Yesterday was too boring to even make an entry here. I took things to the post office, stopped by Tom's to say Hi and he was hurrying off to the laundromat, got back here, listed 15 things, finished a load of laundry, ate dinner, practiced for an hour, and went to bed. I woke up at 3.
I got cleaned up a bit and headed out at a quarter to 4. I got to the Nichi Bei store in time to get this piece of cloth that's used in one of the bon dances, and talked with the lady there about the various catastrophes that keep coming to make things worse for the local stores. She said actually Santo Market is doing super well by just running a take-out counter for food and with no one going inside the actual store, their shoplifting problems are over. We agreed times are getting tougher and people ruder, though.
Then I rode past "zombie park" to the post office then around the corner to where I thought a small FedEx office was, but it stopped appearing on Google Maps. I found a Mailboxes etc. place that took the FedEx package "In fact, the driver will come by to pick it up in an hour".
Then I went to Lee's to get something to eat; the new Lee's on San Carlos. But anything beyond holding a package of Pocky in one hand and money in the other seems to be too much for them so I said "Oh wait - I have to go do something, be back later!" and left and went to the real Lee's on Santa Clara. I got some good old greasy food and went over to the college to eat it.
It turns out there now not just a few but a lot of squirrels there and since I'd gotten so much food (a pate' chaud, 2 pork egg rolls, and a chicken skewer) we all ate well.
I swung by the Amazon place for some bubble mailers and then realized I had quite a bit of time to kill before the Obon practice started. Wish I'd brought a book, I thought. I checked the little free libraries and found one about some well-to-do lady who moved to Bali in the early 2000s, and it's just a lot of little articles she wrote for the local expat newspaper, put into a book. Quite entertaining though.
I got a coffee at Nijiya first to drink while reading and when I was done, got another. The long bench on the side of the temple had the right combination of being out of the wind and having some sun, for reading and keeping an eye on when people go streaming into the gym.
The Obon practice went pretty well. I just found someone who seemed to know what they were doing, got behind them, and did my best to copy them. It seemed to go fast. They need volunteers this year too but I can't commit until I know how my jury duty is going to go. Or not. I suppose I can always dive in at the last minute. Help is help.
It was nice to switch to a light sweatshirt and jacket and ride home. I went by the EMT place and got 8 packages of Datrex and then went by the medical dumpster and pulled out a lot of neat stuff I might be able to sell some of. Since I could carry one or the other but not both, I left the Datrex neatly stacked there. Of course a zombie came up and was surprised by my being there. "Sorry!" it said and rode off on its Zombike.
Zombies, Oh, the zombies. They were just everywhere. Shambling, yelling, screaming, and one had both a good rant going and a tire iron it was hitting cars with. Lovely. When I'd gotten to Japantown there was even and old Black zombie banging away on a guitar which at least was not very loud. When I went back for my 2nd coffee I figured I'd tell it some good places downtown to busk, but it was gone.
A few times through my travels today I'd had to bend traffic rules a bit to get around a zombie, and coming back from Japantown I'd taken 1st and there were lots of them around the 7-11 and Holiday Inn hotel there. That hotel was just "featured" on YouTube for having someone trying to break in with a tool to unlock the door. It sounds almost humorous except the people trying to break in would probably have killed the person in the room if they'd gotten in.
I was back here and had the place all cleaned up, when Ken came by. He forgot his checkbook so I didn't get paid. He's supposed to come by tomorrow and give me my pay check. Such is life for those of us stupid enough to go into tech.
No comments:
Post a Comment