Sunday, March 28, 2021

Kava for breakfast

I was up around 1 or 2. I'd made a dose of kava with some coconut cream last night and it sitting in the fridge, all ready to squeeze out and drink. Which I did. It was OK, I think I'd made a smaller dose than I used to do, and only noticed a little of the numbing sensation kava gives to the mouth. 

With no A-B testing I can't tell if the kava is helping me or not. But I didn't drink anything and was shaky and sweaty and went back to bed to read "The Medusa And The Snail" which I'd found in paperback at one of the free libraries. To think that writing this scientific could be a best seller that ordinary people bought and read. 

After that I got up and put my bedding away and was going to wash my head/hair when Ken pulled up. We've sold this huge tempering oven thing and Ken was here to re-arrange things in the warehouse to get it to the front where it can be picked up using a pallet jack. I told Ken I'm not feeling well, am unsteady and just came off of hurting myself moving stuff so I won't be very useful. "Is it ethanol?" Ken asked. I said that it was, about getting some kava and had last drank last night, so am pretty much going off cold-turkey. 

Ken puttered around moving all kinds of big stuff around, and I washed my head and hair, answered questions on Ebay, and made up another, stronger, dose of kava this time without the coconut cream. I'd see if I felt any difference. It was more bitter, and I got some flushing and again, without A-B testing I don't know if I'd have been twitchier without it, or not. 

I realized I had time to pack this bastard-heavy transformer that's going to the Ukraine or something. So I did that, and when Ken told me to put fiberglass tape reinforcement on too, I did that also, putting more clear tape over the fiberglass tape to protect it. Ken will take care of mailing it so there's one less thing for me to worry about. 

I ended up taking apart the "lid" of what's essentially a huge, glorified medical Xerox machine. I got some neat parts out, a motor and wheels and stuff. Ken had tons of stuff out on the front driveway here because he was doing a lot of re-arranging. 

When I was done I told Ken I could ride out and get some food for us somewhere, but "No, Suzy's got pizza at home" then we laughed about how the pizza place they like it called Bronco Billy's. "Yeah, made by an old Italian chef named Bronco Billy..." 

So I scrambled some eggs for myself and was eating them when Ken brought in more stuff to take apart, or sell, etc. A tub of stuff and a bunch of pieces besides. So after Ken left I looked at the problem of where to put the stuff. I ended up taking a "stack" of things down and, finding the huge grey plastic tub at the bottom held tons of light bulbs, found smaller boxes to put the light bulbs in and dragged the big tub out by the trash enclosure for someone to find. We just don't need a tub that big. Then I was able to put things away in a way that made sense. 

And now the big tempering oven is right in front when I roll the door up, and as for a pallet jack, I told Ken that any truck driver with a lift gate should have one, but the welding guys told me I could use theirs if I need one so there's also that. The pickup driver will come by during the day, so the welding guys will be there to borrow their pallet jack from. And more stuff can go where the tempering oven was, so Ken's thinking bout emptying the storage unit. 

Ken and I got to talk about a fair amount, funny old electronics surplus companies and all kinds of things. I told him that I think my doctor had "fired" me because I was not staying off of alcohol like I should, and I was gaining weight, and she'd tell me to get off of alcohol and I'd said I would but then I wouldn't. I said I think I'll have to be sober for at least a year before I can expect to have a proper doctor-patient relationship because doctors don't like it when patients aren't team players. 

Ken said he thinks he's been falling into drinking too much at night too. He's not even supposed to drink when he's taking his nightly sleeping pills but he certainly does. Maybe he'll cut down now. He'll go home and tell Suzy about my troubles then Suzy will say she's concerned about me which she is, and then get on Ken's case to cut down. 

The drinking is even messing with my shakuhachi practice, I'm sure, because my practice is in the evening before bed, and training while drunk isn't a good idea for anything. 

The kind of person who drinks is not really a good fit for Hawaii, either. Typically people get up super early in the morning to do a lot of things like fishing or selling at the swapmeet or visiting garage sales which are typically all played out by 9 or 10 in the morning. The kind of people who drink are not the kind of people who can get up early, so they miss a lot of the greatness of Hawaii. 

I plan to live in "town" somewhere, hopefully around the university, but want to get out to my old favorite places on the North Shore and Windward Side, and that's probably going to make a couple hours on the bus each way. That's not going to work if I can't get up early. And while some people associate fishing with drinking beer, I am not one of them. In fact I think it would be awful to have any kind of "buzz" while at my old favorite beaches. It would spoil things. 

After settling down a bit and watching some YouTube, and drinking water with very small amounts of sake in it, I realized I'm hungry so I made a sort of pork and green bean soup with not too much broth, and it came out great. I ate that slowly, took care of some dishes and then .... did my taxes .

I actually did my 2019 taxes. It was completely easy, as long as I got away from the "start from the top of the 1040 and follow the instructions going down" method. The thing to do is to start with the Schedule SE to figure the self-employment tax, then go figure the taxable income on the 1040 and the tax on that, then you add 'em up, and it goes pretty smoothly. I owe a little over $2700. That means I'll owe the same for 2020 and I can cover that, especially since I won't have the expense of drinking any more.

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