New Year's Eve Day

 Up around 9. Last night Ken had left at midnight and I thought I'd need an hour to wind down, but in the end I didn't go to bed until almost three. I dawdled around and had my natto and nuts and tea, and got out of here with my load of packages at about 11:30. 

The traffic wasn't too bad and the delivery run was nice and routine. It's just plain nice being out in the midday sun, in the wind (even if it was a cold wind) and just in general out in the light and bright daytime world. 

A funny thing happened at the post office. A blonde lady had gone in through the first, self-opening door, but was baffled by the 2nd doorway which is just one half open and one half closed all the time. She said to me, "I don't know how to go in here". So I said, "It's easy, just go in through here (walking through the open side) this side's open". "Oh! I must be blind!" she exclaimed. To make her feel better I told her a really pared-down version of something that happened to me as a kid. 

My youngest sister and I were over at Mike Hertz's house. The Hertz's lived on the corner a nearest us on Portlock Road. It was a big place with a pool in the yard and a tree house and Mike had tons of toys. So we were playing in Mike's room and suddenly my sister and Mike and maybe Mike's little sister too, decided to dash outside to do something, maybe ride bikes or play a little "German football" as we called it. I stayed behind to put away the toys and looked over this sea of toys thinking, I don't know where they all go, and then realized they're not my toys and I don't have to worry about it. So I ran out quickly to catch up, and ran smack into the closed sliding glass door between the Hertz's kitchen and their patio. It must have looked hilarious my smacking into that thing, and it's only because I was small and light (and may have spread my arms out at the last moment) that I didn't break the damn thing. I just remember finding myself splayed out on my back on the floor and I think Mrs. Hertz helped me get up and I probably just walked woozily home. The next time I was over at the Hertz's, that door was covered with decals of birds and flowers and all kinds of stuff. 

The ride back was nice as I had the (cold) wind going my way and I looked for lunch trucks. I had $5 in quarters in my pocket in case I came across one but they all seemed to be taking the day off. I got back here at about 12:20. 

I headed for downtown at about 12:30 and debated with myself whether to go to Lee's or Da Kao, and decided on Da Kao where I got a package of spring rolls and two pork egg rolls, to make sure I got that essential fried food group in my diet. It was sunny but that cold wind was pretty annoying so I rode around the San Jose State campus until I found a place to sit and eat that was in the sun and somewhat sheltered from the wind. The rosemary growing there was full of bees but I checked and it was just bees, not yellowjackets with whom I'd have to share to keep them off my case. 

There was a gal skating on "quad" skates, badly. In fact I thought at her level of skill she really ought to have knee pads and gloves. Eventually she sat down to commune with her phone, and I heard zombie groaning sounds. Enter a black guy, pretty zombified, that I could smell at quite a distance. He cast his gaze about looking for weaknesses, and I kept mean-mugging him which seemed to keep him away from the gal, too. He eventually, in that meandering, slow, zombie way, wandered off. 

I had to use the bathroom. I told myself to be sure to ask at the bank to use their bathroom. But when I went in there, I was intent on getting my deposit done and buying a roll of quarters which the tellers keep right there at their positions apparently, and when I went out to unlock the bike and remembered, I didn't feel like going back in just to use their loo. I'll use it at Whole Foods, I decided. 

I rode over to Whole Foods, and the line was super long. Screw it. I rode over to TAP Plastics because I wanted to pick up some little recloseable bags, but it seems it's a real production to buy stuff there now and my intended purchase seemed so trivial compared to people with real plastic concerns like maybe store displays or something really important, I can just get them on Amazon. 

I went over to the Amazon Hub and picked up a load of bubble mailers. It was now about 3, and because these days everything feels 3 hours later than it is, it's the functional equivalent of 6PM. Time to get going. 

The line was long-ish at Nijiya but not like it was when I rode by earlier, when it went around the corner. I ended up behind a guy in a mobility scooter who's from Kalihi and retired here to San Jose (maybe has family here) and we joked back and forth in line and also in the store. He picked up what I call a "school lunch bento". "Oh, that's a 'school lunch bento'" I said, and he handed it to me "You can have it!" I pointed out that there are soba with tempura sets and he said, "I already bought two!" .

At the door, though, the tallish white guy who knows some Japanese was there doing his usual "doorman" duties, and I asked him how he got to learn some Japanese. "62 business trips to Tokyo", he said. I'm not sure how much my mask hid my jaw dropping. He'd had "clients" like Intel and other big companies. "And here's how well tech pays, now you're working the door at Nijiya" I observed. But really I want to get to know the guy better. He's just about perfect for the job in that he's pretty tall and not out of shape, bi-lingual, has a kind personality but I get the impression knows how to put his foot down when needed, plus he gets token points for being a white guy working at Nijiya. 

He may be doing the job as a way to get out of the house. He may have a Japanese wife who tells him he can't just sit around, he's got to do something. He  may be helping family members and needs every penny he can bring in. The city has a million stories ...

By the time I got back here it was almost 4, and time to be in.

Hangovers are a thing again?

 Really committed drinkers don't get hangovers. But last night, after all the stuff I'd done and eating sushi and some fried stuff, reluctantly getting some Ebay things together to list, I drank sake and had some senbei, finally going to sleep at half after midnight. 

I woke up at 7 because the guys at the cleaning place next door were apparently cleaning out one of their trucks using some noisy equipment. When that was done I went back to sleep again until 9. I woke up with a headache. So it's coffee and aspirin and no lifting until it passed.

By the time it had really passed and I'd put my bedding away, it was almost 2. I walked out to the front of the complex to look for the lunch truck and she wasn't there. I was walking out to Old Bayshore when I saw her come in, and ambled back. As she was opening up her truck, I said "I need to remember, you're here not at a quarter to 2, or 5 minutes to 2, but 2 exactly!" She'd had something delay her, and was happy when I picked out a couple of things that came to $6 and I handed her $6, in quarters. 

One of the things was a chicken skewer that was really good, and the other was a sort of flat fried burrito thing cut in 3 sections. 

What a beautiful day

 I was awake at something like 6:30 or 7, listened to the leaf-blower guys do their Tuesday morning pass-through, kind of semi-dozed, then up at 9. That felt late to me, but not long ago I wondered if I'd ever be able to get up as early as 9, consistently. 

After tea and natto and so on, I finished off the packages which only took a little over an hour. I got out of here with a full bike trailer at about 11:45 and took $4 in quarters with me just in case I came across a food truck. 

Sure enough, there was one on Queen's Lane. I stopped there and picked out a sandwich, which the lady said was $7. "I only have $4" and picked out a smaller one. "$4 is OK" for that one and she beamed when I handed over the $4 in quarters. I should see about buying rolls of quarters from my bank... 

I put the sandwich in the bike bag and rode down Bayshore until I came to a business park with a nice grassy berm and a curb to sit on, and had my sandwich - it was a chicken pattie, "American" cheese, some bacon, some salty ham, and egg on some somewhat dry toast. Not bad for $4. 

Full, I dawdled along up to the post office where the drop-offs went smoothly. I sent off my monthly $30 to the temple too. I could go in person to give my monthly pledge, but I think it's less germy to mail it in. 

FedEx likewise went well, no line, and it seems they've always got someone by the door that I can hand things off to instead of going all the way in. 

I checked the electric lighting place for boxes and got some pieces of foam and a bunch of small boxes and neatened up their dumpster area. Same goes for Sanmina, neatening-up wise but I didn't take anything. 

By now it was 1:00 and I'd made an appointment at my bank for 2. So I got back here and put things away, and left here at 1:15. The ride downtown was uneventful, and like it'd been, just wonderful to be out in the sun with the sky so blue and the air nice and cooling. The 6th blessing box had a bunch of trashy fiction but the 5th street one had a somewhat beat-up copy of "Pau Hana" about Hawaii plantation life, and I exchanged it for a bunch of aspirin packets I'll never use. 

After that exchange I rode over to the bank, locked the bike, and realized  I was 20 minutes early. On the way there on Santa Clara street I'd passed first a bunch of dumped pens and student-y stuff, then a couple of bums leaning up against one of the posts at the entrance of San Pedro Square. So to kill some time I walked up there and told the bums Did they know there's a bunch of pens and stuff up the street? They were interested. I told the guy getting up to come with me and I'd show him, and he eagerly gathered up the pens and stuff. So that was a good turn. 

After killing more time (Peggy Sue's is kaput, and O'Flaherty's is taking over that space. It makes sense because O'Flaherty's was doing well when other places were Meh and their karaoke was good.) all the outdoor tables 'n' shit are taken down. I think what places are open are take-out only. 

Finally it was a few minutes after 2 and I got my deposit done. It appears they're open on Thursday so I said I might be right back there then, too. 

Now I was free to do what I wanted for a while. I'd had a plan to lock the bike at Whole Foods and walk up to CVS and see what their sake prices are like, maybe buying a few things at Whole Foods like some vitamin D. But, I thought, it's nice and sunny today and might not be again for days, so why not do a Wal-Mart run? They might have competitive sake prices there, plus I can stock up on zipper bags and such things. And I'd not been there for months now. 

So that's what I did. I rode South on 2nd through that funky area down to the complex where Wal's is, and locked the bike in front of Big-5 like I always do. And since I'd locked the bike there, as always, I went into Big-5 to look around. They had some ammunition on the shelf but no 9mm of course, and a few Airsoft pistols and a few Airsoft rifles. I noticed they had a Sig-Sauer Airsoft pistol and one that looks like a Baretta, and I asked the guy if they had the Umarex Glock 19 one in. 

"That's a BB gun; let me look", he said, and produced one. Wow. I'd wanted one early on when I got the Glock, but they were sold and out looked like they'd be "unobtainium" for the forseeable future. I walked out of there with the BB gun, BB's and CO2 cartridges for $150 and change and no need to tell them that at one time I'd been sponsored and paid thousands of dollars by Umarex, or Walther anyway. 

So thanks you Ken, for the extra $300 on this last paycheck - I got a neat Xmas present! 

With such a valuable cargo in the bike bag, I skipped Wal-Mart and headed home by way of Nijiya. I waited in line for a long time, behind a group of four young Japanese-American kids. We determined that a plant growing out of a crack wasn't mint, and wasn't nettle "because it looks like mint but when you pick it it stings the shit out of you" - me. It was just some ... plant. And one of the guys had on shoes that were too big for him, like an extra big toe long in the toes and it made them look funny. "Walk like this," I offered, doing a Charlie Chaplain walk which got a laugh. But he had to wear them because he needed new shoes and his mother had bought them online. I bring this up to show the difference between Asian families and American ones where the kid would have pitched a fit if he couldn't have just the right Nikes or whatever. 

Once in Nijiya I got a plate of sushi and some sort of fried veggie and seafood things and a big beer and of course, sake. By now an ice cloud was over the area throwing a sort of grey wash over things and making it colder so I was eager to get back.

Wet Monday

 Up at 9. It rained overnight and it's still wet now so I might do things in an odd order today. Yesterday was so unremarkable it wasn't even worth posting anything about. 

Since it was puddly before noon I didn't go to the post office but went to Nijiya where I got a lot of things from sake to soba (I love soba) with tempura and some fish cakes half of which had a shi'itake mushroom on top and half has a slice of lotus root. So, sort of holiday foods. 

Lotus root is a special food for me because not only does the lotus grow a beautiful flower from the mud, but another thing. It was maybe 1979. My father had gotten us a "winter rental" on Balboa Island and I and one of my younger sisters were there. We went to Corona del Mar high school and things were OK but my father was not good at keeping food in the house. It was around Xmas time when my oldest sister, back in Hawaii, sent us a big box - it must have been something like 10 pounds - of candied ginger, carrots, maybe some chestnuts, and slices of lotus root. 

My father made sure *he* never missed a meal, and my sister there was good at going off with her friends and mooching food off of them (they were rich kids and thought nothing of it) but for me, there was that box. Dad had a few pieces but for me that was what I lived off of for a week or two. After the chestnuts and carrots were gone and it's hard to live off of candied ginger, I had to take on the lotus root; those strange holey things. And of all of them, they were the best. Not the sweetest or the tastiest, but by far the most wholesome. 

And so, lotus root was my friend in a time of need. Those were hungry times. If the mainland was so great, how come I was only able to eat because my older sister, far from wealthy at the time, sent over that box of candied lotus root? It's as paradoxical a situation as the one a lot of immigrants find themselves in, here in the "land of milk and honey", having to have their relatives back in Mexico or wherever, send them money so they can keep going here. 

I "staged" 22 things by which I mean, found the things, found a box or bubble mailer to fit them, and printed labels, so only the final touches would be needed to ship them. 

By this time it was 8 or 9 in the evening so I cooked up a pork miso soup that turned out a little too salty, and drank sake and watched YouTube. I got wound up in watching a lot of different reviews/critiques of a story/anime called "Japan Sinks".

'Twas the day after Christmas...

 Up at 7, which was easy because the carpet cleaning guys next door clunked around getting their day started. First shift starts at 7AM after all. 

I stayed in bed and read one of the two books I'd gotten recently, which was apparently a set of 4 speeches by a guy about Hawaii and Captain Cook and such things, but the writing was almost impenetrable. Fortunately it was not a long book. 

I had some tea and natto and so on, and started in one the 2nd book, Early Tahiti As The Explorers Saw It, covering 1767-1797 so the first 30 years before the missionaries got in there and started crapping everything up. It's much easier reading and more interesting - interesting because Hawaii's ruling class came over from Tahiti. I also remember a worker we had at the Blue Cross Animal Hospital who had a try at visiting "home" which was Tahiti, where she'd either left when very young, or was maybe born there in Hawaii. When she got back, all she'd say is how dirty it was there. "Very dirty" and that's all she'd say.

For dinner I tried a "Soon Tofu - spicy" kit I'd gotten at Nijiya. It turns out to be spicy sauce, instructions to put veggies and meat etc. in, and a big block of soft tofu. I fried garlic slices, put in slices of lotus root and some fried tofu I thought might be good (it's meh) but overall it was good, and spicy. 

Xmas Day

I woke up at 9:30 which felt really late. A month ago I'd feel really proud of myself for being up so early, but these days it's super late. I was out the door by 10, thinking I'll see what H Mart is like on Christmas Day. 

It wasn't bad at all. Not crowded, and I was able to get a few things including my favorite cut of "salmon trim" - there are about 3 different ways of cutting it depending one how you like to cook and eat it, I guess. My favorite cut is long strips of skin with meat on them. It's really easy to cut lots of nice pieces of meat off of the skin that are boneless and have lots of flavor. 

It had all gone so well that I came up with an interesting rule. After putting things away back here, I took about $17 with me and the rule was that I'd stop at the first Chinese place I came across on 1st Street and stop in and get something. 

The first place was Jade Cathay, a place I'd often seen big crowds at and also some pretty scruffy people hanging around. Which is why I'd never tried it. But there was the rule I'd set for myself so I locked the bike and went in. I ordered kung pao chicken which was $14. 

There were other people there too, a guy who'd ordered a half-hour before coming in, and several guys doing delivery services like doordash. I was told "15-20 minutes" for my order so as I'd already been hanging around for 15 or 20 minutes, I walked across the street to U-Save Liquor and got a 6-pack of beer. 

Then I went back in ... the mathematics worked out thus: It was an hour. Everyone there had just about an even hour invested in getting their, or their customers', food. We hung around and talked about food delivery, and I mentioned how, not having a car, I'd found trumpet playing to be a decent side gig, comparable to Uber without having to hassle with having a car. Finally my food was handed to me and I got out there with one guy saying "Maybe I'll see you out there some time!" to which I replied, "Maybe!". 

Of course now the rain had started so I got rained on getting back, but it actually stopped raining halfway back so  I dried off again. Now it was just a matter of eating chicken kung pao and drinking beer. It was a big dish; enough for two people at least. This place is traditional in that you order one dish for each person in your group and the bigger the group, the better everyone eats. They'd even returned the tip I'd put on the tray, giving me back exact change. The kung pao chicken could have used a few more peanuts, but overall it was pretty good. 

So I just did useless things like drink beer, have snacks, watch YouTube. One of the troublemaking homeless who used to colonize the parking lot is apparently still alive and at large around here, one "Renee" who has a son and a daughter also around, all three of them convicted felons of course. She lives to fight with Crazy Chrissie, but in a pinch will pick a quarrel with anyone including her own progeny. She had her camper parked by the water spigot the ice cream place had finally put a big lock on. With them gone, I supposed it's fair game again. She was parked there when I went to bed at midnight on the dot. 

I woke up at 3 to some sort of buzzer or a really weak compact-car type horn going off, not that loud but it had penetrated my sleep. Then it went away and I looked and the camper was also gone. But as I write now at almost 10 the following morning, what should come prowling by but the camper. And I know Crazy Chrissie is still around because I've seen her shitty grey car (she has a shitty grey car and a shitty red car). I believe both of them work as "lot lizards" for the SAIA trucking place up the street and as such, they're going to be around. I just don't want things to get as bad as they were before, with bums, kids, dogs, fist-fights, Mad Max vehicles, etc. 

I spent the night - up to midnight on the dot - watching a bunch of stuff about bicycle racing and before that had a good old hang out time with PhotoLuke on live stream on YouTube. I'm coming around to liking him a lot more than Andy Bumatai. I think it comes down to, Luke's a good old local Japanese guy from right around Honolulu, maybe Kaimuki, while Andy's this half-German half-Filipino guy who got dropped into Waianae when he was about 12 or 13. So he had to out-moke the mokes. So he's always talking about "false crack" this and that (means sucker punch, nice, eh?) and there's this sort of undercurrent of violence. Dude, you are a success and live in Mililani, you can relax! 

So I find I prefer PhotoLuke and other channels like Only In Japan Go!

A few more packages

 Up at 8, right on the dot. After breakfast and a bunch of things, I packed the 4 things that had sold and that I could carry without using the trailer and took them to the post office, leaving at just a bit before 10. 

That all went well, and I had planned to go to H Mart but it looked like a madhouse. A real scrum. I wanted to avoid a place that looked like a rugby game might break out at any time, so I rode over to Nijiya instead. 

This being Christmas eve, I didn't feel like doing much so I didn't. I spent the evening watching stuff on YouTube, drinking sake, and singing along with a ton of songs.

Sunny Wednesday

 I woke up at 8 and had breakfast, washed hair and shaved which I should have done last night, but last night I'd been very sleepy by midnight so I'd just photo'd a dozen things to put on Ebay and then gone to bed. 

I headed out just a bit before 10, which is honestly about half an hour earlier than I'd been leaving so it was good. Going out and doing drop-offs in the morning is really growing on me. Traffic wasn't bad at all and it was sunny and peaceful. 

After dropping off the last box at FedEx, I rode around the back of the complex to see if anything interesting was being thrown out, and there was a homeless guy with a mop top of frizzy hair, right in one of the dumpsters. "You're all the way in that thing" I observed. He said it was the only way, and he had all kinds of different vegetables dug out. He said "We see you all over here all the time" and I came back with "Delivering packages, that's what I do". That's all I need, I thought, these bums observing me all the time ... but then my gathering packing materials all the time is probably observed too, so they know I'm operating at a different level than them. 

On the way back I had pretty good luck finding foam sheet for padding. I got a decent load of it from Sanmina and the cross-fit place. 

I looped around out to Old Bayshore and while the El Tres Reyes food truck had a line as usual, there was another truck right out on the side of the road with no line, and I paid $4 for some chicken wings. I got back in here and ate them, and they were the best lunch-truck chicken wings I've had. 

After my wings and a little time to give out feedback and relax, I headed for downtown at 12:30 or so. As I got near Santo Market I decided I'd not had boiled peanuts in a while and I really wanted some. But as I pulled in there, there was a bit of a scrum of people waiting for stuff so I rode on.

I remembered that DaKao has them also, and they're right around the corner from Dai Thanh. So I parked the bike at Dai Thanh and got a big bag of raw peanuts and a couple of merlitons and $10 cash back. Then I walked around the block to DaKao and sure enough they had a couple bags of boiled peanuts there. The last time, I'd come late in the day and some other guy got the last bag. They were only $2.25 too. 

I remember the first time I had boiled peanuts. It was when we were living in Waikane, and I walked up to Coral Kingdom, that lovely tourist trap, to look around or something. There was a tiny stand set up with a guy selling boiled peanuts. That was the weirdest thing I'd ever heard of, and the guy gave me some for free. They were good! I don't remember if I bought a bag that day or later, because I was a pretty broke kid. But since then I've loved boiled peanuts. 

I took my precious boiled peanuts over to the park by the art museum and I wanted to sit in the sun but none of the benches were in the sun. So I set up at the base of this art statute in front of the museum. It was really dead, with hardly anyone walking around. But I had my bake in the sun and my boiled peanuts. 

It was time to head for home and I stopped at Nijiya and got all kinds of things from sake to eggs to you-name-it, to the tune of just under $50. The thing is I'm going to be shut in until Sunday because rain's coming in plus there's Christmas which means almost everything will be closed anyway. 

On the way back, loaded with groceries, I stopped at the lunch  truck that parks out in front of the complex here and got a sort of sausage and egg sandwich for $2. The lady wished me something about "Crisman" and "Happy New Year!" I replied "Happy New Year" and only as I came back to the shop here I realized that "Crisman" means Christmas. I ate my little sandwich with hot sauce and some tea. 

If I was actually drinking 2 handles of vodka a week that works out to 1400 calories a day in alcohol alone. So if I feel like eating a bit more than usual I'll go with that for a short while anyway. 

Slightly different schedule for Tuesday...

 After fooling with those project boxes (15+ trips back and forth stacking them on the shelves, going up and down a ladder) I decided I'd not do any packing last night. 

Yesterday I changed my radio station from NPR to KPFA which turns out to have talk during the day and such treats as the "Ralph Nader Radio Hour". Nice! I've only ever thought of turning to them in the evening when NPR can be repetitive, and then I get their usual selection of quirky music. 

Another recent discovery is something called a "surf mat". This is a sort of specialized inflatable mat you  surf on. I've done every form of surfing there is, and I always thought that what really flies when you're surfing prone is what we called a paipo board which was just a bellyboard made of plywood. No flotation but when you got on a wave you could fly. Well, these surf mats, ridden with skill, can go faster than a stiff board and I watched videos of mat surfers staying on waves it'd normally take my 100 lb or so 1940s special long board to ride. 

What intrigues me the most about the surf mat, though, is that it's just a small glorified air mattress. Easy to roll up, take on the bus, blow up at the beach, put on fins, and go. When I'm back in Hawaii I'm not assuming I'll have any more expensive transport than the bus system, walking, and maybe a bicycle. I've thought about folding kayaks but those can be kind of bulky. 

How can a modest little mat go faster than a conventional stand-up surfboard? I think I get it - when I used to bodysurf a lot I learned ways to sort of "form" my body for super speed and I'd go into and shoot out of, some nice barrels. The hand boards I made helped too, but a lot of it is body feeling, maybe what dolphins use when they ride waves (from the inside!)

But there's more. I'd have no problems swimming with a mat out to Chinaman's Hat, to the sandbar just a bit south of there, etc. So there are not just a ton of nice surf breaks I'd have access to with one, but some other fun stuff too. That's something to look forward to. 

I packed the packages I'd normally have packed last night, and at 2:30 walked out to the lunch truck and for $4 got this plate of 3 breakfast burrito things. Really it was a lot of food but I guess I was hungry because I made short work of them. My temperature today was 97.9 so maybe my metabolism is coming back around to normal. 

I headed out with the packages at a quarter after 3, and things went OK but going out in the afternoon even as early as 3 is quite a bit different from going out in the morning. There are already lemmings driving like maniacs home from work and it's just a lot less friendly. Plus a sun angle that makes it hard to see, and for drivers to see me. It's just not as good. Tomorrow I want to try going out at 9AM and see how that is.

Nice cold Monday

 Up at 7:45. I'd gone to bed around 1 or 2, watching videos and drinking too much sake, maybe 450ml. It's still not as bad as the ravages of the vodka, though. 

I'd had that bento and later, for dinner, a "teriyaki chicken leg" which seems to be a holiday thing at Nijiya. 

For some reason, even with a fan blowing on it since I'd hung it up, all of my laundry was still not dry - there are two pairs of socks and a pair of sweat pants still drying. If it's touching the 30's outdoors overnight it's not much warmer in the loft. This is why I sleep downstairs in the office. It's quieter and easier to keep a livable temperature. 

One video I watched last night was about how slums, favelas, whatever you call them, are the future. It showed how in the development of cities, you often had something like a slum first: mining camps, various workers' camps, etc. I'm reminded of the Little House On The Prairie books where they lived in such things as a "dugout" in the dirt. Quite an interesting documentary. 

I did a few exercises, had my tea and natto and almonds, caught up on Ebay stuff, and eventually got a load of laundry started consisting of my towel, one of my knit caps and my beloved orange jacket which was starting to get a bit grubby especially on the cuffs. The towel was at the point where I felt like I was dirtying myself with it rather than cleaning myself with it. 

After some lunch I got out the boxes and boxes of smaller project boxes, about 140 of them all told, sorted and counted them, and moved some heavy shit around to come up with a really good place on the pallet racking to store them. And listed them on Ebay. 

Also while I waited for water to boil I got out the Ebay things I ought to pack today. I didn't pack them, but I have them right at hand, and I did pack one thing that would be "overdue" if I let it go until tomorrow. I also cut up the large boxes they were packed because those were of low-quality cardboard I'd not want to use, stuffed the pieces in one box, and stuck that out in the trash enclosure for now.

Last bit of decline

 Up at 7:30. I'd gone to bed at midnight last night. This is perfect because I want to be able to stay up until midnight because when Ken's over he's generally here until then. And I want to be up early enough to get my work done in the daytime. 

I took my temperature after putting my bedding away and doing some exercises, and it was 97.9. I'd had 450ml of sake last night which wasn't good. I'd have fallen asleep just as well on 300ml. At least I slept through the night without getting up midway to use the bathroom. 

What sake I'm drinking now is nothing compared to the onslaught of the vodka I was drinking. I was going through two "handles" a week and some math reveals that's 500ml a day. Of vodka. Plus any beer I might have had during the day. And my nice fizzy Alka-Seltzer morning drink was probably masking the bad effects. When I ran out of Alka-Seltzer is when I really crashed. 

This is the last day of the days getting shorter. Tomorrow's the winter solstice; the shortest day, then the days will start getting longer again. We've made it this far. 

By noon I had cleaned up a bit, caught the temple's 10:10 service on livestream, done a load of laundry, and had some scrambled eggs to add to the natto and almonds I'd broken my fast with. 

The air quality is "orange" at a bit over 100 but I've got to go out there. 

I left at half after noon, and went right over to Dai Thanh downtown for things like dried squid and shallots and a new cutting board, then decided I wanted to have a slice of pizza from Pizza My Heart so I went over there and got a slice of "Big Sur" - they've changed the recipe a bit. I went over to the park where the kids skateboard and a dude was doing neat tricks on a bike, and sat on a bench and ate. "Big Sur" used to have artichoke on it but that's gone and there were a couple little pieces of pineapple. Those got tossed in the grass. It was good pizza though, and it was fun watching the guy on the bike - he'd do this thing where he'd stand on top of the bike with one foot on the seat and one on the handlebars and cruise around just forever that way. The big security guard dude came over and sat near me on the bench (there was a divider inbetween) and I made a bit of small talk with him. 

Pizza done with, I went to the Amazon Hub and picked up my latest book purchase, The Will To Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and about 6 bubble mailers. 

The next stop was Nijiya, but first I noticed Kogura's was open, and went in there to see if they had "ojuzu" or Buddhist bead bracelets and they did, so I went over to Nijiya and did my shopping and got $20 cash back then went back over to Kogura's and picked one out, and looked through the rest of the store - they have neat stuff including a nice assortment of MAC knives. I told them how when I was a kid my mom had a MAC knife and it was her "special" knife not to be used by kids to cut any old thing ... we had a chuckle over that. 

Next stop was ... back here. I'd gotten a "school lunch bento" even though I'd just had pizza but I guess I just wanted to eat a lot today and had no problem finishing the bento, which was good. 

I'd gotten back here at 3 so although I felt like I'd done a lot of stuff I'd only been out 2-1/2 hours. It was nice being out in the sun. This business of being a night-owl, that I was for so long, was just not good.

12-8

 I went to bed right at midnight last night, after having 300ml of sake. The night before I'd had 400ml so this is on track to taper things down. I had no trouble sleeping, woke up at 3AM to use the bathroom, then woke up at 7 and semi-slept until 8:15 which is fine. 

I've noticed the last day or so I'm feeling a lot more steady, and my sleep is getting back to normal. My temperature when I got up was 97.1 After eating a bit and being more awake I measured it again and got 97.7. When I was feeling fatigued it must have been down in the 96's. It's hard to find much about this insidious effect  of alcohol, of course the US economy is about half alcohol and while they can't ignore the most severe effects they really want everyone to just keep drinking. That's why "rehab" programs have a 95% failure rate and I suspect the other 5% are those they were able to get addicted to things like Xanax. 

I'm just glad that now that it's been a few days and my sleep is normalizing, I notice that I'm also free of a layer or two of despair. 

Although it's supposedly my day off, I packed a biggish power supply (40 lbs) and took it up to FedEx. The streets were really nice and sunny and peaceful, but the shopping center FedEx is in was a zoo. 

After I came back and settled down a bit, I made a miso soup with tofu noodles. I'd been looking for tofu sheet or "skin" to slice into noodles, but here they were all done. There's no way I was going to eat shirataki noodles, but somehow I learned about tofu noodles and it came out pretty well.

A decent night's sleep

 I went to bed at right around midnight last night, and woke up at 5, realized I needed to sleep some more and went right back to sleep until 8. I had some sake at bedtime but naturally, none during the day or before bedtime. 

My temperature after waking up was 97.9 so that's progress. 

I had some natto and almonds and tried this coconut/almond milk creamer in my Earl Grey but I don't like it; it masks the flavor. I prefer just a little Nestle "Brite" powder which I got at Mitsuwa a while back. When I got it, what I was really after was a Japanese powdered creamer called Creap. Cream that's Powdered, right? Or, halfway between cream and crap. But they wanted a lot of money for a little bottle of it... So I got this "Brite" stuff instead. 

I might just give up on the whole creamer business entirely. I had green tea with my bento yesterday and it was great. 

I took off at 10:30 with the packages and dropped them off, and during my ride I got obsessed with the idea of finding that on lunch truck again and getting those deep fried pork dumplings. I rode the circuit around Junction and Rogers a bunch of times and could not find it. I came back here and did Ebay stuff for a half hour then went back out at noon, still didn't find it, and checked on the Dos Reyes truck near Galli Produce - they had a line, so I headed down Queen's Lane and there was another truck so I pulled in there and half a breakfast burrito was $3 and I gave the lady $3 in quarters. She told me I could take any of the other dishes there for free, so I picked out a single deep fried bean burrito and she said, "Oh, you can take any of them" and I said "I don't want to take more than I need". 

So I came back here, got out the hot sauce, and chowed down. I just really wanted some lunch truck food. Maybe it's part of my recovery that I just wanted some good old calories.

Getting used to the daytime routine

 I did some Jacobs Vocal Academy exercises last night because I'm determined in spite of myself to develop my voice over the span of a year and see where I go from there. I sang along with a couple of Burl Ives songs too - Christmas stuff like "Silver And Gold". Burl Ives, you say? Believe it or not, even in Hawaii we all grew up watching Frosty The Snowman each year and loved the songs.

It had been pretty late, maybe half after midnight, when I was ready to list 20 things I'd rounded up, and I'd even had a pinch of coffee and a little sake. Then I decided I should not be working past midnight, and I'd have some more sake to get sleepy and hit the sack. I was worried about the small amount of coffee but interestingly, I had the best sleep I've had in a week now. 2AM-7AM with no weird dreams.

I took my temperature and got 97.1. I've been doing some reading and it seems that along with all the other awful things it does, alcohol can mess with the body's temperature regulation so you end up with a person running temps of 97 or even 96 ... apparently a core temperature of 95 or lower is hypothermia, but the thing is, the person doesn't feel cold. They feel like they're fine. This is probably the source of the fatigue I felt - low body temperature because of course the human body is not going to work right with a temperature that low. This is why alcoholics are more prone to dying of hypothermia when they're living on the street. They feel like they're OK but maybe their temperature is 96, and on a cold night they drop a bit lower and it's all over. I'll have to keep track of my temperature and see if it recovers over time. 

I had plenty of energy to shine my shoes, oil the chain and pump up the tires on the bike, list the 20 Ebay things I'd gathered together last night, and finally at a quarter after 3, head downtown to the bank where I put in the check Ken had given me. 

Then I went over to Whole Foods for some B1, which is a vitamin alcoholics are often short of.  Next was the Amazon Hub where I picked up 13 bubble mailers. After that I headed toward home and stopped at Nijiya for another type of natto to try, eggs, green tea, and a bento. 

I got back here and ate said bento, and just relaxed for a bit. I've not had any alcohol all day, nor have I felt the desire to have any. I chewed up two B1 tablets as soon as I got back and swallowed them down with water, and will probably double-dose like that for a week or so then just take single tablets until the bottle's used up.  

I packed a load of packages to drop off tomorrow, so that's done. I've come around to realize that a good schedule for me is something like "first shift" which is 7AM - 3:30PM, which seems to be the exact hours the machine shop next door (and the one behind me) have their machines humming. So the sound of them starting up at 7 might become my que to wake up, and I can try to at least have the bulk of my work done by 3:30. I noticed they even take a classic lunch hour at noon, because when I paused to cook my lunch, the machines were silent and when I was done, they started up again.

The light at the end of the sake bottle?

 After Ken left last night I made a miso soup with pork that was really good. My basic recipe is to take to each of the instant miso and veggies packets from one of those big packages of instant miso that's like "20 Servings!" and put that in a bowl, add a little of my own wakame, last night some onions because those go well with pork, and then I take some fresh miso and add that also. That just stir-fry the pork that took a few minutes to thaw, put that on top of it all, add hot water, and mix. 

I had to move all those boxes out of the office so I could spread out my sleeping stuff but I just shunted them to a temporary location so make it easy on myself and I'm glad I did because I have a plan - Ken thinks it's only 2, maybe 3, types of project boxes so I'll inventory them, list them, then find someplace for them to sit while they wait to sell - hopefully they sell fast. 

I probably had about 350ml of sake at beddy-bye time and went to bed at 2, waking up around 7. It was better sleep than I'd been having and possibly in spite of that much sake rather than because of it. So today I'll have none during the day and 200ml at bedtime. 

I took my temperature after putting my bedding away and it was 98.1 so that's a bit more normal. 

Breakfast was a couple mugs of Earl Grey tea and a small handful of almonds and some natto. I tried a new one, that has a little picture of a smiling Daruma. It's pretty good. I could happily switch between this brand and the one in the orange package with a big drawing of a bean on it. But there are a few others to try yet. 

The thing is, I need to become the kind of person who will be an asset to Hawaii. What if  I have to skedaddle in a year or two, rather than the planned 4 years?

I got out of here at 10 with the packages and did my drop-offs, and scouted my regular places to find packing materials without much luck except I got 16 of these little battery boxes that are great for first-class packages. 

After I got back here I cooked up some scrambled eggs with shallot and shishito peppers and ate and took it easy (it was now 11:30) until about 1, to avoid the lunch rush, then went to Lowe's where, amazingly, they had Windex in gallon jugs again. Their Windex had been wiped out the last time I'd been there. And it was the regular price of $10 too. So I got that, then went over to H Mart and got some groceries and came back here. 

I saw the usual lunch truck out in front of the complex so I put the bike and stuff away and walked out and got some chicken wings from the lady for $3, and came back and ate those, and some arare I'd gotten at H Mart, then felt tired and like I ought to try taking a nap. I wasn't really able to sleep but sort of half-slept at best, until 7.

How come I don't feel worse?

 I went to bed at about 1 or 1:30, and woke up around 4. I tried staying in bed and trying to get back to sleep and finally got out of bed at 6. So that's maybe 3 hours of real sleep? 

I've given up beef and dairy, coffee and caffeine in general, and am pretty far along in getting off of alcohol. Plus working on going back to living in "day mode". 

Beef and dairy might be a big deal, because I was eating beef at least every other day and dairy every day. I was eating tons of cheese. 

Still, I should feel a lot lousier. I was up at 6, watched stuff on YouTube and had some natto and then some scrambled eggs, and took off with the really big box and a smaller one at a bit before 10. The traffic was actually nicer than it was around 10:30 and I should try going out at 9 to see how that compares. 

The drop-off went fine and I rode back here and dropped off the trailer and went downtown to the Amazon hub where Richard hasn't saved any bubble mailers for me "But I'll start today" and I got a grand total of 4 out of the trash cans. 

It was nice being out though. Unlike yesterday it was a little bit more cold and grey today. I stopped at Nijiya and got a few things, but no sake. One of the things was a "school lunch" bento which I ate back here. 

Then I tried to get something like sleep, going back to bed from 2-6, and got snippets of something like sleep. I got up and started in on packing Ebay things around 7:30, and got a call from Ken: he's coming by tonight "with some boxes". 

So I packed things as fast as I could, actually getting 16 packages done, and Ken came by "with some boxes" which were packing boxes and a large number of boxes full of "Bud" project boxes for building electronic things in, which should sell well. I asked Ken to help me find something I could not, and while he hunted around in the warehouse I unloaded the boxes of project boxes out of his truck and into the office. 

I told Ken I'm really afraid to move anywhere like back to Hawaii until I'm eligible for at least the minimum Social Security, so I have to just "serve out my 4-year sentence" here, working for him. I said that my giving up beef, coffee, alcohol, and switching over to "day mode" like a normal person are all in preparation for my living like a normal Hawaii person where they get up early and get things done before the heat of the middle of the day. I was also proud to say that I'd only had this day, 50-ml of sake (15% alcohol) in two 25-ml doses, hours apart.

On a more humorous note, Ken had never heard of "Supply-Side Jesus" so I found the comic strip and spoke all the parts and I was pleasantly surprised myself how much stronger my voice is becoming. I'd never read more than the first few panels of it so it was fun going through the whole thing.

Sushi simmering in the sun

 I went to bed around 1:30 or 2 in the morning, woke up around .... 4 or 5, so not too great. Got up and had some sake to get sleepy again and back to bed at 7AM, and woke up at 10AM. 

I was out the door with the bike trailer loaded at 10:20. It had been raining lightly when I went to bed for the 2nd time at 7AM, but it was clear and sunny and puddles weren't as much a problem as I thought they would be. It's nice being out in the sun. It's very different from going out in the early evening in that, while there's a bit more traffic the traffic is different. In the evening it's the yuppies in a hurry to get home. During the day, the yuppies are in their offices and it's workers I'm among. And they don't see me as an object of contempt but as one of them. 

On the way back I stopped at a lunch truck on Junction Avenue that's my favorite kind - Asian. I got a little "boat" of pork meatballs wrapped in won ton wrappers and fried, for $2.50. They were really good. 

I was back here at 11:30 and dropped off the trailer and headed out for Nijiya. It was nice being out among the trees and all the things in the bright daylight sun. The air's nice and cold, but overall it was very enjoyable. I reflected on how, back in Hawaii, people get up early and get things done, largely because of the heat but because it's nice in the morning too. 

I got groceries including a new type of natto to try, and sake of course. I seem to be spending about $10/day on groceries and sake. After putting things away in the bike bags I walked the bike along the sidewalk on the other, sunny, side of the street and looked at the shops. Because it's Monday most are closed but a few were open. Mainly I just enjoyed walking in the sun in that area that reminds me so much of the town of Kaimuki back home. I imagined being back home and able to poke along at my leisure during the day and not worry so much about surviving (because I'll have Social Security and my busking will probably be later in the day).  What's funny is, someone left a whole package of sushi just sitting out there (cover on) in the full sun - what, do they expect some homeless person to come along and eat it?

When I'd gotten up at about 5:30AM to drink a little sake to get sleepy again, I read the 2nd part of Man's Search For Meaning again. I am really glad I bought this book. It's not one to read but one to study. Frankl talks about the problems logotherapy has answers for. A couple more concrete examples are that of a guy who sweated too much when giving lectures. Frankl advises him to try to sweat more and paradoxically, it enabled the guy to stop his sweating problem. And a bookkeeper who developed writer's cramp so badly he was afraid he'd lose his job. Frankl told him to try scrawling worse, not better, and it enabled him to rid himself of the cramp and neaten his handwriting up again. 

Another thing he advised for hang-ups is to look at yourself from the outside and have some humor about it. If you can laugh at your hang-up, it has less control over you. And I realized with a shock that I'd done this myself, to solve something that was a huge problem for me. Since I can remember, I was a nail-biter. I remember my mother putting nail polish on them when I was 5 or so, some kind of peppery or sour stuff, scolding me, etc. I just could not keep from nibbling my nails. I felt bad about it too, but could not quit. I was set to be a life-long nail biter, one of those people with pitiful fingers, bitten down to the quick. (By the way I noticed more than a few in the Army.) 

For a while in my early 30s I lived in Colorado. There are lots of squirrels there and can those little guys ever climb trees! When I decided to quit biting my nails for good, I thought of those squirrels and how screwed they'd be if they bit their nails. They have their nails because they're tools they need to survive. And likewise, my nails are very useful tools and when I'd start to bite a nail I'd think humorously of one of those squirrels and stop cold. 

The only time I've bit them since is a few times I've gotten really drunk, which shows that alcohol shuts down the humanistic, logical part of a person. 

After reading about logotherapy I feel like the rest of my life might be a classroom in clearing up mental blocks, resentments, neuroses, and bad habits in general. A good project might be to see how good a person I can become. 

After I got back here and the place all "buttoned up" I packed this one large thing for which I used a box that's a little bit too big but it was an easy "drop in" fit, and I packed another smaller thing and I'll just take those two to FedEx tomorrow. Then I had a couple of scrambled eggs, then before anything else, I did a load of laundry. My cut's all healed up now thanks to Dettol and the laundry was no problem. 

Then I had some miso soup with salmon, and listed 10 Ebay things, then I was done for the day. Also somewhere in there today I got about 45 minutes of voice exercises done, which with breaks took more than an hour. There's a YouTube channel called Jacobs Voice Academy and I'm finding their exercises really helpful.

Coffee might be really bad

 I felt I should go to bed at midnight but pushed it up to 2AM. Then I slept until 4AM wtf? I got up, had more sake and watched some videos and went back to bed at 6 or 7, then slept until 10. I popped up out of bed then because I was able to watch the temple's service as they were streaming it so that was cool. 

But, I thought I could have a little coffee here and a little coffee there yesterday and last night and I think that was a big mistake. I think I might almost consider myself allergic to caffeine. 

I had two cups of tea made with the same bag this morning, then some natto. The natto I'd been getting from the start I thought might be pretty good because it has a friendly lady's face on the package. Except I was watching some video about school food in Japan and apparently that one's served in the schools and isn't too great. So I've been getting another one in an orange package with what looks like a big bean outline on it and it's a lot better. But there are lots of others to try too.

Man's Search For Meaning

 I went to bed at 2AM, and woke up at 6 or 6:30. That's weird because that's only about 4-4.5 hours of sleep. Well, I was going to take it easy today anyway. 

I read two books; Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad and Man's Search For Meaning, the one I'd just picked up from the Amazon hub, by Viktor Frankl. 

Lord Jim was pretty good. It's a pretty long read, and starts out with Jim being a promising young man but kind of a doofus. But over the various chapters of his life he matures and in the end he's become just about purely good and dies nobly. 

Man's Search For Meaning is a book I keep hearing about especially lately. It was well worth buying new. I always was given the impression that Dr. Frankl came to his conclusions because of his being put through the wringer in various Nazi camps in WWII. But in reality, he'd already formulated his theories years before going into the camps, working as a psychiatrist at a public hospital treating something like 3000 patients a year. Old men and housewives and hard-cases from WWII and students, lots and lots of students, were suicidal and were seen by him. 

The concentration camps only provided further proof of his line of thought, and since he already had come up with the basic tools he was able to help people in the camps (when he was trying not to die, himself). 

His school of thought, Logotherapy, is considered the 3rd school of psychotherapy. Freud believed life was all about the pursuit of pleasure. Adler, of the other main branch, believed life was about acquiring power. Frankl's conclusion was that life was about the pursuit of meaning. I have to agree. People who just chase pleasure are often not very happy and it leads to an awful society. Pursuit of power if anything is worse, leading to things like North Korea and the Third Reich. But pursuit of meaning, works. It accounts for how you could have very unhappy members of royalty and happy and satisfied chippers of marble building Middle Ages cathedrals. Or our present-day success stories, movie stars and various elite killing themselves off with drugs while there are plenty of very happy poor people around. 

I got the book because I thought it might have a message for me, and it does. I think I fell so far into drinking again because I kept thinking about how working for Ken doesn't have that much meaning for me. It's just survival. And I'd drink to get away from the despair I felt. Of course the alcohol made the despair worse because when drinking it's especially easy to while away hours online when I'm scheduled to actually get some work done - making myself feel cramped for time. And I think I fell into something like Frankl observed among fellow camp inmates, where when they give up, they deteriorate really quickly. 

For the longest time I figured my meaning would be to learn to play the trumpet really well. I sure put in some work on that thing and just before covid hit I was getting good enough to make some decent money. I was entertaining the thought of saving up to rent a small office I could live in, and just play trumpet around this area. No more eBay, no more electronics, just play that horn. 

So when covid hit I figured, Fine, I'll "woodshed" and get conversant in notes above high C. And by Jove, I did it. I had a purpose. I had my range exercises every night. But I realized, as I got up there, that it's a lot of work and it can be precarious in that sometimes there are bad days and one doesn't know why. Also the condition of one's lips is a huge factor - one little dry place and there goes that nice tone. But another thing I realized is I don't have the theory and valving drills that ideally I'd have done through high school. People look at a player like Chet Baker and think he's "instinctive" which is the opposite of what he was. He grew up in school bands, then was in Army bands, then played bebop which is very theoretical stuff. You have to learn this stuff when you're young, like learning a language natively. 

But I give myself an A for effort; it's not everyone who picks up a trumpet in their 40s and gets as far as I did. And it taught me how to put in regular practice. 

And that's what made me decide to try "playing" my voice. Singing's something I've done since I can remember, so I've done that critical learning at an early age. That's where I came up with my plan to try training my voice for a year; just give it a year and see where I end up. And as I keep writing, it's been going pretty well in spite of myself. 

And I think I've got a real corner on the game because I think I have a "voice". Frankly I think I sound like my dad, who sounded like Frank Sinatra. Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Tony Bennett are my Holy Trinity of singing but there are other great ones too. And I sound pretty close to them now and with some work I think I could get to sound really like them. Should have started 20 years ago but 20 years ago I thought they were kind of hokey. 

I'm really glad my dad passed me down his voice. The thing I don't get is, did the guy do voice training and just never said anything about it? He'd have been a shoo-in to go on the radio or be a TV announcer. The only time I ever heard him sing was when I was a little and he was teaching me the canon of little-kid songs and getting such a big kick out of it. I know he hung out with a radio guy in Hawaii, Uncle Mikey Eisenstadt, and maybe was trying to break into the radio business but the radio market in Hawaii's pretty small. 

But I should really feel thankful for the guy. He passed down to my older sister her high school education at Punahou which is a big deal in Hawaii. And he helped my older brother get a job at Grumman. And he passed me down a voice. The others aren't really musical or singers at all. I'm the one who got the voice. I think if I can develop it, I'm going to feel I got the best gift from him.

In many cases people really want to sing, and are musical and still didn't get the gift of a voice. I've been watching things on YouTube about a quirky musical semi-genius named Danial Johnston who wrote tons of songs that are just a level below Beach Boys or Beatles stuff and he performs them, and the poor guy had an awful voice. So I should really be thankful. 

So that might be a pretty good Meaning for my life. To take my dad's voice back to Hawaii in a few years (maybe sooner if Rumpo gets his 2nd term) and show that I've gotten over my resentments against the guy and against Hawaii. To be as positive as I was negative in my mid-20s when I left. 

It was wet and cold outside today so needless to say I stayed in. And it'll be the same tomorrow so I'll stay in tomorrow, too.  

At least the cut on my hand is almost completely healed now. I think it was actually infected so last night I washed it many times with Dettol and that cleaned the infection up.

Up and at 'em

 I didn't go to bed until at least 4, maybe 5. I woke up at 9, and was actually out the door with the bike trailer loaded with packages at a quarter after 9. 

The drop-offs went fine but it's exactly the wrong time to find packing materials. On the way back I stopped at the food truck in the tool place's parking lot and had chicken wings. 

I got back and put the trailer away but decided to keep wearing my orange reflective vest that I had on over my orange jacket because I could feel it actually getting colder instead of warmer and the vest is a little extra layer for warmth, plus the visibility issue. 

I rode over to the Amazon Hub (checked both little free libraries on the way and they're essentially empty) and got my latest book, "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl so I have a nice book to read on the weekend. And I picked up some bubble mailers. One guy who works there, Richard, says he can save some aside for me so I'll see how that goes. 

I stopped at Nijiya on the way back and got some groceries, a bento, couple bottles of sake, and a 12-oz can of "Echigo Red Ale 5% alcohol" to go with the bento. I went over to the steps of the Issei building to eat and discovered I was shaky. I drank half of the beer and started in on the bento and discovered I really wasn't hungry. So I packaged it up again, finished the beer, and came back here. I checked the time and it was a quarter after noon so all of this took me 3 hours. 

This is the proper old-person way of doing things. Get out there early, check off all your errands, then come home and you can take it easy. This is why the special hours for old people in stores are always early ones because the old people are always down for shopping at 7 or 8 in the morning. I think it's based on only having a few hours at full energy and then you  get lethargic and doing things becomes a slog like it was for me packing boxes yesterday. 

I have a theory on why "Fat Orange and Stupid" is trying to stage a coup. It's not because he can, but it's wonderful for squeezing money out of his followers. And he desperately needs to do that because he owes some pretty nasty mobsters a lot of money. So they've told him he'd better pay them off or he might get polonium in his tea. He can't just sell off properties because it's too obvious, they may take too long to sell, and he may not actually have much equity in them. So this is his way of raising money quickly in the time window he has, which is about a month. 

When I got back here I put things, including the bento, away and got the other 10 Ebay things from last night listed. I usually just dash through them and Ken's been nagging me for a while to manually do the word-wrapping because Ebay isn't. And I kept telling him I do, and it turns out that even if I manually word-wrap when writing the item description, well, I checked one today and Ebay takes the carriage returns right out again and there was my description, running right off the right side of my screen, so I couldn't see some important info. 

However Ebay has a field where you can talk about the item's condition, and increasingly I've been putting more of the info I put in the item description in there because it's right up top near the price etc. The customer can click on that, it word-wraps fine, and it turns out Ebay allows enough characters in that thing to write a novella. This is great, actually, because I can be a lot wordier without worry, then put something short into the description field. I just feel kind of sheepish for not checking up on how the listings really looked for so long. 

Then I got the bento out of the fridge and ate it. It was my favorite one, that I think of as a school lunch bento because it's got everything. From left to right it's got a piece of pickled daikon for afters, 3 pieces of tomago, a sausage, two onigiri one with pickled seaweed and one with cooked salmon, a carrot, two pieces of chicken kara-age, and a piece of broccoli. 

Then I hung out with Andy Bumatai and the Hamajang Gang for an hour or so on YouTube and that's always fun. Andy had done this thing where he took a video of Riverdance (I think it's called) which is a long line of twitchy Irish people (I think) who do this stomping kind of dance all in sync. And synced up raggae music with it. It's hilarious. And I don't mean laid-back raggae but the stuff with the echo effects etc. He also mentioned doing one with an Obon dance and I said I really wanted to see that one - it's not as funny but it's very wholesome seeing 3-4 generations all dancing Obon together. 

After Andy signed off, I somehow came upon this Only In Japan dude, I think his name is John Daub, doing a live stream where he's out on a fishing boat, the kind where a handful of people pay and in the skipper takes them out fishing. This was in a really beautiful area in Japan so the scenery was top-rate. It was neat to see just for that. 

But they couldn't catch fish! And the jokes and banter about all kinds of fishing stuff and Spongebob and all that were pretty hilarious. Mr. Daub was a really good sport but mentioned he was hungry - the original plan was to catch fish and eat them on the boat. They finally caught a little one, and a slightly less little one, and then it was revealed there were "consolation fish" kept in a sort of bait tub built into the boat, and I mentioned a few were floating upside down. So, they could settle down and cook the consolation fish and the skipper probably had some sushi rice and stuff ready to pull out also - as a good host would - but it was decided they'd fish some more. 

Jokes abounded about going to a kombini (convenience store) or having a can of tuna handy and I mentioned Nissui canned mackerel and finally they caught a fugu. Someone said they ought to eat the fugu and at that point Mr. Daub kind of lost it and got all mad that someone would suggest that (my contribution was that they need to go to Kimagure Cook's place since he's fugu licensed) and Mr. Daub stayed angry which kind of made things funnier and I put the term "hangry" in to see if anyone caught on. 

It was all more involved than that, with the commenters. I said there's no beginner's luck in fishing and it's generally very demoralizing at first and you have to just keep going and get a feel for it and we joked about the jumping Asian carp and catching old boots and every fishing joke and trope under the sun. Live streams can be fun. 

Somewhere along here it started to rain, hard. I'd known rain was coming in which was one reason for my early launch out of here, but I was expecting drizzle, Instead, the area's gotten two good washings down, the 2nd one ongoing as I type.

Yay a stay-home day

 That's how exciting things are around here that I'm excited I get to stay in today.  I went to bed at about 3AM and was awake at 8:30AM so not a lot of sleep but I did sleep. 

I noticed as I drank some sake to get sleepy that I steadied out and my weakness decreased. I even went up and down the stairs to see if this is true. This tells me this is probably simply a case of withdrawing from alcohol, which is something I know how to fix. 

I started my day with 3 cups of tea, one ginseng and two Earl Grey. Then some natto. I did not feel like a tiger. This fatigue is really not fun and I have a theory. When I drank vodka and would get really stumbling drunk, where I'd not remember things I did (which may have been to dole out more vodka for myself) I tend to bump into things and this last time I had a nice little bump on the back of my head. I think I may have given myself a bit of a concussion. 

So I need to taper down the alcohol (going right off is dangerous) to keep my blood pressure from making the concussion worse, and try to deal with the fatigue as best I can. 

I really need to get more serious about being an old person. Ideally I'll be back in Hawaii in four years, and I'll be that much older. Things that tear me down like alcohol, caffeine, and unhealthy foods will have to not be in my life at all. At least there I will have access to medical care. 

I will have to lead a very pure life. Maybe that's why I watched so much Yukio Mishima stuff the other night. He was a nut, but what he intended to do, he did, going from being a weedy little bookworm to a bodybuilder and I believe he was excellent at kendo too. It took leading a very pure life. 

This is what I like about music, for me, vs. art. As I explained to Ken, doing art means having to have a lot of stuff and then you need a dedicated work-space, and it's just too much. Whereas I could live in one of those little horse-drawn Gypsy wagons and have room for 4 or 5 ukes hanging on the wall. 

But another thing struck my perhaps bruised mind today: I really dislike art that's hokey, just to turn a buck - a good example being those awful paintings of turtles you see in Hawaii. But to me, music just can't be hokey in that way. When we were kids we'd sing advertising jingles, all kinds of silly stuff and I'm sure those are hokey, but somehow not offensively so. If I'm busking in Waikiki I might have to sing "Puka Shell Tour Guide" quite a few times, but it's a fun song. We sang it when I was a kid. 

I had to pack 20 packages but since I'm back to "day mode" I got started much earlier and while it was a slog I  got 'em done. Then I went through some stuff we got in, in some crappy old little cabinet things, with a zillion little drawers, sifting out the crap and keeping the good stuff, and putting the drawer things out by the trash enclosure - hours later sure enough a bum came by and snarfed 'em up. 

Lunch had been miso soup with scrambled eggs in it, and dinner was sauteed pork on top of veggies. I also cut up and froze some pork I got the other day from Nijiya. I think I could only shop at Nijiya and do all right. 

I tried getting 20 things put up on Ebay but I got to 10 and Ebay crapped out on me. I'll have to do them tomorrow.

Not All Zombies Don't Like The Sun

 I got all the packages that had to be done last night before midnight or be "overdue" like library books, done. Even this one big "industrial" computer, some hunk'a'junk running a 286 I believe. 

I drank what I thought was a fair amount of sake to get sleepy before bedtime, watching a bunch of stuff about Yukio Mishima. And went to sleep for two hours?? So I drank a bit more, more Yukio Mishima and a couple of capsules of kava-kava, and slept until about 9AM. I even got out of bed with a fair amount of vigor. 

I finished off the packages, and was out the door with a loaded bike trailer at a quarter after 10. I stopped at the same food truck and got chicken wings and ate them in the shade of a tree right there. 

The drop-offs went fine, and in case I was going to "crash" like yesterday, I chose to go, trailer and all, over to Nijiya, mainly for more sake. I'd gone through almost one of the big "magnum" bottles in a day. I think I'd underestimated how much vodka I'd been drinking; I'd been going through two "handles" a week at least. Since the sake is much weaker at 15% alcohol and also I've been diluting it, it means using a fair amount as I taper down. It's $10 a bottle at H Mart and $6 a bottle at Nijiya, and besides, I'd not be in danger of suddenly feeling super fatigued back here and then drag myself out to go get the stuff.

On Old Oakland Road there was a gibbering female zombie by Apatizigan (sp?) Market who yowled at me as I swung wide, "Motherfucker! I'll stab you with my own spear!" as it apparently didn't like my zombie-stay-away stick. I sped past but there was a male gibbering zombie on the corner and as I kept an eye on that one and traffic, I heard the female zombie getting closer, perhaps walking faster or even running? A fast-walker anyway. I took an opening in traffic and went down Hedding to 7th. That area's always had a low-level zombie infestation anyway. 

I parked the bike/trailer out front of Nijiya and got my stuff, and rode back along 5th. It's really pleasant being out in the day. I'd never noticed a row of low-income apartments are actually painted really bright colors like yellow and light green. I stopped at Dahl's and got a Dahl's calendar, the desktop kind because they were out of the kind that hang on the wall. I can "rig it up" to hang on the wall anyway, I told them. 

I got back in here (traffic busy on Old Bayshore, it being noon) and as I came in, a little black pickup truck with a white topper pulled up and I thought the guy might try to grab my bike so I got the bike, trailer, etc., in here tout de suite and shut and locked the door. But I think the guy was waiting for someone because he didn't take off once the "bait" of my bike was gone. Or maybe waiting to see if I'd go back out so he could jump me. He did left after a while. 

I watched some YouTube and had some natto and went to bed at about 3, where I stayed until 7. Feeling pretty twitchy and having some dilute sake now.  I wrote out a daily status report to Ken so he knows what's going on - I'm kind of hoping I don't see him until next week because among other problems, I stink. And I stink because I've gone through a lot of my clean clothes, and there's no way the cut on my hand can take doing laundry. Not the way I've been doing it, with tons of hand wringing. 

I actually am amazed I took off like a tiger this morning because after my nap, I felt weak as a kitten. The rest of the day has been being twitchy and almost feeling like I'm getting weaker. It was an ordeal getting just a few packages packed.

Now one thing is, for the past 30 days, stopping only a day or two ago, I'd been having two Alka-Seltzers as a nice fizzy drink in the morning, with vodka put in for good measure of course. Well, Alka-Seltzer has a lot of sodium citrate in it, and it's just not a good idea. It seems to be constipating, for instance. So that's been a major shift for my system right there. I'm going to stop all "frivolous" use of aspirin from here on out. 

I really thought I could be a drinker and it'd be OK. The vodka I was getting was inexpensive and actually tasted pretty good as such things go - on a par with Stoli I'd say. So I felt I was drinking something pure, and I was always diluting it. Maybe it's just not good to drink once one reaches a certain age. 

I think I'll have to be like Ken and not drink coffee or caffeinated things too. Tea, and pretty much the only soda besides soda water, since we both drink diet, is diet 7-Up. So yeah, caffeine is off my list. Ken likes dark teas but I'm pretty happy with green or jasmine tea, myself. 

Dinner last night had been miso soup with chicken and I cooked up the same thing tonight - I figured I'd better if that's what had me charging so hard when I got up. And tomorrow I'd better get done anything important I'm going to do, before noon.

Zombies don't like the sun

 By drinking very dilute sake I kept on the edge of being twitchy and got through the work I had to do, and sadly, didn't get to sleep until about 5. Then I woke up at about 9:30 in the morning. I felt OK though, and wanted to get going before the lunch rush. 

I took off up Rogers Avenue and just as I was going by, a lunch truck pulled in by this place that sells tools. So I was about their first customer. I got some chicken wings and these little things with ground meat in them in a won ton wrapper and deep fried. I ate the chicken wings sitting at the tool place's disabled parking area and saved the fried things for later. 

I rode up to H Mart and it went pretty well. Traffic was pretty light. I figured the 9-11AM time slot would be pretty quiet and I was right. 

I got some dried mushrooms, couple bottles of sake (ideally I'll end up giving one away) and a bottle of Dawn, packed it all up and rode home. It was really clear, the sky was super blue, and nobody in traffic seemed to be in a super hurry. And it seems zombies don't like the sun, because I didn't have to dodge any. 

The effort of eating chicken wings, riding to H Mart and back and then eating the deep fried things really tired me out, though, and I drank "some" sake, less than I had last night, and took a nap for a few hours. 

I woke up again, still tired, but feeling less shaky than I had pre-nap. I finally got going pre-packing 11 items that will go "overdue" like library books tonight at midnight. 

I called Ken and gave him an update. I said I'm extremely fatigued, and it's best if he just doesn't come by this week. I said there are two possibilities; either it's alcohol or I've got the 'Rona. He asked me if I've lost my sense of smell, as that's a notable symptom, and I said that I've still tasting my food. He started to ask about temperature and I recalled that going into H Mart my temperature had been nice and low. I said in the case of alcohol, the critical time window seems to be 72 hours. 

So I'll hold up my end as well as I can here this week, and Ken can pay me for this week whatever he thinks is fair. 

I have a theory why I feel so crappy right now. Alcohol sends my blood pressure way up, and drinking less of it has my blood pressure down and that feels weird on its own. At least I have a decent appetite and my pee's a healthy color. And my voice sounded really strong when I was talking to Ken on the phone.

More struggles with diurnality

 Went to sleep at about .... 2 maybe? But on a bit less booze. Woke up around 8:30 and didn't want to be so harsh on myself so had a little booze and started in on the beginning of "Lord Jim" by Paul Conrad and then back to bed until about 1:30 or so.

I really need to get used to being in "first shift" which is 7AM-3:30PM in any respectable factory. It's how the machine shop right next door operates. It goes well with living in Hawaii because typically it's hot around the middle of the day so you go out early in the morning and do things or later when the sun's setting. Garage sales are pretty much played out by 9AM there. 

Voice exercises continue. I'm finding a lot of neat 1920s/1930s stuff. If something happens to Ken I'm only going to have a few months to find another situation for myself and I think that by far, the best response is to get back home. Singing and playing music will be the one thing I'll have in my favor. And I'll never be an ace on the "uke", just a basic strum and a few chords for me, thanks. 

I'm trying to think of how I could make busking work, and all I can think of is to get a big piece of transparent plastic like stiff clear sheeting and then put it around myself. Then people could toss money over the top. But if the virus is that bad and it is, it's not ethical to go out at all.  

I got the packing I needed to get done, done, and somehow made it up to the post office and FedEx. I just feel really tired. I scrambled a couple of eggs before taking off and ate them although I was not sure if I was hungry. 

I was just going to list some things most notably some Motorola radios I'd made up labels for when who shows up but Ken. A old electronics guy at his work has died and the widow wanted that stuff outta there. And Ken needed it out of his truck because he's still dealing with his water heater problem - "Last time I'll buy a Rheem heater!" so I got inundated with tons of boxes of electronics shit. 

I explained, putting on my mask, that I feel like utter crap, very fatigued, and it's got to be one of two things: Either I've got the 'rona or it's the result of my having fallen into drinking again, and drinking quite a bit - so I'm tapering down as fast as I can. I also said that I'm going to try treating things around here like the lights are on a timer and at midnight, Lights Out. I said I don't think the night-owl schedule is good for me and he said, "I don't know if it's very good for me, either!"

It took me a couple of hours to get the new batch of junque sorted into the better boxes, and did some basic triage of the stuff that's really not any good.

It starts with a cut

 Forcing myself into diurnal-ness is hard, really fucking hard. I feel like shit. Super tired. Awake at 11 or a bit before, but so tired and heavy feeling I didn't actually get up until almost 2. 

I started my day by slicing my hand on the broken-off corner of one of the two sheets of phenolic I use to block light from showing under the front door. I've been moving the thing back and forth for at least a year. Fortunately the cut isn't deep and itches more than actually hurts. 

I went to reddit r/hawaii and filled out some application to work remotely in Hawaii or some shit. What's funny is I actually have some skills, did phone work as some of my very first work, and as I noted on the form, "Am very fluent in standard American English and Hawaiian Pidgin/Pacific Creole English". 

After a few hours my cut seemed to have settled down and I left at 5 for Nijiya where I got some fried fish, cooked "seasonal" vegetables, a can of beer and a big bottle of sake. Sake's got sugar in it, but it's easy to water down by quite a bit. 

Dilute, Delay, and put up with some Discomfort. Gawd I feel like shit. This alcohol thing has got to go. 

I listed 10 Ebay things and the idea is to actually go to sleep at a somewhat normal time and get up at a normal time; no more of this night-owl bullshit. If I set midnight as the time, at latest, to get to bed then Ken being over here until midnight won't screw me up. And that should have me getting up at 8 or 9. 

 

Livin' diurnal ain't easy

 Up at 4. I guess I went to bed fairly early, and sometime during this time I went to the bathroom, which is pretty routine except I apparently didn't bother to get out of my pants, or out of my chair, to do this. 

I got into some fresh clothes and cleaned up the chair using the "Urine Gone" I still had, and managed to get my staggering self over to Nijiya for a big bento and a big can of Asahi "Dry" beer. WTF I got carded, and showed them my (expired) driver's license "Hey man, I'm old! Like a Toyota Hilux!". Something something and I said I really feel like Urashima Taro which I really do.

Zom-B-Gone

 Up by which I mean all the way up with bedding put away and exercises done and starting in on my coffee, at 4. I looked outside and the zombie is gone. A bum car had come through last night and parked for a long time and I suppose the zombie had found some bums and/or crackheads to hang out with. 

I was thinking if the zombie had wandered off I'd chuck their zombelongings into one of the dumpsters. But the area was cleared out. I'd actually gotten a reply to my email to the San Jose "rat tattler" account for reporting annoying zombies, so maybe they'd come through. 

It's just amazing how the internet is degrading, though. Wikipedia, to whom I've just sent $20, is very very slow now. I used to use them as a test to see if I was actually connected to the internet (before, I used to try logging onto www.suck.com). 

I'm going to try to get back to being diurnal rather than nocturnal. Back In The Day(tm) I was an early-morning person.

Insane rantings of a female zombie

 Sometime during the night, well after Ken had left, a female zombie wandered through the parking lot, screaming unintelligible gibberish, and decided to set up camp across from the shop here. The damned thing would not shut up, and I woke up at 8 due to the noise it was making. I had a little more to drink and went back to sleep until 2. 

I got up at 2:15 or so and cleaned up and was out the door at 2:25 or so. The zombie was still there, of course, but it had run down a bit and was less noisy. 

I went to the bank and put my two paychecks in, and went over to Whole Foods and got walnuts, almonds, and a beer. Then I went over to Dai Thanh and got a few things. Zombies everywhere, needless to say. There was a crazy ones dancing around on the corner but I parked the bike well away from it and any trouble it might make. 

I went to the Amazon hub for bubble mailers and there's something new there now: a sort of booth on little wheels where a gal greets people; a sort of concierge. In fact, this sort of job is becoming common now. Because of wartime conditions concierges are needed for the most mundane things like a market or FedEx or just about anything. 

I had plenty of time to go to Nijiya for some things, but not dried mushrooms apparently as those were all gone. I got a chashu don and some fish cakes to go with my beer, and sat and ate at the Issei building. It's nice and peaceful there. I got feeling really bad, though, for my parents, who even though they'd moved to Hawaii could never be happy. And with no Bon dance this year there's not a thing I can do about it. I was having a good old cry in my beer when I heard a flute. 

I'd eaten by then and was all packed up, and walked the bike up to the corner. An adult or two were having their(?) kids dance a sort of routine to music on a boom box, and it was pretty neat. I Slav-squatted on the street like a good gopnik and clapped to the music. Who knows if the "take" with my clapping will be the one they keep. 

I'd noticed the Kogura store has been brightly lit and doors wide open and this little hole in the wall place that sells local crafts was open with a Plexiglas teller window sort of set up, and I got talking with the lady. She hadn't heard of the police standoff at all. She wondered if places are open, and I noticed and told her that Shinimori Optometry was just closing and 6PM is actually pretty late for an optometrist. By this time Kogura's was closed but I need to go over there and get one of those bead things we Buddhists wear when we go to church. I had a dandy one but had donated it with a lot of other stuff to the temple's rummage sale long before this virus came along.

I got back here and Ken had dropped off a bunch of stuff to list on eBay. I called him and he told me about some of the stuff, and he told me that he'd had the water heater go out at his house and so he'd had to drop the things off during the day, at just about 4 to be precise, so he could go pick up a new water heater. If I'd down I'd not have left a pile of dirty clothes out on the floor etc.

The zombie was still there, just run-down and hardly noisy now. I took my "tunker stick" and a flashlight to check, because I figured one thing I could do is pick up the junk the zombie had brought and chuck it into a dumpster. It was still there, though. "Echh", I said upon learning this. 

I'd asked Ken if he'd noticed the zombie and he had, and said No, it's not Renee who's an old regular here. I emailed a report to the San Jose homeless concerns email address, which generally results in a police pass-through or something. 

I decided a zombie that isn't screeching might be an unhealthy zombie, and we can't have the damned things dying around here, so I took a bottle of water and my last two slices of cheese and went out to see what condition the zombie was in. Well, it's obvious how Ken figured out it's not Renee, because it's a black lady, dressed nicely and doing fine, and wearing a damn rhinestone tiara or some shit. I got no thanks for the cheese and water, and some semi-intelligible tirade about her husband or something. Fuck all street people, just fuck 'em. They're all selfish shitheels. I'm coming more and more around to the belief that anyone who's out on the street has put themselves there, and are so bad at being a human being that they deserve to be out there. I don't expect thanks for cheese and water from a squirrel or a feral cat, but normal human beings are social and thanks are normal. I'm proud of his thankful I was for 11c or just people hearing me out when I was out there. 

Ebay and things in general are fucking up, more and more by the day. I've got about $4800 in the bank (I consider this rather theoretical as only coins/bills I can hold in my hands are real) and need to pay my taxes but as I'd told Ken last night I feel like Professor Jastrow in Herman Wouk's The Winds Of War, where he's sitting in his Italian villa, working on his book, "A Jew's Jesus", and figures he's OK, he'll be fine, but if you follow this excellent made-for-TV series, he dies in Auschwitz because he didn't jump when the jumping was good. 

I've found my bike riding time is a good time to practice singing. Why not? It's not like anyone gives a shit. 

Big yellow moon

 Up at 3:30, had coffee, nuts etc. and finished off the packages I'd set up, and was out the door at 6. Two of the packages were large and going overseas, so I took them around to the loading docks at the post office. That went smoothly. 

There was a line to go into FedEx so I parked the bike where I could keep an eye on it, and got in line. Fortunately, one of the workers came out and asked people in line if they were just dropping something off or needed to make copies etc., and I was able to hand the FedEx package to her. I gave her a hearty and genuine "Thank you!". The way things are now, I think it's really important to treasure our fellow workers. 

I picked up more interesting medications from the emergency place which throws this stuff out every Wednesday. Couple of AED pads, so that's $10 or $15 on Ebay, some stuff to keep, and made up a box of stuff to offer to Ken. 

I got an email from my aunt, so as of now she's still alive.  

I sent $20 to Wikipedia so that's my Good Deed For The Day(tm). I should probably kick them $20-$50 a year. I've thought about setting up an account to help add to their content or at least clean up some of the English but haven't felt that strongly about it so far. 

Ken came by with a bunch of boxes and wrote out my check and I had the place all clean and vacuumed and pointed out to him all the Motorola radios I'd cleaned last night - they were filthy. I also told him we'd be doing fantastically well to get $20 apiece for them. Oh, well. I'd also soldered up a power connector jig so now it's just plug 'n' play. 

Ken hung out and we talked for a LONG time. I told him how it's frustrating, how Ebay keeps finding creative ways to crap out on me, and there was a line at FedEx, and all the little annoyances. And we talked about tons of science-y stuff of course. I told him about how awful Beyond Burgers are, and he vented his disgust about "Country Crock" which is this sort of margarine in a tub. I called it Country Crock of Shit and we laughed over that. I pointed out how in the 1970s it was a mini-Depression so there was this nostalgia for "old times" and tons of things were name Country this and that. (I don't remember being that disgusted with Country Crock actually, it was just another form of margarine to fry eggs in or put on toast. We kids took what we could get.) 

After Ken left at midnight I was hungry so I made ... chicken curry. It came out really well considering I'd never made curry before. But I had S&B "Oriental" curry powder on hand, and a bit of tempura batter made a fine thickener. 

I did the curry because the chicken I have on hand has ... an unusual taste. Not bad, just a subtle thing. So I thought it might work well in a curry. I think the "boneless chicken thigh" I get at Nijiya might be meant for, or at least often cooked as, yakitori. I've watched a ton of videos on yakitori on YouTube over the past week and I don't think I want to do something that can get smoky like that around here. But I did search and found the one yakitori place in this whole area, and it's just up the street. So maybe I'll get some take-out yakitori from them sometime.

Beyond Blecch

 Up at 4:30. The place still smells from cooking that Beyond Burger and I swear there's a reek on my breath from it too. Febreze only helped a little and I'm glad I keep a bottle of it around. The 2nd Beyond Burger went into the trash, uncooked of course, because I don't even think the birds would eat it. 

I was out the door at a quarter after 6, did my drop-offs fine, and found a lot, like 32 or so, of these cool little boxes that are great for 1st-class packages, that the drone place had thrown in their white dumpster that was locked, but the lock didn't hold down both lids. I made some noise grabbing them and throwing them in a pile, then going through each one and taking the little cardboard fillers out and putting those back into the dumpster, then stacking everything neatly in the box on the bike trailer. Someone looked out the door behind the business at what I was doing, but didn't say anything. Now I'll get to see if they lock things up super tight, or less tight because they see that the boxes are being re-used and are appreciated. 

I had to veer up into the Telemundo parking lot to avoid a car that did a suspicious U-turn and was a possible threat, and Arnold called out, "Hey, long time no see" so I walked with him while we talked a bit, mainly about homeless people and then I said, "Well, I'd better let you go...." and rode off for here. 

The thing with Arnold is that he's nice enough, and it's impressive that he's got a law degree, but he's kind of weird in a way I can't put my finger on. 

The Mr. Softee that was 2 doors down has moved to a different location, according to Chuy, the guy on the other side of me who is owner or part-owner of the cleaning company and drives an elderly Saturn station wagon he takes meticulous care of. Lately the cleaning guys have been more friendly. I'll hear "Hi, neighbor!" and I'll find something nice to say like, looking into their shop, "Wow, you guys have a lot of ladders!".  I know English fluency is not that much of a thing with that bunch, but I think they like that I'm not your typical stick-up-his-ass Anglo. 

I got a tiny bit of paperwork done, though. I filled out the form for "Oseigo" which is "winter time giving" and put that with the $20 money order and got that all together and in an envelope and into the mail. I'm going to send in $30/month membership dues this coming year and they've sent me the little payment book. In normal times, for those with normal budgets, the individual membership is $60/month but Rinban Sakamoto told me that $30 or whatever I feel is fair, is fine. Or nothing, he said, it's all fine. 

Not right now, with the virus raging, but as soon as it is practicable I want to get into some volunteering with the temple. Not the choir again because I can't afford to go to the things they go to, but there are lots of other things. Even folding up the newsletters and mundane stuff like that. And by that time, the various ukulele get-togethers might be going again. And good old Ben Yep should still be around and we can work on some funny songs like "Puka Shell Tour Guide". 

Dinner was pork on top of vegetables. The pork I got was cutlets for tonkatsu so they're intended to be breaded and fried and then cut, hence the "katsu" but I just cut it up into small pieces for quick stir-frying and weigh it out into 4-oz. portions. It's really good!

Barely a ripple

 Up at about 3:30 because the mailman shoved a big catalog in and it made a racket. 

There's barely a ripple on Reddit about the big police standoff in Japantown and no information other than "barricaded suspect" so I guess I might ask around next time I'm over there. 

Being depressed is no fun. I got Ebay things together last night but didn't list, and only packed one that needed to be done by midnight tonight - it took me a while to find the darned thing. 

Then I "wasted" time on Andy Bumatai's Hamajang Gang on youtube today, oh well, good times and good memories. The guy's only getting maybe 50 viewers, tops, and that's across like 3 platforms somehow and I only saw one person put about $9 in the hat. Andy probably doesn't know how to not be working, though. 

At least I did my usual bit of voice exercises on the theory that like any muscle, the voice takes time to develop and again, it's working. I've found a YouTube channel called Ukulele Zen that's got a pretty nice guy teaching songs which is plays and sings and he's got tons more experience in both than I have, but I daresay I think there's more potential in my pipes than in his. 

I should think more about how lucky I am to be here with regards to voice training because I can yell all I want with no trouble, where even back in Hawaii I'll have to sneak into the UH practice rooms to do voice exercises. 

I watched more YouTube than I should and packed some Ebay things, and got hungry after my scrambled eggs with shishito peppers ran out on me, so I cooked up some gai lan I'd gotten at Nijiya Market and it was really good. I'm beginning to sense a pattern here: The veggies I'm buying from Nijiya seem to taste a lot better than ones from H-Mart or Whole Foods. And while conventional broccoli is kind of spendy these days, gai lan's still cheap. 

I packed more things and then tried out the "impossible burger" or whatever it's called. The package says "Beyond Burger'. It turns out to be very OK. It takes 4 minutes on each side to cook, and leaves a lot of oil/grease in the pan. It's OK enough with some condiments and has a burger-y texture, but overall it's just meh. At best it reminds me of the cheap lunch truck hamburgers I sometimes ate in college that were probably half "textured vegetable protein". There's a funny smell in here from cooking it now too.  

I think I'll eat the 2nd one tomorrow, but I'll kibble it and thus be able to cook it quickly. One thing's for certain and that is that eating beef is out, for me.

Impossible or Beyond

 Up at 3:30.  Last night I watched a ton of videos, did some singing exercises, and had an interesting onion and shishito pepper miso soup with oysters. Ehh .... jarred oysters are not as good as buying them live from Dai Thanh. 

I got out of here a bit after 7 and went right over to Whole Foods to lock the bike, walked up to CVS for the usual (vodka). There was a nest of bums out front that asked me for a dollar, but I just shook my head and said "Noooo..." because the smallest cash I had on me was a $5. But I got 3 little 89c cheese sticks along with my vodka and tossed them to what appeared to be the head bum saying "Share 'em around!" because it was 3 bums there. The guy said Thanks and I wished them "Stay safe!" as I walked away. 

Back over to Whole Foods where I paid $3.75 for a little half-size bottle of Worcestershire sauce, geez, wartime prices .... and found no Beyond Meat products but did find a package of two Impossible Burgers all pre-formed and ready for the grill etc, working out to something like $3.50 each.  (I just looked up the Worcestershire sauce and those little 5-oz. bottles are about $6 each online.) I also got some "salmon candy" and a beer, and got $60 cash back. 

Next stop was the Amazon hub for bubble mailers, but first I put my bike in there and said out loud how I'll just be across the street and back, and went to the 7-11 on the opposite corner. I almost didn't go in, because there was a skinny filthy female zombie dancing around and lunging at people and things out front. One of the Indian guys who run the place chased it out when it went in, then beat on the glass in an attempt to scare it off (he saw I was hesitating to cross the street to go in) and finally went out with a stick and chased it up the street. 

I went in and got two money orders, one for $20 and one for $30, to send to the temple. There's a yearly sort of money-gift thing and that's what the $20 will go to, and $30 will be my monthly dues. Normally they're $60 but they know I don't make much and Rinban Sakamoto has told me repeatedly that whatever I think is fair, is fine. They've sent me a 2021 payment book and it's time to get back on track with them. 

After getting the money orders I went back over to the Amazon hub and gathered up bubble mailers. One of the workers was there cleaning the cardboard boxes up and I gathered up the plastic bubble mailers, and ended up doing a funny sort of rap that went like, "Big Bird's running a protection racket, and Oscar The Grouch is hiding bodies, and I'm the recycling foooool.... Mr. Hooper's selling the kids cigarettes and Gordon's telling 'em smoke crack, and I'm the recycling foooool.... Ernie & Bart making fetish films, and Elmo's runnin' numbers, and I'm the recycling fooooool....." It was kind of fun. I don't want to say it was as good as Whitey's On The Moon but I guess I'm not as bad at rapping as I thought. 

I took off for home on his cold, depressing night with too damn many shopping cart zombies and slow-walker zombies and flat-out crazy zombies, and rode up 3rd. I hear police sirens and dogs barking and it seemed there was some sort of to-do a street or so over so taking the usual elaborate measures to keep from being killed by cars I got over to 5th and figured whatever was going on was over because I didn't hear the dogs any more, so it'd be a peaceful right through Japantown and then home. 

But, as I passed the familiar buildings of "my" little town, I found a major police set-up right on the intersection of 5th and Jackson street. I  turned off the bike lights and hung around and listened a bit, heard the cops say things like "HANDS UP!" and "TURN AROUND" etc. Eventually I got ready to ride out of there and stopped to ask the community service officer what was up and she said all she knew was she'd been told to keep traffic out. 

I circled around to ride through via 6th, and there were some people standing around the corner from Sushi Kazoo so I stopped and asked them and they didn't know anything. I told them about the hands up stuff, and we surmised a bit that it might be that crazy guy who stalked our new preacher who'd just come over from Japan, to our temple. The gal among the group knew about that, and has been living there, in the building above Sushi Maru it appears, for 15 years. Her name is Robin and I'll probably never meet her again.