More practice

 I got more practice in last night, and experimented with the "double lip" embouchure, which gives a better sound but it's tiring on ... the lips. 

I've been starting to listen to some good clarinet music before bed. Somewhere I'd read about how Artie Shaw's first piece that got any notice was "Streamliner" so I listened to that and it must have really been something at the time. I can't find anywhere that says Shaw ever took lessons, too. 

The main thing is to practice every day. I figure I've got a year and 9 months to get good. Because after that stretch of time I'm moving back to Hawaii or ... going somewhere. In any case it's when I plan to stop working for Ken.  

I was up through the night, practicing and watching the movie "Seabiscuit" which sounds like a Spongebob cuss word haha. Pretty decent movie, and everyone raves about the book it's based on so I'll have to look for that. 

I had a lot of small things all ready to go to the post office so when I got up, around 4:30 in the afternoon, all I had to do was have my "morning" coffee and some nuts and seeds and take off. It had dried up pretty well although now it's cold. 

I dropped things off at the post office and it was dead. There was one guy doing something and his little kid, who kept staring at me as I brought stuff in, in a big green plastic tub, and figured out that the kid, before he turned his attention to me, had been fiddling with the inner one of the two automatic doors, which wasn't working. It was pushed partway open, and I pushed it the rest of the way open to make it easier for the next person coming in. 

I went over to 99 Ranch and it was dead. I just got a couple of things, some dish soap and a new type of ramen to try. 

Done there, I went straight back here and put things away and left the trailer here, and took off again. I locked the bike at H Mart, went in and got ... just a small bag of potato chips it turns out, although I also got a free bag of these fish cake chips which were their freebee for today. 

I walked over to Sprouts, which was ... dead. Everyone's just done with the weekend and the rain, and other than the traffic which was quite heavy, stores were all very quiet. I got two T-shirts and a package of underwear at Ross, and even Ross isn't giving out plastic bags any more. Instead of a huge Ross plastic bag I got a huge Ross paper bag. 

I then went to Sprouts and got some vitamins and the gal at checkout had me enter my phone number for "The discount, this is the last day". I'm sure I don't have my number filed with them so I used good old 8675309 but I messed up by not putting the local area code first, but the gal didn't feel like correcting it and just gave me the discount so I saved $5 which is kind of cool. 

I walked back over to H Mart and made sure to check next to the closed store next to the Starbucks, expecting to see the pallet of protein drinks long gone. Instead half of 'em are still there, and also an interesting framework for dispensing drinks or something. And a guy I'm gonna call D.L.

D.L. of course for Diabetes Legs, or Leg, anyway, as one of his looks about ready to rot off. Probably both, but since he gets around by bike he keeps his pants leg rolled up on just one side and that's bad enough to look at. 

We talked about stuff, the protein drinks still being here, and what kind of pumps might be in the motor/pump units on the rack thing, and how late Sprouts is open. The guy was worried they close at nine, but I called after him as he rode off that they close at 10. He has a sleeping bag and some extra clothes tied down on his bike because it has been getting cold at night but he's so overweight the cold is probably a relief. 

I got back here and put things away part 2. I put on one of the T-shirts right away, the heavy plain grey one, and the lighter one will be nice in the summer.  The lighter one's got a Jurassic Park design on it, in the real world that was filmed in the Kualoa Valley, the very same valley I used to go past all the time on the bus when we lived in Waikane, a valley that was a no-go area in the 70s. I guess one can take tours there now and if I get back there I'll have to take a tour. 

At least I got to go to Sacred Falls several times as a kid, and it's really a no-go now since a rock fall killed 8 people and while it was a forbidden place to go in the 70s it wasn't really enforced. It is now. Of course I've done the Haiku Stairs, and between that paddling out to Chinaman's Hat and bugging the fairy terns I guess I've done the requisite amount of illegal things back home.