AUTUMN HONEY PEARS

At quarter to five I delivered a baggie with an extremely large 'Autumn Honey' pear and two glutinous rice rolls (一個秋蜜梨同兩個糯米卷) to both my landlady and the old Indonesian woman downstairs. Because the new dimsum place on Stockton Street has interesting fresh looking snackies, and the pears looked delicious. In between I had enjoyed my tea at the bakery. Neither of the old gentlemen I often see there showed up, probably because it was too cold today.

Sadly, my favourite stockist wasn't open, but the geezer loading merchandise into their storage rooms at the back door seemed to believe that they would be open tomorrow.

I hope that's true. To say that I don't trust those racist wasp-o-phile careerists in customs and immigration further than I can spit would be an overstatement van jewelste.


No idea why they haven't opened the shop yet.
They were supposed to be back this week.

AUTUMN HONEY PEARS

Not as attractive as the 'crystal' pears, but probably much less likely to bruise.


By the way: There are three produce markets where I do not wish to shop for a few weeks in Chinatown. A nasty attitude at one of them, the second one is a bit grotty, and the pushy old farts who patronize the third are just too much to deal with. But the people who staff the dimsum take-out place are very pleasant.

I am a sour and grumblesome old toad. Fruit alleviates that.
Kept one pear to share with my apartment mate.



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ENFORCED BLAND GARBAGE

Fortunately the one thing that isn't impacted by Trump's stupid tariff war is my own personal hot sauce production; we grow chilies in California. As well as garlic. And I can buy enough stinky shrimp paste to survive the apocalypse on Stockton Street before that's affected, as the stuff keeps forever. But in other ways it will impact my wallet, and I'm pissed about that.

Why should I pay a punitive commerce tax to the government?
Screw the Republicans and the camels they rode in on.


Today I find out if the people at my favourite stockists got back safely.
Or whether the uniformed thugs at our entry points got pissy.
The store has been closed for three weeks.


We are finally the country that Christian fascists wanted. Which is, sadly, the majority of the American electorate. America has become a negative example to the free world. Don't travel out or you might not get back in. Don't think of visiting, because you could end up in a Latin American organ harvesting concentration camp being savagely brutalized by MAGA's pet dictator and his goons. If you look or talk different, the nice people in several states and jurisdictions will report you for fun and profit.

And, if you travel through the Midwest or parts of the South, wanting to eat decent food is mighty suspicious. Anything with chilies is considered commie and darn well un-Christian.
If Jesus and Marjorie Taylor Greene can eat bland garbage and like it, why can't you?


Ya know, boy, differences of speech, diet, and religion, are mighty suspicious.
In my day everyone was a white Anglo Protestant, and proud of it!
No talking those funny lingos. That leads to drugs!
Why are there coloured wheelchairs?
Mah vital juices!


I'm surprised that cannibalism and headhunting aren't more widespread in this country. Surely those should be televised sports in the red states? Subsidized, at the very least.



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DO I LOOK LIKE THAT TO YOU?

As usual, I was high as a kite, hepped to the gills, when I got home after our customary pub-crawl. Three caffeinated beverages during, and coffee before I left the house. And the water was hot enough for decent tea at the drinking establishments. They are learning. But unlike the spry old fellow opposite me on the bus I wasn't clenching because of bladder pressure. See, after a decade part-time at the Indian restaurant, where I dared not abandon the cash register for even a moment during working hours because the waitstaff would make ghastly mistakes when I was otherwise occupied, my bladder is the size of Texas. It can hold, comfortably, for several hours of tea-drinking. It's positively English in that regard.

Small elderly Cantonese gentlemen are not as lucky.
He exited the bus at a remarkable trot.
I guess he had it in him.

Yes, I'm gloating about my bladder.

The karaoke joint was screechy mayhem, so we went to see miss Vivien. A much calmer environment. And I now understand why people watch ice hockey. It's for those moments when the goalkeeper clobbers some member of the other team who keeps bogarting him. Dude, I told you to get out of my face.

We love big violent Belorussians on skates.


While waiting for my friend to arrive I had been in conversation with a chap who believed that I was a spy, and was concerned that either I or he himself looked exactly like someone on Mission Street who had been stabbed.

After my recent haircut I look less bigheaded than normal, but my head feels larger and colder than before, especially in the arctic breeze this evening. Almost like it belongs to someone else. Who also smokes a pipe.

There were fewer people about, but more crazy folks than normal.


One of the things my friend the bookseller and I briefly discussed was an entirely new category of literature, neither sci-fi nor fantasy, but something which should properly be named "whatever the hell that is that he writes". Maybe a subset of pretentious poofle.

Likely to be banned in many parts of the country, I think.
Especially if it mentions New Yorkers.
Favourably.


By the way: I am not a spy.
Nor reptilian.



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ON THE SAME CONE

There is a strong temptation to doom-scroll, and after this is all over we'll all need a vacation, probably. So I took a break this morning and ate some mango. Along with dried fish, mango is one of precisely TWO flavours that absolutely scream ASIA to most white guys.
I'm a white guy. Very stereotypically so.

Dried fish, while delicious, is not my favourite ice cream flavour.
Yeah, I suppose it's okay. But you can have mine.

I think I've lost my appetite now.
You too? Odd.

Over the weekend I told several people that nothing says Easter like a cigar. Just like nothing says Valentine's Day like a cigar either. And by the way, totally unrelated to any of this, you do know that Mother's Day is coming up, don't you? Sunday May 11.

In the good old days they put out cheery cartons of cigarettes for Mother's Day.
Make your mom feel special with a carton of Wabash Filters.
It's got little pink flowers all over!

There was a time when dried fish was a more common flavour in the Netherlands than fresh mango. The exiles from the Indies craved both, but one was more easily imported than the other. So, understandably, I knew about dried fish ages before I came back to the United States, thanks to 'aunties'. Thank you, aunties.

[First had mango in my twenties.]

Even today I have dried fish in my food more often than mango.
But I had let this one ripen, so couldn't use it in cooking.
Green mango chunks with fatty pork is delicious.
With sambal trasi it tasted like heaven.
And a big pile of rice.


The skin was showing slight wrinkling so it was time to cut it up, lest it become too soft and start going bad. A lot of it is now in a bowl in the refrigerator for a late night snack. Unless my apartment mate eats it, which she is welcome to do. Last night's snack was eggplant cooked with duck chunks and chili paste, also delicious, and similar to the dried fish previously mentioned not likely to become a popular ice cream flavour.

Although I imagine that there are some who would say "bring it on!"
And all of them probably live in this city.
I don't want to know them.


It was a very big mango.



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WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT, LITTLE GRASSHOPPER!

Russell was outside taking in the sun. He's been a bit wankel for the past several months, after having pneumonia a while back. But he appears to be chipper, and glad to be (slowly) on the road to recovery. At somewhere over ninety years of age. Of course being in the centre of Chinatown it is highly likely that people smoke around him, which, given his diminished lung function, is not good.

A short while later I was involved in an animated conversation about eating in Shanghai (the new exotic locale for HK foodies), which segued into wonton noodle soup. I am adamant, but diplomatic and not insistent, that dried flounder (大地魚 'daai dei yü') is essential in the broth for that contrastive saveur. This was before lunch. So before filling my pipe I headed toward a nice plate of mui choi kau yiuk (梅菜扣肉) over rice, side of savoury cooked tofu.


As you know, very many conversations in Chinatown involve food.
To Brabanders, Italians, and Cantonese that's important.
Sadly, far less so to many Anglos.

On the way down to Portsmouth Square I passed several groups of large pudgy people. White, of course, and probably tourists from the more cuisine deprived parts of the country, where getting all the nutrition you need necessitates wading through piles of fries, bacon, grits, and flapjacks. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Who am I to judge.

There are probably valuable vitamins and minerals somewhere in the cascades of ketchup and artificially maple-flavoured corn syrup. And some useful fibres in the huge cliffs and mountain ranges of grits and Danish pastries. Donuts ARE a food pyramid!

Just keep on chewing. Eventually you will get there.

Many Americans need more stomach acid.

It's what carbonated drinks are for.



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SPAM JELLO WITH BITS OF VIENNA SAUSAGE

Several years ago, a friend who regularly does so, spoofed my gustatory tastes. Suggesting that like the small turkey vulture I likewise had a well-developed taste for carrion.

I did not take offense, as it was meant good-naturedly.

By vegan standards, I do.

She's not vegan. Parsees seldom are. There are too many good things to eat in this world for them. When she shared her mom's recipe for dhansak, meat was specifically mentioned.
Also, you can't make marghi na farcha without animal protein.
Nor jardalu salli boti. Et alia multa.


The following is a Parsee recipe for a relish that would go well with very many foods on the Parsee table, and though it could also be served with vegan food I would not recommend that, because vegans are most comfortable with bland porridge, dairy-free "cheese", and frequently, tofu cooked by white people with no taste. None of which Parsees eat.

AMBAKALIO

One pound small green mangoes (NOT squishy ripe mangoes).
Half a pound jaggery (palm sugar in big chunks).
A fragment of stick cinnamon.
Chopped onion (about a quarter to a half) optional (some recipes leave it out).
A green cardamom or two, a whole clove or two.
Water - two to four tablespoons.

Break jaggery apart, put in an enamel saucepan with water, the cardamom, and the cloves. Plus the onion, if you decided to use it. Cook till the jaggery is dissolved.
Peel, cut, and de-seed the mangoes. Green mangoes will have a tender seed and the flesh will not have become all fibrous around it. Nor will juice and pulp cascade over your hands at this stage of unripeness, and the flesh is firm and fragrant, albeit pleasingly tart.
Add the sliced mango to the jaggery water, and simmer till the mango has softened and the liquid has become stroppy. Cool.


It might also go well with Spam® Jello® with bits of Vienna sausage. Which she suggested to me as an appropriate substitute for carrion. I assume that's indicative of her superior experience. She is older than me, and has eaten more. She would know.

SMALL TURKEY VULTURE

Naturally, being a Dutch American (so white I glow in the dark), I myself would have a small katori of sambal trasi next to the bowl of ambakalio to enjoy with my 'unidentified fried object' (the Dutch national dish).

Perhaps the gelatine and canned salted meat mixture above would make a good base for a nineteen fifties suburban housewife's terrine on her cocktail party buffet when the boss and his spouse are visiting. It's sure to impress them!

Somewhere in in Iowa or Minnesota.

Pâté de porc du Midwest.

Parsee recipe.



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POLISHING A TRADITION

Now that my apartment mate has left for the day and the only other person here is the stuffed turkey vulture dozing on her chair, it's relatively quiet. When she is here, he is voluble. Perky. Contentious. Querulous. Feisty. But while she is at work, he mostly dozes, waking up every so often to ask if the fatty inner thighs on which he wishes to feast have somehow as if by magic materialized. Surely I can whack a random passerby outside on the street?
Or one of the old geezers at work?

It's okay to harvest their juicy bits and simply cauterize the wound. That way they won't bleed out, or if they do, no matter, no one will miss them. Why don't I understand this?

And what is wrong with me?
No gumption!

While I will admit that the second category mentioned appeals as potential victim, as dinner for a fuzzy entity snoring opposite, it is not a workable plan. Eventually he'd want more, in his buzzard mind death is a perpetual feast, and undoubtedly there would be slip-ups. And I have no desire to spend the rest of my life behind bars for old geezer disposal. The authorities frown on that. One must let them pass naturally.

Also, it looks like it's going to be a nice enough day that one would not want to dwell on the prospect of hunting down kvetchy old geezers in what is altogether a rather nice city. If he wants to eat them, or any part of them, he'll have to whack them himself. I can lend him a pocket knife. He's small enough that they'll never notice him sneaking up.

While he rests, I shall continue polishing the Comoy billiard shape Tradition which I got back from the stem guy last week. The rim almost looks right now, as good as it may ever be, after assiduous use of microfibre pads of diminishing bite. And where I dealt with the sides I've done a pretty decent job of colour-matching the stain and patina.
I'm rather pleased with it sofar.

I often tell new pipe smokers that if they weren't neurotic before, they soon will be.
Pipe smoking and pipe collecting almost inevitably lead to that.
The aesthtic sense developes sharpness.


Quite likely I have spent well more than a day putzing around with this Tradition. It appealed to me, and now looks considerably better than when I acquired it.
Comoys are among my favourites.



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AVOID THE MIGRATING BIRDS

Sadly, we don't have crocodiles in San Francisco. Otherwise we would love them, walk them on leashes, and coddle them like children. And feed the tourists to them, probably. When I walked by one of my favourite dumpling places it was packed with tourists. One could tell that they were tourists, because they were pudgy, very white, and in family groups.
Mah, Pah, the three or four kiddies, and the pet goldfish.

So I headed to the other one. Where there were also tourists, but they were quite a bit more bearable, being two college boys from Florida, dressed cleanly, eating with chopsticks, and quietly exchanging ideas from their cellular devices on where to go next.

My lunch was excellent.

Small white cabbage and pork dumplings (白菜豬肉水餃) ordered in Mandarin, which I speak fairly badly. Eaten there, and generously tipped. That last because I really do like being a valued customer. Both at the time and when I'm there next.
The people there are from the North.
Hence Mandarin.

Yes yes. Delicious! After leaving I lit my pipe and headed in a direction in which there would likely be no visitors. The financial district was empty today. More than before covid.

Coldish. Not very windy. Only mid fifties.
That's positively springlike.
In Reykjavik.


All the visitors are going home tomorrow, probably.



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WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE LIZARDS?

Since early adolescence I have not been vested in Easter. One of my friends describes it as "zombie-Jesus day", while another one fondly remembers that the family hound found all the eggs in the lawn and spent the rest of the day dropping presents all over the house. A third obsessively talks about how gangrene takes less than three days to develop.

Yesterday I told someone that in lieu of eggs, he should hide colourful cigars in the grass. Some of Rocky Patel's stogies would be ideal; with all that blinkity wrapping they look just like bonbons, and imagine the joy on little children's faces when they discover something nice to smoke. Happy exclamations of delight! And giddy screaming.

As with all holidays, you probably do not want me around.
I would be a bad influence on the little kiddies.
Uncle Grumpus and his smelly pipe.
The very bad rabbit.

I would sneer at your silly spring festival.

As you should expect, I am very disappointed that the lizards have not shown up sunning themselves on the walkway to the warehouse yet. It just isn't Spring if the lizards are not enjoying the warmth in the morning. Obviously it is still too cold overall for them to come outside. They're probably at home sitting around little fires, cradling their cups of hot chocolate and grumbling, calling us all kinds of names for messing up the climate.
As well as levying tariffs on everything desirable in this world.

Coffee. Tea. Tobacco. Bottles of Scotch.
And expensive French plonk.


Later today I shall head over to Chinatown for snackies, somewhere that isn't flooded with little Christian brats weeping over the lack of eggs this Easter, because Donald Trump and Elon Musk got Amazon, Facebook, and Google to steal them all.

Which is all J. D. Vance's fault. As you know.
He didn't lay them fast enough.



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THERE ARE SPARKS

At work I am largely isolated from the news, so it wasn't until I went home and doomscrolled yesterday that I found out that our dearly beloved leader the pulsating orange vomit bag had, unsurprisingly, committed further offense to the constitution, all civilized standards, and any concept of decency. And because the fascistic crowd was largely absent, Friday had been altogether a rather peaceful day. Almost idyllic.

And seeing as tomorrow is Easter, I'm hoping several of them choke on rotten eggs. Including the ones who are Jewish.

Every day brings another outrage.

The Republicans have, in scarcely three months, destroyed what took years to build, and the only nation now which respects the United States may very well be El Salvador, which is a brutal despotism run by an acolyte and crony of the pulsating orange vomit bag.
A right bastard who owns a brutal gulag for hire.

This summer I expect violence in the streets.

Even in peaceful gated communities where the rich people live.

Pursuant which I have several suggestions.

Naturally.


Much of modern society is combustible.



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YES. I EAT THE FISH.

When Jian Yang (Jimmy O. Yang) calmly and almost as if talking down to a child tells T. J. Miller (Ehrlich Bachman) the second time that he ate the fish of which Ehrlich found the (to him) displeasing remains in the kitchen, it's seminal. The phrase is a defiant statement of existential self-definition and finality. I eat the fish. I ate the fish.

I will eat more fish, because I eat fish. Perhaps many fish. This is how it is. I eat fish, kwailo.
Why don't you get that, and what are you going to do about it?

Basically, you gibbered on a bit about the fish guts, which upset you, but the stand-out fact here is that I eat the fish and if you had any sense you would too.
But I actually don't care. I eat the fish.
If you do or don't, meh.


For Ehrlich, perhaps the most important thing is that he really does not like finding fish offal in the kitchen, whereas for Jian Yang the quintessential fact is that he eats the fish. That's what needs to be stressed. Everything else is immaterial. Why doesn't Ehrlich see this?

This is a matter of fact statement about reality.

Nothing could be more right and good than that I eat the fish. It defines the purpose of life, and of that fish specifically. It's not just that I eat fish, it's that I eat that one, in particular, among all the fish in this time line. Past, current tense, and future fish. There will be more, which maybe you won't be aware of then or later, but you may rest assured that whatever else is happening, that fish, by me, is eaten. I eat the fish.

It could be the Hong Kong motto.
It's definitely an attitude.

I eat the fish.



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FOR THE WHITE PEOPLE

Their menu has a lot of things that look interesting, including variations on familiar themes, like pickled cabbage with chicken rice stick noodle soup (雪菜雞肉湯粉 'suet choi gai yiuk tong fan') which echoes a familiar Shanghainese favourite (雪菜肉絲湯 'suet choi yiuk si tong'), or porkchop rice stick noodle soup (豬扒湯粉 chü baa tong fan'), ditto.

[For that last think pork chop thick noodle: 豬扒粗面 ('chyu baa chou min'). At Shanghai eateries in Kowloon.]

Even several seafood items that looked appealing: 粟米燴龍脷魚 (corn and fillet of sole; 'suk mai wui lung lei yü'), 香煎杏仁龍脷 (fried sole amandine; 'heung jin hang yan lung lei'), 鮮茄燴大蝦 (fresh tomatoes with shrimp; 'sin ke wui taai haa'), 焗芝士粟米蝦 (baked cheese and corn shrimp; 'guk ji si suk mai haa'), etcetera.

But what I had was a fried fish burger and French fries: 香酥魚柳包 · 薯條 ('heung sou yü lau baau, sue tiu'). Precisely like a white person at a theme park might order. Very, very white. Also very HK Canto when at a chachanteng during the lunch rush.
It was delicious! Top notch. A winner.

The term 香酥魚柳 ('heung sou yü lau') means a crispy (breaded and fried) fillet.
By itself (柳 'lau') means 'willow', btw.


Hong Kong folks, and Cantonese in general, are passionate about seafood. Obsessively so.
I was reminded of this by the nearest person on the bus, who had a live fish in her shopping bag, which was twitching and fiercely wriggling. When fish is very fresh, it is best steamed as it will be sweeter thus (如果好新鮮，魚最好蒸嘅，係甜啲 'yü gwo hou san sin, yü ceui hou jing ge, hai tim di'). Just add some cilantro and a minor drizzle of soy sauce.

Other than the Dutch and Belgians, white people generally are not that way. And the English and Americans prefer it fried and boneless, or canned and oily. They aren't very food-aware.

I am in my own way quite a barbarian. I like it with hot chili paste, as I think that brings out the sweetness and delicacy of the fish. Quite irrespective of how it's cooked.
Shanghainese programmers in Silicon Valley do too, I believe.


Yes of course I had hot milk tea with my meal and smoked my pipe afterwards.
No need to ask.




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START OFF WITH "DEAR SIR"

One of them is hard of hearing, though testing out a new hearing aid, and the other one is capable of great miscomprehension. Both of them were born before the war and gibber a bit. But they're nice fellows. I enjoy chatting with them despite occasionally needing to roll my eyes. Which they have never seen because I am capable of subtlety.

Evenso, I did not need to hear at length about how his younger brother's homie passed away and the family is being cheap about the post-funeral meal (素餐 'sou chaan').

He's quite upset about that. Understandable.

Still, all that talk about the dead man qualifies as inviting bad luck, more or less. Can we find something more propritious to discuss? None of us are getting any younger, and this is, somewhat, affecting my keen enjoyment of the tea and pastry.
The tea and pastry are very important.

Of course I didn't indicate any of that. What with being a diplomatic sort.

Calmly I loaded my big-ass billiard about halfway (because it IS big-ass), finished my teatime snackipoo in a leisurely fashion, and bid them both adieu. Before heading out into the surprisingly cold day. It's supposed to be Spring now. It doesn't feel like it.

That's how I know I'm getting old. In my youth I would step gaily out into the blizzard stark naked and think nothing of it; now I kvetch when it gets barely into the mid-fifties.
When I'm wearing a flannel shirt and a sweater under my overcoat.

This is the kind of weather that demands a strongly worded letter to the editor.
Stressing that none of the retired military I know are cross-dressers.
Or, if they are, that they act like perfect ladies.
Because they are gentlemen.
Officers!


It really is a big ass billiard. If fully loaded it would take over an hour to smoke. Half-full it's about thirty five to forty minutes and quite delightful. That old and exceptionally well-dried briar from the post-war period. When there still seemed to be a plentiful supply.

I shall probably take it to work with me this weekend.

What a very great pity that there is no place to get cheung fan near work.
Or any other dim sum. Plus a pot of guk pou chaa.
菊普茶。



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THINKING INSIDE THE BOX

It struck me recently that when white people are dissatisfied with their genericness they start dressing funny. You know, uniquely colourful garb that expresses their inner spirituality and creative drang oh look at me I'm wearning Guatamalan hippie rags and I've got beads!
I'm one of a kind! Which is both very Marin and very North Beach.

Almost every unstable person you see at the bus stop with artsy free-spirit Gandalf rags is Caucasian, talks too loud, and says disturbingly off-kilter crap let me step discreetly further and further away from Miss Starburst Sunbeam over here, good lord I don't want to hear another lecture about apple cider vinegar and gluten free chakras.

The majority of Asian Americans very rarely do that.
They don't want to be seen as insane.
Or ecccentric and unstable.


Many white Americans are shiny bugs. Not only do they often wear their batty psycho auras on their sleeve, they feel that everyone must share in the wonderful experience and learn to appreciate it. Blissfully unaware of their unlikable qualities, they are absolute Karens of individuality. Nothing else going for them, but everyone has to smell the patchouli.

Which is why I'm quite looking forward to going to my regular Wednesday lunch place for a perfectly mundane and decent meal somewhere that my fellow Caucasians would probably sneer at, which is favoured by aunties and uncles. The service is brisk and to the point. To the best of my knowledge none of the waitstaff are aspiring artists or musicians.

Well, they could be. But they never mention it.

The only uniquely individualistic garb there will be the loud prints that some women from Hong Kong favour, but that's actually normal. I will also be dressed like a normal person, no one will suspect me of spirituality or artistic pretensions, or even know that I am a Dutch American or might have chakras, auras, or past-lives. Which is good, because I don't.

I don't even have meaningful tattoos. Any tattoos.

I am not a vegan, nor gluten-phobic.

You need not notice.



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THE RADIATING MAN

The karaoke joint was peaceful when we passed on the way to the hamburger place, but quite the opposite when we passed by afterwards. So we went to Miss Vivien's, where Ah Yee exclaimed that he hadn't see me in a long time (好耐冇見 'hou noi mou kin'). Which was correct. We've known each other since I first started carving seals. Which is why I exactly remember his name. And his surname (鄺 'kwong'). The sealscript version given in some dictionaries is, in fact, a later construct. Unfortunately there is no reliably attested original bone or bronze engraved, or Zhou dynasty (周) version.

Kwong is a surname that originated with exiles in the south more than two thousand years ago, and still found mostly among Cantonese or Toisan speakers. I would not be surprised if there are more Kwongs in North American than, for instance, Peking. The Louie (雷), Fong (方) and Kwong (鄺) clans are related by reason of a common ancestor. In North America they are united in the Soo Yuen Benevolent Association (遡源堂), whose headquarters building is at the intersection of Grant Avenue (都板街) and Clay Street (企李街).

In Toishanese Kwong is pronounced as Fong, by the way.
Some dialects have it as Kong.

AH YEE OCASSIONALLY SMOKES A PIPE. HE DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THIS.

While I was smoking my pipe this evening in Chinatown a few people stopped to compliment me on how swell I looked. I must be radiating bonhomie or something, which is disturbing, because I am not bonhomous; I lack bonhomity. Or I prefer to think so.
Oscar The Grouch is my spirit animal.

It must be the enchanting aroma of Atalaya.
A very pleasant broken flake.


For the second week in a row the bookseller's dinner was actually his breakfast. The bakery where he gets his morning pastry on the way to work has become too hip and popular. So other than a coffee beverage bought elsewhere he had bupkes to nourish him all day. Which is not good; a man needs to keep his bloodsugar level up to deal with the querulent public, lest they run all over him. He cannot, like me, snap and growl at them all day.

For me that would be easy. I'd just regurgitate the phrase utilized by the subcontinental clerk at city hall years ago: "whatever you are wanting, we are NOT having!"
And then slam the window shut.


I'm just not a people frog.



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RACE THE RATS

It feels lovely to have off after several days of being in loco parentis at work due to the boss and his kin having headed to a trade show in a part of the country where there are too many drunk people. I presume they maintained their standards and kept their sanity while there. Surrounded by sinfulness and temptation.

Please imagine hordes of overweight Midwesterners falling off third floor balconies while taking selfies and yelling "look mah no hands". As I fondly believe that Americans do whenever they're away from home.

You've probably noticed that I have a low opinion and strange ideas about people in the rest of the country. They're all pudgy and rather uneducated, they snarf cheese pizza and grits all day, and they listen to accordion music. Which, until you get to New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, is largely true. The only jobs where heavy lifting and regular exercise are required seem to be manufacturing meth in trailer parks. All those bins and giant tubs of chemicals. After which they drink a couple of sixpacks and watch the ballgame.

No, I have no interest in visiting the United States. I live in San Francisco, where precisely like Greenland we're connected more to Europe than the rest of anywhere else.

Here I am sitting in my rattan chair looking very much like William Faulkner.


Who would have had a low opinion of the yokels currently destroying our institutions. Sadly, because so many of our fellow citizens don't read and are damned near illiterate, almost no one has even heard of him.

The slope brows start on the other side of the Oakland Hills.
And we wish they'd head east instead of coming here.
Run towards the processed cheese, boys.
It's yummy and tempting.



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MY FORE ARMS

As of a few hours ago it's my weekend and I am free from the bonds of Marin County, where walging and braakneigingen are a way of life. Along with very well justified resistance to Karenism, which is more prevalent there than in San Francisco, and like spandex-clad bicyclists more repulsive as a gloating popular majority social tendency.
Rather than a minority dodging rabid drivers as they should be.

Bicyclists and Karens have a lot in common.
Besides a love of spandex.

Even before I returned to this country as a a young college-bound tyke years ago, I already knew about Marin. Forewarned is forearmed. I still have braakneigingen when I go there.

Mill Valley, from the bus window in early evening as I get the heck out, is beautiful.

The retired member of the legal profession returned from Los Angeles without his balding degenerate friend. Maybe he pushed him out of the RV on the way back, or roared off after ditching him near mountain lions. In any case, without the vile troll, or the subcontinentals to bring out his worst side, he showed inklings of being human, like when he married his first wife, rather than being an Orc, such as when he married the second one.

So I abstained from poking him with a sharp stick.
I did not taunt him with the latest outrage.
And ask how he could stomach it.



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HE WHO IS WITHOUT CASTS THE FIRST MOLOTOV

Today should be a doozy. Fifth day of work (normal workweeks are fewer), and keeping an eye on things while the bosses are away. And I had a hell of a time falling asleep last night because of pains in my feet and mid right shoulder caused by ciculatory issues, as well as an itch-ache throbbing sensitivity in various parts from the same source. It may be time to finally admit that I am no longer a young man.

Consolation here is that people I loathe are suffering worse.
And their stock portfolios are tanking.
Big time.


Das ganze scheißhaus geht, more or less, in flammen auf.


It's the end of the world as they know it, and I feel fine.

If the retired member of the legal profession is back from Los Angeles, where he and the balding degenerate went over the weekend, I shall be sure to wax lyrical and positive to him first thing about combustible cybertrucks and Luigi Mangione. Which should have him sputtering and spitting for several hours and might ruin his entire day.

He deserves the acid indigestion.

In buckets.



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FEVERED PIPE DREAMS

During the day I filled two bowls with a well-made tobacco that epitomizes rank perversion. Which I smoked. And thoroughly enjoyed. At one point Hecky demanded that I get the hell away from him with that nasty stuff. The refined urinal cake odour was, he opined, vile and nasty. Utterly repugnant, and I was a big meanie.

Well, I also convinced two of the members of the pipe club, which met today, to try the stuff.
So there was a constant almost subconscious hint of it at the edge of perception.
Hecky may have felt under siege.

Yeah, there is now a faint ghosting in both pipes. It will probably take half a dozen smokes each to remove that. It's worth the sacrifice, and I fondly remember the time when there was a faint whorehouse funk to one of my bowls (lasted for three more smokes), as well as the evening when Curtis was convinced that some criminal was huffing a fruity aromatic in his nice clean virginal cocktail lounge the horror the horror.

Also, I know that the gentler sex rather like the smell. Which is odd.
It's a product that seems to make strange things happen.
Almost a supernatural bane or curse.
Bad aura tobacco.

Bern reminisced about Spain, West Africa, and that Flamenco dancer. Charles went on and on about eating silkworms. Neil sat in his corner looking miserable and depressed, Christian gibbered about the sacred precinct, and almost as if by magic small bottles of Habanero chili hotsauce appeared on the table. Much fine liver pâté was consumed. Along with cheese. Prostates, cataracts, and thyroids were discussed. Along with surgical management.
Plus floods. Eruptions. Emergency barriers. Magma flows.

Someone confused Murphy with a taxi driver.

The Mallard was smoked too.

On the bus back to the city there were an awful lot of confused foreigners. Apparently you can urinate against the bus, but not on the bus. Irrespective of the vehicle's direction.
That perfumed pipe tobacco must have somehow caused all this.
I shall not mention that belief to Hecky.
Because he would agree.


It was a good meeting. Around a dozen members.
Most of them quite sober. Most of the time.



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REPUBLICAN EXPERTISE

At one point the other day the opinionated right wing hosebags in the back room were all single mindedly in agreement: the covid pandemic had been a Chinese / Democrat / Libtard conspiracy. And it had failed. Americans had seen through it, and voted the senile fool who had done it out of office. And there was much rejoicing.

All of which proved that the tarriffs were totally justified.

It often amazes me how expert they are in a wealth of fields. Medicine, economics, racial relations, constitutional law, and history. Plus, of course, baseball and football.

Mentally they're all wearing MAGA hats.

A few days ago I could hear the retired member of the legal profession whine-ranting for over three hours. He's reverting to his spoiled brat phase. But with worse habits and smells. Much worse. I can understand now why his wife sends him over nearly every day.
She married him (second wife), so she's also questionable.
But evenso. The poor bitch needs a break.
Sometime I'll suggest poison.
Instead of valium.

Booze also works. Unfortunately he likes Scotch whisky and fine cognac. So the next few months will be a drag. Not only for him, but for all of them. They'll probably eventually get used to Bourbon and never go back.

I am looking forward, very much, to the bird flu epidemic.

Which, though they haven't mentioned it yet, is probably also a democrat / libtard / Chinese plot. Ably assisted by Canadians and Penguins. And Biden's fault too. Damned foreigners!
In summation: surgical masks are commie, vaccines are bullpuckey.
Thank Jeebus for Alabama, Florida, and Texas.
No surrender! Football. Trump!
No wire hangers!
Ever.



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NOT TO SPEAK ILL OF THE LIVING

Two of the most irritating people I know have gone to Los Angeles for the weekend: the cantankerous bigoted whining suburbanite and the rabid bald pit viper, who is also a bigot. They've gone together. I presume their spousal nasty halves also went. Both gentlemen are Jewish, but quite unobservant and ignorant. Amei ha aretz in gonzen. So the chance of them being in a pesach hotel for the duration are slim. But in consequence, the discussion among the turnips in the backroom has not been overloaded with venom, boruch Hashem.
They should go off on these little unholy get togethers more often.

Everyone else should have a zisn un gebentshte chag ha heruteinu.
Them? They probably don't even know it's pesach.

They stretch my ability to not engage in lashon hara to the max.
Like any Dutchman, lashon hara is my milk and honey.
Please imagine the torture of their presence.
And how heavenly this absence.

It is much more peaceful in that backroom than normal. The subcontinental gentleman has no one to fight with. Well, other than the crazy Hibernian, but without whiny man and rabid baldy there, there is little to set them off. That which might hit the fan is not being disturbed.

By the way: almost nothing serves so well as a reminder of the sojurn in Egypt as a nice pack of Camel Cigarettes.

More rabbis smoke Camels than any other cigarette. In a repeated nationwide survey, rabbis all over the country, in all denominations, were asked "so, what cigarette do YOU smoke, rebbi? Yes, not surprisingly, more rabbanim prefer the smooth rich taste of Camels to any other cigarette.

Why don't you try Camels for a month, to see what a good tasting cigarette means for your smoking enjoyment?


Truthfully, I esteem ALL my quarrelsome poxy bastard balding degenerate fellow Americans. As much as is humanly possible. I bear them nothing but "Christian" goodwill.

It takes all kinds to make a compost heap.



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DAWN OF THE UNDEPRAVED

While I was outside earlier, after pills and coffee, the moon was going down to the west giving a false silvery dawn, because of the fog and the dense trees at the top of the hill several blocks away. Birds were tweeting, very Spring-like. And Mila Kunis singing Pat Benatar's 'Love Is A Battlefield' in Russian was going through my head.

And I realized that the music of my generation is now further away than what my parents may have listened to when they were the age that I was then. So we're talking about some pretty antique stuff, which deservedly might not hit the airwaves now. As neither should what we favoured. Because in retrospect much of it was ghastly.

On the other hand, I now fondly click on Youtube's of singers from the thirties to the fifties famous for black and whites in foreign languages. Oh, that innocence. Even the faintly hinted borderline deparavity that glimmers at the edge of hearing is so much more fresh and sweet.
Our standards for depravity are more rigorous.

Punk, heavy metal, and tthe "easy listening"channel changed everything.
Personally, I blame Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher.
The Nineteen Eighties were truly horrible.

Still, I miss that time. Not because things were better -- mostly they were worse -- but because of the perspective I had on life back then. My vantage points have shifted.
Victrolas, tape players, typewriters, landlines.
Possibly less cholesterol in food.
Very innocent snacks.


They still hadn't invented vegan and gluten-free back then.
And had barely discovered oats. As just minor details.
We had less Protestant guilt over things.
And spicier frissonage.



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NOT COOL DEVIANTS

Let us not speak of the anunnaki. Those being ancient middle-eastern supernatural entities often in conspiracy theorizing identified as ancient aliens who brought mankind fire, religion, pyramid building technology, and yeast for making beer and bread. Which one of the people in Marin wishes to discuss in great boringly repetitive detail but thank heavens (!) didn't get very much chance to do today.

If I can get through the working day tomorrow without hearing about any of that my life will be complete. Well, nearly complete. Somewhat. A little bit complete. Okay, that's a low standard for completion, but it will still be rather good.

What this really means is that there are some people you don't want to go for a walk in the forest with. Not because they might do something unspeakable, but because they will open your virgin ears to a whole berserk world of madness that you didn't want to know about and instantly recognize as such Mill Valley hooey that even pot-smoking hippies would open their eyes and mutter "um bad trip man. So not far out".

This is fuelled by strong coffee plus Honduran and Nicaraguan cigars.

Also, obviously, apple cider vinegar.
Which the anunnnaki brought us.


So on my right I have someone talking about all the inspiring slaughter and rapine in the Old Testament, and to my left a roomful of petulant whiny farts castigating China while praising the orange dungboy and his pet freak Musk. In all honesty, either discussion would have been better or more tolerable if done in a fake Swedish or Subcontinental accent.

Seriously. I'm thinking Swedish Chef here.

Instead of a mutant fartbabble inferno.

Hurdy gurdy. Mørk mørk mørk!




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EXTROSPECTIVE REFLECTIONS

Yesterday's tariff news was bizarre. There is almost no other way to call it. And, if the crayon-eating cretin in the White House holds firm, a lot of the things I buy will be twice as expensive soon. For your information, I do not purchase crap from Alabama, Florida, and Texas if I can help it. Or most things with corn syrup and corn by-products.
I strenuously avoid shitty American-made goods.
Which mostly come from red states.

If it's from California it's probably okay.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

USA: 4% of the world's population. China: 16% of the world's population. The world outside the United States is twenty five times larger than us. I hope the Chinese tariff the crap out of American goods. They don't need us. And, considering that we've gone rogue, neither does anyone else.

Let's see, most vegetables including chilipeppers are grown in California, we make good cheese here, and excellent wine, sugar comes from Hawaii, I don't drive and will not buy an American car in any case, and I despise most of the country and do not want those hosebags moving here or even visiting for conventions or vacations.

During the pandemic we learned that they're diseased and ignorant about hygiene, medicine, and microbes, religious nuts as well, who will take dangerous chemicals to combat illness because some damned preacher or right wing dunderhead on teevee told them to.

In the intervening years they've just gotten worse. Much worse.

More stupid. More ignorant. More insane.

Cattle prod worthy.



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