I woke up around 10, had my cup 'O' Elite with cream, and planned my day. Ken didn't have his check book with him so he's supposed to come by tonight with my pay. Meanwhile, I wanted to obtain at least one more bottle of wine. Which is $4 at Whole Foods and decent taste, $4 if they have it at Sprouts but quality is less, and I had $4.95 on me in change and another dollar in my wallet.
The $100 tip notwithstanding, the "lunch crowd" didn't look as good as my imagination pictured it, before I'd gone out busking for that fateful 20 minutes on Tuesday.
I decided to go ahead and get 15 things together and at least photograph them and then go from there. So I took a gadget apart and the parts, along with a few other things, made the 15 and I photo'd them.
If I could pack things in an hour, I could make my post office run at the right time to go to my favorite food truck. And I made it, even packing the one large-ish thing in a box that still fit in a Whole Foods cloth bag so I'd not need the trailer.
I headed out and sure enough the lunch truck was there. I had chicken wings for $3 in change which were excellent, then a little tray of tater tots for $1.95 in change. With tartar sauce - yum! I went to throw out the little tray and there was money on the ground - I saw a $20 and maybe a $10 in the wad? No matter, I casually scooped it up and put in my pocket while tossing out the tray and then cleaning up with wet wipes as I always do.
The last customer I'd seen was an Asian gal who paid with her phone somehow, for 2 energy drinks for $7. Before here had been a Black guy who'd ordered a cheeseburger with no fries, and he'd be back later. Before them were some Mexican guys. The Asian gal would not have cash, and especially not cash in a careless wad like that. The Black guy, the Mexicans, who knows. I had no idea where to find any of them and if you go into any shop and say "Who lost a wad of money?" everyone will have.
Once I got a few lights away and had to wait for the light to change, I took a look at the wad and organized it - it was four $20's. Eighty bucks. That solves the question of whether I should go downtown, I thought.
I dropped the post office things off, then rode over to 99 Ranch. I checked the ingredients in my beloved "White Curry Mee" and sad to say, it's got "crustaceans and shrimp" in it so it's treif. Then I looked for a can of the cheap "Kona" beer they used to sell and that I used to drink around back. I got a "black" Korean beer instead and drank that out back.
Next I went to H Mart to lock the bike and took the one FedEx package to FedEx and then walked over to Sprouts. I got a box of wine and a bottle of good Josh Cellars wine for Shabbat and since they didn't have anything else I wanted right then, looked for some beer to share with Tom on my way back. I got a 6 pack of "Kona Big Wave" which was about the cheapest.
It was a heavy load walking back and the heat sure didn't help. Around back of H Mart I picked up 4 Dole pineapples that should be good enough to make smoothies of anyway. Now I was really heavily loaded.
I went over to Tom's and he didn't want me to open a beer for him so I gave him a couple for later, and he said he's not been "mixing his medication" since he started taking blood pressure medication. "The next time you come by, they'll probably still be here". So Tom the legendary drinker is now Tom the legendary non-drinker. This probably also helps his budget a lot, from my own experience. His wife, having been laid off, is almost certainly getting unemployment insurance but he's still got to take her out to dinner and things like that to keep her happy. At least the smoothies flow freely at Tom's.
I remarked on how I was impressed, that I'd been by yesterday and James had cleaned up his big pile of trash. Nope, Tom said, the City had come through and "swept" the area. I just don't get the allure of living among mountains of trash, myself. Tom went back to his air-conditioned office and I rode back here.
I listed the things and did stuff around here, mainly trying to deal with the heat, and eventually around 8PM decided to cook myself an omelet and ate it, then waited some more, did parking lot clean up, waited, tried calling Ken's cell phone with no answer and finally called his house. He'd completely forgotten to come by with my check. He came up with lots of cockamamie plans and I said I have enough savings in the bank so it's not an emergency or anything, and he can just write me a bigger check next Wednesday night. Such is life in tech; you never know when/if you're going to get paid.This is why I've become so big on saving money.
No comments:
Post a Comment