Thursday

 Imaginative title, I know. 

There's not been much going on. I got things sent off yesterday, came back and cleaned the place up and finished a load of laundry, and almost thought Ken wasn't coming over, but he did. I got my check so that's good. 

Ken also wanted to finally get this big heavy gas compressor thing out of the back of his truck, which he'd had in there for months on end. Maybe something like a year. The thing is, with his style of driving, which involved doing stupid things and increasing the collection of dents on his truck, this compressor, all 300 lbs or so of it, was being bounced around and denting his truck bed from the *inside*. 

So we got that out of there, and after he'd gone and after I'd found and packed a bunch of things, I took the compressor apart and got a bunch of electrical parts off of it, and finally, at around 7AM, put the scraps and the main part with the compressor itself and a bunch of pipes, out for the scroungers. And sure enough, someone came by surprisingly soon and picked it up. 

I might be wrong on the time I put the parts out, because it took some real hours to take that thing apart, and I might have put the parts out at 8 or 9. When it's dark and gloomy and rainy, which it was, it might have felt like 7. 

I'm glad I set my alarm clock because I was really tired, didn't practice, and went to bed. I was very glad to be woken by the alarm at 5 in the afternoon because due to the alarm, I was able to have some coffee and breakfast, and got out of here at 6, with the things I'd packed to go to the post office and Fedex. 

When I got back here I saw something interesting. It seems that the electric company sent someone around to do something with the building next door, the one where the illegal night club operates. It's been pretty quiet there and maybe they've stopped paying their bill. 

 

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. 

 

 

Basic Cultural Assumptions

 I listed some things last night and eventually got around to some practicing. Apparently I'm not supposed to play one reed more than an hour, so I played one for almost and hour then switched to another one. Fortunately the little reed holder I have holds two reeds so it's easy to play one, then clean it and put it away and get out the other. 

This is the time of year when everyone withdraws and gets through the dark, rainy weather on their own, and might see each other again in April. I've got a bunch of things ready to pack and ship but there's a big rain storm parked over this area according to the radar map and it may or may not have moved on in time for me to go to the post office etc. 

Of course cold/wet weather is only one of many reasons for people to withdraw from each other. I've mentioned that this area, the San Francisco Bay Area, is one of those "You're not here to make friends; you're here to work" places. That's the standard mantra of any US work site, and here it applies to all 24 hours of the day. 

Since the US is a Calvinist country, the basic assumptions are far different than most places. And by "most places" I mean not only the "West" but places all over, Asia, Africa, hell even among the Eskimos. 

Since according to Calvinism, everyone's on their own as to whether they get to Christian Heaven, and even then, it's up to their God and not anything the individual has any power over, helping anyone else is foolish and wasteful. You're one of the Elect or you're not. How do you tell who's one of the Elect? That's easy - they're rich. And the cursed? They're poor, of course. 

So the basic cultural assumption whether you're an African cattle herder or an Eskimo fisherman or a French person whose family's been Catholic since the Roman Empire, is that if a family member could use a hand, you help them. The family member in need, will get back on their feet and if your positions are reversed, will be able to help you. 

This is not so in the US. Kids are thrown out of the house by age 18, and in most cases there's no college or trade school fund and in most cases the kid who's been thrown out may have to do shitty work no one else wants to do, like clean animal kennels, and live in a tiny room but they are already living better because their pay check is their own and they can eat food, as much as they want, every day. (Yes this was my situation.) 

If anyone, family or close friend (this last a stretch since Americanism pretty largely prevents having close friends) is in need, you tell them to go fuck themselves as the Americanism goes, and if you can you make their situation worse. It's good for them, is the reasoning. 

This is why, as I kept saying to Ken and his family years ago, well before 2016, that I wish I'd known what I know now and when I was young and able to do a lot of work, I'd gone to France as a "wetback" and put in my time picking grapes or whatever, behaved myself, and become a French citizen. Because Calvinism never got far in France, they actually give a shit for each other, and this is why when American style class warfare is tried against the common people there, they fight back. 

Now Americans, being good Calvinists, don't know they're Calvinists. Their hyper-individualism and psychopathy is baked into the culture. It's like those unspoken rules that being unspoken, are more rigidly followed than rules that are spelled out. It's considered natural here that everyone's in a mutual "Fuck You" to everyone else. 

The only way out of this is to escape the Anglosphere because the UK, Australia and New Zealand, Canada are a little better but not much better. It's only from reading a lot online that I know that the UK is considered sort of the Florida of Europe. New Zealand is more car-centric and has more cars per capita than the US does and that has to have taken some real effort to accomplish. "Only slightly less America" is not a goal to strive for. 

It *is* a shade less impersonal and psychopathic back in Hawaii, if only because it's about 2/3rds Asian. It's still part of the USA but might be a more survivable part.  

Got the flute

 Yesterday, I stayed up all night again, packed things to take to FedEx (their Economy service just hands the packages off to the post office, and occasionally is actually a little bit cheaper) then headed right over to Goodwill and yep, the flute was still there. The North Face fleece wasn't so I can't win 'em all, but the flute was and for $33 it was mine. 

It's in one of those hideous Bundy cases so I'll buy a modern case for it or I could keep it in the Yamaha case I have, put the Yamaha flute in the awful case, and sell the Yamaha telling the customer "sorry I don't have the original case" haha. I can "flip" the Yamaha for several times what the Bundy cost, and I love the look of the Bundy, with its nice thick silver plating, which backs up the story of "It's my old high school flute". 

In fact I need to sell off a lot of flute stuff, to get money back out of it and also as part of simplifying my possessions. If I have to "grab and go" now, it will come down to throwing everything into many boxes and taking them over to the storage place, then staying in a hotel while I sort things, sell everything off I can, and arrange a plane ticket back to Hawaii or a place to rent here. 

Yes, moving back to Hawaii is not guaranteed. Yes I miss the place. But I also know that I might well go fishing once, shell-picking once, go around and see all the places I lived growing up and as a young adult, and decide that's enough. Moving back to Hawaii to devote myself to the shakuhachi makes a lot of sense, but since I'm not going to bother with that any more, Hawaii has no advantages over anywhere else, and quite a few disadvantages.  So I'd say it's 50/50 right now if I'm to go back there. 

 

 

My solution

 My solution to the shipping + getting to the bank situation was, since it was going to start raining again in the afternoon, to stay up all night, pack everything and I mean everything, even a last-minute sale of some capacitors, and take things to the post office and FedEx right after they opened. 

It was 28 things, although about 10 of them were all in one package. So it was a good healthy load of things and this is why I wanted to get them out so much; not only did some things have to go out and still might be chalked up as late in my Ebay stats, but I like to have everything go out before the weekend.

I got back here and cleaned up and headed out again for the bank. I stopped at Nijiya and treated myself to one of my favorite bento, grilled pieces of salmon belly skin and all, with salmon eggs, on rice. Yum! 

I went to the bank and their math and my math agreed to the penny so that's nice. I had a nice talk with the guy there too. He's working for the bank because .... something like his wife is going to school in this area and they commute from kind of far away so he goes along too and works a job, this job, at the bank. At least that's my understanding. 

I went over to Whole Foods and got some macadamia nuts (1 oz. is part of my breakfast with coffee) and then rode over to the big Goodwill on San Carlos. I didn't buy anything but maybe should have bought this one North Face fleece. They had a nice Bundy, I think, flute for $33 that might be something that could be resold for a profit but I have flutes here I want to sell. 

Now the main part of my plan: I walked down to the restaurant supply place and bought a box of 200 plastic bags of the type the stores up until very recently *were* supplying with one's groceries, but now everyone's going over to paper bags. Even Nijiya and Walmart. So for less than $20 I got 200 bags, and it's only because the box was so heavy that I didn't buy two boxes. I was able to carry the box in one of the Whole Foods cloth bags I keep on the bike, so it was no problem. 

I need to go by there more often, not only to stock up on those bags (ideally I want two more boxes, giving me enough to get through the next year and a half, the time I anticipate I'll here working for Ken before I leave) and also to check the musical instruments there at Goodwill. I'm thinking I really should have bought that Bundy flute, because I looked it over and either the silver plating was *very* thick, or maybe it had silver plating over "German silver" which is how Yamaha student flutes are made, or it was actually one of the solid silver models. 

In any case it was a good use of the half-day that's not rainy and on my way back after picking up a handful of bubble mailers at the Amazon place and picking up a chashu don bowl for later, I got back here. 

I got the side-eye from one of the guys, a new guy probably, as I went in here with the bike. I'm smart enough - usually - to not leave anything out there and that was reinforced by, a couple of weeks ago, seeing a guy from next door who has a nice car, looking at my bike and trailer out front as I was bringing things in, like he'd like to abscond with it. "If I only had a van, I could make this disappear" I could almost hear him thinking. Because he has a nice car - actual poor people will steal but not nearly as often as the more wealthy, who got to be more wealthy by stealing in various forms. 

I went right to sleep and woke up at 11PM. It had been 3 in the afternoon so that makes sense. 

I turned on the radio like I do every time when I wake up, and apparently we're committing our Guernica, in Venezuela. We're bombing Caracas, which is in anyone's book an act of war. Thank goodness for the BBC which they play on NPR, because I doubt our own news sources would report on it. 

 

New Year's Day

 I got some good practice in last night and went ahead one more page in the band book. Using a number 2 reed is a HUGE difference from the 1.5's and I probably could have gone with 2's right from the start. After all, my trumpet experience has to factor in somehow. Awareness of what my mouth cavity is doing, for instance. 

I'll be ready for busking when I've got, say, ten good songs under my belt. And not junk like Amazing Grace but fairly good ones like Summertime and jazzy things like that.  

It actually wasn't *too* rainy today in that when I woke up around 4 in the afternoon, it wasn't raining. And it's set to be clear the rest of the night but of course it's the 1st of the new year so nothing's open. 

My beloved Asian markets might be open on Christmas Day but New Year's is a whole different thing. New Year's is much more important and some places ONLY close on this day. Interestingly, here on the mainland, there's not just "American New Year" and "Chinese New Year" but also Tet, which is... Vietnamese New Year I guess. 

Chinese New Year was always the best one back home, with some streets having actual drifts of red paper confetti from all the firecrackers and the air still smelling of black powder.  People today complain about fireworks in Hawaii but .... they're wimps. If it weren't rainy and since I'm not ready for clarinet busking yet, I'd probably have gone over to Century Center Plaza I think it's called, over in the Vietnamese part of town, just to see what's going on. Hopefully tons of firecrackers. 

 

New Year's Eve

 Surprise surprise Ken came by at about 8:30 tonight, hung out a bit, and wrote out my check for this week and last week. So I can deposit it in the bank on Friday if I want to. 

 It's raining, has been raining for a day now, and is predicted to be raining right through the weekend. Partially due to the rain, I'd slept through the day until something like 5 or 7 or something. 

Tomorrow's New Year's Day so of course nothing at all will be going on, with the rain. I have packages that *have* to go out on Friday, the 2nd, though.  So I'm thinking my game plan will be to take them to the big post office because it's closest to me, then if it's raining much I could continue on to Capitol and get on the light rail and take that to St. James where I can take a short ride to the bank, to deposit my check.