Sunday, March 2, 2014

Sunday Before Fat Tuesday

Sunday, March 2nd
I woke up for the final time at 12:26 p.m.
The Natchez was gone; having not even stirred me from my sleep with its calliope nor its horn blast on the way out.
I decided that I had things to do under there and would wait until the next launch before coming out.
Lavish Lifestyle Rears Head
I had only a couple of dollars more than the day before, due to the realization of one of my fears about the Mardi Gras carnival, namely the fear of living a more lavish lifestyle and spending more as I might be making more.
Saturday, March 1st
Saturday had begun with the discovering of a group of young men who had come under the dock to drink and smoke.
They gave me a shot of Scotch. We emerged en masse.
I then went to The Unique Boutique and spent $5.50 on cigarettes and a 16 oz. Heineken.
Then, to The Toulouse Market to spend another $4.68 on brandy, which I brought here, the The Royal Blend, to spike my ($2) coffee with to sip while I rendered yesterdays post.
After that, I went to see the weed man on Canal Street ($5) before heading for the Lilly spot, already 12 bucks in the hole.
25 Dollar Saturday
I encountered loud music blaring from a PA at the Lafitts Blacksmith Shop Tavern, which prompted me to move down yet further to a spot diagonal to The Quartermaster, which is 100 feet from where Leslie used to live and which has barred him from ever entering there; after disparaging remarks about homosexuals were made by him, during the Southern Decadence festival a while back.
There was a lot of foot traffic (people who ask for directions to the fabled Frenchmen Street from Bourbon are almost uniformly told, for simplicity' sake, to just follow Bourbon street, then make a right on Esplanade; just one turn, no fuss; and this put me right in their path where I was) and I made about 25 bucks and got a compliment of "You sound good," from a young lady; the same who threw 10 dollars on top of my backpack. 
I, once again, had been too lazy to fully set up my rig.
I was right in front of a well lit art gallery.
The Quartermaster
At 10 p.m., the music stopped blaring, and I returned to the Lilly spot and played until past 2 a.m., amassing the amount above.
When I finally knocked off; stopped at Rouses Market, where I got about 5 pounds of ground turkey, and continued down Royal Street, I encountered Tanya and Dorise.
It was 3:05 in the morning, and they were still playing; and they had a decent crowd of mostly African Americans around them.
I think I can take a lesson from them about playing my ass off for the next few days of "feast," before the famine of "right after Mardi Gras" settles upon us all...
Jar Adjusted
I have decided to put the jar on a sliding scale of 3% of whatever I make on a given day,
or the original 35 cents, whichever amount is larger.
This seems to make sense because I feel that I will never miss 3% of whatever I have and, frankly the statistic which reveals that I would only have $4,216 after having faithfully contributed to the "35 cent" jar since I have turned 18 years old makes me think that the amount is just too trivial.
Who wants to wait 33 years for $4,216? You could buy a brand new car with that, when I was 10 years old, but....
So, the past couple days, I have added $1.80, and 75 cents to the jar under my mattress, and tomorrow, who knows; maybe 35 cents....

1 comment:

  1. You have your calliope, I have FREIGHT TRAINS that pass by 100 feet from my bed, at about 9AM on weekdays. Usually carrying some kinda real heavy shit from one part of San Jose to another part of San Jose, I think it's some weird little spur line that goes down Rogers Avenue.

    Pretty cool, actually.

    I have a few different "savings mechanisms" but one that works well is, I just dump all my change in a jar or something at the end of each day. It adds up, and it doesn't seem to be missed.

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