Tuesday. Odd night. I did get to bed early, discovered I was getting the chills unless I got down under the covers, the usual prelude to a cold of some kind coming on, although in the recent past I've had this happen without any sign of a cold the next morning and I was assuming this would be true today. And it was. Still, odd. Or not.

Up I'd say half a dozen times to take a leak, not much of a leak, but awake and up none the less. Whatever was doing it didn't have to do with the hydraulics. Just an odd long evening that resulted in a fair amount of sleep. Unusual in its form to the point I did a blood sugar reading just in case. Eighty-six. Within range.

I'd gotten an email yesterday from my doctor on their doctor-patient web site saying he'd ordered blood work and it would be coming in the mail, I'm assuming today. He also said, unless I was experiencing a low blood sugar period when the blood was drawn, the tests would probably prove ineffective. I've not experienced any of the low blood sugar issues now for the last week and I suspect we're not going to learn anything from the tests. Lets hope there was an episode at the family party - it came, it did its deed and then departed - and that was it, never to return. Forever hopeful, he said.

Up with the alarm to head off to breakfast feeling pretty good, I'd have to say, driving home by the construction site to see them pouring cement into the tall columns they've been working on now for a while at the vehicle entrance to the garage and so I walked down the hill and took pictures rather than putting it off until later when they'd have finished and moved on to other less photogenic tasks.

Again, feel good after the odd evening before. I suspect we'll have more of these in whatever form, the ups and downs of growing older. Either than or..., well. Babbling again. So easy to do, so comfortable. No think. Rests the brain.

Later. An attempt at a nap, no sleep, but feeling better for the effort. A walk down to the construction site to see how they were doing and complete the day's usual set of photographs, back to screw around on the web. I do spend a lot of time on the web.

A bus then downtown to have lunch at Genji's, another Genji chicken salad, a walk then over to Latham Square to check out something I'd seen on Twitter, a flier announcing their intention to remove eight of the large trees on and near the square. And indeed, eight large oaks marked for removal. Not sure why. It will make a big difference in the area itself, probably not for the better. You'd think?

On to the guitar lesson that went better than I'd been expecting. More of the same for next week. Speed and accuracy, more speed and accuracy and maybe a little soul in the playing. It is music, after all. No robots are encouraged to play.

Finishing late I missed the bus and so a walk back to the apartment. Definitely got in my exercise for the day/week.

Evening. Nothing on television. Watched Democracy Now as I do every evening along with the France-24 news, PBS news, BBC news, Deutsche Welle, NHK World (Japanese news) and one or two others I'm undoubtedly forgetting for the moment in the afternoons. The Democracy Now coverage of the Gaza mess is much different than anything you get on American programs in that they are very clear to show the Palestinian side of the story. European news, to include the BBC, is similarly inclined in contrast to American coverage.

By itself Democracy Now is in many ways slanted as any of the others (well, maybe not to the level of a Fox, from what I'm hearing), but they probably come closer to a balance than any one alone when you put them all together.

I have more than a few Jewish friends made over these last many years, don't think I can name a single Palestinian I know, and so I want to believe Israel has clean hands (and that we, as their enablers, have clean hands) in all of the blood and sorrow, but I'm sure it's not true. Then again, Israel and the Jewish community isn't monolithic on the subject either, much too clear eyed to not ask the hard questions, but nothing but upsetting in voicing the matter.

No good can come from talking about this. You see the heat generated in the various letters to the editor columns in the newspapers.

Which is why we end it here.