PERFECT CONDITIONS

The wildfire season has already started. A few years ago we had dark orange skies over San Francisco, which the Republicans blamed on Obama, many good Christians ascribed to our lack of faith, total sinfulness, and the absence of prayer from our schools, and a passing street bozo stated was caused by my smoking. "Way to go, ***hole!" The latter was probably true; I am a horrible man, I eat meat and gluten, and tear the wings off baby pit vipers.

Will no one think of the baby pit vipers?!? Oh, the humanity!

It's barely June and a massive conflagration has raged in Northern California, roughly one hundred miles east of here. Probably caused by my smoking.
Baby pit vipers, forever flightless!


You know, I will gladly take credit for that.
It's my godless gayness, no doubt.
And my purple tutu.

I'm just mighty glad that the heatwave this week (predicted to start on Tuesday and continue till maybe Thursday) is inland, away from the coast. Here, we are not under a heat advisory. It will be warm in the city, but not horrid.

GETTING OUR WILDFIRE ON

Please imagine Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn gaily swanning around the Nob Hill area, impeccably dressed, while the rest of the state goes to hell in a handbasket.

Yes, that would be me, by myself, with my pipe. Adam's Rib, but set entirely in the civilized world, instead of out there where the world is on fire.

It kind of makes you overheat in your bluejeans, doesn't it?
Or sweat at least a little between the eyebrows.


Folks dressed better in those days. Sadly, I dress like a slob. Clean, but careless. No long hair, no man bun, no ripped jeans, flip flops, or crocs. But you can tell that I am a bachelor, and not socially involved. The pipe is also a clue to that last, as in the modern world people largely avoid, despise, and excoriate smokers. Of tobacco. Not weed. Weed is therapeutic, grown by little green persons of all genders in the Amazon who hug dolphins and recycle, and it's good for the planet. Gluten free. The turmeric of combustibles.

An unlovable aquaintance was whining the other day about having to take a shower and put on clean clothes after smoking a cigar because his wife of more than half a century hates the ghastly smell. To me that suggests great benefits in their relationship; they spend plenty of time apart, sometimes several hours a day; he's regularly washed and dressed, and they're still together and won't die alone, old and frowsty. The dogs shan't eat the body, it will get a civilized burial. It's quite perfect for the nasty old scunge.

I've never met his wife. I'm sure she's a saint.



On the calendar for the day are a few chores (laundry, correspondence, bank), late lunch at a chachanteng after the midday crowd has thinned, and two or three quiet smokes outside. Among the pipe will be at least one Dunhill older than I am, patent number era.
Don't know yet which particular pipe.

It will be one of the bent shellbriars or the Bruyere Dublin.
They make me feel youthful and soigné.
Very "Way to go".



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