Thursday

 I sorted out 10 things to list but didn't list them. I practiced last night, concentrating on long tones. I can do 10 in a row now. I figure if I can develop the basic ability to blow, the rest is just refinement. 

It's hot, what else is news? I tried sending a link to my friend Pat and of course it didn't work - tried to send it again another way which may or may not work. 

The internet is getting slow, slow, slow. Takes many minutes for things like Ebay's front page to load so I start it loading and do something else while it chugs along. Our sales are in the toilet again too. 

I packed one more thing (our sales are really slow) and left here with enough time to get rid of some trash and stop at Nijiya and get some hard-boiled eggs, raw fish, and a can of black coffee. I ate those and chewed gum, while I checked one of the free libraries then went over to the temple and sat over on the side, doing long tones. 

When I heard people I checked the time and it was time to go in. The guy from Palo Alto wasn't there, neither was the guy I sold my trumpet to, but the head of the choir was there - he's decided he'd like to learn the shakuhachi - and the new kid came too. 

We went through a number of songs and it went fairly well. The lady recorded us because there's something coming up on Sept. 10 when the idea is we'll play a song everyone will know. I didn't see the video but I heard the playback and we sounded surprisingly good. 

When the new kid was settled in I handed him the book I said I'd give him, and after the playing was over we all got to talk a bit. Mainly about knowing Japanese, or not. One guy lived in Japan for a couple of years and said for all the school he'd taken in that language, he found he knew almost nothing about regular old day to day communication. We had a bit of a good old gab fest then everyone split up - see y'all next month. 

I rode around to a couple more libraries and found more books, so I can probably take some to the used book store on Saturday. 

On my ride home I stopped at a light at 6th and Taylor, and thought I saw movement in the plants with little white flowers near me - I thought I'd seen a mouse or mice. It turned out to be two hawk moths, honestly the size of mice (mice are actually pretty small) working the flower bed. It was really cool to see.