I woke up earlier feeling, at last, rested enough to stand up.
I went into the other room to see that the clock read: 1:34 PM. This is a continuation of a pattern of my waking up at around 1:30 PM almost every day, without the aid of any alarm. I think that the sun is directly overhead at this time where we are, as the time zones are demarcated by when the sun is at its zenith (called "noon") at the leading edge of the time zone, which means that when our clock reads 12:00 PM, the sun is directly over Pensacola, Florida, and it takes it another hour and a half to reach its zenith here.
That, being said, I am on the 4th day of a water only fast, and was dizzy and weak feeling upon standing up.
My first order of business was to let Harold the cat outside, as his litter box was filled only with coffee grounds. Harold doesn't apparently poop on coffee grounds, preferring the shag rug aside the litter box instead.
Feeling weak and lightheaded was only a physical manifestation of the water fast, as, emotionally I was at a high level and full of enthusiasm for riding to the French Market to get a set of 5 dollar guitar strings.
First, I called the number of a guy at some restaurant in Melbourne, Florida to tell him that I had found the wallet of a Donna Mohognagn which contained her Florida driver's license and a debit card. I had been able to find Donna's Facebook page using that information, and, though she hadn't posted there for 2 years, one of her friends (seen posing with her in a photo) was a frequent poster and still worked at the restaurant listed on his page.
He called her, she called me back, and I had soon added a stop at the Evangeline's Restaurant on Decatur Street to my itinerary, along the way to the French Market, where I returned the wallet to a grateful Donna Mohognagn, assuring her that that was the condition that I had found it in; and who promised me a meal at Evangeline's whenever I wanted. I told her about the water fast, and took a rain-check on the meal. I forgot to ask her how the hell her name is pronounced before riding off.
"I knew it was you," she had said about spotting me across the street before I crossed over to where she was standing in front of the place. I guess I look like a guy who returns wallets that he finds even from a distance...
"Smoky Joe," was not at his booth selling 5 dollar sets of guitar strings. I could have ordered them online Monday and probably had them delivered by now.
5 Dollar Wednesday
I am faced with playing the same ones again tonight, which I played last (Wednesday) night and had made 5 dollars and 23 cents with. I don't think that the 23 cents was meant to mock me this time, as the person had made a clean scoop of his pocket and I was going to wind up with all of his change, regardless of the amount.
The Thursday Night Football game comes on tonight and I will listen to some of it on my radio. I'm keeping my appearances at Harrah's Casino to stand there and watch a game for free, to a minimum, saving them for Patriots games. I will ride slowly to the Lilly Pad and play some in my famished state. It's almost time for me to start putting some cayenne pepper in the water that I'm living off of, which dissolves any hardened matter in the digestive tract. I can smell foods intensely. I want to wait until the inflamed feeling around my left hip and groin and the bit of soreness in the back of my neck resides before eating again. I'll start with watermelon to break the fast, as I did last time.
It had taken me a couple months before I added any animal products to my diet, but then I had gone nuts, scarfing down huge plates of meatloaf, driven by "the munchies," and putting a serious dent in my monthly food card money.
After 4 days of water only, my balance, 11 days into the month, looks a little better. I've got 5 pounds of frozen tilapia, a big bag of instant potatoes, beans, a couple pounds of "lentil and rice casserole" in bags, along with other stuff that came in the box (which I'm allowed to get one of per month) that I got from the St. Jude food bank, over on Basin Street.
I traded my package of Oreo cookies to another resident for the walnuts that he can't chew, and it looks like I will make it through September without running out of food...
I bought a bag of dollar store litter for Harold's box, and so that is one less worry.
"Wait 'Til October," Again
Then it will be "wait 'til October gets here, things will pick up" October and I will have learned a lesson about squirrel-ling away things between October and June, in order to have a better time during the slow season. I once again plan to go to New England to visit next summer, and maybe even to other places.
I really want to pan for gold up in the Yukon. I think I could sit and sift through sand and rocks while slapping mosquitoes for 8 hours a day for a few specks of gold dust worth maybe $35 a day. Busking has lowered the bar of my expectations.
Imagine panning for gold on a hit of acid....
The highlight of the day, besides doing a good deed was encountering Ricky the clarinetist and Paul the guitarist on Decatur Street, where they were playing jazz.
Paul plays with Doreen (the queen of the clarinet) when she is in town, and with Ricky, the king of the clarinet in my book and the only one I've heard here who can give Doreen a run for her money on that formidable horn.
We talked joked for a while, about football trivia and other things.
"What's your opinion of 'dog pimps,'" Paul asked me, before elaborating that they were guys who sat with dogs (or cats) with the attitude of "I have a dog, and we're hungry, please give me money..."
"You mean, dog skeezers!" I said.
"I like to call them dog pimps," said Paul.
I gave him the Readers Digest condensed version detailing my aversion to dog skeezers, et. al., telling him about the bags of dog food that people buy for them instead of handing them money which wind up thrown on the ground and left there, exposing their "my dog's hungry" as the skeeze that it is.
That, being said, I am on the 4th day of a water only fast, and was dizzy and weak feeling upon standing up.
My first order of business was to let Harold the cat outside, as his litter box was filled only with coffee grounds. Harold doesn't apparently poop on coffee grounds, preferring the shag rug aside the litter box instead.
Feeling weak and lightheaded was only a physical manifestation of the water fast, as, emotionally I was at a high level and full of enthusiasm for riding to the French Market to get a set of 5 dollar guitar strings.
First, I called the number of a guy at some restaurant in Melbourne, Florida to tell him that I had found the wallet of a Donna Mohognagn which contained her Florida driver's license and a debit card. I had been able to find Donna's Facebook page using that information, and, though she hadn't posted there for 2 years, one of her friends (seen posing with her in a photo) was a frequent poster and still worked at the restaurant listed on his page.
He called her, she called me back, and I had soon added a stop at the Evangeline's Restaurant on Decatur Street to my itinerary, along the way to the French Market, where I returned the wallet to a grateful Donna Mohognagn, assuring her that that was the condition that I had found it in; and who promised me a meal at Evangeline's whenever I wanted. I told her about the water fast, and took a rain-check on the meal. I forgot to ask her how the hell her name is pronounced before riding off.
"I knew it was you," she had said about spotting me across the street before I crossed over to where she was standing in front of the place. I guess I look like a guy who returns wallets that he finds even from a distance...
"Smoky Joe," was not at his booth selling 5 dollar sets of guitar strings. I could have ordered them online Monday and probably had them delivered by now.
5 Dollar Wednesday
I am faced with playing the same ones again tonight, which I played last (Wednesday) night and had made 5 dollars and 23 cents with. I don't think that the 23 cents was meant to mock me this time, as the person had made a clean scoop of his pocket and I was going to wind up with all of his change, regardless of the amount.
 |
| Time to back off a little |
The Thursday Night Football game comes on tonight and I will listen to some of it on my radio. I'm keeping my appearances at Harrah's Casino to stand there and watch a game for free, to a minimum, saving them for Patriots games. I will ride slowly to the Lilly Pad and play some in my famished state. It's almost time for me to start putting some cayenne pepper in the water that I'm living off of, which dissolves any hardened matter in the digestive tract. I can smell foods intensely. I want to wait until the inflamed feeling around my left hip and groin and the bit of soreness in the back of my neck resides before eating again. I'll start with watermelon to break the fast, as I did last time.
It had taken me a couple months before I added any animal products to my diet, but then I had gone nuts, scarfing down huge plates of meatloaf, driven by "the munchies," and putting a serious dent in my monthly food card money.
After 4 days of water only, my balance, 11 days into the month, looks a little better. I've got 5 pounds of frozen tilapia, a big bag of instant potatoes, beans, a couple pounds of "lentil and rice casserole" in bags, along with other stuff that came in the box (which I'm allowed to get one of per month) that I got from the St. Jude food bank, over on Basin Street.
I traded my package of Oreo cookies to another resident for the walnuts that he can't chew, and it looks like I will make it through September without running out of food...
I bought a bag of dollar store litter for Harold's box, and so that is one less worry.
"Wait 'Til October," Again
Then it will be "wait 'til October gets here, things will pick up" October and I will have learned a lesson about squirrel-ling away things between October and June, in order to have a better time during the slow season. I once again plan to go to New England to visit next summer, and maybe even to other places.
I really want to pan for gold up in the Yukon. I think I could sit and sift through sand and rocks while slapping mosquitoes for 8 hours a day for a few specks of gold dust worth maybe $35 a day. Busking has lowered the bar of my expectations.
Imagine panning for gold on a hit of acid....
 |
| Paul (guitar) and Ricky (clarinet) in Jackson Square |
Paul plays with Doreen (the queen of the clarinet) when she is in town, and with Ricky, the king of the clarinet in my book and the only one I've heard here who can give Doreen a run for her money on that formidable horn.
We talked joked for a while, about football trivia and other things.
"What's your opinion of 'dog pimps,'" Paul asked me, before elaborating that they were guys who sat with dogs (or cats) with the attitude of "I have a dog, and we're hungry, please give me money..."
"You mean, dog skeezers!" I said.
"I like to call them dog pimps," said Paul.
I gave him the Readers Digest condensed version detailing my aversion to dog skeezers, et. al., telling him about the bags of dog food that people buy for them instead of handing them money which wind up thrown on the ground and left there, exposing their "my dog's hungry" as the skeeze that it is.
I *tried* the alto sax, renting an almost-new one from the local staid and reputable band store, and well, to me, I figured, this should work out great, it's got the agility of the clarinet and the loudness of the trumpet, exactly what Adolphe Sax had in mind, but for me .... it's 'way harder than the clarinet. Hell, I can reach all the damn buttons of the clarinet, while I can't do so without hitting *other* buttons that I don't want to hit, on the sax. And the sax takes more air volume than the trumpet, too, and I guess that means 'way more than the clarinet.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the clarinet has not been a difficult instrument. In fact, I was playing one, doing a fine rendition of "Harry Truman" by the band Chicago, in the hope it would help Mr. Obama get elected a 2nd time (and it worked!) when I decided the clarinet is "wimpy" because my playing "How Dry I Am" to accompany a *very* drunk guy being held up by his pals across the street didn't seem to be acknowledged by them - in actual fact they probably heard me fine, and were just too busy holding the guy up as the three wobbled down the street towards the parking area.
But to anyone who tells me the standard wisdom that "the sax is easier than the clarinet" I say, Nope!