Sunday. Lights out by ten to awaken at six-thirty, half an hour late on a day when I needed to leave early to head to BART and the Carnaval Parade. Or was I telling myself there was no way I was going to catch the eight-twenty train, not because I'd awakened later than I'd have liked, but because it was overcast, it was cool verging on cold and I suspect I already knew I wasn't going yesterday, when I was writing about preparing to go as I've gone to photograph this parade so many times in the past?

And?

And I had breakfast, taking my time, documented the change in gas prices and the changes to the pandorea vine when I left, and then drove home, more than suspecting the Carnaval Parade will not be one I'll photograph again in the future for its distance and my apparent lack of stamina if this is how I'm now dealing with this one.

Feeling better once I'd wrestled with yesterday's disaster of an entry, I talked myself into at least going to the Carnaval Street Festival, being held on Harrison Street between 17th and 24th. It's a shorter walk from BART than the walk to where the parade forms up and an easier outing if I carry but one camera mounted with a lighter lens. So that's what happened.

Later. An easy BART ride both ways, the train arriving just as I arrived at the station, both coming and going, surprised then to find the tag end of the parade itself coming down Mission where it turns onto 17th and its finish by Harrison when I arrived at the 16th and Mission station. There was a large crowd taking pictures with their phones and so I got in but one or two snapshots before giving up heading to the street festival to walk its eight block length of band stands, food trucks and booths and people selling every imaginable kind of Carnaval gimcrack and memento.

And that was it. Walked the length in a kind of bubble, taking pictures as I was able to find them, not many and then not many of those turned out to be of interest, but still, made it in one piece and headed back to BART and Oakland after more than an hour. The damned sinus-upper palate had been acting up when I'd set out and had proceeded to get worse rather than better, so took another dose of the meds when I got home. This babbling here is more than a little spacey, but that pretty much describes the state of my head when the outing was over.

Downloaded and processed the not very many pictures, again but one or two of promise, but happy to have gotten my ass out the door, even if I'm still thinking this is more than likely the last Carnaval Parade or Carnaval Street Festival I'll photograph in the future.

No thoughts of getting in more exercise? Build up the stamina? Pushups after breakfast? Turn back time and tide through tenacity?

Now, now. For the moment we're trying to be serious.

Evening. And so a long day, crapping out on the parade, but getting it together to check out the street festival. Maybe just put it aside and see how the world looks starting tomorrow?