I got up at about 12:30, and was out the door at about 1:20.
First I dropped off 6 small packages at the downtown post office, then went to the bank and put my check in, and they and I agree on the amount in my account down to the penny so that's good.
I went to Whole Foods and got a bottle of coffee and locked up the bike, and got a coffee and some "flushing" niacin and a bottle of coffee and then caught the #22 bus to Sunnyvale. I got some of those lovely kalamata type olives, this time a larger size as I noticed they come in different sizes and I'd been getting something like extra-extra small. They are all the same price for 500g and so good with cheese!
I didn't bring a carrying bag with me, though, so of course on the bus back a guy had to ask about them and we got into a discussion about what they're good with. This also kept me from stopping at this one really big dollar store that I want to check out. Oh well, next time.
I was back to Whole Foods pretty quickly and stashed the olives in the bike bag and then walked up to CVS to get my flu shot. The nice Indian lady in the pharmacy said they're closing the whole store "forever" soon and they don't have the supplies for walk-ins.
I walked around looking for anything else I might want to buy, and was a sad a bit. It's hard to be emotional about a big impersonal corporation but it was "my" pharmacy for the last 10 years and it was really handy to have it there.
I went back over to Whole Foods and got barbecue chicken wings, mushrooms, and a "Racer 5" beer because IPA just goes with wings and there are no near-beers out in singles at all. In fact, they're charging more for near-beer than for regular beer. Almost $13 for a six pack of cans of the Athletic Brewing non-alcoholic IPA is pretty crazy.
I know how it works, though. If I went into Cafe Stritch and got a beer, as soon as I'd finished it I wanted another beer, etc. But if I got a club soda, that one was enough. I didn't even mind if they charged me full drink price for the club soda because it was still so much cheaper.
I went back in for cheese to go with the olives and then took off for Lee's to see about day-old croissants on sale, which they didn't have. Leaving there, I had an interesting experience.
I'd ridden out of Lee's driveway and gone behind a Honda Element with a sticker about the national parks, and one for K&N air filters. I was daydreaming about how I'd once had a Kawasaki GPz 550 that the prior owners had done a very poor job of hot-rodding. It had turned out to be far cheaper to finish the soup-up job properly than to return it to stock condition. One of the things I'd done was equip it with K&N's...
Another SUV pulled up into the right, non-left-turning lane and then the driver crept up into the crosswalk. Some hairy ol' bum had started walking across the crosswalk and started yelling at the SUV driver. The SUV driver, a psycho blonde Karen type, yelled and screamed back, and made like she was going to run the guy over when he was in front of her. He sensibly got out of her way, while she still screamed and yelled and shot forward, tires screeching. She actually went around in a small circle in the intersection, coming around again to have another try at him. By this time I'm not sure where he went, as I was keeping an eye on her, and had hugged close to the Element. When the light actually changed to green, the Element and I moved forward smoothly and I was glad to be out of there. It was not possible to get a license plate number for the aggressive SUV as there was one of those smoked plastic covers over the license plate (which should be illegal).
As I rode off I thought about this. The scraggly old bum would have done better by making a face and saying something like "That's nice!" with a chance of the psycho Karen actually feeling a bit of guilt for driving like a psychopath. Also, these zombies downtown spend most of their time walking around in traffic so what did he think he was going to change? Put anyone behind the wheel of a car and they turn mostly if not completely into a psychopath.
Meanwhile, Psycho Karen could have just packed up 12 inches and said, "Sorry!" as there was no one behind her so there was plenty of room, and she'd have been able to feel smug. Karens alternate between smugness and murderousness so this was an option. Why sweat over some penniless bum's yelling at you? To a Karen, it's like worrying over what a fly or an ant might think of you.
The truth is, ol' Karen is probably a couple months behind on payments on her Deathmobile, driving with no insurance, no one can stand her at her job ("They're all lib'ruls!!") so she's up for the next wave of layoffs, etc. And the bum, well, who knows what drug-addled alternate reality he was operating in.
I just wanted to make sure I didn't get mixed up in the whole thing, and went on my own way, picked up a couple of books on my way to Nijiya etc. And once leaving there, felt like an idiot because I actually wanted to see what was going on in St. James Park tonight (they really are trying to take it back from the zombies) and also to ride through the San Pedro Square area to see if there were any buskers.
Busking is just dead in this town. In fact, I noticed that things looked pretty nice at Whole Foods. "My" place was free and clear and not even overrun with pumpkins. The skinny white guy with all the petitions is long gone, due to being a pain in the ass. There was an older black guy who I think used to have a clipboard with petitions but he was just sitting on the side of the Whole Foods building, engaging in a little subtle panhandling. No sign, just talking quietly to that portion of customers who "had" to walk right past him. That would have been no problem, plenty of punters for both of us.
The other "competition" was a little booth for something about stopping school violence. The 2nd time they saw me, they said, "You're back!" cheerfully. So I looked at their materials and said, "I'm more of a 'start violence at schools' kind of guy." But they were a fair distance from where I usually played, and if I wanted to play where I'm more out of the wind, they would not have been in the way either.
It's just going to take me some time to get good enough to try busking with the flute. It took me a fair amount of time to start sounding decent on the trumpet and it may take me a similar amount of hours of practice on flute. I'm gambling that it will be worth it.
And I would say the weather today was just about perfect. Warm without being hot, and a nice comfortable temperature all the time the sun was out. It's just getting cooler at night and I find myself wanting to get in for the day nice and early.
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