Much Ado About Nothing

 Besides packing 28 things last night and doing some organizing, I got a good long long-tone practice in. 

There's much ado about nothing, by which I mean Israel defending itself. Israel is in an existential battle and the US, apparently weak and soft and forgetful of WWII, is asking them to be kinder to their would-be murderers. 

I even watched a documentary last night while practicing, named after the Arab town that was taken over, about how said Arab town, a very nice beachy area with great fishing, was taken over by Israel in 1948. Somehow this is supposed to raise a great hue and cry and there seems to be a mass grave under what's a parking lot now, but it's slipped in that the Arabs were armed to the teeth, with the Israelis finding tons of stockpiled weapons, and the Israelis caught by the Arabs nearby were tortured in ways I don't want to go into on this blog. 

The area is a kibbutz now or at least was one for years, and is very nice. If I were visiting Israel I'd be sure to visit. 

The thing is, one of our greatest presidents, Lincoln, was praised for being a great "Indian fighter" and another accused of genocide or some rot is on our $20 bill as I write. George Washington, our first, was a surveyor and somehow acquired tons of land. Well, it got it by claiming it from the original people who were there. They got fought, they got beat, and now they don't matter. I'm not saying this is fair, what I'm saying is this just plain is. 

Jews got reminded of this, hard, by WWII. It's called Realpolitik which is just what it sounds like it is. 

I packed two more things bringing the number up to 30, and left at the usual time. I'm glad I took the time to make yellow FedEx stickers because it was one of those that kept me from leaving a FedEx box at the post office. It doesn't help that both services have a big G (for ground and "ground advantage") on the labels in most cases. 

I didn't find much for packing materials, and circled around to Tom's place just to catch up on the latest. He's stopped talking about lawyers and says that although he doesn't think it's legal, he's going to let them inspect his place. James no longer lives there and he has one of his other hangers-on tidying up the place. 

We talked about various things and I was talking about how I'll be free to sell on Ebay on my own once I'm back in Hawaii since I'll be out from under the effective non-compete law I'm under now. We'd already talked about the situation with Tom's various bum friends (James is out, Rob "no longer comes around since he tried to fight me" and Roy The Pothead is the one doing the tidying) and who drives up but James. 

"He's here to repossess his dog", said Tom. James marched up after parking his hunkajunk truck and said he didn't want to interfere, and Tom said we were just "rehashing" Hawaii. Tom then told James his dog is banished to the side yard because he poops and pees everywhere. I'd said to Tom, before James came up, something like, "Well, now that you've adopted James, his blood feud is now your blood feud". So with James there, as a sort of sign-off preparatory to leaving, I said to Tom, "Keep in mind, when you adopt a pet, you adopt the pet's problems!". James would think it's about his dog, but it's about him. 

I checked the veggie dumpster and saw a bag of Romaine lettuce that looked good enough to make me come back here, unload, and go back with my "getter stick" to get it. So now I have a nice cucumber to have tomorrow that I'd bought for $3 in H Mart today, and Romaine lettuce for tonight. 

I wish, if I'm not busking myself, I at least had busking to write about. But busking seems to be extinct from this area and it seems to be being eradicated from American culture in general. References to it are simply being disappeared. 

For instance, I remember reading an account by a guy from the UK who'd come to the US with a high-level degree as an acoustician. He ended up busking, with a banjo, because he could actually get employed and the money was really good. There was also a book called "The Haunted Banjo" that has been utterly disappeared. You can find a book with that title, but it's for kids and it's not the same book. The original one had a plot something like, some evil force or organization was trying to eliminate any kind of spontaneous music, busking, any kind of informal grassroots music. That's what creeps me out - that the book hit someone a bit too close to home and has been - disappeared. Along with its author perhaps. 

At least while I was out today I went to one of my exercise places and worked on my chin-ups. I'm awful but I'm making progress. The last time I went from zero to being fairly good at them, I wasn't even 30 yet and was lighter. 

And when I got home, besides doing a "burn" of sensitive papers that build up (even the trimmings from Ebay shipping labels have info I keep secure) I washed my head/hair and shaved. Instead of Ken seeing me at my shaggiest (and smelling me at my smelliest haha) I'm going to be a lot more squared away. 

I think of great leader Chairman Mao saying "Instill good habits!" and it inspires me. I think, I may not feel like doing this thing but it's a good habit so I must do it.