In Which We Are Planted

 

I have no idea where I got the impression that the black plastic pots plants come in from the nursery are not suitable as long-term housing for the plants, but I have for decades been adamant about transferring them into what I believed were more suitable containers.  More informed gardeners and professional landscapers have insisted to me, using small words because they thought that's what I needed, that that is not true, that the black plastic pods are just fine.  But a) they're wrong and b) those cheap pots may be utilitarian, but, man, are they ugly and c) shut up. 

When I had my house and garden up in the canyon, my obsession with repotting was no big deal.  I had a big patio with plenty of room to work in and any mess I made (and I always made a mess) was easy to clean up with a hose and a broom.  Now that I have relocated to an apartment with only a few insolent house plants, my efforts at giving them a new, more attractive spot are considerably more difficult. 

The subject has unfortunately come up again because late last year I bought a really charming fiddle leaf ficus.  It has been a great addition to my tiny collection of house plants, and so I decided it was time to give it a real pot.   Repotting is not really very difficult, but since I have to pull it off in the kitchen, The whole operation is a little more complicated.

Especially since the ficus is fairly tall and the pot is sizable.  But I am a genius and also not all that fussy about the final product.  I always explain to any plant that has come into my grasp "You have two options: live or die." 

In the end, it all came out fine

Ficuses are notorious for going into shock if you move them around and then dropping all their leaves to prove have a delicate they are, but this one seems to be less crazed than that and I hope it will be happy in its new home. 

Boys I'd like to put in a pot:

Au naturel

Much like PhotoShopping, I have decided not to struggle against AI created beefcake.

Are these guys real?  They are real enough

If we can't tell easily if it's AI, then maybe it's not worth the grief of worrying.

AI slop?   I want to slop him

Classical

In Which We Detect

 

I've been on an absolute spree of (mostly) British cop shows, procedurals set all over the sceptered isle.  These range from the excellent (Ellis) to the execrable (Vera), but almost all of them suffer from the cliche of the lead character being damaged and dark.  Maybe that's realistic, they are cops after all. But I'm not interested in Detective Chief Inspector Whatshername's trauma.  I just want to see the bad guys get arrested and thrown in the back of a cop car with the steering wheel on the wrong side. 

Also, why do so many of these supposedly professionals find it so difficult to keep it in their pants around the other supposedly professionals they work with?  As soon as there is an adult male and an adult female in the same interview room, you know they are going to be bumping nasties in the next scene and it will inevitably lead to Drama. Guiltily avoiding eye contact, harsh whispered confrontations in the hall, and then his wife kicking him out or her husband demanding to know who the real father is.  In the meantime, nobody can figure out who dumped the body in the river.  Well Clive, maybe if you could keep your sausage out of Anita's pork pie you might realize it was the roommate.  Duh. 

The worst part though are the accents.  I speak English, honest, and technically so do these characters, so why do I have to watch with subtitles on in order to understand what they're trying to say?  The USA has five times the population of Great Britain, but our entire country has fewer dialects than you find in two adjoining English counties. Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool: they don't fool me, they're making it all up as they go along.  And the further north you go, the more indecipherable it gets.  I tried watching a show set in Scotland, dear God.  Called An t Eilean, the dialogue is in a jumble of Celtic and English, a hash which might as well have been Urdu.  Confusingly, the little scraps of English I could understand did not always match up with the subtitles.  That was enough to convince me to give up, especially in conjunction with the plot holes (the action opened with some woman in Paris getting a call from her father in Scotland saying he'd been shot. Dude, wut? I don't care how thick your accent is, surely you could figure out how to call an ambulance).

So why do I stick it out with these shows?  Because when they're good, they are so much better than American ones, looking at you, Law & Order, the mega franchise that will not die. Anyway I got to go, I have a cold case waiting that depends on an illegal search (are warrants not a thing in England?) and I have to figure out what the slang Gilly is insulting Cletus with.

Guys:

Frisk me daddy.

Everybody's favorite cellmate.

Today's naked guys are brought to you by the letter D.

Sculptural.

Don't squint, it'll give you frown lines.

I have to end it here, Toby is demanding attention and I have tacos calling me.

In Which We Have a Nice Day

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In Whuch We Have a Construction Update

Our story so far: 4 weeks ago, there was a small fire in my building and the resultant sprinklers flooded almost the whole building, only the end of the hall hall where my apartment is located escaped, think whatever god looks over bitter old Queens like me. The water remediation and repairs have preceded remarkably quickly, they have finished all the work in the halls and most of the units.

It's been an annoyance (for instance, the dust occasionally sets off the smoke detectors, always when I'm asleep, causing me to shriek "shut up" which helps exactly as much as you might expect it to) but finally this week they have removed all the fans and dehumidifiers as well as the plastic sheeting on the floor and which sealed off my end of the hall.

My cat Toby has reacted to this by bolting out into the hall whenever he can squeeze past me as I open the door.  He had been pulling that for most of the time that he's lived here, but all the racket and workmen out there had convinced him that a little cat should stick closer to home.  I was okay with his previous escapades, justifying them by saying that I wanted him to know which door was his if he ever escaped.  Toby acted like this was an endorsement of what a tough boy he is.  Of course that act was pretty transparent considering he would demand that I accompany him and would then roll on his side and wait for me to pick him up and carry him back home.  What a little gangsta.

Because he is a terribly friendly faux-gangsta, he would either be terrified by the occasional appearance of my neighbors, or he would run right up to them and demand pets.  The little girl who live next door came to believe he was her cat.  One time, a neighbor had propped their door open to get a little cross breeze and before I could stop him, Toby had hopped over the the doorstep and blew into the apartment.  Maybe he was looking for a new life, I don't know.

I tried getting him to come back out before the neighbor could become aware of this home invasion by hissing and whispering commands at him, and then I gave up and started ringing the doorbell, but the neighbor ignored me.  Eventually Toby showed back up at the door with the air of a butler turning away an unwanted intruder so I scooped him up and we went home.  The neighbor never did appear. 

Now that the construction is mostly over, Toby has returned to ruling the hall and waiting for me to pick him up like a baby which is what he trained me to do.  We also have a game where he sits on the table next to my laptop and bites my hand if I don't brush him, or I will toss his toys at him which he knocks off the table and waits for me to pick up and toss again, so apparently he has taught me to fetch.  How did I get here? 

Naked guys I would definitely play fetch with:

Ink.

Everybody gangsta til daddy comes home.

Stop being goofy.

Open for business.

Just cause it's called a "nutsack" doesn't mean you're supposed to put coconuts in it.

Shapely.

In Which We Search

 

As I mentioned in last week's post, I continue to hunt for a replacement for my beloved Peet's, RIP.  Peet's, the world's finest cafe, was my daily outing until it closed at the end of January.  Since I'm doing my best to avoid becoming a literal shut-in, I need to find some place to go for my coffee and snack. 

Because I am a big-city boy, there is no shortage of candidates; I have four likely options in a one block radius of my front door.  Tragically, all of them come with at least one drawback.  Directly across the street is the charming Wooden Spoon, but they're actually more of a full full restaurant and not someplace just drop in for a muffin. 

We recommend the Eggs Benedict

At the end of my block, we find a pretentious little joint called Verve.  Every time I have been in there, I feel that I'm being judged and found lacking, and I am simply not cool enough for their aggressively strong coffee.

Thoroughbread's charmingly shabby patio.

Around the corner is the leading contender, Thoroughbread Bakery.  Aside from there their amusing name, they make the best lattes of any of the close places,  and a very tasty turkey sandwich.  Oddly enough, I find their baked goods sort of disappointing.  Still, they're leading the Peet's Replacement Derby. 

mrpeenee taking advantage of the balmy San Francisco weather, for which I pay so very goddamn much, to lounge outside at Epicurious.

Trailing along in last place is the very fancy little grocery, Epicurious.  They have a cafe with outdoor seating, which is very appealing during this warm spell we've been having.  Less appealing is the very thin and sour coffee they serve up.  Dudes, you're a cafe.  Do better. 

Also I need to tip my hat to my favorite, the Cafe du Soliel.  Delicious pastries, especially the cheese Danish, and definitive espresso drinks.  It's just too bad that they are a tiny bit too far away for a daily walk. 

The best thing about my exploration is that it reminds me that I live in an incredibly charming neighborhood in a beautiful city.  I have felt very much like a tourist trying out all these exotic places.  People pay serious money to come to San Francisco and experience what I get to do by just walking down the street.  I try to bear that in mind as I sample my way through an ocean of coffee. 

Naked guys:

This week we will be focusing more on muscle pussy, because that's mostly what I have available.  Quit complaining.

Besides his very superior butt chops, I also admire this lad's hairdo.

So appealing.

I was so struck by him, here's another.

Stop showing off.

Once again, mrpeenee is confronted with smut and focuses on the decorating therein.

Whee.  Also, wee.

How very voluptuous.

Always up for a good time.

In Which We Say Goodbye to an Old Friend

 

Goddamit

Yes it's true, my beloved Peet's, the world's finest cafe, is closing the location I go to every day.  So, once again, fuck 2025.  And before any of you get alarmed about mrpeenee's chronology problems, let me assure you I know it's technically now 2026, BUT 2025 is when the corporate buyout that led to this occurred.  First Trump gets reelected and then that. Goddamit. 

Peet's announced that its corporation had been consumed by a larger conglomerate headed up by Dr Pepper/ Keurig, which sounds like an evil business name from Saturday Night Live, but it's really real.  Keurig I can sort of understand since it's simply a coffee company buying out a competitor.  I suppose they don't need any cafes in their drive to choke the environment one tiny plastic container at a time. But Dr Pepper? What did I ever do to them?  Whenever I bump into DP in the wild I'm always vaguely surprised they're still around.  They seem like a remnant of my Southern childhood, an also ran in the the cola wars. Now I simply have a concrete grudge against them.

Since there are many, many days when stumbling down to get my daily cup o' Joe is the only reason I have to leave the house, I now need to find a replacement for Peet's. I'm researching possibilities, but all the candidates have some fatal flaw; they are too far away, or too fussy, or not fussy enough, or I have sworn eternal enmity against them and their bloodlines for some wrong they committed against me that no one but I remember.  Mostly, of course, the truth is simply that I am a cranky old man and I am opposed to change on principle.  I have outlived R Man, family, friends, people I love, cats, and now my cafe.  Give me a break, entropy. 

At least I still have naked guys:

Plein air pussy.

I refuse to worry about PhotoShop or AI encroaching on the world of smut.  I surrender.

Also, I sympathize with my readers trapped in the frozen waste of everywhere that isn't California.  Sorry guys.

I send Gianluigi Volti to help you through these frigid times.

Don't despair, spring is on the way.

When he hauls that hog out, I'm sure you can hear an audible "plop".

Ready for action.