So: I woke up in time on Friday to get the few things I wanted to take to the post office together, clean up etc., and get outta here. One of the packages would be "overdue" if it didn't get mailed today and yes, Ebay keeps track of not just when packages are packed but when they're actually checked in at the shipping service. And the gap between these two times. Ebay likes 'em to go out "hot off the presses".
So I had to get out of here to make it to the post office in time, the problem being that was pouring. I wasn't too worried about the packages as they were in waterproof bubble mailers (and I wiped them with a dry paper towel before putting them in the slot at the post office). I, however, got drenched just riding the mile and a half or whatever it is, from here to the light rail station.
By getting on the light rail, I could stay dry at least on the leg of my journey from the Karina light rail station to St. James Park. So that's what I did, myself and a handful of unhappy bums.
I got off at St. James into the middle of another handful of unhappy bums and dropped the packages off, then went back to get on another light rail to stay dry to Diridon Station. Some bum-ess was having the most fantastic, screaming, ranting, and yes literally roaring, shit-fit up the street, but fortunately she pushed her shopping cart full'o'crap elsewhere.
By now it had gone down to a sprinkle, and I treated myself to a bag of train station popcorn. The lady at the little shop there was happy I was able to pay her in change, in which she's always in need. I munched on my popcorn and watched/listened to the general train station activities, and it was pretty nice.
Then I went over to Whole Foods and parked the bike, and got some food, hummus and feta cheese and olives, and a "black light" beer which is OK, but then I wanted to go upstairs and get a half pint of their "Coffee & Cigarettes" stout, so I did that. The tables were covered with standing water and the wind was vicious, so I ended up in the nook by the elevator hanging out with a couple of cholo type guys, talking about stuff. One of the guys thought I looked like the brother of the guy who owns the Rose Garden. Uhm, ok. I'm not, I said.
I'd bought a cucumber and some pate' and such things for later, so when it was about 10 to 6 I told the guys "I gotta jet" and got on the bike and rode up to the temple. The rabbi, last weekend, had told me to come early and just look for him, so I did that and ended up in the waiting room of his office where he came out and said he's meant for me to make an appointment, by phone or email, and gave me his card. No problem, and I was glad to get his card.
They had the chairs arranged so the first several rows were re-configured into sort of concentric ovals around the area right in front, and I thought, This is great because I'm closer to the screens so I can read off the lyrics for the songs, words for the prayers, etc.
Also, P. the guy who plays trumpet was there and he'd gotten about 4 light sticks last weekend so I asked him how long they'd lasted and he said about 36 hours which is pretty good. I also learned he's been taught trumpet because his mother wanted him to be in the drum and bugle corps, and that he mostly learns songs by ear, like I do.
This service seemed to have a lot of singing, which is great as far as I'm concerned. Some time in the past I'd read or seen in a documentary, maybe "Hollywoodism", how a lot of the music in "Western" movies is influenced by Jewish music, and honestly, a couple of the pieces had me imagining a wagon train crossing some dusty desert.
Being closer to the screens and squinting was not cutting it though. I'll have to find one of my "emergency" pairs of glasses. I'm surprised I didn't give myself a headache, straining to see the words. The Hebrew words are actually bigger on those screens and that would help except my sounding out Hebrew isn't very good so far and I still couldn't see them perfectly well.
Afterward, we had our bread and wine and some food. I just had some hummus and pita bread slices.
I ended up in quite the fun conversation with a Mrs. Z. who had her something like 6'4" son with her, and I told her about the "Loft" at the big Goodwill store on Stevens Creek, and some of the Palo Alto thrift stores run by rich women in the "Junior League" and so on. She was very interested in this information. She's going on a birding trip to India, and wanted some way to keep bugs from crawling up her pants legs. I told her that, growing up in Hawaii, I'd never had that problem except for the ONE time with a very large cockroach...
Then on to bird stories. The rabbi's a birder too. "We're big bird watchers" they said, and I said "I'm a little bird watcher" and I got to tell some bird stories. So now they know that even if I'm not an ardent birder, that's something I'm interested in rather than, say, professional wrestling or football or something stupid like that.
The book store was open and I spent about $17 on a book by a lady who is/was local to here, something about "Emptying The Ocean With A Spoon" about general Jewish stuff, as experienced in her family but also a lot of other people's.
The ride home wasn't bad. It wasn't raining, although it was wet and cold. I got back in here and relaxed and stayed off the computer but read books, a thing I'd really missed doing. I read the "Spoon" book and some other things, including an article about Stanislaw Lem I'd kept out of a copy of the New Yorker and hadn't gotten around to reading.
Today I woke up around noon because the guys next door have a professional pressure washer they love to use, to clean their cleaning vans with. And a leaf blower they used to blow water out when they're done or something. Then loud oom-pah Mexican music. It's all happy sounds, though. I've never heard an argument or a fight. That's left to the people on the other side, who get in fights in their Asian language, slam doors, etc. It's easy to ignore, reading a book though.
Finally at 9PM the relaxing time is over, back to work.
I wonder if I'll ever be glad I wrote all this stuff down to re-read it. I do refer to my busking diary to see if I busked on a particular day and now much I made etc. No one else reads this thing because it's very, very boring. Those who think the FBI or something reads everyone's blogs are way too paranoid. Even that Hamas asset Aaron Bushnell, probably wrote all about what he was going to do and no one paid attention. People who do really large, momentous, horrible things tend to write all about them online and no one notices until a magnifying glass is turned on them because of what they did. No authorities, not even George Soros, micro-manages blogs. No one cares.
That brainwashed idiot lighting himself like a candle and the reaction to it, are what's made me realize I need to put up or shut up. "Stand for something or you'll fall for anything" is a saying.
Reading the "Spoon" book was mind-blowing. I'd have found it very boring in my 20s because it's just a lot of minutiae of day-to-day life of a Jewish family who escaped the Russian Empire in the 1890s. Interestingly, her grandparents were both tailors, as my maternal grandmother was. Not hem-up-pants type but real tailors who could make any clothing, without patterns.
It's mind-blowing though because here's a society where people actually give a damn about each other. Relatives were close, grandparents were close, and while there was some struggle, no one went hungry, ever. They'd certainly have, if they'd been completely atomized like proper Americans. Richard Feynman wrote in one of his books that his family was like this also, something like, "Things were pretty calm on the surface but below it everyone was struggling like crazy" and they worked together. Little Dickie Feynman never nodded off in school due to fainting from hunger. He never had to drop out of high school to work in a gas station like I had to. And his father really took part in his learning physics, unlike the standard American father who'd care if their kid played football and other than that, would not care at all.
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