people i see: weird cymbal lady

Victoria BC, dark January 2023 AD evening. I’m going to look at a cymbal that is for sale on facebook marketplace. The seller has been nice to deal with over messenger but when she gives me her address, I recognize it as being a low income housing development I have bought tacky old stuff from before. I arrive and yup it’s the same complex. I find the seller’s unit, ring the doorbell, and a 60-ish year old woman opens the door a crack. Eventually lets me in and I say hi to her very friendly dog. Then she politely tells me to get the fuck inside and close the door before the cat escapes, and then proceeds to spin some yarn about where this rescue cat came from. She and her place actually aren’t too sad, better than I expected for this place. She tells me to be careful not to slip on the stairs, how she had to remove the carpet from them and paint them when she moved in because the carpet was just so stained and smelly and awful so this is much better but it is a bit slippery so it’s a tradeoff, yada yada. We get upstairs and she explains how these cymbals belonged to her brother and he was a member of our local homeless population and he finally succumbed to his addiction, and shows me a family photo of the man. Ok. Eventually she leads me to another room where the cymbal is. I had asked on messenger if she had a drum stick I can use to test the cymbal, she had said yes, so I ask for that now and she produces what I learn is called a ‘tipper’ for a ‘bodhran’ — not quite what I meant but it will suffice.

I hit the cymbal on the bell and body. The woman makes some “mmm, mmhmm” sounds I don’t understand. Then I hit the edge and the woman makes a similar sound but I think this one is disapproving. Hard to tell. I go over each of the sounds again and the woman makes more sounds but they seem more agitated now. I hit the edge again and the woman quickly states that there are five young children in the unit next to hers. I look at the time and it’s exactly 6:00 pm. Not sure how many kids are in bed by 6 but I take the hint and stop testing her cymbal. I haven’t been able to really test it but from what I’ve heard I’m not nuts about it, and not nuts about the lady, plus she had listed it for sale quite a while ago but priced it rather high which is why it hasn’t sold yet. She recently dropped the price from $240 to $225, which isn’t going to convince anyone to finally pull the trigger on it, and indicates she doesn’t realize it’s not an especially valuable cymbal, and isn’t very flexible on the price. Even if I was interested in it I don’t know if I would have bought it from her.

Luckily for me, none of this matters at this point so I say thanks but I’ll pass. As I go to head downstairs, in my peripheral vision I see a man who I assume is her partner, standing in the kitchen facing me, not saying anything, looking like he might be a jump scare in a horror movie. Hadn’t seen or heard him, had no idea there was anyone else in here. Maybe my wild cymbal smashing woke him from his 5 pm bedtime. Whatever. I’m already irritated with this entire situation so I don’t look at or acknowledge him, can’t be bothered. The woman ushers me out the door just as quickly as when I came in, again due to the cat. I’m happy I didn’t buy yet another cymbal I don’t need. I get in the car and finish off my roasted milk tea with boba. I feel good now.

fun hangover

It’s 7:53 am on Sunday August 8th, 2021. The last few days have been a whirlwind of fun and I’m feeling all emotional from it.

On Friday I rushed around the first half of the day getting prepared for Paul and Kate’s wedding. Super busy, non-stop errands all morning. Then we were going to be camping with everyone after the wedding so we had a bunch of shit to pack for that. We ended up arriving at the wedding an hour late but had planned to be there two hours early so it was fine but still stressful to be behind schedule. I was in the wedding party and inexplicably stressed about it even though all I had to do was walk, stand, and then have pictures taken for under 5 min. The wedding went well and then we went camping out at Island View Beach and it was a ton of fun despite the rain. I met a lot of Paul and Kate’s friends and they were all fantastic. I couldn’t believe what a swell group of people it was, they were all so funny, kind, friendly, interesting. I stayed up till 2:30 am, Jenn was up till almost 4 am, and others were up until 5:30. Crazy. Once people started getting up I made breakfast for people and it was nice. I was happy to be able to contribute something to the event, and I consistently find group breakfasts on the mornings after big parties have a chill, fun, afterglow vibe.

Jenn and I headed home around noon, unpacked, slept a bit, and then I quickly worked out and watched some UFC before heading to Ben’s to watch the rest of it. “Maddie” ended up joining us and it was great to spend some time with her for the first time since before the pandemic, and also fun to have someone who was completely new to UFC watching with us. She seemed to like it! The fights were good, we ate lots of snacks, and then Mad retired for the night and Ben and I checked out some metal and discussed. Important, high priority stuff. I was beat but didn’t realize how late it had gotten, and was berating myself the whole way home for staying up so doggone late again. Got to bed just after 1 am.

This morning I got up early and went with Jenn to her horse show. I helped her with getting ready and filmed her rides for her. It’s nice to be supportive of your partner.

Now here I am, tired as all hell and still feeling all warm about the last few days. It’s like a hangover from fun. All I want to do now though is just relax and take it easy — finish putting the camping shit away, clean up the kitchen, maybe watch a horror movie tonight, go to bed at a reasonable hour. Boy, that would be swell. I should be able to handle that.

^{fun, fun, fun, fun}