Saturday. I dunno, maybe I needed a blow out evening like last night's, but not too often, not too often I'm afraid. A call from Mr. E late yesterday afternoon suggesting we meet Mr. S for a couple of libations at Ben & Nick's in Rockridge, which we did. A simple enough drive to the Rockridge BART station to park right next to the street, a short walk then to Ben & Nick's, an hour or so of snappy patter and the consumption of three Guinness followed by an Irish coffee to prepare us for the road, they picking up the tab to celebrate my birthday at the beginning of the month. So far, so good.

I'd of course gone over my limit of two with the four, but we were feeling just fine, thank you, things were under control, why not drive by Roy's for a nightcap? Roy's closes at eight, it was then seven, the idea didn't sound unduly dangerous. In driving, however, we passed by the sushi place down at the bottom of my hill and Mr. E suggested we do sushi instead of going to Roy's. Good idea, someone said.

I believe you were the one who said it and, since you were driving, you had the deciding vote.

True. Sigh. So we had a proper sushi dinner accompanied by sake that's poured into a plain wooden box called Masa on their menu: $3.50 for a serving plus whatever number of refills you might like. Three-fifty for unlimited sake with your lunch or dinner in other words. I'd parked the car at my apartment, so when it came time to leave the world was no long behaving on its axis. I passed over cab fare to my two still reasonably coherent friends and walked back to the apartment where I crashed at nine, getting up this morning at eight.

The head doesn't hurt but I'm a bit of death warmed over at the moment. Wobbly might be another usefully descriptive term. No self recrimination, but not something I want to soon repeat. Everything looks in its place. I don't remember throwing the pants and everything else into the laundry basket last night, so they must have been wet. From the rain. One hopes from the rain. The camera is safe, didn't leave it under our table when I left. There was, however, a small bright yellow rubber duck in my jacket pocket this morning when I happened to look. Where in the hell did that come from?

Better than a dead rat.

True. Still. No harm in a rubber duck I guess.

Unless the papers tomorrow report an unknown figure involved in a rubbery duck murder incident just down your street.

Unlikely, I'd think. I get stupid, but not mean and aggressive.

Later. Having now gone through the pictures, having taken more than I remembered, I see we had a little birthday celebration at the end of our meal complete with a paper hat, cake and, I can see on the table in some of the pictures, a rubber duck. The rubber duck has a party favor molded into his wing and he's wearing a party hat. A birthday duck. A bad sign when you can't remember what you were doing for what must have been about an hour I'd think. Here we go, thus and so, bringing up the Robert.

I don't remember taking pictures of this guy, the look on his face and his gesture though should have gotten my attention. Good thing he was there with his girlfriend and decided to keep his cool and let the old fart with the camera self destruct on his own without any help.

Later still. I seem to recall noting gas prices had gone up again at breakfast, but walking back to the car afterward I for some reason forgot and didn't take a picture, so my head was clearly yet not quite connected. Maybe a nap now that it's afternoon. I need to build my enthusiasm for playing the guitar before the day is finished. Maybe some orange juice. Maybe some water. Maybe some sleep.

Early evening. We do go on, do we not? I walked down to my morning restaurant to get out of the apartment and photograph the Union station sign to discover the price of gas hadn't changed. What was I thinking while going into the restaurant this morning to cause me to believe the price had gone up significantly? Or did the brain make that up after I'd gotten home? Who knows? And, to be truthful, who cares? A bit of a slip. Blame it on last night.