LANDING AT KAITAK AIRPORT

啟德機場

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BETTER WITHOUT THE KIDS

The Bay Area has lifted the mask mandates, which comes as a welcome relief for businesses and white people between their teenage years and late thirties, all of whom are keen to infect everyone who is elderly, very young, or has comorbidities. Because after all, why should they care about "other" people?

Yesterday I was once again struck by the difference between the Chinatown population and the general public. In Chinatown, almost everybody wears their mask wherever they are. The general non-Chinatown public goes around fully unmasked, unconcerned, and quite careless about everyone else except their own precious selves. On the bus there is always at least one person who is not wearing his or her mask over their nose. Usually it's a white male in his mid-twenties to mid-thirties.

Tuesday night it was a black queen.


"I'm sorry, I forgot. My bad."


You dumb piece of garbage. Here it is, two years after the start, and remembering to wear your mask is still difficult? You must be really special. Same comment goes for Chad, Brad, Bruce, and their dingbat girlfriends Jennifer, Courtney, and Karen.

According to CDC Director Doctor Rochelle Walensky, "the overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities. So really these are people who were unwell to begin with and, yes, really encouraging news in the context of omicron". Indeed, that is encouraging. We're condemning them to death, which will benefit businesses and insurance companies. Soon we'll finally not have the financial burden of their miserable existences to drag the rest of us down. The same goes for the unvacccinated under fives, who are a pain in the arse as well as infinitely expendable. And those old people? Fossils!
Best rendered into heating oil, but barring that, just plow them under.
Thank you Doctor Walensky for putting it into perspective.


CONFESSION:

I will admit that I too find most kiddies expendable, especially if they belong to middle class white San Franciscans. They often represent the absolute paradigm of utter brat spoilation. Little cretinous egomaniacs without any charm or glimmer of intelligence to alleviate their bourgeois dreadfulness. So I am looking forward to their extinction.

Childhood is at least three comorbidities.
Four if their parents are yuppies.



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DO YOU SMELL THAT, SON?

In the modern era smells drive people wild. My apartment mate had been gifted an expensive perfume by a relative, probably as a Christmas present, that smells rather nice. I have no idea what it's called. The strong top note is startling, but fades in a while leaving a pleasant sultry but lighter middle note and base to influence your thoughts while she rants about rich snobby uppercrust childmolesters like Prince Andrew, about whom she is watching informative and analytical youtube videos. A disgusting royal degenerate. Shocking.
That fragrance mismatches the subject.

[It might be L'Ombre Dans L'Eau, by Diptyque. Black currant leaf and Bulgarian rose, bergamot, musk, ambergris.]


Years ago I used to smoke Latakia mixtures, being particularly fond of Dunhill's London and Standard after Balkan Sobranie got bollicksed up. Hard to get in some parts of the world, and even back then "refined" people frowned upon the fragrance. The aromas of a fishing village and shipbuilding area were stronger however, and some people still used woodfires to cook. And there was drying fish. So one could 'fly under the radar', so to speak.

[Latakia imparts terpeneols, creosote, and resinous woodsmoke. Faintly floral, profoundly sexy.]

In San Francisco we've forgotten our past. The port is less active than it was during the middle years of the twentieth century, military ships seldom dock here, mercant marine activities have shifted to Oakland, San Jose, and Long Beach, and except for crab fishermen the seafood activity of San Francisco Bay has stilled. There are no shrimp canneries anymore.
You really would not want to eat what comes out of the water here.


People in San Francisco tend to have kittens about smoking. One of the main reasons I tend to hang around Chinatown is that everyone there has a relative who smokes, or IS the relative that does so, and they tend to mind their own business.


Besides, they probably would rather have a discreet Dutchman who smells of Virginia blends passing through their alley than a gaggle of Midwesterners reeking of lutefisk, or Frenchmen ponging of perfume and cheesy unwashed body parts.

[Virginias have carotenoids and a higher natural sugar content. Delicate, contemplative, and old fashioned.]


Plus my imperfect Cantonese gets me treated like a regular person, whereas my English / Bostonian / Irish / Australian accent (or however it's misidentified by Anglos) prompts stupid behaviour elsewhere. No, I bloody well don't speak Cockney, nor do I hail from Yorkshire.
And what you're now throwing at me does NOT sound Irish or Scottish.
I am not the English fellow from that last time.
And I cannot stand Mary Poppins.


By the way: Dried salt fish is Haam Yü (鹹魚), you should try it sometime.
It's much better than lutefisk. Goes great with pork.
Adjusts your attitude.



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THE HORROR OF IT

Deep in the bowels of Scotland lurks a terror worse than the Loch Ness monster, hairy savages wearing skirts (the local women), strange music played on sheep bladders, or Mel Gibson.

It's a comestible.


Grown Englishmen fled to all parts of the world to avoid eating it. It's the true test of machismo. Worse than a deep-fried snickers bar.

It's rather good with Sriracha hotsauce.

Of course you do need to wash it down with strong tea (Hong Kong Milk Tea, for instance), and perhaps pacify your jangled nerves with a slice of fruit cake afterwards (Dundee Cake), but it makes the sheep bladder music tolerable. Or at least an understandable manifestation of the regional culture as well as an appropriate reaction to NO underwear and scratchy woolens against your privates.

A hardboiled egg wrapped in sausage meat and dumped in boiling ox fat till mahogany.
Like all things British, the Japanese and Indians love it.
Breading it is optional.


Peckish. Lunch beckons.



By the way: As an innovation, the Scotch Egg is marvelous with Dutch peanut sauce (derived from an Indonesian original).

PINDA SAUS

Four TBS smooth peanut butter.
Three TBS cane sugar.
Two TBS soy sauce.
One or two TBS sambal.
One onion, minced.
Two to four cloves garlic, minced.
Hefty pinch of ground coriander.
One cup of water.
A squeeze of lime juice.
Dash of oil for the pan.

Sauté the onion till soft and golden. Add sambal and ground coriander, fry till fragrant, add all other ingredients except the water, stir to incorporate. Then gently bit by bit start adding the water. Be careful, as the peanut sauce can be surprisingly hot and may spatter.
It is ready when it has become a smoothly pourable gloop.
Serve warm.



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THE LOCAL WILDLIFE

Discussion of San Francisco having sunk from "The Metropolis Of The West" to "important city" then further to "a minor provincial outpost". Like a burg in upriver Burma, on the edge of the jungle, but without malaria, typhoid, or periodic famine and plague. "You see those mountains, son? On the other side is China, vast, mysterious, unknowable. On this side, rice paddies, pythons, and tigers. We used to tether a goat to catch a tiger. Haven't done that in years.
It's pointless, there are no more tigers. The goats roam free now. They ate all the tigers!"
Somehow the idea of putting goat milk in one's coffee isn't appealing.
Goat milk cheese, on the other hand, is pretty good.


This was after we had speculated about what would happen if, exceptionally, it snowed in San Francisco. And what a clusterfudge the roads would be if that happened.


Both of us agreed that the snows of Minnesota and the humid heat of the jungle would make life intolerable here. Tigers might make it interesting, but the necessary goats would diminish the thrill considerably. And, like belling the cat, someone else should milk the goats.

Also, if those bandy-legged dwarf bandits had had karaoke back then, they'd have been quite unbeatable. We had fled the bar at the other end of Chinatown because someone from Hong Kong with a Kempeitai fetish had been singing (badly) in Japanese.
Other customers called it "interesting". Yep.

The Dutch in the East Indies and the Brits in Malaya and Burma wouldn't have lasted two hours against karaoke screaming. We didn't even last ten minutes. I'm still shell shocked.


Karaoke spelled the end of Western imperialism.
There are no more tigers here.
Just goats.



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SOPROPO

Several years ago in response to a question, a Dutchman wrote that he had no idea what that ingredient was called in English, and several English speakers had also queried him about it. He was rather desperate to know the answer. I had corresponded with him regarding his wife's cooking, which he had praised on his webpage. His wife was Surinamese.

Turns out it was something with which I was already familiar.

I had eaten it that same week.

Sopropo.


涼瓜


The answer was in a dictionary of Surinamese Dutch in the bookshelves behind me.

This afternoon, after voting in our ridiculous little recall election, I headed over to 一品味茶餐廳 ('yat pan mei chachanteng') for a bitter melon omelette over rice with lots of hot sauce. Bitter melon, called handal or hanzil in Arabic, karela in Hindi, sopropo in Sranantongo, peria or pare in Malay and Indonesian, ampalaya in Tagalog, and 苦瓜 ('fu gwaa') or 涼瓜 ('leung gwaa') in Cantonese, is a vegetable that has not caught on in most of North America. Odd. It is delicious! And pleasingly bitter. A bowl of Red Virginia and Perique is so much more afterwards.
Had a long quiet smoke on Waverly following lunch.


Children and most Anglos hate bitter melon.
Anglos expect veggies to be sweet.
It is not sweet.



When I returned home, I discussed martial arts trainin for the little girl hamster with the turkey vulture. So that she can poke him sharply in the hurty place when he tries to eat her.
It's a valuable survival skill for her to have.
He also avoids bitter melon.
Figures.



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THE HOT BEVERAGE IS IMPORTANT

Underneath a post from years ago, Anonymous asked: "Dude, you always seem to fall for librarians with glasses and women who like hot bevies. Is that your thing?" Well, probably it is. In this universe there are few things quite as warm comfy feeling inducing as a woman wearing spectacles surrounded by books. You know you want to knock on her door with a cup of hot coffee or tea to further fuel her reading, don't you?

And the variables are endless! Which beverage? Coffee, tea, or cocoa? Reading or distance vision? Murder mysteries, archaic languages, or biology, chemistry, and medicine? Is her hair up, or shielding her face? Natural light? Or a desk lamp?

Is there a teddy bear or other friendly stuffed presence somewhere?


I'm sorry, a raspberry macchiato with soybean milk and sprinkles is just NOT a beverage. Sure, it's a liquid, and can be swallowed or gulped, but so is gasoline. Real people do not read at Starbucks. Well, sure they read... text messages, e-mails, stupid things celebrities have recently done, memes, and maybe this blog. But they don't "read" read.


Your first apartment did not become a home until there was equipment for hot beverages on the premises, and a bookshelf. As well as a lightsource.

In further news: Although I have a cell phone (because the landline was unsustainable given the static), which would allow me to text or cruise the internet, I have not used it for either of those activities, and don't take it out of the house. It sits where the old landline phone sat. It is my home phone. I shall never be in a situation where I need to make an emergency call while in transit. My car will not break down in a wilderness, I will not be stranded beside a freeway in outer Sonoma County surrounded by howling savages, I shan't be bored stiff at Starbucks.

I don't go to Starbucks.



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THE WEIGHTY ISSUES

There's a new chachanteng! That is to say, it will be opening soon in the old neighborhood. One or two weeks, no idea what the menu will have, but I hope they'll do baked Portuguese Chicken rice, among other things. Their name is already on the signboard, and winks at me whenever I pass by. Oh boy! Milk tea! Hong Kong French toast! Lamb and tofu skin!
Baked things with cheese, and a cup of mandarin ducks!

That last item is a drink popular in overseas communities and HK, but odd in the Anglo world, and I suspect Europeans would sneer mightily at it; coffee and strong milk tea mixed.
Often over ice. But hot can do also.
鴛鴦 ('yin-yeung').

Basically, an entirely new menu to explore.
My strongest literacy is in food terms.



Their location is strategic. Close to residences of the elderly, and conveniently near grocery stores, barber shops, and insta-tellers. Also conveniently close to all the areas where I like to pause with a pipe, though I strongly doubt that the comfort of solitary middle-aged Dutch American pipe smokers was part of their planning.

You know, much of this city does NOT take the comfort of solitary middle-aged Dutch American pipe smokers into account. That's a serious problem. Somebody should do something.
Write a strongly worded letter to the editor.

I have never once seen a signboard stating: solitary middle-aged Dutch American pipe smokers welcome!

In Chinese, it would be a rather long sign (歡迎別樹一旗的中年荷蘭裔美國煙斗者) and fairly necessitate a certain literacy on the part of the reader. Specifically, understanding that 別樹一旗 ('bit sue yat kei'; "separate tree a flag") idiomatically means to be eccentric in some ways, have one's own attitude about things, do things outside the norm, or even to be a loner.
The other good phrasing would be 歡迎孤家寡的中年荷蘭裔美國煙斗者, in which solitariness shows up as 孤家寡的 ('gu gaa gwaa dik') with a connotation of lacking a family or a helpmeet, but not all solitary middle-aged Dutch American pipesmokers are looking for relationships or consider their status an exceptional detriment, and in any case they might not wish to be reminded of that state of affairs in a hot food or milk tea context.

I expect the closest they'll come is 歡迎光臨 ('fun ying gwong lam'), a traditional phrase welcoming customers in general, and suggesting that their presence adds brilliance.

In the case of certain pipe smokers (Clark Gable, Albert Einstein, Georges Simenon, Bertrand Russell) that would certainly be appropriate. Others, not so much.

This morning's pipe, pictured above, is a Peterson System Standard.
A friend gave it to me half a decade ago.
Yes, I have friends.



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CONSIDERING A FEMININE GARMENT

The apartment mate came wandering into the teevee room dangling a brassiere. No, she was fully dressed. It's something connected with drying laundry while reading about Donald Trump's accountants. Not anything connected with Valentine's Day. She has no man in her life, I have no woman in mine.

What does a crusty old bachelor do on Valentine's Day? He goes out to have 蝦醬三絲炒米粉 (stinky fish sauce three shreds stirfried rice noodles) with a cup of 奶茶 (milk tea) at a place where the waitress refers to him as a fake ghost-devil (because 'real' ghost-devils don't order from specials listed on the wall). Listening to loud boisterous conversation while scarfing down hot food is just the ticket on a cold day. Then he goes home and stares intently at his brand new home made haircut as reflected in a hand held electronic communication device. "Son, in my day we didn't have cell phones, no sir! We pointed fax machines at our heads!"
BTW, mimeograph machines are very romantic. That too.

It's colder today than yesterday. I came home early because of that. We Dutch are more acclimatized to warmer weather. Morocco, Lago Di Como, the Costa Del Sol.
North American winters are deadly.

It's fifty one degrees outside.

Freezing!


The intelligent eye measures brassieres by the area covered, not by volume. Some women have underwear that's small and uncomfortable, others have common sense and don't like abusing their flesh. I believe some people collect such things.

I do not. While I admit to obsessiveness, my collecting appetites are pottery, books, and smoking equipment (briar pipes).

There is a neurosis at work in all three categories.

As just one example, the pipe I smoked after lunch is one of two associated with a certain alley, and a short story I wrote seven years ago and posted on this page.

Same place. Same pipe. Same alleyway.

It was compulsive.



If I were a female, my brassiere in this weather would be larger than necessary, and padded. And maybe two layers of sweater instead of one. That way I could have stayed out longer enjoying my pipe.


I'll dress warmer tomorrow.



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GETTING USED TO THE NEW ME

What with being uninvolved in a loving caring sexual or romantic relationship of any kind, the most significant thing I'll do today is get used to my new haircut. Which is short, neat, and very Krautish. Courtesy of kitchen shears and an hour in the bathroom naked in front of the mirror.

I keep feeling the back of my head now. It feels like someone else.

Since the pandemic started I've done my own hair.

I will not feature a selfie here.


At present I look liken a scrawny prison official. Herr Kommandant Otto Bremsen.
All of you will be punished. Rubber truncheons, less gruel.

Either that or you will be rewarded with extra tobacco this week, courtesy of Das Staatliche Tabakherstellungsmonopol. Whichever way, it will profoundly improve your lives.
You shall NOT trade it for stockings and chocolates!


In another hour or two Herr Kommandant Bremsen will go enjoy his unromantic lunch at a chachanteng, afterwhich he will finish his delicious regulation cup of milk tea (gemacht auf Hongkongischer art), and follow that with a contemplative smoke. Because tobacco benefits the mood of an administrator of an Eastern European Re-education Facilität, as well as the intellectual miscreants consigned to his tutelary skills. Das ist ein befehl.


It is not unlikely that at some point in the not too distant future Otto Bremsen may surface as a Facebook profile. Stern, unromantic, efficient, and an afficionado of classical music.
Ein kultivierter und gebildeter Mann.


I look like I need a riding crop.



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ALL THE CRISP LITTLE DETAILS

An excellent reason for that early morning walk with a pipe is sanity. The medical profession naturally does not see it that way; they appreciate the exercise -- good for circulation, stamina, and biological processes, keeps the old fossil trim -- as well as the stability and regularity that an early morning jaunt around the neighborhood represents. But they would prefer it if I did so without smoking. Not realizing that if I didn't have to go outside to smoke, I might not go outside at all. Not in the middle of winter. And although February in Northern California this year is remarkably semi-tropic, unlike the rest of the country where it's subzero and snowed under good lord we've seen the photos of backporches covered in snow including an unrecognizable lump which may be your barbecue OR a Canadian trucker hiding from the gazpacho police it's so sad someone should do something damned Democrats pray to Jesus Fox News Fox News Fox News forcrapsakes oh the humanity, early morning walkies with a pipe are normal, whereas early morning walkies without smoking aren't.

Besides. I'm quite insane shortly after waking up. Need my coffee and bloodpressure meds. Those two things, especially if kicked on track by a several block stroll with a pipe filled with Red Virginia, get the mental juices flowing, so that the crusty fossil, upon his return, is fully zip, zap, zip-zap-diddly-o awake. And capable of interacting like a civilized person with morning people like his apartment mate, who has come bounding out of her room fully human and filled with piss and vinegar, ready to fix herself breakfast and talk about Prince Andrew, vocalize for the small furry critters, encourage anarchic behaviour among them too.

She's been on about Prince Andrew for a while now. She's heavily Aspergers, so she'll hammer on a subject in depth until she knows way more about it than any normal human being, quite obsessively, and at great length. Unlike this blogger, for instance. I've only mentioned pipes and HK milk tea once or twice, and consequently those subjects are still fresh for my readers, and they still have great interest.

Prince Andrew, as you know, is a notorious British military pilot and pederast, boon companion of Jeffrey Epstein, associate of Clinton, Trump, Sheikh Abdullah, and everyone who flocked to Paradise Island, and pompous twat lying through his teeth in a 2019 interview which exposes his total prickishness and uppercrustian oh-so-superior-to-the-common-folk arrogance.


"I can't sweat, and I eat pizza"


For the past fortnight I've been hearing about Prince Andrew regularly. Her extensive reading keeps turning up new angles of royal war hero sleaze and rich and famous perversion, or new interpretive approaches. I'm rather sick and tired of it, and him -- just take him out and shoot him, fercrapsakes, guillotine the entire royal family -- and wish that upper class Englishmen would just stick to sodomy with sailors for their jollies. But a person with Aspergers never does anything lightly. I'll be hearing about this for many more months. At six in the morning.

Good college lecturers and people with severe Aspergers often have one characteristic in common: they'll explain a subject in clear and comprehensive detail. But it's not for your benefit; they're framing it and perspectivizing it verbally for their greater understanding.
You're just there as the sounding board.


The early walk is good. The pipe full of tobacco is a splendid excuse, as well as enjoyable, and nicotine has known benefits to cognition and mental acuity, as well as short term memory and retention. Plus it keeps me from hearing about Prince Andrew for the better part of an hour at a time of day when I need to avoid hearing about sleazy royal perverts most.



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SPIRALS OF GUNK

Well, it's over. All of you morons can stop screaming and celebrating your bowels now. Come down from your clouds and become human again. Sports has ended. For at least a while. "But", you will say, "only foreigners, unpatriotic people, and females, don't relish Football! It's un-American!" Oddly, most of the football fans I know are Trumpite traitors or dickwads.
I judge all of them by that standard.
And it's a stupid game.


Still, I suppose all of you needed an excuse for massive quantities of beer and pizza, now that Chuck E. Cheese has filed for bankruptcy. The animatronic rodent left the venues long ago and is now entertaining arthritic oldsters at retirement homes in Florida. Sort of a more modern version of Lawrence Welk. With teeth. You drown your childish sense of loss in suds.


Yesterday I cleaned up a score of Castellos, including some natural finish bowls. Today two pipes that an elderly man wishes restored so he can display them on his desk in Arizona took up a lot of time. They now draw again, and are smokeable. The meerschaum looks quite good. Altogether I've dealt with eight of his pipes. I find it strange that he never heard of cleaners in over five decades. His shitty draftholes were infinitely more engaging than a football game possibly could be. Drilling them out would have made thrilling television.

I can imagine the screaming fans.



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LITTLE CHICKEN PIE

Some conversations are just impossible. Meaning I could have said something, but wisely I refrained. Largely because any conversation with a random stranger that starts with "excuse me miss, your ... is visible" cannot end well. So I just pretended I didn't see that, and looked somewhere else. A large part of the problem was that, IF that sentence had been truly necessary, I didn't know in what language to say it in.

Cantonese, or English? What is a polite euphemism for ... in Cantonese? If English, do I know that she will understand? She was there with her Mom, who was buying pastries at the counter. She herself looked to be in her mid-twenties, but didn't say much. I was at the table enjoying a small chicken pie and a hot beverage (HK milk tea), which put me on eye level with very clean very stressed jeans which were far too baggy for so elfin a figure... and when she turned just ever so, I could tell that she was going commando.

So if I had said anything at all, it would've come out through a mouthful of pastry. Which is not a euphemism for anything at all.

It was a very good pastry.
Delicious!

...

Maybe she had chosen those pants deliberately?

Without knowing that the stressed part revealed quite so much. And a frontal view in the mirror would not have informed her of that. Clearly her mother had no clue either.

It could have been far worse. She looked like the type who would stand up on the bus and let some old person have a seat. You know, sitting on the bus is over-rated; it puts you on face level with any number of things. On a crowded bus I prefer to stand.


If she was unaware entirely, saying anything would have embarrassed her considerably. Even if, actually ESPECIALLY if, one had discretely taken her aside and whispered it in her ear.
Which ab initio would've looked skeevy and suspicious. "What did that kwailo want?"
"He told my that my ... was visible from certain angles." Yeah, um, no.


The Hong Kong style chicken pot pie is a lovely edible, and was an easy choice to make when I looked at the space where they normally keep their egg tarts and noticed that they had run out. Gong sik kai pai tong yat pui naai chaa (港式雞批同一杯奶茶).

The young woman and her mom wanted egg tarts. Having been assured that a new batch would come out of the oven soon, they waited. That bakery does very good egg tarts.

Ten minutes.

Uncle Stinky-Old-White-Guy is a consumate diplomat. He'll just compulsively read and re-read the little signs on the display case telling him what all those goodies are. Oooh, I haven't had a pork floss bun (肉鬆飽 'yiuk sung baau') in a while ... maybe next time.

That's not a euphemism either.



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OFFER ME ICECREAM!

Once you hit a certain age, and when you have gotten the attention of the medical folks, it's probably inevitable that your name and some personal data end up in the hands of companies looking for subjects or victims. On the one hand, that explains telephone calls from cities where I don't know a blessed soul -- I ignore those, because I always answer the same way when I pick up ("I do not need that thank you hanging up now bye") -- on the other hand, it also explains a letter wishing to enroll me in a cognitive impairment study.
It's a very nice letter. And there are inducements.
Freebies, giftgcards, swag.
Goodies!

Let me paraphrase it for you.


Dear Bonzo,

How's the old noggin' then? Are you gaga? Is your mind going? Or do you think it is? Have your friends told you that, or are they hiding the truth?
Are there times when you wonder about your slim grasp on sanity and sentience, and where you left your car keys? Do people avoid your calls?
We're doing a clinical study (which is actually market research) on folks who are elderly, foolish, and missing their marbles.

Scan this app to see if you are eligible!

Thanks!


Oh boy! I'm awfully tempted. I could have a lot of fun with this. Except I've never scanned an app in my life, and I'll probably lose the electric monitoring device they propose to send me.
As well as the instructions in clear simple English, the spare batteries, and the letter.
Please send me another. Does it also work on cats?


Thank you so much for thinking of me. I'm midly peeved about that.




Um, what was I on about? Oh yes, the important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time They didn't have any any white onions, because of the war.
The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones. Now, to take the ferry to Morganville, which is what Shelbyville was called back then, cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter," you'd say.





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GREAT WITH GRITS

All over the MAGA States, yokels are hiding from chilled Iberian mixed vegetable soup. But they should take comfort in the fact that it goes GREAT with grits. Just grit and bear it, Bubba. Now, I can well understand their fear. In the days before I had a blender, making it necessitated pressing the vegetable muck through a sieve two or three times -- it was essential that one use a bit of strength there - and one was tempted to just boil it all till soft, to make it easier.
But blenders have put it within everyone's reach.
Progress!

Tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic, olive oil. Dash of vinegar or squeeze of lime. Salt. Paprika. Pinch of cumin. In appearance the ever-threatening soup that results looks remarkably like the sauce for murgh makhni, which is also threatening, as well as a robust cream of tomato soup such as one might order at a "foreign" restaurant where they're familiar with canned foods.

Such a soup, if properly constructed, is a work of art.
But no matter how complex it is, it is not sentient.
Contrary to what Northwest Georgia thinks.
And it's splendid with some grits.


Needs a dash of tabasco.
A Yankee condiment.



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IT'S CARVED OUT OF AN ANKLE BONE!

And the good news is that I can be perfectly happy being sick in Chinese. Cardiology is either 心髒病學 ('sam jong beng hok') or 心臟內科 ('sam jong noi fo'). Short form: 心臟學 ('sam jong hok'), or, rarely, 心臟醫科 ('sam jong yi fo'). Cardiovascular disease is 心血管疾病 ('sam huet kun jat bing'), and high blood pressure 高血壓 ('gou huet ngaat'). High blood pressure can lead to coronary artery disease (冠狀動脈疾病 'kun jong dong mak jat beng') or strokes (中風 'jung fong'; 腦血管事件 'nou huet kun si kin'). Which are all terms that my cardiologist (心臟內科醫師 'sam jong noi fo yi si') is not entirely familiar with, because English is his native language, as well as the language in which he was medically trained.

Three years ago, before I stumbled into the clinic, I wasn't familiar with them at all. But seeing as the clinic was in Chinatown, I decided to turn being at death's door, as I was at that time, into an exciting adventure and a learning experience.
I am considerably better now.

You might say that I presently have an extended warranty on the flesh vehicle as well as a tune-up, and the adventure continues.



All of which leads directly to lunch. Black bean sauce dragon tongue fish with rice (豉汁龍脷飯 'si jap lung lei faan').

And a hot cup of milk tea. One should always have a bite to eat after a medical appointment; it's good for the soul. And the milk tea was highly necessary because it had been five hours since morning coffee. If I don't have enough caffeine in the system I turn into a beast.


During the inevitable mention of the dangers of smoking, I forgot to tell my cardiologist that without an occasional puff I'm a totally unbearable old fart. He probably doesn't need to know that, and he may just assume that all men meaningfully over forty are that way.

Still didn't use the carefully prepared speech about pipes. "Do you see this briar, youngster? It was with me during the North Africa campaign, Sicily, Rome, Burma. I carved it myself out of my batman's ankle after he bought the farm. It's the only thing I have that reminds me of him.
I have to smoke it regularly to keep his ghost alive!"

Nothing says to suffer the bad habits of old farts better than a boring and pointless anecdote. Anyhow, next cardiologist's appointment is in August, at which time I'll tie an onion to my belt, as was the style at the time. Not a white onion, because of the war, but a big yellow one .....


Lunch was very enjoyable. Including the seriously whacked old geezer having a fit while dining with his daughter. Quite as entertaining as the ancient fossil who looked like a cheerful version of Gollum telling his adult daughter that she was 'soh ge' (傻嘅) yesterday.


You know, with all these crotchetty old farts wandering around long past their expiry date because of modern medicine, the young have an awful lot to put up with. I feel for them.


足踝骨 ('juk waa gwat'): ankle bone.



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LOONIES BETWEEN POINT A AND POINT B

The point of today's exercise in self flagellation is that I must scurry out of the house pdq for my scheduled cardiologists appointment. Why on earth did I let them set it for nine thirty?
Was I out of my mind?!?

Possibly, yes.

It's not an unusual situation.


I often end up, in retrospect, realizing that decisions were not soundly based, and actions were tinged by a mental surreality. Nine thirty A.M.? Overweening self confidence. Of course I can be there at that time! I am a confident and capable man! I can do this!


Idiot.


Afterwards, lunch in chinatown. Followed by a smoke, and various errands. I do not particularly like mornings. A doctor's appointment at SFCH would be doable, it's mere blocks away. The cardiologist works at a different institution, and an arduous trek is necessary.
Two buses, plus wait times, and walking.




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CHARSIU: A SIGN OF CIVILIZATION

A while back one of my friends described heading home from school one day with a few of his classmates and, on a complete whim, stopping at a roast meats shop in Central. Then happily sitting on the curb scarfing down charsiu and rice. It was utterly delicious! Years later his parents sent him to the United States to get an education.
To an environment where there was no charsiu.
Somewhere in the vast interior.

Several years of hard work and arduous living followed.


When I came back to the United States for college, I experienced something similar. Berkeley at that time did not have much in the way of food. Oh sure, Chez Panisse, Peets, and The Cheese Board were there, and for several golden years Cocolat, but the place was already turning into a puritanical food ghetto filled with Guatamalan wheatgrass and artisanal tofu boutiques -- alleviated by fondu, Top Dog (fondly remembered), and Blondie's Pizza -- but spices where hard to come by, as the silk road ended a few thousand miles east of there.
And Venetian merchants didn't venture that far.

So, um, I can relate.


Everything I needed (except groene haring) could be found in SF Chinatown. As well as people who did not make rude comments about my accent, assume that I was British, or tell me to go back where I came from. That last is one of my most enduring memories of life in the East Bay. From my point of view, everything between Treasure Island and Manhattan is the outback and filled with howling cannibals. You may have noticed the occasional negative comment about the bush here, as well as a slight distaste. Oh, the negativity!

Sorry about all that. I love my fellow Americans.


Well, food then. Let's talk about food.

One of the things that says 'cosmopolitan' and connected in some way to the civilized world is the existence of a Chinatown, where ingredients and prepared edibles can be found that don't involve utilizing a can opener.

Cantonese roast meats, for instance. Like charsiu pork.

A nice plate of barbecued fatty meat and rice goes a long way to making a city feel like home. And pretty much every place where I can get that also has Sriracha hot sauce on the table, or sambal oelek by the same manufacturer. Nothing beats a good lunch, a hot cup of milk tea, and a copy of the New York Times (or similar liberal print media) for a civilized lazy afternoon. On a warm day with NO snow or hurricanes.

One of the other great things about San Francisco is that many Americans here know where Europe is, and can find it on a map, whereas in Berkeley people think it's somewhere in Denmark, and right next to Disney Land.


The East Bay: wheatgrass and soy milk cappuccinos.
The interior: McDonald's Mc Café.
Plus corndogs.



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