RESERVATIONS

Though the day was quite warm -- since Saturday I have not worn the customary garb, and the winter coat which I needed a week ago has been back in the closet -- this evening it was rather chilly. A cold wind was blowing, and the fog is back. Which presages an early summer.

Naturally I did not begrudge the fellow sleeping in my customary doorway where I wait for the bookseller to get off work while smoking my pipe. And when I tapped out the briar I did so at the curb so that the ashes would not blow all over him.

Lunch a few hours earlier near there had been quite enjoyable. Shrimp sauce three shreds stifried rice noodles (蝦醬三絲炒米粉 'haa jeung saam si chaau mai fan'), in which textures and flavours combine harmoniously into a comforting but not heavy dish. Savory, very Canto, very American Chinese. Despite being light and snacky it was still far too much for one not particularly large middle-aged Dutch American to eat, so half of it went into a little box for sometime later, when it will go well with a braadworst (bratwurst).
Add sambal to the pan when re-heating.

Sambal makes everything better.

A DUTCH AMERICAN

The bookseller arrived about ten minutes after I finished my pipe, and we walked past the karaoke joint on the way to the hamburger place fearing what we would find there later. And indeed, it was not inviting later -- the discordant notes of someone butchering John Denver's most famous song made that clear -- so we went directly to see miss Vivian near the chop house. Whole bunch of regulars, civilized blokes, with a white couple at the end of the bar sucking each other's faces completely privately despite being in full view.

Something with balls on the teevee.
Two of the four screens.
Sound off.


Guiness. Jameson's. Hot black tea.


At one point the female half of the face-inhaling duo fell off her stool. Something must have taken her breath away, possibly the intensity of the smooch, maybe a marked lack of sufficient oxygen. The vapours. Or Jägermeister shots.

Maybe combining a public display of whatever that was, with alcohol is not such a good idea.
Not that I would know. Generally speaking I have avoided Jägermeister, and my ex and I are both on the spectrum, so the whole face sucking phenomenon wasn't, strictly speaking, ever on the menu. Discreet pecks on the cheek. A gentle squeeze of the hand.
That whole tasting the other person's spit thing, no.


Not the usual crowd on the bus back over the hill. An old man with a walker, who got off at Hyde Street and trudged up the slope, a black guy muttering to himself, and a youngish Caucasian dude with a white rose.

In the two blocks after I got off, I remembered a girl I was quite smitten with back in Valkenswaard. She was three or four years younger than me. Reserved, petite.
We hardly ever spoke to each other in five years.
I wonder what became of her.



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