Sit & Spin

 Once Ken had gone, I got 25 things ready to list, which involved taking apart a gadget Ken had brought over, and sorting a lot of stuff. By the time I was done and just ready to clean a few of the things, I was dead tired and called it a night. 

I practiced a bit, and notice that I'm better able to go up to high C and not just a time or two when starting out my practice session but all through it. 

I finished off the fried chicken and watched youtube and drank wine and went to bed. 

I woke up at around 3, and it was dry out plus some medium-sized things had sold along with smaller things and I decided I could probably do a mailing run. So I managed to pack 8 things, a nice load for two cloth shopping bags and no need for the bike trailer. All well and fine, but when I was ready to go it started raining. 

It'll taper off, I figured, and put a plastic bag over the one box that wasn't completely covered in tape, and took off. It kept raining though. When I got to the post office the packages, and myself, were pretty wet. I wipe them off with a paper towel I'd brought but I really should have brought two. 

I rode back to H Mart and locked the bike up, and took the one FedEx package to them, which was only a little bit wet since it was inside a plastic bag, that was inside two cloth bags. I got their counter all wet but hey, the package was pretty much fine. 

Now I had a decision to make. I could go into Starbucks and get a "flat white" and sip that for a while, while I dry out a bit and maybe the rain tapers off, or I could just chug along doing that I was going to do, because the physical activity will keep me warm. 

I opted for the 2nd choice and walked over to Sprouts where I bought hummus and olives and wine and roast beef, and walked back to H Mart with that haul, and at H Mart bought fish and instant ramen and Coke Zero and some Boy Bawang garlic peanuts, and when I got out it was STILL raining. 

So I made my wet way home, a mistake being not putting on my gloves when my hands were dry. The cold on my hands got very painful and I ended up taking refuge in the front of the African store which has an overhang, doing lots of deep knee bends to warm up a bit, and getting my hands dry enough to get my gloves onto them. Then the rest of the ride home. 

I got back and put things away, and hung my wet clothes up in the loft. I got out my fan to blow on them and it doesn't work any more so I got out my *other* fan and set it up to blow on them. 

Back in Hawaii when I was just entering adulthood, it was pretty obvious that I was very anxious. I was a very anxious person. Dr. Cyrus Loo, with whom my father was both a friend and a patient, advised acupuncture and I went in to his office downtown a couple of times to have needles stuck in me. Dr. Loo also said I should not be so anxious, "Don't live in the future", think only about the here and now, don't get attached to things... 

Yep I was totally not anxious because I never knew where my next meal was coming from, if I'd even get to graduate high school (I didn't; I had to get out and work) whether I'd get targeted as a "haole" that day, etc. 

Dr. Loo's advice was probably very good for an Asian kid with an intact family and culture, with a safety net, among people who won't let a family member go hungry. But in the environment I was in, it was a bit questionable. I'm a bit of a paranoid and a "prepper" and in my world, it's turned out to be the best way to be. Hence keeping extras of things, backups and at times backups for my backups. I'll never claim to have been through anywhere near the experiences, but the character of Vladek in the book "Maus" certainly resonates with me. 

After hanging the clothes up and putting things away, I had a look at the weather map. It's one of those storms that sits and spins until it's out of rain. No wonder the rain's kept going. This means tomorrow might have steady rain also, which means I might just take the light rail and bus around to do my errands tomorrow. 

The visit to Sprouts was funny, though. First, I wanted to use the restroom but the two gals hanging out at the register said it's out of order. I just said, "Oh, OK" and went to go get a cart, but maybe it was because I was dressed pretty much like a highway flagger, with sweatpants, a jacket, a safety vest, and boonie hat, and wet. Too working-class to use their restroom, perhaps. The joke's on them, though, as I don't have the connections to get a good job like highway flagger. 

So I went and got my roast beef and box 'o' wine and all that, to the tune of $40 or so, and no registers were open so I asked the person there now, if I could buy alcohol in the self-checkout and it was "Nope, I can get you over here" pointing to the next register. So  I circled around, and a tall Boomer with like a single gallon of water in his cart tried to get in first but I circled tightly and edged in, my small cart making a small "clack!" against his big one. So I got my stuff, being pleasant with the checker, who I'll call "they" because I'm really not sure if I can narrow it down further than that. And a nice, friendly person too. So when I was all paid and about to leave, I asked them if they went on Reddit, and they said once in a while, and I said to check out r/boomersbeingfools "You'll laugh your butt off". This person being a millennial for sure, certainly not X, and maybe even a gen-Z. I'm sure Mr. Boomer liked that bit of advice too. 

See, a single gallon of water is really easy to buy using the self checkout. I've even had no problems buying things that are by weight, and it's just not that hard to figure out. But this Old End Of Boomer wanted to be Waited On. At least I, on the young end of boomer, have made my peace with self checkouts.