Later. I'm still juggling the blood pressure meds and I suspect the new dose I tried this morning caused me to slow down on my walk along the lake this morning, but no complaints (other than this one), we do seem to be closer to figuring it out. A jittery little business, this blood pressure thing, but you take care of it because you must.

The Oakland marathon runs later this month and it seems there are a number of smaller runs that are scheduled around it, a 5k event underway along my section of the lake when I arrived, a table set up to greet the runners as they passed by. I'd set out with a camera with a tele converter and a 300mm lens, thinking I'd try to get closer to one or two birds if I could, do something different, so I wasn't set up to photograph the runners (there were very few by the time I arrived) and the lake birds were either all sitting in a bar on the other side of the lake drinking Mimosas or they'd already headed north for the summer.

And?

One or two pictures feeling pretty good ending in a walk to the sanctuary to see what I could find when some of the symptoms I mentioned rose up and I headed back home to take a ten minute rest. But a picture of a bird or two, those few that were left, and a walk along the lake thinking in might be nice to get some lunch.

And?

We're still thinking, but doing nothing about it.

Later still. So much for going out for lunch. Some cereal and yogurt (I wonder if there's something I should be watching for in this low fat yogurt business?) with which I made do before taking a nap and then another nap, taking blood pressure measurements in between. Too low? Too high? Should I move back to the original trial where I started taking the pill in the evenings rather than the mornings? Any need to sacrifice a goat to the sphygmomanometer gods? Not much sacrificial goat enthusiasm around here, let me tell you, even in Oakland, but we're determined to strive for a fix.

Evening. A short evening. There's a new detective series on at six I've watched a couple of times that I've not quite come to grips with that's centered on a wine expert in France - Or is it Italy? Set in France, but done in Italian? - so I watched parts of it, skipping to one and then another Korean weekend soap with some interesting characters, but characters motivated by a cultural tradition of family cohesion that must be maintained at all costs that makes their actions intellectually comprehensible, but emotionally inexplicable.

People do really nasty things to one another in these things and then make up just as the series ends where someone from our own (yes, very mixed culture) would never make up or communicate with the person or persons again. A bit opaque, this explanation, but I'm not going to go back and attempt to make it clear. Korea is evidently going through a modernisation that's affecting the rock solid cohesion of the extended family, the bedrock of survival in an earlier, more traditional culture, and this transition seems to be dominating their story lines.

And you're attracted to these because?

Some early history with Korea and Koreans.