THAT LIKE BERGAMOT?

You will no doubt be pleased to know that what I had for lunch today did not include lettuce, or jalapeños, or beef, or frozen blueberries, or cheese, or radishes, prepackaged corn, salad mix, sprouts of any kind, or, for that matter, anything from Texas. So I am just not destined to loose weight fast and get down to my ideal pre-diabetic weight of less than three hundred pounds, the target for all Americans in the Deep South and Midwest.

Also, I am not in the Deep South or the Midwest.
Or Texas, where everyone is supersized.
Don't have diabetes either.

At night when I'm asleep I hear huge Texan behemoths lumbering past my window on the way to their mating grounds to die. The horror, the horror. Must be at least six hundred pounds of rabid bovine-weasel-karentype each, wearing deep grooves in the trail.


All the rest of you are blessed with good chances of getting salmonella, escherichia coli, or listeriosis, plus fluoxetine and 2,4-dinitrophenol, which will help y'all firm up, slim down, and shed the pounds. It's better than diet pills. You lucky bastards.
Gram‑positive, rod‑shaped bacteria.
Mmmmm.

Enjoy your lumps of charred flesh!

And don't forget to consume lots of liquids. Stomach flu and food poinsoning, while being all-American, can lead to serious dehydration. As well as miscarriages and electrolyte imbalances. You don't want to get sick on the way to a slimmer you.


Herr Doktor Hubert Goubert had descended to Dong Wu (東吳帝國 'tung 'ng tai gwok') with his capable assistant the witch Aunt Gwan (actually a graduate student at the Technische Universität Warschau), and both had a good breakfast of wheat noodles with red stew pork in broth, as well as dumplings (九菜湯餃 'gau choi tong gaau'). Not being proficient in Chinese, Goubert wondered why the numeral 'nine' was in the name of the latter dish, not realizing that it sounds the same as 'chives'.

Tomorrow, they would look for the linden tree, the larch, and the ancient mulberry.
In the meantime, because of the tropic downpour, perhaps a smoke.
Him: Flake in an old briar. Her: slim refined fags.
A faint hint of tangerine peel.
貴煙，陳皮爆珠。


After lunch I stepped out and lit up. It's a bit cold out there, but perfect weather for a pipe. Early company era Barling, script stamping and four digit shape number, possibly by Oppenheimer (1970 - 1977) rather than Nørding (after 1977, till 1980).
It was remarkably quiet at Portsmouth Square.
No locals, no tourists.



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HE'S OLD AND PERHAPS HE WON'T NOTICE

Having got up late I forewent the usual stroll around the neighborhood with an early morning pipe, figuring that with the resident non-smoker having already gone off to work there was no need to look at people bathroom walking their dogs or children out there in the grey bleakity of early Autumn on Nob Hill. The fog over the bridge had been dense yesterday evening, and late last night there were whisps of goth evident for two or three blocks away in any direction. Quite lovely. I've heard that the rest of the country where all the Magats live is experiencing higher than average temperatures, which probably accounts for a lot, but here in a narrow strip of civilization the weather is quite nice.

So. Sneck her bedroom door. Pop a few windows for ventilation. Make coffee and stroll into the teevee room with the first cup for some doomscrolling and a smoke to start the day.


Irrespective of when I get up, part of the morning routine is (in precise order) Atorvastatin 80 mg., Aspirin 81 mg., Metoprolol Succinate Extended Release 25 mg., Losartan HCTZ 100-25 mg., and Xarelto (Rivaroxaban) 2.5 mg., plus a few supplements.
This may be part of why when I asserted yesterday evening that I was still young and vibrant my apartment mate hooted, and counter-claimed that I was a gangled old fossil. But at this moment I can safely say, without fear of contradiction (because she is at work right now), that I am still young, vibrant, and amazingly buff oh my golly yes.
Quite springy and life-like!

The turkey vulture, whom I encountered sitting in the teevee room with two 50 gramme tins of G. L. Pease pipe tobacco which he "found" will not disagree. Probably because he hopes that I do not notice that he's sitting on my wallet. Which is his. Because it was lost, and crying out for its mommy. In the sheer kindness of his heart he adopted and comforted it. The bond between wallet and parent is sacred, dammit, will no one think about the children?


All over this country, proud American parents are sitting on their children, to keep them cool and properly hydrated in the awful commie heat they're having. Don't I know anything?

Our great president, to lower the price of carrion and to keep all the little Christian children from overheating, renamed that great body of water, which is ours, and people all over the country keep saying what a great inland sea it is they've never seen anything like it!
It will cool down loyal patriots for generations in a victory over cheating illegals.

Truly he's the greatest president that ever lived and ever will be.
Now we'll paint the bottom American-flag blue.
It will be much cooler then.

Covfefe!

No, the turkey vulture is not a stupid Trumpite or a thieving Republican. He's just an opportunist with no morals, and he wants my wallet.



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FIRE IN THE MONKEY HOUSE

The day started with counting fentanyl addicts on Van Ness while waiting for the Golden Gate Transit bus. And their dogs. It ended chasing elderly delinquents out of the back room where they had loudly been discussing bestiality, gay pornography, and midgets. Matters about which they may have considerable knowledge and expertise.
Possibly hands-on experience.

Which brought the wise advise of an orthodox rabbi from the pre-war period to mind. The Sfas Emes advises that you yourself choose what enters your ears and eyes, and it is therefore up to you to ignore certain things.

So I still know next-to-nothing about those subject matters.
And I count myself extremely lucky in that regard.

I am too young for any of this.


There are times when I have to shout back there "hey you dumb nasty-asses, keep it clean, dammit, there are sensitive people on the premises!" Leaving it entirely up to them to guess what that might mean. Women? Children? Parish priests?

Sometimes it's like a frat house there.

So anyhow I'm off work for the next few days, which will help me regain or rebuild my sanity. Good food (either my own cooking or something across the hill in Chinatown), strictly rational company (San Francisco residents whom I know), a modicum of caffeinated beverages, and pipes smoked in quiet places without the noise of rancid old farts screaming filth and provable nonsense at each other.

And also, lots of reading. Herr Doktor Hubert Goubert traveling through the interior of Wan State (皖國 'wun kwok'; Anhui), charting certain deciduous trees and eating surprisingly well, though assiduously avoiding stinky tofu. Pork dumplings, roast geese and ducks. There are some dishes there which while unique are less than universally appealing. Often he spends several hours repairing his mosquito nets, because he is fastidious and neurotic.
Mosquito-borne ailments, eruptive fevers, as well as wasting diseases.


It must be hard to spend several months away from modern pharmacies, tobaconists, and cafés near universities and research institutes in the civilized part of the world: Warsaw.



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THERE ARE DUCKS!

In complete contrast to yesterday when I woke up with noodles in my head, this morning it was duck dreaming. Imagine a montane city along the sloping sides of a gorge, with ducks in the shallows just beyond the river's edge, as well as wandering along the lower streets. After the rice paddies have been semi-drained there is less for them to eat, but they are still young and plump and happy. And tender.

So naturally, roast duck. High heat after a little brining and marinating. Then chunk-chopped and arranged beautifully on a platter, or simply plonked on top of your bowl of warm rice with a splash of sweet-savoury-picante jus. If you are from the Wu speaking region you might prefer the chunks with wheat noodles in a savoury broth. Breakfast of champions.


Perhaps, if there are three or four of you meeting for breakfast before heading over to the archeologic survey offices for work, also a nice steamed fish with ginger shreds and slivered black mushroom briefly seethed in the hot duck fat, with a drizzle of black vinegar over the plated carp. It emphasizes the sweetness of the flesh.

After which you all head out to the veranda of the restaurant several stories above the river, to smoke your pipes under the deep overhanging roof. Professor Zhang smuggled in some nice tins in from Germany, quality Virginia flake.

Need to make sure that we have a pound or two Guangzhou's finest coffee.
And a supply of sambal. It's essential!
Locally made also good.

There are no restaurants overlooking the river which serve roast duck for breakfast in this neighborhood, it being San Francisco. Instead, there's a donut shop. Donuts, as everybody knows, are something we Dutch Americans invented to give all you Anglos early diabetes.
Because you lot have no self-control whatsoever.


It's a sore lack.


This morning on the way to work I passed three crack-smokers at one bus stop (auntie and uncle on their way to Chinatown waited safely several yards away from them), and over on Van Ness there were a few people opposite, in the inverted U fentanyl pose. You know, that stance where the body might topple forward, slump entirely down, or fall sideways in either direction. Drugs for breakfast. Very Trump-era.

Yes, I would far rather have an eatery on a slope.
It was nicely foggy, drifting mists.
Quack!



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LATE NIGHT NOODLES

Through quite explicable circumstance I ended up reading about Southwestern Mandarin, Commissioner Lin (林則徐 lam jak cheui), and life in small inland cities, during the middle of the night. I had woken up for the usual old man reason (bathroom), and before going back to sleep had gone onto the internet. A humid subtropical monsoon climate (not here), and a military and vivilian prefectoral administrative office beckoned.
As, naturally, they do. At two in the night.

No, there were no indications of malarial fever or poinsonous miasmas. This wasn't some thousand year old travel account by an official sent to die on the tropic frontiers among the headhunters and tattooed savages (today's Thais and Burmese), or rebellious Annamites.

Damned natives have attacked the out-posts again.
We must oranize a punitive expedition!
Settle them most firmly.


Still left to look-up: What do they eat? Are there any local gustatory specialties of note? Something interesting with noodles, pork, and spicy pickled vegetables?


Obviously, so far inland seafood dishes are NOT the thing.
Perhaps something with river fish.
Upstream crustacean.

And now, naturally, I'm thinking about broad ribbon pasta with spicy bean sauce, dry shrimp, and chopped long beans, for breakfast. Jigger of hot broth to make it slurry-saucy.
Pinch sugar. Garnish with fresh chives and crumbled peanuts.


邊境麵 ('pin king min'): spicy frontier noodles. Broad wheatflour noodles cooked al dente, dressed with chopped long beans, douban jiang (豆瓣醬), rehumidified dry shrimp (蝦米 'haa mai'), a little garlic, splash of stock, small jigger dark vinegar, dash soy sauce. A little sugar added near the end of cooking. Chopped chives and crushed toasted peanuts.
Chili flakes strewn over for colour and flavour.


The chopped long beans are in there because I bought some recently on Stockton Street.

But as a non-breakfast eater, I'm not planning to cook anything.
Although I assure you that if needed I could.

Just coffee for the nonce.



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DRUCQUER'S RECOLLECTION

The other day, probably yesterday, a reader and fellow pipesmoker left a comment in my letterbox which probably would not interest anyone other than a pipesmoker. Sadly, they did not leave their name or any contact data, so I cannot respond to them directly. Mention was made of Drucquer's, a famous tobacco store which has been out of business for three decades.

CITE:
"Off topic blast from the past: I am just about finished with what may well be my last 8oz of 805 and reached into my cabinet for something else rare, special, and old and found a 4oz tin of Drucquer and Sons stamped “1265". Any idea what that might be? I think I bought it on Solano Avenue after Drucquer’s moved there from University where (pretty sure) you and I worked. Don’t know how to reach you directly but thought I would ask and also mention that I have enjoyed your BLOG on and off over the years."
END CITE

The easiest way to reach me directly is that letterbox. If you include your e-mail adress, it will never be published. I'll read and and note down the contact information, then trash the comment for your privacy. And I will respond to you.

Your writing had me going through a box underneath two other boxes, because I had several tins of Drucquer's tobacco in there, unopened for over four decades.

Including these three beauties:

TWO ITERATIONS OF BLEND 805, ONE OF ARCADIA

There is nothing in his note which tells me who it is. So I'm baffled. Did we work together? If so, let me very belatedly apologize for being a complete asshole in those years, as I was, as well as undiplomatic and uncouth. I am ashamed of being a rather unpleasant person back then. I do not like what I was. But I think I have improved. Although also gotten worse.

Again, leave your contact info, and please introduce yourself. I do not still know many people from that era, and any attempt to trace George Walter, for instance, whom you probably also remember, has come a cropper. It looks like he passed away over a decade ago. Don is still somewhere in the East Bay, Pauline may have moved to Seattle, Cara has dropped out of sight entirely, and Robert is somewhere in the foothills, having been a winemaker of some note for many years. And I heard he had a bout of cancer a while back.
I've lost pretty much all contact with them.


For other readers: Blend 805 was a full-strength English, fifty percent Latakia, twenty five percent Turkish (Djubec), and the rest three different blending Virginias which are almost certainly no longer available, though approximations can be found with some searching.
I suspect that one of those Virginias was aged or steam-treated.
All the hippest with-it people smoked 805.

Back when we stil had onions tied to our belt.
As was the style at the time.


Please drop me a line.



AFTER THOUGHTS:

Block Brothers, which provided a number of blending tobaccos, was sold to US Tobacco in 1980 or so, and their quality went down the tubes, so other suppliers necessarily had to be found. The choice of leaf, and kickstarting enzymatic, bacterial, and yeast conversion of starches to sugars is key, and takes more time, than simply doctoring the tobacco with chemicals and cooking. No. 1265 was one of the last blends Drucquer's developed.
I'm guessing that it may have been an English-Balkan.
Cook's No. 5 was in the vein 0f 805.


By that time many very interesting aromatics had come onto the market that smelled for all the world like a pharmacy and a candy shop had mated and produced a Rosemary's baby.
These all became undeservedly very popular.
Sick bastards.



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ENRICHED WITH HYDROCORTISONE

Whenever I get off the bus at Grant and Clay I start counting 'boolas' (a person from Hawaii will automatically know what I mean). There are things which have to be counted; robot-taxis, dogs, tykes, familiar faces, street people, markedly insane folks, and, in Chinatown, boolas. It's sort of an obsession with oversize Americans. Because I am a cruel person with very little sympathy for people who drown their sorrows in carbonated beverages, fatty snacks, and corn-derived sweeteners. Which is seemingly the entire South and Midwest.

It's entirely unjudgemental, though. Oh look, there goes a whale. Who will probably have a heart-attack before hitting fifty, and deplete the world's supply of injectable insulin as well as discount supermarket sheetcake before then.

Do not feed the whales.

And I can understand how they get that way. Mmm, fatty snacks!
Say it slowly, languourously. Drawl it, oh sensuous word.
American civilization was built on fatty snacks.


As well as cynical advertising. "To maintain your girlish figure, reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet." The box of bon-bons in that picture was lovingly photographed. Luscious confection, or the acrid taste of burning leaves? Hard choice. The words "it's toasted" sealed the deal. You'd probably walk a mile for that yummalicious toasty flavour.

Waddle waddle waddle.

During the tourist months Chinatown is filled with people who did not retain their girlish figure but stole the box of bon-bons, ripping it savagely out of the trembling hands of an orphan to gobble it down post-haste with unseemly lip-smackety sounds. Somewhere some scrawny tyke on the cusp of death is weeping into her pillow over the loss. It was her last box! She had been saving it for her mommy who needed an operation! The heartache is palpable!

Did you know that if you put a sheetcake between two slices of bread it's a sandwich?
Here in San Francisco you can use sourdough. We're famous for that.
Bring some back for the folks in Podunk.


Over twenty boolas on the street yesterday in Chinatown. This is why you should avoid the main drag, one of them slows down an entire block of pedestrians. I walked in traffic on my way to the restaurant, because even though the blood circulation in the lower extremities is far from optimal, and I carry a blackthorn stick with me to gently poke at obstructions, there were slow-moving tourists everywhere gliding beatifically from one window display to the next. Even my legs are faster. A purposeful stride by comparison.

I like boolas. They make me feel good about myself.

Smoked a pipe afterwards filled with aged Virginias. Then did my shopping. Including a bunch of longans (龍眼 'lung ngaan'; dimocarpus longan, a tropical fruit) for my Indonesian Chinese downstairs neighbor. Plus substances preventative of Hong Kong foot (香港腳 'heung gong keuk'; tinea pedis), which, in hotter weather, takes out whole swathes of the country, leaving them bedbound with nothing but sheetcake sandwiches for sustenance in their suburban ranch houses with the two-car garage, from May till October. It's sad.

Here in San Francisco it is a mild risk from 'back to school' till Halloween (our Valentine's Day). And a good boy scout should always be prepared.
One must take care of one's health.


A tube of anti-itch cream for dry skin is also useful.
Especially when it gets near seventy degrees.
Moisturizers, and aloe.
66°F, sunny.


It's sweltering, man, sweltering.




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IT'S NOT JUST THE CHILDREN

There are MAGA-ites who propose banning all vaccines, because they are poison and there hasn't been a polio problem since, say, 1960 0r 1961. So why? This was right after the article discussing how our college students are testing at grammar school levels. Many Americans are damaging their health by taking supplements, having done their own research. Some people are outraged that Panda Express isn't real Chinese food. And a group of concerned parents have prayed for divine guidance over which books to ban for filth, immorality, and insuitability.

You know something? Americans are stupid as frog.
And when I say frog, I don't mean frog.
At least not actual frog.

That's something a Christian probably couldn't figure out.

I am one of the exceptionally few people I've met who can actually "do my own research", and is fully qualified to draw my own conclusions afterwards. Except that my people call that "reading". Which many Americans are incapable of doing at higher than a single-digit level.

We are surrounded by frogs. Mental frogs.
Real frogs are likable. Not these.

As a country, we are amplexed. Big time.

Book banning, Christianity, and "doing one's own research" are most widespread in the red states, as you would probably guess, along with diabetes, liver disease, obesity, and infant mortality. Basically, Mad Max with humidity, mosquitoes, and chiggers.

Unfortunately, those froggers vote. Which explains Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, Mike Johnson, Ron De Santis, Lindsey Graham (rumoured to be deceased, not provably so), Mitch McConnell, Tommy Turberville, and a host of other ignorant incompetents.


Libraries are froggin' useless there.
Single-digit reading levels.
Bless their hearts.



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BUT EXCELLENT LIGHTING

Any dream that features a restaurant in Holland winning a French culinary award is, ab initio and by definition, off-kilter. Especially if it's a vegan steak house. Now that part is believable, as the Dutch are goofy enough to think that that is a good idea. Dutch cooking is marked by unidentifiable fried objects, many of which are in fact delicious. Like the frikandel, various types of kroket, and things like bamischijven, nasiballen, and berenhappen.
Please don't ask.

There's also Indonesian Dutch food.
Which is also delicious.
Far less goofy.


And we have cheese and herring.


Sadly, none of any of that was on the menu at the restaurant this afternoon, so I ordered stirfried river noodles with chicken (雞炒米粉 'kai chaau mai fan, "bihun goreng ayam") instead, which I dolled-up with sambal and chili oil.

A swords, sorcery, and taoist sages with impossible facial hair series was on teevee, featuring a handsome young man, a pretty girl, and a green dumpling daemon.
Plus a well-lit library deep under the mountain top temple.

Lunch was good. A little too greasy. Probably to keep the broad rice sticks from sticking to the pan. There's a doggie bag in the refrigerator right now. I'll probably add a fried egg and some slivered ginger. I would add fresh Jalapeños, except that because our agribusiness is now operating on libertarian principles and policing itself, those are now unsafe.
Along with eggs, beef, blueberries, lettuce, and probably many more.
I'll take my chances on the damn' eggs.

Probably no eggs available locally are from the Midwest or Texas.

Basically, if your food doesn't come from California, you're playing Russian Roulette with your meals. The rest of the country is a filthy unclean toxic hazard zone where Mad Max runs the farm, with anything Texan probably guaranteed to send you to the crapper or a hospital.


The bookseller's bus was a little late, and I had already finished my pipe over twenty minutes before he showed up. Normally it's a bit earlier. The burger place was not crowded, his food arrived with speed, and the less said about the house wine the better.

The karaoke joint had people acting ugly white inside, and the former bail-out bar was doing last call as we passed. We went directly to the third bar. The bail-out from the bail-out, as it were. Where there was something mean but beautiful on teevee.

Almost unnoticed, an incident outside required three cop cars and an ambulance.
I rather wish I had seen much more of it than I did.
No clue what had happened.


Much like everything I saw on teevee.



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THE HEART OF THE BEATING CITY

If I don't watch myself I will spend the entire morning wasting time by cleaning up the rim of this Sutliff briar pipe (an elegant billiard that has seen much abuse), just frittering away the hours with sandpaper and microfibre pads. Which, as you understand, is inimical to actually getting things done. This is one reason why when I start collecting my Social Security old-geezer payments every month I shall not actually retire, just work one day less. One must stay active. Lest one become a cabbage, as so many of the fellows I babysit over in Marin have done. Mental garbage dumps unable to accept change, incapable of dealing with the modern world.

Beware the lurking of changes. They are out there.
I am not fond of change. Don't much mind either.

This essay was penned on a device which could not have existed decades earlier, when we still did all of our computations on our thumbs and communicated by throwing rocks at each other. Carrier pigeons had not been invented yet.


Without change, many of us would be dead. More than there already are.
In about three weeks I'm having an MRI scan.
Medical routine.

That Sutliff was made back in the forties or fifties at the latest. Unlike a few of my other Sutliff pipes I cannot discern any flaws, fills, or defects. The previous owner just didn't respect his smoking equipment very much, and like many men in that era treated his pipes worse than his shoes or family members. Your great grandfather is still paying off an enormous debt for years of psychological counseling necessitated by that kinder gentler age. They're the people who elected Ronald Reagan, which is one reason why you cannot afford to buy a house now. Defective individuals.


Their descendants are currently doing the fentanyl inverted 'U' pose over on Van Ness at the far ends of the bus stop platforms where they won't be disturbed (or tipped over) in their comatose state. Equally flawed, but with a different approach to "dealing with it".

There were three of them there this morning. Unlike the tweaking speed freaks of a previous generation they're quiet and don't bother anyone. If the drug stupour is good, they'll be there for nearly an hour, occasionally swaying a bit, mostly motionless. Sometimes one of them does not wake up and has to be carted off. Change is good.


Old briar. New man.



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MENTAL ATTIC SPACE

They are not related. But they occupied thought room at the same time. Tonnes of Argentine beef of extremely dubious quality allowed into the country as a Trump publicity stunt (it was rejected by the PRC over half a year earlier as horribly unfit for human consumption), the French language (having flunked French in high school, I now think that I should learn it), post-transition Barling pipes (script stamping, no apostrophe s), and Pok Fu Lam Reservoir (薄扶林水塘, built in 1863). You can see that there is nothing that logically ties these thing together. Other than the head they were in.

It's a perfectly normal head.

The beef situation: Argentine beef (which probably goes well with ketchup) is widely known to be heavily contaminated with the antibiotic chloramphenicol, which can cause bone marrow failure, aplastic anemia, gray baby syndrome, nerve damage, leukemia, digestive issues, and diarrhea, plus several other medical problems. It's basically a sweetheart deal to boost Trump's ally Milei at the expense of American consumers. And by the way, the meat in question might have been slaughtered a year ago, or more. Bon appétit, dummies.


For a number of years I did not do well at French, which was a required subject. Had I known it would piss off the rightwing hosebags, I would have studied harder. "Ces produits de bœuf ne doit pas être consommé par personne mais à part les résidents du parc de maisons mobiles aux États-Unis."

Of course there's no way in hell that beef has a reliable hechsher.
And it sure ain't halal either. Just saying.

Anyway, your chances of food poisoning, after a year and a half of la nouvelle régime, are pretty much astronomical now. Congratulations, my fellow Americans.
Sudden hospitalizations may be your future.

And good luck trying to sue.


The post transition Barling needed some serious clean-up work, but other than rim-scorching and gunk it was in excellent condition. The shape was too conservative for the original owner to be seriously buggered-up by over use and abuse over the years. It has a slightly Danish look to it. Good briar.

Shape number 4189, a Lovatt.
Elegant.


Yeah, I can't explain Pok Fu Lam. Just something stuck in my head on the Western side of Hong Kong Island. Typhoons, rain, lush greenery.



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DOES IT GLOW?

Every time I look out to the right in the teevee room in the morning, it appears that there is fog at the tops of tall buildings on the hill, probably more so because of the slanted blinds. The silvery white-grey of the sky as filtered through thin lines of light. That, combined with the current temperature outside make it perfect pipe-smoking weather. So naturally I waited with bated breath for my non-smoking apartment mate to leave for the office, anxiously listening for the apartment door to close and lock ... then padding over to the front hall to hear the front door of our building click shut behind her.

I have snecked her bedroom door. There are open windows.
I am ready, but I'm holding off for a while.
Can't decide which pipe to load.

All of which contributes to my happiness about living in San Francisco and sneering apathy about the suffering in vast areas of the rest of the country. Everytime I read news items that mention places like Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, or Texas, it is crystal clear to me that those regions and their semi-sentient denizens suck bollocks big time, AND they're experiencing horrible weather. Deservedly.

We are not all in this together. Those guys voted for Trump.
So we can never trust the bastards again.
Let them burn.

And eat tainted beef, blueberries, and lettuce. Like they're living in a post-apocalyptic future set in a Chipotle franchise. Mad Max snarfing barf burritos. And their little dogs too.


Today, I think, I shall drink tea and dance among the wildflowers.


Drought conditions persist across Texas, along with elevated heat, and no relief in sight. The situation is dire. So I imagine that yokels wearing ten gallon hats are holding revival meetings where evolution and liberalism are loudly excoriated and minorities hanged in effigy, in vain hopes that a merciful loving all-white Jesus will accept their sincere prayers and save them. Really, I have no idea what goes on down there, and all I get are snippets of news that indicate that they're all idiots in Texas. Brain-dead syphilitic inbreds.

Nothing even suggests that I might be wrong.

Abbott, Cruz, Paxton.



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NAMELESS CANADIAN

When I returned home she was in her room reading. She asked, as I passed by her doorway, if I knew anything about futures trading. Nope. "I'm reading this book about it, and somebody just got murdered." Oh. While I was in the kitchen putting on the kettle, she hollered "now there's a second dead person". It doesn't sound, to me, that there's much future there.
I mean, neither stiff will have much of one.

It also sounds like futures trading may not be what that book is really about.

Although it may be all about Wall Street. Accurately so.

People get whacked there all the time.


Yesterday after coming home I got to hear about the church where she, a complete atheist, volunteers. Good cause and all that, defective people, and dead mice, very small corpses.
I hope she mentions all that to her brothers the next time there's a family luncheon.
I'm sure they'll love it. "See, our little sister has a rich full life, so lucky!"

I myself have never been to any of those get-togethers, but I believe that all of her siblings are engineers, so I'm guessing everyone is somewhere on the spectrum. As are several people with whom I deal at work, but those folks are almost all from the era when no one actually knew what a spectrum was. And they all used to have an onion tied to their belt.
As was the style at the time.

One of them passed away recently. So he wasn't there today.
Baruch dayan ha emes. A very decent fellow.
Still had all of his marbles.

All in all it was a remarkably peaceful day, no not because the decendent was justifiably absent. The bald degenerate who lost most of his marbles decades ago wasn't there. The insane Irish Turmpite wasn't there. The retired member of the judicial branch who always complains in a strident whiney tone wasn't there. John who takes much too long to pee right when I need to kick him out (I always harangue him about his narrow urethra, slow bladder, and benign prostate enlargement), the coke-snorting fiend, the snooty religious nut, and the crusty old New York rightwinger weren't there. Just a smoothpated real-estate broker, and a former restaurant supplier long since retired. So the Punjabi troublemaker had no one to argue with, and didn't say much.

I'm guessing they didn't want to watch the losingest team in sports.
Richard said to me that one must support the home team.
Knowing full well that I would sneer at that.
Bah humbug, y'all, bah humbug.



Started off the day at work smoking a nicely sized sandblast Canadian filled with Cornell & Diehl tobacco. The stamping has worn to the point that it's illegible, darn well invisible. English made, old piece, damned fine smoker. Had it restemmed recently.
It's a very handsome pipe. Something an engineer would love.
Looks practical and no nonsense. Sober proportions.
Something a responsible man would own.



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NO FATTY THIGHS!

To the very great disappointment of the stuffed turkey vulture loudly vocalizing in the other room, I did not bring back any fatty inner thighs from work in Marin. Indeed, I would not have minded sacrificing one (or more) of the old rightwing bastards, but we do not have a tarp at work, and a bled-out corpse on the premises would have prompted questions. Saying that he just spontaneously exploded from all the pent-up bigoted bile and de-thighed himself in the process wouldn't work. So no.

Sorry, little dude. There are no fatty inner thighs.
And don't even think of coming to work.
We aren't licensed for carrion.


Yeah officer, his inner thighs flew of and that ripped his femoral arteries.
Just like that! Perhaps an alien tractor beam malfunctioned.
It couldn't have happened to a nicer man.
We have none of those here.


Actually, we often do. The neurosurgeon was in early today, but left before noon, having done what he needed and wanting to clear out before the crypto Nazis and the Jewish Democrat in name only arrived. Two hours of bitch-wife inspired ranting.
There's a lot of that in some Marin social circles.

Maybe wives in Marin have fatty inner thighs, possibly clenched in their taloned grips. It would by no means surprise me if some of those psychotic suburban women intend to harvest the still warn corpses for spare parts to sell on the black market.
There's one in every gated community.

Sharks, wasps, piranhas.
Soccer moms.


One Punjabi was in, an intelligent one, as well as an engineering student.
Also the cancer researcher whose medicine got approved.
So yes, there were nicer men there.
No tractor beams.



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SMOKY AROUND THE EDGES

Lunch was excellent. I had not been there in a while, there have been some changes. There's a young fellow working there now who speaks better Cantonese than some of his kinfolk, don't know how he is on Mandarin, but Vietnamese and English are probably pretty good too. The hours are still Covid-era weird. I found out the other day that the bookseller likes one of the same dishes at the Vietnamese restaurants that he frequents as I do at mine: barbecued pork spring rolls rice vermicelli (燒豬肉春捲米粉 'siu chyu yiuk chun kuen mai fan').

Where ever you have it, it will be slightly different. This version has slightly less rice vermicilli than the other two places I've gone to in Chinatown. There's a fourth Viet place I also visit, but I don't think I've had it there, and the key thing is the slightly charred pork.
Accompanied by drip-coffee, followed after leaving by a pipe.
The bookseller does not smoke.


The elderly auntie that runs the place has probably gotten used to the Chinatown habit of addressing women colloquially as "pretty gir" (靚女 'leng neui'), which I have rather avoided, as to my ear it seems too familiar, and what with being male and white it could conceivably be taken amiss, especially if it was relatively accurate. But most often the woman in question is at the very least comfortably in her thirties and forties or even far beyond that, so usually it is polite hyperbolic flattery. When someone is younger than sixty I prefer to say miss (小姐 'siu je'), or older than forty, auntie (阿姨 'a yi'). There are, of course, other terms. It can be a fine-tuned approach, as many terms of address imply a theoretical kinship status.

Four languages were in play yesterday, which is something not particularly out of the ordinary in this city, given that we're not in the middle of the hinterland. English, of course, when boarding the bus. After which Dutch and Indonesian, then Dutch again till Chinatown, then Cantonese. The little old Indo woman on the bus, who has a sister living in Amsterdam, was heading over to a Thai restaurant for dinner, so she headed through the tunnel after getting off. We'll probably encounter each other again sometime soon.

Terms of address in Indonesian are an entirely different kettle of fish. When combined with Dutch Indonesian and Indo Dutch there are also gradations. And yes, Thai food does taste rather like home too. That's very important.



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KEENLY APPRECIATIVE

If you've read a number of my essays on this blog you will undoubtedly be quite aware of my sensitivity and finely tuned appreciation of the finer things in life. Culinaria, artistic endeavors, and lyrically unflattering descriptions of members of the Republican Party verging on epic poetry, veering into calumnial hymns and paeons. It's beauty.
Anyhow, I am a very sensitive man.


You can stop laughing now.


For the past few days, Sydney Fylbert, the turkey vulture who lives in the chamber next door, has been singing his own praises to the tune of 'Ode To Joy', as channeled by my apartment mate. Alternated with a happy aria about juicy inner thighs grilled to perfection, that being an intellectual conceit, because he's actually never had them.

It just keeps getting better and better.

When properly channeled.

Artistic.


There was that time a while back when I accidentally saw her resting in bed happily tweaking to Madonna, so I have my doubts on occasion about her musical tastes. She also went through a long phase of fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan. Again, doubts.

Plus there was a passion for jazz, so I've been spared the worst. Life is merciful. And seeing as I myself can't sing for diddly, can't even hold a damned tune, you can judge accordingly. No one wants me to channel joyous song for anybody, not even a carrion-lusting stuffed creature with dubious judgement.

So I have no idea whether it's art or madness.
Let's go with art. This is Sparta.



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AN IMAGINARY WORLD

While wandering around the top of the hill with my pipe, after a cup of coffee, it struck me that San Francisco does not have enough Dutchmen. That is to say Dutch-speaking citizens of the modern world with a few bad habits, like smoking, swilling hot beverages, sneering at rightwing putzes, and being voracious readers. With deep and broad knowledge of geography and history. Jovial sorts, but not really extroverted.
As well as very Cathollic culinary tastes.

Well, the rest of the world doesn't have that either, but that's their problem.

At one place it struck me that that location would be perfect for an Amsterdammish cafe, at another that a typical Dutch Indonesian restaurant would be perfect there. An antiquarian bookstore beside a shop with curiosities. And a "lees-cafe" next door, meaning a place that sold hot beverages, some soft drinks, a small selection of distilled products, with one or two very long well lit-tables, back issues of periodicals and scientific journals, and a wall of filled bookshelves. Also another place with tables and rattan chairs out back under an awning, with ashtrays, sheltered from prying eyes and the wind, where one could smoke one's pipe while reading the daily feuilleton.

Yes, women allowed too, of course, not just grumpy Dutchmen. But absolutely no public flirting. How couples are formed and the process that goes into that should be private.
We're not Anglos, for heaven's sake. No snogging!

Naturaly one or two small well-stocked grocery stores where one could purchase all the essentials for civilized living. Good bread. Real cheeses. A selection of sambals, atjars, and mustards. Kewpie mayonnaise (good on your frites). Chocolate milk that tastes Dutch, not chemical. A variety of bottled fruit juices, European cured meat products, jams, jellies, preserves, and totally baffling pickles. And good chocolate and marzipan.
Also pastries and Genever.

A small dense neighborhood, with the population to sustain it.


Very close to Chinatown, so we could get fresh seafood, meats, fruits, and vegetables, plus a number of other supplies. Where there are also banks, doctors offices, barber shops, and hardware stores. Also near the Italian part of town, for somethings more adventurous.

The dominant tongue would be English, of course, because we are good with languages, unlike most of the other people in this country. And we like showing off our linguistic skill.
Plus it's good for business. We're a mercantile people.



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A TIGHT SHIP

Over a dozen years ago a fellow member of a grass roots organization was convinced that President Obama was going to take his guns. And everyone else's. And kept posting frantic doomscreeds containing that message to the common e-mail list. He was a seventy year old succesful lawyer and had seen things. Other members of the list, many not as intelligent as myself, kept chastising me whenever I brought up how completely batshit bonkers he was. Who the hell did I think I was? Huh! And how frikkin' dare I?
Naturally after a few months of that I quit.

On another list which was only semi-active, because it did not included 'Paranoia Bob', one of the members (also a lawyer) two months later asked me why I wasn't dead yet, dammit.


I am a sensitive man. So I've avoided nearly everyone in that group, and many lawyers, in the intervening years. Life is too short to have one's social life invaded by the plague.
Also, I strongly suspect that a large number of them voted for Trump.
They can go and insert things into their orifices.


In the same vein, I am glad that almost none of the people I encounter at work live or work in San Francisco, but infest Marin County. So on my off-days I will not encounter them.
The folks I associate with voluntarily are better than that.

Unremarkably, all of the doctors who sometimes are at my work place are likable tolerant individuals with senses of humour, and only one of them is on thin ice mentally. Not worryingly so, but he does spend too much time with the elderly batshit brigade.
That may be the reason why he has bottles in his locker.


Not a single doctor there thinks RFK Jr. is worth the cost of his business cards.
Same goes for many of this administration's appointees.
As well as the dunces to whom they report.


I am not suprised that this country is going to the dogs.



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