MISS PINTO IS SO ANGRY!

Over on a forum for people who are interested in a specific cuisine, someone from Kentucky posted Christian religious trash about the Australian wild fires leading to prayer. She's a very lonely woman.
And not particularly likeable outside of her church on Sunday.
Which is a horribly day. In Jayz's Arse, Kentucky.

Christian proselytizing does not belong in that forum.
So people got a little peevish.

Angry Miss Pinto from deepest darkest Amsterdam then weighed in. Angry Miss Pinto has sheer buckets of good Christian faith. And love.


Alan: If you are a non-believer why would you waste your time praying? Utter nonsense.

Angry Miss Pinto: Alan because thats the only Hope for a miracle...but I see you have none!!!

Alan: No, I have no gods, I believe in reality and practicality. Miracles? Get real eh?

Bhaskar: takes more faith to believe everything is an accident food for thought.

Alan: Only food reference here...

Jesper: Please delete right away..!

Angry Miss Pinto: Jesper you should be deleted right away...

Jesper: It is a recipe group, not a religious group... If that is so difficult to understand, maybe you should get the f... out of this group as well...

Angry Miss Pinto: Jesper why are you commenting ,??? Its about praying for Australia...perhaps you should take your sorry helpless arse out.

Jesper: Angry Miss Pinto, moron...

John: Remove this please.

Angry Miss Pinto: John are you still in the Stone age????

John: You're a very funny person.. I can see by your posts that you're a comedian.

Richard: No such thing.

Atboth: Eh, just an opportunistic Jezus-freak in Kentucky. I fail to see what this has to do with food. And I doubt that she knows beans about Australia.

Angry Miss Pinto: Atboth Hope you found some patatoes.

Atboth: Aardappels. Niet zo goed met frietsaus, voortreffelijk met sambal.

Atboth: Neither religion nor 'watch parties' belong here.

Angry Miss Pinto: Atboth then what are you doing here ???

Atboth: Angry Miss Pinto, This page is specifically for Indian recipes, NOT religion. Feel free to post something about Indian food. Or read about Indian food. Posting religious crap is a discourtesy to other people here. Watch parties also, by the way.

Angry Miss Pinto: They have asked to Pray...its not to kill anyone, its to do good....why does it pinch your backside so much....????

Basil: They should ask to pray on their own page or a group of whom they are admin themselves .. not on a recipe group and bother everyone.

Angry Miss Pinto: If they said wear a Hijaab...everyone would do it without judging and no questions asked...( idiots), !!! but now its just a prayer and everyone starts doubting and questioning...

Angry Miss Pinto: Wake up you ignorant Fools.

Angry Miss Pinto: Up yours.

Jesper: Angry Miss Pinto stupid fucker...

Alison: Jesper not sure it’s working.

Jesper: Alison, Not really... Who Can fight against unintelligence.

Basil: Jesper hahaha ... UNINTELLIGENCE.

John: Admin can you please remove this post... It has absolutely nothing to do with FOOD and has been posted by a person with very little brain! Thank you

Basil: Because someone like you posts rubbish on a food group instead of your own page the people in Australia might suffer more from the curses you get. Do yourself and Australia a favour and remove the post .


Let us all think and pray for Angry Miss Pinto. She's originally from Pune, Maharashtra. And undoubtedly brings joy to her neighbors in Amsterdam. Much joy.




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WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?

One of the questions I ask random callers trying to get money out of me OR get access to my credit card files as well as my computer is "what are you wearing?" Conversations usually go directly south from there, ending with me calling them a bhainchote, and putting down the telephone.

For years I did commercial collections work. The phone is MY domain.
You call, you volunteer. You are a guinea pig.

I am wearing pajama pants, an advertising tee-shirt for a cigar brand, and a dirty grey flannel bathrobe.


What are you wearing?


An internet friend asked the same question, and got answers. Which, if you have a certain personality, are fascinating.


"The weight of the world on my shou...oh. Blue shirt with a button/down collar and grey flannels."

"Orchid paisley tshirt, black velvet skirt, and wellies. Soon to switch boots for a couch and hizzy blanket and fog of sleep."

"Soft, comfortable, reasonably modest clothes appropriate for work, home."

"Shoes and indoor."

"A hospital gown."

"Today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside."

"Red hoody over my grey dress sweatpants."

"Wearing...?"


You will note that lace undies, a superman costume, or a snazzy catgirl outfit, are NOT mentioned. Sadly. This blogger would love for strangers to wander around downtown dressed like that, as if they had forgotten that they had to go to the office today. Along with other seasonally inappropriate clothes.

Obviously if I left the house in the dirty grey bathrobe a substantial purse or backpack would be needed. Bathrobe pockets are not large enough for two pipes, a tobacco pouch, pipe cleaners, matches, and a tamper. Such as the normal person would have secreted somewhere in his or her clothing.
And there is no backpocket for the wallet either.


Equally obviously, I seldom, rarely, almost never get social calls. My friends largely do not know my number, and there is no person of the opposite gender, curious or inquisitive about my sartorial decisions.
If there were, I'd probably dress better.
And wash my bathrobe.




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HEARTING CARCASSES

Three things: They've finally painted over the crappy art posters and the meaningful graffiti at the bus stop (and the author of same, an offensive eejit, will be very peeved at that); the proprietress of one of my favourite Chinatown grocery stores was on the bus this evening, a very pretty woman; and Sydney Fylbert, a stuffed Turkey Vulture we've recently adopted, wishes to know about my apartment mate, who is suffering from a horrid cold, "is she ripe yet?", and has expressed a desire for a tee-shirt that states "I ♡ carcasses!".

SYDNEY FYLBERT

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IT'S ALL A CONSPIRACY, MAN!

One of the joys of working in Marin is listening to all the things people up north believe, passionately, with every fibre of their being.
It's like visiting a different planet.

Trump was elected because of Polish cyber-meddling. Red meat will kill you. Vaccination is slow murder. The native Americans smoked clean pure tobacco and lived well into their hundreds because of it.

Drumming chases away evil spirits.

The Iranians are a lost tribe.

Epstein killed himself.

Qanon.


THE ACTOR IS JEFF EPSTEIN!

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuaYh9Gnrug&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0gW-XZ9HfbB7r5X_0T1HJ-1cnhy-2yvfuaAOXX3UIpJaZCebvJ_TaIjis.]


I dunno, maybe red meat will indeed kill me. Is that a prediction?

Apparently I can research everthing for myself on the internet, and thus see that space aliens brought mankind religion, and are currently anally raping everyone in Sweden in order to make the apocalypse happen.
Oh boy. If only I knew.

If I ever see a mob of Red Meat coming at me with knives, I'm shooting first. Qanon. I've had all of my vaccinations, plus some. Jeffrey Epstein. Bugger the Iranians and Qasem Soleimani. Trump is dead. The native Americans smoked crap. Qanon. And died young of malnutrition and all that damned drumming. Jeffrey Epstein. Veganism leads to mental disorders.
Donald Trump is dead.
Jeffrey Epstein.
Qanon.

Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump. Qanon. Epstein. Trump.


Just click your heels three times.




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CLEAN SMELLING THINGS

Despite my work being a smoke-friendly environment, I enjoy my pipes and occasional cheroot much more when I am not there. Even outdoors freezing my rear-end off. And I think the reason is timing, pace, and freedom to not be the eternally upbeat pipe-expert ready to answer bizarre questions.

One of my key survival strategies is that I can and will take over the conversation, rather than letting others dominate it and blather.

Little White Nipple Guy is sort of the exception. When I absolutely cannot avoid interacting with him, I'll throw out little prods and pokes to help him realize his full potential as the big loud gibbering elephant in the room. Which, being a man with loose wires, never fails to bring out the flower within. This is all I can do for him.

[One or two readers will realize that I am quoting Any Lau here. And I'm sure situations like these are exactly what Andy Lau was referring to. Have you ever read his lyrics? 
He's the wild sugar-crazed fruitbat of Canto-pop.]


One thing I often return to is the idea that your briar pipes are rather like your favourite boxer shorts. Yes, they look dashing, and howdy Jeebus are they comfortable! But they benefit from a good cleaning regularly, and should probably not be worn day in day out. Hence keeping a number of them in rotation, and making sure that you use plenty of pipe-cleaners.

Surely you don't want swamp on a stick four inches from your nose?

So you will understand that during my Weekends (Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as Friday), the pipes in my coat pocket when I head down to Chinatown in the afternoon for something to eat and a cup of hot Hong Kong Milk Tea will be carefully chosen. There are several that are specific to C'town usage, especially 'The Pipe For Watching Rats in Spofford Alley'.

[There are also pipes I will never bring to work, for fear that they will be jinxed by doing so. They could acquire associated moods and memories which might spoil the pleasure of touching, feeling, seeing, or smoking them.]

I sometimes say that pipe smoking is perfect for neurotic people.

Please do not feel free to riff off of that thought.

We've already explored the concept.

Extremely thoroughly.


My friend Neil has a number of pipes that remind him of events and places from years ago, as well as the tobacco he smoked then. Using those pipes brings back those memories, and he'll pensively speak of them at times.

Some pipes, some tobaccos, pull my mind back to summer evenings near the St. John's church in Valkenswaard, or rainy days at the train station in Tilburg, Indonesian restaurants in Den Haag (oh boy, maybe I should cook something with garlic, chilies, and tamarind, this evening), or even watching a man with two live cellphones nearly get run over on Sansome Street.


One pipe always reminds me of an old gentleman requiring an ambulance and Cantonese speaking emergency medical technicians on Grant and Clay in Chinatown, similar to a memory associated with 'The Pipe For Watching Rats in Spofford Alley', when Spofford was still a long trench with plank walkways (that was when the city was revamping it to make it more attractive for the tourists; the inefficient project benefitted the local rat population immensely). Ambulance technicians had a hard time moving a stretcher down narrow stairs onto the walkway, then carrying it gingerly through the obstacle course to Washington Street in the rain that night. The city should have been sued for letting the digging go on for so long and at so slow a pace. Doing so was extremely irresponsible of them.
It may actually have been murderous.

Nearly a year later almost no progress was evident.
But they finally gassed the rats.

[Rats, everybody agrees, are bad for the tourist trade. As well as bad for business in general. Though they immensely entertain pipe smokers, who might thoughtfully observe them for half an hour late at night.]


My plans today involve laundry (see aforementioned boxer shorts), lunch, and wandering around the alleyways for a while. A Virginia mixture which will remind me of good weather several years ago, down near the Pyramid, the fresh green of new leaves on the ginkgo trees, and the quietness of the Financial District on Sunday afternoons.
Then home for a long nap.

Tomorrow I'm taking a small Peterson Canadian from the early sixties (the confluence of different stamping on the shank suggests that era) with me for after my doctor's appointment, and I plan specifically to have bittermelon omelette over rice for lunch in Chinatown later.

The days are sunny now, but it is still too cold for normal people.
It will probably rain again later in the week. Bah.

I'm looking forward to warmer weather.

TOBACCO INDEX


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TWEETY

While I largely approve the whacking of Qasem Soleimani, who richly deserved it, the subsequent presidential tweet-storm was quite unnecessary. As was our mentioning in so many details what had transpired.

Imagine, instead, a press-conference a few days later. Hypothetical.


"General, can you confirm that the United States military fired missiles at the two-car convoy that carried Qasem Soleimani?"

"No. At this time I do not possess enough information."

"General, they say Soleimani was killed by a US strike."

"I'll have to get back to you on that."

"General, did we kill him?"

"I don't know."


General Qasem Soleimani had many enemies, the list of entities with missiles who may have wanted to whack him is nearly endless. Hell, we could have subtly planted the suspicion that the Russians did it.

Or the French. Or the Turks.

President Trump jumping up and down with pom poms yelling "yay, we killed the hufter, yay, America da greatest!" like a giddy highschool football player who finally had an orgasm, really doesn't help matters.

Somebody should take away his tweeter.




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THE CHATTERACTS

Given how much I talked yesterday, one might almost think me a social person. But left to my own devices I would have had just as much tea, smoked less, and spent most of the day reading, before heading out for bitter melon omelette over rice with hot sauce. And hardly spoken at all.

Work forces conversations upon one. Subjects included the Dutch East Indies Company, international relations, the Middle East, Machiavelli, Ibn Ezra and the Ramban, translations from Aramaic (about which I do not know enough), the Psalters of Peter Datheen and Marnix van Sint Aldegonde, the Synod of Dordrecht and the State Bible, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era: Theology and Art of Christ's Passion, and monsoon patterns in South and South-East Asia. Plus briar pipes; the companies manufacturing these, the decline of the pipe trade, and restoration/rehabilitation of old pipes.


That last set of subjects would likely bore most people.
It's a rather narrow and obsessive field.


There are six pipes in my bin to work on over the next few days. Danes and Petersons. They belonged to someone's father and have memories attached. When he sees them again they will be clean and smokeable, and in some ways seem new again.

We will then discuss suitable tobaccos.

I look forward to this.





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THE GREAT GAME

This blogger is fully vested in football, oh yes. Perhaps you did not realize that. To my mind, nothing is more thrilling than spandex botties, astroturf, and pigskin. It is the great American tradition, and makes life complete. Without football, weekends would be dull, boring, empty, meaningless.

As it is for many of the boys in the back during their weekday existence. Which is why several of them are going to Las Vegas next week, as they do every year, for cigars, whiskey, brass poles, craps games, pizza, and swimming pools. Mostly cigars.
Empty lives.

You can probably understand my disappointment today.
There was no Forty Niner game scheduled.

I did not get to enjoy the spectacle of 'J the member of the Judicial Branch', an avid fan of the sport, who sits in the back every weekend when his wife lets him visit, adeptly and ably combining Orgasm, Tourettes, and Epileptic Fit. As he does during Forty Niner games. No hysteria. No exclamations of giddy joy. No worshipful mention of a procreating deity.
During whatever was on teevee today he quietly read the newspaper and smoked his cigar. His clothing wasn't rumpled and disarrayed when it was over, and he calmly expressed nuanced points of view.

To cover my sadness that there was no spectacle, I had another cup of tea and a pipeful of nice blonde flake, and made some snide remarks about Dambly the Pervert. But my heart wasn't in it.


I also cited Ibn Ezra and Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (The Ramban) a few times, but that was in the context of a side conversation to which most of the boys weren't privy, and regretably and predictably that did not generate the highly sexual expressiveness, swearing fits, and physical spasms or convulsive twitches that I love witnessing from 'J the member of the Judicial Branch', Dambly the Pervert, or the various repulsive bald guys.


Spandex, astroturf, and stubbled pigskin.
That's what life is all about.
Play ball!




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MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE

A number of people whom I respect have posted well-thought out criticisms of the killing of a Persian general recently. Because, after all, we cannot go about whacking foreign officials and important functionaries if it suits us.
Respectfully, I would say that those critics have their heads firmly implanted somewhere, and I shall ignore their gibbering.

There are in fact a huge number of officials and important people in other countries who need to be whacked. International politics has absolutely nothing to do with the proper way to do things.

Qasem Soleiman deserved it.


So do several Russians, members of the Syrian government, a huge number of Persian and Turkish persons, and in fact many leftwing politicians in Europe and other third world hell holes.


As well as some of our own.

If the entire Bharatiya Janata Party were machine-gunned, for instance, you would not find me weeping. My only question would be "who does it benefit?" Same goes for the Dutch Socialist party.
To name just two examples.

If you really think that all of our foreign relations should be about altruism and playing by gentlemanly rules, you are ignorant of history, and may need your head examined.


Diplomacy is about establishing "friendly relations".
With protocols acceptable to both parties.
Some people aren't friends.


Soleimani wasn't a civilian.




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BAD SALAD

It's all about a proper diet. Which is why I am determined to never touch raw lettuce again. That stuff is frightful. Aragula too. Kindly cook it, you know, stirfry briefly with some chopped fatty pork or swished over heat with a little oyster sauce, so that it tastes good.

Similar to that, some subjects are not up for discussion. Reader Stevie offered a link to an article and entreated me to devote a post to it. I promptly deleted his comment, and no longer have the link. No, it wasn't about veganism or smoking cessation.

There is nothing I could contribute to any discussion of that subject.
Nor is there anything I wish others to contribute.
It interests me not at all.


Stevie is one of three people.



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THERE IS NO COMPUTER TECHNICIAN

So far there have been nearly a dozen phone calls from Indians who believe themselves to be my computer technician. Which seems to be an article of faith, because there is no factual basis. All over India, smartipants computer geeks are lighting little ghee lamps in front of statues or representations of Krishna, Ganesh, and Atboth-The-Blogger-In San Francisco.
Who will send them untold riches and success.


"Hello Sar, how are you?"

"Do you remember me? I am your computer technician ... "


So sorry, Suresh-bhai, I am not presently having a technician. Your prayers will be unanswered, your sad hopes will be dashed, your screwdriver will alas not find a fitting slot, and your curry dinner may in fact be quite buggery cold and tasteless. There will be no naan o namak to still your moaning, your roti-shoti will not increase, and yes, your lovely wife person will likely leave you for that Muslim neighbor with the brand new car.

The monsoon will come early and torrentially, above your wattle hut.

And wash you down the drainage ditch to the river.

You will not be remembered.

Nalla.


While I can sympathize with the urge, nay necessity, of poor cursed Madrassi computer coolies to cheat stupid bourgeois white people by gaining access to their computers on which they do their internet banking and purchasing, personally I have no compulsion to aid that venture.
Whatever you are wanting, ji, we are not having.
Thank you, please call again.

Ji.


Now please to be kindly thrashing about on your milk-stained concrete floor, transported by animal passion, until you sink back, exhausted, onto the cartons of yogurt.


In other news for telephone scammers, the Gas company is not going to cut me off in the next thirty minutes, the San Francisco sheriff's department does not have a warrant for my arrest which can be nullified by a small monetary payment, and my credit card company will not call me about security issues on my computer.

The benevolent policeman's ball need not call either.



LAGNIAPPE

By the way, the recipe for Hobbit's Weed is two parts BCA, one part Lane's Very Cherry, and one part Sutliff 1M. The first and the last are vanilla flavoured blending components. All three can be mail-ordered.
I know you want this. You've scoured the internet for it.
When Tewksbury stopped making it, it hurt you.
A fundament had been yanked.
You shrivelled.


"Hello Sar, I am your tobacconist."

"And I am being scratched."

"Your hovercraft ... "


How sad, how sad, how infinitesimally sad!

My piles bleed for Hindustan.

Have some chai?




Important disclaimer: No desis were harmed in the writing of this post, and no phones were rammed into the side of any desi heads at any time.
I would indeed have liked to, oh very much yes, but the desis I actually know are on the whole decent folks who themselves would have responded with a long list of colourful terms, including the words 'ooloo', 'churail', 'dalal', and 'haramjad', to any computer technical calls from Rajesh or Vijay ......




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THE THEOLOGY

Courtesy of a person married to a Presbyterian minister comes the following meme, which originated deep in the bowels of the internet, and which speaks to me on many levels:


Unsuspecting Catholic: "Is this a mortal sin or just a venial sin? Is it a mortal sin to be okay with doing a venial sin? What if I die tomorrow?"
Martin Luther, stepping out from the shadows: "It’s all mortal sin."
Catholic: "All bad deeds are mortal sins?"
Martin Luther: "Bad deeds, good deeds."
Catholic: "Good deeds are mortal sins?"
Martin Luther: "No time to explain. it’s not safe here.  I –  "
John Calvin: -- descends shrieking from the ceiling --


A few months ago I was the unwilling listener to two Californians discussing religion and spirituality, one of whom adhered to the sweat lodge ceremonial tobacco use medicine man school of thinking, the other being into earth spirits native Pacific Islanders and objects of power.

Not to disrespect their deeply held beliefs, because they are both nice guys, but in many ways they were both repulsively batshit crazy.

The meme above expresses everything you need to know.




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MOURNING QASEM SOLEIMANI

So far, Russia, Turkey, and the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament have all condemned the strike which killed Persian Satrap Qasem Soleimani. Which was to be expected. Russia is headed by a mobster, the Turks are not our friends, and as for Iraqi politicians, so many of them have been buggered by their family members that they are mentally unstable.

Protesters outraged over the death of Soleimani have taken to the streets in Iraqi and Iranian cities, screaming the usual Arab and Persian obscenities.

A number of right-thinking Europeans are also critical, fearing that Iranian responses might endanger their countries and their citizens, because insane mullahs and the rabble can't tell the difference between one group of McDonalds snarfing foreigners and another.

They aver that it was unfair of the United States to endanger them.


Meh.


Several of our allies, and many foreign politicians, appear to be okay with all of this. Qasem Soleimani had it coming.


Besides, almost all players in the Middle East, including many from countries allegedly on our side, are expendable.

Everything south of the Bosporus.




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CHINESE NEW YEAR 2020

In roughly three weeks (Saturday January 25) we will be welcoming in the year of the rodent. No, not necessarily the rat, even though that's what it's being called in English. The character used is 鼠 ('syu'), which means both 'mouse' as well as 'rat'. For rat specifically, 老鼠 ('lou syu') is used, but sometimes that means mouse; 小老鼠 ('siu lou syu') means 'a little mouse'.

鼠

Mickey Mouse is 米奇老鼠 ('mai kei lou syu'). A little syu (小鼠 'siu syu') is a mouse, but it could also be a tiny rat. A little white mouse (小白鼠 'siu paak syu') is the guineau pig in experiments, especially when referring to humans.
Your computer mouse is either 鼠標 ('syu piu'; "mousy ticket-thing") or 滑鼠 ('gwat syu'; "slippery mouse").

This data is offered in hopes that confusion will be averted.
Or guaranteed.



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SYDNEY FYLBERT

When I told one of my coworkers about a recent addition to our household, a stuffed buzzard (from Wild Republic) named 'Sydney Fylbert', she expressed a desire to see pictures.

Very well, here he is.

He has a sweet and loveable personality.

But you must be prepared to overlook his tendency to think of everything in terms of carrion (good) or non-carrion (not really edible, so almost certainly NOT good, or not so good). Carrion is life. Life is carrion.

French fries and pecan pie are carrion.

Chicken noodle soup is carrion.

Buttery shortbread?

carrion.




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TWO CUPS MILK TEA

The key thing after having two cups of milk tea is the growing urgency of finding a powder room. Especially when it's cold outside. Which, upon return to my neighborhood, necessitated popping upstairs for a brief visit, after which going back out again to finish my pipe. Both the street outside, and the nearby main drag, were nearly clear of people.

At shortly after one I had boarded the bus heading toward C'town, walked the last few blocks with a pipe. Lunch and milk-tea (芫茜魚片粥，奶茶) while watching Ah Sook over at the next table choking on his Hainan Chicken (海南雞). Old men with colds should not 𤜯 ('gap') their food, but it must have been too delicious for calm methodical eating. Which I can totally understand; nearly burnt my mouth on the cilantro fish slices congee.

He looked very happy.

Silent observation of children at a different table. Kid, you're such a spoiled little turd that your little sister is destined to be the brainy one, an academic success. She may not realize it yet, but that will let her escape you and your repulsiveness. You'll graduate from a rehab facility while she goes to Harvard. You'll be a typical sour young Chinese American male no-goodnik, she'll probably be a scientist with peer reviewed papers to her name.

In her spare time she'll write the next great Chinese American novel.
Bitingly bitter fiction.

Those Dutch tourists at the far table haven't a clue about the food. It's not the Chinese they're used to in Alkmaar or Deventer. There is nothing,
NOTHING, on the menu that's recognizably Indonesian.
No, I'm not going to go over to help them.
Part of traveling is discovery.
Good luck!


Pipe after lunch. Opera in Portsmouth Square. Sounds like a martial epic detailing the generations long struggle against the nomadic barbarians from the waste lands (Huns, Mongols, Turks), stirring and inspiring.
Caedite eos, novit enim dominus qui sunt eius!
History remembers their savagery.


誓掃匈奴不顧身 ...


Second cup of tea up on Stockton Street. Warm place. Weirdo Canto-pop on screen, bad Mandarin new year's music on the sound system. Filled the third pipe up for later. The first pipe of the day was an early-seventies petite Canadian, the second a dashing mid-sixties number, the third would be an antique item from the fifties. All three smokes were delicious.

It had become colder. Took bus back.


The only fly in my ointment was that half a dozen times I smelled evidence of over-indulgence last night by New Year's partiers. People, we need rain.
This city is filled with drunks. Polk Street especially.

All of you tourists and coma zuipers need to go back to San Leandro.
Please take your oversized relatives with you.
Thanks, bye.




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THE CHILDREN

Plans today: pipe, lunch, lunting, milk tea, lunting, evening tea, and lunting. In any case food and milk tea. And lunting. Because, of course, the non-smoking apartment mate is home, it being a holiday. Lunting, from 16th. century Dutch "lont" entered the English language as a verb for walking around with a smoldering taper (lont: whick, fuse) for (re)lighting a pipe which had gone out, then matches became more common and the pipe, presumably still lit, stayed as the action or focus of the verb.
So, to wander about lazily, smoking one's briar.
Which in the modern world triggers people.

It's a good thing I do not enjoy flavoured tobaccos, because in many places those have been banned. Apparently they are totally irresistible to little children, who might take up pipe smoking because it smells "so good".
Yes, the anti-smokers are convinced that the kiddies will upon smelling the cherry strudel cake in my briars immediately go out and purchase fine smoking pipes and tobacco. In sincere childish imitation!

It's all about the tots.

There will be at least two hot cups of milk tea. Because middle-aged fellas sometimes have cold fingers. And might want to observe other humans not freezing, indoors, with happy snacks and sweets.

And, of course, it's all about the tots.

Easily impressionable tots.


I suspect that I'll probably end up enjoying Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice around two or three in the afternoon at a place right in the centre of C'town, then observing elderly people in the park, unless it's too noisy and there are too many tourists. It is unlikely that I'll have a book with me.

Two pipes. Aged Virginia tobacco. Gloves.


If any kids wish to follow my example, smoking a pipe filled with something old fashioned, swilling tea, grumbling about their stiff knee (worse in chilly weather), and just observing the normal people through the window pane, having another pipe full, fingers gradually turning blue from cold....

Well, I'll be happy to tell them how to do it.

It's all about the tots.




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BEST NEWS OF THE YEAR

From a publication in Florida, so you know it's real news, comes this: "Mansplaining convention coming to Orlando promises to 'Make Women Great Again'." Naturally, I am a sucker for real news.


Mansplaining convention coming to Orlando promises to 'Make Women Great Again'.


I'm also in favour of making women great again.

Quotes:

"Women today are being taught to act more like men," says the 22 Convention website, which they say has led to divorce, depression, dysfunction, and rampant single motherhood. "No longer will you have to give in to toxic bullying feminist dogma and go against your biological nature".

Topics the men will discuss include the ills of feminism, the war on motherhood, beauty and obesity, love and dating, getting pregnant and having "unlimited babies," getting in shape, beating the competition to "become the ultimate wife," and boosting femininity.

Men prefer debt-free virgins without tattoos.

End quotes.


I am full of awe. Being myself quite the splainer, (mansplaining, goysplaining, whitesplaining, etc.) I can only applaud this initiative, and the attendant upgrading of expertise plus knowledge of the field it heralds.

Splaining is, after all, one of the most effective ways of communicating.
Especially with people who are different.





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