Today's "fun" was to go to Marukai Market to get coffee filters which they're the sole source of around here.
I got a later start than I wanted to, but got going, stopped in at Nijiya for ginger, dropped off some books and stuff at the little free library there, then got going for a long ride.
It took me a half-hour to get from Japantown to Stevens Creek and Saratoga, which isn't bad. It took another 10 minutes just to go from there to Mitsuwa Marketplace where I got a book on learning the katakana/hiragana, and got some raw fish and a "hamburger croquette" to eat.
When I left there, it was dark. I got back on the road and another half hour later, wasn't sure if I was at Marukai Marketplace as there were a million stores in that pinnacle of human evolution, the strip mall alongside a stroad. But I knew the closest bus stop was the Portal one, so I turned in at Portal street and by doing a perimeter search, found myself at Marukai Market. Whew!
I went in and got some coffee filters to last me a while, then went over to Daiso to look around, getting a scrub brush and a set of little paint brushes.
Now it was a long ride back, and by now it was close to 9PM, which in this area is the equivalent of midnight. That time that nothing good happens afterward. As I got to Saratoga again, I heard a couple of zombies yelling at each other and figured I'd circle around to watch the zombie fight - bad idea, as the entrances to what look like legit driveways are guarded by chains, painted black, held up by posts, also painted black. I braked just in time, and decided the zombies can just fight without my watching. There are traps of this type all over the place.
I got back to Whole Foods and since I had a nice case of heartburn going from the hamburger "croquette" and probably the coffee I kept taking slugs of, I stopped in and locked the bike and got my little 3-pack of Underberg and some kalamata olives.
A lady was begging in front with a sign, and since I won't be here the 10 or so years it would take to learn her name, I'll call her Pee-Pee Lady as her "performance" has long been to stand with a nearly unreadable sign, fidgeting around as if she has to pee. This plays well with the middle-aged ladies.
I had a package of new dry-erase pens which actually work well on cardboard, so I'd greeted her with something like "I knew there was a reason I came here!" and gave her the pens. She'd just made a new sign so it was slightly less unreadable than usual but give it a little time...
We talked about various ways to hustle up money, and I said if I ever end up holding a sign I think I'd make a lot of signs with funny sayings on them and let people buy them from me. I'd use black and white chalk markers so I'd have the brown of the cardboard plus black and white.
Pee-Pee Lady has an apartment and has had the same PO box for 27 years. She's probably got social security and disability and food stamps, and she said the one medicine she really needs is about $1.40 for a 90-day supply. But one reason people beg is not only the extra money but it's something to do. Plus, if you've been down and out or think you might be, you're very much inclined to make extra money when you can and hide it. Or she might be helping support grand kids.
She knows Leroy and saw him recently, within the last week. So he's still alive, and whatever Godforsaken place inland he want to take care of his mom, he hasn't been swallowed up by the place, never to return.
I rode back and passed through San Pedro Square - no buskers. Plenty of loud music from a few places but that never stopped a few in the past. At least they'd set up out on Santa Clara street.
In fact on my way out I'd noticed where a coffee shop used to be 15 or 20 years ago and remembered that back when I used to go there, there was a night a week where people would some and sing or play an instrument, for a small audience but mainly for each other. There was a whole circuit where each night of the week you could go to a different coffee shop and do this. The coffee shop, and such subversive activities as that, are all gone now.
The ride back was quiet, too quiet in places as, for instance, turning from 10th to Bayshore, it's only because of my rather keen hearing that I heard the shuffling of a zombie, that if the light took too long, would be right on top of me. Fortunately the light changed and I got out of there before the zombie could shuffle too close. Then, as I came into the complex here, I rode over where this Vietnamese place tosses out boxes and was about to check them out when I heard that little, hoarse, kind of whistle that kind of goes "sweet!" that people/zombies use to signal each other, and got right back on the bike and outta there.
Rogers Avenue is just about solid zombie-infested RV's along the area by the cement plant and the food truck place. Needless to say there are all kinds of sketchy people with all kinds of transport from their own two shuffling feet maybe dragging a trash bag, to a bike without a front wheel that they're wheeling along (with two bike wheels hanging off of it somehow) to a bike plus shopping cart, decrepit old car or truck, or even some nice, high-end cars (these last being the drug dealers) Crack Alley's a busy place these days.
Today's freebees: A copy of To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and three issues of The New Yorker.
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