173rd day sober. Last night I packed up a huge package that had to go out, with the idea I can have Ken take it to FedEx for me if I got it packed in time. I'd just finished that when Ken came by, so I had to maintain a conversation with him while I improvised a waterproof cover for it out of two large Hefty bags, then Ken helped me find a laser power supply I'd put in some hours looking for, and I packed that - it had to go to Japan - meanwhile of course keeping Ken conversationally entertained.
With all the stuff I'd done and all of that going on too, once Ken and I had had our customary bull session, I was wiped out. I actually watched some YouTube documentaries, one about Liszt and two about Izhak Perlman, the old one and then a very recent one.
There are a lot of people trying to sow fear, "Jews are taking over the world" and all that, and I say, Let 'em! Perlman's family got the hell out of Poland while the getting was good in the mid-1930s, to what would become Israel. They swept floors and took in washing and such things. Then Perlman and his mother moved to NYC where she swept floors and took in washing and such things, but they backed their kid up 100.00% and he was able to become a great violinist. They encouraged, pushed, arranged funding for Juilliard, etc. They wanted their kid to do better than them in life.
The thing is, white, non-Jewish parents don't do this. They don't give a shit how their kids turn out.
I was not sure I'd wake up in time to get down to the bank or whether it would be raining, but I woke up at 3:30 and it was clear, and while it's kind of warm and "tropical" feeling, it stayed dry and my errands were uneventful. After the bank I went to Whole Foods to stock up on some things and now they have a bum outside whose "performance" is sitting around with a sign.
I think if I went out to play music there again, I'd play up the sidewalk a bit in a spot that's actually closer in, but less obstructed with pumpkins and bums, and because of being closer in I'd play a lot quieter - it's actually much better suited to violin playing than trumpet playing. With trumpet I felt like I had to "fill up" the parking lot with sound.
I think I've had a fixation on how loud I can be, and in fact, in terms of mainland culture that's considered a good thing. In bios of Louis Armstrong it will always be mentioned how Louis naturally played so loudly that he had to play some distance away from the rest of the band when making the early recordings. But being loud is not good back home.
I went around to Dai Thanh and got some food at Da Kao which I ate over at the college, picked up some bubble mailers at the Amazon place and got a couple of books to read on the way back, and got back here. I also stopped by these juniper bushes on 2nd to check on their berries. Some ripe ones are on there, and I gathered a few, carefully, because one of the guys who lives at that house was right on his front steps on the phone and there was a car waiting for him or something too. So I just rode up, gathered a handful of ripe berries on the other side of the bushes from him, and got out of there.
The berries, when they ripen, open up like little flowers and there are seeds in there that fall out. I'm gathering them for Ken, who wants to make a non-alcoholic gin flavoring.
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