I didn't list anything last night and come to think of it, my replying to Ken's email saying the internet's slow as molasses gives me a bit of a cover.
Some of the stuff I put out went, and as a bonus, the bums shuffling things around loosened a mouse pad from the laptop case and I went out and got it - a nice "Allsop" brand one with a pattern like water droplets. I'd bought that at Fry's - never thought Fry's would only be a memory ... I think I'd bought three of the things over time, due to losing them. This was one I kept in the case and never used except when I was over at Ken's so it was like new. It was like being able to pop over to Fry's; like it was the Before Times.
I got an hour's practice in, and not messing around with octave exercises on the headjoint only but actual practice up through "Muffins" in the book. I need to become a real bug about at least an hour's practice a day.
There's more and more discussion on r/collapse of people escaping places like Texas to sanctuary states like California. And not joking but serious discussion.
To think at one time I was considering retiring with a trumpet or three to New Orleans, or perhaps going to "Hill Country" Texas, or even venturing up to Saratoga Springs, NY, to hang out in the same town as the author of "The Long Emergency". The whole country with the exception of California and Hawaii is turning out to be, or becoming, a fascist hellhole. Apparently in New Hampshire, if you collect unemployment insurance, a thing workers PAY INTO, you have to pay it back - they'll send you a bill, with interest.
My best two futures, aside from being able to leave the US somehow and assuming THAT isn't jumping into some kind of meat grinder, are either staying here in California or, as my present plans call for, returning to Hawaii.
It's a cloudy, muggy, 90 degrees as I type and as a good old Hawaii kid I love cloudy weather so it's really nice.
I packed 9 things and headed out. One of the "war rigs" (decrepit old RVs) on Junction apparently burned, with a big hollowed-out part in the middle, and the zombies that inhabited it taking their zombelongings out and loading them into various vehicles. I saw a wisp of smoke up in the sky when I got onto Brokaw, and by the time I got to the post office the air was very smokey.
It was likewise smoked out at H Mart where I stopped to drop off two FedEx boxes and went in and bought a big bottle of diet 7-Up.
I went over to Lowe's and looked around - it must have been close to an hour - for some sort of pieces of plastic pipe or something, 1-1/2 inches O.D. and about 4 inches long. Everything was the wrong size and I really looked. I realized that really, if I just took some heavy-gauge plastic and rolled it up, it would work fine because all I'm asking the pieces to do isn't even bear a lot of load but to keep the top and bottom halves of the "new" shelf aligned. So I went over to the garden center, grabbed an (overpriced) black plastic plant pot for $4, paid for it, and got out of there. A nice part of this, though, is those tiki torches so beloved of the modern-day Nazis are only about $5 each and they come with bamboo poles, so I now have a nice source of bamboo to experiment making my own shinobue flutes with. The torch part is full of citronella oil which smells nice and I could just use to make it smell nicer around here.
I found a little packing stuff on my way back, and while there was nothing in the bountiful dumpster tonight, I did pull some very nice celery stalks out of the dumpster behind H Mart. I've paid money for a lot worse ones... A couple of stalks, very well washed and trimmed, went into egg salad. Last night's dinner had been a pork curry that included two tomatillos from behind Baja Fresh - they made it taste spicy and lime-y. If I can't forage, at least I can scrounge.
Getting back in here, laden with packing stuff, a flat box that held a brake rotor and will be perfect for a technical manual, and a sprayer that looks like a better one than ours which I can't find, I ran across this guy who lives in the shop a few doors down. It's some kind of machine shop, the guy lost his job/business/wife in Utah I think, and now lives here in his brother's shop ... anyway I mentioned that outsiders were coming by at 4AM and dumping stuff in his dumpster and it's amazing; it'll get emptied and next day it's stuffed full. We discussed various ways to cope with it, like putting fencing on top of the enclosure or locking the dumpster... he seemed friendly enough and the fact that I'm still here as he is, as we were in '18 when I moved in, and now it's '22, means we're both "legit" at least as much as one can be, living in a shop.
Ken called to say he's not coming by tonight ("I forgot my check book!") so I just said, "OK see you tomorrow!"
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