A story in the paper this morning about how people who have one or two drinks a day live longer than people who don't drink at all, total abstainers having a forty plus percent higher chance of dying in the twenty year study period than the imbibers. I'm behind the curve. My two drinks every day or so, maybe two or three times in a week, puts me at risk. (My goodness!) A reason to stock up, a reason to put refurbishing the sake locker ahead of the T.P. and paper towels (just kidding, of course, but the article evidently struck a chord since I'm obviously thinking about it this morning). The concerns of the aged. Whither to sake or not in the evenings. Every evening? A glass or two? Tough, this aging, all these concerns, all these decisions.

Later. I seem to have a buzz on in the sense of being overly alert or, at least, quite altert and a bit speedy. A drive over to the much larger Safeway some few miles beyond the one down the way, driving not badly, but just on the edge of aggressively, not doing anything stupid, but asking myself why don't I just slow down, just a bit, and think about things that don't involve other drivers who never use their turn signals, straddle lanes and don't seem to be aware there are other drivers on the road?

Lots of ways to kid yourself as to your own driving skills when you think or say that. My idea is the road is as the road is and it's best to fit in without this overly aggressive stuff. We're not talking about shouting at other drivers or cutting them off or driving crazily now, but just, you know, a bit too close to the wire, best to ease off. Go with the flow. Then I got into the big Safeway with about a billion people in it and noticed how many people would just leave their carts sitting in the middle of an isle blocking it as if done by an expert. Slow down, my bucko. Life is too short for this kind of crap. And it is.

But, a bunch of stuff replenished in the larder and the paper products closet. They were having sales on things I needed and I took advantage of them. I never know if they just raise the posted prices and then discount them down to what they'd been before, but I suspect it was worth getting, say two boxes of this cerial or three bags of that vegetable: three for the price of two; two for the price of who knows?

A run later to Beverages & More for sake, I think, the cheap kind I like (Ozeki) in the standard size 750ml bottles, a brand that Safeway doesn't stock. Why I'm not sure. My comments on living longer with two drinks in an evening, two during the day, no more, no none? A trip to BevMo. Rationalizations are so easy when they're handed to you in your morning paper. What will I do when they all fold? Read it on my Kindle? I dunno.

You won't be around when all the papers have finally folded.

What exactly didn't you understand about living longer on two drinks a day?

Later still. OK, maybe I'll get out later, but it's after four and I suspect the day insofar as walking is done. Medicare sent me a check, which is good, because I've reached the “donut hole”, which is bad (these inhalers are evidently expensive), but that may be excuse enough to at least walk down to the ATM and make a deposit. A bit of guitar earlier, a bit of guitar maybe now. We take it in pieces, large or small, doesn't matter, a piece at a time.