This is working out well. I had the alarm set for nine, but woke up about a quarter til. And this little alarm clock isn't even a big noisy bastard like this wind-up Mickey Mouse clock we had when I was a kid, to wake the three of us who shared a bedroom, up for school. That thing was obnoxious. In fact, it even figured in one of our tape-recorder "skits" about a bomb, and the defusing, or not, thereof.
Last night after my delivery run I came back, unloaded and reconfigured the bike, and went back out. I parked at H Mart, got a few things in there, went to Sprouts for some things there, then back into H Mart for eggs. When you're only paying $5.45 for a dozen eggs you have to accept some losses - one was broken but had a blood spot on it anyway and that's not kosher.
My point is, though, that this was all with money I'd earned busking. It's $56 I didn't have to take out of my bank account.
In other news, my search for a larger shofar than the small one I have continues. The long and short of this is, I have one coming in the mail from a reputable music store in the Midwest. The "brand" is Lark In The Morning. I remember going to the large Lark In The Morning store in Ghirardelli Square up in the city, long ago. They ended up moving to somewhere else, and being mail-order only. The thing with Lark is, they had/have all kinds of instruments especially folk and ethnic ones, and they tend to "vet" what they sell pretty well.
For instance, the shakuhachi they sell are from Monty Levinson, one of the best shakuhachi makers in the world. If you buy from Lark, you can expect a certain level of quality. I am not buying this shofar from Lark but from the music store that somehow had it, but it was originally sold by Lark. The music store itself has a good reputation too. I tried an Amazon mail-order shofar long ago and it was ... not good. This one probably will be. I'll have it by next week (it has to go to Ken's house and then Ken has to bring it here.).
(I actually went to Lark's web site and they list several shofarim, all sold out.)
Once I get it and try it out, if it's as good as I hope it will be, I'll give the temple's other trumpet player the one I have now, as I told him I would. I get the impression that the guy is, financially, on a *very* short string. He says he doesn't blow shofar and I suspect it's because he has no money for one. I've sure been there. My generosity now, is my revenge against the mean times and mean society I've been through. Now that I think of it, it's my own L'chaim. My own "To Life!"
So if this all works out, while the temple, I think, has one Ba'al Tekiah (shofar blower) now, we'll have three in time for Rosh Hashanah. Our one had mentioned being spread a bit thin. So, I fix!
I had time to take apart a big, heavy pieces of equipment I had to move into the office by dragging it on some very strong metallized bubble wrap I had, then took the bugger apart, then it was a bit more exercise getting the transformers and other parts I didn't want, out to the parking lot for the scroungers. That was enough for today, then I packed 12 things and took off for the post office and FedEx.
Of course I gathered up packing stuff on the way home, not much of it, but at one place there were some gadgets that had an interesting circuit board in them so I'd worried one apart with the tools on my Swiss army knife and I wondered if the things were still there. They were, so I got the rest of them, 9 of them, and took them back here and after cleaning the office and bathroom and cooking and eating some soup, I took them apart and got rid of the scraps in a dumpster that will be emptied tonight.
I waited for Ken to come but I got a call from him. He'd forgotten his checkbook so he'll come by tomorrow night. That's no problem, except I told some people I'd be somewhere tomorrow so I'll still do that.
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