Still Gearing Up

With all the other work I have going on lately, paying for my various purchases, and trying to figure out my route to OR, I have worked late, forgetting a practice, forgotten to pay rent, and probably something else.

My landlord always returns the envelope which I use to drop off the rent check. It is almost like a tradition. It has their names on it, and I place it in the basket by their front door. In a few days, it appears in the mailbox by my door. I never think to look inside.

So, it sat there for a month, then today I placed a check with a note apologizing for being 2 days late on rent. Inside the envelope was a fifty dollar bill with a note from them thanking me for looking after certain chores while they were out of town. I couldn't believe it.

I would have done the work for free. It pays to kiss up to the landowner when you have a great rental arrangement. Make them like having you there. Amazing. So, I figured, "yippee, fifty bucks! Let's go shopping for some stuff."

I finally got my haircut, after three months, bought a pair of bargain jeans at walmart--and they are made in Mexico and have no logo on them whatsoever. Nine dollars and something. I can't believe it. And the fit better than most. That fifty paid for some other things too, like batteries for camp fans and mini lanterns.

My theory on things like lanterns is; the last thing I want to do is carry something around that requires liquid fuel. The old Coleman style lanterns were cool, but not temperature wise, and a hassle. LED and battery is for me.

So, I have a couple of mini lanterns which slide down to become flashlights, can be hung up in a tent, and are not afraid of rain. Plus I have two battery powered fans which seem to have received good reviews, and they were cheap.

The girl who cut my hair says that most of the camping up THE ONE is already reserved. Who would have thought you had to make reservations to sleep in a tent outdoors? Not me. Apparently many others already knew the scoop. I'll bet I find places along the way.

I have to go inland somewhere in the Bay area to pick up a crate for my nephew. He bought some device to further his ever burgeoning basement printing shop. He started with one 100 year old press, which he fixed up. Now there are two. And with the new device, he can create the plates himself. Sounds like a possible money making venture--if you get my drift.

Don't ask- don't tell, I always say. His wife is the one who creates the graphics, and up until now they had to send her art elsewhere to be made into printing plates.

Couple of neo-bolsheviks; probably printing money and propaganda for the Obama effort to nail this dictatorship down once and for all.

It will be good to just be out and about. I figure I better do it while it is still semi-legal, and before someone dreams up a tent tax and who knows what. This is California. And the new USA. I hope the change changes in nature and direction. These things scare me. I'm not a good comrade kind of a citizen. I not only do not support my local police, I don't even trust or like them, on the whole. Maybe I'm the sort that is being weeded out of this new 21st century across-the-bridge place. Hopeville. "Utopia for all except those who we think are too not like us."

So, good review on Kelty. Good review for the new air mattress, whose make I don't recall. It was a bargain online--campmor.com. I can use the pumps that came with other airbeds I've had which developed leaks pretty quick. This new one appears to hold air and shape better than the last few I've had. I have one that is still OK, so I have a spare.

Now I need bear spray--for possible carjackers, bug repellent of every kind. Not everywhere is like SoCal, where bugs are so few you can count them on one or two hands.

Who knows, I may yet divert my path over toward vagabond lady land. I don't know. I've been guilty of being too stand offish, and some people say the hell with it and grab another dude and never look back. Who can blame them? Not I.

On the other hand. I may hit the coast--got to save money, and ignore the thoughts of people who aren't even living my life. And definitely not dealing with my budget, history, or else. Everyone knows how to live anyone's life but his own. Not everyone, but enough people to make you wonder. That was a case of the extinct universal "his". Substituting "their" when possessive is singular is not a good answer to this stupid politically correct change in grammar.

Maybe "hiser" or "hizer", and "shehe" will gain traction. As it is when I see she or her used universally, I knee jerk into defensive mode, assuming the female writer is a castrating new woman of the 21st century, or that the male writer is a phony, trying to kiss up, thinking he'll get lucky. Ladies, those guys who play that "I'm a feminist" role are not real. They are doing it solely as a seduction ploy.

The rest of us would shoot them if we could get away with it. But it makes us so sick to watch the dynamic, and how you sucker for it, pretending not to know it is BS, that we'd probably be incapable of good aim anyway.