THE WILD CARNIVORE

There were two little girls that had wiggled into the bus seats opposite me, who were small enough that they risked being trampled. Cantonese, perhaps first or second grade age. One of them had that firm-mouthed face that indicates "better not mess with me buster" that you may remember from some Hong Kong movies. Petite tough cookie. They happily mixed Cantonese and English, and, because I speak both without looking like it, I listened in.

Okay lah.


There are Cantonese females who just don't have it in them to look like poor helpless goobers. Looking that way, or acting like it, is more of a Northern thing.


The owner of one of my favourite snack-emporia seems sweet and good-natured. As does her sister, friend, or partner. She's a savy business person, seems to have a hand in half a dozen enterprises. I vote her most likely to own a fleet of pirate ships.

It does not surprise me that veganism, glutenphobia, and such things are far more common among English speakers than anyone else. They just sound insane in most other languages, possibly excepting Dutch because of historic reasons. In Cantonese, the entire gestalt sounds like a berserk stylistic choice. 同埋你個頭梗係有啲嘢唔妥。

The place where I had lunch today did not have a single white vegan on the premises. It's not that they have a sign on the front door saying "oh piss off you pretentious twats", but there's something about certain Chinese restaurants that cater primarily to Chinese which radiates "we would gladly have eaten the woolly mammoth into extinction". Pursuant which I should mention that we Dutch discovered the dodo first, and now there are no more.

At least two women there had iron plank steaks with gravy and fries. Delicate little persons. Fastidious eaters. Totally devoured everything, and one of them ate a plate of noodles afterwards. You know, they were both smaller than me, and I felt full after lunch.

THE MAMMOTH-FREE LANDSCAPE OF FAR NORTHERN

KWANTUNG NEAR THE SIBERIAN BORDER

When I came home my apartment mate was devouring a bowl of soup with large pieces of chicken as big as her head. Which, undoubtedly, counts as a mere snack. Because there was no rice accompanying it, and therefore it does not qualify as an actual meal.

The average delicate little Hong Kong flower can armwrestle you for that roast goose (燒鵝 'siu ngo') and consume it entirely, leaving only cleaned bones bleaching in the hot dessert sun near the watering hole.

My apartment mate is a small Cantonese woman.

The two little girls on the bus were talking about food. They both love porkchops.



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TATAR NOISES FROM BEYOND THE WALL

He arrived when I had just finished my pipe. The bus had been on time, earlier than usual. There may have been a connection to the state of the driver's bladder. Smoking a pipe had taken up nearly forty five minutes, which had been peaceful other than a screech from an insane man about a block away, repeated two or three times with long intervals between.
And one or two skeevy dudes passing by hurriedly.

The city, at night, has an unsuspected population of Frenchmen. Quite possibly they were visiting in an attempt to avoid the tourists in Paris, and if so, it was an ironic venture.
French tourists avoiding other tourists by touristing.


One Coca Cola and two teabags later we entered the usual karaoke dive, where there were no loud white women like there often are. Nothing ruins a nice quiet evening at karaoke like loud white women and their hunkastudlies. Who are usually filled with cheap booze, hormones all rampant, and Axe body spray awafting.

Two dudes at the near end of the bar, not singing. One of them later did.

It may have been alcohol that spurred him to do so.

We had not encouraged him.

The white guy surprised me by karaoking the theme song to The Bund (上海灘 'seung hoi tan'; a seminal 1980's Hong Kong teevee series set in 1920's Shanghai). At one point you could heard Francis Yip's dulcet voice crooning 'long pan, long lau, man lei tou tou ...' (浪奔，浪流，萬里滔滔 ... ) nearly everywhere. His rendition was not nearly so good, but I respect his balls for trying. Alcohol also may have given him the courage. In the final episode, Chou Yunfat (the hero of the show) is gunned down while smoking a cigarette outside a nightclub, proving that cigarettes are unhealthy. So why, as a pipesmoker, did I purchase that pack of Wu Ye Shen ciggarettes (五葉神香煙 'ng yip san heung yin') earlier? Well, because I could.
I now have two regular sources of smuggled ciggies, and I am a typical Brabander with a disrespect for the excise, just like my tribe have been for four centuries.

By the way, I should mention that the best tobacconist in Eindhoven began three generations ago as a tobacco smuggler thumbing his nose at local authorities, the border, competition, and local producers.


A rather splendid night. Fog, whisps of burning Virginia fragrance, plus something that resembled music, and caffeinated beverages.

Mostly calm, except for the rap noises twice disturbing the peace.
Unmelodic, with unprintable lyrics.



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THE TRUTHINESS IS OUT THERE

Best line on the internet I discovered today: "I wish Dutch people were real". Which was posted on a page where Brabanders are all reputed to be masturbating anime watchers and many highschoolers are monumental alcoholics. No, I shan't tell you where that page was, as I don't want to further corrupt your already doubtful morals. Suffice to say that there is an element of truth to all of that.


Another key quote: "I'm going to make it easy for you, not because I'm nice, but because you're stupid".


Also, Dutch is a made-up language.

I can confirm the latter. For several years I subscribed to a service that sent me a different Dutch poem everyday written anywhere between the fifteen hundreds to the late twentieth century. Allegedly in Dutch. Often by "poets" who may have ridden bicycles.
Different orthographies and grammars.


Further affirmation of the concept that there actually is no such language is Afrikaans, which deviates from the bollixed-up versions of German cobbled together into a beast called 'Dutch' so severely that it is quite unintelligible, might as well be French good lord, and barely even spoken (!) in the most famous movies produced in the area alleged to be "South Africa": Breaker Morant and Zulu.

SCENE FROM ZULU TO JOG YOUR MEMORY

That bird was trained to tweet the Welsh Nation Anthem.
It took years and shortened its life.
Well worth it.




ADDENDUM: TOTAL FACTUALITY!

And also that patriotic warning which circulated on the internet years ago that United Nations forces (consisting of Dutch military and members of the Hong Kong constabulary) was going to take over the United States and impose a new world order with black helicopters and the Bilderburgers has since been proven completely true. Loyal Americans are being held in FEMA camps, Obama took away their guns, Operation Jade Helm was a resounding success, and the partisans are in the hills.

[From Harry Riley, COL, USA, Ret. in 2014, cite: "Phase 2 – One million or more of the assembled 10 million must be prepared to stay in D.C. as long as it takes to see Obama, Biden, Reid, McConnell, Boehner, Pelosi, and Attorney General Holder removed from office. The senior republican in the US House of Representatives will become Speaker of the House and the US House of Representatives will elect a temporary President and Vice President of the United States. The U.S. Senate will take action to elect a new majority and minority leader. As required, the U.S. Congress will execute appropriate legislation to convene new elections or U.S. States will appoint replacements for positions vacated consistent with established constitutional requirements.
Phase 3 – Those with the principles of a West, Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson, Lee, DeMint, Paul, Gov Walker, Sessions, Gowdy, Jordan, will comprise a tribunal and assume positions of authority to convene investigations, recommend appropriate charges against politicians and government employees to the new U.S. Attorney General appointed by the new President."
Further cite: "A duck cannot be turned into a fox; an elephant cannot be turned into a flea; the laws of nature will not permit. Likewise, a nation ordained and principled by the laws of nature, sovereign, free, with liberty for all cannot naturally become a nation guided by royalty, decrees, tyranny, elitist, self-serving criminals. The former has proven desirable, the latter has proven human pain." And: "OPERATION AMERICAN SPRING will be a gigantic step in removing the flea infestation that is sucking the blood out of America." End cite.]

Apparently Colonel Riley's plans were flummoxed by floods.
Precisely like what happened in Florida recently.
Also, that's why it rained in Paris.
An Olympic warning.



I've learned how to keep a straight face.




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LEAPITY!

On the edge of one's vision something moves. There is a scurrying in the fog, darker tendrils or shadows, and suddenly it is gone. It spied something edible perhaps. Or was frightened by a dog. A shape half remembered that disappeared from view nearly as soon as one saw it.
Reddish. With white areas.

There are no flying tree squirrels in San Francisco.
Sadly, the beast is not native to California.

Important word: patagium.
A furry membrane.

Copied from a mainland nature series. The googly eyes
and skull-like head colouration attracted me.

It lives in a hole in a tree.

The tail is nearly as long as the body.

If they were here, they'd possibly dwell in the taller trees near the top of the hill, underneath which irritating chihuahuas and the occasional pomerian are walked by their humans. After getting over their initial shyness, they'd beat the stuffing out of those repulsive beasts.
One would hope. They wouldn't need very much encouragement.


It's probably just below sixty degrees (°F) at present.
There were dogs out there when I went out.
Nasty icky little yippy fluffies.

Sadly, no squirrels.
Of any type.



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WHAT YOUR CHILDHOOD TASTED LIKE

In a Facebook group someone had questions about salt fish. A particular type. And how did you write it in Chinese? Well, what she was looking for was 霉香鹹魚 ('mui heung haam yü'). Moldy aroma or fragrance salt fish. Which is great with sliced chicken, streaky pork chunks, steamed pork patty, or in 鹹魚雞粒炒飯 ('haam yü gai naap chaau faan'; salt fish and diced chicken fried rice). Among a number of other uses. It's delicious as an additional ingredient in food, a bit strong to eat by itself. She also asked how much it cost, but I forget to note down the weight of the piece I bought recently, which is about the size of a hamburger including the bun, and enough for between four and eight uses depending on what you pair it with.
Sixteen bucks. 馬鮫魚 ('maa gaau yü'; scomber, mackerel).


Also good in soup with tofu, veggies, and ginger. 鹹魚豆腐湯 ('haam yü dau fu tong'), usually made using the flavoursome fish heads. Either bokchoy or stalky mustard green can be added, even sliced cucumber or fuzzy melon.


By the way, what do you call stirfried long bean with chunks of German smoked sausage, touch of oyster sauce, chilipaste, and ginger? Is it Cantonese? German? Generic Euro?
德煙香腸炒豆角 ('tak yin heung cheung chaau dau gok')?

It's what I'm eating right now. Lunch was earlier than usual, and I was peckish again.
Steamed dumplings, delicious with hot sauce. Eaten in a sea of Caucasians. Sweet and sour pork, egg rolls, and fried noodles to my right, three dudes wearing freshly acquired coolie hats (斗笠 'dau lap') to my left, some very tall very white people at front.
The latter were probably Dutch.

The dumplings were utterly delicious. I like that place because they employ alert and intelligent young people, who all understand me when I seak Cantonese, even the native speaker of Mandarin. But the tourists I am less fond of. Coolie hats. Good gracious!

Also, how DO you get that electric scarlett hue into the sweet and sour pork sauce?
Is someone tasked with mixing it up every morning?
The red dye 40 wizard?

It was cooler than I expected today. Probably chilly out near Ocean Beach, and possibly foggy too. The Richmond and Sunset districts are very likely cut-off from civilization.
They ate the last polar bear. The penguins are next.
Great with oyster sauce.



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PLOTTING LITTLE INFIDELS!

From my apartment mate's bedroom came the sounds of the stuffed creatures with whom she shares her bed; anarchists, eccentrics, and rabble rousers. I had been outside for the first smoke of the day, wandering around with my briar as the coffee coursed through my veins, admiring the handiwork (eh, machiniwork?) of the street cleaning behemoth which does this side of the block on Mondays, and dodging the tyke on a scooter.

The stuffed creatures were disputing whose money it was.
Apparently one of them is a little opportunist.
Which doesn't surprise me at all.
Animals.


It's not the heat, it's the humidity. There is moisture in the air outside, and there are vehicles rumbling through the vapours. Muni buses, garbage scows, street cleaners, and driverless taxis. Only the last deviate from set paths. Independent thinkers.

From somewhere the smell of a fine aged Virginia cuts through the urban funk, cheering the nose of people lucky enough to notice. Oh wait, that's me.

Everyone else smells dirty cement and asfalt.

In the teevee room where the computers are a turkey vulture was sitting in the other chair, clutching two hundred dollars for pottery or porcelain and my wallet. "It's mine, I found it!"

Yeah, that ain't gonna work, little guy.

Opportunist, anarchist.


He looks happy and confident. The big person will not triumph over his cleverness.
He is certain he will succeed. It will be a good day.
He has plans!



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THOUGHTS AT TWILIGHT

Most pipe tobacco sold these days is fairly mediocre at best But that's the way it always has been. Samuel Langhorne Clemens smoked crap. People since that day have done the same. He died in 1910. Since then, the tradition of lighting inexpensive garbage in one's briar has continued unbroken. The stuff people lit up during the Great Depression wasn't significantly better, the world war furthered it, and most over the counter "drugstore" blends have simply gotten worse in an effort to maintain market share by using cheaper leaf. And, as you would guess, that's still the case today. Shite.

Yet a few people have always demanded better. William Falkner smoked good stuff. Tolkien, responsible for the biggest collection of florid balderdash since the Book of Mormon, liked excellent tobacco. Sir Bertrand Russell also appreciated fine leaf.

So shite, while the dominant preference, is not universal.


Today I finished spiffing up a pipe collection (twelve briars) owned by a man I never knew, who passed away a while back. Decent pipes, that he had kept clean and not puffed skunky aromatics in. They did not smell like a rancid sewer, nor were they irredeemably skanked like so many pipes from the elderly deceased. I am, of course, almighty surprised that no grandson or nephew decided to keep them for their own use.
Not outstanding. But respectable workhorses.

They'll find good homes, I hope. Some of them. One or two will end up in the hands of men or women of reprehensible habits, sadly, but there are still many years of usefulness left.
Good solid common sense briars, in overall excellent condition.


WORDS TO THE FUTURE OWNERS OF THOSE PIPES

Smoke good tobacco. Not aromatic shite. Dry it out a little, as pipe tobacco is commercially packed more moist than is optimum, for two reasons: 1) If it is shipped for a long distance over bumpy roads and choppy seas it would be fragments and powder from the jouncing and bumping, and 2) people have been fooled into thinking that soft and moist is fresh and good, which is complete horsepucky. Forget fresh; it should be at least two or three years since harvesting before it's smoked. Curing and maturing will make it taste better.
And if it's too wet, it won't smoke properly anyway.

Do not smoke hot or wet. It's okay to let it go out if the bowl is heating up.
The pipe should rest a bit before you pack it again.

There's no rule that says it has to be filled entirely. Only put as much in the bowl as you can conveniently enjoy. Use pipecleaners frequently. And avoid Hobbits, they're nasty.
Do not smoke when naked, that can lead to burns in odd areas.
Good luck explaining what happened to the nurse.



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MODEL HUMAN BEINGS

One thing about the tropical world is that if you, for instance, ask someone "is this the road to Tambuen and Bato Lengkuang?" the answer is always "yes". It may go the opposite direction entirely, but they know that giving actual directions would be difficult, they might not have a clue in any case, and "no" is NOT the answer you want. They want you to be happy.
Even if later you aren't.

Are there any armed irridentists up ahead?

Well, there might be. Or the national constabulary have a check point up ahead to collect "charitable contributions". You won't know, until you know.

Which is one reason why I don't know if there are any good lunch places in that direction. When in Marin, I seldom go off base. For all I know there may be cannibals there. Also a taco place, but the natives there are goofy. Who knows what's up ahead. Hot tubs. Hippies. Yoga practitioners. People who will force apple cider vinegar and miracle manuka honey upon the unwary traveller. New age religious fundamentalists who will stone your vehicle if you go through their settlement on the wrong day.

So the answer to the question I overheard the other day is, naturally, "yes".
And this road goes as far as you can see, but maybe no further.

Also, it functions as an emergency runway. For landing the "medical supplies".

The question was "How old is this fellow who is turning ninety this year?"

I don't know, probably in his late teens, what do you think? He's older than Jayzus, might be a modern day Methuselah, could even be a reanimated corpse or an eight hundred year old vampire, one of the undead, were you actually listening to yourself when you asked the question:


"How old is this fellow who is turning ninety this year?"


I never would have guessed that he's that old. He looks totally lacquered and varnished.
I didn't know that embalmers worked on the living. Painting trompe l'oeil takes talent.

Especially if you're working on something soft and spongy.


Maybe it's just Botox.


Yes.



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SOME HYPERBOLE MAY BE PRESENT

Apparently, it's people like me who are responsible for climate change and the freak weather we've been having. During the last billing cycle we switched on the air-conditioning on four separate days -- two of which were my working days -- and in direct consequence of that, the energy bill was enormous, there are wildfires out of control in parts of California, there have been high tides, parts of Florida and Texas are irredeemably flooded, there are storms in the Yucatan, the convent will kick out the orphans. Because I felt, without any cause, that it was too hot, the French left wing sabotaged the trains leading into the city, there are refugees, vagrants, drug addiction and typhoons, plus dryrot in the utility closet of all things fercrapsakes, oh the heartache and the humanity!

If it's too hot, just open the damn' doors!

Dude, that's where the heat is from.
The great boiling outside world.


And the chap sputtering all this after strong coffee on an empty head when I walked in this morning was not even one of the sour old Republican dingbats.

In a past life, he ran a convent. Which kept several mastiffs. In case of escapees. Because when you become a bride of Christ there's no such thing as divorce.
All well-run convents have slavering dogs.

THIS IS WHAT AIRCON DOES TO THE PLANET!

Stuff like that, I am reliably assured, causes things like clogged sewers, Nigel Farage, cows not milking, plus the entire country of Scotland. Plus rain in Paris on their special day!


To a certain extent my job is handholding. Babysitting the elderly demented and the young sick in the head. Which is why I need a cattle prod. And regular supplies of durian, to boo them into behaving properly. They can no longer be bribed with candy.

Many of them would also benefit from gag rags.



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STORM CONDITIONS

As you know, coffee functions as a diuretic. As well as stimulating one and keeping one from falling asleep in the evening (a very useful circumstance) it eventually leads one to the loo. If, like me, coffee doesn't keep one up at night, that latter characteristic jumps into sharp focus. And hour or two after I've fallen fast asleep, I shall have to get up. And seeing as the body wakes up slower than the mind does, it's a laborious process.

Bit of a pain in the gand, really.
Well, not so much there.
Mutranali.

So I now abstain from too much caffeinated liquid in the evening, just a little stronger. It won't keep me from falling asleep. But with luck I can go all night without even once having to go.

When I was in my early twenties I could bound out of bed with alacrity, filled with vim, vigour, and the urge to pee and get it done with. Why, I was bouncing off the walls on the way to the bathroom. Yay! And then be asleep again seconds later.


Which brings me, more or less, to the weather that's been happening.

Here in California, it's been heatwave after heatwave and the usual apocalyptic wildfires out in the interior, columns of refugees fleeing with their computers, the family photo album, and the cat, seeking shelter in red cross shelters and on couches.

On the coastal strip we've barely noticed.
The fog is warmer than usual.


The American Deep South has been hit by at least one monumental hurricane. Temperatures have been either quite a bit hotter than usual in parts of Europe, or much colder. The war and slaughter zone (Mesopotomia and the Persian Gulf) have become almost uninhabitable.


Six years ago, Typhoon Mangkhut wreaked havoc in the Philippines and on the Guangdong coast. Two weeks ago I mentioned in conversation that this years typhoon season might be as bad. And that appears to be happening. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few months.


Gotta go pee now.



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EATING LIKE A BIRD

Often on days off I head into Chinatown for lunch at a chachanteng. At some such places people watching can be very enjoyable, such as the two ladies with their chickens one table over (Hainan chicken and Portuguese chicken), the mother and her teen daughter at the next table (the girl didn't say a word, looked like she'd rather have aburger instead, and stared at her screen the whole time), and the small birdlike lady beyond that dining alone.
Who inhaled an entire steak (鐵板牛扒) with rice and gravy by herself.

NOTE: Hainan chicken (海南雞 'hoi naam kai') is a very fresh chicken poached gently to keep the flesh from stiffening, served with chicken flavoured rice, a bowl of plain chicken broth, and some ginger mince-mashed with rendered chicken fat. And, in S'pore or Malaysia, a sambal. Portuguese chicken rice (葡國雞飯 'pou kwok kai faan') is a mild coconut curry chicken on top of rice with a little cheddar shredded cheese melted on it under the broiler. Portuguese (葡國嘅), in this context, refers to Macau (澳門 'ou mun'), where it isn't actually from, precisely like Swiss chicken wings (瑞士雞翼 'seui si kai yik') have absolutely zero connection with Switzerland.

I had the club sandwich, as I often do at that place. Which, to me, is almost the absolute quintessence of "Chinese food". Seeing as the club sandwich is offered at every single chachanteng to which I go, is never ordered by tourists or suburbanites but frequently enjoyed by little old ladies, and pairs extremely well with Hong Kong milk tea.

Smoked my pipe afterwards as is my wont. Home in time for tea. Shortly after wich my landlady came up with a box of delicious pastries for my apartment mate and me. What's amazing about that is that she often does so, different excellent bakeries each time, but remains spry, slim, and birdlike despite her endless appetite for the good buttery sweet things in life.

My apartment mate is also spry, slim, and birdlike. But she works at it.
I too am reasonably trim, but that's because I don't over-eat.


So I had a flaky jam-roll for tea.
Don't worry, it was small.



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CONSIDER THE OWL

Sometimes you wake up, consider the time, and decide nah, best go back to sleep and get two more hours of rest before taking your pills, making a pot of coffee, and heading out for a morning smoke with your pipe because your apartment mate is, alas, a non-smoker and at too early an hour there are dogwalkers and early morning jogging freaks out there who are convinced that tobacco fumes kill puppies, little children, and the rainforest.
When all you want is some quiet time.

Some creatures are diurnal, some nocturnal. Some are between a rock and a hard place.


San Francisco, as everyone knows, is all about rescuing little puppies, cherishing children, and saving the rainforest. Plus anti-vaxxing, glutenphobia, rabid veganism, and transgender fetishists doing peculiar stuff to food and consenting adults while wearing leather straps.
This city hates tobacco, and wishes us smokers would all die.

Two or three generations ago, if you took the ferry at an early hour the deck would be filled with men in trench or rain coats with hats and newspapers smoking their pipes while perusing the stock market reports, the sporting green, and the society page.

Herb Caen had slithered under a rock to type juicy gossip columns.
After half a century of clacking away he stopped.
Expiring was a factor.

As you would expect, I still have a typewriter. It has not been used since the last century.

For a period when I lived over in Oakland, I would write school papers late at night, until my downstairs neighbor mentioned that it was hard to sleep with that going on. As I recall, every tenant in that building smoked tobacco, ate meat, and read books. Sadly, little kiddiewinikies nowadays do none of that. They grow up to be yuppie joggers, pet owners, and ruddy save the planet harpies living in the North East sector of San Francisco. The only plastic they ever use is a little bag for their dog at six o'clock in the morning and then twelve hours later.
Their precious purebreds are very regular, much like British public school boys.

I've told one of them that tobacco is a spiritual substance and part of my heritage, the pipe is a sacred object to my people, and I've spent years hugging dolphins in the rainforest.
I suspect doubtfulness on his part, damned cynic.


Perique is sacramental.
Potent juju.



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JUST PECKING MY WAY THROUGH LIFE

So I did not do as my routine demanded, and didn't go to my usual chachanteng, having left the house too late, and not wanting to inconvenience their staff so close to them getting off work after lunch. Instead I went to the new cheung fan place on Stockton -- the same one that 'R' said was no big deal, mow mei ga, hmmph -- and had a extremely enjoyable meal.
豬肉芫茜腸粉，鮮蝦同蔥腸粉 ('jyu yiuk yuen sai cheung fan', 'sin haa tong chung cheung fan'; rolled sheet rice noodle with pork and cilantro, fresh shrimp and chopped scallion).
Both with a drizzle of soy sauce and a squirt of Sriracha.
It was quite lovely.

After a brief conversation a woman there complimented me on how well I spoke Cantonese. That, too, was quite lovely. Especially because I think it's crappy.
But I'm good at getting food.

Upon returning home I gave some fresh katjang pandjang and peria (豆角，涼瓜) to the elderly Indonesian Chinese auntie downstairs. She can't move very well and seldom heads into Chinatown. And her mother and I used to speak Dutch with each other, so there is a connection. Not sure how she feels about salt fish (鹹魚), so I've never brought her that.
Her doctor may have advised her against it (as has mine, but I wasn't listening).

I'm quite pleased with a new snack I found while shopping; 芝士鹹蛋黃餅，北海島風味 (cheesy salted egg yolk biscuits, Hokkaido taste). Remarkable. I had no idea at all that the Japanese were into salted egg yolks. The cheese I knew about; there is such a variety of cheesy crunchy snacks crisps puffs and nibblies from Japan it boggles the mind.
They even feature as the favourite flavour in manga and anime.

In any case, it's yummy, and probably not good for you.

I'm always on the lookout for new fun eaties.

Curiosity leads to crunchy bits.



ADDENDUM: AT THE BAKERY FOR TEATIME

Mister 'S', who is an old friend of 'R', is, at this stage, deaf as a post. Which means that he only half hears what anyone says, jumps to conclusions about what was inaudible or unclear, and responds accordingly. Conversations with him are laborious and surreal. Sometimes quite berserk. His social life must be multifaceted and coruscating in consequence.

He doesn't speak more than a little bit of Chinese.
But half mis-understands it.
Very ABC.



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TIME TO SHOWER

Now that the folks at one of my regular chachanteng are home from their vacation, guess where I'm heading for lunch. I am a man of routines. Such things keep life stable, and in an unpredictable universe that's important. Who would ever have thunk that people wearing pantyliners on the right side of their heads (or sometimes both right and left) would, in the struggle for normalcy and common sense (pantyliners) be screaming bloody murder across the barricades at protestors opposed to Israel, the newsmedia, ableism, and gluten?

Gluten, for crapsakes! The building block of a healthy lifestyle!

And the pantyliners on the ears indicate an unwillingness to to listen. Which is why they have their knickers lustingly bunched about a fake hillbilly. Whose wife is "ethnic", (which is good!) and whose major opponent is "ethnic" (well, dammit!). Taping a pantyliner to the side of your head, it turns out, means that you are good and right and opposed to climate change (whose idea was that anyway?) and DEI and vaccines! You stand for common sense, and a return to the way things used to be.


While the stark raving majority on either side waves pitchforks and underwears at each other, some of us are darn glad that we are safely away from the tumult. We're just happy to be in the greatest wildfire zone in the country where life is peaceful and normal.

In celebration of fire, gluten, meat, and things such as vaccination, tobacco, disableism, and everything going to hell in a handbasket, I shall have a club sandwich, fries, and a cup of HK milk tea in a sane environment where I shall probably be the only Caucasian present as well as native speaker of both Dutch and English. Followed by a pipefull of tobacco, purchasing stuff with palm oil and third world crops unfairly traded, and bagged conveniently in petrochemical byproducts. Weekly shopping.

If any tourists, suburbanites, or people I do not particularly wish to converse with speak to me, the response will probably be sentences in a foreign language calmly and politely enunciated, telling them precisely what I think about them gibbering.


Might even search for bottles of durian essence. Which is meant for food purposes, if you like durian, but would probably be excellent as an all-natural environmentally safe biodegradable alternative to pepper-spray. Imagine trying to wash that out of your hair.

Folks will love you on public transit.



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MY FRIEND THE LITTLE WHITE PILL

One of the medications I take is amlodipine besylate. Which is a calcium channel blocker praescribed for high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and some types of angina. Side effects may include swelling, tiredness, nausea and a stomach ache. If it's safe for people who are pregnant or breastfeeding is not at all certain, and no doubt you will be overjoyed that I am neither. Slightly over an hour after taking the pill my feet ache and hurt. Which may be the medication dealing with certain issues. It's at its worst and hour and a half afterwards, fades gradually, and is no longer noticeable three to four hours later. By which time once a week I'm enjoying my pipe in Chinatown. Which is also strongly disrecommended for people who are pregnant or breastfeeding.
Such as I'm not.


Actually, pregancy and lactation were never on the horizon.
Also, unlike many men my age, I don't have man-boobs.


Imagine all your favourite actors and musical stars of the male persuasion. When they were in their twenties and thirties, they were hot studmuffins oh golly yes. Once they crossed the forties, they started to sag and bloat (unless they were Keith Richards) and their sex appeal dried up, their faces become puffy, wrinkly, and jowly (unless they were Keith Richards) and liver spots and man-boobs were suddenly apparent.

Not so hot now, huh?


Just after I finished my smoke, the bookseller arrived. Once the required burger had been taken care of we went to the first dive bar for beer and hot tea, and headed over to karaoke bar following that for further refreshements; Irish whiskey and tea. Where one of the melodic stylings of our musically untalented fellow patrons was "Hotel California". Unsurprising. It's a nightmare of a song. Which should be banned. Aficionados of which should be whipped, castigated, excoriated, and put in stocks so that we may throw rotten fruit at them.

One of my routines upon lighting up the pipe that precedes the weekly pubcrawl is to check on the rats in the alleyway who feast on the greasy food scraps from the mahjong parlours, none of which have paid for garbage services and therefore dump their refuse at either end of the alley willy-nilly. Where it smells and stains the cement.

There were no rats there today. The only rats I saw were at the park, where they come out at twilight to forage in the grass safely away from the unstable individuals lying there.
They have more charm than the humans.
Boob men.


After the obligatory rendition of "Hotel California" by drunken yuppies, it cleared out a bit at the karaoke joint. Except for the singing, it was a very civilized evening.



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YOUR MOTHER DOESN'T WORK HERE EITHER

Up in the majestic stands of trees on these hills there are things you should not see. And in a well-ordered society there would be small shrines there where one could leave food offerings to placate the restless beings. Creatures that lurk and scurry and seek out the avocado skins you leave strewn about, or the discarded slice of pizza from that whole box you ordered late at night when you were "slightly" intoxicated. As, being an urban yuppie, you often are.

There used to be raccoons there. An older pair disappeared years ago -- they went up and down the streets late at night searching out openable basement windows or garbage shutes, alternating for efficiency -- but one of them couldn't dodge the vehicles with drunken drivers speeding, probably because of arthritis, and I haven't seen the other one in years. The last time I saw a raccoon was down in Chinatown on a shop awning opposite Hang Ah.

I am surprised I don't see more of them. Given that the city refuses to deal with the garbage situation by placing more receptacles at busy intersections or in crowded neighborhoods.
Or, for that matter, putting liners in the few of them it grudgingly leaves standing.

Maybe it's the rat poison keeps them away.
There is great faith in rat poison.
Keep your pets indoors.
Rat poison.

In the dark of early morning, before the fog lifts, there are things outside.

Down that shady alleyway between the older houses, with verdant greenery at the far end, would be a perfect place for a raccoon spirit shrine. With offerings of food. Fruit and pizza.

Raccoons, crows, and coyotes never really die. When the body fades, their spirits live on, frequently near human habitations where garbage is strewn about. Replete with uneaten leftovers and good things like pizza crusts, avocado peels, and fried chicken bones.

Altars to the raccoon spirits. Plus the crows and coyotes.

Perhaps near ends of alleyways in Chinatown where the mahjong parlours always dump their garbage there should be burning incense and candles to further lure the spirits. They'll happily deal with all those bags of food scraps. Unlike our local refuse service, which like the SF city administrators, believes that trash strewn about is the natural order of things.
And surely the possibility of disease is a small price to pay?

So colourful! And photogenic!


It's meaningful.



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BANK, CHEUNGFAN, ACCOUNTS

Having done some tasks yesterday, there are still a few things on my list remaining. Which will be punctuated by not doing anything useful. One of which is going over to a place in C'town for some cheungfan. Which will be the perfect breakfast. And it's a good place to people watch, as there are few to zero tourists there. Despite, or probably because, I live in a tourist mecca I am quite unfond of tourists. Many of whom are always clearly uncomfortable with things not being as they are back in wherever, no we don't have vegemite, sweet corn and canned meat are not a thing here, and frightfully sorry but we don't have frikandel, bamischijf, and the nasi goreng which you think all ethnic restaurants must have.


Nor, sadly, surströmming. It's on the same list as English black pudding and "real" Italian food. We don't have "real" Italians either. Those are all Swedes speaking funny.
Perhaps you should have stayed in the Midwest or Europe?

Please don't tell us how divine the surströmming pizza was in Rome.
Or the gehakteleberstrudel mit senf you had in Vienna.
We've already heard about the beer.

By the way, there is a lizard in the bidet. It has been placed there for your convenience. And the elevator in your hotel plays 'Torremolinos Torremolinos' softly because we know you're fond of it. There is no Watney's Red Barrel. We tried. Couldn't find it. Sorry.

As I said, cheungfan. Not, strictly speaking, touristenfähig.

Great with a drizzle soy sauce and some hotsauce.

Probably not as good as the "real" hamburgers they have in Germany, or the surströmming pizza you had in Rome or Cleveland or when you were exploring the fjords of Malmö. And our donuts are not at all like the donuts you found in Donetsk when you were on a guided tour of the ruins and the museums there, where they were invented. The Thai food? Ah, yes, you had REAL Thai food in Chiang Mai. And the bánh mì (oo, genuine dăm bông!) and bánh cuốn, bún chả, and phở which you ate on the banks of the perfumed river when you visited Huế to see the horrors that the Yanks had inflicted on the poor peace-loving people there was all so much better! Oh yes. Much better.

I'm sorry. There is nothing good to eat in San Francisco.
And we have no native handicrafts to buy.
You shouldn't have come.


Cleveland. Cleveland is nice. You could have gone to Cleveland.
Or Cincinnati. They have real pizza there.
Plus surströmming.


Europeans and Midwesteners love surströmming.
We know this now. And we are very sorry.
Everything edible is surströmming.



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BASICALLY CHICKEN AND RICE

More power to that young lady with the big behinds. This is NOT big behind shaming, they seem to fit her, and they are on top of sturdy legs, and even though she is feminine and shorter than myself I wouldn't want to encounter her angry in a dark alley late at night.
She looks very Irish and would probably wipe the floor with me. Her more Americanized kinsperson who lives up the block has a less "kill all the viking invaders" pysique.
But often looks just as fierce or determined.

She marched past while I was outside smoking. My earlier pipeful had had me encountering Russell, who seems to be fully recovered mostly from the pneumonia he had been stricken with four months ago, and wished to complain at length about every single restaurant in his neighborhood including a new one, as well as the coffee at one place where they don't do American slop but instead make a halfway decent cup.

Personally, I like their HK milk tea. Strong and bitter. And every place he complained about is perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned -- having eaten at many of them since May, and all of them several times over the last few years -- so it's extremely likely that his constant bellyaching is a mental gymnastic which stimulates serotonin production.
Bluntly put, he's happiest when he's miserable.

I had filled the pipe while waiting for my food to come. At a place which he is not at all impressed by. He says it's all tasteless. So so.

MIXED VEGETABLES AND CHICKEN WITH RICE

For a place wich isn't that good (apparently), it was jampacked when I went in. All of C'town needed sustenance at that hour. Including a young mandarin speaking couple at the next table who had ordered so much that they left half their food untouched, an elderly couple the female component of which seemed incredibly out of sorts which was the male component's fault because he wasn't doing anything about it, two old ladies gorging themselves on claypot dishes which sizzled and smelled wonderful, and several old men eating alone and being very happy about that.

Normally I wouldn't have ordered 什菜雞球飯 'jap choi gai kau faan'). It seems unimginative. So very ... chopsuey-ish. which is exactly what 什菜 means. Chopsuey over rice with a juice rich in garlic fragments. Probably also cornstarch and rice wine, but no soy sauce.
A white person might not have been able to identify it.

It was very, very good. Russell would have enjoyed bitching about it.

What I also enjoyed was the Chinese serial on the telly. In which food played an enormous part, along with a young woman with a horrible temper, her aged papa whom she respected very much, and two emotional young men whose connection to anybody was unclear but if the subtitles had been more legible from my seating distance that would have been less opaque and much more understandable.
A banquet. A gift of fruits. Live fish for the pot. Noodle dishes. A late afternoon meal, some lovely looking homemade congee elsewhere, and a plate of glazed looking sauced stalky vegetables which I believe were kangkong (空心菜 'hung sam choi', 通菜 'tung choi', 蕹菜 'ung choi'; ipomoea aquatica, water spinach).

All in a modern-day setting. A city with tall buildings and broad avenues. China today looks a lot different than how I do not remember it, never having been there.

The key ingredients in any good Chinese teevee series are family drama, lots of crying, and tonnes of food. Especially the food must be well-cinematographed.



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MENTAL THUMBS

Several years ago I had a coworker down the peninsula who would leave work related voicemails on people's answering machines all weekend. Which, of course, we learned to ignore. Odd thoughts would come upon her in the middle of the night. Procedure-related thoughts. Fax machine placement thoughts. She couldn't write work emails from home, and the cell-phone had not been invented yet. Seeing as my paging device was the number I had let work know about, which displayed the number from which a call came, I learned to simply delete without listening. We all thought she was heading off the deep end. She ended up working for a law office and I hear she was very happy there.

Which shows that law offices are unhealthy work environments.

Last night at around two thirty in the morning I almost became her. There are several devices at work that are controlled by remotes. Press the right buttons and everything is fine with the world. Don't press them and things are wrong, out of whack, off somehow, and subtly disturbing in a way that you couldn't quite put your finger on.

I remembered that I had put one of those clickers temporarily somewhere where that clicker doesn't go and no one will find it unless I mention it. So I suppose I should call them -- I'm off today with no intention of going in -- but doing so in the mide of the night, or even leaving a voicemail at any time regarding the crucially, earthshakingly important on-off button device, would mark me as berserk and possibly losing my marbles.

Which might actually be the case, but I don't want them to know that.

Besides, one thing I've noticed is that after two or three days at work, because of the nature of the job and the vast amounts of tea which I've drunk to stay hydrated, my body chemistry is somewhat off kilter and I think differently. It takes at least a morning -- several hours -- of sitting around in my jammies and twiddling mental thumbs, for my head to be stable again.


Being a sane balanced individual is dependent on chemistry, environment, and perspective. To put it differently, a starving person in a burning dumpster filled with recently discarded pastries in a shopping area which is rapidly flooding because of a levee-breach may not make the most rational decisions ever. Neither will the raccoons and the grizzly bear that are in there with her. None of them did before, that's how they all ended up in there.
Stuffing themselves with black forest cake.

Someone ought to design a new type of dumpster which can float and is steerable.
The world is crying out for that.


I am temporarily charmed by the image of the Sacramento River Delta studded by a fleet of styrofoam dumpsters crewed by wildlife and stoned party blondes fleeing burning shopping malls. It's sort of Gilligan's Island Meets Mad Max.
All gorging on cake.

The most important individual is a sugar-crazed grizzly bear.
That's almost a metaphor for life.



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WHEN THE BUS LEAVES ...

On major problem with Marin County and its denizens is that they do not understand how bus schedules work. Which means that the closer it comes to the bus leaving, the more brusque I shall be with people who are blithely unaware of operating hours.

After the doors close it's my time. And there is nothing, NOTHING in any way appealing about missing the bus and being stuck in the purulent cyst on the filthy backside of a loathsome dieased mutant which is Marin County for an extra hour.

You may expect my attitude at such a moment to be venomous and toxic.
It is not unreasonable to expect a sudden bout of rabies.


What you faced in the country club locker room, or while you were servicing some Karen, is as nothing compared to what may happen to you if you don't leave at the proper time. And make no mistake; the colonel won't back you now, you disgusting bourgeois spoiled brat.
By the way, there might be a rattlesnake in the passenger seat.
Snakes find expensive cars very comfortable.

Once my work is over for the day, I do not wish to spend on moment more in Marin.

I despise the place.



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AN IMAGINARY TEA ROOM

It would appear that I am out of touch with my contemporaries. Hugely. People have been mentioning pools, and how lovely they are during this hot weather, how they like to disport themselves nearly naked in the cool cool water. Whereas all I can think of when it's eighty degrees outside is an airconditioned indoor enviroment with beverages, tasty snacks, and semi-twilight, cool, dark. Quiet. Milk tea of any range of temperatures: hot. Or cold.
A tall iced drink next to an ashtray perhaps, sweating into a doily.

A dish of ice cream. Or a bowl of pudding.
Some lovely glazed biscuits.


Is it tea time yet?


The problem with pools is the strong chemicals to keep them from reeking of body exudates from the teenagers and athletic types. And whatever that crap is that so many people smear in their armpits with gay abandon and spatulas, or spray thickly on their coiffures.
Plus spilled drinks, and mildew from the last time they wore that swimsuit.

Whereas linen clothes, rattan furniture, drawn blinds, effective airconditioning .....
You can smoke a pipe or read a mystery novel while there.
Oh hey, cucumber sandwiches!

No cigars. It is axiomatic that cigars are more appropriate for the environs of stagnant over-used swimming pools and Vegas gaming salons where Midwestern housewives blow their retirement funds on the nickel slots.

They spent all afternoon steeping in the turbid waters, dropping their cigarette ashes into the swirling foam, while little kiddies screamed and hollered. Now they quietly feed the insatiable hunger of one-arm bandits. Who brings their kids to Vegas? And why? Do they plan to sell them into slavery at the meat packing plant? Find them a position in the circus?


Good lord, why is this dog paddling around in the swimming pool?


Pipes, A tin of tobaco, cups of tea, and a good book.
Plus airconditioning and electric fans.
That's the ticket.



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