Soft skills are hard

 Ken came by last night with tons of goodies, and we talked a while, and I got my pay check so that's all good. 

I listed 10 things (some of the things were 20 or 30 of that thing) on Ebay and packed a couple and put those boxes in the bike bag. 

I practiced a bit, not a lot, the tone exercises and stuff on page 20. I was torn between practicing a lot and getting to bed in time to get some sleep. I was very happy with how the practice went, though. The flute didn't move around in my hands nearly as much as it's been, and my tone, I thought, was very good. This is what makes regular practice so great - you never know how it will actually go and it might go really great. 

I woke up at almost 3, and needed to get out of here by 4. I did all kinds of stuff as far as cleaning myself up and got a cup of coffee down, and took off. 

First stop was the post office to drop off the two boxes. Are an electrolytic capacitor and some weird old copier lens that important? They are to the people buying them. I was back outside unlocking my bike when I noticed an older Asian guy, maybe my age but probably older, messing around with the mail boxes in front. Those have been bolted closed for the longest time, because the bums in the park kept messing with them. The guy would just not quit messing around with them, though, and it reminded me that I had that letter from the IRS all filled out and needed to mail it. 

I got it out and locked the bike again and went over to him and explained the situation with the boxes and since I had a letter in my hand just like he had a letter in his hand, it was easy to convince him to go inside and mail it there. I also told him about the boxes by the satellite post office near the college, and said he'd done me a favor by reminding me I had a letter to mail. 

I went over to the bank and did my deposit and then thought I might be too late to get my covid booster at Walmart by now but I'd at least go over there to buy a few things and see what the hours are for tomorrow to maybe get it then. 

But I got there in time, at about 5 and the pharmacy closes at 5:30. Some people who got there after me had appointments so the pharmacist told me they'd get served first and I said that's fine. So I had to loiter around for a while, looking at all the medicines and deciding which are real medicines and which are snake oil, and neatening up the shelves because why not? Then I got my shot and that was that. So far I'm two for two, haven't had to pay anything. 

I got a couple cans of Pringles and a big pot of sour cream and some diet soda, and had a fine time shooting the shit with a Mexican guy in the checkout line, and found a South Africa 1/4 D coin with a hole in it in the Coinstar. 

I got a can of coffee at Dai Thanh on the way home as they've got the best price, and stopped at Nijiya for some peanuts and things, and got back here. 

Last night and today I've been thinking about how, for humans, "hard" skills like building a rocket that goes to the Moon, are relatively easy while "soft" skills seem to be very hard. So we have a level of technology that's pretty miraculous, but we're baffled by characters like Putin and Trump, and we may be tipping into the last war, the final World War, as I type, because our social skills are shit.