Trip to Sunnyvale

 I did some long tone practice last night and went to bed. I got up in time to wash up and get downtown to the bank to put my pay check in and the amount added up to the penny. 

I rode over to Whole Foods and locked the bike, surprised to find no "botherers" of any kind around the bike racks. No one begging, collecting for some shady charity, anything. That was nice. I got some food from the hot bar and cash back and ate, then caught the #22 bus to ride to Sunnyvale. 

That was today's plan and it all went to plan. I got off - it was a long ride - at the big complex with Dick's Sporting Goods, Ross, and a Sprouts in it. I went to Ross first and found one of my favorite T-shirts, one of the Puma ones that fit so well. I didn't find anything else though. I was on the hunt for a sweat shirt, nothing special, not a fleece or a hoodie, just a standard sweatshirt. 

I didn't find any in Ross, so, "Over to Dick's," I thought. I went over there and they did have them, for $45 and in pukey colors. No, thanks. I went to Sprouts thinking I'd use the loo but it turns out to take a secret code and an employee has to open it for me and I wasn't told this so it was a lot of walking back and forth and in the end I told them thanks for being so unhelpful and left. 

Next was Walgreen's to look at their blood glucose stuff. They have meters and strips and lancets and stuff and I can set myself up pretty well while not spending more than $50. As difficult as it is to get an A1C test, I can test myself for pretty much what an A1C test would tell me, with a glucose meter. So I'm considering it. I ended up getting some envelopes as I was running low and a nice little wooden ruler for Ebay photos. 

I remembered that Baraka Market is there and went in for a yogurt drink and some black oil-cured olives. It's a neat place. 

Around the corner from them was Coconut Hill market which is the best Indian market I've been in. I actually used to shop here in the early 2000s and it was good then and is amazing now. I got some sesame seeds and powdered coconut cream there.

I walked over to the Target store next. Downtown Sunnyvale has been remodeled to make everything more suitable to giant robots than to actual humans, the presence of and need for which must have really annoying the designers of the hostile architecture there now. 

Once I'd walked a good block's worth just to get around past the gargantuan parking structure of the Target I had to go in through a giant foyer and literally past 10 cops who were all waiting in said foyer. I was able to find the package of underewear I was after. I paid for 'em and walked back down the very long stairs I'd had to walk up, past the 10 cops, and was out of there. That's not a fun place to be. 

I walked to the actual downtown and it was nice to see a lot of long-existing businesses are still there. The Bean Scene coffee shop was closed, Gumba's was open, the little magazine store is still there and apparently thriving on "Smokes And Gifts". 

I walked around the corned to the Goodwill and was there in time for it to still be open for 15 minutes or so, so I did a quick search for sweat shirts. No luck, but at least one there would not be $45. The thing is, sweat shirts seem to be more of a spring/summer thing, associated with sports and working out somehow. 

I walked over to the train station and tagged in, and the train came right away. I ended up on a car with some of those seats with little desks so I was pretty comfortable, drinking my yogurt drink and watching the stations go by. 

I got back to Diridon and walked back over to Whole Foods, and to my bike to put my various things into the bike bags. 

Pee-Pee Lady and another lady, an older Black lady, were there. Pee-Pee had her sign, which she was proud to show me was drawn with the pens I'd given her. She gushed to the other lady whom I'm going to call Treme Lady, about how I'd "bought" the pens for her. I corrected them, saying No, I just had the pens around my shop, I hadn't had to buy them and in fact I ought to go trough my shop and round up all the pens I don't need and bring them by. 

I ended up hanging out with them, drinking a bottle of coffee I'd brought from home and had in my bike bag. "What's that, darlin'?" Treme Lady asked and I told her how I made it at home, that it's better than the stuff you buy, then we went into this mutual admiration thing about chicory coffee. 

It came out then that she was from New Orleans and from Treme particularly, had gone to school with relatives of Louis Armstrong, about the music scene there, and we both talked about how music and art programs used to be free and for everyone, not just the rich kids. I told her how I was given trumpet because "Everything else was taken - now the cool kids, they played clarinet" and she said she'd played clarinet. 

We just had a good ol' time talking about things, I ran down the list of busking regulars in this city that are all gone, and she talked about how New Orleans has changed and "I hate 'NOLA', it's New Orlins!"  Pee-Pee Lady was left back in our dust with all this talking about music, and all the while I'd been seeing if I could get us singing something, because tons of people were walking by without dropping any donations. I figured I could hold my end up on "This Little Light Of Mine" or something that Treme would know and Pee-Pee would know well enough. But that was not going to happen. 

Presently Treme said she was going to get going along, and I wanted to use the loo after that bottle of coffee so  I went in and did so. I came out and went into Whole Foods proper to look at the Plugra brand butter which I saw at Walmart and figured I'd compare prices and probably get some to try - it's supposed to be good. But they only had unsalted, granted, I think a dollar cheaper than at Walmart. Pee-Pee was there too, looking over the butter and commenting, asking me about things like Was this one vegan kind actually butter, and I said, no, it's margarine. 

We were able to "talk shop" a tiny bit and she was out today for about 3 hours, and typically makes about $60. "So, $20 an hour," I said, and she agreed. That's pretty good considering she works the system like a virtuoso and has food stamps, an apartment, etc. $60 a day is more than I make, and $60 a day untaxed is a lot more than I make. 

I rode back through San Pedro Square which is really busker-friendly now, being shut off to cars and there were lots of people around and I think "quiet(er) time" starts at nine, so it looked fine for any sort of busker. But, there were none. There was one bum, set up with his piles of bum stuff, bum bike, suitable lack of personal hygiene for a suitably extended time, and just sitting there like a bum. They rank above buskers in the general scheme of things... 

I had a very quiet ride home as it was after 9 which is like after midnight in the before times. Got back here, neatened up some things in the parking lot, gathered some packing stuff from the welding place, and am now in for the night. 

I turned on the radio and on NPR there was some creep from "The Lincoln Project" which I'm convinced is a psy-op being run by the Nazis 2.0 AKA the Republican Party. What a bunch of clueless twats. It's like they're thinking, "Gee, a lot of people don't like us, maybe we're not Nazi-ing hard enough. Or Nazi-ing in exactly the right way....". The guy was clueless enough to actually say something like "The US needs a center-right party, to put its case forward....etc..." We have that. It's called the Democratic Party. What we lack is anything to the left at all of center-right. 

Hitler did this. He sent out posh guys to talk to the posh, crude guys to talk to the working-class, and so on. "The Lincoln Project" is delusional because what I call "the conservative delusion" is only becoming more clear. 

"The conservative delusion" is that old line about shrinking government, lessening regulations, putting more things into the hands of the individual, let people freely agree among themselves on things, etc. What they really want, and get, is things like big government that's suddenly very concerned things like eugenics, political purity, things like that. You end up with widespread corruption, Mafias big and small. You end up with racial policies not seen since before the Civil War. You see under-the-table slavery, drug pushing, smuggling, counterfeiting, etc. We're seeing the return of child labor. When you're a 20-something, making good money, perhaps twice or even three times the minimum wage, you tend to get fooled by the conservative delusion. You want to keep more of your money in your own hands, you actually think small government will cut down on racism and favoritism, the lack of regulations will let you start your own business .... someday. The reality is the conservatives have a blueprint in mind and it's Nazi Germany. That's not small government by any means and the only ones with more freedom under that are wealthy, well-connected "Aryans" who can prove a "pure" family line going back 1000 years. Rule by idiots.