CRUSTLESS AND THIN SLICED

There are enough fancy imported luxury cigarettes here that I could offer Hello Kitty a smoke, though I would prefer that she puff a pipe. And in any case, because my apartment mate is a non-smoker, we could not smoke here. Possibly somewhere near the bridge over Kearney Street that is being demolished. Which will intercourse up the traffic to a fare-thee-well.

There are an old Amphora straight bulldog and a Savinelli DeLuxe woodstock in my side pocket, along with plenty of pipe tobacco. A mixed blend, mostly red Virginia, with touches of condimentals. The woodstock can safely be described as 'piss-elegant', in the phrasing of an old pipesmoking friend whom I haven't seen in many years. It's a lovely brown sandblast.

I do not foresee meeting anybody who could in any way be described as Hello Kitty.
That's just not in the cards, and I never do in any case.
I would probably freak out if I did.
Five-inch mutant.


Per Sanrio, who market Hello Kitty, she is not a cat, but a perfectly normal English girl (Kitty White), who lives in an outskirt of London with her parents and twin sister Mimi. Delving into the whole Hello Kitty gestalt is sort of surreal, and I came up for air almost immediately. The Japanese idea about perfectly normal and English is perhaps more than a little askew.

It involves rabbit, penguins, and afternoon tea.

That last item is something with which I am quite okay.

In a short while I shall be heading out with something similar in mind. Not the delicate and high-fallutin' version, but actually a late lunch or early dinner, something satisfying with hot sauce dabbed on, followed by a pipe-smoke while wandering past the bridge which they're destroying into the Financial District. There will be no finger sandwiches, nor any refined little pastries, or scones with clotted cream and fruit preserves. I look forward to the day when those will be available in C'town, but Chinese Americans do not go for that. Alas.


There are no places where one can have a pot of piping Assam or Ceylon while happily munching crumbly snackies and sliced cucumber on buttered crustless white bread. While perusing a newspaper of a slant that tells everyone that one is a cultured fellow with some artistic and intellectual pretensions, yet possessed of a keen sense of humour.

It is very sad. San Francisco is no fit place for Hello Kitty.
We are utterly deficient as a metropolis.
And must reform.



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