Sunday. To bed before eleven, up at six with the alarm feeling pretty good. Good to feel pretty good. To breakfast at the usual place a little later than the norm as I waited to no avail for the Chronicle to arrive. The Chronicle is usually good at getting the paper here before I leave, much better than the often late Tribune, so I'll not complain. Too much.

My waitress said as she brought the coffee she'd just had a customer come by who said he'd been robbed at gunpoint just down the street in the one large off street parking lot in the area, an area in which I've parked many times. Robbed at gunpoint at seven on a Sunday morning. How outside the envelope is that? How, um, divorced from reality do you have to be in order to rob someone with a gun at seven on a Sunday morning in what is considered a reasonably good neighborhood, at least in Oakland? Divorced from reality enough to rob, but fortunately not enough to shoot. Thank you much.

Not good to hear. It gives a head's up to be careful in the future, yes, more careful perhaps than you've been in the past, but it also adds a level of stress you really don't want. Whatever happened down the street in a well travelled, thought of as safe parking lot, it probably happened like any other bad throw of the dice.

Sometimes you slip in the tub, sometimes you're on the runaway train, sometimes it's snake eyes and that's it, the pits, too bad. Some things just happen, can't be avoided, even with the best of preparations. The guy was robbed, not shot. That's good. Still, makes you think in ways that can grind you down over time.

OK, obviously that touched a button for someone who carries and is known to carry a camera all the ding dong time, who's gotten to know his immediate territory here pretty well. I do watch, I am aware, even in “safe” neighborhoods. You want to see people around. You don't want to be out and alone anywhere in this town, something you want to keep in mind, although it jacks up the stress. Grab the camera, take your walk, throw the dice. Go to bed, pull up the covers, throw the dice. Put on the parachute, pull the cord, throw the dice. That's life, but best not to think about it too much. To keep your sanity. On a Sunday morning. Here, in Oakland. Mumble.

Later. I feel better once I get out the door, ingrained habit, rut or what, doesn't matter, this morning no different. They've been painting one of the apartment buildings across the street and the young guy painting it and I have been wondering how the deep maroon doors work with the building's browns. They seem OK, but it would be interesting to see if something better couldn't be found. It works, but it doesn't. It's not finished yet, the window grill on the right first floor window needs to be put back in place and the hardware needs to be reinstalled with a bit of polish, but otherwise that's about it.

A bus downtown, a cup of coffee and a blackberry scone in front of Peet's, a photograph I'm ambivalent about, but what the heck. They're cheap, these photographs. A walk then down to Jack London Square, check off another flavor of ice cream in a waffle cone special at Ben & Jerry's, the Sunday farmer's market down the way but a shadow of its former size and self, a walk then farther on to the produce warehouse area looking for front doors, interesting walls and saloons. We like our saloons. I'm happy enough with what I was able to get, happy enough with the walk, a good walk, happy to be home now on this bright and sunny day, the temperature approaching seventy.

Oh, and I think some of my appetite might be coming back. I've been hungry lately, have even gained a couple of pounds. Still just under one sixty when I climb on the scale in the mornings, but much closer to one sixty now than one fifty-five. We'll watch this, but it's nice to be hungry again and to go out and actually eat. Interesting, eating, it could easily become a habit. An addiction. Gives meaning back to “three hots and a cot”.

That's, well, absolutely stupid.

I told you my mood was good.