75th day sober. I wasn't sure I'd make it to the bank today, as I practiced before bed and then was up at 8AM ... and 9AM ... and 10AM ... I decided I'd go to bed, get some sleep, and see how things go.
I was able to get decent sleep but in chunks, so I was up at about 3:00, and left for downtown at almost 4, getting to the downtown post office in plenty of time to drop a couple of packages off and to the bank to do my deposit.
I considered busking at the Old Spaghetti Factory to pass some time and make enough money for a meal in San Pedro Square there, but rode through and it was not very busy at all. So I rode over to Whole Foods where I locked up the bike, and walked over to Target where I got large boxes of different sizes of zipper bags for the shop, and some tape. But before going there, I went to Cost Plus and browsed for quite a while, eventually buying a bottle of "Marshmallow Fluff" for $2, which is half the cost of peanut butter and ought to keep indefinitely. It's supposed to be the very best mouse/rat trap bait.
After walking back to Whole Foods with my haul I was happy to see they had about 1/3 of the hot buffet going, so I got a plate of food and got an alcohol-free beer upstairs and took my time eating up there.
After that I browsed around in Whole Foods for a while and then went outside to pick my teeth and chew gum and read The Metro, and after a short while the SPCA guy packed up his booth for the day and took off. By this time I think it was 7:30.
It was both windy and the sun was annoying, but I felt that playing might at least warm me up. It didn't, really. It was slow going, but tips did dribble in. One the sun got very low and then went down I started getting really cold and my hands stiff etc. Eventually I looked at the time and it was maybe 8:20, and I decided I wanted to stick it out until 9. I played a bit more, and at one point a guy came up and put a tip in and said he really liked seeing someone playing trumpet out here. I said I hope I can improve and will keep working at it. He left and I saw his donation was a $20, and there were a couple of $5's in there amongst the $1's and I might as well call it a day. I'd been playing close enough to an hour. I'd made $45, and if the guy hadn't come along and put in his $20 I'd have played a bit longer and made $30-odd anyway.
I thought I might play a bit more over at the Old Spaghetti and rode over there and Leroy had just set up. We talked a bit and he said Johnny Rockets had closed. Without all the conventions coming through, there was no point in trying to stay open. I wished Leroy well and rode over to that area and down by Cafe Stritch and indeed it was pretty dead.
The homeless guy who always sits around there was there, and I gave him a buck. We talked about odds and ends. I realized I was standing on, and had parked my bike on, the patch of bird seed he throws out for the birds on the sidewalk. That's his act. Besides having a dog and a cat with him always, he buys bird seed and feeds the birds.
I rode my little circuit up to the end of the street and back, and noticed a place called "Good Spot" looks, well, good, but is a bit spendy. The kind of place you go with someone else, and you know you're going to spend $100 or so between the two of you.
I rode on home, through J-Town past 7 Bamboo ... to think at one time I thought 7 Bamboo, known as the "best" karaoke place in the area, had to be some kind of incubator for aspiring singers and one could get "discovered" there. Instead it's where you get plastered and sing badly and bare your soul in front of your co-workers, just like karaoke places in Japan.
I got back here and put things away.
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