Predictably

 I got some practice in around 6-7AM this morning and as could be predicted, it didn't go very well. 

How I'm hoping for when I'll hop on a plane and decrease the number of buskers in a 50 miles radius by 50% by leaving. 

Since I'll be turning 65, I'll be eligible to "audit" classes at the University of Hawaii, and I'll have all day to just play music, practice music, pick shells, go fishing, etc. 

I woke up around 3:30 I think, maybe more like 4:30, had coffee and nuts, and had packed all but one thing last night (a large flat roll of wire was a challenge to find but I eventually found it) and just packed one more small thing, and got out of here the usual time. 

I went to 99 Ranch first for a couple of things then the post office, then dropped off the big box at FedEx and in H Mart, got a package of sliced cheese and a can of cold black coffee and sat in front, enjoying half of the cheese and the coffee, and a little package of two Walker's shortbread cookies that were in the free box. They go well with coffee. 

Ken came by, later than usual but at least he came by and I got my pay check. When I go to the bank tomorrow I'll find out if the check he gave me last week was good. I was going to try to do things where I'd check with my bank today, but I didn't have time and had that big box to  take to FedEx. 

Ken and I talked as usual,  and at one point when on this idiotic "I don't like 'gluten-free' being pushed on everyone!!" thing. I fired up Google and showed how celiac disease is real, and went on about how if I see gluten-free written next to items on a menu, I don't consider that to be pushed on me; I'm glad to see that those who need to avoid gluten have some things they can get on the menu. Furthermore, I told him how I've had the weirdest thing happen, where I have diarrhea every day. It's not that big a problem, I "go" after breakfast, have my ass explosion, clean up, then I'm good until the next day after breakfast. But it can't be healthy and while talking, looked up all this stuff about celiac disease and decided I might try avoiding gluten for a while and see if it fixes things. 

Maybe I should have told him his diabetes isn't really real, and instead of insulin he needs to pray to Jeebus or some shit. In any case, he seemed to come around to admitting diseases that are real, can be real. Fucking Boomers man. 

He also mentioned, now that I found out, and told him, that the lease here is up on August 31, that he wonders what the landlord will do in terms of how much the rent will be, how long a lease to sign, etc. I said that it's not just me leaving in about a year and half, it's also if his day job lets him go, then he'll want to operate this business full time. He agreed that's what he'll want to do. 

In any case, although I keep repeating that I'm "white-knuckling it" and holding out until September of 2027, I'm getting prepared to leave earlier if things turn to shit here. If I leave a few months early, that's only a small time window where I'd not have Medi-Cal and not yet be on Medicare. Not drinking, and maybe being off of gluten, means I could assume I'd be healthy for that small period of time. 

 

 

The ol' 198th mitzvah ....

 Look it up, I still can't link it. It's a juicy read! 

It may be time to switch to Upscrolled, "It's not Zionist controlled!" and for blogging purposes, whichever one The Archdruid Greer is using these days. Wordpress I think? 

I got to work listing the 20 things I had photo'd last night and just kind of "ran out of gas" and had a stomach ace, which totally had nothing to do with the big batch of mushrooms I dumpster-dived and cooked up, and the 3 Romaine lettuce hearts from the same source I ate like potato chips, raw. 

So I kind of "ran out of gas" and slept until 3:30 in the afternoon. 

No practice, didn't even brush my teeth.  

I had my brekkie and packed what I could, and got out of here at 10 to 6. Dropped the things off at the post office and bounced back to H Mart where I locked the bike, and took my bag of change with me to Ross, where I bought a couple of pillow cases, and Sprouts, where I bought some olives and some expensive Swiss cheese from ... Switzerland. 

I walked back to H Mart, where I wandered around for the longest time .... I dunno, I was in a "meh" mood and everything was "meh". I eventually bought a package of frozen scallops and got out of there. 

Behind the gym I found a good $15 or more worth of Loacker chocolate wafer things, there goes my diet for now I guess. At least $15 or more worth of them is still not that many.  

So today's freebee was the Loacker chocolate wafer things, and today's excitement was a horrible screaming zombess, that was staggering along through the intersection I had to go through to go from H Mart to Sprouts. The thing was screaming incoherently, as you'd expect the undead to scream, and could still be heard from an amazing distance. Zombie virus ain't no joke.  

When the planes stop flying

 Is is now? 

 I'm not allowed to paste links any more. Yes, the Internet is dying also, but right now it's about being able to fly on a plane anywhere, unless one is wealthy enough to charter one. 

How much worse will it be in a year and a half when I want to return to Hawaii? If the planes are not flying, one plan would be to take a cruise that stops in Honolulu and jump ship. Another plan is to hitch a ride with someone sailing there, or even buy a sailboat and sail there myself - this last could get complicated as I have zero ocean-crossing experience. I guess I'd have to take sailing classes and get certified, then the whole buying a boat and provisioning it and making sure it's seaworthy. All a huge bother, so here's hoping the planes will keep flying for a while. 

OK I've just looked up the Wikipedia listing for Osmium, the most dense element and the most non-political thing I can imagine, and I'm not even allowed to link that. 

I got up, due to my alarm clock, at 2 this afternoon, was out the door at 3, and got over to Grainger before 4, and got a bright yellow hat that's an exact match to my bright orange one, but yellow. And it was $15 and change, a very fair price. That place is amazing, they have every tool... 

On my way back from Grainger I dropped off the packages I had, that I'd packed last night, at the post office and then went over to 99 Ranch for a bit of shopping, then hit H Mart for some other things. 

Then the dumpster patrol, and I found some good packing stuff and some things to list on Ebay to the tune of at least $100 and maybe more than that. It's funny too because there was a bum resting with his back against the building, just sitting on the asphalt, taking a break from can-collecting by the look of things. He made some weird sounds like groans and other than that didn't even acknowledge I was there, having a look at the same dumpsters he'd just gone through, and here I found a box with $100-$200 worth of stuff and eagerly put it on top of the plastic tub on my bike trailer and headed off. Tootle-oo!

Of course Mr. Bum has no way to list things on Ebay, no storage, probably no credit card or bank account or ability to stay on top of shipping, etc. Those guys are strictly hand-to-mouth, or collected cans to recycle place to cash to drug dealer. 

I could do that once I'm back in Hawaii. No, not the routine involving a drug dealer, I mean getting going on Ebay on my own again. I'll have enough money to float on while I'd get it established, but every time I think about doing this, I realize I don't want to go back to the Ebay grind, not for Ken and not for myself. Living cheap, learning and playing music, and collecting my Social Security check will be good enough for me.  

 

Time shifted back

 I woke up at 3:30 woops no, 4:30. I wanted to be out the door at 5, Oh joy. 

By the time I was out the door it was 5:30, but I only had to be at FedEx before 6, to drop off a box containing $1000+ of capacitors going to MIT. 

I got back here and went through a ton of scenarios; I wanted to go busk in Mountain View, and I debated whether to walk to the light rail, ride the bike to the light rail and take it along, ride down to Whole Foods and take the train, or take the 500 bus .... 

I ended up riding the bike to Whole Foods by the quickest route, over the hill that overlooks Bellermine, and since I'd chewed my sugar-free gum on the way, my mouth was all clean and I was ready to go when  I got there. 

Skinny Petition Guy was there but we're friends now so no worries. 

There were lots of people going in and out shopping, but the tips were very slow. Interestingly, I got two of the larger tips, a $5 and a $10, from Muslim-looking guys, while or right after playing "Morning Has Broken" by Cat Stevens, a musician who famously converted to Islam. I'll need to learn more of his stuff because he wrote some really nice songs, and we had his albums "Tea For The Tillerman" and "Teaser And The Firecat" around the house when I was a kid. 

Petition Guy and I talked a bit, and he was especially congenial since I'd given him some pens. I seem to buy pens faster than I can use them up, so I'm happy to share. 

I put in my hour and a half and as always, it was worth it because it's such good practice and besides, I learned a new son, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head". I remember when I was little I bugged and bugged and bugged my mother for a guitar. So I finally got my guitar, a Sears Silvertone which most guitarists concur is one of the biggest hunks of shit ever made. It was way too big for me, or I too small for it, and those steel strings were much better suited to slicing cheese than for an 8 or 9 year old to learn chords. 

My mom, in frustration, finally took me to a teacher, a nice lady with a guitar of her own with black nylon strings, and which was only a little bit oversized for me. She wanted me to learn "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" which I figured was kind of a dig at my crying in frustration. Later, there was a movie about Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and for some reason this song is played at the end of the movie.  Of course we had to see it because it was shown at the Mormon-owned theater in La'ie where my mom had a job, and free or cheap tickets, that job being conditional on our becoming Mormon so it didn't last, but having Mom work at the movie theater was pretty cool there for a while. 

And here it was, my fingers going in mostly the right places, and I could play it. 

Slow tips or not, after an hour and a half I'd done enough and I counted up: $43.31 making it pretty exactly $100 for the weekend. And lots of compliments on my playing. 

I went in and got meatloaf and some chicken bits and broccoli and a couple of curried shrimp, and a pint of Guinness and went upstairs to eat. I actually ate all that too. 

I went back downstairs and hung out with Petition Guy for a bit, and he told me all this stuff about his rather awful life. How he married some gal in Africa who's 30-odd years younger than him, how useless she and their daughter is, how his "life's work" a bunch of photographs and stuff, file cabinets full, are in a storage in Santa Cruz with her stuff stuffed in front so he can't get at his, how his car has a cracked head so he can only drive it short distances, how his computer's broken too, and the room he lives in is full of mold so he's dizzy all the time, yadda yadda. 

How much of this is self-imposed! He won't buy a used computer but has to have a new one with Apple Care. He won't store his stuff in the rather nice storage place Ken found where you can get a huge space for $300 a month, because Milpitas is "at sea level". How he won't live in an apartment because of all the electromagnetic fields ....  And marrying someone in Africa who's 30-odd years his junior... she was 21 or so, he says. I said in the 50s when my parents married, if you got to 21 or so without being married, it was because no one wanted you. So ..... 

By this time Whole Foods was closing up so I left for home. On Hedding Street I found a whole garage sale worth of stuff with a big sign, "FREE STUFF" and all I found I wanted was some paper bubble mailers. There were dressers, clothing, shoes, even some kind of motorized juicer thing. But in a Depression economy, no one wants that. 

 

Calm day

 I woke up at 3 in the afternoon. By the time I got cleaned up etc., I realized I could go play in Sunnyvale or Mountain View, and spend half the money on transit, plus two hours traveling each way, or I could just see how things are at Whole Foods. 

It was calm, and there was no one else there at Whole Foods. I started playing at 6:30 and stuck it out until 8:00, making $31, and when I was inside the store at the check out a guy came up and handed me another $2 so it was really $33. Plus I got some nice compliments from people. It was warm and not windy at all. 

And it's still the time of year when I don't even bother going out busking, as it's not in the "busking season" that's from April - September, the warm 6 months of the year. 

 

I feel *so* much like I dodged a bullet

 I got up at 2 this afternoon, early for me lately ... on the radio they were discussing the things that I think went into my waking up one fortunate morning and realizing I'm not retiring in Israel. 

They mentioned that something like 80% of Israelis are all-in for this latest war/genocide of theirs. That while they don't like the Netanyahu government, they're all for war and if NPR had the time to discuss this more deeply, they'd mention that their dissatisfaction with Netanyahu is he's not warlike *enough*. 

There are still not enough ultra-Orthodox in Israel to account for this; this is across the board. This is scruffy kids who are secular and sit around playing hippy music and middle-aged ladies with gift shops specializing in "dreamcatchers" and college professors and dental assistants and, well, everyone. 

There's a lot of talk - some of it by myself of course - about how Trump's regime resembles Hitler's and it's not a hard parallel to make considering the guy used to? Still does? Keep a book of Hitler's speeches at his bedside. But I think now a much closer parallel is the Netanyahu regime. 

I had one large thing packed and a handful of small things, and I was really on the ball today, getting out of here with time to drop off the big one at FedEx, then I'd go up past the post office to the next street, Ringwood, and go to Grainger and buy a new hi-vis hat. 

So I do that, go past the street the post office is on and start looking for Ringwood and can't find it. I rode up some street, and found a cross street, Consource, OK great I'm on .... Qume? I'll go up to Trade Zone and loop around, Grainger is just south of Trade Zone anyway.... 

There was a strong wind and I was going all-out to make good time and it was an hour's hard riding and I never found Ringwood, or Grainger. It was weird, because I'd even been there before. 

I found a bunch of packing stuff and rode back here. In theory I had time to relax a bit before taking off again, to go busking, but in reality, not really. I got the cornet ready, and took off and it was already about 5:30. 

I stopped at Nijiya for two boiled eggs and a can of coffee, and got over to Whole Foods. The wind seemed to have died down, and I'd just busk there, I figured. 

I started at about a quarter to 6, and held on until 8:30 but it was rough. First I was tired. Secondly I had a booth-botherer and the skinny guy who sets up a table to college signatures for petitions, for company. My stamina was not great, and I started sounding tired at about the 45 minute mark. The booth guy eventually packed up and I thought it might get better but it did not. 

In the end I made $27.01 and I'd also realized, this isn't even the proper busking season. Normally I don't even bother until April. I walked around Whole Foods and didn't see anything I wanted to buy, so I just called it a night and rode back here. San Pedro Square actually looked worth a try, but my prime playing condition was just plain used up. 

Back here, I cooked some dinner and then it's back to work. At least I looked up the Grainger again and Ringwood is one East of the road the FedEx is on, not the post office. So if I can get going early enough, I can have another try on Monday. 

 

 

A decent practice, considering

 Ken came by an hour early last night, but I had some things packed and had the office vacuumed so it was OK cleanliness-wise. 

I got a double check to compensate for the one that had bounced, and interestingly, in the mail he brought me was a notice that the check from the week before last had bounced. 

I also got my cornet gig bag which is pretty neat. 

After Ken left I packed the other things, being a few more small ones and three large ones, two of them quite large. 

I also called the landlord's secretary about her blaming me for the tables left outside and it turns out the guy next door is also called Alex, and the email was meant for him. I explained how, when the guys next door leave out a bunch of tables or chairs or something, I do them a favor by putting a "free" ad on Craig's List and people come and pick the things up. I'm not to do that any more. I guess the secretary would rather hassle them and fine them etc. But I'm still inclined to help, sneakily. 

I got a practice in that went surprisingly well considering it was like 6 in the morning. I went to bed a bit past 7, and was awakened at 1:30 or so by a call from the music store, my new mouthpiece is in. 

I had things packed, and stacked the three big things onto the bike trailer and took them to FedEx. Then I got back here, put the small things in a bag and took off for downtown. I dropped off trash at my Super Secret Trashcan(tm) and stopped in at Nijiya for boiled eggs and coffee. I ate the eggs at the table there because it beats eating them and being extra careful to be neat on the bus. 

I dropped the packages off at the downtown post office then stopped in at my bank and deposited my check. Then over to Whole Foods to lock the bike, and went right to the bus stop in front and got on the #22 for Mountain View. 

The ride was OK as such things go, until I was a mile or a bit more from the music store. There were a few stop lights out and they were blinking red lights. Those are treated the same way as stop signs. The only trouble is, we're talking 3-4 lanes of traffic each way. And everyone wants to get ahead of the bus because it's just the bus. 

So the progress was a bit slower than walking speed. But I preferred to sit and ride rather than walk it across the freeway "hump" so I sat, and eventually got to the music store. The time was a bit more than the usual 2 hours door to door, more like 2-1/2 hours. 

I got there and Craig was there and he had my mouthpiece, and I tried to buy a flute case but they had a soft one with an extra compartment on top that I didn't want, and a very sleek Yamaha one that apparently is for a certain model of Yamaha and nothing else, as a standard student flute won't fit. So besides picking up my mouthpiece, I got a mouthpiece pouch and that was it. 

I mentioned to Craig that I'd gotten my Gard cornet bag and he said something like, "Oh, same as mine" and got out his horn, an Adams A4 in a bag marked Adams but he said made by Gard for Adams. The A4 is the best trumpet he's ever played and I believe him. It's beautiful.  

I didn't want to be on the bus another 2-1/2 hours so I walked to Castro Street and stopped in at the Paris Baguette there for a croissant with a hot dog in it. Interestingly it was about $2 cheaper than it would be at my local Paris Baguette. 

The pedestrianization of Castro Street is neat, and there were no street musicians, beggars, or anything except up at the North end where there was a small band set up. They were between numbers (I didn't recognize what they were playing before they stopped) and I yelled out, "PLAY FREEBIRD!" which got a laugh or two from people. Then I yelled/sang "And this bird will neverrr chainge-y-yange-y-yange!" in the hokey way that song is sung. Good fun! The singer then launched into "The Donnie Darko Song" which is a good one, so here's to him for being a trouper. 

I got to the train station as the train did, so I ran and amazingly had time to click my card and get onto the last car. So that was nice. A tricky thing; that train was going to Tamien station so I had to be sure to get off at Diridon. 

I got off at Diridon along with a couple gals who seemed kind of lost so I asked them what they were looking for/ A bathroom, first and foremost. I said there's one in the station but it may or may not be clean, or even open. But if they follow me, I'm going to Whole Foods which will have one that's clean and open. So they walked along with me, and it seems one of their, or their, brother I think, got sick in the Philippines, and was going to meet them here in San Jose but is now in Singapore, being sick. So they're here in a house, an AirBnB I suppose. Oh, and they're from Ohio so this is all kind of new. 

I told them this Whole Foods, which they'd never been in one of, is a good "home base" and go them to the loo, and we said our cheerful farewells, and that was it. Gotta take care of our visitors from Ohio. 

I picked out some olives and feta cheese in oil, and a pint bottle of Guinness, and went upstairs to eat and drink. Long day. Eventually I went by the Amazon place on my way home to find one bubble mailer but it's better than none, and got back here.