Relentless Inquiry

Got up, got coffee, started to get online; 8:45am, doorbell rings– it’s the pushy, but competent, contractor whose phone message I hadn’t returned yet, who is stopping by the neighbor’s and thought he’d come by.

Go through email, complete lunch plans begun the day before, head out to lunch. New place to me, Temptations Indian/Asian Fusion, in downtown View. Great food, though some of it haunted me slightly afterwards. Next time, not so much stuff. My friend is stressed out, life is accelerating its pace for no sane reason, and connections between people and sanity are spread thin. The kind of agonizing jitterbug malaise that one solves by calling in dead (“bad fugu… paralysis setting in… will come back to work in a couple of days, if I don’t wake up in Haiti…”) and spending the day on a nice lake somewhere in a boat, fishing with a friend, some homebrew, and no hooks on one’s fishing line. Hugs, dude. Hang in there.

Poked at the Verizon store, which doesn’t sell any decent GSM phones (“we may have some online”), picked up my subscription at the comics store, more kitty chow at the pet store. Was going to go over to Coffee Society but it’s been irritating me lately. Different vibe, much cruftier snacks, etc. Ended up getting off 85S at Fremont (oh, crap, it’s rush hour, 4:16pm!), going up that to Foothill, taking Foothill to Stevens Creek.

At which point I said to myself, naah, I don’t feel like it. I wonder what’s up at this end of Stevens Creek, anyway. I never go. So I went up SC around a big park, the Sunnyvale Gun Club (who knew?), a big quarry, another park where I stopped and took some pictures of wildflowers, oak bark texture shots (nice deep grooved bark, moss, really wonderful), oak canopy shots, some pix of (wild?)flowers struggling to grow on the steep reservoir banks.

Kept going, came to intersection of Stevens Canyon Rd (which Stevens *Creek* Rd had changed into at some point) and Mt Eden Rd. The former plunged downward into a dark gully, so I took the latter. Climbing a mountain, yes we are. Bowhunters Unlimited Archery Range. As lolcat would say, “O, RLY?!” Stopped by, got some info from their message board, watched someone stringing a bow. More accurately, watched someone constructing a bowstring out of two pieces of plastic-based pseudo-sinew, and learned (mostly) how to make a Flemish Noose. Got a couple of pix of that. Asked a guy shooting a compound recurve crossbow about Kingdom archery, as he was wearing a t-shirt with a big crown emblem surrounded by a laurel leaf wreath. Turns out it wasn’t an SCA emblem, some designer thing. He had no clue what I was asking about, doh.

Continued on, up, and down, passing by Cooper-Garrod’s (home of excellent wine must n stable sweepings compost), down the other side to Pierce Rd and thence to De Anza Rd, where I got on 85 to Stevens Creek to Whole Foods, got the other kind of catfood and some human food and a COFFEE (mmmm!), Back on 85 to Sunnyvale, dropped off library books (renewed a couple), paid $5.25 in fines. Went to dinner nearby with a local dinner group.

After dinner, spent a couple of hours talking with a friendly acquaintance there who is going through some very rough times. Battered wife for a dozen years, now long-escaped and with grown kids– who are dumping on her for ‘screwing us up’ because she honored the abusive dad’s visitation rights. The kid who just announced he’s not talking to her anymore is heading out soon for his 2nd round Iraq deployment. She’s not sleeping, and her (idiot, hmo) doc yanked her down really fast from her last levels of SSRI.— 150 to 50 to zero!

Came home, did a slug/snail search with flashlight in the garden (lots, ew). Read my new comics (Castle Waiting, Girl Genius, last Elementals), then played with and brushed the cats. Boo is silly sink creature! Can jump up on bathroom counter, likes to pay.  Letting Mike drop off to sleep before me. Whew. Falling asleep as I type this. Me so tired.