Later. Easy enough, now that we're back. A bus down Grand over to Broadway, a walk then to the hospital lab. I'm not sure if it's good or bad that half the staff people I passed nodded as I walked by, obviously remembering me from many a lab test in the past. But what the hell? In and out, a bus then down Broadway to Grand and a walk to the apartment. I'd have waited on a bus on Grand if it wouldn't have taken so long, but it did and I walked.

A picture or two, that was about it, more to answer a question as to how the lighting and clouds against the tree limbs would turn out, a sign on Grand at Broadway for the color and a decorated trash box painted to look like a single die. I guess this is good, curiosity is good, taking the somewhat odd “why did he bother to take that?” photograph, whatever's gleaned from the image going somewhere back into the memory bank of use in another context later in making better picture calculations in the future. Experience comes in many ways, I suspect.

So you say.

You always hope whatever it is you call practice leads to something positive and not just to another way to rationalize goofing off. You wander off the beaten path and you either come to a dead end, a cliff, a bear in the woods, or you come up with your own off the wall contribution of a new branch on your own path. One either gets nowhere or somewhere and some success. I'd guess.

And success around here is?

Finding pictures I like well enough to paste up on the web. Or tape to a wall when there's room on a wall which, at this point, is nonexistent.

Still, a good morning, the attitude good even mixed with the mind numbing pontification. UPS didn't arrive. I did remember to tape my little printed note asking any deliveries be signed for by the apartment manager to the box. Good to remember that forgetting leads to lost packages. Until the next day lost. Not much more, you'd think, than a moment's fret.

I have a package to send later that's sitting all boxed up and ready to go beside me on the rug, a coffee mug for my sister with our mother's image printed on it, taken at a family party many years back. Not enough pictures of the family, given the number of pictures I have of others. Hard to take them once they're gone. But you learn these things after the fact, part of the learning path.

Later still. Today's UPS delivery was evidently made through the post office, UPS dropping off the package yesterday at the local Oakland stop, they unbeknownst to me, leaving it inside the apartment front door area with the other mail. So good. A new light jacket ordered online, some aspects of the thing not quite the way I'd like to have had them, but overall alright. No complaints. A medium tall jacket with plenty of room for a sweater and such should I need them, although this is a summer jacket usable now, I guess, in the winter too. Doodle-dee-do. Pretty exciting stuff, I'd say, for an old fart.

A walk then over to the morning café for coffee, a scoop of mocha chip ice cream and a chocolate laced scone. Lunch and dinner. Probably not the best sort of calories to consume, but the day is nice, the sun is out and I took a picture or two that halfway worked out. Oh, and the blood test showed the balance is good, not too thin, not too thick, get another test in two weeks (instead of another month). It doesn't usually vary that much requiring more than a monthly test, but the lab is just down the way a couple of miles and easy enough to reach. Particularly if you drive.

You don't like to drive.

I didn't say it was perfect.

Evening. Another Maigret episode this evening at six, not bad, watched it with some interest. Set in France in the fifties and sixties. Played some guitar as I was watching. Good. The evening has gone well, maybe I'll get to bed at a decent hour this night.