Hi! I am the irritating man who wants to get on the bus! And I was at this same stop yesterday, when all of us waiting here delayed YOU by a whole three minutes.
Yes, I know you're heading down to your VERY IMPORTANT JOB in the Embarcadero Center, and the idea of stopping the vehicle to let more passengers board seems heartless to you.
You're on it, and that's what matters.
That is probably why you're blocking the aisle and not moving further back.
Just guessing.
Life is SO hard when you're an IMPORTANT worker in one of the local law offices, isn't it?
I'm truly sorry.
Now move further in.
I mean that.
It isn't a recommendation.
Think of it as a promise of public transportation road rage if you do NOT do so.
That, of course, is why I loudly said "MOVE FURTHER BACK!"
I was utterly polite. I did not holler "MOVE FURTHER BACK YOU MORONS", or "MOVE FURTHER BACK YOU SELFISH EAST-COAST EGOMANIACS", or "MOVE FURTHER BACK YOU PUSTULENT EMIGRÉS FROM KANSAS".
Yes, I didn't use the word 'please'. I admit that.
That's because I take it for granted that all of you will soon see the social desirability of moving back.
Do you see these little old Cantonese people also waiting at the bus stop?
And the Asian mommy taking her tiny daughter to kindergarten?
Isn't that the cutest little backpack, just like a cow?
The kid is quite proud of it, and looks so happy.
Getting to day care is important to her too.
There will also be room for them on this fine conveyance if you move your stinking self-absorbed middle-class flabby young posterior back further in.
Don't worry, they'll stand. They're used to you law-office drones being too unmannered to offer your seats to the elderly.
Or to people carrying children.
Or pregnant women.
Really, we expect it. We know that you carpetbaggers from the rest of the country are swine, as well as being very IMPORTANT workers at clerical jobs in Law Offices in the Financial District.
Without your efforts of genius, IMPORTANT things would not happen.
That's why we avoid the Embarcadero Center (buildings one through four).
We know you're there. And we don't want to disturb you in your sanctuary.
Now, let me explain something to you.
If you don't move further back, I will.
And I'm all elbows. Yes, I'll say 'excuse me'.
But when I can see tons of daylight between the bodies at the back of the bus, that means that there is room.
I intend to use it. And if, in the process of getting there, the old Chinese people who have also been waiting at this stop manage to get on too, which is specifically the intended icing on my cake, you'll just have to suck it up.
Along with whatever bruising I accidentally inflict.
Just think of me as having rabies.
Stop texting while I radiate hostility at you and your sense of entitlement.
If you don't, it could mean very bad karma.
Real people don't care if you die.
Don't you dare say "there's another bus behind this", as if you expect me to patiently wait twenty more minutes.
That's far too Zen to contemplate this early in the day. There will always be another bus, and others after that, until the end of time.
It's statistically certain, I'm sure.
But given the realities of the morning commute, here and now, the existence of a bus elsewhere on this line is purely an intellectual concept.
Not only is it too deep and complex for me to accept right now, but I don't like your aggrieved attitude.
Not to make a point of it, but I've gotten shot at in Mindanao, been in violent altercations in various parts of the world AND San Francisco, been threatened by psychopaths, and nearly got blown to Kingdom Come in Zamboanga and Manila.
So some whiny pasty-faced limp cow-college graduate from the Midwest with a bloated self-image ain't gonna keep me from getting on this bus.
No matter how IMPORTANT a paper-shuffling drone you are.
I'm crazy enough to go 'creative' all over your arse.
And these old Chinese folks won't see a thing.
They'll be entirely useless as witnesses.
Purely unable to identify either of us.
We white people all do look alike.
Whether victim (you), or perp.
Mayhem betters the world.
Move further back.
Thank you.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
LEERING OLD CROTCHET
Approximately and precisely fifty two years ago today I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped. Yanked out by Caesarian section 3 weeks premature.
That means two things. The first is that I was a large little f*cker at that time. The second is that I was early. There have been very few other occasions when that has happened. Usually I have been late. even for important appointments. Still trying to catch up, probably.
Fifty two years old.
Antiquated.
No wife kids family.
No girlfriend on the horizon.
Not exactly the very picture of success, what?
My Mom always said that if I ended up with godforbid a native Dutch girl, she would forgive me.
As long as the primitive little bitch had at least two PHDs.
My Dad, on the other hand, simply worried about my finding anyone. Male, female, or outer space alien.
Have to say, his point of view was more realistic.
No less unreal, though.
I am quite single.
Savage Kitten, whom I loved for over twenty years, dropped me somewhat over a year ago.
She's found someone else in the meantime - a very hot, contrary to her own low self-image, woman can do that - whereas I have spent most of the past year-plus wondering what the heck happened.
Not so much operatic, as obsessive, about the whole thing.
Surprised, or startled.
Kinda like Ernie when the Cookie Monster kept stealing his cupcakes.
See his expression at 2:06? Precisely!
Missing a cupcake!
I need a cupcake.
Did I mention that I'm fifty two years old?
She and I are still the best of friends. She's got Aspergers, so she really doesn't have a clue what's going on in my head. And I'm just totally conditioned to keep it all inside (except for this blog, but heck, no nice young things read this anyway), so I tend to do the "oh, that's okay, don't mind me" act till I'm blue in the face.
We're having dinner tonight, her treat.
Aged Harris Ranch beefsteak.
I really do appreciate it.
But. Nevertheless.
Even so. Eh.
Fifty two years old.
Kind of late to start all over again. Even though one of my ancestors married his third wife in his sixties, then had a passel more kids (total: twenty five kids over a three-wife life-span), and kicked off close to ninety.
Fifty two years old.
That was back when Dutchmen were all over New Jersey, and there was no MTV, and stuff like that was still possible.
Snarky Dutch-American of a past-teenage vintage?
Yesh!
Oooh yowza papa!
Quite the catch.
In agricultural eighteenth century New England.
Just say "hello hot mr. Vander Haringmetuitjesuitoudnieuwamsterdam!
Sir!
Fast forward to now.
Fifty two years old.
Sweet jeepars, I need to find me a crazy woman.
Preferably a sparky young miss half my age.
Cause I'm still full of piss and vinegar.
Also kind of Like Ernie (see above).
Just slightly silver at the edges.
Why you sweet young thing! Have I ever told you about the time I single-handedly steered Noah's Ark to a safe port? Shelbyville? We still wore onions on our belt then, as that was the fashion after we defeated Napoleon.
I also landed the very first dirigible.
Like totally stone age, yeah.
Before hip. And hop.
Disco fever.
Cupcake?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
That means two things. The first is that I was a large little f*cker at that time. The second is that I was early. There have been very few other occasions when that has happened. Usually I have been late. even for important appointments. Still trying to catch up, probably.
Fifty two years old.
Antiquated.
No wife kids family.
No girlfriend on the horizon.
Not exactly the very picture of success, what?
My Mom always said that if I ended up with godforbid a native Dutch girl, she would forgive me.
As long as the primitive little bitch had at least two PHDs.
My Dad, on the other hand, simply worried about my finding anyone. Male, female, or outer space alien.
Have to say, his point of view was more realistic.
No less unreal, though.
I am quite single.
Savage Kitten, whom I loved for over twenty years, dropped me somewhat over a year ago.
She's found someone else in the meantime - a very hot, contrary to her own low self-image, woman can do that - whereas I have spent most of the past year-plus wondering what the heck happened.
Not so much operatic, as obsessive, about the whole thing.
Surprised, or startled.
Kinda like Ernie when the Cookie Monster kept stealing his cupcakes.
See his expression at 2:06? Precisely!
Missing a cupcake!
I need a cupcake.
Did I mention that I'm fifty two years old?
She and I are still the best of friends. She's got Aspergers, so she really doesn't have a clue what's going on in my head. And I'm just totally conditioned to keep it all inside (except for this blog, but heck, no nice young things read this anyway), so I tend to do the "oh, that's okay, don't mind me" act till I'm blue in the face.
We're having dinner tonight, her treat.
Aged Harris Ranch beefsteak.
I really do appreciate it.
But. Nevertheless.
Even so. Eh.
Fifty two years old.
Kind of late to start all over again. Even though one of my ancestors married his third wife in his sixties, then had a passel more kids (total: twenty five kids over a three-wife life-span), and kicked off close to ninety.
Fifty two years old.
That was back when Dutchmen were all over New Jersey, and there was no MTV, and stuff like that was still possible.
Snarky Dutch-American of a past-teenage vintage?
Yesh!
Oooh yowza papa!
Quite the catch.
In agricultural eighteenth century New England.
Just say "hello hot mr. Vander Haringmetuitjesuitoudnieuwamsterdam!
Sir!
Fast forward to now.
Fifty two years old.
Sweet jeepars, I need to find me a crazy woman.
Preferably a sparky young miss half my age.
Cause I'm still full of piss and vinegar.
Also kind of Like Ernie (see above).
Just slightly silver at the edges.
Why you sweet young thing! Have I ever told you about the time I single-handedly steered Noah's Ark to a safe port? Shelbyville? We still wore onions on our belt then, as that was the fashion after we defeated Napoleon.
I also landed the very first dirigible.
Like totally stone age, yeah.
Before hip. And hop.
Disco fever.
Cupcake?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
NICELY PACKAGED DUTCH TRAIN URINE
Several friends have alerted me to a remarkable news story: Dutch trains will provide urine bags.
No, these aren't free samples - it's because 16% of commuter trains do not have toilets. If a power failure happens, you might "have to wait three or four hours" before you have a chance to pee.
Here's a bag. Go at it.
Quote:
"The portable urinal, made by the firm Travel John, is designed for the use of "anyone without access to traditional or sanitary facilities", according to the company's website.
The bag is attached to a spout and filled with a powdered substance that turns into a gel, AFP news agency reports."
End quote.
[Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15220297.]
Frankly, the idea is more than a little bit loopy. There is no spot in Europe's most densely populated country where you are more than fifteen minutes away from a toilet.
If the train stalls in between stations, you will be surrounded by green pastures. Miles and miles of dairy land on either side of the train.
Clearly the Dutch railway assumes that there will be a reason why you don't just whizz in the grass.
Angry cows.
Fastidious creatures, those Dutch bovines.
Given a choice between an angry cow, and the complete lack of any privacy whatsoever in a train car, you would naturally choose the train car.
Moo!
Either that or Dutch authorities fully expect the Zombie Apocalypse to hit right during the power failure.
Shouldn't pee outside, there's a horde of hungry flesh-eaters besieging the train.
Why not tinkle out the side where the zombies aren't?
Can't. Angry cows.
Of course, if you're a woman, the very idea of sticking any peeful part of your body into the cold wet Dutch night outside the train, especially when there are angry cows and hungry zombies around, is absurd. Better squat over a spouted container filled with powder that turns into gel.
Your fellow-passengers do not mind. They're all incredibly impressed that you didn't wet yourself when you realized you were surrounded by cows and zombies.
They did. Despite the bags so helpfully provided.
They gaze at you admiringly, and they smell bad.
Not the love you wanted.
You have a choice: stay inside the train with a bunch of affectionate cowards who reek of urine, OR assume that once the zombies and the cows find each other they'll be too busy arguing over who gets to despoil a train filled with sodden stinky whifflings to bother about the lone human who pissed in a bag now trying to get away.
The zombies won't notice you because you have scant odour (unlike the rest of the passengers), and the cows won't mind, because you had the courtesy and foresight to whee in a bag.
Plus the character and determination which was required.
It was very gallant of you to do so.
The cows appreciate that.
The rambunctious Dutch teenagers on the train are now using that bag as a football.
Frankly, given the circumstances, you would be well-advised to head on foot to the nearest town or farmhouse. Those teenagers are collecting every filled-up urine-sack they can find and throwing them at each other, in an excess of youthful high spirits.
Something is bound to go wrong.
I remember once passing a gang of students from one of the Dutch vocational schools heading up the platform at a train station - Breda, I think - who were loudly singing an anthem about testicles as they headed home. Precisely the type of rowdy boys to use whiz baggies as projectiles. Especially if they are stuck in between towns ten minutes apart at the precise moment of the Zombie Apocalypse.
When Dutch youths get bored, you know what hits the fan.
Now there's a special container for that.
Thanks to Dutch foresight.
And zombies.
See, I would worry about the cows instead. Those beasts are going to be upset when a horde of the raggedy undead storms a stalled train all over their nice clean pasture. Urine soaked commuters, ravenous zombies, and bad-tempered bovines in the wet wet grass.
Whether or not there are flying pee packs, it ain't gonna be a pretty sight.
Dutch cattle, one naturally assumes, are armed and dangerous.
Stranger things have happened in the Netherlands.
That's why you now have a wee bag.
Use it in good health.
Dutch number one baggies would be perfect souvenirs, by the way.
Imagine the happy faces of your relatives back home.
Unusual mementoes of a unique country.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
No, these aren't free samples - it's because 16% of commuter trains do not have toilets. If a power failure happens, you might "have to wait three or four hours" before you have a chance to pee.
Here's a bag. Go at it.
Quote:
"The portable urinal, made by the firm Travel John, is designed for the use of "anyone without access to traditional or sanitary facilities", according to the company's website.
The bag is attached to a spout and filled with a powdered substance that turns into a gel, AFP news agency reports."
End quote.
[Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15220297.]
Frankly, the idea is more than a little bit loopy. There is no spot in Europe's most densely populated country where you are more than fifteen minutes away from a toilet.
If the train stalls in between stations, you will be surrounded by green pastures. Miles and miles of dairy land on either side of the train.
Clearly the Dutch railway assumes that there will be a reason why you don't just whizz in the grass.
Angry cows.
Fastidious creatures, those Dutch bovines.
Given a choice between an angry cow, and the complete lack of any privacy whatsoever in a train car, you would naturally choose the train car.
Moo!
Either that or Dutch authorities fully expect the Zombie Apocalypse to hit right during the power failure.
Shouldn't pee outside, there's a horde of hungry flesh-eaters besieging the train.
Why not tinkle out the side where the zombies aren't?
Can't. Angry cows.
Of course, if you're a woman, the very idea of sticking any peeful part of your body into the cold wet Dutch night outside the train, especially when there are angry cows and hungry zombies around, is absurd. Better squat over a spouted container filled with powder that turns into gel.
Your fellow-passengers do not mind. They're all incredibly impressed that you didn't wet yourself when you realized you were surrounded by cows and zombies.
They did. Despite the bags so helpfully provided.
They gaze at you admiringly, and they smell bad.
Not the love you wanted.
You have a choice: stay inside the train with a bunch of affectionate cowards who reek of urine, OR assume that once the zombies and the cows find each other they'll be too busy arguing over who gets to despoil a train filled with sodden stinky whifflings to bother about the lone human who pissed in a bag now trying to get away.
The zombies won't notice you because you have scant odour (unlike the rest of the passengers), and the cows won't mind, because you had the courtesy and foresight to whee in a bag.
Plus the character and determination which was required.
It was very gallant of you to do so.
The cows appreciate that.
The rambunctious Dutch teenagers on the train are now using that bag as a football.
Frankly, given the circumstances, you would be well-advised to head on foot to the nearest town or farmhouse. Those teenagers are collecting every filled-up urine-sack they can find and throwing them at each other, in an excess of youthful high spirits.
Something is bound to go wrong.
I remember once passing a gang of students from one of the Dutch vocational schools heading up the platform at a train station - Breda, I think - who were loudly singing an anthem about testicles as they headed home. Precisely the type of rowdy boys to use whiz baggies as projectiles. Especially if they are stuck in between towns ten minutes apart at the precise moment of the Zombie Apocalypse.
When Dutch youths get bored, you know what hits the fan.
Now there's a special container for that.
Thanks to Dutch foresight.
And zombies.
See, I would worry about the cows instead. Those beasts are going to be upset when a horde of the raggedy undead storms a stalled train all over their nice clean pasture. Urine soaked commuters, ravenous zombies, and bad-tempered bovines in the wet wet grass.
Whether or not there are flying pee packs, it ain't gonna be a pretty sight.
Dutch cattle, one naturally assumes, are armed and dangerous.
Stranger things have happened in the Netherlands.
That's why you now have a wee bag.
Use it in good health.
Dutch number one baggies would be perfect souvenirs, by the way.
Imagine the happy faces of your relatives back home.
Unusual mementoes of a unique country.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
HARK, MY LULAV SHAKETH
Gesticulating with a bunch of shrubbery marks the true believer from the absolute kofer, the apikoros, and the mechutzif.
There is ONLY ONE correct way of vibrating.
And you had better leave green crap all over the floor of your shtibl, or you're doing it wrong.
The differences qua minhag:
ESWNUD: Per the Mechaber, the Rama, the Taz, one shakes east, south, west, north, up, down (clockwise: al derech yemin), which is Ashkenaz, Sefarad, and Mizrahi.
SNEUDW: Chassidim follow the Ari, as cited by the Mogen Avrohom, who paskenned south, north, east, up, down, west.
ESNUDW: The Levush preferred east, south, north, up, down, west.
ENSWUD: The Ba'al HaTurim preferred east, north, south, west, up, down.
NSEWUD: And Rashi preferred north, south, east, west, up down.
It is up to you to figure out which of these is the only true and correct tradition.
If you cannot, you are undoubtedly a kofer, an apikoros, and a mechutzif.
And boy, will your mother-in-law have something to say about that.
"We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!"
-----Kodos, one of the two aliens on the Simpsons.
According to heilige ancestral minhag, handed down ever since the Springfelder and rebbe Homer ben Avraham Simpson (reputedly a direct descendent of Harav Elisha ben Abuya) started their weekly shiurim, we follow Harav Kodos on this one.
Forward, not backward: because there must be progress.
Upward, not forward: as it says 'kol be yedei shomayim'.
Always: eternally; because of the Eternal One, blessed be He.
Twirling, twirling, twirling: with joy and kavanah combined.
Towards freedom: steadfastly concentrating on the objective, as Rebbe Nachman teaches, and also as a zeicher of the yetzias mitzraim.
Everything davka like that tarnegol a few days ago.
Ve ha maiven yaiven.
As for the esrog, we're somewhat baffled. It's a rather pointless addition.
What? Lemonade? Squeeze it over the Friday fish?
If the first, say borei pri ha eitz.
If the latter, shehakol.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
There is ONLY ONE correct way of vibrating.
And you had better leave green crap all over the floor of your shtibl, or you're doing it wrong.
The differences qua minhag:
ESWNUD: Per the Mechaber, the Rama, the Taz, one shakes east, south, west, north, up, down (clockwise: al derech yemin), which is Ashkenaz, Sefarad, and Mizrahi.
SNEUDW: Chassidim follow the Ari, as cited by the Mogen Avrohom, who paskenned south, north, east, up, down, west.
ESNUDW: The Levush preferred east, south, north, up, down, west.
ENSWUD: The Ba'al HaTurim preferred east, north, south, west, up, down.
NSEWUD: And Rashi preferred north, south, east, west, up down.
It is up to you to figure out which of these is the only true and correct tradition.
If you cannot, you are undoubtedly a kofer, an apikoros, and a mechutzif.
And boy, will your mother-in-law have something to say about that.
"We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!"
-----Kodos, one of the two aliens on the Simpsons.
According to heilige ancestral minhag, handed down ever since the Springfelder and rebbe Homer ben Avraham Simpson (reputedly a direct descendent of Harav Elisha ben Abuya) started their weekly shiurim, we follow Harav Kodos on this one.
Forward, not backward: because there must be progress.
Upward, not forward: as it says 'kol be yedei shomayim'.
Always: eternally; because of the Eternal One, blessed be He.
Twirling, twirling, twirling: with joy and kavanah combined.
Towards freedom: steadfastly concentrating on the objective, as Rebbe Nachman teaches, and also as a zeicher of the yetzias mitzraim.
Everything davka like that tarnegol a few days ago.
Ve ha maiven yaiven.
As for the esrog, we're somewhat baffled. It's a rather pointless addition.
What? Lemonade? Squeeze it over the Friday fish?
If the first, say borei pri ha eitz.
If the latter, shehakol.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, October 10, 2011
PLEASE, SHOW ME YOUR KNEES!
Thanks to fellow-blogger Dovbear I have been thinking a lot about tzenua lately.
No, I haven't taken leave of my senses.
I'm still the same randy middle-aged git with gleaming eyes and a nice beard as I have always been.
But after the stockings episode and the bit about morons flinging poo at little girls in Beit Shemesh, tzenua and its wonderful absence have been at the top of the cauldron.
I can't help dreaming of a lack of tzenua.
Which is why a recent posting on Dovbear's blog gives me great pleasure.
Quote:
1. True or false: The full knee is part of the upper leg.
2. True or false: The full upper leg is considered ervah and does not depend on minhag hamakom.
3. True or false: Since it is a body part that is considered ervah, I must cover my upper leg at all times.
4. True or false: I must also make sure that my knee is covered at all times, since my knee is part of my
upper leg.[Source: Tznius ad absurdum.]
I didn't used to think of knees as sexy bits. Attractive, yes, but not sexy.
Hardly the part of you I would feel up.
However, according to the e-mail cited on Dovbear's blog, knees are erva.
And erva, we know, is an assault on our male saintliness.
All erva should be covered up right now.
[Erva, for the uninitiated, means genitalia. And hence also the wine-cup of the navel. And velvety skin. And pretty much anything feminine that can make a saintly man hot and sweaty. Such as the soft soft hair, the melodic voice, the warm little hands, and the nice dimpled knees. Even female names, and especially their e-mails.]
If you have any questions or comments about WHY the knees are erva, please email miss TzniusRevolution@gmail.com for clarification, that being the originator of the e-mail encouraging teenage girls to cover their knees.
Reader Tesyaa had a cogent comment: "You know, I've never heard molestation blamed on lack of tznius. Earthquakes, cancer, terrorist attacks, yes - lack of tznius is definitely the cause. But molestation?
If you name the cause, you'd have to admit that it exists."
For those who are now worried that the deficit of tzenua might come to an end, if TzniusRevolution's cause gains traction, please be of good cheer. Here in San Francisco you can still walk around naked in public if you wish, and you need not even bring a towel.
Not that I would recommend it, given what the weather is usually like.
The nudity, that is, but not the bit about not bringing a towel.
Heck, a nice warm fluffy towel might be a good idea.
But yes, it's been cold and wet recently.
Nudity outdoors isn't advisable.
Unless you like blue.
On the other hand, if you have 'the soft soft hair, the melodic voice, the warm little hands, and the nice dimpled knees', possibly I can recommend an agreeable place where you can be as nude as you truly want to be.
Just drop me a line, and I'll even provide a towel.
I'm all about a lack of tzenua in private.
Did I mention the towel?
It's fluffy!
APPENDIX: GLEANINGS OF ERVA
Berachos 24a states that a man should not recite Krias Shma in the presence of erva. Regarding this odd ruling -- erva not normally being associated with a worshipful man -- the Gemara clarifies that one may not recite the shma in the presence of a woman's 'shok', 'se'ar', or while listening to her singing voice ("kol be-isha erva" - the sound of a woman is a reproductive organ).
Furthermore, a man may likewise not recite shma in the presence of a tefach (the largest possible palm-span) of a part of a woman's body which is normally covered, but is, at that time, not so.
Concerning 'shok', Berachos 24a cites Rav Chisda: "the shok of a woman is nakedness as it says, 'uncover a thigh to cross a river....", and al pi Yeshayahu "Your nakedness will be visible..."
The Pri Megadim and the Mishna Berura observe that 'shok' refers to a woman's thigh, a lovely curvaceous part of the upper leg. But the Chazon Ish spends much time wondering if 'shok' could also refer to every yummy bit from pelvis to ankle, without reaching a conclusion.
So when in doubt.......
The Gemara also records, in the name of Rav Sheshes, that "the hair of a woman is nakedness...".
However the Shulchan Aruch states, in agreement with rav Sheshes, that an unmarried women's hair need not be considered erva.
A remarkable leniency.
The Rema more or less agrees with this interpretation..
Yoisef Karo paskened about reciting the krias shema in the presence of naughty bits, that instead of turning one's head, one could also simply close the eyes; and if darkness veiled the offending part(s) sufficiently, even that was unneccesary.
Being blind, obviously, was ideal.
The Chazon Ish agrees with the Mechaber, as do many posseiks since his day. Key is not being distracted by pulchritude, NOR even seeing it.
A host of angelic pole dancers in utter nudity could be nearby, but as long as one has cleared one's mind of them, and does not have them in view, and they are beyond finger distance (further than a "tefach") it is permitted to recite the krias shma.
Which in any case ought to distract one.
Yes.
Clearly, as long as one can NOT place one's trembling tefach upon the bare knees in question, there is NO problem.
There is nothing to see here, just move along.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
No, I haven't taken leave of my senses.
I'm still the same randy middle-aged git with gleaming eyes and a nice beard as I have always been.
But after the stockings episode and the bit about morons flinging poo at little girls in Beit Shemesh, tzenua and its wonderful absence have been at the top of the cauldron.
I can't help dreaming of a lack of tzenua.
Which is why a recent posting on Dovbear's blog gives me great pleasure.
Quote:
1. True or false: The full knee is part of the upper leg.
2. True or false: The full upper leg is considered ervah and does not depend on minhag hamakom.
3. True or false: Since it is a body part that is considered ervah, I must cover my upper leg at all times.
4. True or false: I must also make sure that my knee is covered at all times, since my knee is part of my
upper leg.[Source: Tznius ad absurdum.]
I didn't used to think of knees as sexy bits. Attractive, yes, but not sexy.
Hardly the part of you I would feel up.
However, according to the e-mail cited on Dovbear's blog, knees are erva.
And erva, we know, is an assault on our male saintliness.
All erva should be covered up right now.
[Erva, for the uninitiated, means genitalia. And hence also the wine-cup of the navel. And velvety skin. And pretty much anything feminine that can make a saintly man hot and sweaty. Such as the soft soft hair, the melodic voice, the warm little hands, and the nice dimpled knees. Even female names, and especially their e-mails.]
If you have any questions or comments about WHY the knees are erva, please email miss TzniusRevolution@gmail.com for clarification, that being the originator of the e-mail encouraging teenage girls to cover their knees.
Reader Tesyaa had a cogent comment: "You know, I've never heard molestation blamed on lack of tznius. Earthquakes, cancer, terrorist attacks, yes - lack of tznius is definitely the cause. But molestation?
If you name the cause, you'd have to admit that it exists."
For those who are now worried that the deficit of tzenua might come to an end, if TzniusRevolution's cause gains traction, please be of good cheer. Here in San Francisco you can still walk around naked in public if you wish, and you need not even bring a towel.
Not that I would recommend it, given what the weather is usually like.
The nudity, that is, but not the bit about not bringing a towel.
Heck, a nice warm fluffy towel might be a good idea.
But yes, it's been cold and wet recently.
Nudity outdoors isn't advisable.
Unless you like blue.
On the other hand, if you have 'the soft soft hair, the melodic voice, the warm little hands, and the nice dimpled knees', possibly I can recommend an agreeable place where you can be as nude as you truly want to be.
Just drop me a line, and I'll even provide a towel.
I'm all about a lack of tzenua in private.
Did I mention the towel?
It's fluffy!
APPENDIX: GLEANINGS OF ERVA
Berachos 24a states that a man should not recite Krias Shma in the presence of erva. Regarding this odd ruling -- erva not normally being associated with a worshipful man -- the Gemara clarifies that one may not recite the shma in the presence of a woman's 'shok', 'se'ar', or while listening to her singing voice ("kol be-isha erva" - the sound of a woman is a reproductive organ).
Furthermore, a man may likewise not recite shma in the presence of a tefach (the largest possible palm-span) of a part of a woman's body which is normally covered, but is, at that time, not so.
Concerning 'shok', Berachos 24a cites Rav Chisda: "the shok of a woman is nakedness as it says, 'uncover a thigh to cross a river....", and al pi Yeshayahu "Your nakedness will be visible..."
The Pri Megadim and the Mishna Berura observe that 'shok' refers to a woman's thigh, a lovely curvaceous part of the upper leg. But the Chazon Ish spends much time wondering if 'shok' could also refer to every yummy bit from pelvis to ankle, without reaching a conclusion.
So when in doubt.......
The Gemara also records, in the name of Rav Sheshes, that "the hair of a woman is nakedness...".
However the Shulchan Aruch states, in agreement with rav Sheshes, that an unmarried women's hair need not be considered erva.
A remarkable leniency.
The Rema more or less agrees with this interpretation..
Yoisef Karo paskened about reciting the krias shema in the presence of naughty bits, that instead of turning one's head, one could also simply close the eyes; and if darkness veiled the offending part(s) sufficiently, even that was unneccesary.
Being blind, obviously, was ideal.
The Chazon Ish agrees with the Mechaber, as do many posseiks since his day. Key is not being distracted by pulchritude, NOR even seeing it.
A host of angelic pole dancers in utter nudity could be nearby, but as long as one has cleared one's mind of them, and does not have them in view, and they are beyond finger distance (further than a "tefach") it is permitted to recite the krias shma.
Which in any case ought to distract one.
Yes.
Clearly, as long as one can NOT place one's trembling tefach upon the bare knees in question, there is NO problem.
There is nothing to see here, just move along.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, October 09, 2011
BALKAN SOBRANIE 2011 - ARANGO AND GERMAINS
As I mentioned last Sunday, the Balkan Sobranie Original Smoking Mixture is available once again.
This iteration is made by J. F. Germain & Son in Jersey, Channel Islands.
The copyright holder is Arango.
When first I wrote about it, all the internet retailers were out of stock, and panicked chatter in various corners of the internet speculated about shortages, dearths, lacks, and black complots - for that is what the unavailability of what one dearly wants to smoke often seems to pipe aficionados.
That, however, did not affect me.
[This post: The return of Balkan Sobranie. ]
Quote:
"Given that supplies are likely to be spotty for a while, it may take a few weeks before I lay my hands on this new iteration. When I do, I will be quite keen to find out how it compares to my nose-memory of what I smoked back in the seventies."
End quote.
I really wasn't expecting to try it for another month at least.
As of this writing I have already had several bowls.
Courtesy of the local tobacconists.
They had a few tins.
BALKAN SOBRANIE, NEW VERSION
Yes, it's not the same as the Balkan Sobranie of the nineteen seventies.
You already knew that.
But it IS the real McCoy.
No product based on natural ingredients can be exactly like a version of itself from another era. Each iteration will differ in some respects. Tobacco crops vary from year to year.
But this is as close to what you smoked when you were a teenager as you are ever going to get.
I'm fairly convinced that Arango got the recipe book, and that Germains was the best choice to manufacture the product.
Admittedly, the Latakia is not quite so creosote-rich as the Syrian stinko leaf from a generation ago. So that aspect will be a little different.
And before Gallagher laid their claws on it in the eighties, it was not so narrowly cut either, but I shall not quibble.
I do not recall it being so moist in the tin, however. That is a particular Germains touch, also noticable with their Royal Jersey Original Latakia Mixture.
[NOTE: Both cut and moisture level affect how it will taste in the pipe. The pre-Gallagher Balkan Sobranie was a slightly broader ribbon cut, and was not blended so wet. The visual effect was consequently more striking, showing off the contrasting hues, and a high moisture level 'dampens' some of the sharpness from bright tobacco. That Latakia was more sooty and smudgy back then probably made it lighter in weight too, so proportionally it would have had a difference in blending. These observations do not detract from the appeal of this current product, nor the pleasure at rediscovering the past, courtesy of Arango and Germain - both excellent companies.]
What Arango has brought back is good stuff.
It's revives corners of the mind.
Echoes and shimmering.
After a late lunch in Chinatown, I wandered down to the office smoking a bowl of Balkan Sobranie in an old Charatan. Let's just say that the day at that moment could not seem better, brighter, more beautiful. It was a splendid hour.
Actually the entire last two and a half days have been darned nice. Well, other than a fracas the other night in Chinatown, where glass was thrown and blood was flowed. That was a bit too educational. There are strange things in the air.
But since acquiring a few tins of Balkan Sobranie, my nose has been aquiver, there's a spring to my step, and lead in my pencil.
Or something. La la la.
Don't even mind the Blue Angels and their testicular excessities high in the skies over San Francisco. Fleet Week will be over soon enough, the macho display of precision fighter jet flying has ended, the ships and sailors will depart, the whores will go back to suburbia, and life will return to normal.
I have some tins of good tobacco. And there will be more.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
This iteration is made by J. F. Germain & Son in Jersey, Channel Islands.
The copyright holder is Arango.
When first I wrote about it, all the internet retailers were out of stock, and panicked chatter in various corners of the internet speculated about shortages, dearths, lacks, and black complots - for that is what the unavailability of what one dearly wants to smoke often seems to pipe aficionados.
That, however, did not affect me.
[This post: The return of Balkan Sobranie. ]
Quote:
"Given that supplies are likely to be spotty for a while, it may take a few weeks before I lay my hands on this new iteration. When I do, I will be quite keen to find out how it compares to my nose-memory of what I smoked back in the seventies."
End quote.
I really wasn't expecting to try it for another month at least.
As of this writing I have already had several bowls.
Courtesy of the local tobacconists.
They had a few tins.
BALKAN SOBRANIE, NEW VERSION
Yes, it's not the same as the Balkan Sobranie of the nineteen seventies.
You already knew that.
But it IS the real McCoy.
No product based on natural ingredients can be exactly like a version of itself from another era. Each iteration will differ in some respects. Tobacco crops vary from year to year.
But this is as close to what you smoked when you were a teenager as you are ever going to get.
I'm fairly convinced that Arango got the recipe book, and that Germains was the best choice to manufacture the product.
Admittedly, the Latakia is not quite so creosote-rich as the Syrian stinko leaf from a generation ago. So that aspect will be a little different.
And before Gallagher laid their claws on it in the eighties, it was not so narrowly cut either, but I shall not quibble.
I do not recall it being so moist in the tin, however. That is a particular Germains touch, also noticable with their Royal Jersey Original Latakia Mixture.
[NOTE: Both cut and moisture level affect how it will taste in the pipe. The pre-Gallagher Balkan Sobranie was a slightly broader ribbon cut, and was not blended so wet. The visual effect was consequently more striking, showing off the contrasting hues, and a high moisture level 'dampens' some of the sharpness from bright tobacco. That Latakia was more sooty and smudgy back then probably made it lighter in weight too, so proportionally it would have had a difference in blending. These observations do not detract from the appeal of this current product, nor the pleasure at rediscovering the past, courtesy of Arango and Germain - both excellent companies.]
What Arango has brought back is good stuff.
It's revives corners of the mind.
Echoes and shimmering.
After a late lunch in Chinatown, I wandered down to the office smoking a bowl of Balkan Sobranie in an old Charatan. Let's just say that the day at that moment could not seem better, brighter, more beautiful. It was a splendid hour.
Actually the entire last two and a half days have been darned nice. Well, other than a fracas the other night in Chinatown, where glass was thrown and blood was flowed. That was a bit too educational. There are strange things in the air.
But since acquiring a few tins of Balkan Sobranie, my nose has been aquiver, there's a spring to my step, and lead in my pencil.
Or something. La la la.
Don't even mind the Blue Angels and their testicular excessities high in the skies over San Francisco. Fleet Week will be over soon enough, the macho display of precision fighter jet flying has ended, the ships and sailors will depart, the whores will go back to suburbia, and life will return to normal.
I have some tins of good tobacco. And there will be more.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
PROBABLY AN UGLY HAIRY MAN ANYWAY
The entire company received an e-mail from Maria, which is quite inviting.
I can report that many of us were very excited. Fascinated even.
For a brief shining moment, our lives seemed brighter.
Once more our various treads had spring.
This is what is said:
how do you do my Gentleman?
The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, this is love.
Hello Honey! I would like to tell you a bit about myself.
I'm tall with a middle figure.
I have long blond, very beautiful hair, small nice nose, perfect lips and big blue eyes.
I am a sociable easy going person, so I like meeting friends, going out, have fun and new something interesting.
I'm looking for a strong relations with a caring and smart man!
I am really tired of all these temporary relations.
I would like to find a man who will be able to estimate not only my beauty, but also my brain and my soul...
I want him to kind and handsome, brave and tender, romantic and honest.
my site: www.findyourlove.in
honey, I am going now, see you
Maria
**The information contained in this email message is confidential information intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copy of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender and delete the message.
[END QUOTE]
Many of us consider ourselves to be handsome and tender, and all that other good stuff.
But the problem is the sexism inherent in the content. She addresses it only to the males, and whatever she is offering is only for men!
How cruel! How heartless! How gender-discriminatory!
I'm sure all the women at our company would also appreciate Maria's sterling qualities.
On behalf of my female colleagues, I must insist the Maria not pursue this any further.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I can report that many of us were very excited. Fascinated even.
For a brief shining moment, our lives seemed brighter.
Once more our various treads had spring.
This is what is said:
how do you do my Gentleman?
The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, this is love.
Hello Honey! I would like to tell you a bit about myself.
I'm tall with a middle figure.
I have long blond, very beautiful hair, small nice nose, perfect lips and big blue eyes.
I am a sociable easy going person, so I like meeting friends, going out, have fun and new something interesting.
I'm looking for a strong relations with a caring and smart man!
I am really tired of all these temporary relations.
I would like to find a man who will be able to estimate not only my beauty, but also my brain and my soul...
I want him to kind and handsome, brave and tender, romantic and honest.
my site: www.findyourlove.in
honey, I am going now, see you
Maria
**The information contained in this email message is confidential information intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copy of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender and delete the message.
[END QUOTE]
Many of us consider ourselves to be handsome and tender, and all that other good stuff.
But the problem is the sexism inherent in the content. She addresses it only to the males, and whatever she is offering is only for men!
How cruel! How heartless! How gender-discriminatory!
I'm sure all the women at our company would also appreciate Maria's sterling qualities.
On behalf of my female colleagues, I must insist the Maria not pursue this any further.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, October 08, 2011
PROPERLY TRAINED YOUNG WOMEN
Internet polls are, as no doubt you are well aware, a useful tool, and quite often educational. They highlight matters of interest, and bring stuff to our attention, to which, as well-informed individuals, we really should pay some heed.
EXAMPLE:
"Number eleven has prepared brides for their wedding, counseled women already married, helped women find the right marriage partner [CUT] major emphasis for number eleven is improving one's own character to become a better wife, mother, and person....."
------Jewish Community Heroes
Training women to be good wives?
An excellent idea!
Too many of them are ignorant of the duties and tasks expected of them.
Remedial training is, alas, a grim necessity!
Start with small arms, work up to large calibers and automatics.
By the time they can disassemble and put back together a Thompson, they’re probably ready for some real responsibility.
I suggest a Glock 17 as a graduation present. Reliable, uses standard size ammo, and allows for more cartridges than many comparable hand guns.
Easy to use, too.
Becoming a better wife, mother, and person
Today's young ladies, by and large, are pampered little flowers who have been influenced far too much by the diseased pens of Barbara Cartland and Stephenie Meyer. A more venomous assault on the inherent saintliness of teenage girls I cannot imagine.
Once they start reading that filth, they're on the high road to hell.
Mom smashed up three jeeps (property of the U.S. Navy) before she was even thirty.
My grandmother spent several years with the American Occupation forces in Germany right after WWII.
One of my heroes, growing up in Valkenswaard, was a local woman who had run guns and gasoline during the war, then acquired investment capital by smuggling in the decade afterwards.
When I knew her, she had been a force to be reckoned with for over a generation.
A more capable wife, mother, and person would be hard to imagine.
Such people are to be emulated.
אֵשֶׁת-חַיִל, מִי יִמְצָא, וְרָחֹק מִפְּנִינִים מִכְרָהּ
Eishes chayil, mi yimtza, ve rachok mipninim michrah.
---Mishlei 31:10
A woman of valour, who can find? For her worth is far beyond rubies.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
EXAMPLE:
"Number eleven has prepared brides for their wedding, counseled women already married, helped women find the right marriage partner [CUT] major emphasis for number eleven is improving one's own character to become a better wife, mother, and person....."
------Jewish Community Heroes
Training women to be good wives?
An excellent idea!
Too many of them are ignorant of the duties and tasks expected of them.
Remedial training is, alas, a grim necessity!
Start with small arms, work up to large calibers and automatics.
By the time they can disassemble and put back together a Thompson, they’re probably ready for some real responsibility.
I suggest a Glock 17 as a graduation present. Reliable, uses standard size ammo, and allows for more cartridges than many comparable hand guns.
Easy to use, too.
Becoming a better wife, mother, and person
Today's young ladies, by and large, are pampered little flowers who have been influenced far too much by the diseased pens of Barbara Cartland and Stephenie Meyer. A more venomous assault on the inherent saintliness of teenage girls I cannot imagine.
Once they start reading that filth, they're on the high road to hell.
Mom smashed up three jeeps (property of the U.S. Navy) before she was even thirty.
My grandmother spent several years with the American Occupation forces in Germany right after WWII.
One of my heroes, growing up in Valkenswaard, was a local woman who had run guns and gasoline during the war, then acquired investment capital by smuggling in the decade afterwards.
When I knew her, she had been a force to be reckoned with for over a generation.
A more capable wife, mother, and person would be hard to imagine.
Such people are to be emulated.
אֵשֶׁת-חַיִל, מִי יִמְצָא, וְרָחֹק מִפְּנִינִים מִכְרָהּ
Eishes chayil, mi yimtza, ve rachok mipninim michrah.
---Mishlei 31:10
A woman of valour, who can find? For her worth is far beyond rubies.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, October 07, 2011
EATING THE WORLD
At many local Chinese restaurants there are a number of dishes that white people will not like.
This is a pity, actually, because it rather limits with whom I can eat a Chinese restaurant.
But not such a very great pity.
Just chalk it up to limited Caucasian food preferences.
Often restaurants will only have the too un-white things on the Chinese menu, or on pink sheets pasted on the wall that list the daily specials. There is no point in telling white folks about these dishes, as, after asking all kinds of questions - which the waiter or waitress would answer to the very best of his or her ability - the Caucasian will say something exhasperating like "gor blimey, guvnah, that's sodding disgusting, I'll just 'ave the sweet and sour pork over rice, thankee".
Or something more explosively grunt-like than that.
Once, at a very highly regarded restaurant, three customerse all ordered exactly the same dish - sweet and sour pork.
No, not one serving of sweet and sour pork, plus two other dishes, to share.
THREE individual servings.
Just that.
The cooks all peered around the door of the kitchen to look at these people who were so fond of sweet and sour pork that they had ordered THREE whole servings of it.
What on earth possessed them, especially when there were so many good things they could also have asked for?
Sweet and sour pork!
Sweet and sour pork, by the way, is the most clichéed dish in a Chinese restaurant. Especially the version known here in the States.
Among things which many people won't eat (because the food is unfamiliar or frightening): 粥, 腐竹, 蠔豉, 皮蛋, 蝦米, 乾瑤柱, 臘肉, 鹹蝦醬 .......
Many vegetables are also too "foreign". Particularly bitter melon (苦瓜).
Most restaurants outside of a Chinese neighborhood will just not bother with many beloved dishes. You can't even find places that do such simple things as 蒸水蛋 or 咸魚肉餅 in the suburbs.
Even 白切雞 is difficult to find outside of the city. It's "too raw" for many people's taste.
When I came back to the United States from Holland years ago I didn't know what many ingredients were in English, I only knew them in Dutch.
At that time most Asian ingredients in Holland were called specifically by their Indonesian names, which were the only terms by which the Dutch knew them.
Sambal (chili paste), ketoembar (coriander seed), djintan (cumin), koenjit (turmeric), trassie (hard stinky fish paste), djeroek peroet (kaffir lime leaf), sereh (lemon grass), lengkoeas (galangal), goela djawa (palm sugar), temu koentji (finger root, Chinese keys), atjar koening (turmeric-hued pickled vegetables), ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce), kroepoek (shrimp chips), ebi (dried shrimp), boeah keras and kloewak (candlenuts and pangium nuts), etcetera.
[Shan't even mention stampot, zure zult, bloed pens, stroop, ontbijtkoek, blote billekes int gras, groene haring, gerookte paling, boerenkool met worst, hagelslag, muisjes, Limburgsche vlaaien, snert, frikandel, kroket... ]
I was frantic. There was nothing good to eat, and I couldn't find things I desperately wanted in the supermarkets. Then I discovered Chinatown. Where there were Dutch and Indonesian ingredients all over the place!
Rice-stick noodles from Den Haag. Chili sauce with shrimp paste from a factory somewhere in Zuid-Holland province. Lovely Dutch-style cookies from a company in Shanghai. Dark Dutch chocolates from Singapore. Dried fish called by a Dutch name, packaged by a Chinese company in Penang. Pickled vegetables from Chekiang made specifically for Dutch-speakers.
Plus thousands of bottles of condiments and dried spices with labels in Dutch, Indonesian, French, and Chinese.
There was even a food store where the owners spoke Dutch - they were Hakka from Suriname, a former Dutch colony.
Americans have learned a bit more about food in the last thirty years. But many people still shy away from stuff they haven't ever eaten before.
Rather like it's heresy, witchcraft, and communism rolled into one.
Good Jayzus-fearing wasps don't truck with such muck.
Their loss. More for the rest of us.
Always be ready to try new things.
Seriously.
背脊向天，都可以食.
I've eaten American food many times in the last several years. Some of it is actually quite good.
Only very little has actually been inedible, much is ... delicious.
Gustatory experimentation can be quite rewarding.
Consider this a firm recommendation.
Leastways, encouragement.
Now go and eat.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
This is a pity, actually, because it rather limits with whom I can eat a Chinese restaurant.
But not such a very great pity.
Just chalk it up to limited Caucasian food preferences.
Often restaurants will only have the too un-white things on the Chinese menu, or on pink sheets pasted on the wall that list the daily specials. There is no point in telling white folks about these dishes, as, after asking all kinds of questions - which the waiter or waitress would answer to the very best of his or her ability - the Caucasian will say something exhasperating like "gor blimey, guvnah, that's sodding disgusting, I'll just 'ave the sweet and sour pork over rice, thankee".
Or something more explosively grunt-like than that.
Once, at a very highly regarded restaurant, three customerse all ordered exactly the same dish - sweet and sour pork.
No, not one serving of sweet and sour pork, plus two other dishes, to share.
THREE individual servings.
Just that.
The cooks all peered around the door of the kitchen to look at these people who were so fond of sweet and sour pork that they had ordered THREE whole servings of it.
What on earth possessed them, especially when there were so many good things they could also have asked for?
Sweet and sour pork!
Sweet and sour pork, by the way, is the most clichéed dish in a Chinese restaurant. Especially the version known here in the States.
Among things which many people won't eat (because the food is unfamiliar or frightening): 粥, 腐竹, 蠔豉, 皮蛋, 蝦米, 乾瑤柱, 臘肉, 鹹蝦醬 .......
Many vegetables are also too "foreign". Particularly bitter melon (苦瓜).
Most restaurants outside of a Chinese neighborhood will just not bother with many beloved dishes. You can't even find places that do such simple things as 蒸水蛋 or 咸魚肉餅 in the suburbs.
Even 白切雞 is difficult to find outside of the city. It's "too raw" for many people's taste.
When I came back to the United States from Holland years ago I didn't know what many ingredients were in English, I only knew them in Dutch.
At that time most Asian ingredients in Holland were called specifically by their Indonesian names, which were the only terms by which the Dutch knew them.
Sambal (chili paste), ketoembar (coriander seed), djintan (cumin), koenjit (turmeric), trassie (hard stinky fish paste), djeroek peroet (kaffir lime leaf), sereh (lemon grass), lengkoeas (galangal), goela djawa (palm sugar), temu koentji (finger root, Chinese keys), atjar koening (turmeric-hued pickled vegetables), ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce), kroepoek (shrimp chips), ebi (dried shrimp), boeah keras and kloewak (candlenuts and pangium nuts), etcetera.
[Shan't even mention stampot, zure zult, bloed pens, stroop, ontbijtkoek, blote billekes int gras, groene haring, gerookte paling, boerenkool met worst, hagelslag, muisjes, Limburgsche vlaaien, snert, frikandel, kroket... ]
I was frantic. There was nothing good to eat, and I couldn't find things I desperately wanted in the supermarkets. Then I discovered Chinatown. Where there were Dutch and Indonesian ingredients all over the place!
Rice-stick noodles from Den Haag. Chili sauce with shrimp paste from a factory somewhere in Zuid-Holland province. Lovely Dutch-style cookies from a company in Shanghai. Dark Dutch chocolates from Singapore. Dried fish called by a Dutch name, packaged by a Chinese company in Penang. Pickled vegetables from Chekiang made specifically for Dutch-speakers.
Plus thousands of bottles of condiments and dried spices with labels in Dutch, Indonesian, French, and Chinese.
There was even a food store where the owners spoke Dutch - they were Hakka from Suriname, a former Dutch colony.
Americans have learned a bit more about food in the last thirty years. But many people still shy away from stuff they haven't ever eaten before.
Rather like it's heresy, witchcraft, and communism rolled into one.
Good Jayzus-fearing wasps don't truck with such muck.
Their loss. More for the rest of us.
Always be ready to try new things.
Seriously.
背脊向天，都可以食.
I've eaten American food many times in the last several years. Some of it is actually quite good.
Only very little has actually been inedible, much is ... delicious.
Gustatory experimentation can be quite rewarding.
Consider this a firm recommendation.
Leastways, encouragement.
Now go and eat.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, October 06, 2011
BON APPÉTIT
Eating in solitude is a symptom of disease, insanity, disgrace, untouchability, and personality malfunction.
We were not meant to eat alone, we are social animals. Eating with someone is a manifestation of connection and belonging. And shared food tastes better.
Eating lunch at one's desk, or going to a restaurant by oneself, is not dining with other people. It's barely better than simply sustaining the body.
People in psych wards and hospitals eat alone - when you think about it, the tray brought to the bed of the invalid is perhaps one of the most brutal aspects of modern medicine.
Nothing says "outcaste", "plague carrier", "possibly soon dead", and in any case "discardable individual" quite so much.
"Here's some fuel. If you get better, we CAN get rid of you. If you don't get better, we WILL get rid of you.
Now obediently shovel it in, and please don't bother us while you're doing so. We really don't give a damn."
Lone wolves and rogue elephants eat alone. Both belong to social species with recognizable group dynamics. Yet neither solitary creature has companions with whom to dine.
Whether or not they nourish themselves or starve is not of concern to others of their kind.
They could just stop eating, really, it wouldn't matter.
The single-person-serving has to be one of the sickest manifestations of social custom ever invented. It says that one does not want to share, any others at the table are merely background noise, and in any case they are almost certainly too selfish and culinarily eccentric to want any part of what one is eating.
They're just there, but they might as well be not - there is no commonality to be found among them.
Such deliberate demarcation and delimitation makes a mockery out of breaking bread together.
"No, that's okay, you can go ahead and eat all of that weird nasty muck which we despise, really...... and you can't have any of ours! Don't touch me!"
When you think about it, it kinda puts a damper on lunching with a group, doesn't it?
You're supping in company by pure coincidence, you don't have any tastes in common, you're not eating the same things.
Shared food is sacramental. Solitary food is, more or less, carrion.
What are you planning to do this evening?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
We were not meant to eat alone, we are social animals. Eating with someone is a manifestation of connection and belonging. And shared food tastes better.
Eating lunch at one's desk, or going to a restaurant by oneself, is not dining with other people. It's barely better than simply sustaining the body.
People in psych wards and hospitals eat alone - when you think about it, the tray brought to the bed of the invalid is perhaps one of the most brutal aspects of modern medicine.
Nothing says "outcaste", "plague carrier", "possibly soon dead", and in any case "discardable individual" quite so much.
"Here's some fuel. If you get better, we CAN get rid of you. If you don't get better, we WILL get rid of you.
Now obediently shovel it in, and please don't bother us while you're doing so. We really don't give a damn."
Lone wolves and rogue elephants eat alone. Both belong to social species with recognizable group dynamics. Yet neither solitary creature has companions with whom to dine.
Whether or not they nourish themselves or starve is not of concern to others of their kind.
They could just stop eating, really, it wouldn't matter.
The single-person-serving has to be one of the sickest manifestations of social custom ever invented. It says that one does not want to share, any others at the table are merely background noise, and in any case they are almost certainly too selfish and culinarily eccentric to want any part of what one is eating.
They're just there, but they might as well be not - there is no commonality to be found among them.
Such deliberate demarcation and delimitation makes a mockery out of breaking bread together.
"No, that's okay, you can go ahead and eat all of that weird nasty muck which we despise, really...... and you can't have any of ours! Don't touch me!"
When you think about it, it kinda puts a damper on lunching with a group, doesn't it?
You're supping in company by pure coincidence, you don't have any tastes in common, you're not eating the same things.
Shared food is sacramental. Solitary food is, more or less, carrion.
What are you planning to do this evening?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
ANTARA SESALAN DAN SAYANG
On the day that she went off to have dim sum with all of her relatives and her boyfriend she looked beautiful.
Red really suits her, it emphasis precisely how slender she is, how very young she looks.
And she knows how to choose lipstick.
Stunning colours - red sweater, golden necklace, pale ivory skin, crimson lips, and dark dark hair.
Quite the vision.
Radiant.
I left the house before she did. Felt a depressive mood coming on, and didn't want to rain on her parade.
I wished her a good time before I left.
It was a day I didn't want to hear or speak any Cantonese, so instead of stopping for breakfast in Chinatown as I usually do when I flee on weekends, I bypassed the old neighborhood entirely and went straight to the office.
One bad omen, visible from the bus, did manage to nauseate: a double happiness in magnificent calligraphy surrounded by traditional decorations and propitious symbols.
Golden script on a deep crimson background; a very fine presentation piece.
Given present circumstances I do not need to see stuff like that.
Even if we didn't still live together I would manage to make myself miserable on weekends. It's a peculiar talent. Probably always latent, but not being in a relationship really gives it the chance to come out and shine. Remarkable.
I never knew that about myself.
Gonna learn to squelch that.
For much of the weekend I listened to old-timey krontjong. Not the ballads of Zhou Xuan (周璇) in Mandarin, nor Francis Yip (葉麗儀) in Cantonese. Not even the mellifluous ('saccharine') tones of Teresa Teng (鄧麗君) singing Hokkien songs. Krontjong.
Oh, and also some Indo-rock.
But mostly Krontjong.
Kertjong-kertjong-kerontjongong!
Various renditions of Bengawan Solo, several versions of Sayang Sayang E, and a number of Ambonese and Stambul classics.
As well as dulcet-voiced thirteen year old Sandra Reemer, when she first recorded for Philips back in the sixties.
One or two songs by Wieteke van Dort, though she specializes a bit too much in unhappy airs about leaving the old country, about parting and separation, about the good old days.
The Dutch have too much a taste for sugared lyrics and honeyed dreariness.
Trying to put oneself in an other-where and an other-when is done best when listening to more light-hearted stuff.
Krontjong.
Krontjong.
Krontjong.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Red really suits her, it emphasis precisely how slender she is, how very young she looks.
And she knows how to choose lipstick.
Stunning colours - red sweater, golden necklace, pale ivory skin, crimson lips, and dark dark hair.
Quite the vision.
Radiant.
I left the house before she did. Felt a depressive mood coming on, and didn't want to rain on her parade.
I wished her a good time before I left.
It was a day I didn't want to hear or speak any Cantonese, so instead of stopping for breakfast in Chinatown as I usually do when I flee on weekends, I bypassed the old neighborhood entirely and went straight to the office.
One bad omen, visible from the bus, did manage to nauseate: a double happiness in magnificent calligraphy surrounded by traditional decorations and propitious symbols.
Golden script on a deep crimson background; a very fine presentation piece.
Given present circumstances I do not need to see stuff like that.
Even if we didn't still live together I would manage to make myself miserable on weekends. It's a peculiar talent. Probably always latent, but not being in a relationship really gives it the chance to come out and shine. Remarkable.
I never knew that about myself.
Gonna learn to squelch that.
For much of the weekend I listened to old-timey krontjong. Not the ballads of Zhou Xuan (周璇) in Mandarin, nor Francis Yip (葉麗儀) in Cantonese. Not even the mellifluous ('saccharine') tones of Teresa Teng (鄧麗君) singing Hokkien songs. Krontjong.
Oh, and also some Indo-rock.
But mostly Krontjong.
Kertjong-kertjong-kerontjongong!
Various renditions of Bengawan Solo, several versions of Sayang Sayang E, and a number of Ambonese and Stambul classics.
As well as dulcet-voiced thirteen year old Sandra Reemer, when she first recorded for Philips back in the sixties.
One or two songs by Wieteke van Dort, though she specializes a bit too much in unhappy airs about leaving the old country, about parting and separation, about the good old days.
The Dutch have too much a taste for sugared lyrics and honeyed dreariness.
Trying to put oneself in an other-where and an other-when is done best when listening to more light-hearted stuff.
Krontjong.
Krontjong.
Krontjong.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
HONG KONG ROAST GOOSE IN SHAM TSENG
To my knowledge, there is no place in Chinatown where one can get roast goose. Which is a pity, as curry pork chop and rice, while ALSO superlative comfort food, does not compare at all.
Even with a sploodge Sriracha and a hot cup of milktea.
Really, not the same.
[Correction: There IS a place in SF Chinatown which has roast goose: Yee's Restaurant, on Grant Avenue between Pacific and Broadway. It's a cha-chanting, with an emphasis on siumei meats. Discovered the goose there a year after writing this post.]
Roast goose is a home-town taste for many Hong Kong people.
I remember seeing a comedy at the World Theater, and marveling at a scene where a bunch of working men stopped for lunch near a collection of Dai Pai Dong (大牌檔 big placard establishments; street stalls with their license prominently displayed, hence the name) - each man had something different, but they all ate together.
One of them had roast goose over rice.
He was the only one who was fiercely protective of his dish.
Mine, damn you, get yer own!
Snarl, scarf, gobble.
Roast goose. Marvelous.
We have excellent ducks, but California is not exactly prime goose territory.
Hong Kong, it turns out, is. Abundantly so.
It's worth growling over.
But that's really a recent development. Before the war, roast goose was not held in nearly such regard. After all, it's not a duck, it's strong and greasy, and it's kind of large.
Hardly refined cuisine.
But precisely that is what it turns out everyone had a taste for, after the years of hardship during the Japanese occupation.
And Hong Kong people eat a lot more animal protein than almost anybody else in Asia anyhow.
Especially birds. Chicken. Duck. Pigeon. Goose.
[I've waxed ecstatic over duck elsewhere on this blog. Chicken you are undoubtedly long familiar with. And as for pigeon, try 豉油乳鴿 (si-yau yiu gap; braised young pigeon with black bean sauce) if you can find it. Tender and sweet.]
鏞記酒家 YUNG KEE RESTAURANT
Seventy-plus years ago this was a street stall run by a man who dreamt of geese. Over the years his signature dish became so popular that he moved indoors. During the war the building housing his restaurant was destroyed by Japanese bombs. He re-opened nearby, moving his place of business several times in the next three decades, till finally he settled on the current location, which is now the Yung Kee Building (鏞記大廈) in Central Hong Kong.
This is the most famous roast goose restaurant by far, and presidents and potentates have eaten here.
鏞記酒家
YUNG KEE JAU KA
32-40 Wellington Street, Central
Hong Kong Island
中環, 威靈頓街 32-40 號
The roast goose at this restaurant has been around the world - people get a hamper to take on the plane when leaving Hong Kong, and the place packs their product especially for that purpose, hence the well-known nickname 'Flying Roast Goose' (飛天燒鵝 fei tien sui ngoh).
The founder, mr. Kam Shui-fai (甘穗煇) was himself known as 'Roast Goose Fai' (燒鵝煇).
It's expensive. Very expensive. Many Hong Kong people, precisely like cheapskate Dutchmen such as myself, will squeal furiously if the quality and the service do not match the price. Which is why despite the absolutely stellar reputation it is perhaps best to avoid Yung Kee.
Yes, they aspire to stratospheric quality, and they've won both awards and renown.
But do you really want to spend over a hundred US dollars on a meal that, realistically, should only cost ten?
What if they're having an off day?
Far better to head out to the New Territories (新界). There's great roast goose there too.
You're more likely to pay a reasonable price, and no one will stare down their nose at you if you drop your chopsticks.
Head to Sham Tseng (深井 'deep well'), on the other side of Sham Shui Po (深水埗 'deep water jetty') from Mongkok (旺角 'prosperous corner').
深水埗區 SHAM SHUI PO KEUI
North of Mongkok, Sham Shui Po is economically one of the poorer districts in Hong Kong. Back in the nineteenth century, the Tanka boat people (蜑家民 Tan Ka Man) moored here, at Cheung Sha Wan (長沙灣 'long sand bay'), when Stone Cutters Island (昂船洲 Ngon Suen Chau: 'raise boat island') was still across the water, rather than part of the mainland due to landfill.
The population has increased since the late forties, and formerly country areas are now covered by housing estates. You can buy electronics and computer stuff quite cheaply on Apliu Street (鴨寮街 'duck hutch street'), as well as almost any kind of cellular device, and car accessories.
Architecturally and culturally this probably isn't the most exciting part of Hong Kong.
We interrupt our journey to acquire a gizmo here, then leave.
深井 SHAM TSENG
Deep Well (深井) is north of Sham Shui Po, in Tsuen Wan Keui (荃灣區 'linen bay district').
You may have heard of the place - the famous Garden Company Limited (嘉頓有限公司) is headquartered here, and you cannot possibly be unfamiliar with their extensive line of cookies, biscuits, pastries, and dry crispy snacks.
Some supermarkets in San Francisco have almost an entire aisle taken up by their products.
The Spring Onion Pop Pan Crackers are lovely with some sharp cheddar cheese, and their Petite Beurre Biscuits, as well as their various wafers, are perfect with a cup of tea.
Yeah, a shameless plug, I know. But I've enjoyed their stuff for over a quarter of a century. The praise is happily given.
There are TWO roast goose restaurants in Sham Tseng. Actually, there are more than that, but these two can fight it out for the title of Roast Goose King (燒鵝王) in a district well-known for excellent roast goose.
裕記大飯店
YUE KEE TAAI FAN DIEM
9 Sham Hong Road, Sham Tseng
New Territories, Hong Kong.
新界, 深井, 深康路 9號
深井陳記燒鵝酒家
SHAM TSENG CHAN KEE SIU NGOH JAU KA
Ground floor, 63 Sham Tseng Village, Castle Peak Road, Sham Tseng
New Territories, Hong Kong.
新界, 深井, 青山公路, 深井村 63號, 地下
They are both extremely good. Far be it from me to decide which of the two is the natural leader, they both do stellar stuff.
Either one of them is worth a visit to this town.
Really, don't ask me to choose.
Crispy skin, tender juicy flesh. Dense dense flavour.
Don't bother with the century egg appetizers that for some absurd reason are traditional at roast goose restaurants, just have the goose, a little soup, some yau-choi, and a big bowl of rice. Maybe also a tofu dish.
You'll leave happy.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Even with a sploodge Sriracha and a hot cup of milktea.
Really, not the same.
[Correction: There IS a place in SF Chinatown which has roast goose: Yee's Restaurant, on Grant Avenue between Pacific and Broadway. It's a cha-chanting, with an emphasis on siumei meats. Discovered the goose there a year after writing this post.]
Roast goose is a home-town taste for many Hong Kong people.
I remember seeing a comedy at the World Theater, and marveling at a scene where a bunch of working men stopped for lunch near a collection of Dai Pai Dong (大牌檔 big placard establishments; street stalls with their license prominently displayed, hence the name) - each man had something different, but they all ate together.
One of them had roast goose over rice.
He was the only one who was fiercely protective of his dish.
Mine, damn you, get yer own!
Snarl, scarf, gobble.
Roast goose. Marvelous.
We have excellent ducks, but California is not exactly prime goose territory.
Hong Kong, it turns out, is. Abundantly so.
It's worth growling over.
But that's really a recent development. Before the war, roast goose was not held in nearly such regard. After all, it's not a duck, it's strong and greasy, and it's kind of large.
Hardly refined cuisine.
But precisely that is what it turns out everyone had a taste for, after the years of hardship during the Japanese occupation.
And Hong Kong people eat a lot more animal protein than almost anybody else in Asia anyhow.
Especially birds. Chicken. Duck. Pigeon. Goose.
[I've waxed ecstatic over duck elsewhere on this blog. Chicken you are undoubtedly long familiar with. And as for pigeon, try 豉油乳鴿 (si-yau yiu gap; braised young pigeon with black bean sauce) if you can find it. Tender and sweet.]
鏞記酒家 YUNG KEE RESTAURANT
Seventy-plus years ago this was a street stall run by a man who dreamt of geese. Over the years his signature dish became so popular that he moved indoors. During the war the building housing his restaurant was destroyed by Japanese bombs. He re-opened nearby, moving his place of business several times in the next three decades, till finally he settled on the current location, which is now the Yung Kee Building (鏞記大廈) in Central Hong Kong.
This is the most famous roast goose restaurant by far, and presidents and potentates have eaten here.
鏞記酒家
YUNG KEE JAU KA
32-40 Wellington Street, Central
Hong Kong Island
中環, 威靈頓街 32-40 號
The roast goose at this restaurant has been around the world - people get a hamper to take on the plane when leaving Hong Kong, and the place packs their product especially for that purpose, hence the well-known nickname 'Flying Roast Goose' (飛天燒鵝 fei tien sui ngoh).
The founder, mr. Kam Shui-fai (甘穗煇) was himself known as 'Roast Goose Fai' (燒鵝煇).
It's expensive. Very expensive. Many Hong Kong people, precisely like cheapskate Dutchmen such as myself, will squeal furiously if the quality and the service do not match the price. Which is why despite the absolutely stellar reputation it is perhaps best to avoid Yung Kee.
Yes, they aspire to stratospheric quality, and they've won both awards and renown.
But do you really want to spend over a hundred US dollars on a meal that, realistically, should only cost ten?
What if they're having an off day?
Far better to head out to the New Territories (新界). There's great roast goose there too.
You're more likely to pay a reasonable price, and no one will stare down their nose at you if you drop your chopsticks.
Head to Sham Tseng (深井 'deep well'), on the other side of Sham Shui Po (深水埗 'deep water jetty') from Mongkok (旺角 'prosperous corner').
深水埗區 SHAM SHUI PO KEUI
North of Mongkok, Sham Shui Po is economically one of the poorer districts in Hong Kong. Back in the nineteenth century, the Tanka boat people (蜑家民 Tan Ka Man) moored here, at Cheung Sha Wan (長沙灣 'long sand bay'), when Stone Cutters Island (昂船洲 Ngon Suen Chau: 'raise boat island') was still across the water, rather than part of the mainland due to landfill.
The population has increased since the late forties, and formerly country areas are now covered by housing estates. You can buy electronics and computer stuff quite cheaply on Apliu Street (鴨寮街 'duck hutch street'), as well as almost any kind of cellular device, and car accessories.
Architecturally and culturally this probably isn't the most exciting part of Hong Kong.
We interrupt our journey to acquire a gizmo here, then leave.
深井 SHAM TSENG
Deep Well (深井) is north of Sham Shui Po, in Tsuen Wan Keui (荃灣區 'linen bay district').
You may have heard of the place - the famous Garden Company Limited (嘉頓有限公司) is headquartered here, and you cannot possibly be unfamiliar with their extensive line of cookies, biscuits, pastries, and dry crispy snacks.
Some supermarkets in San Francisco have almost an entire aisle taken up by their products.
The Spring Onion Pop Pan Crackers are lovely with some sharp cheddar cheese, and their Petite Beurre Biscuits, as well as their various wafers, are perfect with a cup of tea.
Yeah, a shameless plug, I know. But I've enjoyed their stuff for over a quarter of a century. The praise is happily given.
There are TWO roast goose restaurants in Sham Tseng. Actually, there are more than that, but these two can fight it out for the title of Roast Goose King (燒鵝王) in a district well-known for excellent roast goose.
裕記大飯店
YUE KEE TAAI FAN DIEM
9 Sham Hong Road, Sham Tseng
New Territories, Hong Kong.
新界, 深井, 深康路 9號
深井陳記燒鵝酒家
SHAM TSENG CHAN KEE SIU NGOH JAU KA
Ground floor, 63 Sham Tseng Village, Castle Peak Road, Sham Tseng
New Territories, Hong Kong.
新界, 深井, 青山公路, 深井村 63號, 地下
They are both extremely good. Far be it from me to decide which of the two is the natural leader, they both do stellar stuff.
Either one of them is worth a visit to this town.
Really, don't ask me to choose.
Crispy skin, tender juicy flesh. Dense dense flavour.
Don't bother with the century egg appetizers that for some absurd reason are traditional at roast goose restaurants, just have the goose, a little soup, some yau-choi, and a big bowl of rice. Maybe also a tofu dish.
You'll leave happy.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
PERFECTLY ANTIQUE PERVERT
It's sad, but the younger generation appears to have a very narrow world view. There are so many things that disturb, disconcert or baffle them. And they utterly lack the intellect and curiosity of previous generations, so they just wander around in their dark little universes, querulently texting or tweeting, without actually any chance of their tiny little horizons expanding.
If they made the effort to read stuff, they might learn something.
I feel sorry for them.
The other day an acquaintance, reacting to one of my comments, said "dude, you're such a perv".
Then suggested that I saw everything in sexual terms.
Was there, in fact any part of the human body that did NOT appeal to me?
No. In fact there wasn't.
ALL anatomical details are attractive.
"Dude, you're such a perv!"
Thank you. High praise indeed.
Please read the Song of Songs sometime.
And really, all parts of a woman can tempt the hungry.
But only if properly advertised - description and fantasy go hand in hand.
Let us dwell upon your delicate little ears, soft and velvety. Your finely arched eye-brows, which furrow and dimple enchantingly.
Your smooth kissy-poo cheeks. Yum.
The slightly parted lips speak for themselves.
Your lovely chin, the elegant neck, the delicate maidenly shoulders......
In deference to your bashful modesty I shall not speak of parts of you that are covered, but I can tell much about you - even through the three layers of cloth, including denim, and the thick thick coat.
Trust me, I can imagine details which I have never seen, and deduce characteristics on the slimmest of evidence.
And the evidence is slim, deliciously so.
Those knees are charming. Do they dimple?
Mmmm, curvaceous thighs inside tight jeans, and tense round calves.
Probably the cutest little wiggly toesie-woesies!
Within those clunky Doc Martens.
It's all juicy.
A poet once expressed it thus:
手如柔荑
膚如凝脂
領如蝤蠐
齒如瓠犀
螓首蛾眉
巧笑倩兮
美目盼兮
Hands like soft grass,
Skin like congealed grease.
Neck like a maggot,
Teeth like pumpkin seeds.
Cicada-like forehead and moth-like eyebrows.....
Opportune smile, so winsome, oh!
Beautiful eyes, brightly expectant, oh!
That was written nearly thirty centuries ago. If I'm a perv, what does that make the ancient bard?
A man who can praise a woman by likening her neck to a maggot or grub, then wax ecstatic over skin like waxy cooking fat, why, that man is a genius!
As well as a veritable hero of ham sap.
Skin like congealed grease!
Smooth & creamy!
Baby baby!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
If they made the effort to read stuff, they might learn something.
I feel sorry for them.
The other day an acquaintance, reacting to one of my comments, said "dude, you're such a perv".
Then suggested that I saw everything in sexual terms.
Was there, in fact any part of the human body that did NOT appeal to me?
No. In fact there wasn't.
ALL anatomical details are attractive.
"Dude, you're such a perv!"
Thank you. High praise indeed.
Please read the Song of Songs sometime.
And really, all parts of a woman can tempt the hungry.
But only if properly advertised - description and fantasy go hand in hand.
Let us dwell upon your delicate little ears, soft and velvety. Your finely arched eye-brows, which furrow and dimple enchantingly.
Your smooth kissy-poo cheeks. Yum.
The slightly parted lips speak for themselves.
Your lovely chin, the elegant neck, the delicate maidenly shoulders......
In deference to your bashful modesty I shall not speak of parts of you that are covered, but I can tell much about you - even through the three layers of cloth, including denim, and the thick thick coat.
Trust me, I can imagine details which I have never seen, and deduce characteristics on the slimmest of evidence.
And the evidence is slim, deliciously so.
Those knees are charming. Do they dimple?
Mmmm, curvaceous thighs inside tight jeans, and tense round calves.
Probably the cutest little wiggly toesie-woesies!
Within those clunky Doc Martens.
It's all juicy.
A poet once expressed it thus:
手如柔荑
膚如凝脂
領如蝤蠐
齒如瓠犀
螓首蛾眉
巧笑倩兮
美目盼兮
Hands like soft grass,
Skin like congealed grease.
Neck like a maggot,
Teeth like pumpkin seeds.
Cicada-like forehead and moth-like eyebrows.....
Opportune smile, so winsome, oh!
Beautiful eyes, brightly expectant, oh!
That was written nearly thirty centuries ago. If I'm a perv, what does that make the ancient bard?
A man who can praise a woman by likening her neck to a maggot or grub, then wax ecstatic over skin like waxy cooking fat, why, that man is a genius!
As well as a veritable hero of ham sap.
Skin like congealed grease!
Smooth & creamy!
Baby baby!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, October 03, 2011
PUNCAK
It's odd that the restaurant should be named after a mountain resort where Dutch civil servants went to escape the heat and eat their own food. Especially when it's one of the few places in that country where 'poffertjes' are known.
Poffertjes are perhaps the quintessential Dutch fair food. Tiny puff-batter pancakes cooked in a special pan with indentations, buttery hot and dusted with powdered sugar. Quite unsuited to the tropics. Other Dutch delicacies commonly available at hotels and restaurants there are pannekoeken (crepes) and kroketten. As well as Dutch cakes and confections.
The frikadel, which did not become well-known till the sixties, is of course unknown.
To say nothing of the bamibal or the nasischijf.
The restaurant in Amsterdam, however, serves none of those things.
But the food is very good indeed.
RESTAURANT POENTJAK PAS
Nassau Kade 366
Amsterdam
Telephone: 020-6180906
Unlike the steep slopes near the peaks of Gunung Gede and Pangrango in western Java, in the Bogor Regency, Puncak Pass restaurant in Amsterdam is in one of the flattest areas you will know. Holland does not have mountains, and the great city on the Amstel river is, essentially, a glorious mud flat. The restaurant is barely two blocks away from the Overtoom, relatively near the Van Gogh Museum and the Vondel Park.
The food, of course, is Indonesian.
In the days when the Dutch were still in Java, they sometimes times felt homesick for cool weather and Dutch food. Those who returned to Holland after the war still had the air of the Indies in their nostrils, and were homesick instead for distant emerald islands and the familiar tastes of their younger years.
The Puncak ('peak') pass area was a place additionally that many veterans were familiar with, because of heightened nationalist activity in Western Java during the Indonesian independence struggle. Western Java (Sunda) had been the heartland of the Dutch colonial world, where the empire maintained longer than anywhere else. Consequently it was also the area that many would miss the most when they departed - some of them had family histories in Sunda dating back several generations.
What you will eat at the Poentjak Pas Restaurant is some of the best Indonesian food in the Netherlands.
The proprietress, if she is still alive - it has been over ten years since I was last there - is a gracious elderly lady, whose Indonesian speech still has the antique flavour of the pre-war period.
I remember her as a warm hostess, both intensely interested in her guests as well as diplomatically discrete. The food, every single time, was stellar.
Sundanese food is not as sweet as dishes in Central Java, and has a lighter touch with strong flavours, relying instead on freshness and fragrance. With a vast array of vegetable dishes, or vegetable and meat or fish combinations, plus salads of raw and blanched ingredients, and tangy relishes, it is reputed to be good for the skin, accounting for the lovely complexions of the women in Western Java.
My uncle Jan may dream of the old days on the Puncak Pass in Indonesia.
I remember evenings at the Poentjak Pas in Amsterdam.
My memories are no less golden.
A very warm place.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Poffertjes are perhaps the quintessential Dutch fair food. Tiny puff-batter pancakes cooked in a special pan with indentations, buttery hot and dusted with powdered sugar. Quite unsuited to the tropics. Other Dutch delicacies commonly available at hotels and restaurants there are pannekoeken (crepes) and kroketten. As well as Dutch cakes and confections.
The frikadel, which did not become well-known till the sixties, is of course unknown.
To say nothing of the bamibal or the nasischijf.
The restaurant in Amsterdam, however, serves none of those things.
But the food is very good indeed.
RESTAURANT POENTJAK PAS
Nassau Kade 366
Amsterdam
Telephone: 020-6180906
Unlike the steep slopes near the peaks of Gunung Gede and Pangrango in western Java, in the Bogor Regency, Puncak Pass restaurant in Amsterdam is in one of the flattest areas you will know. Holland does not have mountains, and the great city on the Amstel river is, essentially, a glorious mud flat. The restaurant is barely two blocks away from the Overtoom, relatively near the Van Gogh Museum and the Vondel Park.
The food, of course, is Indonesian.
In the days when the Dutch were still in Java, they sometimes times felt homesick for cool weather and Dutch food. Those who returned to Holland after the war still had the air of the Indies in their nostrils, and were homesick instead for distant emerald islands and the familiar tastes of their younger years.
The Puncak ('peak') pass area was a place additionally that many veterans were familiar with, because of heightened nationalist activity in Western Java during the Indonesian independence struggle. Western Java (Sunda) had been the heartland of the Dutch colonial world, where the empire maintained longer than anywhere else. Consequently it was also the area that many would miss the most when they departed - some of them had family histories in Sunda dating back several generations.
What you will eat at the Poentjak Pas Restaurant is some of the best Indonesian food in the Netherlands.
The proprietress, if she is still alive - it has been over ten years since I was last there - is a gracious elderly lady, whose Indonesian speech still has the antique flavour of the pre-war period.
I remember her as a warm hostess, both intensely interested in her guests as well as diplomatically discrete. The food, every single time, was stellar.
Sundanese food is not as sweet as dishes in Central Java, and has a lighter touch with strong flavours, relying instead on freshness and fragrance. With a vast array of vegetable dishes, or vegetable and meat or fish combinations, plus salads of raw and blanched ingredients, and tangy relishes, it is reputed to be good for the skin, accounting for the lovely complexions of the women in Western Java.
My uncle Jan may dream of the old days on the Puncak Pass in Indonesia.
I remember evenings at the Poentjak Pas in Amsterdam.
My memories are no less golden.
A very warm place.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, October 02, 2011
BALKAN SOBRANIE IS BACK
The news from several sources is that Balkan Sobranie is back, made according to the same recipe, by Germain and Sons in the Channel Islands, distributed by Arango Cigar Company, who have acquired the copyright.
CupoJoes is already sold out.
As are the other internet merchants.
Given that supplies are likely to be spotty for a while, it may take a few weeks before I lay my hands on this new iteration. When I do, I will be quite keen to find out how it compares to my nose-memory of what I smoked back in the seventies.
Germains produces some exceptionally fine tobaccos, and I have no doubt that whatever they have come up with, whether or not its exactly the same, is indeed quite nice.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
CupoJoes is already sold out.
As are the other internet merchants.
Given that supplies are likely to be spotty for a while, it may take a few weeks before I lay my hands on this new iteration. When I do, I will be quite keen to find out how it compares to my nose-memory of what I smoked back in the seventies.
Germains produces some exceptionally fine tobaccos, and I have no doubt that whatever they have come up with, whether or not its exactly the same, is indeed quite nice.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
GENUINELY BENEFICIAL POST
Recently a 'reader' has been trying to seed my site, in order to ascertain if silly advertisement spam can be safely planted here.
I'm afraid not. One of the advantages of setting an approval mechanism on the comments is that I no longer end up with prongus-enlargement advertisements, vaigregenic nonsense, prawn buskers, or hair growth pills.
The most recent message from the hopeful merchant, however, is rather interesting.
Thus:
brinkka2011 says: How is it that just anyone can publish a blog and get as popular as this? Its not like youve said anything incredibly impressive more like youve painted a quite picture through an issue that you know nothing about! I dont want to sound mean, right here. But do you genuinely think that you can get away with adding some quite pictures and not truly say something?
In answer to the question posed, the answer is 'yes'. Yes I do.
Yes, I genuinely think that I can get away with adding pictures and not saying a thing.
EPISTLE TO A MACHINE
Dear Brinkka2011,
Why is it that your comments show up on so many blogs and news sites, bearing compliments about how the post in question truly helped you and contributed to your understanding of the subject discussed - reproductive enlargement, Michelle Obama, gardening, mushroom cultivation, revolutionary poetry, or whatever - without you actually contributing anything to the discourse?
Indeed, in your own words you were absolutely fascinated, the discussion was of deep and abiding interest, precisely what you were looking for..... yet you had no opinion whatever.
Do you, mon cher Brinkka2011, not realize that seed-comments are in the main totally obvious? That opportunistic "let's see if this idiot will allow me to spam here" statements are, in fact, transparent enough that they fall right through the basket (Dutch colloquial expression indicating 'epic fail' of whatever it is that was attempted)?
That you chose to enter your message in what I've designated my letter box - where I stated that it would be entirely a private communication - indicates that you may not have actually read either the post under which you found the clickable link, or the message I left there for whoever did click.
To whit: " Please feel free to write to me privately here. If you would like a response, include your e-mail address. Nothing you say here will be published, only I will see it."
That I cited your message in full is an exception. REAL PEOPLE can rest assured that whatever they put in my letter box will remain confidential.
Fake people, such as your own computer-generated self, Brinkka2011, do not merit that assurance.
I do not cater to the BORG, and I have no intention of being assimilated.
Not that I discriminate against trolls, you understand. Artificial intelligence - or its signal absence - is not a basis for any sort of unfriendliness. But in that you exist solely as a search-program methodology of exposing your mercantile master to the world at large, publishing what you "wrote" is by no means a breach of promise.
Please note also: "Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author."
What on earth were you thinking?
AFTER WORD
Several hours since posting the comment cited above, brinkka2011 wrote: "Lovely website! A little too spammy though."
I'm not quite sure how that fits in with a previous remark from his hand: "jumbo tally you take in". Maybe it was an exceptional pork shoulder?
In response, let me quote from another luncheon meat troll, who said: "I in the final analysis like the path you are posting!". Indeed. Quite apposite.
May both of you "receive an interesting stress relevant of aim", and thank you so much for the "damaged and fruitless plaits".
Damaged and fruitless plaits really is what we're all about at the back of the hill.
That, and dillwads.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I'm afraid not. One of the advantages of setting an approval mechanism on the comments is that I no longer end up with prongus-enlargement advertisements, vaigregenic nonsense, prawn buskers, or hair growth pills.
The most recent message from the hopeful merchant, however, is rather interesting.
Thus:
brinkka2011 says: How is it that just anyone can publish a blog and get as popular as this? Its not like youve said anything incredibly impressive more like youve painted a quite picture through an issue that you know nothing about! I dont want to sound mean, right here. But do you genuinely think that you can get away with adding some quite pictures and not truly say something?
In answer to the question posed, the answer is 'yes'. Yes I do.
Yes, I genuinely think that I can get away with adding pictures and not saying a thing.
EPISTLE TO A MACHINE
Dear Brinkka2011,
Why is it that your comments show up on so many blogs and news sites, bearing compliments about how the post in question truly helped you and contributed to your understanding of the subject discussed - reproductive enlargement, Michelle Obama, gardening, mushroom cultivation, revolutionary poetry, or whatever - without you actually contributing anything to the discourse?
Indeed, in your own words you were absolutely fascinated, the discussion was of deep and abiding interest, precisely what you were looking for..... yet you had no opinion whatever.
Do you, mon cher Brinkka2011, not realize that seed-comments are in the main totally obvious? That opportunistic "let's see if this idiot will allow me to spam here" statements are, in fact, transparent enough that they fall right through the basket (Dutch colloquial expression indicating 'epic fail' of whatever it is that was attempted)?
That you chose to enter your message in what I've designated my letter box - where I stated that it would be entirely a private communication - indicates that you may not have actually read either the post under which you found the clickable link, or the message I left there for whoever did click.
To whit: " Please feel free to write to me privately here. If you would like a response, include your e-mail address. Nothing you say here will be published, only I will see it."
That I cited your message in full is an exception. REAL PEOPLE can rest assured that whatever they put in my letter box will remain confidential.
Fake people, such as your own computer-generated self, Brinkka2011, do not merit that assurance.
I do not cater to the BORG, and I have no intention of being assimilated.
Not that I discriminate against trolls, you understand. Artificial intelligence - or its signal absence - is not a basis for any sort of unfriendliness. But in that you exist solely as a search-program methodology of exposing your mercantile master to the world at large, publishing what you "wrote" is by no means a breach of promise.
Please note also: "Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author."
What on earth were you thinking?
AFTER WORD
Several hours since posting the comment cited above, brinkka2011 wrote: "Lovely website! A little too spammy though."
I'm not quite sure how that fits in with a previous remark from his hand: "jumbo tally you take in". Maybe it was an exceptional pork shoulder?
In response, let me quote from another luncheon meat troll, who said: "I in the final analysis like the path you are posting!". Indeed. Quite apposite.
May both of you "receive an interesting stress relevant of aim", and thank you so much for the "damaged and fruitless plaits".
Damaged and fruitless plaits really is what we're all about at the back of the hill.
That, and dillwads.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, October 01, 2011
SEA CUCUMBER - SOAKING AND BRAISING A DELICIOUS SLUG
One of my acquaintances asked recently about the dark dried things that look obscene which he had noticed in some Chinese stores. What were those things?
And, if they were food, how did one cook them?
海參
Hoi Sam
Those objects are sea slugs, also called sea cucumber or trepang. Holothurids, lacking a formal brain or central nervous system, and rather primitive.
And yes, they are edible. Quite tasty, in fact. Sea cucumbers are very nutritious, and considered tonifying for middle-aged and elderly folks, especially good for people with arthritis and high blood pressure. Of course like many odd or suggestive ingredients, they are also often thought to be excellent either for the reproductive organs or the 'delicate' tissues.
But their main appeal is that besides a pleasant gelatinous texture, they absorb flavourings and sauces nicely.
When harvested, sea cucumber is usually gutted and cleaned, horny parts trimmed, then simmered briefly in salted water before being rolled in ashes and dried till shrunk and hard. It should keep nearly forever in that state.
To prepare dried sea cucumber for the pot needs a bit of pre-prep.
Place dried sea cucumber in a pot of water and soak for twelve hours. Change water, and simmer for an hour or two with some slices of dried ginger, let it cool. Remove and rinse. Clean the outside with the vegetable brush, and remove any hard parts or placques of calcined tissue near the outer surface. Then place it in freshly simmering water with a pinch of sugar and a few slices of ginger. Let it cool, and place the container in the refrigerator. The next day dump out the water and refill with cold water.
Repeat as needed, which for smaller sea cucumbers may be three days soaking total. Larger sea cucumbers may require up to four or five days of soaking with daily changes of water.
When it has softened and doubled in size, which will usually be the third day, remove and rinse.
Open it up and make sure that no sand or grit remains in the cavity.
紅燒海參
Braised Sea Cucumber
Ingredients:
One or two softened sea cucumbers sliced into large chunks across.
3 spring onions, chopped large.
3 slices ginger.
Quarter cup Sherry.
1½ cups chicken stock.
6 dried black mushrooms, soaked till soft, stemmed and cut in half.
One TBS oyster sauce.
One TBS soy sauce.
One Tsp. sugar.
1 TBS cornstarch dissolved in one TBS cold water.
Drizzle of black vinegar.
Drizzle of sesame oil.
Put some oil in the wok and sauté the ginger and spring onions. Seethe with the sherry, and add the chicken stock and sea cucumbers. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and a careful drizzle of black vinegar, the turn the heat low and simmer for about ten minutes.
Stir in the corn starch water and add a jigger more sherry. Add the sesame oil for fragrance, and when the liquid turns velvety, decant onto a serving dish.
This recipe can be modified by including meats or vegetables, and the sauce improved by judicious additions. The horizon is endless.
But as the main appeal is the savouriness of the sauce as absorbed by the main ingredient, it is wise not to go crazy.
Keep it simple.
The merest pinch of five spice powder might not be misplaced.
Some freshly ground white pepper can also be added.
Cilantro as a garnish is a nice touch.
I'm actually quite fond of sea cucumber, and consider it splendid for birthdays and celebrations.
My birthday is coming up soon.
I don't think I'll be having any sea cucumber this year.
Just like all previous years. Really, there's nothing to celebrate.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And, if they were food, how did one cook them?
海參
Hoi Sam
Those objects are sea slugs, also called sea cucumber or trepang. Holothurids, lacking a formal brain or central nervous system, and rather primitive.
And yes, they are edible. Quite tasty, in fact. Sea cucumbers are very nutritious, and considered tonifying for middle-aged and elderly folks, especially good for people with arthritis and high blood pressure. Of course like many odd or suggestive ingredients, they are also often thought to be excellent either for the reproductive organs or the 'delicate' tissues.
But their main appeal is that besides a pleasant gelatinous texture, they absorb flavourings and sauces nicely.
When harvested, sea cucumber is usually gutted and cleaned, horny parts trimmed, then simmered briefly in salted water before being rolled in ashes and dried till shrunk and hard. It should keep nearly forever in that state.
To prepare dried sea cucumber for the pot needs a bit of pre-prep.
Place dried sea cucumber in a pot of water and soak for twelve hours. Change water, and simmer for an hour or two with some slices of dried ginger, let it cool. Remove and rinse. Clean the outside with the vegetable brush, and remove any hard parts or placques of calcined tissue near the outer surface. Then place it in freshly simmering water with a pinch of sugar and a few slices of ginger. Let it cool, and place the container in the refrigerator. The next day dump out the water and refill with cold water.
Repeat as needed, which for smaller sea cucumbers may be three days soaking total. Larger sea cucumbers may require up to four or five days of soaking with daily changes of water.
When it has softened and doubled in size, which will usually be the third day, remove and rinse.
Open it up and make sure that no sand or grit remains in the cavity.
紅燒海參
Braised Sea Cucumber
Ingredients:
One or two softened sea cucumbers sliced into large chunks across.
3 spring onions, chopped large.
3 slices ginger.
Quarter cup Sherry.
1½ cups chicken stock.
6 dried black mushrooms, soaked till soft, stemmed and cut in half.
One TBS oyster sauce.
One TBS soy sauce.
One Tsp. sugar.
1 TBS cornstarch dissolved in one TBS cold water.
Drizzle of black vinegar.
Drizzle of sesame oil.
Put some oil in the wok and sauté the ginger and spring onions. Seethe with the sherry, and add the chicken stock and sea cucumbers. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and a careful drizzle of black vinegar, the turn the heat low and simmer for about ten minutes.
Stir in the corn starch water and add a jigger more sherry. Add the sesame oil for fragrance, and when the liquid turns velvety, decant onto a serving dish.
This recipe can be modified by including meats or vegetables, and the sauce improved by judicious additions. The horizon is endless.
But as the main appeal is the savouriness of the sauce as absorbed by the main ingredient, it is wise not to go crazy.
Keep it simple.
The merest pinch of five spice powder might not be misplaced.
Some freshly ground white pepper can also be added.
Cilantro as a garnish is a nice touch.
I'm actually quite fond of sea cucumber, and consider it splendid for birthdays and celebrations.
My birthday is coming up soon.
I don't think I'll be having any sea cucumber this year.
Just like all previous years. Really, there's nothing to celebrate.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, September 30, 2011
BITTER HERBS
This weekend, Savage Kitten and her boyfriend are going to have lunch with her siblings and their families. At a dim sum restaurant.
She's known him for less than a year.
I have met just one of her brothers. And that was only because she wanted to be fair, and wished her favourite brother to at least meet someone else who was (still) important to her.
I've known her since 1989.
We were lovers for over twenty years.
I've met ONE of her relatives. Just one, once.
It happened when our relationship was over, when I was just the good friend whom she had known for a long time.
I have not met the people whom her current beau - who has been with her for far less time - will see in a few hours.
Some of them have broken bread with Wheelie Boy four or five times already.
He's the 'boyfriend'. He has an important role in her life, and it is right and proper that her kin acknowledge all that.
I'm not, and I don't rank.
Never did.
Now that her dad is dead, and her mom is a vegetable, she finally has the courage to introduce her "boy friend" to her siblings.
But it ain't me. By the time she worked up the courage to tell everyone to f*(% off, she also decided that I wasn't it. Not any more. Not any longer.
I'm as much part of the discarded past as her dad's disapproval and her mom's sentience.
If things had been different, I might have had kids by now.
I wonder what they would have been like.
While the two of us were a couple, I was the filthy secret that her mom's Toishanese relatives, friends, and neighbors should never find out about.
We hid our relationship from them, and from any Chinese person who might know them. We never were together in Chinatown, we never kissed in public, we never held hands while walking - because nice Chinese girls do NOT have relationships with white guys.
Really, they don't. She knew that from growing up Chinese, I knew it from constant exposure to Chinatown and everyone I knew who spoke Cantonese.
Obviously, that rather destroyed any hopes of a normal family life.
But it's over now, and no one need ever find out about me.
I hope I discover which dim sum place they went to. So that I can boycott it for the rest of my life.
She and I went out for dim sum just ONCE.
In twenty years.
I expect that her family will make Wheelie boy welcome, and treat him well. He's kind of likable, and from what I hear they're decent people.
Besides, everybody has a kwailo in the family.
At least one. It's become "normal".
I'm feeling a little foul at present.
But I'll get over it.
You can't always get what you want.
What's gone is gone.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
She's known him for less than a year.
I have met just one of her brothers. And that was only because she wanted to be fair, and wished her favourite brother to at least meet someone else who was (still) important to her.
I've known her since 1989.
We were lovers for over twenty years.
I've met ONE of her relatives. Just one, once.
It happened when our relationship was over, when I was just the good friend whom she had known for a long time.
I have not met the people whom her current beau - who has been with her for far less time - will see in a few hours.
Some of them have broken bread with Wheelie Boy four or five times already.
He's the 'boyfriend'. He has an important role in her life, and it is right and proper that her kin acknowledge all that.
I'm not, and I don't rank.
Never did.
Now that her dad is dead, and her mom is a vegetable, she finally has the courage to introduce her "boy friend" to her siblings.
But it ain't me. By the time she worked up the courage to tell everyone to f*(% off, she also decided that I wasn't it. Not any more. Not any longer.
I'm as much part of the discarded past as her dad's disapproval and her mom's sentience.
If things had been different, I might have had kids by now.
I wonder what they would have been like.
While the two of us were a couple, I was the filthy secret that her mom's Toishanese relatives, friends, and neighbors should never find out about.
We hid our relationship from them, and from any Chinese person who might know them. We never were together in Chinatown, we never kissed in public, we never held hands while walking - because nice Chinese girls do NOT have relationships with white guys.
Really, they don't. She knew that from growing up Chinese, I knew it from constant exposure to Chinatown and everyone I knew who spoke Cantonese.
Obviously, that rather destroyed any hopes of a normal family life.
But it's over now, and no one need ever find out about me.
I hope I discover which dim sum place they went to. So that I can boycott it for the rest of my life.
She and I went out for dim sum just ONCE.
In twenty years.
I expect that her family will make Wheelie boy welcome, and treat him well. He's kind of likable, and from what I hear they're decent people.
Besides, everybody has a kwailo in the family.
At least one. It's become "normal".
I'm feeling a little foul at present.
But I'll get over it.
You can't always get what you want.
What's gone is gone.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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GRITS AND TOFU
Like most Americans, I have a list of people who should be peacefully retired from public service and thereafter kept away from their desks,...
