So what?

A question I often ask.

Still, a good day ahead. A run by the supermarket to pick up necessary items - cottage cheese, tomatoes, grapes, three frozen dinner entrées and sake, can't get out the supermarket door without sake - leaving them on the kitchen counter and forgetting to put them in the refrigerator and freezer until just now when I remembered. Ah, well. They weren't there for long, the frozen entrées will survive, life will not end. The brain, however, is showing signs of trouble (as they evidently do at this age), not yet enough to make me freak think.

The mood is good, though. I need to get the car washed when I next get gas, might do that today, and I need to pick up a couple of prescription refills later that I managed to put off ordering for so long now that I've run out of one of the “less important” ones. I often come close, but this is the first time I've allowed any of them to run dry. The cholesterol inhibitor. My cholesterol has been very low for a long time, low to the point of nonexistent, so I don't think missing a day or two will matter. Not like running out of the blood pressure pill or the blood thinner. The kind of uncritical thinking that will lead to error at some point by those less critical and clever than I.

Later. A bus downtown to pick up the prescriptions, a walk then across the street to the City Center to sit at a table in the sun, a man with a small dog seemingly sleeping beside the fountain, the security people coming over to give him their thoughts on sleeping beside their fountain, I sitting there with a camera. How could I not? No big deal. The transaction was handled reasonably well, I guess, the fellow up finally on his feet and off after a long discussion.

Was this necessary? I don't know, I'm just the guy shooting pictures. The man with the dog was fairly hostile and acted out in various ways, taking his time before responding, but then, well, who knows? You don't want people sleeping beside your fountain, not with an approaching lunch hour, not with all those commercial tenants calling the center owner if you don't, but then I knew the security people would get a bit huffy with me if they'd seen me taking their picture. Policemen have a similar reaction. Tends to put me on the other side of the table. Here in Oakland.

It's noon, a walk over to check the school, maybe get enough additional photographs to fill out that section I was unable to complete yesterday. Life goes on. Pretty exciting for a Tuesday morning.

I'd say you've way over used your little “exciting” routine by now, maybe try something new? Here in Oakland?

Later still. So, a short lie down sort of a nap - felt better after it - to walk by the Lakeview school to take a picture or two, the lady in this one sending the victory sign, although I hadn't been sure at the time it wasn't the finger until I looked later at the picture. A bit of the old paranoia coming from past experience, I guess. Reactions vary. One of the signs announced another rally at five, so we'll return for more pictures later. I do want to fill out that second section of pictures.

On then for ice cream and coffee at the morning restaurant, one of the patrons, seeing the camera, recognized me from yesterday and commented on the police presence: “Good pictures yesterday.” Ah, right. I gave him a HereInOakland card suggesting he look.

So (I do use “so” a lot, do I not?), a walk back to the apartment to process the one or two photographs I'd taken and then a session on the guitar. Get in an hour's practice before I head out, make getting my practice time in for the day much easier if I do that.

Evening. I did spend time on the guitar before walking over to the school again, taking a lot of pictures, most of them ordinary, but enough to fill out that second section and post it to both HereInOakland and ArtAndLife. Quite a bit of effort to get the few I found worth posting, but the group I did manage does give a feel for what happened, a bit more complicated from my standpoint than only going after candid full frame portraits. I don't mind the different direction, but I go there kicking and screaming.

They're closing five schools here in Oakland due to budget problems and I have no idea if something like this will have any effect in turning the situation around. You need to vote out the current administration if you're going to succeed, something that can be done, but I have no idea if the anger and energy are there in the broader electorate to step forward and vote to make it happen. It is the school system, after all, not that it's made any difference here in the entire state of California over the last thirty years. Or, I guess, the nation.

I managed to forget about the sake I'd bought earlier at the supermarket until just now, but remember it I did and I'm now ready to get into the second and last bottle. We'll sit down, play more guitar and let the evening dissolve into, well, the end of another pretty good day, here in Oakland.