07/27

Nothing special to report other than to note that it's been 10 days since my last post. Finally got almost all my stuff moved in. now going through boxes figuring the finer points of where things are going to go. did over 6 hours this morning requiring a half hour lunch break, followed by 10 minutes doing nothing and then clocking out. then i tutored from 10 - 2:30, i saw this coming and went to bed at 5pm last night/. now my sleep schedule is totally disrupted.


07/28
got to bed by 10:30 got up at 2:20 and comfortably made my 3am call time. got pulled off smalls for a bit to unload a truck, earning kudos from a couple of managers. floated for the rest of the shift which allowed for use of initiative which actually made it enjoyable.

i was tired, but a good tired, and i filled my cup with ice before i left, and i took surface streets home, enjoying the leisurely drive, temperature in the mid 60's, windows wide open enjoying the breeze going 40 mph, and casually eating ice cubes on the drive home. dare i call it contentment?

shoer, nap, shop for groceries. no tutoring today. maybe have fish tacos with derek and get his spare clippers. i need a haircut. it's actually been 2 months.

07-17

i've got a roof over my head again. been here almost a week now.  today was noteworthy in that i slept almost the entire day. i worked from 3:15-8:45, got home for a few and was back out tutoring from 10-12. went and got new tennis shoes to replace the new ones i bought whose uppers separated from the sole within a week and made my feet hurt more than my old shoes, which i had to wear to work last night. they're a 1/2 size too big but the toes didn't feel all that roomy. got home by 1pm, slept until 2 when i had to get up to allow an appraiser to see my room. so i made a steak salad went back to sleep at 3:30 and slept all the way until 10pm. made dinner, ate, and about to go back to sleep for a am call time - and a $3/hr surge rate bonus this weekend as NO ONE from the regular "smalls" group showed up last sunday, prompting my manager to change my sunday day off to a saturday day off - which i'm working for the surge bonus. i try not to think about the fact it comes out to only an extra $24 over the eight hours i expect to work this weekend.

i hate to admit it, but the 10-12 tutoring shifts are killing the sleep schedule i'd hoped to maintain by sleeping in until noon and than going about the rest of my day. today, i had maybe 15-20 minutes before i had to head off to tutor.  wednesdays i have a 10-2:30 block scheduled, but at least i have wednesdays off. well, i already told them i'd go in, plus i can go right to sleep when i get home tomorrow morning.

Getting by during the quarantine -with a car

Without access to the public libraries, there's few locations to access a public electrical outlet. A few places I've discovered:
1) the metro station in Arcadia - there are electrical outlets behind 3 of the benches in the park area, and another over at the west end of the platform. People have jammed things into some of the outlets. I've pulled a few out using pliers. Others are unaware that the circuit breakers occasionally trip and need to be reset. There's also a portapotty and a place where you can wash your hands using recycled water. I'm surprised more homeless don't show up there. The sun is kinda hot in the afternoon, so I go with an umbrella and a couple of bungee cords and lash the umbrella to a bench, providing shade - and if i set it low enough, gives me enough privacy to doze off while my laptop recharges. I also bring a power strip to allow others to recharge at the same time.

2) Victory Park in Pasadena: there's an outlet behind the baseball field. I have yet to use it myself, but it's there.

In the afternoon, finding shade is a big deal.

Target: the two stores in Pasadena and one in Eagle Rock all have covered parking structures, and it's easy enough to find a spot with at least 50 feet of space between you and any other car parked there.

Bathrooms: supermarkets are a good place. stick a face cloth inside a plastic bag and you can go in, towel yourself off a bit and help stay fresh.

07-12

i moved in yesterday. after getting settled in (unloading my car and getting most of my stuff from derek's) i slept until 5pm, and was asleep again before 10pm sleeping until 9am this morning. after a takeout lunch of banh mi's, asleep again until 5pm.

i mention this only because it's been over 100 degrees in various parts of LA yesterday and today. i would have been brutal, though i probably would have bought a polar pop or two and parked underground at target for the shade. timing is everything.

still i can think about how brutal it must be for those living outside this weekend.

07-10

3:15-7:45

stopped by BMCC again but only bought 3 egg rolls and munched on them on my way to von's where i took advantage of two of their friday specials: $5 sushi and a $5 big sandwich made with a whole loaf of french bread. being mindful of the carbs, i cut away about half of the bread before consuming the entire sandwich over the course of the day. catnapped until my 10a-12 tutoring session, during which i recharged my laptop. websurfed until i nodded off, slunk back to the car (i parked on a side street under a huge tree that provided shade all day, keeping my sandwich from spoiling/melting) and slept for another hour then had to go back in due to all the food i ate yesterday completing its brief sojourn in my digestive tract, websurfed some more, did my 4p-6p session, bought my last polar pop (i hope) for a while and ate the rest of my sandwich at eaton blanche before websurfing at REI until almost 10pm at which i finally noticed that i'd gotten an answer to my text about when the floor was done. i could have dumped my stuff there this evening. but i'm content to spend one last night here in the fedex lot. call time isn't until 4am so i have plenty of time to light up a cigar, and if this battery runs out, i can use the backup battery and recharge both tomorrow at my new place.

i will call to confirm a move in time tomorrow and wing it from there. i think i'll wing it on whether to take sunday off. 

so tonight apparently is the last night of this season of sojourn. i have no profound observations to make at this moment. but i do note that my biggest apprehension of commode access was largely a non issue.  the one time i was unable to reach a bathroom in time i actually got there and was able to clean up though i had to discard a pair of soiled boxers. the other two occasions where i had to use my fallback were in the fedex lot and as far as i know i had sufficient privacy unless i was being watched by someone else also sleeping in their car here overnight. i've managed to stay relatively clean by bringing a face cloth to work and shampooing my hair and toweling off my upper body after work each morning. i wasn't my freshest, but then everyone was working hard here at work so by midshift no one was pristine.  i find that i am reasonably well rested - i hope. at least i haven't experienced the kind of lower back stiffness i've dealt with when i was younger and hadn't gotten sufficient rest. it occurs to me that i was carrying a lot more emotional tension around then. that and i've been wearing a back brace at work.

the tennis shoes wearing out the way they did caught me by surprise.  apparently the stance i use at work to get my eyes lower to the belt to make out the numbers blew out the outer sidewall of my right shoe. a temporary tape job currently provide enough support so that it doesn't hurt as much as it did earlier this week during my shift. ironically, i've found the same model shoe - possibly from the same stock as the model in question is being sold with the same discoloration issues as my current shoes - though i'm paying $10 less this time around. if it's from the same stock that shoe has been sitting in storage for at least a couple of years since i bought the last pair.  the tread is relatively unworn. my new pair of shoes have been delivered to les' address. they weren't supposed to arrive until monday - and truth be told, i didn't want to be doing a lot of unloading wearing these shoes. i'd almost prefer wearing my sandals. so that worked out.

things are working out in general. i got a total of  13.5 hours tutoring this week, which more than made up for the missed hours fourth of july weekend. but even at the fewer hours every week, if i get at least 10 hours a week from huntington, i should still clear enough between fedex and huntington to allow me to apply an extra $500 a month towards my credit cards.  in four months the BOFA card will be paid off, allowing me to concentrate on the discover balance. or i could reward myself and pick up a used glock 19 at that point.

on another note, i texted "rob" today and let him know that if he really is coughing up blue mucus he should notify a doctor ASAP. i hope he's going to be all right. going back to yesterday's phone call, i noted his concern for "wayne" as well; "rob" didn't want to risk infecting him. 

people are getting off shift now around 11pm while i'm standing outside typing on the roof of the car. so i lit up a cigar. why not? it's my last night. i wouldn't normally pair a cigar with a polar pop, but tonight, it works. the coldness of the drink cools off the smoke a bit. actually, it's a pleasant night, especially after the heat of the day. i kinda regret getting the big sandwich. i had a craving for seafood chow mein from sam woo, though i was a bit dismayed by how much prices have risen - though it also could be the location. maybe i'll drive down to the branch on valley in alhambra where i used to go 30 years ago. has it really been that long ago? it's been a heck of a road trip from there to here, that's for sure.

some bugs are coming out, but the cigar smoke is keeping them at bay. i regret that almost all the ice has melted in my polar pop while over half of my cigar remains unsmoked. it's now well after 11pm and any place selling drinks with ice are now closed.

i don't know if i've recorded anything of substance in this post, but the bottom line is that this season seems to be over, and a new one is starting. i can see that i'm allowing myself to be more approachable and this has to lead to only good things, despite all the crap that's going on with the pandemic, politically, etc.

my laptop has been on since 6pm or sol it's 11:30 now. so i probably have 1/2 hour left or so plus the 1.5 hours left on the backup battery. i think it's time to call it a night. leave me just enough juice to post tomorrow and charge for a bit.

07-09

hopefully this will be one of my last entries for a while.

3:15-8am again. i'd done the buy two get one free  banh mi deal at BMCC, scarfed down two and finishing getting wifi at denny's and parked in a shady spot and was napping when i got a text from stephen saying the room was mine if i wanted it. i said yes. the floor still needs to be refinished, so i'll probably move in saturday and move in as help permits - i have access to my futon mattress and will be more than happy to sleep on the floor for a few days until i can get help setting up the loft and shelves.

i tutored from 1-2:30 pm and surfed the web at work until 4-ish.  before i left, i let the person now running the office have some feedback in that i was pretty sure that everyone was happier she was there vs. the person she'd replaced.  besides the favoritism the former person showed in assigning hours, the overall atmosphere had been... repressive. she was grateful to get the feedback. apparently she feels somewhat overwhelmed and not up to the task, but this is unknown territory in terms of dealing with the quarantine.

tried ranch 99 hoping they'd have some cold items on sale BOGOF (buy one get on free) especially the cold noodle & celebrate. settled for some spicy tuna roll, which, along with the remaining banh mi filled me up. but i still stopped at sam woo's thinking i'd celebrate by getting some take out there, like maybe some seafood chow mein. clearly, i still look to food to medicate/celebrate. the good thing is that there was a 168 market which i needed not to shop, but to use their restroom at 7:45pm before they closed at 8pm.  but before i went to the restroom, i got a disturbing call from someone i've referred to as rob in other blog posts. the short version is that he was exposed to the coronavirus because he took over another driver's cab who later tested positive although he had tested negative at the time of the request, and he's experiencing some of the symptoms. he says when he coughs, it comes up blue. so even though he'll be in town next week, he's going to keep his distance.

his dedication in appointing himself my bodyguard after my attack was a big factor in my choosing to continue to feed the homeless; he's almost like family.

speaking of family, i'm kinda hoping things continue to open up with not just my sister but also with the kids and their families. mike, kristin's husband, sent a couple of kind texts affirming my choice to help the homeless.  i need to follow up on that.

07-08

tutoring 10a-12p and 4p-6p today. another tutor offered her condolences which i thought was very kind. we also talked about the center, and it turns out i wasn't imagining the favoritism being exercised by the previous person in the office. since the center is looking for more people (they put an ad on craigslist) i should be getting more hours in the short term. and i'm up to 9.5 hours this week. i plan on taking the extra income over budget and paying down the credit cards.

the flip side of not paying rent is having all that cash to pay against my cards - minus the extra money being spent on food/gas.

they asked me to fill in from 2-4 today - and they still hadn't filled a 4-6 slot on friday so i guess i'm getting 13.5 hours this week. i celebrated by getting two orders of kimbap from hmart. maybe the new spot i found near the denny's lot can be where i nap tomorrow before my 1-2:30 slot tomorrow.

i find myself feeling some sort of residual emotions initiated by my co-worker christine's overture earlier today. i wonder what that's about. anyway, it's already 8:30 i guess i'm going to head down to fedex. 3:15 call time tomorrow morning, and thursdays tend to be pretty busy.

07-07

3:15-8am just in time for the start of the funeral 10am central time. i texted most of the family telling them i wished i could be there. one of them called and put me on speakerphone. i got a chance to hear my niece talk about the time she shared with my dad. it was nice.

went to denny's for wifi, found a nice spot to park in a nearby lot, slept there until about 1pm, went shopping then over to derek's to cook bathe do laundry recharge and also do a video session with dave which i had to reschedule due to getting more hours at huntington on thursday 1-2:30. also got more hours for tomorrow from 4-6 in addition to 10-12. i can basically spend the entire day in A/C comfort surfing the web. it's nice that i have that now - weekends will still be a bit weird though.

jody (the chess player) showed up for dinner. he got into an accident and is now on disability. spent some time chatting with daniel after dinner. he asked if i was accepting donations. i said yes. he gave me $2. it might been the only money he had.

some of you might wonder why i'd accept it, but i felt it was important to him to be able to do so.

07-06

2am to almost 8:30 with a lunch.  napped for a bit, went to ralphs at hastings ranch and picked up some lunch meat, 2lbs of strawberries and some chips. made sandwiches at eaton blanche, napped some more but woke up with some serious sweat. went over to target and parked underground sans shirt until i cooled off.  got to huntington by 2:30-ish, surfed the web until my 4-6pm, who'd had a comparable day having played baseball for 6 hours from 8am-2pm. i took it easy on him and he did pretty well.

tried to get kimbap at hmart until i saw the length of the checkout lines. headed over to arcadia park with laptop on roof of car, reading, and watching some people trying to teach a girl how to play volleyball.  she's actually progressed a bit with her passing, even though she's moving on the court with her arms locked. they've got a net set up with a giant net target for passing. they've set it up pretty high at a couple of feet above the net.  i miss volleyball, but i know i'm too old and too out of shape to play in a high level game, and i'd drive all the other players nuts by being the weak link; it would be selfish for me to want to play.
i find myself thinking about something C.S. lewis said in that the virtue of love has been replaced by unselfishness. applying this to volleyball, i would be unselfish by not demanding that i play and bring down the level of the game, while love would be shown with forbearance. being unselfish leads to self-denial - which is not the same as denying self.

i want another cold drink. i can go get another polar pop - or i could get a couple of mcdoubles and ask for a cup of ice. i had contemplated getting something at BMCC but they just closed a few minutes ago at 8pm.

i promised to review natalie's latest short story about the tango. i guess i'll do mcd's and head out to the fedex parking lot and type on my roof so i don't waste battery on the keypad.

07-05

i have no idea when the fireworks ended, but i slept until about 7:30am. there's another aspect about living outdoors i've not mentioned until now; lack of privacy. you make it where you can, like locking a public restroom door when you can (mainly in supermarkets nowadays). of course when you can't get to a restroom privacy is essential. my solution is pretty effective, but privacy is the key.
checked email and classfieds at denny's now recharging. have an appoinment to see a room only a couple of blocks from my old home in pasadena this morning after i finish recharging. hopefully this will work out. 

a restaurant/cafe recently opened by the metro. they offer wifi. i may go there later today and order something and get their wifi PW. then i could recharge AND surf the web simultaneiously. that'd be kinda sweet.

I saw the room. more than enough space for my stuff. the landlord is disabled and requires caregivers. $850 including utilities is right in my price range. eastern pasadena yet still close enough to the huntington. an extra 10 minutes to joes. eh.
i don't know if it was yesterday's banh mi's or today's carl's but i has to use the bathroom three times so far today. fortunately all before bathrooms closed for the day. i should have sufficient privacy in fedex lot if i need it again tonight. should set my alarm an extra 5-10 minutes early if i need to go again tomorrow morning.

besides sleeping, read a novel by laura lipmann called sunburn. would have never heard of this famous author except ian rankin recommended it. he also recommended a novel whose name i can't recall precisely, something like midwinter solstice about an older couple who've grown apart yet take a vacation during which they manage to rekindle their marriage. i ponder briefly the idea of fictionalizing my parents' marriage but with a happier ending.

i don't believe that my father was physically unfaithful, but during my 20's he spent time in the company of another woman who probably attracted his company by flattering him, something my mother never did. i saw my parents infrequently after i moved to california, but when i did, there was typically at least one argument, which typically ended with dad saying: "you never do anything i want to do." with the biggest grudge probably being not opening our own restaurant. but mom didn't want to see my sister and me being forced into running that restaurant as our future careers, which may or may not have been a good thing. but i would have probably never left NE ohio. gag. anyway i've digressed; would it be possible/profitable (whatever that means) to take a stab at fictionalizing an asian marriage in the 1980's?

the 24 hour fitness across from the metro is now open, but i can't seem to find the wifi for it. shame. it really would be nice to have wifi AND electricity here. i'd bring my own chair and umbrella. and since the 24 hour fitness is open, its parking structure is officially reopened and i can park there and cross the street to the metro, which i'll probably do when it's after 6pm. i think the 24 hour fitness closes at 9pm and it makes a good curfew for me to get my car out of there.

fedex was closed today, but the reality is that a day off when it's 96 degrees out is really a day spent looking for someplace else to be. it's why i'll probably work sundays as long as i'm still in the car. i really do hope i get this room. july could be brutal.

i saw someone yesterday who said scott was back. i guess his month was up.  someone broke into scott's car while scott was gone, but that someone left some of his own stuff in scott's car, so it was fairly easy to identify and apprehend the thief. i'm not sure whether to classify that as funny or tragic.

it's a pseudo holiday so i'm going to treat myself to another polar pop on the way to fedex. but first i'm going back to denny's check email and do a few more chess puzzles. i'm close to breaking a personal high score of 2026. i've bounced up and down from 1850-2000 over the last month. some of the problems are arbitrary, they ding you for not finding the optimal solution, but you'd think you'd still get a few points for trading a bishop for a rook instead of a queen. or winning a queen but missing a checkmate.  first world problems.

i'm glad i chose to sleep at fedex again last night even though it cost me a bit in gas. i now recall being told by some of my tuesday regulars that they seldom wander east of san gabriel blvd because that's where most of the meth heads congregate. speaking of them,  i was surprised to discover that someone i'll call paul is 53. i think i mentioned him in a recent post that he was back for dinner for the first time in a number of months. he'd dropped quite a bit of weight while he'd been hospitalized for being in a diabetic coma. even though his mother still lives in the area, he's told me that he's been living on the street all his life. he's promised to tell me his story a number of times over the years, then he disappears for months.

and i saw the guy from southern ohio who used to cook here. he said he's paying $400 a month for a room in rowland heights and that john the vietnam vet has lodging provided for him and now he doesn't want to venture far from it. so most of the folks i met here in may early june aren't here now. i regret that i'm not able to get to know any of these people any better.

07-04

Happy fourth of july.
4-7:30 at time and a half. could have taken an extra 10 for my break - an extra $3.50 which would have almost paid for a banh mi. forgot to put a clean shirt in my bag. walked out wearing just my hoodie unzipped. don't care what others thought.

i'll see if BMCC is open today. if so, will pick up 3 banh mi for the day and go from there - probably to denny's for wifi then recharge at the metro.

recharged until about 10:30, found shady spot slept in car until the sun prompted a move about 2-ish. thought i'd left the laptop on and needed to recharge. turned out i was still at 80% - and it takes roughly about a minute per percent to recharge. it was hot, so i left when i hit 90%,  couldn't find shade at the park, but there are stretches of shady spots on santa anita right next to the parking lot.  slept until about 5:45, which turned out since the restrooms closed early today at 6pm instead of 6:30. grabbed a face towel, stuffed it in a plastic bag and towelled myself off a bit.
finally succumbed and went and got another polar pop, although this time i went with a sugar free option, which will probably kill me just as quickly but in a different way, and ate my last banh mi at the park.

holidays are just an inconvenience for people living outside. it's less obvious because the quarantine - the places that close for holidays like the libraries are already closed. but it's almost cool enough that i can go back to the uncovered denny's lot and do a few more chess puzzles before one last recharge and call it a night. still not sure where i plan to sleep tonight.  actually, a completely closed fedex lot makes more sense than anywhere else. i could try the home depot lot which i've heard about for years now. basically any industrial lot should work, but then predators will know that too.

Lost track of time doing chess puzzles. recharging again one last time at 8:30. just a half hour should get me back up over 75% and i still have my backup laptop & battery.  still have to decide where to park tonight. from here, fedex might be closest, actually.

i am now at the fedex lot, and it seems like everyone in elmonte is setting off fireworks.  we're not talking firecrackers and bottle rockets. we're talking francis scott key. i can smell it. most of the display is to the south, but also no less than a half mile north of me. so the sounds and smell of gunpowder are pretty much 360 right now. earlier, some poor dog was running around the parking lot with no idea of what was going on. the sound of sirens only adds to the moment. hopefully this isn't prophetic in any way. part of me wants to sit back, watch and enjoy, but another part of me wants to pray that this is just fireworks; some of the explosions to the north are coming less than two seconds. this has been going on for almost an hour now, and there's no sign of letting up. i couldn't go to sleep now even if i wanted to.

i can see now that some of them have been launched directly on the other side of the wall on the edge of the lot maybe 100 yards away. but they're done now. somebody made a lot of money selling fireworks this year.

the enemies to the north have reloaded and have reopened fire. inside the car with the windows closed, it sounds like rain on the roof of the car, except it's occasionally punctuated with a loud bang.

07-03

My laptop battery actually ran out last night in the car - but then i'd planned/expected it, knowing full well that i'd get a chance to recharge fully while tutoring at huntington from 10-12, then surf the web afterwards, which i did.

i washed up at fedex,  stopped for $5 friday sushi at vons and treated myself to a couple of spicy tuna rolls. but now i can see that the amount of actual fish is minimal compared to the sushi at ranch 99.  i scarfed it down before my tutoring, which was a mistake because it prompted a food coma i had to fight through to keep tutoring. i felt like splurging today, so i also got a couple of famous stars with cheese from carl's on a buy one get the second for $1 deal for lunch  & ate and slept over at eaton blanche until about 5:30  or so - at which point the sun was out in full force and everyone had abandoned the park and the parking lot. i probably caught the attenion of everyone by sleeping in the car, but i don't care. probably should not go there every day though.

back to last night - i got there and with some people at that end of the lot doing various things, i decided to make myself more 'legit' by smoking a cigar while working on my laptop for an hour, explaining that i couldn't smoke at home, and then i'd nap until my shift started. the weird thing was that right when my battery died, the extra glycogen in my blood from the cigar kicked in and i had a serious case of the sweats, enough so that i opened the windows even though it was a bit on the nippy side. i eventually fell asleep and woke up with no ill effects. it was probably a combo of the cigar and my first polar pop in almost a month.

went down to ranch 99 hoping to score a buy one get one free on a cold chicken noodle (also to wash up in their restroom as it got hot in the car in 90+ degree weather, but there weren't any available and settled for more discounted sushi, and then picked up another polar pop before i headed to arcadia park to eat, then headed across the street to denny's to tap their wifi. checked, email, facebook, and googled pain, hoping to find consensus on the idea that pain is not quantifable - and discovered the opposite can be true in terms of emotional pain. factors include emotional stress, emotional awareness, empathy, attachment and rejection. this is going to prompt me to rewrite a blog post i was in the act of completing. i hope to finish that tonight at fedex.

i'm getting time and a half for working on the 4th. and fedex is CLOSED sunday the 5th. and i'm up to 7.5 hours at huntington next week. if i break 10 hours consistently, i think l'll go back to a 5 day week at fedex - especially if i find a place.  with today's paycheck, i now have about 4 month's rent saved - but i still have credit card bills, gas and food to consider. call it 3 month's expenses. i haven't had that kind of cushion since early 2016. knowing that prompted the eating splurge today - i spent over $20 on food today.

i've been carefully budgeting looking to build up the savings a bit. that's not a bad thing, but splurging once in a while feels like a healthy thing, especially since i also got my state tax refund, and another residual check totalling over another $200 in the past week. it's 8pm now, maybe another 15 minutes until i'm fully recharged. "splurged" again by solving problems on chess.com and got a new high score rating before making a couple of mistakes but still remaining above 2000. the scoring is arbitrary - some problems ding you big points for not finding the optimal approach while others still give positives as long as you found a good move.

rereading an ian rankin novel just to refresh my memory. for some reason i started keeping running bibliographies on detective characters whose authors have been writing for these characters for at least 10 years. connelly's harry bosch, rankin's john rebus, hillerman's jim chee. i guess it's another way of self examination - watching someone' growth - even if they're imaginary and seeing where it resonates for me.

i used to reread jack higgin's novels featuring sean dillon - a gifted individual scarred by trauma early as a child, has a moral center, yet considers himself irredeemable - which i could relate to with my own sense of shame. asides from higgins not having written a novel in four years, and his work being fairly predictable, i haven't reread higgins since i moved out of the south pas. apt. in 2016 - when i also got rid of most of my paperbacks. i guess i was ahead of the curve - i've got all his books as ebooks now. almost all my favorite authors are now stored an external hard drive. i'll eventually get rid of all my CD's - the common ones that I can download anytime i want, but probably still keep my albums and vinyl. go figure.

a few folks choose to park at this end of the lot. i'm tired of worrying about being seen - i'm outside with the laptop on the roof and standing - this way i don't have to waste battery because i can't see the keyboard inside the car. the last two i'm used to seeing have just gone by.  that means i'll have privacy until people off the street come in and park. if worst comes to worst, i'll just use the bathroom in the guard/orientation building.

07-02

3:15-8:15 this morning. i got pulled off the belt and was going to be a floater packing totes  loading totes to the van lines, except the person who normally transports the large bags of packages from the trucks to our belt didn't come in today. so i filled i there  instead and flaoted between that and getting all the boxes out to the van lines. i think i created a new procedure. boxes are transported from our bin is a large cart. it's customary to place a set of totes at the bottom of the cart to facilitiate retrieving them as a whole group from the bottom of the cart. it occurred to me to put a second layer of totes on top of those topes. i think people are adopting the idea. i don't if jeff is noticing.
ready to take a nap until it warms up a bit. slept unil 11am. picked up 3 banh mi at BMCC. ate one while surfing web at denny's. battery down to about 50%, plan to recharge at metro and then head over to Arcadia park.

ended up sleeping at the park until 6pm when my bladder roused me. Fortunately the bathrooms there don't close until 6:30, so I took a walk around the park. Surprised that a lot of people there weren't wearing masks. Checked my email using Denny's wifi across the street.  With the outlets at the metro a few blocks away the park seems like a decent place to go as there's a certain amount of shade provided by the trees by the parking lot. However, I discovered what looked like three mosquito bites on my right arm.  Only need to encounter one carrying something like the Nile virus. It may seem a bit paranoid, but one of my regulars at dinner succumbed to the Nile virus a few years ago, someone I rather liked named Francisco. He was a short (I assume) Mexican (though I suppose he could have been Central American. From what I'd managed to learn about him, he'd worked in restaurants all his life and we often talked about the business. He had a speech impediment that made him difficult to understand and I suspect that that had made it more challenging to find work when he'd lost his last job. But he was quite intelligent and used to attend a lot of free lectures at USC. If I was an employer who needed a personal assistant I would have hired him in a heartbeat. I was hoping to be able to offer him a job when I'd gotten sufficient funding that would allow me to hire workers. But he's gone.

There are a number of good people like that I've met like that during my time feeding the homeless. The first one to pass away whose passing I lamented probably was Jay. He was a former vet, a pilot in fact, who owned a small aviation company, but he had problems with alcohol that resulted in his losing his business.  He died of a heart attack the summer after I'd been stabbed at the park.  The week before, one of our volunteers had volunteered to talk about love languages with the people who stayed after dinner and I volunteered that I tended to communicate with physical contact. Afterwards, I was seated at the table talking with another vet named Murph who was living in a van parked a few blocks south of the park. The van had more parking tickets than you could imagine.  Anyway, Murph had just asked me if I was worried about getting attacked again at the park, and Jay at that moment and  unexpectedly came up behind me and embraced me in a bear hug (I'm guessing he'd heard what I said) in a show of affection.  I told Murph that if I was worried about getting attacked again, that should have freaked me out. It occurs to me now Jay's show of affection and appreciation is one of the reasons I chose to continue the feed the homeless. That turned out to be the last time I saw Jay.

Jay was typically with a cheerful small Korean woman named Ono who always carried a pair of drumsticks (the musical kind). She also had a problem with alcohol. She took Jay's loss hard. At first Ono thought Jay had abandoned her. After Jay was gone, she could typically be found sitting outside the restrooms at the southern end of the park in a drunken stupor. We took meals to her for a while until she disappeared. We heard through the grapevine that she eventually succumbed to liver problems due to her drinking. She didn't speak much English, but I did learn that she had been raised in Japan. given what i know about how the japanese treat non japanese asians, i can't imagine that her life had been all that great. And now she's gone.

There are others who've come and gone over the years. Early on, we'd get visits from folks who managed to regain employment who'd stop by to let us know that they were back on their feet. That was nice.

Then there was Chris. He was a fellow believer who'd lost his job and ended up living outside and spent most of his time at the library. While he had issues with how we did our devotional times after dinner, he supported what we did and he persuaded a fellow church goer to join as a volunteer. He also liked to swing dance and occasionally showed up at some of the free dances sponsored by a local dance school. Unfortunately, he suffered a hernia, and during his surgery there were complications and he went into a coma and never woke up before passing away a few years ago.

Another couple used to come regularly accompanied by a black dog named Romeo. Alcohol seemed to be a factor as why they were on the street. Her kidneys failed and she went on dialysis. While they were able to get medical care, the powers that be assigned her location for dialysis that took about 3 hours to get there using public transportation. She eventually passed away as well. Her husband took it hard. He now shows up maybe a few times a year, without Romeo.

One of the people  I worry about the most nowadays is a fellow I've referred to in other blogs posts as Wayne. He's very polite, and always appreciative and thankful when he shows up for dinner. He's one of the main reasons I seldom serve pork; he chooses not to eat pork and grateful just to have rice if I've made a dish that has pork in it. I assumed he was in his 40's or maybe 50's until when asked about where he was from, he mentioned that he's lived in Pasadena since the age of seven when he moved here in 1960. So he's 67 and already into what's normally considered retirement age. He's currently wearing a pair of pants that look like they measure about 44" x 36" while he's maybe 5'6" and 150 lbs. soaking wet. He also used to spend his days in the library and the quarantine has really had an impact on his outward appearance. He used to carry a number of grocery bags tied together until he suffered a hernia and was rendered incapable of carrying around much weight after surgery.

07-01

i have to admit that i thought i'd have found a place to stay by now. also a little disappointed that i got turned down by someone who then reposted his ad looking for more applicants. even more disappointed that i seem to have missed out on a great opportunity on an ad that was up for maybe 24 hours posted by someone who expressed genuine regret that the room was no longer available as she also helped feed the homeless. oh well. it just wasn't meant to be.

i'm still in consideration for a couple of other places, one less than a block from my old home on roosevelt, the other on the west side of pasadena. i'm also considering places in arcadia since i'd be closer to a lot of SGV based chess classes - not that i should expect them to re-start anytime soon.  would be closer to fedex - which i'm beginning to think might be longer term in terms of my own financial needs - but i'm seasonal.

i do want to use the time being outdoors a little more productively this time around, writing instead of reading to keep me occupied. we'll see how that pans out.

trying to be surreptitious about assembling a few PB sandwiches while at the park, but then i should i care if people see this and make the proper deduction about my living status?  i'll probably pick up more fresh fruit to keep in the car as an alternative to fast food; i find myself tempted to get a couple of mc chicken's and a couple of mc doubles for $6  tax. i decide to try a tin of chili eel i bought on sale a few weeks ago for a situation like this: wanting a alternative protein source for my sandiwiches. the current circumstances aren't conducive to assembling a meal; the lawn maintenance people are out in force, running their gas powered blowers contributing both sounds and airborne dust. then there's a kid at the table howling up a storm because he was forced to get off the top of a picnic table.  i saw this family here fairly often for lunch here back in may. i don't know if this constitutes a daily outing or they're in a situation similar to mine.  does it really matter? now a truck is passing by within five feet, the driver emptying all the trash cans between the tables and the tennis courts.

the day started off cool and overcast, but it's warmed up a bit as the sun has come out. i'd be perfectly happy if this was the hottest it got all month. i really don't want to be out here come august, but on the flip side i'll able to pay down my credit cards a lot faster.  there's a room listed for rent for only $575 rent, but it's furnished (as in would have to keep a lot of my stuff in storage) and it's definitely short term. but if i'm still looking at being in the car in august i'll defintely consider it at that point.

a lot of rooms are being listed furnished and at really low monthly rents. i'm suspicious but it occurs to me that some of these ads could be first time landlords who've been impacted financially by the quarantine. maybe i should be less cynical and make contact.

for some reason a phrase my dad used in the context of impending punishment literally translated as "eel cooked with rice"  comes to mind. probably because the dad of the family at the next time is admonishing his kids for the same things as previous days: stay out of the water, go find your missing bike/ball/skateboard/whatever.

as much as i enjoy my teaching and tutoring, i can't imagine being the father of four young kids 24/7.

saturday is the 4th. i imagine we get the day off. i could also take off sunday - which i'd do if i found a place and needed to move.

i ended up napping at the park until almost 5. went over to ranch 99 & mitsuwa for sushi and had just parked at arcadia park ready to eat when i got a text from derek asking if i was available to tutor his son, which i ended up doing for 3 hours tonight. including the two hours i tutored at huntington,  i made more $ today on my day off than any day working at fedex!  and it was fun tutoring josh. i think i want to find a way to keep tutoring going forward.

06-29

Back in the fedex lot at 10:10 pm. set the alarm for 2:30 and hopefully asleep by 10:30.
I note that I'm doing pretty well typing in the dark; my muscle memory has kicked in to where all the keys are on the keyboard. that's gratifying.

hopefully i have only a few more days in my car; i really want the room in east pasadena. it's in a nice apartment building off michillinda in east pasadena just north of sierra madre drive. it's at least 10 minutes closer to fedex, and will be more convenient for all my SGV chess classes. i can shoot down michillinda to get to oasis, double back slightly to go down rosemead to get to hacienda heights, and i'm farther east to get to faith baptist taking the 210 east to the irwindale exit. still only 10-15 minutes away from stratford and my regular tutoring at huntington - and $800 covers rent AND utilities. i just have to pay an additional $100 for a parking permit, but i really do like this location.

i might be happy living in another spot near my old house, but i never heard back from this guy after i told him my age. it'd probably be another $150 more a month - money i could use to pay down my credit cards.

i did send emails to all the ads offering rooms for less than $600 a month - but they all look like scams. if i'm out in my car for longer, this time i'm going to spend more time writing/blogging. and probably sleeping - but instead of moving around for shade, i'll probably try parking at target - and investigate using the restrooms there for freshening up - cleaning up after work in the morning will help, but i'm still going to be kinda rank at the end of a hot day. maybe i'll start waking up 10 minutes earlier and freshening up in the restroom(s) in the guard house.

got off at 7:15 - 4.5 hours. it was allegedly a heavy day, but with a full staff, it was almost mundane.

napped until 9am, stopped and got 3 banh mi's for less than $8 (buy two get one free) at the BMCC at lower azusa and santa anita. got up to huntington by 9:30, ate one banh mi. and not only recharged my laptop, also surfed the web plugged in afterwards until 12:45.

stopped at stater bro's across the street picked up gatorade on sale and $40 cash.  went to eaton blanche to eat another banh mi and read an ebook on my laptop.  the plan is napping until 6-7, tap my mechanic's wifi, recharging at the metro as needed, tapping the wifi at REI again if the mood hits me and heading off to fedex.

i never mentioned the call i got from alan in DC back on the 21st. it was a huge shot in the arm.

while at eaton blanche i got a call from my niece's husband mike who wanted to explore the possibility of me reading my blog post as a eulogy.  i said i'd look into the possibility of  recording it.

charging at the metro from 7-8. it's deserted except for a homeless guy talking to himself and laughing on the platform. waiting for REI to close so I can check my email. if that fails, park at denny's and tap their wifi before i head off to fedex for the night. i *think* the call time is 3:15am. i'll decide if i want to wake up early and just wait.
having the tutoring 3 days a week will take a lot of the burden off recharging since i can also stay surf the web afterwards. if i have to stay in the car a bit longer i think i can manage - at least until it gets super hot.

06-28

well, that was weird, i set my phone alarm, and it went off an hour later than programmed. the weird part was that the time showing when the alarm went off was the time specified, but suddenly jumped to an hour later. so i called in rather than show up to work 2 hours late, (and probably work only an hour). but i'm awake, answering emails and whatnot, and getting ready to load up the car and hit the streets again; the house sitting ends today, and unless i secure something today, i'm in my car again. it was nice while it lasted.

i need to call my cousin here in town and make sure he knows about dad. i left a message on his cell but i have no idea if he got the message. strangely enough, i still remember his landline number from 30 years ago. i confirmed it on the internet.

-----------------------
got through to my cousin ken.

went to see an apartment in east pasadena. the rent is perfect - what i was paying before and it includes utilities. hoping i get it. if i do i move in on wednesday.

back on the street tonight.

06-25

went 6 hours at work - pulled off smalls to help with the van line. i wouldn't mind floating like that. i found someone else's ID and turned it on. turnabout is fair play - i lost my keys and someone turned them in.

we elected to go with hospice care protocol and dad went from 100% to 85% oxygen. i called during a visit from my sister & kein. dad tried to grab the phone and talk but i couldn't understand him. they shut off the oxygen and dad passed away around 5pm central time. spent a lot of the day responding to comments on FB, composing my last blog entry for dad.

06-23

today was a busy day. got woken up by a text from my sister that dad was being transferred from the the assisted living facility to the hospital because he wasn't getting enough oxygen. a subsequent call from my sister communicated results of an x-ray that revealed what's characteristic of covid-19 victims in terms of the masses in the lungs, etc. and that we needed to reach a consensus on what to do if it was determined that dad needed to go onto a ventilator. it turns out that dad has a DNR, but that only applies to cardio pulmonary resuscitation.

my response was that i had a view, but if she wanted to do something that was not in line with that, that was ok. it turned out that we both felt it best to honor the spirit of the DNR. it's not the kind of choice kids should have to make for their parents. but the end result is that dad has been placed in comfort care - which tends to his symptoms, but does not try to cure the disease. so unless a miracle of some sort occurs, my father is going to die in quarantine.

while absorbing that, i started filming on the mini-documentary on my feeding the homeless later that day - before actually going out to the park with dinner in the evening.

06-20

didn't have to go in until 4am, got out at 7:15, and after getting home and eating, slept until almost 3pm. i guess i need more rest than i thought.

i'm grateful to be house sitting here, but the isolation is hard on me. the main alternatives are shopping, cooking, and eating and surfing the internet looking for more blues music.

06-19

worked from 2:15 to almost 8:45. fridays are one of the busiest days of the week. i had just enough time to get gas, stop at von's for some takeout, get home, shower, and get to the tutoring center by 9:50. tutored until noon, ate and slept until 6pm. this is noteworthy because i'd gone to bed around 8pm getting in five hours before work when i usually get 3-4 hours. but clearly i needed the rest. i'll get more this weekend; i probably won't work more than 3 hours each day and i don't have to go in until 4am tomorrow morning. i'm still not getting direct deposit yet. my manager said he'd look into that for me. i got another short story to review from this friend who also dances. i'll put a little time into that tonight.

06-17

it's my day off, ready to get a few things done - and then i got an email from my sister that dad's got covid-19. he's 96, but for now the symptoms are mild. there's a lot more drama involved than i'm going to go into here, but my mother surviving my dad would create some serious financial issues.

so i've been more or less useless - and getting a case of the sniffles myself and sleeping most of the day. i'll see how i feel when my alarm goes off for a 2:15am call time on a "volunteer" day, that is to say, i technically have the day off but i've volunteered to go in - i think i need the extra hours but maybe i need the rest more right now.

06-14

3-6:15am. filled in 2-3 different roles this morning without being told. head manager commended me for my hard work this morning. hopefully that'll make a difference when they let the seasonal workers go.

made breakfast and cleaned out portions of the refrigerator, including an open bag of cucumbers that had disintegrated into mush and leaked all over the inside of the produce drawer.

part of me really wants to go out for lunch just to get out of the house. ironic.

went grocery shopping, loaded up on beef: cheeks  heart, which sounds offal. heh.

made tomato soup with onion/carrot  black beans as a thickener. ate three bowls. in bed at 10 for a 2am. i may regret this since i also have tutoring from 10am-12pm monday.

06-13

4am-7:45am with no break.

work was insane - while the overall volume was relatively low, the percentage that went though our section was probably double the normal percentage - father's day stuff. we doubled the staff at critical points accordingly.

came home, ate/slept until 2pm.

got an email from karen that helped clarify things for me. i need to work on the business plan, but it won't be a major part of what we film. it helps to put boundaries around the thing.

now that i'm inside, i find myself extremely bored and missing not seeing some of the folks i've newly met. i know i'm eating more than i should, but i've been cooking and i have leftovers. so i tried to buy more fruits and vegetables so if i'm going to eat, less heavy carbs like the pasta i've been eating for the last 3 days.

06-12

3:15-8:15 and plenty left to do, but all the newbies got sent home.  stopped at vons for some of their friday specials. the sushi with brown rice was a mistake. but i got a coupon for $5 off my next purchase. the 8 pc of chicken for only $3.99 was a better buy.

slept from 10 to 2.

spent some time thinking about what the video should be about. i need to work on the business plan before i go forward. but there's a reason i've been putting it off; how to get started. so i'll google it and see what i find.

06-11

1:15-7:30: a little odd since they made us take a lunch but worked us only 5.75 hours.

came home, napped until my 1pm with dave. composed a response to karen about the video.

asleep at 10:15-sih for a 3:15 call time.

06-10

woke up around am. cleaned up all the pots/pans i left soaking overnight.  eating a late breakfast of chili over rice with some melted cheddar.

now that i don't need to go grocery shopping the only thing i should look at today is a taillight that seems to be out according to the sheriff that pulled me over on my way to fedex a couple of nights ago.  and respond to requests for a legit address for my drivers license/REAL ID.

the rice prompted another food coma - the rest has gone into the freezer for next week.

got a call from fedex - 2:15 call time.

it's my day off - so even with the leftover chili, i decided to cook the last package of beef cheeks - in a tomato sauce that will then become a pasta sauce. fortunately, aldi's had ripe roma tomatoes at only $.39/lb so i bought about 3 lbs. i also sliced and pan fried the extra eggplant and added it - i can top those off with cheese and eat it as a pseudo eggplant parmesian.

06-09

3am-7:15am

one of my coworkers forgot her glasses, so she couldn't sort or split. they pulled some young kid off something else to take her place. tried to cover for his mistakes without saying anything. then the guy opening bags left so i took over there for the last half hour or so. then they sent all the seasonal workers (like me) home.

started dinner by cooking the (dry) black beans in the pressure cooker

slept from 9 to about 1:30.

i started to make the chili only to realize that i didn't have my 12 quart stock pot to combine the beans with the rest of the chili ingredients, so i removed some beans from the pressure cooker, added most of the rest of the ingredients as space allowed. and cooked the chili in the pressure cooker instead.

surprisingly small number of people at the park - even fewer than last week when i ad-libbed a pre curfew start time. i don't mind eating leftover chili, but there was also a great deal of left over medium grain rice. not sure my blood sugar can deal with eating that much leftover rice. maybe i should freeze some of it. i was planning on going grocery shopping tomorrow but now i guess i don't have to.

in bed by 10:30 or so.

06-08

1:15-7:45 - or they could have worked us until 7:15  & let us go. i would have rather left at 7:15.

call time 3am for tuesday. i plan on taking wednesday off.

came home, made breakfast, ate, slept until 1:30-ish. got a call from huntington; they've been granted permission to reopen - individual tutoring only so i can start possibly getting hours from them starting next monday. almost like a response to my concerns about getting fewer hours at fedex. derek also let me know that a friend is interested in doing a mini-documentary on barry's kitchen. this should when we start fund raising in earnest.

one more thing, while shopping for dinner tomorrow, i spent the remaining balance on my EBT. well, there's something like $.87 left. the extra $400 helped while sleeping in the car.

06-07

put in another 3 hour day. i suppose that's going to happen on weekends when the surge bonus of an extra $2/hour applies. part of me wants to be apprehensive at the hours even while i recognize that my aches i had last night aren't bothering me now - and that the reduced workload might been part of a plan that was concerned about my health.

we were short two people so i ended up floating between 3 spots: sorting, transporting incoming packages and loading packages onto the belt. it was gratifying to be able to show initiative in moving to do things that needed to be done without needing to be told, not that management seemed to notice. but i'd like to think my coworkers noticed.

anyway, got home, ate, and then slept from 6-10am.

i think i understand why i got the short hours; after lunch i decided to take another nap - and slept until 9:30pm! clearly my body needs more rest than i'd realized. might as well go back to sleep. i have a 1:30 call time - and mondays are typically brutal.

06-06

they let us go shortly after 6 - the weekend surge rate of an extra $2/hr probably is a factor. no matter; the hours i get will be the hours i get. experimented by taking surface streets to santa anita up to the 210 about the same time and shaves a couple of miles off the commute each way, and also allows me to refuel on my commute route. cashed my paycheck on the way home, ate and was asleep by 8am, woke up a 11:30am.

today is also cool and damp. it occurs to me that if i'd gotten my hoodie wet, i wouldn't have a backup garment to stay warm. i suppose i would have gone to a laundromat, done some laundry and dried my hoodie. but i'm feeling better about turning down the 8x10 room with all the storage space outside. without a proper awning, my stuff would be wet/damp.

i want to cook, do anything actually now that my main concerns are no longer a place to sleep, electricity access and internet. the isolation after spending all that time outside interacting with people being abruptly cut off affects me acutely than i would have expected. people living alone during this quarantine must be feeling it by now, especially extroverts like me.

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i did in fact cook later making the second package of beef cheeks i'd purchased. this time i went shopping to pick up the other ingredients needed to make stroganoff: mushrooms, noodles, etc. i also picked up 2 dozen eggs. i was craving scrambled eggs in a big way. there are SO many things i want to cook: homemade pasta sauce with pork skin added for richness, grilled squash, etc.

derek called around 9pm to check in. i got to bed around 10pm for a 2am call time.

06-05

had no problem waking up and getting to work. the route suggested by mapquest to reach the freeway was a lot easier than the most direct route, which has a lot of streetlights that typically result in stopping every five blocks or so.

went from 3:15 5o 8am this morning. i didn't even break a sweat. i ended up just sorting small packages off the belt. the old manager saw me during the break and told me she wants me back. that was nice to hear.  as expected, this week's paycheck was smaller due to working only four days with one of them being a 3 hour day, but most of my hours came over the weekend so it wasn't too bad. working 6 days instead of 5 this week will balance it out. didn't get direct deposit yet though.

timing is everything; it rained for the first time since i started relying on the metro to recharge. but instead of stopping at the metro, i came home, ate, and slept from 9-1. i could have set the alarm for 11:30 if i was still teaching at burbank. yes, keeping the fedex job when school starts back up is doable, though driving home in rush hour could be a bit of a drag. but in those cases, i could nap in my car until rush hour is over.

it feels so strange to be sitting here without having to worry about how much battery time i have left. i even have my external hard drive up and connected.

unless something really noteworthy occurs, i probably will go to posting less frequently for the next 3-5 weeks.

06-04

i put just about every small package that came into the center on a conveyor belt today. it took me 5.5 hours until 7:30. having not gone to sleep until after 11pm due to some kids parking in the lot, along with it being very cool and overcast, i decided to sleep in the car. by 11am i was at PHO banh mi che cali buying 2 banh mi and getting one free and by 11:30-ish i was recharging at the metro until 2pm using 2 bungee cords and my umbrella to provide under which i slept fitfully until about 2pm.
on my way over to arcadia park, i got a text from derek asking me to call. he was already on his way up north early due to another editor unexpectedly leaving the project. so i'm now house sitting for the next 3-5 weeks.

i can move almost everything out of my car and i need to get my futon (mattress) and pillows, all located in different places. i almost want to wait until tomorrow to do this since i've found a nice shady spot where i can sit and enjoy the breeze, eat my third banh mi, finish my drink and nap some more. i can use  both batteries today and recharge them tomorrow.

i decided to go for it, and just stopped by the place where my futon was. karl happened to be home and i also picked up my electric violin and amp now that i have a place to play.  karl sent me on my way with some fresh lemons and some homegrown heirloom tomatos. i plan on eating them sliced with just a little salt and pepper. they are REALLY good.

got most of my stuff unpacked and now chilling by 7 pm. i can go to sleep here at 10:30, sleep until 2:30

i couldn't wait and made some beef cheeks in the instapot and ate some before i went to bed.

06-03

all the cars were gone when i woke up around 6. i went back to sleep and left the lot around 8am to get some wifi at REI before recharging for the day.

i note with some interest that my blog posts are now getting a few views.

now charging over at the metro. both benches are taken, so i go over to the platform, lash my umbrella to the rail for shade, and start charging my laptop - and for the first time in a month - my phone; i'm usually pretty good about keeping it plugged in to the lighter when i'm driving the car, but between not doing so yesterday and the number of texts i exchanged about dinner and the curfew had my phone beeping about its low battery around 5am this morning. i elected to shut it off.
it's only 9am and the sun is already pretty hot. it's going to get hot today. i consider checking the forecast online but i decide i'd rather not know and just find my sources of shade today.  i've considered trying the arcadia park parking lot; it's huge and there are a number of trees, but there are also already a number of cars occupying a lot of them, and i won't finish recharging until about 10:30 this morning. head back to pasadena, grab wifi at my mechanic's, grab lunch at vons and head over to eaton blanche park for the afternoon. even after being just baout eveyr morning for a couple of weeks, there are a number of faces at the park i don't recognize. i wonder if the curfew has disrupted their schedules in how they're all tapping the outlets.
i suppose i should mention the recorded messages that play over and over at the metro. they all typically end with: "LA is better when we're healthy together", er, togetter? the translation into spanish that follows doesn't come close to rhyming. oh well.
i've read accounts of the excessive force resulting in another tragic death and i've started to follow the news about the unrest that's prompted the curfew. it's another tragic event, no doubt, but i can't help but wonder if it's as much cabin fever vs. outrage that's motivated people to protest. perhaps it's less cynical to suggest that a lot of the outrage is displaced frustration related to the quarantine.  the bottom line is that any sort of mob mentality that goes unchecked does not bode well for the future.

even with the shade, the black t-shirt i'm wearing is starting to feel warm. perhaps this is what's prompted the (to me) unusual number of people already at the park this morning.  i guess i'd expect fewer people early in the month; last night at dinner one of the regulars started ranting about how some folks getting some sort of government money would pool their funds to get a hotel room, drugs & females for a two week binge. it segued into how the quarantine disrupted his going back to school and how he didn't want to spend another winter on the street. as he got more animated he got closer and closer to the table and i had to ask him to observe the social distancing thing, which set him off even more.  frustrations are running high, and i could have handled that better.

i told my boss tuesday morning that i'd come in thursday instead of taking the day off. with the curfew and my needing to leave derek's so early part of me regrets not having gone in to work this morning, but i do need the rest and a day to run errands as needed. for example, my brakes have been squeaking intermittently. i should have my mechanic take a look as they were only recently replaced, in which case i can continue to charge AND get wifi there. i just got called to confirm my coming in, and that my call time was 2am.

all the lifts were full - they asked me to come back at 2 after their lunch. so i picked a package of lunch meat and made sandwiches at the park. bread isn't going to last all that long in the car in this kind of heat; i can already see condensation inside the plastic bag.

i got a phone call from a girl named natalie who i met at a christian dance  a few years ago. she's terminally cute, but i have t-shirts that are older than she is.  so this was a bit out of the blue - she's been writing short stories during the quarantine and wants me to read a particular story based on covid-19. i told her i'd try to read it before the end of the day. i gave her my email address. she's also itching to go dancing. i jokingly suggested one of us bring a boombox to a park and dance together there. she said she'd be up for it. hmmm.

turns out i need to have the front brakes AND front & rear rotors replaced and it's going to cost me about $520. still cheaper than rent, and i've spent the rest of the afternoon in A/C recharging my laptop and getting wifi. i read through the short story. i think i'm going to sleep on it before providing feedback.

at 6pm i decided to head out to the metro, mainly just to be social. and it paid off as i  got a chance to talk a bit with jeff the cook who was there with food to cook, but john (the vet) and paul weren't there - and apparently john has the stove. jeff is a fellow buckeye, though he hails from the southern end of the state near cincinnatti. he noted that northern ohioans have a different mindset compared to southern ohioans. i had to agree. jeff was more than a little p.o.'d that he wasn't able to cook and disclosed some info about paul which confirmed my initial impression of the guy; food is really important to him. he's spent time in jail and is banned from using any dating app. apparently he had a lot of first dates where he ate and ran, sticking his dates with the check. he justified it by saying that eating good food made him feel better.  they dropped all the felony charges and convicted him of petty theft.  it would be interesting to see if i could get an idea of how food became so important to him - and help me better understand why i medicate with it. jeff also touched on scott going into housing for a month. apparently one of the conditions is that the room is inspected nightly - no women, etc. 

i'm thinking about getting  a camping stove - or borrowing derek's. but i'll be house sitting in a few days - his assignment starts on the monday the 8th, but he's thinking of heading up early and visiting his mother for the weekend so i could be in as early as the 6th.  part of me wants to stay out there and learn more about jeff - or when i get funding, find a way to get him involved with cooking for more people - i think i like his ability to improvise with what he's got.

 i hung out until 7pm, and headed off to fedex. on my way to the car, i got texted by another female i know through dance (very good follow - dances ballroom, salsa and WCS well).joyce wanted recommendations on where to get the best xiao long bao (XLB) since my favorite place, shanghai dumpling house, was closed. i had no good answer since i didn't know which places were open.
instead of heading to my normal spot where i sleep i decided to park with other cars and move a bit later after confirming that that part of the lot didn't have any other people in their cars, or hanging out talking.  i ate my takeout from mcdonald's.

i just texted joyce back and asked where she'd gone. she told me and then asked me if i wanted to go with her when shanghai dumpling house reopened. you need to understand that when i've contacted her in the past to go dancing and stuff she's always had other plans.  having a couple of cute females contact me out of the blue on the same day makes the day worth commemorating .  i treated myself to two mchicken sandwiches AND two mcdoubles for $6  tax, along with another polar pop from circle k.

today's been a full day. i think i need a day off after feeding the homeless. but i'm rested and ready to get back to it. call time 2am tomorrow morning.

06-02

started off as usual then i got switched over to "smalls" and ended up doing a number of different functions. the more cross trained i am, the better.  got done at 8:30-ish. told them i'd consider coming in on thursdays.
got about 4 hours of charge left plus the backup battery. i can skip the metro if i take a nap in the morning. hit SK around 2:30, get tacos and head over and start cooking.
it's still overcast and cool. better to nap now i think.

i napped until almost noon when i got a text from derek informing me of the 6pm curfew mandated by LA county. even though arcadia was enforcing an 8pm curfew,  i decided not to take the risk and to  serve dinner at 5pm instead, hoping that at least a few people would be there. it was gratifying to see two regulars i've referred to as webster and wayne in another blog, saying that they figured i'd come before the curfew. actually, it's more than gratifying; it's more a validation of the impact i've had on at least two people. as it turns out, we actually had 9-10 people eventually show up for dinner, and i asked them to let everyone else know that if the curfew persists, we'll do dinner at 5pm instead.
got back, got everything cleaned up and was out before derek's ex showed up with their son whose custody is shared by the two of them. currently parked on the street, but thinking that i might as well go back to fedex and sleep there since i'm going to have to go to the metro to recharge since i can't sleep in the driveway tonight. i'll wait until about 8pm to go though.

there a number of people in the lot at the far end including a car with what appeared to be three kids; others are using the lot as a place to go/stay/sleep; my predictament is not all that unusual.

06-01

a month has elapsed.

turned to be 1:30 call time. not 1am. done around 8:45. washed, polihed off a small container of granola, washed it down with he remnants of my gatorade left unfinished after my shift, slept until 11am & woke up all sweaty. so much for washing up. headed over to metro, had a brief chat with a guy who's come to dinner in the past. he figured i'd stopped. said he'd be there tomorrow. he also told me that there's an outlet at victory park behind the baseball field. also made the observation that it was a 'neutral' park - no gangs claim turf unlike places like villa park.
a young couple entered the portapotty.  i can hear the girl's voice occsionally. i assume they're doing something illicit, but if they can handle the smell being cooped up in there, power to them. but i am thinking of how i might lock them in. i think i could have done it with some bungee cords, but then i'd end up losing them since i'd have to leave.
speaking of leaving, the bench now in shade was being occupied by some guy who kept playing the same song over and over for the better part of an hour.  i just noticed that he left, so i moved and i can now type with two hands as i was typiing with one hand while holding an umbrella with the other for shade and to eliminate the glare.
it's going to be almost 2pm by the time i'm fully recharged. i'm tempted to get lunch, but it would be just to break the monotony. i do need to replenish my stock of sports drink. i'll head back over to REI and look for vons/ralphs in arcadia. plus i need to send an email for tomorrow's dinner. maybe nap over at the the arcadia park if shade can be found that's not already occupied?
i could just eat some of what's left in the car (more granola, fruit, nutragrain bars, etc.) and come back for dinner here. i admit that i'm intrigued. it occurs to me that i could just stay here for the rest of the day. i'm parked on a side street with no restrictions. it's a litle warm but i'm not really thirsty and the breeze is quite pleasant now that i'm no longer downwind of the portapotty.  i can just walk over to the REI and see if i can tap the WIFI from the shade of the metro structure, and top off the battery before i head off in search of sports drink.
it occurs to me that i could accomplish two things by not going for lunch - deny my coping mechanism of medicating with food, and spend the time thinking more about this.
the stitch job i did on my jeans has failed and the hole is now visible again. i may need to switch back to shorts for tonight.
it looks like the poartapotty maintenance person is here. this should be interesting. the young kids got out and just walked away. i watched the guy vacuum clothes out of the toilet. whatever it is, they don't pay him enough. wlkaed over to REI and sat on a retaining wall. a worker came out to ask if I was OK. i told her yeah. i located a ralphs on foothill only a few blocks away, and they had powerade on sale for only $.49 if you buy 8. i also decided to buy 10 oz of turkey and a loaf of bread for $3. i then decided to try parking at the arcadia park where in my car i ate the 10 slcies of turkey with 4 slices of bread and a packet of mayo i'd saved from subway who knows how many years ago. i then moved o a spot with shade and slept until 5:40 or so.i drove to one end of the park where i saw restrooms, only to see a sign on the door that those bathrooms closed at 5:30. i then walked across the park only to discover that those restrooms had been closed at 4pm due to the curfew. so i found a secluded spot and did my business in the bushes and walked by to my car. on a lark, i did a quick check and found that denny's was within range. i couldn't connect so i drove to a lot across the street and tapped their wifi to locate all the circle k's in arcadia ; i plan on getting another drink tonight.  i'm that thirsty.
headed over to the metro at 6:30. the two benches with working outlets were taken. one bench had a trio of kinda unsavory looking types while the old guy was at the bench downwind of the portapotty. frankly, he talks too much and i find him kinda tedious, so i decided to try one of the outlets on the platform. both outlets needed to be reset before i could start charging. if they're going to cook, there's no sign of it. the plan is to be out of here by 7:30 so i can tap REI wifi before the curfew.

john left, but i think i'm better where i am. one of the trio is going off on some rant while the other two guys apparently are continuing to carry on  their own conversation. there are a number of new faces i haven't seen before tonight, by and large scruffier looking lot.
i'd love to get the story of the guy cooking last night if i could get time with him without john around. he just talks nonstop.

there's some kid playing his music fairly loud. kinda obnoxious. i laughed when the train stopped and the operator refused to open the door he was waiting at and pulled out of the station. what's really funny about it that it was the 7:15 train, and according to someone last night, that was the last train last night. ah. the recorded announcement instructed riders with bicycles only to board using doors with the yellow decals.

scott showed up. he gets into housing for a month starting tomorrow. i wished him good luck. i regret not hearing more of his story.

left and went to get a polar pop at circle k. went with a no sugar powerade option - and got it for free because the cashier couldn't break a $20 bill. yay.

asleep at 10 for a 3:15 call time.

05-31

was done by 5am. decided to pass on the load/unload.  washed up.
planning on crashing in the parking lot until whenever, which turned out to be around 8:45, so i could have done the 9-1 shift, but i decided i would accept whatever hours come my way on a 6 day week; having the extra free day wasn't helping me get extra rest or anything.
cleaned out the car a bit. the front passenger side, the center console, glove compartment - where i found the spare batteries for the mercedes key - i've noticed that i needed to be within 5 feet of the car for it to work. rather than risk running out of batery, i replaced them. it's been 3 years, and i have one spare left - the fob takes two. but i figure that replacing just one would be enough while waiting for another order - they came in packs of five. i should have saved the original two as backups.
drove over to REI checked email, etc. and tried to file a 999-N - unfortunately, i can't file online because my tax id is no longer valid due to it being revoked. so i'll file a 990-EZ. still making progress. started recharging around 11am. i'm sharing a bench today with another regular who approached me and asked to share. he's listening to headphones and eating ice cream out of a quart container i assume he picked up somewhere earlier this morning. i added a couple of nutragrain bars to my bag in case the asian guy shows up.  but i don't think he comes in the morning, and last night he saw me and didn't even bother hitting me up.
i suppose i should be wearing my mask since this guy is sitting at the other end of the bench, but i left my mask in the car. i should put a spare one in my bag. i'll do that when i get back to my car.
i forgot to mention this yesterday:  i've been driving around in silence. i listen only to KUSC and they either went off the air for a while and/or i inadvertently hit a button and detuned off their frequency. i went channel surfing yesterday and rediscovered KUSC and so now I'm driving to classical music.  it makes a difference; i feel a bit more civilized as a consequence. i guess that makes me a classier sort of riff-raff.
i've decided to eat the 3 nutragrain bars in my bag and eat some of the fruit in my car for lunch. no polar pop today, just water. the nutragrain bars actually aren't that healthy, but it'll be a change from spending $15-20 on food like i have been for the better part of a week.  i'm down to about $100 in EBT on this last day in may. i'm looking forward to cooking again and eating a lot more produce/vegetables and dropping carbonated drinks back out of my diet. i suspect that's the main reason i haven't lost more weight, though i can tell that my pants and shorts feel less tight now.
in five months i can apply for a trainer position. i should have stayed with fedex knowing what i know now.  can't change the past. can change my future.
and the biggest thing i can see is coming to grips with how my emotional damage continues to hold me back. but how does one go about it? while channel surfing yesterday, i stayed on 99.5 KKLA for a bit, and the program topic was how to love god. it was suggested that one way was to love children - is this why i've had certain students to tutor at huntington, not to mention chess?

my benchmate has asked me to watch his stuff while he goes to the restroom - and not that  smelly porta-potty - he has a key to the metro washroom, which explains why i've seen him dressed in metro apparel; he's working for the metro, but probably isn't making enough to afford housing in this market.
it's gotten hot. fortunately i packed a small umbrella in my bag. i have to type one handed for a bit, but i'll be back to reading shortly.
i recharged until about 11-ish and decided in a change of pace and went to a carl's and they became the THIRD location not to accept my EBT. i paid cash. the temple city park was right next door, but it wasn't until after i'd parked and walked over that i saw that the picnic tables were cordoned off. so i went to the gazebo, ate standing up, went back to my car and slept until 3:30. headed over to ranch 99 hoping to find some cold chicken noodle BOGOF. the only thing they had BOGOF was pickled vegetables and marinated tofu. i went with that, ate it at eaton blanche and read until about 6:30.
got to the metro station and discovered someone cooking beef and chicken in a pan over a burner plugged into one of the outlets. he just used butter and some jamison irish whiskey and man it was GOOD. i told him we need to video him and put him on youtube. someone had provided flap meat, and it was perfectly cooked with a nice char on one side. he did the same thing with the marinated chicken. i donated packets of soy left over from my sushi which he used on the chicken. it was pretty good.
they invited me back tomorrow night. apparently someone is providing kobe beef.
i went to over to REI at 8pm, but arcadia police are enforcing the curfew and i'm already over at fedex after stopping for a polar pop - with powerade.
there was a lot of grease. my innards are churning a bit - but it might be the carl's at lunch. i suspect i'll be using my pot - or i could go in to work, use the restroom and come back out. at least i have a choice tonight.
fell asleep around 10pm.

05-30

i surfed the web using REI & my old battery and ended up getting to fedex around 9:30. there were a bunch of van drivers b.s. ing at the far end of the lot so i parked, pulled out my laptop put it on top of the car and smoked a cigar until they left. i actually fell asleep while reading in the car, and woke 10 ten minutes early for my 3 am call time.
there was an announcement about wanting people to come in 9am-1pm either today or tomorrow. load/unload only with an extra $3 an hour and an in-n-out burger. tempted, since i missed memorial day last monday.
was done by 7:15 today.  working line 1 with 3 trucks and a new guy doing the other side.
surfed again at REI using the new battery . some black guy sitting at one bench within my extension cord length of another seating spot didn't understand the concept of a power strip, so i plugged into another outlet where someone was napping on the bench and cobbled all my lines together so i could sit on a rock nearby. should be finished recharging at 9:45 or so.  i might try a nap over at the park in arcadia. i noticed a lot of cars still parked at that lot after 9pm last night.
after recharging,  went to eaton blanche arund 11 and ate the other half of the von's sandwich. slept until 4pm or so. woke up with a serious case of drymouth. i'm hoping it was from the bag of potato chips i'd bought. actually, i bought 3 of them a number of weeks ago -- buy two get one free. won't do that again. went down to ranch 99 for takeout sushi. ate at eaton blanche, but it's been pretty cold today and i left to recharge at the metro until about 7:30.
i don't want to head down to fedex this early, but then it's cold enough i doubt the latino truck drivers will stay out in the lot for long. i'm contemplating grabbing a couple of mcdoubles on the way, but i think i'd just be medicating with food.

i guess that's as good a segue as any;  during my last session with dave, he posed these questions concerning my childhood: did i feel comforted? did i feel heard? did i feel understood? and the answer is: no, no and no. and i can see now that i comforted myself with food.

argh. it's really feeling cold with the breeze. i'm settling for 90% charge after sneezing.
stopped at mcd's for 2 mcdoubles, but at least i didn't get a soft drink. that's what keeping me from losing weight and also having to urinate more often. well, in a week, i'l be able to stick with just water for 3 weeks. let's see how that plays out.
got to fedex before 9 but was asleep by 10.

05-29

never did get a call back, showed up an hour late for a 2am call time, still got in 5.5 hours and i didn't have to take a lunch.  works for me. got paid. no direct deposit yet.  about $450. more hours but only half at $19. i'll take another hit afer june 6th and i lose the surge $2/hr.  oh well.  i'll be putting money in the bank in june anyway.

washed up in security building bathroom, got to metro by 9am. brought pliers and removed the prong stuck in one of the outlets to the approval of a guy with one leg in a wheelchair. it's overcast out, actually a bit chilly with the breeze. but it'll take me less than an hour to recharge. i used the backup to surf the web for an hour and a half after i recharged last night and got drowsy after using the primary laptopan hour in the fedex lot. i could use a nap or two today, even with extra hour of sleep from 10 - 2:45.
my left elbow had a little ache after work. i covered my bases and took an aspirin from 2002 thinking it would help thin my blood in response. whatever as long as it helps.
it's nippy. in more ways than one.i think that instead of carnitas tacos i might try the  rou bing at the arcadia ranch 99.  i went there and decided to pass. tried h mart after that, and went back to von's which offers a series of specials on fridays. including sushi priced down from $7.49 to $5. scored a couple of those and ate at eaton blanche. slept in the car until 5:30, during which time it stopped being overcast and became bright and sunny - i woke up seriously sweaty in a hot car.  went back to von's and scored a $5 18" sub sandwich. ate half back at eaton blanche with some sour cream & onion potato chips. read a bit more on the laptop and headed over to the metro to top off the battery. i like the idea of using the older battery to web surf at REI, then using the newer battery at fedex. i cn then recharge both simultanteously in the morning.
yesterday and today an ethnic asian guy first asked for money, then offered to sell me some of his stuff. i passed. now i'm beginning to regret not offereing him the other half of my sandwich. i suppose he won't come back this way tonight.  it's become suddenly overcast as if someone had flicked a switch as that thought crosses my mind. almost ominous.  it prompts an idea of someone who seeks comfort denying comfort to someone else. is this shame or inappropriate condemnation?

i didn't broach the specifics of my conversations with derek wednesday night or with dave thursday afternoon.  i'm not sure i should now even though i've alluded to it by mentioning being comforted. i suppose i'll leave it at that for now. but it's going to be something that occupies my mind a lot in the days to come. maybe that's a legit part of the story - what you do when you have nowhere to stay and a lot of spare time spent in isolation due to this quarantine. the thing is, if i had a place to stay, with a place to cook, a bathroom, electricity and wifi, i'd continue to coast in my inertia resulting from my being emotionally damaged. i think i will go into it, but not tonight.

it's getting chilly again now that there is no sun. i'm glad i had the foresight to put on the hoodie i stored in the car. it occurs to me that it's one of the pieces of clothing given to me by a past landlord. i didn't stay with him all that long but one of my two pairs of jeans i packed were also given to me by him. while i would never have any dealings with him again, i suppose i should cut him a bit more slack.

a guy named scott came by, wanting to help me by offering me a chance to register for free housing. i told him i had a house sitting gig coming up in june, but thanks. scott seems to be reasonably well educated, i think it would be interesting to get to know him better, but he'll be getting housing for a month and i've got only 10 days to go before i get to house sit for 3 weeks... i wish him well.

05-28

it's now been four weeks since i moved out.

i woke up around 7am this morning. i started to fill out the 990 form derek printed and halfway through the first page, i decided to do a little more research and confirm whether i can just fill out form 990-EZ.

motivated by last night's conversation, i decided a change was needed, and since i could tap derek's wifi before i left, instead of looking for shade i decided to take a drive, and i ended up on the first turnoff on the angeles crest highway at 7:30. it's big enough to hold maybe 25 cars, and truth be told, there's not all that much of a view. the turnoff  is at the end of a small ravine that runs maybe a mile before it reaches the main la crescenta valley and the rest of los angeles is obscured by haze. mainly this turnoff is a place for slower moving cars to pull off and let faster moving traffic pass them, but the number of empty beer bottles left on the turnoff along with other bits of debris suggest that the main usage of this turnoff is to come up after dark and drink and/or watch the submarine races, if you catch my drift. 

it occurs to me that stopping here is  a metaphor for my life at this point; wanting certain things and settling for inadequate minimums.  i can stay here and attempt to gather my thoughts in relative solitude; in the last hour four cars have pulled into the turnoff, stayed a few minutes and moved on, or i could push on looking for something better.  i think i will move on in a little bit, but for now it's more important to capture these thoughts while they're still fresh in my mind. still, i had the choice, settle for the first thing that meets my bare minimums or press on. i typically choose the former and i need to understand why i do so.

it's now about 8:30. i have moved a few miles up the highway. i've passed a few small turnoffs, one larger turnoff that already had one person there, and about 3-4 turnoffs that are on the other side; your view is basically hillside, and highway from these spots. i again am at the end of a small ravine, but that's all you can see from here. there's less debris, and it's all food related: take out bags/cups, plasticware,  etc. there's even shade though it probably won't last more than another hour. the voices of four female hikers could be heard across the ravine after they'd parked and then headed up the hill for an apparent hike. yes, this place is better.

i do have some standards. i turned down both of two available bedrooms in a house in altadena that had no central air (which is a tough thing to choose in altadena). one room was only $800 including utilities but the room was maybe 8x10 and in hot weather, even unsuitable for just sleeping. the room i saw last night for which i was encouraged to apply did have its own private 3/4 bath and two sinks, but was on the top floor with a southern exposure and what looked like a rather inadequate wall A/C. paint was peeling and there were some disgusting looking stains in both sinks.

when it comes to seeking housing, i still believe that anything that sounds too good to be true is probably a scam, and i've not even bother to apply for any of these rooms.  in this case i still believe that it's reasonable to be skeptical and not even bother. should i adjust my perspective and make room for the possibility that god is in one of these opportunities and pursue them?

i'm feeling a little drowsy. i think i'll take a nap until the sun (and its warmth) wakes me. but i hear the whine of a mosquito, so i'm going to head back down to one of the cliff side turnouts and let the breeze take care of that mosquito which just might infectious with some disease i don't need to get right now.

ended up back in pasadena; all the turnouts on the other side had no shade so i kept coming down the highway when i got pulled over by a sheriff. i assumed it was because i still haven't gotten my new license tags after getting the car smogged finally.  the sheriff asked me for my last name, which i told him. he then asked me if i was living in an apartment, and i told him i was which i suppose was technically a falsehood, and then he said something i'm not sure i understood, something about running my license and coming up with some sort of warrant, but that i was free to go. perhaps i'm finally persona non grata at my old place? no matter, i have no intent of being seen there any more. i can tap the outlets at the metro, and in a couple of weeks i'll be house sitting at derek's until july.

the library is now allowing people to reserve books online, and come to the library and pick them up from 9:30am - 12:30am. perhaps i should take advantage of that, especially since wifi is apparently working at the library while it's open.
stopped at ralph's and picked up some day old fried chicken and have been noshing on it throughout the day. found a new place to nap: the two target stores near me have underground/covered parking and enough of it that if you park far away from the building no one else would be within 50 ft. of your car. unfortunately, i almost overslept my video conference appointment with dave at 1pm. i got within wifi range at 1:08. we discussed something that i identify as being a major issue and something i've spent a great deal of the day dwelling upon it. it explains a great deal of my inertia. but i don't know exectly how to proceed from here.
i'm a little worried that dealing with this will lower my overall energy level going forward.
stopped at eaton blanche and stayed there until i ran out of battery. got to the metro station around 5pm, and traffic on the 210 east was almost as heavy as it is during pre-quarantine rush hour. something has to give here. even the people who afford to stay home want to get out and do stuff.
mom has called twice today within a half hour. i don't think she remembers calling me twice due to her parkinson's.
 it is now 6pm and there is no one else at the metro. they're probably all at pasadena presbyterian all eating restaurant made meals. god bless 'em.

got into a conversation with a regular here who was complaining about the behavior of some of the other regulars about how the foul things up, in some cases literally, leaving feces on the sidewalk, etc.

it's now 6:45. contemplating going and tapping REI's wifi and coming back and recharging. i can just recharge, go to REI and head down to fedex knowing i'll be back to recharge tomorrow morning. i'm regretting getting the fried chicken  even if it was a relative deal at $6 for eight pieces.  i could save the rest for tomorrow i suppose and grab a couple of mcdoubles for a change of pace.

i've called fedex twice and have yet to receive a call back confirming my start time for tomorrow. last week i called once, and got called back three times. go figure.

there's some guy who's showed up making some weird noises. i haven't looked at him, but i moved my umbrella so it's within reach of my right hand and poked the sidewalk with it a few times.

two guys showed up after having eaten korean food at the thursday dinner at pasadena pres.  the older guy reminds me a bit of murph. feisty vietnam vet. he's eligible for VA housing but doesn't want to live there. apparently went broke paying for wife's cancer treatment.
-----------------------------------
i was supposed to hear back tuesday about the house on raymond. nothing. that's ok. though i think it might have been a good thing to be able to relate with women like dana & naomi (who was actually kinda cute) regularly.  and the ad for the hot box in altadena is gone. i guess they found a renter for the room. so be it. at this point, i'd rather go another 10-11 days, then house sit for 3 weeks and apply a whole month's wages to my credit cards and work on grant requests.

05-27

woke up around 6:15. derek came out around 7:45 and asked me if i wanted bacon & eggs. i said yes, assuming he'd be joining me. he wasn't. i'm not a big breakfast person. but we got started on the shed around 8am and started loading it until about 2pm when we headed off to home depot to get a ladder and some pruning shears. then stopped at super king where we picked up some salmon heads, beef cheeks, etc. i cleaned and fried the salmon heads, grilled the collar, prepared the beef cheeks for a braise in the pressure cooker, then made a tofu salad with cucumber, tomato and a peanut butter dressing. macerated some fresh strawberries in red wine and a little sugar.

went to check out the bedroom with  private bath at 9pm it's right on the alhambra/s. pas border. but the place was in the condition that the previous tenant had left it, which included nasty stains in both sinks in the master bath. that was the killer for me. plus the rate which i'd understood to be $750 including utilities was actually $800 and not including utilities and it being on the top floor with a southern exposure it just didn't scream "you should grab me instead of house sitting for most of the month of june.

the plan is to smoke a cigar after derek finishes getting caught up with work and celebrate singleness; he received a document dealing with child support. he took that to mean that the divorce was final. i'll sleep in the driveway and have to be gone before the ex shows up at noon.