Jinro

 277th say sober(?). Last night among other things I picked up tons of tea bags, an unopened bottle of Chardonnay, a 3/4 full bottle of Jinro soju (40 proof) and some cans - still in the box - of diet Coke. 

When Ken came over I gave him the wine and the Coke, while the tea bags were put into large Ziploc bags to distribute to the little free libraries. The soju went into the fridge. 

I tried a cup. It made me feel weird and I got the classic red face, so I had some coffee and aspirin (for inflammation) and dealt with Ken when he came over. He got to watch me finishing up packing a large item which I foisted off on him - he's probably taking it to FedEx as I type here. 

I fixed up some salmon ramen and puttered around doing various things including taking apart a large thing I'd started on that had a million little circuit boards to take out, and left the metal scrap out for the scavengers. And I managed to finish off the bottle of soju, too. 

I woke up at 1, because Tom had come by and knocked on the door. He'd been walking by and just wanted to hang out but I said I was busy. It's a good thing I didn't let him in because the empty soju bottle was on my desk. 

I went back to bed for a bit then decided I really needed to get going so I washed hair, shaved, got stuff together, and was outta here at about 20 to 4. My first stop was the Buddhist temple, where I went to the office and asked for another monthly donation book because I'd lost mine. That was quick and easy, and I didn't even have to tell the lie I had cooked up about how my old one had been mixed up with some junk mail... 

Next I visited the little free libraries and dropped off the bags of various tea bags I'd gotten last night. All I found was a book about London Bridge that turns out to be one on building *models* of London Bridge. Still pretty neat. 

Next was the main task, the bank. The deposit went fine. I was surprised to find that even with buying another shakuhachi for about $250 it hadn't lowered the balance lower than that figure I'm so proud of. 

Banking done, I went over to the used book store. I was "loaded for bear" as I had all three of my Hebrew books I was going to sell 'em, as well as a few others including a few paperbacks that seemed of low value. I looked through their music books and found Jon Kypros' book for $10 and they didn't want the fancy expensive Hebrew books, they only wanted a few paperbacks for $4 trade. I had $3 trade credit already, and $2 in my pocket, and I'm glad I'd brought a bag of nickels and pennies because I had to dig into that and count out a bunch to make up the money.  But the main thing is I have one of "the" beginner books again. 

I went to Whole Foods next and parked the bike, went to Ace Hardware for some "Fels Naptha" soap that's supposed to be good for laundry, and had some food and a near-beer upstairs. There were some very noisy wined-up people sitting near me, with one Karen type gushing about how "they tested her and she has so many antibodies they won't let her get a booster". Trump-level science. There was much more Trump-level idiotic discourse, and they all looked pretty financially comfortable. People that dumb ought to be sweeping floors or something but they probably had pretty good jobs (or had married well). One guy left early to go teach judo. "With wine on your breath?!?" Antibody Girl asked. Gotta watch out for at least one judo instructor around here. But then, a glass or three of wine shouldn't affect one's judo skills. 

I stopped at Nijiya on the way back because I was out of instant dashi and I got a bunch of things. One of the things I got was "Du Breton Pork Belly Block" which is basically bacon without the smoking etc. The guy checking me out asked how it's used and I said I guess a number of ways, cooked like yakitori would probably be the best but it could be used in curries, ramen, etc. 

 The most notable thing downtown was ... traffic is back and there are zombies just everywhere. It's been getting into the high 30s overnight so it's not warm, but the damned things were out staggering around all over the place - around the corner from the bank, staggering/singing/hallucinating/raving down the sidewalk in front of the book store, all over the place around the park, etc. Although it wasn't a busy day for the businesses and there wasn't even any kind of busker, beggar, or hustler in front of Whole Foods, the undead were out and about this day. 

I've ordered the first Koga book (again) because I think that one goes more into how Kinko notation works than Kypros' book does. Plus more/different written music. I'll have *that* book early next week. It's funny, when I was studying out of Koga's book before, I was just grinding away on that page with the little exercises - it's no wonder I got bored! I did learn that first little song where you step up and then down with the cute little chirps, but if I'm going to do this right I need to work on more than just little exercises which I was doing for breath control, and more on actual material. 

I honestly need to get "shakuhachi on the brain". If I'm to get anywhere with the trumpet for that matter I need to get "trumpet on the brain" and spend a lot more time on it. Well, I've gone over why I don't want to find myself back home in Hawaii, at the places I love, as a trumpet player. Being a real "trumpet on the brain" person means having at least one trumpet and cornet (I actually have two cornets right now) plus a flugelhorn plus probably more than one trumpet - generally serious players have a piccolo trumpet and a C trumpet as well as a few B-flat trumpets. And mutes, a lot of cleaning stuff, etc. 

Having "shakuhachi on the brain" will certainly mean having more than one shakuhachi, but collecting the things is certainly cheaper than collecting brass instruments. And less bulky. One simple pull-through will clean 'em all. There are several books out there to buy but most of what needs to be learned is actually on YouTube. The main thing besides actual playing will be to learn to write down songs in the Japanese notation. 

The Japanese notation not only looks neat, but it's logical and also, for some reason it's treated as some kind of big secret to the beginner student. I haven't been able to find notation for typical beginner songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Mary Had A Little Lamb or any of the "minyo" which are beginner/children's songs. But if I get facile at writing it down, I can sound out songs myself and write them down.