DISASTER AND DESPAIR

On FB, one of my friends used an image that obviously originated in a manga, and which, apparently, is now also an anime. Which is why I wish to have ice cream cones banned.


Wikipedia: Spy × Family (stylized as SPY×FAMILY) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tatsuya Endo. The story follows a spy who has to "build a family" to execute a mission, not realizing that the girl he adopts as a daughter and the woman he agrees to be in a fake marriage with are a mind reader and an assassin, respectively.

[Educational video clip here: for immediate release.]

Cones are a danger to society. Nobody should risk one while walking. Big bucket, or not at all. Because, as you can see from the illustration below, they are an accident waiting to happen, and the resultant distress is potentially immense.


Trauma. Heartrending.

Unhappiness.

Image credit: Tatsuya Endo

This is one of the most shocking images involving a child imaginable.
As well as every parent's worst nightmare.

Why would a merciful deity allow such a thing to happen? Why?!?

Vanilla, mint chocolate chip, and strawberry.
Far better in a large plastic cup.
Perhaps with a wafer.




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

PERHAPS SIT IN A BUCKET OF ICE CREAM

It wasn't the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. It was the "endless scrambled egg buffet". This, at least, is my theory after listening to Oliver, the last of his kind, who keeps mentioning flame thrower parties and eggs. He's passionately fond of both. When I returned home from deepest Marin, the turkey vulture, the delinquent hippopotamus with the cane and hat, and the small purple dinosaur (last of his kind) all clamoured noisily for my attention.
Having had a long day at the salt mines, I was a bit upset.

A man needs his cup of strong coffee upon getting off work to fully alive again.

Don't disturb Daddy till he's had his Folgers.


Just cross the river to Juarez, little fellow, and ask the first gentleman you see there where all the dinosaurs are ("oye pendejo donde estan tus lindas hermanitas?"). Before you know it, you will be surrounded by your kinfolk whom you haven't seen in years. Yep, Juarez. It's the promised land. That's where all the dinosaurs went after we gave humans the vote here.


Oliver is about three inches tall. Probably always missed out on the endless scrambled egg buffet because he was so short. It's sad. As for the flamethrower parties, I doubt that those were as much fun as he makes them out to be. As he tells it, boys would flamethrower the girls from behind, which they adored, so they'd pursue the boy with great enthusiasm. After which no one would ever see the boy again; too much passionate loving. Now, I'll admit that seeing as I haven't dated anyone or had a relationship in over ten years I am a little rusty, and consequently "flame thrower parties" sound promising, but somehow I can't believe that torching someone's rear end with a blast of fiery napalm leads to passionate romance.

So I want you to try it. Report back to me afterwards. Did it work?
And how was the endless scrambled egg buffet?




NOTE 1: If you can pick it up, it's an hors d'oeuvre. Fried bacon strips with Sriracha as a dip, or cake.

NOTE 2: Sausalito attracts tourists from the stupid part of the world. You can also breathe through your nose. So if it is required to wear a mask anywhere, like, for instance, the bus, then the mask goes over the nose too. I guess that's unheard of in Dumbcluckistan, huh?

NOTE 3: Humans voting? Bad idea.




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

CLIMATE CONSPIRACIES

If they ever ask my type when I go into shock from blood loss, I shall be in deep trouble. As the urge to say "sentient, bipedal, no hippies" might be overwhelming. I guess that's a form of stoicism. Which, when I bellyache about the heat, is hard to do. Like yesterday. I made the mistake of leaving the house for a tea-time nibble. Consequently my legs were in agony when I returned, a massive flaming throbbing ache that lasted till after ten at night.

From heat, I need to complain.
No stoicism possible.

Now I know some folks will say "oh, eighty five degrees (F) ain't that hot..... (implication: man up you sissy)", but they are obviously ignorant sadistic brutes who have no clue how bloodpressure meds OR the body's heat-coping mechanisms work, they deserve to rot and lose all their children, and if I were able to move without pain during a heatwave I would languidly beat them to death.


"Eighty five degrees (F) ain't that hot"


You know, civilised people try not to live in Florida, Mississippi, or Texas. You folks are bipedal, but not sentient. You probably watch Football, and you are not my type.

SENTIENT BEING

The sentient beings and I shall now retire to a cave deep underground, where the permafrost is constant and there is an air-conditioning aparatus for just these occasions. You are not invited. Please stay on the surface watching sports and Fox News. And boil to death.

At the appropriate time, once we have sufficiently recovered from these horrible conditions, we might indulge in a chilled shrimp salad à la Créole (with tomato, peppers, finely minced scallion, and celery salt; plus a little chopped herring added for a creative touch), as well as a big coupe of chopped ice fruit with watermelon chunks and peaches.

Big buckets of ice tea quite likely also possible.
Hong Kong or Southern. Both are good.

I blame the Red States for this weather.
Damded heathens.



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

READING, FOR FUN AND PROFIT

Not surprisingly, the ancient history of China is filled with stupendous bloodshed and massacres, very much like Europe up to the present era. And reading about those times is both confusing and fascinating. The commentary of Zuo (左傳 'jo chuen') upon the first few readings does not provide much clarification, Wikipedia doesn't either, and operas and novels set in that period simply add confusing spaghetti-like strands to the soup.

There are things crawling in your soup by the time you put your laptop down.


'So this old guy went to see a king, who asked him "dude, you've come a long way and it took a lot out of you, don't you have something valuable to say?" And the old fellow answered, "big guy, why are you talking about valuable? If you ask about that, the chap who owns the villa next to the golf course will ask "hey how about me? These balls keep breaking my expensive plateglass windows and denting my beemer!?!", and the grocer will say "gotta any deals on canned goods today?", and then the dumbass with his pick-up truck on cinder blocks will ask if I've got any good used tires. From the greatest celebrity bastard to the stoned shanty town trash, everyone will be asking for favours and advantages, and because of their bourgeois attitudes the whole shebang will go to hell in a handbasket; better ask about proper behaviour. STF about valuable.'


That, slightly re-phrased, is how the Book Of Mencius starts.

孟子見梁惠王。王曰：「叟不遠千里而來，亦將有以利吾國乎？」孟子對曰：「王 何必曰利？亦有仁義而已矣。王曰『何以利吾國』？大夫曰『何以利吾家』？士庶人曰 『何以利吾身』？上下交征利而國危矣。萬乘之國弒其君者，必千乘之家；千乘之國弒 其君者，必百乘之家。萬取千焉，千取百焉，不為不多矣。苟為後義而先利，不奪不饜 。未有仁而遺其親者也，未有義而後其君者也。王亦曰仁義而已矣，何必曰利？」

Mencius went to see King Hui of Liang. King Hui of Liang said "You have travelled a long way to get here, surely you must have something to profit my state!” Whereupon Mencius threw a polite hissy fit, because that wasn't why he was there at all. After that was over he gave the king a lecture on proper governance, and then several weeks later moved on.

WEI [魏]. THE CHARACTER SHOWS A WOMAN WITH A SHEAF OF WHEAT
ON TOP OF HER, NEXT TO A DAEMON WITH A MOUNTAIN ON HIS HEAD

King Hui of Liang (梁惠王 'leung wai wong') was originally marquis of Wei (魏 'ngai'). He eventually said the heck with that, and made himself king, known to later writers as Hui of Liang after the site of his new capital fortress at Kaifeng (開封 'hoi fung'), called Liang (大梁 'daai leung'; "great Liang") in those days.

All of this makes for good reading. Imagine a bunch of Texas vulgarians squabbling over their 'freedums' and flashing unimaginable bling around. While a bunch of lawyers and spiritual blokes on the sidelines are wailing about laws, ethics, and values.

[Rereading stuff I first explored in my twenties and thirties. It's a refresher.]

It's been an exciting morning. Time spent well.
Contemplating lunch and a smoke now.



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

THE HOWLING PIT

When I was out of the house for six hours yesterday, not enjoying the warm weather, among other things I had lunch. Then didn't do most of the tasks I had set for myself, because it was hotter than I expected and I wilt easily. For some reason probably related to the regulatory function of blood pressure meds my body does not deal well with heat.
I seldom sweat nowadays.

My perfect range of temperatures is between fifty eight degrees Fahrenheit and the very low seventies. California is, in some ways, a hell zone. And I can't wait till the San Francisco summer cold comes. That's partly because people dress funny. One thing I do not wish to see again is the Daisy Dukes that revealed a large part of a large person's sit-upon. Or the man naked from the pants up who should not have been naked from the pants up. Or the plumber's cleft of a heavy set Latina. Okay, that's three things. They're just the ones that come to mind, because it is hard to wipe the mind clean.

California is, in some ways, a hell zone.

My mind is quite accidentally dirty. Damned well polluted. I blame society.
There are very good reasons to wear sunglasses.
Likely you do not want to be recognized.
And I don't want to see things.

A PIPE ENJOYED YESTERDAY AFTERNOON WHILE
STUDIOUSLY AVOIDING BADLY DRESSED PEOPLE

Being proud of your belly button piercing is understandable. And far be it from me to opine that that is one ugly dog of a belly button. I do not have any opinion of your belly button. It's monumental, but I'm keeping my mouth shut. I refuse to engage in belly button shaming.
Be empowered, little big ugly navel! I use "ugly' in a totally non-judgmental way.

Reminds me of an ashtray I once knew. That's a pipe rest, right?
I see someone already knocked their pipe out.
Dante wrote about this place.
Poetry.


Navels are in many ways quite fascinating.
Since an operation mine is rather ugly.
Even on hot days I keep it hidden.


There's an older gentleman in this neighborhood who on hot days sits on his front steps across the street wearing a Speedo.


California is, in some ways, a hell zone.




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

ADD CHEESE TO IT!

It's probably one of my many least likeable facets; tourists irritate me. Especially the white Southerners on Stockton Street, and the upper middle class South American young adults on Ross Alley loudly clusterfudged for a long time outside the milk tea place. Where entirely by coincidence I was enjoying a big glass of cold milk tea. Because it was too warm today for hot milk tea. And unlike the white Southerners on Stockton Street I do not dress like a refugee from Dukes Of Hazard or Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

You know, for a very big woman to wear a pair of hotpants that show off her posterior cheeks in their entirety is just mean. Little old Cantonese grannies do NOT need to have glowing flabby orbs at eye level. And, because I was sitting down at the time, neither did I.
Kudos on the number of bacon-cheeseburgers that took.


This is, again, one of the reasons why I tend to eat at places which do not cater to my kind. Loretta Thundershanks ain't likely have lunch there. But I bet I could do a booming business, in Chinatown, if I opened a restaurant that in big bold letters boasted that it would add bacon and cheese to anything. Hot and sour soup with bacon and cheese? Can do! Deepfried dough pocket filled with kung pao shrimp, then broiled to melt the cheese and bacon together? Also can! Today's special: crab rangoon. With bacon and cheese.
Pickled jalapeños and ranch dressing optional, just ask.
We'll nachofy anything!

Hot weather doesn't work well for me.

My feet hurt, my calves hurt, my thighs too. My shoulder blades.
This is one of the side effect of blood pressure meds.
Plus I turn into a meanspirited blister.
That's being Dutch.



AFTERWORD

A completely logical man would spend today and tomorrow languorously swanning around naked in an airconditioned space, not on the top floor nor exposed to direct sunlight, with basins of damp washcloths distributed about. But a person requires lunch, as well as company. Human contact. And I'm not nearly antisocial enough for that.
No one needs to be exposed to such exposure.




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

CHRISTIAN SEDER

In a short while it will be Passover, with which Easter sometimes somewhat overlaps. And that of course means that well-meaning Christians AND some unwell anti-Semites will host 'Christian Seders'. Which aren't really seders, but tasteless exercises in both cancel culture and cultural appropriation no matter how soft and fluffy they are. However, a close friend will be attending a non-Jewish Passover. Which seems to involve little that could be even remotely regarded as either cancellation or appropriation.


"Hey guys, how 'bout y'all come over on the evening which marks the beginning of Passover, which is a Jewish thing and immensely important in the history of the Jewish people, and seeing as none of us are Jewish (except for so-and-so, whose family couldn't celebrate Jewish stuff in Soviet Russia), we will mark it as nicely coinciding with and sort of in recognition of Passover, but we're going to have Filippino food and probably lots of wine. And whiskey."


You know, that sounds pretty good.

As a means of not being totally insensitive, an unstructured dinner party with no ideological/theological/new age bs elements whatsoever sounds all right.

If there has to be something Jewish at a non-Jewish get-together for the first night of Pesach, maybe some gefilte fish. And while I like gefilte fish, many people are on the fence about it, and have strong or mixed feelings about the chrein that goes with it.
There is no spiritual significance to gefilte fish.

Focusing on the bread substance however skates too close to dangerous territory. Breaking bread is a Middle-Eastern metaphor interjected into everybody else's culture by religion.
A bunch of non-Jews sitting around discussing the spiritual significance of bread on the first or second night of Passover, especially if they come from a Christian background, is, at the very least, quite distasteful.



By the way: Passover (Pesach) as we now know it, with the observances which are now customary, didn't exist at the time when Christ allegedly was around. That's part of rabbinic Judaism, which developed over several centuries largely in response to Christian and Roman attempts to destroy the Jewish people. Passover is a repitition of the realization of Jewish nationhood, commemorating a fundamental shared nationforming, and what it means to be Jewish. A passover seder which isn't Jewish ab initio therefore can not be a passover seder. The narrative has clearly defined purposes and content, anything else is immaterial shiznit. Enjoy your meal.




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

THE CUSTOMARY JAUNTING

The dulcet sounds of Mandarin ballads about despair and heartache were audible over a block away, where I waited for the bookseller to get down to Chinatown after getting off work. Which indicated that, perhaps, there were no kwailo in the place, or if there were, they would not be singing and might actually be gone by the time we got there. But first, cheese burger, boxwine, and soda at the old place, then beer and tea around the corner on the mezzanine. I'm the soda and hot tea. Due to a conflict with some pills I take everyday I decided three years ago not to risk it, and haven't touched a drop of alcohol since.

Being basically a cheapskate, like all Dutchmen, I gloat over how much I'm not spending.

But I do not begrudge anyone their drinkies, and find that most of my fellow white people are more bearable and less inclinded to bizarre aggression when reasonably happy, and if smoking pot or drinking till sozzled regularly will effect that, very well then.

Unfortunately this may cause them to sing despite a lack of any talent at a karaoke venue.
As veterans of the Encore on California Street well know. Sadly, that place was a victim of the pandemic, and has been closed since early Autumn of last year. There were some mighty fine drag queens who sang there back in the day, which basically made the pretendeurs at least tolerable when they went up on stage. But nothing makes Sweet Caroline or the Oakland Booty song bearable; Bart Simpson inflicting his problems on all of us.


I am not an fan of karaoke. Drag queens do it best.
Beyond that, everyone else better not.


I was at the usual spot andd had just finished smoking my pipe when he arrived.

THE PIPE FOR WATCHING RATS IN SPOFFORD ALLEY

Per the custom of several years now, I arrive in Chinatown early and smoke my pipe for a bit while wandering through the alleys en-route to the rendezvous. Hence my being able to hear the sad wailing in Northern Chinese from a distance.

Alas, by the time we had burgered and beered, the Caucasians had taken over, and we decided to give the place a miss. It's good to see things returning to normal as the pandemic fades, but that unfortunately also means 'Welcome To The Hotel California' and 'Landslide' by Stevie Nicks, and songs far worse sung by Marketing Department types, as well as drunken white behaviour.

We've gotten older. That no longer thrills us.


There probably are old people, far older than ourselves, who are positively giddy at being surrounded by drunken twenty-somethings attempting to sing. Their trouser seats are moist with excitement at the concept, the frisson of lithe young beerguts all around makes them feel alive again. Oh savage joy; they drool senescently, and their hands shake.
Us, well we're just here for the conversation.
Not the music or the meat.

I was home again and cruising the internet for memes, cute kitten pictures, and conspiracy theories, well before midnight.



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

SNOW FISH IN POT

There were hardly any people there, so I timed it just right. A tableful of European tourists just about to leave, a chunky hispanic couple, two cheerful younger Chinese women at a far table enjoying conversation after lunch, and a Mandarin speaker who barely touched her food and simply needed a quiet place to tend to her cellphone. Over in the far corner, at their usual table, the Cantonese gentleman and his wife who have some kind of interest in the restaurant. We know each other, but I didn't see them until they were leaving.
Otherwise I would have gesticulated a hello.

I had been down at the bank earlier. Having gotten out of the house late, I was peckish.

Truth be told, I was having way too much fun leaving snarky comments about corks on two tobacco pipe pages. As well as appreciating kitten videos and the like. Today was far less productive than yesterday, when I was out of the house for several hours.


紅燒雪魚煲

Snow fish (雪魚 'suet yü') is variously translated. They termed it cod. But it can also mean seabass. It's usually written 鱈魚 with the exact same pronunciation. Snow fish, tofu skin, black mushroom, whole gilded garlic cloves, ginger, scallion, and rice wine in a clay pot, brought to the table bubbling and steaming.

Lunch was very good. The milk tea was excellent. The pipe afterwards, dreamy.

On the bus back afterwards, the elderly Shanghainese woman with the walker wanted me to sit. Well, I do have a cane with me, which helps me stand. And we white folks may look closer to death to many Chinese people, because of our thin pallid skin, as well as, consequently, rickety and breakable. But there is no need, no need.

[And I'm still quite young. Not a sprightly teenager, but the skin under the mask is smooth and unwrinkled, and I feel full of piss and vinegar. She, on the other hand, needed a walker and was at least twenty years older. And much smaller than myself. The other passengers (it was a crowded bus) would have knocked her over. So, being a flexible younger man despite the bum leg, I stood. For some reason even elderly Chinese wish me to sit, but that wouldn't be cricket.]

Despite our language differences she understood me when I spoke Cantonese.
As did the woman on the other side of me near the door.
Which meant a polite and friendly exchange.
Nothing substantive was said.


It has been a fine day.



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

HAPPY PLACE! HAPPY PLACE! HAPPY PLACE!

When I was still a teenager hanging around in bars, I mentioned to a woman sitting next to me that I painted. Upon hearing that, her eyes lit up, and I received a long disquisition about how she too loved to paint, she loved nothing better than being in a quiet room undisturbed, good music in the background, with nice things around her, whereupon inspiration would come fluttering in .....

I've always believed that if you paint, you can do so in the middle of a downpour during the siege of Beirut. While a rabid skunk plays heavy metal bongos in the other room.
She passionately disagreed. Happy place, happy place, happy place!
We ended up not seeing eye to eye.

Some pipesmokers are very attached to the right mood, quietness, and a series of beautiful glowing images. And, for some reason unfathomable, Sherlock Holmes crap. Or their pirate costumes. It makes the exquise tobacco they have chosen for just this occasion, along with the glass of sparkling rosé, taste heavenly, absolutely divine, and why can't the rest of us peasants worshipfully realize and understand that?!?

We're brutes, and we're dumping mud all over what should be regarded in awe.
Harshing their mellow, heretics, barbarians, horrid heathens!
We lack the proper cultured attitudes.
How rude!


Please imagine a chorus of Bronx cheers.

The computer painting above was done while a chainsaw was going on in the garden next door. This room is a mess, and my feet hurt. Oh, and there's a pandemic in the world.
It provided some nice distraction for a few hours.


Yes, it would have indeed been nice if I had just gotten out of school, and settled down with a mystery novel by Georges Simenon, the Dreigroschenoper on the Victrola, and a big pot of tea on the table next to me, in the upstairs living room of our old home in Valkenswaard, one of the cats near the radiator, and a freshly cracked tin of fine tobacco for my pipe, but that is not going to happen. Neither will that time in Mindanao, when I had a full thermos of oolong, had just eaten some splendid food and had a shower, and the ongoing mess between the army, the logging interests, and the Moros seemed to be very far away. Further even than the goldminers and their crime-ridden shanty towns. Or Northbeach, with bad rock and roll from the sleazy bar on the alleyway barely audible, the delicious smell of roasting coffee beans from the Trieste coming in through the open window, a book about headhunting in the Solomon Islands on my lap ......


I acquired the pipe above long after all of that.

The previous owner had left it a right mess and maltreated it while he was still alive, but he'd smoked burley blends so it was still decent underneath the tar and carbon. His kinfolk sold it to the shop a decade after he passed on. After a thorough cleaning, including steaming out the scratches and dings, reshaping the battered rim, de-oxidizing and polishing the stem, as well as salt and alcohol in the bowl, it has proven to be a stellar smoke.


After doing some completely mundane errands and having lunch at a favourite chachanteng down in Chinatown, I'll load it up with whatever is in my tobacco pouch and smoke it while dawdling for an hour. It's a sunny day, not overly warm, and life can't get any better.



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

PETULANT TWISTY KNICKERS

Some dingo was upset at fellow hobbyists and quit his group in a huff. Which amused many of the other members. His last post to the group was: "I joined this group thinking I had finally found some real pipe smokers but actually found a bunch of part time, cork sniffers who like to show off their expensive pipes and tobacco. See ya, now you can comment on how glad you are to see me go and what a great pipe smoker you are."

Jayzis, pilgrim.


Some of the posts on that page were indeed happy boasting along the lines of 'hey lookit what I just scored' or 'this is the pipe of which I am fondest', but I myself cannot see how that could be objectionable. We all like to occasionally jump up and down gleefully like giddy forest critters with our prizes, and the other members were always pleased for the member doing so. What luck, good for you, no wonder you're filled with joy.

That is, in fact, one of the primary raisons d'etre of a pipe group. Given that we all have different favourite shapes, favour some brands more than hundreds of others, and like experimenting with new blends OR have a fondness for mixtures which to some of us represent all that is good and sweet and worth lauding, how could it be other wise?

People naturally have different tastes. While I might sing the praises of turkey vultures, mentioning the latest chicanery by the little fellow who shares my quarters, someone else probably refuses to consider any animal except Mr. Flopsie (with the pale blue ears) as a worthy companion / roommate / hug muffin. And rightly so!


"I joined this group thinking I had finally found some real pipe smokers but actually found a bunch of part time, cork sniffers who like to show off their expensive pipes and tobacco. See ya, now you can comment on how glad you are to see me go and what a great pipe smoker you are."


Well okily dokily then. I'm sorry I didn't catch your name and can't remember your presence, but I didn't even know that you had left until all the pictures of men with corks started cropping up in response to your sniffy departure.
Corks in pipes. Corks up nostrils.
Corks with stems attached.
Burning corks.



UPDATE AS OF 8:08 AM:
One more gentleman left the group, throwing a big old hissy on his way out. Didn't like that we weren't filled with seriousity and gravitas. Lamentably, he never realized that when it comes to things we're passionate about, most men are going to be gleefully childish.
Corks, corks, corks, corks, corks, corks, CORKS!



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

STATISTICAL ANOMALY

There has been an enormous jump in the US numbers on the John's Hopkins Corona Virus Resource Center tracking page.
Every evening, for over two years, I've checked the totals. Somehow in the last twenty four hours we gained over a million new cases and lost an additional fourteen thousand people.


Monday April 4, 10:14 PM
81,495,644 confirmed cases in the US. 997,127 deaths.

Sunday April 3, 9:44 PM
80,155,397 confirmed cases in the US. 982,565 deaths.

Saturday April 2, 8:26 PM
80,150,804 confirmed cases in the US. 982,533 death.

Friday April 1, 10:07 PM
80,140,309 confirmed cases in the US. 982,371 deaths.


What this suggests, and this is just a guess, is that one of the red states was reporting all deaths with co-morbidities as non-covid for several weeks until firmly told by their own health authorities that refusing to list covid deaths as such was yielding totally useless results and clearly ideological. Again, just guessing. But the trend had been a couple of hundred dead a day, and all of a sudden there are more than fourteen thousand newly corpsed.

All those people with plantar warts and Covid who died?
Clearly the warts turned fatal overnight.
How can you doubt that?



Update:
Tuesday April 5, 1:45 PM
80,199,263 confirmed cases in the US. 982,438 deaths.

Dang. I felt sure there was a smoking gun.



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

THE CONTEXTUAL NOODLE

Lunch requires literacy. Especially when one doesn't want to eat a sandwich. What I wanted was 豉椒排骨炒米 ('si jiu paai gwat chaau mai'), but they were out of 排骨 ('paai gwat'), so the waitress suggested 牛肉 ('ngau yiuk') as a reasonable substitute.
Which by all standards was more than acceptable.


They've only been open for slightly over a fortnight, but they seem to have their act well-together. It was crowded -- and Cantonese people in a crowd can be quite a handful -- and several tables were having an abundant good time. Which during the lunch hour is not so good, as they are then loathe to leave. Some of them required special treatment; the old gentleman who got called away shortly after he placed his order (and assured them he'd be back within ten or twenty minutes, which he was, and they had kept his table for him, so he'll undoubtedly be back), the old lady holding down a table for four (they had already eaten but her friends left to go buy groceries, and came back after a long wait), the table with six office types enjoying the food and company immensely (the woman in the right corner of the table talked a mile a minute, the man in the centre, aisle side, responded mostly in English, the left corner woman had opinions), and the salt of the earth thug bucket insisting on an entire fourtop for his glass of lemon tea. During. The. Lunch. Rush.

Myself, I'm an unassuming kwailo. I'm perfectly happy with a one chair table in the back.

And I'm still baffled how the waitress already knew of my fondness for bitter melon.


換、轉變、折、轉換、改換。


Can you please break this bill for me? But what's the word for that in Cantonese? 換 ('wun'; exchange, change, transform), 轉變 ('juen pin'; change, shift, transformation), 折 ('jit'; break, fracture, change), 轉換 ('juen wun'; change, shift, convert), 改換 ('goi wun'; change to something else, exchange, substitute.

I think I'll go with goi wun. Ho m-ho yi goi wun chin / chaau piu (可唔可以改換錢 / 鈔票).

Lunch, despite the necessary lapse into English, was extremely enjoyable.
That was a delicious plate of chaau mai.
Next time, maybe bittermelon.



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

THE FEATHER OF MY AUNT

What with the Bay Area being somewhat diverse, it isn't particularly unusual for different languages to be enjoyably switched on during the day. At work recently I have spoken Dutch, Indonesian, and Yiddish, in addition to English. On my days off Cantonese and sometimes Mandarin come into play. My Mandarin is so bad that even I have a hard time grasping it.
German, I can also understand, but not very well speak.
As the construction of that sentence shows.


My very best German is reading the label on a pack of aktivkohlfilter, and a zigarettenspitze.
It sounds more impressive in German. Sometimes I will happily chant it aloud, rejoicing in how businesslike and efficient it sounds. Es klingt doch ganz bureaukratisch.

I carved my own zigarettenspitze out of the nosebone of an enemy.
Believe that at your own risk.
Would I lie?

SCHEMATIC: ZIGARETTENSPITZE

The most famous zigarettenspitzenbenutzers whose visages automatically come to mind are my distant relative Franklin Delano Roosevelt, nonkinsman Hunter S. Thompson, and Johnny Dep. As well as the phrase 'hier können wir nicht anhalten, das ist fledermausland!", which is what the tourists must hear when they ask for directions. It confirms what they already knew, and because it is in their language, it comforts them.

Germans, as is well known, like to clench things in their teeth.
That's why they have so many of them.

One should always have a few sentences in foreign languages that can be advantageously deployed when the situation calls for such.

Phrases like "you can't do this to me, I'm an American" (just watch me, dingo), "can you change this hundred dollar travellers cheque" (here are TWO shiny coins that have almost no value, the rest is my commission), and "I demand to speak to the United States consular official" (that is easy, comrade, he is in the next cell) are, for all intents and purposes, absolutely useless.

By the way, the Dutch term for poultry is 'plumed cattle'(*).

Sometimes foreign languages work differently.



POST SCRIPTUM

The moulted flight feather of my aunt might indeed be in the office of my uncle. La plume de ma tante est dans le bureau de mon oncle. Textbook perfect, and grammatically correct, but totally without any practical use. Far better to simple tell them "nous ne pouvons pas nous arrêter ici, c'est le pays des chauves-souris" or "on peut pas rester ici, c'est le pays des chauves-souris". More relevant, and therefore much more comforting.

Also more appropriate when I clench a zigarettenspitze.
It might have a cigarillo in it, however.
I don't use aktivkohlfilters.

*Pluimvee.



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

OWEN'S PARSNIP THING

The Inuit have a hundred words for snow, the Dutch have four hundred words for bodies of water, and the Welsh have fifty thousand words for parsnips and can talk of naught else. They're obsessed with parsnips. That is to say, a friend is studying his ancestral language, with the aid of duolingo, and they keep bringing up Owen's parsnips. Every single day.
I think they hired Owen as a consultant, and he's sending us a message.
He's desperate for parsnips.

The parsnip (pastinaak in civilized speech), is a noble vegetable that grows in big rivers like the amazon. It has two ears, a heart, a forehead, and a beak for eating honey. But it is provided with fins for swimming.

Parnips are dangerous, so if you see one ...


Oh wait. Sorry. That's Owen, actually. He speak English very well, he learn it from a book.


I'm sorry. I know bugger all about parsnips (pastinaken). I must have eaten them, I'm sure, but I cannot remember a thing about them. They're not an earth-shaking experience.
And they play no role in my world.

I am not Owen.



Probably best fried.





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

TRAUMA, HEARTACHE, CIRCLES

It's been a week since Will Smith smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars. Why are you still talking about this? The Oscars aren't interesting, Will Smith isn't interesting, his wife isn't either. Absolutely no one who was there is. These are all boring plastic people.
It's been a week; don't you have anything going on in your own life?

Here's something to work you up:


BELGIUM EYES BAN ON ROUND GOLDFISH BOWLS BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO STRESSFUL

Goldfish bowls could be banned in Belgium because of the 'stress' they cause to fish.
Round tanks often have a smaller water surface area than square or rectangular ones, which affects the amount of oxygen absorbed into the water.
A small surface area risks the 'health and wellbeing of the fish', according to Belgian government documents.
"We know that the round jar has an impact on fish stress," animal welfare minister Bernard Clerfayt told La Capitale newspaper.

[SOURCE: Daily Mail.]

If you are really set on your round bowl, this blog suggests floating a piece of tofu in it.
Or a French fry.

Or, for something with far greater verisimilitude, a gefilte fish patty.
Gefilte fish always reminds me of green curry paste.
The combo is dee-liscious!



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

UNIDENTIFIABLE PROTEIN SLABS

Food should inspire. What I had for lunch on Friday didn't. It was a very nice and beautiful prepackaged sandwich from a nearby convenience store that lacked all flavour. Intellectually it had a lot going for it; but that bread and those meats! Why my fellow Americans think that sliced turkey is worth eating baffles me.


Sliced turkey is the American equivalent of boiled sponge.

As far as big meat birds go, couldn't we have chosen flavour over volume?

Seagulls, for instance, or even Canada Geese. Ostriches!

Tough and stringy, maybe. But not bland.


Do not expect me to do a chipper song and dance over a no character colourless textureless fatless tasteless watery pale substance of alleged animal origin which, if you were blindfolded, you could not identify. The horrid bread and lettuce didn't help.


Yeah, I know. Shouldn't complain. Poor little Dutch American adults in Africa don't have it so good. They're starving! We should just ship it to them, they'll be ever so grateful, grow up to be big Dutch American adults in Africa.

Problem with that is that they'll have to acquire larger clogs, baggier trousers, and beadier necklaces. It will wreck the local economy. An entire finacial ecosystem exists to deal with little Dutch American adults in Africa. Maybe they're happy the way they are.
Best not mess with it.

Besides, the people in Marin probably love this stuff.
And we've seen what they're like.
Uninspired.



Now, imagine sliced juicy charsiu, mustard greens, noodles, in a curry mushroom broth with fried shallots and green chilies. Much better. Very "not Marin". Home cooked dinner in SF.



Never had roast seagull. Is it good?




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

WELCOME TO TAX MONTH

This is the two week run-up to one of accountancy's high holy days. The day for which the pencil and pocket protector crowd has been waiting all year. The day when many otherwise calm individuals start wailing in panic, drinking like fish, and regretting their past lives.
Maybe they should sell the hot tub? Does junior really need to go to college?
Was that new car worth it?


Can I hock grandma's jewels or should I make a run for the Canadian border?


An old friend ran away to Mexico years ago because of taxes. Nobody has seen him this side of the border in over a decade. We all follow his Facebook page, however. Pictures of cocktails and women wearing bikinis drenched in golden sunlight.
The sea is in the background.

Taxes in Mexico are a simpler affair.
You pay now, Gringo.

It's better for you.


Traditionally, in very Wasp circles, rabbits are mentioned first thing on the first day of the month for good luck. Rabbits are a tax deductible business expense.
Comforting presences. Solid. And they are hard workers.

Far better than hottubs, junior's education, and new cars.

Rabbit rabbit.



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