I Wish I Had That Problem

• How To Spend The Money...?
• Answers To Two Prayers

So, yesterday, I posted about the nature of my semi-depressed state of mind and boiled things down to 2 key factors which were prone to bum me out.
Namely, a feeling of idleness and/or waking up broke.
"I'm Not Falling For It!"
I had been bummed out over having spent down the money which my mother wired me for Christmas, over the course of the 3 very cold nights which we had, when I didn't play much.
I was walking along Canal Street and had just passed a skeezer who was sitting on his butt and looking left and right, at the perimeter of the Ritz Carlton Hotel; and I had gotten about 40 feet further; and was amidst a small swarm of hotel guests and their luggage; when I saw a small square object about the size of a book of matches, but of a familiar color; sitting on the sidewalk.
The familiar color was that of the "new" 20 and 50 and 100 dollar bills (they were never as "yellowish" back in the day).
Well, I was certain that it was a religious track and sure that it had already been picked up by someone and inspected and then tossed back down, because several people practically stepped on it before I got to it.
Well, long story short -It was a 20 dollar bill; folded to the size of a book of matches.
The reason that it had looked so fake, as it did, was because it was brand new and folded so cleanly that the edges actually looked sharp. It crinkled as I unfolded it.
That gave me about 47 bucks, total.

Oh, look, Chauncey; I do believe that might be a hundred!

My other theory is that the hotel guests were so wealthy and proud that they were too embarrassed about being seen stooping over to pick up something off the ground like a common skeezer would ....Did I just see Dick Morganstern III pick a duck ass cigarette butt off the pavement?!? I guess his wife is tootin' the powder again...
It's not worth 20 or 50 or 100 dollars to Dick; it might very well be one of those phony bill religious things; then won't ol' Dick feel like a dick!!
Furniture Movers Wanted: $25/hr.
Then, after stepping out of the library after posting my lamentations over money; I encountered a lady who was asking another man if he wanted to make "10 dollars," moving a couple of sofas out of her apartment and loading them on the back of the pickup truck which was idling nearby.
"I will!," I said, after the guy declined.
We found another fine young man named Josh and the two of us took an hour to get the sofas from her 5th floor apartment; onto the elevator; onto the truck.
The biggest sofa took us a half our just to get out of her front door.
Luckily, Josh was a pretty sharp young man and, together, we were able to devise a way (by taking the sofa into the kitchen and starting our rotating-and-standing-up-and-corkscrewing maneuver from the angle of that approach, as opposed to the one from the parlor, which had befuddled us...as the woman became almost panic stricken -as she began to consider life without her big sofa-  and started interjecting orders such as "You need to stand it up!!!" "This end has to come THIS way!!" and "Flip it over!!" in vain).
As, we struggled, the lady upped her offer to 10 dollars for each of the 2 sofas, the big one and the medium one.
After we had gotten the big one onto the truck; she increased it to 25 dollars for each of us; just as soon as we got the medium sized one ("a piece of cake") onto the truck.
I then had 72 bucks.

• sharpie
• better spotlight
• tiposaurus
• guitar repair
• haircut
• new harmonicas; different keys
• shoelaces
• AM/FM radio...and batteries...
• Micro chip reader for camera to blog capability

I See The Light
The first thing I ran into was an LED headset flashlight -the kind that modern coal miners would wear.
I thought about snapping it up for the 3 dollar sale price; but wasn't sure what the effect of wearing the thing on my forehead would be; especially while playing harmonica. I could still tie it up into the vines along Lillys wall and train it down upon my "stage..."
25 Dollar Thursday Night
I got to the Lilly spot at a decent hour of around 8 and played 3 sets; broken by restroom and/or beer runs and was able make another 25 bucks or so.
As I was putting my flashlight/spotlight up in the vines, I fumbled it just as a couple of traveling-kid looking kids were passing.
"Darn it!" I said as I noticed that the cover had come off and the batteries come out.
"Do you need a light?" asked the female. They were both about 18 or 19.
"If I just broke this one, I do" I answered as I tried to put the batteries back in the right way.
My first attempt at that failed, and I was about to try reversing the polarities when the guy handed me what turned out to be a very nice and bright and probably at least 15 dollar flashlight and said "Merry Christmas."
The light wedged easily between a vine and the wall so that it shone down upon me and about a 5 foot circle around me.
I was relaxed and pretty much enjoying myself and doing music entirely of my own choosing; come what may...
Resist The Devil And He Will Flee

The "coincidence" has not been lost upon me of the seeming flow of blessing which began to come my way immediately after I punched out Leslie and severed ties with him.
I've had few chance encounters with him.
Once, I approached him upon Bourbon Street to inform him of the death of Jake, the street musician whom I would bet he at least was acquainted with; as they both have been here forever; and both frequent the streets.
He laughed in my face; a dry, cackling and sarcastic laugh.
I then saw the neck of the liquor bottle protruding from one of his pockets; noted that he was walking in the direction of his apartment and concluded that he had already achieved a satisfactory level of intoxication and thus was through with the world and everyone and everything in it; for the night, at least.
He had laughed at me probably because he thought that I was trying to skeeze some of whatever was in his pocket.
I walked away; thinking about how the news of a persons death hadn't even evoked any reaction, nonetheless; concern in the guy; and how counter that is to his "usual" persona.
I think "sociopath" is the term that they use....