What do........

What do ALzheimers grocery shopping, sushi, and clue number 117 down from the August 5th Sunday L.A. Times crossword puzzle have in common? ...........I did them all today.

I started my day; sans sleeps again, doing some cleaning and starting the LA times crossword. I eventually decided that cashing my paycheck would be a good thing and headed to the local supermarket that has a bank branch conveniently located within. While I was cashing my check a foot shuffler approached the counter and was a bit off center. She was chatting with the little lady behind the counter as if she knew her and was babbling about anything and something at the same time. The girl looked at me and did an obvious eye roll signifying that she had no idea in the world who this lady was. The elderly woman used her name (her own name) in the conversation. The girl behind the bank counter was at a loss, so after I received my receipt I turned to the elderly woman [kicked a wink at the teller] and used her name in passing conversation about how her morning was treating her. From there we bantered back and forth, me gleaning anything and everything from the conversation I could to try and help her with chivalric intentions. She was shopping and lost her cart...saw her "friend" at the bank counter and was in need of assistance. ( I doubt Alzheimers had anything to do with it, but I listed it previously). Martha and I then meandered through the store and located her cart, and I was obliged to accompany her around the food aisles helping her locate all the items she had on her list. She was doing quite well, and half the list was already taken care of, she just needed help finding a few items. I pushed the cart and kept up the conversation. Her son was on vacation in Belize, or Florida or some ofther country, so she said, she missed him and her grandchildren. On our way to the checkout we were approached by a frantic 40 something, who had been to the customer service center and was paging Martha in an effort to locate her. I hadn't noticed the paging...it wasn't my name. Apparently Martha was a resident at an assisted living home on an outing, doing some shopping to help her stay in tune with her regular life and on top of her game as it were. Her chaperone thanked me for taking the time....I felt generally good. Selfishness with regard to a random situation accomplished. I think random acts of kindness are the way to go. When I'm a dirty little old man (cause I will be a DIRTY Old man someday) I will no doubt receive some help at one point or another, and think back to the time I helped Martha in a "Pay if Forward" sort of way. Martha gave me a hug and we parted ways.

I then went shopping for myslef (yup myslef) and purchased some sushi rice, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, some tuna, powdered Wasabi, Nori, and some other things to roll up for din din. Upon retuning to my place I set to work and made some of the ugliest sushi rolls known to man. I know they'll taste good, but they look pretty sad. The tuna wasn't sushi grade... I didn't want to spend that much money for raw fish although I should have. (If you know me I'm no seafood person, but the Monstu turned me onto Tuna prepared correctly and I enjoy it immensely) I definitely had time during the day to head over to Avon Meatland and get the good stuff. Anyway the sushi was rolled poorly I mixed the wasabi, failed to remember washing my hands post wasabi mixin' and had to whiz (NSFW) Dick Burn. Not cool, but a pretty serious endorphin rush I can tell you...didn't bother with a shower and basically [if you're not a single guy you'll find this remotely disturbing] washed the wang in the bathroom sink. Much better.

Good deed for the day accomplished, non burningwang and dinner prepared I sat down for a few hours and hit up the afore mentioned ccrossword. Usually it takes me a week, and more often than not longer to finish one of these, that includes random calls to Timmy Z and the Monstu for a bit of asssitance. I finished the entire puzzle all by my lonesome. Barring the few clues in the morning it only took me 2 hours. I felt SMRT.

This evening I'm working on car ads for the paper, they're the bain of my existance but I'm not that phased right now. The bonus of the evening will be the dinner break which I should be able to wrench out an extra half hour for.

Overall today was a 8 on the worth scale and is a significant jump from the last week of hovering around 4 or 5.