Ken came by at about 8 last night. He dropped off some things, we had our usual B.S. session over tea, and all was well. He wrote me a check with an extra $150 on it for Christmas which is cool. I also sold him a bottle of silver nitrate solution I had around here, unused. That got me a crispy $20 which I put back into the Dharma Center fund from which I'd kiped a $20 earlier in the week.
I tried to get enthusiastic about listing stuff but between my headache and being tired, I just went to bed. Not before having my "holiday chicken leg" and the two beers, and also a bowl of broccoli. Ken had brought over a bunch of food and besides the raw broccoli I got yesterday, this was already cooked so I just re-cooked it.
There was a big box of frozen non-meat burgers, a couple more of those in their own little package, plus orange juice, sodas, some kind of rice based dishes, etc. Once Ken was gone I put it all into a big plastic tub with the frozen cooling packs Ken had brought also, and put it out for the bums, or someone, to take. When I got up it was gone.
I went to sleep until about 8AM and was really not sleepy, in that I was torn between just getting up and doing stuff, or going back to sleep until about 11 to get a more normal amount of sleep. I ended up doing this second thing, and when I got up at about 11:30 or noon, my headache was barely there.
I packed 9 small things I could take to the post office, and actually it was 10 because a customer was a bit miffed that I didn't send a power cord with something they'd bought, so I said I'd pop one in the mail right away. So I got out of here at 3, tossed trash in my "secret" trash can, then rode cautiously past the zombie show that is St. James Park and dropped my packages off at the downtown post office.
Next was the bank and their calculations and mine agree to the penny so that's good. I then meandered in the way of Dai Thanh but decided to take in a bit of Xmas in the park on the way, and Wendall was there so I stopped by. We talked a bit, and agreed that I ought to buy him a jug of sangria for Christmas. So I headed out with that in mind.
I rode my bike over to the "SoFa Market" and locked it there, used the loo, and walked over to Dai Thanh to get a can of chicory coffee and I got some hell money for Wendall because hell money's fun to have around when you're a busker. I walked down the street on the way back to the hole in the wall liquor store where they used to sell jugs of sangria almost as cheap as at CVS. They... don't sell 'em any more. I settled for some kind of fizzy red wine in a regular size bottle, that at least comes with a screw-off top. On my walk back to my bike I decided I really wanted a slice of pizza so I went to Pizza My Heart and got two slices, one for there and one to go. I ate my slice there, and the other was for Wendell.
I got back where Wendell was set up and dropped off his goodie bag, in one of my green Whole Foods bag that had developed a hole in the side and thus was expendable. It would help Wendall hide the wine from prying eyes. He was talking with a little butterball of a Hispanic dude who was supposedly working security.
Wendall wanted to know if I'm coming out to play tomorrow and I said I'm just not ready yet. "But wait a year, I'll have something to show! I'll play the F scale, the Bb scale, the C scale, and then the highest note, tweet!" I assured him.
I wandered back up 1st and there were some buskers, a group of young people with a guitar, two trumpets, a guy singing (not super well) and a lot of enthusiasm. I got talking with the trumpeter who was playing, Yes that's a Bach Strad, etc. We talked and hung out a bit and I suggested "Feels So Good" by Chuck Mangione which the guy played with far more feeling than I've ever been able to, except he kicked it down an octave at the high part. I said something about that, kidding him a bit and he said he'd been playing a couple hours already. I said something I did, that he might try, since he plays a 3C mouthpiece, is I've got a Bobby Shew Jazz which is 1/2, maybe 1/3, of the way between a 3C and a 3D, and I'd switch to it when I got tired. A 3D, I found, was too extreme for me. He said he used it for classical. Cool, cool. I talked up the idea of joining a military band for a bit and he's all for it. I can't think of a better way to go for a young trumpeter and it was good enough for Chet Baker, Herb Alpert, and a bunch of others.
I went by the Amazon place for bubble mailers and then to Nijiya for yet another "holiday chicken leg" and a 12-pack of Asahi "dry" beer. For some reason, my headache isn't kicking my ass and I'm not going to argue with success. Maybe all the beer's doing is fooling me into hydrating more. In any case the stuff's weak enough that I should be OK.
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