Up to "The Little Fish"

 I have one huge order, like 28 things, to pack and ship for one guy, but yesterday I packed all the other things and that was a dozen or so, maybe more. It was a decent load. Since I've spent my "allowance" I didn't buy anything anywhere. 

I might owe my life to a leaf, though. I was leaving the post office parking lot, to cut across Oakland Road. It was dark, traffic was stopped at the light  up on the corner so I was clear to go but wanted to make haste to make sure. I heard something run over a crunchy leaf to my right, and that alerted me that something/someone was coming on the bike lane coming the wrong way so I swerved just in time to let a guy on an e-bike, lights off, come by and he was hauling ass too. People have been killed in collisions with regular bikes, much less these heavy battery-powered monsters that are more like small motorcycles. If the leaf hadn't been there I don't know if I'd have sensed the thing coming, or sensed it in time. 

I picked up some bubble wrap and a couple of boxes, and stopped at Tom's to catch up on things because I haven't for a couple weeks. I told him about the leaf incident, and he nagged me again about not wearing a helmet. A don't think a helmet would have protected me from a side hit, and there's a reason "side impact air bags" were such a big thing in cars because the human body is a bit more vulnerable from that direction. I'll just have to watch out more carefully, especially because that guy might be a regular commuter alone that route and I'm pretty regular coming out of there at that time. 

I got back here and futzed around here doing I don't know what, and got a good amount of practice in. I swear I've not practiced for a week! I went through the book up to the page with "The Little Fish", which is as far as I went before I apparently took a week off. Things are sounding more smooth, I'm making less mistakes, and come to think of it I didn't make one inadvertent squeak. 

I need to practice every day, because I want to get out there busking ASAP. For the money? Not necessarily, because the money's taking care of itself although more money is always handy. For instance, the French class I'm taking cost me $435. That's the class, the books, and a year's membership in Alliance Francaise. That's a month's busking anyway.

The main thing is busking provides some very good practice, and with the clarinet I should be free of the rather restrictive limitations I had on trumpet. I need to come up with a list of 10 songs that I really want to busk with, such as "Summertime" and "My Favorite Things" and even good old "Autumn Leaves".