EQUAL PARTS LEAN AND FAT

Woke up in the middle of the night and drew food. Because food is beautiful. Doing it is a peaceful and concentrative act that gets the brain functioning in a particular way. And, of course, I love food. My apartment mate, however, is convinced that I am too scrawny.

That impression is not entirely accurate.

Not scrawny, but verging on wiry.

Not quite a lean bird.

Lions Head Meatballs (獅子頭 'si ji tau') are a classic dish in Jiang Wei Cuisine (江淮菜 'gong waai choi'), one of the four great regional styles of cooking in China. But Lions Heads are not limited to the Eastern region of the country, one will also find them in other areas, because meatballs are universal. Fatty ground pork bound with egg white and rolled large, browned lightly and placed on a bed of cabbage to finish cooking, with dashes of soy sauce, rice wine, and a hefty jigger of good meat stock. One must be gentle with them so that they do not fall apart in the pot.

They should be 'fluffy', not dense.

Traditionally there is garlic, ginger, and ground dry shrimp to flavour them. With the latter ingredient a delicate touch is best. The Shanghainese also like this, and it features in the New Years banquet among some Cantonese households (at that time called 四喜臨門 'sei hei lam mun'; "four joys approach the gate" -- four large meatballs in a casserole).

If I did not love meatballs I would be less of a Dutchman.
The "gehaktbal" is soulfood to Netherlanders.
We make them large as well.



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CHINESE FOOD MAKES ME THINK OF KANSAS

Rice porridge can often be a luxurious dish. Which many or most Americans would not know, because rice porridge ('congee') is a rarety in most of the country, and seldom on the menu in those Chinese restaurants that do not have a sizeable Chinese clientele. Also, because it is more of a Cantonese thing, Chinese restaurants serving Hunan ("I'm Cantonese but I can't actually cook"), Szechuan ("I learned that you all like hot crap, and I've got plenty hot crap"), Mandarin ("I serve snooty yet rather mediocre stuff to white people"), or Palace Cuisine ("I'm sending five kids to college and my bitch ex wife has a palatial house in the suburbs") would probably not do it anyway. Too much explaining for the Caucasians, and too homely for the wandering exile.


Brutal over-simplification: If a Chinese restaurant catering to a mostly white clientele did NOT have sweet'n sour something, kung pao something, General Tso's something, chow mein, and eggrolls on the menu, plus walmut prawns, they'd be out of business pretty quick.

All of these are a welcome break from that most American of preparations, the tuna casserole. Second only to pizza or mac'n cheese.

Mmm, yeah.

And of course I can understand that; if I were living in Kansas I too would want to get rich quick and leave. There is no future there, and everything is flat, and monotonous. Plus the place is filled with Protestants and tornadoes. All of which are good reasons to despair.
And Missouri is right next door! The horror!


Because I live in San Francisco, near a Chinese neighborhood, I have no such boundaries. The last time we had a tornado here was oh like never. Ever.
The closest we come to Kansas is the KC Royals.
A baseball team from Missouri.
Whom we beat.


Congee with conpoy, lean pork, and century egg. Easy to make at home too. 瑤柱皮蛋瘦肉粥 ('yiu chyu pei daan sau yiuk juk'). In Kansas you'd have to order the conpoy and century egg from Amazon, and rice would be trucked in occasionally. Scallions, you could grow.

The caffeinated beverage afterwards could be faked.
As could the decent smoke to finish.
Camel cigarettes.



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KANSAS REPUBLICANS AND GENITALS

Recently Kansas Republicans have come out of the closet and demonstrated that they are fascinated by the female crotch. They've decided that girls wishing to participate in sports, from kindergarten through college, must prove that indeed they are girls. Either by genital examination -- presumably by a card-carrying Republican -- or by showing a birth certificate.

Considering that gender surgery strives to make the reconstructed area as normal and natural as possible, this suggests that they have experience in these matters.
Kansas Republicans have a lot of exposure to pre-teen girls.
Which, naturally, raises questions.

And surely everyone realizes that Kansas Republicans are a bunch of bloody perverts who should be forcefully stopped if they come within a mile of any school containing girls, and if necessary, shot. They are unhealthily obsessed twisted individuals, probably Christian, with unnatural fantasies and uncontrollable urges.

The main reason Dorothy left Kansas is that it's south of absolutely nowhere, and Kansas Christians have a fascination with girls genitals. Which are probably the most interesting thing there is in Kansas. Depraved crotch-watching freaks.


How can anyone even stand Kansas?



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DREAMING OF VIOLINS

Previously I may have mentioned that my bloodpressure pills make dreams more vivid and interesting, yes? This morning, while carefully restoring a violin -- steam, heat, scrapers to remove old crud, and careful work with a pot of hot rabbits' hide glue -- the Hinomaru March was playing in my head. And it must be emphasized that in the wake world I have never done anything like that. Rarely have I even been in the same room as rabbits' hide glue OR violins. Musical instruments have not been a main theme in what I do with my hands.
There is nothing like a violin work-shop here.
Nor any rabbits' hide glue.

In fact I am only passingly familiar with the internal construction of a violin.

Other than certain woods I am a complete novice.

Briar, walnut, boxwood, cherry, cedar.

Some tropical hard woods.

Agarwood.



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FESTIVE THOUGHTS ABOUT SYNTHETIC FUR

A friend whom I've known for a long time and with whom I used to converse telephonically in a work-related context believes that unless you have accepted Jayzus effing Christ as your personal saviour you will go to hell. And posted this on Facebook. Naturally I did not hit like or respond. Life is too short to pick fights with old folks living in the red states.
Unless they direct their wrongheadedness at me specifically.

Another friend has been posting Easter-related photos for the past week. Pictures of little children looking traumatized or terrified sitting on the laps of Easter Bunnies, some howling. Horrific nightmarish bunny costumes were, apparently, a thing back in the day. These rabbits look like the Mall Santa's evil psychopath colleague. The leporid of nightmares. Which makes me very glad that my parents decided to leave the country for a while when I was two years old, and it explains why some Americans are twisted beyond belief. Y'all had childhood experiences that left you scarred for life. Beyond the food, I mean.
Enjoy your hardboiled eggs today, you damned freaks.
Cancer causing food colours and all.

Yesterday I realized that if English people had been exposed to the same developments in American Christian society, they could have developed a baked bean pie with quartered hard-boiled eggs in it as "festive" food for Easter. The long-suffering Jesus pie.


Imagine a picture of an infant on a zombie rabbit's lap right here.


In any case, I'm off work today, and all the putrid old men who normally hang around in the back room every Sunday will have to find somewhere else to soil their incontinence pants while belly-aching about liberals and transgendered non-football playing black people.
As Republicans do. So today will be a trial for their nearest and dearest.

Perhaps they'll wander the shores of the slough with their stogies, angrily huffing, and get lost in the reeds. Months from now we will find their corpses, and either instantly recognize them because they look precisely like old Bob in real life, only much more so, or they'll be so changed -- their spirit animal will be evident, that being a metallic droid space alien with horns and fangs -- that little children will run away screaming.


The perfumed magazine inserts they used for deodorant will come in handy.
There should be a tonne of them in their mail boxes.
Embalm them. Embalm them good.




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THE CARE AND FEEDING OF STRANGE BEINGS

In Japan there's an apple possessed by the spirit of a cat who is a heavy metal drummer: Nyango Star. You've probably seen the video of him playing the Anpanman March, entitled "when you're overqualified for the job". It's an internet meme. He is a mascot representinging an apple growing area (Kuroishi City in Aomori). Ever since I found out about him I've been wondering about animated fruit, if apples can have ears, and what the cell structure of ambulatory vegetable matter would be like.

It's far more confusing than Portland Sleestak, who is clearly of animal origin, possibly from another dimension. But Nyango Star is both animal AND vegetable.
And therefore just slightly more out there.

Death Metal Fruit Muppet.


There are times that I am happy that I do not dream in Japanese. And that Anpanman's March is NOT one of the tunes I hear often. Years ago there was a toystore near Union Square with "It's A Small World After All" on permanent loop. The employees there after several months of brassy tinkly-poo inane music went on to careers in mass murder and screaming insanity, and quite a few of them starred in stage productions of Sweeney Todd not realizing it was fantasy. Method acting. What's your motivation? Homicidal bloodlust. Perfect. You. Are. Hired!

Some of them are also succesful in the tech industry.
Corner offices and an exercise bike.

Yesterday a woman who heard me speaking Cantonese, with whom I subsequently had a conversation in Mandarin, asked me if I was a professor.

Nah, just a goofball from North Brabant, and I'm faking it.
My Cantonese is sort of okay, passable.
My Mandarin is awful.


But I didn't say that of course. I simply got out of that situation as fast as possible, lest my mask slip and I be revealed as merely a frog daemon from a Brueghel painting, now marvelously animatronic and gibbering.



About the title of this post? The best way to care and feed the beast is to give him Cantonese food and provide a hot caffeinated beverage. It is not necessary to poke him with a stick, but you may occasionally twitch a wand with a feathery thing at him to atract his attention.



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THE QUIET HOURS

Something you don't see every day is a table spread with curing chicken wings in an alley way. But one of the residents of Chinatown believes that the weather today is good for drying his cured meat. Very home town, and the heck with what the tourist will say. Folks from Ohio and Missippi (this is the correct spelling according to literate people there) don't do stuff like that. Where they live that's probably tantamount to running around in grass skirts and shouting "boogah boogah!"

臘雞翅

Trimmed chicken wings, soy sauce, sugar, rice wine, and the correct amount of Prague Powder. Plus wind, dry air, and reasonable temperatures. It's a type of 臘味 ('laap mei'; preserved meats), and there is no earthly reason why you cannot do this with pieces of fowl. Just pretend you are in Wenchou (溫州 'man jau'; city in Zhejiang) where it's a famous and distinctive food (風味 'fung mei'). Even though you are geographically closer to Ohio and Missippi. Preserved chicken wings (臘雞翅 'laap gai yik')
Probably goes great with grits.

[Prague Powder: Pink curing salt #1 (6.25% sodium nitrite, 93.75% table salt), or Pink curing salt #2 (6.25% sodium nitrite, 4% sodium nitrate, and 89.75% table salt). Number one for a short cure, number two for a longer cure (months). Many European cured meats use number two, as well as saltpetre (potassium nitrate).]

Lunch at a nearby chachanteng contained both preserved meat and fresh chicken. And, because it was in front of me and no one else, chilipaste. I did not photograph it, though it looked exquisite. The slim young Mandarin speaker at the next table photographed hers, though, before tucking in. Some people say grace, some people say a brochah.
Some people probably say "cheese", before eating.

It was relatively full when I got there, the late lunch crowd, but nearly empty when I left. Smoked my pipe for a bit while wandering around, then did some shopping. A steamed charsiu bun and a big Toisan bun each for my landlady downstairs and my apartment mate. The landlady had managed to wreck her foot somehow recently, so she's on the mend and not quite as mobile as she would like. Plus she's admitted that she misses the Chinatown environment. It's less than eight blocks away but in a city of hills that's almost a lifetime.

For myself I purchased a packet of candied water chestnut (糖馬蹄 'tong maa tai'), an old fashioned sweet which I haven't had in a while. They are common at Chinese New Year, but considered rather old school by a lot of people. The younger generation is not particularly fond of them.

Late afternoon: cup of milk tea, egg tart.
Second pipe on the way home.



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THE CALL OF THE OUTDOORS

Got back home just before midnight after spending the afternoon and evening in the nicest part of the East Bay with nice people. See, I can be social at times! There were photos of chickens and there was a very pleasant cat there.

The photos of chickens: a couple keep chickens. Very personable chickens, apparently.
The cat: orange, even tempered, uncontrollable, wants to kill things.
The cat appears to have no moral compass.
A furry psychopath.

It must be stressed that the cat did not claw, scratch, or bite. So it wasn't intent on murdering the humans. Rather, it gave every indication of a keen desire to mayhem the wildlife outside. Despite not quite understanding the wildlife. A fierce mighty hunter who had done in a small creature about the size of a marble or thumb about a week ago, with a happy combination of accident, curiosity, and primal bat the bejazus out of this cute whatever it is instinct.

One suspected the cat of being a reincarnated drunk driver.

Now lovable, because reduced in scope.



I'm not good at drawing cats. They seldom sit still.
Unless they're asleep or hiding.



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DEMANDING BREAKFAST

The turkey vulture is insisting, positively demanding even, that I heat up one of the apple turnovers. He claims (without presenting any testimony to that effect other than his own), that ALL turkey vultures LOVE hot apple turnovers. Even those poor benighted birds flapping their way miserably over the salt flats and marshes to the north.

When I express doubts about this, and state that I am baffled as to how this was conveyed to him, he points out that turkey vultures are internet literate. He uses it daily for research, and key information and messages are conveyed by e-mails. Which he explains as a legion of trained rats with scrolls strapped to their backs.

And that is why it's everywhere.
Intelligent trained rats.
Highly efficient.


Rats are the lubrication of commerce.

Modern society and the industrial age, he says, cannot be envisioned without rats. They are fundamental to the process. Highly social creatures with a Protestant work ethic and strong organizational skills.

The proof is that the most technologically advanced nations all famously make cheese. Rats are paid in cheese. Without cheese for the rats the wheels of commerce would grind to a halt. Lord help us if the rats go on strike. The unpaid out cheese would soon litter our landscapes in mountainous piles and stink us all out of house and home.

He demands to know why I, a Dutchman, do not grasp this.
Clearly I am defective, possibly even stupid.
Now microwave that apple turnover!
And make it snappy!
Clog boy!



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TEETH WILL BE PROVIDED

There were goobers with skateboards doing risky things on Grant Avenue at night. Non-Chinese goobers. I have no idea what Chinese or Chinese American goobers in Chinatown do late at night. One thing they don't do is sing bad pop culture songs from the Seventies in English at a karaoke bar. Which, when we passed by on our way to the burger joint was almost empty. When an hour later we stepped through the door it was nearly full.
And sounded very much like the outer darkness.
Or one of the circles of hell.

I think I would have much prefered Chinese goobers.

Any Lau's crazy shiznit would have been a blessing.

It is doubtful that the Caucasians in the joint were celebrating the arraignment of the orange-faced puke. For one thing, I doubt that many of them had even heard of him or could spell his name. For another, they or their relatives probably voted for that man; most inbreds did.
And it should be noted that he had more indictments than any other president.
Staggering. His most impressive accomplishment.

They are the best indicments.

It is baffling to me that there were so many people about in Chinatown and North Beach. The weather is not good enough for that, and there were to my knowledge no sportive events of note. Warmer than the previous two weeks, but still not a cause for joy. Last week it was coming down and gusting, so I bailed. The week before that my neighborhood looked like a disaster zone hit by a tornado and the bus line was out of commission; downed overhead bus lines, trees lying across the road, smashed vehicles, bus shelter totally destroyed.
And I had no idea how to cross the hill that night, so I bailed.

This was the first time in three weeks that we did our regular pub crawl. The bookseller is a restrained drinker, and I do not consume any booze at all because of my medication. There is no dancing on tables wearing lamp shades, the aliens and robots are not engaged in combat with each other, all the ladies do not take off their clothes. No scenes of wild abandonment. Nor overly greasy pizza at three o'clock in the morning. It's all very civilized.


For me it starts with a pipe smoked in the peace and quiet of Chinatown, for him it's catching a bus after closing the store. At which time his thoughts turn to burgers.
The weekend starts this way.



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SARDINES FOR HELLO KITTY!

Several years ago I wrote an imaginary personal ad that mentioned noodles. It was in a way a classic of insanity. Which is an affliction that some might think defines me, and to which, grudgingly, I will sometimes admit.

There are THREE key elements to the ad.

Quote:
"Fairly decent man seeks perspicacious and mature young lady who likes noodles and doesn’t mind trim little beards or the smell of tobacco. Must have a stuffed bunny rabbit or equivalent small creature, one with a distinct personality, and intellectual pursuits. Possibly wearing spectacles. Does your bunny rabbit read Charles Dickens or Proust? Does he or she feel unique at times? And does your bunny occasionally channel for Elvis?
Sudoku? Cryptoquip? Bad puns?
I have a monkey!"
End quote.

Those are still the parameters.

Key elements: noodles, a stuffed creature, and reading.
Four if you also count the bad puns.

Basically, an ability to enjoy food, especially comfort food.
Expressiveness coupled with a rich imagination.
As well as broad literacy.


Young lady is as flexible a term as "young man". I define myself as a young man.
And I still haven't decided what I'm going to be when I grow up.


I'm never going to place the ad, because I know exactly who and what would respond. Tattooed glutenphobes calling me a hater, as well as narrow minded about everything. Allergenicans have rights too! Sexist male chauvenist food pig!



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MTG IS A CHICKEN

Marjorie Taylor Greene's teensie protest at the Trump Arraignment was overshadowed and drowned out by the racket and vigour of the counterprotestors, who outnumbered her and her whelps. Which gave her the impression that she might have to duck spit wads.
She demanded that they be arrested. Forthwith.
Shuddup, Karen.

Lady, let me tell you something. Here in SF our little group was often outnumbered by the other side, and always threatened. Quite a few of us were beyond elderly. But some of us had survived the siege of Stalingrad, and several of us had seen worse, far worse, than a rowdy bunch of civilians from Berkeley and Oakland. So by our standards, you and that bunch of juvenile malcontents (the "Young Republicans") are a bunch of pussies.
Wimps, whiners, dumb-asses, and damned-near morons.
Go off and play with your little toys.
Batshit Barbie.

You know, by the standard of many urban police departments nowadays, if NO plate glass was broken, there is NO blood on the pavement, and the coroner's office was NOT involved, it was a peaceful demonstration. Arresting someone for throwing an egg takes two officers off-line for up to half an hour, and is largely a waste of time. The thrower will maybe be cited for littering, other charges will be dropped. Unless the egg took your damned fool head off.

In your case, who would know the difference?

One delightful bit: she was drowned out by people chanting "go back home".

She might not even get any shopping done.

The sad.



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AND THAT IS WHY

Yesterday was cold. Down to the mid-forties (F°). That's 7 or 8 degrees for people who think in Celsius (most of the world). So I didn't leave the house till tea time, to purchase a quantity of fresh ginger and veggies, and to have a cup of milk-tea. Some people walking around were wearing shorts. Which, in this weather, I sneer at and resent. Bloody show-offs.
Them and their comfortable layers of fat!
Animals.

Raynauds phenomenon dictates that the temperature outside should be no lower than fifty seven degrees for comfort and the development of advanced civilization. This is immutable. Anything less, and both culture and human progress come to a screeching halt. Too many days of no developments there and you end up with Alaska and Sarah Palin.

In Valkenswaard and Eindhoven this week it gets up to the mid-fifties by around two or three in the aftenoon. There's Sarah Palins running around all over the place.

No wonder the Dutch drink like Germans.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

To be honest, I should have worn one or two extra layers of clothing myself, even a pair of gloves. It would have improved the experience immensely. Though I did enjoy the pipe afterwards, and the all-round absence of very many people. Normally I have two pipes in my pocket when I leave the house, just in case some bright young thing decides to experiment with a comforting bowl after a frustrating day at the office dealing with twenty-something Mid Westerners yacking on about the damned ball game and their lubricious adulation of Donald Trump, oh look there's a pipesmoker I think I'll smile at him and ask him about pipesmoking, but knowing that I would not have time for a second bowl in any case given the weather and what with reality vis-a-vis bright young things actually being interested in experimenting with tobacco staring me in the face, I didn't bother.

Bright young things never ask me about pipe smoking. They're probably too numb from listening to all that senseless babbling about the ball game and can't even think of speaking to a man by that time of the day anyhow. For fear that the ball game will come up again.

Besides, a pipe is a social distancing tool.

It works very well.



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ALL YOU DRUGGIES FROM ELSEWHERE

Whenever I feel revulsion at the Red States, something comes along to remind me that here in San Francisco we are not perfect either. There is a video on the web of a Chinatown boba tea place being burglarized twice in one night recently. Love Tea on Broadway and Grant (less than three blocks away from the police station, in a part of town that has people about 24 hours a day) had their door smashed and their cash register emptied in the middle of the night. The burglars represented two other major ethnicities in this city (one of them being white and female), so the claim that it's just "those people" holds no water.

At some point, Chinatown merchants will have to start living in their shops again, armed with guns so that they can shoot your bitch ass when you come casually strolling in at three in the morning, mark my words.

Nevertheless, here is a helpful map showing the worst parts of the country.

SOURCE: https://www.losangelesblade.com -- Erin Reed article

The brown and orange parts remarkably coincide with the racist gerrymandering, bigoted, most Christian, least liberal, most gut-bucket all-time nastiest states in the union. Places which you should not visit, where laws and society reflect the dark-ages most perfectly.

Low rent, too. Which is why right wingers from California are moving there.
In a few of them you can still marry juveniles.
Coincidence?


In the past I have not developed an affection for boba tea.
I'll have to work on that; it's all American.



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STOP PICKING YOUR NOSE, YOUNG MAN!

Out of nowhere, when I finally got off the phone, I was being introduced to our new sales department from the Mid West, in town for orientation: a young Persian woman, a black woman freshly graduated from a Christian college, and a pudgy unkempt young fellow to whom I took an instant dislike. We have no Mid West office, landline phones are SO last century, and Metoprolol makes dreams more intense and disturbed.

When I got to the teevee room with my coffee I found the turkey vulture holding a note reminding me of good things to eat in the refrigerator, which he had already mentioned last night when I came home, before I crashed. Among them apple turnovers, which are great (according to him) heated up and served with chocolate ice cream (freezer compartment). My apartment mate worries that I am too scrawny.

Good lord woman, I do NOT want to look pudgy and unkempt like a dislikable nose picking dude from the Mid West who probably skateboards, plays video games all weekend, and doesn't even know where Persia is.

I am a lean and mentally active Dutchman, I do not need to associate with shapeless Bob. Or any of them. But kudos to the dream enterprise that hired such a diverse staff to sell our basketballs made in Tiburon.

No, what I ate before bed last night (chocolate) did not influence my dream, that was purely Metoprolol. Basket balls? Made in Tiburon?


Tiburon, as everyone knows, does not have a basketball factory, being a wealthy enclave with no industry where more lines of coke are sniffed than anywhere else in Christendom. Whereas the Mid West is solidly methamphetime and fentanyl territory.
Here in San Francisco, where we are all snootyand disapproving natural substance puritans, we are all out of our minds on gluten free coffee and guarana.



I have long ago learned not to try to understand my dreams or analyse them. The page of fine print that comes along with every refill explained that this would happen, and though there are elements from what went on the previous day OR what's on the forefront of my mind in them, it's pointless. I do not skateboard, and I've never visited the Mid West.

Nor do I watch basket ball.




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SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING

The retired member of the judicial branch used to be, per his own words, a liberal. What came out of his mouth today proves that that may have been only skin deep. For over two hours he was defending Trump and whining venomously and ignorantly about the Democrats. The change has been noticeable ever since he remarried.
He has hit apogee now. The senescent twat.

It shows how much some people depend upon their nearest and dearest for their opinions.

I wonder if he has any real friends left. He sounds sour, old, and no longer sane.


The gentlemen in the back room keep me young. They are shining examples of stagnation, and no better examples of what not to be could be found without traveling to Texas or Arkansas. Qanon has their number in buckets.

If at this point you mentally see a shaman pooing in his incontinence pants while drooling into his oatmeal, you know exactly what I mean, and you have an imagination that frightens me, because that is more than the doctor called for.

That said, two friends who dropped by this afternoon today were shocked that I was smoking an aromatic pipe tobacco. No, they didn't stage an intervention, instead, they spent about two hours in denial of my degeneracy. Which I would defend as actually being broadmindedness regarding tobacco. I am not hemmed in by categorial boundaries but will try new things.
Including something that has a mild yet bizarre top dressing.
Good Virginias, very mild Burley percentage.
It's pleasant, albeit odd.

Normally I will abjure aromatics, decrying them in severely Protestant style as clear signs of degeneracy, profligacy, moral decay, the veritable whore of Babylon, fit only for syphilitics and half wits. Faugh. Fie. Jayzus man go smoke that foul hippie garbage out back with the vermin and drunks.

I shall not tell you what it is, because you have no need to know, you are probably far too young in any case, and I would not wish to lead you astray.

Let's preserve your innocence just a little bit longer.
You dewy young thing you.



While they were there they distracted me nicely from the vicious old podgewattle's insane ranting in the back room.



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MOST VALUABLE SUGGESTION

Sydney Fylbert, the turkey vulture who lives in my apartment, knows that where I work there are a large number of old kvetchy men whose wives and other family members are pleased that they congregate together in an isolated place where they can smell bad and vociferate against everything that offends the modern conservative hosebag, without bothering civilized humans with their squawks of outrage. And their smells. Biden, Kamala, pronouns, liberals, foreigners, electric cars, windmills, and people of whichever gender that wear dresses.

He has offered to help. I should take him to work, he suggests, so that he can look them over and select a few. Especially the well-marbled ones. No one will miss them.

He says I am his daddy and should make sure he's well fed.

Gently separate them from the rest, then "whack!"

A resolute clop upside the head.

"Come along, old geeze, step into the light."

Obviously they won't know what's up till it's too late, and we can then harvest them for the most nutritious and delicious body parts. He's hungry, and this will alleviate that.

While I must admit that I find much about this idea that appeals to me, I have explained to him, numerous times, that there are laws against specifically that. After the Donner Party (1847) the State of California legislated against animal based proteins. Fact. And whacking odious old farts on the noggin is generally frowned upon in any case. So no can do. I will not be a party to harvesting these old men, even though their frequent temperamental eruptions and stupid comments piss the heck off out of me. Yes, they deserve it, but no, I shan't bring him to work with a cleaver, and we're leaving the barbecue sauce at home.

For the time being.



In the middle of the group screaming over the impending arraignment of the biggest loser of elections in history, one of them rushed to the bathroom where he had an "accident". We never should have told the others that they could use the employee facilities afterwards. Some of them are shaky, with bad eye sight. Unsteady bunch, none too functional.



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LEPORID, LEPORID

For Easter this year, Mr. Rabbit knows that mothers all across the country wish that their little darlings should receive only carob and tofu confections. And positively NO peeps. Because of course Easter is all about clean living and positive karma. So, a respectful offering of burnt sage to the mother goddess, vegan treats, and communing with the spirits of nature.
Precisely like Christ. Or whatever.

Mr. Rabbit is fine with that. Totally fine.
Shog off, you little cretins.

He's strongly considering a bowlful of Bob's Chocolate Flake, by Gawith Hogarth in Cumbria, where they haven't heard of this newer Yankee version of Easter, and are planning to have lamb curry like the good lord intended.

RABBIT RABBIT

A good lamb curry should have plenty of garlic, but not too much in the way of hot chilies. Maximize the saveur of the fatty meat, but do not overpower it. Yes to the green cardamom and a cinnamon stick, but no on cloves; they deaden the sense of taste and smell.

Tej patta are appropriate.

Some sarson da saag on the side. As well as, British style, a crisp green salad with a nice vinaigrette. Not one of those horrid American dressings.

A sheep's milk cheddar afterwards.
And some sliced pears.


Mr. Rabbit is quite looking forward to the feast.
He won't work at all on that day.
Easter is cancelled.



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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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