Might make a sale

I practiced last night, shinobue and shakuhachi. The "practice effect" is making me feel more comfortable and routine about playing the high notes. 

I listed 9 things on Ebay. 

I got up and checked my email, I might sell one of my Craig's List things. Craig's List is getting worse and worse like everything but I really only need it to hang together like everything else for the next couple years. 

The flake on Craig's List later said they don't have a car so I said to come tomorrow night. 

I started for the post office at 5:30 with post office stuff. First stop was at Tom's though, to drop off some cans of corn, apple sauce, and "pasta" sauce, the next ingredient after tomato puree being high-fructose corn syrup. Tom and I talked for a bit and Tom's going to be a vegetarian now. That still eats fish, as well as dairy products. I said that's a healthy diet, but in reality I'm laughing inside because Tom, like any good American, will hardly eat vegetables and will load up on the standard American diet of sugar and starch, plus there's all the drinking Tom does. 

As we talked I noticed the gate to the side-yard wasn't locked. Tom said there's a little squeak it makes if someone opens it, and I said he won't hear if if he's inside watching TV or if someone opens it when a truck goes by. Tom replied that he's pretty good about closing it "except when he drinks and passes out" so I said, "Every night, then?" and Tom was like ... Uhhh ... Uhmmmm ... 

In any case I said it's like a fun game taking all these canned goods over, to see if he can go a month without going to the market like he says he plans to. (He'll still go to the market, just for booze.) 

A bum rode by on a bike that's too small for him, with no tire on the rear wheel. Slowly. Tom said he thinks it's the same guy he saw driving a car with no tire on one wheel, and I said I'd seen quite a few people driving around on flats or bar rims, "Nice cars, too." 

I bid Tom farewell and rode to the post office, and dropped the packages off. Then went over to 99 Ranch where I was going to get one piece of fried chicken from Kim Tar Barbecue to try theirs out, but they were out of chicken. The one guy there didn't know English at all and motioned over the other old guy who did, who told me they only had duck and pork right then. Usually they had chicken at this time of day, just not today. "It's because of the sunny weather,", I opined, "More people are out doing things". 

I went to 99 Ranch where the tea egg lady was closing up for the day and in the end I got a bag of pork rinds, a stalk of broccoli, and a box of frozen surf clams. 

I rode on back, not stopping for anything, and on the way back, across from the block Tom's place is on, there was the wheelchair-pushing zombie. I took a wide berth around but the damned thing didn't seem very aware that I was even there. I wanted to be back here by 8 because the Craig's List buyer was supposed to come by then, but I got back here and checked my email and now they're coming by tomorrow. Maybe. 

I put things away and got to work on the cluster of junk, the two halves now of the round table and bits and pieces of office furniture and some kind of bureau or something. First I set up with the step stool and went back to the medical place and picked up a couple of things so that was good, although I had to get past a zombie on a bike coming back. I gave the nasty thing the meanest look and a hand on a zombie-convincing tool too, so I got by OK. 

Once I'd dropped off the step stool and my finds, I set to work on the table and stuff. I was able to use the bike trailer to take it all, in loads, out to Old Bayshore where tons of people will see the stuff and pick it up. I think the table is even an IKEA model, from a label on its underneath. 

On my last load, with the bureau on the bike trailer, I had some idiot in a car follow me suspiciously.  I first got in between the sign and fence where they'd have a hard time getting at me with a car, and when I noticed they'd hung back, no doubt hoping to ambush me on my way back, I moved forward and piled the bureau with the other stuff and then turned off my bike and trailer lights, and took off like a shot on Old Bayshore like I was going for the freeway interchange. Except I doubled around, knowing I'd be close to invisible with my lights off, snaked through the armored-car parking lot which I'm sure is full of cameras, then around the far end of the complex and back to here, where I got the bike inside and things buttoned up quick. Guess the creep in the car will just have to find someone else to rob or fuck with. 

Oh, and this was complicated by one of the regulars, in one of the 2-3 dark-colored SUVs with blacked out windows coming by and hovering around for a bit, except of course I had a weapon on me and was ready to fight, which they saw, yelled something unintelligible, and drove off. Maybe the two possible assailants were working together, the closer one (in the dark SUV) got a closer look and decided it's not worth it, then the other took off too. 

I see these creeps in their SUVs go by all the time, all windows but the windshield and side windows right next to it blacked out (a sure sign someone's living in that vehicle) in and out, all night/morning long. My theory is they're the 2-bit pimps, and when one of their gals gets paid due to servicing a customer, it's up to them to make a run for some fast food, or drugs, or what-have-you. The SAiA truck stop, like any truck stop, will have its "working girls" which is what the zombesses here are. 

But either they wanted to rob me, thought I'd seen too much, who the hell knows. The warm weather is bringing the undead back to semi-life again and there's a lot more zombie activity to watch out for. Yesterday, while out riding, I decided that my cue to get the hell out of here is when I feel I need to take the Glock with me when I do my errands. 

I can avoid a lot of zombie activity by simply getting my errands done earlier, while the sun is still up. If it gets bad enough that even in daylight, I feel I need to escalate past my bolt-cum-billy club, then it's time to go and I will do so without a moment's look back. 

I got back here and buttoned everything up tight, and relaxed, having the pork rinds. I got a call from Ken - he's not sure he'll come by tomorrow with my check as his legs feel "wobbly" to the extent that he's stumbling. If it's not better in the morning he's going to the Urgent Care. Even making over $200k a year, he doesn't have a doctor but just takes his chances at the urgent care or the ER like the rest of us poor fuckers. 

This is probably because $200k isn't that much money any more. It's been my conclusion that the only reason I'm able to save money now is that our money is worth very little. On minimum wage, in Hawaii, it was hard when my room rent was half my take-home income, but once I got to the $5 an hour pay grade, my rent was less than 1/3 my take-home pay. $5 an hour jobs were easy to get, and places to rent were easy to find too. It was a life quite free of fear and precariousness. Money was worth more then. 

I like to think that being old and having proven myself by getting through life relatively healthy, not a druggie or a drunk, no criminal record, and having a steady thou or some coming in every month no matter what I do, will give me some of that steadiness I had when I was making $5 an hour in my early 20s. 

And come to think of it - that's another reason I might have to get out of here earlier than planned. If something goes wrong with Ken. I've mentioned this years ago, so it's something I've been aware of, but while Ken's a kind of clumsy guy, this is the first I've heard him say his legs are so wobbly he's worried, himself. 

 It's almost certainly linked to his diabetes, and being overweight. I remember one evening at Ken's when we were all talking about our weights and BMI's and everyone was in the obese range. That's considered normal now. Obese. Ken's wife eats a doctrinaire sugar and starch based diet, which surprisingly hasn't given her diabetes (her doctor is always telling her to "eat more fruit" so she eats a ton of sugary fruit) but she's so overweight it's hard for her to get up the stairs (if she even goes up them any more). 

So it's considered normal to be obese and to get diabetes, and from knowing Ken I know there's "neuropathy" which is, your extremities, legs especially, get numb or prickly-feeling or painful. Wobbly legs appears to be the next stage from there, as surely as Ken's gone from oral medication to a daily injection to now I think injections a few times a day and a monitor he wears all the time. 

I did a miso ramen (no noodles of course) with lots of garlic rabe, onion, garlic, miso mix, butter, and some of the surf clams. I cooked them like I'd cook shrimp and .... huge mistake. They were TOUGH. In fact, so tough I'm not sure I'd get that much nutrition out of them so after trying my bowl of soup I took an egg and fried it hard in some oil, cut that in 6 pieces while frying, and put that on top. That was good! In fact I'm gonna call it my favorite way to put an egg in ramen, of all the ways. 

I've got two more servings of the surf clams and next time, I'll cut them into thin strips and will more warm them than cook them. I'd found some stuff on YouTube and those things are harvested, cleaned, frozen, put in the box and kept frozen up until you buy them. In fact they stayed frozen in the box just fine although I let the box sit on the counter here for an hour or two. They're basically sushi-grade.