Saturday. Yesterday was a day of naps with no ambition whatsoever to go anywhere or do anything much other than prepare the web pages required in photographing a festival or two this weekend, thinking, well: naps. At least we'd be in shape for all the running around tomorrow. We're hoping.

An uneven night's sleep to awaken at five forty-five. I say “awaken”, but it was more a series of awakenings to look at the clock and mentally note the time, five forty-five finally the time I decided to throw in the towel and get up. Hup! Or whatever.

Still, once up, felt good. The toes were aching a bit, but otherwise up, get dressed and head out the door to see all the no parking signs they'd had along my breakfast route had been put there to make way for a half marathon they were running this morning. I'd wondered about that, had done a web lookup yesterday to see if I could find something online about it, but to no avail. Out of the blue: a half marathon.

Anyway, a walk to breakfast with the blocked off lane clear, a walk back from breakfast as the first runners appeared and streamed by as I was walking home. So some pictures. But what about the Pistahan Parade later that starts at eleven? The bus I need to take to BART and the parade at nine-thirty isn't running because of the marathon.

Sounds like you've screwed the pooch.

There is a Laurel Street Fair today I can reach and the Pistahan Festival runs not only this afternoon, but most of the day tomorrow. I could do Laurel today and the Pistahan tomorrow. Miss the parade, the forming up of the parade anyway, but such are the ways of the world. At least the energy is there/here. We're primed to do something.

Later. It all fell into place once I was out the door, but only after the usual “should I go, should I stay?” routine had played itself out. A bus to BART and then a short walk from the Montgomery Street station to the Yerba Buena Gardens to find a large crowd. A very large crowd at one in the afternoon, it's obviously grown since the last time I was there. Since 2010? Has it been that long? Not nearly as many people when I photographed it then.

Took pictures for just over an hour under a bright sun until I was more than tired and it was time to go. Just barely enough pictures for a web section (if I make do with a few I shouldn't), but still not a bad outing. Again, people everywhere to the point it was move and shoot, move and shoot, no place to sit in sun or shade, long lines in front of all the food booths. Quite a difference in those six years since 2010.

Evening. Skipped an episode of Elementary from its first season: too much drug addict, not enough Holmes. And, of course, I'd seen it before and remembered (in this case remembered) the outcome.

A longer than usual day, but a good day, feel tired in a good way and so to bed. We'll deal with the Pistahan pictures tomorrow.