Monday 10/12/2026

First up, the monthly Resident Association meeting. Nothing very significant there.

Immediately after I got in Fred and headed to FOPAL. This was the post-sale-weekend cleanup, where I look at every book in my section and send the ones that have not sold in 3 sale weekends, on to the bargain room. Four boxes of them. It wasn’t a great sale, I didn’t move many books.

Then I processed 4 new boxes of donations. By 1pm I was out of there and headed home. Got in a nap, then at 2:45 joined Bert in the auditorium to set up for the AFKO. I’m sure I’ve talked about this before. There’s no tipping or informal gifting of employees here. So annually we have this big drive where everyone is urged to contribute to the Appreciation Fund. Yet another program that is entirely run by residents, without staff input.

The Kickoff is a short half-hour presentation in the auditorium, followed by a major drink and snack event in the lobby. For the event, I was creating a Zoom feed so it could be watched in the Assisted Living section in the Lee Center. But their events are staff-controlled, specifically by the person in charge of Life Enrichment, and that role had just changed. So Jennifer who just got that title was hard to get hold of. With half an hour to go, I had the zoom running, but couldn’t reach her, so I trotted the rambling route through various corridors and stairways to get over there. I found her, and watched as she got onto zoom and got the picture on the big TV in their lounge.

Then back to the auditorium, I swear that’s a 2-block walk inside the one building, where I ran the cameras, trying to show the remote audience the song and 3 skits that were the entertainment.

Then because the wine and snacks in the lobby were the job of the 6th floor, it being our turn, I went out there and helped people find tables, and picked up plates and stuff.

So it’s 7pm and I’m in my room and I ain’t leaving it until tomorrow. G’night.

Sunday 10/11/2026

Yesterday evening Ian reported that when he was cleaning up the auditorium, there was an accident, and our cheesy little lectern fell over and the top broke off. Cheesy or not, that podium is needed for the Appreciation Fund Kickoff event (hereafter AFKO) which is to be rehearsed today at 1 and performed tomorrow at 4.

So after watering the plants and doing the crossword — priorities! — I went down to have a look.

The top is chipboard with veneer. It had been held on by eight little screws into the chipboard. All 8 had stripped out and were loose in the box. No hope of putting it together with screws. I thought about it and then I walked to Ace Hardware and bought a roll of double-sided tape. Which I learned is now called Mounting Tape. Whatever. I put tape all around the inner box rim, stuck it on the underside of the top, and put the sucker back together. It should hold together a while.

After lunch I set up the auditorium for the rehearsal. All 8 microphones in use for once. And of course a problem: one of the body mics was making terrible scratching and popping sounds. The mic fits over the performer’s ear and lies beside their cheek. A delicate wire goes to the transmitter pack. And that wire is easy to stretch so it stops making good contact and makes horrible noises. Fortunately we had a couple of spare mics. In the end there were two where the wire had been pulled or stretched and they made noise and had to be thrown out. There’s no way to fix it.

Anyway we got through the rehearsal so that was fine. In the afternoon I proofed 3 more documents for Scribble & Sketch. That’s my role, proofreader. I found a couple of typos, so I earned by big salary.

Dinner hosted by Jerry and Betty, with me, Joanne, and Kay.

Saturday 10/10/2026

Today’s big adventure was a long-planned trip to the coast, to hear the Keller Sisters at the San Gregorio Store. We’ve been there for the same reason at least twice before. This time there were seven of us. The Goldens, David and Helen, rode with me and Joanne in Fred. Joanne the other one and her partner Erika, and Lois F, rode in their car.

The music was excellent and it is always fun hanging out in the General Store, which has an interesting selection of food for sale as well as hats, hardware, and books.

We were back by 2. Then I followed up on an announcement I had seen. We have a new Palo Alto Museum that hasn’t quite opened yet. It’s in an old building near us, and they have had multiple problems rehabbing the building But they are trying to build up interest before they open so they held the first of a series of outdoor concerts. This was in a section of Heritage Park, a green space two blocks from us.

Well, we had bought two new folding camping chairs just for events like outdoor concerts, so we got them out of the car and hiked off to hear the concert. The chairs worked fine, easy to carry and easy to set up. The concert wasn’t so great, the music not terribly interesting. There was a second band but it looked like it would take them half an hour to set up, and we were hungry.

So we folded our camp chairs and hiked off a few blocks to Joanne’s favorite restaurant, Vino Locale. We had a nice supper off a selection of aappetizers, walked home, and here I am.

Friday 10/09/2026

Friday means a muffin with walk with Joanne. After that, I took care of a piece of pending business: I went to the basement and found Jonathan the Facilities manager and asked to have the caulk around the base of my shower renewed. It has developed quite a few spots of black mildew. I had the same job done a couple of years back (no I am not going to search the blog on “mildew” to see when). Yesterday I walked up to Ace Hardware and bought a couple tubes of bath sealant “guaranteed” to never mildew. Jonathan said, we’ll use your sealant if you want, but they always mildew eventually. Anyway at some point they’ll come do that.

Later I emailed the top lady about my refrigerator. I’m tired of that never defrosting and dripping water inside all the time. She passed that to Jonathan also, who contacted me later to say that probably it just needed to be pulled out and the coils cleaned. I don’t think that’s the problem, but whatever.

I got a lot of reading done, and watched a video on how an AI “agent” is programmed. And started reading a book that Joanne had lent me. At 7pm we had a monthly Singalong, which is always nice. And that’s a day at the old folks’ home.

Thursday 10/08/2026

An uncommitted day, what to do with it. Checked in with Joanne and we decided to run away to Half Moon Bay for a walk on the cliff tops and then lunch. Which we did. Foggy at first, then the sun came out, the temp was in the 60s while it was 80s over this side. Very nice.

I got a couple more things done and completely killed a to-do list I had started a couple days ago. After supper I picked up my mail and here was my ballot. So I filled it all in (I had made my choices a couple days ago in the voter info pamphlet).

Then Joanne came over and we watched the documentary Music of Strangers, Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road ensemble. Joanne had seen it before, 15 years ago, it was one of her favorites. I had not seen it; it is very nice: bunch of nice people who are also good musicians, with interesting stories.

It’s available on more than one streaming service. On Amazon Prime you have to pay a few bucks. Through my TV I can get the Tubi service, where the movie is free, but they show a little bunch of short ads every 15 minutes. That was ok.

Wednesday 10/07/2026

Took a standard walk early on. Not early enough, I meant to work a couple of errands and a cup of coffee into the walk, but had to skip all those just to get back by 9am, because I had to do AV for an event at 10.

Well, I thought I had to. The event was a regular speaker here, Jeff Woods, talking about “Giving with Purpose” on the ins and outs of charitable giving. I was all set up, mics, screen, everything. Then it turned out that staff had also planned to make it a staff-run event, and had published a zoom link. I was set up for a normal resident-run non-zoom event.

Andrew the very likeable young IT guy came in and managed to get the official zoom going on top of, or under, my setup. Anyway we recorded it.

After lunch I spent a couple of hours editing the video together. Here it is. At 3pm I met with Jerry and Bert in the auditorium to work out things for the appreciation fund kickoff.

I had thought I had another event to run tonight, but it was a complete mistake in my personal Google calendar. The kind of stupid mistake that makes you think, “hmmm…’

Tuesday 10/06/2026

Tuesday is notable for being my laundry day in alternate weeks, and the day of the writers meeting, and the day for line dance class. All of that happened today. I got going on the laundry before 8, and wrapped it up, or I should say, hung it up, at 10:30, just in time for the writers meeting.

Between loads I wrote a couple of paragraphs because I hadn’t written anything in two or three weeks. The cue was “betrayl” and I couldn’t think of any time I had been betrayed by someone else, but then I thought of the frequent and on-going self-betrayals when I don’t do what I know I should, or fall short of my goals out of laziness, so I wrote about that.

Line Dance was fine, and after I walked through the 85 degree heat (in October — tell me climate change ain’t real) to pick up a prescription at CVS.

Now it’s after supper, and soon I will go downstairs to watch a screening of Day of the Jackal. Does it hold up? Report tomorrow.

Monday 10/05/2026

First thing today was to go work at FOPAL. It’s the week before the sale weekend, so I had to clean up, make my shelves look neat etc. Joanne needed the car for an early lunch date with some friends, so I took the #21 bus down.

A few months back I changed my way of working. Have I written about this? The big job of a section manager is to process the books that have been sorted to my section. I look up each book in bookfinder.org, decide if it is likely to sell. If not, put it in a box for the bargain room. If so, decide what price to set on it. (Typically, half of what is being asked for that used book on Amazon.)

To do this, I used to pile all the books on a cart, take them to the sorting room where there is a row of computers that we can use. Each computer has a barcode scanner, so it is easy to enter the ISBN off the back of the book for quick lookup.

A few months back when I started getting really big donations, 5-10 boxes of books a week, I started a different way. I would take my own computer down and set up right by the pile of boxes at my section. But I needed a barcode scanner. I bought a cheap on on Amazon. A couple weeks back, it crapped out. So today I took a close look at the ones in the sorting room, because they have been working for years, used daily by different people. Noted make and model. Went home and found one in new condition for $25 on eBay and ordered it.

Anyway, worked 9-11 and got everything set up. The #21 was half an hour away so I treated myself to a Lyft ride home instead. Did some reading, did some proofing for the next issue of Scribble and Sketch, for which I am an official proof-reader.

At 4pm it was time for Poetry Out Loud. I read a couple from a book I bought on impulse when we were at Kepler’s last month, by Lindsay Rush. Funny.

Then at 5:30 we met downstairs and drove off to a local restaurant, Naschmarkt, over by California ave, for Joanne’s third dinner out for her birthday. Friday night with Jerry and Betty, then she was out with old friends last night, and tonight I got to buy her dinner. Don’t get used to it, kid. we’re back to splitting the check next week.

Sunday 10/04/2026

Usual Sunday morning. Then spent a couple of hours just doing minor things, catching up on my reading. After lunch, a nap and then it was time to get on the bus. There are enough CH people who go to the Pear Theater for a Sunday Matinee that we hire a bus. In this case the bus company sent a humongous bus, really long with very cushy seats for at least 50 people. We were only 18 people.

Anyway the play was the Pear’s version of Noel Coward’s Private Lives. See the link for the plot. It recently fell out of copyright protection so they felt free to mess with it, and they changed the gender of one of the people, so it was a male-male couple and a male-female one. Other than a few pronouns they didn’t have to change any of the lines at all.

It was very well acted and produced. There was one awkward scene transition that I thought needed more explanation or setup but that may have been me not paying proper attention.

After supper I did my gym workout. And there we go.

Saturday 10/03/2026

Put on my red docent shirt and went to the Museum to lead the noon tour. Usual nice bunch of 20 or so people of mixed ages. Headed on home then for a quiet afternoon.

At 5pm joined Joanne, Jerry and Betty to go out for dinner, celebrating Joanne’s birthday. She is getting a total of three different dinners, I believe. This one was before her birthday which is tomorrow. We went to place called Urfa on main street in Los Altos. Turkish/Greek cuisine. We ended up eating mostly salads and appetizers and a dessert.

Back to CH right at 7:30, which was good timing as there was a concert scheduled for that time. The performer was a guy who plays the accordion but “no polkas” as Kay, who booked him, said. He opened with three classical pieces, played a couple of Beaatles numbers (Michelle and Yesterday) and a couple of movie themes and some other things. His accordion was fitted with some kind of synthesizer because he could make the melody notes sound like pan-pipes or a real piano. Quite well done.