I was up all night, yadda yadda, packed a bunch of things, listed 10 things, and of the larger things I listed in quantity, all sold within hours. So I packed those *also* but didn't weigh and buy/print labels until after I got up today, at about 4:30. Whew!
I also practiced on the shinobue a bit, and I also got to work with an X-Acto knife and took the fake plastic "bindings" off of the thing. That just cost me time and a sore finger where I nicked it. Now, all I have to do is sort of sand it so it will look a bit more like it may be bamboo, and wind something on there to take place of the now-departed bindings.
It even plays just fine in "ugly mode". For extra credit, I could get some red paint and paint the interior, Krylon gloss would work well. I'm really getting to like the little guy because it's possible to play some very piercing, get-it-across notes on the thing and it's even not that great as shinobues go. It's a sub-$20 flute, really, and it's only the shipping that made it cost me about $30.
Someone, maybe from Mejiro themselves, is selling Mejiro stuff on Amazon. And they have a nice "craftsman" shinobue for about $140 that I have my eye on, but I want to go for a while with this one. And my "How To Play Shinobue" book will be here maybe as early as tomorrow. I want to learn some simple Japanese songs and take it with me to Obon.
Maybe I'll even run into Robert, who is Japanese-American and who dresses up in full Japanese wandering-ex-samurai kit. He had a shinobue but now I know it was the "Furyu" sold for about $100 from the taiko center and by all accounts, not very good. He said it "broke" and I could fix it for him if he still has it, but if I run into him I'm going to recommend what I have, for about $30, or the one from Mejiro for about $140. The Mejiro one lacks bindings but I plan to put some on if I get one, and I can do Robert's if he gets one too, for free.
A couple of days ago some European politician was saying Putin wants less NATO but now he's getting ... "more NATO". The way he said it was like "Natto". It was pretty funny. There were celebrations in Finland and the Russkis are moving some of their military stuff away from the Finnish border as they know how much the Finns hate them.
I've also gotten in communications with an old friend in Hawaii. He's on the big island and I only am interested in living on Oahu, but you can't have too many friends. Computers being slow and unreliable, I'm hoping for something more reliable and at least as fast like the US Mail but as I told him, right now it's enough to know he is alive and doing well.
I got going the usual time, with about 10 things for the post office and 6 for FedEx. It was quite a load, with the bike trailer stacked high with boxes and a Whole Foods bag of small, first-class things hanging off of each handlebar.
The drop-offs went fine, and I picked up a bunch of greens and pears, an apple, a nectarine, some Korean melons, etc. from the veggie dumpster behind H Mart. Since I didn't want to look for packing stuff, I went right over to Tom's and gave him a bit over half the veggies and fruit and we hung out and talked for a while.
The sun was just about down so we called it a night and I went by the bountiful dumpster and only found some little bits and pieces, nothing really worth selling.
I got back here, put things away and buttoned up for the night and that was it for being outside today.
I was thinking I'd use dental floss (the stuff I use has a pleasing off-white color) for the bindings on my plastic shinobue, but then decided I'd rather use something that will look more distinctly like cordage. And everything I have of that type is buried in the stacks of boxes and stuff I have moved over to one side of the loft so I can't get into any of it until I got the other side painted and start moving things over.
But at least my next two flute books came in; the James Galway Menuhin Series one and the one about how to play the shinobue, so I can go get those tomorrow.
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