I practiced some last night, my long tones, and even though I took a few days off, I'm becoming able to get some notes in the 3rd register. That's good. That's another thing, that I'm able to get a louder, fuller, sound out of the shakuhachi than out of the departed glass flute anyway.
I woke up with just half an hour to have some coffee and nuts, take pills, clean up, and get out of here. I did my deposit at the bank and the balance was only off by about $2, which is about as precise math as can be expected these days. Sometimes it's dead-on, sometimes it's off by "some" and I guess that's the best computers can do.
I got the idea that maybe I'd hop on the bus and go to Han Kook market which has this one type of Q tips that are by far the best, and I was almost out of them. So I went to Whole Foods, locked the bike and bought a coffee and got cash back, and got on the #22 bus.
While riding the bus, I decided I could ride all the way down to Mountain View to "Bay Area Gun Vault" where they're sure to have many type of pepper spray, and get some. It was a bit of a nail-biter of a ride because I wasn't sure I'd get there before they closed at 6 but I did. They turned out to have exactly two types of pepper spray, one of them bright pink. I got the other one.
That done, I walked over to 99 Ranch and got some "White Penang Curry Mee" for the spice packets of course, some white sesame seeds, and decided the hot food bar didn't look that enticing so I left it at that.
I walked down the mall a few doors and stopped in at a Taiwanese place and had their "crispy chicken" snack which the printed menu said was about $5 and turned out to be about $8 but it was plenty of crispy chicken pieces and really good. It came with two bamboo skewers (meant to be an appetizer for two people maybe) so I had fun using one to eat my chicken pieces and enjoyed the atmosphere. It's a very non-nonsense place with tons of take-out orders, handled, apparently, but a large middle-class looking white guy who was loading tons of plates of food into two huge insulated boxes and taking off for a round of deliveries. I bet the guy really feels like he's made in in life, being a middle-aged delivery boy.
Done eating, I walked down to the end and went across the street and over to the Nijiya market there and looked around. It's bigger than my local one but really about the same. I bought a can of coffee and went out to the bus stop - it was dark now.
I caught the next bus and got off at Lawrence and went to Han Kook, the original reason for this trip. I looked through most of the place and ended up getting exactly what I'd come for - some of the Q-tips and some seasoned seaweed.
Now it was late enough for the bus crowd to change. The next bus had all kinds of characters, a couple of which were at the stop with me and got on. This is the time, 8 at night, when it starts becoming the "22 hotel" where some characters ride all night. There was more than one person snoring.
I managed to overshoot the stop by Whole Foods (which is "Bush") and got off at the Diredon stop. There were yelling zombies on the other side of the street so I took the short walk back by a route that avoided them - let them prey on *each other* is my motto.
I went into Whole Foods for some shrimp to make a curry later tonight and to get a bit more cash back, so that all I'll allow myself to spend this week is in cash and in my pocket.
The ride home was uneventful, and I got in at 9:30, the equivalent of coming in at half after midnight in the before times.
So what was today's freebee? Well, besides 4 bubble mailers from the Amazon place, it was an interesting one: the guy at the fish counter in Whole Foods charged me $2.10 for the 1/3 lb of little "bay shrimp" when it should have come to $5 or $6. That was nice.
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