I've had a snotty nose for at least a week, maybe a bit longer. Now, surprisingly, I woke up at the crack of noon and my nose wasn't stuffed with it. Covid's going around, and I wonder if I had it? Headache-y too. And I've been strictly staying away from chocolate. I've got a little, productive, cough just clearing stuff out. Maybe I should have masked up at the last service because I was sniffling.
I had three things packed and packed one more, and left here at about 3. I rode over to Hedding and from there to Park Avenue and a block up, to Park Avenue Music. They didn't have the Blessing 3C mouthpiece for cornet, nor the Yamaha or Schilke equivalents, but by golly they sure had the Bach one, which cost me $71. I'd told myself that if all they had was the Bach I'd buy it, as I had a budget of the $85 the guy had let me save on buying the cornet.
I looked around in the little record store a few doors down and bought a book, for $5, of Greil Marcus writings on "Weird Old America" as reflected in Bob Dylan music.
Then I rode over to the chef store and bought a zesting tool which is essential to my evil plans.
Now I was about out of money. Better go to the bank, I thought, but better go to the post office first. So I took Park Avenue back downtown and to the post office and dropped the packages off. Then to the bank to deposit my pay check, and I asked about my ID card. The guy was sure he'd handed it back, and I got my wallet out and went through my cards - I'd put it in with other cards instead of its own little slot, so I'd had it all along.
I went over to Whole Foods for pizza, some chicken and broccoli and a Trumer Pils. Burrrrrp!
Then I rode over to Walmart, parked my bike by Big-5 and went into Big-5 and got a 3-pack of extensible marshmallow forks so it works out to $2.50 apiece, that I think I can make into hooking things to fish things out of dumpsters. Like the easy $50 worth of coffee I'd passed up the other day.
Then on to Wal it up. I managed to spend about $85 but I got some good stuff, including discovering their deli meat cut-to-order dept. There was a tall kid with a big afro which he had in a net, making him look like a mushroom. Fun, fun. I've fallen into a habit of being as nice and delightful as I can to workers, because I figure they meet enough surly people, they ought to have a nice one once in a while. He responded to my cheerfulness with cheerfulness. The upshot was, the roast beef there is 1/2 the price at Sprouts, and it might be pretty good.
Among other things I got a couple boxes of my "vin ordinaire" - the $16 a box stuff because they were out of the $12 a box stuff, and a bottle of Josh Cellars for Shabbat.
I headed for home, found 5 books, and stopped in at Nijiya for some eggs and $40 cash back because again I was out of money. I'm allowed to take out another $40 but really I should make it busking.
I relaxed a bit here and drank a big beer I'd bought at Nijiya, then decided I'd better get going to Sprouts as they close at 10 and it was now nine. So I saddled up and off I went, and at the Old Oakland Road intersection, there was Tom's truck. We waved to each other and I ended up following him into the parking lot. He parked by FedEx and said he ran out of teriyaku sauce, which I agreed is a true emergency. I said I'm parking here but walking over to Sprouts, which I did. I spent about $30 on milk, cream, butter, and some sunscreen.
On the way back I stopped at Tom's and knocked on his door and asked him if his teriyaki sauce dreams were fulfilled. He held up a big bottle of it and said they were. We talked a bit and he asked if I was hungry. I said Kinda, and we sat down and ate delicious beef with veggies he'd made, and rice. We talked about things from the election to cooking, and it was really nice and enjoyable.
Tom's wife is up in the north bay with her son, and it doesn't sound like things are looking good right now. Cancer is scary anyway. The callow youth of 17 I met a dozen years ago is now a 29 year old man, and one with a serious medical fight on his hands.
Tom seems a bit more, well, sober now that he seems to have quit drinking. It's because he's not supposed to mix alcohol with the blood pressure medicine he's taking now, he says.
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