An Uphill Battle

•  Planets Align So Rare
• Sugar The New Crack
  

I am still feeling the effects of having eaten a box of cream filled chocolate rolls, during Sunday night's football game.

I had actually gone out of my way to not drink or smoke weed that night, though I had had the opportunity to do so.

When I was at the Family Dollar getting some food that Harold could eat, along with some alkaline water and a couple Bang energy drinks was when I grabbed the box of chocolate rolls, which were only a dollar and change.

I thought about riding down to my friend Patrick's house, who might have had the game on his TV, which I was already missing the first quarter of as I went through the aisles.

"In relationships we're so used to complaining about other people,..It's always focusing on the other person. But for relationships to really work, we need to focus on what we appreciate about the other person, not what we're complaining about. When we're complaining about those things we're only getting more of those things." -Marci Shimoff; from "The Secret," by Rhonda Byrne

No Cat Food Burglar

I keep thinking about how easy it would be for me to steal cat food out of that place, especially since I think their security people stopped watching me in there a long time ago.

Surely, when I first started showing up there about 8 years ago, looking homeless with a backpack on my back, with only the guitar on my shoulder giving any indication that I might be the type of homeless person who has some kind of income; surely they stationed one of their security people up in some catwalk above the ceiling tiles, where they could use various spy holes to track my activity; before giving up on that, and maybe switching their focus to others.

What may have convinced them that I'm not a thief is how I repeatedly pay for tiny items that would easily fit in a pocket or up a sleeve and aren't cheap; like 8 packs of AA alkaline batteries that are $5 and the size of a half bar of soap.

So, having gained their trust, it would be easy for me to slide a can of food for Harold up the sleeve of my heavy winter jacket, or wedge one under my belt; but I just can't bring myself to do that. Not even by thinking that I would be doing it "for Harold" and rationalizing it the same way that some BLM looters were expounding the "principle" that they were just trying to feed their families, by stealing Nike sneakers out of some store.

The way I look at it is, although it is largely a matter of pride in the fact that I have never stolen (nor have I ever asked anyone, outside of friends, for a dollar or a cigarette) and maybe that pride is working against me; and causing my cat to suffer. 

I still think that, if I were to get caught stealing a can of cat food then the staff at the store would be inclined to think that I have been in there stealing throughout the whole 8 years or so that I've been going there. As if one dishonest act can negate a whole lifetime's worth of integrity. It was me not going out to busk during that afternoon when the temperature briefly went above 50 degrees that was causing my cat to suffer...

So, I got Harold a can of cooked chicken breast meat; he seems to like it, although I worry about the sodium content (note to self: Google "Is salt bad for cats?")

I had to admit to myself that my thoughts of dropping in on Patrick were mostly about smoking some of  his weed; and not so much to enjoy his company. Realistically, he doesn't really have a personality because of how much he drinks. Drunks are usually their "drunk self," and one rarely gets to meet the actual person behind that facade.

I decided to just go back home without any booze or weed, though with the box of cream filled chocolate rolls, and watch the football game. 

I wasn't going to rely upon anyone else but myself. If I wanted to drink or smoke bad enough, I knew where the French Quarter was and could go down there with my guitar and come up with those things through my own devices. This has been one of the lessons in life that I have learned.

But the cream filled rolls really set me back; and reminded me once again that some of the oils in those things take several days to get out of the system. This is something I wish I had figured out when I was younger and trying to sleuth out the roots of food allergies through "elimination" diets.

I would stop eating something, but would still be suffering a few days later; which might have led me to conclude that that particular food wasn't the culprit, and would go back to eating it.

I feel sorry for people who are taking that drug I see advertised all the time for eczema and psoriasis with the motto: "Hide my skin; not me?!" if they are continuing to eat the same foods advertised on the same channels, but are hoping that the drug will heal them "from the inside," as advertised, then their immune systems are still being triggered by the allergens, but now there is a chemical war going on inside them; the body's natural reaction to the allergens is being rebuffed by chemicals and they are at risk of side effects which could, in rare cases, cause death. Better off hiding your skin, imo.

What should I expect when Jeopardy is sponsored by a big drug company?

Then, I made it home to find that Jacob had texted me. He seemed to be in a good mood and said that he was about to take his daily drive.

I suggested that he could stop by here and we might go up to A206 and jam with Don (previously referred to as "JR") to which Jacob replied that that would be an activity that would require us smoking weed in order to fully appreciate.

I had to realize that, since Don keeps a gallon of whiskey and a sack of weed in his place at all times, I was kind of doing the same thing as with Patrick. I might have thought it would be a goof to go up and jam with him; recording the results on Jacob's phone, so that some goofy sound clips of Don's drunken playing and whooping it up in general might be used as samples in future music projects.

But, as fate would have it; Jacob never got back to me, so that became a moot point and I achieved another day of sobriety.

Jacob had been in a car wreck during his drive.

Last (Monday) night, Don fell down a flight of stairs and broke his guitar strumming arm. I just happened to encounter him at about 2 AM when I was going outside to let Harold in. It was raining and about 48 degrees.

It seems that Don was on his way up the flight of stairs when he had fallen down them. It was probably his attempts to break his fall with his right arm that led to it becoming injured. At first I thought it might be his normal, nightly fall after his draining a certain amount of the gallon of whiskey; but realized that this one was more serious when I saw him using his left arm to try to pick up his right one, which seemed at an odd angle.

It was only then that I went and called 911; even though I worried that doing so might draw unwanted attention to myself; as in the police running a routine check on me to see if I have any history of pushing people down staircases, and them finding some old warrant out of another parish and maybe arresting me, so they could force the vaccine upon me at the jail, or something. That would have been a far out, paranoid suspicion just a couple years ago...before The Great Reset went into motion.