Later. Out the door thinking I'd take the bus to the Broadway ATM and then walk on to the City Center, but missed the bus by three minutes, a matter of trusting the GPS nextbus smartphone web app and believing it when it said the bus was five minutes late. Usually the little nextbus app is right on, but not this morning for the number 12 at my stop.

What the hell, a walk along the lake in the opposite direction heading for the Lakeshore ATM, we're flexible here and the mood again is quite good. Arrived at the ATM and walked back around to the Grand Lake theater thinking, given it was time for another downtown bus, I might catch it across from the theater and indeed it was visible as I reached the corner across from the stop. What the hell, there wasn't any traffic, so I crossed against the light and climbed aboard. Daring-do before noon in late morning Oakland.

They hadn't erased the Chalkupy mural at 14th and Broadway yet, worth a detour to take a picture, off then through the City Center to Peet's on Broadway, nothing open (I seemed to remember Peet's was open on Sunday mornings). So, the Asian Cultural Center for an ice cream cone sitting on a bench out by the fountain.

A bus back to the apartment deciding to work on the computer, moving files from the laptop to the network backup disks and ordering a faster Ethernet hub through Amazon. If we're going to do more and better backups to the network drives, we're going to do it over faster wires. Progress. The head is in its “head cold” state, no ocular symptoms, but the teeth and the jaw are aching and perversely feel a bit like an augmented head cold without the runny nose. Not good, but not so terribly bad either. Took an extra pain pill this afternoon. What the hell.

Guitar now, we're behind on our beloved guitar, but we can catch up. Hup! Did I mention the finger picking exercise has been challenging? I did? More than once? Well then, I suspect there'll be more to come.

Later still. Having written the above I decided to lie down for what turned out to be an hour to clear the head, let the aching sinuses and teeth ease off and then maybe go back, review the above and make what I suspected were necessary edits. Fuzzy headed walks, fuzzy headed words. A reoccurring worry we're getting fuzzier and the mind is slowly heading into new, albeit often written about, territory.

Is that true?

I'm going to discuss the current art and life with the neurologist when we make another appointment, having discovered the blood test I delayed getting until the last minute was necessary for him to have in hand to make another MRI appointment, so meeting with him next week isn't possible without the MRI. The bottom line, of course, is my putting off the blood test for no good fuzzy headed reason (extremely easy, they just draw a second vial when I'm having my monthly Protime test). Many minor fuzzy headed reasons about these days, often showing up where you least expect them.

So you're walking about bumping into walls and not able to put together a coherent sentence when someone makes a comment?

No, no. Nothing like that (yet), but I'm definitely drawing in the horns and staying well inside my little cloud. One sign of the thing may well be I'm writing about it here, perhaps something I should think about more clearly, although I'm now retired and not in the business of convincing employers I need a job. Employers are often concerned about hiring people who float about in bubbles.

Best not to mention the alligators or the weasels in the walls.

Indeed.

Evening. OK, nothing I wanted to see on at six, more time (finally) on the guitar getting the finger picking exercise together. Two of the finger tips on the left hand are a little raw-sore-whatever from sliding them quickly up and down on the strings for this one, but they'll toughen up. Sounds good, worth the effort.

To bed early. I can't remember if there's anything on T.V. later that can lure me in, although for all my apparent pickiness, it doesn't take all that much anymore (Italian police procedurals aside). I figure if the head is getting fuzzier, the taste in programs will become scuzzier and eventually it won't matter: just turn on the set.