Always A Dilemma

• A Quick Turnaround
• My Glasses Arrive
• I See Things More Clearly
• Could I Have Been Wrong About Just About Everything?
• Cosby And Simpson Can Now Meet Face To Face To Discuss Systemic Racism In America
  

I fasted on prune and apple juice yesterday, then in the evening I ate a can of salmon. There is something to the adage of: If health is your wish, eat more fish..

And as far as fish being brain food, I had a clarity of mind and a calming of the urge to twitch with anxiety, after eating the salmon. I mixed it with pickle juice, mustard, a pinch of sea salt (although there seems to already be a salinity to the fish, even though it isn't an ocean borne species) a lot of black pepper, a few shakes of hot sauce, and a dab of olive oil. I couldn't find a can of green peas in my cabinet or I would have had all the ingredients to make my famous (in my own mind) salmon and green pea pickle delight.

This morning I got a call from Eyes On Canal. After about a month's delay, the glasses with the correctly sized and oriented bi-focal elements in place, had finally come in.

Their excuse had been that, in order to pop the lenses in, the plastic frames needed to be heated up to make them pliable, and due to the thickness of the lenses that I need to correct my astigmatism, the lab had over melted the first couple frames that were sent to them, and additional frames had to be sent via the slow postal service.

I suspect that lens technicians sitting at home collecting 45K a year for not melting plastic also factored into the delay. The shelves at the Family Dollar down the street, for example, look like they do the day before a category 5 hurricane is due to make landfall -more shelf than product. 

"We can't get any truck drivers to make the delivery," said Kimberly, a solidly built white lady, as tall as me, in her mid twenties who wears large fake eyebrows, is friendly, and whom I often see walking along the sidewalk in her red Family Dollar shirt either coming or going to work. I suppose by foregoing the owning of a car, she is able to make her salary "work" for her.

I often think about handing her a twenty dollar bill, every so often, out of the $407 a week that I am getting to keep me drinking tequila, smoking crack* and watching porn using the free data and hot spot, through my "Obama" phone. 

This is a sinister device that "the left" is using to make the American People become more dependent upon the government, according to Ben Shapiro, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, etc. "They" want more people sitting home and getting checks; and there are even murmurings about them declaring a climate change based lock down, after they have wrung as much as they can out of the virus thing.

They have seen how they were able to get everybody to "mask up" (not everyone, just the sheep of society) citing questionable "science" (and shadow banning from the web any dissenters -it's true, whether all 12 of you reading this believe it or not) and now, there is the push to get everyone to take a syringe full of the experimental vaccine, for which there is no data about the long range effects of (make that all 3 of you, now). I'm waiting for the Epsilon mutation of the virus before I get off my ass to walk down to the local V.A. for a shot. 

And the next thing, some say, is that they will come around to collect everybody's guns -well, every law abiding citizen's who registered theirs, that is.

How they plan to transition into a Marxist government from there is something that remains to be seen, but repainting the White House in the pride flag colors and renaming it will be part of the plan, I imagine.

But, Kimberly is the manager of that Family Dollar store who over-rode my banishment from there, after I had made a joke around one of the African American employees, who totally didn't get it, but rather, told me I wasn't allowed in the store anymore -cancelled me, now that I think of it; how 2020 of her...

The joke was this: I was second or third in line when a recorded message came over the overhead speakers, warning potential shoplifters that "shoplifting is a crime," and that "every activity in the store is monitored and recorded" and that they would find out where the culprits lived and send the police there (this was actually in 2018, before the pandemic; when it was a common sight to see a uniformed security guy chasing someone on foot down Canal Street, to return shortly after, out of breath and holding a pair of headphones or maybe some hygiene products. Now, I think they encourage shoplifting as a blow against Capitalism itself, which is being promulgated as "the real problem" by the woke among us.

The businesses are eventually all going to close after the shoplifting renders them no longer profitable, is the idea, I guess.

Then what? Martial law, and people lining up at government run food carts for their sustenance. Food carts run by armed people who will be making the kind of salaries that those at the top of the Marxist food chain historically have?

Going Down Like A Fifth of Tequila...

Everyone will line up, orderly and quietly, and those who step out of line either literally or figuratively just won't get their food. 24 hours of hunger will serve to get them back in line, both literally and figuratively.

But, the recorded message went on for something like 2 minutes, and at one point became so belabored that I made the flippant remark of something like: "Gee, I've been shoplifting here my whole life; I never knew it was illegal!"

That actually got a giggle or two out of some of the other people in the line, but the next time I returned to the store, I was pointed out to the security guard by the cashier who had been behind the register at the time, who then pointed at me: "You! You need to leave! You need to leave!" in the repetitive manner that dogs use (they don't just bark once to convey the threat of biting you; they repeat the bark until well after you've run off, type of thing).

I avoided the place for a few days, but, seeing Kimberly in the store one evening, I went in and explained to her what happened and how I couldn't believe that the cashier hadn't picked up on my facetiousness.

"That's OK," she said. "You can come in here."

"Besides," she added, "She doesn't work here anymore. She got caught stealing money." (I kid you not!)

So, I think about slipping Kimberly 20 bucks here and there. The $407 a week is really overkill for me, who had learned to live off of approximately $12 a day, when working as a busker.

*the crack thing was joke (although it is just waiting around the corner to ensnare me, as it has so many other residents here, for whom the smoking of it has become a pastime). I mentioned that to get a rise out of Alex in California, should he ever re-visit this blog. The thought of him pounding his fist on the table by his computer and yelling "Entitled, racist, hypocritical scumbag!!" is too much for me to resist. That 12 dollars a day would surely increase to more like 52 bucks a day were I to get hooked on that stuff. Somehow, it seems like heroin has waned in popularity recently; I wonder what's behind that, or if I'm just not seeing the forest for the trees. Maybe it's just that, when Bobby used to live here, it seemed that more people were heroin junkies because maybe they were attracted to his apartment.

So, I walked to the Eyes On Canal place, where I was greeted warmly and told "We've got your glasses right here!" I was thanked for being "a good sport" over the matter.

I said: "That's OK, I was just getting a little tired of being judged by the duct tape holding my glasses together, rather than by the content of my character." -A nod to the great Doctor King..

I then walked to the Jefferson Feed Store, to get food for Harold. There was a "help wanted" sign on the door.

I was seduced by the beautiful bags of expensive food -they even smell good- and decided to roll the dice and pay 5 times as much for Harold's food, in the name of his overall health and well-being; even though I had been stung so many times in the past, when he had turned his nose up at things like pheasant and duck and venison with lentils and pumpkin recipes, that promised no this; no that; never any this other thing in the formula on the bag. Certainly no grains! type of thing.

I settled on a bag of Fromm brand "Surf & Turf Recipe For Cats" which seems to have come all the way from France, because it was actually "pour chats" and had a lot of French writing on the bag.

I told the girl at the register that, if Harold didn't like it, at 14 bucks a bag; I was going to eat it myself. She might have gotten the sense that I was serious (I half was) after I added: "I don't see anything really offensive in the list of ingredients and that I would probably eat just a little handful and then wait about 20 minutes, to see if I got a stomach ache or broke out in hives.

This prompted her to say: "You know, we do have a policy that, if you bring back at least half the bag, we'll give you a refund." I did not know that. I would have assumed that, once the bag was open, they wouldn't take it back. I guess that is more of a "people food" policy.

"We donate them to shelters and stuff," she said.

"I would feel bad, though; like that would be hurting your business; like you would be picking up the tab for my cat's finicky-ness," I said.

It wouldn't be a problem, she assured me. Maybe the thought of me eating the stuff and then suing them was on her mind. 

I said that they could also have something like a "scratch and dent" section in the store, and just discount it. "Use at your own risk," type of thing.

The chat business taken care of, it was then off to the GNC.

Upon entering that store, past their own "help wanted" sign, I was greeted by an employee whom I have seen a few times before in there; each one after an unsuccessful foray to the Eyes On Canal.

He is what used to be called a "flamer," meaning someone who is gay and doesn't try to hide the fact. He speaks in a voice that is very close to a women's tone, and seems to be very sensitive to social issues.

It took him a couple of my visits there to warm up to me; but we eventually had a conversation about my travails with the Eyes On Canal place.

He spoke about the injustices foisted upon those who depend upon Medicaide, such as myself, and seemed truly empathetic to my plight. He had started to talk about how the pharmaceutical corporations have conferences where they basically decide how they are going to screw over the poor and downtrodden Medicaide people and how nowhere is the income gap more evident than in the way that industry functions, etc.

This time, when he came to the register from where he had been at the back of the store, he immediately said: "Oh, you finally got your glasses!"

This really floored me, and I started to re-evaluated my views about homosexuals, in general. I know that actually sounds bigoted: "homosexuals in general," what do you mean, to generalize like that, bigot! type of thing.

But, it was as if I was seeing him in a whole new light.

He is a very slight of figure black kid of about maybe 19, and probably is the poster child for the "liberal, far left, socialist, Marxist, gen X, snowflakes" that I only then was realizing that i had pigeon-holed into a category where I would have placed him.

He speaks in a gentle voice, and really seems to...what comes to mind is that term "Namaste" which means something like "I see the divinity in you," or something.

I tried the same joke on him: "Yeah, I got sick of being judged, by the duct tape holding my glasses together...."

But, before I could even tack on the "instead of the quality of my character" part he waved it off with: "Aww, nobody's judging you; this is New Orleans; that's normal for here. You sat on your glasses and figured out a way to put them back together; good for you. Anybody could sit on their glasses, or step on them in the dark..."

And so, here was this 19 year old black gay young man, schooling this 58 year old guy who looks like he probably voted for Trump, and doing it in a compassionate way that was sensitive to my feelings. It was like a light went on in my head. Maybe the next generation is somehow better off than the one before; maybe you just have to know how to measure it. Namaste.

Just one day off the sauce and returned to healthy habits, for both Harold and me, and already the universe is opening up and showing me some light.

I walked back home, thinking about the Ben Shapiro video I had seen that morning and about his lecture about "People who go to church and read the bible and have beliefs about the 'immorality' of homosexuality," which was part of a longer diatribe about the fact that the National Football league has just released a "Football is gay; football is lesbian; football is everybody" type of commercial, about which Ben complained: When we tune in to watch football, it's to watch football, not to be preached some b.s. "woke" message (I'm paraphrasing).

Maybe the earth belongs to all of us in equal proportions and every single person should have a ton of nice things, and not one person should be wanting. And to the hoarders who would say "I deserve all this because I worked hard for it, and you deserve very little because you haven't," maybe Ben Shapiro might flip his bible to the "What profiteth a man to gain the world, but lose his soul" verse. At least I had something to think about as I walked home with my first clear head in weeks, carrying mine and Harold's righteous share of healthy food.

Harold hated it.

He was sitting on a chair. I approached him, holding the bag of Nourriture Pour Chats. He saw the bag in my hands and instantly, his nose began to twitch, trying to smell it. He was facing me and thrusting that nose towards the bag.

I ripped it open and poured a small amount onto the chair in front of him.

He sniffed at it, then turned his whole body to the side, so that I was facing north and he was facing east, staring straight ahead and motionless.

"Harold...Harold...Harold?" No movement at all; he was ignoring me and the bag of food for chats.

I'm going to bring it back to the store; probably tomorrow. Probably in conjunction with another visit to the GNC. Hopefully on my second day of not drinking. Although, as soon as I just typed that, I could almost taste a margarita. It's 9:25 p.m., and the bike has a flat tire; I would have to walk.

I'm afraid that if I drink enough tequila I might just wind up eating the nourriture pour chats, and won't have at least half a bag to return to get my 14 dollars back. 

Hmm...always a dilemma...

How is it that Ben Shapiro hasn't been shadow banned by Youtube like the rest of us who say similar things online?

I really feel sorry for those "essential" employees who have "essentially" been screwed by this Covid situation.

Are buskers essential?

...just thinking out loud...