Tom Price might not be the best of friends but he's far from the worst. And, he's said if push comes to shove, he'll always have a cot for me at his place. That could actually be a workable thing if things explode somehow here. I can grab all my shit and throw it into the storage place I've used off and on for years (and that Ken uses now) and set up said cot etc. at Tom's and I think Tom would like my being there. I could do nothing but busk, busk, busk.
But in any case, he got me good and schnockered on beer, and I came back and sifted and sorted and cleaned 10 things to list, but ultimately didn't list them.
I did, however, get some shakuhachi practice in, maybe 45 minutes? Sounding good. I have decided that the next shakuhachi club meeting being mid-February, I'd work on exercises during the remainder of January, and then in February, work on the pieces we've been given, starting with the "Nori" one. I even found a YouTube video of a fellow Jodo Shinshu follower in MN, playing it on a shinobue. It's not a hard piece. Do I think Rinban should have started us with "Kimigayo"? Yes - it's easy and sounds good. But he's the boss.
Mejiro is just hopping to get my three shakuhachi bags to me, so it's looking like if all goes well, I'll have them next week. And all in, it's costing me $120 or so by my old "move the decimal point" method of calculating yen to dollars, but of course the yen's fallen a lot so it's probably closer to $100 even.
It was really fun hanging out and showing each other neat music. One of the things we discussed was how there used to be "hang out" places. Like bookstores and coffee shops and in a small town I lived in, all the cool people hung out at Radio Shack. That's where you met all the cool nerds. You'd meet neat people and they'd turn you onto interesting music.
Hawaii seems to be a lot stronger in this area than the mainland. I've talked about how class-stratified the mainland is. The people I'm talking with back home, I know from my student-intern days with (tech company) but back home there are just connections, connections everywhere.
I got going with today's load of packages at about 4:30, took 'em to the post office and FedEx. It was almost warm there for a while - strange. We've got a chance of rain coming in and that tends to warm things up.
On my way there, I'd stopped at Tom's to drop of the big bag of over the counter medicines, my big bottle of Dettol with half left in it (I took some out for myself just in case I used up the bottle of it I keep by the sink) and there's other stuff in that lot like bandages. Tom was really impressed!
On my way back after FedEx I dashed into H Mart to use their bathroom and then went over to 5 Guys for a small fries. I ate them with Kewpie mayo I'd brought with me, and "got" to listen to a bunch of teenagers talk about this n' that. I guess if you've got a gym, and you've got a 5 Guys, and in-between the two are tables regular people don't usually use, it's a great place for gaggles of teenagers to hang out. So, food and entertainment.
I came back here after finding a few shipping boxes, then set up to "mine" the medical place's dumpster, and got more packing materials. Then, coming back here, I got play buddy-buddy with a guy no taller than myself and built like a fire plug, who was going through one of those long, low dumpsters used by places that are clearing their place out.
I got tons of firm blue foam and lots of other packing stuff, and when the owner of the business that was throwing the stuff out came out to check on us, I reminded him that it was my place that that green stuff from his machine shop had flooded into. Short Fireplug Guy was OK, he said he works on cars or builds cars or ... more like he was using the foam to insulate a van. I'm thinking, to sleep in, for himself. Good for him though.
I got back here and put things away and did some neatening up in the loft and pretty soon Ken called. He'd gone to Photonics West yesterday and today "It's about 5 hours a day, walking" so he's not coming by tonight but tomorrow night. I told him that's great because tomorrow's supposed to rain a bit and why would I want to go to the bank in the rain?
I also told him about the DHL package for me from Japan, expected on Monday. Ken said that's OK although sometimes the delivery driver doesn't ring the door bell but just leaves a note. Eh, I think my chances of getting the package are good. It's of course the shakuhachi bags I ordered, and it means that at the next shakuhachi club meeting, my humble plastic Shakuhachi Yuu will be in a snazzy cloth bag.
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