Money, Check.

• 125 Dollar Thursday
• 25 Dollar Friday
• 50 Dollar Saturday

As the time for me to hop out on the road and make my way to New England nears, the practical side of my brain has started to compile a checklist with items such as:

• Buy a month's supply of cat food for Harold the cat.

This, I could give to my neighbor, Wayne.

I might even give him the key to my place, so Harold could come inside to eat and then sleep in the air conditioned environment of my apartment, rather than being outside all the time...

• Ask Wayne if he would even do this.

• Order the set of tuning machines for the Takamine guitar, so that I can take that, rather than the Epiphone with me.

• Post the Epiphone for sale on Craigslist, priced to sell within the next few weeks ($80).

• Maybe embark upon a water fast, so that, at the time I leave I will be happily consuming fresh fruit and vegetable juices, rather than sampling, say, the pizza in Savannah, Georgia, or the burgers in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Aside from making me sleepy and leading me to take a naps in parks with my guitar tied to my backpack and my backpack tied to my arm, those kind of heavy foods, consumed under the circumstances of being out on the road, could start me back drinking, after 28 months sober.

The wine bottles in stores look better to me when I am hungry and contemplating a splendid meal. But, when I am sustaining myself on wheatgrass juice in the evening and apple juice in the morning, wine would ruin that "feeling."

Last night marked the return to the sane diet of whiting fish fried in olive oil with vegetables, and the end of The Baking Age.

I had really gotten into mixing flour and eggs and sugar and oil or butter and maybe peanut butter, raisins and/or cocoa -and then throwing it into a 375 degree oven and letting it rip.

These pancakes, cup cakes, cookies and other assorted loaves became addictive in a way.

There were also times when, rationalizing to myself that I was in a hurry (and not wanting to wait for the low fat high protein meal of baked fish to materialize) I would be eating, within seconds, Raisin Bran in coconut milk slathered in honey off of a spoon that had a gob of peanut butter stuck to it.

This kind of diet made it so the soreness in my wrists after a night of hard playing would set in and ache for an extra day or so, rather than being fine the next morning after 5 minutes of warming up.

I suppose I should order the set of tuning machines for the Takamine, after I Google my particular model to see if I can order exact replacements for them, while I have the wi-fi connection here at the Uxi Duxi.

The Shopping Bug
...has bitten me, and I have on the way a new set of tuning machines.

These are raved about by the dozen or so people who have reviewed them on the MusiciansFriend website; this is good enough for me.
At almost 50 bucks, I can expect them to perform at the level of the ones that are already on the Takamine.
It has been humbling and slightly embarrassing to have been playing the Epiphone and to have knocked a string out of tune in the middle of a song but continued.

And, while I was at it, I almost grabbed one of these recorders; apparently made by the same people who make the tuning machines.
I guess they are both just a matter of conforming to specifications.
I have been thinking about adding another sound to my home recordings, with a Casio keyboard being at the top of my wish list.
But, a poignant recorder melody at just the right spot in The Carcass Song, for example, might be cool.