Sleep a bit better

 8th day sober. I got up around 2 in the afternoon. I got slightly better sleep, and I guess it's going to go this way, gradually improving until I'm back to regular sleep where I just sleep through the night without getting up or even waking up partway through. 

I remember when I noted that even one beer before bed would mess up my sleep, making me wake up partway through the night. One 12 oz. can of Budweiser, not even a strong IPA or anything as those were not much of a thing back in the 1980s. 

I'd washed the bandana I was using to process kava last night and it was nice and dry today. I folded it up and put it in a bag to take with me. I also put my monthly $30 in an envelope for the temple. I got out of here around 3 or 4, dropped off a bag of trash on the way to Japantown, and parked the bike near Nijiya. I got shelf-stable things like lime juice, some Yunker E-C, odds and ends like that, and a bento and a Japanese non-alcohol "beer" which really doesn't taste like beer but at least it's not sugary soda and it's a dollar cheaper than Pellagrino water. I also gave the bandana to "Blondie" so he can try out the kava I gave him. I told him that whatever kava does, it does in parallel with alcohol and does not replace it, so I'd gotten off alcohol on my own, just using the principles of Dilute, Delay, and put up with some Discomfort.

I put the shelf-stable stuff in the bike bags and walked over to the Issei building with the bento and the "beer" and ate. It was a nice summery day and very pleasant. 

After eating, I rode along visiting three different little free libraries and didn't find any books I wanted but dropped off Detrex emergency rations (which would make a great breakfast cereal with some milk) and the lime juice I'd gotten at H Mart which ... is kinda blah but maybe someone will like it, at each one. 

Then I rode over to Whole Foods and first walked up to CVS where I paid their usual high price for some witch hazel. Then walked back to Whole Foods and got B1, melatonin drops, toothpaste and floss, and wanted to get Brazil nuts but they're more expensive than they are at H Mart and didn't look nearly as good so I passed on those. 

Then it was over to the Amazon place where I picked up the book I'd ordered and 18 bubble mailers. This is the ideal; that I'll only need to dip into the Fry's mailers once in a while, or if I've got some high-dollar thing going overseas, I can put it in a nice Fry's mailer but for most things the Amazon mailers are great. 

I left there thinking, there's a lot of day left and maybe I'll ride around a little just to see if anything's going on. I was riding on Paseo de San Antonio when suddenly there was a great pall of smoke. It seemed to be coming from Santa Clara street so I rode over by there, around back of the building the smoke was pouring out of but there wasn't anything in the parking lot but a crazy zombie staggering around.

So I went around by the front and it was the Nemea greek restaurant. An older couple were standing next to me and I asked them about it and they said they were sitting near the back and then gobs of fire started falling on their table from the ductwork above. "At least you won't have to pay your bill," I said. "We never even got started" he said with some disgust and they went off to find another restaurant. 

There was a crowd of every race and age, all watching the fun. It seems the restaurant got the fire mostly under control on their own but that's deceptive because of course it could be burning away up in the ductwork and layers of offices etc above, and the fire department came roaring in and got ready to really douse the place. One of the firemen came up to the hydrant that was right near us and had this big canvas bag of adapters and fit the right one, opened the hydrant to let the muddy water run out until it ran clean, then hooked up the hose. They had a ladder truck set up to squirt water into the 2nd or 3rd floor. The cops had us move back quite a bit and I decided I'd seen enough and took off. 

I decided to go to TAK Market and see if they had any alcohol-free beer. They did, but for all the micro brews they have, they just had O'Douls so I got a six-pack of that - it costs as much as regular beer and is still cheaper because alcohol can be infinitely expensive. 

I rode up to the corner and there was absolutely no one at the Wienerschnitzel and I decided I craved some nice salty fries and an ice-cold O'Douls in the park. So I ordered a small fries, and then the couple behind me, she very heavily tattooed, also ordered a small fries. "That's funny! That's what I just ordered!" I said and we got talking. About how a little visit like this to Wienerschnitzel can be the highlight of the week, the rest of the week spent just working at eating instant ramen at one's desk. And how San Jose is just about working, no socializing allowed, and how you meet all these great people and never see them again. (And I can forecast quite reliably that I will never see this couple again.) 

I went over to the park and had my O'Douls and fries, and the only shortcoming was that the fries had hardly any salt on them. I guess I should ask for a little packet of salt next time. I watched a group of people throw a ball for their very enthusiastic dog. The park was almost deserted, it was myself, that group, and a family at a picnic table behind me. In the whole park. 

Done, I headed back here. At slightly more than a walking pace due to the wind. It's so often like that, though. You just keep pedaling and try not to think so much about how slow you're going, and pretty soon you get where you're going. All I'm doing it living in the future, when things will go at foot, mule, or maybe just maybe bike speed. 

There had actually been a lot of people walking and out on bikes in Japantown and it was really cheerful and nice. Downtown was dreary as usual with hardly anyone out, and the fire distracted me from checking out the "SoFa" district to see how that was. Depending on how things go, I might be able to do some busking this year. How will I sound on the shakuhachi? Like crap, probably. But I sounded like crap on trumpet at first too. 

When I got back here a police helicopter started circling here, really low. It was pretty cool. It's gonna be boring when the cops finally go over to just using drones. A police SUV pulled in, did a 3-point turn and turned around and went back out. So they were probably chasing some scumsucker who'd been causing trouble. 

When I'd come in I'd seen the crappy RV owned by Renee, erstwhile the head honcho of the homeless encampments in the parking lot which we'd eventually chased out. And one of her scumsucker friends had been pulling metal out of the Dumpster used by a machine shop a few doors down. Frankly those machine shop people ought to know, all they need to do is leave the metal in a pile and it'll go away overnight.