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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NOTHING BAD DOCTOR

As you know this blogger is always keen to hear sound medical advice. So I have spent a good ten minutes listening to a paragon of health wisdom speaking sincerely and from the heart. Let me quote:


"Nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen. But with Tylenol, don't take it. DON'T TAKE IT! And if you can't live with your fever is so bad you have to take one because there's no alternative to that, sadly. The question "what can you take instead", is actually there's not an alternative for that, and as you know other, other uh, of the medicines are absolutely proven to that I mean they've been proven bad to the Aspirins, and the Advils, and other drugs and they've been proven bad ... "
[Donald Trump, 09/29/2025]


Nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen.

This blogger approves of good happen.

Bigly good happen. Oh yes.

Medical advice meets beatnik poetry. This happens such good! Profound.

Much inspiring is it, huge.

Many people say.


For the benefit of my readers in foreign climes, I have taken the liberty of translating it into their language.

"Hij kan nooit averechts gebeuren, hij kan alleen goed gebeuren. Je hebt paracetamol nooit nemen. Neem het niet. En als je niet weet waar je naar op zoek bent, is dat de enige manier waarop hij het kan nemen, hij wil dat het een alternatief is. Droevig. De vraag "wat kun je in plaats daarvan nemen?" Het is dat hij geen alternatief heeft, en zoals altijd, andere, andere medicijnen geloven er absoluut in. Ik weet het, het is slecht voor de Aspirine, de Advil en de andere medicijnen, het is slecht, het is slecht ... "

This is as inspiring in Foreign-Climese as it is in English.




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THE CHEESE HAS GOTTEN BETTER

The overseas tourists aren't coming so much this year. Longer visa wait times, ever-present racism, and the horrible news that comes out of the United States are keeping them away. Instead, they're visiting other countries with renewed curiosity, and simply avoiding the hassle of dealing with rude Americans. Plus it's the food. They've got hamburgers themselves now, and there is nothing else here.

Well, okay, we've got Italian and French food. But it's better in Italy and France, cheaper too, and Italians and Frenchmen are considerably nicer.

How about Mexican? It may surprise you, but Mexican food is better in Mexico. Cheaper too. And Mexicans are extremely nice people.

Canada?
Nice!

When I first came back to the United States I was appalled at many things. Rude ignorant natives, pervasive ugliness, and, as you would expect, the food. The bread was awful. The beer undrinkable. Horrid cheese. Lousy coffee. And once I finally found chilipaste and spices, many people told me that it was bad for me, not nutricious, would rot my insides and give me ulcers, and lead to idiocy, the plague, and very un-Protestant lifestyles and behaviours.

Which is all true. They got ulcers and other diseases, and many of them are idiots. More than ever before. All because I finally ate well. Yes, that must be it. Correlation equals causation.

You know, telling a Dutch American negative crap about chilipaste and spices is an exercise in stupidity, arrogance, and cultural disrespect of monumental proportions, don't you? Do you have ANY clues about our history? Even one iota? Are y'all completely ignorant?
We committed appalling crimes all across the world to get those things!

The bread here is still mostly frightful, as is the beer. But the cheese situation has improved immensely. And fairly decent coffee is no longer as uncommon as it once was.
Sambal (chilipaste with or without other stuff) can be easily acquired.
Even restaurants often have Sriracha or real hot sauce now.
Though that may be only in San Francisco.

The Germans, French, and Italians are still coming. Less than in previous years. But they're crazy and adventurous. So far I've barely heard any Dutch speakers on the streets. They're adventurous but not crazy. Plus they may not have heard that sambal or its equivalents are more widespread. They probably still think that good bread and cheese are unknown here.
As far as beer is concerned, that has remained a horror story they scare little children to sleep with over there. Pallid undrinkable slop.

American bigotry and fascism scare people off.
Besides the food and drink.



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PITY THE POOR TECHNO-YUPPIES

Promptly somewhere between seven thirty and eight o'clock the racket started on the street. Multiple Caterpillars. Orange visibility vests, and from the garbage men electric green.
I caught the bus, then ended up walking for several blocks.

Because I had an early appointment the first pipe of the day was delayed. The bus broke down after a couple of blocks, so I walked the rest of the way. Turns out they had no record of my needing to be there at that time, despite the appointment card (their mistake), so the appointment is now tomorrow and a little later. I had arrived with plenty of time to spare because I always show up very early for appoinments, what with being quite neurotic about things going wrong. I ended up having a pastry and a cup of milk tea down the street. Filled my pipe, and stepped out for a walk. Darn good thing I had popped a Tylenol before leaving the house. Legs painful.

But the pipe was good.

It's a GBD bulldog I've had since the Drucquer years.
Pauline sold it to me. Fine hunk of briar.
First smoke after ten.

No power to the overhead lines, vehicle battery below twenty percent.
A major cock-up on the public transit front.
Office droogs huffing.

It turns out that a bus problem is a major lifestyle disaster for downtown office workers. They lament. They whine. Their pressed togs are not what they wished to hike in.
The heartache. The humanity. The woe.

Steep slopes require effort.

Life is hard.

Additionally, there is NO coffee between my apartment building and Chinatown, so you can just imagine the pinstriped despair. Honestly, my piles bleed for them and their immeasurable discomfit. Did I already mention that I arrived for my appointment with time to spare? I really must stress that. Things can go wrong, and you should keep that in mind when you need to get someplace at a certain time. It also helps to have one or two strong cups of coffee before you leave, so that you, like me, are bright eyed and bushy tailed upon arrival twenty minutes early despite municipal transit mishaps.


Tomorrow morning I may leave at the same time as today. Those caterpillars and the men in orange vests are still out there.


Meanwhile, I've been up at the crack of dawn, it's gloomy outside and looks like a grey morning on the moors, and I have zip diddly scheduled for the rest of the day.
Laundry perhaps, then cheung fan across the hill and another pipe.



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USE A SHOVEL

Apparently the match did not go well. The numerics (the San Francisco team, including one fellow with a noticeable paunch) lost the game. There was consequently no loud enthusiasm emanating from the backroom today. No screams issued. No inane cheering. Just sour rightwing grumbling. Which matched the general gloomy air outside. Fog. Mists.

The weather has gone Gothic on us.

On the other hand, I was insanely cheerful. I figure that having discovered the fabulous miracle of acetominophen (pronounced "acetominophen", politicians take note), which can make life so much more comfortable if used wisely, I have probably ingested enough of it over time that I have an autistic foetus. Somewhere. Don't have a womb. And I'm male. Past womenopause age. It's probably in the Little Nanook beer chest. I shall name it "Freddy" when it finally pops out. Irrespective of gender.

Because that's how we do things in San Francisco.

I am looking forward to the happy event.
Freddy the Golem. My offspring.
Heir to the estate.

Really, I'm going to have to find out more about football; I didn't know chonks could play. No wonder the lardos in the backroom are enthusiastic. It demonstrates that maybe someone will want them. Despite being undoubtedly unhappily married right wing ghouls.
With paunches, wrinkles, and troll-pattern baldness.

I am so happy for them. Because I don't want them.
Please take them off my hands.


If nothing else, harvest them for body parts.
They're Magaites. No earthly use.
Ambulatory compost.



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PLENTY OF PARASITES

There was fog near the coast all day yesterday, which was pleasant and interesting. At this time of year we have often experienced madness around the mid-nineties, instead of sanity it high sixties Fahrenheit. So the clement greys and reasonable temperatures were most welcome. It's high fifties outside right now. And quite foggalicious.
Much of the rest of the country will be high eighties today.
They are welcome to that weather.

The places where you catch tropical diseases and die are all that way.


No, I'm not obsessed with horrid ailments in jungly places (like Miami and New Orleans).
But I do enjoy reading about them. Such interesting and colourful symptoms!


By the way, it seems that most of the hotter places of this country are awash with venereal diseases and idiocy. Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Plus Arizona.
I wonder why that is?

The idiocy is easy to understand. All that damned inbreeding.
Perhaps the veneral diseases have the same root.
It would explain a lot, don't you think?

Good old fashioned Christian inbreeding. Part of their unique cultural heritage and pride.

Haze thickening to soup in parts. Moisture in the air, and the smoke from the first fireplace usage of the season. Cigar and pipe weather. Smoked four bowls at work, swilled over half a dozen cups of tea too. Discussed briars and flakes. Dealt with a few entitled pricks.
Took an extra strength Tylenol around mid-morning.
The effect lasted into early evening.


It was a rather decent day.



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LISTENING IN ON MEDICAL DISCUSSIONS

The neurosurgeon on a conference call mentioned cerebellum. Which naturally prompted me to think of cerebrum, and immediately also saveloy. Which is a sausage available at British Fish and Chip shops. It's related to the low-Dutch and Belgian Servelaet, a similar sausage, small chopped pig meats and spices usually available at the local frietkot. The connection is that the word derives from Latinate cerebrus via cerebella. Pork salsiccia. The Italians have cervelatto. Of which one version is considered the Swiss national wurst. Usually written as servelat, derived from Milanese zervelada, a pork and brain sausage. There are many regionalisms from Northern Germany all the way down to the Mediterranean.

It is a priceless example of Britain's cultural splendour.
An heirloom to be passed on to generations.


Yeah, I've never had it.


So the next time I head over to England and the continent, I shall be on a mission.
There are mysterious things there that bear complete gustatory investigation.

One can learn a lot from listening to surgeons. I wonder how many variations there are in the old world of pork, porkfat, bacon, and smoke flavour stuffed into sausage skins. One can eat quite well in Switzerland, but one must bring one's own sambals, as the Swiss, unlike the Dutch, didn't have a colonial age and didn't romp around engaged in rape, pillage, and conquest. Leavened by developing a taste for chilipaste.

Alsatians eat such sausages split open after cooking, with cheese and bacon.
There, also, sambal is virtually unknown.
Sad.


Belgians would like to forget that they were right bastards as colonialists, and consequently do not have any sambal at all. Which is extremely odd. What on earth is wrong with them?



AFTERWORD NOT IN ANY WAY CONNECTED TO THE FOREGOING

The apartment mate just spent an hour gleefully finding out about men doing stupid things in court, and also opening their traps when the wise choice would have been to keep silent and look like an innocent goober. Some of those examples, oh my! It always seems to be men. My gender is badly represented by all the rest of you. Please stop that.



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RELEASE THE AUTISMS!

The people who invented the phrase TGIF did not know what it meant. Or they would have done something else instead. Friday is the day that the repulsive rightwing sadists of Marin County get out of senile education, the retirement homes, or the office early. And congregate in the back room venting hatred and pooing everywhere. And to praise president Trump, who is the second coming (Charlie Kirk was the third) as well as parrot talking points lifted directly from The Western Journal, The Dialy Caller, Fox News, the nasty parts of scripture (Leviticus, Judges, Kings) and the klavern meetings of the local KKK.

Venomous dementia reigns. As in Washington.
I rather can't stand the bastards.
I'm probably biased.

They spew.

"The Lord will bring a great plague on your people, your children, your wives, and all your possessions, and you yourself will have a severe sickness with a disease of your bowels, until your bowels come out,
because of the disease, day by day."

I work a full day on Fridays. And then some.

By the way; Kash Patel is the Fourth or Fifth coming. Not sure which. They love him. As well as Fifty K Homan, Brain Worm Boy, Snake Oil Oz, Netanyahu, and the rest of the cabinet.

Over the past several years I've taken so much acetominophen that I'm probably carrying an autistic foetus. Or at least an anal-retentive brainiac.

Yessir, Extra Strength, 500 mg, baby!
You bet your sweet patootie.


"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."


Amen to that.



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CAREFULLY CHOSEN WORDS

Stephen Edward Schmidt, a founder of the Lincoln Project, a Republican, had this to say about our then president in June 2020:

"Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don’t say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness."

"When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don’t use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We’ve never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities."

"It’s just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he’s the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he’s brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let’s be clear. This isn’t happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you’re the most likely to die from this disease. We’re the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk."


It's more valid than ever.


In 2018 he wrote:

"The Republican Party is fully the party of Trump. It is corrupt, indecent and immoral. With the exception of a few Governors like Baker, Hogan and Kasich it is filled with feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party's greatest leaders. Today the GOP has become a danger to our democracy and our values."

Likewise still valid.

Now, I know that many people in Belarus, Israel, Hungary, Russia, and Turning Point USA disagree with this. Screw them. They aren't our friends.

Also Florida.



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THE GATES OF HELL

The first pumpkin spice lattes have arrived, soon they'll be thundering across the wide plains devouring everything in sight. For the next two months our lives will be miserable, we'll spend all our waking hours quaking in fear. Debbies and Jennifers everywhere will squeal giddily as they celebrate their season. It's Autumn! Goth time. Fabulous shopping!

Avoid all coffee chains for the duration.

In previous years all tobacco stores would whiff evocatively of cinnamon and clove scented seasonal concoctions as merchants strove to please the wives, girlfriends, and concubines of hobbits, beguiling them with promises of something that smelled better than the smoldering sweatsocks that their chosen Gandalf habitually burned. Perhaps they could finally tolerate the diseased old sod indoors!

Sadly (for them) this is now a thing of the past. MacBarens/Sutliff have been swallowed up by Scandinavian Tobacco Group, which took one look at the four hundred plus Skus and said "oh Jayzus not!" Then promptly discontinued ninety plus percent of the line-up.

As a devoted aficionado of Smoldering Sweatsock™, I am glad.
I loathe the seasonal smell of pumpkin spice blends.
And I strenuously avoid coffee chains.

As far as I'm concerned, pumpkin spice lattes are an abomination. More than anything else, including deep-fried cheese-bacon steak and beans, they prove that America is headed down the slippery slope, may already be terminal. Anathema!

And I have no sympathy for the pipe smokers who in previous years rejoiced in huffing Autumn Extravaganza or Jolly Old Pumpkin in the warm bosom of their family, instead of heading out to a frozen compost heap at the end of the yard during howling gales and snow storms. If Smoldering Sweatsock™ was good enough for the colonel, it's jolly well good enough for them too. That's how we won the war!

Odious festering heathens!



At present I am enjoying Doblone D'Oro in a bent Peterson. It's one of John Offerdahl's favourite blends. Stellar product. Vague reek of old sweatsock. CLosest thing to Three Nuns. Second cup of coffee, happily doomscrolling (what staggering thing has the orange dingo done today?) and twiddling my toes in comfy slippers. Life is good.


My apartment mate, a sensible woman who does not consume pumpkin spice lattes ever, has gone off to work. I have firmly shut her bedroom door so that her teddy bear does not smell the smoke. Because that would open up the gates of hell.



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IT'S ALL VERY RELATIVE

One of them has a friend in China. Meaning a girlfriend. I do not know how much younger than him she is. Possibly one or two decades. He's over ninety, and though deaf as a post and a little bit bonkers, still spry. Chinese men are often rather like that. Involved in mutually comfortable relations with the other gender when, realistically, they should NOT be purchasing condos in brand new middle class neighborhoods overseas.

The other Chinese gentleman at the table was also hard of hearing. So you can imagine the amount of repetition there. What do you call a nephew? Jat (侄). What? Jat (侄). Huh? Jat (侄). My brother's son? Jat (侄). What's a grandson? Suen (孫). What? Suen (孫). Isn't that a granddaughter? No, that's suen neui (孫女). What? Suen neui (孫女). What's 'jat'? That's your brother's kid. And so on.

What?

Father's side, mother's side, their siblings by gender and whether older or younger than the parent, your siblings by gender and older or younger and their offspring by gender older or younger, in laws, ditto.

There are over seventy terms, not counting the numerical variants.
And fond alternatives. plus diminutive variations.
Familial terms in Mandarin are different.

By the way: in writing, one can feminize 侄 as 姪 (same pronunciation). But in speech you have to clarify: jat neui (侄女).

If you are a Caucasian, you probably don't have all of that. Nor do you ever pay attention so minutely. Just like a werewolf. So you probably can't memorize all of it for that one time one of your friends goes into too much detail. It's also different in the Wu group of Chinese languages as well as Min, Gan, Hsiang, etcetera. Also in their various dialects.
Plus there are some regional and formal or literary differences too.

[In order: 吳語 ('ng yü'), 閩語 ('man yü'), 贛語 ('gam yü'), 湘語 ('seung yü').]

Now, aren't you glad you're a werewolf?
Plus visibly hairy, Q.E.D.
Such luck!



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RATTAN CHAIRS AND SMALL TABLES

For years I have been doing everything wrong as far as finding a new companion after the break-up with my long-time girlfriend over a decade ago. Which will continue. It's sheer stubbornness, in a way, but also determination. Instead of going to hip bars and mingling with marketing and sales types, plus junior accountants and law-office staffers, or cruising the vegetable aisle at the Marina Safeway and joining yoga classes, I have been lunching at various chachanteng, swilling milk tea, and snarfing stuff like cheung fan and steamed pork patty with salt fish, then smoking my pipe in quiet alleys for want of an indoor environment where one can enjoy tobacco besides being too Dutch American.

Yes yes, I know that there is one place in SF where one can light up indoors. And they have a fabulous selection of single malts there. But they also have two screens permanently tuned to sports, and they're very loud.

There was a dog barking on the bus recently. I jerked startledly every time it did so.
So imagine what I would do in a sports bar environment.

Especially one which abounds in hip consumerite marketing and sales types.
Plus junior accountants and law-office staffers.

For a number of years I actually did go there, on Saturday evenings when one of the owners didn't really do business but went there instead to smoke a cigar or two, watch the game, and read the Wall Street Journal. There would be four or five other people in the place similarly engaged, but it was relatively calm and peaceful. One of the other owners was behind the counter on Thursdays, a very dry man, and he also tried to keep the noise down.
The last few times I went it was a madhouse.
And I've stopped drinking.

Rather than healthing-up at an exercise club and quitting smoking because it chased women away (as some friends advised), I have largely ceased being a night-owl. No, I haven't withdrawn from society, I just stepped into a more personal space.

Bars were always about conversation. Bars in San Francisco are noisy and crowded and that is impossible. I've gotten out of the very European habit of treating the local watering hole as a public living room. But bakeries are a different matter. Nice snackies, hot beverages, and no sound system or sports screens.

And as far as having to light up outdoors, one can dress for that.
Today, for instance, it will be shirtsleeves. No coat.
A backpack for the pipes and tobacco.



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ASTOUNDING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The previous post, despite its utter cleanliness, was "put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content as outlined in Blogger’s Community Guidelines". Well, that's a surprise. There was nothing there to offend or even raise an eye-brow. But I suspect the mention of something which was in close proximity to an illustration of something else entirely alerted the AI which replaced humans. Bright colours, silhouettes. To a robot this, and mention of an individual who had discarded some (all) of his clothing in a public space (probably because he was not entirely compos mentes) must have been nasty.

[That post ('The Refreshments') is not shown, instead there is a note there stating "this summary is not available." With a clickable link. Google hard at work making your life more absurd. The post is more or less pipe-smoking related.]

Robots are seldom good judges of things that offend. During the pandemic they took over Facebook. No matter how innocuous something was, it could receive an angry Artificial Intelligence reaction. There was the time I quoted a friend speaking anent Caucasians (among which we both are one), which earned me a thirty day ban.

Anyhow, I changed out three words.
So it still says the same.
Describing events.

Artificial Intelligences are dense, which rather pisses me off. I would have thought they'd be more perspicacious than the average streetcorner loony, more sensitive, subtle, and diplomatic too.

The fellow washing himself in public at a drinking fountain is still there, but he's "very shiny" now, instead of en déshabillé. The illustration placed nearby showed (and it still shows) a distinguished fellow with a pipe in his mouth silhuoetted against a sylized hot summer background. There is still slight snarking of two groups in the essay.
Whiskey was and is still mentioned there, along with tea.

Anyhow, here is a painting of a post-apocalyptic city-scape in the colour scheme of Brueghel, a fellow Brabander from a previous era, which may offend the sensitive.
Seeing as the apocalopitypoo didn't happen.

By disparaging even slightly their precious apocalutionary non-event, I risk offending right wing Christians and other idiots who are permanently apocalyspectic. But, even to Artificial Intelligence programs, there should not be anything even remotely objectionable here, and therefore I doubt that it will be 'put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content as outlined in Blogger’s Community Guidelines'.

Please note that the illustration shows no exposed body parts, writhing corpses, procreative elements, use of illicit substances, or sensitive vulnerable people who must be protected at all costs. There is NO exploitation there. No one smoking a pipe either, such as I myself often do, unless they're somewhere in the far distance and too small to be seen, enjoying a bowl of fine flue-cured leaf with a smidge of condimentals while drinking a cup of a stimulating beverage not purchased at Starbucks. Which sucks bollocks, by the way.

This blogger at all times earnestly strives to remain innucuous, blandly innocent, and cleanminded. Far be it from me to insult or offend Christians, rightwingers, Charlie cultists, the vast ocean of Trumpite shite, or any of the chuckleheads currently running the country into the dumpster. Please think of sweet little forest critters instead, and butterflies.

Savage ghoul butterflies feasting on corpses.

I might illustrate that.

Hallmark style.



PS.: Artificial Intelligence was largely designed by obtuse subcontinental programmers trying to replicate how dumb-ass white literalists and morons think. They have largely succeeded.




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THE REFRESHMENTS

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IMAGINARY INCIDENTS

The first cup of coffee had been quite strong, so I chose a bigger pipe for my early morning walk outside. Forty five minutes later, when I returned home, I was still wired. The street outside the building looked clean and neat, despite the earthmoving equipment and a large tubular concrete object on one side. Streetsweeping can be done, even with parked caterpillars. The sunlight silhouetted the working men further up, early to the job.

A cup of tea was required. Like on work days. My apartment mate listening to podcasts before heading off remarked that she hate how "all these twenty year olds sound exactly alike". Well, yes. But what that really means is that you now sound like what you have become. Years ago you wouldn't have noticed that they're all twitty idiots.

Precisely like Amber, spam-calling about "your last car accident, which was not your fault, and you did not receive compensation, is this correct?" Yo, Dingbat, this particular phone number does not own a vehicle! Hasn't for aeons. Which I'm negatively explaining to you in Cantonese, rudely, because I will not use any words that would be useful for you to record and hack into my phone, which, I believe, is the intent of this call.
Besides which that option has not been enabled.
The recorded voice hung up.

My last car accident was indeed a long time ago, not my fault and uncompensated, because it did not happen or it was imaginary. Probably a dream, likely not my own.
And somewhere else, very far away.

Arguing with spambots in foreign languages is fun.
Useless, but good for the soul.

喂，傻人，呢個特別嘅電話號碼人唔係擁有車輛！一直都冇。我係負面噉同你解釋緊。


Perhaps artificial intelligence has gone too far. It's starting to resemble natural stupidity. And lord knows there is plenty of that. It's an inexhaustible resource. Not nearly priceless.

The briar sticking jauntily out of my jaw during the walk was a Comoy sandblast, shape 95, which always reminds me of harbour pilots, muddy estuaries, and humid hot climates.

Also, the old international airport in Hong Kong (啟德機場 'kai tak kei jeung'). Which hasn't been operational for over two decades. Noodle soup. Dumplings. Rainy weather. Working men smoking cigarettes under deep awnings. Bedraggled kiddiewinkies seemingly impervious to feeling quite soggy. A red ball. Splashing. Hot milk tea.

When the temperature is nearly ninety, rain is not refreshing or cooling. And once you're out of it, indoors, your clothing dries to the point of slightly wet within minutes.
Still too warm and muggy. Everything slightly damp.
Perfect mildew weather.

It's quiet now. My apartment mate has gone off to work. I've shut her bedroom door, and lit up a second pipe. There is, occasionally, a bump or thud from outside; the working men and their caterpillars. Around seventy degrees outside.
Sun slanting in. Refill the tea.


It has been a very long time since I felt rain in hot weather.
That's elsewhere, not San Francisco, ever.
Dreamy car accident weather.



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DON'T BITE YOUR TONGUE!

According to Steve Bannon, whom I would label a fascist damned close to Mussolini-grade, and probably poke disdainfully with my walking stick if I ever met the son of a bitch, one third of America's teachers are terrorists indoctinating young minds with revolutionary propaganda. Meanwhile, Bill Maher continues to whinge, sneer, and mew pathetically about all manner of things, but especially how we liberals are doing it all wrong in talking to and understanding the right-thinkers. In short, he's being a strident cringing scumball, as usual.
A pox on both of them. May they burn in hell.
Or Louisiana. I'm not particular.
Florida too. A sewer.

During work I put up with similar crap patiently and tolerantly. It's the nature of the job. I'm just glad that the sour old rightwing senile delinquents don't poo in their pants at the drop of a hat, as I'd have to hose them down out back and burn the comfy chairs they sat in.
We don't have enough tranquilizers on the premises to knock them all out.

I am far more Christian in my daily interactions than in my belief system, especially when you look at some of the people whom Christians in this country adulate and admire.
Most of whom are unhinged unmitigable garbage.
And Republican.


The last decent Republican we had was Gerald Ford.

And that was clearly a mistake. From the heart of the country, born before the Great War. In that day most people there were church-going simple near-illiterates.Profoundly conservative and hate-filled. Anything foreign, unless it was German, Scandinavian, or Slavic, was to be distrusted. And they were absolutely convinced that Africans and Asians did not eat human food or speak in civilized languages. But he was a good man, and educated. As well as, and this is probably entirely beside the point, a pipe smoker. Further beside the point: he was surrounded during too much of his life by damned Dutchmen. Dutch Americans.

[This blogger is also a Dutch American. But we don't talk to those people. My ancestors were in New Amsterdam, whereas the Grand Rapids folks are all heretics and retrogrades who came over two centuries later.
So technically, darned-well heathens. Many of them are utterly reprehensible. Still.]

Gerald Ford habitually smoked Field and Stream Walnut, which sadly no longer exists. An aromatic blend, but not a gloopy one, nor overladen with sweeteners, although there was a touch of maple. It was a basic Virginia, Burley, and crimped Cavendish concoction topped with something like anise or licorice (which because of anethole lessens tongue bite). Described in its later iterations as soapy and fairly mediocre.

He would probably have liked Brigg's Mixture.
Or Revelation; Einstein's tobacco.
Both also unavailable.

TOBACCO INDEX


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VIBRANT TIMES

You know, you CAN make coffee at home, don't you? There is really no need to blow ten to twenty bucks a day down at the Bean-o-mat at the end of your street to wake up. Especially as they don't open till seven, you have to be at the office at eight, and Pooky needs to pooh sometime before then. And you're a non-pipesmoker. You can stay home. Set the pot on, go snort your brainfood on that little plate you keep in the bathroom so that Jeff your yuppified U.S. Marine boyfriend won't know you take drugs, pop your pills, and have a lovely cup of Java waiting for you when you come out. Don't forget to flush.

In short, get off my street. It's barely six o'clock and I really don't want to see any pudgy white Americans at this hour. I've seen them all weekend.

Nowadays, whenever I see pudgy white Americans, I wonder to myself how rightwing and bigoted they are. Did they vote for the big orange turd? Did they do a thumbs down on hiring the black college grad because they didn't feel comfortable with a bubble breach? Do they sneer at stuff made in China while wearing designer togs they paid too much for, that were made in China? Did their parents try to tell me years ago that chilies were bad for the body only used when the meat was rotten just something those people ate because they couldn't cook and would inflame bestial passions while making people impotent and a commie plot to sap our nations vital juices?

There's a history with y'all. I've worked with pudgy white people all my life.
And many of you have been wrong most of that time.
Plus I've seen the crap you like.
1970s fashions.

The pipe I was smoking on my morning walk was in use since before that time. I don't know much about the previous owner -- his effects were eventually disposed of by a distant relative after his passing -- but it's a good piece. He had relatively clean tobacco habits, none of the sickening shite that became popular in the flower power era, just basic old-style Burley and Virginia blends like good men favoured in the pre-Kennedy period. And none of the sugary crap that was far too popular in the fifties either. His carbon layers were sound.

[Sugary fifties crap: Son, you've come back from the war smoking ciggies. Which is understandable. But now you have a desk job, prospects, and wear a suit and tie. It's time to buy a suburban rancho, get married, and act like a mature adult. Here's a brand new pipe and pound of Watson's Honey Bucket Blend (as advertised by a Hollywood star).
Next month we'll go hunting by the lake with the boys! And start wearing houndstooth sportscoats!]

He wasn't a smoker of flakes. Which the three or four briars from his collection that I have are filled with nowadays, along with some nice flue-cured ribbon and a touch of condimental leaf compounds. A solid man. His most vibrant life period was probably the nineteen sixties. I can imagine him being in his late thirties then, and driving a Studebaker down 101 on sunny days heading to the track. By the late seventies he would have been puttering in the garden of his suburban cottage, and wondering which colleges his kids would go to.

They had probably graduated by the end of the eighties, and by the nineties he retired. More time for the garden. Swearing at the new-fangled computer. Smoking a little less because of lectures from the young ones. Glad that the smell of patchouli was finally gone.

Probably said 'hi' to Saint Peter during the Bush years.



My routine, irrespective of my work schedule, is to get up at a beastly hour, have coffee, and head out for a long amble with a pipe to aid the digestion. Being a packrat I have numerous pipes. A number of Dunhills and Charatans, several Petersons, Comoys, and Comoy made offbrands and private labels (stamped with the names of now forgotten pipe shops). Comoy made the Sunrise in all of the familiar shapes into the sixties. Those that survived to the present in decent condition are well-worth owning. Good smokers.

NO, I do not miss Honey Bucket Blend. I wasn't alive then.
But I've heard the horror stories about that stuff.


I am on my second cup of strong coffee now. With milk and sugar.
No oat milk. I didn't run out. I just never buy it.
Son, in my day we didn't milk oats.
Our hands were too big.



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POSSIBLY THE KEY TO LONGEVITY

This evening I felt fine disembarking from the bus back to the city, despite a full day of work AND needing a painkiller by ten o'clock in the morning. It's probably a question of timing. Specifically, eating lunch before two thirty, then washing down the four o'clock amlodipine besylate tab with three cups of tea. It has got to be the timing. Food out of the way well before the amlodipine besylate came into play.

Oh, and probably the fact that the city was colder than it has been at that time on previous days. I figure the timing of everything combined with cooler temperatures and enough caffeine was the secret to not stumbling home in pain.

But setting up this morning was literally a pain in the you-know-where. The blockage is probably where the right femoral heads into terra incognita at the pelvis.

Literally, a pain in the you-know-where.


A photo of the affected area will NOT be provided. Nor a realistic illustration.
There is no need to gross out my more sensitive readers.
I'm saving the monster autopsy for that.
Perhaps in full technicolor.
Techni-ichor.

Now, in other news, I've concluded that the best combo (well, it's probably pretty darn good) for my imaginary eventual possible next girldfriend is a Peterson System Standard shape 305 with a tin of aged Virginia for enjoying while happily reading biochemistry textbooks. Either for a college course, or writing a murder mystery involving creatively offing the person whose unpleasant character early on in the novel tells the reader that they're going to snuff it. "Colonel Foxworthy disdainfully threw a chicken bone at the peasant woman dressed in rags at the backdoor. He hit her squarely between the eyes. She snarled "you bastard" in angry defiance. He laughed." See, that tells you he's a bad one. And you already knew that he had a decanter of port in the study. Which could be advantageously 'doctored'. Now, what is he deathly allergic too?


It's that rusticated brown finish that they don't do anymore. Vaguely sandblasty. Very tactile. Until she materializes I'll probably have to smoke it. Rattray's Old Gowrie or Brown Clunee.


Yes of course my imaginary eventual possible next girlfriend is a thoughtful sort with a taste for good tobacco. Did you honestly think I'd fall for some brassy vulgarian? A superficialist?



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A GARDEN OF ETERNAL SUMMER

One of the great names of the pre-world war one period is Henri Rousseau, a sadly not entirely appreciated artist whose haunting jungly scenes beguile with depth, colour, and charm. Picasso greatly admired him. Reproductions of his paintings often grace the study rooms and smoking dens of gay young men studying real subjects at university.
Not business or marketing majors. Rarely accountants.

One painting, The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope, done in 1905, made quite an impression on me in my early teens. Haunting, brutal, refined. Nice. There are five animals in the painting: the diner, the dinner, an observing feline, and two disinterested birds. The gras forms an elegant lacy webbing at the bottom of the frame. The lion looks ecstatic, a very happy cat.

A repro was on the wall of the playroom. I had taken it entirely for granted, a great blob of restful colours that positively influenced one's mood.

It showed up briefly in a dream last night as part of the landscape, which changed by the minute. When I awoke, the animals were gone, but some of the colours remained.
Middle distance vision in the disfocussed semi-conscious eye.

The wet green foliage of the mind.

We had a large garden when I was growing up. I rather miss it, even though because of my mother's lumbago I was the one tasked with planting, pruning, and weeding. Beyond the old apple tree at the end of the courtyard were grass, shrubbery, bulb plantings in a disorganized riot of Spring colour. Shrubs, depth, dark greens. Plus forsythia. When in bloom, brilliant.

A great place to plonk a rattan chair, open a book, and smoke one's pipe.
The cats frequently joined me there.
Nice.



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