As things slowly break down

 I stayed up all night, listed 10 large things, and packed some things including a couple large ones, that had to go. When the internet died I left here, just a few minutes after 10AM, and after dumping trash at the FedEx dumpster, went up this little connecting street to get back to Rogers Avenue, but on the way noticed the lunch truck was at the Zee Medical place. 

I zoomed in, and for $9 got a plate of spaghetti and meatballs and a diet Pepsi. A guy standing there was joking around about "if you can make just one more", I assumed about rounding it up to $10, and then the sandwich he had in his hand landed - plop!- on the asphalt. "Oh, no! A diet for you!" I said, commiserating. But he wasn't even annoyed, it seemed, as he picked it up and cleaned the spot up. I think he was the owner of the truck. He said, "No diet" and I said, "That's because if you say 'diet', you have to say 'die'" and we both chuckled a bit. 

I went over to Tom's and sat at the grubby table he has out in front to eat, and to marvel as the busy-ness of the area. Rogers Avenue is like one of those streets in pioneering movies, where everything's happening at once or at least trying to. Huge scrap metal trucks, a cement mixer, bums in bum-mobiles, bicycles, at times a freight train, and maybe a character or three, on their own two feet, trying their best to complicate things. 

A bum Tom's befriended who looks like a lion; instead of a beard he has a sort of mane that goes all the way around, was right in front of Tom's and I know he noticed me. I wanted to say Hi but I could not remember his name, Benjamin or something? I could not think of it and I couldn't go calling him "the lion". 

I got back here and the internet is back up for now. I got an email from Ken - his wife, who's a travel agent, had "set up a trip to Italy" and he's there. He'll be back in a couple of weeks and will pay me then. That explains the phone call I got from him at about 8 this morning, where he was trying out some kind of wi-fi calling method. His end sounded fine to me but to him, I sounded very fuzzy. 

This is why, these days, I'm what I'd call a "super saver". I could try selling off some stuff that I want to sell off anyway like a batch of headphones I have, the smartphone, and of course the trumpet. And I think I've come back around to my original plan for the Shakuhachi Yuu. I'll use it as my first attempt to make the outside look like actual bamboo, then I'll be sure I could take an "enhanced" one and make that look good - it'll certainly sound good.