THE STICK SHIFT, AND OTHER PARTS

The internet is a regular source of amazement. In surprising ways. It turns out that some people remain confused about basic health, biology, human anatomy generally speaking as well as their own body in particular, or where eggs come from (the fridge, that's why there's that little rack).

Yes, there were classes at school. And no, they weren't paying attention, or their mommy pulled them out, because Little Johnny is too young to hear all that filth even though he's wanking off every night to manga babes he has hidden under his bed. And in any case, Little Johnny is now a full grown man, eating at chick-fil-A every day because it is a good Christian place run by saintly clean folks, and keeps getting an uncomfortable feeling in his pants over the waitresses which he thinks is because white meat chicken just always does that.

There is no library in his town anymore, because libraries are nasty.

In any case, he doesn't know what's down there.
Not his. Not hers. Not anyone's.


So, for his benefit, here's a diagram of a stick shift.

Hope it helps.

This post was inspired by one person stating authoritatively that the female crowk was all the openings at once, and another telling someone she was an idiot for not knowing that babies were made in her urethra the dumb cow. That last begs a question about Hank Hill's "narrow urethur" which I shall not ask, because I don't want my readers to think about sex and Texas in the same breath. There's far too much of that going on already.

As an afterthought, I should mention that I knew this stuff by the time I was eight or nine, because of a helpful book I received when it still looked like I was going to study medicine, was informed of it once more in the last year of grammar school by the no-nonsense teacher explaining the material to all of us, and learned it all again in highschool when the biology teacher was temporarily replaced for six weeks because it made him uncomfortable.
He stuttered through several parts of that chapter.


No, I have never had offspring.


And remember, it's only nasty if you think about sex and Texas in the same breath.



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THE FINEST EXPLOITATION

Naturally the subject of our colonial enterprises came up during conversation recently, seeing as although we Dutch don't often think about them anymore, having divested ourselves of not only those territories as well as any lingering guilt over having been absolutely brutal albeit extremely succesful imperialists, it's been what, three or four generations since we left Java, Sumatra, and the Moluccas forheavensakes, very many historically minded Americans are still insanely jealous over the extent of our realm. Which fuelled the subsequent rise of all other hegemonic capitalisms. As well as all advances in civilization.
And don't you ever forget that.

[Please note: When I say 'Dutch', I usually include myself in that, because I am Dutch American descended from inbred New Amsterdammers, and my family moved to the Netherlands when I was two years old. My grammar and high school education was in Dutch, and despite having no relatives engaged in draining the Indies or Africa of their riches, I'm damned proud of our having been better (worse) at imperialism and golden aging than almost everybody else.]

Growing up in Valkenswaard, I remember being sent across the square to purchase cartons of cigarettes for my mother when I was five years old, for which I got pocket money, to be happily spent on candy. When I was ten, it was comics at Priem's bookshop, next to a cigar store. The two old ladies who ran the small grocery store on the corner of the market square opposite Cafe De Swaen had retired by then, though there was still a cigarette machine on the outside wall, and one or two enamel placards advertising smokes there.

The famous Irish literary bad boy Brendan Behan in his autobiography mentioned that when you could afford a pack of factory mades, you felt on top of the world. Seeing as most of my highschool classmates smoked handrolled ciggies, heavy ("superzware") shag, because it was so much cheaper, I could understand that.

[Borstal Boy, by Brendan Francis Aidan Behan, published in 1958. Which I read when I was fourteen, and still smoking crap like Troost (J. & A.C. van Rossem Koninklijke Tabaksfabriek) or Scottish Mixture (Theodorus Niemeijer N.V.).]

A pot of strong tea, a new tin of a good pipe tobacco, and a Simenon novel I'd just begun reading, and the foggy Autumn afternoon would glide luxuriously into evening darkness. On occasion I too indulged in factory mades. That old-style British packaging, the smell of fine Virginias, with a cup of Assam or Ceylon tea. Oh my.

The world seemed smaller, but better connected.
And filled with reliable manufacturers.
Necessities and good products.


Most English tobacco brands have now disappeared, famous Dutch companies that dealt in coffee, tea, spices, quinine, and tobacco have all been swallowed up, and many people are more familiar with junkfood and mediocre chain beverages or shitty American beer than before, and the only real luxuries left are fine Chinese cigarettes smuggled in.
Especially since folks have gone all healthy and cost conscious.


Both Priem's bookstore and my favourite tobacconist in Valkenswaard have closed.
As have most tobacconists and bookstores here in the SF Bay Area.
And you cannot find quinine at any of the drugstores!
What IS this world coming to?


That said, it's probably time to order a new mosquito net for my apartment mate, given that climate change probably means more mosquitoes. They never bother me, because I taste bad. So I don't have a net around my bed. But her, she's a clean-living Chinese woman, nonsmoker, and come spring she'll need that.



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IT STALKS!

Mmm, yeah. I probably had too much sugar last night. A friend had given me a large box of chocolates from him and the wife yesterday. The previous day another friend gave me some German holiday confections. And the apartment mate had a giant box of Danish sweets for me when I came home. As a cynical man, I must conclude that everyone likes me better when I'm hepped to the fluttering gills and bouncing off the walls.

Wall-off-bouncing, at my age, is restrained and calm.
Don't want to break anything.

Sugar.

You know, I probably should have limited my late night snacking to a bit of lamb. Nice and juicy, fatty, savoury. Better for the kidneys, and less likely to cause odd moody dreaming.

The wild feline, significantly larger than a domestic pussy, but neither large enough, or clearly visible enough to identify the type, sneaks and slithers through the tall grass and shrubbery, with its eyes laser focused on the little baah lamb chop (bone-in) happily frolicking on the plate, not a care in the world, and cohabiting sinfully with the creamed spinach.

Way too much sugar.

Predatory blobs at the edge of my field of vision.


Unlike many people I know, I do not go for long walks in nature. No hikes, or exciting trails leading to hidden waterfalls or rainbow-specked glades where hobbits might comfortably live, away from the hurly burly of the urban environment. There might not be anywhere to get a comforting warm beverage there, if there are breezes I would worry about the ashes and embers from my pipe, and there is bound to be an inviting patch of poison ivy.

Plus rattle snakes, very angry small creatures, and scorpions.

Neither the Ardennes nor the Alps are rife with any of those things. And within twenty minutes walk you will encounter an auberge with a shielded terrace and tables with ashtrays.
No rattle snakes, drugged-out bikers, hippies, or hobbits.

Today I think I'll go on a trek in Chinatown, and hunt down the dumplings that I was denied last week because of all the tourists thronging my first, second and third choice eateries.
I have never been stung on a sensitive part by a feral dumpling.
Nor left itching or scratching from a rash.


No hobbits.



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THE SHIVERING

Modern horror story: plummeting temperatures send innocent suburbanites in California into a panic. Some of them kill and devour polar bears for the blubber, or slaughter the innocent inhabitants of a trailer park filled with refugees from the Catholic world. Various native wild animals develope a surprising taste for either human blood or distilled spirits, I'm not quite sure which.

Meanwhile, in a hotel in the foothills, a writer and his family face unimaginable nightmares: canned luncheon meat and frozen peas are the only supplies till Spring. They've only got three recipes from the nineteen fifties. And no ketchup! Oh, the shivering, the shivering!

Somebody should make a call to Jack Nicholson, we've got a movie for ya.

All of this was prompted by reports that a horrific cold front is coming in which will go below freezing in some areas, and my apartment mate wondering if the grumpy old toad has enough warm underwear and I do know where the extra bedcovers are don't I?

I'm a tough old man. I'll simply wear an extra layer of underwear.
And if need be, two sweaters. Plus gloves.
And that thick coat.

Preambulatory to the massive ball of frigid air from Alaska drifting in tonight, there was rain.
It was gloomish today. Soggy. Other than a few damp old fossils in the backroom grumbling at the teevee because the forty Niners weren't playing, it was relatively quiet, and no one lost their intestinal contents. I spent much of the day cleaning and polishing briar pipes, including a Jobey Canadian, two Savinelli Autographs, two or three English pipes of relatively standard shapes, and a few Danes. The previous owner had relatively clean habits, and may have departed over two decades ago. There was no overarching esthetic sense.
Just haphazardly bought as the whim took him or her.

That happens. Some people end up with favourite shapes, some don't.
Not every pipe smoker is anal or neurotic.
Why, look at me!


Y'all can please stop giggling now.
I can hear you, you know.



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THE MOST THOUGHTFUL EUROPEANS

My coworker's small dog dragged her into the mud yesterday, in consequence of which her shoulder hurt like billy-o all day, and she moaned periodically. She did not have a good day. And while I sympathize oh my yes this is why sensible women should have a cat instead. If they want to slide through the mud like a ball player, the cat will look at them like they're crazy and abstain.

As you can tell, if I had a pet, it would not be a dog. This does not make me a bad person. Please remember that.

I'm just not overmuch into mud.


Still, I'm thinking I should have a tennis ball with me at all times in case I run into the coyote in this neighborhood, or the one who hunts in Portsmouth Square to the east of here, again. Let's see how instinctive certain behaviours actually are. A small stick will probably suffice.

Cats are not known for playing fetch.
Don't bother tossing the ball.

There are no wild cat species in this neck of the woods. No mountain lions, cougars, servals, or panthers. I need not have a ball of yarn with me at all times for protection and distraction.

Outside of San Francisco it's a different matter. The suburbs abound in carnivores of many different types, some of them feline.

Fortunately there are enough chihuahuas, yorkies, and little entitled brats running around that they need not mess with a sharp-clawed pissy Dutch American like myself. You will note that Holland does have wild canines (wolves), but no mountain lions. We also don't have mountains, so that's probably a good thing.

Still, we Dutch are quite fond of cats.
They suit our thoughtful nature.



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A DIFFERENT SMELL

My apartment mate, when giving the old Indonesian lady downstairs some groceries, was treated to a disquisition on cucumbers. Marvelous things, cucumbers! So good for preventing high cholesterol. As the mean grouchy Dutchman -- an "orang belanda", and we all know how cruel and potentially brutal those people can be -- this is not something to which I have been subjected. I bring her fruits or vegetables occasionally, but am not someone to whom one can confide about cucumbers.
This pleases me.

Something I remembered from Valkenswaard was cucumbers with shrimp paste and mashed chilies. At the house of friends of part-Indonesian heritage. Part of a laplap platter. Laplap are raw or blanched vegetables of various sorts served with sambal, called lalab in Sunda, where it usually consists of sliced or chopped tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, long beans (katjang pandjang), with a bowl of freshly made sambal petis and sometimes a squeeze of lime juice or a serving of grilled meat with peanut sauce. Fun and refreshing.

The weather in San Francisco at times reminds me of Valkenswaard. Fog.
Foggy streets and alleyways.

The aromas are different, though. The autumn air there is more tannic.

There more leaves there. Drifts of them sometimes blocking sidewalks.
Deep and wide obstacles you have to go around.
A colder and wetter place.



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THE PEE ALARM CLOCK

My apartment mate is singing the praises of the pee alarm clock. It is totally infallible, and miraculous. It gets a body up in time to face the rigors of the new day. While I think that it's a bizarre basis for lyric and hymn-singing, I can't say that I disagree. At all.
It's the best reason to get up at the very crack of dawn.

It was probably invented by the ancient Chinese millenia ago. And very likely what allowed them to repell the savage Turkic tribes on the other side of the wall.
Based entirely on consumption of tea.

Tea has been the spur of many innovations throughout history.
Mechanical, artistic, and philosophical.
Plus Dr. Johnson's dictionary.

She does not drink as much tea as I do, but she starts her day with tea, whereas I start mine with coffee and a pipeful. That last necessitates a walk around the neighborhood, seeing as I cannot smoke indoors. Which means that I'm doing something healthy while smoking.

I will swill several cups of tea during my work day, in consequence of which I am both a poet and a ruddy genius, besides being wired to the tits and well-hydrated.

Evenso, I am certainly not the equal of Doctor Johnson.
Who had well over a dozen cups a day.
A hardened addict.



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TIME FOR TEA, RAIN, AMLODIPINE BESYLATE

When I went over to Chinatown for lunch today I was determined to have dumplings. 不過今日唐人阜有太多鬼佬，and the place where I wanted to eat was filled, with people overflowing out onto the sidewalk. Two other places were also choc-a-blocked. And while considering my options, I was nearly drowned in a flood of tourists. Why do people go there on the second Christmas Day? Nothing else to do? Tired of turkey?

Dumplings with a cup of milk tea would have been so nice.
All those people eat sweet'nsour pork and kung pao.
Or, gor'elpus, walnut chicken and chow mein.
Horrid dumpling ignorant hordes.

So I went to a Vietnamese restaurant instead where there were no nattering outsiders, enjoyed a lovely meal with a generous portion, and a warm drip coffee. In a clean tiled interior with lots of privacy, and only three Indian girls who stumbled in by mistake and promptly stumbled out again.

Then wandered down into the financial district smoking my pipe.
Caught the bus home when it was done.

According to the weather map it was raining cats and dogs at that time, but I didn't need to use my umbrella at all. Still hadn't really started when I stepped out briefly after putting on the kettle and taking my pill, and only later, well past then, it started anaemically drizzling.

The bus stop in the Financial District was right in front of an Irish bar. Remarkably, the briar pipe I was smoking at that time would have been appropriate inside there -- and in Ireland they would have served tea at that time, a strong brew -- since it had been made in Ireland. Purchased from Mary Pulvers, whose store used to be one block away from there (the Irish bar, that is, not the Republic of Ireland).

Irish bars in the United States do not serve decent tea. This is because their clientele would not know a nice cup of tea if it came up and bit them in the rear.
Americans are heathens when it comes to tea.


One cannot smoke one's pipe in a bar or other convenient stopping place for tea anymore. To the great delight of snooty smoke-free do-gooders. Puritanism is alive and well.


The Irish, by the way, drink more tea per person than any other group in the world, quite probably excepting people in East Frisia. Who are hepped to the gills.



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ALL THE BLINKY THINGS

An old friend couldn't hack the cost of living in San Francisco anymore and moved back to Charlotte, North Carolina. The pandemic and post-pandemic economy have not been good to him. Seeing as he's only a few years younger than myself, that's probably a good thing. He's now closer to relatives who can keep an eye on him, in case his health takes a sudden turn down -- which is more of a concern for middle-aged single dudes than for the "I'm gonna live forever" twenty-something crowd -- and he has more space for him and the dogs.

Yes, I'm going to miss him. The crowd from the old place is thinning out a bit.

On the other hand, you can get decent food in Charlotte now.

Including diverse Asian ingredients.

So theoretically even I could live there. Even though it is much colder there at present. And naturally I will bellyache about the weather -- its barely fifty degrees Fahrenheit, cold and gloomy outside there this morning -- so the idea to moving to anywhere on the East Coast is right out, imagine how whiney and sour old cootish I'd sound, and to the best of my knowledge there isn't a Hong Kong style cafe in the entire region.

It's a strange criterion for civilized life. Do they have a place with pastries, milk tea, soy sauce Western food, and grumbling Cantonese peasant types? If yes, that is good. If no, then waah I wanna leave now why did we come here is human life even possible in these ghastly waste lands what is the meaning of existence?!?

Can one at least get a good cappuccino?

It's like the suburbs in the Bay Area. Where you need a motor car for roadtrips to civilization, instead of being surrounded by it on all sides. In SF, Hong Kong milk tea is available barely half a dozen blocks away (Chinatown), cappuccino a little beyond that (Caffè Trieste, North Beach), or even on Polk Street downhill from my apartment, and you can even eat Thai or Vietnamese food within a few blocks if you want something different.

I'm somewhat provincial. I tend to think of everything outside of the city (SF) as headhunter territory with cannibals and violent savages, for crapsakes call out the King's Rifles to control the damned natives and keep them from being revolting, and when is my next package from the old country going to get here, plus there's that pervasive smell from the fish sauce factories and copra warehouses everywhere.

You will be pleased to know that both City Lights Bookstore and Green Apple Books do mailorders to that part of the world; there are literate people in that neck of the woods.
Both William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams were from somewhere in that zone.

As are the crazed necrophiliacs described by Cormac McCarthy, so there's that.


All in all, I would far rather read about the place than be there.
That goes for everything east of Oakland, by the way.
As well as Oakland itself.
In buckets.



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AND WE AREN'T EATING THAT!

Years ago, in order to tease the she-sheep, Snidely (sock sheep, the Head Sheep) invented 'Big Black Wanda Sheep', and laboriously crafted two little yellow bows out of cigar ribbon for her hind feet, as "evidence" that she had existed, and was no more due to an evil lurking in the apartment. That being me. She tasted delicious!

Big Black Wanda Sheep, though entirely a fiction, has entered the canon.
The only ones who remember his trickery are Ms. Bruin and Miss Piggelt.
The Head Roomie (a teddy bear) and a small pig respectively.
Other stuffed creatures sometimes bring her up.
Most often, that's the small piglet.
Who has an evil streak.

I presently hear porcine giggling.

One of the newer roomies, a condor, is baffled at this household of which he is now a member. Is it nothing but weirdoes and perverts?

Well, um, yeah. I mean 'no'! No, it isn't!

Only a few of the other creatures are weirdoes OR perverts. So don't panic.

He has rightly recognized the turkey vulture (Sydney Fylbert) as one such.
Because civilized creatures do NOT threaten to eat little girl hamsters.
Good lord man, that's just not done! It is very not cricket!
What is wrong with you, dude!


Somebody brought up Big Black Wanda Sheep again. I really wish they wouldn't.
In that narrative I am the bad guy, and we ate her.
It's a foul slander, I say!


In other news, my apartment mate, in whose room many of the small anarchists live, is in the kitchen right now preparing a rack of lamb. Should be delicious. I'm quite fond of lamb.
Mmm, succulent flesh! Juicy, herby, garlicky.
Not Wanda Sheep.


No, Sydney Fylbert, it is NOT a celebration of her life!
There is no need to look solemn or speechify.
Do not bake grass cupcakes.



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HOLIDAY PIE

'Tis the season to realize that there are limits to my being social. Yesterday evening someone who didn't listen very well objected to my having been praescribed clopidogrel back in 2019 (which I've been de-praescribed since the middle of 2020). How upsetting! Those awful side effects! Surely there is another way! I should protest to my doctor, outraged, and it would be much much better if I (presumably retroactively) refuse!

The alternative to modern medicine is, sometimes, (retroactively) dying of an entirely avoidable situation next to a busy highway and not being discovered for a few days.

Clopidogrel is an antiplatelet medication that prevents arterial and coronary stents from gunking up in the first several months. Two side effects of note are that cuts and scrapes don't clot up very well, and one is more susceptible to bruising. Which was a regular feature which I found to be both quite fascinating and educational. During the middle of that year one of my acquiantances insisted that clopidogrel was bad for me and I should just take apple cider vinegar and ginger root. And avoid gluten.

Which, of course, was total bollocks.

I've learned to disregard and sneer vehemently at health advice from unqualified and unvetted people with a bug up their ass.

Let me now state three key concepts:

1.: Listening to the advice of fully qualified medical personell who are familiar with the pertinent details is why I am still alive.

2.: Recommendations by chiropractors, crystal healers, and people into "natural" medicine is why several other people aren't.

3.: Very many people are unbearably stupid. Not all of the time. But often enough.


To a certain extent, Christmas is about putting up with people.

Which I don't do very well.

Alternative Christmas story: Three magical dinosaurs approached a giant egg, bearing apple cider vinegar, ginger root, and gluten-free substances. They cracked it and cooked a large omelette, which they enjoyed very much, consuming it with the three ingredients listed above. There was no chilipaste, as sambal had not been invented yet. And that's why dinosaurs are extinct now, and we have a habitable world.

Also, if your holiday dinner does not include gluten, you are doing it wrong.



NOTE: Previous reaction to Xmas here: IT'S ALWAYS WINTER THERE



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COFFEE, SEVERAL CUPS OF TEA, MORE COFFEE

A dream involving shenanigans in the real estate office. It's a purely imaginary real estate office, as I have never been there, so some details are unimportant and vague. There is a backroom with an ashtray and an unused desk. The ashtray is the important bit. No cork knocker, but evidence that someone smokes Davidoff cigars there after hours. One a day. Hence the ventilation.

Surely no one will object if I light up, seeing as the office is vacant?

How perfect that I happen to have a pipe and tobacco with me.

Now if only there were a newspaper and some tea.

The other factor which seemed key was that it was on a hillside in an off street. A curious psychoanalyst might have made something of all this, and queried me in obsessive depth about the colour of the walls and the odd haziness of many things there -- is there a copy machine, where is the water cooler, and what hue the floor might be -- but a comfortable office chair, an ashtray, a desk, and a newspaper probably says it all.
Like Sam Spade's office, but upgraded for 2024.

Obviously in San Francisco. Elements of past events or activities years ago, discordantly collected in no significant way. The ashtray is glass and facetted. There are neat logs of ash, and only one cigar band. It is white, so obviously not a Nicaraguan. For some reason I'm thinking a Signature 2000. Excellent. And I'll have to remember to have a teabag or two stashed in my coat pocket this evening, because not everywhere is properly supplied.
My host is a non-smoking coffee drinker.

Still have to purchase wine and cheese. As well as scoot into Chinatown for illegal cigarettes and a lottery ticket. At which time I will indeed have a pipe (two pipes) and tobacco with me.

By the way: Davidoff Signature two thousands are corona cigars (five inches long, ring gauge 43) made with Dominican grown Piloto Cubano, complex and creamy, but not overly strong. Notes of cedar. Perfect for an occasional smoker as well the business-like younger woman who mananges the office and knows where all the bodies are buried. It's a fine product.
They go well with coffee.


Having gotten up way too early today, I shall probably need coffee after dinner, lest I fall asleep on the couch. I am the log at parties, the zombie dozing in the corner.
Caffeine is a purely miraculous substance.


Coffee means detailed dreams.



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RAISE THE RUCKUS

Today was marked with little victories. Laundry, walkies, pedal improvements, and ma po tofu. That last was at a place where I have been before. It was strangely empty, possibly because many possible customers were foaming at their mouths down at the mall in both Christmas shopping frenzies and mating dances. Which I imagine them doing.

The last Christmas of plenty before Generalissimo Musk and his yapping pet poodle Donnie wreck the economy and prices double. Neither Christmas nor the ascension of the senile delinquents will affect me much. I do not frenzy at shopping, and I fairly certain that I can keep my head above water. This ain't poor bleeding Mississippi.

Besides, I'm fully vaccinated in several different ways.
Nano chips will charm my very existence.


And I have a pipe, therefore your arguments are invalid.

When I returned to my own neighborhood after lunch it was fading greyly in every direction, besides the early darkness of the second shortest day of the year. It is good to have enough time to glide into Christmas, rather than panicking like a New York socialite about the last few hours of prep time before the social event of the season.

When I was still at the company downtown, I remember once hearing the chap from the ops department during the period between Christmas and New Year muttering Homer Simpson-like "mmmm, chocolate covered bacon!" He was in the kitchen which I passed on the way to the bathroom. On my way back I heard him remark "maybe that wasn't such a good idea".
I suspect he ate the entire package of rancid pork wax covered with crappy candy.

The sales reps and consulting agencies always arranged gift baskets over the holidays. Some American cheese is truly frightful. As are the almond cookies and raisin breads.
Plus crap in tubs, and bacon confectionary, which might not be such a good idea.


The quiet of the office between Christmas and New Year was always enjoyable.
That, more than peculiar cheesy substances, is something I miss.
Long lunches by myself in Chinatown.
A pipe in late afternoon.
Glorious.



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MINOR TWEAKING

What a man needs after dealing with the angry senescent crowd and their entitled relatives in the suburbs all weekend is a nice quiet alleyway with a deep and firm awning, where there is a cafe which has strong milk tea and no venomous karens who would object to anyone discreetly smoking their pipes or a cheroot at the outside tables while waking up in the morning. Keep in mind that both the terms pipe smoker and karen are not gender specific; either type could well be the complete opposite gender than the ones that those terms might make you think. In San Francisco, karens are often pasty-faced young men who are determined to snarf the tofu, save the planet, and hug the whales.

Personally, this blogger has no objections to snarfing tofu, saving planets, or warmly embracing cetaceans of all types. If that's what rocks your boat and twiddles your gizzard, splendid. Just stay away from me and my Algerian briar whisping a strictly medium strength Perique and Virginia flake from Bristol if you are painfully sensitive. They also have milk tea inside, where there is an electric fan blowing for your kind. Bring your own oat milk.

Tofu, planets, and cetaceans are all fine things.

My feet hurt after a few days at work. It's sort of a hot stingy ache, that usually subsides by around late morning. Hot Hong Kong style milk tea is a magic potion, and very good for the mood. It's therapeutic. Preciously few people have hurty feet after milk tea.

The retired member of the judicial branch was audible several times this weekend, a whining string of bleats expressing irritation at the sub continental, liberals, the press, his much more accomplished brother, and supporters of the team battling the local ball jocks in a televised spectacle that wasn't worth watching punctuated by insurance and junkfood commercials. The only part of it even remotely interesting was the last mentioned category. Pictures of melted cheese and meat are sometimes staggeringly delightful, as many of the still lives painted by the masters prove.

The holiday season, as you know, is simply a complicated excuse for cheese. If you have to put up with your horrid relatives visiting from Missouri as well as rainy weather, you might as well have some cheese while you're doing that. A crumbly chunk of Stilton makes your uncle Gustav bearable, and Havarti lets you think that Sterleen could actually be human, if she perhaps did something about both her ignorance and the hairs on her upper lip.


Elderly senescent rightwingers, troglodyte kin from the Midwest, stormy weather, criminals and vulgarians at the mall, Elvis Presley; all improved by cheese.


This would NOT be necessary if there were a cafe which coddled pipesmokers nearby. The deep and firm awning outside is essential, because I grudgingly accept that smoking in this day and age will be mostly outdoors. I am not happy about that.
But cheese would make that better too.



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HOLIDAY GRAYITY

It was supposed to stop raining. It didn't. The whole day yesterday was marked by drizzle, drip, actual rain, blattering, suspended moisture in the air, gloom, and greyness. You know, it's not the heat, it's the humidity. Reminded me of those highschool years when it rained on the way there, ten kilometers of bicycling, stopped once everyone was in, then started again in the afternoon when it was time to go home ten kilometers back. Of course, unlike middle-aged Dutch American men in Northern California, we didn't bellyache about it.

We just took the ghastly Netherlandish climate for granted.

Apparently it's supposed to be positively Beneluxian all weekend. If you're the nervous panicky type, please remember that there are only TWO more shopping days till Christmas. You still need to do all of your shopping. All these people who are to be gifted.
Not just any garbage, but stuff that's well chosen and perfect for them.
Ohmygerd only TWO DAYS LEFT!
Breathe deep.

On the other hand, tomorrow I'm doing laundry and I plan to have relaxed lunch of little dumplings plus Hong Kong Milk Tea. Followed by a pipe smoke and a long stroll.

That picture sure doesn't look like two days before Christmas, does it? Sunny. Not wet. No car crashes, bad hair, or soggy clothes. And nobody in that illustration smells like wet dog.
Or a group of Midwestern college grad yuppies in a downtown office building elevator.

There aren't any spiders or bugs in that pile of leaves; we gave them the day off.
Not sure, but I think they're Christmas shopping.
Big sale at the outlet in the mall.
Darling tiny sweaters.

With reindeer.
And holly.



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A DUMPSTER FIRE OF TWITTERY

Often while at work I get to hear the sour old dingbats in the backroom spouting Republican drivel and venom. Which does not leave me positively inclined toward them and their MAGA social circles. So it pleases me immensely that the states with the lowest life-expectancies are ALL solidly red. Also, some of the dumbest, reddest areas of the country are discouraging vaccinations as well as any talk of vaccinations. We should evacuate all medical staff, and leave those areas to rely entirely on thoughts, prayers, and Republican snake oil.

Unremarkably, the states with the highest diabetes rates are also red.
This says something about their garbage cooking skills.

Sane people avoid Texas and Louisiana.


I look forward to the coming civil war within the Republican Party. Which, given their penchant for violent rhetoric, bullyism, and crime, will be quite "educational".

President Musk may discover that his fanboys have cannibalistic tendencies. In addition to not knowing how things work, and trying to use the powers of government agencies both to destroy those agencies and each other. If you thought that the Tesla Cybertruck was a dangerous piece of garbage, boy, you ain't seen nothing yet.


There is just so much that can go kablooey.
The next four years will be Wagnerian.
Egomaniacs, and arsonists.
Psychopaths.



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OBSERVE THE GLOOMTH!

It's probably a Jerusalem artichoke. Topanimbur. Not ginger. But it looks like ginger. Very young ginger. It flummoxed me, and I feel that it flew into this household under false pretense. A tuberous conman.

Topanimbur, atawa karsyof Yerusalem, tumbuhanan melihat seperti bunga matahari ketjil.

Okay. Probably good with a touch of chilipaste.
But it isn't ginger, which I needed.
I feel deceived.

So, obviously, I will need to buy some ginger on my next day off, at the same time as other purchases, because on Christmas and boxing day I do not expect to go veggie shopping, although Stockton Street will probably be bustling with people purchasing groceries.

One or two places may be closed in observance of fat red uncle day (肥紅叔叔節 'fei hong suk suk jit'), or whatever they might call the gifting aspect of the holiday in Cantonese, in which I don't know if there actually is a word for Santa, but fat red uncle seems to fit.

A NON-RELEVANT ILLUSTRATION

How are people without fireplaces and large diameter chimneys even supposed to celebrate Christmas? Texans? The tropic hellhole that is Florida? Are they allowed to do so down there in the Christian nutball heartland? Fat red uncle is clearly pagan, not Christian nationalist.

Personally, I feel that in keeping with their disapproval of everything foreign and idolatrous, the red states should forbid Christmas, because there is far too much non-biblical crap that has crept in. It's just so heathen! Talking snowmen, flying reindeer, eastern mystics, singing hamsters, and so on. Any observation should be about beastly suffering out in substandard housing like Mary and Joseph, no matter how horrible the weather. A few years ago Texas did exactly that, although their leader Ted Cruz went to Cancun instead, because he's a heathen, and I'm sad that so far that that has not really caught on in the red states.

It should. It would be Christian and forbearing.
Very very thoughts and prayers.
Holier than us.

Hosanna.



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WHEN CONTEMPLATING FLUCTUATION

A cooking video was interrupted by stock advice. What on earth makes investment bankers (or their drug-addled marketing department) think that people interested in food might wish to consider their fast-tanking portfolio at that moment? Galangal, good. Green chilies, good. Shrimp paste, also good. A gold mine in South Africa? Pharmaceuticals?
Mmm, those are maybe not strictly speaking relevant.
At least not at that precise moment.

"When prices fluctuate ... "

Or hormones. Blood sugar. Caffeine levels. Armpit sweat, worry, wind patterns ...

Yes. While considering the miracle of a hot Sumatran dish, I also deeply desire to think about the Hang Seng index, the state of my oxsters, and whether I've had enough coffee or rain this year. Because I am the modern generation and have serious ADHD.

No wonder people use drugs. It keeps them on agenda.

Sertraline is good.

The chemicals that are so often prescribed I'll happily leave to the professionals, junkies, yuppies, and modern suburban white high school kids. For me, caffeine, nicotine, highly refined sugar, capsaicin, and the sheer overload of umami in shrimp paste and pork, work wonders, and one can adjust the dosage as needed. I'm not likely to crash my car while taking them -- don't have a car in any case -- or rip out my ears.

By the way: rich buttery shortbread also is a psycho-active substance.
Gentle enough for old ladies, strong enough for truckdrivers.



The same internet page also wishes me to consider that frequent flooding and an increase in extreme weather are the future in the SF Bay Area. And while that data is indeed extremely exciting, sexy even -- mmm, flooding (!) -- as a middle-aged bachelor who lives two hundred feet above sea level and over two miles from any large body of water other than my bath tub, I prefer to ignore that. This is not the swampy mudflats of Berkeley, but halfway up a hill in San Francisco. Noodles with fatty pork, shrimp paste, chili sauce, plus galangal and lemon grass (langkuwas and serei as we call them) are, perhaps, immeasurably more fascinating.

Like sex, however, this is an intellectual conceit; this bachelor will be having a light lunch in Chinatown later, which might include shrimp paste, and / or chili sauce, probably no flooding or extreme weather, and absolutely no galangal, lemon grass, or sexual shenanigans. It will include a caffeinated beverage, probably sweetened, and will be followed by nicotine. Which latter substance in the modern world needs to be enjoyed outside, regardless of climactic conditions. Like the horrid cold. Or rip tides and sneaker waves.

Yeah, probably noodles. Fried noodles. With Sriracha and a cup of HK milk tea. After which a sandblasted briar (Becker & Musico) filled with either Atalaya (C&D for Low Country Pipe and Cigar) or Cornell & Diehl Small Batch Carolina Red Flake with Perique (2023).

The pipe I mentioned is absolutely piss-elegant, and spot on.
A very fine piece, reflecting a previous era's aesthetics.
As sexy as a lovely woman or a good tobacco.
Contemplation inducing.



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BETWEEN GUNONG ALIF AND SUNGEI BA'A

The dream involved snacks at the restaurant in Kampong Tiga Puko. Slightly charred bits of fatty meat, skewered. With red onion pickle, and slivered chilies. Overlooking the water near Lower Tank Road. So different then. Peaceful.

But actually, coffee. I found out that I liked coffee when I was still adolescent. It tasted good, went well with tobacco.

Coffee, besides being the life blood of Dutch society and a groovy social lubricant, contains caffeine, a marvelous methylxanthine also found in tea and chocolate. Which not suprisingly are also big in the Netherlands. And all of them imply the availability of highly refined sugar.

Upon getting up from my dream, that is what I prepared for myself. Coffee, with sugar, and a jigger of milk. The only milk available in Kampong Tiga Puko was from a can with a lovely picture of a black and white cow and windmill on it.

After that, I went outside with a pipe.

Despite coffee's role as both fuel and social lubricant, I am not a particularly energetic social creature. And wandering around with a pipe sticking out of my mouth is something I do best by myself, although I would not be averse to similarly grumpy company, smoking his or her own pipe, at that hour of the day. If asked, I'll share the tobacco I'm currently enjoying.

Charred bits of fatty meat are, sadly, not available anywhere nearby. And unlike the climate in those hills it's nowhere near seventy five degrees Fahrenheit. More like fifty or below. I think I'll get back under the covers for an hour or so, until my bladder forces me of bed again.

Coffee with sugar. Grilled skewers. Sharp pickled onion. And fresh chilies.
Breakfast of champions. Grumpy barely awake champions.
The breeze smells wet. It might rain.



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THE JUNGLE'S EDGE

This morning I took a quick trip to the ghastly hinterland to pick something up, then came directly back home. Returned just after twelve. So you can imagine how early it was when I scooted out of here. The ghastly hinterland on the other side of a bridge was still foggy when I got there, and I turned around mission accomplished before it had a chance to clear. As far as I'm concerned, those trolls can crash into each other on the road and burn in the mists.

The hinterland is where they invented oatmilk eggnog.
It's a unique and special kind of place.
Very tofu.

The natives, who replaced the original natives, are too darn wussy for words.
We Dutch Americans should have taken over with fire and sword.
Come on, move it, you candy-assed Anglos.
This is my ranch now!

Look, we once wiped out an entire island for strictly business purposes, so we could easily have plowed right over the soft and spongy whitebread mayo types that abound in the suburban quagmires. Piece of cake.

Tastes just like lobster? No, not there. Everything tastes like vegan chicken there.

They're ga as all git-out in that region.


Today at tea time someone questioned me about Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Then declared that I was basically a colonialist. Seeing as I wasn't born till long after independence, and had nothing to do with the emergency, that's a bit of a stretch. And also let us not forget the Batang Kali Massacre (12 December 1948), perpetrated by the illustrious Scots Guards. After the massacre, British officials attempted to retrospectively legalise the Scots Guards' massacre of civilians, and the British government blocked all investigations into what those kilted bastards had done. No one has ever apologised. As a Dutch American, I bear not one iota of responsibility for any of that. In fact, what the British did in Malaya and Africa after the war, and what the French did in Indochina, was so repulsive and horrifying, that what my kinsmen did in Java pales in comparison.

Afternoon tea was very enjoyable. Red Virginia flake made with a smidge of Perique afterwards, in the most recently acquired Dunhill pipe. Very much like a colonialist.



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FOG CAUSES FITS

When I woke up on Tuesday the fog was thick enough to cut it with a knife. Much much later it had disappeared. My late lunch in Chinatown was entirely fog-free, but not nut free. And it was probably a good thing I hadn't carried that knife around. There is enough madness on the streets of San Francisco that we don't need an armed irate Dutchman yelling at some random bozo to cut that out.


Besides, I'm pretty good at side-stepping loonies.
Rather than stumbling over them asleep.

Chap sleeping at the bus stop, half in the gutter. Didn't wake up when the driver tootled the horn, which is why the bus stopped three feet from the curb. A frowsty snoring gentleman near a half-eaten take-out meal. Old lady dozing in a doorway. And an insensate fellow sprawled across the pavement from the building to the parking zone.

Mind you, there were plenty of crazy people who were wide awake, erratic, and vocal. If you live in San Francisco you become adept at avoiding eye contact, attempts at imparting opinions, and a direct ambulatory line with stumbling people.

There are creatures stumbling through the San Francisco fog. A lack of visiblity is not these people's problem. Maybe they're just short on caffeine? Still, if they can't go in a reasonably straight line and refrain from conversation with non-existent friends and relatives while they ambulate, you step aside well before they draw abreast. They might be confused tourists.
But most likely not.

There are more of them at night. Liquor has something to do with that. In any case, I shall not tell them about the bags of tea in my left coat pocket, because heaven knows I do not wish to help them wake up. Smoking a pipe outside at night can sometimes be an adventure.

Avoid the dip in the pavement. Also avoid the dip on the pavement.
We really must do something about our sidewalks.



Burger place, beer hall, karaoke bar. It was saner and quieter indoors than it often has been. The bookseller has no more dentistry scheduled for the next five weeks, and he is very much looking forward to not having people in his mouth for the duration.

Last pub crawl until January.
Because of the holidays.



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CAKE AND LOBSTER

Yesterday evening I dreamed that I was smoking a pipe this morning. As indeed I have done. What I also dreamed, which did not happen, was that I was sorting mail and putting together a stack of letters addressed to Satan at the North Pole. I do not work at either the post office or a mail-forwarder, but I think Satan is going to be very happy this Christmas.
There's a whole lot of love there. Genuine fondness.


When I was outside earlier I realized that when it's foggy and humid, the moisture on the pavement does not dissipate. It was dark and wet on the ground under the streetlights.

One is quite glad of that second caffeinated beverage upon returning.
Warm, fragrant, comforting.

Because I got a lobster for my apartment mate's birthday yesterday, the kitchen still smells faintly crustaceous. There was also a cake, which we shared with the other people in the building (I had purchased a large one), and I discovered that even though I ate sparingly, four to five hours after amlodipine besylate my stomach hurts. This is something I already sort of knew, but sometimes I'm asleep at that point. Having napped before getting up again in the quiet of the night.

The young condor (gymnogyps californianus) and the plump tyranosaurus were in my bed this morning. They still haven't acclimatized to the rambunctious social activity in her room.
Not surprising, as they have only been out of the hidey hole where I kept them in the week before her birthday for less than one day. Everything is still so new to them.
This will take a bit of time. The young condor particularly.
He has taken a scunner to the turkey vulture.
Who slept on the other side.


With a bit of luck it will not rain long enough that I can do my laundry early today. One does not wish to head into Christmas smelling like fusty old granddad who has spent to much time at the compost heap in the yard at the far end to which he has been banished whenever he wishes to smoke. It's cold and wet there, and it smells rotten.



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