I woke up at 9:30 which felt really late. A month ago I'd feel really proud of myself for being up so early, but these days it's super late. I was out the door by 10, thinking I'll see what H Mart is like on Christmas Day.
It wasn't bad at all. Not crowded, and I was able to get a few things including my favorite cut of "salmon trim" - there are about 3 different ways of cutting it depending one how you like to cook and eat it, I guess. My favorite cut is long strips of skin with meat on them. It's really easy to cut lots of nice pieces of meat off of the skin that are boneless and have lots of flavor.
It had all gone so well that I came up with an interesting rule. After putting things away back here, I took about $17 with me and the rule was that I'd stop at the first Chinese place I came across on 1st Street and stop in and get something.
The first place was Jade Cathay, a place I'd often seen big crowds at and also some pretty scruffy people hanging around. Which is why I'd never tried it. But there was the rule I'd set for myself so I locked the bike and went in. I ordered kung pao chicken which was $14.
There were other people there too, a guy who'd ordered a half-hour before coming in, and several guys doing delivery services like doordash. I was told "15-20 minutes" for my order so as I'd already been hanging around for 15 or 20 minutes, I walked across the street to U-Save Liquor and got a 6-pack of beer.
Then I went back in ... the mathematics worked out thus: It was an hour. Everyone there had just about an even hour invested in getting their, or their customers', food. We hung around and talked about food delivery, and I mentioned how, not having a car, I'd found trumpet playing to be a decent side gig, comparable to Uber without having to hassle with having a car. Finally my food was handed to me and I got out there with one guy saying "Maybe I'll see you out there some time!" to which I replied, "Maybe!".
Of course now the rain had started so I got rained on getting back, but it actually stopped raining halfway back so I dried off again. Now it was just a matter of eating chicken kung pao and drinking beer. It was a big dish; enough for two people at least. This place is traditional in that you order one dish for each person in your group and the bigger the group, the better everyone eats. They'd even returned the tip I'd put on the tray, giving me back exact change. The kung pao chicken could have used a few more peanuts, but overall it was pretty good.
So I just did useless things like drink beer, have snacks, watch YouTube. One of the troublemaking homeless who used to colonize the parking lot is apparently still alive and at large around here, one "Renee" who has a son and a daughter also around, all three of them convicted felons of course. She lives to fight with Crazy Chrissie, but in a pinch will pick a quarrel with anyone including her own progeny. She had her camper parked by the water spigot the ice cream place had finally put a big lock on. With them gone, I supposed it's fair game again. She was parked there when I went to bed at midnight on the dot.
I woke up at 3 to some sort of buzzer or a really weak compact-car type horn going off, not that loud but it had penetrated my sleep. Then it went away and I looked and the camper was also gone. But as I write now at almost 10 the following morning, what should come prowling by but the camper. And I know Crazy Chrissie is still around because I've seen her shitty grey car (she has a shitty grey car and a shitty red car). I believe both of them work as "lot lizards" for the SAIA trucking place up the street and as such, they're going to be around. I just don't want things to get as bad as they were before, with bums, kids, dogs, fist-fights, Mad Max vehicles, etc.
I spent the night - up to midnight on the dot - watching a bunch of stuff about bicycle racing and before that had a good old hang out time with PhotoLuke on live stream on YouTube. I'm coming around to liking him a lot more than Andy Bumatai. I think it comes down to, Luke's a good old local Japanese guy from right around Honolulu, maybe Kaimuki, while Andy's this half-German half-Filipino guy who got dropped into Waianae when he was about 12 or 13. So he had to out-moke the mokes. So he's always talking about "false crack" this and that (means sucker punch, nice, eh?) and there's this sort of undercurrent of violence. Dude, you are a success and live in Mililani, you can relax!
So I find I prefer PhotoLuke and other channels like Only In Japan Go!
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