I did the usual stuff Thursday, Ken came by and I got my check and I listed stuff and besides that took stuff apart and kept busy, then decided I'd not go to bed and go to the bank in the morning, and left for the bank at 11AM, deposited my check (numbers dead on) and rode back, finding a handful of books as usual, and stopped by Nijiya for some things and a lunch truck for some chicken wings (breaded and dried-out and very salty but at least you don't get very many) and ate those, putting the goodies from Nijyya away.
I decided to stay up, and realized I could go ahead and photo the next batch of stuff, then realized that with the things photo'd, I could go ahead and list them so I did that. I finally just plain ran out of gas at about 6, and went to bed, waking up at around 4:30AM.
I stayed up a little, ate some corned beef and olives, then went back to sleep and woke up at 3PM. I realized I have a "load" of books so it's off to the used book store.
I got out of here a few minutes after 4, and got to the book store in time, which is good. Unfortunately I only got $4.50 for the books and it was a pretty good load so I think that's it for me and selling books. I could make that just noodling around with my glass flute in front of Whole Foods and not have to carry heavy books around...
I went over to TAP Plastics and picked out some tubing, asking them for a 1-foot piece and picked out some end caps that fit OK. That turned out to cost me a bit over $11, ouch.
Then I went over to Whole Foods and got some chicken wings and asparagus spears and a near-beer, ate and drank, and got some cash back too.
Next I went over to the Vietnamese market on Keyes thinking I'd pick up the same sort of things I get at Dai Thanh but they didn't have the little cucumbers I liked and also didn't have the brand of fried shallots I like. I ended up getting a couple of bunches of celery, and since there'd been a bum sitting on the curb in front - not right in front but down a little - who looked particularly hard-up, I got a tall can of beer.
I went out, gave the beer to the bum who said "Thank you" which was nice, and rode back. I stopped at the Amazon place for bubble mailers and then was even able to make it to Nijiya in time to pick up some eggs, mackerel, etc. And a nice cold can of coffee.
I got in quite the talk with one of the guys there about learning the sax, and hopefully I have the guy all jazzed (lol) up about renting one and getting some lessons from Park Avenue Music. I told him I was making $40 an hour with my trumpet and since all the other buskers have gone, he'll have the pick of places to play. There's a career in the sax, honestly.
I sat and enjoyed my cold can of coffee out front, looking at the clouds (the clouds were particularly neat today). I guess that's my "third place", the tables in front of Nijiya.
I rode back and put things away, then headed back out for a quick look at the medical and veggie dumpsters. The medical dumpster wasn't even there, while the veggie area had 4 hands of bananas with only tiny brown spots on them.
I took the bananas over to Tom's, pacing myself behind a zombie on his zombike, who was riding erratically and I think trying to get "the jump" on me by getting behind me - I didn't let him. I pulled into Tom's who had James and another hanger-on there, and I gave him the bananas and hung out for a while, catching up on things. That was a kind of nice, to be able to socialize a bit. It's funny though how, back in Hawaii, my social circle included doctors and engineers and scientists, and on the mainland it's always been a few social steps down.
If there's one thing covid/quitting drinking/coming to terms with leaving here soon has made me, it's made me more social. For instance, I was in Whole Foods and stepped right on a big fat cherry, making a mess in the vitamin aisle. I told a couple of workers who were discussing something by the computer terminal, and they were glad I'd told 'em. I said I'd worked for a market a little, and the worst thing was grapes, because they come off of the bunch easily and the seeds are very slippery.
I was looking for potassium citrate which we had a look for and they apparently didn't have. That was no problem, I said cheerfully, they're not a full-on pharmacy. They probably have customers who get cranky if they don't have a thing.
And my convo with the guy at Nijiya, it started out with my saying that it's hard to make friends in this town but if you do some hobby or activity, then it becomes easy.
A big part of being a busker, I think, is you have to be fairly social. It's too bad I can't get very excited by the idea of doing art, because I don't care if there's a crowd watching me draw or paint. I got desensitized to that as a kid.
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