On Thursday afternoon a digital camera arrives in the mail. Nopesterov gets his picture taken a couple of times during the evening and the camera is pronounced ready for a field trip.
Friday night, after a follow-up visit to the doctor and a good, windy bicycle ride, I am tired. I take some Kava root extract and settle in for an early evening. As I'm turning out lights to go to bed (at 9:00pm), Brandon calls and I make the mistake of answering. He wants to go to Fire Island and have a soda or two. I explain that I have already taken the Kava root extract and will be falling asleep soon. He asks, again, for me to go. He insists that I go. He persists that I go. He offers to come and pick me up and do all of the driving. I ask, "If you come and pick me up, do I have to put out?"
He doesn't quite understand the question and I drop it. He's disappointed, but he finally accepts my refusal to go and lets me go to sleep.
The Kava root extract kicks in and I am absolutely gone to the world. From 9:00pm until 7:00am – a nuclear weapon could have gone off in my room and I would not have heard it. I feel good when I wake up and regain consciousness and go for a run.
The kinesiologist/biomechanician (KM) calls on Saturday morning and we have a discussion about how to get together. I suggest that we meet in downtown Los Angeles so that we can try out the new digital camera. He relents and I tell him that I'll meet him in downtown at 12. Midnight. This does not go over well so we arrange a more-like noontime meeting.
We wander around downtown Los Angeles looking at the old buildings, checking out jewelry, walking through Pershing square, checking out the 548 digital building on Spring street, and taking a tour of hotels. We walk into the Biltmore (at about $200 per night) and other more interesting places. There's the Loraine (for $220 a month), the King Edward (for $290 a month), and the Frontier (for $350 a month). While we're there, there's no point in denying it, we stop in at the King Eddy Saloon.
We head up to the bar and are not in the King Eddy for more than a minute when some guy asks the KM, "Marijuana?"
The KM doesn't quite understand what the guy is asking, so I shake my head negatively and the guy leaves us alone. We get two 7-Ups and sit down. The KM asks me what the guy wanted because he couldn't understand what he was saying. After I explain to the KM what the guy was asking him, I explain, "You have to have previously been a junkie in order to understand a junkie." The KM takes this in stride and we enjoy our 7-Ups - except for the smoke. No state law is going to tell the King Eddy that their patrons cannot smoke. We stay just long enough to drink our 7-Ups and leave – neither of us enjoying the smoke. We admire, before leaving, the King Eddy t-shirts that are for sale, but we do not buy any.
The KM stops mid stride and absolutely has to ask the question, "Why is it you like all of the old broken down hotels?"
"Because I like looking at old buildings, imagining what they were like when they were new, imagining the occupants when they were new, imagining the occupants now, making up stories about how they got there. I like seeing evolution and decay." This answer is accepted. As well as the KM's extrapolation that I probably spent nights in these hotels back when...um...well, when I was more destructive.
Monday is a practice retirement day. I get up late, climb up on the ladder to rearrange some cable and telephone wires, go for a bicycle ride, lift weights, check out the stock market, and play an ice hockey game. I'm going to like retirement! Let's put the paperwork in now.
Except that two hours before my Monday night ice hockey game, the KM calls and wants to have “The Talk”. We spend more than an hour talking about where we’re headed and what to do. I go play the ice hockey game but my mind is, obviously, somewhere else.