THE WET

The old Dutchman needs to use the bathroom. Very desperately. But the old Dutchman will be patient. Because the younger Chinese American apartment mate is in there, splashing about, possibly with one or two of her stuffed animals giving her instructions on where to swab for maximum cleanliness, I shall not speculate. Her ablutions are a mystery.
The watery sounds make the wait sheer torture.

The old Dutchman patiently makes himself a cup of coffee. While clenching. When at last she exits, rather than rushing in in unseemly haste he puts down his cup and with measured pace marches toward relief. One does not run in a hallway lined with book boxes.
If there were a fire one still would not run.

One strives to be dignified about all things.

Having lived in San Francisco for a great many years, I know what 'undignified' looks like.
It looks silly. Years ago I resided at a residential hotel entirely occupied by men, many of them at that time middle aged, where there were hallway sinks, water closets, and showers on every floor. We automatically learned to pace ourselves during rush hours. Except for the "water sprite", who, if a shower was unavailable, washed himself at the hallway sink, splash splash scrubbity swabbity sponge, splash splash!

He was ex-military. So he knew that cleanliness was important.

Since then I have prefered not to live with men. They're nice and all, and several of my friends are men, but if there are too many of them in a building it leads to weirdness and puddles. Women are, on the whole, much cleaner, although often more fastidious and neurotic about bathroom-related matters. Which is why there are TWO bottles of skin unguent in there. She uses one kind on her face, I use the other on my dry calves.

Fortunately, being of Chinese ancestry, she does not need a razor.
Otherwis it would have to be clearly marked.
To avoid confusing them.

White women, as is well known, sometimes need a whole body shave. Even, so I've heard, the soles of their feet.


Anyhow, I've micturated, so all is well with the world.



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STINKY PILLOW

My apartment mate and I went out to dinner. During which she alerted me to a new terror, one which is disconcerting all of her stuffed creatures, and is most fearsome and to be dreaded. I, of course, was entirely unaware of its existence. I had never heard of it.
But now I know, I shall be wary. New pillow smell.

New. Pillow. Smell.

If you are sensitive to odours this is something to fear. Halfway between stack of plastic bags and something vaguely oceanic in origin. But if you are a pipesmoker, like me, even burying your snoot in it and inhaling deeply, when she upon returning home fetches it out of her room for presentation and sniff-testing, will not yield bupkes. Okay. Smells clean.
Like the laundry I did today.

In some minor way it makes her occasionally refering to me as "stinky man" a little more understandable. I have never actually thought of myself in those terms, but given that as a smoker my sense of smell might not be optimum, fully functioning, I might be entirely unaware of a faint whiff that exceptionally might adhere.

I try to smell like daisies, honest!

And I have no idea why all those sensitive maidens and little children draw away shrieking. Whatsoever. Dogs seem to love me. It is possible that they sense a rich and deep smörgåsbord that recalls the ancient Greeks. I do not know.

Anyhow, a few hours later I was smoking my pipe at the usual place, cognizant not of smells but of noises. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth from the karaoke place further down, indicating that for sensitive souls it would be off limits for a while. As indeed it proved to be. The original bail-out bar was closing by that time, so we went to the bail-out-from-the-bail-out. Where there was, distressingly, karaoke.


Perhaps I need to find out what brand of pillow that was.
It would probably clear out all the songbirds.
And could be used to stifle them.




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CLEAN, OH YEAH!

So, having misread the time entirely, I ended up being ten or fifteen minutes late for my doctor's appointment. Upon leaving the house to catch a bus I read the card again and promptly panicked. As one would. Especially if one prides oneself on ALWAYS being between fifteen minutes and up to an hour early. As one does.

I apologized profusely.

Fortunately, she could still see me. We went over the test results, including the recent MRI scan (電腦斷層掃描 'din nou tuen chang sau miu'), and the bloodwork. Plus urine and solid waste, etcetera. Good results, I'm as clean healthbillwise as could be expected. Yes, I still have minor heart disease, that will not go away, but I don't use it much anyway. Got my flu shot, a covid booster will happen in a few weeks, and we have an appointment scheduled to start the process all over again ten months hence. Within a minute or two of getting out of the hospital I had filled and lit my pipe, and headed off to buy a lottery ticket and illegal cigies. With an extra hour slack time.

Nah, didn't bother having lunch in Chinatown. I'm having dinner with my apartment mate this evening, and did not want to be overloaded. At my age, one doesn't eat much, as the system works a bit slower than it did in my twenties.


On the bus back over the hill I encountered my friend with the broken wrists who severely disapproves of tobacco. I probably still reeked of the evil product of centuries of colonial exploitation and the backbreaking toil of the conquered peoples.

Calmly savoured in a Dunhill Shellbriar.
Sorry.

One thing my doctor and I agree upon was cutting down on chocolates. This will prove hard to do, as chocolate, coffee, frikandellen, herring, and tobacco are the five substances which sustain a Dutchman, and two of those are absent in the United States for reasons I do not quite understand. No wonder this country has lower life expectancies than the rest of the developed world. Y'all need to work on your game.

What's really amazing is that my bloodpressure was excellent when they cuffed me at the hospital. Because despite being a calm, rational, phlegmatic Dutch American, I had been in quite a tizzy after noting that I had the time wrong.

Probably the same genetic factors that gave me slightly high uric acid levels (though not anything to worry about there). On the other hand, vitamin D is excellent.

So I'm good.



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A POX ON THEIR FANS

My two most recent Facebook entries indicate that the world and the United States have become distinctly more odious and hateful places than they were. One speaks of rightwing morons getting their knickers in a twist over Tillamook cheese being halal certified, another mentions Jewish institutions needing armed guards. That's two sides of the same coin.

Blame MAGA and the Texas-style Republicans for the one, Macklemore and Greta Thunberg and all their fellow Goebbels fanboys for the other.

The same spiteful ignorance that fuels extremists on the right thrives on the left.

The perfect illustration of this insanity is that Mamdani is receiving backlash for a recent meeting with Trump, and Trump is getting attacked because he met with Mamdani.
Naturally I do not have a positive opinion about either of them.
Their circle jerking does not change that.

--- --- --- --- ---

Meanwhile, the universe also improves in small ways. A recent article in Circulation Research mentions that at UCLA a research team reports favourably results on FAP.CAR-NKT cells for clearing arterial plaque. I do not have complete access to the article, because I am neither an institution nor a medical man myself. But I'm certain that my cardiologist will come across it, as well as my regular car physician.

[FAP-Directed CAR-NKT Cells for Multi-Target Suppression of Atherosclerotic Progression]


And, pursuant thereto:
CITE: A UCLA research team has engineered a new type of immune cell that attacks atherosclerotic plaques — the fatty buildup inside artery walls that drives most heart attacks and strokes. These engineered cells work by recognizing three harmful cell types within plaques. In a mouse model, a lab-grown mini blood vessel and artery tissue from patients with severe heart disease, these “triple-threat” cells outperformed a single-target version, clearing out more of the cell types that keep plaques active and dangerous. END CITE.

[Source: UCLA team engineers ‘triple-threat’ immune cells to fight plaque buildup behind heart attacks, strokes - UCLA RESEARCH BRIEF.]

No, this does NOT mean that five years from now I'll be running a marathon.
But I'll probably have some tea and a smoke in celebration.
For many more years there after.

I have bookmarked that article from UCLA, and await further developments with keen anticipation. Hi boys, potential target test subject here, where can I sign up for the full rotorootering? Drill, baby, drill. Illustration above is symbolically representational of my circulatory system. Actually a drawing of the after-effects of a typhoon, but never mind.

Please observe the strewn detritus.



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HOT AND NASTY

You know, we could go out for tea. A spot of hot tea around four o'clock would be quite lovely. Followed by smoking our pipes as we tromp around the moors outside the pavilion, wearing our rubber boots because the heather is wet and tall. Perhaps instead of a skirt you should wear thick brown corduroy trousers, as otherwise your hems would get damp.
Uncomfortable if it slaps against your legs.

Then back for more tea. After the pipes.

One of the things I remember from growing up in Northern Europe was, of course, frequent dampness. Almost everpresent. Before climate change every Summer had some absolutely soggy moments, and there were several good rainstorms every month of the year. Which is perfect weather for having a long smoke out on the patio under the deep overhang, while the falling water clatters onto the bricks a yard or two away. Teapot on the table, creamer, sugar bowl, big cup and saucer. Ashtray. Matches. And one or two of the cats.

The rhododendron and forsythia at the far end, past the apple tree, are heavy and intensely green in the diminished brightness of mid-afternoon.

Here in San Francisco however, mildew is not a way of life.
It barely ranks as a personal philosophy.
But we have tea.

Because of the unseasonal coolth, leaves on some of the trees down the block are already turning. Very subtle signs of Autumn. Once you get inland the temperatures will be up near ninety, here it's presently still below mild and might get up to late sixties by mid-afternoon. And it's cloudy. When crossing the bridge these past few days there was fog, and in the evening the approach to the Golden Gate went through grey vistas.

Unlike many natives, I do not like hot weather. Far be it from me to gambol nearly nude revelling in the oppressive sunlight, inviting cancerous growth on pallid flesh.
Indian Summer quite frankly leaves me cold.


There used to be a chap who during the hot weather would flake himself out on the grass in front of the building wearing naught but shorts, turning the saggy wrinkles on his gams and chest into hardened bronze shoe leather while smoking a Hoyo.

It was quite repulsive. Even the dogs stayed away.


Stringy old gits should not sunbathe.
At least not in public.




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HOLD ON TO THE BALLS

If you choose only the broken cookies it's almost like you didn't have any, and therefore you don't have to feel guilty. Also, when you need to use the bathroom, walk down the hall twice to, and twice from, so that you get some exercise and your apartment mate thinks you're insane, that way she won't hide the cookies. Follow me for more brilliant life hacks.

The backroom had the usual bunch of fascist fossils yowling at the screen today in between trying to bite the lone liberal's head off, because the football season has started, and today's game showed the San Francisco team beating the living crap out of Miami. Because I'm a contrarian, and despise the political leanings of those men, naturally in so far as I supported any team it was the Floridans, even though normally I wouldn't be caught dead thinking well of those inbred savages.

But I was in Marin, and those fellows vote Republican. I hate Marin, I absolutely hate Republicans, and I hate and despise American sports.


Yes, I know that they are in the backroom to get away from the wife and kids, and grunt and fart and be themselves, and trust me I can understand that; their wives are all angry elderly Karens wearing yoga pants who probably shriek habitually, and the kids are all little twenty or thirty something congenitally entitled leeches who want a new car and a trip to Biarritz every year. Anyone would want to escape, even if only for a few hours. But in the Christian mystical tradition redemption is by suffering, and out of the sheer kindness of my heart, my warm and deeply spiritual humanity, I deeply want them to be redeemed. Ten times over. One hundred times over. So damned redeemed that they don't get a moment's relief.

Also, I dislike many of their personal habits and preferences. Intensely.

And let's not mention that Jeff sounds for all the world like an old whiny kvetching East Coaster. Hard to believe that he used to be human. Of course that was before he got remarried. To an anti-communist harridan. Who has him by the balls.

If she ever lets go he'll die from sudden blood loss.



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THIS IS A CLEAN BLOG

Another day, and what do I see on Facebook? A friend has posted an example of Maga fanboy art, Trump wearing priestly robes and holding a bible redeeming the faithful. "Pastor, President, Protector. Trump Walks With God." With a snarky comment about kool-aid. Indicating that to him the cult has maybe, just perhaps, lost their minds.
I find his cynicism well placed and refreshing.

Shan't show it here. I don't do pornography.
And I loathe "true believers".

In other news, some elements among rabid rightwing are having the shits over Tillamook Cheese having Halal certification, just like they've done so many times in the past over products showing a kosher stamp. The comments on the internet are bizarre.

Look, it's very simple: Halal certification on any product means that they also want the devout Muslims to enjoy it. Kosher certification means that they think devout Jews will perhaps find it appealing too. Not made in the territories means that anti-Semites (Irish, Malays, Pakistanis, and Spaniards) can buy it. It is rare to find all three certifications on the same item.

I see little problem in trying to make money with an honestly made product.
You will also find terms like "organic" and "vegan" on some things.
Basically, those indicate that it's overpriced.
They're being truthful.

Now myself, I do not boycott based on such things. I will still buy a Peterson pipe despite it having been made by presumed raging anti-Semites, and Jameson's Irish Whiskey (formerly Dublin, now Middleton, County Cork) is a mighty fine product significantly better than any of that Bourbon crap. Bourbon, by the way, is fancy paint thinner. Except for Old Granddad.
An ex-girlfriend (very long time ago) drank the stuff, so I have fond memories of it.


Shan't consume any of the three big American beers, not because of any certifications or lack thereof, but because they're absolute nasty tasting shite.
No sensible person swills that stuff.


And honestly, no tobacco maven I know is the least bit concerned that ALL of it comes from human rights shitholes. Just like most coffee, much tea, and some Scotch.

I do not drive an American car, though.



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ALL OF YOU SMELL LIKE LUTEFISK

A discussion with a friend in Europe is stumbling, because I brought up that it perhaps would be wisest to re-examine his own way of thinking about Israel. And Jews living in Europe. After all, anti-Semitism is deeply entrenched in the European psyche, with two thousand years of creatively finding new ways to blame the Jews for everything, and seems to be well on its way to becoming listed as part of each European country's intangible cultural heritage according to Unesco.

He's in Scandinavia. So keep Martin Luther's rabid hatred for Jews in mind.
As well as the screaming horror that was Abba.
And lutefisk.


Nowadays, when they hear the term 'anti-Semitism', many Europeans automatically bring up Gaza, as if that justifies their current crappy behaviour, and then start excusing everybody who previously brought up Gaza as an excuse for crappy behaviour. Which is kind of like every European country claiming that they were actually victims during world war two, didn't have anyone willingly collaborating, and if you think about things correctly the colonial age was bringing light and civilization to the rest of the world why just look at the still beloved educational and legal systems of the allegedly repressed and exploited new nations!

It's a depressing discussion with him that won't actually go anywhere.
Because of course the Europeans never do anything wrong.

As an American descended from the settlers in New Amsterdam over three centuries ago, with very much of my ancestry deriving from that community, who also speaks, reads, and writes Dutch fluently for "reasons", and is fairly capable in German and Indonesian as well, it is expected that I should understand and sympathize with the European points of view.

Which I absolutely do not.
Screw that.



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SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR BEER

It's rather remarkable how racism, religion, and rightwing politics in the United States have combined to put medical care and education beyond the means of most Americans. Sadly, by almost any standard this country is so far behind the Europe that we can scarcely be called first world at all, and there are huge areas where the most important things are sixpacks, gun racks, pick-up trucks, and football.

Like, for instance, the Central Valley.


What, you thought I was going to mention Alabama, Mississippi, or Texas?

Dude, those aren't even America. That's booga booga country.


The best prospect for many of those people is joining the army, ICE, or the FBI, now that standards have been lowered or stretched to accommodate them and their repulsive tendencies.

The booga booga also laps at the shores of the Central Valley, and probably the best thing that can be said about that entire region, beyond the fact that if it weren't for all the speakers and readers of Spanish there would be nothing there but illiterates, is that there are marginally fewer FBI candidates there than Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.
I know that ain't much, but at least it's something.

Sadly, football season has started again, which means that conversations for most people will be happy belching, grunting, and bellowing in front of the television, followed by intensely repetitive gibbering about the game, and that other game, plus a team they also support, and how badly the New York team played, in between snacking on bags of fatty snacks and scratching their balls.


No, I'm not enthusiastic about the next half year.

By the way, your beer sucks too.

Tastes like water.



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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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