Anyway, meeting up with Mr. D & Mrs. Y today for a guided tour on Segways around the Oakland downtown. I've never been on one before, so this should be interesting and they say it's a real kick, something they've done now while traveling in different cities. So, of course, last week when we made the date I'd believed the lens I have coming today was going to arrive yesterday, forgetting yesterday was Memorial Day, a holiday, when UPS is (of course) is taking the day off. So I'll leave a note on the mailbox if it doesn't arrive this morning and hope for the best. (It only arrives in the mornings when you're off somewhere taking pictures, hoping it will come in the afternoon.)

Now you said you were going to edit this in the mornings now to the point it was comprehensible rather than leaving it for a final hopeless effort the next day when you're ready to post?

I will, I will. But we'll get to it later, it's too early yet.

Later. Much later. Well, that was an adventure. I had no idea really how far we'd go or how long we'd travel, both Mr. D and Mrs. Y have done these tours before and I've only read about Segways or seen one scooting along six or seven times in the past. It was a gas, we drove from across the lake down through Laney College, through various roads, walkways, along the bay byways and then to and up Broadway, through the City Center and City Hall and off back to the lake again heading for the rental center located just across the lake from my apartment. Oh, and stopping for a latte in the City Center. Nice.

Which would be quite a story, but we stopped by the somewhat off it itself bandstand on Lake Merritt with its rolling lawn, groups of trees and not all that many people around to take a couple of pictures. I hadn't realized the reality of how far these things can carry you in so short a time. They are a trip. Worth finding an outfit that gives these tours and trying one if only once just to say you have. Anyway.

Standing on the Segways I did partake of a hit that was passed around as we were standing together again under the trees and it absolutely blew my head off. I haven't been that stoned since the ladies upstairs dropped by their home baked “adult” brownies and I, on my own, without asking about their potency, had eaten all three. Deedle-dee-dee.

In other words, clustered together on our Segways as we were, talking, I kind of motored off, rode up a nearby knoll still under the trees and just fell off. Not going fast, just coming to a full stop while the head was flying and over I went (bike helmet in place) without doing any physical damage. Even the camera, idiot that I was to be carrying it: not a scratch. But boy-howdy was I stoned and boy-howdy did I freak my companions who (calmly, of course, check the things that have to be checked, who knows how much I may have been damaged) got things together with no small effort and delivered me back home.

Anyway, wasted, the day winding up more interestingly than I'd have ever thought by my making another one of my beginner's mistakes. Memorial Day, when is that again? Potency? Will this blow my now obviously no longer experienced head off?

I knew more than I care to admit about this stuff once, knew the potencies that were then going around in the freak culture of the seventies in San Francisco; knew how, in most situations, to keep a balance. The problem is I have no recent experience, except for the one last month with the brownies that should have given me warning.

Anyway, home after three, the lens not yet having arrived through UPS. When it did arrive an hour later I was still pretty stewed, but handled it, saying hello and signing the receipt without a problem. I don't think. What was it exactly I said to the apartment manager in the elevator as we headed back upstairs?

It's after eight, I'm going to bed after a guitar session. I think. Best not to forget.