IT'S PSYCHOLOGICAL

One problem with a bâtard is that if not eaten within a day it dries out. Which turns it hard, and one's apartment mate might then suggest "it's stale, we should throw it away". No. Dissuade her. She's Cantonese American, and does not fully understand the bread paradigm.

FIRST PIPE OF THE DAY, BEFORE HOSPITAL VISIT

Please think back to that scene in A Better tomorrow 2 where Ah Ken (Chow Yunfat) tells the hoodlum "rice is like my father and mother, don't fuck with my family" just before almost blowing his head off and screaming "open your mouth and eat the effing rice, eat it, sik, ham ka chaan!" It's a noteworthy scene. The way Chinese people feel about rice is significant. And precisely so regarding actual bread. Meaning real bread, not that inedible supermarket air-sponge that Americans often eat.
Bread is sacrosant, do not waste good bread!

[食, 冚家鏟! Sik, ham kaa chaan: Cantonese for "eat, (or I will) exterminate your family!"]

So I gently persuaded her not to chuck it out. I would eat it.
We do not EVER insult bread. Bread is life.


The way I feel about honest bread is European, very Dutch, but I'm sure that you can understand. It's years of accumulated conditioning, and similar to the way I feel about herring. You've admired all those sixteenth century still-life paintings in museums, yes? Herring is ALSO life.

Even after steaming a hunk of dried bâtard and then toasting it, it was a bit hard. But it went well with the mixed meats, vegetable matter, and hot condiments (two of them) that I put in my sandwich. Delicious!

That may have been partly because I was starving. I went down to the hospital for blood tests, as part of my yearly check-up, so I hadn't eaten anything since last night, and hadn't had any coffee yet either. When you rely on caffeine to kick-start your engine, the absence of any of that substance in your system makes life "difficult".


Two sentences you might not wish to hear on public transit are "don't (expletive) touch me!" and "what's (expletive) wrong with you?!!?" Both from a few seats over. This is NOT something that many Cantonese San Franciscans often experience, as the loonies here are overwhelmingly Caucasian, and know better than to harass Cantonese. Chow Yunfat's behaviour in A Better Tomorrow 2 shows that if necessary, they can take it to the next two levels, and things may go south in a split second.
Only pester calm and sluggish white people.

The trick to traveling by public transit in San Francisco and arriving at your destination calm, unmolested, and in an equitable mood, is to radiate batshit homicidal psychosis.


After being jabbed by a Cantonese American lab technician down at the hospital, very capably and entirely painlessly, showing that she's dealt with people in that manner extremely many times before, I visited my bank and returned home. I desperately needed coffee.


Fixed lunch and fed the turkey vulture too. Of all the stuffed animals he's the most obsessed about food. Even though he thinks everything good to eat is corpse. Vegetables? Dead Irish people! Dumplings? Dead Chinese people! Sausages? The tubular Americans! And so forth.
Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom!

SECOND PIPE, SMOKED AFTER COFFEE AND LUNCH

The turkey vulture also required dessert; very low blood sugar.

He gets a bit crazy if we don't feed him regularly.

He's had lunch twice today.

Plus breakfast.

TOBACCO INDEX


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