LATE TEA ON STOCKTON STREET

After staying home most of the day, I decided I needed to get out of the house to get the circulation going. Additionally, it was close enough to the time that the apartment mate (a non-smoker) would return home that I couldn't get away with lighting up a pipe indoors. One of these days I'll have to tell both of my doctors that the ONLY exercise I get is, legitimately, because I smoke. And that a tea time snack is a necessary part of that. It's a gestalt.

Milk tea. Egg tart. Pipe. Walk.

Exercise is good for the mind. Without it, a man could sedentarily squat in his favourite chair all day and become a vegetable. "What happened to your uncle?" "Oh, he became a cucumber and now sits at the club all day getting pickled." As so many cigar smokers do.

I am a pipe smoker, so naturally a more mentally active man.

I know a number of cigar smokers. Like a field of potatoes.
And soft elderly cabbages. That slighly fermented odour from a vegetable bin that hasn't been cleaned in several weeks.

Wearing a hazmat suit is for your own good. It isn't just a style choice.

Milk tea. Egg tart. Pipe. Walk.

The bakery was nearly empty, except for an old gentleman holding forth on health and medical herbs in Toishanese. Which was quite fascinating, if not entirely grounded in modern science. One thing he seemed insistent about was that if you drank liquids noticeably divergent from your own temperature -- iced carbonated beverages or hot water -- it would cause problems. Fortunately, my blood is roughly milk tea temperature, and I avoid chilled fizzies.

Sometimes, when a Toishanese person has a full head of hot caffeine going on (and too many pastries), it sounds exactly like someone with a heavy Welsh accent trying to speak Chinese. Sometimes it's somewhat Glaswegian. Sometimes completely Yorkshire.

Milk tea. Egg tart. Pipe. Walk.

There was a cold wind in the alleyways afterwards as night time slipped over the city. Pedestrians wandered home, there was the occasional non-Chinese strolling on Grant Avenue amazed at the tall buildings. They might not have three stories in Miss-pi.
I enjoyed my pipe. But I should have left home earlier.
A chill breeze can detract from pleasure.
Bit of a downer, really.



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