Gas prices dropped again. They were at $4.05 when I entered the café and $3.99, when I exited some hour and a half later. My rule is to note the prices as I leave the restaurant in the mornings, not how early or how late in the mornings I may arrive. Had I arrived earlier on my usual schedule the price would have been listed today at $4.05, the fact I might have come by later after breakfast for lunch and noted there was a difference, wouldn't have mattered.

Now what does that mean in the scheme of things? Well, nothing, but I went through this little inventory of the what, when and where for the gas prices after I saw and photographed the change and for some reason felt the need to write it here. We'll assume it's not a sign we're losing our marbles. Hup.

Walking back I took a couple of pictures of the Lakeview school from across the street, walking along at about seventy percent of normal capacity for a morning, more slow than broken, no double vision or odd looking animals visible out of the corner of my eyes, pacing me, watching me, along the way. Just tired, I'd say. Of course I usually drive and don't get out into the real world this early, maybe if I walked I'd notice all my mornings started at about this seventy percent, whatever percent it should really be.

Anyway, I sat on a bench at the white columns for a while, took another desultory picture, if only because this white column pergola area cries out for just one more shot, no matter how many I've taken. Jack (Daniels), an acquaintance, has a similar routine.

So what the hell? We'll see what the solstice has in store. The temperature, with the sliding balcony door open and the fan blowing in the outside air, is nice, the seventy percent of capacity I mentioned earlier seems to have clawed its way back to about eighty-five, we'll see if it doesn't work itself into something better.

Later. A good long nap. Feel better, still rickety, but better. A walk then to have lunch in the now mid-afternoon at the same place, passing what seemed to be the same people holding forth in front of the school, but taking not a single photograph.

I was hungry and had a cheese burger (no onions), ice cream and coffee. Took my time sitting out on their patio in the shade, my waitress charging me for maybe half the listed price. I don't complain. A walk back home, another lie down on the bed for a while, the day now heading into evening.

Those two glasses of sake last night? Three hundred milliliters? Too much for you to be drinking? Old age has punched your ticket?

It is suspect. Doesn't seem to have much of an effect in the evenings, you get a little buzz, yes, but it's worn off by the time you're ready for bed, nothing I've ever thought of before as a hangover in the mornings, although tired and feeling run down are both factors. We'll see. I believe I've gone on (and on) about this sort of thing in the past, often after just the oh so few “two glasses” of sake. Whiskey, in an equivalent amount (of alcohol, not volume) doesn't seem to have the same effect. Maybe there's stuff in there I should know about, maybe I'm just fighting the obvious. Abstemious in my old age? Totally?

Evening. Not a bad evening. I fiddled with the web sites for a while, slightly modified my ThereInOakland and WhereInOakland web pages. Just doodling, really, changed the headings. I have no thought of doing anything with them, picked them up more because they were plays on HereInOakland than anything more rational.

The domain names I've licensed were done more for fun than any thought I'd sell them one day. The one I did sell, nbbc.com, was developed for my old North Bay Business Computers sole proprietorship when I was a Novell reseller in Napa, and the fact I ended up selling the damned thing to NBC was a complete fluke.

Some time on the guitar, so far, enough to call it a day's practice. The riffs I'm going over and over are reasonably solid, I've certainly played them enough, but they still need more work to be perfect. Close to perfect. I've learned through daily practicing the simple intro to Layla, for well more than a year (and when I say simple I mean the first twenty or thirty notes) I eventually don't miss-finger them anymore. Same with the simple melody to While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Takes time, but I assume practice like this makes learning new riffs and routines easier and faster with time to master.

Where is this going?

I, for one, am, right now, going to bed.

Susan M. Kaanta, April 10, 1945 - June 20, 2010.