A Day Of Greek Salads And Luxury Cat Food

• 30 Dollar Tuesday Night
• Pieces Falling Into Place For Yuletide

I left the apartment yesterday afternoon, after having opened the Christmas card that my mom had sent and found 60 dollars in it, along with the wish that I would have someone to spend the holiday with.

I had grown to loath "the holiday" over the past 10 years of being a busker, finding that the French Quarter was where people apparently went to hide from the Christmas Spirit or, in greater numbers, didn't go to at all.

Thanksgiving and Christmas days can be a couple of the most deserted times of the year down there.

One year, I only realized that it was Christmas after I had gotten up that morning, at whatever place I was being homeless, without a TV showing me the Macy's Parade, or a radio playing Christmas carols, and had gone to the a store to get my morning energy drink, to find it closed and had exclaimed something like "Bah, Humbug! -darned holiday; now I can't have my high fructose corn syrup and caffeine!!"

Times have changed, as this year I am not driven to go out and produce busking money; seeing the holiday as an impediment to my doing so; and am looking forward to spending time with Howard and his housemates in Gretna. I will have to check to see that the buses are running that day...

I had about 6 dollars of my own money Tuesday morning, and had been on my way to sell plasma to supplement that.

I bought Harold a $2 can of food -his Christmas gift from my mom- but had been paying too much attention to the wholesome ingredients of salmon and lamb to have noticed that it was in "pate" form; something that Harold has never liked, probably since being abused and fed pate as a kitten by the mentally ill guy who lives above me and who originally had him, but who threw him out into the cold February parking lot after having taken a woman in who hated cats.

Let's Get This Paté Started!

I got a double shot of kratom at the Uxi Duxi for 6 dollars, and wound up going next door to The Herb Shop to break a daylong cigarette fast with a pack of American Spirits...

As I started to walk back to the apartment, it was still not even 7 PM. The hope of arriving at the Lilly Pad by 9:30 PM was alive.

I stopped at Rouses Market, where I got a can of regular food for Harold, as insurance against him not liking the 2 dollars stuff, and grabbed 2 each of oranges and apples and a 2 pound bag of carrots, with juicing on my mind.

I thought about the half head of lettuce in my refrigerator as I looked at the "olive bar" and decided that one particular batch of black olives with feta cheese and peppers in olive oil was just a half head of lettuce shy of being a Greek salad, and so, put a scoop of it in a plastic container.

It wound up costing me $2.50 for what amounted to a few olives, a few cubes of feta cheese and the olive oil imbued with peppers that it was bathing in.

I have calculated that, at $8.99 per pound, the most value that one could get out of the salad bar at Rouses Market, would be to fill the container with feta cheese alone (and maybe sprinkle in some walnuts) and purchase it as a "salad." Feta cheese goes for around 6 bucks per pound. I often buy it this way when I only want a few ounces, rather than getting a whole pound for the 6 bucks.

'Tis The Season To Busk

I had only about 43 bucks left of the 60 from the Christmas card, plus the 6 bucks that I had woken up with. But, I had a very good carrot/apple/orange juice waiting for me, along with a Greek salad, Harold would be fed, and I wouldn't be picking butts up off the sidewalk that night.

The amount of money had me thinking in grander terms than of just surviving off of it for a few days.

I wanted to invest in something like a new harmonica, which would be 40 bucks for the Suzuki Harpmaster in the key of D that I want; but which would earn me a thousand dollars over its lifetime, and in a vat of creatine monohydrate powder, which would be about 20 bucks but using which, I could mix up about 28 of the drinks that I now pay $3.19 a piece for; daily, if I can.

Another of the 3 dollars-per-day

thorns in my side...

The last thing I wanted was just to see the amount dwindle due to regular daily expenses, without getting anything special out of it.

So, I was more determined to go out and play upon that Tuesday night as I have been in quite a while.

I got to the Lilly Pad by 10 PM, and had made about 30 bucks when I knocked off about 2 hours later. Again, it was a 20 dollar tip from one particular, never seen by me, person that "made" the night.

I got back home and counted just about 60 dollars on my coffee table, realizing that I had made back about what I had spent the entire day -a day of Greek salads and luxury cat food.

Harold hated the $2 food. He ate the regular food from all around it, and left it there. I guess I could have eaten it myself. It was organic grass fed lamb with farm raised salmon, after all.

This Wednesday morning, I was up at about 2 PM.

My goal was to send off something to my mom that would make it there before Christmas.

"It Wasn't To Be..."

I took a detour to the Goodwill store on my way to the Uxi Duxi, where I now sit.

I wanted to find a "New Orleans" type of shirt to send my mom. So she could be the only "lay minister" at her Catholic church with a "I got Bourbon-faced on shit street," tee shirt, perhaps.

But, it wasn't to be.

I started to look through the racks of shirts.

The first thought I had was that the shirts were all "used," since it was the Goodwill store, and isn't that a faux pas, getting a used anything for anyone for Christmas?

Then, I feared that the shirts would exude the vibe of whatever brain-dead moron wore the thing around New Orleans, and that it might even host some kind of virus that might infect Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, turning the population into murmuring shades, walking around asking everyone they see for a dollar or a cigarette.

Then, just for the heck of it, I did a quick scan of the areas that I usually shop for myself out of.

There it was. A huge box of 10! jigsaw puzzles, priced at $5.99.

There is a box of 4 such puzzles, made by the same company, that sells for $8.99 at Walgreen's that I have had my eye on for quite some time.

I originally hesitated because I didn't like the 4 pictures that came in the set that Walgreen's had on display. They have recently gotten another box in that has much better pictures, and I had been only waiting until having a 50+ dollar night in order to buy it.

And, since that cost is right around that of a pack of American Spirit cigarettes, the puzzles have kind of existed as an implied reward for my having quit smoking, if and when that comes to pass. Heck, I could buy 4 new puzzles per day for the rest of my life with what I might spend on cigarettes...

But, there I was at the Goodwill, looking for a gift for my mom, but getting something for myself.
It was exactly what I wanted; what could I do?

I guess I should go out and play again, tonight. Anything that I might otherwise do could easily be postponed until after I get back from it. I don't really feel like it now, at 8:18 PM, but, maybe a walk back to the apartment will change that. My buss pass is good for about another hour. And, it being so close to Christmas, there is probably at least another 20 dollar tip out there, should I put my nose to the grindstone and play hard for a couple hours...

It would be a nice night to stay in and work on a puzzle, though...

A Gift For Howard

I'm still wondering about a gift for Howard.

I'm pretty sure that an ounce of kratom would go untouched by him. He would place it in the compartment with the pain pills that he was prescribed after he had back surgery, which he gave to me so that I could sell them, rather than take them himself. He is a "tough it out," kind of guy -something I learned when we were traipsing through the rail yards, the total of our worldly possessions on our backs, chasing after trains with opened boxcars on them, and he never once asked me to slow down nor wait up for him.