Last night I did a bunch of things that I'd be "supposed" to do when I got up, but wanted them out of the way for sure. Things like shined my shoes, washed hair and shaved and cleaned up, got packages and bags and messenger bag all ready, etc.
I was up all night of course, and got to observe things like the crazy shit zombies do, like a zombie went to the welding place's trash, where I'd already dug through for packing stuff and which featured a large black plastic bag of regular ol' disgusting "household" type trash, you know, food wrappers and snot rags and such, and after digging around a bit decided the black plastic bag 'o' garbage was valuable and took the whole thing. I can understand wanting the plastic, but then why not empty it out? And food wrappers and such make lousy campfire fuel as they're typically not dry enough and tend to stink when they burn.
I got in an hour or a bit more doing octaves exercises on the shinobue and I'm actually improving on 'em. I think it just takes being stubborn and keeping up the practice no matter what.
I woke up at about 2:30 and was out of here at 3:24. The walk out to the light rail station too me up to a few minutes before 4, and the train came right away so I was at the downtown post office at about 10 after 4. My bank visit went OK, and I waited at the bus stop out front. A bus with an "OUT OF SERVICE" message on the front stopped, and I asked if they were going up by Walgreen's. It turned out to be a 64b, and would go right by there, with just a little loop by Diridon so I got on. The message thing was broken, the driver said, so he just stopped wherever he saw someone waiting at a stop, and told them what bus it was.
I dropped off the FedEx package, and then went to Whole Foods for my meatballs and veggies (mushrooms this time) and near-beer. And got some chocolate and nuts because those are easy to carry.
I had a plan, to go to Mountain View and visit West Valley Music. The idea being, they'll probably be selling off or even tossing out a lot of stuff, for their move which is this weekend. After this, they'll be on El Camino Real. I haven't been to Mountain View in a while and figured it was a pretty good idea.
So I got on the CalTrain and went up there. And ... after all this plotting and planning, West Valley was just plain closed and that was that. No one working there, they were obviously partway through moving, and nothing was being tossed out either.
I walked around a bit. That saxophone guy who's just plain a pain in the ear was doing his thing, and most of Castro Street was closed off to cars so it was really busy. Other than Mr. Saxophone Ear-Pain, I saw no other buskers. The sax guy probably has a sort of arrangement that happens, where organizers, wanting to bring "life" to events, will actually pay people to play music and the musicians get to keep any tips they get too. Getting one of these gigs depends almost completely on your politicking abilities and has almost nothing to do with whether anyone actually wants to hear you, so you always get these ear-pain "musicians" doing this. He didn't seem to be getting much in the way of tips at all though.
A block or two away from the guy, though, it was fine and I could see myself busking at Easy Foods just fine. Also, the ear-pain guy probably knocks off at 8 or 9, which is getting pretty late for a Bay Area town, but a dirty little secret is, some people like to be out until 10. Or even 11!
I ended up having a near-beer at one of the "Irish" bars (Oh, if they made an alcohol-free Guinness!) and watching music videos for bands I never thought did videos, but they had. I pulled out the can of coffee I'd bought at Whole Foods so I had beer and a "coffee back". I just needed to rest as all the walking lately has me pretty sore. Eventually the place started to fill up so I used the loo and left.
Now there was not much for me to do but go out and get on the light rail to go home. And there was a train waiting when I got to the station so that was handy. The system's changed so I had to change trains from the "orange line" to the "green line" which I did at Levi Stadium. There's a huge concert going on and the stadium is massive. I got in a little conversation with a guy about Beck, the opening act, who I'd seen a video of some years ago where he was busking in this restaurant but he'd set up in the back near the bathroom so all these people were going back and forth right by him, ignoring him. It might still be online and it's hilarious.
The green line train came and a few of us got on. I was riding along kind of halfway noticing how quiet it was, when an old lady asked me how to know when she's at the River Oaks station, which she had to get off at, it's only her second time riding the train, etc. For some reason the little electronic bulletin board things weren't working, the voice announcements weren't either, and the driver was zooming by the stations so fast it was hard to read the signs on them. Also, pressing the stop requested thing didn't result in a beep. The lady was pretty worried so I used the "emergency" intercom thing to say to the driver, "We'd like to stop at River Oaks, thank you" and he did. At my stop, Karina, I just pressed the thing and the driver stopped. I figured if that didn't work, I'd use the intercom to ask him to stop at Airport Metro, which would work fine too. But the button worked.
I got off and I had to use the loo, bad. I planned to go to Denny's and order something small, and they'd let me use the bathroom. But where there used to be an empty field was now a finished building with something called "H Bar" that looked like a sort of relaxation area with coffee and snacks, so I went around the corner and went right in. It was the lobby of a hotel, the Hyatt House. I went right past the front desk and used the bathroom which was great. I got a bag of cheddar cheese popcorn just to buy something, since I'd have spent a few dollars at Denny's anyway. That's really neat having that place by the light rail station now.
My just being able to walk in like that is pure white or white-appearing privilege. Thanks, Dad! Mom, well, Tatars don't look East Asian; she would have looked right at home anywhere in a large swathe of the Eurasian continent. A brown babushka. A fairly pale one if she avoided the sun. But Dad's WASPy looks have served me ill and well, and here on the mainland, it's pretty much all well. I just look like I spend some time in an expensive tanning salon. I'm "white enough" here in California, and that and demeanor mean I can walk right into all kinds of places. What's funny is, in Hawaii where at least when I was there, being white was not an advantage, I could still walk into places a lot of other people can't, because who knows, I might be a wealthy tourist, or a Punahou kid or anything. No one would think that of a Micronesian. Yep, it's the "Micros" who get all the shit nowadays.
I my usual route back here, took a look at the bountiful dumpster and decided it was worth coming back with the bike trailer, unloaded things here and went back out, didn't find much in it and what's worse, after I'd been looking a short while the noise started to excite some zombies that seem to live in the parking lot nearby, and they started growling and gibbering and making the usual zombie sounds. So I took off.
A Mexican guy standing in front of his workshop said Hi and we got talking. "Where's the bike?" he started off. I told him about the mother of all flats and how I'd thought to use zip ties, and he told me about how his car was stolen right out on the road there and they got it back by Levi Stadium, trashed. And we talked about this and that and a friend, holding a tumbler with a few fingers of liquor, came over and joined in. I seem to have given an impression of being a hard worker. This makes me feel good because it means if they needed someone and I were so inclined, I'd probably get to try out working for one of them.
So it was a mostly but not a completely fruitless day but I got the mailing and the bank visit done, and have survived another day.
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