DRESSED FOR SUCCESS

One of the best pipe smokes ever while dodging the nuts. From the restaurant down to the Embarcadero Center there was a plurality of them in every block, recognizable in most cases by their habiliments. Now, I am not exactly a fashion plate myself, but I could have been in Paris strutting down the catwalk by comparison. Despite being a slightly rumpled old coot.

That is to say, I don't look like an extra in a mediaeval epic.

Nor, and I stress this, do I look perverted in any way.

I pride myself on not radiating skeeviness.

Rumpled, yes. Disreputable, no.


So even though I have a pipe I do not look like a damned Hobbit. And quite unlike Captain Haddock, I am not a bad-tempered alcoholic. Too trim to be Santa.


Lunch was something somewhat simple and common-place eaten while sitting at a counter in Chinatown: Flat fish chunks with eggplant over rice (茄子龍脷飯 'ke ji lung lein faan), consumed with lots of chili paste, washed down with plenty of tea.
The breakfast, lunch, and dinner of champions.

Happy as a clam I lit up after leaving, away from the door so as not to displease anyone in the restaurant. Puff puff. The loonies appeared once I got into the Financial District, where besides living on the street they might also work. It's been a few years since I had an office job down there, so I don't know what bar they have to reach or what the qualifications are that get people hired down there. Who am I to judge their appearance? That seems so classist and disabling.


Once you cross Montgomery Street, the entire place smells like sewer. Much more so near Battery Street. I guess some people dress accordingly, which is very wise of them.



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ENLIGHTENMENT IN SHORTS

Some parts of the country face heat warnings today, with temperatures over ninety degrees. San Francisco is not one of those places. We're going to be mid-sixties at best. Never-the-less, there will be people walking around in tee-shirts and shorts, because, you know. Gotta show off them tattoos. Especially while walking Ralphie. Ooh, look at me, I've got meaningful skin art AND a French bulldog, I'm very special. Not buff. Not attractive in any way, or even decorative if I keep my mouth shut, but special. This tattoo marks the first time one of my clients reached satori!

Dude, you're a g-ddamned junior stockbroker. Your clients NEVER reach satori.

Point is, we're not very warm here, and yet there are some people who insist on dressing themselves as if this were California. The nerve of them!

And by the way, I hate shorts. On most people they look rather silly, and on older men they are almost always appalling. Pole dancers and marathon runners are the only people who should wear them, possible exception being little kids. Tourists, never. This isn't Malaga, we have no Watney's Red Barrel, we are not hosting flamenco for foreigners, and if everything works out right there will not be previously frozen peas on your plate. We do have tea. Very likely not made properly, luv, but this ain't Brighton. Points for catching all those references.

No, I'm not jealous. I have no wish to show off my gams.
And neither should you.

That being said, I do enjoy the visuals of nice legs passing by. They're usually never mine, for aforementioned reasons. Nor anyone I know. No, I shan't go over and introduce myself.
It always rains on that parade, I am old enough to know that.

No, let's NOT exchange phone numbers.
That leads only to spam.

[Just got a call identifying itself as "Jason from Final Care Services" about an unallocated amount from 2025 ..... Which seems to be ninety plus percent of all the calls I ever get. Just for that, I think I'll refuse to die. So there!]

Word to the wise: if you search for "lovely thighs" on the internet, you are likely to get news articles about diet aids, excercise studios, pills, deep tissue massage, and whatnot on your MSN Start Page. And Facebook will seed your feed with sponsored content about all of that plus related videos. You don't need that. Because I am aware of the algorithm and its evil ways, I never search for lovely thighs.

The character above is satori (悟 'ng') written in sealscript. Feel free to have it engraved upon your dermis. Unless you live in Berkeley where everyone is a free spirit, most people who can read it will think you're an idiot. But it's meaningful, significant, and deeply spiritual, almost at the same level as burning sage and chanting.

I do not like your French bulldog. And your Grateful Dead tee-shirt needs a wash.
For some reason I have to think about Limburger cheese now.


Let's not do lunch.



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AND THEN THE ZOMBIES

Perhaps it was undiplomatic of me to kvell about the lovely packs of ciggies on the bus, but Chinese cigarette packs are sometimes very beautiful and artistic. And I had just acquired not only yellow crane pavilions (two types) as well as noble smoke. My elderly friend who was heading uphill is, sadly, a vehement non smoker. She can't understand either the pleasure of tobacco or the savage joy of smuggled-in merchandise.

I have a nasty suspicion that she may also have dietary hang-ups. That type. We've often talked about boats and libraries, as well as broken wrists, knees, and loose linoleum.

We have not spoken about marijuana. Like many white people she probably holds that it is therapeutic. But not quite to the extent of averring that it's green, hence good for the planet, mystically beneficial, and grown by little nature men in the Amazon who recycle, and hug trees and dolphins.

Or is that Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity Counties?
Those also are mystical places.


More assault rifles, explosive booby traps, and pesticide run-off than any other place on the planet, and a criminal hippie population of around a quarter of a million hardcore law breakers and occasional murderers. Many of whom are vegan or vegetarian.

The city of Eureka has more mega-violent aquarians than even the backwoods and hollers of Kentucky and Tennessee. Eyes bloodshot with viridian haemolymph.
Tofu-snarfing, tie-dye wearing, tensed trigger fingers.

After lunch I had smoked my pipe before doing my errands and shopping, and probably still whiffed of tobacco. Which, please note, smells far far better than marijuana or patchouli.

Good pipe tobacco inculcates and reflects mental stability and self-control, and contributes mightily to civilization and an intellectual approach to many things. Whereas marijuana leads to sloth, slack jawed drooling, violent outbursts, and the adoption of heathen practices. After huffing a doobie, the afflicted deviant looks for all the world like Mitch McConnell being wheeled through the Capitol Building mouth slightly open in an idiot grin, eyes dull.
There is no spark of mental acitivity evident whatsoever.

Mike Johnson is also getting there.
Damned Louisiana deviant.
Rictus grin.



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OWNING THE LIBS

Today will be quite pleasant. Shan't doomscroll much. Reading about the bozos currently in charge of the United States is not good for the psyche. And, in all honesty, I do not want to know every single detail of Kash Patel's traumatic experience with farmyard animals, nor Pete Hegseth's strange adventures with small Latin American fishing vessels.
Or whether they are in the room with him now.

I'm with big tech and President Schitzispantz on AI.
Natural all-American stupidity is ruining us.
Let's give the machines a chance.


Years ago a Punjabi told me "sab Delhi-main bakri-chot hai". It turns out that he may have gilded the lily by eliding over the bigger picture; not just Delhi, all of Gujarat, Bharat up to Lahore, and probably every single Patel too. And it's still spreading.
Washington main bakriyan, murghiyan, aur kutte, w'al jamal .....

But your cats are safe. The FBI and Kash Patel don't know about them.

Which, conclusively, proves that it's all a plot by 'Big Feline'.
Ken Paxton and Ron De Santis may be right.
It's a disgusting conspiracy.

Reminds me to never go into politics, religion, or banking.
Such behaviour is probably obligatory in those circles.

Conceivably the FBI has video tapes of Washington's elite misbehaving with their four-footed friends, going out on the town, getting stinko drunk at every bar on the Beltway, overturning garbage cans and scrawling rude slogans or gang symbols on abandoned buildings. Before going up to their penthouse to snort lines of cocaine and engage in doubtfully consensual behaviour. Loudly, passionately, destructively.

FBI functionaries are jealous; why can't they do that?

Now, thanks to Kash "crate of cheap Bourbon" Patel, they can.
Truly little Baby Jesus takes care of his flock.
Let us all pass the ammo.
Hallelujah.



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IT'S ALL ONE BIG BUCKET

The bookseller says the last three or four days have felt "off". And from his account of them, that seems to be right. Naturally I didn't notice because I've already come to terms with this being the stupidest timeline. Everything is "off".

And I'm not even talking about our president blaming Zelinksi for the price of oil, or Kash Patel wanting to "protect the victims of bestiality" by allowing perpetrators to join the FBI.

Which is pretty damned funny in a sick way.
Are they close relatives, Kash?

The bookseller also mentioned that he has felt somewhat out of touch with much of modern entertainment since around 1993. Particularly music. This was at roughly the same time as he recounted being in a line for the pissoir behind several old gentlemen with prostate problems or narrow urethras, which is why intermission was hell.


"Some young men think that the cinema is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boy, it is all Hell!"
Billie T. Sherman, at the Casbah Theatre.


Mr. Sherman, of course, advocates burning down every men's room in Georgia. With people still in them. And he's right. Everyone in Georgia should piss in a bucket. Just my thoughts.

Here in San Francisco we need a bucket on every street corner. Not just for skeevy types and people in the entertainment business, but also for foreign tourists, who go around asking shopkeepers if they can use their bucket and moaning about how hard it is to find a bucket in this city. Also in movie houses, where the number of pissoirs is insufficient for an intermission shorter than an entire hour given that so many film buff old geezers have urinary tract problems or lazy bladders. Or gigantic prostates.

While smoking my pipe and waiting for the bookseller to get off work, several people who had visited Becket Street outside the projects for bucketing strolled past zipping up their trousers, and a few "eccentrics" dithered up and down the block just beyond the light. Beckett Street sometimes is a public bucket, and has also been known for vagrants smoking crack or getting right bent on other substances. It's okay. He's just admiring the shape of your skull. Mayor Lurie, who promised to make the city great again, has sofar simply ripped up trees all over the place and chased the layabouts away from the shopping district.

The karaoke place was full. For the price of bad singing you can use their unisex bucket. The hamburger joint's bucket is out of order. It's been years since I've used a bucket at either the bail-out bar, or the bail-out from the bail-out. Where there must be a bucket.

I think the reason why so many young American women like seedy bars and karaoke places is because they have buckets and you can do all your bucketing in private, whereas Beckett Street has windows. That kind of detracts from the pleasure.
Of bucketing. Which otherwise is a joy.



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CONFIRMATION OF THE HEART

Well, we've confirmed once again, that I have a heart. Unlike Doctor Zoidberg in Futurama, who has two, three, or four of them. So at least one. Next month we'll check to see if I have a brain (carotid doppler), as well as seeing whether the lower appendage on the right is, in fact, a pedal extremity (lower arterial doppler, dexter side).

So I'm in better shape than the chap I met on the bus who had also been to see the same cardiologist, who in a relieved tone informed me that he was alive. Well yes. But do you have a heart? I did not ask him that question, as I felt that if he didn't it would be rude and hurtful, and if he did he would have mentioned it, or for some strange reason wanted to keep that information to himself.

Prying, in any case.

It takes an hour to get from my cardiologist's office in Boonduck near the park to a bacon cheeseburger in Chinatown. After getting off in Civic Center, you need to walk past three people smoking crack and an equal number of skeevy alcoholics, and catch the Market Street line. Riding which is an adventure. Then the number 30, with a whole bunch of Chinese desperate to get out of crazy town.

As are we all, sweetheart.

Too many tourists.

My cardiologist believes we should continue the Xarelto (rivaroxaban) 2.5 mg twice a day beyond November, when they were praescribed after the right lower angioplasty. I'm fine with that; they seem to benefit the bowels, though that isn't their actual medical purpose. I am all for anything that improves quality of life, like continuing to be alive, as improved bowels do. Let's hear it for the bowels. Which are, as you know, underneath my heart.
Hearts. Whether one, two, three, four, or more.


I have an appointment coming up with my primary care physician soon, which is a follow-up and feed-me-back of the yearly physical. During which I will have to subtly and discreetly try to find out how many hearts I have, and do they all have seperate bowels or do they share.

There is evidence that they share.
Which is very efficient.



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TANGY WITH A FAINT HINT OF SWEAT

When I got up at three for a necessary visit to the loo (which is not age specific, I realize, as many people of all ages do that all the time in the dark), I caught a glimpse of the cat sitting in my favourite chair in the teevee room leaning over and sniffing the pipe I had smoked after a late lunch yesterday. The cat doesn't exist, being only a figment of my dream state. But the pipe does. A bent bulldog sandblasted Baronet from GBD, so not one of the older pieces. It's a very touchy-feely object. Perhaps the dream-cat likes the faint hint of red Virginias adhering to it, since it cannot possibly recall the meaty bits of the meal that preceded the smoke.
And cats aren't into the touchy-feely phenomenon the same way as humans.

A human will walk through a museum gazing at the displays thinking to him or herself "the Sumerians were indeed fascinating ooh there's a rotund statuette when's lunch did they have hambergers in Mesopotamia perhaps not, and no ketchup", whereas the cat will wander past the artifacts with a strong temptation to knock everything over because it irritates him and there are no mice.

Humans do not lament the absence of rodents.
We're quite peculiar that way.

I am still upset that there is no mouse-flavoured canned catfood.
It seems like such a natural and logical development!
Cat food companies must be stupid.

When I later got back from the loo I was more awake, and the figmentary beast was gone. Nothing had been pushed onto the floor, which proves either that he's a ghost, or extremely well-behaved. The pipe was still there, on top a stack of books which I really should revisit, despite that being a convenient place for a small tea-tree and a cup of coffee when I'm plonking on the computer.


There is a tall Dunhill humidor near it, which would hold up to forty cigars if it didn't smell of lavender inside. The wife of the previous owner had at one point probably thought to herself that rather than smokables it was the ideal place for those expensive bars of soap brought back from the south of France. Her husband, being a sensible sort one imagines, did not feel inclined to fight her insanity. After all, it had made her marry him. Or something like that.
A lovely wooden box. Lavender fragrance. Un savon extraordinaire.

I acquired it second-hand, despite the weird smell.
Because it's pretty and I'm a packrat.
And I like boxes.


When I got up for real this morning, after fixing myself some coffee I sniffed the bowl of the pipe before doomscrolling. Mmm, delightful. Perhaps I'll fill it again tomorrow.



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SWEEP SKETCHING

When you show up for your appointment, half an hour early, because you know you still have to register at the front desk (登記處''dang gei chü), there will likely be a vista of elderly people before you who don't really want to be there. Because there are restaurants nearby, they can mentally hear the clickity-clack of chopsticks and smell the fresh dim sum. What with being a stubborn old coot of Dutch extraction whose idea of breakfast consists of coffee and smoking the first pipe of the day -- before or after doomscrolling on my computer, because I'm flexible that way -- the allure of a crowded teahouse or bakery did not tempt me. I showed up nearly an hour early altogether, and was quite happy to be there.

And yes, thank you Miss, I alreay know my way around. The radiology department is second floor basement level (放射科係地下，二樓 'fong se fo hai dei haa, yi lau'). I think one of the reasons I like heading over to the hospital is because if you show up on time or early for any business there, understand the routines and the reasons for what will take place, and are reasonably courteous and polite, they are incredibly warm. Being on-time, well-informed, and reasonably courteous are not, strictly speaking, a key characterisitic of the demographic. Which in this case is grumbly or worried elderly Cantonese who often find it hard to the point of impositional being anywhere on time for anything at all.

A few years ago I waited patiently behind an old couple who were extremely upset that the nurse could not find them in the system. They were there! Why was she so ineficient?

Mrs. Tam, your appointment is in a different department on a different floor at 11:30 AM (not 9:00 AM, on Wednesday (two days hence), and not today. I'm so sorry. And don't forget to sign in at the front desk well before then. On Wednesday. Thank you.

So anyhow, I was down in the "Imaging Department" (放射部 'fong se pou') getting an MRI scan (磁力共振掃描 'chi lik gung jan sau miu') of my chest area at the appointed time. It didn't take long at all. When I see my doctor again we'll review the good or bad news.
And I feel fine, so this was mostly precautionary.

Ended up directing an old gentleman to the elevator, and then redirecting him so that he could escape to the outside world afterwards. Yes, truly, hospitals with very large clear signage at the right spots in both languages are frightening places.
Who knows what can happen if you're there!

Actually, your doctors, the helpful staff, and smarty-pants Dutchmen who compulsively use the internet for information and entertainment do. The last mentioned can also prevent you triggering the fire alarm accidentally.

[Fire alarm: 火警、警報 'fo ging, ging pou'.]



Note: magnetic resonance imaging is more formally called 電腦斷層掃描 ('din nou tuen chang sau miu'), meaning "computerized cross-sectional sweep-sketching", rather than 磁力共振掃描 ('chi lik gung jan sau miu') which means "magnetic force shared excitement sweep'sketching".


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SMELLING BAD

My apartment mate, as she sees it, has two objectives this evening. The first is to avoid getting bit by the mosquito, to which end she is now over in her room cowering under her mosquito net with a good book and stuffed animals. The second, which she will put off till tomorrow or later, is to find a bath soap or shower gel which makes me smell like a Chinese woman. See, when she noticed the mosquito in the teevee room, I told her I did not have to worry, as she was the one who smelled good, whereas I stink a bit. What with being white, male, and a smoker. So I'm fine. The mosquito won't bother me.

She is probably jealous of my fine reek.

Part of which is because of work today.


At one end of the building cigar-chomping senile delinquents drooling into their oatmeal while watching the game, at the other a passel of pipe smokers holding meeting, as they do every month. With Scotch whisky and champagne, in addition to other substances of an edible or potable nature.


I, of course, am odourifically redolent of caffeine, nicotine, and Caucasianity.
Besides, what with being on various meds, I am not perfectly edible.
Sharks shy away from me in disgust.

The meeting went very well. The edibles included meaty materials, olives, bread, and some cheese. Bernard disquisitioned on Table Mountain and various places in his homeland, Nick shared an interesting Virginia-Perique flake with me, Calvin was there, looking a little older, and a few members who were absent despite still being among us were mentioned. Recent additions to the membership have lowered the average age, which is good.


A tin of the new C & D Sunbear was opened, an oxidized stem was made pristine again, some elegant old wood was loaded up. No slags were present, none of us went into the bathroom to snort cocaine, as we are not cigar men. Some of whom are very dubious.
That type, you know. Shouldn't take them anywhere. And they smell bad.



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A HEALTHY DIET

Yesterday evening my apartment mate and I came to the conclusion that many more things need to be pizza flavoured, Especially in the crunchy junk departent. We are of one mind on that. At approximately 120 pieces per package, containg milk, soy, tree nut (coconut), wheat, manufactured on shared equipment with crustacean shellfish, egg, fish, peanuts, sesame.

Lip-smackingly good.


"Gouda cheese flavor, tomato powder, paprika extract, sucrose fatty acid esters".
Like of course all good pizza has, in bucket loads. Mmm.
It's that real pizza taste.


No, I shan't bring it in to work. Two years ago I brought in the cucumber flavoured ones, and a coworker went ape. Requested that I buy all of them I could find, she'd pay me for them. The idea of shlepping a pallet onto public transit did not appeal to me, so I never did.
Simply told her they had become unavailable.

Sorry. Not sorry.

Cucumber.

These were made in Japan, where they love everything cheesy. And nothing is more so than the Netherlands' foremost export, without which life isn't worth living let's go kill a neighboring tribe. Gouda. The best fromage in the universe. Without which pizza flavour is impossible and existence become sad and meaningless.

We Dutch invented Gouda cheese. To improve the world and make travel to ghastly places like the vast North American interior (everything between Treasure Island and the Atlantic) less onerous. Make sure your bearers have crates of it. along with jars of sambal, sacks of coffee, canned vegetables, and medicated after the bath body powder. Plus pizza flavoured greasy crunchy snacks. Astound the natives. Use them for trade.

Headhunters love sucrose fatty acid esters.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!



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THE ERUCTATIVE MASSES

In addition to the usual subjects, today's conversations frequently mentioned the weather. There were the usual suspects who said the brief two-day heatwave was just splendid, and opposed to that queer point of view, others said that they were glad that it had cooled down to reasonable temperatures, although seventy degrees plus was still a little uncomfortable. Bring on even cooler weather!

So the consensus is that the heat lovers are out of their minds and dangerous, and somebody should do something. And why is the ice-machine turned off?!?

Because there was an idiot back there looking at the wall, okay?

Some of these people are just dingbats.

You already knew that.


Let's call everyone and tell them there was a vote and Indian Summer has been cancelled. We will deal with the fallout later. Screw them. And their bizarre fondness for sweaty discomfort, as well as the glandered horse they rode in on.

There was also some minor discussion of tennis, football, and baseball, most especially mentioning the three losingest teams fighting for bottom place (one of which is local), but seeing as sports bores the crap out of me I strove to change the subject.
Paint drying, anyone?

Sometimes where I work is a Bermuda Triangle. Why can't we just talk about the subjects that interest me? Do we have to mention balls? Why does everything eventually bring up balls? Are you Americans congenitally stupid and sphere obsessed? No other subject y'all know anything about? Why do I hear nothing but white noise when I'm in your midst, as periodically I regretfully have to be?


Balls balls balls. Buggery bollocky balls!


You do know that the rest of the world makes fun of American balls, don't you?
Ketchup, iced beverages, bla bla bla, and balls.
Vulgarity, loudness, balls.
Balls.



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THINGS WORTH INVESTIGATING

You probably know that there are no hipopotamuses or crocodiles in the Netherlands. Despite the estuaries, placid rivers, and meandering streams being quite ideal for such beasts. And one would think that the swamps and morasses which speckle the landscape would provide them with comfortable home territories as well as abundant cover. This is a very good thing. They'd wreak havoc on what is, after all, a man-made ecosystem. Imagine what they would do to the dykes and drainage systems, plus the polders, sluices, ditches, grachten, reedbanks and dunes. The entire rickety landscape of cards would collapse within months if someone were to imitate Pablo Escobar (not at all that unlikely, as Holland is the Columbia of Northern Europe) and import a private herd of drug hippos. And crocs.

The main reason there are none such there is that the Dutch already have plenty of designer handbags and cowboy boots. They're not that big on them in any case.

The Dutch are better at fighting invasive pests than North or South Americans.
Very efficient eradication efforts that keep them out.
Baited traps on every river bank.


There's a bleating goat tied to nearly every tree.
To lure the crocodiles. And tigers.
Which we also don't have.

A great white hunter up in the branches with a crate of Grolsch and a pack of dark shag, chain-smoking handrolled cigarettes while waiting. Patiently, patiently.

She's white because of a lack of sunlight in that rainy climate.


As an indication of how successful Dutch efforts are, I never once saw a hippo, crocodile, or tiger, when I lived there. Not even when I was tromping around the bog south of Valkenswaard (Malpy), or the marshy areas near Den Bosch.


By the way, you never see hippos, crocs, or tigers wherever there are raccoons.
There may be something there.



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FRUITY SMALL FAGS AND A ROTUND WOMAN

Having left Ming's, I went around the corner and lit up. Not that he shouldn't see me smoking, he knows I do -- and we white guys habitually smell funny anyhow -- but because of wind. The cigarette was a Gui Yan (貴煙 'kwai yin'), and my sparking it offended a very large person from the great white interior of this continent. That stanks!

No ma'am, it does not. These slender piss-elegant ciggies have a flavour capsule (陳皮爆珠 'chan pei baau chyu') which makes them ultra-refined. It's something Hello Kitty would love.

See? Exceptionally thin cigarette, your fingers would probably crush it, and a popper that adds a dried tangerine peel taste to the smoke. It's not overstated, rather subtle.

I'm sorry they don't come in your size.


Grant Avenue was filled with pedestrians despite the heat. Both trim people and Americans. Guess which one ambles slowly, even by my hot-weather hating standards. I counted over sixty supersize-me's in three blocks. 嘩！咁多美國人太肥！你可唔可以講畀我知點解？

See, I'm guessing that the reason so many Americans are built like Sherman Tanks or solid oak trees (those are gooood things) is so that they won't be blown away by all the tornadoes and hurricanes that strike the Deep South and the Great Plains. It's genetic; the little ones were smashed to smithereens and did not contribute to the foetid gene swamp there.

Over-eating is a survival skill.


Anyway, did my errands, had lunch, visited my bank, grocery-shopped, and got out of there without even once loudly exclaiming "oh look there's a pink elephant".
Dodged stampeding mastodons and wildebeests.



I mumbled it sotto voce.



Eppur tamen moventur.



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NO BUGS YET

At the end of Gang Gudang Pati, where the buildings nearly joined at the upper stories, was a small open kitchen restaurant underneath the overhanging rooms. One could sit there and listen to the main street a bit away, or the occassional sounds from the canal. Which was no longer much in use, and had silted up somewhat. Slow water, a source of mosquitoes. Local people had netting over every window or doorway. Which attracted little black bugs during the rainy season, because breezes deposited crud gradually during the dry period, and whatever didn't float in the stagnant air sank to the ledges.

From around June or July onwards for a few months it was quite bearable there, if you didn't mind the heat. Or the humidity. And had a supply of medicated body powder for between your toes and on your sweaty bits.

Beef soup noodles, such as was offered at the eatery, require per serving two cups stock with a high gelatine content, one package dry wheat flour noodles, lots of chopped herbal stuff. The stock should be made with some fried garlic in the pot and a tablespoon of coriander seeds (strained out before simmering the sliced meat in there).
Ginger, fresh chilies, star anise, a lemon grass stalk.
Cinnamon stick, pinch turmeric.

With or without tauhu pok (cubes of fried tofu). That is your choice.
A dash of soy sauce or fish sauce, a squeeze of citrus.
Simple and cheap. Good breakfast.

SOP BAMI

This would be great with a flaky fried dough stick (油條 'yau tiu'), I should think. Strong coffee with sweetened condensed milk for enjoying with your pipe afterwards. Smoke keeps bugs away. And note that glasses and cups all have lids.

Local people speak mostly Hokkien, though it's richly speckled with regional Malay and some strictly onomatopoetic terms. Colourful. Not really intelligible. At the pasar they will happpily make themselves more understandable, and some of their children were educated in the English speaking part of the world.


In that climate you don't want to do much cooking yourself. Best let Uncle Liem downstairs do it for you, or head out to the main street for night time snackies when it's ten degrees or so cooler than during the day.

Maybe just a cold pink or green drinkie with slippery things.
And another pipeful of tobacco. Because of bugs.

Avoid stray cats. Bugs and parasites.



Heat is exhausting. Even three or four glasses of cold tea with ginger doesn't do much, and yesterday was a doozy.



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CLEAN PANTS UNCLE

Usually I do not enjoy a pipe while dressed in only my boxers, but these are exceptional circumstances. And please do not try to picture a distinguished trimmish "middle-aged" dutch American so engaged. It would not be nice. Mmm, mostly red Virginia, with faint touches Turkish and Perique. And a tall glass of ice tea with ginger. Because it is too hot today.

Got out early, had a light lunch, did a little shopping, headed home.

The real Wednesday routine will be on Thursday.

It should be much cooler.


Of course I was dressed when out of the house. Cleanly too. While waiting for the bus back, an old fellow passed who could not quite say the same, but that may have been because he was old, with bad eyesight and no sense of smell. Laundry skills are among the first things to go south for some people. As are zipping-up-your-pants abilities. Still, that was better than the white woman with the loosely knitted body stocking, which may have been deliciously cool, but I had to look away. Either that was nippletude or a coffee spot.

Generally speaking, it's a rather good idea to dress according to how you would like to be treated. Even for the uniquely creative free-spirits living among normal people.

You don't always have to dress as if you're going to the office, but no one will fault you if you do. And you'll probably be treated decently when out shopping. Think about it at least.
Maybe hire someone who can make sure you're nomal every day.
Clean pants are a good start.
Pants.


If I want to check my mailbox today I'll have put on my trousers and a shirt. So maybe I won't, or perhaps much later in the evening, when it's better outside. Not eighty degrees.



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TRAUMA WARNING

It's official. Today is going to be far worse than yesterday, and yesterday was awful. Around ninety degrees Fahrenheit. There will be people who say things like 'hah, ninety degrees is nothing, when I was in Vietnam ... " or "wonderful weather we're having, this is lovely" and similar crap, and I'm sure when I go in to work again the boss will be more or less burbling over about how splendid it all was (and he didn't turn on the air-conditioning even once).
But that's overlooking one thing: they're all heartless bastards.

For individuals with peripheral artery disease (not saying who), this is sheer torture, feet ankles calves hips upper back are throbbing unbearably and you are all monsters.

There ought to be a law darn it, I'm blaming the Republicans for this, and an angry letter will be written you can bet on that.

There will be some old folks out there showing too much saggy wrinkled flesh.
And some others with full sets of clothing and a coat.
The bus will be a real slice.


This blogger is a strong proponent of a strictly normal range of temperatures, so that most people are decently covered and will not expose their horrible bodies and highly individualistic tattoos and piercings to sensitive people and little children.
Not that I particularly care about the little children.

Usually I dawdle a bit, then head over to the usual place for lunch, after which I smoke my pipe for a while and go grocery shopping as well as doing my necessary weekly errands. And I was initially planning to also get a haircut today. But today there will be no dawdling, lunch will be early, no pipe after, and short quick shopping etecetera. And no haircut, because he doesn't open till ten and does not have airconditioning. I'll have a pack of gwai yin ciggies (貴煙煙仔) in my pocket for a brief digestive puff before the bank. Pipe once I get home and can sit on the stairs in the airwell moaning and cursing the Republicans who left the heat on.


The less I expose myself to this weather, other people's nasty bodies, and their ill-considered tattoos and piercings, plus tourists wearing shorts, the better.

By the way: Tattoos absorb much more ultraviolet than regular skin, so you might want to get that meaningful crap covering your dermis checked for cancer.



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THE NORMAL TIME

The temperature outside was over eighty degrees by tea time, which meant that parts of me that had no business hurting, hurt. I wouldn't be surprised if health department records show that more middle-aged Dutch Americans die of circulation-related heat issues during Indian Summer than at any other time. Or run around mother-naked for relief. Amble around.
Ooze around. Slowly glide imperceptably around. Mother-naked.

There's a town in Texas founded by Dutch settlers. Texas frequently has outrageous temperatures, like three months at a hundred degrees plus, no break.
Which is perfect for chili peppers, and lousy for people.
Those settlers are all dead now.
You can look it up.
Q.E.D.

My feet feel like someone else has been walking in them. Someone who doesn't like me one bit, and is determined to let me know. A real blister. I'll tell him so when I see him.

Got a health payment taken care of, picked up a refill down at the pharmacy, did laundry so that I can smell fresh as a daisy during my medical appointments next week, and watched a German family gingerly experimenting with Vietnamese food while eating lunch myself.
Roast pork, spring rolls, rice (串燒豬肉春卷飯 'chuen siu jü yiuk chun kuen faan').

Then relaxed with a pipe for nearly an hour, hugely uncomfortable.
Those Texan Dutchmen were probably naked all the time.

The smoking session while waiting for the bookseller a few hours later was marginally more comfortable, as it had cooled down to the mid-seventies by then. My friend works out in the distant fogswathed part of the city, and consequently arrived beaming like a bloody alligator, having not suffered the heat wave in the Financial District and Chinatown area.

When we were at the burger place, an old friend showed up wearing a colourful bathrobe over his tropical hippie threads. He's more eccentric than ever now, deafer too, an elderly version of Arthur Dent, possibly expecting Zaphod to show up at any moment.
Conversation became odd after that. With much repetition.


Normally, conversations with me are sane and sensible.
And perfectly normal.


As Scarlett O'Hara says, "tomorrow will be worse".
Looks like it will be near one hundred.



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IT'S IN YOUR PIPE AT THAT TIME

Nothing says prosperous admirable person quite as well as golf, so I'm not at all surprised that several of the old fellows with whom I have to come in contact, regrettably, at work play the game and are their calmest and most tolerable when watching other people play it.
The gravitas and well-considered opinions just roll off them at that point.

And naturally, America's captains of industry also play it.

I myself do not. It's a grave personal failing.


Years ago I did. Because at that time it was a splendid way of getting the hell away from my classmates and smoking my pipe in peace and quiet underneath an umbrella in the pouring rain, desultorily whacking at balls in the tall grass while plotting world domination, as reasonably intelligent teenage boys are want to do.

"Soon, babies, all of this will be mine!"

Golf also keeps a man trim and agile, healthy and limber.
It's good for the digestion and circulation.
The studly man's sport.

One of the things I particularly remember from tromping around the green, green undalations and mud puddles at the Eindhovensche Golf Club is Astley's pipe tobacco, which a doctor whose marriage to a nice bourgeois harridan was on the skids smoked. Damned good stuff. Showed that even though mistakes had been made, he did have some common sense left, and life could very well be enjoyed even though he was beyond the age at which one might acquire a mistress, and below the income level at which that becomes a realistic prospect.

Astley's No. 44 Dark Virginia Flake has deep yeasty notes and great depth, and a beguiling sweetness. It is both tangy and earthy. The No. 109 Medium Flake was a good solid all-day smoke for the VaPer afficionado, tempting and enticing, and is no longer made. Much of the line which was formerly part of the McConnell portfolio has, sadly disappeared, and while all of it would be excellent for smoking on golf courses in ghastly climates it is now hard to get.

Astley's No.2 Virginia Mixture, red and blonde Virginias with just a touch of Perique, is really excellent with a hot cup of tea, which will counter the eugenol spritz that gives it an almost Earl Grey character. Underneath this, it will taste grassy and slightly fruity.
Very suitable for blustery Autumn weather.



Actually, I hate golf. It's a stupid game.
Fit only for smarmy ponces.



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