoul of one of the toxic beasts in the back room, and I would have had to call an ambulance. Not doing so would risk being accused of bigotry against poisonous hard blowing out of shape rightwing horse's behinds.

So. Grab the bull by the horns. Cut the Gordian knot.
Head straight to heart of the matter.

Because, of course, I'd be the meanie who'd go "are you SURE you got bit by a black widow?" "Maybe it was just a harmless little spidey-widey or even just a sharp splinter, stop being such a little pussy, you tiresome old rightwing attention seeker!" Followed by "okay, if it still hurts in a while, we'll call someone to kiss the boo-boo and make it well!"

In the case of right wingers having medical emergencies or getting bit by venomous critters, and being burned out of house and home in a wildfire, or flooded out in hurricane, one must naturally exercise caution. They're prone to exxageration and crying wolf. And everything becomes an operatic drama, a crisis, why, a veritable disaster! It's so unfair!
All those poor people are getting all the attention!


In other news, I just played a youtube video of Yoko Ono "singing".
To which my apartment mate eventually reacted.


"Jesus F Christ, what is that? That was nasty!" "You're darn right I'm not into art!" "No wonder people hate her!" "Someone ought to do something!" "Christ." "Urgh."
"Does the government know about this?"



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JUST MOVE ALONG

There are parts of my zipcode that might flood during the rains. And I ocassionally get governmental high water warnings on my cell phone. Which, given that this apartment is uphill -- like much of my neighborhood -- are interesting but do not prompt me to evacuate. At my elevation if we have to evacuate the world is in trouble. More and more insane people on a smaller sliver of land.

Most of Florida has reached that stage already. But their bar is low. They started off with less hill and more loony.

Seeing as they've seen through "climate change", which is simply a liberal plot, and have banned any suggestion of it in schools. There. It doesn't exist. That parking lot isn't under two feet of water. It's just huricane season, everything is normal, nothing to see here.

And land slides are very rare there.

It' a great place to retire. Golf courses everywhere, and more Waffle Houses than New York.


They have amenities!


And football.



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BARCODES IN THE MIND

Naturally I had forgotten about the Blue Angels. Seeing as I work in Marin, military jets flying overhead during Columbus Day Weekend should not impact me. But, apparently, they need to practise. So that they don't hit the city by accident. Which they did twice today, setting off car alarms and dogs, and startling peaceful Dutchmen having their tea before going out to smoke their pipes. Who then think malign thoughts toward the sky from whence these disturbances came.

A former superior loved Fleetweek and the Blue Angels overhead. It all reminded her of the bombers taking off for North Vietnam, nissan huts, growing up near a base, and the war. Good times.


It just reminds me of bloody swamps. Bloody, bloody, swamps.
Just a question of programming, I guess.


A friend who works out in the avenues is probably pissed as blazes that he has to hear that racket. Which is extremely understandable. Half a dozen state-of-the-art fighter jets pulling wheelies overhead is a bit noisy.

Wouldn't you much rather have the howling winds of a hurricane bringing floods to your entire ghastly trailer park of a state? I'm sure you would.


Had a nice quiet smoke in a financial district alleyway following tea, when it was all over. I'm suprised that I didn't run into any Dutchmen with their pipes. I thought we were a key demographic. Why, there must be dozens of us!



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FINE AND JAZZED

Got there well before the set time, and was finished before I was even supposed to be there. I've had good luck in that several times. If you show up ahead of your medical appointment, usually there are at least two or three crusty old farts who didn't make it on time because the doctor is always late. Which in my experience has never actually happened. At neither of the hospitals where I go. Nor at the eye doctor's office, which is just two blocks away from my regular care physician at the clinic.

To put it differently, if you show up on time and have to wait, it's because someone else didn't. And if you scheduled early in the day, your chances are excellent. Come on in!

Fifteen minutes afterwards I had already bought a pack of illegal smokes and was relaxing at the Caffe Trieste over a nice glass of jangle liquid.


The Caffe Trieste, as you should know, does the best jangle liquid.


A while latter, suitably jazzed-up, I was enjoying congee and a fried dough stick back in Chinatown, two blocks away from the clinic, surrounded by small older people speaking Toisanwaa, many of whom were starting their day with black bean spareribs and rice.

Oh, the medical appointment? That was just to follow-up on the tests for the yearly physical. Blood sugar is more normal than it's been in years, protein in the urine is much lower, kidney function better than before, the little nodules on the thryroid show no change, lungs fine, the various things in my blood as usual, all systems functioning okay. So actually, healthier than I've been in years. Next round of appointments for the 2025 physical have been moved forward a couple of months so that it's nowhere near the hot part of the year.

I'm fine. I credit good clean living, venting bile regularly, atheism, ocassionally puffing illegal fags smuggled in in addition to pipesmoking and caffeine, plus eating well. Eating good.

Fatty meats, fried noodles, salt fish, pastries.



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GOT WHOMPED

In every hurricane there are always those residents who tell reporters that they'll sit it out, they survived the storm of ninety six, they'll simply batten down the hatches, put plywood on the alligator cage, switch on the generator, and shoot looters. Days later their beer soaked corpses are recovered from the Flutahatchee River and their neighbors elogize them for the camera as a proud individualist who always did everything his own way and scoffed at authority.

He just wasn't the same since Covid.

Once the cameras are gone, they raid his supply of Ivermectin, and steal his collection of superhero action figures. And the less said about Bubba's porn stash, the better.


Here in California, we don't have hurricanes or alligators. Both of those are known to wander around golf courses in Florida, mingling with the mobsters, flotilla thugs, retirees, and senile retired businessmen. Oh, the humanity.


Florida is where steaks are customarily very well done. So that grampa's dentures can get through the meat. In the Pan Handle, many natives have bad teeth, so that too.

The situation is dire.

One can only imagine. Seeing as I don't watch the news, that's all I'll do. Well, mostly.



If I were there I'd have to miss out on my medical appointment today, and having packed in a hurry I might not remember in which shopping bag I had packed my pills. So I might be panicking right now. Surrounded by thousands of other people and their pets.

And alligators.



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A SUPERIOR SET OF AILMENTS

My apartment mate mentioned that some of her coworkers wish to socialize during off hours. Which is a nightmarish concept. She has, several times, politely declined. As one would. Sofar she has not said "oh I can't I'm doing my nails that evening", as doing her nails is not something she would do or even pretend that she ever thinks of doing. And she does not have the blatant guile that I boast -- one time I told someone with a completely straight face "I'm sorry I don't speak English", which, given my somewhat crusty semi-Bostonian or old college way of speaking must have startled them -- so fake excuses aren't something she can easily do.

Side note: in high school in the Netherlands the teachers consistently gave me bad grades in English because I spoke like an American by their standards. They had a narrow world view. My snooty accent would have knocked a native speaker of BBC English (which they presumed to teach) out of the water. Finally my mother (three master's degrees, Berkeley) had a word with them, explaining that I was reading at a college level (Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, Tennyson's drivel and Coleridge's frightful doggerel, etcetera) and what they were supposed to focus on was English ability, and seeing as we only spoke English at home (and she did not speak Dutch) they needed to go piss up a rope pretty darn quickly lest she bring the matter up with the school administration. Given that she was forceful and eloquent, and represented several years of U.S. military (the Waves) discipline and determinedness, they caved.

[Further side note: The wife of one of my father's colleagues didn't like American teevee shows like 'Kojak' or 'Columbo' because the actors were unintelligible. They didn't speak English, what was that, some goofy urban American patois?]

You can probably understand the hauteur and no-nonsence authority with which I can utter the phrase "I'm sorry I don't speak English" when needed. And I dare you to debate the matter. I have three teachers ("English experts") who would back me up.

All of this comes to mind because on a morning walk with a pipe in the fog on Nob Hill, I do not respond well to a rando hollering "hey" in my direction. That's my quiet time, I do not have a dog, and striking up conversation pointlessly is not on my agenda.
Also, I am not at all social at that hour.


"I'm sorry, I don't speak English"


At least the three gentlemen whom I will not be encountering today because I don't feel like going to the bakery for the next few Wednesdays despite the excellent egg tarts and charsiu sou have an excuse for not being enthusiastically social. All of them are deaf, one is slightly off kilter, and one is somewhat disagreeable. The pleasantest one of the fellows is liable to mishear nearly everything you say, and the off kilter individual seems to have problems understanding my English pronunciation. Which is in a way very San Franciscan.
Hot and hat. Beer and bear. Clinch and clench. It's an accent thing.


Some people are not neuro-typical or extroverted.
Nor, for that matter, social.



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OLD TIMES, OLD TIMES

For the first time in slightly more than a week I have been able to enjoy my feet again. The effects of the extreme heat that lasted several days are gone, the swelter is blessedly over, there's a chill in the air, and the fog is back. Today was altogether lovely. My personality is sunnier. But please bear in mind that I still actively dislike most of the world.

Good weather simply means I'm more alive, more vibrant, and much more able to dislike and downright despise all the cretins out there and their repellent retrograde primitive cesspool cities, states, and countries. Capisce?

Not that I want them to suffer. Unnecessarily.

I have a little list. Most of mankind is on it.


All of this jumped sharply in to focus when I saw an Olive Garden "endless pasta bowl" advertisement on the overhead teevee at the bar where I was having a cup of tea and my friend was sipping a Jameson's Irish Whiskey. Normally I like images of food. But good grief what is that muck? Do they use constarch and colouring? Shampoo?
Bleh and feh. An entire world of bleh and feh.

Earlier, I had been on the usual weekly rat-viewing walk through C'town alleyways.
And at times I felt that rather than being the watcher, I was the watchee.

I did see one small cat, three feckless street people, and a man having a vicious argument with a person entirely in his own head. And several military gentlemen, because fleet week is back. Plus the little old lady who insists on staying on the street where she's comfortable, rather than in housing among the other discarded elderly.


Earlier, when I had a late lunch at a regular haunt, an old gentleman had remarked 'kam ngaam ge' (咁啱嘅 "how nice", "so fitting and pleasant") when I arrived. He's been going there for a while himself, our visits often coincide. I've also seen him at different places.
We don't talk much, but greet each other. Neighbors in a sense. Same neighborhood.


My friend the bookseller is at home now having some bread, cheese, and beer. And looking up all the music of DakhaBrakha, which is hard to describe. Ukranian. Slavic rockabilly?

I'm planning to go out and have the last smoke of the evening.
Red flake in a Dunhill Shellbriar billard.



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URBAN DARKNESS

According to the loser of the last election, avidly believed by millions of slobbering peasants, our cities (San Francisco, Chicago, and New York) have become hellholes which are crime ridden drug infested terror filled dumping gounds with huge bloodshed, chaos, and violence, delug ed with millions of illegals, drug dealers, human traffickers, bloodthirsty terrorists and savage gang members, pedophiles, stone cold killers, people are shot crossing the street to buy bread, teenagers are cut to shreds, and residents lie in kitchens with slit throats.

Yes. This is all true! Today my throat was cut be a teenage pedophile who wanted my bread. A stone cold illegal killer who savaged me while I was buying drugs from a communist.
He's now human body-part trafficking in my kitchen. Oh, the sheer inhumanity.


Tourists, avoid our cities: San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.
The rent is too high and the pizza isn't worth the risk.


It's been ages since I had bread.

At least since Saturday.


Delicous breakfast pastries don't qualify as bread.
Had one Sunday morning, but it doesn't count.
Stay away. For heaven's sake, stay away!



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THE SITTING

Yesterday was, of course, unbearably hot. Despite DeSantis and Trump saying that climate change doesn't exist and it's all a commie plot etcetera. That big hurricane barreling down on Trumpistan is just your imagination don't think about and just keep repeating 'la la la' and keep your eyes closed boys. Unbearable. And the icing on my biscuits melted.

In the evening I took the bus to a street where I know a bench, where it was cooler than my apartment, and enjoyed a long smoke in a full-bent 5102 Dunhill county.
The world seemed miles away for a while.

This being San Francisco I am surprised that none of the pedestrians harangued me for killing butterflies and little kittens and children by smoking in public.

Which was very enjoyable. I do it a lot.
Piles of little corpses.


Anyway, I discovered two things today: When you are on your feet all day during work in this heat it's nearly impossible to get up from sitting on the ground because of muscle ache and bad circulation made unbearable by the temperature, AND there are mumerous women with truly lovely legs walking their dogs in the cool of the evening wearing shorts when your sitting on a bench with your pipe.


Honest. I had taken a sit bath several hours after showering to cool down, and had trouble getting up. Nightmare vision of my apartment mate returning home and finding a naked wet white guy grunting on the floor. She's a refined woman, Cantonese, and she does NOT need to see that. No more baths in the heat. Just showers henceforth.
My legs work better in cold weather.
They hurt less too.

Another thing I discovered or realized is that I have no head for marketing. During my siesta in early afternoon (not having slept decently for an entire week I took a nap), I dreamed of a brand new product which while dozing seemed like a brilliant idea. Choco-Pussy Biscocho. When awake again, I realized that the name was problematic for a number of reasons, the proposed package illustration more so. Caramel glazed chocolate cookie halves held together with a raspberry goop, dipped in dark chocolate shavings.

They'd probably be great for afternoon tea time.

These biscochos are yummy!



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BANGERS AND MASH

In protest at the English having become a bunch of bigoted rabid anti-Semitic sods (there are terror-supporting marches with tens of thousands of proper middle-class fanatics in London and elsewhere every weekend), I shall henceforth abjure and boycott all British foods. That is to say, I would. Except that there is so little edible food from that primitive godforsaken place that in effect I've been doing so for years.

It still surprises me that they're as overweight as Americans.
How do they do that?

I cannot imagine that a solid diet of baked beans in a tin, mushy peas, and greasy fries has that much appeal that one would or even could over-eat over there.

Also, they invented the Spam fritter. Which is an abomination.
If it weren't for acid indigestion it would result in intestinal blockage.
Plug you up something solid.


And I particularly remember what they served as a 'chimichanga'. I was overjoyed at the prospect of edible food, something with flavour, and bitterly disappointed at the stuff they placed before me. Unbelievable.

So, sadly, I cannot boycot their food. I wouldn't touch the nasty stuff even under the best of circumstances. Same counts double for Scottish food (hate-filled yobbos in Glasgow), and Ireland (Dublinites are a bunch of bloody socialist wankers).

Altogether, I am not surprised that when Tolkien invented Orcs he based them on the natives. Hobbits, by the way, are basically what results after generations of breeding the syphilis and viciousness out of Orcish stock. They are smaller, and more defective, but they're basically the fluffy tea-cup poodles of Middle Earth. With a few bad habits, to be sure.
Over-eating being one of them. Plus armpit lice.


The English are known all over the continent as messy drunks.
As well as largely unintelligible, and arrogant.
And they smell bad.


Hairy feet.
Soggy chips.
Tepid beer.



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NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================