BUS. RAIN. DRIED FISH.

Lunch and shopping in C'town, followed by teatime at a bakery where Russell, Stephen, and Robert also were. As well as several familiar faces spanning the linguistic spectrum from Mandarin and Cantonese through Toisanwa, Burmese, English, and Spanish. The three named gentlemen speak English and Cantonese, and are a bit older than myself.
And they grew up here.

Most of the afternoon I didn't need English except to cuss. When employing unprintable language, it is always best if, even doing so under one's breath, one does not employ a tongue that others understand. Dutch, Tagalog, and Hindustani are all excellent in that regard. Cantonese when at work in Marin.

Dutch is not so good in Chinatown; the visiting Germans might understand it.
Or the Hakkas who came here from Suriname to study.

For some reason we ended up talking about salt fish (鹹魚 'haam yü'). Not the UNdelicacy so beloved by Hong Kongers and C'town folks that's great with ground pork or simple stirfried veggies, nor the key ingredient essential for Hang Zhou's famous steamed fatty duck (鹹魚白切鴨 'haam yü paak chit ngaap'), but the old ladies who block the bus doors by clustering right there with their wheeled shopping bags, and fail to understand that they and their crap are a nuisance and in the way. Especially when the bus is full and people want to get home. During rush hour most nights.

They're about four foot tall, tough as nails, don't speak English, and stubbornly unyielding. You want to get on it, they want to stand there. Have you considered walking instead?

It's pointless trying courtesy and gentle persuasion with someone older than Moses who doesn't understand what you are saying in whatever language, and if she actually grasps that you are speaking Cantonese will exclaim how unusually smart you are, why, it's remakable that a kwailo learned how to talk, and will obdurately still refuse to budge. Not. An. Inch.
I've considered lifting them up bodily and plonking them in a vacant seat.
If I do it fast enough, she won't have a chance to squawk.
She'd probably hit me with her shopping bag.
Wheels, and metal frame.
Sharp corners.


By the way: 鹹魚白菜 (haam yu paak choi') is a host's euphemism for a humble meal, really not worth serving to you, I ashamed of this poor stuff at my table. It's just salt fish and plain bokchoi, merely 垃圾嘢 really. Sorry!


Russell is quite irritated at those 鹹魚婆 on the bus. Whereas I regard them as considerably less objectionable than the Yuppies and Karens, and when I've reached that painfully brittle stage of ancient decrepitude, I too will not budge. My feet are cold, the weather is nasty, this isn't the world I expected, and all of you young people are deficient in multiple ways!
And now that I'm on the damned bus, I'm not moving, dammit.

Consider my immovabilty a form of silent protest.
An angry screech, as it were.



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EXPEDITION TO THE ICE BOX

The route is through the alley where Russell lives and then past Allan Gin's barber shop, followed by the store where they have State Express Filters, around the corner, and past Great Communication, Great East, and Thing Bank (freely translating from Chinese, you understand). Except that on cold nights that seems a greater distance than it should.
Much quieter too, with fewer people about. It's bitter and empty out there.

Which does not stop all the white people. Whom one can hear for a block before they go by. Although remarkably, the loud cheery party at one of the intersections consisted of four of the gentlemen from the Toisanese late lunch klatch at one of the chachantengs.
The most Irish-looking of them belting out a cheerful song in Mandarin.

[Some Cantonese gentlemen can look very Irish. It's a roguish quality, and twinkling eyes. Think Chow Yunfat.]

When I got off the bus at darling's (寵兒) I loaded up my pipe, and as I was lighting it, Younger Brother Yee passed and said 'hello', waving his own pipe, and explaining that cigarettes were just far too dear nowadays. He's someone I've known for years, but back then he smoked fags. Which, nowadays, are an expensive luxury in California.

Shortly after the bookseller and I entered the burger joint it filled up with businessmen in lovely Sears Roebuck suits, advertising the fashion tastes of elsewhere in the country. When quite a while later we passed a boîte on our way to the bus stop, they were inside the place all talking at once. I guess the convention they are attending is an astounding success.

We had been at a different bar, where except for a boisterous man who sang one Frank Sinatra song, it had been pleasantly quiet, due probably to the aforementioned frigid temperatures. Even so, I didn't quite finish my tea. Boistery tends to offput me.


This is the beginning of my wintry discontent. I shall probably belly-ache about the weather for the next six weeks. This is what forcing people to smoke outdoors does.
It's a sad state of affairs, and I wish to keenly protest.
Modern society is to blame.



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COLD THERE

There was a gentle rain falling at the time when I wished to do my laundry. Inconvenient, yes, but withall rather like English summer weather. Which before global warming was colder, greyer, wetter. Devonshire was beautiful in the grimness. Teatime, semidark because of the clouds, pipe with a Latakia mixture, sherry, and a fire in the grate. Absolutely heavenly.
Corduroy and tweeds. Boots.

Oh well, shan't do laundry today. One more day of stinkaroo.

Need to pick up my refills at the pharmacy around noon, then do some minor shopping. Also, get away from my apartment mate, who is staying home sick today and watching videos on youtube at the other end of the table, making remarks like "why does that old fart sound like a snake-oil salesman?" and "oh shit, it was already out in their time?" and similar pungent comments that indicate that it's a rich melange of good and garbage. Mental nutrition.
When I watch videos, it's mostly cooking and calligraphy.

When walking up a gentle slope near our lodgings in Exeter, it was remarkable how small the world seemed. The grey overcoast sky cut the world short at the top of the hill, there was no horizon, a limited amount of depth and space. Woodbines cigarettes bought from a local store, stuff falling out of a lowered sky. Summer vacation in England.
January in San Francisco.

The richly flavoured fried meat bun I saw in a video recently is not available here. I'll hunt up that episode again, and take notes. It looks like it bears experimentation.
It looked scrumptious and hearty.



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DIFFERING ENERGY LEVELS

Yesterday was dreamy. Meaning that I spent a lot of time elsewhere in my head. Which is restorative after dealing with irritating old gits (men only a year or two older than myself at best) during my working days. The one great thing about work is that it's a smoke-filled environment, with a strong set of fans so I don't have to smell their stinky cheroots too badly while I'm at the other end of the building enjoying my pipe during the day.
I've been smoking an old-fashioned Virginia most of the time.
Which I did yesterday also.

Goes great with a cup of tea.
And daydreaming.

Ended up having a very late breakfast -- lunch -- dinner at a chachanteng around tea-time, so more of an early dinner. One thing I've noticed is that most Chinese waitresses are not so sweet when I'm starving, almost as if they can psychically sense the tension, ravenous hunger, and low blood sugar. It's very strange.

Having entered the place with a decision about what to eat already made -- fish flavour eggplant rice (魚香茄子飯 'yü heung ke ji faan') it felt like an inordinate amount of time before they took my order, especially on a busy evening when a single white diner occupying a table must be fed fast to free the space up again. But that may have just been my imagination.

But I enjoyed my meal, while listening to two mainland academics in town for a conference at the next table. Not that I can really understand Mandarin, but one of them is from Shanghai, northern district. With only a trace of that accent when speaking. No, I didn't talk to them. What would I say? And why interrupt the sibilant choppy flow?

Just imagine me as a small owl who is keenly, judgementally, observing the wild creatures in my native environment, but not likely to swoop and rip. Fiercely territorial, but confident that they don't present a threat.


Unlike the two skeevy white eccentrics also there. One all the way opposite, the other a later arrival wearing a hippie top hat in the far left corner. Both eating by themselves and reading. Sometimes there are just too many of us Caucasians in a place, it changes the dynamic.
Much like, as you would imagine, at work most of the time.
There was a disturbing whiteness in the air.
Next time, go earlier.



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THEY, THEM, IT, AND THOSE!

It's the End Times! Obviously! There is NO other logical explanation! It marks our downward spiral as a nation, and proof positive that the Democrats are leading us straight to perdition.

Quote:
"New Jersey had seven TGI Fridays closures, followed by Massachusetts with six closures and New York with five closures. Other states with closures included Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia."
[Source: SFG - Popular Chain Closing Underperforming Locations]

This, as much as anything, demonstrates how socialist politicians are destroying our economy and stiffing the working stiff. Their policies are ruining once prosperous communities all across the land.

One (!) closure in California.
Where the hell is Fresno?

Obviously Newsom and Breed's policies are disastrous for California. You get what you voted for. Wokism. Socialist policies are turning San Francisco and the entire state into a steaming dungheap with fentanyl addicts defecating everywhere surrounded by boarded-up downtown businesses and people fleeing the state for Texas and Alabama. Oh, it's horrible! There are empty business districts, wind-blown garbage, with reefers, rioting hippies, as well as free sex-changes for jailed criminals and illegals everywhere!

Where the hell is Fresno?

Soon gas will be unaffordable, Ted Cruz will flee to Cancun, and our Chinese commie taksmasters will force everyone to fly rainbow flags and drink Bud Light!


'THEY' are draining our vital juices!
Personal pronouns! Oh woe!
Potato skins!


We are doomed! Doomed!


Call out the National Guard. Unleash the internet MAGA warriors on social media.
Those darn liberals are ruining everything for gob-fearing Americans.

Where the hell is Fresno?



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ROSE COLOURED SUNGLASSES

In my early twenties I was bright and went to college. Only a little later I was making money hand over fist and dropped out, shortly after which the market for that particular set of skills nosedived because of computers, and being a stubborn sort I waited to see if it would come back. It didn't. And college became too expensive. So I never actually finished a degree.

But at heart I am still a college man. Gaily skipping around the quad with a jaunty briar pipe sticking out of my face, dunking underclassmen in the fountain, and having a glass of sherry before late dinner with the chums.

Actually, there were very few chums. Even then most university students were not habitués of the second hand bookstores, and even fewer would positively gloat over a book of myth and folktales with translations on the facing page in a tribal Malayo-Polynesian language. The closest they'd come to that is reading Tolkien. Whom I dislike.

I had gotten well into The Lord Of The Rings, when I realized it was a great heap of bollocks, and stopped.

Yes, I know he's an immortal ruddy genius and we all must worship the roseate clouds he walked upon. Also that he was a pipesmoker with a taste for Virginia flakes (except for his occasional forays into perversion, ie Erinmore Flake). Capstan in particular.
Presumably he also liked a spot of tea, like I do.

A prodigious writer of poofle.

And probably a longwinded conversationalist. The faculty club bore.



Smoked three pipefulls of fine flake during the afternoon while listening to the boys in the back cheering on the game, wailing with despair while the Forty Niners lost, and arguing over sex changes. I suggested at an opportune moment that Jeff would be much more loveable as a pudgy old lady than he presently is as a sour old goat with prostate problems, and one of the boys agreed that he IS huggable. So I think it's a thing now. Jeff should thank me.
His social life is bound to improve. Soon.
There's promise!


Sick hobbits.



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SWEET MELLOW MAN AND MEANSPIRITED ANCIENT PASTRY

Last night I stepped out into the freezing cold for a last smoke. Moments after I lit my pipe, with fingers rapidly turning blue and hands trembling from the arctic blast, I became aware of a blonde woman in her forties glaring at me. Specifically, at my pipe. Now, let me clarify: public street. Extreme cold. Long after dark. No children nearby, nor, for that matter, any mobs of sensitive gluten phobic lactose intolerant vegetarians. Plenty of space. Just this other person safely far enough away that it was extremely unlikely that delicate tendrils of smoke would offend her.

I heard her mutter: "Jesus, tobacco!"

Why you dessicated frump, would you be better pleased if it were marijuana? What if I told you that this puts me on a plane with spiritual native Americans? It's meditative!
Sense my saintly aura!

Sometimes, tobacco is magic. That last smoke of the day turns me into the nicest gentleman, with kindly warm thoughts toward all. Apparently it turned little miss pancake make-up over there into a sour old pizza crust.

My piles bleed for you, lady. I'm smoking outside, and I'm cold.
You have no reason to be here. I don't see a dog.
Just keep walking. You need not glare.

Please think of tofu.
Om, santi santi.

A pipeful, even out in nasty weather, puts me at peace with the world.
It's a complex interplay of aesthetic stimuli and mood prompts.
Very much like happy hobbits in a Tolkien tale.
Just about giddy with glee.
Squealing.



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EXILED FROM A QUICHE ENVIRONMENT

One of the illustrations from a year ago that popped back up on the horizon reminds me that we had more rain than average last year. So far this season it has only been a minor inconvenience. Last year it was a serious nuisance. I remember coming home in a rainstorm and being clobbered by my umbrella while holding onto my groceries for dear life.

Those occasions when it storm-rained were not comfortable.

Normally I do not mind being exiled outside with my pipe so much, but it's not something that in the middle of winter I enjoy. A pipe tastes much better when the smoker of same is not getting clobbered by the weather.

There's a row of awnings on the block where a favourite bakery / chanteng is located, several of them fronting closed businesses. They've removed the nice comfy awnings opposite the hospital, and renovated the building with a view toward renting out the commercial spaces that have been empty for a while. The jewelry shop whose owners retired provides a nice awning too. And all of these are near cups of hot Hong Kong milk tea and snackies.

That's on that side of the hill. Closer to home, this side of the hill, there's nothing but stern Karen-like disapproval and no shelter.

Severe Protestant white people strongly disapprove of awnings.
Shiftless people like me might take advantage.



See, what this city needs is for university graduates to look outside and say "oh do come in you fascinating man, I love the aroma of that nice Virginia you are burning in that handsome very collegiate looking pipe. I'll go put the kettle on for tea. And I believe that there is still a nice wedge of mushroom quiche left!"

Sadly, what's far more likely is some yuppie harridan in training will Karen-like screech that her precious dog Fluffy is being harmed by my smoking one hundred yards away, she'll call the cops on me. If I catch pneumonia out here, it's just what I deserve!

For some reason I am reminded of a large lumpish female person over in Oakland who was allergic to everything, weepy, and deployed a cannister of pepper spray from her purse on a bunch of harmlessly yelling people. She disapproved of smoking also.

She hated men who looked like math tutors. That's a fact.



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JUST ADD BEANS!

Many internet trolls, meaning good solid Christians and Republicans from places you never want to go in the fly-overs, are outraged that a KFC in San Francisco is closing. Which is all because of the Democrats, you get what you vote for, Newsom and Breed are destroying the state, crime, drug addicts, faeces, bums panhandlers, and rabid darn liberals everywhere! Biden's American! Woke politics! All those illegals and vegetarians!

Outraged. Ired. Stupendously upset, Very angry. Offended and worked up. Righteously peeved, disturbed, anguished, and panties in a bunch. Oh, the humanity!

Similarly, the closure of so many fine restaurants patronized mostly by Caucasians also gives them fits, for all the reasons listed above. As well as the pampered yuppies.
San Francisco isn't what it has been. Where shall they eat? When finally they visit the city to see for themselves how we liberals have ruined it.

Well, there are plenty of places for them in Burlingame, near the airport.
Also, try Vegas on the way over. And get some dinners to-go.

It is because of them, and their waddlesome kinfolk who already visit, ambling four abreast, slowly down crowded sidewalks, to the great inconvenience of real people, that I suggest that what we desperately need in the downtown is a Wafflehouse or a Golden Corral. Someplace where they will feel at home and pick fights or stress out the furniture with their weight, while loading up on the carbs, greasebombs, and cholesterol so necessary for their comfort. Good food! Not the pretentious garbage or fancy foreign muck that most people here eat.
Good, solid, stick-to-your-ribs, no spices, no garlic, no peppers.
Extra lard sent to your table upon request.

To make it healthy, as well as either Southern or Texan, just add beans.

And real iced tea, extra sweet, no darned boba balls.
Like the good lord intended.



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THE SCROFULA! THE SCROFULA!

What with the weather at this time of year in San Francisco, one cannot enjoy an aperatif on a Parisian café terrace. For one thing, it's beastly cold. For another, smoking is outlawed at bars, cafés, restaurants, and similar venues, inside or out. For a third thing, nothing here is in any way Parisian. Or Amsterdammish. They have terraces in Amsterdam.

Nice sheltered terraces, with space heaters at all corners, so that people can enjoy the fresh air and puff their pipes twelve months of the year without once having to set foot in the empty smoke free interior. It cuts down on cleaning staff too.

Still. I suffer in consequence.

After teatime I did enjoy a pipe while wandering about on my way to buy a lottery ticket. Heaven is a very arctic place. And possibly filled with large white tourists.


When I win the lottery, I shall do something about the tourists.

And also install Parisian terraces everywhere.


In other news, the turkey vulture, Sydney Fylbert, claims he cured my scrofula by peeing on my feet, as his kind are wont to do. The fact that I do not have scrofula merely proves his assertion. Curing scrofula is the least he can do for us peasants.

Were he a white human, he'd praise miracle honey and apple cider vinegar.
He'd probably also be an anti-vaxxer, and a vegan.
While peeing on people's feet.


The last time he was in Paris, someone urinated on his feet.
And he doesn't suffer from scrofula.
Quod erat demonstrandum!


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ALL HAIL THE UNATTRACTIVES!

A question was posed on the internet: "What immediately makes a person unattractive?" Most of the people who answered were women. Younger women. And probably not very pleasant women. A certain level of entitlement was evident.


WHAT IMEDIATELY MAKES A PERSON UNATTRACTIVE?

1. 62% Smoking.
2. 20% Foul language.
3. 5% Penny loafers.
4. 4% They/Them.
5. 4% Ungodliness.
6. 2% Rude to waiters.
7. 1% Liberalism.
8. 1% Jank teeth.
9. 1% Narsosism.


Naturally, I don't quite see myself in this. As a pipesmoker, I remember back when college professors, Latin and mathematics tutors, engineers, and even captains of industry smoked. Usually they smoked a pipe. But there was a time when instead of a pipe -- impractical when you're performing an appendectomy, doing a Caesarian, or lancing a boil -- more doctors smoked Camels than any other cigarette. In a repeated survey doctors all across the country, in all branches of medicine, were asked "what cigarette do you smoke, doctor?" Yes, not surprisingly, more doctors preferred the rich taste of Camels to any other cigarette.

Of course, most doctors no longer smoke Camels. They probably went back to the pipe from their college days, or fell for Havanas, which they can afford now even at the high prices.


Perhaps I should mention that I am a single young boomer and still a bachelor a decade after savage Kitten and I separated, which may influence my harsh judgement of the respondents to that question. I have no penny in this fight, I'm not dating.

[I'm decidedly on the sidelines sneering at you lot.]

I'm on the fence about foul language, but I certainly recognize that there is a time and place for NOT using it. Childcare facilities, hospitals, elevators, around pregnant women, or in restaurants and bars. Wherever you wouldn't smoke either. As just examples.

Penny loafers are okay. Comfy. Job interviews would not be the same without them, and while I never wear them, I do own a pair. I emply the pronouns they and them when it would be gracious to do so, or grammatically appropriate. Liberalism is an estimable characteristic of which I highly approve, suck it up. I am never rude to waiters; they put up with all of you lot, and many of them are saints. Stressed-out underpaid longsuffering saints.

As for 'jank teeth', what?
Narsosism? Eh?

Is it possibly that some of the folks out there can't spell? If so, they should have smoked. Nicotine has been shown to have benefits to memory and retention, which is why so many medical students huff a pack of Camels (or other brands) when pulling an all-nighter before a test. Undoubtedly it would have also benefitted those Karens if they puffed a few in grammar school when the alphabet was introduced, and it would have helped them escape the cheer squad and glee club in high school and actually have a social life with real people.


Read other essays on this blog for more mansplaining, whitesplaining, colonialist attitudes, religious bigotry, cultural appropriation, general pissiness, and profound insights about everything that is wrong with people.

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BOOMER COMFORTS

Because of the weather, as well as a keen desire to remain comfortable for the rest of the night, I decided to not go out on the weekly pubcrawl yesterday. Fifty degrees and wet.
Yeah, no. Beastly weather! Expect a strongly worded letter to the editor!

Teatime had found me in a downpour after leaving my bank. When I got to the bakery it was merely a drizzle, but the gutters were still overflowing from earlier.

Unsurprisingly, the place was nearly empty.

One curry puff and two cups of tea later I was out under an awning lighting up my pipe. An extraordinarily good smoke. Very fine tobacco, and not a person nearby bellyaching about how I'm ruining their lungs go puff elsewhere you horrid old boomer. The type of person for whom the phrase "go stuff a sock in it" was invented.

So it was a lovely afternoon. Despite blue finger tips because of Raynaud's phenomenon. One which bears repeating during daylight hours when it rains again, assuming that we never reach the freezing point of water here.

There are two Big Ben apple-shaped pipes in my collection, both were bought in the same year two decades ago. They are excellent smokes, and I would be hard put to decide which one is better, the smooth with two-tone staining, or the sandblast pictured above.
They would be splendid with a cup of milk-tea, smoked indoors.

There was a cup of tea. Two of them in fact. One clear pale amber standard restaurant tea, one strong and bracing HK milk tea. But of course the pipe was smoked outside.
Beaky white dude in foul weather, scaring the kiddies.


They treat me well at that bakery. Which I can't quite understand, because I am not a particularly nice person, more of a grumbly old coot. But I guess that as a Cantonese speaker I am in a way more familiar, an ambulatory landmark, so to speak.


Startled two elderly Caucasians on the way in.
They were sheltering from the storm.
Probably lost.



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YELLOW RICE CAKE

Over on a food site someone mentioned a product that a friend brought back from her home town whenever she visited. Now, in relation thereto, I should mention that if I did that it would be cheap cigars, but those are no longer made there (the last manufactury closed in the late nineties), and if it were provincial specialties, perhaps cheese, perhaps some kind of high fat pastry popular during the Middle Ages. The town a few miles westward is luckier in that regard: dark beer.

Seeing as I live in San Francisco now, sourdough.
As well as our notorious superior attitude.

But I digress. Meizhou (梅州 'mui jau') is predominantly Hakka, and one of the local famous food items is 黄粄 ('wong paan). Which is New Year's "cake" (年糕 'nin gou') made of yellow glutinous rice flour, water, and a sweetener. It requires a local type of rice called 大禾米 ('taai wo mai') which is mountain grown, sown in Spring, planted mid Summer, harvested early Winter. Very easy on the digestion.

The word 粄 ('paan'; traditional Hakka snacks and sticky sweets made from glutinous rice) is a relatively new character (meaning that it is actually more than a thousand years old, but it didn't exist during the Spring and Autumn period.). A reconstruction of a possible seal script version of the character would look like this:

RICE FRAGMENTS (米) ON THE LEFT, A HAND HOLDING AN ANGLED OBJECT ON THE RIGHT
(反) WHICH BY ITSELF MEANS 'RETURN', 'REVERSE', AS THE PHONETIC COMPONENT.
A HOMOPHONE AND ANALOGOUS CHARACTER 板 MEANS PLANK OR SLAB.

Like many versions of New Year's cake, it is good pan-fried with chives or garlic sprouts as a savoury dish. Hot sauce may be glopped on top, or liang pan sauce.

凉拌汁
[LIANG PAN SAUCE ('leung pun jap); "cold mix juice"]

4 TBS soy sauce
1 TBS black vinegar
1 TBS chili oil
1 TBS fragrant sesame oil
2 Tsp sugar
1 Thumblength ginger, peeled and minced
2 (or more) garlic cloves, peeled and minced
2 scallions, minced

Whisk together, and drizzle over sliced blanched vegetables, cold cooked noodles, steamed dishes, slow simmered fatty pork slices. Or, in this case, your fried wedges of nin gou.
Also great on boiled noodles with shredded roast chicken.
Chili paste may be added. Which I do.



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THE FASHIONABLE BRAND

Named after a famous shopping street and district in Peking, and marketed mostly in Shanghai , it was the cigarette that gangsters, movie stars, dancing girls, and all the fashionable people smoked: Hata Men Cigarettes.

1930'S ADVERTISING POSTER WITH CHOU HSUEN

I'd love to tell you what they were like, but they aren't available locally, and probably aren't even made anymore. The poster above shows a famous movie star dreamily indulging in a cigarette. I suspect that they must have been Virginia-style leaf, possibly grown in country.

The landmark that gave the district, street, and cigarette its name is also gone. One of the city gates of the capitol, many of which were torn down in the fifties and sixties.
The old Hatamen railway station, I've heard, still stands.

HATA MEN - PEKING CITY GATE

That era, those cigarettes, and the famous stars whose willowy forms graced the advertising posters for them, are now impossibly distant. One would have to be past a hundred to have experienced all that in one's youth.

Smoking the modern brands does not recapture the fragrance.
Jasmine tea and a Camel straight; a faint echo.
Cold weather. Moonlight.



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FRESH AIR

Yesterday was a day for obsessions. If you let me loose on the internet for several hours, what happens is the drill-down search for odd things. I'm fairly certain that's not unusual; my apartment mate spent a large part of the time on the internet too, and consequently I heard squittering and chirping in Vietnamese from a dermatological clinic in Hanoi that deals with skin issues. Which, in that neither of us understand Vietnamese, is somewhere between soothing, and because I know what they are talking about, disquieting.

Pimples, zits, blackheads, cysts, boils, and ingrown hair.
Plus infected follicles. Hard little sacs.
In great detail!


No illustration will be provided, because this is a clean family friendly blog, and even her cute little children's story, which spontaneously erupted from her fertile brian, about little sebaceae dreaming of freedom and yearning, yearning for the open air, will not be retold here.
It is too graphic, and NOT suitable for little kiddies.

Sometime after dark fell I needed a break, and headed out with a pipeful of good tobacco for a smoke. In contrast with the previous night, the neighborhood was quiet, probably because a lot of people were recovering from playing golf with a hangover. Or perhaps doing the traditional new years plunge into the waters of the bay, with a hangover.
Fried breakfasts. With a hangover.

That would be young white people, of course. Local Cantonese people and the not insane like myself do not drink excessively much on New Years Eve, and in consequent have nothing to be hung over about.

Many of us don't see a reason to have another year.
The last one was perfectly fine, really.
Let's do all that again.



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ACCIDENTAL ERASURE

A reader asked if I had any idea which chachantengs might be open on New Years Day. Accidentally I erased that comment instead of approving it for publication, so I have no clue which recent post it was under. But it was obviously sometime this morning.

Profoundly sorry, dear reader.

I believe the V. I. P. (嘉賓閣咖啡餅店) on Broadway between Stockton and Grant is open. Very likely G & Y Bakery Cafe (寵兒茶餐廳 / 宠儿茶餐厅) at Clay and Stockton is too.



嘉賓閣咖啡餅店
VIP COFFEE & CAKES SHOP
671 Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133.
415-989-7118
舊金山，布律威街671號。


寵兒茶餐廳 (宠儿茶餐厅)
G & Y BAKERY CAFE
881 Clay Street
San Francisco, CA 94108.
415-291-8688
舊金山，企李街881號。



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ALL OBSESSIVE

A reader recently posted a comment, to which I responded as follows: "An old Victorian somewhere in a forest, if not used as a prison, sounds delightful. Provided, of course, that emergency services can get there fast if needed, and a pharmacy is easily reachable, as well as a place where caffeinated beverages may be had. So, an urban forest. Possibly several blocks of redwoods in a cluster near bus lines and a Chinatown."
End self-quote.

You understand of course why there has to be a Chinatown fairly nearby. Oyster sauce, soy sauce, chili paste, star anise, fatty pork, salt fish, noodles, and milk tea.
Plus dried oysters and hair vegetable.
For New Year.

A person needs the fundaments of civilized life. Especially if infesting the attic and dark corners of a dusty abode amid trees. With a stash of pipe tobacco and fine briars.

One imagines that there is also a book room with a few easy chairs (possibly rattan) and one or two ashtrays. No more than that, because that implies a plurality of company, and I am not that social. One or two people. Just one is fine. Another pipe smoker. Female. With her own reading preferences. Who is self-motivated and independent minded, and will often do her own thing, because I will not think for two, heck I can barely think for one, and am not capable of or competent at providing hours of entertainment and stimulation.

No aromatic mixtures. Obviously. Good pipe tobacco does not need fruity top-dressing, nor does it benefit in any way from that. Precisely like good coffee and good tea.

A tobacconist and a book store in the not too distant vicinity is implied.
Sometimes one must explore new things.



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RABBIT RABBIT FOR A NEW YEAR

Rabbit rabbit for a new year in which the human species will make progress! Slow, agonizing progress, to be sure, but progress never the less. This realization comes to me courtesy of my apartment mate, to whom I had recounted seeing a young feller buying a fine cigar to celebrate the new year, and taking a selfie while lighting it up. He flamed half of the cigar while doing so. When he saw me looking quizzical, he explained "for da bitches, man!"

Destroyed half a cheroot while doing that.
But it's all for da bitches, man.
That means something.

My apartment mate objected to the term 'bitches'. Understandable! But one can feel sorry for his horrible social environment, where that word is common, while simultaneously despairing over his torching a cigar so horribly. Those things are expensive! And the civilized animal smokes a pipe, anyway.

But there has been progress. Two centuries ago, most people, especially of his class, were illiterate. Now, at least, slightly more than half of them can spell the word 'bitches'. And many of them will live past forty. Thanks to modern medicine, which has its beginnings in the dark period before leeching and hot irons to expel daemons were discontinued.
There were no torch lighters. People could not take 'selfies'.
Just living was a bitch, man.

Almost at random, I decided to look up porphyria on Wikipedia. The very first paragraph reads as follows: "Porphyria is a group of liver disorders in which substances called porphyrins build up in the body, adversely affecting the skin or nervous system. The types that affect the nervous system are also known as acute porphyria, as symptoms are rapid in onset and short in duration. Symptoms of an attack include abdominal pain, chest pain, vomiting, confusion, constipation, fever, high blood pressure, and high heart rate. The attacks usually last for days to weeks. Complications may include paralysis, low blood sodium levels, and seizures. Attacks may be triggered by alcohol, smoking, hormonal changes, fasting, stress, or certain medications. If the skin is affected, blisters or itching may occur with sunlight exposure."
[End cite]

Please note than many of the words are far more difficult to spell than 'bitches', and refer to more complicated matters as well. Bitch Man would be at a complete loss.

At some point two or three decades hence he may be prescribed a medicine with the following warnings: "If you become pregnant DO NOT TAKE THIS DRUG. May cause DIZZINESS. Prolonged or excessive exposure to direct or artificial sunlight SHOULD BE AVOIDED while taking this medication."

To me, this means that I should not be a woman working in a tanning salon. Okay, can do.
For Bitch Man, all of this may prove insurmountably complex.
My heart bleeds for him.


He might die nicely suntanned. Probably not pregnant, but perhaps, and dare we hope, drunk, stressed and porphyric. As well as constipated and/or paralized.
But no doubt confused; that's inevitable.
He's likely already there.


Happy new year, everyone.
Rabbit rabbit.



NOTE: It's a very waspy custom to say 'rabbit rabbit' on the first day of a new month. Many of us utilize terms like 'rabbit' or 'porphyria' more often than 'bitches', unless we're involved in the kennel industry. Which is all about bitches.


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