April Fool's

Up at maybe 3, and it's dry and sunny and windy out there. I had a headache (and a little cough/congestion but no more than normal on some mornings) and I'd slept fine.

I'd been up until about 7 in the morning, taking some stuff apart. And Mr. and Ms. Crackhead were out in the parking lot jitterbugging around so I couldn't put the scraps out. I'll put them out when I load up the bike trailer. She's out there still (how can a person wash/detail their car all night and still be hard at it all day?)

The thing with prepping is, when "the balloon goes up" you have what you have. I've kept the packaged from the antibiotics I was put on for my cellulitis and pneumonia, and I'd thought at the time that maybe I should see about obtaining, in the form of fish antibiotics or something, more of the ones that got me over the pneumonia so well. And now I'm sure that's not possible now, where if I get the virus, putting myself on another course of the antibiotics if my lungs get bad could make a difference. I'm better off self-treating here than in a hospital because here I can drink, pee, eat what I like, when I like, listen to the radio, etc.

I loaded up the boxes and packages onto the bike and trailer, put the scrap metal by the dumpster enclosure, and took off, dropping off the FedEx stuff first (and paid 2X what I'm used to for some cellphone tape, c'est la guerre)  and then did the post office, and on the way back picked up some really nice large boxes and firm foam and a bunch of small boxes too, quite a good haul especially considering the times.

I put all that away and took off with my weekly trash, dropped that in my second favorite dumpster, then went to 99 Ranch where I got ten cants of meat/fish, 10 packs of Haw Flakes (a treat only a starving 70s kid will understand) and various other things, which with cash back was about $90.

Next was H Mart, which has eggs (both places did) but dairy really hit hard and a lot of things in fact. I got a few more cans of meat/fish namely their last can of corned beef and two of crab, and for fresh or frozen beef, it was pretty wiped out. I was able to get some of their marinated beef they sell ready-to-grill, which is really low-grade beef they just soak in a marinade. I like their low-grade beef though as it's got much better flavor than the more expensive stuff.

Another big bottle of Coke Zero, another bottle of white lightning, more butane for cooking, it all adds up, so that was another $60-odd.

I got back here (sooner or later I'll have to decide I've got enough squirreled away for hardcore bunker time, and tape up the boxes for now, and just "eat on the local economy" as they called it in the Army. Longer term, assuming this all blows over, in 6 months or a year, I start cycling out the stuff I've stored so I've always got a store, but nothing gets super old. And I'll have to start being careful about being seen with bulging bags, out on the bike. I'll have to start being a lot more disciplined about my trash too, sneaking out any food-related trash in small bags and disposing of it far away.

It just depends on how bad things get. The government does not want food riots in the streets, people being held up, even killed, for a couple bags of groceries. I have to assume things won't get that bad. And while this is not the ultimate bug-out location it's a lot better than a most people have. Imagine trying to store up emergency food while living in a house with a large family or a bunch of room mates.

Ken called me up and said he'll come by tomorrow night instead of tonight which is fine. I don't even need to deposit my pay check every week, but could start depositing two of them every other week.

I futzed around with Ebay things, put things away, and weighed out the marinated beef into 4-oz servings, which I got 7 of. I also bought some more things on Amazon that are hard to get here even when things are normal, like foot powder and cotton swabs, and after much looking around and viewing YouTube reviews, I've ordered a full-size Wahl hair clipper for about $120, that should enable me to do some bitchin' haircuts. I've paid decent money for the haircut I just gave myself with my little Wahl beard trimmer, and with a lot less "stragglers". I'm just gonna cut my own hair so I don't have to bother going to the barbershop etc.

It's funny how quickly things have changed. I'd bought a cornet off of Craig's List that I told the guy I'll pay $20 extra if he just comes here instead of my coming to him, and it's funny because Ken was here when the guy came by and I test-played the thing. The guy was impressed with my high C's and I think Ken was impressed to see me fork over $200 or so for the thing, but hey, I now have a nice little Yamaha student cornet, the idea being I'd learn plunger mute techniques with it. Right now it's just sitting upstairs in the bag that came with it, but now with everything so dead, there's no chance of my getting a replacement horn unless I buy a new one, but since I'd unwittingly planned ahead, I now have the cornet in case something happens to my trumpet.

I wish I hadn't sold my Doc Marten boots, which I got for something like $20 - and they were new - and sold for $50 or $60 I forget. I could have come up with that money some other way, and I'd still have the boots. And now of course the used clothing place that's really great for finding Doc Martens is closed. All clothing places are, I guess, so what I have is what I have.