7th day sober. Sleep was still hard for me. I kept having to get up to pee. Maybe I need to institute a "no liquids after 10PM" rule. That's quite a change from before, when the later, the more I was guzzling sake with ice.
I made a bowl of udon using a "kit" I got at H Mart and it came out great. I added shrimp and mushrooms. They have all kinds of "kits", a lot of which are types of noodles that are served cold, with the pictures on the front of the bag showing them actually served on slush or ice. Summer is coming!
I lay in bed, trying to rest and I did have some dreams in fact one cool one was, I was in a sort of banquet hall with all the people from the temple, Rinban Sakamoto was there and all the crowd, and there was good food and it was great. But then I realized I needed to be out the door today by 5 instead of 6, because FedEx closes at 6.
I packed two more things I wanted to take, so now all packages are due the 11th or later and I get my shot on the 10th. I got going at 5, and since I actually had plenty of time, stopped in at Zuka Foods and got two different malt drinks and a couple bags of the banana chips I like plus one more of the same brand but spicy. The lady at the counter and a tall skinny black guy were holding a wonderful conversation which was fine except I had to get going so I opened my phone to check the time and said something about having to go to FedEx, and the lady said, "Why don't I take care of yours first, then?" and I said, "That's a good idea!" honestly meaning it, and I paid for my stuff and then she and guy could talk things into the ground. I actually noticed the dried hibiscus flowers the guy was buying and mentioned to them I'd seen them growing at Fry's so he could pick some fresh. And that I'd grown up where it's the state flower and never knew you could eat it - and I'd been poor and skinny and hungry and discovered all kinds of oddball things to eat when I was a kid.
I got going on to FedEx and of course the H Mart parking lot was busy as hell but no matter, I was just dropping off packages. I took off down the road, and my next stop was the storage unit where I picked up some things, most notably a big box of IC's with lots of 3-terminal voltage regulators and other goodies.
From there I went to see Tom and we ended up talking about some interesting things, and our both sitting on the asphalt out front, it seemed fitting that we ought to be drinking malt drinks popular in Africa too. I checked the time and had 15 minutes before Zuka closed, so I told Tom to hold tight and I'll get us a couple of cold ones. I rode over there and got a couple, and it turns out Zuka,this one complex whose parking lot goes all the way across from Junction to Rogers is right across the street, and that spat me out onto Rogers right where the ghost kitchen is.
By this time Tom was inside his box truck, trying to take this wooden stand for tiles and such things that he'd been given, with the most piddly little tools. He figured he could make $75 on the thing. "On Craig's List?" I asked in astonishment, as "CL" seems to have died a while back. He asserted it was on CL indeed, so people must be really desperate for wood. Tom said he'd been selling all sorts of "construction stuff" and people come right over and get it. I guess construction stuff is a whole different game than trying to sell a musical instrument...
I reasserted that I'm quite serious about training him up to be a busker because it's a lot easier than messing around with construction stuff. Tom had played trumpet in concert band in high school, and I'm sure I can get him out there. Once a person gets over being scared to be out there it's a piece of cake. I told him I'm outta here in 3 years so he's no competition to me, and I prefer the shakuhachi anyway, but I can teach what I know on trumpet. I told him how, in the before times, I'd been planning to save up a financial buffer and rent an office in this complex where I know it's OK to sleep in the office, and just work a route of Whole Foods stores and other places and just do trumpet.
(This is not dissimilar to the plan I have for my retirement in Hawaii, only Social Security will pay my rent, and I can go around various places with my shakuhachi as well as pick shells, etc. I'll just have Social Security as a lifeline and I suppose I'll be living in a room etc not an office.)
But then, I explained, the Christmas season had come on, then that "coughing thing" came around and I was knocked out of the game for a month, and then they started talking about this virus... But Tom can be a trumpeter here and have his Social Security and has his building to live in.
We also talked about all the different restaurants around, and he was astonished that I've never been to the Old Spaghetti Factory. So we have a plan: Once this virus is really over with, we'll go there and then we'll go to O'Flaherty's and he'll have a Guinness and I'll have an O'Doul's.
Tom also mentioned that sake I'd given him had kicked his ass. He'd had half the carton, or 1 liter. (No doubt he finished his night with his cheap E&J brandy.)
All in all it was a more interesting and congenial talk than I expected. I really tried to emphasize to Tom that the emotional link he got when he was peddling little figurines, can be gotten much more so in busking. I explained that since he'd played in concert band in HS, the muscles will still be there and told him how I'd become a certified windsurfer, but like all noobs had gotten blown down into the lee end of Shoreline Lake and generally there are two things students do: Wait for the park kids to come get them with the Boston Whaler, or do the "walk of shame" along the shallows on the oyster shells, towing their rig. But there's the rescue drill, where you lay the sail down on your legs and paddle out, so I did that. I described the other students looked at me with shock as I motored on by, and I wasn't even sore afterward because I'd paddled a ton as a kid and the muscles are still there. The same should work for him, the muscles will all still be there.
Maybe if I can get him into trumpet playing, he'll have something he cares about and will have a reason to get off the sauce. He had a shirt on today but I notice as soon as he relaxed he unbuttoned it so that big belly of his might well be painful. That's some late stage alcoholism right there, and it might also explain his scattered thinking.
I got back here and cooked the 2nd serving of udon from the "kit" and this time added thinly sliced shallots, sesame oil, and the rest of the shrimp I had which I wanted to use up. I eventually listed some Ebay stuff too.
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