I did more trumpet practice last night but it wasn't an epic practice session. But as a trumpet player I need to be "on tap" haha, to play Taps on short notice just as an aspiring ba'al tekiah (shofar blower) I need to be ready on short notice to blow the shofar.
I watched a documentary on Golda Meir last night - amazing. Talk about walking through history.
I got 20 things all ready to photo and photo'd them, and refunded a buyer for a thing that was listed back in 2009, at least 2 moves ago and dating to 3+ years before I even started working for Ken. Told them if it miraculously turns up, I'll re-list it and let them know.
Then, it being almost 2, I took a bag of trash (which I just tossed out on the other side of the complex in one of the dumpsters there) and rode up to my favorite food truck where I got a chicken wings on fried rice dish for $5 and ate that there, leaving the bones and about 1/3 of the rice for the crows, in the gutter. I love that lunch truck lady's cooking and she's awfully nice.
I rode on, up to Ringwood and North on Ringwood to Grainger to pick up the sun hat I'd ordered yesterday. It fits OK and is closer to being a boonie hat that the photo online makes it look, so I'm convinced it was the one I'd seen someone wearing years ago and complimented, and they'd said, "I got it at Grainger". That place is like a candy store, and I'd love to order some decent thread gauges, an Xcelite spline driver set, and such goodies, but for now I'm happy with the hat.
I then rode over to 99 Ranch and got some things including some beef ribs to cut up and freeze, and ginger and such things, and got a $2 package of peanut butter mochi and two cans of no-sugar Mr. Brown.
Then I went to Tom's and he was getting pieces of plywood out from the back of his place with a guy, who it turns out had done some electrical work for Tom and getting the plywood as payment. Tom likes the mochi but he was busy working, and I had a piece or two of mochi and drank my Mr. Brown, and eventually I put Tom's food and Mr. Brown in his fridge, and noticed another no-sugar Mr. Brown in there, untouched. Tom says he doesn't care that much for them, really, but his wife might. But it's been months since I brought one by, so I drank his ice-cold one too, ha! It was a hot day ... And in there I got to show off my new hat, and Tom said he goes to that Grainger all the time too.
It was not terribly hot but according to NPR it will get vary hot tomorrow or so. Which is why I got the hat.
I cut up and deboned and weighed out the beef I got at 99 Ranch. It was flanken rib slices, and the meat to bone ratio looked really good so I paid just a hair under $20 for 1.25 lb. After deboning, it came out to a pound of what I know is really tasty beef. So $5 a 4 oz. serving. That's higher than I'd like it to be, but considering a 1/4-lb hamburger is $10 or more at McDonald's I guess I'm still coming out OK.
That done I read Reddit for a while, and then I thought, Wait a minute, I was drinking a lot of Chardonnay, do I still have any? And I pulled out the drawer where I hide my boxes of Chardonnay and Lo and behold, I have something like 4 liters left. An unopened 3-liter box and one with probably a liter or maybe a bit less in it. Yet I have no desire to drink it. I have no urge to drink the 1/4 bottle of "Apothic Red" I have here.
It's weird. It's like ... I remember having my Shabbat dinner, London broil and lox and horseradish and cucumber slices, and of course red wine. I don't remember drinking a terrible lot of it, maybe 3/4 of a bottle between some other wine I'd bought at TAK Market and some of the Apothic. Then I'd had a small cup or two, one standard glass all told, on Saturday night, and then didn't want to drink any at all.
This is quite a break from how it's been in the past where if there's alcohol in the house I'm gonna have some and maybe more than some. And my tapering off this time hasn't been like in the past where I channeled my anger at alcohol or alcohol dependency and dried out through determination. No, this time it's because drinking alcohol to the point of dependency is *boring*. It's a terrible bore, drinking to get sleepy at bed time, drinking to just get back to feeling normal.
It's like I went through some kind of a mind-reset, like when I slept maybe Friday night HaShem went into my mind and twiddled things a bit because HaShem needs me to not be alcohol-dependent. And the twiddling may not have been 100% perfect, since it seems like I had a bit of a mild mind-reset. Speaking as one who is a tiny gnat compared to HaShem, HaShem may not be perfect or perfectly all-powerful, but at my level it doesn't matter - I assume HaShem is.
I'm not sure what I'll do with about 4 liters of Chardonnay, maybe I'll eke it out in cooking or give it away or something. The main thing is that I'm not buying much more in the way of wine other than a very small amount of red wine for Shabbat dinner so my finances should get back on track.
The nice thing is, I'm off of the many cups of coffee I was drinking a day, and my morning cup of Elite instant coffee with cream or Japanese tea is less expensive than coffee and Macadamia nuts.
I'm listening to the radio as I list Ebay items and wow just wow. On one side are these really reasonable, normal, politicians like Scott Wiener and others, and on one side they're very calmly trying to deal with real issues, and the NPR interviewer acting like everything's normal, and in their calm, collected voices the politicians are relating how they're getting threats of their wives and children being raped, mutilated, tortured, killed and of the same happening to the politicians. And a few cases of some of the Nazis threatening this getting out of whatever trailer parks they're holed up in and getting out loose and so far, being caught. But only so far. Did Wiemar Germany feel like this?
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