Ken came over last night and I got my check, got some things to take apart which I did, and got some practice in - long tones, and I'm getting more used to the "enhanced" shakuhachi yuu.
I woke up today and turned on the radio - the war in Israel is going along and of course Trump has had to put in his two cents: He called Hamas "smart", called a high-ranking Israeli official a "jerk", and Israel's government "stupid".
So in case there's any lingering confusion as to whether Trump is a blueprint Nazi, this ought to clear it up. Christians are not a smart bunch of people, but Orange sHitler is really working overtime to alienate anyone who's not utterly fixated on worshipping the Fat Orange One personally, over even their supposed Top Guy, Jesus Christ Himself.
I took off for the bank and deposited my pay check, and the numbers matched up to the penny. It's nice when that happens. I think the reason I was about $30 short last week was, the Hall flute place refunded me for the flute but not the books which I'd sent back so, which is in keeping with his 99.9% of music stores do things. I'd just sent the books back and said if they can't re-sell them to "gift" them to a charity or something. So my refund had been around $80 instead of around $120.
I went to Whole Foods and got some meatloaf and Brussels sprouts which were a satisfying little meal and only cost me about $6.
Then I headed over to Walmart for my "weekly Wal" and got a big package of TP and other stuff. On the way over I'd stopped at the Amazon place and really loaded up on bubble mailers so with the Walmart stuff I had a big Whole Foods bag stuffed with something hanging off of each handlebar.
I rode through downtown and this is where things got interesting. All I did was get onto 3rd coming back from Walmart and stayed on it, and at one of the large intersections noted a skinny guy on a light grey bike go by which is no problem, I made way for him. We rode along for a while and since he seemed a faster type on a faster bike, I figured he'd go on ahead. Odd.
I slowed down gradually since this is how you usually shake these guys; you go slower and they're in a hurry and get bored and take off at their natural speed. But he slowed down too and stayed right with me, just ahead. This was getting a bit weird.
I skipped over a street, from 3rd to 4th, rode along it for a while, then after an intersection or two, there he was, at the same pace, just ahead of me. So he'd bothered to keep track of where I'd gone, raced ahead and "met" me, having a good idea of where I was going. This was getting a bit creepy.
I took advantage of some traffic to dodge back down to 3rd and went over to Nijiya and did my grocery shopping there. Then I rode back the way I'd come and around to the Japantown light rail station where a train came right away. I had a fun time talking about motorcycles and engines and cars and stuff with a "cholo" sort of guy, and got off at Metro/Airport.
I rode back in here without incident, other than that when I was pulling into the complex a car came zooming in from the main road and I wasn't sure it wasn't one of the erstwhile denizens of the parking lot here, so I zoomed into Galli Produce's loading area and stopped next to one of their big trucks to see what the car was going to do. I came in here cautiously, and the car turned out to belong to the old white guy who has the machine shop - not the Mormon machine shop, nor the Asian machine shop that leaked green goop into here, but the other machine shop - and their car does look a bit like the gold Mercedes driven by one of the scumsuckers some years ago.
It wasn't an aggressive scumsucker, bent on revenge for my running him out of here, just typical old white guy "gas it and don't look where you're going too carefully" driving. It amounts to the same thing if they hit you, frankly. I'm just jumpy, but better jumpy than dead, I think.
Whole Foods had a good assortment of what's taken the place of buskers these days. First there was the far-right-wing white guy who likes to argue with people, with his HELP MAUI and HELP THE HOMELESS signs (I'd be astoundeded if even a penny found its way to anyone on Maui). I did not say hello to him, nor did he say anything to me. He was busy hustling people anyway. There was an overweight Black guy with a sign, white beard, looking sad. Probably diabetic. He talked about with the first guy so at least they're on cordial terms. And over by the sign at the entrance to the parking lot was some really broken-down homeless guy with you guessed it, that essential homeless accessory, a nearly unreadable sign.
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