There are TWO reasons to go to Yuen Long (元朗) in the New Territories. One of them is poon choi (盤菜), the other one is wife cake.
Yes, you can get both of those things elsewhere, but Yuen Long is the source.
盤菜
Poon choi (basin dish: 盤菜 or 盆菜) is a compound of various ingredients pre-cooked separately, then carefully layered in a basin and reheated together for a short while, so that each ingredient may share some of its flavour and aroma with its neighbors.
The more expensive foods (roast duck and roast pork) are higher on the pile, and their juices will run down through the layers imparting savouriness to the more mundane items, making the braised lobak chunks on the very bottom avidly sought after.
A good poon choi is a feast, a bad poon choi resembles the leftovers that sergeant Yamada was heating up on a hotplate at his desk in the television series Barney Miller.
Poon choi is native to the New Territories (新界), available at some restaurants in the rest of Hong Kong, and not made anywhere else in China.
老婆餅
Wife cake (lo poh beng: 老婆餅) is a Chinese pastry consisting of candied winter melon paste surrounded by layers of contrasting dough – an oil dough around the filling, a water dough on the outside. Both dough layers are rolled together for uniformity, then folded around the filling.
Then an egg wash, and two slits to prevent it puffing up in the oven.
The completed product is baked for about twenty minutes to crisp it, resulting in a confection which is crumbly and delicious when fresh, soft and slightly chewy the next day.
Either way, divine with hot milk-tea.
[The term 老婆 (lo poh) is typically Cantonese, and almost the same in meaning as the hippie-era term 'old lady'. Lo is old, poh is a related female. My old lady = 我嘅老婆 (ngoh-ge lo-poh = my better half.]
What makes the product specifically a 'lo poh beng' is the different dough layers, which separate from each other and render it flaky.
Some bakeries fold the two layers over and roll them out a number of times to create a millefeuille effect.
The home cook is probably better off not trying this, though.
[Caution to the kosher and halal segment of my readers: traditionally, animal shortening (clarified lard) is used in Cantonese bakeries, as it really does yield a better, tastier result. Nowadays some manufacturers use vegetable oils. Butter can also be used. A few companies (including the one mentioned below) use palm oil. Coconut is a small part of the filling. And note that peanuts are a common presence in the kitchen of any Cantonese pastry shop.]
The most famous wife cakes are made by Wing Wah (榮華) in Yuen Long.
榮華餅家 AND 大榮華酒樓
Wing Wah in Yuen Long is well known for wife cakes, though they also make many other things, and run a very fine restaurant on the second and third floor of their building.
Their attention to detail, and the quality of their foods, make the half-century old company a destination.
Address: Number 4-6 On Ning Road, Yuen Long
If you're taking MTR to Yuen Long, get off at Tai Tong Road (大棠路), go down to Green Mountain Road (青山公路) and walk towards Kuk Ting Street (谷亭街), turn right.
Ignore Sing Lee Beef Balls and the Seven Eleven just up from the corner, there's another Seven Eleven scarcely one short block away on Shui Che Kwun (水車館街). Cross Shui Che Kwun. A few yards further on, go left up Sai Tai Street (西堤街). Cross Tai Fung (泰豐街), and keep going on Sai Tai. You should be able to see a red three-storey building at the end of the street by now.
Sai Tai Street curves leftwards and turns into On Ning Road (安寧路), and right on the bend, on the right hand side in that bright red building, is the restaurant.
Taai Wing Wah Jau Lau: 大榮華酒樓.
Note that, predictably, a Seven Eleven occupies one of the ground floor spaces of that building.
Seven Eleven truly is everywhere.
That's VERY suspicious. Hmmmmm!
YAM CHA (DRINK TEA: 飲茶)
The entrance to the restaurant is between the news stand and the gift-shop, where you can purchase their famous lo poh beng, mooncakes (in season), and preserved meat products.
If it's still morning, you should have dim sum (點心) here. The steamed egg custard cake (nai wong ma-lai gao: 奶黃馬拉糕) is one of their best dishes, but you may want to concentrate on the more savoury items. Taro cake (woo gok: 芋角), fried glutinous rice cake with pork (haahm sui gok: 咸水角). Very nicely prepared Phoenix claws (chicken feet; fung jao: 鳳爪). Diverse rice flour sheet noodles (cheung fan: 腸粉), plus Chicken buns (gai bao: 雞飽) and Charsiu buns (叉燒包). Steamed shrimp pockets (ha gau: 蝦餃). Pork stuffed into a wheat dough cup (siu mai: 燒賣). And more.
It's all quite delicious. Aren't you glad you came?
Of course Tai Wing Wah Restaurant also does poon choi, which is more suited to later in the day, especially if you're in a group of ten or twelve people. It gets quite crowded, and often there is a line out the door.
There are other places to get poon choi, however, and they are all proud of their versions of the dish.
Taai Foon Hei (大歡喜飯店 'great welcoming happiness rice-shop') at 76 Kau Yuk Road (教育路) is also very good.
Unsurprisingly, they aren't too far from a Seven Eleven.
Look for the green sign that sticks out over the street, stating 大歡喜盆菜.
Peng San Poon Choi (屏山盆菜) is also famous.
They too are in or near Yuen Long, but I do not know exactly where.
There is NO poon choi in San Francisco. You will have to do without.
But we do have lo poh beng.
Every bakery makes those.
And milk tea we also have.
FLAKY YUMMY GOODNESS
One of the best places is on Jackson Street (昃臣街) between Grant (都板街) and Kearny (乾尼街). They're diagonally opposite the old Great Star Theater. Easy to find.
Nowhere near a Seven Eleven.
YUMMY BAKERY & CAFÉ
607 Jackson Street
San Francisco, CA 94133.
415-989-8388
They are justifiably proud of their lo poh beng. They will pack six of them in a special box for you.
In addition to lo poh beng, they also produce a number of other products: breads, non-Chinese pastries, birthday cakes and wedding cakes, and the usual sweet soft biscuits exchanged between families upon the engagement of a young couple.
I heartily recommend them.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, April 10, 2011
NOT SCORING!
And I could've gotten into her panties! Problem is, I keep acting like a fairly decent fellow - it limits one.
She was small, dark haired - such lovely dark hair - and she liked me.
But she wasn't sober.
The logical and gallant thing to do was pour her into a cab and send her off home. When someone is inebriated, it is better that they wake up the next day in a familiar place with no regrets.
Better for them, better for you.
It's an all-round good idea.
Win-win.
FIVE BEERS AND SIX SHOTS, TIMES TWO
She wanted her friend Molly to go with her. She had come with Molly, and she and Molly had been swilling Corona and downing shots of tequila all evening.
Molly should NOT be left to find her own way home!
So we went to find Molly. Molly was singing. A tender heavy metal duet with a large curly haired chap. Molly has a good voice and sings very well, but it was wasted on a bar crowded with other singers.
[Seeing as I don't sing - those very rare occasions when I take the microphone are opportunities for even the non-smokers to step outside and discover a sudden affection for nicotine - I was probably the only person who realized how well she sang.]
The other patrons were far too busy suffering through all turns before their own to really care.
At any karaoke bar there will be evenings when everyone wants to star and will consequently not listen appreciatively to rival talent.
I doubt that Curly listened either. He was happily full of himself.
Still, it was a good duet.
Molly obviously liked him.
Wherefore getting her into that cab was also the right thing to do.
It being better that she should also wake up in a familiar place with nothing to regret.
Far better.
After pushing both ladies into the back of a taxi (mmmm, squishy!), I went back in and finished my drink. On stage someone was wailing disconsolately about red red roses having thorns, oh boy do they so.
Curly at the bar avoided my eye while clutching another brandy.
Three people woke up this morning in familiar places, and entirely without regrets.
Not sure about the fourth one.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
She was small, dark haired - such lovely dark hair - and she liked me.
But she wasn't sober.
The logical and gallant thing to do was pour her into a cab and send her off home. When someone is inebriated, it is better that they wake up the next day in a familiar place with no regrets.
Better for them, better for you.
It's an all-round good idea.
Win-win.
FIVE BEERS AND SIX SHOTS, TIMES TWO
She wanted her friend Molly to go with her. She had come with Molly, and she and Molly had been swilling Corona and downing shots of tequila all evening.
Molly should NOT be left to find her own way home!
So we went to find Molly. Molly was singing. A tender heavy metal duet with a large curly haired chap. Molly has a good voice and sings very well, but it was wasted on a bar crowded with other singers.
[Seeing as I don't sing - those very rare occasions when I take the microphone are opportunities for even the non-smokers to step outside and discover a sudden affection for nicotine - I was probably the only person who realized how well she sang.]
The other patrons were far too busy suffering through all turns before their own to really care.
At any karaoke bar there will be evenings when everyone wants to star and will consequently not listen appreciatively to rival talent.
I doubt that Curly listened either. He was happily full of himself.
Still, it was a good duet.
Molly obviously liked him.
Wherefore getting her into that cab was also the right thing to do.
It being better that she should also wake up in a familiar place with nothing to regret.
Far better.
After pushing both ladies into the back of a taxi (mmmm, squishy!), I went back in and finished my drink. On stage someone was wailing disconsolately about red red roses having thorns, oh boy do they so.
Curly at the bar avoided my eye while clutching another brandy.
Three people woke up this morning in familiar places, and entirely without regrets.
Not sure about the fourth one.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, April 09, 2011
LET ME SEE YOUR NIPPLES
The title of this post was the criterium that drew several readers to this blog. Like many of the more unusual searches, it reflected a prevalent obsession among cruisers of the world wide web.
It must be VERY frustrating when they discover that so promising a link leads to a rather unexciting text.
There are NO nipples here.
It has, in fact, been far too long since this blogger actually even saw any nipples.
I really wish it were otherwise, as I am saddened by the absence of the little rosebuds.
I think I may have even forgotten what they look like - could you please describe them?
NO NIPPLES AT ALL
My own nipple-quest has been quite unproductive as yet. And I'm sure that you realize that it's not just nipples, but a warm and interesting personality that moves the nipples which I seek. Important detail, that.
Nipples, without a happy young lady behind them, aren't all that interesting.
I would prefer the total person.
Which is why casual street cleavage is NOT exciting. One knows nothing of the exhibitionista wot possesses them; they are without context or ken, and thus not even a tempting intellectual conceit.
If, on the other hand, the possessatrice of the nipples is a person about whom one is passionate, then the actual nipples themselves are not so important.
Yes, they are nice, more lovely even than one could imagine because of the person of whom they are adorable adornments, but when they are in focus it is only because of the presence of the nipplesome miss herself.
Without her intimate involvement one would not fondle, stroke, delicately pluck at, gaze upon rapturously, or lovingly pet the pert little pods.
The nipples are in that sense an afterthought.
Tasty, yes, but not alone.
Your nipples are so lovely!
I am incredibly fond of nipples. Many of my very best moments have involved the beautiful little buttons.
But impersonal nippletude does NOT thrill me.
At present, whatever thoughts I have about the delightful qualities of nipples are in the abstract.
It's a philosophy that has no current applicability.
Still searching.
Should likely candidates wish to flock, please form a line to the right.
There will be several lunch and dinner interviews before we discuss the nipples.
We'll chat about other things, enjoy each other's quirky sense of humour, and take pleasure in shared moments. Maybe even hold hands and gaze out over the sparkling night-time view of North Beach from a vantage point on Russian Hill.
We'll drink deeply of the fragrance of wild jessamine.
And then will we consider nipples.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It must be VERY frustrating when they discover that so promising a link leads to a rather unexciting text.
There are NO nipples here.
It has, in fact, been far too long since this blogger actually even saw any nipples.
I really wish it were otherwise, as I am saddened by the absence of the little rosebuds.
I think I may have even forgotten what they look like - could you please describe them?
NO NIPPLES AT ALL
My own nipple-quest has been quite unproductive as yet. And I'm sure that you realize that it's not just nipples, but a warm and interesting personality that moves the nipples which I seek. Important detail, that.
Nipples, without a happy young lady behind them, aren't all that interesting.
I would prefer the total person.
Which is why casual street cleavage is NOT exciting. One knows nothing of the exhibitionista wot possesses them; they are without context or ken, and thus not even a tempting intellectual conceit.
If, on the other hand, the possessatrice of the nipples is a person about whom one is passionate, then the actual nipples themselves are not so important.
Yes, they are nice, more lovely even than one could imagine because of the person of whom they are adorable adornments, but when they are in focus it is only because of the presence of the nipplesome miss herself.
Without her intimate involvement one would not fondle, stroke, delicately pluck at, gaze upon rapturously, or lovingly pet the pert little pods.
The nipples are in that sense an afterthought.
Tasty, yes, but not alone.
Your nipples are so lovely!
I am incredibly fond of nipples. Many of my very best moments have involved the beautiful little buttons.
But impersonal nippletude does NOT thrill me.
At present, whatever thoughts I have about the delightful qualities of nipples are in the abstract.
It's a philosophy that has no current applicability.
Still searching.
Should likely candidates wish to flock, please form a line to the right.
There will be several lunch and dinner interviews before we discuss the nipples.
We'll chat about other things, enjoy each other's quirky sense of humour, and take pleasure in shared moments. Maybe even hold hands and gaze out over the sparkling night-time view of North Beach from a vantage point on Russian Hill.
We'll drink deeply of the fragrance of wild jessamine.
And then will we consider nipples.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, April 08, 2011
THE THIRD PERSON IS VIBRANT!
One of my acquaintances tends to always refer to himself in the third person.
You can probably understand why this is annoying.
“John did NOT overturn the garbage can”, “John will now enjoy another refreshing malt-beverage while smiling innocently” , and “John refuses to speak about Atboth’s anger issues, and will not be accepting Atboth’s offer to slap him a good one.”
On the other hand, first person fiction is a drag too.
I did this, I did that, and I did something else. Boring.
The only alternative appears to be second person. Yet, as we all know, crazy people talk to themselves in the second person. “You shouldn’t have slapped John – at least not until he was sober enough to understand why”.
Also: “You really shouldn’t have taken John’s refreshing malt-beverage away from him and poured it over his stupid bald head”.
DOMINANT PERSONHOOD
First person narrative does work well in mystery novels:
“You see , Watson, when I saw him holding a smoking gun while standing right over the twitching corpse, I immediately suspected a dirty deed”.
“Brilliant, Holmes, absolutely brilliant!”
But first person narrative is an absolutely horrible fit in bodice-rippers and romance:
“With a sudden surge of passion, I grasped her in my strong wiry arms, and swept her onto the bed. Savagely, impatiently, I stripped off her delicate silken camisole, and laved her with my slobbering tongue. She was soft, warm, and salty. The last thing I remember is the marble ash-tray crashing down on the back of my head, cracking my skull in three distinct places.
I was entirely unconscious as she dragged my heavy form to the window and heaved me over into the thorn bushes below, breaking my shoulder bone with a sickening snap when I crashed through the branches.”
See? Doesn’t work. You NEED an observer.
Now compare that with this:
“The darkly romantic blogger Atboth stood in the middle of the bus, his battle-ship grey eyes drinking in the throng of passengers, while his strong masculine hands confidently held on to the straps provided for his convenience. He remembered when those things were leather, taught sensuous leather. So long ago, and yet it seemed like yesterday.
Out of the corner of his eye Atboth surreptitiously drank in the shapely blonde young clerical person next to him, obviously heading to a depressing dead-end job at a law office in the Embarcadero Center. Without knowing why (for she did not realize that his smoking cool grey gaze was upon her), she blushed.
Out of the corner of his OTHER eye, he observed the delicate curves of the Cantonese schoolgirl on the other side, so full of life and youthful vigor. She tensed. Somewhere close to her was a creep, she just knew it! But who? Surely not that dapper gentleman next to her, the man with the neatly trimmed foxy looking beard and kindly vulpine face?
Meanwhile, with his peripheral vision, which was aimed straight ahead because his actual focus was split sideways in two directions, Atboth keenly scoped out the young lady sitting in front of him. He couldn’t help noticing that she had small hands and a lovely pleated skirt.
Ah, life! Warm, pulsating life!
He drank in the freshly feminine perfumes all around him, and felt somewhat less gloomy.”
Now that’s eppes some poetry!
It describes the scene lovingly, in a way that everyone can understand.
Beauty, what?
AFTERTHOUGHT
I am the handsome vampire, tempting women with my sparkling personality.
Today will be an upbeat, positive, all round lovely young day.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
You can probably understand why this is annoying.
“John did NOT overturn the garbage can”, “John will now enjoy another refreshing malt-beverage while smiling innocently” , and “John refuses to speak about Atboth’s anger issues, and will not be accepting Atboth’s offer to slap him a good one.”
On the other hand, first person fiction is a drag too.
I did this, I did that, and I did something else. Boring.
The only alternative appears to be second person. Yet, as we all know, crazy people talk to themselves in the second person. “You shouldn’t have slapped John – at least not until he was sober enough to understand why”.
Also: “You really shouldn’t have taken John’s refreshing malt-beverage away from him and poured it over his stupid bald head”.
DOMINANT PERSONHOOD
First person narrative does work well in mystery novels:
“You see , Watson, when I saw him holding a smoking gun while standing right over the twitching corpse, I immediately suspected a dirty deed”.
“Brilliant, Holmes, absolutely brilliant!”
But first person narrative is an absolutely horrible fit in bodice-rippers and romance:
“With a sudden surge of passion, I grasped her in my strong wiry arms, and swept her onto the bed. Savagely, impatiently, I stripped off her delicate silken camisole, and laved her with my slobbering tongue. She was soft, warm, and salty. The last thing I remember is the marble ash-tray crashing down on the back of my head, cracking my skull in three distinct places.
I was entirely unconscious as she dragged my heavy form to the window and heaved me over into the thorn bushes below, breaking my shoulder bone with a sickening snap when I crashed through the branches.”
See? Doesn’t work. You NEED an observer.
Now compare that with this:
“The darkly romantic blogger Atboth stood in the middle of the bus, his battle-ship grey eyes drinking in the throng of passengers, while his strong masculine hands confidently held on to the straps provided for his convenience. He remembered when those things were leather, taught sensuous leather. So long ago, and yet it seemed like yesterday.
Out of the corner of his eye Atboth surreptitiously drank in the shapely blonde young clerical person next to him, obviously heading to a depressing dead-end job at a law office in the Embarcadero Center. Without knowing why (for she did not realize that his smoking cool grey gaze was upon her), she blushed.
Out of the corner of his OTHER eye, he observed the delicate curves of the Cantonese schoolgirl on the other side, so full of life and youthful vigor. She tensed. Somewhere close to her was a creep, she just knew it! But who? Surely not that dapper gentleman next to her, the man with the neatly trimmed foxy looking beard and kindly vulpine face?
Meanwhile, with his peripheral vision, which was aimed straight ahead because his actual focus was split sideways in two directions, Atboth keenly scoped out the young lady sitting in front of him. He couldn’t help noticing that she had small hands and a lovely pleated skirt.
Ah, life! Warm, pulsating life!
He drank in the freshly feminine perfumes all around him, and felt somewhat less gloomy.”
Now that’s eppes some poetry!
It describes the scene lovingly, in a way that everyone can understand.
Beauty, what?
AFTERTHOUGHT
I am the handsome vampire, tempting women with my sparkling personality.
Today will be an upbeat, positive, all round lovely young day.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
IT'S DREAMY!
The combination of something warm and something cold works magic.
Apple pie with ice cream is one example, but the other one that naturally springs to mind is poached pears. Also with a scoop of ice cream.
The texture of the pears, the CREAMINESS of the ice cream……
Really, it’s like totally innocent happy sex in a bowl.
Go ahead, lick the spoon and have some more.
Then rest replete, grinning.
Life is good.
To achieve this wonderful state of silly bliss, you will need to do just a little simple preparatory work.
POACHED PEARS
Four firm pears.
Four cups water.
Two cups sugar.
Two TBS lemon juice.
Heat water, sugar, and lemon juice in a saucepan till the sugar dissolves.
Meanwhile peel the pears and quarter them – do not remove the cores yet.
Immerse the pear segments in the liquid, and simmer on very low for about fifteen minutes, making sure that the pears are covered by liquid at all times.
You may add an additional squeeze of lemon juice to prevent discolouration.
Turn off the heat, let the pan and its contents cool.
Remove pears from liquid, and with a coffee spoon remove the cores. It’s much easier now that they are cooked.
Bring the liquid back to a boil, and thicken it slightly. Place the pears in a deep dish and cover them with the syrup. When cool enough, you can flatten a sheet of plastic wrap over them and place them in the refrigerator.
Keeps for several days.
You will note that this recipe is exceedingly simple. It can be modified, and you may want to ‘personalize’ it by doing so.
What I do is add a splash of strong coffee in the cooking liquid, which gives it depth and character. I also use more sugar than I have specified above, because I like syrup. For a very bright flavour you can add a thick curl of orange zest, as well as two or three green cardamom pods. If you throw in a handful of raisins when reboiling the syrup they will plump up nicely.
To serve, heat up two segments per person or more in some of the syrup.
Slide into a dessert bowl and top with a big luscious scoop of vanilla ice cream.
There are also OTHER things you can do with warm poached pears and syrup – they too may include ice cream, or whipped cream, if you prefer – but I do not wish to shock you.
So I shall not go into details.
Please use your imagination.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX
. All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Apple pie with ice cream is one example, but the other one that naturally springs to mind is poached pears. Also with a scoop of ice cream.
The texture of the pears, the CREAMINESS of the ice cream……
Really, it’s like totally innocent happy sex in a bowl.
Go ahead, lick the spoon and have some more.
Then rest replete, grinning.
Life is good.
To achieve this wonderful state of silly bliss, you will need to do just a little simple preparatory work.
POACHED PEARS
Four firm pears.
Four cups water.
Two cups sugar.
Two TBS lemon juice.
Heat water, sugar, and lemon juice in a saucepan till the sugar dissolves.
Meanwhile peel the pears and quarter them – do not remove the cores yet.
Immerse the pear segments in the liquid, and simmer on very low for about fifteen minutes, making sure that the pears are covered by liquid at all times.
You may add an additional squeeze of lemon juice to prevent discolouration.
Turn off the heat, let the pan and its contents cool.
Remove pears from liquid, and with a coffee spoon remove the cores. It’s much easier now that they are cooked.
Bring the liquid back to a boil, and thicken it slightly. Place the pears in a deep dish and cover them with the syrup. When cool enough, you can flatten a sheet of plastic wrap over them and place them in the refrigerator.
Keeps for several days.
You will note that this recipe is exceedingly simple. It can be modified, and you may want to ‘personalize’ it by doing so.
What I do is add a splash of strong coffee in the cooking liquid, which gives it depth and character. I also use more sugar than I have specified above, because I like syrup. For a very bright flavour you can add a thick curl of orange zest, as well as two or three green cardamom pods. If you throw in a handful of raisins when reboiling the syrup they will plump up nicely.
To serve, heat up two segments per person or more in some of the syrup.
Slide into a dessert bowl and top with a big luscious scoop of vanilla ice cream.
There are also OTHER things you can do with warm poached pears and syrup – they too may include ice cream, or whipped cream, if you prefer – but I do not wish to shock you.
So I shall not go into details.
Please use your imagination.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX
. All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, April 07, 2011
DUTCH TOLERANCE NON-EXISTENT
In a move motivated almost primarily by animus against Jews and Muslims, as is made clear by the tenor of the public noise that has preceded it, the Dutch Government will soon ban kosher slaughter and halal butchering.
Henceforth the animal must be entirely unconscious before being killed.
The commentary on webpages and underneath articles in the Dutch language press make it overwhelmingly clear that the Dutch loathe and despise all other religions than their own narrow branches of Calvinism and Catholicism.
In particular, many of them think that Judaism and Islam are primitive and barbaric superstitions which are absurd, backwards, and repulsive.
READERS OF DE TELEGRAAF
As just one slew of examples, those who also read Dutch may scope out the reactions underneath this article: http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/9479931/__Voor_verdoofd_ritueel_slachten__.html?p=1,2
Sorry, I cannot be bothered to translate any of it, as I am more than a little nauseated every time I read Dutch pigheadedness and bigotry in its native tongue.
Ze kunnen verrekken, die venijnige Ollandsche betweters en gal-spuwers.
THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE
The other thing that the discourse as usual makes clear is that the Dutch are convinced that they are a shining beacon of light and civilization which barbarians such as Jews, Muslims, Yankees, and other horrid barbarians would do well to emulate.
Long-time readers will remember that the contrary has been highlighted a number of times on this blog.
The vote in the parliament will have a majority, now that the Dutch Labour Party has thrown its support behind the proposal. Debate next week is expected to be short, and the subsequent vote quick. The sentiment moving the issue is primarily anti-Muslim, but a sneering dislike for Jews has also been evident in the ranks.
Proposing the ban: PvdD (Party for Animals - basically the political wing of the ecoterrorist and Vegan movements).
In favour: PvdA (labour), PVV (Geert Wilders), SP (rebranded Stalinists), Green Left (rabid fringe), D66 (just plain confused).
Still not decided: VVD (Liberals).
Opposing: CDA (Christian Democrats), Christian Union, and SGP.
I shall henceforth avoid all Dutch food products, as well as Netherlandish alcoholic beverages.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Henceforth the animal must be entirely unconscious before being killed.
The commentary on webpages and underneath articles in the Dutch language press make it overwhelmingly clear that the Dutch loathe and despise all other religions than their own narrow branches of Calvinism and Catholicism.
In particular, many of them think that Judaism and Islam are primitive and barbaric superstitions which are absurd, backwards, and repulsive.
READERS OF DE TELEGRAAF
As just one slew of examples, those who also read Dutch may scope out the reactions underneath this article: http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/9479931/__Voor_verdoofd_ritueel_slachten__.html?p=1,2
Sorry, I cannot be bothered to translate any of it, as I am more than a little nauseated every time I read Dutch pigheadedness and bigotry in its native tongue.
Ze kunnen verrekken, die venijnige Ollandsche betweters en gal-spuwers.
THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE
The other thing that the discourse as usual makes clear is that the Dutch are convinced that they are a shining beacon of light and civilization which barbarians such as Jews, Muslims, Yankees, and other horrid barbarians would do well to emulate.
Long-time readers will remember that the contrary has been highlighted a number of times on this blog.
The vote in the parliament will have a majority, now that the Dutch Labour Party has thrown its support behind the proposal. Debate next week is expected to be short, and the subsequent vote quick. The sentiment moving the issue is primarily anti-Muslim, but a sneering dislike for Jews has also been evident in the ranks.
Proposing the ban: PvdD (Party for Animals - basically the political wing of the ecoterrorist and Vegan movements).
In favour: PvdA (labour), PVV (Geert Wilders), SP (rebranded Stalinists), Green Left (rabid fringe), D66 (just plain confused).
Still not decided: VVD (Liberals).
Opposing: CDA (Christian Democrats), Christian Union, and SGP.
I shall henceforth avoid all Dutch food products, as well as Netherlandish alcoholic beverages.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
OVULATION - YOUR FRIEND THE FERTILE PHASE
Hafiz is pregnant! Finally! That is to say, his lady wife is pregnant, he isn’t.
Though he did have a part to play in this circumstance. After all this time.
And much to his own surprise.
[Hafiz isn’t his real name but a title. The word comes from a root meaning to protect, to vouchsafe, to guard, and is commonly applied to people who have memorized the Koran.]
Previously, Hafiz was remarkably uninformed about sex. This became fully apparent when he worried that after several years of marriage he and his lady wife still had no children.
His misfortune was a source of jest to his coworkers, and profound worry to his parents.
Hafiz is thirty two. His bibi (wife) is twenty four years old. They have been married for nearly five years.
He didn't understand why no pregnancy had resulted, despite what may very well have been exceedingly valiant efforts.
As it turns out, the young couple's approach to the matter was all wrong.
Unlike many Pakistanis, Hafiz had not consulted the internet to find out about sex, but he was probably just as ill-informed as many who have. Though he didn't know about the bust-sizes of Indian celebrities and American porno-actresses (extremely popular research subjects for many of his countrymen), he had NO clue about ovulation.
THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE
Once his lack of knowledge had become clear, I proceeded to delicately explain certain biological facts to him over coffee.
Menstruation usually lasts around three days. Then the body starts preparing for the next period, producing various hormones that lead to the development of an egg (ovum). The egg, which is so small as to be invisible (he knew that part) travels down a canal (fallopian tube) from the ovary (where it was produced) to the uterus (womb - we needed to look that up in an English-Urdu dictionary).
On average, it takes fourteen and a half days from the start of menstruation to arrival of the egg in the uterus. At which point, fertilization can take place.
If that does not happen, the egg breaks apart, and within two weeks the wall of the womb discards material that is no longer needed.
"Menstruation?"
Yes, menstruation. Copious blood flow.
He blanched a bit.
I also clarified that there was a fair amount of variation possible. The fertile phase could happen as early as a week after the beginning of the menstrual period, or as late as three weeks, though most women will have it between a week and ten or eleven days after menstruation has stopped.
Contemplating menstruation made him somewhat greenish.
At which point, for my own entertainment entirely, I laid it on even thicker.
"Exceptionally young ladies, and women whose weight range is outside the norm - by which I mean far too thin, anorexic, OR too thick, like big automobiles - may experience irregularity."
Irregularity, in this case, means delayed menstruation, cycles that are either too slow or too fast, or may not happen at all - "She simply bloats up like sponge, swelling, swelling, swelling, then one day, boom!"
His eyes nearly exploded when I said that. Just a joke!
"And some women, my dear Hafiz, may have exceptionally heavy flows, prolonged cramps, or spotting..."
Apparently he didn't need to know that much.
THE FERTILE PHASE
Anyhow, what all this means is that healthy women who are already fully grown, and are within a normal weight range and not under a lot of pressure and stress, will have a regular cycle of roughly 27 or 28 days, like clockwork. Usually the same number of days each time, with only very minor variation.
At approximately the half way point, they will be fertile (for approximately less than 24 hours).
"Ergo, the first week after the period ends, and the last week before it happens again, are probably NOT ideal for you to go home and see your wife."
Hafiz spends most of his time in a hotel owned by his 'cousin-brother', and also works full time at another place in the city, as well as helping out in a friend's coffee shop.
His wife and parents live outside San Francisco.
I advised him that it might be best to take different days off.
The best chance of "winning the lottery" is about 10 days after it ends.
Dude, you really must pay more attention to these things.
It really would help if you knew more about your wife.
And her body. Especially how it works. Much more.
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Women near ovulation experience changes in the cervix, in mucus produced by the cervix, and in their basal body temperature. Furthermore, many women also experience secondary fertility signs including Mittelschmerz (pain associated with ovulation) and a heightened sense of smell.
Many women experience heightened sexual desire in the several days immediately before ovulation. One study concluded that women subtly improve their facial attractiveness during ovulation and period.
[[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovulation.]
REPRODUCTION, WE ARE HAVING, IS IT?
Our conversation took place at the end of September.
I met Hafiz again yesterday evening.
This time I had to explain what the words 'mazel tov' mean.
Which was a lot less sticky.
They're expecting a little Hafiz in another five months.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Though he did have a part to play in this circumstance. After all this time.
And much to his own surprise.
[Hafiz isn’t his real name but a title. The word comes from a root meaning to protect, to vouchsafe, to guard, and is commonly applied to people who have memorized the Koran.]
Previously, Hafiz was remarkably uninformed about sex. This became fully apparent when he worried that after several years of marriage he and his lady wife still had no children.
His misfortune was a source of jest to his coworkers, and profound worry to his parents.
Hafiz is thirty two. His bibi (wife) is twenty four years old. They have been married for nearly five years.
He didn't understand why no pregnancy had resulted, despite what may very well have been exceedingly valiant efforts.
As it turns out, the young couple's approach to the matter was all wrong.
Unlike many Pakistanis, Hafiz had not consulted the internet to find out about sex, but he was probably just as ill-informed as many who have. Though he didn't know about the bust-sizes of Indian celebrities and American porno-actresses (extremely popular research subjects for many of his countrymen), he had NO clue about ovulation.
THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE
Once his lack of knowledge had become clear, I proceeded to delicately explain certain biological facts to him over coffee.
Menstruation usually lasts around three days. Then the body starts preparing for the next period, producing various hormones that lead to the development of an egg (ovum). The egg, which is so small as to be invisible (he knew that part) travels down a canal (fallopian tube) from the ovary (where it was produced) to the uterus (womb - we needed to look that up in an English-Urdu dictionary).
On average, it takes fourteen and a half days from the start of menstruation to arrival of the egg in the uterus. At which point, fertilization can take place.
If that does not happen, the egg breaks apart, and within two weeks the wall of the womb discards material that is no longer needed.
"Menstruation?"
Yes, menstruation. Copious blood flow.
He blanched a bit.
I also clarified that there was a fair amount of variation possible. The fertile phase could happen as early as a week after the beginning of the menstrual period, or as late as three weeks, though most women will have it between a week and ten or eleven days after menstruation has stopped.
Contemplating menstruation made him somewhat greenish.
At which point, for my own entertainment entirely, I laid it on even thicker.
"Exceptionally young ladies, and women whose weight range is outside the norm - by which I mean far too thin, anorexic, OR too thick, like big automobiles - may experience irregularity."
Irregularity, in this case, means delayed menstruation, cycles that are either too slow or too fast, or may not happen at all - "She simply bloats up like sponge, swelling, swelling, swelling, then one day, boom!"
His eyes nearly exploded when I said that. Just a joke!
"And some women, my dear Hafiz, may have exceptionally heavy flows, prolonged cramps, or spotting..."
Apparently he didn't need to know that much.
THE FERTILE PHASE
Anyhow, what all this means is that healthy women who are already fully grown, and are within a normal weight range and not under a lot of pressure and stress, will have a regular cycle of roughly 27 or 28 days, like clockwork. Usually the same number of days each time, with only very minor variation.
At approximately the half way point, they will be fertile (for approximately less than 24 hours).
"Ergo, the first week after the period ends, and the last week before it happens again, are probably NOT ideal for you to go home and see your wife."
Hafiz spends most of his time in a hotel owned by his 'cousin-brother', and also works full time at another place in the city, as well as helping out in a friend's coffee shop.
His wife and parents live outside San Francisco.
I advised him that it might be best to take different days off.
The best chance of "winning the lottery" is about 10 days after it ends.
Dude, you really must pay more attention to these things.
It really would help if you knew more about your wife.
And her body. Especially how it works. Much more.
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Women near ovulation experience changes in the cervix, in mucus produced by the cervix, and in their basal body temperature. Furthermore, many women also experience secondary fertility signs including Mittelschmerz (pain associated with ovulation) and a heightened sense of smell.
Many women experience heightened sexual desire in the several days immediately before ovulation. One study concluded that women subtly improve their facial attractiveness during ovulation and period.
[[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovulation.]
REPRODUCTION, WE ARE HAVING, IS IT?
Our conversation took place at the end of September.
I met Hafiz again yesterday evening.
This time I had to explain what the words 'mazel tov' mean.
Which was a lot less sticky.
They're expecting a little Hafiz in another five months.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
YOUR LIFE ISN'T THAT GOOD
Some premises are just too absurd to take seriously. One of my acquaintances is convinced that social networking sites are the culmination of human development, an achievement of epic proportions.
Why, there hasn’t been anything so stupendous ever!
He probably tweets that to everyone he knows, but I wouldn’t know – I don’t twitter.
Heck, I barely even facebook.
I’ll admit that my sensibilities were formed during what more advanced humans almost certainly regard as the stone age.
Definitely BC. Before computers.
You know, there used to be a time when people read blocks of text that consisted of several hundred to several thousand words. Literally, hundreds of sentences. And they dealt with commas and colons, periods and quotation marks.
Such things were kept on external storage devices known as books.
[Also called ‘tomes’, ‘volumes’, ‘hardcovers’, ‘softcovers’, ‘printed matter’, ‘published works’, and several other unclear terms.]
I am reminded of this because of a passenger on the bus the other day.
Why DO young men air their balls?
I’m not even sure what portion of his anatomy was in contact with the seat. It wasn’t any part of his bottom, judging by where his pants were. Perhaps his lower back.
Slumped in his seat, legs spread out, pelvis thrust forward and up. For all the world as if he was presenting his testicles on a platter for adoration.
I can only assume that the damned things smelled bad and he was trying to get as far away from them as possible. Either that, or elevating them to near eye-level so that he could talk to them if the need arose.
Not that it would.
He was far too busy ‘texting’.
Probably sharing fond thoughts of his eggs with his fraternity brothers.
You never see women sitting in that position.
While I do not doubt that young ladies today also ‘text’, their postures prove that the brainless "texticle-vent" position is NOT essential to that activity.
In fact, I doubt that they hardly EVER even text about sperm factories.
Some of them may have been at near eye-level with the little fellows recently, but they do not wish to relive the moment for the entire bus ride.
It is quite likely that the occasion is not in the forefront of their minds.
Nor do they have the need to publicly lift up……… whatever it is that they have down there.
Boys, have you thought of using soap? Perhaps if you spent LESS on pizza and video games, and MORE on personal hygiene products, the need to air out your stinky friends might not be so pressing.
Everyone else might appreciate it too.
As a matter of common courtesy, decent comportment, civilized etiquette.
And standard operational cleanliness.
In fact, there are books on the subject of cleanliness, common courtesy, decent comportment, and civilized etiquette.
Tomes, even.
As well as volumes, hardcovers, softcovers, printed matter, and other published works.
AFTERTHOUGHT
You can probably understand why I do not tweet. Or text.
Using soap, reading books, and sitting upright discourage me from doing so.
And while I have little issue with anyone being at near eye-level with any part of my anatomy, public transit may not be the best place.
Plus I’d like to screen likely candidates first.
One has to be selective about these things.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Why, there hasn’t been anything so stupendous ever!
He probably tweets that to everyone he knows, but I wouldn’t know – I don’t twitter.
Heck, I barely even facebook.
I’ll admit that my sensibilities were formed during what more advanced humans almost certainly regard as the stone age.
Definitely BC. Before computers.
You know, there used to be a time when people read blocks of text that consisted of several hundred to several thousand words. Literally, hundreds of sentences. And they dealt with commas and colons, periods and quotation marks.
Such things were kept on external storage devices known as books.
[Also called ‘tomes’, ‘volumes’, ‘hardcovers’, ‘softcovers’, ‘printed matter’, ‘published works’, and several other unclear terms.]
I am reminded of this because of a passenger on the bus the other day.
Why DO young men air their balls?
I’m not even sure what portion of his anatomy was in contact with the seat. It wasn’t any part of his bottom, judging by where his pants were. Perhaps his lower back.
Slumped in his seat, legs spread out, pelvis thrust forward and up. For all the world as if he was presenting his testicles on a platter for adoration.
I can only assume that the damned things smelled bad and he was trying to get as far away from them as possible. Either that, or elevating them to near eye-level so that he could talk to them if the need arose.
Not that it would.
He was far too busy ‘texting’.
Probably sharing fond thoughts of his eggs with his fraternity brothers.
You never see women sitting in that position.
While I do not doubt that young ladies today also ‘text’, their postures prove that the brainless "texticle-vent" position is NOT essential to that activity.
In fact, I doubt that they hardly EVER even text about sperm factories.
Some of them may have been at near eye-level with the little fellows recently, but they do not wish to relive the moment for the entire bus ride.
It is quite likely that the occasion is not in the forefront of their minds.
Nor do they have the need to publicly lift up……… whatever it is that they have down there.
Boys, have you thought of using soap? Perhaps if you spent LESS on pizza and video games, and MORE on personal hygiene products, the need to air out your stinky friends might not be so pressing.
Everyone else might appreciate it too.
As a matter of common courtesy, decent comportment, civilized etiquette.
And standard operational cleanliness.
In fact, there are books on the subject of cleanliness, common courtesy, decent comportment, and civilized etiquette.
Tomes, even.
As well as volumes, hardcovers, softcovers, printed matter, and other published works.
AFTERTHOUGHT
You can probably understand why I do not tweet. Or text.
Using soap, reading books, and sitting upright discourage me from doing so.
And while I have little issue with anyone being at near eye-level with any part of my anatomy, public transit may not be the best place.
Plus I’d like to screen likely candidates first.
One has to be selective about these things.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
JUST SITTING HERE WITH MY FRIENDLY COMPUTER
There's no point in going home early tonight, as I know what she's wearing.
She's seeing that fellow and won't be home till late.
Since our affair ended she has become a different person.
It's really noticeable in her wardrobe.
She was always *wow*, now she's.... steaming.
[No, I don't want her back. Ever. Not after what she said to me when she dumped me last summer. She expresses herself very well, WHEN she expresses herself. It wasn't deliberately harsh, but Asperger types are not known for tact. They're wired for blunt, and she had kept all of it inside for a while. It's conclusively over. But she remains a roommate and a friend. Comments about her looking good are just an observation.]
Living together is sometimes... painful.
Even if both people are on the spectrum.
What can I say - I'm the sensitive type.
I never thought I'd actually say that.
"Hmmmph!
For several months I've been having dark gloomy moods, usually on weekends, but they're becoming more frequent and pervasive, and are now occurring during the work-week too. Fortunately I'm pretty good at hiding such things from my coworkers, who would be too blitheringly oblivious to notice or pay any attention in any case.
[Savage Kitten wouldn't notice unless I actually said something. She can't read body language worth squat. Aspergers.]
The office is where I hide out when things are not 100% oojah cum spiff.
Today by around teatime grey clouds gathered. You might not have notice it, but we're having foul weather her in San Francisco.
Not at street level but a dozen floors up.
It's that weird climate of ours.
Quiet. Empty. Only one person here. Not hungry.
I could go to the cigar bar..... oh wait, 'R' has a new boyfriend, 'D' keeps mentioning his lover, 'E' was showing off her hot hunkum last week, 'M' and 'K' were kissing each other........
Seeing all those raging hormones is mighty frustrating. They will exhibit so!
Nor do I want to hear the music there, as almost all song lyrics are about love, sex, breaking up, lust, hair, boobies, domestic bliss, trailer troubles.
That, too, is profoundly irritating.
Must remember NOT to rub other people's faces in it if it ever happens again.
NOT FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION
For some reason I am reminded of something several years ago, when I was working on a project that was winding down. A few weeks before my contract was up, I became the proud possessor of a stamp which said "controlled copy, property of the ... department, not for general circulation."
I knew my contract wouldn't be renewed, even though they were trying to find slots for everyone. My boss had arranged for his beautiful spambrained boyfriend to take over what remained of my desk, you see. It was obvious and blatant nepotism, but no one was interested in making a stink, for the good of the department.
In the week before the end, I visited the dirty book store and bought several fascinating and educational paperbacks.
'Saigon War Bride's Adventure', 'Piledriver Chicken', 'Prison Heat', 'Second Trimester Blues', 'Pigtail Princess', 'Paddle My Canoe', and others.
Over thirty books.
In those days such things were still widely available, still cheap.
On the last day I came in at five o'clock in the morning, and distributed the books to various empty desks and coffee rooms. Each one stamped "controlled copy, property of the ... department, not for general circulation."
Even as they were shaking my hand and saying what an absolute pleasure it had been to work with me, they had no clue. They never wigged.
I'm actually prouder of that than I am of the excellent work I did for that company.
I suspect that several of the engineers snatched whichever exemplar they discovered, and took it home to read at leisure. Several of them were bachelors, you see.
And keenly aware of that condition.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Small feminine readers may wish contact me directly: LETTER BOX.
If they do, I'll be tickled pink. All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
She's seeing that fellow and won't be home till late.
Since our affair ended she has become a different person.
It's really noticeable in her wardrobe.
She was always *wow*, now she's.... steaming.
[No, I don't want her back. Ever. Not after what she said to me when she dumped me last summer. She expresses herself very well, WHEN she expresses herself. It wasn't deliberately harsh, but Asperger types are not known for tact. They're wired for blunt, and she had kept all of it inside for a while. It's conclusively over. But she remains a roommate and a friend. Comments about her looking good are just an observation.]
Living together is sometimes... painful.
Even if both people are on the spectrum.
What can I say - I'm the sensitive type.
I never thought I'd actually say that.
"Hmmmph!
For several months I've been having dark gloomy moods, usually on weekends, but they're becoming more frequent and pervasive, and are now occurring during the work-week too. Fortunately I'm pretty good at hiding such things from my coworkers, who would be too blitheringly oblivious to notice or pay any attention in any case.
[Savage Kitten wouldn't notice unless I actually said something. She can't read body language worth squat. Aspergers.]
The office is where I hide out when things are not 100% oojah cum spiff.
Today by around teatime grey clouds gathered. You might not have notice it, but we're having foul weather her in San Francisco.
Not at street level but a dozen floors up.
It's that weird climate of ours.
Quiet. Empty. Only one person here. Not hungry.
I could go to the cigar bar..... oh wait, 'R' has a new boyfriend, 'D' keeps mentioning his lover, 'E' was showing off her hot hunkum last week, 'M' and 'K' were kissing each other........
Seeing all those raging hormones is mighty frustrating. They will exhibit so!
Nor do I want to hear the music there, as almost all song lyrics are about love, sex, breaking up, lust, hair, boobies, domestic bliss, trailer troubles.
That, too, is profoundly irritating.
Must remember NOT to rub other people's faces in it if it ever happens again.
NOT FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION
For some reason I am reminded of something several years ago, when I was working on a project that was winding down. A few weeks before my contract was up, I became the proud possessor of a stamp which said "controlled copy, property of the ... department, not for general circulation."
I knew my contract wouldn't be renewed, even though they were trying to find slots for everyone. My boss had arranged for his beautiful spambrained boyfriend to take over what remained of my desk, you see. It was obvious and blatant nepotism, but no one was interested in making a stink, for the good of the department.
In the week before the end, I visited the dirty book store and bought several fascinating and educational paperbacks.
'Saigon War Bride's Adventure', 'Piledriver Chicken', 'Prison Heat', 'Second Trimester Blues', 'Pigtail Princess', 'Paddle My Canoe', and others.
Over thirty books.
In those days such things were still widely available, still cheap.
On the last day I came in at five o'clock in the morning, and distributed the books to various empty desks and coffee rooms. Each one stamped "controlled copy, property of the ... department, not for general circulation."
Even as they were shaking my hand and saying what an absolute pleasure it had been to work with me, they had no clue. They never wigged.
I'm actually prouder of that than I am of the excellent work I did for that company.
I suspect that several of the engineers snatched whichever exemplar they discovered, and took it home to read at leisure. Several of them were bachelors, you see.
And keenly aware of that condition.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Small feminine readers may wish contact me directly: LETTER BOX.
If they do, I'll be tickled pink. All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
THIS POST IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE NUMBER NINE
It’s not just food. It’s also numbers. And textures. All of these, naturally, have colours associated with them.
And there’s a term for this: synesthesia.
[Synesthesia is when stimuli of one type correspond with and cause a mental echo of stimuli of another type. When colours and numbers or letters correspond, it's called grapheme-colour synesthesia
For a complete description of synesthesia, see this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia ]
No, it's not a handicap, it does not in any way interfere with normal life.
But your future employers do NOT need to know that.
You....... are special.
You can't work overtime because of your condition.
Either that or your support group is meeting tonight.
"I don't need an ergonomic keyboard, but everything around me has to be painted canary yellow so it doesn't aggravate my severe synesthesia!"
"Your predominantly green outfit is traumatizing me, don't you have any sympathy at all for victims of grapheme-colour synesthesia?
They're heartless, those normal people! Heartless!
I just wish I had thought of all this before I started working here.
Just think of the fun I could have had.
SENSE OF SOLIDARITY
That last one would have been appropriate on Saint Patrick's Day, of course.
But the Synesthesian Support Group will ALSO object to many other colourful holidays.
It's a matter of principle.
We feel strongly about OUR colours. You wouldn't understand.
Actually, I like almost all colours. But all of them mean different things. Eight is a warmer orange-y red than four, which is strawberry. Seven is a pale washed out blue (sometimes dull silver grey), and five is always dark forest green.
Nine resembles food, two is the exact hue of ice cubes - except if they're in a glass of whiskey, in which case they are obviously three (3.2).
Three is frequently the colour of custard (actually, that’s between 2.9 and three point one - three exactly is a lemon, and also the letter 'e').
Six? Six is rice-porridge. Sometimes you just NEED a warm bowl of six. Especially with a garnish of freshly chopped five.
U is greener than 2, but far too muddy. It needs an 'a' to make it look good.
Turmeric combines multiples of three with two, five, six, eight, and nine.
Three is the most beautiful number. And it smells like lemon grass.
There are some colours that are not associated with numbers or letters, and these are especially enjoyable. They have textures.
The orange yellow of certain fruit juices has always spoken strongly to me because it has a velvety feel rather like corduroy, whereas alternating dark and light woodgrain dances in several distances away from the eye - you just know it's sensuous and sexy, like firm peaches to the finger tips.
The medium-pale fresh green of gingko leaves feels like silk, imagine it on your skin.
Bitter chocolate has the mental texture of lace-edging for panties, the amber red of tea is the sensation of animal hair, and pale ivory feels tight, taut, and hot. But you can imagine it having a surface of uniform microscopic bumps.
Skin feels pale green, and rather like three.
SENSUAL OVERDRIVE
All of this jumped sharply into focus today when I realized why I like the exact spot in the office where I'm located.
It's between a pillar painted hot rusty orange (behind me) and a canary yellow one.
Warm hues, the very ones I've always enjoyed highlighting on my spreadsheets.
Past-due 100% open invoices are that specific orange, old partial payment issues are canary yellow.
Recent past dues are lemon.
My accounts-receivable spreadsheet glows at me, it feels solid and zesty, and I enjoy looking at it.
AND IT HAS NUMBERS AND LETTERS TOO!
My eyes are sheerly in heaven.
This might actually be better than a young lady wearing only fourteen and chocolate, or six with a chocolate of a microscopically bumpy texture.
Lots and lots of lovely chocolate over woodgrain of alternating dark and light.
Though nothing really beats running hands over the warm pale green.
It's gingko leafy.
My finger tips are mentally all a-twitter.
Peachy, even.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And there’s a term for this: synesthesia.
[Synesthesia is when stimuli of one type correspond with and cause a mental echo of stimuli of another type. When colours and numbers or letters correspond, it's called grapheme-colour synesthesia
For a complete description of synesthesia, see this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia ]
No, it's not a handicap, it does not in any way interfere with normal life.
But your future employers do NOT need to know that.
You....... are special.
You can't work overtime because of your condition.
Either that or your support group is meeting tonight.
"I don't need an ergonomic keyboard, but everything around me has to be painted canary yellow so it doesn't aggravate my severe synesthesia!"
"Your predominantly green outfit is traumatizing me, don't you have any sympathy at all for victims of grapheme-colour synesthesia?
They're heartless, those normal people! Heartless!
I just wish I had thought of all this before I started working here.
Just think of the fun I could have had.
SENSE OF SOLIDARITY
That last one would have been appropriate on Saint Patrick's Day, of course.
But the Synesthesian Support Group will ALSO object to many other colourful holidays.
It's a matter of principle.
We feel strongly about OUR colours. You wouldn't understand.
Actually, I like almost all colours. But all of them mean different things. Eight is a warmer orange-y red than four, which is strawberry. Seven is a pale washed out blue (sometimes dull silver grey), and five is always dark forest green.
Nine resembles food, two is the exact hue of ice cubes - except if they're in a glass of whiskey, in which case they are obviously three (3.2).
Three is frequently the colour of custard (actually, that’s between 2.9 and three point one - three exactly is a lemon, and also the letter 'e').
Six? Six is rice-porridge. Sometimes you just NEED a warm bowl of six. Especially with a garnish of freshly chopped five.
U is greener than 2, but far too muddy. It needs an 'a' to make it look good.
Turmeric combines multiples of three with two, five, six, eight, and nine.
Three is the most beautiful number. And it smells like lemon grass.
There are some colours that are not associated with numbers or letters, and these are especially enjoyable. They have textures.
The orange yellow of certain fruit juices has always spoken strongly to me because it has a velvety feel rather like corduroy, whereas alternating dark and light woodgrain dances in several distances away from the eye - you just know it's sensuous and sexy, like firm peaches to the finger tips.
The medium-pale fresh green of gingko leaves feels like silk, imagine it on your skin.
Bitter chocolate has the mental texture of lace-edging for panties, the amber red of tea is the sensation of animal hair, and pale ivory feels tight, taut, and hot. But you can imagine it having a surface of uniform microscopic bumps.
Skin feels pale green, and rather like three.
SENSUAL OVERDRIVE
All of this jumped sharply into focus today when I realized why I like the exact spot in the office where I'm located.
It's between a pillar painted hot rusty orange (behind me) and a canary yellow one.
Warm hues, the very ones I've always enjoyed highlighting on my spreadsheets.
Past-due 100% open invoices are that specific orange, old partial payment issues are canary yellow.
Recent past dues are lemon.
My accounts-receivable spreadsheet glows at me, it feels solid and zesty, and I enjoy looking at it.
AND IT HAS NUMBERS AND LETTERS TOO!
My eyes are sheerly in heaven.
This might actually be better than a young lady wearing only fourteen and chocolate, or six with a chocolate of a microscopically bumpy texture.
Lots and lots of lovely chocolate over woodgrain of alternating dark and light.
Though nothing really beats running hands over the warm pale green.
It's gingko leafy.
My finger tips are mentally all a-twitter.
Peachy, even.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, April 04, 2011
CHINESE IN INDONESIA: HEFTY DOLLOP OF BILE FROM THE NATIONAL REVIEW
Recently a friend brought an article in the National Review to my attention. The article makes clear that the National Review has relaxed its previously not-too rock-bottom standards, and now caters to a more rabid crowd than ever before.
Possibly even Teapartiers, definitely ignorant swine.
The article in question:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/260288/who-attacked-lara-logan-and-why-andrew-c-mccarthy
There are a number of things wrong with the article, which seeks to establish a case for religiously sanctioned rape of non-Muslims, and quotes from both the Koran and the Hadiths to prove that Muslims who rape are doing so as part of their religious tradition.
Quoting from holy books to prove what a bunch of right bastards those other people are, now where have we seen THAT before?
Oh yeah, the Christians have been doing that for hundreds of years!
Citing the epidemic of rape by immigrants in Sweden as a paradigm is also suspect - brutality is what one should always expected of the European lower classes, irrespective of their skin hue. Europeans complaining about sexual violence is, a priori, suspect in any case, considering the sexual assault on the third world by Europeans in the past generation.
The world should rather fear the raging hormones of Western Europeans. The Thais, Philippinos, and Cambodians, who see vast swarms of European sex-tourists, would probably agree.
As would the trafficked women in the brothels of Hamburg, Rotterdam, and London.
Europeans and sex are, conceivably, an unharmonious combination. Certainly there's plenty of evidence that their societies are dysfunctional on that score.
QUESTION: WHO ATTACKED AND WHY
But what particularly caught my ire was this:
"It happened in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, in the riots that led to Suharto’s fall — as Sharon Lapkin recounts, human-rights groups interviewed more than 100 women who had been captured and gang raped, including many Chinese women, who were told this was their fate as non-Muslims."
Right off the top, that’s horsepucky. The animosity towards Chinese in Indonesia is because the Chinese are seen as the business class, the wealthy stratum of society, and the money-lenders by whom the poor peasants and urban labourers feel exploited.
That is also their role in the Philippines, though to a somewhat lesser extent.
Malaysians have similar attitudes towards the Chinese, as do many other South-East Asian societies.
In most of those countries there are Chinese businessmen who are hand-in-glove with corrupt politicians, managing their investments and enterprises, helping them launder the siphoned public funds.
Blaming violence against the Chinese on Islam is ridiculous.
Hatred for Chinese in South-East Asia has to do with perceived wealth, irrespective of religious community and often irrespective of any reality too, as many of the Chinese in those countries are barely able to keep their heads above water even in the best of times.
Not all South-East Asian Chinese are well off. But the idea that they are drives men mad.
The Hindu Balinese were more savage in their slaughter of ethnic Chinese during the late sixties than even the Javanese. So were several tribal groupings in Borneo, Celebes, and the easternmost Islands. We need not even mention the Dayaks, as among them any excuse to revert to tribal warfare is avidly welcomed.
And it's not just the Malayo-Polynesian part of South-east Asia.
Remember the boat people? They were primarily ethnic Chinese who were driven out of Vietnam, then raped by Thais and tossed overboard to drown, or had their throats slit.
The perpetrators were NOT Muslims.
Violence against Chinese in the post-colonialized societies of South East Asia is NOT a religious issue, it's ethnic hatred, pure and simple.
That turgid propaganda piece was particularly offensive in its attempt to ascribe what happened in the Chinese districts of Jakarta when Suharto lost power to Islamic attitudes.
"It happened in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, in the riots that led to Suharto’s fall — as Sharon Lapkin recounts, human-rights groups interviewed more than 100 women who had been captured and gang raped, including many Chinese women, who were told this was their fate as non-Muslims."
At that time, Islamic influence was still held in check AND at arms length by the authorities.
Racial hatred of the Chinese, already part of the divide and rule programme under the Dutch, had flourished and been encouraged by the Indonesian government, and that hatred was never more rampant than during the Suharto years.
It was a fundament of the political strategy to keep all groups under control.
The Chinese were the designated victim in case majority groups got too feisty.
That hatred had earlier come to a head during the months immediately following the Lubang Buaya killings (1965), in which communists were hunted down and slaughtered. What was truly AMAZING at that time was that the VAST MAJORITY of those alleged communists were, in fact, members of the Chinese community, followed closely by members of certain other "business" communities.
[Note, for instance, that the Arab money lender class also largely disappeared.]
Nevertheless, most of the dead were ethnically Chinese - probably about two million people, though some estimates range as high as five million.
Their commercial acumen, and their race, were their death warrants.
INDONESIAN APARTHEID
Since the late sixties, Chinese in Indonesia were classified as foreigners (many had been there for several generations, some Chinese communities in the Dutch East Indies had existed for centuries), required to take Indonesian surnames in lieu of anything that sounded too Chinese, required to profess a religion, excluded from government employ and the military, legally discriminated against both as a matter of public policy and widely encouraged practice, forbidden to use the Chinese written language in any public context whatsoever - contrast that with the shop signs in our Chinatowns and the Chinese newspapers commonly available in the Bay Area - and legally excluded from residence in several districts, attending certain universities or limited to a rigid quota, and kept out of the army.
The army was the road to political power for many Indonesians during the Suharto years, and Suharto, like most Indonesian military men, had a few pet Chinese businessmen who ran his financial empire. They were very visible, and despite their Indonesianized surnames and pretenses, they were very clearly Chinese, known to be Chinese, identified as such, and thoroughly hated because of it.
WHO WAS ATTACKED AND WHY
It was that long-standing and virulent tradition of anti-Chinese venom that, combined with mass rage at Suharto, erupted in 1998.
The destruction of Chinese neighborhoods, looting of Chinese shops, and mass rape of Chinese women, had NOTHING to do with Islamic attitudes about females.
It was aimed SPECIFICALLY at the Chinese in Jakarta and other cities.
And there is evidence that certain elements in the government and military at that time encouraged it.
So, to have that author opportunistically snatch events which most Americans do not understand and have probably never heard of, and use them to bolster his own rather breathless and foaming at the mouth propaganda tract, was not only appalling, it was sickening.
It was, to put it bluntly, loathsome.
Disgusting.
Foul, bestial, odious, and depraved.
And, in that it overlooked the real motivations, and the background of those events, flagrantly racist.
It was racist toward the Chinese, most particularly racist towards the Indonesian Chinese.
Frankly, I am incredibly offended by both the National Review for running that trash, as well as Andrew C. McCarthy for writing it.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence. ==========================================================================
Possibly even Teapartiers, definitely ignorant swine.
The article in question:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/260288/who-attacked-lara-logan-and-why-andrew-c-mccarthy
There are a number of things wrong with the article, which seeks to establish a case for religiously sanctioned rape of non-Muslims, and quotes from both the Koran and the Hadiths to prove that Muslims who rape are doing so as part of their religious tradition.
Quoting from holy books to prove what a bunch of right bastards those other people are, now where have we seen THAT before?
Oh yeah, the Christians have been doing that for hundreds of years!
Citing the epidemic of rape by immigrants in Sweden as a paradigm is also suspect - brutality is what one should always expected of the European lower classes, irrespective of their skin hue. Europeans complaining about sexual violence is, a priori, suspect in any case, considering the sexual assault on the third world by Europeans in the past generation.
The world should rather fear the raging hormones of Western Europeans. The Thais, Philippinos, and Cambodians, who see vast swarms of European sex-tourists, would probably agree.
As would the trafficked women in the brothels of Hamburg, Rotterdam, and London.
Europeans and sex are, conceivably, an unharmonious combination. Certainly there's plenty of evidence that their societies are dysfunctional on that score.
QUESTION: WHO ATTACKED AND WHY
But what particularly caught my ire was this:
"It happened in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, in the riots that led to Suharto’s fall — as Sharon Lapkin recounts, human-rights groups interviewed more than 100 women who had been captured and gang raped, including many Chinese women, who were told this was their fate as non-Muslims."
Right off the top, that’s horsepucky. The animosity towards Chinese in Indonesia is because the Chinese are seen as the business class, the wealthy stratum of society, and the money-lenders by whom the poor peasants and urban labourers feel exploited.
That is also their role in the Philippines, though to a somewhat lesser extent.
Malaysians have similar attitudes towards the Chinese, as do many other South-East Asian societies.
In most of those countries there are Chinese businessmen who are hand-in-glove with corrupt politicians, managing their investments and enterprises, helping them launder the siphoned public funds.
Blaming violence against the Chinese on Islam is ridiculous.
Hatred for Chinese in South-East Asia has to do with perceived wealth, irrespective of religious community and often irrespective of any reality too, as many of the Chinese in those countries are barely able to keep their heads above water even in the best of times.
Not all South-East Asian Chinese are well off. But the idea that they are drives men mad.
The Hindu Balinese were more savage in their slaughter of ethnic Chinese during the late sixties than even the Javanese. So were several tribal groupings in Borneo, Celebes, and the easternmost Islands. We need not even mention the Dayaks, as among them any excuse to revert to tribal warfare is avidly welcomed.
And it's not just the Malayo-Polynesian part of South-east Asia.
Remember the boat people? They were primarily ethnic Chinese who were driven out of Vietnam, then raped by Thais and tossed overboard to drown, or had their throats slit.
The perpetrators were NOT Muslims.
Violence against Chinese in the post-colonialized societies of South East Asia is NOT a religious issue, it's ethnic hatred, pure and simple.
That turgid propaganda piece was particularly offensive in its attempt to ascribe what happened in the Chinese districts of Jakarta when Suharto lost power to Islamic attitudes.
"It happened in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, in the riots that led to Suharto’s fall — as Sharon Lapkin recounts, human-rights groups interviewed more than 100 women who had been captured and gang raped, including many Chinese women, who were told this was their fate as non-Muslims."
At that time, Islamic influence was still held in check AND at arms length by the authorities.
Racial hatred of the Chinese, already part of the divide and rule programme under the Dutch, had flourished and been encouraged by the Indonesian government, and that hatred was never more rampant than during the Suharto years.
It was a fundament of the political strategy to keep all groups under control.
The Chinese were the designated victim in case majority groups got too feisty.
That hatred had earlier come to a head during the months immediately following the Lubang Buaya killings (1965), in which communists were hunted down and slaughtered. What was truly AMAZING at that time was that the VAST MAJORITY of those alleged communists were, in fact, members of the Chinese community, followed closely by members of certain other "business" communities.
[Note, for instance, that the Arab money lender class also largely disappeared.]
Nevertheless, most of the dead were ethnically Chinese - probably about two million people, though some estimates range as high as five million.
Their commercial acumen, and their race, were their death warrants.
INDONESIAN APARTHEID
Since the late sixties, Chinese in Indonesia were classified as foreigners (many had been there for several generations, some Chinese communities in the Dutch East Indies had existed for centuries), required to take Indonesian surnames in lieu of anything that sounded too Chinese, required to profess a religion, excluded from government employ and the military, legally discriminated against both as a matter of public policy and widely encouraged practice, forbidden to use the Chinese written language in any public context whatsoever - contrast that with the shop signs in our Chinatowns and the Chinese newspapers commonly available in the Bay Area - and legally excluded from residence in several districts, attending certain universities or limited to a rigid quota, and kept out of the army.
The army was the road to political power for many Indonesians during the Suharto years, and Suharto, like most Indonesian military men, had a few pet Chinese businessmen who ran his financial empire. They were very visible, and despite their Indonesianized surnames and pretenses, they were very clearly Chinese, known to be Chinese, identified as such, and thoroughly hated because of it.
WHO WAS ATTACKED AND WHY
It was that long-standing and virulent tradition of anti-Chinese venom that, combined with mass rage at Suharto, erupted in 1998.
The destruction of Chinese neighborhoods, looting of Chinese shops, and mass rape of Chinese women, had NOTHING to do with Islamic attitudes about females.
It was aimed SPECIFICALLY at the Chinese in Jakarta and other cities.
And there is evidence that certain elements in the government and military at that time encouraged it.
So, to have that author opportunistically snatch events which most Americans do not understand and have probably never heard of, and use them to bolster his own rather breathless and foaming at the mouth propaganda tract, was not only appalling, it was sickening.
It was, to put it bluntly, loathsome.
Disgusting.
Foul, bestial, odious, and depraved.
And, in that it overlooked the real motivations, and the background of those events, flagrantly racist.
It was racist toward the Chinese, most particularly racist towards the Indonesian Chinese.
Frankly, I am incredibly offended by both the National Review for running that trash, as well as Andrew C. McCarthy for writing it.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence. ==========================================================================
OUR ROWDY ALLIES
When I came home yesterday evening, Savage Kitten immediately mentioned that she couldn’t tell what it was, maybe a cat or a.........
"It was a raccoon", I said. A raccoon.
See, that's what happens when two people live together for a long time, even if they aren't lovers (anymore). They automatically finish each other's sentences.
Especially if the other person is talking about some sheerly fascinating roadkill at the intersection up the street.
Scientific curiosity - just one of those charming characteristics we have in common.
I think we both grieved for the raccoon.
It's sad when one of your neighbors dies.
THE BEASTS
There is a surprisingly large animal population in the San Francisco.
In addition to raccoons, we also have the occasional grinning possum, a multitude of hungry cats - ladies, do NOT leave your baby out all night, you'll never see him again - and visiting coyotes.
Plus birds.
The birds are the most obvious local animals.
Pigeons, starlings, crows.
Pigeons are flying poo, starlings are belligerently territorial and attack pedestrians during the breeding season, and crows treat humans as equals, which is very tolerant of them.
We may be bigger than the crows, but we can't fly nearly as well. So it all balances out.
Peregrine falcons - a sparse population in the Financial District, where they compete with savage suburbanites for small creatures to kill and eat.
We also have parrots.
I hardly see the parrots - they live in the park further down the road - but I can hear them. They often congregate behind the building in the morning, or fly overhead when I'm shaving.
Loud, raucous, gregarious.
Nature's little thugs.
Birds and humans are very similar.
Pigeons are like shoppers at a bargain outlet.
Starlings are feisty and inquisitive urbanites.
Crows are scam-artists, opportunists, good neighbors.
And parrots are a gang of rowdy schoolkids when the teacher isn't looking.
These parrots are a relatively new flock.
The famous Telegraph Hill flock has been around for over a decade, as has the lesser-known Dolores Street Palms gang. This bunch is probably a satellite of Telegraph Hill, establishing a new territory for themselves.
The scrappy little buggers are increasing, boruch Hashem.
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Red-masked Parakeets average about 33 cm (13 in) long, of which half is the tail. They are bright green with a mostly red head on which the elongated pale eye-ring is conspicuous; the nape is green. Also, the lesser and median underwing coverts are red, and there is some red on the neck, the thighs, and the leading edge of the wings. Juveniles have green plumage, until their first red feathers appear at around the age of four months. Its call is two-syllabled, harsh and loud.
[SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-masked_Parakeet ]
Good thing they're vegetarians.
That means they won't compete with the crows.
San Francisco NEEDS more, many more, intelligent animals.
The raccoons and falcons by themselves just aren't enough to keep the suburbanites at bay.
And while the starlings do yeoman service savaging pedestrians, they're just too cheeky to be much use.
I've given up on the cats entirely. Useless.
They're furry and they meow.
That's just not enough.
========================================================================== NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
"It was a raccoon", I said. A raccoon.
See, that's what happens when two people live together for a long time, even if they aren't lovers (anymore). They automatically finish each other's sentences.
Especially if the other person is talking about some sheerly fascinating roadkill at the intersection up the street.
Scientific curiosity - just one of those charming characteristics we have in common.
I think we both grieved for the raccoon.
It's sad when one of your neighbors dies.
THE BEASTS
There is a surprisingly large animal population in the San Francisco.
In addition to raccoons, we also have the occasional grinning possum, a multitude of hungry cats - ladies, do NOT leave your baby out all night, you'll never see him again - and visiting coyotes.
Plus birds.
The birds are the most obvious local animals.
Pigeons, starlings, crows.
Pigeons are flying poo, starlings are belligerently territorial and attack pedestrians during the breeding season, and crows treat humans as equals, which is very tolerant of them.
We may be bigger than the crows, but we can't fly nearly as well. So it all balances out.
Peregrine falcons - a sparse population in the Financial District, where they compete with savage suburbanites for small creatures to kill and eat.
We also have parrots.
I hardly see the parrots - they live in the park further down the road - but I can hear them. They often congregate behind the building in the morning, or fly overhead when I'm shaving.
Loud, raucous, gregarious.
Nature's little thugs.
Birds and humans are very similar.
Pigeons are like shoppers at a bargain outlet.
Starlings are feisty and inquisitive urbanites.
Crows are scam-artists, opportunists, good neighbors.
And parrots are a gang of rowdy schoolkids when the teacher isn't looking.
These parrots are a relatively new flock.
The famous Telegraph Hill flock has been around for over a decade, as has the lesser-known Dolores Street Palms gang. This bunch is probably a satellite of Telegraph Hill, establishing a new territory for themselves.
The scrappy little buggers are increasing, boruch Hashem.
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Red-masked Parakeets average about 33 cm (13 in) long, of which half is the tail. They are bright green with a mostly red head on which the elongated pale eye-ring is conspicuous; the nape is green. Also, the lesser and median underwing coverts are red, and there is some red on the neck, the thighs, and the leading edge of the wings. Juveniles have green plumage, until their first red feathers appear at around the age of four months. Its call is two-syllabled, harsh and loud.
[SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-masked_Parakeet ]
Good thing they're vegetarians.
That means they won't compete with the crows.
San Francisco NEEDS more, many more, intelligent animals.
The raccoons and falcons by themselves just aren't enough to keep the suburbanites at bay.
And while the starlings do yeoman service savaging pedestrians, they're just too cheeky to be much use.
I've given up on the cats entirely. Useless.
They're furry and they meow.
That's just not enough.
========================================================================== NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, April 03, 2011
OH WAITER, IS THAT A LIZARD?
In a conversation a few days ago the 'Bookselling Amphibian' remarked that they really had been the greatest generation, referring to the people who had become adults during the thirties and forties, and created the America of the nineteen fifties.
After all, they would enjoy a three martini lunch and still find their way back to the office.
[Bookselling Amphibian is a reader, frequent commenter, and friend of the blog. He sells books, he often signs himself as a smorgasbord of amphibians here. Hence the nick.]
THREE BIG BOWLS OF GIN
He does have a point. Admittedly cocktails were normal sized then. Not the big buckets of plonkum common today. But still.
After three martinis, the only thing most of us will be able to find with any ease at all is the floor.
Mmm, cold tiles, so comforting! Lovely coolness!
The office... perhaps not.
Certainly little actual work will be done after such a libationous repast.
Even if the cocktail glasses are normal size.
IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE. IT'S SUPER SUNDAE!
What he overlooked, however, was possibly their greatest achievement, far better than any rotgut repetition: the large happy ice cream confection.
Excessive and indulgent, but still innocent.
Big scoop, sauce, syrup, nuts. And maybe something bubbly.
Yes, I know the sundae was actually invented in the eighteen-nineties as amelioration for the Puritanism forced upon us by our disapproval-prone Bible-thumping brethren. But it came to its fullest most riotously over-the-top development in the span from Roosevelt to Kennedy.
Gorgeous gooey globs!
Ice cream is a great good.
It is the Teddy Bear among the foods.
[Your fuzzy stuffed lizard may disagree about this. Possibly that's confusion on his part, more likely jealousy. Pay him no mind. The Teddy Bear rules.]
The greatest generation really BELIEVED in the three scoop banana split.
A super-sundae of sinful proportions, better than the three martini lunch.
[Your Teddy Bear agrees - proper young people should NOT drink three martinis in succession, that's morally lax. The fuzzy stuffed lizard, on the other hand, tends towards licentiousness. But he's too small to lift a cocktail glass, and has a tendency to fall in.
It is doubtful that he ever makes it past the first drink. Out like a light.]
Three scoops, sprinkles and a drizzle, plus a banana. That just begs to be shared.
There is something exceptionally comforting about ice cream.
Noodles are also comforting.
Rice noodles can be eaten cold.
DOT DOT DOT
And at this point, the active mind naturally makes the leap: cherry noodles!
Cold rice noodles with pitted fresh cherries, a BIG scoop of French Vanilla, and a dollop of whipped cream. Perhaps with a drizzle of red syrup.
Cherry Noodles: something you can share with your Teddy Bear.
The fuzzy stuffed lizard agrees.
And it's probably the ONLY thing that should be served in a big bucket cocktail glass. Just don't be surprised if you find a sleeping lizard underneath the noodles.
Cold and comforting, lovely coolness!
The weather is finally warm again.
I need some shocking pink noodles.
And so do you.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
After all, they would enjoy a three martini lunch and still find their way back to the office.
[Bookselling Amphibian is a reader, frequent commenter, and friend of the blog. He sells books, he often signs himself as a smorgasbord of amphibians here. Hence the nick.]
THREE BIG BOWLS OF GIN
He does have a point. Admittedly cocktails were normal sized then. Not the big buckets of plonkum common today. But still.
After three martinis, the only thing most of us will be able to find with any ease at all is the floor.
Mmm, cold tiles, so comforting! Lovely coolness!
The office... perhaps not.
Certainly little actual work will be done after such a libationous repast.
Even if the cocktail glasses are normal size.
IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE. IT'S SUPER SUNDAE!
What he overlooked, however, was possibly their greatest achievement, far better than any rotgut repetition: the large happy ice cream confection.
Excessive and indulgent, but still innocent.
Big scoop, sauce, syrup, nuts. And maybe something bubbly.
Yes, I know the sundae was actually invented in the eighteen-nineties as amelioration for the Puritanism forced upon us by our disapproval-prone Bible-thumping brethren. But it came to its fullest most riotously over-the-top development in the span from Roosevelt to Kennedy.
Gorgeous gooey globs!
Ice cream is a great good.
It is the Teddy Bear among the foods.
[Your fuzzy stuffed lizard may disagree about this. Possibly that's confusion on his part, more likely jealousy. Pay him no mind. The Teddy Bear rules.]
The greatest generation really BELIEVED in the three scoop banana split.
A super-sundae of sinful proportions, better than the three martini lunch.
[Your Teddy Bear agrees - proper young people should NOT drink three martinis in succession, that's morally lax. The fuzzy stuffed lizard, on the other hand, tends towards licentiousness. But he's too small to lift a cocktail glass, and has a tendency to fall in.
It is doubtful that he ever makes it past the first drink. Out like a light.]
Three scoops, sprinkles and a drizzle, plus a banana. That just begs to be shared.
There is something exceptionally comforting about ice cream.
Noodles are also comforting.
Rice noodles can be eaten cold.
DOT DOT DOT
And at this point, the active mind naturally makes the leap: cherry noodles!
Cold rice noodles with pitted fresh cherries, a BIG scoop of French Vanilla, and a dollop of whipped cream. Perhaps with a drizzle of red syrup.
Cherry Noodles: something you can share with your Teddy Bear.
The fuzzy stuffed lizard agrees.
And it's probably the ONLY thing that should be served in a big bucket cocktail glass. Just don't be surprised if you find a sleeping lizard underneath the noodles.
Cold and comforting, lovely coolness!
The weather is finally warm again.
I need some shocking pink noodles.
And so do you.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, April 02, 2011
THE ENGINEER'S DAUGHTER
Not having eaten all day, at around six o'clock I realized that the headache was probably due to a lack of food. Whenever I'm at the office, I swill tea. There's no actual nutrition in tea.
You may already know this.
I keep discovering it.
ALWAYS BE WILLING TO TRY SOMETHING NEW
I stopped at a restaurant in Chinatown that I had seen from the bus a while back. It looked interesting. Pink tablecloths - why would so small and obviously unpretentious an eatery have pink tablecloths?
It suggested a woman's touch.
One dish on the menu caught my eye. Nothing special, the Chinese name was just a listing of ingredients, like so many Chinese names on menus.
Suut choi yiuk si tong mai fan (雪菜肉絲湯米粉). Which means snow vegetable meat shreds soup vermicelli.
It's a very easy dish, being thin rice thread noodles in soup flavoured with preserved cabbage and slivered pork. All you need is a pot of hot water in which to heat the noodles, a pan in which to parch the rinsed cabbage and to sizzle the slivered pork with a few drops of oil. Drain the noodles and place them in a bowl. Pour stock into the pan to seethe, then decant the stock, preserved cabbage, and pork slivers onto the noodles. Garnish with chopped chives. So simple!
At the first mouthful, a memory came back that told me why it had appealed to me.
REMEMBERING A BOWL OF NOODLES
Even though Berkeley today is populated by rather unpleasant people with hard attitudes, it used to be a nice place. I lived there at that time, as did many of my friends. And also one of my customers, an engineer who arranged for drafting assignments from the company in San Francisco where he worked.
Whenever I came to the office, if it was late in the day he'd suggest that I catch a ride back to Berkeley with him.
We'd talk. Not just business, but also other things. Our lives, our families.
He had a daughter who was studying at Berkeley, a nice girl I had seen once or twice. She always looked serious, except for her eyes.
She had warm eyes, friendly eyes.
The charm of her eyes complimented the stubborn firmness that one read in her lips.
Occasionally he invited me in. If we smoked we would do it just outside the kitchen door, to keep Yun-Yun from being bothered by the smell. Since his wife died, he told me, he never smoked in the house anymore. One shouldn't indulge in tobacco around children, especially girls - one wants them to grow up to be proper ladies.
Boys, not so much.
Males very rarely become ladies. Proper or otherwise.
His wife had passed away when Yun-Yun was thirteen. Both father and daughter had known that it was going to happen, which of course didn't make it easier. The little girl had already started preparing the family meals a year previously, but after her mother died she really threw herself into taking care of the house and making sure that a warm meal awaited her dad when he came home from work. "I didn't understand it at the time, but she wanted to make sure that I would come back to her every day. She must've felt deserted after Ling died." For several years the girl prepared food for her father and bought the groceries, in addition to doing her homework and excelling at school.
It had not been easy.
"So much for one small person. I should've realized that she was growing up too fast."
He told me that during the final years of high school, Yun-Yun was always serious, grimly serious. She graduated with honours, but she didn't have many friends at school, and nobody asked her to the prom.
That summer he took a trip across the country with her, and somewhere east of Chicago she finally unwound.
He discovered that the little girl who always laughed when last he really saw her had become a young woman who could hardly even smile.
During the rest of the trip they talked. They didn't really communicate, but they talked. A lot.
Doing so was good for both of them.
Her eyes started smiling again, but not her mouth.
The mouth still reflected an iron will, but now at least there was softness in her eyes.
The relationship between father and daughter changed during that trip.
Things were better once they got back to Berkeley, the sadness of several years had healed.
In her first years of college she still insisted on doing all the cooking. "Really, she was doing too much, I tried to stop her, but she was so determined". Whenever he could he would suggest that instead they go out to eat, but it was very difficult to get her to give up the task that she had so fiercely taken upon herself. She was going to be the woman of the house to replace the wife he had lost, no matter what. She wanted more than anything else that he should always have a happy home.
The stubborn young lady who ruled his household made it a little difficult for him to have a social life. If he came home late, she'd be sitting at the table looking unhappy, waiting for him with the food that had grown cold.
She wouldn't pick up her own chopsticks till he started eating.
One day he asked her would she mind dreadfully if he went on a date with a woman he had met. Yun-Yun was flabbergasted - "but, but, you're not SUPPOSED to meet any women!" Then she realized what she said, and stuttered "no, of course, go, please go..... shall I leave something to eat for you on the kitchen counter?"
Thereafter, once or twice a week, he would tell Yun-Yun not to wait up for him, he'd be home late. In her third year of college it became three or four evenings a week.
Regularly he'd tell Yun-Yun that Sally sent her regards. Occasionally Sally would send along a book or something nice to eat for Yun-Yun.
Sally didn't want him to forget that he was a father who had a wonderful daughter.
He told Yun-Yun that Sally lived in San Jose, that's why they hadn't met yet. But maybe sometime, maybe soon.
"But you're not supposed to meet any women!"
In so far as his daughter and his girl-friend communicated, it was through him.
"Sally hopes you like that sweater she sent you." And Yun-Yun told him to please assure Sally it was a very nice sweater, and asked him to give her a box of chocolates that Yun-Yun had gotten for her in return.
At Christmas, Sally and Yun-Yun would exchange gifts that he would deliver to each of them, and send each other charming little thank you notes.
What he never told Yun-Yun was that Sally didn't exist.
His "dating" was merely a stratagem to keep Yun-Yun from spending so much time fixing dinner, and then waiting for him to come home before having anything to eat herself. On the weekends he would do housework, just to keep her from doing it. "I had to vacuum really well, and dust all the surfaces thoroughly - if I missed a spot, she'd find it and do it all over just to make sure the place was clean". It gave him time to spend with her. He didn't understand his daughter, and he worried at her lack of a social life. Surely there were other people, students, that she could be friends with? She shouldn't be alone all the time.
But she seemed sort of happy, more so when he was around.
She graduated, and went straight into the masters program. Didn't make a big deal of it, didn't even take a break, didn't attend the ceremony with all the other graduates. He had wanted to attend her graduation, unfortunately she hadn't even mentioned when it was, and he hadn't thought to find out on his own.
He was disappointed that it had come to this, but in himself, not her.
He was very proud of her.
Over the next year he broke off his relationship with the fictitious Sally.
Yun-Yun now allowed him to do the cooking on occasion, she thought it took his mind off his failed love life. And she was very happy that he was coming home early more often. It was good for him to be home.
You can probably see where this is going, can't you?
He fell in love with a curvaceous blonde woman in her thirties who worked at the same company. She lived in Oakland, and he started offering her rides back in the evening. Occasionally they'd go out and have a drink together, or sometimes a steak dinner. He would call Yun-Yun early in the day to tell her he had to work a few hours extra that evening, please don't worry.
There would always be food waiting for him when he got home, but Yun-Yun herself would have already eaten.
She ate a little bit with him to keep him company, while he manfully tackled his second dinner of the day.
It was good, it was very good.
Little Ah-Yun had become a damn fine cook.
He told me all this while crossing the Bay Bridge, over a period of months.
On a day when I dropped off finished work, and his girlfriend needed to leave early, he and I arrived in Berkeley well before six o'clock. Yun-Yun wasn't expecting him back so soon. She hadn't started cooking yet, and was startled when we walked in. A bit flustered, too. She blamed herself for not having anything prepared, and would have rushed out to buy something, but he calmed her down, said he had eaten a late lunch, don't fuss, well maybe just something simple - honestly - just noodles would be fine!
I too wasn't hungry, and please, she shouldn't worry.
She gave in, but insisted that I have a bite also.
Ten minutes later her dad and I were slurping down rice-threads with pork and parched snow-vegetable in hot soup.
She had gone back upstairs and was studying again.
Whenever I visited, which wasn't very often because I also had other projects in other cities, she'd make me stay and have noodles with him.
I think I had the salted vegetable and pork combo maybe five or six times - it was one of the quickest and easiest things to prepare, and really, she was being too kind, we didn't want her to go to any trouble - "noodles will be just fine".
Later, things changed. CAD ('Computer Aided Drafting') took-off, and within months many draftsmen were out of work. A computer yielded cleaner work, faster, more accurately, and instead of needing an entire department, one man could do it all on screen as per instruction, with multiple copies and corrections as required.
There wasn't enough work to go around, and I stopped drafting altogether.
I still saw both of them occasionally, but after I moved to San Francisco it was less and less.
When she got the Master's Degree her dad was there. It was the happiest day of his life.
He married the blonde after Yun-Yun moved to the East Coast to get her PHD.
I think they live in San Diego now.
We've been out of touch for a very long time.
THE A-1 RESTAURANT
It's a small place - one round table for parties, and half a dozen tables that seat four. The people who run it speak Toishanese, but also understand Cantonese. The waitress was a bit startled that I knew the Chinese characters on the menu, she made me repeat my order just to be sure.
They do a number of typical Cantonese-American restaurant items, including noodle soups and won ton.
They also make various claypot rice dishes, which are probably too much for one person to eat - it might be best to also order a vegetable for balance and contrast.
But they're proud of their claypot rice dishes, so those are probably very good.
華記小館
779 Clay Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-398-7918
I believe they opened in 1996 - there's an article from the 金山時報 heralding their business framed on the wall, but all I could make out from across the room was the headline.
The pork shreds snow vegetable soup with vermicelli was good, satisfying.
Just like the last time I had it in Berkeley, I burned my lips.
It had been so long I had forgotten that.
Ordering a claypot rice dish will have to wait till I find a person with warm eyes, friendly eyes.
Till then, soup. Mostly soup.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
You may already know this.
I keep discovering it.
ALWAYS BE WILLING TO TRY SOMETHING NEW
I stopped at a restaurant in Chinatown that I had seen from the bus a while back. It looked interesting. Pink tablecloths - why would so small and obviously unpretentious an eatery have pink tablecloths?
It suggested a woman's touch.
One dish on the menu caught my eye. Nothing special, the Chinese name was just a listing of ingredients, like so many Chinese names on menus.
Suut choi yiuk si tong mai fan (雪菜肉絲湯米粉). Which means snow vegetable meat shreds soup vermicelli.
It's a very easy dish, being thin rice thread noodles in soup flavoured with preserved cabbage and slivered pork. All you need is a pot of hot water in which to heat the noodles, a pan in which to parch the rinsed cabbage and to sizzle the slivered pork with a few drops of oil. Drain the noodles and place them in a bowl. Pour stock into the pan to seethe, then decant the stock, preserved cabbage, and pork slivers onto the noodles. Garnish with chopped chives. So simple!
At the first mouthful, a memory came back that told me why it had appealed to me.
REMEMBERING A BOWL OF NOODLES
Even though Berkeley today is populated by rather unpleasant people with hard attitudes, it used to be a nice place. I lived there at that time, as did many of my friends. And also one of my customers, an engineer who arranged for drafting assignments from the company in San Francisco where he worked.
Whenever I came to the office, if it was late in the day he'd suggest that I catch a ride back to Berkeley with him.
We'd talk. Not just business, but also other things. Our lives, our families.
He had a daughter who was studying at Berkeley, a nice girl I had seen once or twice. She always looked serious, except for her eyes.
She had warm eyes, friendly eyes.
The charm of her eyes complimented the stubborn firmness that one read in her lips.
Occasionally he invited me in. If we smoked we would do it just outside the kitchen door, to keep Yun-Yun from being bothered by the smell. Since his wife died, he told me, he never smoked in the house anymore. One shouldn't indulge in tobacco around children, especially girls - one wants them to grow up to be proper ladies.
Boys, not so much.
Males very rarely become ladies. Proper or otherwise.
His wife had passed away when Yun-Yun was thirteen. Both father and daughter had known that it was going to happen, which of course didn't make it easier. The little girl had already started preparing the family meals a year previously, but after her mother died she really threw herself into taking care of the house and making sure that a warm meal awaited her dad when he came home from work. "I didn't understand it at the time, but she wanted to make sure that I would come back to her every day. She must've felt deserted after Ling died." For several years the girl prepared food for her father and bought the groceries, in addition to doing her homework and excelling at school.
It had not been easy.
"So much for one small person. I should've realized that she was growing up too fast."
He told me that during the final years of high school, Yun-Yun was always serious, grimly serious. She graduated with honours, but she didn't have many friends at school, and nobody asked her to the prom.
That summer he took a trip across the country with her, and somewhere east of Chicago she finally unwound.
He discovered that the little girl who always laughed when last he really saw her had become a young woman who could hardly even smile.
During the rest of the trip they talked. They didn't really communicate, but they talked. A lot.
Doing so was good for both of them.
Her eyes started smiling again, but not her mouth.
The mouth still reflected an iron will, but now at least there was softness in her eyes.
The relationship between father and daughter changed during that trip.
Things were better once they got back to Berkeley, the sadness of several years had healed.
In her first years of college she still insisted on doing all the cooking. "Really, she was doing too much, I tried to stop her, but she was so determined". Whenever he could he would suggest that instead they go out to eat, but it was very difficult to get her to give up the task that she had so fiercely taken upon herself. She was going to be the woman of the house to replace the wife he had lost, no matter what. She wanted more than anything else that he should always have a happy home.
The stubborn young lady who ruled his household made it a little difficult for him to have a social life. If he came home late, she'd be sitting at the table looking unhappy, waiting for him with the food that had grown cold.
She wouldn't pick up her own chopsticks till he started eating.
One day he asked her would she mind dreadfully if he went on a date with a woman he had met. Yun-Yun was flabbergasted - "but, but, you're not SUPPOSED to meet any women!" Then she realized what she said, and stuttered "no, of course, go, please go..... shall I leave something to eat for you on the kitchen counter?"
Thereafter, once or twice a week, he would tell Yun-Yun not to wait up for him, he'd be home late. In her third year of college it became three or four evenings a week.
Regularly he'd tell Yun-Yun that Sally sent her regards. Occasionally Sally would send along a book or something nice to eat for Yun-Yun.
Sally didn't want him to forget that he was a father who had a wonderful daughter.
He told Yun-Yun that Sally lived in San Jose, that's why they hadn't met yet. But maybe sometime, maybe soon.
"But you're not supposed to meet any women!"
In so far as his daughter and his girl-friend communicated, it was through him.
"Sally hopes you like that sweater she sent you." And Yun-Yun told him to please assure Sally it was a very nice sweater, and asked him to give her a box of chocolates that Yun-Yun had gotten for her in return.
At Christmas, Sally and Yun-Yun would exchange gifts that he would deliver to each of them, and send each other charming little thank you notes.
What he never told Yun-Yun was that Sally didn't exist.
His "dating" was merely a stratagem to keep Yun-Yun from spending so much time fixing dinner, and then waiting for him to come home before having anything to eat herself. On the weekends he would do housework, just to keep her from doing it. "I had to vacuum really well, and dust all the surfaces thoroughly - if I missed a spot, she'd find it and do it all over just to make sure the place was clean". It gave him time to spend with her. He didn't understand his daughter, and he worried at her lack of a social life. Surely there were other people, students, that she could be friends with? She shouldn't be alone all the time.
But she seemed sort of happy, more so when he was around.
She graduated, and went straight into the masters program. Didn't make a big deal of it, didn't even take a break, didn't attend the ceremony with all the other graduates. He had wanted to attend her graduation, unfortunately she hadn't even mentioned when it was, and he hadn't thought to find out on his own.
He was disappointed that it had come to this, but in himself, not her.
He was very proud of her.
Over the next year he broke off his relationship with the fictitious Sally.
Yun-Yun now allowed him to do the cooking on occasion, she thought it took his mind off his failed love life. And she was very happy that he was coming home early more often. It was good for him to be home.
You can probably see where this is going, can't you?
He fell in love with a curvaceous blonde woman in her thirties who worked at the same company. She lived in Oakland, and he started offering her rides back in the evening. Occasionally they'd go out and have a drink together, or sometimes a steak dinner. He would call Yun-Yun early in the day to tell her he had to work a few hours extra that evening, please don't worry.
There would always be food waiting for him when he got home, but Yun-Yun herself would have already eaten.
She ate a little bit with him to keep him company, while he manfully tackled his second dinner of the day.
It was good, it was very good.
Little Ah-Yun had become a damn fine cook.
He told me all this while crossing the Bay Bridge, over a period of months.
On a day when I dropped off finished work, and his girlfriend needed to leave early, he and I arrived in Berkeley well before six o'clock. Yun-Yun wasn't expecting him back so soon. She hadn't started cooking yet, and was startled when we walked in. A bit flustered, too. She blamed herself for not having anything prepared, and would have rushed out to buy something, but he calmed her down, said he had eaten a late lunch, don't fuss, well maybe just something simple - honestly - just noodles would be fine!
I too wasn't hungry, and please, she shouldn't worry.
She gave in, but insisted that I have a bite also.
Ten minutes later her dad and I were slurping down rice-threads with pork and parched snow-vegetable in hot soup.
She had gone back upstairs and was studying again.
Whenever I visited, which wasn't very often because I also had other projects in other cities, she'd make me stay and have noodles with him.
I think I had the salted vegetable and pork combo maybe five or six times - it was one of the quickest and easiest things to prepare, and really, she was being too kind, we didn't want her to go to any trouble - "noodles will be just fine".
Later, things changed. CAD ('Computer Aided Drafting') took-off, and within months many draftsmen were out of work. A computer yielded cleaner work, faster, more accurately, and instead of needing an entire department, one man could do it all on screen as per instruction, with multiple copies and corrections as required.
There wasn't enough work to go around, and I stopped drafting altogether.
I still saw both of them occasionally, but after I moved to San Francisco it was less and less.
When she got the Master's Degree her dad was there. It was the happiest day of his life.
He married the blonde after Yun-Yun moved to the East Coast to get her PHD.
I think they live in San Diego now.
We've been out of touch for a very long time.
THE A-1 RESTAURANT
It's a small place - one round table for parties, and half a dozen tables that seat four. The people who run it speak Toishanese, but also understand Cantonese. The waitress was a bit startled that I knew the Chinese characters on the menu, she made me repeat my order just to be sure.
They do a number of typical Cantonese-American restaurant items, including noodle soups and won ton.
They also make various claypot rice dishes, which are probably too much for one person to eat - it might be best to also order a vegetable for balance and contrast.
But they're proud of their claypot rice dishes, so those are probably very good.
華記小館
779 Clay Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-398-7918
I believe they opened in 1996 - there's an article from the 金山時報 heralding their business framed on the wall, but all I could make out from across the room was the headline.
The pork shreds snow vegetable soup with vermicelli was good, satisfying.
Just like the last time I had it in Berkeley, I burned my lips.
It had been so long I had forgotten that.
Ordering a claypot rice dish will have to wait till I find a person with warm eyes, friendly eyes.
Till then, soup. Mostly soup.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, April 01, 2011
SPAM-BRAINED WHITE FOLKS AND TEMPEH
American people of the cotton-wool between the ears persuasion worship tempeh. Now, before I go any further, I should explain that tempeh is a substance that many elderly Dutch remember from the war years in the East-Indies, where it was cheap and easily assimilated protein.
They don't remember it with any fondness, and truth be told there is good reason for that. It is one of the nastiest things on the planet, barely one step above its Japanese cousin, natto, which many people refuse to touch with a ten foot pole. Your pole.
Tempeh is rotten soybeans held together by mold. Vegan wonder chow.
In its country of origin it is considered a desperate substitute for food.
Tempeh eaters in the United States include young poetic Caucasian males with blond dreadlocks, frowsty earth mothers wearing native bed sheets from Guatemala or Nepal, and chubby blonde bimbettes porking Abdullah or Felipe because that man is a “spiritual aborigine”.
As well people trying to save the planet one insufferable holier-than-thou lecture at a time.
Tempeh is a harangue on a plate.
Tempeh appeals to people who hate humans.
Now, pursuant such people and their loathsome selves:
"Dear Mayor Lee, I am writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our more than 2 million members and supporters, including thousands in the Bay Area, with an idea that could help revitalize the struggling Tenderloin district: rename it the "Tempeh District." By discarding an outdated moniker that evokes the horrors of the meat trade, you'll be sending a strong message to progressive businesses and health-conscious residents that this neighborhood is ready for a fresh start."
The TEMPEH DISTRICT?!? Are you morons out of your friggin' minds?!? Gone all bat-shit have you?!?
About the only fresh start that will bring is that out-of-state tourists will think that we named our drug, whores, and cheap booze neighborhood after Arizona.
Tracy Reiman, the arguably depraved author of this foul epistle, continues:
"now's the perfect time to put the city's past in the deep freeze. San Francisco is now renowned for some of the best vegan cuisine in the world, and the city deserves a neighborhood named after a delicious cruelty-free food instead of the flesh of an abused animal. If Tempeh doesn't excite you, how about Granola Flats or Seitan's Lair? You could even run a contest to choose a veggie moniker."
Ms. Reiman, the words 'vegan' and 'cuisine' do NOT belong in the same sentence. The very fact that you DID use them in such close conjunction proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, ANY DOUBT AT ALL, that you are one sick puppy with no taste, no spunk, no vitality, no sense, and no jazz in your life.
What a sad miserable flaccid existence you must lead, you pathetic excuse for an omnivore!
I bet you whip yourself regularly, don't you?
With a birch rod instead of a leather riding crop.
You know, it really isn't 'atonement' if you enjoy it.
Just for that, I think I'll have a nice grilled chop. Cut from the fresh bleeding cadaver of a cute little wooly baaa baaa sheep. Juicy! Mmmmm!
Redolent of garlic and thyme.
Oh waiter? Did my dinner die a happy death?
The Tempeh District? You've really lost it, you weirdo. As far as putting this city's past, or anything else, in a deep freeze is concerned, ms. Reiman, sensible people would advise you to do precisely that to everything you hold dear, including those poor victimized subhumans you call family. Surely having to associate with so sanctimonious a twat as yourself must be absolute torture for them, a fate worse than death.
Your loved ones cry out for meat, animal protein! Oozing cuts of beef!
And you malnourish them with soy bean jerky! How cruel! How vicious!
They probably go to bed weeping every night, scared of what new depravity you and your food-hating space-alien cabbage overlords have planned for them. If they are never to get that hot bloody steak they crave, their lives are worse than death - deepfreeze the poor shmoes and put them out of their misery.
If, on the other hand, you have succeeded in brainwashing them, they have no souls, and have become nothing more than zombies, the living dead, pallid and spongy victims of your brain-rotting Puritanism - and they deserve the merciful sleep of the meat locker.
I hope you wake up with a side of bacon on your pillow, ms. Reiman.
Bacon!!!
The Tempeh District! Feh! If it was still winter, ms. Reiman, I would kill a bunch of feral cats and wear their pelts to spite you.
Instead, I'll just massage the soles of my feet with lard.
It's SO good for the skin.
Softens the hardened tissues.
It's also wonderful for leather.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
They don't remember it with any fondness, and truth be told there is good reason for that. It is one of the nastiest things on the planet, barely one step above its Japanese cousin, natto, which many people refuse to touch with a ten foot pole. Your pole.
Tempeh is rotten soybeans held together by mold. Vegan wonder chow.
In its country of origin it is considered a desperate substitute for food.
Tempeh eaters in the United States include young poetic Caucasian males with blond dreadlocks, frowsty earth mothers wearing native bed sheets from Guatemala or Nepal, and chubby blonde bimbettes porking Abdullah or Felipe because that man is a “spiritual aborigine”.
As well people trying to save the planet one insufferable holier-than-thou lecture at a time.
Tempeh is a harangue on a plate.
Tempeh appeals to people who hate humans.
Now, pursuant such people and their loathsome selves:
"Dear Mayor Lee, I am writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our more than 2 million members and supporters, including thousands in the Bay Area, with an idea that could help revitalize the struggling Tenderloin district: rename it the "Tempeh District." By discarding an outdated moniker that evokes the horrors of the meat trade, you'll be sending a strong message to progressive businesses and health-conscious residents that this neighborhood is ready for a fresh start."
The TEMPEH DISTRICT?!? Are you morons out of your friggin' minds?!? Gone all bat-shit have you?!?
About the only fresh start that will bring is that out-of-state tourists will think that we named our drug, whores, and cheap booze neighborhood after Arizona.
Tracy Reiman, the arguably depraved author of this foul epistle, continues:
"now's the perfect time to put the city's past in the deep freeze. San Francisco is now renowned for some of the best vegan cuisine in the world, and the city deserves a neighborhood named after a delicious cruelty-free food instead of the flesh of an abused animal. If Tempeh doesn't excite you, how about Granola Flats or Seitan's Lair? You could even run a contest to choose a veggie moniker."
Ms. Reiman, the words 'vegan' and 'cuisine' do NOT belong in the same sentence. The very fact that you DID use them in such close conjunction proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, ANY DOUBT AT ALL, that you are one sick puppy with no taste, no spunk, no vitality, no sense, and no jazz in your life.
What a sad miserable flaccid existence you must lead, you pathetic excuse for an omnivore!
I bet you whip yourself regularly, don't you?
With a birch rod instead of a leather riding crop.
You know, it really isn't 'atonement' if you enjoy it.
Just for that, I think I'll have a nice grilled chop. Cut from the fresh bleeding cadaver of a cute little wooly baaa baaa sheep. Juicy! Mmmmm!
Redolent of garlic and thyme.
Oh waiter? Did my dinner die a happy death?
The Tempeh District? You've really lost it, you weirdo. As far as putting this city's past, or anything else, in a deep freeze is concerned, ms. Reiman, sensible people would advise you to do precisely that to everything you hold dear, including those poor victimized subhumans you call family. Surely having to associate with so sanctimonious a twat as yourself must be absolute torture for them, a fate worse than death.
Your loved ones cry out for meat, animal protein! Oozing cuts of beef!
And you malnourish them with soy bean jerky! How cruel! How vicious!
They probably go to bed weeping every night, scared of what new depravity you and your food-hating space-alien cabbage overlords have planned for them. If they are never to get that hot bloody steak they crave, their lives are worse than death - deepfreeze the poor shmoes and put them out of their misery.
If, on the other hand, you have succeeded in brainwashing them, they have no souls, and have become nothing more than zombies, the living dead, pallid and spongy victims of your brain-rotting Puritanism - and they deserve the merciful sleep of the meat locker.
I hope you wake up with a side of bacon on your pillow, ms. Reiman.
Bacon!!!
The Tempeh District! Feh! If it was still winter, ms. Reiman, I would kill a bunch of feral cats and wear their pelts to spite you.
Instead, I'll just massage the soles of my feet with lard.
It's SO good for the skin.
Softens the hardened tissues.
It's also wonderful for leather.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
CONTEMPLATING YOUNG LADIES
In some ways I am totally hosed. The type of woman I fall for does not hang out in bars. And given that bars are where most people find their dates, you can pretty much imagine what that means.
A friend has suggested that I should hookup with party girls from Daly City, tattooed slags from Hayward, or desperate women cruising the Vegan shelves at an upscale supermarket.
Saints preserve me, even start going to a synagogue and scoping out the thirty-something single women.
Either that, or pop roofies into some girl's drink and hope for the best.
I believe the words he used to describe the ideal match he envisions for me were 'spinner', shopaholic Philippina, hoochie, and therapeutic.
He comes from the flower-power era. They had different ideas back then.
Just like today's free spirits have different ideas - casual perversion, loaded old guy, and quickie in a parking lot.
No.
Let me present three "ideal" situations in narrative form.
TRAIN STATION PLATFORM
They saw each other on the perron at Bad Schimmelarsch one autumn day. He had never seen anyone so beautiful. She wondered why that creep was staring at her.
He found her eyes, even from a distance, to be enchanting, entrancing, engaging.
She became more and more uncomfortable - what was it with men? Why did they all seem to have just one thing on their minds?
He was subconsciously aware of the roseate glow through the thin fabric of her blouse, betraying the pert presence of aureoles and nipples, the focal points of her girlish bosom, but he did not focus on that - her profile held enough charms that those fine details, strange to relate, faded from his attention. She was convinced that if the stranger could, he would slap her down on an oiled tarp, strip her clothing off her body by brute force, and leave her bruised and weeping.
As his train headed north, he could only wonder: what would have happened if he had actually spoken to her? Seated in a train towards the south, she was glad that he had not approached - she had been ready to emasculate him with her hat pin.
For the rest of their lives, both of them regretted the missed opportunity.
COFFEE COUNTER
He came in out of the rain, initially only in search of shelter. She waited between the cash register and the espresso machine for the occasional customer and did her trigonometry homework in the interim.
To him, she was a vision of feminine grace and vulnerability, he was staggered at finding someone so enchanting in such a depressing venue.
She thought he looked nice - thoughtful, kind, and rather intelligent. She lowered her eyes shyly.
He stuttered out his order, and wordlessly she made him a cappuccino. She blushed. He paid. He placed a five dollar bill in the tip jar, she didn't notice because she was looking down at her hands. He went and sat in the window seat, trying to keep his mind straight. Accidentally he spilled his drink into his lap, then silently, quickly, and discretely left, hoping she wouldn't notice the giant wet spot on his pants. She didn't - she was too busy trying to keep from sweating.
Such a nice man!
He never went there again, convinced that she must have thought him a right freak. She stayed at that job for another ten months hoping he would return, finally in desperation and horribly repressed sexual frustration running off with a chinless insurance salesman who cheated on her the very first day.
Last we heard, she was thinking of getting contact lenses and going back to college. The insurance salesman had meanwhile settled down with a tacky Philippina from Pacifica, who maxed-out his credit cards buying designer shmatte for all of her relatives in Quezon City.
THE GIRL ON THE BUS
Every day he took the same bus at the same time. Not because he was necessarily a regular man with a set schedule - as long as he arrived at the firm by eight, nobody said anything. It was because of her.
Seeing her every morning was the high point of his day. She always waited two stops up at seven fifteen. She was so neat! Starched shirt, pleated skirt, her hair pulled back in a thick ponytail. Bright intelligent eyes and a little pert nose. A trim young figure.
He would look at her out the corner of his eyes, and dream of what he could do with her. Massage oil, fragrant bath soap, stroking her slim gold body till she melted. Oh!
She, meanwhile, rehearsed the lesson plans for the day - her students left her drained and weepy by mid-afternoon. How she longed for a strong handsome man, not too tall - she was quite short herself - to sweep her off her feet and make intense passionate love to her! Why, that gentleman who was always on the bus would be just fine! He looked so sweet. So thoughtful!
In his mind he was fondling her round parts, stroking her inner thighs, lavishing little rabbit-like kisses all over her glowing abdomen!
She wondered what it would be like to feel his fingers on her shoulders, along her back, behind her knees, his lips and tongue touching, stroking, probing, and slithering all over her naked body!
They never spoke to each other. A few years later she finally finished her thesis and married an elderly physicist. She spent the rest of her life getting tiddly at academic functions and playing golf on Wednesdays and Saturdays with other sexually frustrated faculty wives.
He got fired from his job for a very minor matter, and eventually ended up committing brutal war-crimes as a mercenary in West-Africa, dying in horrible agony of haemorrhagic fever at age thirty-three.
* * * * *
You see? There is no guaranteed happy ending.
Even nice people - especially nice people - do not always find what they want, and when they do they might not know how to make the most of that chance.
My heroes are not the tattooed potential addicts with attitude, nor the big busted college grad harlots that populate bars and night clubs, but the more discrete well-behaved people with secret passions.
Loud, brash, bed-hopping singles are not appealing.
Promiscuous girls in bars aren't my type.
I don't mind looking at the shenanigans of today's young 'singles'.
They are indeed entertaining - slutty self-indulgent behaviour is ALWAYS fascinating.
But no.
Haven't been there, do NOT want to do that.
Life is too short to drink Starbucks.
A nice person, or bust.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly: LETTER BOX .
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
A friend has suggested that I should hookup with party girls from Daly City, tattooed slags from Hayward, or desperate women cruising the Vegan shelves at an upscale supermarket.
Saints preserve me, even start going to a synagogue and scoping out the thirty-something single women.
Either that, or pop roofies into some girl's drink and hope for the best.
I believe the words he used to describe the ideal match he envisions for me were 'spinner', shopaholic Philippina, hoochie, and therapeutic.
He comes from the flower-power era. They had different ideas back then.
Just like today's free spirits have different ideas - casual perversion, loaded old guy, and quickie in a parking lot.
No.
Let me present three "ideal" situations in narrative form.
TRAIN STATION PLATFORM
They saw each other on the perron at Bad Schimmelarsch one autumn day. He had never seen anyone so beautiful. She wondered why that creep was staring at her.
He found her eyes, even from a distance, to be enchanting, entrancing, engaging.
She became more and more uncomfortable - what was it with men? Why did they all seem to have just one thing on their minds?
He was subconsciously aware of the roseate glow through the thin fabric of her blouse, betraying the pert presence of aureoles and nipples, the focal points of her girlish bosom, but he did not focus on that - her profile held enough charms that those fine details, strange to relate, faded from his attention. She was convinced that if the stranger could, he would slap her down on an oiled tarp, strip her clothing off her body by brute force, and leave her bruised and weeping.
As his train headed north, he could only wonder: what would have happened if he had actually spoken to her? Seated in a train towards the south, she was glad that he had not approached - she had been ready to emasculate him with her hat pin.
For the rest of their lives, both of them regretted the missed opportunity.
COFFEE COUNTER
He came in out of the rain, initially only in search of shelter. She waited between the cash register and the espresso machine for the occasional customer and did her trigonometry homework in the interim.
To him, she was a vision of feminine grace and vulnerability, he was staggered at finding someone so enchanting in such a depressing venue.
She thought he looked nice - thoughtful, kind, and rather intelligent. She lowered her eyes shyly.
He stuttered out his order, and wordlessly she made him a cappuccino. She blushed. He paid. He placed a five dollar bill in the tip jar, she didn't notice because she was looking down at her hands. He went and sat in the window seat, trying to keep his mind straight. Accidentally he spilled his drink into his lap, then silently, quickly, and discretely left, hoping she wouldn't notice the giant wet spot on his pants. She didn't - she was too busy trying to keep from sweating.
Such a nice man!
He never went there again, convinced that she must have thought him a right freak. She stayed at that job for another ten months hoping he would return, finally in desperation and horribly repressed sexual frustration running off with a chinless insurance salesman who cheated on her the very first day.
Last we heard, she was thinking of getting contact lenses and going back to college. The insurance salesman had meanwhile settled down with a tacky Philippina from Pacifica, who maxed-out his credit cards buying designer shmatte for all of her relatives in Quezon City.
THE GIRL ON THE BUS
Every day he took the same bus at the same time. Not because he was necessarily a regular man with a set schedule - as long as he arrived at the firm by eight, nobody said anything. It was because of her.
Seeing her every morning was the high point of his day. She always waited two stops up at seven fifteen. She was so neat! Starched shirt, pleated skirt, her hair pulled back in a thick ponytail. Bright intelligent eyes and a little pert nose. A trim young figure.
He would look at her out the corner of his eyes, and dream of what he could do with her. Massage oil, fragrant bath soap, stroking her slim gold body till she melted. Oh!
She, meanwhile, rehearsed the lesson plans for the day - her students left her drained and weepy by mid-afternoon. How she longed for a strong handsome man, not too tall - she was quite short herself - to sweep her off her feet and make intense passionate love to her! Why, that gentleman who was always on the bus would be just fine! He looked so sweet. So thoughtful!
In his mind he was fondling her round parts, stroking her inner thighs, lavishing little rabbit-like kisses all over her glowing abdomen!
She wondered what it would be like to feel his fingers on her shoulders, along her back, behind her knees, his lips and tongue touching, stroking, probing, and slithering all over her naked body!
They never spoke to each other. A few years later she finally finished her thesis and married an elderly physicist. She spent the rest of her life getting tiddly at academic functions and playing golf on Wednesdays and Saturdays with other sexually frustrated faculty wives.
He got fired from his job for a very minor matter, and eventually ended up committing brutal war-crimes as a mercenary in West-Africa, dying in horrible agony of haemorrhagic fever at age thirty-three.
* * * * *
You see? There is no guaranteed happy ending.
Even nice people - especially nice people - do not always find what they want, and when they do they might not know how to make the most of that chance.
My heroes are not the tattooed potential addicts with attitude, nor the big busted college grad harlots that populate bars and night clubs, but the more discrete well-behaved people with secret passions.
Loud, brash, bed-hopping singles are not appealing.
Promiscuous girls in bars aren't my type.
I don't mind looking at the shenanigans of today's young 'singles'.
They are indeed entertaining - slutty self-indulgent behaviour is ALWAYS fascinating.
But no.
Haven't been there, do NOT want to do that.
Life is too short to drink Starbucks.
A nice person, or bust.
==========================================================================
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,...
