Nothing on the schedule other than getting in time on the guitar. There's a Cinco de Mayo festival at Dolores Park on Saturday, so we'll (probably, I never know anymore) get some pictures there, but otherwise the various places I've gone in the past leave me flat and dry. Maybe a cold shower. See what happens when you haven't had a decent drink in a month?

Later. I didn't set out particularly early - ten-thirty - but it was still nice even in the sun. A walk over to the lake with no destination in mind, nothing calling out, a now common problem. The lake for some reason was devoid of birds, none of the usual suspects floating in either direction. How often have I seen the lake devoid of birds? I usually think, when I see a hundred birds scattered about, the lake is practically empty. Today the lake really was empty.

Well, walking farther, empty now but for but one Western Grebe out in the middle. There was a gull or two up overhead and indeed, there were a couple of coots and another gull swimming near the fountain, but no ducks, geese, grebes or chickens. One or two humans as you'd expect.

A bus then downtown to sit out at a table in the City Center and watch the people pass. Didn't want coffee, wasn't hungry, but comfortable enough sitting out under the table umbrella before getting up, heading over to Broadway and taking a bus back home. A really slow day? I guess. Feel OK, nothing otherwise to complain about, but no interest in the outside, no interest in getting in the car and driving, no thoughts of taking a vacation somewhere completely different. Get out and take a picture. But we'll see. Been here before, need to eventually do something.

Later still. A nap, the day warmer, up to take a walk over to the usual place for lunch heading along the lake. Some few gulls now floating in the distance. And this guy near the fountain, wolfing down what appeared to be greens of some kind growing on the bottom. Whatever crap the is he's swimming in doesn't seem to bother him. Or her.

Anyway, a salad, ice cream and a lemonade for lunch, my waitress charging me maybe a third of the price listed on the menu, I tipping her enough to make up the difference. An odd relationship. The owner encourages it, but the effect is to move money from the restaurant cash drawer into the waitresses’ pocket. They split the tips. More complicated than it needs to be, but fine with me, it works.

And it is now hot out there. I took the bus back home because I didn't want to walk in the heat, they're saying some chance of setting a high temperature record today. OK. So far it's fine inside here with a fan, not sure I'm ready yet to find out what June and July may bring.

Evening. Not a bad evening, the head relatively clear, the temperature outside now down to a reasonable degree so the sliding glass door is open to the balcony letting cooler air in.

You'd think I'd like the French enologist detective program that came on at six, but I really don't quite like the principal character. They're talking about wine, something I learned something about while working at the Napa winery in the early eighties, my nose knew immediately what they meant when they mentioned the wines in this episode were suffering from brettanomyces (not something you want to find in a high end wine), but again, the guy and the overall tone put me off.

Anyway, switched to the Korean spy cartoon when it came on instead, it too is making less and less sense, but seems to keep my interest if only in being so strange. I think. What do I know about current American television, what do I know about strange?

I've been playing along through all this on the guitar. In fits and starts, really, play for ten minutes, put the guitar down for twenty, pick it up again. The finger picking exercises go well, I seem to have them down, down in the sense I'm not kidding myself too much about it, the truth in the pudding to be revealed tomorrow morning.