Cinco de Mayo

I woke up at about 1:30 in the afternoon. I thought a bit, about how I might get all involved working on the front tire's tube on the bike and not be able to patch it, and not having a new tube as a backup... and then it might be too late in the day to take the light rail downtown and get more tubes.

Everyone's ending their day early these days, it's a sort of wartime thing. So I got walking. I took the light rail to Paseo de San Antonio, walked up to Bike Express, where I found to my delight that they're open, just letting a few people in at a time, and I explained to the lady that I just wanted a couple of 26 inch tubes, which she got out and sold me for about $13. I'd also retrieved a tube the right size from a dumpster around the corner on 4th, that I think has just one small hole in it. There was some other bike stuff there, some skinny tubes and a skinny tire etc. I'll have to keep that dumpster in mind.

So for a bit of a walk and a ride on the next-to-empty light rail and $13, I had two new tubes and a new-ish one for backup, so I felt pretty good.

I walked around the corner to La Victoria's which is a locally famous Mexican place popular with the college students. There are at least three of them but I think this is the original one. The customers in there looked lower class or even homeless in a case or two, but everyone was social distancing OK and wearing their masks. I ordered a "Super Taco" with carnitas and that was only $4-something and I put a dollar in the tip jar plus the change.

I got my food and a cup of water, and went out to look for a place to eat (no eating inside). I found a planter to sit on the edge of near the Homeland Security building, and I was not a good hobo because a good hobo always has a spoon about themselves, supposedly tucked into their shoe or boot, but somewhere. And a Super Taco, after being wrapped up for take-out, is sort of a lot of (delicious) mush with a couple of (delicious) tortillas at the bottom. So I just hate with my right hand, slurping up bite-sized gatherings of the filling, then ate the tortillas, all doused with some of the "orange sauce" La Vic's is famous for. It was really good. And the cup of water was perfect for washing up afterward.

I felt much better after eating, and hopped on the light rail to Santa Clara, walked over to my bank, and put my pay check in with no problem at the ATM. So that was good.

Then I walked over to the Amazon pick-up place and got 5 packages, and everything fit in the plastic shopping bag I was carrying around except for the sleeping bag, but I used some strapping I'd brought to make a carrying handle for that, so carrying everything was much easier than I thought it would be. I thought the Crocs would come in a big box like most shoes do, but they were just in a non-padded bag.

I considered eating somewhere else but that taco had really filled me up. It's a pretty good deal for a lunch for less than $5 (but call it $6 or $7 because we should really tip well these days).

So I'd been able to do everything I needed to, and it was just a bit before 5. I got on the light rail at Paseo de San Antonio and rode back to here, but got off at the Karina station because there's construction on Brokaw I didn't want to walk through, plus there's some sort of cable-laying operation going on too.

I got off and looked at weeds as I walked. I spotted a milk thistle that could be entered into a plant show, it's that big and beautiful. I gathered up some of what I thought was amaranth but I don't think it is, and it doesn't smell like something I want to experiment with, so I'll toss it. But another reason to get off at Karina station is it meant I walked through the credit union parking lot and they have jacaranda trees or what I call "oyster trees" because they shed these seed pods that look like oysters. They're hard like a lot of seed pods or nut shells, and should make good fuel. I want to try them in my Kelly Kettle. So I picked up about a half pound of those.

On the way back, I stopped to say hi to Kyle the security guard again. He'd started on the book I gave him, and I asked him about some lumber he had in his car, which he told me was for a quail pen. He raises quail, and has been doing so for a year. He eats the eggs and the quail. And his wife is getting into herb gardening. I explained how pigeon racing works, and how there are "utility" breeds of pigeons that are bred for meat. I told him about the weeds I'm learning to eat, and how I'd lived on a "survivalist" place in Gilroy but all they did was fight with each other and they could barely garden, keep animals, or store food. Everything was always done in the worst way possible, and so even with free rent and free food, I'd left.

After talking with Kyle, I saw a heavy-set guy walking around the Smithfield building who looked to me like he probably worked there, and got talking with him. Smithfield has thousands of plants, he said they'd had 17,000 and now are working down to 11,000 which is amazing. And the lease on this one was up anyway, so they may not re-open. He was looking for screws and things in the parking lot because he'd gotten a flat tire on his truck and his tires cost $250. I told him about my own tire troubles and that my boss had just spent $1000 on a new set of tires, and helped him look for screws. I told him I'm gonna miss the smell of the wood burning to smoke the hams, too.

I got in here and put things away and gloated over my Amazon goodies. The sleeping bag's just the same as my old one but fresh and clean, the tea tree oil, trumpet slide grease, and pack of 10 P-51 can openers just as expected, and the Crocs a size too big. Sigh. I set up a return and just have to take them downtown to the Amazon pickup place, and have a pair of the same ones I found but a size smaller and hilariously, in RealTree camo, on the way and for $5 cheaper. I'll have those in about a week.