My cheeks are sore

 I packed things last night, swabbed the trumpet out, and managed to get in about a 1/2 hour's practice on the shakuhachi. I didn't sound as good but I'm not sure whether it was all the trumpet playing or my just being tired. 

I don't think the trumpet is a big conflict with the shakuhachi the way it would interfere with playing a concert flute. My wonky left shoulder is OK as it would *not* be if I'd spent the same amount of time playing a transverse flute. And, interestingly, my cheeks are sore. This is due to not playing for several months and then playing a decent session. It's really interesting because it shows me what muscles are being used. I was always fascinated by those photos of Miles Davis where you can *see* his cheek muscles being used. 

More doom and gloom on the radio. The rethuglicans are very happy with Trump because he got 3 right-wing supreme court justices installed and somehow accomplished the overthrow of Rove. vs. Wade. That Trump could be defeated by a damp dishtowel like Biden tells me at least a good third of the country is not quite willing to roll over and be genocided yet, and another third not quite ready to just passively watch yet. 

But, "Hitler was put in by the popular vote" or some such noise on Reddit. No, Hitler never won the popular vote in a free election. He got a toehold, then used technicalities and a good amount of intimidation and coercion to become Fuehrer. The exact techniques that are now standard for Republicans. 

Some while back, I found that Herman Wouk's son has a YouTube channel. Like Wouk, a Jew, he must be assumed to be a Jew also. At least what the Nazis would consider a Jew. But Wouk's son was far-right, horray for Trump, all that. I broke off all interest, parting by telling him he's a disgrace to his father, who was a great man. 

And today I realized: The Christians want all Jews to be returned to Israel, to bring on their End Times. Well, what if you kill off the Jews to the extent that there are, say, 5 left. It simplifies things considerably. You only have 5 people to keep track of, and everything's easier when it's only 5 people you have to put in a particular location. This all sounds batshit but I'm sure more than on Nazi has this all planned out along exactly these lines. And Herman Wouk's son hasn't thought these things through. He'll never be able to pass himself off as Aryan, as being the son of a famous Jew, even if the elder Wouk married a Gentile, his son will be at least a "mischling" or half-Jew, and only fit for the oven. If only people would think these things through! 

But enough political apocalyptica for this day... 

If I get back to a busking schedule, it will call for my taking the trumpet with me Thursday when I head to the bank, and after doing my banking, do a session. I was doing a Thursday-Friday-Saturday schedule. I also can't just play at the Whole Food on the Alameda. I have to vary it up, going to other places. 

I got out of here with 7 packages, including two FedEx ones small enough to carry in Whole Foods bags and thus no need for the trailer. I rode up to FedEx first, and bought two bottles of makgeolli in H Mart, then went back out onto Brokaw and rode up to the new Dai Thanh market and the place is amazing. It's huge, well-lit, and clean. It's a rough area and I didn't like the looks of a guy hanging out by the bike rack so I locked my bike to the very end of the cart rack, far from him. Now that I think of it though, he may have been a worker as they're still finishing things there and there were a few rough-looking workers around. The key is: Workers not bums. 

I went in and got a couple packets of coconut powder and a "Chinese donut" and waited forever in line as it was very busy but that's OK, the place was so nice. The cashier was happy to see all the pennies in the change I paid with, and counted those out preferentially. I let her have the 7 or so left, too, "In case someone else is short a few", I said. 

I rode on back and ... right on past the post office and it was only once I was a mile out from the shop that I realized I still had 5 small bubble mailer packages in the bag tied to the handlebar. Oops. I got back and hitched up the trailer and went back out to the medical place, not finding much to sell but finding some shipping stuff that's useful. 

Circling back to here, I checked the dumpster by the karate school and found two large pizza boxes, each containing 2/3rds of a very large pizza. Now, I thought, if I were really hard-up, I'd take these and just re-heat the slices thoroughly, and I'd eat for most of a week. But I'm not that hard-up, so what I did was take the two boxes and set them on top of a discarded mini-fridge that's full of trash and such, that I see bums checking pretty often. So I set the pizza boxes on top of that. It's a well-lit spot and it's obvious they're pizza boxes, so someone should make use of the pizza. It's cold enough that it's like a big refrigerator outside so it should stay fresh-ish.

I got back here, all done for the day, at 7PM which due to the "wartime 3-hour shift" is the equivalent of 10PM in the Before Times so it was really out quite late. 

The logic of the makgeolli is this: It's not great that I'm back to drinking, and I'm at least theoretically keeping it in check by only drinking drinks that are dilute, 5% or 6%. It seems to be drinking or headaches. And the headaches were not fun. But drinking too much is not fun either. And it's expensive. Probably far less expensive than headache medicine under our Dickensian for-profit health "system" which is why I don't just go to a doctor because "just going to a doctor" isn't a thing here. This is not Hawaii. 

So, as I can go through a 12-pack of watery beer in a 24-hour period, and that costs me a bit more than $15, it's not really sustainable unless I start busking regularly, and even then it's not all that healthy and it's money better spend other ways. The makgeolli is $5 a bottle, tastes good, and I should think a bottle a night would be enough. $150 a month I can probably afford. 

I went to the Mejiro site and ordered 3 shakuhachi covers. That would be $75 before the yen dropped so much against the dollar. It might be $60 now. There's shipping too. They use DHL and I'm going to guess the shipping will be on the order of $25. I ordered three because there are three different patterns. Which one of which I like the most, I'll order two more. And maybe a book or something. 

I'd done a return of a shinobue I got from them that I really didn't like. They actually refunded me before I'd even sent the thing back. If I were the typical American, I'd like as not have just "forgotten" about sending it back but ... that would not be honorable. So I spent the money and sent it back and I'm pretty sure I saw it on their used instruments page. 

I like my little plastic shinobue fairly well, and the little shinobue is a lot easier to hold than a Western flute.  But what would be really neat next Obon would be to be decent on the shakuhachi and play that.