The Small-Hat Wearing SPLC Doing What It Does

 Trouble is, people are noticing. 

I woke up at 1 in the afternoon and turned on the radio and even on NPR, they're talking about how the Southern Poverty Law Center's antics have caught up with them, It's been a simple case of "cobra farming". In India, years ago, they paid a bounty for cobras. The result was people started farming cobras to turn them in. The SPLC has been manufacturing the thing they claim to fight. 

This is a standard small-hat tactic. 

I left here around 3, went downtown and did my usual route; drop off trash, drop off donations at the Japantown little free library, go by the Amazon place for some bubble mailers, then over to the bank to deposit the check Ken had dropped off Friday night. Then came back here by way of 1st Street and U-Save Liquor where I-Saved on a six pack of those sour little bottles of Guinness. 

I got back in here, put the trailer on the bike and loaded it up with the packages I'd packed last night, and took 'em to the post office, and stopped at 99 Ranch for some packs of ramen, then rode back here, following my route to find packing stuff. I didn't find much filler like bubble wrap, but I found some good boxes. 

I had a dinner of H-Mart kim chee and Wal-Mart Swiss cheese, and finished the load of laundry I had going, and cleaned up the bathroom and had just about given up on Ken coming over and was starting to round up a batch of things to list on Ebay, when he showed up. 

I got my check, and all's fine and dandy. He's not sure when he can pay the "NNN" thing to the landlord, since he's waiting for his employer to pay him. But he's getting his Social Security which he's using for things like paying the rent here. We talked finances a bit. No, it's not any car loans; his cars are all paid off. Home insurance has gone up a bit, but the main thing, it seems, is credit cards. He's trying to get a consolidation loan .... 

The thing is, he'll probably pull it off. He's an early Boomer with a big house on a small lot and N+1 cars, and banks love those types. And that will probably lessen the stress for Oh I don't know, probably a year or so anyway. 

 

 

More financial instability

 Woke up at 3, got some good sleep I guess except crazy dreams. I stayed within my "beer budget" which right now is 2 small bottles of Guinness and 6 cans of Lagunitas IPA (not the "little sumpin' sumpin' which is a bit higher in alcohol content) and I think  I want to go to where I'm having 1-2 small bottles of Guinness a day because I swear, drinking it is making me feel better but more than that is just excess.

This way when I'm back in Hawaii even if I live in a no smoking/no drinking room, I can pop into a bar and have a pint if I've had a good say busking. 

So yes I woke up at 3 in the afternoon, and looked at the .. drops falling down. Still raining. In fact a particularly heavy downpour came through. 

Last night I'd photographed 30 things and listed 10 of them then kind of ran out of steam and called it a night. Today I am greeted by an email from the landlord ... we owe 'em something like $1004.95. They actually used Gemini which got the math a bit wrong, they come up with $1004.97 and I calculated it and got $1004.42 but ... I count money like an engineer, not an accountant and I'm not going to bring it up. 

They want Ken to drop by their office with a check by Friday. I'm nervous because I've got the paycheck Ken had dropped off Friday night, and want to deposit it but it's really rainy and stormy out there. It's supposed to clear up tomorrow in the afternoon, and I plan to get that check into the bank as soon as I can because Ken does things moment by moment, financially speaking. If I don't deposit the check, Ken will assume the money's still in his bank and something will bounce - either the check to the landlord or my check. 

I wrote to my pal Pat in Pahoa, not that I want to come stay with him, but just as someone to talk to and also he might know some people back on Oahu. I need to write to a couple of people too. Email is not reliable these days, but the US mail is still working.  

The way things are going, I'm leaving anywhere from mid-September of this year to mid-September of next year. If we're kicked out when our lease ends on August 31st, Ken's going to go into "frantic mode" and I don't want to be around for that.  I'll go stay in a hotel, finish off my final affairs and buy plane tickets, and leave. 

So between now and August 31, I need to sell off everything I don't need, get a good set of luggage, set up an account with the Navy Federal Credit Union because they're in Hawaii and here in SF, and I will use them for my Social Security check to go into. Once I've got my Real ID done, I'll set my present bank to stop sending me physical bank statements because I never read 'em anyway, and their main use is as something proving I live at my present legal address. 

I'm really hoping I can arrange to "land" with someone in Hawaii. Pat was trying to arrange that with our friend Dave but Dave turned out to be useless. But he may know other people. Otherwise the good old Waikiki Monarch it is. 

I don't know what's changed in Ken's finances to make things so difficult lately. I've theorized it's the new SUV his wife bought, but if she bought it with her own money then that's not it. But another thing has come to mind: Home insurance has spiked recently. That could easily have risen by a thousand or more per month. I suppose it doesn't matter what's made Ken's finances shaky, only *that* they are shaky and I need to base my actions on that. 

I have thought long and hard about just staying here. I'd not have the moving expenses I have been saving for and thus would have a good "nut" in the bank. There's a plethora, there I said it, plethora, of busking locations. The weather by and large is very healthy (it's the lower humidity and on average it's cooler than the weather in Hawaii). I'd still have Ken and Suzy as friends, although at their ages they could blow away in the wind in soon. 

But there's an underlying thing that's been lurking like a whale below the surface. I'm not local to here. I'm not even local to Orange County down South, and certainly not to Los Angeles county, even if I was born there. People talk about where they want to high school, places their worked their first jobs, things they saw changing, all those things that give you a sense of the history of your home, and I feel none of that here on the mainland. My schools, my college time, jobs, places I lived growing up, different experiences, are all on the dear old island of Oahu. 

There's an excellent discussion on Reddit about this, something like "Growing up haole" and it seems like being local, local-ness, matters much more now, and race, while still always very important and life-defining anywhere in the US, isn't the only consideration. Being local is things like going to school there, preferably during your formative years, knowing the local places, knowing the local cuisine, etc. Being local is not having A/C and never thinking about missing it. It's knowing all the bus lines. It's knowing how to live without a lot of money, because most of the local people never had money and a huge portion of them came over as plantation workers. 

It's things like body language, tones of speech, even what I'll call "eye language". In Japanese culture there's a great emphasis on being able to "read the air" and this has carried over to Hawaii local culture. This is what can get you pegged as Haole, as in mainland non-local haole. There's a huge sense of entitlement with those types, that I've seen even here on the mainland with regard to Hawaii. 

I'm not sure how to describe this, but two notable examples: One, a nice younger guy who rides a cargo bike and I've met several times by the bike racks at Whole Foods. I made the mistake of mentioning perhaps retiring back to Hawaii where I'd grown up, and I wish I could recall his exact words, but the feeling was something like, "You'd better not screw up my portion of Hawaii". I stopped mentioning Hawaii at all around him. The second example is the guy who owns "Skewers And Brew" downtown. I mentioned going back to Hawaii and he immediately sort of demanded information from me, where should he live on Oahu that's high-end, where his wife can do her shopping trips etc. I said they'd like it best in Hawaii Kai or Kahala, the two most expensive parts of the island and nice and upper-end. It was his demanding information like he was owed a place there that was really weird. 

So, here on the mainland, not only didn't I get to talk about where my first jobs were or where I went to high school or fun things I did growing up, but I couldn't talk about where I *had* gone to high school and where/what fun things I'd done growing up. Because then I'd have to say I grew up in Hawaii and then things would get really weird. 

 

RIP George Ariyoshi

 He made it to 100 years, sugoi! He was governor of Hawaii from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, so basically he was The Governor from when I was old enough to think about such things until the year I left Hawaii for the supposed greener pastures of the mainland. 

It felt like he was the default, the guy who'd be in his position until he was carried out feet first, but he was not actually governor all that long, and the feeling was that he'd always be voted in, no one could run against him yadda yadda. I think it was just the griping of butthurt haoles who were irked that a Japanese guy was governor. In reality he kept being voted in because he was a good guy. 

Doesn't it just figure; I didn't read up on him until today, having just learned that he made it to 100 and now hopefully is in the Pure Land. He was a good guy; born in Honolulu, went to a high school that I actually went to for a short while, served as a translator for the US Army in WWII, got his college degree on the GI Bill when it was really good for something, and went into politics. 

The write-ups on various Hawaii news sources says it all, he helped preserve a lot of land for agriculture or nature preservation, etc. He was just a good, competent governor. I guess the worst thing he presided over was the heptachlor scandal. This was a pesticide that was turning up in locally produced milk over the legal limit. Ariyoshi's slogan was "Quiet, effective" and someone made T-shirts with the chemical diagram of heptachlor and the words "quiet, effective" haha. 

I was living in a rooming house and going to college classes, working, a typical broke young adult experience. My room mates told me to pour out my milk, and I said that one more carton of milk isn't going to make any difference (I'd just bought a half-gallon and I drank a lot of milk in those days). I think the "scandal" was simply that Ariyoshi didn't act on the issue as quickly as some felt he should have. 

Yesterday was just about the same as the day before. Went to FedEx to mail stuff off. Collected boxes and other shipping materials. Got back here then rode downtown to the Amazon place for some bubble mailers, then to Walmart. 

I'd looked for Farmer John sausages to no avail there about a week ago, but this time I wanted to check out the cheese, and found for some reason, a huge amount of bacon and every Farmer John product imaginable, over at that end of the store. So while all I'd originally wanted was some Pledge, which I did get, I also got salami, cheese, and yep, a little box of Farmer Johns. 

Then, the ride back. I'd looked on the map and decided I'd take Alma, the major cross street near Walmart, West until I ran into Vine, then ride that back to Santa Clara street and to Whole Foods. Well, that worked, but Vine's a one-way for a good part of it and I ended up pooping along on the sidewalk through this homey little neighborhood area for blocks upon blocks. I think I need to go North on Almaden then jog over to Vine which gets re-named to Almaden and becomes two-way and that's the way to do it. 

I got over to Whole Foods and Petition Guy was there. I handed him more tape, as I had 3/4 of a roll of it I'd never use. He's about done with petitions so I may not see him for a while. 

I went in and got a slice of pizza, but it was a big one with, somehow, what amounted to half of another slice kind of attached to it. The guy at the pizza counter agreed that yeah, that counts as one slice... And a beer. I ate upstairs because it's kind of nice up there. 

Then I went back in and got more beer to take home, and I believe I stopped in at U-Save for some Guinness too but I'm not sure. It's been tons of riding and tons of busy-ness, trying to get my packing materials stocked up well again, and trying to work things around the rain that's coming. 

So, last night instead of listing things, I packed everything that had to go and I was glad for the packing supplies I'd just gotten in. Rain was supposed to come in "after 11AM" so all I could do was try to get to sleep and then get up early enough to get out of here shortly after waking up. 

I woke up around 12:30, and it wasn't raining although the sky was full of interesting and dramatic clouds. It felt like everything was holding its breath. I loaded up the bike, with the large box that wouldn't fit in the plastic tub everything else was in, in a trash bag on top of the tub. And rode off. 

I stayed perfectly dry. Everything was postal service and I dropped the things off there, then went to 99 Ranch for a couple of things, then rode back here without looking for packing stuff or anything, because I thought the way everything's holding its breath, maybe I can get downtown and deposit last week's paycheck and have a chance at getting more bubble mailers. 

I did, however, take a little jog by the natural foods place that puts things out, and got about 10 more Ritter Sports, hazelnut, and a bunch of other cookies, candy bars, etc. I just put everything in the tub, and put the empty cardboard boxes etc. in the dumpster.  

Right as I pulled up to the door here, I felt large rain drops. Well, I'll pull the bike in and see how this goes, I can still go downtown if it's just a little sprinkle... I thought. 

But once I had the bike and everything in, it gradually started raining more and more, and now it's rainy and stormy out there and I'm staying in. The check can wait. 

In other news, Our Most Zionist President wants banks to monitor citizenship, and if one is not a citizen, one is locked out of their bank account. A "Real ID" is specifically excluded as a proof of citizenship. A passport is OK, but if the information on your ID doesn't match the info on your birth certificate, it's difficult at best to get a passport. Examples are women who have married or divorced and thus had one or more name changes, or anyone who'd decided to change their name for any reason, trans people who have changed their gender marker, etc. 

Under this executive order by the pedo pants-shitter in chief, I'd be OK and Ken would be OK, but what about Ken's wife? She's under a different last name than what would be on her birth certificate. They went to Italy on vacation not all that long ago, so she should have a current passport and even an old one is proof of citizenship, so she might be OK. But this means is you can't be sure if you don't have a passport. 

Maybe this is a ploy, or more like  an unforeseen consequence, that tons more Americans will get passports. 

 

Busy day yesterday

 I packed things, got 'em to FedEx, had fried chicken at Krispy Chicken, no, wait, Chicken King, no that's not the latest name... Chicken Out. They still have Chicken King on their computer screen too haha. Delicious, and halal also. 

I did a very thorough search for packing materials got a fair load, and stopped at Tom's to say hi and drop off some eggs I'd found behind H Mart, and Tom was in a talkative mood so we hung out for a while. 

I got back here and re-configured the bike, and rode down to Walmart to get things, except I forgot the Pledge. Darn it. 

I came back from Wally's and went to Whole Foods and by this time it was about 9:30. Petition Guy was there and I gave him a new roll of that blue masking tape I'll never use, and we hung out and talked and I got beer, then rode home. 

By the time I got back here, it had to be 10:30 at the earliest. I decided to pack things to send out today using FedEx even for the small ones (they have a service where they hand things off to the post office, but rain's coming and I'm trying to avoid being out in the rain). That pretty much took up the night. 

The illegal night club had a busy night but thanks to the fence being closed, it was no problem here. 

 

The Bozo Bit

 Bill Gates is not exactly an exemplary human being, but back in the 90s I read a book about him and one thing that stuck with me was the idea of the "bozo bit". A bit being the most basic element of computation, a thing that it either a 1 or a 0, on or off. 

The idea was, Gates would interact with someone and if they turned out to be a bozo, IE unreliable, unintelligent, etc., in some way a waste of time, the "bozo bit" flipped and he gave up on that person. 

Ken didn't come by last night even though I'd called him in the afternoon and he'd said he'd come by. So he just plain forgot, or is juggling money such that he's had to pay something else and didn't have money left over for me (after all I'd told him if it comes to it, pay the electric company before he pays me because w/o electricity I can't get any work done) or something. 

I'm pretty sure the bozo bit idea didn't require one knowing why the other was a bozo, just determining that they're a bozo.

I was thinking the 3rd car (SUV) Ken and his wife bought might have made their finances suck. Being devout Suburbians, they have to have N+1 vehicles and there are two of them in their McMansion, so a 3rd vehicle is as necessary to them as fish on Friday is to a devout Catholic. And as per AAA figures, it costs a bit over a thousand a month to own and operate the average vehicle in the US. 

But, firstly, the SUV is his wife's and she may have bought it with her own money. She may have even paid cash. 

Secondly, when Ken, with my help, got out of the storage units here and into that one large one in Milpitas, he decreased his expenses by about a thousand a month. 

So, I don't know, Ken's just bad at managing money.  

And our numbers are really good lately. We're talking 9-10 thousand dollar months. And it's not like Ken's buying the stuff I'm selling; he's got so much stuff it's just been drawing down on the huge pile of stuff. 

But this happens, where a business will be doing really well but the expenses are too high or things are mismanaged and boom! They're out of business. 

Plus there's that August 31st "deadline" where a new lease must be signed. Whether the rent's raised or lowered depends on how good and reliable a tenant we are. 

I've said it ad nauseam  but I really want to hang in here and white-knuckle it until September of 2027. I'll be turning 65 and will have another year of savings. But if we're thrown out of here, or given notice, on 31 August this year, that gives me two weeks to mid-September, and I can gather up my stuff - just box it up! - and throw it into the storage across from Tom's and sleep at his place or in a hotel while I sell off everything I haven't sold off already, figure out what I'm going to use for luggage, etc. 

This is where Tom can be a real resource, because he flies to Alaska a lot, and I should pick his brain about luggage. I think I want something to carry on, and something big that can swallow up the cornet in its box, the cornet gig bag, clothes, etc.  

It's too bad in a way I'm not going to New Orleans, because then it's just hop on the Amtrak. But then I'd end up picking piss-soaked weed roaches off of the sidewalk, smoking crack, etc. No. Thanks. 

I packed a few more small things, gave myself a haircut, and took off almost an hour earlier than I'd usually take off for downtown. I dropped off trash, dropped off food things at the little free library, went to the Amazon place for bubble mailers (only got a few) then went to my bank and checked my balance. It was OK, so the last check I got some Ken hadn't bounced. 

I went over to Whole Foods and got "a small snack" of chicken, a little mashed potatoes, and broccoli, and a tall can of Lagunitas IPA because they were out of Guinness pints again. I had a few rolls of masking tape with me to give to Petition Guy but he wasn't there. I remembered him saying he was about done; that almost all of the petitions had enough signatures now. 

Basically not being paid, between buying and cash backs I took about $200, half of one paycheck, out of my bank account. That's my basic plan; put $400 in the bank each week, spend $200, and the other $200 is savings. 

I got a 12-pack of Lagunitas but they didn't even have the six packs of the sour little bottles of Guinness. A perfect time to check out "Kuik Stop", I thought. This is a liquor store on Taylor street that I've gone past a ton of times, and seems to be very busy and popular with the ahem, "urban camping" crowd. Maybe their prices are really good, I thought. 

So I went over there and checked it out and they didn't even have Guinness, and had your typical bodega type groceries, the cheapest beers, and nothing had prices on it. Run by Indians it seems. Meh. 

I rode over to First Street and to U-Save where I got my six-pack of sour little bottles and a bag of pork rinds, and rode back here. 

I found, on my desk, my pay check dated today, some mail, and one of those awful gun magazines "Concealed Carry" that Ken subscribes to. So, Ken was probably juggling a lot of things yesterday and just plain forgot. He *does* forget things. And I can deposit the check on Monday. 

After the IRS cashes my check my bank account will be down quite a bit. This is why I'm really hoping things will be stable enough for me to sweat out an additional year here, saving money. 

I put things away and put the trailer on the bike, and a big box that had to go to FedEx on the trailer and rode up to FedEx and dropped that off, and bought stuff in H Mart. 

On the way back I hunted for packing stuff and found some so that was good. I also found two loaves of French bread which I dropped off at Tom's place.  

A funny thing, though: On my ride out with the big box, I'd seen something rectangular and shiny on the bike lane so I stopped and picked it up. It was a package of Indian cigarettes, and they were all in there except one. I put it in my pocket. 

So after I'd picked up the 2 loaves of French bread, I was riding around the back side of the strip mall out onto Brokaw, and there's a red truck with a topper that someone's obviously living in. It's been there for weeks, and I saw the person moving around, doing something. She shouted something out, to me or to whom I had no idea, but it sounded similar to "smoking" which reminded me of the cigarettes. So I circled around and asked her if she smokes and sure she does (we were now talking through the constant yapping of her small dog) and accepted the cigarettes thankfully, then went into how she's shouted to me "but you rode by so fast" about some *snow tires* she has that are for sale. 

Like, who sees a bicyclist with a trailer with a plastic tub on it, in warm weather, in an area where it never snows, and thinks, "Aha! That's just the kind of person who's always looking for snow tires!". 

I said I didn't need 'em, that in the snow on my bike if it gets thick enough I just walk it, really. And got the fuck out of there because who knows what other random things she was going to try to sell me. 

This is a classic example of a certain type of homeless person, who always has this, that, and the other, for sale. Always hustling. The goods might even not be stolen. They could always put the things on Ebay or Craig's List. But that takes being organized and shipping things out on time, and in the case of Craig's List that's often where people look for things that have been stolen. 

But snow tires.... that's just so fucking random. 

 

Whew

 Well, tax papers and big check (just a hair under $3300) sent off, back here blah blah. 

Ken had forgotten his check book (he switches between his truck and his Toyota Camry) so he's supposed to drop off my check today or tonight. 

After he left I got to work packing things until I pooped out around 4AM then it was beer and YouTube before bed. 

It's windy and blustery and supposed to rain on Sunday so no busking this weekend but hopefully some good practices. 

I watched a wonderful BBC documentary from 1968 about their national band championship and the band "Black Dyke" won. They had/have bands the way companies in the US had/have softball teams. Even at the company I was with for a while, we had a guy who was a total goof-off but he could do no wrong because he was a good softball player. Even fucked up his ankle sliding into a base and didn't get fired for it. 

The band musicians in the documentary were amazing, and playing amazing pieces. No doubt they could all read music like it's nothing. And it was all brass, from low tubas to the smallest Eb cornets; I didn't even see any drums. And apparently you couldn't just set up a band, the musicians had to be with some company or coal mine or something. 

Now I really wish I'd hung onto the DVD of "Brassed Off" that was given to me by an old friend who was originally from Sheffield in England and was a regular at the electronics swap meets. It's not on YouTube any more, only bits of it, then you can watch it if you pay. Not putting my financial information on the internet, thanks! But at least among the snippets that can be watched is the scene where the gal plays, as the conductor calls it, "Aranjuez, or as you guys know it, 'Orange Juice'". 

It's a great piece, and I might work on really getting it down. Of course being a dumb ear player, that, for me, will involve memorizing it then practicing to play the "recording" of it that's in my head. Just having the music in my head seems to work OK for a busking level musician like me, and it's not like I'm aspiring to play for the London Phil.

I can't play "Ave Maria" any more. I really put some work into that one. It was the first real piece I taught myself to play and I really worked on the thing, would go over it in my head as I rode my bike around the Gilroy countryside; a real Van Gogh landscape out there. I played it for the land owner when he got back from his vacation and he wasn't impressed - he's only impressed by things he's done, not anyone else. 

But it was "my" piece and I played it at least once every busking session and now I can't play it because The Least Christian Man In The World has adopted it as "his" song, even "dancing" to it with all the grace of a drunken walrus. So it's dead to me now. 

But "Orange Juice" is a dandy. I've played bits of it just from hearing it from memory, off the radio or something, I think bits of Miles Davis having used bits of it, and it's gone over well. 

Financially, things are ... scary. We're doing well on Ebay, 9 and 10 grand months. But I think Ken has an "N+1" problem. N+1 refers to the rule in the US that however many people, N, live in a residence, there must be N+1 cars. A while back, maybe a year ago? - Ken bought his wife a new SUV. It might have been bought with her money, since she has some, and she'd traded in a car her dear departed sister had left her, a car she referred to as a "tin can" and having ridden in it, that's what it felt like to be in. But that "tin can" probably only brought a few thou in trade-in, and there's no way she paid in cash for the rest for the new SUV. That's not the American Way. Nope she financed it, guaranteed. And it costs at least a thousand a month to own and operate the average car here in the US. 

So they're shelling out at least an extra thousand a month so Suzy can tootle to the antique store and the market, and their finances are stretched to the extent that I think that might have tipped things right to the edge. 

I say this because my older sister has a theory that what lost us our Portlock Road house in Hawaii was a real estate agent lady who buddied up to my father enough to learn about his finances, and urged him to buy a sports car, a Datsun 240Z, and that was just enough extra expense to tip our finances to the point where we had to sell the house and move to a much cheaper house up in Pupukea (don't worry we got foreclosed out of that one not many years later). Real estate agents in Hawaii are bloodthirsty.  

I had two big things to pack which exhausted my supply of actually large boxes and most of my bubble wrap etc. I also packed a number of small ones. I got going the usual time; Ken had not come by with my check. That's life in high tech. I wish I'd put all that energy and money into learning how to tap-dance or something actually useful. 

I dropped off the things, got some things in 99 Ranch and H Mart, and really looked for packing materials on the way back, coming back with a good load. I called Ken to tell him an air compressor he brought over last night works, and just incidentally ask if he's coming over tonight. He says he is. 

 

 

Tax Day

 I got my taxes done ... call it 1 hour to print out all the needed forms, 1 hour to do the actual filling in and a calculation or two (much of it was the same) and 1 hour to write out my copies to keep for myself (easier than taking everything to FedEx to photocopy the papers) and write out a check and fill out the form V for Voucher and put it all in an envelope etc. 

The big bugaboo is done, and I think I paid a couple-few hundred less than last year. I'd rather pay the couple-few hundred a year and have an actual government rather than the banana republic shit we have now.  

Once I had everything in the large envelope, it was 5:30 and I took off out of here, dropped it off at the post office and bought some more stamps from the machine because (a) the only reason I had stamps was I had some that someone had left out by the trash at 99 Ranch, and (b) I like the stamps the machine prints out, they look neat. 

Then I went up to Dai Thanh market and got things, bought some beer in the liquor store there which turns out to have pretty decent prices, then went to the Filipino market for an onion and checked out the 7-11 and the liquor store there, both duds. Then went to 99 Ranch for a tall can of Korean IPA they sell, then went home, stopping at the EMT school place where I picked up a big, "luggable" IBM laptop that might be good to put on Ebay because some of the old ones are "collectibles". 

So I got in here and realized I hadn't even taken my trash with me, I'd been so intent on getting that envelope with my tax papers (and check) to the post office, but there's a dumpster out there tonight so I put the trash in there, plus went into the other, closer to me, trash enclosure and took out a box I'd thrown in there some days ago, put a bag of stuff that fit into it in it, and also grabbed a very big cardboard tube, 7 feet long or so, I'm pretty sure I put in there ages ago, and put those into the dumpster also. I'm not going to clean up the pile of stuff others put in there because I've learned that when I do, more just shows up. But I can sure take care of things I'm responsible for. 

I cooked dinner and did odd things, and Ken came by. He'd forgotten his check book so he's coming by  tomorrow again to give me my check, and my 1099 too. I said I have so much packing and shipping to catch up on that if I'm doing things right, I'm not going to the bank until Friday anyway. 

Ken had brought by a very large Subway ham and cheese sandwich and gave me half. Granted I put in extra mustard and mayo, but it was surprisingly good.  

I asked Ken if he'd gotten caught up on things ... apparently he still owes the landlord the $500-odd for that "NNN" fee, which isn't going to help our relations with the landlord. And he says he's got enough for me but is worrying over "some other expenses". That's a bit worrying. 

At least he brought a letter saying I'm still on Medi-Cal which is great. And a voter registration thing and I'd been wanting one of those. I was hoping I'd take care of it when I went to get my "Real ID" but this is good, I can just mail this one in. 

Yes, getting my "Real ID" will be the next thing. 

I don't see much busking going on this weekend. I haven't been practicing, and the weather's been very blustery and cold. There's an inch of rain forecast for Monday.