THE SEASON FOR MISBEHAVING

The trolls are circling the mall parking lot, picking off the plump little kids for feasting later. Like many people they like their meat streaky and young. At least, that's what I fondly hope.
I like to humanize the transcendent horror, it makes it more relatable.
And trust me, I would make a great baby sitter.
I'd tell the little kids some stories.


"Ooooh, story!"


Once upon a time there was a beautiful Hungarian countess, who had four servants .....

Guarantee you that they'll behave nicely for weeks afterward. If they start misbehaving again, I can call them up. Once they hear my voice they'll quiet right down.

Anyway, Santacon is coming up in three weeks, which is an annual event in which many twenty-something year old spoiled brats spend the entire day drinking themselves sick in the downtown, climbing palmtrees, puking, and picking fights. I have a strictly intellectual fondness for twenty somethings, but in practice I dislike them.
The reality is so much worse than the idea.

They're a good reason to bring back Balkan feudalism.

Much like the way that Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated by Americans makes one think kindly thoughts about British imperialism. Ooooh, great brutality! Mmmmmmmm!

I cannot envision any joy in spectacles of public drunkenness.
Especially not when it involves hordes of people.



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THE RED BASTARD

As you know, the next four weeks will be insufferable, with tinkly music, horrid televison shows, avalanches of saccharine drivel, alcoholic friends, coworkers, and fellow Romans, and people wearing red fairy outfits. As a grouchy atheist with no relatives to whom I am close, no actual family consisting of a loving wife, two and a quarter children plus dog cat and goldfish, or an orphanage nearby that thinks of me as a kindly uncle who is periodically generous, naturally the entire holiday season means approximately bupkes to me.

Also, I do not own an ugly sweater.

The one thing which Christmas means to me is remembering a coworker one year realizing that chocolate covered bacon in a giftbasket from the salesreps was actually a bad idea.
But only after eating it.

It was quiet in the office between Christmas and New Year, and the gift baskets with crackers, cheese, and strange ideas were in the company kitchen.
I did not know cheese came in a glass jar.
Or cranberry flavour.

For me, the entire slew of christmas flavoured drinks in coffee shops, mediocre baked goods, bad once a year candies, and festive aromatic pipe tobaccos are all a blight.
Yule fragrance bathroom airfreshener spritz?

No wonder so many people seek therapy in January.


Honestly, the only good thing about Christmas, and it is very good, are the selections of excellent cheese that appear, magically, at small quiet parties hosted by fellow cynics.
There is cheese. Maybe some garlic shrimp. Classical music.
No simple-minded carols or crappy brickle candy.
There might also be some pork products.
Nothing says fat man like pâté.
There is no singing.



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DON'T FEED THE WILDLIFE

Four things which I did not bother watching on teevee today: the game, the parade in New York or protestors getting arrested there for being bloody nuisances, or the weather report. Actually, I didn't watch teevee at all. I never watch teevee, except when my apartment mate puts a movie or a series she has acquired on. At which point it's almost like watching PBS. No commercials. Excellent diction. And often one of the characters will have a spot of tea and possibly a crumpet or cucumber sandwich.

Cricket is not my favourite sport, though for a number of years I paid it considerably more attention than any other ball game, for reasons having to do with conversing with a Parsee as well as political discussions that did not involve England, India, Pakistan, Zoroastrians, or Australia. As well as food. Dhansak. Sali boti. Patra ni machi. And anything with eggs on top.
Plus brun maska, kheema pav, khari biscuit, berry pulao.
Parsees, as you know, invented cricket.

Also famous cafes: Britannia Café, Kalyani and Company, Yazdani Restaurant and Bakery.

AN OVERGROWN AREA THAT IS HOME TO FERAL ENGLISHMEN

A friend posted a picture of dessert (pumpkin maple flan) which was the one thing that I wish I had a chance to share, foodwise, this holiday. It looked gorgeous, and he is a great cook. But other than that, I didn't do a single thing you would normally associate with thanksgiving. I did not overeat. I did not catch salmonella from dubious sidedishes. I did not get into a fight while waiting in line down at the local Walmart for an X-box or I-phone.
I did not order pizza after a nap.

Had some Chinese food with my apartment mate, then did laundry.
Then came home and had some chai at the proper hour.



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FRIED THOUGHTS

From somewhere comes the smell of bacon. Which is odd. It's not my apartment mate, she's currently in the bathroom, where there are no burners. I'm sure I would have noticed if she had smuggled-in an electric fry pan and placed it there. And it's not from the airwell. The only other active kitchen there is my landlady downstairs and I don't hear anything. The building next door only fronts bathrooms onto the airwell. There is no baconating restaurant nearby. This is disconcerting, as bacon brings cats and I am not ready to become a cat daddy.

It was not noticeable earlier when I was wandering around the neighborhood smoking a pipe. All that was out there at that hour was a man with an ugly pug, and three Chinese American women putting luggage for one of them in a car.

It's fairly certain it wasn't them. I've been around Chinatown at all hours of the morning, and I've never smelled bacon there.

Frying bacon is mostly not a Chinese American thing.
Despite voracious early morning appetites.

Sometime next week I should probably go down there and have dumplings for breakfast. One of the chachantengs opens real early and does a booming business just after the crack of dawn, and I've seen Chinese people at that hour. They're bearable, unlike the hipsters and yuppies in North Beach who made morning cappucino at coffee places there surreal and confrontational. And without newspapers anymore there's no place to hide.

Oh sure, the SF Chronicle is still being published. But it's not worth reading anymore, and good luck finding a rack. And besides, you cannot smoke at the cafes like you used to.



What this world needs, desperately needs, is somewhere with cappucinos and dumplings, dusty reading material, two or three full sets of encyclopedias, over a dozen cats, and ashtrays with knockers for pipe smokers who are encouraged.



Overheard on the bus recently: "Allergies are bad man, they open you up to infection. Your nose runs, and germs love the wet places. They thrive in it. Don't blow your nose to get rid of the motes and pollen; the only solution is to snork as hard as possible so that it smacks up against your brain and gets defeated by your mind."



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LIKE SACKS OF WET CEMENT!

The woman who runs the place where I went for teatime after shopping has a gentle sweet voice and speaks softly. Which is rare for Chinatown people. So I like listening to her talking about business with a relative from where I'm seated. Filled up the Comoy bent bulldog while I was there, finished my pastry and milk tea, and said thank you goodby upon leaving.
Lit up outside and headed down the block.


Cold, but dry. No rain today.
And it looks like Thanksgiving will be clear too.


Perfect for a helicopter over the parking lot of a shopping mall dropping flightless birds.


You are familiar with that, aren't you? The meme is derived from a television show, and refers to a classic bit of comedy featuring the winner of the Buckeye Newshawk Award last year. And a well-behaved crowd. Oh the humanity!

Next time we do that, little parachutes.
And cushions. Turkeys just love cushions.
With plenty of stuffing in the cushions.

Bread, celery, sage, butter, garlic .....

No onions. Turkeys fart.



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THE HOUR OF DRIVERLESS TAXIS

Yesterday was not much fun, due to a cold. And worrying about both anal leakage and psychotic episodes. Of which there were none. These are seldom symptoms of a cold, in my experience. So that would have been other passengers on the bus. Some of whom might have been afflicted with both of those things, possibly while having a cold. Sadly, none.
One worries about these things in San Francisco.
The Chinese grannie? The white yuppie?
That lawyer talking to himself?
It could be anybody!

That very likely accounts for the popularity of the driverless taxis (Waymo) on the streets here. You don't have to worry about the other people in the vehicle. Unless you habitually share rides with people who might have anal leakage or psychotic episodes.

The three times when one sees the most of them are morning rush, evening rush, and right around midnight when rational people stop getting blotto with their pals and decide that they need to get up bright and early for work or else tomorrow will be wasted.

Having spent a large part of the day mostly inactive, due to the cold, I got out of the house late and headed into Chinatown for something to eat. But I didn't have much appetite. Barely finished half of my riceplate, and wasn't totally enthusiastic over the milk tea either. Tapped out my pipe half-way through, and caught the bus back home.

Commitment to routine, more than any real interest.
Leakage and psychotic episodes were lacking.
But wouldn't have made a difference.



One of these days they're bound to be a factor. At which point driverless taxis will get a further boost. Even among the normal crowd of die-hard public transit types.
You know, if I experienced anal leakage, I'd fake a psychotic episode.
Go for the gusto. Pull out all the stops.
Make it worthwhile.




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A PAUSE TO REFUEL AND REFINANCE

One has to be somewhat cynical about Mid-East cease fires. That's just the nature of the beast. Wanting peace is not a mindset of anybody there, they would much prefer to slaughter their neighbors, but sometimes a temporary cessation of hostilities is convenient. Plus it fools the Americans into thinking their diplomacy actually meant something and that there is some progress, as well as suggesting to the Europeans nations that their angry sanctimonious squawking worked. We'll just overlook that angry European squawking caused more bloodshed than anything else in the known universe.

Imperialism, two world wars, and the inquisition?
That's the effect of European squawking.
Gulags and repression?
Squawking.

The next world war?
Um .....

I expect there will be "noise" from Europe both before and after.

And please note that I definitely include Great Britain and Ireland under the heading "Europe". From this side of the Atlantic, they look like the rest of that lot, despite being nominally English-speaking (for the most part), in contrast to the continent.
Where French, Arabic, and Turkish are the dominant tongues.

As I said, one has to be somewhat cynical.



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FADED DISTANCE

Something involving garlic, the precise proportions of spices in a curry mix, and briar with pinkish hues. Dinner at Eldin's house with Pauline and Jack, a long time ago. It's a nice memory, but not a very intense or important one. The food was good.
Curried something, can't remember what.

I can remember the light and the smells, though.
The tobacco was probably Drucquer's 805.
Medium-full English-Balkan.
No longer made.

Two of us smoked our pipes after dinner, Jack lit a cigar, and Eldin didn't smoke. There was coffee. It was wettish outside, and Cara came over. She didn't smoke either.
But she had coffee with us.

If I remember correctly, Pauline was puffing on a Wilke Bulldog she had picked up during a trip to New York the previous year. Hence the pinkish hue coming to mind. Likely Algerian.
Sorry, Jack, I cannot recall what music you put on the record player.
That seems important, as you were always particular.
But, as you know, I have no musical ear.

We were all so much more neurotic about coffee, garlic, and cigars then. That has probably faded, but given that I haven't seen any of the others in many years I don't know. Because of Jack I know about Vorticism, Pauline introduced me to Northern Chinese food, as well as several fine tobaccos, and Cara demonstrated once or twice that white people should probably not cook cauliflower or broccoli.

The year after that I permanently left the East Bay, and for several reasons all of those people faded out of my life. The keenest memories of that time are rotten weather.
Such as we had last week, and are having this week.



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HAPPINESS IS WARM BODY CHEMISTRY

It was an enjoyable late lunch. And it included tofu, so the imaginary vegetarian would have been happy, as well as meat, so the very real carnivore was also please. Fat belly pork with tofu chunks and rice (火腩豆腐飯 'fo naam dau fu faan'). Yeah, okay, the fantasy vegetarian would have been both upset and righteously nauseated, but the meat eater was jolly happy.

This blogger rarely eats with vegetarians.
It's probably a character defect.

It started raining again while I was eating.
On the way out I deployed my umbrella before lighting up.
The finish on a pipe does not benefit from getting wet.
Vegans do, especially if smoked.
Southern brisket.

Where some folks do the slow barbecue on beef brisket, the Cantonese prefer roasted pork fatbelly. Along with juicy duck. Both are great with tofu. I expect smoked brisket would also pair well with tofu chunks in a savoury braised dish.
Tofu always needs help.

Clay Street, in wet weather, looking down towards the Bay is rather beautiful. Various off-greys stretching past the gingko trees between Powell and Stockton Streets.
Plus some browns, greens, and blues.


Going down to Chinatown is good for the circulation, and profoundly affects body chemistry, although that may be just food (and bloodsugar levels) and the necessary caffeinated beverages.

Plus hot sauce. Gotta have hot sauce.



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WHY I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS

Apparently I am an excessively negative person. The holiday season is all about good cheer and happiness, and inculcating a warm sense of fellow feeling among people. It's also about going broke buying expensive crap for relatives and getting into a right Donnybrook while waiting in line among thousands of cannibals at the local big box, as well as demands for charitable contributions from organizations you've never heard of and don't support.
Saving the pet hamsters in war zones or something.
And it's about salmonella.


It's about murderous shopping frenzies that start when forks are laid down, and continue non stop till a bleak hour five or six days after Thanksgiving, when a grim wet dawn greets you, and all your money is gone, and the methamphetamines have worn off.

Followed by a month of weight loss pills and antidepressants.
As well as office holiday parties and overwork.

Life is never so bad that grim and reality-based foreboding can't make it better.


Remember that salmonella I mentioned?

There you are, Sunday evening in a crowded departure lounge (several flights delayed), sick to your stomach from Aunt Dorabelle's famous turkey stuffing -- so good you even ate some of the succotash (ugh) and sweet potato pie -- plus having spent several days surrounded by hundreds of people, you now also have the flu and covid but you don't know it yet, and you know you will get nearly no sleep before being back in the office bright and early. There are children throwing up nearby. Some teenager is showing off his rap skills. He's so white he glows in the dark, has no sense of rhyme or rhythm, plus an addenoidal voice that's intensely irritating, and his entire song seems to be about setting fire to shopping malls as a sexual act. There are an awful lot of procreative verbs and nouns in every stanza.

While you are in a holding pattern over Denver, I will be waking up from a restful night's sleep, and contemplating my first pipe of the day. What shall I smoke after coffee?
Is it still raining? The hills are so beautiful just after dawn, almost pearlescent.


[Atalaya, manufactured by Cornell & Diehl for Low Country Pipe & Cigar, blend compounded by Jeremy Reeves. Virginia, Turkish, and Perique. An easily rubbed broken flake. Earthy, sweet, slightly spicy. A faint floral note verging on grassy. Medium strength. Perfect for Autumn weather. Altogether a darn good product.]


I feel for you. I really do. I'm radiating warmth, cheer, and happiness.
Have you considered adopting an emotional support hamster?
You can dress it in a little Santa costume.
It will look so festive!



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TIME FOR CHUFFING!

It gets dark so early nowadays. When I left for the bus it was already pitchblack. But not raining. An hour earlier looking west from the front door had been rather nice. Gold in the distant sky, a trace of smoke smell from either someone's fireplace or the tire fires of bum encampments, perhaps a Tesla by the side of the road experiencing moment -- it's Marin country, so pricey neurotic yuppie vehicles also go all feelings and meaningful there, even spiritual -- perhaps it might have been the candle circles at the local yoga and ayahuasca plantation where the enslaved illegals work.

Actually, more likely the cigar from one of the drunken layabouts in the backroom.
Most of whom where deeply unhappy at the loss of the Forty Niners.
When the local team loses, it's because of their flaws.
Lack of faith, loose morals, etcetera.
And inferior whisky.


I didn't watch the game, and spent the entire afternoon swilling tea.
So I was both cold sober and wired to the tits.
Caffeine, baby.

There's a new holiday themed sandwich at 7 Eleven. Which is quite as thrilling and fulfilling as the football game. Because so little there is actually edible, this pleases me enormously.
Oh golly yes! Yowza. Um.

On the other hand, I now have a Comoy Tradition pipe, bent bulldog shape 409, courtesy of a friend, which is absolutely gorgoeous. Three part C, and I'm guessing made sometime in the fifties, early sixties at the latest. If mentally you hear a frog-like voice going 'neener neener neener' while hopping up and down, that would be appropriate.

I am totally chuffed.



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DON'T PANIC

There is a very sweet looking woman of an age which would be most unsuitable friends and acquaintances would be shocked oh my yes we didn't think the old goat still had it and she's probably going to take him to the cleaners the poor fool who rides the bus I take to work on occasion. I do not see her often, as my schedule and hers do not overlap, and I suspect that she works from home a lot nowadays. Recently she took a seat which was clearly vacant, except that a crazed Marinite schizzo decided that she needed it instead, and what with being clearly insane and unstable, the very sweet looking woman of an age etcetera simply yielded. For which I felt bad. She did not deserve to be booted, and there is something about getting the seat you want which is infinitely pleasing.

No, I have not ever spoken to her.

Did I already mention unsuitable?

That's me in bucket fulls.

I scare people easily.

Be not afraid, little sheep, here you may safely graze.

Or comforting words to that effect.


I am keenly attuned to the possibility that I might creep people out.
That, more than any actual creeping, limits me.
Boundaries, and modulation.



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EDUCATED TASTES

After Thanksgiving (sometime next week), we get to stare Christmas in the face. That cold hard face, those haunted eyes. That incessant nasty singing. That is to say, everyone who needs an expensive computer game, for themselves or their unemployed offspring.
I do not have any unemployed offspring.
And I don't do computer games.


So today I advised a friend to purchase a brand new pipe for his grandson, and put a matching amount into a trustfund for the little fellow, and do that also for his birthday each year, so that when he goes to college in another dozen years, he'll have a good pipe collection and enough money to date all the young ladies in the Latin department.
It's never too young to start. And you don't want him "borrowing" yours.
You want him to go to college, don't you?
Well then!


See, what with being unmarried, unattached, and having no kids or even any young relatives of grammar school age, my words of advice should be taken in the spirit of avuncularity in which they are given and with which I am bubbling over.
Warmly, and heartfelt.

A growing pipe collection will be a journey in developing good taste for the little fellow.
Can't do anything about family or classmates, but the briars will be all his.
Fine wood, nice tobacco, why, it's better than pudding!


Thanksgiving and Christmas are two holidays when because of certain relatives pipe smokers necessarily become familiar with compost, next to the heap of which they are relegated, because "You are NOT lighting that stinky thing in my house!" And the smell triggers those college age kinfolk who are presently experimenting with vegan chow, because it smells remarkably like either barbecue or a meat eater.

Or something. Not quite sure which.

My nearest college age kinfolk are in Canada. It's currently below freezing there. They burn polar bears and penguins to keep warm. So I ain't visiting any time soon, and I haven't been invited anyway. Besides, I don't like tofurky.



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THE TURKEYS

If you do your research assiduously, you can discover lots of evidence that American families are completely dysfunctional and consist of traumatized psychopaths. The people who are embarassing, destructive, and cringe-worthy. This is something to keep in mind when you decide to fly back to West Virginia for Thanksgiving with them. Especially the cousins who have no concept of boundaries.

And there's always the risk of salmonella. Because some of your relatives can't cook and should not be encouraged, despite the need for family harmony.
Plus some things are just indescribable.

With or without bacon.


The airports will be filled with frustrated people, loud children, irritating blisters on speaker phones either trying to micromanage the shrinking staff at the office or warehouse, or telling their dense kinfolk that the plane will not land till two in the afternoon on Thursday.
Because of delays. Dee Lays! If you shout it, aunt Berry may understand.
She's both deaf and demented.

And at some point, you'll remember that Wifi is spotty in the valley. And that the nearest town, internet cafe, burger joint, emergency room, and atm are all thirty miles away.

There's no Mexican restaurant worthy of the name there.
No phở. No bánh mì. No Sriracha hot sauce.
Curry is grey there. Strange.



On second, third, and fourth thought, perhaps you should just stay home, have chow mein and broccoli beef delivered, and wash it down with a frosty rootbeer while binging Starwars with your French bulldog Moseley.




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MAY GET DIZZY, DON'T GET PREGNANT

After picking up my refills I mentally calculated how often I've been to that pharmacy. More times than my years of age. Which is not suprising, as I've had every praescription since I first stumbled into the clinic filled upstairs. So it isn't that suprising that they recognize my voice over the phone when I call for refills, and know my name. Though it is pleasing that they couple the honorific sin saang (先生 "Mr.") to my surname.
I am more used to thinking myself as 老鬼。
It sounds younger, you know.


A ninety day supply of three medications means tonnes of fine print warnings and cautionary statements which I discard. Could cause dizziness, might impair operating a moter vehicle or machinery, alcohol could amplify certain symptoms, and for crapssake don't get pregnant while taking this. Or consult your doctor. Given that I am male, and beyond childbearing age, I don't see how talking to my doctor would make any difference as far as getting pregant is concerned.


"We all agree that Stan (Loretta) has the right to get pregnant, but where is the baby going to gestate? In a box?
It's symbolic of a struggle with reality!"


Far be it from me to struggle with reality.
It sometimes gets away from me, though.

All things considered, it's probably a good thing that I don't drive. My patience with the other idiots on the road would be flinter-thin, and rather than road rage, I would engage in road-surreality. Imagine a dash-mounted megaphone screaming "you are all oranges!" while the vehicle careens wildly. I'd explain to the officer that I was taking Amlodipine Besylate, which "may cause dizziness" and "impair the ability to operate a vehicle, vessel, or heavy machinery. To say nothing of a Caterpillar Earth Mover, or snow plow.

Broadway and Stockton is probably not the place for that.
Too many "oranges" there, moving slowly.



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THEIR NATURAL HABITAT

There are more dogs in this neighborhood than children. One very rarely sees people walking their children outside when one is, hypothetically, up and having a stroll with one's pipe at around six o'clock in the morning. No, not on a leash. Children, being a more advanced creature evolutionarily than many dogs, do not require leashes; there are cell phones to keep them from going up to strangers and biting them or sniffing their crotches.
On the way home I saw only four kiddiewinkies but seven dogs in my block.

Chinese parents, which in this neck of the woods are the dominant kind, garb their offspring in bright cheerful rain togs. Little ambulatory blobs of colour at the end of the block.
So that the wee munchkins stay mostly dry.

In a way I am insanely jealous of that. When I was small I did not have cheerful raingear. Foul weather clothing was dull grey or dark blue, and all of us probably looked rather industrial, like we were going off to the glue factory in the morning.
Boots? Black or dull green only.
Not magenta.

There is a little Dutch child in that flooded parking lot shown above, dressed to perfectly blend into his surroundings. That's why you can't see him. Neither can the wild animals.


Not shown: The pipe in the little tyke's mouth (pipesmoking is a recognized intangible cultural heritage of the Netherlands, and many natives are born with a fully lit briar in their mouth), or the banana for scale. It's there, though. Bananas are the only bright thing in the otherwise drab and rain-swept landscape of a Dutch childhood.
The glue factory is implied.




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THE AIR IS CRUNCHY!

Perhaps it's the weather. There were fewer people than normal about in Chinatown. The chachanteng where I went for lunch had four tables, a total of six customers, besides myself. Though the orders to-go suggested that many more people were eating their food than was evident. My usual sheltered niche along a nearby street kept me from getting rained on, but nearly every passer-by had either an umbrella or a grumbly expression. Sometimes both. Street corner auntie in her own portico was dithering, also clear of falling rain.

Fried egg man (煎蛋佬) headed past long after the restaurant closed. I expect he was probably heading to a different place to have two eggs in addition to his lunch.

Quote from the apartment mate: "The two service types diverge, therefore the approach has to be different." This seems axiomatic, but does not apply to this situation.
His approach, quite likely, remains the same.


At the present time, it is marginally warmer than North India. But during the height of the day it will around eighty degrees there, though dry and smoggy. Whereas at that time it will likely be around mid-fifties here, and still inclement. Despite the gloomity and discomfort most people will nevertheless prefer here to there. For one thing, it's breathable.

We'll sadly have to survive without the samosas and pakoras, fried in a vat of dubious cooking oil on a wood fire, so delicious, so delicious. Or the masala chai.
Hot, fragrant, dubious, and similarly heated.

In Bombay it will be at least ten degrees hotter than Delhi, also without precipitation, but scant smog because it's on the coast. And personally I think I should prefer berry pullao or brun maska anyhow. They have Irani cafes there.

The nearest thing we have to an Irani cafe in the Fort Area is a Chinese bakery with back tables where there is pleasing chatter in Toisanwaa or Hong Kong Cantonese.
With hot naai cha (奶茶), and egg tarts.


My teatime was exceedingly pleasant. I barely participated in the conversation, but enjoyed a calmer level of people watching than normal. The weather did not dampen the spirits, but did keep people away. One old auntie with tooth problems did make it in, having had a doctor's appointment nearby anyway. I admire her determination. Especially when she then snacked on something hard and crunchy (一個硬硬脆脆嘅曲奇餅 'yat go ngaan ngaan cheui cheui ge kuk kei peng'). We now all know about her teeth.




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COMMODITIZATIONAL DREAMING

The actual start of rainy season weather is always better than the lead-up. It's something about the light, there seems to be more brightness in the gloom. It's probably refranction and reflection. Also, and this is purely psychological, it seems less cold. It is, in fact, the perfect weather to sit by the fire -- the nearest dumpster is four blocks away -- with a cup of coffee (can't rely on the local places for decent chai or HK naai cha), a good book (perhaps something idolatrous other than the new testament), and a pipe.

Seeing as I don't have a jerrycan of accelerant, the election having been too recent, and I'd look mighty queer schlepping a copy of the Oxford Dictionary Of Chemistry (seventh edition) with me, I guess I'll just go down to C'town and have a club sandwich and fries (公司三文治，同埋薯條 'gong si saam man ji, tong maai syü tiu').

My refills will be ready tomorrow, so I'll be down there again then.
Which will mean, again, a hot beverage. Adventure!
It's good to have wet weather plans.

I lead a mundane and boring life.

Apparently I am in a narrow minority that prefers that; most Americans, per a recent survey, will get neither the flu shot nor the latest covid booster, and prefer the risk of infecting their family members, and any vulnerable children and elderly people they encounter, over the assurance of modern medicine. And more power to them! There are already too many youngsters and grumpy old fossils in this country taking up all the resources!

I am absolutely in favour of Karen in the centre of the country kicking the bucket gasping for air this holiday season. Those of us that survive can take her present back to the big box for a refund, and go to Tahiti instead.

Comparing the before and after figures for deaths from many diseases once vaccines were developed is instructive. And kind of frightening too. Fortunately most Americans can't grasp statistics worth squat, and willingly follow snake oil salesmen like RFK Jr. and Doctor Oz.

Measles, mumps, and similar disease rates are on the rise.
I'm sure the first polio cluster is merely a matter of time.
There are far too many junkfood hogs out here!
So this is actually very good news.


We shall deal with overpopulation the same way we're dealing with global climate change;
let nature take it's course. It's better than incessant war.
By golly yes.



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THE GLOOMITY

Those few people on the street unfurled their umbrellas, then a minute or two later furled them up again. It wasn't actually raining, not even a full sprinkle. Droplets, sporadic, wind born. Suggesting that it might come down a bit less apathetically later. And holding an umbrella over one's head is tiresome and old school, surely there's an app for that?

My last dream had, oddly, had involved Orlik's Golden Slices, of which I have several tins purchased six or seven years ago. Which I shan't open, because there are too many open tins of tobacco already. I still haven't even made a dent in the Royal Yacht I cracked at the beginning of October.

It's like having too many teas. Choice is good, too much choice is irritating.

Pipestud (Steve Fallon) in Texas would've probably sucked up that Royal Yacht in less than a week. Which I admire, but shall not emulate. I still remember hiccoughing for an hour after two bowls of that stuff with a cigar in between.

And speaking of Steve, I should mention that four of his five favourite pipe tobaccos are not produced anymore. Once you reach a certain age (let us say early adulthood), things which were a bedrock start disappearing. I can imagine it's the same for smart young hipsters who suddenly discover that "Uncle Bing's Black Cherry Extra Vaganza", once made by Parsnip and Co. in East Bongo, Kentucky, a stalwart enterprise and pillar of the community, is no longer shipped to the civilized world. Why, even "Smither's Candy Floss Flake" is hard to find! What IS this world coming to? What indeed?

Having gotten up early so that I could get in my first pipe outside early, thus maintaining the pretense that I don't light up in the apartment for at least as long as it takes my apartment mate to have breakfast, a bath, a cuppa, and depart for work, I naturally had a furled umbrella with me when I left the front steps after lighting up.

I suspect it's going to be right nasty when I head out to lunch. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night shall keep me from my Tuesday and Wednesday routine. Chachanteng, strong milk tea, something tasty to eat, followed by a bowl.

I'm luckier than Steve Fallon. Several of my faves are still available (although I do have a substantial number of tobaccos that are no longer being made on the shelf), and quite fortunately I don't live in a state with Ted Cruz.




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TATTOOED VEGANS

Second cup of coffee, and dawdling over the internet. Read some Dov Bear, news articles, avoided anything from Fox News. Plus lamented man's cruel inhumanity to man in a cold dark universe. Existential dread! Actually, scratch those last two items, not my style. Also reread some eloquent comments talking smack about certain people from more than a decade ago, and giggled. They were frightful dicks then, and probably still are.
No regrets over cutting time with them down to zero.

Postponed necessary tasks for an hour or so.

And I just noticed that the half dozen shadow puppets near the far bookshelf are a bit dusty. Might need to clean them up a bit. Later.


One person I blocked over ten years ago lived in fear that Obama would come for his guns.
I fervently hope that he crashed his damned motorbike, but I'm not interested in finding out.
Good riddance, if so.

Two others were cat women. Nothing wrong with that.
Despite being male with no cats, I'm one too.
But they were hip, and non-smokers.

The pipe shown above is in the current rotation, and one of my best smokers. The company that made it stopped putting out briars two decades before I was born. So it's very suitable for enjoying while reading authors who are not woke and hip enough for the current generation. As most excellent authors are.

What the heck am I saying?!? Any pipe is good for that! The item shown below, produced far more recently, is also one that Gen Z would be offended by. Tobacco is evil and meat-based. Totally! It represents the white man repressing peaceful natives all over the world.

Sadly, none of the products I enjoy regularly is soy-based. Except for actual soy products. Which are perfect with meat. Strange how that works. One of my favourite Chinese dishes is stuffed tofu (釀豆腐 'yung dau fu') made with both pork and shrimp paste, served with hot sauce. Which is probably very Texan of me. May I mention again that despite being masculine, and having no cats, I am a single cat lady?

The two cat women mentioned earlier were single and lived in the East Bay.
They probably voted for Trump, because of "reasons".
I'm glad I no longer know them.


As an example of peaceful natives, both incredibly artistic and spiritual, I would highlight the Aztecs, who sacrificed war captives to the sun on an incredible scale. As well as the Ashanti, who sold their war captives to the Dutch, Portuguese, and Arabs.
So incredibly artistic and spiritual!

The history of Africa, btw, is an almost unending string of massacres and genocides.
I am filled with respect for their artistic and spiritual achievements.


Before human ascendancy, the natives lived in harmony.
And no one ate meat or shoe leather.
Gosh golly.


I understand that there is indeed tofu-based bacon.
Probably too spiritual for people like me.
So I'll be avoiding that.




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THREE THINGS TO MAKE SURE OF

Upon waking up the key thing one notices is itching somewhere on the upper body, usually the head, plus a pervasive sense of grump, whether it is already light out or not, and quite likely a need to micturate. As well as the presence in the nearby kitchen of a woman cheerful as all git-out fixing herself a hot breakfast. As my apartment mate is likely to do at that hour.
I myself merely need caffeine, nicotine, and highly refined sugar, to be ready for the day. So after my first cup I head out into the neighborhood with my pipe to scare little children and the hordes of anti-tobacco purists of which San Francisco has an abundance.

My apartment mate is a non-smoker. Many women of Chinese ancestry are like that. The men more than make up for it, being veritable chimneys in that regard.
Remarkably, she seldom wakes up grumpy.


Also, there are no ashtrays, pipe tampers, tins of tobacco, or cigar cutters in her room.
More than anything else that suggests eccentricity and peculiarity.
A distinctly non-male gestalt.

The only times I enter her quarters are to retrieve one of the stuffed animals who strayed into semi-unknown territory in search company or a book about jewelry. They like blinky things.
My bedroom has almost no blinky things.

Yesterday I realized that I have enough pipes to provide at least five pipe smokers of either gender with a respectable rotation. The majority are excellent briar.
Unfortunately, I am by no means a total of five pipe smokers.
I'm barely one of them. And only one gender.

They would have to be younger, too. A pipe, properly taken care of, will last the smoker's life time and beyond, and will quite probably be borrowed by a teenager left alone in the house while the parent is off on vacation in London (England) or Modesto (California) for two weeks. "Son (or daughter), there are three things I want you to make sure of: Make sure that there is coffee when I get back, make sure we have toilet paper when I get back, and make sure that the house is still standing, when I get back."

It wasn't exactly like Ferris Bueler's Day Off. I spent most of those two weeks reading, smoking a pipe, and preparing hot beverages.



Reading material: Rudyard Kipling, Georges Simenon, Somerset Maugham, Joyce Carey, George Orwell, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clark, Ray Bradbury. All of The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction (my mother had been one of the contributors), articles in Horizon (we had every issue), National Geographic, and Scientific American.
Plus all of Asterix And Obelix.


Basically, what any well-educated young fellow would do.
Also purchased tins of Balkan Sobranie.
Idem ditto.



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THE COMMON HERD

Good lord it's cold outside. I went out after fixing myself a late lunch -- meat scraps, veggies, thin rice noodles, with stinky shrimp paste and chilies -- and darn near froze my tender bits off. Discovered that it was long john weather, the internet having lied through its teeth and told me a balmy sixty degrees. It was fifty two.

One friend insists he loves this weather. It's brisk. Reminds him of the upper peninsula and shooting ducks. Personally I think he's crazy and has a thick layer of jelly-like fat all around his squidgies, but I refuse to picture that.

It's bad enough imagining him armed with a bird massacre instrument.
I'm fairly sure he doesn't know how to cook them anyway.
Probably an excuse to get out of the house.
Away from the non-smoking wife.
With a pipe and a stink.


Honestly, the only reason I even went outside was to enjoy a smoke. My apartment mate, like many women, is sensitive to the rugged manly odours of fine pipe tobacco either boldly flavoured with Latakia OR subtly spiced with Perique and a little fire cured leaf.
It's quite inexplicable.

This is the time of year when people (men) in the Midwestern states start posting plaintively on the various pipe forums, explaining that "the heater in the garage is on the fritz, my wife and children won't let me smoke in the house, I'm huddling under a dead polar bear on the front lawn for warmth, it's intercoursing cold out here, how do you guys stand it? Waah!" Whereupon some smart aleck will respond with "dude, I live in Hawaii, and my wife is a he-man who puts up with any amount of testosteronic crap." Or Florida. They live in Florida. Where the wife won't allow them out of the house lest the alligators mistake him for a lump of raw meat and rip the sole breadwinner of a Christian household to shreds. Or sumpin'.


When I was still a wee teenager in North Brabant, you could still head on down to the local cafe for a warm beverage and a comforting smoke if your housemates told you to go play with alligators with your pipe in the beastly cold. Peter, Frans, Pim, and Herman, would all be down there puffing their briars while reading the magazines their moms would not let into the house. Time, Newsweek, Nieuwe Revu, and A Boy's Own Life. Rain, sleet, and hail would blatter against the glass in the double doors, something horrid by Abba would be on the speakers -- softly so as not to rile up brainy young fellows with good aim and strong throwing arms -- and the communal ashtray would gradually fill up with pipe cleaners, burnt matches, shreds and dottles of tobacco, as the polar bears and alligators hunted down the shivering naked people without shelter. Probably starving third worlders and Frenchmen.


At least that's how I remember it.


Peter, Frans, Pim, and Herman probably don't. They very likely became non-smokers after meeting the women of their dreams, and were ripped to shreds outside on the street.

You know, there was a time when pipesmokers were remembered for having shot down Jerry over the South Downs. Instead of lamentably ducks in the bogs of Michigan.
The world has been taken over by wimps and cretins.
People who melt cheese on everything.
Overly sensitive sorts.
Soy cheese.



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UNCOOPERATIVE RODENT

Some kind of severe weather event will take place this week in Northern California that has all the experts either excited or flummoxed. The article looked interesting, but I was too busy wrestling with my computer mouse to read it. It involves rain. Somewhere between the North Bay and the Oregon border. Which is not surprising. So I'll have to do my laundry today as it might be wet tomorrow. Possibly pouring down by the evening. Seeing as the bookseller is presently gallavanting all over cities on the Easter Seaboard, there will not be a rat watching session this week.

Probably a good week to be a vegetable.

Sit around the house all day during the wetness, reading last weeks mail before throwing it out -- "it's time to review your medicare coverage, and shift to new and better plans which we wish to tell you all about, and quite coincidentally we have ideas! -- pay a few bills, get refills at the pharmacy, and pick my nose.

Drink strong tea, giggle over Trump world having conniptions, and smoke a Virginia Perique blend produced over a decade ago by Cornell & Diehl, of which I have four nicely bulgy aged tins, acquired recently. Fiammata, compounded for Castello, no longer in production. Earthy and somewhat punchy. If I open one, there will be three left for the stockpile.

WETTER WEATHER

Probably also a good week to purchase another mouse. I've tested this one on both USB ports, and it's probably not the computer but the rodent that's past it's prime.
The gloomy painting above was made with a recalcitrant mouse.

It is unlikely that Andrew Wyeth or Joseph Mallord William Turner had to deal with a stiff mouse. Highly doubtful, even. They would not have stood for it.

It cannot possibly be bribed with cheese.
As a Dutchman, I have cheese.
No, I haven't even tried.



Laundry. Mail. And lottery tickets (I want to be rich).
Tea. Fiammata and Charatan pipes. Cheese.
No rats in Spofford Alley. Mouse.



What would I do if I won the lottery? I'd buy more cheese.
As well as more pipes, tobacco, and cups of tea.




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