Does that make sense? Yin to Yang, dark to light, down to up, after a Guinness?

Who knows? I'm not sure it had anything to do with the Guinness, particularly as I felt much the same getting up this morning and eating breakfast, reading the papers sharp as a tack, the foot even then wanting to tap. (What's with the tapping foot? It's happened before, of course, but not so much in the last several years. Everyone's seen it, most everyone's done it. A sign of energy? Nervousness? Unknown issues best left to one's physician?) And so the day begins. I'm going to go out pretty quick, I think, and walk about the town. Diddle-dee-down.

Later. A false start, maybe, heading out the door, but walking across to the lake rather than catching a bus, if not downtown, then over toward the hospital to get my monthly blood test out of the way as it's due today. Maybe later.

A picture or two. For whatever reason there was a large number of geese feeding on the lawn beside the lake, catching one lone male, female pair and their four newly hatched goslings heading across the open with the others, watching me closely. I don't blame them, of course, but I wished I'd brought a longer lens and gotten closer. I figured they'd be long gone if I were to go back to the apartment and return with another camera, but who knows? Much of the morning is still ahead, an entire afternoon in the offing, things can be done by someone who claims to be feeling sharp and ready on a Friday.

Ho, ho.

Later still. A brief late morning lie down on the bed listening to the radio for maybe thirty minutes, feeling tired. Hmm. Up then and suddenly I'm out the door buzzing right along, not as in the head “buzzing” sense, but as in the motor running, feeling fine. Just like that. My, my. Up and down in less than an hour. I debated the lens to bring on the camera - little chance those goslings would still be in evidence, right? - but thought “what the hell” and snapped the 18 - 200mm on the D2Xs. Just in case. Reasonably small, light, not really up to snuff anymore compared to its newer brothers, but something that would get me closer if it turned out I had a chance for a picture.

OK, they were all right where they'd been when I'd passed them this morning, the entire flock still feeding between the lake and the sidewalk off Grand, checking out people as they approached, but generally ignoring them, even when they got fairly close. I wondered what it was they were eating so avidly in the grass. I also wondered, hearing that many of the geese at the lake had given up migration altogether, but checked in year round for three city supplied hots and a nest, if they were verging on domestication, not as afraid as they maybe should be of people. Best to remain suspicious, I'd think, particularly as one of the major holidays approaches. Best for them the price of supermarket turkey never increases.

You're thinking this as you're buzzing along taking their picture? Supermarket turkey?

Well, I was, as I've said, buzzing, but, you know, in a kind of laid back buzzing, the mind drifting. I briefly lifted my camera in salute as I passed another photographer by the lake who was packing a professional level Canon with a long lens. He'd clearly just finished photographing the geese and their goslings and was talking with one of the lake maintenance people who, from their conversation, was asking him about the camera, trading stories. Best to scoot on by. We're friendly to one another, we photographers, but we rarely speak, forego even nodding hello, if we pass while we're shooting.

Other than that, not much to say. “Laid back buzzing.” Sounds right. I had an iced tea at my breakfast place, a leisurely walk back, a picture through the wood lattice fence from my table of the gas station sign at the 76 Station, as they'd raised their prices four cents since I'd been there this morning. I'd wondered about that. The price has been falling, demand hasn't been all that great and they broke below three dollars recently, but this is the beginning of Memorial Day Weekend, after all, and there's money to be extorted (sorry - my bad - “money to be made”). I couldn't believe they wouldn't raise their prices before it started, ruin my assumptions.

For buzzing it does seem to be an “out of gas” buzzing.

Or just mellow. The head doesn't ache all that much, the second set of meds has just now kicked in. I'm not tired in the way I was yesterday and the day before - particularly the day before - and the head is clear. I may continue reading later. I downloaded the second book in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series onto the Kindle Wednesday and started it, thinking, if half the world is reading it, I might, well as not, read it too.

I went back briefly to the first book (on the Kindle) to remind myself of the plot, but it turned out there's enough in this second book to give you what you needed. It's interesting, I'm reading it, I enjoyed the first, a page turner even for someone who doesn't read all that much anymore, but I wouldn't have guessed it would sell some forty million copies. With the third and final book being released next week. That's something no one can know, of course, the publisher was smart enough to take a chance and it turned out more than well. Left them “farting through silk” someone I know used to say in the old rock and roll days of the last century. Makes the point. I've always thought: farting through silk.