Hurry for curry

 I woke up and my right shoulder hurt like hell. I literally did a lot of, instead of elevating my right arm on its own, using my left arm to raise it, like onto my computer mouse.  I was up early enough to turn my computer on and go on YouTube and listen to the services at the temple  - they play the kids' service than the adult one and it's actually really cute to hear what they're telling the kids.

I finally got up and had coffee, aspirin, natto, nuts, and vitamins. One the aspirin kicked in I was kind of OK and left here around 4, I think, maybe a bit earlier. 

My plan was to, after tossing out trash and bottles somewhere, go to DaKao and get something cheap to eat. It all went fine except they had a special, two things plus rice, or plus fried rice for $1 more and I had enough for that - I had $9 on me and it was $8.25 and I put the .75 change in the tip can. 

The amount of food  I got was huge. I ate over on the college campus and it was a really beautiful day. The curries I got were chicken curry and pork curry, and I think next time I'll see if I can get just the serving of chicken curry and plain rice. I only ate about half of that I got and bagged it back up and left it where it can be found. 

Who will get it? A bum or a crazy, a fast-walker or a lunge-er? Maybe a screamer or a staggerer. They were all out in force. 

There'd been no sign of the demonstration that was supposed to have happened at City Hall about violence against Asians. Oh, well.  I rode back, finding a copy of The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald in one of the free libraries. I was being written in 1940, this printing is from 1970. 30 years after it was written, but a 1970 book is 50 years old. 

I went to Nijiya for my shopping, and they had the carts all inside because they were worried about the demonstration - and I could hear someone talking over a bullhorn up the street. I got my shopping done and walked the bike up to the corner. Some guys were sitting there - a Japanese guy, a white guy, and a homeless guy who was just kind of hanging out and not with them. The first two guys told me the demonstrators had left, going down 5th street to go to City Hall. "You only missed them by 5 minutes". 

So I rode down 5th street, carefully avoiding Hamsterdam as it was really raging, with several crazies reeling about and yelling, and there were a bunch of people there. There was street chalk, and a food/water table, and the usual accoutrements found at a demonstration. It was nowhere near as big as the BLM demonstrations, but there were people on cool bikes and roller skaters and rollerbladers. 

I considered last night whether to bring my shakuhachi to make some noise with, but "make a lot of noise" and "shakuhachi" do not really go well together. And I'd considered making a sign saying "Say No To Racism" but with the "No" being the kanji for "no" which is that cool circly thing. 

So I drew this last on the sidewalk and it came out pretty well. Some people took pictures of it. It's pretty easy to figure out; "Say (symbol) to racism" obviously the symbol is for the word no. 

There wasn't much else to do, so I rode home, taking the old route up First Street to Brokaw and around. I've found a local tax place I'm going to try out, that's in one of the new towers on the corner there and going by, it looked like the place might be really hard to find. But I think I can find it OK. My old tax guy from years ago is still around according to the internet, but he's kind of far away and hard to get to. If this new place works out for me, I can walk to it and afterward get curry at Sam & Curry. 

Or I could just do them myself, probably in no more time than it takes to walk up there and back. I've got 6 grand in the bank which should be enough to pay my 2019 taxes and 2020 which is coming up (although I think they've extended it to mid-July). In other words I've been a responsible person. Also a lucky one as, if I suddenly needed a root canal or something I'd get that root canal. 

But then, I'm just not sure I've been doing my taxes right, because it went from 4 sheets of paper to about 12, plus more besides that the IRS wanted. I can't see this place charging me more than $200 and my old guy used to charge me almost $500. 

But what me worry? My future will be blowing into a simple piece of bamboo! Not only does it not need strings, but it doesn't even need valve oil or slide grease, or a weekly cleaning that's akin to working on plumbing. 

I did practice last night but my shoulder hurt so much I didn't do the full page. Right now I feel like I have to work on moving tons of air, but I think there's an efficiency thing that develops also. I read somewhere about it being advised that a new student work on playing loud for their first 10 years. 

I ordered another shakuhachi book with an accompanying CD, by a fellow named Abbott. When I return to Hawaii I can pack things like this in boxes, and leave them with Ken's family, to mail to me when I'm settled in. Even the smallest rented room will have room for a small book case and a few hunks of bamboo. 

I cleaned my water filter which involves taking it all apart and cleaning with bleach, then discovered some temperature probe things had rotten batteries inside so I've got those soaking overnight (main part of the circuit is potted) and will rinse 'em out and dry 'em out tomorrow. And I listed 9 Ebay things. Dinner was miso salmon soup with some brassica buds I'd picked on my way home.