This past Saturday was SantaCon, a yearly bacchanal that involves several thousand individuals dressing up as Santa or one of his elves, or even as festive moose, reindeer, and rabbits with red caps, and getting riotously stinko. It was all rather distressingly Belgian.
I participated, but only vicariously.
By avoiding the crowds.
Some people got a head-start on Friday night. The majority did not begin drinking till breakfast time on Saturday, which showed remarkable restraint. A few hardy souls continued untill Sunday afternoon, finally falling asleep in alleyways and behind comfortable garbage cans.
I woke up Saturday morning to the sounds of early boister from Polk Street, as well as a constant rise and fall of police sirens and emergency vehicles in the background, which maintained throughout the day.
For your information, I live on the slope, Polk Street is downhill. The noise of mass revelry travelled.
Including the dulcet tone of somebody retching.
Which was probably Santa.
Or an elf.
If you saw the event, you will have finally realized that Santa is a horrid degenerate who should not be allowed anywhere near your kids. Ever, even sober. After seeing him throw-up on a policeman, the little dears are traumatized, probably for life.
Two Santas attempting procreativity in a convenient doorway may have given your children the wrong idea about Christmas. You have some explaining to do.
Good luck claryfing the role of the third participant.
And no, please do not teach them all the words to that disgusting song 'Clam Chowder'. There are just some things no one needs to know. The repulsive lyrics are still echoing in my head as I type this. Quite catchy, good rhymes.
Your young ones will likely learn it in school anyway.
I'm sure some of the elves sincerely regret their behaviour.
Or at least, I hope they do.
Disrobing and inviting over a dozen strapping Santas to "get jiggy" in the bus shelter showed an unhealthy enthusiasm for naturalism. Especially in the rain. Vodka (or was it gin?) does indeed lower your body temperature, and makes the cold far more bearable. But it WAS cold, dearie, and you risked hypothermia and possibly pneumonia.
Although the fat may have provided some insulation.
Good thing the bus driver did not allow you on in your state of undress. And inebriation. Those Chinatown grannies were desperate to keep you at arms length.
At all times. A very long arm.
On second thought, I wish the bus driver HAD let you on. The vehicle would have promptly emptied out, and there would have been seats for some of the old people.
I think I might have heard the Clam Chowder song three more times that day.
But maybe that was just the wind.
As I returned home last night, a discarded Santa brassiere was being tossed about by the breeze at Hyde Street. I thought of picking it up, but then I realized that I did not know where it had been.
And a man carrying a fur-trimmed naughty garment looks suspect.
Not just at midnight, but at any time of day.
Somewhere an elf is bare.
Cold, too.
I feel for her.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, December 17, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
EVEN MORE REASONS TO MAKE CONTACT WITH EARTH
I've been looking at the empty tobacco tins stacked in a corner of the teevee room. Without my even noticing, they've added up a bit since the last grand clearout of smoker's detritus. Yes, I am a slob.
Or perhaps I enjoy having the evidence that I've been up to something all around.
My apartment mate is a very patient woman.
Well, oblivious too, or she NEVER would have given up on my handsome ever-so-likeable self more than two years ago. Be that as it may, it explains why I like having her here, and why despite having gotten over me and my very considerable charms (stop snickering, dammit), she still likes living with me.
I am a known quantity.
So is she.
She doesn't smoke.
EMTPY TINS
Dunhill 965, enameled tin. A pleasant middle-of-the-road English mixture much suited to middle-aged men who play golf or know Aramaic.
I am neither.
Dunhill Elizabethan Mixture (also enameled tin). Good lord what was I thinking. This product is FAR too eccentric for me.
Dunhill Royal Yacht (enameled). Vile. Possibly degenerate. Suitable for teenage boys.
Dunhill Early Morning Pipe (enameled). A extremely pleasant product. Goes well with strong black tea, spot of milk and sugar. Very civilized.
Wessex Red Virginia Flake. Nice. reminds me of childhood. More innocent times, in any case.
Wessex Brown Virginia Flake. Early adolescence, when I was still pearled with dew.
Gawith Hogarth Ennerdale. What nasty men smoke.
Orlik Golden Sliced. There's that childlike innocence again. Chasing butterflies, sunlight, tall grasses.
MacBaren Virginia Flake. Old ladies, and anise pastilles.
Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake. Possibly a slightly degenerate teenage period, but also something that elderly gentlemen can smoke without fear of being molested.
Samuel Gawith St. James Flake. I am become a small dark-haired miss, and there is no one in the house right now. I shall swan about naked.
Samuel Gawith Golden Glow. A lighter Virginia tobacco, springlike. Straw-blonde hair and a lovely summer dress. La la la.
Samuel Gawith Squadron Leader. I say, Pip, Jerry's over the channel.
Samuel Gawith Commonwealth Full Strength Mixture. Let us now sing the songs that students sing in Latin, while taunting the other colleges.
Samuel Gawith 1792 Flake. Something for my more depraved moments. The reason why you haven't read about them in the newspaper is because I am very discreet.
Rattrays Hal O' The Wynd. A spring breeze, an innocent damsel, and amazing self-control. Stay a gentleman at all times, stay a gentleman at all times, stay a gentleman....
Rattrays Old Gowrie. Badger roaming the fields and forest glades.
Rattrays Marlin Flake. Dammit, I need to kill a fish. No, I am not in Hemingway mode.
Rattrays Brown Clunee. Stylish in my skirt and cardigan, and very demure.
Erinmore Mixture. Anything more suggestive of birching would be hard to imagine.
Greg Pease Abingdon. I want a ham sandwich and a glass of sherry.
Esoterica Tabaciana Dunbar. A downtown alley near the TransAmerica Pyramid, late summer. And crows.
Germain's Medium Flake. Young men at twilight.
Germain's Brown Flake. Horny young men, beer at midnight.
Germain's Plum Cake Mixture. Depravities involving unguents. Secretly enjoyable.
Germain's Eighteen Twenty Smoking Mixture. A calm rational man, whom you would enjoy meeting over tea and cookies.
And lastly, Davidoff Flake Medallions. Amazingly happy-making.
I have a rich inner-life.
Possibly an alternative reality.
When the zombie-apocalypse comes, women will flock around me, because as a pipe-smoker I represent stability and common sense.
The living dead will stay far away.
And we will have cups of tea, with milk and sugar.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Or perhaps I enjoy having the evidence that I've been up to something all around.
My apartment mate is a very patient woman.
Well, oblivious too, or she NEVER would have given up on my handsome ever-so-likeable self more than two years ago. Be that as it may, it explains why I like having her here, and why despite having gotten over me and my very considerable charms (stop snickering, dammit), she still likes living with me.
I am a known quantity.
So is she.
She doesn't smoke.
EMTPY TINS
Dunhill 965, enameled tin. A pleasant middle-of-the-road English mixture much suited to middle-aged men who play golf or know Aramaic.
I am neither.
Dunhill Elizabethan Mixture (also enameled tin). Good lord what was I thinking. This product is FAR too eccentric for me.
Dunhill Royal Yacht (enameled). Vile. Possibly degenerate. Suitable for teenage boys.
Dunhill Early Morning Pipe (enameled). A extremely pleasant product. Goes well with strong black tea, spot of milk and sugar. Very civilized.
Wessex Red Virginia Flake. Nice. reminds me of childhood. More innocent times, in any case.
Wessex Brown Virginia Flake. Early adolescence, when I was still pearled with dew.
Gawith Hogarth Ennerdale. What nasty men smoke.
Orlik Golden Sliced. There's that childlike innocence again. Chasing butterflies, sunlight, tall grasses.
MacBaren Virginia Flake. Old ladies, and anise pastilles.
Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake. Possibly a slightly degenerate teenage period, but also something that elderly gentlemen can smoke without fear of being molested.
Samuel Gawith St. James Flake. I am become a small dark-haired miss, and there is no one in the house right now. I shall swan about naked.
Samuel Gawith Golden Glow. A lighter Virginia tobacco, springlike. Straw-blonde hair and a lovely summer dress. La la la.
Samuel Gawith Squadron Leader. I say, Pip, Jerry's over the channel.
Samuel Gawith Commonwealth Full Strength Mixture. Let us now sing the songs that students sing in Latin, while taunting the other colleges.
Samuel Gawith 1792 Flake. Something for my more depraved moments. The reason why you haven't read about them in the newspaper is because I am very discreet.
Rattrays Hal O' The Wynd. A spring breeze, an innocent damsel, and amazing self-control. Stay a gentleman at all times, stay a gentleman at all times, stay a gentleman....
Rattrays Old Gowrie. Badger roaming the fields and forest glades.
Rattrays Marlin Flake. Dammit, I need to kill a fish. No, I am not in Hemingway mode.
Rattrays Brown Clunee. Stylish in my skirt and cardigan, and very demure.
Erinmore Mixture. Anything more suggestive of birching would be hard to imagine.
Greg Pease Abingdon. I want a ham sandwich and a glass of sherry.
Esoterica Tabaciana Dunbar. A downtown alley near the TransAmerica Pyramid, late summer. And crows.
Germain's Medium Flake. Young men at twilight.
Germain's Brown Flake. Horny young men, beer at midnight.
Germain's Plum Cake Mixture. Depravities involving unguents. Secretly enjoyable.
Germain's Eighteen Twenty Smoking Mixture. A calm rational man, whom you would enjoy meeting over tea and cookies.
And lastly, Davidoff Flake Medallions. Amazingly happy-making.
I have a rich inner-life.
Possibly an alternative reality.
When the zombie-apocalypse comes, women will flock around me, because as a pipe-smoker I represent stability and common sense.
The living dead will stay far away.
And we will have cups of tea, with milk and sugar.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
WOMEN PIPE SMOKERS
Over a year ago I posted a piece about pipe-smoking ladies. Since then, I have met a few. I had always known they existed, and in fact actually knew some of them a long time ago. But they are, as you probably understand, a rarity. More so than female cigar smokers.
Still, that post attracts an extraordinary number of visitors. So there must be women out there who wish to take up the habit. Though they may be flying under the radar.
WOMAN WITH A PIPE
There seems to be a general belief that pipes are the pigeon solely of either serious intellectuals, such as college professors, OR huge hairy men like Hemmingway and Hefner, probably with coarse curly hair cascading down their chest towards the big vulgar gold blingy-bling that repines upon the enormous tanned abdomen. And that anyone who does not resemble those stereotypes is pretentious and affected.
Much more so if they are a woman.
A little teenage miss smoking a pipe is appallingly and utterly misguided, quite the most repulsive and degenerate of Satan's handmaidens.
Why, she should be caned!
Unless she is smoking that pipe on stage of an evening, wearing nothing but tiny pink ruffled panties as part of a show, it is just not so.
I will never admit it, but even I might willingly be among the audience.
Though not to discuss pipe tobacco mixtures with the girl.
More likely to question her choice of clothing.
Bikini briefs, French cut, High cut.
Aesthetic issues.
Please let me know which school is putting on that performance art.
It sounds très avant garde.
Gentlemen, what would you rather see - your daughters growing up to be junior college sluts swilling vodka and smoking cigarettes, OR getting a P.H.D. in an impossibly heavy subject, and going on to lecture with considerable wit, eloquence, and verve at a respected place of learning?
If your mother had smoked a pipe while she was pregnant instead of cigarettes, you would now have a high domed forehead and a Jaguar, instead of a cleft palate, furry palms, and a Prius.
Pipe smoking is far better for your mental health than any number of ciggies huffed out on the pavement in front of your office building during a downpour with all those lower-middleclass droodges from South City. They've largely given up on their dreams, and merely want their thug-brats to finish high-school without a conviction.
It's darned sad.
That said, the new lady pipe smoker would be well-advised to do some research on the matter. While a pipe is definitely an accessory, the primary consideratum in choosing a briar is not how it looks coming out of your face, but whether it's a decent piece of wood, with correct design and proportion for smoking.
Will it be satisfying to use?
Given the desirable characteristics of pipes, it is clear that there is no difference between a woman smoker and a man smoker: they both need the same bowl dimensions, and they should both tend toward practical shapes that 'feel right'.
The beginning pipe smoker will of course start off with only one pipe, to be used occasionally when in the mood. As time goes by more pipes will be acquired, and shape-preferences will be honed. A small collection will grow, which over the years will change as some pieces are given away and others added.
Likewise, the first tobacco chosen will likely not be the regular blend smoked later. Irrespective of whether she started off with an aromatic, a flake, a mild cavendish, or an English blend -- and I would recommend the English blend, because it is clean tobacco and will bite far less than a flake if smoked too fast, as is the tendency when first taking up the habit -- she will soon enough experiment with other products, figure out which work best for her, and end up with a range of favourites, including one or two anomalies that fall outside of type.
Pipes can be a bit expensive -- a decent piece runs anywhere between fifty and several hundred dollars -- but with proper care they will last a lifetime.
I am still smoking exemplars that are decades old, and they yield me more pleasure than you can possibly imagine.
If you smoke two or three bowls a day, you should have at least four or five pipes, but take your time acquiring them, especially if you're in the one bowl every two or three days phase. Develop an eye for fills (small surface pits or gaps obscured by wood-coloured putty) and surface translucence (the glassy semi-transparent look of the lighter grain and it's refractile quality when angled in the light). The first indicates poorer wood, and besides being an aesthetic debit also hints that there may be unseen flaws that affect performance, the latter is a measure of age and quality.
Ancient briar is best. It will smoke sweeter, cooler, drier, and bring out the complexities of a blend far better, than young sappy root.
Comparatively speaking, old wood will feel lighter than a similar exemplar made from young stock.
A good pipe will look more beautiful with each passing year, and you will be thankful that you invested in something worthwhile.
Treat it well; it is your solace and your companion.
AFTER THOUGHT
At present I have over one hundred and fifty pipes. Some of them cost next to nothing, some of them are priceless. Among the pipes in my regular rotation -- currently twenty bowls -- are one or two that are older than I am, a few with decades of service, and others that have been with me for less than ten years.
My favourite is a Benton Select bought in 2007 which cost around sixty dollars.
Yes, it has a few minor fills, and it isn't worth anywhere near as much as the Dunhill Patent Root or the Charatans, but the wood is superlatively mature, and it smokes like a dream. It is the one pipe I am in danger of overworking.
I have to restrain myself, lest I light it too often.
In fact, it is to the left of the computer as I type, and I'm eyeing it speculatively.
Matured cake, perhaps, or a smidge of full English? Maybe one of my own blends? Or something from the row of small glass sample jars behind me: John Cotton's Number 1 and 2 Medium, Bengal Slices from 1981, or the Balkan Sobranie from thirty years ago that I opened recently?
Samovar? No. 622?
Flake. I'm thinking flake. It's early in the morning, a nice bit of Virginia would be wonderful right now.
Flake.
POINTERS ON PIPE SMOKING , TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Still, that post attracts an extraordinary number of visitors. So there must be women out there who wish to take up the habit. Though they may be flying under the radar.
WOMAN WITH A PIPE
There seems to be a general belief that pipes are the pigeon solely of either serious intellectuals, such as college professors, OR huge hairy men like Hemmingway and Hefner, probably with coarse curly hair cascading down their chest towards the big vulgar gold blingy-bling that repines upon the enormous tanned abdomen. And that anyone who does not resemble those stereotypes is pretentious and affected.
Much more so if they are a woman.
A little teenage miss smoking a pipe is appallingly and utterly misguided, quite the most repulsive and degenerate of Satan's handmaidens.
Why, she should be caned!
Unless she is smoking that pipe on stage of an evening, wearing nothing but tiny pink ruffled panties as part of a show, it is just not so.
I will never admit it, but even I might willingly be among the audience.
Though not to discuss pipe tobacco mixtures with the girl.
More likely to question her choice of clothing.
Bikini briefs, French cut, High cut.
Aesthetic issues.
Please let me know which school is putting on that performance art.
It sounds très avant garde.
Gentlemen, what would you rather see - your daughters growing up to be junior college sluts swilling vodka and smoking cigarettes, OR getting a P.H.D. in an impossibly heavy subject, and going on to lecture with considerable wit, eloquence, and verve at a respected place of learning?
If your mother had smoked a pipe while she was pregnant instead of cigarettes, you would now have a high domed forehead and a Jaguar, instead of a cleft palate, furry palms, and a Prius.
Pipe smoking is far better for your mental health than any number of ciggies huffed out on the pavement in front of your office building during a downpour with all those lower-middleclass droodges from South City. They've largely given up on their dreams, and merely want their thug-brats to finish high-school without a conviction.
It's darned sad.
That said, the new lady pipe smoker would be well-advised to do some research on the matter. While a pipe is definitely an accessory, the primary consideratum in choosing a briar is not how it looks coming out of your face, but whether it's a decent piece of wood, with correct design and proportion for smoking.
Will it be satisfying to use?
Given the desirable characteristics of pipes, it is clear that there is no difference between a woman smoker and a man smoker: they both need the same bowl dimensions, and they should both tend toward practical shapes that 'feel right'.
The beginning pipe smoker will of course start off with only one pipe, to be used occasionally when in the mood. As time goes by more pipes will be acquired, and shape-preferences will be honed. A small collection will grow, which over the years will change as some pieces are given away and others added.
Likewise, the first tobacco chosen will likely not be the regular blend smoked later. Irrespective of whether she started off with an aromatic, a flake, a mild cavendish, or an English blend -- and I would recommend the English blend, because it is clean tobacco and will bite far less than a flake if smoked too fast, as is the tendency when first taking up the habit -- she will soon enough experiment with other products, figure out which work best for her, and end up with a range of favourites, including one or two anomalies that fall outside of type.
Pipes can be a bit expensive -- a decent piece runs anywhere between fifty and several hundred dollars -- but with proper care they will last a lifetime.
I am still smoking exemplars that are decades old, and they yield me more pleasure than you can possibly imagine.
If you smoke two or three bowls a day, you should have at least four or five pipes, but take your time acquiring them, especially if you're in the one bowl every two or three days phase. Develop an eye for fills (small surface pits or gaps obscured by wood-coloured putty) and surface translucence (the glassy semi-transparent look of the lighter grain and it's refractile quality when angled in the light). The first indicates poorer wood, and besides being an aesthetic debit also hints that there may be unseen flaws that affect performance, the latter is a measure of age and quality.
Ancient briar is best. It will smoke sweeter, cooler, drier, and bring out the complexities of a blend far better, than young sappy root.
Comparatively speaking, old wood will feel lighter than a similar exemplar made from young stock.
A good pipe will look more beautiful with each passing year, and you will be thankful that you invested in something worthwhile.
Treat it well; it is your solace and your companion.
AFTER THOUGHT
At present I have over one hundred and fifty pipes. Some of them cost next to nothing, some of them are priceless. Among the pipes in my regular rotation -- currently twenty bowls -- are one or two that are older than I am, a few with decades of service, and others that have been with me for less than ten years.
My favourite is a Benton Select bought in 2007 which cost around sixty dollars.
Yes, it has a few minor fills, and it isn't worth anywhere near as much as the Dunhill Patent Root or the Charatans, but the wood is superlatively mature, and it smokes like a dream. It is the one pipe I am in danger of overworking.
I have to restrain myself, lest I light it too often.
In fact, it is to the left of the computer as I type, and I'm eyeing it speculatively.
Matured cake, perhaps, or a smidge of full English? Maybe one of my own blends? Or something from the row of small glass sample jars behind me: John Cotton's Number 1 and 2 Medium, Bengal Slices from 1981, or the Balkan Sobranie from thirty years ago that I opened recently?
Samovar? No. 622?
Flake. I'm thinking flake. It's early in the morning, a nice bit of Virginia would be wonderful right now.
Flake.
POINTERS ON PIPE SMOKING , TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, December 15, 2012
WISHING MY EX A HAPPY BIRTHDAY
It is Savage Kitten's birthday. Savage Kitten, as some of you know, is my ex-girlfriend, who is still my apartment mate. We've lived together for over two decades, and despite the cessation of what was a mighty fine thing, we get along quite well.
Which is natural for two reasonably mature individuals who are not given to emotional excess and operatic self-expression.
I have gotten over the break-up.
She got over me years ago.
Her birthday is special.
When she was a little girl, her frightbitch mom would sometimes forget her birthday entirely, though the natal days of her various brothers would entail a banquet! And presents! And cake!
Girls just don't count for very much if your parents are old-school Cantonese from the country districts.
Consequently, remembering her birthday appropriately makes her overlook that she is a woman in her forties who is marking ONE YEAR OLDER.
I'm early fifties, so if you were to forget my birthday it might be just as well. Two months ago I turned ONE YEAR OLDER. Since then, my eyes have fallen out, my long Gandalf-like beard has turned pearly white, my privates have shrivelled and calcined, and I dodder and mutter while soggifying my incontinence pants.
Dense shrubbery is growing from my ears.
I can't feel my extremities anymore.
Dammit, where's that nurse?!?
[Little bit of essential background: Back in September, after the so-manieth time that paranoid anti-Obama crap had been forwarded to the pro-Israel list, I de-subscribed. Life is too short to see red every time the loonies send vicious partisan propaganda or spew venomously insane far-right rhetoric. I also e-mail blocked several people, and de-subscribed from three other mailing lists. What this meant was that no-one on those lists, save for a few members of the rational fringe, were aware of my birthday when it happened in October.
At the office, the Calendar with birthdays and anniversaries was packed-up in one of the unopened boxes since the move, and we were preparing for the sale of the company in any case, so they did not know or notice either.
And, as this blogger has always been embarrassed about attracting attention in the months leading up to that day or making waves, because it might be seen as trying to remind people or impress upon them the need to remember the event -- don't ask me about my grammar school years -- virtually no one even realized that I had become one year older and spontaneously begun soiling my diapers, drooling, and gibbering in a theatrically senile fashion.
But I really appreciate the half-dozen friends who did pay attention.
They are a remarkable cure for creeping old age.]
Anyhow.......
We celebrated Savage Kitten's birthday yesterday. She came home to a feast.
A three and a half pound lobster, with drawn butter, asparagus sauteed and sauced with a sherry reduction black mushroom duxelles to which oyster sauce and lime juice had been added, creamed spinach with smoky bacon chunks, salt-water boiled whole potatoes and carrots with a little balsamic, hot crusty French bread.
No, I didn't spend all day cooking, be real.
Got the water boiling, picked up Luigi (the lobster) who was relaxing in the sink, snipped the rubber bands off his claws, and shoved him in head-first. Instant unconsciousness. Everything else was prepared while he turned delicious.
It wasn't a huge amount of time, just the timing.
Everything came together perfectly.
Savage Kitten was ecstatic.
Luigi - a lovable lobster! I always name my live seafood - don't you?
It makes what is going to happen to them less personal.
And acknowledges their unique individuality.
I think they appreciate that.
She was too full to eat cake afterwards. Took a bath to wash off the lobster goo and butter, then put on her brand new warm flannel jammies with the happy penguins, and went to bed, surrounded by stuffed animals.
Years ago I racked up experience in Chinese restaurant kitchens. It was very instructive. One of the remarkable things that Chinese cooks do is that almost absent-mindedly, without even thinking, they scrub-out cooking vessels and wash utensils immediately after use, rather than piling them up for later. The result is that even when preparing food for a party of hundreds, there are no dirty pots and pans by the time the dishes arrive at the tables.
Our kitchen was already reasonably spotless when she started sucking on lobster.
Her soak afterwards took longer by far than washing all the dishes and stowing the left-overs.
Honestly, no effort at all.
Yep. I did good.
Heh.
She squealed delightedly when she saw the pajamas.
I was hoping that she would do that.
She doesn't often squeal.
I'm feeling rather good about myself right now.
Happy birthday.
There's cake.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I have gotten over the break-up.
She got over me years ago.
Her birthday is special.
When she was a little girl, her frightbitch mom would sometimes forget her birthday entirely, though the natal days of her various brothers would entail a banquet! And presents! And cake!
Girls just don't count for very much if your parents are old-school Cantonese from the country districts.
Consequently, remembering her birthday appropriately makes her overlook that she is a woman in her forties who is marking ONE YEAR OLDER.
I'm early fifties, so if you were to forget my birthday it might be just as well. Two months ago I turned ONE YEAR OLDER. Since then, my eyes have fallen out, my long Gandalf-like beard has turned pearly white, my privates have shrivelled and calcined, and I dodder and mutter while soggifying my incontinence pants.
Dense shrubbery is growing from my ears.
I can't feel my extremities anymore.
Dammit, where's that nurse?!?
[Little bit of essential background: Back in September, after the so-manieth time that paranoid anti-Obama crap had been forwarded to the pro-Israel list, I de-subscribed. Life is too short to see red every time the loonies send vicious partisan propaganda or spew venomously insane far-right rhetoric. I also e-mail blocked several people, and de-subscribed from three other mailing lists. What this meant was that no-one on those lists, save for a few members of the rational fringe, were aware of my birthday when it happened in October.
At the office, the Calendar with birthdays and anniversaries was packed-up in one of the unopened boxes since the move, and we were preparing for the sale of the company in any case, so they did not know or notice either.
And, as this blogger has always been embarrassed about attracting attention in the months leading up to that day or making waves, because it might be seen as trying to remind people or impress upon them the need to remember the event -- don't ask me about my grammar school years -- virtually no one even realized that I had become one year older and spontaneously begun soiling my diapers, drooling, and gibbering in a theatrically senile fashion.
But I really appreciate the half-dozen friends who did pay attention.
They are a remarkable cure for creeping old age.]
Anyhow.......
We celebrated Savage Kitten's birthday yesterday. She came home to a feast.
A three and a half pound lobster, with drawn butter, asparagus sauteed and sauced with a sherry reduction black mushroom duxelles to which oyster sauce and lime juice had been added, creamed spinach with smoky bacon chunks, salt-water boiled whole potatoes and carrots with a little balsamic, hot crusty French bread.
No, I didn't spend all day cooking, be real.
Got the water boiling, picked up Luigi (the lobster) who was relaxing in the sink, snipped the rubber bands off his claws, and shoved him in head-first. Instant unconsciousness. Everything else was prepared while he turned delicious.
It wasn't a huge amount of time, just the timing.
Everything came together perfectly.
Savage Kitten was ecstatic.
Luigi - a lovable lobster! I always name my live seafood - don't you?
It makes what is going to happen to them less personal.
And acknowledges their unique individuality.
I think they appreciate that.
She was too full to eat cake afterwards. Took a bath to wash off the lobster goo and butter, then put on her brand new warm flannel jammies with the happy penguins, and went to bed, surrounded by stuffed animals.
Years ago I racked up experience in Chinese restaurant kitchens. It was very instructive. One of the remarkable things that Chinese cooks do is that almost absent-mindedly, without even thinking, they scrub-out cooking vessels and wash utensils immediately after use, rather than piling them up for later. The result is that even when preparing food for a party of hundreds, there are no dirty pots and pans by the time the dishes arrive at the tables.
Our kitchen was already reasonably spotless when she started sucking on lobster.
Her soak afterwards took longer by far than washing all the dishes and stowing the left-overs.
Honestly, no effort at all.
Yep. I did good.
Heh.
She squealed delightedly when she saw the pajamas.
I was hoping that she would do that.
She doesn't often squeal.
I'm feeling rather good about myself right now.
Happy birthday.
There's cake.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, December 14, 2012
GIFTS FOR WOMEN AND GIFTS FOR MEN
As some of you know, the woman in this blogger's life is severely defective.
Specifically, she gave up on this blogger as a romantic life partner years ago, and is now merely an apartment mate. We do not share the same bed, do not eat together, do not go whale-watching, cattle-roping, or duck-hunting together, nor do any of those other things that couples do.
We now live entirely separate lives that only occasionaly intersect, often in the kitchen while preparing a hot beverage in the morning. Our evening and weekend schedules are completely different. Since the break-up, we hardly even see each other.
I'm merely speculating on the whale-watching and cattle-roping.
Actually I have no clue what couples do.
Never really did.
The woman is still part of my life. We are good friends. We've known each other for so long that we completely trust each other, and in many ways we still see eye to eye.
After many years, things sometimes just stop working.
I do not quite understood the people who upon breaking up decide that they never want to see the other person again, and become sworn enemies.
That seems like a frightfully immature way to react.
Peevishness doesn't answer anything.
But yes, from my point of view, Savage Kitten is quite defective.
She doesn't understand what a likeable man I am.
Someone else eventually will.
No doubt soon.
You may stop laughing now.
WHAT DO YOU GIVE A WOMAN?
Her birthday is coming up, and soon after that is the grand all-American go nuts with the gifts because the fat man wearing a red bathrobe wants you to holiday.
Savage Kitten is not normal. So heading over to Macy's and buying her some tat, or trinketry from the cheap-jewelry department in the basement, won't work. Unlike normal American women, she actually has a keen eye and good taste.
A normal woman would unwrap the designer shmatte or cute little kitten brooch and squeal "oh how lovely, it's what I always wanted!"
Then burst into femmy tears because I thought of her.
Perhaps splash on a little extra Hello Kitty perfume.
Savage Kitten is much harder to shop for. Especially because I want her to be happy with what I got for her birthday. Besides the lobster and cake.
Men are, on the whole, far easier to gift. Give us a tin of shoe polish wrapped in Hello Kitty tissues, and we'll accept it with pleasure. An engraved shoe horn? Why, it's the perfect gift. Even a stack of last year's Wallstreet Journals wrapped in an old sock. Just what I always wanted, the sock fits perfectly. Thank you.
I've often wished I could just give her pottery on her birthday.
Over the years I've found numerous examples that exemplify classic shape-design, and timeless glazes. Even exemplary modern-era rabbit's fur (兔毫釉) and oil-spot (天目釉), done by ceramicists in the Bay Area. Plus jun-type glazes (鈞釉), museum quality mustard yellows (古黃釉), antique beige crackle (米黃釉), Celadons (青瓷) that recall the Korean masters........
Fine perfume is not an option. Given that we are no longer romantically involved, it would be inappropriate, and send all the wrong messages.
Same goes for skincare products, make-up, delicate fabrics, and household mecessities.
Food is always dangerous, not just for her, for all women.
Objets d'art are a minefield. Some things she likes, some things she shuns.
It's unpredictable.
Books are also out of the question. She brings home a new stack from the library on a weekly basis, but hardly ever acquires any more volumes for herself.
I am the packrat in this house, she is the opposite.
BUT THIS YEAR, IT'S DIFFERENT!
Fortunately, I've got her birthday covered.
Now it's just Christmas to dread.
Clear sailing after that.
I have this nasty suspicion that if I ever get involved with another woman, a very similar problem will present itself. Primarily because the squealing butterfly type is precisely the opposite of the kind of woman who fascinates me.
Alas, I'll never get off easy.
She'll probably pout because I didn't get her the Glock 17 (reliable, above average magazine capacity, easy to handle), instead of the Sturm, Ruger & Co. Blackhawk, 44 Magnum.
"But Honey, it's what you always wanted! A personal side arm that goes with any outfit AND can put a hole the size of a storm drain in a man!"
Women can be trouble.
I know this.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Specifically, she gave up on this blogger as a romantic life partner years ago, and is now merely an apartment mate. We do not share the same bed, do not eat together, do not go whale-watching, cattle-roping, or duck-hunting together, nor do any of those other things that couples do.
We now live entirely separate lives that only occasionaly intersect, often in the kitchen while preparing a hot beverage in the morning. Our evening and weekend schedules are completely different. Since the break-up, we hardly even see each other.
I'm merely speculating on the whale-watching and cattle-roping.
Actually I have no clue what couples do.
Never really did.
The woman is still part of my life. We are good friends. We've known each other for so long that we completely trust each other, and in many ways we still see eye to eye.
After many years, things sometimes just stop working.
I do not quite understood the people who upon breaking up decide that they never want to see the other person again, and become sworn enemies.
That seems like a frightfully immature way to react.
Peevishness doesn't answer anything.
But yes, from my point of view, Savage Kitten is quite defective.
She doesn't understand what a likeable man I am.
Someone else eventually will.
No doubt soon.
You may stop laughing now.
WHAT DO YOU GIVE A WOMAN?
Her birthday is coming up, and soon after that is the grand all-American go nuts with the gifts because the fat man wearing a red bathrobe wants you to holiday.
Savage Kitten is not normal. So heading over to Macy's and buying her some tat, or trinketry from the cheap-jewelry department in the basement, won't work. Unlike normal American women, she actually has a keen eye and good taste.
A normal woman would unwrap the designer shmatte or cute little kitten brooch and squeal "oh how lovely, it's what I always wanted!"
Then burst into femmy tears because I thought of her.
Perhaps splash on a little extra Hello Kitty perfume.
Savage Kitten is much harder to shop for. Especially because I want her to be happy with what I got for her birthday. Besides the lobster and cake.
Men are, on the whole, far easier to gift. Give us a tin of shoe polish wrapped in Hello Kitty tissues, and we'll accept it with pleasure. An engraved shoe horn? Why, it's the perfect gift. Even a stack of last year's Wallstreet Journals wrapped in an old sock. Just what I always wanted, the sock fits perfectly. Thank you.
I've often wished I could just give her pottery on her birthday.
Over the years I've found numerous examples that exemplify classic shape-design, and timeless glazes. Even exemplary modern-era rabbit's fur (兔毫釉) and oil-spot (天目釉), done by ceramicists in the Bay Area. Plus jun-type glazes (鈞釉), museum quality mustard yellows (古黃釉), antique beige crackle (米黃釉), Celadons (青瓷) that recall the Korean masters........
Fine perfume is not an option. Given that we are no longer romantically involved, it would be inappropriate, and send all the wrong messages.
Same goes for skincare products, make-up, delicate fabrics, and household mecessities.
Food is always dangerous, not just for her, for all women.
Objets d'art are a minefield. Some things she likes, some things she shuns.
It's unpredictable.
Books are also out of the question. She brings home a new stack from the library on a weekly basis, but hardly ever acquires any more volumes for herself.
I am the packrat in this house, she is the opposite.
BUT THIS YEAR, IT'S DIFFERENT!
Fortunately, I've got her birthday covered.
Now it's just Christmas to dread.
Clear sailing after that.
I have this nasty suspicion that if I ever get involved with another woman, a very similar problem will present itself. Primarily because the squealing butterfly type is precisely the opposite of the kind of woman who fascinates me.
Alas, I'll never get off easy.
She'll probably pout because I didn't get her the Glock 17 (reliable, above average magazine capacity, easy to handle), instead of the Sturm, Ruger & Co. Blackhawk, 44 Magnum.
"But Honey, it's what you always wanted! A personal side arm that goes with any outfit AND can put a hole the size of a storm drain in a man!"
Women can be trouble.
I know this.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, December 13, 2012
WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT
Usually when people find out I have a blog, they ask me what the dominant theme or subject of my scribbling is. I am hard-put to give them an answer.
Mono-chromatic blogs that beat only one dead horse are rather boring.
I beat several dead horses. No less boring, but it might take you a lot longer to discover that. There's plenty of dead horse here.
What do I write about?
Food. Tobacco. Tea. Crows. Raccoons. Badgers.
Sometimes odd linguistic or Judaic stuff.
Venomous crap about the Dutch.
Whatever interests me.
Dirty socks.
Less than 5% of my 'oevre', if you can call it that, is actually about pipe-tobacco, though these are the essays that are probably most noticeable to non-smokers.
Who may be bored beyond the point of tears when I wax lyrical about leaves.
Honestly. Less than five percent.
Pipe-tobacco as a recurring element does crop up in many posts that are about food or tea, because I often mentally associate all three subjects. They are a continuum.
They are also a stand-in for my sensual side. By which I do not mean physical congress, although that too is a subject quite fascinating to males such as myself, but the entire spectrum of experience that leads to a feeling of well-being and happiness.
Caffeinated beverages, tasty snacking, and a bit of fine tobacco afterwards.
Yes, I suppose all of that could include physical congress.
Not as one of those three, but "other".
However my readers should not be interested in my love-life, or the staggeringly ghastly absence of anything that even resembles such a thing, and whatever actions may have at one point been taken in furtherance of same are not suitable for a nice clean wholesome blog such as this.
This is NOT a blog about parts of the anatomy.
THE SECRET LIFE OF REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS
Well over half of my readers consists of spambots trolling the interwebs for a place to leave their poo. At least, that very much seems to be the case, if the comments are anything to go by. Fortunately 'comment moderation' has been enabled, so they come a cropper when they squat.
Boots, bags, football jerseys, stimulants for the president of your underpants, pills, baldness medications, payday loans, and sundry sites where you may scope out the physical attributes of people who really should know better in several different ways, are all among the ripe subjects of the programmes that clever dickies wrote to fertilize the entire internet.
With the possible exception of Taiwanese cheesecake (made by a truly gifted baker), and Indian wedding catering in Chennai or wherever it was, their submissions will not pass the vetting process.
You will not see their efforts here.
Comments left under blogs often start the most interesting conversations, and given that even real people operate under pseudonyms, it becomes fascinating to figure out what type of person hides behind nomens such as 'Mango Dust', 'Ripened Glands', 'Biggus Dickus', or 'Frog Bender'.
Anything by Anonymous with too many urls or hypertext is obviously a spambot or a marketing department, hence neither worthwhile nor worth permitting post-privileges.
What I will let through are any number of witty or insightful, or just plain silly, remarks. Like everyone with a soapbox, I like evidence that someone noticed my latest pirouette or magic trick.
I've even allowed insulting commentary, and slightly naughty stuff.
If you see something here that makes you scream, write!
You may rest assured that your sincere invitations to do intimate things to your fine young body in private, no matter how eloquently you phrase it, or however sweet and lovely it sounds, will never be posted.
I don't know what I'd do if you did broach the subject.
Smile perhaps, and giggle a bit.
Or rush frantically toward the bathroom to stick my head under a torrent of freezingly cold water till the moment passed.
The only way you'll find out is if you include your contact data.
I'll tell you all about the forty minutes with the ice water.
Among other things, this blog is not about ice water.
There is no ice water here. Forget I mentioned it.
An absence of ice water is truly lamented.
Remember to include contact data.
Mmmmmmm, ice water.
Continuum!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Mono-chromatic blogs that beat only one dead horse are rather boring.
I beat several dead horses. No less boring, but it might take you a lot longer to discover that. There's plenty of dead horse here.
What do I write about?
Food. Tobacco. Tea. Crows. Raccoons. Badgers.
Sometimes odd linguistic or Judaic stuff.
Venomous crap about the Dutch.
Whatever interests me.
Dirty socks.
Less than 5% of my 'oevre', if you can call it that, is actually about pipe-tobacco, though these are the essays that are probably most noticeable to non-smokers.
Who may be bored beyond the point of tears when I wax lyrical about leaves.
Honestly. Less than five percent.
Pipe-tobacco as a recurring element does crop up in many posts that are about food or tea, because I often mentally associate all three subjects. They are a continuum.
They are also a stand-in for my sensual side. By which I do not mean physical congress, although that too is a subject quite fascinating to males such as myself, but the entire spectrum of experience that leads to a feeling of well-being and happiness.
Caffeinated beverages, tasty snacking, and a bit of fine tobacco afterwards.
Yes, I suppose all of that could include physical congress.
Not as one of those three, but "other".
However my readers should not be interested in my love-life, or the staggeringly ghastly absence of anything that even resembles such a thing, and whatever actions may have at one point been taken in furtherance of same are not suitable for a nice clean wholesome blog such as this.
This is NOT a blog about parts of the anatomy.
THE SECRET LIFE OF REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS
Well over half of my readers consists of spambots trolling the interwebs for a place to leave their poo. At least, that very much seems to be the case, if the comments are anything to go by. Fortunately 'comment moderation' has been enabled, so they come a cropper when they squat.
Boots, bags, football jerseys, stimulants for the president of your underpants, pills, baldness medications, payday loans, and sundry sites where you may scope out the physical attributes of people who really should know better in several different ways, are all among the ripe subjects of the programmes that clever dickies wrote to fertilize the entire internet.
With the possible exception of Taiwanese cheesecake (made by a truly gifted baker), and Indian wedding catering in Chennai or wherever it was, their submissions will not pass the vetting process.
You will not see their efforts here.
Comments left under blogs often start the most interesting conversations, and given that even real people operate under pseudonyms, it becomes fascinating to figure out what type of person hides behind nomens such as 'Mango Dust', 'Ripened Glands', 'Biggus Dickus', or 'Frog Bender'.
Anything by Anonymous with too many urls or hypertext is obviously a spambot or a marketing department, hence neither worthwhile nor worth permitting post-privileges.
What I will let through are any number of witty or insightful, or just plain silly, remarks. Like everyone with a soapbox, I like evidence that someone noticed my latest pirouette or magic trick.
I've even allowed insulting commentary, and slightly naughty stuff.
If you see something here that makes you scream, write!
You may rest assured that your sincere invitations to do intimate things to your fine young body in private, no matter how eloquently you phrase it, or however sweet and lovely it sounds, will never be posted.
I don't know what I'd do if you did broach the subject.
Smile perhaps, and giggle a bit.
Or rush frantically toward the bathroom to stick my head under a torrent of freezingly cold water till the moment passed.
The only way you'll find out is if you include your contact data.
I'll tell you all about the forty minutes with the ice water.
Among other things, this blog is not about ice water.
There is no ice water here. Forget I mentioned it.
An absence of ice water is truly lamented.
Remember to include contact data.
Mmmmmmm, ice water.
Continuum!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
A REFRESHINGLY STRONG CUP OF TEA
As you may be aware, this blogger is enjoying some time off. In the entire preceding twelve years I took a grand total of two weeks vacation.
To a certain extent that was because I did not trust my co-workers to do what needed to be done while I was away, nor touch what they should not touch during that same time.
Yeah, both times my operational-paranoia was vindicated.
Shan't blame them, as I would've done the same.
Touch! Touch! Touch! Touch! Touch!
The person with whom I share an apartment is right to be somewhat suspicious of me being on all my own in the house when she's at work. Several weeks ago she complained that I smoked too much, all her clothes smelled like tobacco.
I had lapsed, you see.
I left the kitchen door open too often.
The long-standing arrangement is that I smoke either in the kitchen, OR the crapper. In both cases behind a closed door, with the window open. That way neither her garments, nor her stuffed animals, will end up smelling like a forest-fire.
Fine. Good. Can do.
While she's gone during the day I smoke all over the place. My room. The teevee room. The kitchen, bathroom, and hallway.
I've closed her door. Took the coat off the handle, and snecked it firmly shut. Opened the bathroom window all the way, left the kitchen window wide open, and kept the doors between both areas and the rest of the apartment agape for total ventilation. It's not cold enough yet that the fresh air is a issue.
When the weather becomes more frigid, I may have a problem.
I do NOT look forward to spending time on the front steps of our building freezing my delicate posterior off. I may have to come over to your place to fume.
Do you have relatives who smoke?
If so, nobody will even notice I'm there.
Pipe tobacco stinks FAR less than cigarettes.
Especially the Escudo I'm smoking right now.
Trust me, you will probably like it.
Get to know a pipe smoker.
It's an opportunity!
Charming, debonair, and sophisticated.
In a trans-Atlantic sort of way.
Anyway, I make sure that there is an interval of several hours between when I stop smoking in the house and when I re-open the door to her room.
Also, at some point between the last smoke and my apartment mate returning, I boil up some extremely strong tea in the kitchen, so that the haunting fragrance of fine tobacco is excorcised, and the exchange between cleansing tea-steam inside and fresh natural car-exhaust slash standard urban funk from outside takes care of the rest.
Might even burn some snow-pear incense.
A moth-ball hidden in a corner works wonders too.
The cup of tea is a three-bagger reduced considerably. Two thirds black, one third jasmine. With milk and sugar, it is exceptionally re-invigorating.
Dang this place smells good!
I'm zipped to the eye-brows.
Seriously, invite me over when it gets colder.
I'm good company, and rather likeable.
A dab hand at making milk-tea!
Your choice of aged Virginias or English blends.
Occasional witticisms in Dutch are included.
Think of it as part of your education.
There's nothing quite like it.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
To a certain extent that was because I did not trust my co-workers to do what needed to be done while I was away, nor touch what they should not touch during that same time.
Yeah, both times my operational-paranoia was vindicated.
Shan't blame them, as I would've done the same.
Touch! Touch! Touch! Touch! Touch!
The person with whom I share an apartment is right to be somewhat suspicious of me being on all my own in the house when she's at work. Several weeks ago she complained that I smoked too much, all her clothes smelled like tobacco.
I had lapsed, you see.
I left the kitchen door open too often.
The long-standing arrangement is that I smoke either in the kitchen, OR the crapper. In both cases behind a closed door, with the window open. That way neither her garments, nor her stuffed animals, will end up smelling like a forest-fire.
Fine. Good. Can do.
While she's gone during the day I smoke all over the place. My room. The teevee room. The kitchen, bathroom, and hallway.
I've closed her door. Took the coat off the handle, and snecked it firmly shut. Opened the bathroom window all the way, left the kitchen window wide open, and kept the doors between both areas and the rest of the apartment agape for total ventilation. It's not cold enough yet that the fresh air is a issue.
When the weather becomes more frigid, I may have a problem.
I do NOT look forward to spending time on the front steps of our building freezing my delicate posterior off. I may have to come over to your place to fume.
Do you have relatives who smoke?
If so, nobody will even notice I'm there.
Pipe tobacco stinks FAR less than cigarettes.
Especially the Escudo I'm smoking right now.
Trust me, you will probably like it.
Get to know a pipe smoker.
It's an opportunity!
Charming, debonair, and sophisticated.
In a trans-Atlantic sort of way.
Anyway, I make sure that there is an interval of several hours between when I stop smoking in the house and when I re-open the door to her room.
Also, at some point between the last smoke and my apartment mate returning, I boil up some extremely strong tea in the kitchen, so that the haunting fragrance of fine tobacco is excorcised, and the exchange between cleansing tea-steam inside and fresh natural car-exhaust slash standard urban funk from outside takes care of the rest.
Might even burn some snow-pear incense.
A moth-ball hidden in a corner works wonders too.
The cup of tea is a three-bagger reduced considerably. Two thirds black, one third jasmine. With milk and sugar, it is exceptionally re-invigorating.
Dang this place smells good!
I'm zipped to the eye-brows.
Seriously, invite me over when it gets colder.
I'm good company, and rather likeable.
A dab hand at making milk-tea!
Your choice of aged Virginias or English blends.
Occasional witticisms in Dutch are included.
Think of it as part of your education.
There's nothing quite like it.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
HOT SEXY DANGEROUS HANDBAGS!
It is with mixed feelings that I must report that gay men find me rather attractive.
I wish it were otherwise. Specifically, I wish it were the other gender.
You know, the soft and appealing sex.
Them.
FEMALES!
Unfortunately, persons of that particular gender are far too realistic AND oblivious to pay me much mind. It has taken me half a century to become a nice person, and consequently the effect I have on feminine individuals is pleasant and somewhat avuncular, rather than hot sexy dude.
I used to be more dangerous.
Many women are irresistibly attracted to dangerous.
Especially(!) if it comes combined with hot and sexy.
And handbags. Hot, sexy, and dangerous handbags.
I bet I could yell out "hot sexy dangerous handbags" in a crowded auditorium and cause a stampede.
Half the audience would rise up as one to riot in the nearest department store, the other half would sit there stupidly and ask sports-related questions.
One or two would do neither.
I should try it sometime. Women who don't react are the ones I want to know.
"Miss, can I interest you in a work of literature?"
Yep. Need to head over to the university and create a panic.
Aim for the small ones with glasses. They're more interesting.
Heh.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I wish it were otherwise. Specifically, I wish it were the other gender.
You know, the soft and appealing sex.
Them.
FEMALES!
Unfortunately, persons of that particular gender are far too realistic AND oblivious to pay me much mind. It has taken me half a century to become a nice person, and consequently the effect I have on feminine individuals is pleasant and somewhat avuncular, rather than hot sexy dude.
I used to be more dangerous.
Many women are irresistibly attracted to dangerous.
Especially(!) if it comes combined with hot and sexy.
And handbags. Hot, sexy, and dangerous handbags.
I bet I could yell out "hot sexy dangerous handbags" in a crowded auditorium and cause a stampede.
Half the audience would rise up as one to riot in the nearest department store, the other half would sit there stupidly and ask sports-related questions.
One or two would do neither.
I should try it sometime. Women who don't react are the ones I want to know.
"Miss, can I interest you in a work of literature?"
Yep. Need to head over to the university and create a panic.
Aim for the small ones with glasses. They're more interesting.
Heh.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
WHAT TO FEED A BACHELOR
The proper care and nourishment of single human males is not difficult. Judging by advertisements on television, almost any amount of fried food will give them a happy feeling and a glossy coat. Admittedly, it also gives them heartburn (according to other advertisements), as well as clogged arteries (more advertisements), digestive issues (rumble tummy), and kidney stones (take them to the vet).
Evenso, there is an inexhaustible supply of bachelors.
We are a renewable resource, so wastage is okay.
Go ahead - feed us buckets of killer crap.
However, if you've hooked a bachelor who might eventually be presentable, after much training and house-breaking, you need to ensure a healthier diet. Once you've invested a lot of time in one of us, you don't want to see us bloat up like big fat couch slugs, or even worse explode from all the grease and sodium we've ingested.
You must find an alternative to pizza.
If you're a typical American woman, this presents a problem; you don't know jack about food.
Well, do you? Other than pro-biotic yoghurt?
Bachelors won't touch that crap.
This blogger is an expert on bachelors, and their diet.
I am one, and I eat.
文仔記燒臘茶餐廳
YEE'S RESTAURANT
1131 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133
415-576-1818
Yesterday I had some truly lovely roast goose. Really, I cannot emphasize enough how scrumptious it was. A very generous serving of crispy-skinned tender mahogany chunks on a bed of bokchoi, alongside a heaping mound of rice. Intense meatiness, veggies flavoured with the oozing juices, and the perfect starch to make it all a balanced meal. Along with a hefty dab of chilipaste for dipping the bird, it was a humongous slice of heaven.
燒鵝飯 SIU NGOH FAN $7.95
Probably one of the best values in Chinatown. I can't believe how thoroughly enjoyable that late lunch was. Roast goose rice plate.
Why, you ask, is this bachelor food?
Because devouring it is absolutely not refined. It is, in fact, precisely the kind of thing that convinces many women that they are in the presence of a wild animal.
There is no dignity whatsoever to the eating, and wives or girl-friends will be appalled at the almost caveman-like procedure. It cannot be a particularly pretty sight.
There is no way you can eat it with spoon and fork.
Chinese chop fowl into chopstickable pieces.
Cutlery will be provided for rice-plates.
Necessarily fingers come into play.
I got interrupted several times while eating.
The wait-staff were pleased as punch that I was enjoying my meal.
With happy glints in their eyes they asked me "ho m-ho sik ah" - is it good to eat?
Yes.
Yes it is.
You bet your patootie it's good.
Man-o-man-o-man-o-man-o-man-o-man-o-man!
I had to use three napkins moistened with hot tea to clean my fingers and whiskers afterwards.
There were other happy diners there also, but remarkably they were with companions. Which probably explained why I was the only one eating roast goose.
An elderly gentleman sitting with his mom looked at my table with blatant envy. Quite likely he will come there by himself soon, and order a plate of roasted bird.
AFTER WORD
文仔記燒臘茶餐廳: man-chai kee siu lahp cha chanteng - Manny's roast meats tea restaurant. They have roast duck, roast goose, roast pork, charsiu, salt-water chicken, and diverse other meaty preparations in that vein. But they also have fresh bivalves (蜆), giant prawns (大蝦), crabs (蟹), and lobster (龍蝦).
Plus frog (田雞) and paddy snails (田螺).
Next time, I think I'll have the 薑蔥田雞飯 - ginger and scallion frog rice plate.
Which obviously is food for men; too many American women would get freaked out by the idea of eating frog. That's probably why it's listed on the wall in Chinese, instead of on the menu in English.
All good bachelor chow is like that.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Evenso, there is an inexhaustible supply of bachelors.
We are a renewable resource, so wastage is okay.
Go ahead - feed us buckets of killer crap.
However, if you've hooked a bachelor who might eventually be presentable, after much training and house-breaking, you need to ensure a healthier diet. Once you've invested a lot of time in one of us, you don't want to see us bloat up like big fat couch slugs, or even worse explode from all the grease and sodium we've ingested.
You must find an alternative to pizza.
If you're a typical American woman, this presents a problem; you don't know jack about food.
Well, do you? Other than pro-biotic yoghurt?
Bachelors won't touch that crap.
This blogger is an expert on bachelors, and their diet.
I am one, and I eat.
文仔記燒臘茶餐廳
YEE'S RESTAURANT
1131 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133
415-576-1818
Yesterday I had some truly lovely roast goose. Really, I cannot emphasize enough how scrumptious it was. A very generous serving of crispy-skinned tender mahogany chunks on a bed of bokchoi, alongside a heaping mound of rice. Intense meatiness, veggies flavoured with the oozing juices, and the perfect starch to make it all a balanced meal. Along with a hefty dab of chilipaste for dipping the bird, it was a humongous slice of heaven.
燒鵝飯 SIU NGOH FAN $7.95
Probably one of the best values in Chinatown. I can't believe how thoroughly enjoyable that late lunch was. Roast goose rice plate.
Why, you ask, is this bachelor food?
Because devouring it is absolutely not refined. It is, in fact, precisely the kind of thing that convinces many women that they are in the presence of a wild animal.
There is no dignity whatsoever to the eating, and wives or girl-friends will be appalled at the almost caveman-like procedure. It cannot be a particularly pretty sight.
There is no way you can eat it with spoon and fork.
Chinese chop fowl into chopstickable pieces.
Cutlery will be provided for rice-plates.
Necessarily fingers come into play.
I got interrupted several times while eating.
The wait-staff were pleased as punch that I was enjoying my meal.
With happy glints in their eyes they asked me "ho m-ho sik ah" - is it good to eat?
Yes.
Yes it is.
You bet your patootie it's good.
Man-o-man-o-man-o-man-o-man-o-man-o-man!
I had to use three napkins moistened with hot tea to clean my fingers and whiskers afterwards.
There were other happy diners there also, but remarkably they were with companions. Which probably explained why I was the only one eating roast goose.
An elderly gentleman sitting with his mom looked at my table with blatant envy. Quite likely he will come there by himself soon, and order a plate of roasted bird.
AFTER WORD
文仔記燒臘茶餐廳: man-chai kee siu lahp cha chanteng - Manny's roast meats tea restaurant. They have roast duck, roast goose, roast pork, charsiu, salt-water chicken, and diverse other meaty preparations in that vein. But they also have fresh bivalves (蜆), giant prawns (大蝦), crabs (蟹), and lobster (龍蝦).
Plus frog (田雞) and paddy snails (田螺).
Next time, I think I'll have the 薑蔥田雞飯 - ginger and scallion frog rice plate.
Which obviously is food for men; too many American women would get freaked out by the idea of eating frog. That's probably why it's listed on the wall in Chinese, instead of on the menu in English.
All good bachelor chow is like that.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, December 10, 2012
AN IDEAL LEVEL OF CRUNCHINESS
Last night when I returned home after several hours in the downtown, there was a lovely large tin on the kitchen counter: the Khong Guan EZ Choice Biscuit Assortment.
If you click on the embedded link, it will take you to a picture.
All well-ordered homes should have a tin like that.
Just in case someone who likes nibbling drops by, as well as precautionarily. What if there is an earthquake? You will need some tasty biscuits to calm you down. Thinking, in any emergency situation, is always easier when you have a biscuit with your tea.
A well-ordered home.
Which, apparently, we are not.
This morning the counter was empty. Those biscuits were meant for her
co-workers. As merely an apartment-mate, I do not rank biscuits.
We often chat, as we are in the house at the same times. But not being involved with each other, there are things we do not do together. We are friends. But we do not share biscuits.
That would be a very advanced level of intimacy.
Propriety must at all times be maintained.
Biscuits are, in a word, risky.
Years ago we shared.
At present, I lack someone to have an occasional biscuit with.
In some ways, life is a bit more boring now. It is biscuit-free.
Uncomplicated, too, but I'm not sure that that is a good thing.
Go ahead, click on that link again. Isn't that a charming picture?
I think so.
康元餅乾
I have this rather disturbing mental image of myself several years hence roaming the wilds of Nob Hill in the middle of the night, with a brand new tin of biscuits, and a thermos of hot milk-tea, looking for feral raccoons, crows, and perhaps sea gulls, with whom to share a biscuit and a delicious hot beverage.
The middle-aged social butterfly.
Moth. Social moth. If it's night time, it probably isn't a butterfly.
I've always found assortment tins incredibly alluring, their cheering visuals and stately presence a comfort to have in one's life.
But, of course, a single man cannot possibly gasak an entire tin by himself. The tins are too large for one person. They need to be shared.
That, too, is a paradigm inherent in the tin; it speaks of plurality, companionability, and pensive social crunching.
At the very least, someone who comes over once in a while, not merely to poke one with a sharpened stick to see if one is still alive and perhaps elicit an entertaining squawk of outrage, but someone who will happily sit down and have some tea.
Khong Guan Biscuit Factory (Singapore) Ltd also have cashew nut cookies, by the way. Which I found out quite by accident while exploring their site. Still haven't found the egg roll cookies (dry sweet hollow tubes with an infinitely pleasing flaky friability), but I am absolutely certain that they make those too, as I can distinctly remember buying them. All good bakery companies in HK and S'Pore produce egg roll cookies. I just don't know where they've hidden them on their site. One container should cost about four or five bucks, and even with several tea-time visits, there will be enough to last nearly a month.
This afternoon I shall probably head over to Stockton Street to purchase a tin of egg roll cookies.
I need them.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
If you click on the embedded link, it will take you to a picture.
All well-ordered homes should have a tin like that.
Just in case someone who likes nibbling drops by, as well as precautionarily. What if there is an earthquake? You will need some tasty biscuits to calm you down. Thinking, in any emergency situation, is always easier when you have a biscuit with your tea.
A well-ordered home.
Which, apparently, we are not.
This morning the counter was empty. Those biscuits were meant for her
co-workers. As merely an apartment-mate, I do not rank biscuits.
We often chat, as we are in the house at the same times. But not being involved with each other, there are things we do not do together. We are friends. But we do not share biscuits.
That would be a very advanced level of intimacy.
Propriety must at all times be maintained.
Biscuits are, in a word, risky.
Years ago we shared.
At present, I lack someone to have an occasional biscuit with.
In some ways, life is a bit more boring now. It is biscuit-free.
Uncomplicated, too, but I'm not sure that that is a good thing.
Go ahead, click on that link again. Isn't that a charming picture?
I think so.
康元餅乾
I have this rather disturbing mental image of myself several years hence roaming the wilds of Nob Hill in the middle of the night, with a brand new tin of biscuits, and a thermos of hot milk-tea, looking for feral raccoons, crows, and perhaps sea gulls, with whom to share a biscuit and a delicious hot beverage.
The middle-aged social butterfly.
Moth. Social moth. If it's night time, it probably isn't a butterfly.
I've always found assortment tins incredibly alluring, their cheering visuals and stately presence a comfort to have in one's life.
But, of course, a single man cannot possibly gasak an entire tin by himself. The tins are too large for one person. They need to be shared.
That, too, is a paradigm inherent in the tin; it speaks of plurality, companionability, and pensive social crunching.
At the very least, someone who comes over once in a while, not merely to poke one with a sharpened stick to see if one is still alive and perhaps elicit an entertaining squawk of outrage, but someone who will happily sit down and have some tea.
Khong Guan Biscuit Factory (Singapore) Ltd also have cashew nut cookies, by the way. Which I found out quite by accident while exploring their site. Still haven't found the egg roll cookies (dry sweet hollow tubes with an infinitely pleasing flaky friability), but I am absolutely certain that they make those too, as I can distinctly remember buying them. All good bakery companies in HK and S'Pore produce egg roll cookies. I just don't know where they've hidden them on their site. One container should cost about four or five bucks, and even with several tea-time visits, there will be enough to last nearly a month.
This afternoon I shall probably head over to Stockton Street to purchase a tin of egg roll cookies.
I need them.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, December 09, 2012
DISCRIMINATION: A DARN GOOD THING!
During the twenty years that I've been on this side of the hill, I have explored several local watering holes. But for a long time now I do not drink in this neighborhood.
It's a question of how best to waste time.
I just don't like many bars. Mostly because of the people.
One of first businesses I went to had a delightful bartender, who was bright, kind, witty, and altogether a wonderful host. It was a pleasure to spend some time there when he worked, and the people he attracted were precisely the sort you would like to chat with. Like him, they too were sensible and intelligent, and had wit.
The place got sold, and the new owner wanted to change everything, make it more family friendly. I have no idea what he was thinking. He got rid of the all the staff, and replaced them with brassy big-titted iggerunt white chicks. Naturally this appealed to every vulgar putz for miles around.
That place now caters to shallow twenty-somethings.
An aura of stupidity emanates from the door.
Or maybe that's just a miasma.
Another bar employed a very sweet man with wickedly witty conversational abilities. Please imagine the crowd that flocked there during his shifts. Delicious. When he and his lover moved to the Russian River, I promptly stopped patronizing the place.
Two nearby establishments are familiar to me, as are the clienteles. And because any and all discussion at either place tends towards stultifying (though apparently only for me), I avoid both locales. I dislike neither place, but there is nothing there.
A third auberge has changed so much over the years that the last several times I went in, I ended up sitting alone in a corner.
Liking the people who work there is not enough to keep a conversation afloat.
People are only fun to talk with because of what goes on in their heads, not because they chatter. If they have no thoughts, yet maintain a stream of noise.......
Well, that rather limits everything, don't you think?
The other matter is that I've always considered people who are kind, intelligent, and decent, to be beautiful. Good character is extremely attractive, and personalities that are engaged and alive have a magnetism that I cannot resist. If you were to ask me to choose between a Playboy bunny and person wittily quoting Somerset Maugham while discussing bee keeping, politics, his dreadful job, and how his boss is a peculiar fish, there is no question whom I would choose as a dinner companion.
By all means, bring on the peculiar fish!
Bees can be quite fascinationg too.
And Somerset Maugham.
In a city filled with people, there is plenty of ambient noise to establish a sense of random humanity all around. Think of it as comforting generic evidence of society, something that envelopes one without necessarily having to relinguish privacy and anonymity.
Chosing how much one is 'known' is a conscious act.
Actual contact means excercising a choice.
It requires a certain level of thoughtfulness.
In one sense, then, there are no accidents.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It's a question of how best to waste time.
I just don't like many bars. Mostly because of the people.
One of first businesses I went to had a delightful bartender, who was bright, kind, witty, and altogether a wonderful host. It was a pleasure to spend some time there when he worked, and the people he attracted were precisely the sort you would like to chat with. Like him, they too were sensible and intelligent, and had wit.
The place got sold, and the new owner wanted to change everything, make it more family friendly. I have no idea what he was thinking. He got rid of the all the staff, and replaced them with brassy big-titted iggerunt white chicks. Naturally this appealed to every vulgar putz for miles around.
That place now caters to shallow twenty-somethings.
An aura of stupidity emanates from the door.
Or maybe that's just a miasma.
Another bar employed a very sweet man with wickedly witty conversational abilities. Please imagine the crowd that flocked there during his shifts. Delicious. When he and his lover moved to the Russian River, I promptly stopped patronizing the place.
Two nearby establishments are familiar to me, as are the clienteles. And because any and all discussion at either place tends towards stultifying (though apparently only for me), I avoid both locales. I dislike neither place, but there is nothing there.
A third auberge has changed so much over the years that the last several times I went in, I ended up sitting alone in a corner.
Liking the people who work there is not enough to keep a conversation afloat.
People are only fun to talk with because of what goes on in their heads, not because they chatter. If they have no thoughts, yet maintain a stream of noise.......
Well, that rather limits everything, don't you think?
The other matter is that I've always considered people who are kind, intelligent, and decent, to be beautiful. Good character is extremely attractive, and personalities that are engaged and alive have a magnetism that I cannot resist. If you were to ask me to choose between a Playboy bunny and person wittily quoting Somerset Maugham while discussing bee keeping, politics, his dreadful job, and how his boss is a peculiar fish, there is no question whom I would choose as a dinner companion.
By all means, bring on the peculiar fish!
Bees can be quite fascinationg too.
And Somerset Maugham.
In a city filled with people, there is plenty of ambient noise to establish a sense of random humanity all around. Think of it as comforting generic evidence of society, something that envelopes one without necessarily having to relinguish privacy and anonymity.
Chosing how much one is 'known' is a conscious act.
Actual contact means excercising a choice.
It requires a certain level of thoughtfulness.
In one sense, then, there are no accidents.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
TASTEFUL MATURITY
Through the kind agency of a friend, I have been able to smoke some of Greg Pease's latest mixture. Which has, as of this writing, not been released yet.
Greg's own website does not indicate when we will see it on the shelves.
Navigator: Red Virginias and orange and yellow leaf, with a bit of beautiful dark-fired tobacco,
then softened with a little dark rum.
[Descriptive data lifted from this site: G.L.Pease.com ]
This one will not knock your socks off. Instead, it will grow on you. The first bowl was okay -- and I must mention I had smoked several bowls of other stuff that evening, so I could just as well have put some smoldering rubber in my pipe for all the tastebuds that were still alert that I had left -- but the second bowl a day later was extremely satisfying, and the third bowl yesterday after dinner induced reverie, as well as a great greedy sadness.
I had only enough for three bowls, you see.
It's gone now, and I want more.
My fellow pipe-mavens know that I own enough pipe tobacco to survive the coming zombie apocalypse. Many different blends and brands. So I should, really, be able to satisfy all my cravings without needing to acquire a stash of yet one more smoking mixture.
Logically speaking there is no need.
That, of course, makes no difference whatsoever.
I anxiously await the availability of Navigator.
Fullish, yet ethereal. A pensive tobacco, with gentleness, and a haunting fragrance on the nose. Navigator is a blend for mature men.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Navigator: Red Virginias and orange and yellow leaf, with a bit of beautiful dark-fired tobacco,
then softened with a little dark rum.
[Descriptive data lifted from this site: G.L.Pease.com ]
This one will not knock your socks off. Instead, it will grow on you. The first bowl was okay -- and I must mention I had smoked several bowls of other stuff that evening, so I could just as well have put some smoldering rubber in my pipe for all the tastebuds that were still alert that I had left -- but the second bowl a day later was extremely satisfying, and the third bowl yesterday after dinner induced reverie, as well as a great greedy sadness.
I had only enough for three bowls, you see.
It's gone now, and I want more.
My fellow pipe-mavens know that I own enough pipe tobacco to survive the coming zombie apocalypse. Many different blends and brands. So I should, really, be able to satisfy all my cravings without needing to acquire a stash of yet one more smoking mixture.
Logically speaking there is no need.
That, of course, makes no difference whatsoever.
I anxiously await the availability of Navigator.
Fullish, yet ethereal. A pensive tobacco, with gentleness, and a haunting fragrance on the nose. Navigator is a blend for mature men.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, December 08, 2012
THEIR UNNATURALLY GREEN FACES
This blogger frankly admits it: I am a frightful sexist pig.
I firmly believe that most women should NOT be in bars.
Neither should most men, but for entirely different reasons.
No, not the whole nonsensical "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" crap, but an entirely different analysis.
'Men are Sponge Bob, women are Betty Boop'
At least, in bars they are.
The arrival of women changes the whole dynamic. Before that moment, the majority of the men may have been semi-rational, and a few of them even capable of intelligent conversation. Hard stretch, I know, but it has happened. Once the women arrive, however, the boys mostly lose it. The hard-edged competitiveness of many males comes into play almost immediately. "Holy sh*t", they seem to say, "here's a chance to elbow all these other blokes out of the way - even if I am not in the slightest interested in this person with pronounced frontal lumps, I can make some other man feel stupid!"
Or at least inconsequential.
Fevered rivalry for a place proximal to bosom turns everything surreal.
The noise-level goes up enormously, to the point of unbearable.
Women, it must be said, contribute their share of sound.
I try to stay away from drunken mating rituals. While I like watching pigeons fan out their tail-feathers and dance for uninterested female pigeons, as well as the head-bobbing and throat stroking of other birds, seeing that in humans is a little disconcerting.
Well, if truth be told, revolting.
Rutting should be private.
It's better that way.
Public 'courting' behaviour among bipeds should be nothing that embarrasses. Restraint, good manners, and above all a sense of propriety must always be the hallmarks of association with the opposite gender. Even if you are of legal age, and your parents have grudgingly accepted that your mistakes are your own. Which may be anytime between 21 and 65, but nevertheless.
Calmness and a twinkle in the eye are OK.
It's not that any of the people in question are "on the prowl", in most cases far from it. It's just that when you combine alcohol, good cheer, loud music, and opposing genders, what you end up with is a lamentable lowering of thresholds and a rise in instinctive behavioural patterns.
Especially if young men are involved. Or 'youngish' men.
Most women are, thank heavens, quite oblivious of all this. They will gaily swan into a respected drinking hole -- such as, for instance, the Tosca Cafe at 242 Columbus Avenue -- flaunting their smaller hands and less angular characteristics, and blithely assume that all the men are there purely for innocent social gib-gab and restrained consumption of a beverage or two.
Well, they were. Up to that moment. See, the Tosca Cafe lacks a television, and one cannot watch sports there. So that right there naturally limits the conversational abilities of many males.
I am convinced that masculine dialectic, in the main, is directly proportional to the size of teevee screens and mammaries. Without that stimulus, the majority are calm, almost somnolescent.
Very peaceful.
AN APPRECIATION OF RESTRAINT
I myself am not entirely unaffected. But I like my round parts in tasteful moderation, and my sports not at all. A woman radiating "hot sh*t, she's BRILLIANT!" is far, far better company than "holy Moses, wouldya look at them deedees!".
I rationalize it thus: if she's brilliant, AND hanging around with a certain man, he himself must have a fairly decent bit of grey matter also. So just being seen with an intelligent and intellectually capable person rubs a bit of glory off on the man.
Besides, it increases conversational options. Being at times either full of it, OR a hyper-stimulated chatterbox, I like associating with people who keep me on my toes.
Any meeting between people should leave each person with the sudden realization, immediately after parting, "darn, I should have mentioned .... ,
I could have said .... , we should have discussed .... , why didn't I ask .... ,
I wonder what she/he thinks about .... ".
Even in just friendly relationships, that's worth looking forward to.
Leaves one overwhelmed, and wanting more.
Next time, many more times.
AFTER WORD
The foregoing was prompted by a recent experience at the Tosca Cafe. My friend the bookseller and I were having a pleasant conversation, when a brash, loud, and overly endowed, individual walked in. Her presence, as well as the miracle of a minuscule cocktail dress that did NOT pop her boobs, yanked the decibel level up to unbearable. Screaming laughter, top-of-the-lungs OMG! exclamations, combined with Johny Cash singing about killing a man in Reno -- plus, last but not least, the boisterous idiot sub-human boychiks to the right -- made reasonable discourse impossible. She had a very unpleasant metallic voice, and her big floppity breasts should have been far better covered. As good an argument for a ball-gag and a full burka as anything, she epitomized everything with which you never want to be seen in public.
Unless you're a vulgarian flaunting your own stupendousness.
Most women should stay out of bars.
And so should most men.
I firmly believe that.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I firmly believe that most women should NOT be in bars.
Neither should most men, but for entirely different reasons.
No, not the whole nonsensical "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" crap, but an entirely different analysis.
'Men are Sponge Bob, women are Betty Boop'
At least, in bars they are.
The arrival of women changes the whole dynamic. Before that moment, the majority of the men may have been semi-rational, and a few of them even capable of intelligent conversation. Hard stretch, I know, but it has happened. Once the women arrive, however, the boys mostly lose it. The hard-edged competitiveness of many males comes into play almost immediately. "Holy sh*t", they seem to say, "here's a chance to elbow all these other blokes out of the way - even if I am not in the slightest interested in this person with pronounced frontal lumps, I can make some other man feel stupid!"
Or at least inconsequential.
Fevered rivalry for a place proximal to bosom turns everything surreal.
The noise-level goes up enormously, to the point of unbearable.
Women, it must be said, contribute their share of sound.
I try to stay away from drunken mating rituals. While I like watching pigeons fan out their tail-feathers and dance for uninterested female pigeons, as well as the head-bobbing and throat stroking of other birds, seeing that in humans is a little disconcerting.
Well, if truth be told, revolting.
Rutting should be private.
It's better that way.
Public 'courting' behaviour among bipeds should be nothing that embarrasses. Restraint, good manners, and above all a sense of propriety must always be the hallmarks of association with the opposite gender. Even if you are of legal age, and your parents have grudgingly accepted that your mistakes are your own. Which may be anytime between 21 and 65, but nevertheless.
Calmness and a twinkle in the eye are OK.
It's not that any of the people in question are "on the prowl", in most cases far from it. It's just that when you combine alcohol, good cheer, loud music, and opposing genders, what you end up with is a lamentable lowering of thresholds and a rise in instinctive behavioural patterns.
Especially if young men are involved. Or 'youngish' men.
Most women are, thank heavens, quite oblivious of all this. They will gaily swan into a respected drinking hole -- such as, for instance, the Tosca Cafe at 242 Columbus Avenue -- flaunting their smaller hands and less angular characteristics, and blithely assume that all the men are there purely for innocent social gib-gab and restrained consumption of a beverage or two.
Well, they were. Up to that moment. See, the Tosca Cafe lacks a television, and one cannot watch sports there. So that right there naturally limits the conversational abilities of many males.
I am convinced that masculine dialectic, in the main, is directly proportional to the size of teevee screens and mammaries. Without that stimulus, the majority are calm, almost somnolescent.
Very peaceful.
AN APPRECIATION OF RESTRAINT
I myself am not entirely unaffected. But I like my round parts in tasteful moderation, and my sports not at all. A woman radiating "hot sh*t, she's BRILLIANT!" is far, far better company than "holy Moses, wouldya look at them deedees!".
I rationalize it thus: if she's brilliant, AND hanging around with a certain man, he himself must have a fairly decent bit of grey matter also. So just being seen with an intelligent and intellectually capable person rubs a bit of glory off on the man.
Besides, it increases conversational options. Being at times either full of it, OR a hyper-stimulated chatterbox, I like associating with people who keep me on my toes.
Any meeting between people should leave each person with the sudden realization, immediately after parting, "darn, I should have mentioned .... ,
I could have said .... , we should have discussed .... , why didn't I ask .... ,
I wonder what she/he thinks about .... ".
Even in just friendly relationships, that's worth looking forward to.
Leaves one overwhelmed, and wanting more.
Next time, many more times.
AFTER WORD
The foregoing was prompted by a recent experience at the Tosca Cafe. My friend the bookseller and I were having a pleasant conversation, when a brash, loud, and overly endowed, individual walked in. Her presence, as well as the miracle of a minuscule cocktail dress that did NOT pop her boobs, yanked the decibel level up to unbearable. Screaming laughter, top-of-the-lungs OMG! exclamations, combined with Johny Cash singing about killing a man in Reno -- plus, last but not least, the boisterous idiot sub-human boychiks to the right -- made reasonable discourse impossible. She had a very unpleasant metallic voice, and her big floppity breasts should have been far better covered. As good an argument for a ball-gag and a full burka as anything, she epitomized everything with which you never want to be seen in public.
Unless you're a vulgarian flaunting your own stupendousness.
Most women should stay out of bars.
And so should most men.
I firmly believe that.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, December 07, 2012
2012 PHENOMENON - MAYAN END OF WORLD PREDICTION
According to the Mayan Long Count Calendar, as interpreted by many people whose words we take for revealed truth, the deity Bolon Yokte will collide with a dark mysterious planetoid called Niburu sometime this month, ushering in a seven year period of tribulation, and, it must be assumed, a very great itch.
Good people will be tormented by zombies.
The flesh-eating undead.
Given what the average diet is supposed to be after the cataclysm, better get all your junk food in now. Including the deep-fried stuff.
Unless you like brain-fritters, in which case you have nothing to worry about. At least for the first few days. A steady diet of brain fritter might pall after a while.
And lead to acid reflux. At the very least, you'll want some salt.
And perhaps a bit of hot sauce.
"Brain fritter, again! Dagnabbit!!
Got any horseradish!!??"
"Anybody still have a can of Spam?"
See, that's what the Christians mean by 'great tribulation'. A complete absence of Spam. Or any other pork-shoulder product.
They'll also need some salt and hot sauce.
Personally, I am not worried in the slightest. I figure I'll make out like a bandit, given that I have bucket-loads of hot sauce stashed in my apartment. It will be in premium demand after the end-times, and I intend to charge profiteering prices.
Which will go up astronomically as my supply diminishes.
I also have two boxes of salt.
Morton's Kosher Salt.
They'll cost you!
Please don't worry, some of the obscene profits will go to a very good cause: Missions for the Eternal Salvation of Zombies.
I figure given their poor remaining brain-power, they'll make EXCELLENT followers of Christ, all deeply religious and spiritual and sh*t. They'll also be perfect for slave labour on my vast banana plantations, where they'll raise food for the galactic Jesus-monkeys who will repopulate the earth.
Some believers have suggested that it is best to kill oneself, one's children, and one's pets BEFORE it happens. These people are defeatists, who refuse to acknowledge the greatness, glory, and inevitability, of working in my vast banana slave plantations. However, accepting that some of them are stubborn as all git-out, it is recommended that they start with themselves, saving their children and pets for later.
That way at least there will be FLUFFY animals to play with.
The galactic Jesus-monkeys are sure to appreciate that.
Cats make GREAT zombie overseers, by the way.
Not quite sure how the children fit in. Perhaps cat food?
Those felines will get might testy if ALL they get to eat is zombie-brain fritters.
No salt. No hot sauce. No pork-shoulder by-product.
Quite the tribulation!
Are there any questions?
Please note: no cats or other sentient beings were harmed in the writing of this post.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Good people will be tormented by zombies.
The flesh-eating undead.
Given what the average diet is supposed to be after the cataclysm, better get all your junk food in now. Including the deep-fried stuff.
Unless you like brain-fritters, in which case you have nothing to worry about. At least for the first few days. A steady diet of brain fritter might pall after a while.
And lead to acid reflux. At the very least, you'll want some salt.
And perhaps a bit of hot sauce.
"Brain fritter, again! Dagnabbit!!
Got any horseradish!!??"
"Anybody still have a can of Spam?"
See, that's what the Christians mean by 'great tribulation'. A complete absence of Spam. Or any other pork-shoulder product.
They'll also need some salt and hot sauce.
Personally, I am not worried in the slightest. I figure I'll make out like a bandit, given that I have bucket-loads of hot sauce stashed in my apartment. It will be in premium demand after the end-times, and I intend to charge profiteering prices.
Which will go up astronomically as my supply diminishes.
I also have two boxes of salt.
Morton's Kosher Salt.
They'll cost you!
Please don't worry, some of the obscene profits will go to a very good cause: Missions for the Eternal Salvation of Zombies.
I figure given their poor remaining brain-power, they'll make EXCELLENT followers of Christ, all deeply religious and spiritual and sh*t. They'll also be perfect for slave labour on my vast banana plantations, where they'll raise food for the galactic Jesus-monkeys who will repopulate the earth.
Some believers have suggested that it is best to kill oneself, one's children, and one's pets BEFORE it happens. These people are defeatists, who refuse to acknowledge the greatness, glory, and inevitability, of working in my vast banana slave plantations. However, accepting that some of them are stubborn as all git-out, it is recommended that they start with themselves, saving their children and pets for later.
That way at least there will be FLUFFY animals to play with.
The galactic Jesus-monkeys are sure to appreciate that.
Cats make GREAT zombie overseers, by the way.
Not quite sure how the children fit in. Perhaps cat food?
Those felines will get might testy if ALL they get to eat is zombie-brain fritters.
No salt. No hot sauce. No pork-shoulder by-product.
Quite the tribulation!
Are there any questions?
Please note: no cats or other sentient beings were harmed in the writing of this post.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, December 06, 2012
YOUR KIND INDULGENCE
Years ago I worked at an Indian restaurant as a cashier, bookkeeper, and what might be described as 'supercargo'. Consequently I am now the man who knows everything. Nobody wants to be the ignorant gora surrounded by know-it-all Patels and Sardars.
For several years I purchased every book on Indian food, culture, languages, art, religion, philosophy, and history, that I could find. Studied the material assiduously, analysed, cross-referenced, and absorbed.
I'm still not Indian. But I'm the next best thing.
No, I have never been there.
On the other hand, neither have most of the customers who waltz in the door.
Filled with spirituality, vegetarianism, attitude, and, far too often, beer.
Which is a peculiarly British failing.
Often indulged in by Americans.
As well as European tourists.
IT IS CONVENIENCE, JI
I would be called upon to explain to customers what went into a particular dish, what spices were, ghee, lentils, tandoori chickens, ice water..... why they could NOT have a beef curry pizza, and why there was now a service charge on their bill.
"That charge is there for your con-veni-ence!
By which what I really mean is that none of my esteemed colleagues trust you lot -- you're Euries, yes? -- to understand the American custom of paying according to service, and budgeting an additional amount, say up to twenty or thirty percent, for the waitstaff who have graciously put up with your constant stream of importuning, ridiculous requests, loutishness, and the galling pretense that you invented civilization, cuisine, and, in fact, everything worthwhile in the entire damned universe.
Including India.
If you're British.
By the way, the best Indian food is not in England. That's Sylheti cooking, leavened with unrecognizable stuff that British dudes like. Sylhet is upper Bengal, there is a lovely railway station there. Enjoy your sorson ka maach. No more beer.
And please stop addressing Mr. Patel and Mr. Singh as "boy".
The best Indian food is, quite naturally, in India.
Mallum hai? Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik!
Now pay that "service charge" pronto, or you'll never see Hamburg again.
The customer is always right. Even when they're wrong.
And a flaming pile of cow dung besides.
Sixteen years of exposure to restaurant customers a few days a week gave me a profound sympathy for Vikings, Goths, Vandals, Huns, and the Tatar hordes.
You probably do not want me coming to your table.
ROWAN ATKINSON-JI!
It's a tricky bit of floor.....
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaZ7DFPsT8A.]
Anybody who has ever worked in restaurants will appreciate the sketch above.
It exemplifies in so many ways what waiters and busboys have to deal with on a regular basis, and the sheer saintly level of graciousness that is required.
Genius, even.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
For several years I purchased every book on Indian food, culture, languages, art, religion, philosophy, and history, that I could find. Studied the material assiduously, analysed, cross-referenced, and absorbed.
I'm still not Indian. But I'm the next best thing.
No, I have never been there.
On the other hand, neither have most of the customers who waltz in the door.
Filled with spirituality, vegetarianism, attitude, and, far too often, beer.
Which is a peculiarly British failing.
Often indulged in by Americans.
As well as European tourists.
IT IS CONVENIENCE, JI
I would be called upon to explain to customers what went into a particular dish, what spices were, ghee, lentils, tandoori chickens, ice water..... why they could NOT have a beef curry pizza, and why there was now a service charge on their bill.
"That charge is there for your con-veni-ence!
By which what I really mean is that none of my esteemed colleagues trust you lot -- you're Euries, yes? -- to understand the American custom of paying according to service, and budgeting an additional amount, say up to twenty or thirty percent, for the waitstaff who have graciously put up with your constant stream of importuning, ridiculous requests, loutishness, and the galling pretense that you invented civilization, cuisine, and, in fact, everything worthwhile in the entire damned universe.
Including India.
If you're British.
By the way, the best Indian food is not in England. That's Sylheti cooking, leavened with unrecognizable stuff that British dudes like. Sylhet is upper Bengal, there is a lovely railway station there. Enjoy your sorson ka maach. No more beer.
And please stop addressing Mr. Patel and Mr. Singh as "boy".
The best Indian food is, quite naturally, in India.
Mallum hai? Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik!
Now pay that "service charge" pronto, or you'll never see Hamburg again.
The customer is always right. Even when they're wrong.
And a flaming pile of cow dung besides.
Sixteen years of exposure to restaurant customers a few days a week gave me a profound sympathy for Vikings, Goths, Vandals, Huns, and the Tatar hordes.
You probably do not want me coming to your table.
ROWAN ATKINSON-JI!
It's a tricky bit of floor.....
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaZ7DFPsT8A.]
Anybody who has ever worked in restaurants will appreciate the sketch above.
It exemplifies in so many ways what waiters and busboys have to deal with on a regular basis, and the sheer saintly level of graciousness that is required.
Genius, even.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
TEA AND SOMETHING YUMMY
The motorcar came to a stop in front of a building with tall windows that looked out over the village green. Though at present, it would be doubtful if any one even gazed out; the weather was beyond inclement, to the point of saturation. Dense pillars of rain washed over the grass, the cobbles, the concrete sidewalks, presenting a grey veil to the streetscape.
Three gentlemen exited the vehicle, and not bothering to even unfurl their umbrellas stepped purposefully toward the door, their overcoats spattering the water off as soon as it hit. Two young fellows, and a man whose erect bearing suggested a military background, but whose trimness almost decisively stated air force.
Big galoots do not get into the pilot programme.
They don't fit very well into cockpits, you see.
The proprietress took their order after having seated them in a comfortable lounge. Soon she came back with a vast tray, on which two pots, a large urn with extra hot water, and several plates, as well as three cups and saucers, presented an inviting view, much more beckoning, fascinating even, to the three men than any amount of wetness bucketing down outside.
England always looks rainy. Sodden, even.
But afternoon tea seems ever new.
After having enjoyed several cups, along with a nibble here and there of the goodies, the aeronautical gentleman relaxed in a comfy chair in the corner with a cigarette, while one of the younger chaps pulled out a pipe, filled it, and lit up. While he enjoyed his first puffs of flake, his brother grumbled at the fumes and pulled a well-worn book out of his coat pocket (the outerwear was hung by the fire to dry), then settled down at the table reading about chess. The games of the masters.
The older gentleman and the pipe-smoker debated over a map of the area, deciding where they would head tomorrow. Occasionally one or other of them sipped a bit more tea, taking care not to spill either ashes or hot liquid on the map.
So far it had been a splendid journey.
Devonshire was positively littered with comfortable oases.
Where afternoon tea might be had at certain hours.
And smoking was still permitted.
It was, after all, the seventies.
TEA TIME
It has been a long time since I visited the South-West of England, and I have heard that the wheatgerm freaks in Whitehall have outlawed public smoking even there. Possibly they still allow it in coal mines, as people suffering from black lung and chronic pulmonary fatigue from digging up the slag cannot possible get any worse.
Or maybe there too it is illegal. Might as well make the last few years of the victims of industrialization even harder by sending them out into the rain to smoke.
Yes?
Two of the three people in the vignette above are no longer in this world.
The R.C.A.F. bomber pilot flew his last sortie over two decades ago, and the chess player won his final competition back in the nineties.
Still, afternoon tea continues. It speaks of old times, good friends, and family members who are fondly remembered.
All three of us enjoyed taking tea when we were in England, as well as at home in the Netherlands. My father would often have it on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, back in Valkenswaard, and I frequently prepared myself a pot after school, to keep me company when reading or doing my homework.
My brother had it while studying chess.
A proper Devonshire cream-tea includes hot scones, clotted cream, fresh fruit preserves, a slice or two of cake, and a very large pot of strong tea.
I believe one should always follow it with a pipefull of fine aged Virginia flake, but that may not be precisely your fancy. Possibly you smoke Oriental mixtures, or light Balkan blends. Or maybe even not at all.
Taking the Devonshire cream-tea out of England emasculates it. Without a fresh green sopping wet countryside, and people speaking in poofter accents, high tea is not the same.
Reproducing the scones and clotted cream is rather ridiculous.
Pretentiously academic, even.
Fortunately here in San Francisco, we have alternatives. Not substitutes or mere replacements, but stuff that fits the tradition more than admirably, and better even than what they do in Blighty.
We live very well here.
We have Chinatown bakeries.
人仁西餅麵包
YUMMY BAKERY & CAFE
607 Jackson Street, San Francisco, CA 94133.
Telephone: 415-989-8388
This is one of my favourite places, because of an extensive selection of goodies of high quality. They devote care and attention to what they do, and it would be very hard to leave disappointed.
Their offerings would grace any tea-table.
Seriously good stuff.
Among other things:
芝士蘑菇包 Cheese and mushroom bun
火腿粟米包 Ham and corn bun
雞包 Chicken bun (baked)
叉燒包 Charsiu bun (baked)
菠蘿叉燒包 Pineapple charsiu bun
火腿芝士包 Ham and cheese bun
香腸包 Hotdog bun
粟米火腿包 Corn and ham bun
奶油包 Cream bun
蔥油條 Scallion bun
蛋撻 Egg tart
火腿南鬆卷 Ham and pork floss roll
蛋沙律包 Egg salad bun
藍莓芝士包 Blueberry cream cheese bun
菠蘿奶黃包 Pineapple cream bun
火腿蛋包 Ham and egg bun
毛毛蟲 Cream and jam bun
丹麥包 Danish pastry
提子包 Raisin bun
牛角包 Croissant
蔥油肉鬆卷 Scallion pork floss roll
椰香包 Coconut bun
紅豆菠蘿包 Red bean paste filled pineapple bun
肉鬆包 Pork floss bun
菠蘿包 Pineapple bun
椰菠蘿叉燒包 Pineapple charsiu bun
火腿芝士包 Ham and cheese bun
椰香包 Coconut bun
豆沙包 Red bean paste bun
南瓜包 Pumpkin bun
香芋包 Taro bun
紅豆龜仔包 Tortoise-shaped bun with red bean paste
蒜蓉包 Garlicky bun
墨西哥棒 Mexican roll
奶油筒 Cream horn
合桃拿破侖 Walnut Napoleon
草莓蛋卷 Strawberry roll
瑞士餅 Swiss pastry
奶油曲奇 Butter cookie
奶油蛋糕 Butter cake
合桃酥 Walnut pastry
紫菜酥 Seaweed pastry
雞仔餅 Chewy cookie
咖啡奶油筒 Coffee cream horn
老婆餠 Wife cake
冬瓜老婆餠 Winter melon wife cake
皮蛋酥 Preserved egg pastry
蛋黃酥 Egg yolk pastry
椰撻 Coconut tart
椰絲球 Shredded coconut ball
杏仁奇脆棒 Almond pastry
果醬蛋糕 Jam cake
咖啡合桃卷 Coffee walnut roll
朱古力牛油蛋糕 Chocolate butter cake
紙包蛋糕 Paper cupcake
糖多士 Sugared toasts
西糕大餅 Xigao cake
甘草花生 Licorice-flavoured peanuts
南乳花生 Namyu (fermented beancurd) flavoured peanuts
蒜蓉花生 Garlic-flavoured peanuts
As you can see, there are lots of delicious things to choose from. Anyone who cannot find something satisfying at Yummy Bakery & Café just isn't trying.
You can snack there, or far better yet, buy a lot of stuff to take home.
It will make your tea-time memorable.
No, I don't want you to get fat. But I do want you to have a good time.
Some hot-buttered toast, as well as little sandwiches -- cucumber, smoked salmon, cress, pâté, or potted meat -- would not be amiss either.
But you will have to make those yourself.
Please allow pipe smoking afterwards.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Three gentlemen exited the vehicle, and not bothering to even unfurl their umbrellas stepped purposefully toward the door, their overcoats spattering the water off as soon as it hit. Two young fellows, and a man whose erect bearing suggested a military background, but whose trimness almost decisively stated air force.
Big galoots do not get into the pilot programme.
They don't fit very well into cockpits, you see.
The proprietress took their order after having seated them in a comfortable lounge. Soon she came back with a vast tray, on which two pots, a large urn with extra hot water, and several plates, as well as three cups and saucers, presented an inviting view, much more beckoning, fascinating even, to the three men than any amount of wetness bucketing down outside.
England always looks rainy. Sodden, even.
But afternoon tea seems ever new.
After having enjoyed several cups, along with a nibble here and there of the goodies, the aeronautical gentleman relaxed in a comfy chair in the corner with a cigarette, while one of the younger chaps pulled out a pipe, filled it, and lit up. While he enjoyed his first puffs of flake, his brother grumbled at the fumes and pulled a well-worn book out of his coat pocket (the outerwear was hung by the fire to dry), then settled down at the table reading about chess. The games of the masters.
The older gentleman and the pipe-smoker debated over a map of the area, deciding where they would head tomorrow. Occasionally one or other of them sipped a bit more tea, taking care not to spill either ashes or hot liquid on the map.
So far it had been a splendid journey.
Devonshire was positively littered with comfortable oases.
Where afternoon tea might be had at certain hours.
And smoking was still permitted.
It was, after all, the seventies.
TEA TIME
It has been a long time since I visited the South-West of England, and I have heard that the wheatgerm freaks in Whitehall have outlawed public smoking even there. Possibly they still allow it in coal mines, as people suffering from black lung and chronic pulmonary fatigue from digging up the slag cannot possible get any worse.
Or maybe there too it is illegal. Might as well make the last few years of the victims of industrialization even harder by sending them out into the rain to smoke.
Yes?
Two of the three people in the vignette above are no longer in this world.
The R.C.A.F. bomber pilot flew his last sortie over two decades ago, and the chess player won his final competition back in the nineties.
Still, afternoon tea continues. It speaks of old times, good friends, and family members who are fondly remembered.
All three of us enjoyed taking tea when we were in England, as well as at home in the Netherlands. My father would often have it on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, back in Valkenswaard, and I frequently prepared myself a pot after school, to keep me company when reading or doing my homework.
My brother had it while studying chess.
A proper Devonshire cream-tea includes hot scones, clotted cream, fresh fruit preserves, a slice or two of cake, and a very large pot of strong tea.
I believe one should always follow it with a pipefull of fine aged Virginia flake, but that may not be precisely your fancy. Possibly you smoke Oriental mixtures, or light Balkan blends. Or maybe even not at all.
Taking the Devonshire cream-tea out of England emasculates it. Without a fresh green sopping wet countryside, and people speaking in poofter accents, high tea is not the same.
Reproducing the scones and clotted cream is rather ridiculous.
Pretentiously academic, even.
Fortunately here in San Francisco, we have alternatives. Not substitutes or mere replacements, but stuff that fits the tradition more than admirably, and better even than what they do in Blighty.
We live very well here.
We have Chinatown bakeries.
人仁西餅麵包
YUMMY BAKERY & CAFE
607 Jackson Street, San Francisco, CA 94133.
Telephone: 415-989-8388
This is one of my favourite places, because of an extensive selection of goodies of high quality. They devote care and attention to what they do, and it would be very hard to leave disappointed.
Their offerings would grace any tea-table.
Seriously good stuff.
Among other things:
芝士蘑菇包 Cheese and mushroom bun
火腿粟米包 Ham and corn bun
雞包 Chicken bun (baked)
叉燒包 Charsiu bun (baked)
菠蘿叉燒包 Pineapple charsiu bun
火腿芝士包 Ham and cheese bun
香腸包 Hotdog bun
粟米火腿包 Corn and ham bun
奶油包 Cream bun
蔥油條 Scallion bun
蛋撻 Egg tart
火腿南鬆卷 Ham and pork floss roll
蛋沙律包 Egg salad bun
藍莓芝士包 Blueberry cream cheese bun
菠蘿奶黃包 Pineapple cream bun
火腿蛋包 Ham and egg bun
毛毛蟲 Cream and jam bun
丹麥包 Danish pastry
提子包 Raisin bun
牛角包 Croissant
蔥油肉鬆卷 Scallion pork floss roll
椰香包 Coconut bun
紅豆菠蘿包 Red bean paste filled pineapple bun
肉鬆包 Pork floss bun
菠蘿包 Pineapple bun
椰菠蘿叉燒包 Pineapple charsiu bun
火腿芝士包 Ham and cheese bun
椰香包 Coconut bun
豆沙包 Red bean paste bun
南瓜包 Pumpkin bun
香芋包 Taro bun
紅豆龜仔包 Tortoise-shaped bun with red bean paste
蒜蓉包 Garlicky bun
墨西哥棒 Mexican roll
奶油筒 Cream horn
合桃拿破侖 Walnut Napoleon
草莓蛋卷 Strawberry roll
瑞士餅 Swiss pastry
奶油曲奇 Butter cookie
奶油蛋糕 Butter cake
合桃酥 Walnut pastry
紫菜酥 Seaweed pastry
雞仔餅 Chewy cookie
咖啡奶油筒 Coffee cream horn
老婆餠 Wife cake
冬瓜老婆餠 Winter melon wife cake
皮蛋酥 Preserved egg pastry
蛋黃酥 Egg yolk pastry
椰撻 Coconut tart
椰絲球 Shredded coconut ball
杏仁奇脆棒 Almond pastry
果醬蛋糕 Jam cake
咖啡合桃卷 Coffee walnut roll
朱古力牛油蛋糕 Chocolate butter cake
紙包蛋糕 Paper cupcake
糖多士 Sugared toasts
西糕大餅 Xigao cake
甘草花生 Licorice-flavoured peanuts
南乳花生 Namyu (fermented beancurd) flavoured peanuts
蒜蓉花生 Garlic-flavoured peanuts
As you can see, there are lots of delicious things to choose from. Anyone who cannot find something satisfying at Yummy Bakery & Café just isn't trying.
You can snack there, or far better yet, buy a lot of stuff to take home.
It will make your tea-time memorable.
No, I don't want you to get fat. But I do want you to have a good time.
Some hot-buttered toast, as well as little sandwiches -- cucumber, smoked salmon, cress, pâté, or potted meat -- would not be amiss either.
But you will have to make those yourself.
Please allow pipe smoking afterwards.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT; IN PRAISE OF FEMALE INDIVIDUALISM
Young lady, you chose wisely! You could have indeed decided that the most stylish accoutrement for a five year old was a Hello Kitty pursy. All pale pink and yellow and saccharine. But no! Against the blandishments of your peers you went for the personable stuffed raccoon.
An admirable decision!
While Hello Kitty says that you are fragile, soft-headed, and possibly incurably dumb, that fierce-looking stuffed raccoon indicates to the world that you are a woman to be reckoned with.
Steadfast, hard-nosed, and independent-minded.
A future doctor or engineer.
Especially the way you swing it gaily by its tail. "Don't bug me", you seem to say, "or I will clout you with a rabid beast!"
It whirls around in terrifyingly aggressive circles.
Possibly growling ominously.
I'm assuming that the stuffed raccoon is rabid. Guard-raccoons usually are.
Or maybe it keenly appreciates the roller-coaster-like motions.
Either way. There is a wide space around you.
You are a dangerous person.
Your two little sisters are blithely unconcerned and unaware.
If I had an older sister swinging a raccoon, I might worry.
The more so as I occasionally identify with raccoons and other sly night-time raiders of food-supplies. It's my deepset eyes over prominent cheekbones, you see. It gives my face a look twixt vulpine and procyonine.
Halfway foxy, halfway inquisitive backyard invader.
I tend to keep my fluffy tail out of sight.
Because of girls like you.
I'm petrified.
Anyway, stay away from Hello Kitty. That horrid feline voodoo-doll only leads to trouble. Bad grades, receding jaws, infantile squealing, plus ghastly taste in clothes, careers, friends, and reading matter.
There is naught, nothing at all, redeemable about Hello Kitty.
Hello Kitty appeals to terminally weak minds.
Wanna-be femmy halfwits.
Stick with the raccoon.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
An admirable decision!
While Hello Kitty says that you are fragile, soft-headed, and possibly incurably dumb, that fierce-looking stuffed raccoon indicates to the world that you are a woman to be reckoned with.
Steadfast, hard-nosed, and independent-minded.
A future doctor or engineer.
Especially the way you swing it gaily by its tail. "Don't bug me", you seem to say, "or I will clout you with a rabid beast!"
It whirls around in terrifyingly aggressive circles.
Possibly growling ominously.
I'm assuming that the stuffed raccoon is rabid. Guard-raccoons usually are.
Or maybe it keenly appreciates the roller-coaster-like motions.
Either way. There is a wide space around you.
You are a dangerous person.
Your two little sisters are blithely unconcerned and unaware.
If I had an older sister swinging a raccoon, I might worry.
The more so as I occasionally identify with raccoons and other sly night-time raiders of food-supplies. It's my deepset eyes over prominent cheekbones, you see. It gives my face a look twixt vulpine and procyonine.
Halfway foxy, halfway inquisitive backyard invader.
I tend to keep my fluffy tail out of sight.
Because of girls like you.
I'm petrified.
Anyway, stay away from Hello Kitty. That horrid feline voodoo-doll only leads to trouble. Bad grades, receding jaws, infantile squealing, plus ghastly taste in clothes, careers, friends, and reading matter.
There is naught, nothing at all, redeemable about Hello Kitty.
Hello Kitty appeals to terminally weak minds.
Wanna-be femmy halfwits.
Stick with the raccoon.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
CALLING DISEASES DOWN ON GREAT AMERICAN PAST-TIMES
It soon became apparent that we came from different planets. That is to say, despite so many shared characteristics, we actually had almost nothing in common. Which seems to be a recurring issue when conversing with strangers. Set number of limbs, same number of eyes and ears.
Self-ambulatory, and arguably sentient.
But other than that.......
Nada.
My interests were just not his interests. I spoke of languages and food - both consuming fascinations - as well as history and geography. Yes, such matters are very limiting subjects of conversation, and will frequently bore other people to tears.
On the other hand, baseball stats, heck, any mention of sports beyond an insincere "oh jolly good show, what", will send me to sleep.
Unfortunately these were the only things that my interlocutor and his friends were both willing and capable of discussing.
I am a social man. But that was two hours from hell.
FLYING LEATHER CRAP
I believe that the baseball year has finally ended, and football season has begun. The continued prosperity of pizza-delivery services is consequently assured, along with corner liquor stores. No, I have no clue what the women do while their menfolk are busting groinmuscles cheering for the team and scarfing down cheese pie. They probably talk fondly of chili-cheese dip (served in a warmer which is shaped like a pig skin), and happily compare handbags and footwear.
I survived for years before knowing what a Birkin bag is, or what Ugs are.
Acquiring that precious knowledge did not enrich me.
I do not associate Autumn with sports. For me, Autumn means happy walks through streets littered with the yellow of fallen ginkgo leaves, haze over the bay, crisp air, a hot cuppa, and faint hints of woodsmoke.
Soon it will be crab season. That means crusty sourdough warmed up in the oven, fermented black bean ginger garlic scallion, papertowels, and bowls of hot water or tea to clean your fingers in.
The air will become chilly - cioppino, and other delicious seafood dishes.
A visit to a good steakhouse. Bearnaise sauce on French fries.
Crisp salads for alongside. Strong coffee afterwards.
A fond re-reading of mediaeval authors.
Poetry about cold weather.
Spot of sherry.
Somewhere an abandoned football is crying for the man that once so lovingly held it, caressed it, made it fly. Alas, no more orgasmic touchdowns, now that it is no longer youthfully taught and smooth. It will soar no more. Smudges of mud and grass still cling to it like dear memories, but its useful life is spent.
Now, if it were an expensive handbag, it would be carefully repaired and restored, by a professional who understood that pandering to the insanity of some women was mighty profitable. Especially if they had menfolk who would spend any amount of money to keep their precious wifey from whining during the most important part of the year, while the lads are vibrating on the couch, comparing tight male bun flesh in skintight buttock-sheaths, and swilling beer.
Female complaints can be SO irritating while the packers and the steelers and the niners and the broncos are engaged in homo-erotic behaviour on teevee.
From the above you may deduce that I have no interest in sports, shiny male yoga pants, expensive handbags, or shoes. You are right. Please vote me least likely to tolerate long conversations about any one of those subjects. But on the other hand, feel free to tell me what you are reading now, or what you ate recently that was utterly delicious. I know places where the ginkgo trees are gloriously yellow, and we can go somewhere to be warm while we read the New York Times.
Quiet streets, lovely vistas on hills, and peaceful sanctuaries.
Let us day-dream.
PS. The only worthwhile sports, in my humble opinion, are whist, ice-skating, and field-hockey. Especially the latter, if played by forty homicidal teenage psychopaths, of either gender, without a referee or physical education instructor in sight. A wooden ball comes whizzing towards you, followed immediately by a frothing horde, implements of maim and torture held high, eyes glowing red and animalistic, blood-speckled phlegm flecking their shirts and faces. Now that, gentlepersons, is what school sports are all about.
Ice skating is a close second. More suited to the solitary type.
Baseball, football, and basketball, are for deviants.
Doubtful types you wouldn't trust.
Ice skating. Trust me.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Self-ambulatory, and arguably sentient.
But other than that.......
Nada.
My interests were just not his interests. I spoke of languages and food - both consuming fascinations - as well as history and geography. Yes, such matters are very limiting subjects of conversation, and will frequently bore other people to tears.
On the other hand, baseball stats, heck, any mention of sports beyond an insincere "oh jolly good show, what", will send me to sleep.
Unfortunately these were the only things that my interlocutor and his friends were both willing and capable of discussing.
I am a social man. But that was two hours from hell.
FLYING LEATHER CRAP
I believe that the baseball year has finally ended, and football season has begun. The continued prosperity of pizza-delivery services is consequently assured, along with corner liquor stores. No, I have no clue what the women do while their menfolk are busting groinmuscles cheering for the team and scarfing down cheese pie. They probably talk fondly of chili-cheese dip (served in a warmer which is shaped like a pig skin), and happily compare handbags and footwear.
I survived for years before knowing what a Birkin bag is, or what Ugs are.
Acquiring that precious knowledge did not enrich me.
I do not associate Autumn with sports. For me, Autumn means happy walks through streets littered with the yellow of fallen ginkgo leaves, haze over the bay, crisp air, a hot cuppa, and faint hints of woodsmoke.
Soon it will be crab season. That means crusty sourdough warmed up in the oven, fermented black bean ginger garlic scallion, papertowels, and bowls of hot water or tea to clean your fingers in.
The air will become chilly - cioppino, and other delicious seafood dishes.
A visit to a good steakhouse. Bearnaise sauce on French fries.
Crisp salads for alongside. Strong coffee afterwards.
A fond re-reading of mediaeval authors.
Poetry about cold weather.
Spot of sherry.
Somewhere an abandoned football is crying for the man that once so lovingly held it, caressed it, made it fly. Alas, no more orgasmic touchdowns, now that it is no longer youthfully taught and smooth. It will soar no more. Smudges of mud and grass still cling to it like dear memories, but its useful life is spent.
Now, if it were an expensive handbag, it would be carefully repaired and restored, by a professional who understood that pandering to the insanity of some women was mighty profitable. Especially if they had menfolk who would spend any amount of money to keep their precious wifey from whining during the most important part of the year, while the lads are vibrating on the couch, comparing tight male bun flesh in skintight buttock-sheaths, and swilling beer.
Female complaints can be SO irritating while the packers and the steelers and the niners and the broncos are engaged in homo-erotic behaviour on teevee.
From the above you may deduce that I have no interest in sports, shiny male yoga pants, expensive handbags, or shoes. You are right. Please vote me least likely to tolerate long conversations about any one of those subjects. But on the other hand, feel free to tell me what you are reading now, or what you ate recently that was utterly delicious. I know places where the ginkgo trees are gloriously yellow, and we can go somewhere to be warm while we read the New York Times.
Quiet streets, lovely vistas on hills, and peaceful sanctuaries.
Let us day-dream.
PS. The only worthwhile sports, in my humble opinion, are whist, ice-skating, and field-hockey. Especially the latter, if played by forty homicidal teenage psychopaths, of either gender, without a referee or physical education instructor in sight. A wooden ball comes whizzing towards you, followed immediately by a frothing horde, implements of maim and torture held high, eyes glowing red and animalistic, blood-speckled phlegm flecking their shirts and faces. Now that, gentlepersons, is what school sports are all about.
Ice skating is a close second. More suited to the solitary type.
Baseball, football, and basketball, are for deviants.
Doubtful types you wouldn't trust.
Ice skating. Trust me.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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GRITS AND TOFU
Like most Americans, I have a list of people who should be peacefully retired from public service and thereafter kept away from their desks,...
