Up at 3:30. Last night I watched a ton of videos, did some singing exercises, and had an interesting onion and shishito pepper miso soup with oysters. Ehh .... jarred oysters are not as good as buying them live from Dai Thanh.
I got out of here a bit after 7 and went right over to Whole Foods to lock the bike, walked up to CVS for the usual (vodka). There was a nest of bums out front that asked me for a dollar, but I just shook my head and said "Noooo..." because the smallest cash I had on me was a $5. But I got 3 little 89c cheese sticks along with my vodka and tossed them to what appeared to be the head bum saying "Share 'em around!" because it was 3 bums there. The guy said Thanks and I wished them "Stay safe!" as I walked away.
Back over to Whole Foods where I paid $3.75 for a little half-size bottle of Worcestershire sauce, geez, wartime prices .... and found no Beyond Meat products but did find a package of two Impossible Burgers all pre-formed and ready for the grill etc, working out to something like $3.50 each. (I just looked up the Worcestershire sauce and those little 5-oz. bottles are about $6 each online.) I also got some "salmon candy" and a beer, and got $60 cash back.
Next stop was the Amazon hub for bubble mailers, but first I put my bike in there and said out loud how I'll just be across the street and back, and went to the 7-11 on the opposite corner. I almost didn't go in, because there was a skinny filthy female zombie dancing around and lunging at people and things out front. One of the Indian guys who run the place chased it out when it went in, then beat on the glass in an attempt to scare it off (he saw I was hesitating to cross the street to go in) and finally went out with a stick and chased it up the street.
I went in and got two money orders, one for $20 and one for $30, to send to the temple. There's a yearly sort of money-gift thing and that's what the $20 will go to, and $30 will be my monthly dues. Normally they're $60 but they know I don't make much and Rinban Sakamoto has told me repeatedly that whatever I think is fair, is fine. They've sent me a 2021 payment book and it's time to get back on track with them.
After getting the money orders I went back over to the Amazon hub and gathered up bubble mailers. One of the workers was there cleaning the cardboard boxes up and I gathered up the plastic bubble mailers, and ended up doing a funny sort of rap that went like, "Big Bird's running a protection racket, and Oscar The Grouch is hiding bodies, and I'm the recycling foooool.... Mr. Hooper's selling the kids cigarettes and Gordon's telling 'em smoke crack, and I'm the recycling foooool.... Ernie & Bart making fetish films, and Elmo's runnin' numbers, and I'm the recycling fooooool....." It was kind of fun. I don't want to say it was as good as Whitey's On The Moon but I guess I'm not as bad at rapping as I thought.
I took off for home on his cold, depressing night with too damn many shopping cart zombies and slow-walker zombies and flat-out crazy zombies, and rode up 3rd. I hear police sirens and dogs barking and it seemed there was some sort of to-do a street or so over so taking the usual elaborate measures to keep from being killed by cars I got over to 5th and figured whatever was going on was over because I didn't hear the dogs any more, so it'd be a peaceful right through Japantown and then home.
But, as I passed the familiar buildings of "my" little town, I found a major police set-up right on the intersection of 5th and Jackson street. I turned off the bike lights and hung around and listened a bit, heard the cops say things like "HANDS UP!" and "TURN AROUND" etc. Eventually I got ready to ride out of there and stopped to ask the community service officer what was up and she said all she knew was she'd been told to keep traffic out.
I circled around to ride through via 6th, and there were some people standing around the corner from Sushi Kazoo so I stopped and asked them and they didn't know anything. I told them about the hands up stuff, and we surmised a bit that it might be that crazy guy who stalked our new preacher who'd just come over from Japan, to our temple. The gal among the group knew about that, and has been living there, in the building above Sushi Maru it appears, for 15 years. Her name is Robin and I'll probably never meet her again.
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