An expensive pet

 I did my usual stuff last night, and ended up reading "The Cruise Of The Snark" by Jack London which is free online. I realized that I'd started reading it long ago, and quit when they got to the part about Haleakala. It's not that Haleakala isn't impressive, it's that, growing up in Hawaii, I'd had about enough of it. House Of The Sun, silversword grows there and no where else in the world, yadda yadda. 

I'd cheated myself back then, though, as the following chapters about London's various travels around Pacific islands that were already largely depopulated were fascinating and also sad. As I've observed about just the island of Oahu, there are vast areas where lots of people lived 200 years ago and no one lives now. (The standard figure not only in the Americas but right across the Pacific is a 90% - 95% dieoff.)

I got some practice in, and the "enhanced" shakuhachi does, indeed, seem to play a bit better than the "un-enhanced" one. 

I got some sleep and did I ever sleep. It's the weekend, after all. I got up around 5, and checked my email - Tom tells me "no more food, a City inspector came around because there was a complaint. The complaint is due to Tom's latest "pet" or hanger-on, James. 

James latched onto Tom because he, James, had been having a "war" with one of the business owners on the street, and as far as I can tell, for good reason. James is a slob, he's got at least a couple of junk vehicles at any one time, he's noisy, his dog is ill-disciplined, and James himself seems to be an experiment in how long a human being can go without bathing or engaging in any other modern self-maintenance. 

James can, legally, park his junk cars on Tom's property plus apparently Tom's bought hundreds of dollars worth of stuff from James that he'll never be able to resell, other than as scrap, at a loss. Tom's being a pretty good host to a parasite like James. 

So, the guy with the vendetta is merely doing the same thing I've done around here. Finding any legitimate complaint he can lodge, and in general making life uncomfortable for the undesirable. The real battle was with the illegal stone cutting operation next door, but I got 'em out. If James made personal threats against the vendetta guy, I can understand how merely retreating a door or two down the street to Tom's place would not be enough. The guy wants James gone. 

And Tom is paying for all of this, literally as well as figuratively. He's actually let James live in the office in the back of his place, which means now eviction rules come in if he wants to rid himself of the bum. 

I left here around 7. I rode past Tom's place and the wood pile, James' junk car and junky truck, are all gone. It makes me wonder how hard that inspector came down on Tom, and whether James threw some kind of temper tantrum and got his vehicles towed and himself a night in jail... 

I ended up riding with a Korean guy on a folding bike, which I complimented right off, and said I'm considering getting one when I move back home because it's so small to store. We ended up at light after light. He was going to H Mart but he did it an interesting way - he didn't turn at the big intersection but at the next one, and went in that way. I bet that's a lot safer. 

I rode on, past 99 Ranch and to the place where I'm gradually working up to being able to do a bunch of chin-ups. I did better than last time, and as I was doing my thing, a security guard car came closer and closer. I finished up at the guy got to me and I went over to explain what I was up to. The guard, a skinny Black guy, said it's no problem with him, and there's an Asian guy who works there who's the only one who uses the exercise equipment. "He's jacked!" he enthused. 

I went back around to 99 Ranch for some shopping. I found not only the wheat gluten "loaf" I've been buying, but a couple of other different kinds, seasoned with some kind of sauce but according to the label not too carb-y. 

Then I went to H Mart to lock the bike and walked over to Sprouts for things, then back to H Mart for other things. On the way back I stopped by Tom's and knocked on the door since he had his lights on. No answer; only some barking from James' dog. Tom's likely passed out from his "enjoying" the weekend, as he says he's "trying not to drink during the week".