Clear Sailing Ahead

Some lady outside Rouses Market was warning me that I had better get myself inside and stay warm tonight. She said that the temperature is going to drop drastically and it might even snow.

She was a lady of color, wearing thick plastic framed glasses, standing next to a cart full of groceries in paper bags. She was waiting for her ride to show up, not for from where my bike was locked to a pole. She stared at a receipt in her hand.

Guessing that she might have been shocked at how much her groceries had been and was seeing if anything had gotten rung up twice or something, I made the comment:

"I've been seeing a lot of people looking at their receipts in disbelief lately," alluding to the inflated prices of late.

She immediately informed me that "Oh, no," that wasn't why she was staring at her receipt; a bit defensively.

At first I thought she might be a lady who considers herself wealthy; and thus, above the economic concerns of an ordinary person. Like, maybe I should have divined by looking her over that she shouldn't be concerned over how much she had just spent. Maybe her thick framed glasses were the $800 kind, or something.

But, once I started talking to her, I realized that she was a practitioner of The Law of Attraction. She accepted that groceries are just high right now, as if it was a fact of life, and then exuded confidence in that she would continue to be blessed with food, at any price; in the same way that she had come by what was in her cart.

After telling me that I had better dress warmly for the impending cold weather; she added "if you're gonna go out and play your guitar."

So, she had seen me before at the Lilly Pad.

Since it was 63 degrees with the sun about an hour from going down, I told her that I was thinking of going out as soon as possible, hoping to get in a few hours before the weather changed.

"You don't understand; it's going to be brutal; they're saying it might even snow!" she reiterated.

Being from Massachusetts, I knew that snowy conditions were a good thing for someone concerned about freezing to death. When it snows, the temperatures hover just below freezing and never drop into the dangerously cold range -something to do with the process of turning water into snow producing heat, I think it was...

I suppose 29 degrees would feel pretty cold when you aren't used to it; but it isn't going to kill anyone.

Once I got home, though, I brought up the forecast, and it seems that the lady (who was talking also about the high grade medicinal marijuana that she is apparently getting) was a day early with her doom and gloom forecast. For it is supposed to drop from the 62 degrees that it is now, to no less than 58 at about the time I would typically knock off from busking.

So, it appears that I have one more night to make money before tomorrow comes and the temperatures go into the low 40's. Thank God it was just her marijuana confusing her, and making her forecast wrong.

I do have to worry about the batteries in my little amp, though. I should have stocked up after Jacob and I made $145 on New Year's Eve. I guess I wasn't planning this far ahead...

Wim Hof Breathing Exercises

It is just about 6 pm. and Jeopardy is coming on; and then I will do a couple rounds of Wim Hof's breathing exercises. 

It has been hard to force myself to do them; not quite as hard as jumping into a frigid lake through a hole cut in the ice, such as Wim does, to stimulate his immune system; but hard for someone who would rather just lay down at the time, and go to sleep. 

After doing the breathing thing I find that I have less anxiety in general; and so I'm hoping that a few rounds of it will assuage my worries about the batteries in the amp, or the guy with the loud sound system that has been showing up on Friday nights and sitting in front of the bar, cranking hip hop music out of the thing.