WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM?

The problem with visitors from elsewhere in the country is that they make assumptions about us which gall. Such as that we're all undeserving aliens who stole their place in the sun, somehow robbed them of their birthright, talk funny, should not have voted, and that we voted wrong.


"No, where are you REALLY from?"


Many of us were born here, and if we weren't United States citizens we would not, and could not, vote. This is a large country with a diverse population. Deal with it.

Let me guess, you come from Trumpistan?
The vast interior. Between the Oakland Hills and the Atlantic. The kinder gentler, more gun-nut and syphilitic country.

We've heard about you people.




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A MAN EATING DUMPLINGS

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is visiting Burma. Mistranslations of his name on Facebook in Burma are causing consternation. And some hilarity.
No, I shan't put the translation here, because this is a clean blog, suitable for families and sensitive people, and I don't want to be banned on the mainland.


The mainland is very dear to me.
Burma far less so.
It's a ...




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IN ALL HONESTY ...

When I ordered my grilled pork and rice, the person I knew was talking with the friend with whom she had lunched. About things in her life. "How old is he?" She was unsure. "I don't know." "how long have you been married?" "Oh, maybe twenty five years ... "

I've known her for several years now, and she is fairly alert and awake. So her uncertainty about her husband's age and the length of their marriage may have been due to her years, but more likely a typical Chinese mental block. The marriage does not seem to be the best thing to have happened to her.
A quarter of a century ago she was probably despairing of ever getting hitched. She's a petite woman with a kind face. Maybe she spent too much time living to actually have a life.

There is frequently a frantic quality to Chinese women who think in Cantonese rather than English. They expect things of themselves that they have never learned to question. It also infects their English-fluent sisters.
But often far less so.

I've noticed it occasionally with my apartment mate.
Sometimes that Chinese-ness crops up.
Which disturbs her.


The lady who runs the place remarked that I had not been around for several weeks. Well, yes. The food is good, and I like the place. It was an oversight. I claimed to have been far too busy. One of her staff remarked that I spoke Cantonese superlatively well. Which I don't. My ability is one step above crappy, but that's it. Most of the time I guess by context what the other person meant, which I had done earlier at the bank.

Was my wife Chinese? No, I am not yet married. The construction "not yet" agrees with the Chinese presumption that getting hitched is the normal thing to do, which everyone understands. Oh, was I seeing someone? No. Then really I should go to the mainland! Or perhaps I should kau the third woman working there, she too was not yet married!
How perfect!


Um.


I am flattered that they think I'm marriage material. Did I already mention "expectations" and certain presumptions? As a man of this age, and this income level, and this ethnicity (Caucasian, and so white I glow in the dark, you can read a book by the light reflected from my cold pale dermis), perhaps I am not an ideal mate for your unmarried employee, quite likely "Ngo m-ngaam keui" (I would not be suitable for her).

I didn't say any of that, though. I changed the subject.

She's cute and intelligent looking, but she undoubtedly thinks and dreams in Cantonese, which I don't. There would be problems of understanding, entirely aside from the fact that dating is something I do badly.

Besides, I'd have to explain a number of inconvenient facts. The apartment mate. The stuffed creatures. The pipe collection, the tobacco stockpile. Several hundred books. The lack of kin in California.
The goofy foreign languages.

The fact is that pride, stubborness, Aspergers, laziness, and a lack of singular drive, have had a combined effect on my life and lifestyle which makes me a horrible prospect for any reasonable woman.

I am just not marriage material.
But I guess I look okay.





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THE INEDIBLE BITS

A friend asserts that the average human weighs the same as twelve hundred and fifty bananas, more or less. Which is very useful information, and I have long suspected him of missing important screwdrivers in his toolbox. Something which is not uncommon. At one banana per week, it would take you twenty five years to eat that many.

It is after eight on a Friday morning in January, and my stuffed creatures are all warmly tucked in. I am not. It is cold. And I'm already wondering what to have for lunch. Lung lei fish with garlic black bean sauce comes to mind.

After yesterday's eight hours of conversational chaos at work, I am looking forward to some quiet time.


Lunch, pipe, wander around, let my mind reconstruct, a few minor grocery purchases, tea, and another pipe. If it rains, shelter under an awning, either opposite the hospital, or down on Washington Street across from the ginseng place.


The countdown to New Year has already begun. Stuffed rats and mice, cute cartoons of rats and mice, candies shaped like rats and mice. One famous cigar brand has a limited edition 'year of the rat' stogie, and at least one pipe carver had done a rat in briar, with a tobacco hole in it's back. I shall not purchase anything like that. I am not vested in symbolic fetishes.

I might actually buy some bananas. One bunch is four tenths of a percent of the human body. More or less.

Thanks to an Orthodox Jewish friend I now know things about some internet tropes I did not wish to know, and an artist friend who makes great bunny rabbit illustrations linked to an article in which soft tissues and dead people were mentioned, also data I could have done without. The internet age has broadened our horizons and enlarged human knowledge, but some of this stuff should have remained hidden.

An Arizona legislator (Sylvia Allen) introduced a bill to ban any mention of the word "homosexuality" from schools. There is no better way to ensure that kids will find out all about the subject in the modern age than that.
She's clearly an idiot, who has not heard of the internet.
I bet she doesn't know about bananas either.

The average Christian is solid fat from the neck up.
It keeps them from drowning in a harsh world.

Sie können dort nicht anhalten.
Das is bananenland.




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RAINY WEATHER MAKES BRAINS SHRIVEL

Sometimes ones friends resemble meatballs. Little fatty meatballs covered with brown gravy. And by that standard, the gentlemen in the lounge huffing their cheroots and screaming vituperation about The Democrats do not qualify. Though I can well imagine them slathered in hot gravy, lava hot, hot enough to separate their flesh from their bones in little steaming raggedy strips. One or two of them probably belong in jail, along with the Virginia Nazis arrested for plotting violence and breaking sundry laws.

So obviously there were no sports on the telly.
The slug-mutants were antsy.

The shifty suburban retired cop finished almost an entire bottle of bourbon while huffing his cigars, getting louder as the afternoon wore on, then went out to possibly commit vehicular manslaughter in the rain.


[There are many more of these people in other parts of the country, and though they all benefit from California's modernity and conveniences -- and marked lack of tornadoes, Texans, and dumbass rednecks -- they hate it here by golly, and really should move back to the holes they oozed from. They would be happier. And calmer.]


R the Subcontinental liberally puts up with their nonsense, and tolerates their insane ranting. Warty stirs up sh*t whenever he can -- as a retired doctor he finds the displays of psychoses scientifically interesting as well as entertaining. R the Caucasian is too old to slut around and risk STD's like he used to do, which I would guess is a cause of severe disappointment to the man; it has soured him and turned him into a Trumpite. D the Bald Pervert needs the crap slapped out of him by Colin Kaepernick and Greta Thunberg, and C.o.D has become a father recently and has no life.

As for the esteemed member of the judicial branch, someone mentioned that his wife has the balls of a snake. So he has his own problems.

Being an equitable and even-tempered pipe smoker myself, I tend to ignore whatever those boys are discussing. No matter the subject. And have no interest whatsoever in their zany antics.

Don't mind me, boys. Let me have my cup of tea and leave me alone. I'll just engage in rational conversation with whichever liberals (fellow pipe smokers, mostly) might seek refuge from the weather.


I love my fellow humans.




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OLD GOAT

What keeps this blogger going is snacky things, enjoying his tobacco pipes and books, and a dirty mind. It is quite possible that the last mentioned is a survival mechanism. I would be far less lively without lascivious thoughts. Milk tea, baked goods, and Virginia blends aren't enough to survive on.
Or get me out of the house much.

One the other hand, an attractive woman carrying a platter of cheeses and a stimulating beverage, boy howdy!


College graduates, fromage, and cake. The secret to longevity, an Academy Award thank-you speech, improved circulation, and a description of heaven.
All rolled into one.




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AND HOT BEVERAGES

Went down to Chinatown and dined at a chachanteng. Milk tea, bittermelon omelette and rice. And enjoyed observing the other nearby diners from my corner, though too far away to listen in on their conversations. The nearest couple were Chinese, in their mid-forties, and spoke too softly to make out what they were saying, though the waitress and the cleaning lady over at the counter were loud enough. The young fellow who also works there seems to be a Mandarin speaker, mostly. A mainlander.
His Canto is about on par with mine.

A sour and disapproving woman near the door had ordered food to go, then spent an inordinate amount of time scoping out the specials written on the wall. Which I had already looked at. The snow fish hotpot (雪魚煲仔 'suet yü pou jai') had mildly piqued my interest, the pork shreds with salt pressed vegetable (榨菜肉C 'jaa choi yiuk si') was a standard I've had a number of times elsewhere, and the lamb loin stew with tofu sticks (支竹羊腩煲 'ji juk yeung naam pou') is a winter classic, very warming. The concubine chicken (貴妃雞 'gwai fei kai') was no longer listed; the waitress assured me later that if I wanted that next time, it would be available anyway. They had made room on the board for something else.


The nearest couple previously mentioned were happily stuffing their faces with two regular menu items, one of which was baked porkchop spaghetti with tomato sauce, tonnes of cheese on top, the other being baked ham rice with cream sauce and cheese on top. Good solid fatty Hong Kong urban chow. Heart-attack on a plate.

I miss the years that I could do that without giving my doctor conniptions. Come to think of it, I miss having someone to do that with, more.
I miss having a girlfriend.

Someone with whom to listen to the rain in the middle of the night.

According to the weather report, it will come down in a few hours, and still be soggy weather for most of the day tomorrow. Good thing I'll be at work.
I'd hate to be smoking outdoors in that.


At this time of year, Raynaud's phenomenon is a frequent occurrence, and the regular pain in my fingers is a royal pain in the gand. No, I have not told my apartment mate about that; there is no need for her to know. When smoking my pipe outdoors the blueness of my digits chases me back inside, too often without finishing my pipe. It did so this evening also. Several of my fingers are still grey and tingling as I type this.

["Royal pain in the whatsis": 减少的血流 ('gaam-siu dik huet lau'; decreased blood circulation) in the fingers and toes. When the temperature drops to low fifties my fingers first turn whitish, then greyish, then blue from peripheral cyanosis. It will take nearly an hour of being in a warmer environment for full recovery. During which time they burn.
Gloves help a little bit.]

It is presently mid to high forties.

And further, my legs are stiffer and don't function quite as efficiently in this weather. That, too, is a royal pain in the doohickemajig.

On the plus side, I enjoyed my meal very much.

Happy diners, warm environment, social noise.

Hot milk tea, and a bottle of chili sauce.

A pretense of being human.




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CONGEE IS NOT SUGGESTIVE

A few years ago I wrote a short account of eating congee (粥 'juk') at a place where a sullen girl worked, suggesting that if she had some excitement in her life she would look happier. And I haven't eaten there since. I realize now that perhaps it was her sullenness.
There are more cheery places.
For a bowl of jook.

Congee can be comforting.

The elderly crowd that flock to one of my favourite cheap C'town eateries sometimes clears them out of congee before I get there -- a man does not want to battle through a dense flock of senior citizens for a warm bowl, so he might get up late, on his days off -- and I'm not really peckish before I've had my coffee, read the news, and smoked the first pipe of the day.


Congee is warm white sludge. To the teenage mind it may look obscene, but we think the same about you, sonny, and we're cleaner thinking people. So we know it's good. Rice simmered to the break apart and cloudy stage in six to ten times its volume of water, with some thousand year egg or dried fish added. Maybe peanuts. Scallion. Chives. Or a fried dough stick.


The presence of a sullen female is NOT required.


Even Chowhound and Martha Stewart have discovered it, so I'm no longer ahead of the curve. And I shan't mention the places I go to, because I don't want the foodies or tourists to discover them and spoil it for me.

But it's easy to make, you can do it at home. Supply your own sullen person, of whichever gender you like. Just use a heat protector to keep it from scorching, stir it often, and if you're lazy employ the osterizer or blender as a shortcut. Two TBS of white rice to one cup of liquid.
Or more. Or less.

Add savoury things in the last minutes of cooking, and garnishes.


A SHORT LIST OF CONGEES

鮑魚粥 ('baau yü juk'): abalone rice porridge.
鮑魚滑雞粥 ('baau yü kwat kai juk'): abalone and chicken rice porridge.
柴魚花生粥 ('chai-yü faa-sang juk'): dried fish and fried peanuts porridge.
猪肝粥 ('chyu gon juk'): pork liver slices rice porridge.
豬潤粥 ('chyu yeun juk'): pig "gloss" jook; rice porridge with pork liver.
火鴨粥 ('fo ngaap juk'): rice porridge with roast duck.
滑雞粥 ( 'gwat kai juk'): chicken chunks (often bone-in) rice porridge.
虾粥 ('haa juk'): fresh shrimp and cilantro rice porridge.
香菇肉鬆粥 ('heung gu ngau song juk'): mushroom and meat threads porridge.
蠔豉瘦肉粥 ('ho si sau yiuk juk'): dried oysters and lean pork porridge.
海鮮粥 ('hoi sin juk'): mixed fresh seafood porridge.
雞球粥 ('kai kau juk'): chicken rice porridge.
北菇雞球粥 ('pak gu kai kau juk'): black mushroom and chicken porridge.
皮蛋瘦肉粥 ('pei dan sau yiuk juk'): preserved egg and lean pork porridge.
生滾蝦球粥 ('sang gwan ha kau juk'): jook with fresh shrimp.
生滾牛肉粥 ('sang gwan ngau yiuk juk'): rice porridge with sliced beef.
生滾肉片粥 ('sang gwan yiuk pin juk'): jook with sliced pork.
蝦球帶子粥 ('sin haa daai-ji juk'): shrimp and scallop porridge.
爽滑肉丸粥 ('song gwat yiuk yuen juk'): pork meat ball porridge.
碎牛粥 ('sui ngau juk'): rice porridge with minced beef.
魚片粥 ('yü pin juk'): fish curls rice porridge.


Again, sullen people or dirty-minded teenagers are absolutely not necessary, and they don't add anything worthwhile. But it's up to you.





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CHINESE NEW YEAR SOON

The new year starts in less than two weeks, and in preparation for that, stalls are cropping up along Stockton Street selling the necessary things. Red packets, new clothes, new years cake (年糕 'nin gou'). Tangerines and oranges are in abundant supply. Soon also, one would expect, daffodils and blossoming plum branches.


春節
['Chun jit'. Spring festival.]

The year starts on January 25th. in 2020. Traditionally, people welcome it with a family dinner the evening before, after cleaning house and hanging lucky scrolls and plastering auspicious characters on doors. In China, travel madness will begin several days ere then, as people set off to get back to their kin in distant provinces in time. Chaos will have ensued at many train stations, with huge masses of passengers, and delays.

Here in San Francisco, it is far less hectic.



My apartment mate, a Cantonese American person, has been trying to get all of her siblings on the same page as far as a family dinner, without any significant success. As a Caucasian with no nearby kinfolk, I of course do not intend to do anything at all. Even if I were married to a Chinese person, that evening I would likely be by myself.
I shan't clean house, and I'm working that day, and the next. As well as the Monday following. As far as almost all culturally significant celebrations are concerned, I am a dried-up stick insect and don't care either way.

Chinese New Year is pretty much the same as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines, but without me grumbling or making snide comments.


Some dishes which are traditional, which I may or may not think of preparing:

Fatty pork and hard-boiled eggs (滷蛋紅燒豬肉 'lou daan hung siu chyu yiuk'). It keeps well, and goes great over rice. Arhat vegetarian dish (羅漢齋 'lo hon chai'), which is traditional, and can be quite good. And especially dried oysters with pork and hair vegetable 好事發財 ('ho si fat choi').
That last, in a cantonese-speaking environment, is a must.

There are also several other very appropriate dishes (described here: Lucky Foods), but I am less vested in them, and again, I am Caucasian, with no family in the area. So no. Not going to bother.

No gok jai (角仔), no lo hei (撈起).

Yes, I'll probably have dumplings at some point, and also noodles for good luck and long life. Plus a nice fish. Fish has a propitious connotation.


What I'm really looking forward to is the fireworks.
Several weeks of explosions.




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IT'S FRUIT FLAVOURED!

Three news items today got my attention: The MLB fining the Houston Astros for sign stealing, President Donald Trump lying through his damn teeth about his record as regards pre-existing conditions, and Senator Warren accusing Bernie Sanders of not playing cricket.

Well okay.

Who the blazes cares about the Houston Astros doing anything at all? It's sports, and of no consequence. Besides, they're Texans, so you have to expect shenanigans, and American Football is sodden with corruption, degeneracy, a-morality, and spandex anyway. Grow the F up.

Trump lies and is a complete wanker. His fanbase consists entirely of people who should have been extras from Deliverance.

Bernie not playing cricket? Look, everyone already knows that the coming election is going to be senile old farts whining, and that the Republicans are going to pull some stupendous skeevy shit to win -- assisted by the rotting cadavers of the NRA (owned lock stock and barrel by the Moscow mafia) and the religious right (psychopaths and closeted child molesters) -- so the philandering orange scumbag will probably win again.

Bernie not playing cricket? Isn't he dead yet?


The Democratic Party this time around can't run a winner if their lives depended upon it.


Senile Joe versus the angry gibbering fossil from New England. Aside from mouth foam, drooling, and old man idiocy on teevee, nothing exciting.


You'd almost think the whole process is rigged.





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HAVE PETS INSTEAD

By late afternoon the haze covered Mount Tam, and I decided to pull in the lawn furniture. Shortly after tea time the rain came. A soft wussy drizzle. If you stayed out in it for half an hour, you'd be drenched. And freezing.
Very English. Sweater and mildew weather.

And, remarkably, this morning it is sunny.

Almost springlike.



A fellow pipesmoker, thousands of miles away, managed to forget one of his children when driving to Essex. He blames his wife. No, I didn't read the entire screed, but the gist of it was that kids and mothers get in the way of a man quietly enjoying a pipe by himself while appreciating the landscape of the British Isles. An estuarine bog near Colchester or Tendring.
A point of view with which I can sympathize completely.
They can also get in the way of tea time.
Anything, really.


If you smoke around children nowadays, somebody will 'get triggered'. Before you know it, angry Berkeley or Marin Earthmothers will come thundering around a corner, thagomizer aloft, to screech fiercely and pound you into smithereens. Children, especially middle class children in Bay Area suburbs, are easily traumatized, fragile, and largely useless.

It isn't until their mid-teens that they start developing the tattoos and armour plating of their parents. As well as the nasty attitudes.

If left too long unattended, they bloat.



As you may gather, I myself don't have children. I've got my stuffed animals and solitary pursuits, and if I lived in a larger place, I'd probably have a cat.
A creature that would doze in the shafts of sunlight slanting in through the windows, eat a bit, and perhaps lick its butt.

Middle class children would be far more likeable if they did that too.

Wisely, the authorities in several places around the Bay Area have banned the sale of all flavoured tobacco products, because they attract children.
And nobody wants that.

TOBACCO INDEX


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NOT EVERY ONE THERE WAS THERE

This is something which I feel I must make clear: I am alive and full of beans. The reason for the clarification being that today I had to assure people over a dozen times that my health is good, I've recovered from medical events, my strength is back, and I'm fine thank you for asking. Never thought I would have to say this, but really, I'm okay. Full of the proverbial P and V.

Yeah, mmm, the right leg is a bit wankel.
It's a circulatory issue.

When I become a zombie, I'll let you know.



Today was the monthly meeting of the local pipe club. Pipesmokers who are social enough to meet once a month may not be social enough. In this era we tend to be loners. People often say that they never see people smoking a pipe anymore, and why is that? well, in the fifties salesmen and advertising execs smoked pipes, by the seventies it was hairy beach apes and lawyers, and in this day and age it's crusty old Dutchmen or such like, who hide from women, children, and the typical middle class Californian busy bodies who want to make all lives of which they do not approve sheer hell on earth.


"HOW DARE YOU RUIN MY LUNGS?!?!!"


Who are you, and how did you gain access to my cave? Also, why are you breathing? I could mention something about Berkeley hipster-moms wearing Guatamalan stink-rags, burning sage and wearing sandals because of the dolphins and the suffering rain forest, and being totally okay with wheat grass, marijuana, and little Timmy on his ADD medication -- it's green sweetie, organic cow dung, and the need modern puritans have to self-affirmatively harangue people about their un-woke sinfulness -- but I won't.

We pipe smokers just aren't very social. Just leave us alone with our stinky leaves and a lovely cheese plate, and pretend we don't exist. We try not to exist in your perfect universe.

What I'm basically getting at is that I only see these gentlemen once a month at best, which means that it's been a mere six or seven actual days for many of them since I was in the hospital. One week. If that. They're nice people, but they were off in their own worlds, chasing the fox or sniffing the truffle, even ripping apart the fresh cadaver like a hungry turkey vulture. Whatever the modern middle-aged pipe smoker does.

Real time: six months.

Yeah, I wasn't the paradigm of sociability either. I spent a lot of time hiding out in Chinatown drinking Hong Kong Milk Tea, snarfing snackipoos, and just observing people. But I was not the life of the party, anywhere.
I didn't even use my telephone as a social instrument.
There has been no reaching out and touching.
In whichever direction.



There were two very fine cheeses at the meeting. I should've written down what they were, but I wasn't thinking. They were really quite tasty.
Naval bases in the Pacific got mentioned, as well as durian.

Bernard smoked a bowlful of Captain Black Gold, as an ironic gesture, seeing as all flavoured tobacco products have been banned in our locality.
Because of the children, who cannot resist such things.
It's all about the children.

There were at least two Scotches, and several bottles of very nice wine. Including an amazing Zinfandel, which I did not sample, but heard about.
Other than that, I can't really say much about the meeting, it was too busy, and I had to abandon them several times. Plus there were cigar-smokers screaming at the ball game in the back.

TOBACCO INDEX


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NICE TO SEE ME!

When a young woman says "it's nice to see you again", what she means is that it's nice to see me again. Or possibly that it's very nice to see that my health is better, and it's good that the combination of doctor's visits and beastly cold weather hasn't pushed me into a early grave. Something nice and neutral, in any case. I am too senior a dude for it to mean anything naughty. There is an age difference of decades in her favour, and I have every reason to assume that I smell bad to sensitive creatures.

I'm old(er), and I smoke a pipe.

That right there says it all.

Still, it's nice that she feels that it's pleasant to see me again. A man likes to be seen again. And it's a very good thing I don't have thought balloons over my head.
I may look like a cute old geezer, even a decent bloke -- shan't speculate about that, though when I look in the mirror my recent haircut makes me seem quite civilized -- but I'm actually a nasty fellow. Wicked.


"Yo, old fossil, what do you want with my daughter?!?"


Nothing but gooooooood things, sir! We will pray together! Read the good book! In a nice warm comfortable place! Somewhere quiet.


Okay, I don't think I could pull that one off. Even I would choke if someone tried that crap on me. Especially someone like me.


It's so nice to see me again.
But that's all it is.
Dammit.





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OUR BOAT DOES NOT GO ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP

Like with many 'boomers', your misspellings and grammatical errors peeve me the hell off. Good example: freinds. The correct way to spell that is 'friends', pronounced "FRENDS". 'Freinds' is pronounced "FRAYNDS". Which is a different word. One that does NOT exist. There is only ONE conclusion which one reaches after reading a text that includes 'freinds'.
The writer is an idiot.

Well, not this text, of course.
I'm a ruddy genius.

Prove me wrong.

Some languages are easier to spell than others. Evenso, having seen the spellings 'mershum' for meerschaum, and 'falconite' for vulcanite, both of which conveyed the writers' meanings adequately, I realize that being an idiot is a natural state for some reasonably intelligent people, and trying to teach these bozos Dutch (which is written as it is pronounced, thank you) would be an unsanctifiable and hopeless task, as well as pissing into the wind for all the good it would do.


The United States is the nation that invented 'Covefe'.


We are filled to the brim with idiots.



The howling mob.



Also important: capitalization, punctuation, and the Oxford comma.



I am suffering from a severe lack of ice cream at this time.
There will be no more questions.




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FORTY NINER FANS

This blogger, as you know, is not a sports fan. Frankly I cannot stand televised games, particularly the stupid spectacle called football in the United States. On the other hand, watching (or hearing) sports fans is great entertainment. Lost bets, too much liquor and cigars, screams, sweating, Tourette Syndrome, quivering fits, bizarre chanting, and seizures. And that was just one man there. Sometimes a very stable man, what with being a responsible member of the community, with gravitas, and educated.
Some of the others were much much worse.
We had a room full of them.
Crazed gibbons.


The Monkey House at the zoo has nothing on these boys, damned good thing there was neither pooh nor bananas anywhere near them.


One of them came in as aged Parmesan, left as deliquescent Brie.

Other metaphoric cheeses: Gorgonzola, Swiss, Limburger.

Fan sports: the great cheese pit of life.



They probably all breakfasted on pizza before they got there.
And performed blood sacrifices. Live goats.




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BETTER SPEECHES, MORE TUNA SANDWICHES!

One of my friends apparently has a problem opening an Instagram account. Which he says he needs to keep abreast of his grandchildren. Because both Facebook and e-mail are SO last decade.

As a person who still uses both of those methodologies, I am now feeling incredibly ancient. Hence this blog post. I actually know people who write letters on paper, and at work we do a lot with "handwritten" notes.

However, whenever I feel old and grumpy, all I really need to do to feel young and sprightly again is read the news. There are so many examples of senile old farts out there shooting off their mouths that a man can't help but feel vibrant and full of barely post-teenage vinegar.


"I'm going to tell you about the Nobel Peace Prize, I'll tell you about that. I made a deal, I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country. I said: 'What, did I have something do with it?' Yeah, but you know, that's the way it is. As long as we know, that's all that matters... I saved a big war, I've saved a couple of them."

-----Donald Trump, speaking recently about someone else being awarded his Nobel Prize, several months after the fact.


It is entirely unclear what the heck he is talking about, as he had nearly nothing to do with the events to which he seems to be referring. Donald Trump is man who belongs in a retirement home with a curfew, like his buddies Rudy Guliani, and Joe Biden. Probably different homes, because one of them is convinced the other stole his tuna fish sandwich.

I rely on Facebook to tell me what those three fossils tweet.

Recent research indicates that drinking red wine regularly staves off senility, and the evidence shows that none of the gentlemen whom I mentioned drink nearly enough red wine. Why, the world would be a much safer and calmer place if they were sodden drunk at all times.

Ayatullah Khameini too.

At least they wouldn't be able to use Twitter. Except for the occasional 'covefefic' outburst, we could safely ignore them.

Well, besides their horrid breath.
Old men and tuna salad.
You know ...

This blogger firmly believes that their public utterances would be much nicer if they were squiffy. They'd make more sense, communicate more clearly, and at the very least fewer listeners would need hard drugs or valium.
Less people stoned can be a good thing.
And more tuna.



Oh, and Jonathan, Instagram can probably be used for drug deals and late night pizza delivery. You should probably stay off it. You don't need anymore craziness in your life, you've got plenty of that already.
Just have a sandwich.




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IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

When I was a teenager I knew everything, and would have been insufferable to myself now. This is not unusual. Teenage boys, are, in the main, unlikeable little sh*ts, and deep into adulthood we resent the exceptions.

[Exceptionalism can run in both directions: Donal Trump and Mitch McConnell are still insufferable.]


Unlike most unlikeable little sh*ts, I wasn't exposed to Monty Python till adulthood. Everything that starts with three questions must, inevitably, lead one to Saint Attila.


What is your name? What is your favourite colour? What is the airspeed velocity of a swallow?


The world long ago revolved around book rooms, comfy chairs in which to read while smoking one's pipe, hot caffeinated beverages, plates of buttered toast with Dundee marmalade, and deep fried unidentifiable objects.

Books came from Blackwells in England. Reference, dictionaries, Simenon, Nabokov, cuisine, scientific subjects, mediaeval and colonial history.
Comfy chairs (in book rooms) were all over the place.
Dundee marmalade also came from England.
As did varieties of decent tea.

Deep fried things are the Dutch National Cuisine. We lived in Holland at the time. The non-deepfried stuff is snert, eels, herring, or Indonesian food.

In retrospect it seems rather limited.


Nowadays you cannot smoke inside anymore, unless your apartment mate has left for work and it's your day off. So after two or three in the afternoon there will be no pipe lit up near the chair or the books. Haven't seen Dundee marmalade in a while, but there are many other things to put on toast.

The last two or three pipefulls of the day tend to be cold affairs.
Entirely without books. After the tea-cup is empty.
Outdoors, in a virtual Siberia.


The number of questions has considerably expanded, and I no longer know everything. I have a number of favourite colours presently.


But, via friends, I now know this: An unladen swallow will fly from 9 to 12 meters per second, depending on what it recently ate, whether it is being pursued, or how much of a hurry it is in. Elevation, humidity, temperature, coconuts, and the bird's age and size are also factors to consider.

So anywhere between 32 km p/h. and 41 km p/h.



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COW RIVER

So, doctor's appointment yesterday (just a follow-up, not to worry), followed by a smoke in an alley-way near the clinic, then lunch. I had been thinking about bitter-melon omelette rice, but I do not like being so predictable. One of the dishes they also do is 'fried beef rice-stick noodles'. Broad rice stick is called "sand river rice-noodle: (沙河粉 'saa ho fan'), hence the abbreviation 乾炒牛河 ('gon chaau ngau ho'); or just 牛河 ("cow river").
Which can be stupendous. Or just so-so.

[Blanched rice stick, thin sliced beef, sliced onion, scallion chopped into inches, cleaned bean sprouts, soy sauce and rice wine. Extremely high heat, cooking oil smoking. First three into the pan to caramelize the edges, then add scallion and bean sprouts, flash and sizzle, slop onto a plate. To the table steaming and too hot to eat.]

It hit the spot. But I've learned that a popular chachanteng right around everybody else's lunch time is a bad idea for the single diner.
Worst seat in the house, and nearly invisible.

It takes a man with Asperger several hours to understand that the pleasant plump-faced waitress wasn't avoiding him, but just had her hands full, and her skill-level and energy could not compete with the hyper scrawny girl twirling twirling twirling. Fortunately I am patient, calm, and sometimes exceptionally well-mannered. As well as beset by self doubts.


The best time for me to head over to a chachanteng is probably between half past two and four thirty. After the crowd has died down, and with enough time to enjoy a leisurely meal before the crowd starts swelling up again.


Do not get between a hungry Cantonese person and food.
They will stampede right over you. Cow river.
And opening up the gates of hell.
Screaming banshees.


It's cataclysmicly low blood sugar combined and an entirely understandable pressing need to eat. Something. Right. Now. Dammit!


They themselves don't grasp the chemistry of it all, but they are at their most determinedly murderous in the last half hour before their regular lunch or dinner times. That's why bakeries do a booming business between tea-time and closing. A homicidal person has got to snack, see, and naturally presumes that those white people are just casually browsing with no perceived need to buy anything. If necessary, elbow someone and yell for attention. Gotta have that cupcake (紙包蛋糕 'ji bau daan gou') now!
And coffee! Milk tea! Boba drinkie!

Don't mind me, I'm just the middle-aged pipe-smoking white dude observing and analyzing. The outsider with keen eyes and a mental note pad.




In other news, I might end up getting a cell-phone sometime this year. First thing I'll do with it is take lovely still-shots of all of my dictionaries, in various settings. Dictionary and a cup of tea, dictionary on an end table, dictionary at an angle, softly lit. Then I shall send these pictures to people.
Unsolicited dic pics.





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NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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