FOWL WEATHER

Today it rained in spades. Bucketloads. It was a good day to stay indoors and not do laundry. Perhaps I will have nothing but slightly smelly clothes for my workweek. Which will be rare treat for the noxious old farts in the backroom, although they may not notice over the stink from their loathsome cheroots.


Lunch was stirfried meat with satay sauce, veggies, rice. While I was eating a friend joined me at my table. I've known him since before my stent was installed, back when I was still a grumble-womble instead of the lovable old elf I am now. And all of you in the back row can stop giggling over my self-description. We exchanged mutual news and chatted cheerfully while I ate. He seems more worried about diabetes than I am -- a reasonable amount of physical exercise puts it much further away for me, and I get plenty of walking done as a pipesmoker with an active life -- and he mentioned something about rice being disadvised. Which is somewhat amusing, as the old folks I see in the waiting area at the clinic are the same people I might encounter an hour or so later at a bakery furthering the progress of diabetes. If I don't pass them smoking a ciggie on the way to their midmorning pastry.
My friend was eating a baked product as he spoke.

A few years ago near where I smoke my pipe before our pubcrawl I observed a crow landing on a ledge under an awning, scattering the pigeons perched there, and very deliberately stealing an egg for dinner. It scooted a little bit sideways, looked at me knowingly, and flew off with the egg in its beak. Ten minutes later it returned. Another egg. Oddly, I remembered this because a shivering streetperson was huddled in the niche nearby where I usually ensconce myself with a pipe one evening a week. I did not begrudge him. Or her.
I have not seen pigeons or crows all day.
And hardly any street people.
It's beastly cold.

Yes, I spend time in bakeries. In Chinatown. A small pastry and cup of milk tea is a lovely afternoon indulgence. And because I smoke my pipe afterwards, which you can't do indoors, I get an awful lot of walking done. So it's healthy. Fresh air, physical exercise, and benefits to the digestion. I would recommend that everyone smoke a pipe for their health, but I vastly prefer not having any of them bumping into me or bumming a pipe cleaner, so no.

When I leave the house my left breast pocket has a notebook, a pen, a pipe tamper, and seven pipe cleaners in it. The right coat pocket has a pouch of tobacco and two pipes.
I might smoke both. That would mean using four or five pipe cleaners.

If I was absolutely certain that I'd meet a friendly crow, I'd also carry an egg.
Or maybe a more convenient less potentially messy snack.
I like my corvid fellow citizens.




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