I've been checking the pandorea vine out in front of the morning café for any new signs of flowers for the last couple of months. I have no clue as to the timing on such things, but it's consistently had half a dozen seed pods ripen and then finally open and now it's ready for what? Another cycle?

I could see in another life paying attention to such things, growing some of my own in a garden. My, my. You really do eventually turn into your parents, even these many decades later.

Later. A bit antsy this overcast morning, more than one attempt to get out of the apartment only to turn around and walk back. An automated call from the blood test people telling me they hadn't received yesterday's results, please give them a call. Ah, yes. We were going to do that today, weren't we.

The test went easily enough, I only had to puncture two fingertips to draw enough blood, we'll make do with but one finger next week and from there on out. I see now it's not all that complicated once you've read the manual. Well, skimmed through the manual for the parts you managed to screw up. The reading was 2.9, a little high, but the doctor's office will call later if changes need to be made.

Anyway, a walk mid-afternoon to the burger drive-in for a chicken sandwich, the sun finally in residence, back to think about picking up the guitar after a nap. Always something to keep you busy in Oakland.

Later still. A call from the nurse, we'll cut back on the dosage, get the number down a couple of tenths. Fine. I can do that.

So far the day continues well. A bit queasy from eating that chicken sandwich for about twenty minutes, but it seems to have settled down. I've spent time now on the guitar, have more time to go, but we're on schedule and the finger picking exercise seems to be playing itself.

Some futzing with two photographs playing with a photo program that converts a color digital image to an image that looks as if it were shot using various brands of both color and black and white film. I keep saying I miss black and white, and I do, but I'm happier with these in their original color. Just playing, nothing more.

You need to sit down and really learn your black and white.

As do we all, as do we all.

Evening. The wine detective on at six, I (finally) see, is called The Blood of the Vine, but I've seen it before and I've decided to pass (no, I don't remember who done it or why), listening to Democracy Now (like a good radical liberal) instead before taking on the Korean spy soap to see what happened after they'd left it in improbable circumstances last night. Your basic cacophony of improbable shoot 'em up madness couched in the form of a soap.

And I think there's a new Elementary this evening at ten, so we're probably going to bed after eleven. What the hell, the day has gone well, I've had (another) spaghetti red clam sauce dinner without dying and the sun has been shining bright now since mid-afternoon. How can one not like that?