COLDER WHEN THE WIND BLOWS

This is something I should remember: the wind picks up after lunch. It does not matter what time lunch is, the wind will make it colder and more miserable. Someone in the wind and breeze department doesn't like me. "There he goes", they think, "he's finished eating, left the restaurant, and is trying to light his pipe!" And then, filled with sadistic excitement, they turn on the machine. And not only does lighting up become more difficult than it has any sound reason to be, but wherever I am the temperature drops ten degrees.

"Hah, that'll larn him, stupid Dutchman!"

My relationship with this climate is ambivalent.
It's more or less abusive at best.


Chinatown started with a male Karen on the bus (white, of course), and ended with Russ worried about dinner. Not that he's hit hard times, but he doesn't want to cook for himself.
As he explained, cooking and eating don't take a lot of time, cleaning up afterwards does.
I pictured hyenas at the zoo ripping apart a wildebeest carcass, shreds and spatters everywhere. Teeth, claws, and messy pots, plates, and counter tops.

Every place we suggested he had already eaten at recently or was out near the edge of the city, or even in Fremont, and who the hell wants to drive to Fremont for eaties?

Having already eaten, I did not worry. I was having an egg tart and a cup of milk tea, and would soon go out into the howling gale for a smoke. And it had turned yet colder when we all left. Three of them heading in one direction, toward the Woolworth which hasn't existed in over two decades, Russ heading south, possibly going to the Capitol, as everything else closes down at six, except for a chachanteng. I doubt that he's fond of chachantengs.

We also discussed Uncle's, and Sun Wah Kueh. Both of which disappeared ages ago. Along with the Universal Cafe and Ping Yuen Bakery Restaurant. Tong Yan Fao has changed. They tend to blame all the new comers, whereas I ascribe it to the gradual further impoverishment, as well as the freedom to move the heck out to the Sunset or Richmond since the sixties and seventies. What's the point of staying in a cramped crappily constructed neighborhood when you don't have to do so anymore?

They come down to C'town regularly because they grew up there. I go because I've felt more comfortable there since returning to the States after a childhood elsewhere.
But the neighborhood is not as hopefilled as it once was.


It's still the safest part of San Francisco.



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