82nd day sober. Yesterday really was kind of neat. Ken came by and since our sales are just a hair under 8 grand my pay check was $350 instead of $300, and I got my $1400 stimulus check.
After Ken came by and brought stuff to list, I cooked some dinner and sifted and sorted things and found stuff to list and listed it. When I did my practice, things went really well. It seems being extra stubborn the practice before really paid off.
I woke up at 3, and washed head/hair and shaved and cleaned up a bit. I left for downtown a bit after 4. Put both checks in the bank and the guy there joked, "Alex is taking us out to dinner and drinks!" and that led to my saying I'd quit alcohol on May 1st and their congratulating me; we talked about Blue Laws in some other states and so on. I mentioned a store in Colorado Springs where you can buy alcohol, tobacco, and firearms since they have a gun counter, all in the same place. Except on Sunday when you can't buy the alcohol...
I went to Whole Foods next and got some pulled pork and green beans and broccoli for $7-odd, which I ate upstairs and washed down with an alcohol free beer, sitting upstairs where it's kind of entertaining to watch the goings-on on The Alameda below. Except the trees there have something like doubled in size so mostly it was watching the tree.
After eating I walked to the used book store and found a biography of Bill Mauldin which I bought. I'd read "The Brass Ring" a bunch of times, and Mauldin wrote a couple other autobiographies, but this was, for a change, an outsider's view and looks like it will cover his post-WWII life where he'd left the war on top of the world with prizes and recognition and gave up a lot to be what's considered a Leftist cartoonist in this country.
I walked back to Whole Foods and picked out a can of coffee and sat down outside downstairs with the book to read for a bit since it was still too early to start busking. After reading for about 15 minutes I hears a loud pop and the electricity went out. Whole Foods had an emergency generator so they kept enough lights on and, interestingly, the music - I guess it makes sense to have the P.A. operational if needed. A song called "That's All Right" played and people came out as they paid for their stuff, and eventually they started closing the place because they can't have people there without the power working properly.
Not everyone had heard the pop but I had, and someone said PG&E was up the street. I packed up and rode over to The Old Spaghetti and it was not really viable. My usual spot was too close to an outdoor patio with music, and up the other way was a really loud mariachi band. I played a little but it was really not going to work.
So I rode back over to Whole Foods and they had all the lights on and were open after all. So I set up and started in, about 10 minutes before 8.
It went pretty well. The bicycle lady never came by, and people were very favorable, except maybe one blonde lady who gave me a hell of a look, but I think she may have just been looking around behind her as she and the guy she was with walked in, and was just wondering what was going on.
An hour went by Sooner Than Expected(tm) and at one point I had a lovely time talking with a guy about Cafe Stritch and why it's called that and so on, as he'd mentioned just getting a Thelonius Monk record he was happy to find, and he'd only been here in San Jose for 6 months so he'd not know about the Stritch in its heyday.
The one song I really worked on this time was Autumn Leaves, and that seemed to be received well. I played until 8:20 so it was an hour and a half, and made $29.50.
At one point the guy who always drops off his tip wrapped in Kleenex and fastened together with a paper clip or two, stopped and asked (in what I think is an Eastern European or Middle-Eastern accent) where I live, and I said San Jose, and he asked where in San Jose and I said by the airport, and he asked whether in a house or something and I said I work for a friend in a building I live in. "And he gives you food?" the guy asked. I assured him that he pays me, and that in fact it's not life-or-death out there on the sidewalk for me, and finally when I explained that trumpet playing is my side-gig, "Like driving for Uber or Postmates" that seemed to satisfy him. This probably means no more $2 wrapped in Kleenex from him but I'd rather have things straightened out with him having no misconceptions.
I finally packed up and left, and rode back through San Pedro Square. The loud mariachi band was still at it, and while they were successful in producing a lot of volume, that didn't correlate to much of a crowd. The people sitting outdoors who are eating food from the restaurants were there in the usual number, no more or less, and there were not that many people walking around. If Leroy had come around, he'd probably found it untenable also.
So all in all the day/evening worked out well. I even came back and now that I'm sober am keeping up with things like what night the trash trucks come by, and got a lot of stuff put into one dumpster, and took 38 nice bubble mailer liners out of the welding place's trash can, so that all worked out well.
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