NOT QUITE SYMMETRICAL

After the appointment with the cardiologist yesterday I suppose a fully rational adult would have pondered his wise words and introspected. We confirmed that indeed I do have a heart. And the blood pressure is now under control, so in that sense I have become normal again. But there are still circulatory issues in the legs, which may get worse over time, especially because I smoke, which we both realize probably isn't going to end anytime soon.

So the good news is that for the time being little nurse Mak will not swear under her breath when she takes my bloodpressure, which she did the first time, when it was sky high. The bad news is that I still may need a peripheral angioplasty on my lower extremities, eventually, which may solve all of my problems ranging from psychological (where DID those little green men come from?) through romance (briskly walking angular man attracts ladies world-wide and takes them to openings of art galleries) all the way to ambulating for wealth and profit (and gosh a pipe tastes good while strolling over the moors and soggy blasted heaths of Yorkshire!). Long walks, rainy weather, tweed coat, and all.

The bad news is that I think little nurse Mak no longer works at my hospital.
I haven't seen her there in sheer ages. Two years.
She was darn cute.

Not that my cardiologist would know that, as he works out of a different hospital.
And he speaks proper Cantonese instead of Toishanwa.
Different environment.

I am thinking of learning Toishanwa, by the way.
May take several months.

Not being a fully rational adult, I spent most of yesterday after returning home from lunch in Chinatown putsing around with briars. Redabbing the cake (carbon layer) inside one of my Dunhills with homemade "mud" (alcohol, sugar, ash, and finely ground reamings) because it still seems a little iffy in one spot) and going over the rims of a few other pipes with microfibre pads. All of which counts as Aspy neurotic. Not that all people with Aspergers do that.
But they have stuff like that going on in their lives.


"Another shrubbery! Then when you have found the shrubbery, you must place it here, beside this shrubbery. Only slightly higher, so you get a two layer effect."


The sugar is adhesive, which helps hold it together and keeps it from blistering. And because sugar becomes carbon after heat, it functions as an almost completely neutral substance in the cake, provided it isn't included in excess. The alcohol (whisky) acts as a preservative so that the little bottle of pipe-mud slurry doesn't go bad.

The picture above is what happens to your shrubberies over time. The Knights Who Used To Say Ni would know that. I'm fairly certain they were all on the spectrum.

If they existed today, instead of ten plus centuries ago, they'd probably all be pipesmokers with a tendency toward high blood pressure and neurotic fussing with their briars. This rim seems a little off, if you look at this Charatan from the front it is slightly unsymmetrical, the shank on that Savinelli is too ellypsoid, the draft hole is not quite centred, that bulldog is a damned cliché, this GBD apple is a little cutesy-poo.

Instead of modifying my diet and quitting smoking, I have resolved to walk a lot more and include more slopes. Good for the digestion and circulation, as well as fully lubricating all the tubing, and increasing stamina. I should be able to ace the stress-echo test in September and flabberghast both my regular care physician as well as the cardiologist.


"Good lord this antiquated fossil is fit!"


And by the way: contrary to what my apartment mate says, as well as two of the people I've seen nearly every weekend, I am NOT scrawny. There is pudge. Shan't tell you where, you do not need to know and I don't want you looking for it.



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