Saturday, May 9, 2020

Time to get washin'

I watched the rest of the Dan Clowes movie Ghost World last night. That movie perfectly captures the feel of the 90s. They chose the perfect actress to play Enid, and they got that dude from Boardwalk Empire to play that dude in Ghost World. It's the 2nd Clowes movie I've seen now, the other one being Art School Confidential which is also good.

But how many people even know who Dan Clowes is? It takes a real nerd to know who he is, or Harvey Pekar, or any of the underground cartoonists. At least with music a good song sticks around.

After coffee etc., and noodling around online, I got going at about 4:30. I took a box of junk I did this really good paperboy type throw as I rode by the stuff I'd put at the dumping place, right as a cop SUV passed me too - I hope the cop saw me and thought, "Hey, that's a pretty decent throw". I also had my coolie hat I never wear on my back, and stopped in Japantown where I left the hat on top of a trash can and a bunch of bottles and cans in the trash can.

Then I rode down to my bank, and circled around the block to avoid 3 iffy looking people loading junk - looked like old chairs and mattresses and junk that bums love - into a truck full of junk, and I didn't like the odds, 3:1 if they decide to jump me. As  I came around the block, a yelling crazy was just leaving the area, which means if I'd used the ATM, ignoring the 3 junk-hounds, I may have had to deal with the crazy. So tootling around the block was a wise move.

Depositing my check was easy, and now I'm right where I was when this thing started, before all the "pandemic prepping" buying I've been doing.

I was about to head for home but remembered, "Oh yeah, the Amazon place". I went over there and they handed me a big flat box. I opened that and there were my two tires. They were easy to carry too, hanging off of one handlebar. The key is to ride slowly, and the way you can tell someone who really "lives on their bike" is how they handle slow riding. Anyone can go fast in a straight line, but weaving around avoiding traffic and potholes, and timing the lights etc are the signs of a pro.

I parked and locked the bike (and my new tires) across the street from Nijiya and got eggs, peppers, etc., and since they were out of bentos, got a little package of chicken kara-age and since they didn't have the beer with a dragon on the can, I got one with a cat on the bottle. I also got some "Yakult" which is a sort of yoghurt drink.

I went over to the benches by the Issei Memorial Building and had my chicken and beer. I think I need to find a "picnic" spot that's further away from people though, because a few people crossed the street to avoid walking past me (maybe headed to Nijiya anyway and would have to cross the street) and it's probably better that I stay further away.

The reason I got the Yakult drinks, though, is that the cellulitis on my ear is not only not really getting better, but I seem to have two more spots of it, on my cheek and chin. I'm putting some of the expensive and not totally effective "Muprocin" cream I was prescribed and I'll see how it goes, but I'm not sure about this. I think I'll have to go to the Valley Medical clinic and get put on a course of those green pills I was given before that actually had it almost gone, then when I went back the different doctor I got thought I was having intestinal trouble with the green pills, which I was really not as longs as  I drank my Yakult every day. The green pills worked, only cost me $30, and the one case of raging shits I got was actually kind of funny. I dug out my papers and boxes from the various medicines and for some reason I don't have a name for the green pills other than .... green pills. That's sure scientific. In any case if I can't turn this around I'll go on down to the clinic and see about getting those green pills again. And I'll drink Yakult every day just on general principles.

I got back here with tires hanging off of one handlebar and my bag of groceries hanging off the other, put things away, and decided I was really annoyed with all the "sensitive" trash I had. This is stuff with names, addresses, etc. I keep that out of the regular trash stream, and had been, when it built it, putting it in a bag marked "to shred" to hand off to Ken, who at least theoretically has it shredded at his work. But I don't want to load more work onto Ken, and this is why I took home this piece of ductwork that's basically a short tube with a bit of a base on it.

I took this and set it up with my little metal "Budweiser" bucket, into a trash burner. And the long and short of it is, burned up those few months' worth of "sensitive" papers. I was lucky to have a space of time long enough to burn all of those, and now each week's papers etc won't take more than a few minutes to burn. It's not a perfect burner, but I think I can improve it and make a convenient, easy to wash out, sensitive paper burner.

I tried out the nasturtium flowers and leaves I'd left in pickle juice overnight, and they were good. I tried a bit of the jicama and I think most of it was not good, but the part I tried was pretty good. But I tossed it.

I got a practice in. I'm not sure how many days I skipped, maybe more like a week? Not good. 

Dinner was beef with thistle leaf and garlic and mushroom, and it came out pretty well. The thistle was bitter, but then it was the two biggest leaves on the plant. It was still pretty good. 

I put 10 things on Ebay and one wee-wee little circuit board is worth a couple hundred, so that's good.

I saw the bum cars outside in a strange dance. I red SUV sort of thing with a blanket serving as one window was backing out, like maybe it could only move in reverse? And a light/silver minivan following it, and then the minivan got close, the driver of the red car flashed the headlights at it, like "stay away". The little red SUV kept up this backwards thing all the way out to the front of the complex, like a brave little crab. The bums often fight and even ram their cars into each other.

I was going to get washin' as in laundry, but I did so much else, and even got my "fire powered ultimate paper shredder" working so I guess that's enough for one day.

I was seriously considering going downtown and playing encouraging things on my cornet tomorrow, but I had a serious think about this and, the people being celebrated for doing this are doing it from their own balconies or rooftops. They're not going out to do it. They just happen to live where they're in canyons of apartment buildings and can reach a ton of their neighbors just steps from their couch. If I go out to play, it's like I'm saying I don't believe in staying in, or even that I advocate flaunting the shelter in place orders. I sure don't want to do that. So tomorrow's a stay-in day I guess, and maybe there will be laundry. 

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