I woke up around 5 which is awful. There really wasn't a chance to pack this really heavy pump I have to ship and get it to FedEx in time, so I decided I'd go downtown instead.
I got out of here at ten after 7, of course it was dark and that means more zombies. I went to Japantown first and put a bag of trash in one of the cans and put a book into the little free library on 6th. Someone had knocked it off its stand or maybe it just fell off, but it's been put back together. I took out a book, "Going Home To The Pure Land" which is by a Taiwanese Mahayana Buddhist group so, not the exact one I've been associated with but close.
Next I got over to Whole Foods and locked the bike and walked up to CVS. There were some nasty zombies hanging out in front of the Arena Hotel, one female one was sort of dancing? with a very large teddy bear and I had to dodge her, then the other three nasties just sat there commenting on me? someone else they knew? the whole teddy bear scene? I went into CVS and got a package of TP, a bottle of vodka and some mouthwash that's supposed to help if one has a dry mouth.
Coming back I went to the opposite side of the street to avoid the zombies and went into Whole Foods and got a couple avocados, a beer, and a package of what I thought was chicken wings. I then rode over to the Amazon hub and picked up my drawing pencil, the book "Unfamiliar Fishes", and a few bubble mailers. The zombies were certainly out, fighting and yelling at their reflections in windows and so on. But no close calls this time.
I rode to Japantown and set up "shop" on this sort of long bench thing in front of The Arsenal, an art supply store. The "chicken wings" turned out to be "nuggets" and kind of dry but the beer was nice and wet. For such a quiet street and at such a late hour (8PM being the equivalent of midnight these days) it was pretty entertaining. People walking around, and the tree near me full of some kind of large bugs, and a white van with satellite dishes on the roof wandering around lost. I figured I'd eat half the nuggets and I noticed what appeared to be a small old lady walking around looking for things, maybe bottles and cans.
So I packed up the 2nd half of the nuggets and the barbecue sauce in the nice fashionable Whole Foods bag and got on the bike to find her. Maybe she's hungry. I'd seen her wander towards the temple so I looked around here and even asked a neatly dressed guy if he'd seen her but nope. Maybe she'd gone up Jackson and I'd not seen, I thought.
So I doubled around and rode up the sidewalk on Jackson and there was a drone right over my head. I love drones so I stopped and got talking with the guys piloting it. It was a young guy, easy to talk to, and an older guy whose drone it actually was, who was of few words. We (the younger guy and I) talked about drones, and Hawaii, and so on, and it gradually came out through the older fellow's few words that he was from Hawaii - Waipahu to be exact - and I said "Waipahooooooo..." in the old joke from the 80s alluding to the large number of Filipinos there. That got a smile out of Mr. Taciturn.
I ended up talking about all the places I'd lived and knew, even surprising myself with how much places and things like stores and museums, and people, there in Hawaii are intertwined all through my life. The older guy went into the ukulele studio there to get more beer and since I was empty-handed I offered to buy a beer from him and he was out but he had these vodka/seltzer/pineapple things and handed me one, ice cold.
I need to mention that the ukulele studio guy has a reputation for being a bit of a grump, and he's also a red-hot ukulele player. He could give any of the stars, yes even Jake or Ohta-San/Ohta Jr. a run for their money. I mentioned my plan of setting up for the next 4 years to return to Hawaii, and for the next year seeing if I can strengthen my voice the way I strengthened my trumpet playing, and then if I'm getting somewhere, I'll get a ukulele "to give my hands something to do".
They hadn't seen the old lady that night but "she circles around the block" and they thought it was a very nice thing for me to do, to try to find her to give her food. Then it was my turn to be kind of "aw shucks".
It came out that the ukulele guy's name is Rodney and I asked if he was "Uncle Rod" of the "Uncle Rod's Ukulele Boot Camp" which is a very simple handout that's free online and he'd not heard of it. "It's really super simple" I said, to mean it's really below him anyway.
So we all hung out and local'd it up a bit, and the guy wouldn't take the $5 I'd laid down on the drone case for the drink, "What's this? That's not the local way" and I looked a bit sheepish as I should and took it back. I still had to finish my pineapple drink when we all called it quits, so I took it with me and finished it while riding home.
It's quite an honor to have been given a drink by the ukulele virtuoso. I'm not sure if the guy's really a grump or just very "old school". Those old school guys didn't believe in a lot of words. When I took Aikido class at the Kahuku temple and the old sensei came around and manipulated my hands and wrists to make sure I was doing the stretches right, I don't remember him emitting more than a grunt or two. I think he just barely keeps his little school going and I'm pretty sure he lives in there (hint: if you don't want people to know, don't keep two rice cookers in the window....) Since I don't plan to ever get to the level that I'd need lessons from him, so maybe there are some other ways I can do him a good turn.
I got back here, took my veggie scraps to the blackberry patch, and that's it for being outside for the night.
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