IT'S BIG. REAL BIG.

Say, how is that war which is not a war which we won two weeks ago but again it's not a war nothing to see here just move along going? Have we won yet?

I asked this on social media.

A friend who is actually very intelligent, but has a great capacity for being dense as a brick, commented: "We destroyed most of their arsenal, killed the ayatollah, forced the new one into hiding or dead and got almost every middle east nation on our side by forcing them to openly admit that they like us more than iran.
Only the silly leftists who think that rape and murder is cool are still carrying water for iran. Israel predicts another three weeks before the regime is so destabilized that the people themselves can take it back.
I mean we do have "Persian-royalist-propaganda-funded-by-the-Arabs-and-masquerading-as-legit" for actual news if you really want to know and aren't just engaging in boring ass virtue signaling." [end quote]

Dude. This aint about virtue signaling. Although there is plenty of scope for that. This is about your fat pedophile uncle's humongous ego. Now that he can't get his dick up anymore, and everyone is looking at him like a hawk so he can't rape schoolgirls in any case (although I'm sure the red states would make an exception as long as he claimed they were libs, woke, or foreign), he has to show off and swagger in the spotlight somehow. At a cost of billions. With lovely explosions, piles of dead people, and everyone paying attention to him. Because he can. Hey hey hey look at me. It's big. Real big.

We actually don't give a flying fornication about the Iranians.

So you can stuff the gaslighting up somewhere.

It's big. Real big.

Now, something else which is irrelevant entirely to the foregoing, the ultra slim Hello Kitty ciggies with the dried tangerine peel fragrance flavour capsules (陳皮爆珠 'chan pei baau jyu') are, in my estimation, considerably better than the brand with the fritilary and loquat flavour capsules (川貝枇杷爆珠 'chuen pui pei paa baau jyu'). The latter are marginally slimmer, and the fritilary loquat combination frequently shows up in cough syrups and lozenges because it's rather soothing to the throat. But dried tangerine peel, which is beneficial to the mucous membranes, is a far more elegant perfume.

The smokes with the Maotai flavour capsules (茅臺爆珠 'maau toi baau jyu') remain quite unfindable. I'll have to ask the round faced intellectual about those when I see him again.


Obligatory health warning: Kids, don't smoke. Only bad people and pervs do that.



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THE JUNGLE OUT THERE

A day of doing nothing. Glorious. My workweek ended yesterday, and I unwinded. Which after babysitting gobbus old rightwing dingoes is just what the doctor ordered. And we do actually have doctors who are often on site there. There are at least four of them.
So there is pushback when the idiots try to blow antivax hard.

Some idiocy will not stand.

Unfortunately some will.

There's also a semi-missionary Christian. As I said, some idiocy will stand. Personally I think that all Christians should die of avoidable diseases and suffer on the way out, but I guess the fates have decreed otherwise. They are the pests sent to try us. Heck, true believers of any type, gob rot their souls. My famous Dutch tolerance has limits. Silence does not mean assent, it can often mean extreme loathing and distaste.

You know, Christianity often means stupidity, greed, viciousness, and vile ideas.

Some of those aged stinkers are adulatants of Trump or Charlie Kirk and his repulsive widow, some like Vance or Hegseth. Some are just blah. One of them is Irish. He is all of that.
Must be that extremely narrow gene pool in Dublin.
Sometimes it lays a rotten egg.

An argument can be made that we need to reintroduce snakes to Ireland. I suggest putting up a go fund me for that. Diversity is a blessing. Sentient Irishmen will thank us.

Don't worry about the non-sentient ones. They've been blotto since Saturday, when there were parades and celebrations. That's why there is that smell.



I am incredibly proud that my ancestors martyred Saint Boniface. Interfering meddlesome damned priest, whom the Batavians deservedly slew outside Dokkum.
They are a splendid example to later generations.


As I said, a splendid day. Late lunch at a chachanteng. Fried tofu & roast pork (葱燒肉豆腐). With rice. And hot milk tea. plus a cup regular tea. Sambal.



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IT IS TIME TO DANCE

It appears that our allies won't come to our aid in the war that we and Israel started. Their attitude seems to be that we began it, we broke it, we can jolly well deal with it. This thing which is not a war and which we won. The only countries benefitting from it are the United States, Israel, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. In a diplomatic communication, various other nations have politely told to us to geh und urinier nach oben an einem seil.
Which is a foreign way of saying "we don't think so, dude".
It's very subtle.

In another development, the gubmint has firmly let it be known that reporting facts in any way about the immensely successful total defeat of the Persians, which is complete, and ongoing, and imminent, and Jesus-guaranteed, and only heathens and idolators think otherwise, is inimical to the excursionary effort and will harm our troops who are not fighting a war.

Reporting in any way at all about the non-complete surrender of Iran is woke and DEI. Please be silent until we say you can talk.
Verstehst du?


Thousands of buxom Israeli and Saudi virgins stand cheering our victorious Christian troops with red, white, and blue pom poms as they boldly stride through the streets of Hormuz very manful and glorious as all-American warfighters waving crusader banners. Bibi Netanyahu drinks coffee to celebrate. There are horses everywhere and John Wayne rides into the sunset. The paynim have been swayed.

There are laurels all around. And shiny gold peace prizes.
Alabama and Mississippi erupt in joyous song.
Praise and adulation.


Basically, it's all about breasts and dicks.
The United States has the biggest.
Feel it in your guts.


Far be it from me to say anything negative about this war which is not a war, not officially, and in no way demonstrates that we have insane people at the helm who might be desperate to show off their manlihood and distract from the Epstein files or rising prices or the Epstein files or RFK being a total dingbat or the Epstein files or the increasingly clear bigotry and racism of the Republican Party or the Epstein files or Tommy Tuperville being too stupid to tie his own shoes or the Epstein files or the continuing grift and corruption of the most Christian government this country has ever had or the Epstein files or Pam Bondi's Justice Department being a revenge tool for an orange blobbo wearing incontinence pants and spewing bile late at night when his drugs wear off or the Epstein files and the imperial gift of ill-fitting shoes.
Or the Epstein files.

No sir. Shan't say a word.
Warfighters. Far.
Victory!



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WARM FEELINGS

Today was spent at the buffing wheel working on several Charatan pipes, as well as a lovely Wilmer, and a few Savinellis. The hands led the thought process. Some stems were a bit too chewed. Either a man with a vicious set of chompers, or maybe a dog pipe smoker. About halfway through my lunch I started paying attention to the news. Blizzard conditions expected in the Midwest and a few other areas. Storms elsewhere, with rain, snow, cold, fierce winds. A severe dust storm, in Texas I think. And blithering idiocy in our nations capitol.

Boys, we've got nice sunny weather here in California, as well as intelligence. Neener neener neener. Enjoy your horrid weather and Republican foolishness.


The amount of attractive bare legs, of all genders, on the streets here is fairly staggering. Y'all don't have that, seeing as y'all have more morbid obesity, diabetes, and Litte Rascal Personal Mobility Scooters than is reasonable. Plus y'all have whole hordes of tightly clenched Karens who would be traumatised and offended by presentable gams.

A number of your fellow citizens need fork lifts.

There's Eric Cartman all over the place.

I feel for you. Really, I do.

You've seen Baywatch, so you know that we spend all of our time running in slo-mo into the surf wearing scanty red swim gear, while the sun strokes us with light and gentle rays. Why heck, most of us look like Pamela Anderson. Whereas many of you look like Big Momma Heffalump, and can't find swim togs that don't have a Hefty Compactor label. They're tough. Hefty ® reliably strong trash bags can tackle every task on your to-do list. Even fit your Texas-sized kinfolk. They are by no means overkill.


I love my fellow Americans. Oh gosh golly yes indeedy.
I just don't want to meet many of them, though.




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THE HALF LIGHT

My apartment mate has an imaginary hamster that visits her room when she's out for the day, I have an early morning cat that probably doesn't exist which occasionally flits through the corners of my eyes when I'm half asleep. Obviously, if I were to get a pet, it would be a cat.
This morning it was pawing a pipe I had put on one of the shelves of the bookcase opposite my bed. No, it didn't push it off. It was very considerate. Obviously a better cat than some people have. Thoughtful.

The other day I was thinking about pets. There is a man in the centre of the country somewhere who has three honey badgers he's raised from infancy. They are playful, charming, rambunctious, affectionate, and awesomely destructive. Teeth and long claws. They've shredded tires and durable pet toys in mere minutes. They wrestle, and occasionally draw blood. Verging on hyper-active. Super intelligent and extremely likable agents of mayhem.

I would like a honey badger. She, as previously mentioned, is a hamster person. The compromise would be a ferret (more hyper, not nearly so destructive, limitation of size).
Zoomies, weasel war dance, wrigglies.


But I have a ghost cat.
That's ... okay.

It pads arund silently, does not push things off high surfaces onto the floor, and then disappears.

It probably lived here years ago and revisits its old home.

And that's fine too. Perhaps better than a ferret, and in all honesty who could mind a clean animal occasionally wandering about, not destroying things, just curious and careful, and largely ignoring the living occupant? Which is what I will probably do a few decades hence when I have ceased living and the robots have taken over. A large grey box on the table will wake up and notice through a sensor that there is a human shadow near where the easy chair stood, then go back to sleep.

It may remember once in a while to put out a bowl of warm caffeine.
Because that is, as everyone knows, what humans like.
Mmm, caffeine!



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EVERYONE LOVES FIREWORKS!

Pete Hegseth's pastor, Doug Wilson, says that in an ideal society, processions in honor of the blessed virgin Mary would be banned, along with eucharistic processions.

According to the faith of my ancestors (which was hard core Dutch Calvinism) all other forms of Christianity are accursed heathendom or witchcraft and should be absolutely forbidden. So whenever anyone tries to get me to accept or find Jesus, I revert to my ancestral intolerance and turn the conversation into a slice of hell. Where Doug Wilson will undoubtedly burn.

If there is a hell. The jury is still out on that one.
Pete Hegseth too. Tattoos are verboten.
Repulsive damned frat boy.
Burn, heretic.


There, I'm glad we got that out of the way.


In other news, on my way home I passed throngs of people wearing green celebrating Saint Pudnick casting potatoes out of Ireland by getting blotto. As I have no doubt Pete Hegseth is probably doing right now too. There are four whole days of this drunken misbehaviour and puking this year, which seems like a perfect way to celebrate. After all, we bombed Iran, whereupon there was mass celebration in the streets there and they promptly built a democratic society. Right?

DANCING! SONGS! GIDDY CELEBRATIONS!

Gasoline prices must have dropped, and we're a lot safer now.


American military intervention ALWAYS brings freedom and prosperity.
Donald Trump DESERVED the FIFA Peace Prize.
More than anyone else.

America! America!



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DEATH TONGUE

Mr. Manz, from a small town in Germany, visited New York and tried Mexican food for the first time. And promptly took the restaurant to court because their salsa traumatized him. Horribly. Painfully. He had added it to his food himself, chomped, and was floored by the results. Oh, the heartache. They obviously had tried to kill him. Those evil new worlders. The salsa was by his never having eaten spicy in his entire life standards too insufferably darn hot and someone should do something!

The judge disagreed. Common sense also disagrees, as, in all honesty, IF in this modern world you do not understand that salsa might be spicier than anything in small town Germany, you may have been living under a rock.


Several years ago my family moved to the Netherlands. Where there is Indonesian food. Which I ate before I was even grammar school age. Take-out food often came with a little packet of sambal. Many homes had sambal on the premises.
We also had sambal on the premises.

When I returned to the United States, at eighteen years of age, I was dismayed that there was no sambal on the premises. Anywhere. The entire countrywide premises. Or at least Berkeleywide. How, I wondered, could these people survive?

Was civilization even possible here?

Things have changed. There has been immense improvement. And civiliation may very well be possible here. Now. At least in some parts. There are sambal equivalents.

Every single one of the eateries I have frequented in the last several weeks has had either sambal or hot sauce (Sriracha). The staff at one place takes it for granted I will want the Sriracha, and at another place the waitress is both flabbergasted and not surprised.


I contend that people who never touch hot stuff are some of the most violent warlike individuals on the planet. Modern world events demonstrate that. Prove me wrong.



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POISON MOUTH

Little did I suspect when I started learning Cantonese that on the one hand it would show me lyric hyperbole, on the other hand the heights to which cursing and foul language could rise. While eating lunch today I got to listen to a cheerfully foul-mouthed old blister using certain words as both punctuation and exclammatories. Sometimes both simultaneously, sometimes very much not. Always in the same sentence. Many sentences. I was there for an entire hour, during which he dominated the conversation with two other people, did not shut up, and delivered curse upon curse matter-of-factly, eloquently, and with both confidence and pointless dreary repetition.

Nah, I shan't tell you what those words and expressions were. This is a clean blog, and you can find all of that by browsing the internet and visiting Wikipedia.

Other than the extremely loud background noise, lunch was quite enjoyable.
They know me there. The food is decent. There is hot sauce.


And the HK milk tea is excellent.


Some of the regulars are unvarnished old reptiles.
Lizards with social issues made worse by age.

So yes, I enjoy the place, but usually I avoid conversation there, as my abilities in Cantonese do not extend to poetic exaggeration. At least not quite that much. I do not think I'm social enough to cuss up a storm.

And really, all I want to do is eat my meal, drink my cup of tea, and pack a pipe preparatory to a long stroll down to where I will catch a bus back over the hill.
That smoke was excellent, by the way.


Indignant geckoes, skinks, and water monitors are purely icing on the cake.



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NAVEL ENVY

Oh crap! She's called in sick again. Despite not coughing up hairballs. She's curled up in her room with a turkey vulture and a good book, and I cannot close her door, open the windows, and light up my pipe. I shall have to go outside and act like I'm human. While skulking around the neighborhood avoiding dogs, old people, and little children.

Are there any dark corners around here? Someplace where, if I accidentally shape-shift, no one will notice? If there are, they're probably all occupied by violent street people shooting up for the benefit of tourists from the red states, who expect that when they come to civilization.

There's something nauseating about being human. Sometimes I just don't feel like it.
And often I speak in tongues. Murmuring.
No one understands me.
Tongues.

[For an explanation of which kindly see "Confusion of Tongues", delivered by one of Freud's colleagues at the 12th International Psycho-Analytic Congress in Wiesbaden, Germany, on 4 September 1932.]

No, there is nothing growing in my navel. Lizards don't have navels, remember? We come from a giant egg. Brutally we used a temporary projection on the upper jaw that developed from the premaxilla which lets us penetrate and break the eggshell from inside.
So I contemplate where my navel might have been.

As Doctor Sigmund Freud defined it, we squamates frequently manifest profound navel envy. In Freudian theory, the navel envy stage begins the young lizard's transition from attachment to the ovipositor to avoiding hungry free-ranging velociraptors. This results in anxiety, we do not wish to become dinner.

On the other hand, there is no eternal yearning to return to the egg either. As Ferenczi (born Sándor Eibenschütz Fraenkel) recognized, one must more actively engage with the young lizard, encouraging him to freely associate and engage with his fears.

The forest floor, the humidity of the wild, the moist and comforting bed of moss, and the dark flitty insects presenting tempting protein in flight. The many Peterson  pipe shapes which are reassuringly egglike, so smooth, so polished, so elegantly and robustly ovoid.


Laundry. Lunch. Wandering about a bit.
Do not engage with Karens.



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I LIVE AMONG US!

My apartment mate has started going to work again after three weeks of hacking, coughing, spitting, and sounding like hairballs. A respiratory infection which flummoxed her, seeing as by her own boast she is of hardy peasant stock and can withstand a damned sight more than you silly effete white men, White Man! Yeah, okay. But I didn't catch it. And now that she leaves the house in the morning again I can finally close her bedroom door, open the windows, and positively revel in a smoke-filled existence.
As is natural on my home planet.

And I can revert to my true form.

These past three weeks have been tough. I've had to brave the elements with my pipe clenched in my manly jaw, dodging joggers, people walking their dogs, and little children. While she was comfortably ensconced in our apartment coughing up a lung or two and grumpily watching documentaries about Rome, ancient Egypt, and such like.
I have suffered enough.

My home planet is filled with the fragrant fumes of flue-cured leaf. It wafts from room to room on gentle indoor zephyrs. Happy blue lizard beings ponce around enjoying fine products like Southern Capitol, Big Front Gate, Yellow Crane Tower, Noble Smoke, and Five Leaf God (南京 'naam king'，大前門 'daai chin mun'，黃鶴樓 'wong hok lau'，貴煙 'gwai yin'，五葉神 'ng yip san'). Which are all tubular, of varied dimension, and packed with combustible goodness.

We would rather not do that outside, because it's a bad example for the kiddie winkies. When they see a mature blue space lizard puffing away, they think it looks cool and stylish, and they want to ooze cerulean and indigo slime too when they grow up.


For the past three weeks I have tended to pop outside for a quick inhalation of compact tubes of shredded leaf, flickering in and out of this dimension, instead of contenmplatively reaching for my briars and the pouch while reading about war, pestilence, and famine.
It's thrown me off my game. There has been heartache and suffering.


Oh! Despair.

Great sadness.


Anyhow, I shall have a second pipe as soon as she leaves, which will be in about an hour and a half. Probably red Virginia flake in an old Peterson stamped 'Dublin and London', of which I have several. As well as another strong cup of coffee.
It's going to be a productive day, I can tell.

Hairball free.



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HOW MANY DO YOU NEED?

Always have extra in your stash. The grocery store only had one pack. Fortunately I have six at home, so that should last me for a while. Russell, on the other hand, is desperate for more Thai noodles with peanut sauce. Easy to prepare from a prepackaged mix, and absolutely delicious. From which I gather that he has mostly recovered from his bout of pneumonia two years ago. He's full of pepper.

So is Stephen. Whom Russell chided. Dude, get out of bed earlier, and that way you won't be arriving in Chinatown for your teatime snack just before dinner. Stephen stays up late, Russell gets up early. They're both retired so they can do whatever they want.
But I kind of agree with Russell on this.

Stephen had pneumonia four years ago.

Elderly non-smokers living alone. As an opinionated inveterate smoker, plus incorrigible and stubborn, I strongly believe that elderly Chinese American bachelors must not live alone.
It leads to weird habits and odd practices. I've met enough of them to know.

Single Dutchmen and Dutch Americans are a different matter entirely.
Even though I have an apartment mate, a Cantonese American.
Cantonese American women shouldn't live alone either.

Their stuffed animals are likely to encourage crimes and obsessions.

By the way: did I ever mention that I am completely sane and normal, the very standard by which sanity and normalcy are measured, the absolute paradigm of both of those fine qualities, what with being a sane and normal Dutch American?

My stuffed animals know better than to suggest crazy things. I've spoken to them firmly about that. I feel that I am an example to them.


Lunch today at my usual place, pipe afterwards, shopping, then teatime in the company of three Cantonese American gentlemen, all of whom seemed to have funtioning hearing aids today, and were in remarkably good spirits. The weather may have something to do with that. Mid sixties. Spring. Sunshine.

Among subjects discussed: Noodles. Charsiu bao. Local crazy people. Nine-layer cakes. Suspects eating lunch at Chinese restaurants. Shopping carts on the bus lines. Local bakeries. Grocery stores. Birthday luncheons.

After nearly an hour of chit chat we all departed.
Pipe while walking to the bus stop.



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SCREAM DAY

Yesterday was International Bagpipe Day. Which may have accounted for the screaming. Naturally I missed it, because as a Dutch American all I care about is National Donut Day (first Friday in June) as well as National Doughnut Day (November 5th.). Reason being that besides scalping and corncob pipes, fried sweet circles are a Dutch American invention.
No, there won't be a parade of clog dancers down the main drag, thank heavens.

Saint Patrick's Day is coming up. Drunken fratboys, oh golly.
Parade down Market Street, Saturday March 14.
I'm going to miss that also.
Gratefully.


We Dutch also invented modern banking and international commerce. Dutch expansion in the tropical world was violent, and extremely successful. And we feel rather proud of what we acomplished. Sugar and fried objects probably had a lot to do with that.

Too many donuts lead to diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, liver problems, swollen ankles, hyper-active Southern sherrifs, red state political violence, and morbidly obese people at theme parks shutting down the best rides.
Metal fatigue.

That's probably why we don't do parades with clog dancers.
Instead, we leave that to the Irish Americans.


You know, I am still baffled about pipe smoking being officially part of our intangible cultural heritage. Flower festivals, I can understand. Falconry too. While I lived there I was exposed to both of those.

Pipe smoking? Most Dutch pipe tobaccos are rather shitty. And some, vile beyond reason.

Besides, all of my classmates smoked dark shag handrolled cigarettes. The entire country reeked rather delightfully of Van Nelle, Samson, Drum, Dragon Superzwaar, Javaansche Jongens, and a number of other brands.


Early mornings in Autumn fog at the local coffee shop, or soggily waiting for the train on platform two? Ah, there's that comforting incense-like perfume. Late nights at the printing press, or bicycling down Stratum's Eind past the drunken Englishmen? A faint smoky hint. Early Spring sunshine in the Stad's Wandelpark, late lunch at Restaurant Kota Radja, the end of the school day? Time for a peukje, light up, relax. Fragrant zware shag.

It's raining and we're stuck here? Roll up a dark shag cigarette.
Oh hey, the rain has stopped. Time for another one.
Let's have coffee and a smoke.


A time, a place, an aroma.


One tobacconist in town stocked Balkan Sobranie pipe tobacco and Dunhill, plus Three Castles cigarettes. Fortunately he was located only three blocks from two local schools.
In case the teachers needed a break.
I stopped by every week.



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BUTTERFLY FLAKY

Today someone offered/threatened to set me up with a nice girlfriend. I had incautiously recommended the large palmiers (蝴蝶酥 'wu dip sou') to her and her friend while both of them were inspecting the baked goods and couldn't make up their minds. f course this meant conversation. And a certain amount of flabbergastity too, as it quickly became evident to them that I spoke Cantonese. Which I don't look like I should be able to do, given that I am unmistakably from somewhere filled with Caucasians and almost nobody else.

My ancestry is mostly Dutch, with a few globs of Scottish Presbyterian thrown in for bad measure. At one point the only non-whites in the Netherlands were some Ghanaians in Friesland (long story), and a few run-away Iberians (another long story).

And obviously a white man should be fixed up.
We're unpredictable when we're still wild.
Someone needs to settle us down.


At least, I think that's the dynamic. White people are, generally speaking, unpredictable anyway, maybe when we can speak Cantonese we're pleasingly less so?

During my recent workweek I had to use Cantonese and Mandarin a number of times. Which one might expect. Today I used Cantonese to score some black market smokes, as well as a very satisfying lunch plus hot milk tea.

You know, the matchmaking urge occasionally crops up in my wider social environment. But seeing as I do not enjoy long walks on the beach in moonlight and am not likely to raft the Amazon or hike the Himalyas, and do not have a golden retriever OR French bulldog, it never goes anywhere. I am just not romantic material.

By the way: 'Butterfly flaky' is the literal translation of the Cantonese term for a palmier cookie (蝴蝶酥). Hence the title of this scribble. Chinese bakeries have a number of things which are delicious; I still miss the 荷花酥 ('ho faa sou') which haven't been available at bakeries nearby since the pandemic. Quite splendid, very old-fashioned.


Tonight's pub crawl was much as it usually is. We avoided the place with people committing mayhem by karaoke as well as the hipster beer joint, and went straight to the one place where white conventioneers and tourists are a rarity, though not entirely absent.
Tat Yee was there, as I suspected he would be.

There had been six skeevy types dossed down between where the bus had dropped me off and where I waited for the bookseller while smoking a pipe. Four of them were familiar faces, the other two looked like insane people who won't be tolerated by the neighborhood for very long. There is just something about loud wild people that doesn't inculcate any great tolerance. Of course the city has plenty of those.

For some reason we talked about Lord Drummond. He's much older now, and apparently looks quite fragile. But he's still kicking, and living a good life. Which is excellent.



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BEKNOWNST

For some reason unbeknownst, I dreamed of the autobahn and lunch in Germany. A sunny day, a plate of fries and sausage. Conceivably bockwurst. Although the dream started with noodles, typical Hong Kong wonton noodles in soup. And bear in mind that the soup must have a touch of dried flounder in order to be just right (左口魚 'jo hau yü'). Proper German wursten also have a touch of something that makes them just right. Sometimes smokiness, sometimes the distant sound of vehicles going over one hundred miles an hour, and sometimes the balance between calfmeat and nutmeg.

Actually, the reason is upon reflection is very beknownst. Someone mentioned the Teutonic Titwillow and the schnitzengruben in Blazing Saddles this past weekend, and I remembered Bertie And Baldwin in Valkenswaard (Bertje, Boudewijn), plus I smoked a Peterson 312 recently.
I have three Peterson 312s in my collection: one which I acquired several years ago from Marty Pulvers on Battery Street, one which my Dad gave me the year he passed, which I had thoroughly enjoyed while he and Maryanne were in London for two weeks, and one with fabulous woodgrain and a minor ding near the top which I've tried steaming out.

So three reasons which happily combined. Although I have to wonder why would anyone want their bedchamber to be perfumed with kraut und schnitzengruben?
Truly the customs of Teutonic Titwillows are strange.

Another thing that comes into play is the light. San Francisco is experiencing unseasonably warm weather at this time, and the brightness outside is not what you would expect in mid-summer three months hence, but more like a Northern European late-spring. Early June. Memory inducing. And looking at my father's Peterson 312 what came to mind was the streets in Valkenswaard during night-time. There was a certain quality to the air.

And the glow of the street lights was different.
Because the air was more moist.

The Peterson 312 is a classic system pipe (an even airflow, catchment, decreasing widths of the channel, and a p-lip) and looks absolutely epitomous of proper smoking equipment. Nothing looks more pipish than a Peterson System pipe, shape 312.

It is the kind of pipe serious people smoke.
A beautiful yet utilitarian smoking tool.
Gravitas meets elegance.

The first pipe I bought when I was back in the States was a Peterson System Standard. Not quite the same shape. Over a period of two years I smoked the living daylights out of it, and though I no longer own that pipe I have several other Peterson System pipes which were acquired since. As everyone should.



Whether a young woman smokes Balkan blends, surreptitiously so her family doesn't notice, or old-fashioned style Virginia flakes, which being stealth tobaccos can probably be enjoyed downstairs late at night with a window open when everyone else is asleep, it strongly behooves her to have a Peterson System Pipe.
Men should too.



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FILLED WITH GOO

What does a Dutchman do after seeing his cardiologist first thing in the morning? Why, he goes off to Chinatown for snackies, of course. At around ten thirty I sat down to congee and a youtiao. Plus milk tea. The place where I actually planned to go was closed -- it's open seven days a week from early morning till late afternoon, so one wonders what's wrong -- and in consequence I spent more than I originally intended. But I got to people watch. Three tables had Mandarin speakers, two had Cantonese speakers, two had Chinese women with their non-Chinese love interests, and one table had a Mainland businessman who had ordered too much, but he manfully ate all of it, because, you know, the money.

[Everything about him screamed Mainland businessman. There's something about the type.]

To a certain extent I'm envious. If I ate that much food in one sitting I would be in discomfort probably till evening. Ooh, I can't walk, I'm bloated, why did I do that, and what, ultimately, is the meaning of existence?


Pork liver lean meat congee (一碗豬肝瘦肉粥 'yat wun jü gon sau yiuk juk'). A little slivered ginger, a dusting of pepper. And a hot fresh yautiu (油條).

That's actually as close to the meaning of existence as you can get.
But I already knew that.

The appointment was exactly at the time the office opened. So I was there half an hour early and cooled my heels. It is most often the case that I show up for medical appointments far too early, and for anything else also. On work days I'm usually there over an hour before anyone else. I factor in errors and the unforeseen, and I hate rushing about.

It took me a long time before I learned to do this.

I'm kind of stupid at times.



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WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT?

Some people display peculiarities that are, more or less, green flags. Some don't. One of the members of the pipe club loves nothing more than waffling on about panning for gold in the Sierra foothills, which since he retired two or three years ago has taken up a lot of his time. It's a connection with history and his inner Gandalf. I myself prefer to watch paint dry.
Which is fascinating oh boy.

A few others are much more connected to the modern world, and have experiences that are somewhat more shareable. A high school music teacher. A person who wishes to visit every country in the world before he passes on (quick, invent more countries!). Three people of wildly different Netherlandish background, because Cheeseheads are a wildly diverse bunch. And, as of yesterday, three more members, one of whom is in the medical field, and I have no clue what the other two are into because I did not get to talk with them.

But what is clear is that we need more chairs.

We're okay on pipe cleaners, though. The gentleman who only came for the free pipe cleaners moved to the desert nearly ten years ago. I also like free pipe cleaners, but it wouldn't prompt me into being a social being on a Sunday. I sparkle irrespective of pipe cleaners. Bernard, Martin, and Neil probably don't go anywhere without them. I have not carefully observed anyone else's pipe cleaner habits and peculiarities.

Pipe cleaners are essential to civilized life.

We tempt space aliens with our pipe cleaners. If the intergalactic federation ever contacts us, it will be because of pipe cleaners. They're a priceless invention. Kudos, humans!
War, no. Pipe cleaners, yes.

Several Latakia blends were mentioned. We also talked about our first tobaccos. Good lord we smoked some awful shite back then. Royal Theodorus Niemeijer Scottish Mixture.

After everyone left I found a glass jar filled with something black that had not been put away. No, I didn't bother opening it up to smell, as it was quite clearly BCA. Which is Green River Burley cooked till it darkens, with sugar and vanilla added. The bane of existence. What hobbits smoke. As well as the abusers of farm animals.

It had not been evident in the air during the meeting, perhaps it was left to torment me.


Beatings should probably continue till my morale improves.



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PIG'S BREAKFASTS

Wow. It took less than a week for the peace movement to discredit itself completely. Great going, guys. Less. Than. A. Week.

That takes talent. When we invaded Iraq it took them a few months.


The American left wing, while commendably anti-Trump, is unfortunately sodden with the same idiots and mental defectives as the American right wing. They're Americans.

Anti-Semites. Religious nuts. Racists. Misogynists. Supporters of brutality and repression. Illiterates and monumentally ignorant people. And the terminally misguided. A rational person cannot associate with them. A decent person cannot be seen in their company. A thoughtful person should not engage them but had better avoid them like plague-carrying radioactive mutants. Their presence is sickening and pollution.

That's both the right wing and the left wing.

Irrespective of where one stands.


And dammit.

No, the European righties and lefties aren't any better, but that is of little concern. They're far away, they can rot in their own damned swamps over there, and European democracies are probably more resilient in many ways, certain countries excepted.


By the way: Iran has chosen a new supreme leader/grand poobah, since the previous one was un-alived. An unfortunately blessed event. They have not mentioned his name yet, or explained why they hate him so much that they signed his death warrant.
He's probably an extremely odious man.
It's tradition.


They're not that different from us.



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THE SAVAGE HINTERLAND

At first I was wondering why there were so many people about on the streets when I got home. Especially the evening before Daylight Savings Time kicks in. Then I remembered: Chinese Newyear Parade. The town is, consequently, filled with many more white people. Including the tweaky tattooed meth freak on the bus from Marin.
Who was by himself a slice of life.

Normally I like to zone out on the bus. Reconstitute my head. Meditate. By the time the bus hits downtown Sausalito that becomes difficult, as the crowds of tourists flock on and talk loudly. This time, because of the druggie, that was ill-advised ab initio.

Heavily tattooed. Hands. Neck. Arms. Parts of the face. Twitch twitch, fuss, move head and hands frenetically. Shift position repeatedly. Scratch scratch scratch.

San Rafael's finest citizen.
A typical product.

The tourists were quite unaware of him. It. Ladies and gentlemen, now's your chance to be photographed with an actual native, barely domesticated. Admire the nosebone!
The monochromatic correctional institute skin grafiti!

Nobody.

The picture above represents the densely verdant undergrowth in city parks and around civic buildings in San Rafael where the species often roosts. Ignore the little piles of bones, those are just the neighborhood's missing children after the successful hunt and subsequent feasting. Suburban kids are dime a dozen, nobody misses them
And they're so easy to replace.

The trailer parks are pulsating with procreation!


If they survive to adulthood they become heavily tattooed artistic types who live their lives meaningfully, spiritual, all mystical and vegan.


I haven't run into the woman whose existence attracted drama in months.
She was very Marin. We all heard about her life.
Existenz-angst und weltschmerz.
Ganz spannend!



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