The Menagerie
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Odd Menagerie free porn video
Annual Xmas Letter from the odd menagerie of Lillian, Elaine, Tommy &
Peggy.
Chapter the First, in which Lillian recounts events of the year just
closing...
Merry Christmas to all our dear friends,
This has been a truly outstanding year for our little household, with
lots of discoveries and developments. Wishing you all the very best for
the New Year. This will be my (Lillian's) last Annual Letter - I'm
turning over the journalistic duties to Elaine. I'm sure she will be up
to the job of carrying on in future. But I digress... Let's begin near
the beginning...
2004 began with a delightful excursion to our favorite Old World
capitol, The Hague. Tommy arranged a business trip on the flimsy excuse
that an old comrade of his was retiring. I was delighted to go, of
course, and planned the whole affair to make the most of it. We arrived
at Schiphol, as usual, very early on a Sunday morning, well before the
good burghers of Holland were up and about. Disembarking from the
plane, we nipped quickly into a rest room to change into something more
suitable. I had stowed my favorite bra and panties in Tommy's carry-on,
so it only took a moment to switch roles and get into the mood for fun.
We could have lingered in the shops, since the 7am arrival from the
States comes at a bit of a slack time, but on this occasion I was eager
to get into The Hague and proceed with the agenda. Tommy stopped at the
ATM and performed his pin code magic to secure us some euros. We hit
the grocery store for a cigarette lighter, Job papers, yogurt and a
package of almond cookies. Sometimes we get gevulde koekjes or gevulde
canoes, as the mood strikes us - this time the little round
amsterdammetjes. And then on to the train. Only half an hour or so into
The Hague, watching the lovely lowlands countryside roll by in the soft
morning overcast. Flat fields with a few cows or horses, blocked into
rectangles by bordering canals, canals winding through little towns,
canals skirting the woods, canals ready for ship traffic that will come
during the week, but are empty now. And always the windmills Mostly to
pump water, from one canal to another, some for grinding grain or
spices, some - many - now just for ornamentation and nostalgia, The
most serene and peaceful views, but my favorite moments were sneaked
peaks at my lacey bra, framing my budding breasts for my appreciation
only, beneath the anonymous cover of a winter jacket.
From the train station it's only a short stroll to the hotel. Check in,
smiling at the lovely young polyglot girls in their official hotel
uniforms and their odd, perfect, perfectly odd English overlaid with
Dutch accents. Unlike the French, the Dutch don't speak Dutch with an
accent, but they do speak a strange version of English. It's modeled on
British, but with r's that want to roll in the Dutch style, and some
vowels we just don't hear in America. Their word choice is perfectly
appropriate, but just not the way you or I would say it - more like
transliteration from the antique phrasing they use in their own private
tongue, shared among the elite few who have descended from many
centuries of Lowlanders.
At last alone in the hotel room - lovely view of the Queen's woods and
the little reindeer park across the street. I mean, miniature reindeer,
in a vast park. Strange and lovely that The Hague has preserved so much
wilderness in this most crowded of European countries. Changing into
panty hose under our slacks, we defend ourselves against the chill and
sharp wind coming off the North Sea. A quick check that we have all the
necessities for a walk through town - groceries, a water bottle - and
we're off again. It's best to keep moving and stay out-in what passes
for daylight on this overcast morning-to stave off jet lag and make the
most of the time. For I have planned our day well, and the next stop is
one of the local coffee houses.
Dutch coffee houses are now being transformed, and are transforming the
world, just as they did so many centuries ago, by offering a new
chemical diversion to the general public. In past centuries, it was
caffeine, which fueled the Dutch imagination, spurred commerce, and
promoted exploration of the far East Indies - later Indonesia - a great
source of wealth and culture for the fatherland. Now of course, the
chemical is THC, and the form is cannabis. Much more diverting - my
dears, you simply must believe me that I have explored all the
diversion that can be extracted from caffeine and from cannabis, and
while I am exceeding fond of each, it is not an equitable competition.
The fairest of them all is, by far, the lovely virgin flower. I have
enjoyed the seedless sticky flower tops of many lands - their textures,
their colors, their yummy aromas. The nicest place for these
investigations is the Netherlands, where a curious thing has come to
pass, because of the peculiarities of the Dutch mentality. The Dutch
are at once very judgmental and very permissive. They know you are
wrong, and will take great pains to explain your errors to you, but
they don't really expect you to improve. Best of all, they don't refuse
to associate with you merely because you are a monstrous fool.
Moreover, they are bound by the logic of their own rules, even when the
logical conclusion is not very logical at all.
In particular, they allow possession of cannabis for personal use. That
seems very reasonable, although I confess my assessment may be biased.
A few years ago, a young man was apprehended entering the country with
a carload of cannabis-one actual automobile, chock full from stem to
stern with bales and bales of marijuana. The border patrol hauled him
into court, and the judge heard his silly tale. "For my own personal
use", he said. "I'll just smoke it all my self." Patently ridiculous.
But wait - where was the evidence to the contrary? The police did not
catch him dealing, just transporting. It seemed more than a lifetime
supply, but how to prove it? Not worth the time and trouble to put him
under surveillance. Maybe he would just smoke it himself for a month or
two, tying down police resources which could be better used to defend
the good citizens against real threats, like junkie burglars and
Islamist assassins. So they had to let him go. Thereafter, there seemed
hardly any point in even trying to enforce the law, so they didn't.
Now for some reason, coffee houses follow the polite fiction of
segregating the grass-dispensing window from the coffee bar proper, or
at least most of them do. Propriety can be honored in Holland, even by
dope peddlers. I have sampled a few of the house specials available
these days in The Hague. Some of these establishments are well-known to
members of the Tweede Kamer-the Dutch House of Commons-who ply their
custom there. Middle-class, middle-aged ladies among Tommy's colleagues
come to gawk at the Dutch debauchery, and feel the thrill of contact
with the evils they forbade themselves when, as undergraduates, they
steered clear of those nasty unwashed hippies who were enjoying
themselves far too much for their own good. I find that it is worth
shopping around a bit, because these cafes are not all the same. A
couple of them are just too seedy for my taste. One should surround
oneself with tasteful decor, all else being equal. Among my early
favorites was Sunshine, because the bar maid was so pretty and so nice.
The earsplitting techno music was an appropriate counterpoint for the
subterranean caramel high provided by the house-brand weed, "White
Widow". One of those Dutch inventions-home grown in glass houses, like
the tulips and roses which the Dutch grow, bestow on the hostess when
visiting friends, and ship to florists around the world. Also, I
believe, they are chemically pushed-like orchids-to achieve an
intensity unheard of in the wild.
Today, though, Tommy and I are headed for Smokey's. It's a little place
at the low end of downtown. Low-that is: south, and near canal level,
and surrounded by Turks and Muslims, and by shops of the sort not found
in neighborhoods, which a nice girl would frequent. But then, I'm not
that nice a girl, and Tommy follows happily where I lead him. Smokey's
doesn't have its name on the door or on a sign over the sidewalk, just
a huge front window with a picture of a striding raven. It reminds me
of Hekyl (or Jekyl?) from the old cartoons, smoking a big stogy and
strutting with a bowlegged gait, showing the world he's very satisfied
with his bulky cojones. Tommy, of course, is completely unsatisfied by
his own mini-cojones and teeny-weenie, while I am delighted to be
unencumbered by such flotsam and jetsam. Still, we enjoy some amusement
at a bit of macho swagger, when it presents itself.
The ambience in Smokey's is almost genteel, although the peeling
plaster back toward the rest rooms and the decidedly blue-collar doper
clientele teeters on the brink of seedy. The bar is lovely, though-
ornate mirrors set in carved mahogany expand the narrow room to a
gracious proportion. The coffee is fine-like everywhere in the
Netherlands-robust and dark, fresh from Douwe Egberts in vacuum-packed
containers. The big draw at Smokey's, though, is the house brand weed-
K2. It's the only one they sell, which was a bit of a disappointment to
me at first. I like to go in and just ask for "the kleinste tasje van
de beste" (the smallest bag of the best) because I can do it in Dutch.
It's fun to show off by speaking the local lingo. Now, I think, what
the heck? I wouldn't get anything else anyway, after having tried it.
It made me give up the pretty bar maid at my former favorite without a
second thought.
I wonder about the name. It must be another Dutch synthetic, because
all the cafes call the imported stuff by the country of origin. I
suppose it's a reference to that mountain in the Himalayas, second only
to Mt. Everest, and higher according to some surveys. So is the grower
claiming that this is the 2nd greatest high? A characteristic bit of
Dutch self-deprecation? Or is it the highest, known only to the
cognescenti? If not, what would the highest be, I wonder-for K2 is an
enviable high, which takes me back to my youth...
Back to the days just after grad school, when I was scoring the best
Colombian sensemillas, stuffing the tiny bowl of my giant bong with
gummy flower tops-so tightly packed it was like burning incense.
Exhale, inhale, exhale again, pushing and forcing all the air from my
lungs as I bent down to cover the bong with my mouth, then flicking the
lighter and sucking slowly to bend the flame over the bowl, arching the
fire to echo the hunch of my back, sucking harder to engulf the whole
bowl with raging fire and consume it all at once into exhausted glowing
ash, filling the whole tower of the bong with a vast column of dense
aromatic smoke, like Yahweh leading the Israelites by day, and then
releasing the finger hole, sucking it all in, filling my lungs to the
deepest recess, straightening my back for increased lung capacity,
holding it in tight. Then the great crescendo of the stratospheric,
explosive ascent into ecstasy. Way, way, up above the top of the
atmosphere, with nary a glance back at the earth's orb swiftly receding
in the rearview mirror. Rocket Man! The long pause, approaching apogee.
Savoring the taste, and the high, and the release, and the sheer
effortless acceleration. And then the long, slow exhalation,
congratulating myself on having retained all that concentrated smoke,
releasing in the eventual inevitable exhalation only the merest wisp of
an echo of the demon genie who now sits cross-legged in my skull,
bearing my soul on his magic carpet.
And then the tumult of ideas, spilling out as if from a dam spillway,
or a mountain white water torrent-bumping and jumping and bubbling and
tumbling over itself. The whole of human experience is laid out for
wonder and analysis. The beautiful carved columns in Smokey's mirror
frames summon thoughts of Bellini's reverse spiral columns in the
Vatican, Trajan's monument in the Roman forum. Who commissioned these
works, and why? The Medicis of Florence underwrote Michaelangelo's
David. Were they merely flaunting their affluence, advancing their
political influence? Centuries later, we think that art is somehow
important, even transcendent, like the cave paintings from Lascaux,
which signaled the dawn of human imagination, distinguishing humans
from the animals. Is the Tate Modern important, or just just
masturbation by dilettantes mislead by vanity and art professionals
(who need students to justify their tenured hog troughs) into thinking
that they matter. Are they are the heirs of the master of Lascaux, of
Leonardo, of Picasso? Or is it the decorators of bars-skilled workers
in wood, enriching the visual milieu of the common man? The human
experience, which distinguishes us from the animals, and makes it worth
getting out of bed in the morning, to fill our minds with the rush of
wine and flavor and the understanding of international exchange rate
mechanisms and the threat to western civilization from the lost
economic power of the Americas, caused by the inattention of the Bush
administration. So much squandered in so brief a time. Goals, grand
plans, long-range schemes to establish milestones of human heritage...
But where is the sustaining continuo of basic human contact? With the
strangers in this cafe? Blanche Dubois often relied on the kindness of
strangers. Tommy and I rely on the anonymity of the world. God is not a
vengeful god, but-bless me-an apathetic, careless god. I take solace in
my faith that the universe is unaware of my existence.
K2 is the stuff that dreams are made of, but doesn't quite match the
pinnacles of my youth. I don't have the equipment anymore - not the
long 2ft bong, or the privacy of a single flophouse room. Here the best
I can manage is a bar stool, an order of "Spa Blauw, koffie zwart"
(bottled still water, black coffee), and some weed rolled in papers or
a makeshift pipe fabricated from aluminum foil. This time I have scored
a water pipe from a little head shop just north of Holland Spoor
Station. I to fill the bowl of the pipe with Spa Blauw, and the
mellowed, cooled smoke of the K2 evokes sweet remembrances.
To be continued...
Lesley
- 31.03.2022
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