THE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION DYNAMIC

Four hours on hold or actually speaking to support staff who couln't assist me across several time zones. Suffice to say that the AI assistants offered as an alternative were also quite useless. If even I cannot access my personal data, it truly is secure.

So in a way it wasn't a complete waste of time. And it was good for international relations. Both Manila and New Delhi now know we can't drop by their offices brandishing offensive weapons.

And after all the videos of jackbooted Americans being complete blisters, arresting children and cripples, and kneeling on minority necks, they don't want to visit here either.


This means two things: 1) we no longer trust the best and brightest overseas, and have instituted security protocols they cannot override, as least as far as private enterprise is concerned. 2) Didn't pop down to Chinatown for snackies and milk tea as is my wont.
Which discombobulated me considerably.


But at least I ate the half a burrito I had in the fridge. With extra hotsauce.
It was quite delicious. The flavours had really come together.
Carnitas, extra extra extra, no beans.
Exquisite.

White Americans can't make burritos worth diddly. That's why we NEED immigrants. Keep the burrito supply intact. A good burrito absolutely requires someone capable of thinking in a technical language like Spanish, NOT some goobus Anglo high-school drop-out. Can't train those people. But almost everybody from the Rio Grande down to Tierra Del Fuego understands the paradigms.

An Anglo sees an avacado and automatically think in terms of whole wheat no gluten toast, a latte with oatmilk and honey, and asking about peanut allergies. A speaker of Spanish thinks about mashing it with a squeeze of lime juice and some chilies. An Anglo wants a gluten-free spinach and dried tomato tortilla made with olive oil, a speaker of Spanish rolls it around greasy stuff cooked with garlic and cumin and adds salsa picante.


You've seen Asian food made by white folks? Precisely so. But it costs more. A small percentage of the price will be donated to a charity saving dolphins in the rainforest.


Today I shall be eating mediocre suburban kibble for lunch at work.
I suffer for my "art". But really, everyone else should.
Suffer, that is. Because of my "art".
And other reasons.



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TEXAS, LEARN TOFU!

Seeing as China will not buy our overpriced and mediocre soybeans, dispiritedly grown by Trump voters, and is purchasing good quality soybeans proudly grown by Argentinians and Brazilians instead, there is only ONE solution to the soybean glut. Two solutions. Either we feed it to the hogs in the Midwest, which ought to satisfy the Trump voters there.
OR places like Texas learn how to cook tofu.

Which should be no problem, because they have no cuisine anyway.

And this blogger for one encourages that. Tofu is great with minced pork, chorizo, or even Texas chili (which is made better in Portland, Oregon, or Chicago, Illinois, anyhow). Or they could even do it typical Anglo-style. Plain-boiled. With a chopped Jalapeño for colour.
It would fortify the Texas guardsmen while they round up and brutalize people.

In places where no one wants to sell them dinner.

Some of them might loose some weight.

Look leaner and healthier.

Human!

At present too many Texas guardsmen look like Blobbos who've been sitting on their duffs playing videogames and snarfing Fritos. And while I personally have nothing against Fritos, they should not by any means be the default starch in anyone's diet, not even Texans.
Boys, y'all look like you're related to Kyle Rittenhouse. It's disgraceful!

Yeah, I know they're a valuable part of your school lunch programmes down in Houston and Dallas, as well as part of your Texas National Guard MRE rations, but honestly.
There's more to a healthy diet than crunchy-munchies and bacon.


Maybe you should ask your obedient Christian wives and moms to learn how to cook? Healthy eating is, maybe, why everyone keeps stealing your jobs.
Especially emigrants from the civilized states.
Who are fit, not fat.


Tofu is good stuff. Made from America's crop, soybeans! Grown by hosers in the centre of the country. Go on, help out those suckers by learning how to cook.
Don't let Argentina and Brazil have all the fun.

Grits and tofu. An all-American meal.
Such feast, yummity yum!



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EVERYTHING IS AS IT SHOULD BE

To all those rural people who voted for Trump and cheered for his big beautiful bill, who are now facing healthcare disasters because hospitals are closing in their areas, and they have to drive very long distances for cancer treatment or adequate medical care, please don't move here. We don't need you, and you spread disease. Stay put. Wisconsin or Iowa, whatever. Just keep on avoiding all vaccinations, sneering at acetominophen, and swallowing intestinal worm medications that you usually feed to your cattle.
You'll be fine. Dead in your mid-forties, but fine.

Bleach and hydroxycholoroquine.

Trust me. Fine.

Jesus, the bucolic heartland, and the meat packing plant need you just where you are. The Bay Area is filled with foreigners and drug-addicts rioting in the streets, people are shooting up and committing unspeakable acts in universities, and children are all forced to attend drag queen story hour in addition to giving up their guns. If you drive a pick-up truck you will get lynched. Texan accents and any trace of Southern speech are banned. There are no grits. We don't have Hardees, Waffle House, or Cracker Barrel.
The human suffering is immense.

We don't need any more morons, we've got plenty of our own.

This information is given in the spirit of America-loving patriotism. Please ignore the fact that the place where I got both the flu shot and another covid booster, as well as my regular care physician's clinic, the emergency room where I went when my appendix exploded, plus my eye-doctor (who is in a building with numerous medical secialists), are ten minutes away. See, to get there I have to travel by public transit, which is filled with people gibbering in foreign languages, not English, and they aren't talking about the Bible! It's horrid!

My cardioligist is half an hour away by bus. Even worse.

Cities are war zones. Malnourished street sweepers of international origin will steal your jobs. There is fentanyl and human pooh everywhere. Ramen shops! And twenty four hour fitness centers with exercise machines rigged to generators! Alcohol and disco! Coffee drinks!

Churches are half empty. You wouldn't survive a week.


We admire you roughing it out in the real America, where men are still men and people swill Bourbon. Your homespun wisdom, country hootenanies, apple pies, gameday, clarified bear fat for aches and pains, willow bark and apple cider vinegar.

Washington slept there. Please remember that.



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PROGRESS IS SLOW

That first smoke after your apartment mate has left for the day, when you have shut her bedroom door firmly, so that Ms. Bruin (the senior teddy bear) does not smell like tobacco, shafts of sunlight are streaming into the room with the computers, and you're on your second cup of coffee, is sheer bliss. I think I can understand why the vatican once banned priests from pipe-smoking. They should suffer, so that when they inculcate guilt and a sense of doom in their flock they sound sincere.

Pipes, as is well known, benefit the digestion. So many habits of the British gentleman are geared toward improving digestive processes. Marmalade on buttered toast, shooting peasants, cold showers, public school bestiality and cricket .....


The British have a long history of being at war with their guts. The full English breakfast is probably their most famous assault on eupepsia, as is the old-fashioned fry-up. Which is basically a second breakfast, hobbit-style, in late afternoon if the sausage butty wasn't enough. Both are washed down with strong tea. Also a known bowel tonic.

The less said about British cuisine, the better.

Tea was introduced to the British by the Dutch, who started drinking it well over a generation before. Nikolas Dirx, one of the directors of the Dutch East India company, pseudonymously advertised that "nothing is comparable to this plant", and those who drink it are "exempt from all maladies and reach an extreme old age". It allegedly cured headaches, colds, ophthalmia, catarrh, asthma, sluggishness of the stomach, and intestinal troubles. As well as improving sexual function. All of which are probably true, but it mainly boosted the sale of sugar to the Brits, in which at that time the Dutch had a near-monopoly in Europe.

You will notice the mention of "sluggishness of the stomach" and "intestinal troubles".
A diplomatic way of saying constipation and acid indigestion combined.
Something which still marks adherence to the British diet.


We shall not speak of my last trip to England. Matters did not improve until I crossed the channel to Holland, where vegetables are both known and a loved part of the diet. First meal in the Netherlands at a Chinese restaurant, when I asked the waiter what that vegetable was, and he answered that he did not know but it was something that the natives grew. One can, naturally, get far better Cantonese food there than in England, where the only two commonly available vegetables are mushy peas and baked beans out of a can. In addition to leaden fries, which are greasy and a testament to bovine kidney fat and its byproducts.

I should also mention Branston Pickle. Not sure where that falls in the vast desert of British Cuisine. It is no longer made by Crosse & Blackwell, whose field of enterprise remains an ongoing introduction of spices to the English, which first began making significant inroads over three and a half centuries after they started trading with the Orient. Remarkable.

There is also Branston Baked Beans. Good lord. It sounds like perverse heresy.

The company that makes Branstons ALSO makes pickled onions.
I have NO idea what those are used for.
Mementos?



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SHANGHAI SOUP

In Central China, toward the coast, the breakfast that people prefer is 'red soup noodles'. 紅湯麵。A broth flavoured with pork and soy sauce, often with pork meat and a hardboiled egg, and wheat noodles. Which is also a good mid-day snack, as well as a post-dinner late night watching teevee pick-me-up. Daytime temperatures there are presently mid-eighties. Which suggests that a Dutch American whose body does not function well above mid-seventies Fahrenheit should probably NOT visit Shanghai or Nanjing for the time being.
Though I would like to go sometime, and I want those noodles.

The last local Shanghainese restaurant is no more.

Whatever is moving into that space hasn't opened up yet, but it appears to be another fancy attempt to extract money from tourists and other kwailo with an invented subregional cuisine, some of which might be okay. But I'm more interested in some chachantengs (茶餐廳) out in the avenues than that. Or an actual Shanghai soup kitchen.

Braised pork noodle soup is a really Shanghainese dish: 紅燒大排面是真正的上海特色面。

There used to be a small Shanghai noodle soup counter down on Jackson, several years ago. I ate there a number of times. Simple. Unassuming. Splendid.

Actually, there were more Shanghainese in Chinatown then. They've probably all moved out to the avenues, retired, or graduated college. There aren't any Shanghainese eateries within easy distance anymore. It's a fun slightly oily cuisine, great on cold evenings such as we will have in another month.


As I mentioned, The Bund is out of business.
It was a good place while it lasted.
There is nothing else.


And I can't remember when 一品香 closed. That was many years ago.



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WHEN IT'S TIME FOR TEA

There comes a time in everyone's life when they get to witness something which leaves them flummoxed. After which they can scratch that off, understanding that if it happens again, they still won't act appropriately or correctly. A grand mal seizure at the bakery. Chap fell forward barely missing the table edge with his forehead. Seemed slow motion. Kudos to Henry and another fellow for springing into action while the rest of us sat there looking stupid. Probably saved the chap's life.

After it was all over and the ambulance crew had taken the victim off to General Hospital, the old lady whom I've known for over a decade without knowing her name swept up the debris and mopped the floor. We were all rather glad Henry had been quick to act. It could have been far worse.

Then I reminded the Ah-Lam about my milk tea and egg tart. Which had been backburnered while things happened. I enjoyed my tea rather abstractedly. I had just gotten there and sat down when it took place. If there had been a violent incident or crime right in front of my face I would have done much the same.

Oh miss? Never mind the bullets, I should like a pastry.
As well as a lovely hot beverage please.

羊癎，腦癲癇，或者叫癲癇。

About all I know about epilepsy is that supposedly Julius Caesar had it, although modern scholarship seems to suggest a series of mini strokes instead. The Cantonese call it 'yeung gaan', 'nou din gaan'，or 'din gaan'. None of us could actually think of the correct terms at the time, and the three old geezers nearest sat as if petrified. I pensively filled my pipe at the far table. I could see Stephen near the door. He couldn't get past the emergency technicians, so he went to a nearby prepared food place and bought some stuff to eat in front of the teevee later, and when he returned the passage to the back was clear.
Shortly after that Robert arrived.

The other term which did not come to mind then was "blunt floor trauma". That is probably a good thing. It would have been inappropriate and undiplomatic at the time, and no one there would have understood or appreciated it. A silly word joke.

I have been known to say stupid things.

癎 ('gaan', 'haan') by itself means epileptic convulsion. But Chinese words are lonely, and feel more comfortably matched with another word. Hence goat twitching (羊癎 'yeung gaan'), brain madness fit (腦癲癇 'nou din gaan'), and insane seizure (癲癇 'din gaan').

The painting above has nothing to do with the foregoing at all.
We are in fact nowhere near Southern California.
In case you were wondering.



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LET'S EXAMINE THE BUG

It's been a remarkably busy two days: eye doctor, optometrist for bifocals, cardiological surgeon appointment for preliminary stuff before an angioplasty, blood sample at Chinese Hospital, bank. AND laundry. So I'm feeling virtuous as all git out. Good little Dutch American dude. Doctored, and cleanly. Not only that, but I bought five packs of Five Leaf Spirit ciggies (五葉神 'ng yip san'). Three of them go to a friend who has developed quite a fondness for smokes from the mainland. I suspect that rather many of the staff members' paternal relatives, as well as patients of 東華醫院 ('tung waa yi yuen') also like that brand.
Probably none of the female staff, of course (好家庭女唔會食煙).

Years ago I went to Los Angeles for a wedding. At one point, after a wonderful dinner in Chinatown, three of the young ladies hung back with me happily puffing while the parents walked ahead. Afterwards when one of the older people asked "why do you girls all smell like cigarettes" all three of them pointed at me. It was the white man, he did it.
They had just been too close to me.

Other than that I have hardly ever seen Chinese women smoke.
They just don't, okay? It's quite unheard of!
Never happens!

See, that's why I need bifocals. I've been wearing reading specs all this time because it's that last crucial fifteen inches or so, in which there might be a full coffee cup or a pipe I'm trying to light. But I've grown rather tired of not being able to clearly distinguish text blocks and facial features across the street. Is that recognizably feminine person over there eye candy (not that there's anything I could do about it) or a man wearing a dress?
Is that an adorable tyke, or a French Bulldog?

The other day on the bus there was a young woman with an absolutely beautiful small mouth. I know this, because it was crowded and she was standing right in front of me.
My heavens. Those lipe. Man oh man. Mmm.
She got off at Jones Street.

Her bosom was at my eye-level, but I was looking at the lips.
No lipstick or gloss. Just very nicely sculpted.


Several loud people passed by as I smoked my pipe this evening. As well as people of very marginal sanity. I really should stop swearing softly to myself in Dutch. It cannot improve matters, and one of these days someone will understand.
I might as well cuss under my breath in English.
Like normal people do.


No beer place; too packed. No karaoke bar; too loud.
Bail-out place. Guinness, whisky, tea.

Watched a robo-taxi having a zen moment while waiting for the bus.
Maybe one of them will go feral sometime soon.
Revolt against the humans.



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HOSPITAL HOPPING

The angioplasty on the lower extremities part one appears to be scheduled sometime in the first half of November. But I'm not sure. Three different messages, two actual appointments. The actual event itself, and the follow-up a few weeks later. Only then the subsequent event, date as yet not set. There are two lower extremities, two events. If I were Ctulhu, it would be a complete nightmare. He has too many extremities. For purposes of this essay I am calling his tentacles lower extremities, but not his arms. So at least ten. Plus nine brains: one in the head, and a secondary brain in each tentacle.

Bear in mind that angioplasties are usually not done near to the brain-brain, but might be done in the tentacles, depending on how comfortable the surgeon is with that.
It's a bit of a toss-up. I shall have to consult with my medical team.

Too near the brain you want a stent.

Please bear in mind that the number of tentacles is not set in stone. It could be more than eight. One need not assume that he actually is an octopus, or octopod-human hybrid. Some depictions show him with a mass of tentacles that's quite like a lion's mane. And it could be an odd number, outer-space alien-like. How does a cardiovascular specialist even train for that? Again, I shall have to consult with aforementioned medical team.

Anyhow. Hospital A near the park just after mid-day today. Back downtown, visit bank. Then over to Chinese Hospital to have blood drawn, and a phlebotomy conversation in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin. Venipuncture: 靜脈穿刺 'jing mak chuen chi'. I am always flabbergasted when someone understands me in any language.

At the first hospital we also did an EKG (心電圖 'samd din tou'), which helps determine that the patient (me) is not actually Ctulhu or a zombie. Which is very important.
Having proof of that is reassuring to medical people.
They didn't check for tentacles.


Like yesterday, a rather busy day. but better temperatures.
My body parts feel much better than on Monday.



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IT'S INHUMAN

Started off the day yesterday with an eye-doctor's appointment early in the day in C-Town, and continued it with hot weather discomfort and digestive angst. As well as the grumps. Like Hunter S. Thompson I find it hard to breathe when it's too hot and everyone's a lizard. Giant prehistoric lizards. Who will rip us apart at the slightest opportunity. Covered with tattoos and hairy legs. Gams like grey Brillo pads walking around the Financial District, frightening the children and little old ladies lurking there, though it's mostly out-of-towners.
Or free-roaming fentanyl addicts.

But I digress.

People get brittle when it's too hot. Kind of tense.

The borderline for San Francisco appears to be seventy two or seventy three. Beyond that, it's bitches. My personal borderline would be two to ten degrees lower than that, depending on shade, the supply of caffeinated beverags, and weather I have good pipe tobacco at hand. Plus sambal for my meal. Yesterday I feasted on curry chicken rice at one of the local chachanteng where the sriracha was a Thai brand with considerable pepperiness and a higher heat level than the usual, in consequence of which I ate too much because it was such fun. On hot days that is not a good thing. Fat Europeans die in Thailand daily. I am not such, scrawny actually, and San Francisco is a far less depraved place than Patpong or Phuket, but I should take care.

There are, ne concernant rien du tout, totalement, far too few benches in San Francisco. The city fathers do not want tired folks, tourists, or the elderly, even Dutch Americans after eating curry and enjoying their pipe, to have a break. Any break at all.

No wonder people do things in public here that don't bear the light of day. It's a reaction to the bankers, lawyers, and office wallahs, who dominate governorship in this city.

Cattleprods. We need cattleprods for when they go home at night, or random encounters in the Financial District. Yessirree, cattleprods.

I propose cattleprodding outside of every fancy coffee place or gym.

Might not solve anything, but it would fill a need.



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IT SMELLS A BIT

He smile engagingly before he spoke. "you should really visit Kretinen. Our city is beautiful, we have garbage receptacles and public toilets everywhere, and standing ashtrays outside every building. The streets are very clean!" Unsaid: that San Francisco would benefit from doing the same. "The garbage receptacles are capacious, and there are lights on the public toilets, so you can see what you are getting into. And we encourage nasal health. Pick your nose. Strangers may pick your nose for you, we're that enthusiastic about it. You will love it. It's green." At that point I felt like something might be getting bent in translation, because Prink and English were so different, and I woke up.

Did I ever mention that bloodpressure pills makes dreams more vivid?

Also, while I could hear in my mind's eye the objection to putting standing ashtrays outside every building here in San Francisco because it would encourage people to smoke, the opposite would happen because of garbage cans and toilets. Clearly. We did away with garbage bins which used to be everywhere, and now there is refuse lying all over.
And as far as public toilets are concerned, the results speak for themselves.

While making my first cup of coffee I resolved to visit Kretinen.
And possibly learn Prink. Languages are fun.


"I vill not buy this 'tobacconist', it is scratched!"


Coffee, then a pipe. Short bowl.

Mister Yu had dropped by over the weekend, and we discussed tobaccos. Old blends. My Mandarin does not extend to in-depth product reviews, but is enough to say that 'it is good, a full Latakia blend', or 'that one is bad, added flavouring on a mediocre base'. 'Highly reputed'. 'No longer in production, famous company'. Fairly basic sentences. He is always on the lookout for something different. Rare stuff, several years old.

He stays a while, occasionally showing me pictures of recent scores on his phone (one of which was an eighty plus years old tin of Capstan Flake, World War Two Era), then his phone rings and he leaves. His manner has become more American these past two years. But he still speaks less English than I speak Mandarin.

There is still something very Monty Python Hungarian about these encounters. But context usually makes clear what the phrasing might not.

He has grown fonder of Latakia blends.
Usually smokes Virginias, though.

It smells like victory.



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YOU WILL EAT WELL!

There are some people on my Facebook friends list whose posting themes, if there are too many of them, make one feel unclean. Only one "children are like pure little angels" post per month, please. Preferably even less than than that. Same goes double for e-mail or social media warnings about kidneys and bathtubs straight out of The Vanishing Hitchhiker.
Years ago I had a boss like that at a law office. She was a blistering idiot.

Some people need a life, as well as a bottle of liquor.

Other post pictures of their cat.

Or rat, mouse, hamster.

I also am obsessed with my cat. It's a ghost cat, no one else has seen him or her. It lives in my apartment, and occasionally shows up just before dawn. For some reason, which is probably quite explicable, I do not know its gender.

So any name would have to be either way applicable.
But 'Fluffy' does not appeal, however.
Maybe 'Boojums'.

Yes, I'm definitely thinking 'Boojums'.

Do not trip over boojums.
Do not put your coffee cup there, Boojums will knock it over.
Boojums will steal your sardine.
Pet Boojums. It's quite okay.
Boojums likes your fish.


This tells you that if you ever visit, a cup of coffee is almost guaranteed, and I might also give you a sardine.

I am surprised that Boojums and I have so few visitors.
Doesn't every one like cats?



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THINGS IN THE MIND

Two years ago it got over ninety degrees F in the city on this date. Today it will be far from that. Which is good. It makes it possible for a slug like me to actually move around. Weather extremes don't. And people have been, in bland say-nothing attempts at conversation, remarking that we're having wonderful weather. Two years ago at the beginning of October they were saying it was wonderful too, because there wasn't anything they could do about it and it's traditional to praise ungodly heat here. Not entirely the same people. But those of us bellyaching that it was horrid and someone should do something the fault of capitalist pigs ruining the planet time for bloody revolution if only it wasn't too hot to move and oil the guillotines darn it all back in our day sonny were a minority.

Common sense and decency safly always is.
Even in San Francisco.

Tomorrow it might hit eighty degrees. Which is still pretty awful, kindly see aforementioned need for bloody revolution and guillotines, plus lubrication of moving parts. Particularly grooves with fatty build-up. And replace the basket. Something bigger.

One of the things I remember from several years ago is the time we found a snake inside the building under one of the cabinets. Very tiny, when it curled up in fright it was smaller than a silver dollar. It freaked out my co-worker, who has a phobia. So both of them were terrified. Unlike him I thought it was cute. I gave it some water and put it outside in a shady place.

This illustration does not relate to any of that. Flooding in a subtropical region following a typhoon. Something I did last week, but couldn't tie in to an essay. Really, what interesting data could I provide? Typhoon, wet. Much wind. Very wet. Yay.

I'm sure you already knew that.

We've had extraordinarily good weather this summer. Hardly any overheating, no freak storms, no plagues. And fewer tourists.


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A SHINING LIGHT

Most of the usual disgusting rightwing dillwads weren't in today, probably because they were being wheeled around by their minders and nearest and dearest. Which was a great pity; they could have enjoyed watching Fox News. It would have brought cheer to their miserable lives. Which today were devoid of delicious stupidity and cruelty. At the end of the afternoon the fat boy came stumbling in. He's among the worst of the lot, being quite demented, but if you don't poke him he simply sits there quietly mumbling, no trouble.
He has only one nearest and dearest, a teenager.
Wife divorced him years ago.

If from this brief foregoing passage you conclude that I despise rightwingers, you would be wrong. I love them. They serve a useful purpose. Every one of them is fully compostable!
Compost improves soil health and is good for water usage and climate resilience. Many insects thrive in compost heaps, as do numerous amphibians, reptiles, slime molds, and interesting disease-causing organisms. All of Marin County, particulary Mill Valley, is a testament to the blessings that a huge pile of stinking garbage brings.
Slime molds are better for you than a local church!
Decomposition is a miracle!

If the landscape in your neck of the woods is NOT dominated by huge heaps of festering rightwing refuse, you risk Pam Bondi's goons or Kristi Noem's slope-browed fascist trolls coming to turn over the soil and improve drainage.

At this point the entire world has seen coverage of Kristi Noem's pet lizards breaking into an apartment building and ziptying crying children in the middle of the night. Nothing says "land of opportunity" and "beacon of freedom" like brutalized kids. Just ask Russia. It's also fairly common there. And everybody loves Russia, right?

Plus teargas. Throwing reporters violently to the floor. Slamming people into walls. This is a GREAT look for the United States, and gives people warm wet feelings.
Everyone named Bubba. Red staters.


We're a stellar example to the rest of the world.
They wish they had such splendid brutality.
Hah, we're showing them we have it!
And in abundance, too.



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OUR BRAVE BOYS

From my vantage point in an ivory tower in San Francisco, which is well-known for being a hotbed of violent liberalism-fuelled crime and appalling scenes of human despair, a theatre second only to Chicago, I spent all day yesterday reading, dreaming up plots against the god-fearing Christians of ICE, and the soldiers being sent to fight and die in Portland.
Portland.
Portland.
Portland.
You know, you rightwingers look kinda stupid sending troops to Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.

As well as Chicago and Memphis.

And JD Vance bellyaching about wait times recently in emergency rooms because of illegal aliens seeking medical attention, well, he looks kind of stupid too. Maybe he shouldn't go to hospitals in the trash belt states in hopes that he won't get recognized seeking treatment for unclean diseases.

Oh, and stay out of Utah too, JD. They shoot rightwing dilwads there.
Or so I've heard. Mormons and guns. It's a bad combo.
What evil lurks in America's heartland?

Instead, perhaps he should go to Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.
Fully staffed combat zone operating theatres at warp speed.
Lightbulb extractions, sutures, and penicilin.

Lots of troops. It's a war zone.

Kristi Noem's boys bravely fighting off an Antifa protest outside the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in downtown Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.

Oh, the humanity. It's horrific.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement rounding up the foreign rapists and drug dealers at the farmers market adjacent to King Elementary School.

Heartache. Despair. Doom. And operatic wailing. In Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.

Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, all in the valley of death rode the six hundred. Precisely like at Helm's Deep, where the Marines stormed ashore in 1965.

These men are true heroes. One can only imagine the horrors they face.
There are witches and hippies among the ranks of Antifa.
Plus non-Christians! Socialists! Little children!

Portland. Portland. Portland. Portland.



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DON'T CRY FOR SOY BEAN FARMERS

It is with exultation that I read that America's soybean farmers, who overwhelmingly voted for the orange dickface, are going broke because tariffs have shot them in their collective foot. No sympathy whatsoever. Same goes for the food poisoning outbreaks because DOGE cut budgets at the FDA, CDC, plus the Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service. Since January I have grown increasingly meanspirited toward the red states and everybody who voted for that chump. We are NOT all in this together. I wish them ill, and won't shed any tears if half the country turns into a Mad Max dystopia. Screw them.

Particularly Texas and Florida.


"I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military."


What kind of mush-brained moron says stuff like that? And seeing as neither Comrade Krasnov nor Kegsbreath have a brain between them, this represents Republican gangster group-think. It is un-American, un-Christian, and precisely what brutal dictators would do.
The Russians would do that. Slobodan Milošević would do that. Erdogan would do that.
Stephen Miller and Ted Cruz would do that.

In a few years we'll probably put such people in front of firing squads.

Fox News and the rightwing influencers are cheering this on.

They're traitors and criminals.

Of course none of this distracts very much from the Epstein list. I wonder how damned many Republicans and religious preachers are on it? I think I'd be okay with all of Epstein's friends and clients lined up and shot. Wouldn't you?

By the way: this administration has shown itself to be incompetent, perjurious, corrupt, and complicit in crimes on a massive scale, along with their cohorts in Congress, the Senate, the courts, and Republican state governments. And for the past six months they've been doing their damnedest to distract everyone from the Epstein list.
Have you wondered why that is?


The world deserves to know what was in those files sitting on Pam Bondi's desk back in February, and what she's been trying to sweep under the rug since then.
Before we even think of bailing out the soy bean farmers.
Or that shithole Argentina.


America's soybean farmers, who voted for hate and racism, are now upset that there was more to the Republican platform than just screwing other people.
Oops. Mmm, own petard much?


Did I mention the Epstein list? I really should have. I may have entirely forgotten it in all the tumult and Republican histrionics. An oversight. Oopsie. And 'tssk, tssk'. Sad. Bigly.



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INSTEAD OF TOURISTING, ZOOM NEXT TIME

Pete Hegseth ranting about fat generals is most unfair! What could better represent this country's ideals and values than a grossly overweight person labouring up a gentle incline? There were well over twenty of those, all white, of both genders, in Chinatown yesterday. Over a four hour span, admittedly, so they aren't quite a majority except by volume yet. Slow enough that I could hear them speaking (sometimes panting) in American English with their family members (some of whom take after mom and dad, bigly).

This why the whale is our national bird. Animal. National animal.
Whales are intelligent beautiful creatures.
Pete Hegseth isn't.


As you probably suspect, I am a very judgemental person. I tend to sneer at certain people. Especially if they are covered in Nazi gang tattoos and have rancid ideas. Not naming any names. Let's just call it what it is: Fascist ideological garbage.
Which is represented at the highest levels.


Again, let's concentrate on fat, white, and panting. Plus why do their children look half-moronic? They should strive for perfection, full moronicity! I'm sure they can achieve it.

I also wish to praise the noble skunk, most unfairly maligned of animals. Nature's adorable little fart badger. Not only stubbornly independent, but also at times a perfect pet.
The ideal emotional support animal for people like me.

If I had one, I would take it with me wherever I went. Municipal transit vehicles. Church revival meetings. Marketing departments. Red states. Say 'hello' to my little friend.

Why are so many Americans so frightful?
Is it something they ate?



Please note: I would never actually go to the red states.
I'm not that fond of banjos and lard.



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STOP TO SMELL THE PIGEONS

Left the apartment relatively early to head over to Chinatown. Wednesdays it's always lunch at a chachanteng, shopping, tea at a bakery around the corner from the hospital. Shopping is always at the same two places plus a fruit and vegetable store on Stockton Street though not always the same one. Bought pears and oranges for the old Indonesian Chinese woman downstairs, which is a diplomatic way of checking up on her.

Smoking my pipe between lunch and tea time is icing on the cake. Ein selbstverstendlichkeit.

I always have two pipes with me whether or not I shall be smoking two bowls. What if a nice young woman with a PHD in geology or physics wants to have a bowl while reading the latest essay on igneous strata in the foothills? A boy scout must be prepared. And a dictionary of geologic terminology is too heavy to lug around.
Especially when hauling fruits.

Remarkably, there were two young ladies doing their homework at the bakery. No, I didn't ask if they had PHDs and wished to partake of tobacco. They didn't look the type.

I really don't know what that type looks like.


I'm guessing early thirties at the youngest, and armed with a rock hammer, safety goggles, chisel, a loupe and different sized specimen containers. And/or 'Challinor's Dictionary of Geology', plus possibly 'Igneous Rocks and Processes; A Practical Guide'.

The pipe pictured above recalls Autumn weather, a rainy day, on Waverly, years ago. It seemed appropriate for a day that started off grey and precipitative. Which it still is, several hours later. The gloom outside can be cut with a fork. While I was walking home from the bus stop with my shopping bags it rained. This is unseasonal, and positively Netherlandish.

However that was long after tea time. I had arrived at the bakery earlier than usual, and the two old fellows who are usually there hadn't arrived yet. Ah Lam was frazzled from the dense crowd of customers, and made more so by regulars like myself who craved milk tea.
Which required being away from the counter, where the throng kept growing.

Dawdled over tea and a pastry. Filled pipe, paid, left.

The pigeons are getting more brazen. I noticed two of them trying to steal peanuts from bins along Stockton Street, and one actually inside my provisioners waiting till the line had thinned out so it could make a bee-line for jute bag with nuts along one of the aisles.
Clean intelligent-looking fowl. They were sleek and well-fed.

The early bird gets the metaphorical worm.

The later and lazier feathered opportunist gets the protein and vitamin D overloaded stuff, and looks happier in consequence.



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WAR FLUFFIES

The president spoke to his generals yesterday telling them our troops need to practice their killing skills in the Democratic cities (San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and others) and his secretary of war demanded that they cease wearing skirts and being black. They sat there stone faced listening to the two men. In Quantico Trump and Hegseth proved to a roomful of brass that they are utter morons. Honestly, that could have been an e-mail.

Per National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) signed recently, common political beliefs are indicators of terrorism. Anti-Christian. Anti-American. Anti-capitalism. All defined according to the rightwing. Essentially, local law enforcement is being instructed to arrest people if and when based on their ideology. Everybody more liberal than Fox News and The Heritage Foundation is lumped as "radical left democrat", the "enemy within".

Key architects are Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka.


This is all something that your chuckleheaded neighbor with the red beanie supports. For all the right Christian reasons. Because "Amurikka!" He bought the branded merchandise sold at every rally.

Meanwhile, in the war-torn city of Portland, Oregon ...

Trump has also declared war on electric vehicles and windmills. No doubt these have some connection to the Democratic Party in his mind.
Along with acetominophen.


By the way: I got my flu shot and covid booster yesterday. And I took a Tylenol. Nanochips, and five G. Also, I wear a mask when not smoking my pipe, especially on public transit, where there are so many dubious people from the Midwest, the South, and Texas.


Do not travel to the Red States. They're unclean.
There are idiots and soybean farmers there.



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RABBIT RABBIT OCTOBER 2025

Rabbit rabbit. Per ancient tradition, one must say that first thing on the first day of the month. Which this is. It coincided with returning home from the regular pub crawl with my friend the bookseller, which is also an ancient tradition. During which at some point Monty Python refences will be made. During a hymn to the Yellow River, we mentioned Britain's top goalies and their fascination for China's mightiest watery scourge. On the way to the bus stop afterwards, we delved into the eloquent beauty of statements about dead parrots.

Upon disembarking I noticed it was sprinkling. According to news reports a few days ago, the Bay Area will be deluged by the first storms of the season this week. One inch. Back to back fronts, swamping city services and infrastructure. One inch. Biblical proportions, mudslides, a commute from hell. One inch. Once in a hundred years, never seen anything like it at the end of September. One inch.

That's one inch of precipitation, cumulative for the week.

A minor inconsequential sprinkle this evening.

I have no doubt that the heavens will open up and rain come bucketing down, drowning everything in a massive one inch flood the likes of which have never been seen.

My apartment building is on a hill. I should be fine.

RABBIT RABBIT

Three people sang at the karaoke bar, badly, in Mandarin. Par for the course. Better than an entire squawling marketing department of twenty something white folks, which is usually the case. Chinese people singing badly is considerably better than yuppie caucasoids doing so. There is an endearing hesitancy there, rather than an arrogant confidence. Please excuse my efforts, instead of suck it up all of you bitches.

Keep on singing, Mandarin speakers.
It keeps the white folks away.
That's good luck.


My friend had a beer, then a whiskey.
I had green tea, then black.



The pipe smoked while waiting for him to get off work lasted exactly half an hour.
Cornell & Diehl Virginias in a Dunhill 59 F/T Bruyere group 4 billiard.
It looks nothing at all like what the rabbit is smoking.



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REWARD YOURSELF WITH A COOKIE

The lipid levels are okay, there is no protein in the urine, and Vitamin D is excellent! And if that isn't the most enchantingly magical opening for an essay, I don't know what is! This is part of what we discussed in the follow-up visit to my full physical when I was at my doctor's appointment in Chinese Hospital. Oh, and my bloodpressure is excellent. We also did the pulse oximeter thing before she came in. Judging by the fact that the nurse didn't scream and run out of there, I am NOT a zombie.

A few years ago it was cold weather, and because of Raynaud's phenomenon, the pulse oximeter didn't register bupkes. Whereupon I gently explained what was going on to the administering person. And by the way: the mobile living dead would also show oxygen levels in their digits, unless those had fallen off already, because mobility means energy usage. Hence oxygen. With the deceased demographic, things are, necessarily, different.

I'm fairly certain they don't use pulse oximeters on demised persons.
I'll have to ask the mortician I know about that.
Or a forensic pathologist.

One very small seed of a kidney stone, and very minor fibrosis in the lungs.

Which is where this lovely schematic of a lotus root cross-section comes into play. Lotus root is exceedingly good cooked with fatty pork, providing a warmish flavour and a very appealing textural element. Fibrosis won't be a significant problem until it actually starts interfering with breathing and absorbing enough oxygen etcetera etcetera to prevent me venting spleen occasionally as is my wont.

In any case, my next appointment is in several months (continuing to ascertain that I haven't come close to cessation of bodily functions, non-existence, and zombification). I'm fine.

I also picked up refills of the Atorvastatin and Losartan HCTZ while I was there.
That may be the first time a patient packed a pipe while at the pharmacy.
Lit up shortly after leaving and strolled down the street.

The bookstore that the Taiwanese lady ran is gone. She was old and in bad shape the last time I saw her. The herbalist where I purchased salvia miltiorrhiza pills (丹參片 'daan chaam pin') before I had medical insurance is still there. And there's yet another boba place further down. Work is being done in the space where the Shanghai restaurant used to be, it's going to be a Xi-Jiang (西江) bistro soon. The West River (西江) extends through Yunnan to Canton. They're promising that Szechuan taste food will also be available.


While on the bus back across the hill, a Toishanese speaker sat nearby and started hollering on her phone. Probably remembering the volume she needed on the vast prairies of home, when huge herds of buffalo thundered past and made communication hard because of their noise. I tried listening in (hard not to), but her dialect was so deep and down home that she was nearly unintelligible despite shouting. She probably did not have anything interesting to say, but whatever it was the entire bus heard it. Including the driver.
Who gently expressed dismay.


Sometimes I also have it on speaker and shout. When I'm at home. And there is a Spam artist calling me. Such as "Steve", from something something Solutions. Who, being very Indian, does not understand me when I answer in Cantonese (喂，你係邊個？'Waaaei!
Nei hai biiiiin go?'). Which is very sad. I hung up on him.
Honestly, I wouldn't expect him to answer.


Post Scriptum: The framed picture on the wall in the room at the hospital where I saw my doctor is still crooked. I tried straightening it before she came in, to no avail.



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SUGARY BRAIN

The search for jacaranda trees (a South American flowering tree now spread world-wide, even gone native in some places) as if by magic got the eye twitching at surprising things. Because of misreadings and half-noted statements. No, you cannot keep it in your clothing, that was a site advertising 'maintain your plants'. Plants. L. Not pants. Please imagine the wonders of today's headlines with that going on. which meant that the coffee was hitting parts of the brain but was not fully diffused throughout.

Best take a walk through the neighborhood for the length of time it takes to smoke a pipeful. That way full mental uniformity will have happened when I return to doomscrolling.


The brain did things during that time. Caterpillars in the mist. A virulent non smoker dancing away in a wide curve. Two crows, a bonded pair. A grinning dog. The song 'Safety Dance' earworming. The first refers to earthmoving equipment further down, the second was a white person of a certain puritanical type, the third listed were familar feathered faces whom I have seen many times before, then a pooch doing the needful, and the last a video of Pam Bondi and Donald Trump prancing on an imaginary stage. And no, there is no such thing as 'father and son carnage day'. Sorry Don Junior, you loose again.

Caffeine, nicotine, highly refined sugar. And the brain.
A recipe for mild mental mayhem.

The gently glooing landscape of North Brabant in late summer. Greens, golds, and dust on dirt roads. There is a path from one area near the watermill to the Luikerweg beyond town, lined on both sides with old trees. In another few weeks it will be covered with leaf-drifts.
There is a somewhat tannic fragrance then.

Please note that though the landscape is often described as 'glooiend', that is more or less a poetic exaggereration. It only gloois very mildly if at all. Whereas the landschap here in San Francisco gloois quite violently. Walking uphill is sometimes laborious.

On the plus side: there are no cows.
One the downside: no cows.
Moo.


There are no jacaranda trees here or there. But we do have red puff-ball trees that line some blocks. Their rusty dander may stain your collar in early autumn. Depends on the moisture in the air at that time.



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