Gloomy May 1

 I did some practice (think I have Sakura "down" now) on shinobue then did a bit on shakuhachi, but got sleepy and went to bed. 

Last night besides listing 10 things I'd taken a couple more of those little cabinet things with tons of little drawers and emptied them out into the 3 of 'em I'm keeping, and put them outside - they were gone in minutes which was nice. Ken brought in this big metal one, even the drawers are metal, and it's going up into the area where the metal/plastic ones were. 

It looked really dark out there like it's about to pour. 

I got going at the usual time, stopped at the veggie dumpster and fished out a red bell pepper and a head of lettuce and bagged those up, and stopped at Tom's. I thought he might be angry with me about something because he seemed to be avoiding me for several days. But nope, it was just life happening. I gave him the lettuce and pepper, a coffee mug, my stash of "Vegeta" seasoning, and a couple other odds and ends. The food drops seem to be over for now but he's got enough canned stuff to last him for months. 

Tom and Colin were headed to the gym to shower. Tom's got a membership and gets Colin in as a guest. And I had to get going before the post office closed so I took off. I was sure I felt a drop of rain as I headed back from the post office after dropping off the USPS packages there, and I parked the bike and went in, thinking I'd buy some gyoza to cook and try out my new chili oil. But a package of kim chee gyoza are $8, ouch. I just got a little can of smoked peanuts for $2.50 and a can of Mr. Brown for $1.50 and left it at that. 

When I went outside it was raining but luckily my bike was under shelter and I just sat for a while drinking my coffee and eating some of the peanuts, until the rain stopped. 

I dropped off the packages at FedEx and then took off for home. I did stop by Sanmina and pick up some packing foam so there was that, and the electrical lighting place had some of the long bolts I'd taken one of and made a sort of billy club out of. Long but not too long. Now I have two and will make two billy clubs so when I lose the next one I'll have a spare. 

I rode back to the shop, but the last thing was to check a dumpster that's only out sometimes, like Monday but I think it's only every other Monday because I'm sure I checked last Monday... In any case, it was worth it and I went back here to unload stuff and back out to that dumpster and load up. Then back in for good. It's raining. 

I would call my practice last night "mediocre" but I *did* get the final line, as written, for Sakura down pat so that's good. And I also did for the first time what I ought to have been doing all along, which is to work out how to practice the whole scale, up and down, on the shinobue. It's something that I put a lot of time and effort into on trumpet, to be able to run up and down the chromatic scale, and while the way the scale is written out in the little green leaflet, all in Japanese, that came with my shinobue, it's possible to get to know it and run up and down it like a bird playing around in the air. 

Also, DHL sent me a few messages and it appears my 6-hon shinobue, the black bamboo composite one, is at Ken's house now so I should have it on Wednesday night. Then I'll really have to get my materials out and finish the bindings on my little 8-hon and put bindings on the new one, then they'll look good enough to busk with.