PEACEFUL CUSTOMS

Today is the day that we celebrate how peaceful the natives were, many of them peacefully raping, enslaving, torturing, and pillaging their neighbors, or like the very peaceful Aztecs and other Meso-Americans, peacefully sacrificing people by the cartload to the sun god, until the peaceful civilized Europeans came here, and misguided by Christopher Columbus turned into rabid war-like Yankees and promptly went berserk for five centuries or something.

Before that, everybody here was a non-alcoholic vegan communing with nature.
Also, there was no disease, and both sage and ganja were free.
And there was spiritualism, with crystals.

Hail, Gaia!

Yep. The Europeans actually had nothing to do with it. The perpetrators were all Anglos, as you would expect, and the modern world looks askance at that type, regretting that they escaped and weren't all killed to protect civilization. It's been downhill ever since.

As a result the natives got slaughtered by syphilitic Americans, and we got tobacco. Which seems like a fair trade to me. Besides, we New Netherlanders bought the entire shebang for twenty two dollars worth of trinkets anyway, so what are all of you hosebags doing here?
It's all ours, g'wan piss off. And quitcher bellyaching.

Bunch of melodramatic wankers.

Christopher Columbus, as is well-known, invented the hamburger. Which is best consumed with French fries and a milk shake. An all-American meal that makes the Europeans weep with envy. And there is no vegan version.

I lament the disappearance of greasy spoons, lunch counters, and actual decent sit-down restaurants where burgers were available. They used to be everywhere. Sadly, the world has changed. Instead of buxom rosy waitresses there are now sallow art school graduates and theatre majors talking dispiritedly about the specials of the day, which always seem to involve baby vegetables and artisanal something. Really unique. Our chef has spent ages perfecting her craft on a freezing mountain top in Paris, Barcelona, Milan, or Tokyo. And we recycle more sincerely than our competitors! We've tasked a charity run by Berkeley orb-weavers to carefully sift through our discards and refuse for each category of waste, and part of the proceeds go to an Amazonian tribe which makes musical instruments!

I've strayed somewhat from whatever point I was trying to make, alas. But you can blame Christopher Columbus for that. As well as a diet rich in fatty meats.


Happy savage-spread-of-Christianity day.



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THE BEASTLINESS

One of the people who wanders in at work on occasion believes herself/himself to be a witch. Personally, I believe that he/she is an elderly hippie and would have benefitted from decades of therapy as well as pills, but far be it from me and besides it's in Marin County, so I am just mighty glad that the person in question is not a raging Karen. Apparently one or two items in our space give off bad vibes.

Oh dear. Have you considered carrying crystals around?
They might counteract the negative stuff.
Or at least weigh you down.
Several pounds.


There were over a dozen screaming sportsfans huffing and hooting in the backroom. I am rather pleased I did not have to clean up after they finally finished and left.
I'm not surprised that the neurosurgeon stayed away.
A very wise choice, in foresight.

The Forty Niners won, but I was supporting the Seahawks.
As I sporadically made clear to them.
By fan-type hooting.

But most of the time I tried to stay away and letting them foam and scratch by themselves, as to be perfectly frank all sports leave me stone cold, and I'm actually completely disintersted in the local team. When I'm in next I will just make sure that Jeff knows that today's victory was pure dumb luck. And they've used up all their luck for the year. The next few months are going to be horrible. Big time, boy! Very very big time.

Jeff is the whinging kvetchy one. He retired nearly a decade ago and has intellectually turned to cabbage. He approves of everything Trump has done, is doing, and has yet to do.
And he disapproves of foreigners. Very much.

I don't know what he thinks of me, given that I have an accent, and I shan't ask, because it will not make the slightest difference in my opinion of him.
And his favourite team sucks.


Go Seahawks!


During football season it's a zoo in there.
Perhaps I should bring in bananas.
Or maybe carrion.



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A WORLD OF LUTEFISK

Let us pretend that the world is normal today. For a few hours at least ignoring that we have a Russian asset leading the country, or quisling weasly enablers in congress and the senate supporting him, and a large number of morons who voted for this and think his every move is sheer brilliance.

No, I'm not saying act like Middle America and pretend everything is all right. I'm saying act like Coastal America and pretend Middle America doesn't exist.

Let's imagine 'Free Beer Day'. But with Hong Kong Milk Tea instead of beer, because, truth be told, I am not particularly fond of beer, and don't miss it since I cut out any and all booze because it might interact adversely with medications, and I'm actually more of a tea-drinker anyway, which the rest of the country should have been except for that bunch of rum-soaked unwashed Anglo rioters in Boston, after which they smirked self-satisfiedly and congratulated each other, "hah we done showed 'em, Bubba, didn't we just" and scratched their privates.
In a revolutionary fashion. Or something. You ess aye! You ess aye!

Which is why we're in this mess right now.

So in a way I blame Texas.


Which is easier than calling the rest of the world to account for being such a bunch of frightful hosers. They don't listen anyway, and who needs the Europeans when we can bugger things up ourselves perfectly fine? Among countries which, for various reasons, I shall not visit in the next few years, are England, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Norway, and Spain. Snooty racists and vulgarians who have shown that they hate Americans, even if the Yanks in question are quiet and don't call attention to themselves. The Netherlands are iffy, because while both they and the Germans are at times also total blisters they have a lot going for them, don't smell as bad as the others, and have real food.

Which is why in this country the Midwest and the South are out of the question too.
All the worst characteristics of those European countries.
But much louder, with far worse food.

And really horrid beer.



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THE STRANGERS

The city is filled with people. Not being a people person, I do not like this. These are random people, whom I have not seen before and will never see again. Visitors. It was tech week, it is Colombus Day weekend, and the military is in town for Fleet Week, along with the Blue Angels which apparently people wish to see.

On an intellectual level I like people. Especially regular people, whom I will see on occasion in predictable surroundings. People who have become real people. I would not mind if half the people were extras from a teevee show I had habitually watched for years.
These people are not those.

These are a collection of haphazard people, from various places, who are all largely faceless to me. Sourceless quebbling anonymi, sheer hordes of them.

They are not vetted by any semi-familiarity.

The bus back from work filled up in Sausalito. More people piled in at the last stop before the bridge, and there was flood of them at the toll plaza. Too few of them got off at the Palace of Fine Arts. None got off at Fillmore Street.

All of you, please leave.

Seriously.

There is nothing to see here. We have rabid street people.

Smoking is permitted in many open areas.

Stop feeding the pigeons.

Mind the curbs.



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A LURKING HORROR

There is a bag of chips hiding on your path to work today, ready to ambush you with it's crispy crunchy goodness. Mmm, salt, grease, strange artificial flavour! This could be a horror film, with bad snacks become animate and murderous. The thing that crumbles into those fragments at the bottom of the bag that you must upend into your mouth or else.

Naturally I can mentally see a bus full of teenagers stranded on the moors.
The mind's eye, at five A.M., is a twisted thing.
What hue of chip awaits?

Along the road to work there are several restaurants that tempt the pensive man, who regrets that he never ate at the Spanish tapas place, the chicken wing hut, the east coast pizzeria, that joint with the high octane neon-hued cocktails, or the Afghani eatery which is relatively close to the apartment, whose food he has indeed had because we have had it to-go, but whenver I pass on the way home it always looks depressed and empty. Delivery wallahs probably it going. Have bagged snack in readiness, both for while you are waiting, and to strew over or next to that plate of Qabili Pilaf.

That load of teenage passengers in the middle of nowhere, probably Scotland, intrigues me. If they are American they will undoubtedly do something stupid to tempt the fates.
That's traditional.

It's also axiomatic. And what the European movei-going audience expects. A stalled vehicle, in a Midwestern cornfield or a far northern heath, with thug-like highschool football players and blonde girls, automatically suggests idiot behaviour that ends in monstrous disaster.

There was a bag of potato chips in the teevee room last night. There are shrimp chips in there this morning. She did say, before I went to bed, "you should try these, they're delicious!" I did not then, and it's a good thing that I am not a breakfast person.
I would be doomed. Greasy depravity, horrible appetites.



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ANCIENT WOODS

The pipe which I smoked after lunch was a Kriswil, so it's at least half a century old, and may even have been made several years before I bought my first pipe. Found it a rummage box, cleaned it up and restored it, had a new mouthpiece made. Smokes fine.
It's a rather jaunty little number. Much like its present owner.
That would be me. In case you were wondering.


The place where I lunched today speaks Mandarin (and English too). Plus they understand me when I speak Mandarin, so they're talented and multilingual. Sadly, they have that fried chili in oil stuff in lieu of actual hot sauce. Evenso, excellent.

Real hot sauce, basically mooshed red chilies, adds both pizzazz and vitamin 'C' to the food, plus fibre and flavour. And it keeps evil spirits away. An essential characteristic now that food industry self-policing gives everyone the runs. Or far worse.

Fortunately, because we don't live in a Red State, we don't have to worry about that so much. Everyone with a brain agrees; blue is better for you.

By the way, there is no prepackaged frozen Midwest Hot Dish in the supermarket.
Why is that? Discrimination?

Actually, yes. That's probably precisely why.

Unfortunately I only have three Kriswil pipes, of one of which I'm very fond indeed, it being a very tasteful sandblasted Lovatt, precisely the kind of pipe I would have been keen to have years ago. It has a certain look. A look that speaks of cold winters, bookstores and cafés, dinners grabbed at an Indonesian restaurant, or a friet kot, long evenings, the smells of tar, machine oil, sawdust, tannins and dead leaves, strong coffee, and general dampness.


I am sure that some of the tobacconists in Valkenswaard and Eindhoven must have sold Kriswils, but I wasn't aware of the brand back then and couldn't afford good pipes in any case. I was not even fully acquainted with decent tobacco.

So my three Kriswil pipes speak to me of a youth I did not have.
But rather wish that I had had.



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THE MILITARY OCCUPATION

One of the things which stands out during Fleet Week in San Francisco is the small clusters of crisply neat young men and women in uniform who entirely unconsciously make a good impression. They're clean, orderly,well-behaved, and courteous. Unlike many of the locals as well as other visitors. One is tempted to compare them to the usual late night marketing and sales department staff who roam the streets during conventions, and young Euries prowling for sexual exploitation opportunity, or slowly grazing heffalumps from non-seacoastal states who don't know how to navigate sidewalks. One does actually compare them, giving in to temptation. And one concludes that we would benefit from having more military here, far fewer tourists or conventions, and losing a very large proportion of the locals.
Especially the unwashed ones.

Crisp. Clean. Well-behaved.
And soft-spoken too.
Indoor voices.
Outdoors.

I contrast that with the frequent clusters of plotzed yupters (business or frat) who see a quiet empty boulevard in Chinatown with people sleeping upstairs as the ultimate venue for a loud, drunken, and repetitive rendition of Yankif Der Gonif as covered by The Portals. Quite off key. Every mild obscenity replaced by one far worse. Punctuated by squealing OMG and banging on metal shop shutters. Then doing a splendid imitation of Mr. Creosote after dinner.
At three in morning.

Fog horns, young men and women in uniform, scattered gingko leaves. I have yet to see an MP, but I have seen a smattering of officers. Also crisp and well-behaved. It's like I'm seeing the city with new eyes.


Wouldn't it be splendid if school visits were organized so that the kiddiewinkies could meet someone from distant places like Tennessee and Alabama and ask questions about their lives and experiences? What hobbies did they have growing up, what are grits like?
And what will they do when they're back in civilian life?

This is the only time of year when they see Americans acting human.
As well as what neat clothing looks like.
Or clean finger nails.



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UNDER A COLD BLUE SKY

That turned out to be surprisingly easy. Fifteen minutes on the telephone with someone in Arkansas, with no problems, no issues, and the first impact will be three to five days hence.
I worried for nothing. Which is not unusual. Neurotypicals assume that everything will go as planned, or at least as they crowed it would. Spectrumpers take for granted that things may go wrong and are emotionally prepared for a let-down.

My apartment mate is more spectrumish that I am. I can often pretend to be normal. So naturally I shall not share this with her, as I don't want to jinx it before it really happens.

It is eighty degrees Fahrenheit in Arkansas.
Last week it went over one hundred.
There is airconditioning.


Necessary errands have been done, lunch has been gasaked with great enjoyment despite the old fossil hawking and choking onto his plate a few seats away, the Indonesian Chinese lady downstairs had been given some fresh fruit from Chinatown (紅色火龍果&番石榴 'hung sik fo lung gwo, faan sek lau') and this blogger is presently enjoying a celebratory cup of hot milk tea and smoke.

Yes of course the tea is hot. The flavour is fuller and more rounded so.

All that's left is thumb-twiddling, relaxing, and doomscrolling.

It hardly gets better than this.



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HAPPY GLOWING THOUGHTS ONLY

The first thing you do after waking up on the day when you have a teleconference scheduled with an agency at an inconvenient time because they're bureaucrats, after taking your dietary supplement pills (3) and praescribed morning medications (5) is check your bathrobe pocket for your housekeys and lighter, because you might wish to pop outside for a quick smoke while the world is burning, and remove the turkey vulture from in front of your computer where he has typed in a search query regarding hamstes and hors d'oeuvres.
"Bad bird", you say, "bad bird!"

If this is NOT your game plan, you should check your priviledge.

Let's see. Everything ready. All necessary data collected and on one page. Coffee, second cup. Briar pipe to the left, a Peterson 87 apple, saddle stem. Emotional non-support turkey vulture (an anarchist) over in her desk chair, grumbling to himself. He's wearing a scarf, because body temperature rgulation is crucial for turkey vultures in San Francisco.

The 'her' of the office chair is my apartment mate.
She left for work three hours ago.

Normally, at the time when the thoughtless official droodges have scheduled this call, I would be heading out for my usual Wednesday lunch. Rice, fish, hong Kong milk tea. I'm willing to bet that they never even heard of Hong Kong milk tea in that office. Or fish.
They might be anarchist turkey vultures.
Hamster eaters.

I must remember to NOT mention animals when talking to them.

Or that roadtrip where, somewhere beyond Barstow, on the edge of the foothills, the drugs began to take hold. The typical school trip to Las Vegas to introduce the munchkins to a wider variety of the human condition. Many of them, many conditions.
Don't eat the bar nuts.

Also remember to NOT channel for Milo Bloom or Portnoy.


This blogger doesn't deal well with officialdom. I've worked in too many law offices over time, and handled too many tricky situations where the other side would have liked to engage in mayhem. I am a nonconfrontational man, despite a tendency toward vicious reciprocal belligerence in street riot situations. I must pretend today that I am civilized.

So today will be strictly business. And laundry.
First business. Then laundry.
Penguins!



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WE CAN AFFORD TO LOSE NEBRASKA

Our president, who certifiably has crap for brains, said that Iran could take out Los Angeles and San Diego and that that would be a small price to pay. Nebraska Republicans cheered. Nebraska Republicans are traitors, and it would be a blessing if all of them died of a plague. In any case, I shall henceforth boycot anything produced in that cretinous Republican state, and hope that I am not the only person doing so.

By the way, the San Diego Padres won today. So San Diego still hasn't been bombed. There are probably a great number of dumb-ass Nebraskans who are bitterly diappointed about that. I hope their pets and farm animals die.

Nebraska is a state most in need of toilet paper.
They're desperate there, you can smell it.


Trump called for the destruction of two California cities.
Nebraska Republicans cheered, the bastards.


Good, now that we've got out of the way, let's return to our regularly scheduled programme. That being the Tuesday night pub crawl. A bowl of tobacco was enjoyed in a Dunhill Bruyere billiard beforehand, after which I met up with the bookseller at the burger joint. Following that we passed by and over the karaoke bar because it was loud and packed. The tavern which had been the bail-out place was closing early, because Fleet Week or no, the bartender there is not interested in staying open past eleven, and has a personality inimical to generous tips. The fellow at the bail-out from the bail-out had the water ready for tea.

Because a pub crawl means tea.

As, naturally, you understand. Tea is filled with anti-oxidants, had been shown to have a beneficial effect on the mind and the body, and tastes good besides. It is important to maintain proper hydration. As every star athlete knows.

We're still experiencing a heat wave here in San Francisco, with temperatures heading past seventy during the height of the day and multiple people passed out on some streets.
I've been told that's because of fentanyl, but I suspect a cover-up.
Our political leaders might be lying to us.
Shocking, if true.



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BAD DREAM, BAD DREAM

When you see a line of pale gold women resolutely heading toward you, it is time to bail out. Possibly hispanic, most probably Filipina. Is this one of those town fiestas somewhere in the islands? Maybe it's Saint Gudrun's Day in Paso Makalaayan, somewhere in the Visayas.

Many towns there celebrate their saint's days, often with colourful marching bands preceded by majorette troupes with shapely thighs and twirly-girly routines. For reasons which I have never understood it's always on the hottest day of the year. Or decade. Great food, lots of desserts and sweet drinks, and buckets of sweat. Buckets. Of. Sweat. Buckets.

Filipinos do not sweat. White people sweat. I feel that I really need to clarify that, because we Caucasians over there also have a reputation for smelling a bit in hot weather, much like a refuse bin, rabid dog, or rotting corpse. Or at least faint whiffs of death.

Do you really want to be surrounded by thousands of jovial people hepped to the gills on sugar while you are perspiring like you've never perspired before? Possibly not.

Fortunately it was a dream and I left it before it became insufferable.

Filipinos have a great capacity for joyful giddiness.

I myself can last one or two minutes.

When you are in the Visayas you will often hear about mangoes. Cebu is famous for it's mangoes. I once described the snookiepoo of a coworker as having breasts like ripe mangoes, because I didn't like her, and I never heard the end of that.

I have a talent when I'm peevish for saying precisely the wrong thing, deliberately.


In Bacolod, Bulasong, Ilo Ilo, and Cebu City itself it will be over eighty degrees during the day at this time of year, and very humid. Whereas in San Francisco, California, where I presently am, it might hit seventy five. The next few days will cool down gradually, to high mid sixties, which is bearable. Those other places I mentioned will still be in the eighties, and because of the mugginess will feel ten to twenty degrees warmer. It's much like parts of the United States, but with better food, far nicer people, and mangoes.

Out in the Sulu Archipelago many places will be well over eighty.
Bongao, Lugus, Pangutaran, Parang, Sitangkai.
Ninety in Jolo.



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BOTH THE HEAT AND THE HUMIDITY

There are times when I wish that my apartment mate had already come home, because it's late-ish, there are crazies and weirdoes about, those streets are dangerous, who knows what might happen, and she's a small woman, and I'm concerned. Then I have to tell myself that it's not that bad, this is a relatively normal part of the city, she's old enough to be outside on her own, she has a brown belt in one martial art and medals in another, plus she has a nasty murderous attitude and keeps her wits about her and her eyes open, lord help the moron who tries something, and that it's just the darkness at this hour fuelling my paranoia.
Which is heightened both by caffeine and complete distrust of my fellow man.

I'm quite fine about my fellow woman. Abouth whom I worry.

Except the Karens. Of either gender.


It's probably a darn good thing we don't live in Texas or anywhere in the Deep South. People are crazy, racist, and inclined toward strange fits of violence and drunken rage there. Plus it is usually warm enough to dry out every one of your braincells for much of the year, during times when there aren't hurricanes and tornadoes roaring through your trailer park Or rivers that have been dry since they strung up Jesus suddenly flood over and drown your town.
Being perpetually on edge is a way of life.

Just like obesity and diabetes.

And pickup trucks.

Several weeks ago I clicked on two videos and hit 'like', now I often get a ginger tomcat running a late night fried chicken joint or the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band on my feed. That's precisely and exactly all the fried chicken I need, and the Texas A&M University marching band is altogether mighty fine, yessiree and hotdawg!

By the way, the finest restaurants in the entire south are all run by space aliens. That's a fact. If you don't admit that, you too are part of the plot, you sicko Yankee lizard person.



Lunch was mushroom and beef stirfried lomein (草菇牛肉炒撈麵 'chou gu ngau yiuk chaau lou min') enoyed in a quiet place well-before twilight, then a stroll down toward the bus stop with a pipe and some tobacco. Very pleasant. I encountered only one psycho.



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IN PRAISE OF MAYONNAISE

Over face-elsewhere I posted "The UK Green Party has formally become an anti-Semitic organization. Which is very European of them. Almost Russian, even. Or Irish." A friend commented: "Why?" My response: "No, we're NOT going to happily pretend that you are ignorant."

It is impossible that a European who speaks better English than many Americans could be unaware of the underlying historical facts, especially as he himself has already indicated that his sympathies lie with the Arabs and plainly considers Israel little more than an extension of Trump's pentagon. Besides, he's Scandinavian, and consequently must be assumed to be too damned civilized to have any affection for Jews. Or any other minority than the Muslims. As has sadly been demonstrated abundantly for two or three decades.


Shan't say anything about negative about Scandinavian cuisine as a formative influence on their sneering dislike of everything outside of rapist cultures, as that would be quite unfair. They can't help it. Dried rotten fish would turn anybody.

Now, the proper Christian thing to do would be to tolerantly play along with his obtusion and just pretend that he's dense as a brick. As a Dutchman (Dutch American) that would be very easy, as I charitably assume that most other Europeans are kind of stupid and uninformed. But I cannot credit a fellow whose English is perfect, who has shown that he is reasonably well-informed, more so than the current generation of students at Berkeley, and who does actually have a functioning brain and a sense of humour, with being an idiot. I am not that gentle. So instead I'll just have to accept that he's a Glasgow Celtics fan with an unholy thing for Greta Thunberg. Sick, but what can you do? Probably needs years of therapy.

I'll pretend patient understanding of his illness.
Supposedly it takes all kinds.

We visited Scandinavia when I was still a child. Which I fondly remember. It was my first introduction to fermented (rotten) herring, boiled sheepshead), and blodpannekaker, with everything smothered in mayonnaise. People with any Dutch DNA, even the tiniest fraction, are biologically programmed to appreciate mayonnaise, so of course I enjoyed the region.

Never-the-less I have avoided lutefisk, boiled sheepsheads, and red-hued Scandinavian pancakes scrupulously since then. Even the generous addition of mayonnaise does not entirely make any of that stuff edible. Any Scandinavian pancakes, really.


My mother got horribly seasick in the fjords. While we were moored.
Something wrong with her stomach. Not food poisoning.
Some people get horribly motion sick.
Maybe it was the water.


I wonder if the Norwegians and Danes have discovered Flygande Jakob yet. It probably goes great with mayonnaise. Probably the very best thing you can do with chicken, bacon, peanuts, and bananas in that dank and ghastly environment.
Can be made kosher and vegan.



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SALINE ODOURS

The repulsives in the back room were remarkably civilized today. There were no venomous disputations, no maligning of someone else's character, no screaming disagreements, or voiced evil. Well, someone did at some point roar something that included the words "mothe (Alps) cker" "you si (Alps) sterd", and " go sho (Alps) your rancid (Alps) (Alps) (Alps) iot", plus a short phrase which implies procreational activities by an alleged saviour. But it was at a gentleman on the televion who was in some way connected with a sportive event.

I had other things to do, so I did not watch the game.
There are always other things I can find to do.
Like fondling a Peterson apple 87.
Mmm, it felt very good!
Smooth briar.


The Peterson interpretation of the apple shape is more like a Dunhill than a GBD or Comoy. This example is a straightgrain, waxed but not stained, so a "natural" finish. Saddle stem. Very 'old school' looking.

Filled it with a Red Virginia blend, and enjoyed a quiet hour despite the horrid racket from the backroom. There' a bit of a swamp smell in the building, due to heat and the recent high tides. Fecund. A hint of decay. Something salty. Perhaps a dead animal in the mix.

A pipe smoke helps disguise the aroma of putrefaction.

Imagine a stretch of mudflats half a mile away filled with dead fish and bird carcasses. There are probably suburban teenagers out there huffing pot and mushrooms in the hot sunlight, while drinking stolen bottles of their parents chardonnay and pinot grigio.

They don't smoke tobacco. Tobacco is evil. It leads to disapproval, ruined job prospects, pimples. Also, it conflicts with Axe body spray or Hello Kitty perfume.

Leave before the tide comes in and hides the evidence.
Drag your unconscious friends.



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YOU ARE NOT ENCOURAGED

Per the little notation in the bottom bar of my screen a heat advisory is in effect. It's something that much of the country has been seeing for a few months now, and over in Europe they've had it too. But this is the Bay Area. Where we're sometimes a bit slow.
And in the western edge life has been cool, hip, and often foggy.

I note, by the way, that benches are being removed in areas where it had been pleasant to sit while smoking one's pipe. Because benches are communist devices which encourage old people, loiterers, and pipe smokers, and, especially in commercial streets, those are all considered nuisances and must be discouraged.

Oh, and drug users or vagrants too.

San Francisco needs none of those.

We're all about cleanliness and discouraging old folks, layabouts, briar aficionados, fans and friends of illicit or non-illicit substances, and anybody who might be less completely employed or employable than our very fine bourgeois lifestyle and pretensions merit. Tourists also. It is imperative that all of the above ambulate at all times. For their health and our visual comfort.

The city must maintain its aesthetic standards at all costs.

Naturally, once they've finally finished the expensive and completely unnecessary project to upgrade and "improve" Portsmouth Square, there will be no seating available outside of the 'clubhouse' they're going to put there, where the little old people can be fully supervised and controlled, and kept from playing cards or surreptitiously smoking. Because we can't have that. It's unsanitary! And a bad example to the kiddies!

It's going to take at least two years, and when it is over there will be no unsightly elderly or unemployed people there, no garbage or card playing, no smoking or evidence of unhealthy snacks, and only clean photogenic park-goers of a span of representative ages, ethnicities, and identity choices in a rainbow array, with security cameras and easy access fire lanes. Traps and poison for rats, raccoons, and coyotes. Signage promoting good habits, mutually supportive behaviours, and healthy eating if any eating at all but only in permitted areas.

The retired people will love it. We'll make sure of that!
And nothing to trigger people who know better.

A long list of forbidden things.



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HERE KITTY KITTY

Work was a breeze. Only one of the senile old fascists was in today, and only fairly late in the afternoon. So it was quiet in the backroom. And we had the airconditioning on, so it was cool and bank-like. The bus back to the city was another matter, because every tourist in town went to Sausalito or the bridge, and by the time we rolled onto Van Ness it was like a tin of sardines; tighly packed and oily.

When I stumbled out of the bus it was still warm outside. And at my intersection it was clear that many people had been imbibing since early in the day, because that is, apparently, what Anglos do when it's hot and they don't feel like reading or whatever it is that they do on their days off which requires effort.

While at work I needed to use Cantonese three times, Mandarin only once. German not a single time. Nor Dutch.


I find using languages infinitely more pleasurable than wishing I had a cattle-prod for some of the poisonous old gits in the back. The actual interaction and the results are much better.
And far less likely to lead to indigestion.


Mine or anyone else's.

I tell you boy, sometimes it's a jungle in there.

Tomorrow, for instance. Sports. Whiny old retired dudes with too much bile in their system. Rabid, Republican, and repulsive. Even their nearest and dearest don't want them around much of the time. I spend much of my hours at work being a booby sitter.

And keep in mind that "nearest and dearest" is, in this case, simply a polite way of saying 'regretably not distant enough and likely to be expensive if stressed'.
Or something even less human.

Unhappy cohabitants of the same suburban real-estate.

The optimistic emergency contacts.

Marinite, middle class.


Many times at work I am reminded of scenes from The Mummy with Brendan Fraser. Perhaps we need cats. Lots of cats. Cats are good.



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UNDERCOVER MONSTERS

It is still foggy and dark on the hill, fog horns sound regularly from the Bay. An older man crossed ahead of me, gaunt silhouette, slow pace. No dog. The yuppie teacups and little French bulls will not be out until you can see what they did at foot level. But I'm sure their owners are as we speak girding for war and the dreadful task of bagging the evidence. Which one really wishes they would store appropriately, placed in order on shelving in their abodes, labelled and dated. Fluffy, Thursday January 1, 2024. Fluffy, Friday January 2, 2024. Fluffy, Saturday January 3, 2024, during a rainstorm. For scientific purposes, rather than crime scene investigation. And done out of love.

Because that is what owning a little ambulatory poo-factory is all about.

I am, as you probably realize, not a dog person.

I prefer fog and cats.


That said, one of the Marin regulars is involved in helper dog training and has over the years introduced us to a succession of calm likable hounds that seem very human social but not intrusive, who have all shown remarkable patience with the louder more unstable men in the backroom. I've always made it a point to memorize their names during their five or six week stints, as I strongly believe in treating them as equals.

That is to say, equals without opposable thumbs or the speech centres in their brains needed for gibbering like drunken peasants, hence much better at personhood than many of the men there. Not idiots, not fascist, not sports fans.

Dogs suitable for service training are larger and far more intelligent than the teacups or pugly monsters, and would be an asset to this neighborhood, rather than the irritating yippers and rear-sniffers which seem to be the preferred four footed companions.

There are individuals here who have not one, but two or three angry little daemons in tow. One imagines that their apartments probably have a certain whiff, much like certain enclosures at the zoo.

One cannot tell who they are on the bus.
They look like normal people.
It's deceptive.



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THE SQUEAKY MAN

The hospital is a cool, comforting, and confusing place, after which one goes to snarf down a cheeseburger. Cool, because it typically has air-conditioning; comforting, because I already knew that the fong se sat (放射室) is on dei haa, yi lau (地下，二樓). And confusing because I needed to pee after getting my thyroid ultrasounded. The cheeseburger should have been a bacon cheesburger (煙肉芝士漢堡包 'yin yiuk ji si hon bou baau') but the waitress is a little hard of hearing.

After lunch, one wanders off into an alley to have a smoke.
Only one of those three is doctor recommended.
Well, two if you include urination.
Not three, but four.


One seldom actually knows whether there is someone in a big institutional bathroom, and knocking is of no use because they might be deaf. Finding out that the loo requires a key is even worse. Am I going to walk in on some elderly deaf-as-a-doorpost auntie in the middle of doing the needful? Has uncle passed out and slumped forward due to something diabetic? Is there a surgeon in there frantically reading up on emergency busted aorta repair for dummies? You never know.

Then, having gained access to the facility one worries that someone desperate will also have a key and come storming in while one is draining. At which prospect the normal adult urethra locks up solid.

The thyroid scan (甲狀腺嘅超聲波掃描 'gaap jong sin ge chiu seng bo sou miu', or in short 甲狀腺超音波 'gaap jong sin chiu yam bo' took less time than alloted, and began around twenty minutes before it was scheduled to start. I had arrived in radiology around forty five minutes early. When I left the house I was worried that I was going to run out of time. Because, and this is NOT a medical issue, I am neurotic about these things and hate rushing.


I am fairly certain that no medical people I know saw me devouring the burger or lighting up. Years ago doctors would of course smoke pipes, and there may have been ashtrays all over the place in the hospital, but I doubt that that has been the case since the seventies at the latest. And Chinese American female medical personell probably never smoked.
Unless they worked the emergency room.



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NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================