A Dog Park

 Ken came by last night and I got my check, plus I sold him a couple of my Craig's List things, for more than I'd have gotten on Craig's List too - $100 each. This makes for a nice payday as IRS day comes up soon. 

I have 20 things to list all ready to go but after Ken being over I was too tired to do much. This generally happens. 

I saw something about this on YouTube last night and Reddit has something about it again today; that Columbus Park over by the Rose Garden, 5-acres of zombies and meth-heads and bums, is being turned into a dog park. One has to admire how poetic this is. It's a huge message that people here value dogs more than homeless, but then it can be argued, dogs don't steal catalytic converters, strew needles around, or any of the long litany of crimes the homeless here commit. 

The problem is, there needs to be one of my "Happy Fun Camps" for the bums to go to. It's not like San Jose lacks land, as there are many, many square miles of a huge development that got as as far as blocks with sidewalks and fire hydrants and all that, just never got the houses. It'd make a very nice "mental health facility" where the bums could go, get prescribed their drugs of choice by a doctor, free junk food thus McDonald's and Burger King and so on would be in favor, and the bums would never want to leave. 

Frankly, who's going to employ a 40-year-old who looks 65, who's covered with tattoos, has drugged themself down to a sub-100 IQ, has a rap sheet as long as their arm, and even in better days if they worked at all, tended to get fired due to theft, fights, etc.? There needs to be a place for these types to go, or get put. 

One of the many things Ken and I talked about last night was Gavin Newsom's career. Ken thinks he ought to run for President in 2028, and in the meantime run for the Senate. If Newsom can do something about the homeless, here in a flagship state like California, that can do a lot towards getting him elected. 

A shaved and cleaned up and left here at 4. I had to avoid a particularly crazy zombie that was staggering around erratically on Bayshore where it goes under the freeway. I didn't want to pass closely and fortunately I was able to time things so the string of cars to my left had a gap in it I could zip into and the zombie was facing away and not really aware I was near, as I pedaled by quickly while keeping some distance by being in the lane with the cars. The zombie yelled some garbled up zombie shit at me but by that time I was too far away for the damned thing to give chase. 

I dropped off packages at the post office, then went over to the bank and put the checks in and my numbers (what I think I have and what they think I have) lined up perfectly. 

Then I went over to Whole Foods and was really not hungry for anything. I had a bit of a hankering for one of their "shrimp salads" which is just cold cooked shrimp with a little container of cocktail sauce that's very strong and peppery. I got one of those and a fizzy water. 

I ate downstairs, playing "Who's a yuppie and who's a 'down-and-out'" and then rode over to Little Italy (more like Microscopic Italy) and since the coffee shop is now a wine shop, got an espresso at Paesano's which was $5 but was quite good. 

Then I walked over to the complex with Target in it, first to the art store where at least I found a nice little wooden plaque that I plan to fix the toilet paper holder in the bathroom with. The toilet paper holder is barely hanging in there, in the drywall, and I plan to put the plaque onto the wall, with the TP holder attached to *it*, and it won't be a worry any more. 

I went into Cost Plus and got some a couple of different salami slice packages that were a decent price, and some Guittard baking chocolate for those times I feel like having some chocolate. 

Then  I went into Target for paper towels, some Scotch tape refills, and - I was amazed they had it - rubbing alcohol. That's been hard to find lately and paying $3 a bottle sure beats $6 a bottle at the bodega. I got 3 bottles of that. 

I walked back over to Microscopic Italy and got my bike and rode over to the Amazon place for bubble mailers. A large Black guy with a booming voice was asking if they were hiring, then went out, then came back in, and I had a chance to tell him I'd just read on Reddit about a guy working in one of their warehouses in Customer Returns, and found the work to be easy. So he might consider that. I'm not sure if Amazon is like the Post Office where you have to start out with the least-desirable work, in this case working in a warehouse, before moving up. 

I found a few books on the way back, and since I was too late to go to Nijiya, I went to the little market on Taylor and 3rd for some diet Coke and a lump of Mozzarella cheese in the hopes it might be like the real stuff I used to get when I was a kid in 1979 or so - dry and salty and actually fibrous. 

I got back here, did a little look around the medical place (found nothing) and got back here and buttoned up for the night.