CHECKING THE LIST

The number of people who must be guillotined or firing-squadded on my list for when society breaks down keeps growing. Not surprisingly, it's mostly Republicans and Christians. And a few Jews. Not too many Muslims because in this country they're powerless and politically insignificant. Remarkably, it includes a few people who claim to be Hindus, which is a segment that has grown slightly over recent years.

There are also a few Dutch Americans on the list. Mostly from the areas where processed cheese is a thing. Christmas, as you know, is all about quantities of cheese. I may have mentioned that there is an excellent cheese shop three blocks from my dwelling.

I shall be going there very soon, while thinking kind thoughts about everyone who isn't rightwing, Christian, or reprehensible without necessarily being Christian. Quite a few Christians in the U.S., by the way, are anything but Christian.
Which is very Christian of them.

No, I shall not pray with you. We are enjoined by the Good Book, which surprisingly is filled with rapine, slaughter, incendiary events, and soft porn in the case of the Song Of Songs which is Solomon's (shir ha shirim asher lishlomo), to not participate in idolatrous rituals, superstition, witchcraft, and heretical behaviour.

That covers ninety percent plus of American religion. If there actually were a hell, much of the country would be going there. Probably right before or after an asteroid hit and wiped out the Midwest and the South. Which is devoutly to be wished.

I am looking forward to the cheese.

Sometime today, after participating selectively in the commercial frenzy traditional at this time of year, I shall enjoy a meal and a nice cup of milk tea away from seasonally insane people. Followed by a pipe filled with flue-cured leaf with smaller quantities of Perique and Kentucky fire-cured added. It will be very nice. It may trigger a few people who will wail from over half a block away "why are you doing this?" or "you're ruining my lungs!" or even in passionate fits of healthnut missionary fervor "that's BAD for you".

I'm partially deaf. So I shan't hear them.

Might even smile benevolently.

Which is deceptive.



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MANY LITERATE PEOPLE SMOKE PIPES

While at the bookstore one of the people there asked me where one could buy tobacco in this area. Well, there are extremely few places that have even halfway knowledgeable staff, as most "smoke shops" if they have anything tobacco-related at all specialize in cigars. Cigars are what pay the rent, salaries, and insurance. As well as special events.
I had put my pipe on the counter, which had prompted the question.

Note that about ten minutes before I entered the bookstore I had let the pipe go out, because one just doesn't step into a crowded business reeking of smoldering Virginia leaf.
It might offend a vegan.

So I told him. And also her. Because the woman next to him was curious too, and likewise indicated that she smoked a pipe occasionally. I also gave a short lecture, to the effect that Burley blends are soft but hit you in the jaw and gut because they have a tonne of nicotine. Virginias, like Tolkien and Sir Bertrand Russell prefered, are subtle and satisfying, if smoked slowly. Balkan blends -- think of William Faulkner and Clark Gable -- are complex and velvety, and trigger nearly every non-smoker for miles around.

[Virginias: largely pressed, and redolent of carotenoids. They should never be hot-boxed. Balkan blends: Latakia, which is smoke-cured, plus Turkish, on a basis of Virginia leaf. Rich and exciting. They smell like terpeneols. ]

And where can one smoke one's pipe?
Well, there's the problem.

William Cuthbert Faulkner (born September 25, 1897, passed away July 6, 1962) was one of America's most famous writers. He was often unnecessarily modest and self-effacing.
Among pipe-smokers he is lauded for being one of our most admirable fellows.

Sir Bertrand Russell was a Cambridge educated man, a well-known author and philosopher, and famous anti-imperialist enfant terrible, whose visage often graces an internet meme circulated by pipe-smokers; "I have a pipe therefore your argument is invalid."


Both men are Nobel laureates.


Good beans.



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SHORT GIRLS

Yesterday was 'National Short Girl Appreciation Day'. It was not a federal holiday, despite our president and his bestie having a well-known praedilection for a certain demographic, which is stubbornly denied by his enablers, but it really should have been. But if I were in charge, it certainly would be. Seeing as I myself am of average height for a male, you can understand that statistically half of the people I know are, in fact, shorter than me. And in the case of the distaff side, that proportion increases.

When I was fourteen my parents found out that I smoked. I got a long lecture from my mother about the evils of that pernicious habit, filled with medical fright terminology, and ending with the dire message that it would stunt my growth.

She chainsmoked Kent Filter Kings while giving me that lecture.
She had started smoking when she was in the Waves.
She had joined while in college.
She was four foot ten.

[Officially she was taller than that.]

My thought, after she told me about the growth thing, was, sarcastically, that it must have sabotaged her last growth spurt, huh. Naturally I kept my mouth shut, because you do not snark a woman capable of wrecking three jeeps and hitting a bullseye (not simultaneously), and it is best to listen gravidly with a blank potato face when your mother imparts staggeringly off-target "wisdom". Doing otherwise stunts your growth.

Photos of her in uniform show her looking stern, serious.
They do not illustrate her shortity.

In part, because of short girls, we won the war.

Sadly I had entirely overlooked the day yesterday. I had other things on my mind, and short girls were not part of the programme, did not feature significantly, were very largely not in view for most of that time. Perhaps because I tend to look straight ahead.


"We must look forward, not back, and upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling, for freedom!"


Next year, unless something comes up, it will probably pass without me noticing again.

Note: both of my parents and all of their adult relatives served during the war. As did all their college classmates and friends. People of that generation did that, didn't puff themselves up or boast about it, just took it for granted. Bone spurs didn't exist.



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GLOOMTH

Woke up to the sound of rain. When I looked outside it was very moody, grey, half-lighted, and wet. Perfect for a day off, good weather for smoking a pipe, and quite acceptable in many ways, except that even though I despise the commercial frenzy of holidays I do have things to do in the lead-up to Jesusantagasm. Consequently I should probably rush out with a bag of laundry at the first sign of rain stopping. Nothing says "festive" like clean clothes, wine, and cheese.

Perhaps the sound of happy children filled with glee, for some people, but my work days are filled with grumpy senescent folks, and that's very similar, so I've satisfied whatever need that is, and look forward to having none of that for the next several days. Snow drifts, grandma's house, roaring fires, carolls? Meh. I live in San Francisco. We have rain, fog, a high wind advisory, and a warning of floods despite living so far up from the ocean that if I feel any wetness licking my toes everyone else is in serious trouble.


Grinchville is our happy place. Yesterday I saw some individuals dressed for a Dickens fest, tightly uncomfortable in antique clothing (with steam punk embellishments and frippery), and while I didn't sneer, because I enjoy all manner of goofty get-ups when other people do it, that isn't me, and those things are best enjoyed from a safe distance.
Bah, humbug, as they say.

Years ago, when I worked at the toy company, December was our quiet time. If retailers didn't have the final shipments of the season by the end of November, they were out of luck, and the last orders went out the warehouse doors first week of December or not at all. Sales reps would send gift baskets with Midwestern festive delicacies (cheeseballs covered with crumbled walnuts and pink and green sprinkles, dessert wine, sweet slabs of artificial maple sludge, etcetera), and the edible items would have been devoured, apathetically, by colleagues not flying to Alabama or Kansas till the last possible moment.

The design Department would roam the hallways with bottles of whiskey and strange items they had made that never hit production because they were too scary. The Christmas tree in the foyer would droop forlornly, someone would order pizza, and perhaps a troll in Marketing would be happily destroying a Santa Doll because there was, really, nothing else to do.

Nothing says Christmas season like rap music, bad candy, and a Parsee on the other side of the cubicle divider following cricket matches a world away where it's warm and summery. Let's have Indian food; I feel like samosas, paneer kofta, and cucumber sandwiches!



Over the past few days I've lit up several bowls of Greg L. Pease's Silver Jubilee, a mostly Virginia broken flake celebrating a quarter of a century of tobacco blending. It's a good first pipe of the day, medium strength, complex and velvety with a hint of creaminess from the soupçon of Fire Cured leaf. It's also great in the afternoon with a cup of tea while the yutzes in the back are yelling at the game. I heartily recommend it, but I don't want you to buy any because if you do there will be less for me, and that's what Christmas is all about: keeping me happy. Just remember that.



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PRAY FOR BRAIN

Okay, I'm off work for the next four days. Which is welcome. The weather is rainy and people are acting goofy. More so as it's so close to Christmas. Which, this year in San Francisco, is surreal because the electricity company has laid an egg. The Richmond district is without power till sometime tomorrow evening. No electricity means no lights or cold storage no ice or boba drinks no computers no recharging of cellular devices no wifi no mail order sales or purchases no internet no cashregisters no databases no functioning hotplates or autoclaves.

No sports on teevee. Not hot dogs. No cold beer.
Instead, desperation and madness.
No commerce.

Oh, and did I mention rain? Traffic doing goofy things at every intersection. Wild speeding, "we've gotta get outta her pah before law and order breaks down".
Gun the engine and head for the border.


Not that it personally effects me, as I live over on the other side of the city. Where we have a functioning civil society instead of grunting zombies roaming the darkened residental streets desperate for brains. Refugee bingo players hiding in church basements counting their few remaining bullets and wondering if they should boil the rain water.

But the gas lines still work, so coffee and tea are solid. Unless you have a modern kitchen. Then you're hosed. Join the grunting zombies.

The idea that the Richmond District has many zombies appeals to me.


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PREP SCHOOL JESUS FREAK

Apparently one of the old boys in the backroom is in the process of discovering Jesus. It's always disturbing when generic Wasp-Americans discover Jesus, because he almost always turns out to be a know-it-all asshole much like their inner-child. Can't these people be sanctimonious twits without being religious?

We Dutch have mostly mastered that skill. Why are we exceptional, and why can't the Anglos simply follow our splendid example? We can thoroughly disapprove of people entirely without being all religious about it. The martyrdom of Saint Boniface proves that; in a blessed event thoroughly backed by Radboud, king of the Frisians, we slaughtered Boniface and dozens of his followers, setting a relationship with snooty Anglo Saxons for eternity.


Not that I'm advocating that for John, but if he keeps getting preachy, there's no telling what might happen. WITHOUT. A. SINGLE. WITNESS.


He's been trying to convert one of the senile old gits. We can't have that. We already banned cellphones in the backroom, if needed we'll also ban religion. Especially at Christmas.

Kindly lay your Jesus horsepucky elsewhere.
This isn't a damned church, okay?

It's remarkable how many conservatives are adherents of the traditional gender roles version of Christianity without ever landing themselves a spouse. Almost as if they're compensating for their failure in that regard by doubling down.

John, if you ever do land yourself a weak-headed blonde bimbette, I shall be the first to wish both of you well and goodbye. I've seen the type you like, and I've heard the horror stories about your dating life.

Don't invite me to your bachelor party, okay? I would drive that party bus off a cliff. Just because.



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WELL LUBRICATED

Too busy today to eat lunch, so I fondly relished the memory of lunch yesterday. Meanwhile, my legs hurt (they often do) and I put up with madness and chaos. I am a very tolerant man, practically a saint. As are all of us who put up with holiday season psychopaths during their "feeling" frenzy at this time of year. Visions of sugar plums. And stupid reindeer. Strange confections washed down with festive liquour. Gifts of American industrial cheese.

And, speaking of cheese, pretty much the only things I need to buy before celebrating the fictional birth of the mercantile deity are wine and cheese.


We have many fine cheeses here in California, both domestic and imported. None of them are suitable for shaping into a goo-ball and rolling in crushed nuts. That's more of a centre of the country thing. You know, Idaho, Kentucky, and Ohio. Places like that. States on par with Iowa. The cultural Detroits of America. Where wine and cheese parties mean Kraft on a triscuit, washed down with crackling rosé.

There is coincidentally, a lovely cheese shop three blocks away from my dwelling. A splendid selection. Curated by passionate professionals who can both spell and pronounce terms.
No need to mention their name, you probably have your own favourite curd emporium around the corner from where you live also, if you live in San Francisco.

If you don't live here, knowing the name won't do you any good.
Don't be sad. It's no use. Consider moving.

Lunch yesterday was a slice of pizza. With hot sauze splurted on top. It hit the spot. Not divine or exquisite, but good. Reminded me of my misspent youth when I was in college.
The right balance of salt, grease, and cheapness.

Effortless floating elegance, in a way.

Sometimes, just so-so pizza is a benison for the soul.



Today's food, in order: Mediocre breakfast pastry. A mealy cookie. A slice of cake with preservatives, artificial flavours, and something to give it a shelf life till mid-February.
And, once I got home, a beautiful French-style pear pastry.
Nine cups of caffeinated beverage since dawn.



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SMELLS LIKE SALT AND GINGER

One of the things on the programme for the week after Christmas is food that has nothing to do with the season. Comfort food. Unfestive and unpretentious. And something which I would have a hard time persuading any of my coworkers to eat. Steamed salt fish pork patty. My coworkers, some of whom are splendid people, are all rather Anglo. And salt fish is anything but Anglo. Southern Chinese. Indonesian, Malay, South East Asian, and Indo-Dutch.

There are a number of foods that with all the goodwill in the world are just not part of the Anglo foodworld. They'll try extreme things like durian and fried sambal dishes, plus adventurous things, unique exotic things. Delicacies and rare treats.

Steamed salt fish pork patty is none of those things. It's home cooking. What your auntie made when you stayed over for dinner, or what you had at that corner eatery where the cute girl worked. Something you made when it was raining outside and had been coming down in buckets for the past two or three days. The ingredients were at the convenience store next to the fridge with the Coca Cola, Vitasoy, and Watson's. The fatty pork was in the ice chest with the slide top. There was a time when every shop had hanging salt fish. Because it was, truly, both ubiquitous and essential. Plus Pearl River Bridge soy sauce. As well as Good Companion Cigarettes, Gold Leaf, and Winston ("real American taste").
Embassy and Craven A, for the Britishly inclined.

Steamed pork patty is not a period dish, not one of those things fondly remembered from the fifties and never eaten since then. It's timeless, accepted, easy to make, and can be made often. It just is. Side or main. 鹹魚蒸肉餅。Haahm yü jing yiuk beng.

Mostly Hong Kong and Quangzhou (香港同廣州). But that really is universal.

Dinner time is after dark, and it will be raining in SF.
It's twenty degrees warmer there than here.



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I ALSO HAVE A WELL-KNOWN BIAS

One of the things that's now showing up on social media is videos of clergymen chasing government goons out of the church. Yes, I know that these are largely done using AI, but they're still lovely. The Italian American delicatessen owner shouting at them to vaffanculo is also nice. One gets the distinct impression that the tide is turning. Also, that the tiresome old rightwing pricks, when I'm at work tomorrow, might be "subdued". One rich techno-yuppie Persianate Turk puddingface, two alcoholics of whatever religious or ethnic origin, two episcopalians of low morals, a moron who used to be Irish and Catholic, two Jews of convenience, and a few others.

All of whom are also invited to vaffanculo.


'Tis the season for all of them to go vaffanculo. As well as drink themselves to death because they'll be off work and nobody loves them. Not even the women who married them.

Suburbanite white meal ticket types.

Marin County.

Tomorrow will be my first day back after having the flu for over a week. So I wonder how many of the elderly rightwing hosebags will be out sick, possibly hospitalized. Being myself just about filled to the gills with Christian love and forgiveness, I hope it hits them badly.
And that there is no room at the ICU for them or their horrid wives.

This season's flu variant is anomalous, and was unexpected. So the flu shot sensible people got earlier in the year is not as preventative as some previous years. Still, if you did get the vaccine, at least you're protected against that strain. Those gentlemen have in the past few years become typical far-right sceptics, and in addition to not getting a flue shot, have not gotten recent covid boosters, or RSV shots. Or even pneumonia vaccines PCV13 and PPSV23. Because after all, what the heck do doctors know?
Science has a well-known leftwing bias.



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LIKE A DUTCH UNCLE THIS MORNING

Ever since they banned indoor smoking in many places in Amsterdam, one of the joys of that city is that the café terraces are now open twelve months of the year, with windscreens, stout awnings, and space heaters at all four corners. You may enter and enjoy the entirely smoke-free interior by passing through a dense crowd of happy locals outside enjoying fresh air and cigars. Likely the only people inside are the people who work there and some tourists from California. Every else is outside. Reading. Talking. Drinking. Chatting. Caffeining it up to a fare-thee-well. Dark shag. Aromatic pipe tobacco. Cigars made from Besuki filler tobacco, Varinas for spice, and Sumatra wrapper leaves.

It is presently only three or four degrees colder over there than here. With far greater public sanity and general happiness. Oh, and they have health care, better education, and a much longer life-span, because they are a first world country. Top notch.

By comparison, the United States really is a shit hole.
Just thought you should know that.


What would really improve this place is far fewer Christians, greater literacy, no Texans or mental defectives from Idaho, Oklahoma, and Utah, plus better substance treatment programmes and religious cult deprogrammers for red staters.
Oh, and someone please shut that treasonous orange hosebag and his coconspirators and pandering obsequiant kiss-butts up. We really did not need half an hour of petulant whining from the oval office yesterday evening, or Mike Johnson sputtering indignantly that his own people hate his guts and no one wants to play with him. Yes, both of you are the children of the milkman, and your daddy never loved you. You neither, Don Jr. and J.D.

A café terrace with windscreens and space heaters, where a hypothetical Dutch American could sit and read the Eindhovens Dagblad or Gazet van Antwerpen while smoking and enjoying a hot beverage would be really ideal right now.
Perhaps an order of bitterballen.

You know, Don, your daddy really effing despises you. You're not half the man your sisters are. Damned coke fiend. Also, there is no discrimination against white men. Have you looked at the South? Proof positive that totally incompetent white men, all else being equal, still get the biggest slice of cake. The congressional delegation from that swamp proves it.
There is no other reason why Tommy Tuberville got elected.
The less said about Louis Gomert, the better.
Bunch of wankers.

Lindsey Graham? A pimp lackey.

Never should have let any of those heretics settle here. The place was fine with nothing but perfectly disagreeable Dutch Calvinists quarrelling among themselves, none of those blasted Baptists, Fundamentalists, Methodists, or snake worshipping idolatrous heathens speaking bad English trying to solve everything with the laying on of hands, damned prayer breakfasts, and weird Christian witchcraft. Should have burned everything from Charleston down to the Gulf of Mexico when we had the chance.

Complete exceptions, of course, for Morganton and Little River in South Carolina, as well as Saint Martin's Parrish, Louisiana. Some mighty fine pipe tobacco comes from there.
Yes, they still eat grits and crap, but nobody's perfect.
Currently puffing Chenet's Cake, by C&D.
Thank you, Jeremy. It's lovely.




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A SENSE OF GREYNESS

At first I wondered why they were parked in front of my building, then I realized that as I live close to donuts, and there is an open space, it made sense. Naturally the cops, emergency vehicles, street crisis response teams, and desperate random drunken yuppies around the middle of the night woud park there. Because everything that requires their input will be better with a donut.

As you would expect I miss the bacon wrapped hot dog sellers the most.
That, to me, really says "spontaneous eat joy".
The thinnest sliced bacon.
Chickeniest dog.

It's probably a good thing that the street crisis people do not have uniforms the same colour as their response vehicles. People dressed in bright red would, in the middle of the night, cause the psychologically fragile to panic, probably more so than men in white suits.

This is San Francisco. Narcan, valium, and straps.

It's foggy outside. You do not want to see some things lurking in the fog. Even if they are real and speak in calming voices. Perhaps especially if they speak in calming voices.
Dark grey shadows, talking gently, asking weird things.
Have you eaten? Do you need a donut?
Did you bathe recently?

Just in case, I make it a point to have bathed recently. Shave the unbearded area, brush the teeth, plus regular hair washing, whisker trimming, nail cutting. One is, as a a grouchy middle aged man, far less likely to upset people or be hustled off in the paddy wagon if one looks and smells clean. Not acting like a rioter also helps.


The other day I noticed that the little old person who lives on the sidewalk at Beckett Street (白話轉街 'paak waa chuen kaai', used to be Bartlett Alley till 1908) is no longer there. Best case scenario: a street crisis team has finally persuaded her that it was time to live indoors again, and helped her box up her precious garbage. She was averse to moving, and had developed relationships with the local pigeons, but her growing collection of boxes, plastic bags, and nearly empty food containers looked like a health hazard. She had been there, and across the street in the service dooway of Tao Tao (陶陶茶樓), or right at the corner of Wentworth (德和街 'tak wo kaai') just down from there, for probably at least eight or nine years. A sweet and gentle, rarely ambulating little old filthy presence. People of that age, even if they've started communicating with rats and pigeons, really need to be housed.

There are several other less than fully functional people in that area. The apprehension seems to be that they don't want help. Actually, what they don't want is tight supervision, or to be lumped in the same basket as the violent crazies behind the elevators in Portsmouth Square. But a few of them are clearly nearing the end of their tether.



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LOCAL WILDLIFE

It's sometimes about a sense of belonging. Even if you don't know everyone, and many of them are rather disturbing. But you get used to the local coffee shop (sticky counters), the chainsaw emporium (new AND used), and the regular food events (boiled WHAT? with a side of WHAT?). Plus the fact that special needs kids have run off into the woods, and may have started eating pets. No one in town keeps bunny rabbits anymore.

You visit the place nearly everyday.


You saw that the thanksgiving feast at the local diner was, substantially, cooked on a raging greasefire, but emergency services did not need to be called.
Ham, turkey, possum.


You have never wondered why a town founded nearly a century before the revolutionary war has so few people in the local cemetery. You just take for granted that the old folks home is filled with people who are extremely ancient. Must be that specialized genetic stock of folks back east, where you have no intention of ever visiting. Despite the town of Hollow Ridge having a Facebook page, they do not have a local highschool, church, or tourist bureau.
It's unclear how the natives make a living.

Or how some of them stay alive.

Must be that tight-knit sense of community. The enduring affection Americans have for the old homestead, the family farm, the area where their kin settled after the Hessians left a few survivors two centuries ago, and the complete absence of English soldiers and monsters in the local waterways. Great granpaw parked his tractor there when the jerry can ran out, and his multitudinous descendants never left. Except for the lucky ones who got a high school education, and a clerical job at the glue factory in the next county.

They still do things the old fashioned way there. When someone gets sick, no need to call the doctor or coroner's office. And no phone in any case. Leeches, boy, that's all a good Christian needs! And a hillside facing south, where the earth is soft.

That's a large part of why so many of us keep in contact with the town of Hollow Ridge deep in the Appalachian mountians. It feels like home. Admittedly the home a few folks ran away from screaming, but home, nevertheless.

Can't hardly get more American than that.



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THE RUSH HOUR RESPIRATORY WARD

For the second week in a row I called-in sick for the Tuesday night pub-crawl. I susppose if I really pushed the envelope I would be up to it, but coming back from Chinatown after my tea time today was a bus-ride from hell. Two coughing fits, and basically grumbling and swearing as inaudibly as possible under my breath like an ornery old cuss. The ONLY bright spot was the young lady of an age somewhere between college and early forties (Chinese American, so hard to tell) with a well shaped face and just perfect lips. From Montgomery Street all the way up to Jones Street. Yes, okay, If I'm staring straight ahead and have a perfect close up view of that, that isn't bad at all. Quite nice. Good complexion too. Thank you.

Everything else about that bus ride was a slice of hell.

The woman seated next to me was American tourist sized. I removed my pipes from my right-hand side coat pocket so that the stems would not be snapped. Invisible across the aisle an infant wept and whined, and I realized that anyone who takes their babies on the bus at rush hour probably hates not only other people but them as well. Disease sponges.
A rolling Petri dish chock-filled with very live very toxic cultures.
Some of which are having coughing fits right now.

If I had gone out tonight I can imagine how it would have gone. Mostly fine, except for the last three blocks to the bus stop, and the first block after. Grumble grumble, dammit, cus cus cus, oh F dot dot dot. It's cold. I want to blow this country up. Screw the military industrial complex. A pox on all the red states. Cough, hack eructate.

And I would have not gotten enough sleep.
So best not risk it.



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NOT JUST THE WEATHER

Over the years a number of my friends have moved to the Netherlands because it is more civilized than the United States, and a better place to live and raise kids. They're still in love with the place. Which I can understand, but non of them are living in Brabant or Limburg. Where, around Autumn nightmarish scenes that are profoundly educational take place.

Recently an article mentioned the traditional English breakfast. Which is also nightmarish and educational, oh golly yes. A large number of Americans claim to love it, but only a few really delve into one of the traditional items which is very nutritional and high in iron. Key to making it is enough grain product so it fries up nicely, the inclusion of chopped firm animal fat for flavour, and above all not allowing the fairer gender into the kitchen when it's being simmered to set.

It's one of those things my mother would not allow into the house, and the more traditional versions have been outlawed. Yet one can easily make it at home nowadays, assuming that one has a butcher shop nearby that does not cater to timid little Anglos.

Probably best to call it by a foreign term.

Marag dubh.

The last time I had a traditional English breakfast I also had acid indigestion for several days. Which is a testament to the fortitude and stamina of people in the British Isles and Ireland, for whom such things are presumably a 365 day a year occurence. Personally I cannot imagine starting my days regularly like that, and the American breakfast is also pretty damned ghastly in all of its forms.

The best I can do is a strong caffeinated beverage, and perhaps buttered toast. Or congee with a fried dough stick. Anything like Marmite or Vegemite should never be included, that's what the garbage can is for. Sausages or bacon require a mound of rice and a bottle of hot sauce. Exceptionally, I can understand where pan-fried marag dubh would be a good inclusion either way, plus something egg.

It's probably why the Huns and Mongols never made it that far west.



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HIDE THE KEYS

Most people at this point are suffering from holiday stress, and can't wait for the season of giving to have gone. Part of this is because the days are shorter, colder, and gloomier, part of this is because we're sick and tired of seeing Erika Kirk's sneering nasty damned face all over the internet because the bitch just won't shut the F up. Yeah, okay, we get that your husband got whacked, and that you ooze lubriciously over Fuentes, Trump, and Vance.
Can you get out of our lives now? We're really beginning to hate all of you.

Same goes double for brainworm boy.

We hope all of them get the firing squad.


One other thing contributing to all of this is that a significant number of us have not been able to smoke our pipes since the first week of December because of the beastly cold and a bad case of the flu. So we're pissed and frustrated. We'll blame Trump-voting downtown yuppies for this. And their trashy party-slag girlfriends.
Delayed Santa-conic nausea.
Bah, humbug.

Cite from a typical missive to a pipe tobacco forum: "The wife won't let me smoke inside, kids and relatives, heater in the tool shed out since last century, six feet of snow over the patio furniture, how do you guys stand it?" Dudu, get divorced, ditch the baggage, and move to Tierra Del Fuego. Seriously.

Five more days till the solstice. Then the days will start getting longer again, chocolate goes on sale eventually, people make resolutions to instantly break, and there's a different flood of bullpuckey. But the key thing will be longer days.


Another thing to which to keenly look forward is a nearly eight month absence of anything and everything pumpkin spiced.



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TICKLE TICKLE ...

Over on a culinary site many people reacted to a picture featuring chicken feet in a noodle soup. The input from Karenstan was predictable. So was the counter point. "Lotta good collagen there!" And "yum yum". I myself am, as you would expect, closer to the latter.
As well as amused by the nickname for cooked chicken feet in the Philippines.
Chicken feet adobo is "adobong adidas".

The very Karen reactions demanding that everyone understand that they would never touch that, ever, good lord how can anyone that's disgusting ugh and yuck, sounded for all the world like well-to-do yupsters in Iowa.

Although for all I know they could have mostly been from Marin County. Where there are also strong opinions about food. Why, I myself through work often come into contact with people there who believe that yeast was introduced by space aliens as well as the karmic dangers of gluten, animal protein, high carbs, four foods that all of a sudden many cardiologists warn against or three every day foods that might lead to dementia.....


Look, I'm not going to swear that chicken feet are the end all or be all of eats, or even go out of my way to find them. But it's easy to go through an entire to-go container of them without even thinking.

One internet site, written by and for white people, screams that chicken feet will give you campylobacter, gout, heart disease, heavy metal poisoning, high blood pressure, kidney disease, high cholesterol, salmonella, and animal cruelty filthy damned heathens!

[Note: people taking antacid medication (e. g. North American Caucasians) are at higher risk of contracting campylobacteriosis, since this type of medication neutralizes normal gastric acid.]


Maybe instead y'all ought to eat tinned asparagus jello molds.
Or good old fashioned frank'n beans from a can.
All-American Christian food.
White folks chow.



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USE FISH

Sometimes it's all a matter of perception. A friend mentions he "had a great dinner at Xxxxxx, a vegan, gluten free, sushi restaurant. Amazing presentations and excellent flavorful food!" Now, being as you know a carniverous beast with juices dripping from my mandibles, that is NOT a statement you would ever hear from me. But my friend experienced it as exceptional, beautiful, and delicious. And enjoyed it in the great company of one other person.

This is not an eatery I shall suggest to my apartment mate. Who is extremely fond of salmon sashimi. I do not want someone screaming at me in Toishanese that we white people are out of our goofy little minds. That it is entirely true is not made any more palatable by unprintable Toishanese punctuationals.

[Unprintable Toishanese punctuationals: a mirror or overlap with the Cantonese Outstanding Five as well as the curses and obscenities which pepper the language. Words everyone knows, and often uses at breaks in the sentence where a comma or an exclamation mark would be appropriate. Yet no one knows them, especially not ladies. Okay?]

Just try to imagine what would happen if one suggested to a Dutchman that vegan herring filets were edible. A death-pounding with a windmill might ensue. Stupid American.


Note: There are vegan restaurants in Amsterdam. I do not know who goes there. Americans and Germans, presumably. And quite likely very large weightlifters named Gunther or Staphorst. I don't know. Don't ask. You might set me off.

IRRELEVANT PICTURE

Now, all of this ties in somehow with a dream involving the discussion of transactional ethics while making fresh Italian pasta in Hong Kong, north east of Ma Liu Suei (馬尿水) on 東平洲 ('tung ping jau'), a house in 沙頭村 ('saa tau chuen').

There is no place in Sha Tau Village where one can purchase aged Parmesan cheese (巴馬乾酪 'paa maa kin lok'). One would have to buy that at a fancy shop in 中環區 (Central District, 'jung waan keui').

The umami whomp is hard to manage when there is no appropriate cheese or meat product available. But one can be creative with fermented seafood products.




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YOU CAN, BUT SHOULD YOU?

Yesterday afternoon, while yuppies were having a drunken orgie, it struck me: if a drunken Santa assaults you, it is socially acceptable to stab him in the neck. It is not legally okay, but socially fine. In San Francisco there probably isn't a jury that will convict you for being sober and defending yourself during Santacon. And there are so many drunken Santas that one or two won't be missed.


Most common citations each Santacon: Public intoxication, drunk and disorderly conduct, vandalism, destruction of public property, assault on public employees, littering, defrauding an inkeeper, indecent behaviour. And illicit substance abuse.

There are public house restrooms littered with dozens of drunken elves trying to sleep-off Harvey Wallbanger hangovers. Oh, the humanity! Staff dare not go in with mops because of the smells AND the deviant procreative behaviours audible behind closed doors.
There's an intoxicated wild raccoon upset that they edged him out.
Have you no decency, human? Have you no decency?

For the record, I have never participated in Santacon. I do not have frat-boy (or girl) tendencies. I haven't climbed a palm tree lining Polk Street without wearing panties.

As a sane and stable Euro-American I do not rely on constant patterns of stupid behaviour for attention. Unlike all these debased retrograde mutants from inbred dumb*****ville thronging the streets with their parents' over-generous allowances.

My sympathies, of course, are entirely with the raccoon.
He should have been the only one on that floor.
Will no one think of the poor raccoon?



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BUT THE APPLE PIE IS KIND OF OKAY

Since the announcement that the Gestapo now will demand access to your social media history for the last five years when you visit this country, there have been a flood of internet comments indicating that hell will freeze over before some people even think of visiting. My only objection to that is that calling them Gestapo is incorrect. They are by no means Geheime Staatspolizei, but zur schau stellende staatspolizei.
Nothing geheim about it. No shame at all.

That being said, as an American, I do not want to visit this country either. Outside of the city of San Francisco the food is awful, the culture primitive and incredibly vulgar, literacy levels near rock bottom, with bigots and racists everywhere. These are the people who elected Trump and the Republican super majority. It's a shithole.

Southern sherriffs, Iowa food, Idaho Christianity, and incestuous relationships (all of which involve grease) for two thousand six hundred and eighty eight miles of wasteland between the Sierras and New York.

After all, if Abbot, DeSantis, Greene Johnson, Tubberville, and Trump, were the best that could be elected, that speaks volumes about the people in their parts of the country.
Drug dealers, killers, and rapists. Oh, and some good people, I suppose.
But mostly criminals and low-lifes.

Years ago a friend living in the Shomron told me that it was unfair to judge the entire country without having visited and seen the real America. And you know what? He's wrong. Dead wrong. I can see them on my computer. They are the Fox News moron brigade. The Western Journal, the Daily Caller, The New York Post, and Turning Point USA. They are Erika Kirk theatrically weeping into a miraculously dry tissue while squeezing money out of turnip heads, teevee preachers casting out daemons and speaking in tongues, and political demagogues calling upon Jesus and spouting cynical drivel.


Either we are in fact a Christian nation and Christianity really, really sucks, or we're a bunch of snake worshipping heathens and actually rather detestable.



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OBSESSED WITH PORK PIES

It was a long well-written bitch-essay, with a lovely illustration featuring tannic red tea colours, yellow ochre shading into lemon yellow as well as canary yellow, and mango-flesh hued areas. It was vicious and unpleasant, so I'm glad it was only a vivid dream. Inspired, very largely, by a Filippino Chinese gentleman at the pharmacy whose wife was, justifiably, very upset with him. And told him "stop it". "Don't". "Shut up". And "get in the car".

An ancient auntie rolled past in a wheelchair and remarked that he could give people heart attacks with his berserk outbursts, it was very inconsiderate of him. But because she said it in Cantonese he absolutely ignored her. Not his language, and he was fed up with the Cantonese. They were disobedient. And he knew that if you shouted and behaved like a white American tourist anywhere in the world, it brought results. One hundred percent.

Yeah okay, sunny Jim, but this is the Chinese Hospital Pharmacy. Not anywhere in the world. Most people here who get what they want get that by being reasonable and courteous, and patience by the way is a virtue. You didn't get what you wanted because in addition to being a Sangley a-hole throwing a tantrum, is because your pharmacy of record is Walgreens at Westgate, your insurance does not cover that medication, and furthermore doesn't have any relationship with this institution, and your paperwork is both incomplete and incorrect. And you don't listen. Common problem for people like you.

In fact, almost everybody (99.9999%) will leave here happy that they got what they wanted, in a comparatively short period of time, expeditiously and efficiently. And, given the reasons for them being here in the first place -- not being in the absolute peak of health and youthful spryity -- that is absolutely amazing. If this place was staffed by my people (Netherlanders), security would have been called on you so fast and a sedative administered pdq. Or a cattleprod. Pepperspray. They really need pepperspray. Just in case.

Shouting. Does. Not. Make. Good. Things. Happen. You. Pig.
Just stop it. Shut up. Don't. And get in the car.

So instead of that painting with angry tannic reds, various intense shades of yellow as well as umber, ochre, and sienna, here is a lovely restful image of somewhere in England. Yorkshire. Once a gentleman of impeccable Chinese Filippino background (Fujianese ancestry and an intense knowledge of all the top designer brands) told me "you'd love England, everything is grey there". Indeed.

I've actually been to England several times. Once you get out of London, where there are Yobbos, it's a very nice place. Sure, the food is nothing to write home about, although they have some lovely pork pies, and the teatime offerings are splendid, but in the main no one shouts, there are few if any American or Americanized tourists, they have bookstores, and spicy condiments are available. A lovely place. And yes, they do speak English.

For some reason, the courtesy and professionalism of the staff at Chinese Hospital, and the pharmacy there, always reminds me of England. High standards, sheer competence, and equanamity when dealing with the occasional grouchy old pustule.



The time I spent in the ICU there years ago was, sadly, not alleviated by pork pies. Perhaps an oversight. Maybe I should suggest that to them. It is extremely likely that their Cantonese demographic would appreciate it. Those are the same people that enthusiastically dig into cheesy spaghetti porkchops (焗豬扒意粉 'guk jyu paa yi fan'), flaky barbecue pork turnovers (叉燒酥 'chaa siu sou'), and cheesy curry fresh seafood baked rice (芝士咖喱海鮮焗飯 'ji si kaa lei hoi sin guk faan').

There is also Portuguese Chicken Rice (焗葡國雞飯 'guk pou gwok gai faan'; a base of egg-fried rice with mild coconut curry chicken and cheese crusted under the broiler).
People would be dying to get into the ICU.
Oh wait......



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ANOTHER ERA

Seth posted an article about a seasonal exhibit of old-timey jello dishes. The picture actually looked edible until you realized that that was asparagus, and they had murdered it. The bed of crinkly lettuce and parsley underneath the fruit cocktail ring(?) was what made the whole appetizing. than another friend posted what may be the classicest sammich recipe ever: Take a quarter pound of liverwurst, mash it with a peeled banana and a cup of tomato ketchup or chili paste. Butter eight slices of bread, smear the liverwurst and banana mixture on eight other slices, and stick them together. Slice diagonally. Yum. boys, that sounds delish!

In the good old days women would stay at home all day and while away the lonely hours inventing festive old timey foods like this. I think we've lost a lot by becoming civilized.

I would use chilipaste instead of ketchup.
Sambal badjak, sambal oelek, either.

Toast the bread first.

Had a bowl of jook yesterday, first food since Sunday. Felt it was necessary, so that I wouldn't wankle or stumble when down at the pharmacy picking up a refil of latanoprost. That would have been bad.

Can't have random white dudes wankling and stumbling around pharmacies these days.
I feel that was a crucial part of movies back then.
Happened all the time.



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MURDEROUS STUPIDITY

Being hors de combat from a horrid case of the flu, it was with avid interest that I clicked on a link to an article detailing a virus currently surging in the Bay Area. And promptly noticed that the comments may have been written by idiots. Many of my fellow Americans, when it comes to medical matters, are dumber than a puddle of dog vomit. That's not just an opinion based on the exceptional morons who all felt a need to prove what idiots they are, but on the huge surge in infectious diseases which had been nearly eradicated, innoculations and vaccines falling in several areas of the country, and the just plain blithering idiocy of rightwing social media influencers.

Texas, the Carolinas, and Florida deserve what they're getting.
So do Southern California and parts of Marin County.
Colorado, Idaho, and Oklahoma also.

Of course I've known for years that the situation was dire. For nearly ten years some of the people with whom because of work I must regularely come in contact have been telling me that miracle manuka honey, apple cider vinegar, and turmeric are surefire guarantees of health, and that if only I would have listened to them I would not have needed a coronary stent. Or, most recently, an angioplasty in my right leg. Look, boyos, if you actually believe that nonsense and persist in propagandizing for it, you are murderous swine. The more so because you also claim not to believe that vaccines are in any way useful despite several of you having survived Covid. Kindly shut up.

The statement "if it's natural it has to be good for you" is absolute twaddle. It is because of natural things that the average lifespan during the middle ages was at rock bottom. The plague is natural. Rattlesnake venom is natural. Tetrodotoxin is natural.

That picture above is of something you can't even see, the name of which many of you have trouble reading, recognizing, or pronouncing, and which none of your damned miracle natural remedies will cure. You really need to shut the F up about your batshit medical theories.


That goes double for the idiot Trump put in charge of Health and Human Services.



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