50ml

I was up at 2, after waking up at 10, using the bathroom, and using meditation techniques to go back to sleep. The thing is, I didn't have a straining cloth for the kava, and felt too lazy to prepare it, and pouring out 50ml of alcohol was easy.

Last night I managed to list 20 things on Ebay, and that was after getting a practice done and cooking up a dish of broccoli beef. Broccoli really helps me, so maybe I should look into other members of that family like kale. I do see kale in the dumpsters fairly often.

When I got up I had my coffee etc. and took off at about 3. First stop was to drop off trash in a J-town trash can, then I went into Nijiya thinking I'd get a bento and some cash back, but the bentos were wiped out. I went out without buying anything.

Then I put two, 1-lb bags of rice and two packets of ginseng tea in the 6th street blessing box, and then headed over to Workingman's Emporium. They're closed for the week. I wanted to buy a bandana, because I didn't have a cloth to strain/squeeze kava with, and I didn't have a shirt I wanted to sacrifice. Well, I thought, I'll go to Ace, they'll have them,

I rode over to the 5th street blessing box, put in two bags of rice and two packets of ginseng tea, and took out two Robert Conrad books, "Lord Jim" and one with three shorter stories.

Then I went over to Lee's and got my usual, a chicken on rice plate lunch, bottle of water, and one of their masks. I went over and ate under the pepper tree, and noticed a new kind of ants there. They're black at the ends and red in the middle. And really like fish sauce. Then I went to the Amazon hub to pick up some boric acid I'd ordered, to keep bugs out of stored rice as well as tons of other uses.

I went over to Ace and ... they don't have bandanas. I noticed they had American flags by the counter that looked like the cloth is about the right weave, and they were only $3 so I got one of those, and looked at their fans. The fan I try to spend most of my time in front of at the shop seemed to be dying. I didn't have much hope of finding one, but they had several types. There was a real fan shortage a few years ago and I'd felt lucky to get the one I had for about $40 during that time. They had a nice little fan for $20 that's just slightly smaller than one one I have, which I use at its lowest setting.

I rode away with the fan in a large cloth bag I use for big things, hanging from the handlebars, and the flag sticking up out of one of the panniers, like I'm flying the flag proudly. Really it's about the easiest way to carry a flag.

I tootled towards home and stopped at Nijiya. "You're back," the guy said. "Like a bad penny," I joked. I got two kinds of sashimi and some mackeral to put in the freezer, and a Coke Zero.

Then I just rode home, flag flying. I put things away and had a nice sashimi snack and drank the Coke Zero. Then I got to work on my fan problems. The fan I have has this plastic shroud around it and it makes it impossible to get in there to clean it (it was filthy inside) or access its parts to clean them, repair, etc.

First I got out my nippers and cut the front of the shroud away so it's open at the front. Now I could get to the insides. I heated up some water and used Windex, a paint brush, and hot water to wash it thoroughly. Then I set it in front of the new fan to dry out, helped with some contact cleaner around the motor and switch. And I found out where the bearing actually is, and put some Break-Free in there.

When it was dried out enough to try, it worked but still "complained" so something else was going on. I noticed a lot of play in and out and noticed the nut holding the fan blades on wasn't really tight. So I found a lock spring to fit underneath it, and tightened it down "some". The fan seems to be running OK now. That was my idea; to at least learn something fixing this one, and have the new one in reserve, packed away in its box and stored away up in the loft.