THE SEASONAL HUMBUG, REVISITED

The cocoa, coffee, and tea are all harmoniously combined. Good lord I'm alive!
Which in this case, naturally, means "wired to the gills". Itself a darn good thing, given the weather we're having. Hot beverages are called for. And those have been drunk, several times, since early morning. I've spent all day indoors, more or less. Except for a quick scoot across the hill for something to eat, which necessitated more warm liquids.

A day of infinite variety. Coffee. Black tea with milk and sugar. Hot chocolate. More tea. Pale jasmine tea and a tall glass of Vietnamese coffee, no ice.
Milk-tea. Coffee. Cocoa.

Pipe-smoke: Wessex Red Virginia flake, Escudo, Rattray's Accountants' Mixture, Dunhill 965. More Wessex. A blend of my own devising.
More Rattrays.

Except for the second time I loaded up a pipe with Wessex, these were all half-bowls, as I cannot smoke in the apartment, save in the kitchen near the open window behind the closed door. The post-lunch Wessex was marked by high-as-a-kiteness from the jasmine tea and Vietnamese coffee, as well as severe frost-bite, hypothermia, chilblains, convulsions from heat-loss, and assorted limbs and noses falling off. While walking through C'town with my pipe. 
A stroll, they say, is good for the digestion.
I really envy women right now.
Not stupid, unlike men.
They stay inside.
Warmth!


If, at this point, you are guessing that miserable weather causes hyperbole, AND that I passionately long for warmer winds, you very well may be right.

This blogger is not a cold fish. And consequently does not like winter.
Except to look at. Silver-grey skies, soft rainy hazes, and all that crap.

If I were a woman, I would be indoors right now, munching crisp green apples while reading a mystery novel, in the nude. On an easy chair near the living room window overlooking the street, as the summer twilight fades to dusk and the shadows lengthen. Shiny hair in dis-array, my youthful curves delineated and limned by faintly golden directional light. A gentle warm breeze would occasionally part the curtains, affording a tempting glimpse of my glowing skin to any passersby three stories up, should they cast a glance in this direction. Either that, or it would be early spring, and though raining cats and dogs it would not be cold, but instead a very pleasant temperature outside.

I'd still be nude, though.

Pearls, fresh apples, and nudity. Plus a mystery novel. That's what this blogger needs. NOT frozen fingers, chilled extremities, a pounding headache from too much caffeine and fellow-citizens who cruelly gloat over the wintry weather.

"I like the cold season in San Francisco"

Oh yeah? Have you considered stuffing a sock in it? Highly recommended, before grumpy middle-aged pipesmokers AND a horde of naked women mob you, and tear the flesh from your bones. No, we're not hungry -- we've been snacking since dawn -- but we think that those bones and your clothes, oiled with a bit of grease from your fat head, would make a lovely BONFIRE!

So warm, and bright enough to read by!

Miss, have you finished that mystery novel?

Good, then let us discuss apples, and temptation.


Later this evening I will make the trek by dogsled across the frozen tundra of Nob Hill to the Occidental Cigar Bar, to spend several hours in smoke, surrounded by people who should NOT be naked, and whom I do not EVER wish to see munching apples in the buff while a warmish spring rain falls outside.
For crapsakes, gentlemen, close those living room curtains!
It's people like you that cause nightmares.
No mystery there.



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