58

 Up at 2.  I had coffee and got myself awake and functional and was out the door at a little past 3. 

First stop was the downtown post office (the beautiful 1930s one) where all seemed normal. I dropped off a load of packages; just what I could fit in a shopping bag hung off my handle bar. 

Next was the bank, but I was 'way early for my 4:00 appointment. I rode over by the "SoFa" district thinking maybe I'll get a couple vegetarian egg rolls because my stomach hurt, not hungry but irritated. Something greasy ought to help, I thought. But I turned around and headed over to the bank and locked the bike up. I walked up the street a bit, checking out restaurant menus, then walked back and I was only 10 minutes early and they let me in. 

The deposit went fine, and it was like they were happy to see me. I always try to be cheerful in the bank, but it seems that once things have settled down to a routine, with making an appointment, wearing masks etc., the cheerfulness has been dialed up. 

I then rode over to Whole Foods and locked the bike there. I went in and got a Lagunatis "Sumpin' Easy" because not only is it good beer, but the can really does make it look like I'm just drinking a canned iced tea. I also got some cold meatloaf - meaty and greasy; ought to set me right. 

I was going to walk over to the train station but decided to just follow this little road back and ended up at Cahill Park which had several dog walkers and a bum, sleeping away his afternoon. I walked around the park looking for a place to settle down and ended up not too far from the bum, because there was shade and a sort of low wall to sit on. 

I munched away and looked at the various doggies, and the trees, and thought about, what if *I* were a bum, would it make sense to maintain the same sort of schedule I do now, where I sleep away most of the day and am active at night? I could sleep here in Cahill Park. The dog walkers were all financially comfortable looking folks but the cig butts and Swisher Sweet wrappers told me the park leads a different life when the sun goes down.  I finished my meat loaf, wiped my eating hand on the grass, and left my beer with about 1/3 left by the bum. He'll find it or not. 

I walked back along the street on the other side of the park, which took me fairly close to CVS, where I went in and got another handle of "Gran Legacy" vodka, a 4-pack of Scott TP at not too terrible a price, and some decaf tea for when it's tea weather again so I can serve Ken up a cup of decaf tea. 

That over with and the stuff stashed away in the bike bags, I went into Whole Foods for more serious shopping, spending about $50. I even found some beef bacon. When I was a kid, during the short time my mom had a job cleaning rooms at Pats At Punalu'u, I used to help her clean the rooms (I'd been promised a buck or two a room but it ended up being only a promise) and the great thing about that was, if I was quick, I'd get a chance at the leftovers in the fridges. This is how I got to love pastrami, but the best thing found in one of those fridges was a package of beef bacon. Back at the house, no one jumped on it because beef bacon is weird, right? So I tried it and it was heavenly. Of course then everyone else wanted some so I only got it that one time, but I've always had beef bacon in the back of my mind as probably the superior sort of bacon. 

How in the world does beef bacon find its way into a fridge at Pats At Punalu'u on the windward side of the island of Oahu in the 1970s when it was much sleepier than now? It must have been a Jewish tourist. Just another way Jews have been looking out for me all my life. 

My stomach might have been full of meatloaf and beer but it was still gripey. I went over to "Viet Noms" where I'd had a really good vegetarian egg roll before, and got two of them. Not only were they $4 all told, but this time they were very different. Not greasy enough, and instead of tofu inside they seemed to be filled with something involving beans.  Hm. I still want to try one of their salad bowls later. 

Done with my beany and not enough greasy egg rolls, I rolled North on 1st. And there was Leroy at his place in front of Johnny Rockets. The guy still needs to spend some serious time with a metronome or at least learn to tap his foot, but his tone has really matured over the years. I stopped and we talked; he'd actually removed one of the pads near the bottom of his saxophone, "I never use that one..." and "I could put it in the shop but they'd keep it for 3 weeks". I talked about maybe having a spare, and how good Yamahas are, and he said his tenor's a Yamaha but he wants a mouthpiece for it that will give him a certain sound. Poor Leroy can't be making much there, and it's the first time I've seen any sign of dirt or care on his clothes. His shirt had yellow sweat stains on it. Maybe he's just trying to get laundromat money. We both said, "It's been good to see you" and I took off.

I stopped at the Amazon place and picked up 14 or 15 bubble mailers, so at this rate, well, I might have to explain to Ken why I'm not asking him to order bubble mailers... it's kind of a fun game, getting them for free. 

I rode back here and put things away and then hitched up the bike trailer and loaded it up with four really big boxes Ken had dropped off, that I wanted to get rid of. They were old and beat up and too big to be practical. I'd taken all labeling off of them and stacked them in the trash enclosure last night. It's a pretty handy system. I'll put things there I want to get rid of, then when it's convenient, pick them up and get rid of them. I took these to the dumping place by the bridge, then rode back and got a few peppers, red and green, from the dumpster by Grill-'Em. 

It's funny, twice today I saw bums with a bike trailer but no bike. Just pushing or pulling the thing. One was downtown by Delmas Market and one right there on Old Bayshore by Galli Produce. I rode around the corner, passing another bum with a bike trailer and a bike, and got in here quick hoping they don't pick up on where I went. 

Once safely in here, I relaxed a bit and my stomach still hurt, so I got out the Pepto-Bismol I'd bought just for the heck of it and took a dose and it stopped hurting.

Reading the r/preppers discussion on Reddit, there's one account of a guy who was walking down the sidewalk in his own town, saw an erratic zombie start to target a couple of women, at least one with a stroller, but the women saw the trouble coming and crossed the street or something; got away from the zombie. The zombie then targeted the person telling the tale, who foolishly let the zombie get close enough that the zombie grabbed him and threw him on the ground somehow, but for some reason didn't attack further. There's a lot of discussion as to what the guy should have done (hell, cross the street, duck into a shop, anything rather than let the zombie get so close) and some suggestion that the whole thing might be made up. 

Dodging zombies is kind of a way of life now. The guys with a bike trailer but no bike are nothing; there are the yellers and screamers and mumblers, the zig-zag walkers, and ones who are fishing for any kind of a tangle or a fight. The thing is to, as the captain says in "Yellow Submarine", "Steer clear!". As a kid in Hawaii I developed a pretty good sense of which "mokes" were trouble and when. Here on the mainland, the "mokes" are most likely to be white but a moke is a moke; a troublemaker, a bully looking for someone weaker they can gang up on. For more see the Trump white house lol. The trouble is, these retards are online now, too.  

The modus operandi is always the same. Try to appear normal to ask for a dollar, or anything they can beg off of you. Some can appear pretty normal, but beware: They are not really skilled in being people. People, normal people, have an idea of the social contract. Bums do not. It could be that they were raised feral, like the kids I see around here growing up in parking lots, or drug abuse has burned out their brains, or they've been knocked in the head enough times that they're TBI cases. They can't get their act together and will seem normal and then do really bizarre stuff. 

Examples are the fist-fights through car windows I've seen here, the various squabbles and fights, or even stuff like ... Renee, a notorious homeless lady who just about owned the parking lot here (it took a while but she's gone now thank goodness) set up a car wash one day. It was going fairly well, too. "I made $60 this weekend" she crowed. I'd been trying to encourage her to find something she can do, and it seemed like a win. She liked to wash things, there was room to wash cars here, and she'd build up a clientele. Then she just kind of tapered off. Probably because $60 in a weekend means a weekend's worth of crack. 

In Buddhism such people are called "hungry ghosts" they're not really operating at the base level of a normal human being. They're operating at a lower level. So to expect them to be reasonable, or ethical, or willing to work towards any sort of long-term goal is foolish. I've tried to explain to Ken that the proper way to treat the homeless is as if they're radioactive, but since he's into that stuff that doesn't really scare him. Today I thought the best way to explain it is to assume they've got bedbugs that will jump onto you if they get close. Fortunately with the security guards in their cars prowling around here, there really isn't a problem any more. 

I took some big piece of test equipment apart and that used up plenty of time while I watched James Burke science-y videos, and put a big box of parts out for not so much a bum to find, but there are people who go around with vehicles looking for stuff left out and they take it and that's that. I get the junk taken away and they get whatever they'll get at the metal recycling place.