Last night I listed 10 things, which took some repairs on some of them so it was a fair amount of work. I also moved things around in the loft and got the bookshelf put back up, installed some screws where they were missing on it, etc.
Painting the loft has been a lot of work, and somewhat expensive. The latest expense: the charger for my electric toothbrush, without which it's just a paperweight. Luckily I have a few manual toothbrushes stashed away for the end times, and got one of those out.
I did octaves practice on the shinobue and can get the lowest note even stronger now. I'm thinking I need to become much more aware of raising and lowering the little stream of air because that seems to be key in playing the lower vs. upper octave. I'd say it's equally that and getting the lip placed just right in relation to the air hole. Get it right and octaves are amazingly easy. Get it wrong and no amount of blowing will do it.
I woke up at 4:30 which is about right considering my awake hours.
The trials are on the radio on NPR, and before the actual trial footage, they aired the opinions of a few "man in the street" type people. One, a Republican obviously, said the trial was "unfair" because there were "very few Republicans" taking part. I'm sure there were doctrinaire Nazis who thought the Nuremberg trials were unfair because there were no Nazi judges.
We've all fantasized about being in Germany when the Nazis could have been headed off; we've all fantasized about meeting a young Hitler and knowing to kill him. Well, we're in the same point in history right now. This is the trial after the Beer Hall Putsch, our chance to send a lot of people to the firing squad and that's not going to happen because we want to be "reasonable" and so on.
There's a saying: You can vote your way into Fascism, but you have to shoot your way out.
I got going my usual time with 9 packages. I took the other way around, since on the radio just before the trial coverage started, they said something about a sink hole that sounded like it might be right on my usual route. So I went around, did my drop-offs, and coming back noted no sink hole. According to the internet there was one some distance from here 3 days ago though.
I didn't find anything in any of the dumpsters, veggie or otherwise. That's the way it goes sometimes.
I got back here and the welding place was throwing out a lot of little bags with stickers on them that peel off easily, and the bags were maybe 5 mil, so really nice for small parts. I entertained myself peeling stickers off of these things for a while, then noticed there's a huge green dumpster, the kind with ladder steps up the side, down the parking lot near the front of the complex so I finally just grabbed the rest of the bags stickers on or not, and went over there and climbed up. It was just junk from this place that sold hair ties and glittery shit and artificial weaves and trash like that. So all low-grade packaging holding utter junque. There was a bum with a truck at the other end of the dumpster, dumping things *in* and hollering on and on about the dumpster being full. I ignored him and as Crazy Chrissie came trolling by in her bum-mobile, was sure to peer into it and give her a nasty look. She's got a new bungee cord to hold the trunk down though, fashionable!
I got back in here and had a bowl of tuna salad and cleaned the office and the bathroom and finished the load of laundry I had soaking and that's dripping upstairs.
I was having a cup of coffee when I heard a startling CRASH. It was a bum, who'd balanced a lot of metal on his bum-bike, and he'd dropped the pile right across from here in the parking lot. Mr. Bum marched, pissed off, toward the water tap a couple doors down, and I shut the door here and locked it, not wanting a pissed-off bum then deciding I owed him something. So when there was a knock on the door, I asked in a firm tone, "Who is it?" It was Ken.
So Ken was feeling better, and he dropped off a check to cover last week and this, some mail, a couple of shipping boxes, and the package with the lacquer sticks I'd ordered (it's used on flute pads and also on the cork). He didn't want me to be exposed to his germs, but I said hanging out outside here is OK, so we talked a while, him sitting in the car and myself standing outside, with a nice breeze between us.
We talked about the usual things, neat places we'd gone and how gambling had gone for them in Reno, and the cowboy-est, dive-y-est bars we'd been in, and such things and I gave him a vintage copy of "The Green Felt Jungle", a classic book about Las Vegas, for his daughter who now owns a house there. Socializing is a big part of my working for Ken and I wanted to make sure he got a dose of it.
So now, as the Brits say, "Quid's in". And it looks like, over the last two weeks, I have saved in the bank just about $5. So I will have to think about my budget a bit.
I noticed an interesting thing today. Since I woke up so late and wanted to pack more packages before heading out, I didn't eat anything before going out. I just had a cup of strong black coffee and a couple of aspirin. And my stomach was extremely calm and well-behaved while I went out making my rounds. I didn't feel hungry at all, and I didn't have to rush back here to use the bathroom, either. So I'm thinking I might do away with the rather expensive nuts I've been having along with my coffee. They all work out to about a dollar an ounce, so three or four ounces a day add up.
I could still keep nuts around for a snack, but eating them habitually might not be best. If just a cup of black coffee leaves my stomach calm and non-hungry, then I'm all for it.
I've also been going back to finding most of my veggies in the various veggie dumpsters. It's the thrill of the hunt, and of getting something for free. Best to keep with this trend.
I've also cut down restaurant eating to just about zero. And I've discovered that if I just get 3-4 of the beef meatballs and a little greens and a near-beer at Whole Foods on payday, it comes in well under $10.
The big thing, though, is busking. Or rather, that I haven't been doing it. I need to learn a handful of songs and get out there.
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