Monday 05/18/2026

Started the day with an early walk, out the door by 7:30, back by 9. That was 2 miles, but somehow through the rest of the day I have added 2 more.

At 9:30 I joined the Event Coordinator’s meeting. Made notes so I can have an AV meeting later. At 10:30 I left that to help a speaker set up in the auditorium. David G. had agreed to fill in for me in this job so I wasn’t really needed. Between us we got that speaker ready for his talk at 11.

At 10:45 I scooted out the door and walked to our new “satellite” which is now named Arris by Channing House, at 436 Forest Ave. I timed my walk, it was just under 6 minutes. But Sally, who walks slowly with a cane, timed herself and for her it was a 12 minute walk.

Anyway, the Transition committee assembled in the patio area of the Arris complex, two buildings sandwiched on to a couple of standard city lots. The building is about 4 years old, so very modern. Rhonda told the group that it will be ready for showing by the first week of June. We first looked at one of the two townhouse units. A “townhouse” is a 3BR, 2BA apartment on two levels, with rather a steep long staircase from the dining-room living area up to the BR area. I told Joanne later that the walk-in closet off the master BR is about the same size as her entire studio apartment.

Then we checked out one of the 2BR apartments, of which there are 10 in the building. Easily more square footage than our entire house on Tasso street. Then we looked at the 20-car underground garage, and finally, ta-daa, the pentouse. This is the third floor of the main building. It has 4BR and 4 baths, walk-in closets, not one but two entire kitchens, wine racks for at least 100 bottles… And there are several people who have put down $1000 to be on the “interest” list for it. Unbelievable. I said, if it were up to me, I’d form a commune, maybe three couples, buy it and share it.

I’ve got pictures but you know, who cares. Anyway, back to home, and immediately out again in Fred, down to FOPAL. Couple energy bars from the store, processed 4 boxes and tidied my section up, back by 3. Just time for a nap then it was time for Rhonda’s monthly open meeting, covering two upcoming changes. One, package delivery. They are going to an automated parcel locker system. When UPS or Amazon deliver, the package goes in a locker and you get a text telling you how to open that locker. And the elevator rebuild has started. For most of the next 12 months we will be without one of our three elevators, as they progressively replace them one at a time.

Quick supper, then at 6:30 met Joanne and we walked to the Aquarius theater to watch The Devil Wears Prada 2. We watched the original last Wednesday. Hard to believe those actors have aged 20 years since the prior movie. It has a lot of scenes in Milano, and Marian and I spent a couple days in Milano about 2015, so I recognized a lot of scenes. I cannot believe they actually shot a dinner party in the room where The Last Supper is on the wall. No, they did not:

The dinner scene in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie was filmed on a set built to three-quarters scale, including a hand-painted replication of Leonardo da Vinci‘s The Last Supper, by a team of craftsmen led by a woman who manages set design for a Roman opera house.

Anyway, fun movie if you see the original recently enough to remember it.

Sunday 05/17/2026

Usual Sunday morning. Plus a modest walk over to CVS to get a couple things. Then read, sample the Sunday Brunch spread, read some more.

At 3 I went to the auditorium and set it up for an event: the Sunday@Home series is a monthly event where residents talk about their interests or travels. This one, in honor of national nurses’ week, was a panel of four of the 8 or so retired nurses who live here, on stage talking about their careers.

Ate supper in my room. More slothing around. Early to bed, tomorrow is a wicked day.

Saturday 05/16/2025

At supper last night I heard about a local coffee shop I had never visited. What? How can that be? So this morning Joanne and I walked to The Redwood, which is tucked into a corner of the Avenidas senior enter. Good coffee (I could hear them grinding the beans before making the capuccinos) but only so-so pastry selection.

We walked back through the Saturday farmers market. I bought a couple of nectarines. Ate one later; it was ok. I doubt they make really ripe fruit any more. (okay, boomer…)

A little later we hopped into Fred and drove to Oakland. The goal was to attend an open house by the artist Carol Aust. I own two paintings by her so I am on her mailing list and got invited to the open house. We spent half an hour looking at her stuff but didn’t see anything to buy. We listened to a podcast on the drive, Ezra Klein interviewing Buddhist nun Pema Chodron. Which led to us discussing Buddhist teachings later and during lunch.

We had a tentative plan to go for a walk in the Coyote Hills reserve, but it was lunch time. So we drove down toward it and found a lunch spot on Newark Blvd, based on its name on Apple Maps: Crabby Crabby. Fun place. We split a maxi quesadilla. Then didn’t really feel like a hike, so came on home.

Later I wrote a long email to the AI group based on a paper that another user had posted to the group. And did some research on a supplement that Joanne was curious about.

Friday 05/15/2026

Joanne had a visitor that she was treating to an early breakfast at Douce France in Town & Country. The visitor woule be off by 8:30. So I set out on my own morning walk early at 7:30, and arrived at T&C about 8:30 (total 4 miles for the day) and we had a nice sit over a cup. Then stopped at Trader Joe’s for a loaf of my/our favorite bread and home.

I got a start on editing the video of our spring concert. Then it was time for the AI interest group meeting. That turned into a long gripe session about how staff ignore all the expertise that we embody. That’s a long-standing issue but never gets old.

Lunch was with Stew and Lou, to work out what events we wanted to present in the coming months. As the Fanboys we put on quarterly concert videos. As the Good Times committee we have done more participatory kinds of events, with residents performing to famous songs. Those have been quite stressful to produce, so we worked out a more relaxed schedule.

After lunch I finished editing the concert video, here it is. If you scrub the timeline on to 41:50 you will get directly to my duet with Mary. Or not. Then I edited another video, the presentation on preserving family history from Wednesday. It’s not a great presentation and not a good recording so I won’t link it.

Dinner with Jerry and Betty and Dr. Margaret, lots of gossip about our neighbors. That’s how you amuse yourself when you have 150 neighbors. That, or complain about how the staff ignores you. But at dinner I learned about a nearby coffee shop that I have never seen or been into. What? So tomorrow morning I will remedy that for sure.

Thursday 05/14/2026

First thing I hopped the 21 bus and rode down to FOPAL where I processed 8 boxes and got the section in a good state. Took a Lyft back. After lunch I had a nice afternoon catching up on reading and practicing music. In the evening we had a concert by the Gunn HS choir.

Hello, David Elmer Cortesi! For silly reasons I decided to try to look up my old FCC “First Phone” radiotelephone operator’s license, which I acquired in 1965 after studying electronics for a year at the Clover Park Vocational Technical school in Tacoma, WA. Although I never operated a radio transmitter, having the license figured in getting my next two jobs, at PacBell and at IBM.

I have no paper record of that license. I presume it expired long ago. But a bit of internet searching turned up the FCC’s own license database, and I searched in that, and guess what: there is a commercial operator’s license for a David E. Cortesi: take a look. However it was granted in 2016, and the person’s address is in Brentwood, California. No doubt a fine town, but I never lived there. Then I did a search for that name and town, and turned up info on David Elmer Cortesi who does live in Brentwood. Quite a coincidence, another David E Cortesi with an FCC license. He’s probably been in the Navy, as he has a “ship radar endorsement”.

The same search turned up licenses for other Cortesi’s. One is Scott A Cortesi, whom I think is probably a cousin. At least there was a Scott Cortesi who was the last son of my half brother James. He used to turn up when I would check relatives at 23andMe, along with a younger woman, Olivia? I think? child of either Calvin or Larry. Laurel would know.

I kind of miss 23andMe.

Wednesday 05/13/2026

Joanne had organized a hike for today. Five of us went to the Arastradero preserve. Four strong women and me panting along behind. I say panting because this walk starts with a climb from 300′ to 710′. That’s half the walk, the other half is a stroll down to the start. It was a beautiful day. 3.5 miles on the hike; I ended up with 4.5 for the day.

Back in good time for an early lunch. Then set up for a lecture in the auditorium. This was unusual in that it was scheduled for 1:30. Almost all events are evening ones, but Gloria, who organized this wasn’t able to get her speaker here any other time.

The speaker was Ron Chan, a guy our age, whose thing is lecturing older audiences on how to preserve their family history as books and pictures. He talked for over 90 minutes, covering how to organize pictures, how to scan and restore pictures, and similar things. This is a subject I (ahem) know a little something about, having set up the Cortesi Family Album some time back. He also talked about using ChatGPT to help you write stories about your family, and how to record audio narration for a slide show. It was more than a lot of people wanted to know, but interesting.

I had just time for a nap before 4:45 and the monthly Sixth Floor meeting and dinner. After dinner I set up to watch The Devil Wears Prada (the original) off of Amazon Prime. At 7pm, Joanne came around and we watched the movie. I had seen it in the theater back in ’06, but didn’t remember any details about it. We have tickets to see the new sequel next week, so this was a good refresher.

Tuesday 05/12/2026

Went for the standard walk in the morning. Tidied for the housekeeper. Attended the writers meeting. Had nothing to contribute but heard a couple of good essays. After lunch, attended line dance class.

Spent some time getting the sheet music for “You got me singing” in order. I have this as a music file for the MuseScore and have it transposed from the key of Eb up to E natural, but it didn’t sound right. I found what the stupid problem was and fixed it, then practiced playing it on the guitar. Need lots more practice.

Met with Joanne for half an hour and we planned out our social lives for the next few months, making sure we had all the dates for concerts and stuff in both of our calendars. I use my Google calendar on the computer and phone. She uses a little paper day planner book, so… double-entry bookkeeping. We do have fun but it is complicated, having that much fun.

Monday 05/11/2026

Resident Association meeting at 9. As soon as it was over I headed to FOPAL. First the post-sale cleanup, then processed 6 boxes of new stuff. Four hours later I headed home. Napped for an hour.

After supper I did a little work editing a video. Then went down for a concert. I’m sure I’ve mentioned Steve Gill before, he has appeared here many times with various other musicians. He always has a theme to his show, this time it was “Dolly Parton at 80”. They recounted high points of Dolly’s life and sang her songs. It was OK.

Sunday 05/10/2026

Usual Sunday morning. At 11 I left for the Museum where I led the 12pm tour. Nice group of a dozen or so.

This being Mother’s Day the dining services had taken the afternoon off. So in the morning I picked up a brown bag supper, and at 5:30 we 6th floor people gathered in our dining room with our brown bags for supper. This is a nice custom. We had 13 of us crowded around the big dining table. The table and 8 matching chairs was a gift from a former resident, Edie, who passed on last year.

In a few minutes I will go and meet Joanne in the garage and we will drive to the Aquarius theater to see The Sheep Detectives. It’s funny, I had seen a review of it in the paper and thought, that would be fun to see; and then thought, no, Joanne wouldn’t like a silly CGI animated comedy. So I didn’t mention it, but this afternoon she texted to say, how about we go to The Sheep Detectives tonight? Well, OK then. Let’s.

Saturday 05/09/2026

Easy morning, walked to Zoe for breakfast, then goofed off until lunch. After lunch, joined Joanne to walk to Lucy Stern theater to see the Palo Alto Players production of Disney’s Frozen. Excellent production, very talented cast. Fun show. Would recommend, except this is the final weekend.

After an early supper I set up the auditorium for a concert, jazz by “Trio de Garth”, a semi-pro group. A chunky trio, piano, bass and drums, but tonight with also a trumpet, sax and guitar. Very tight and professional renditions of jazz versions of standards. Contrasts: the trumpet guy was introduced as having played around the Bay Area for 60 years. The sax player was a young woman introduced as just about to graduate from SJ State with a degree in music. She was just as polished and soloed just as well as the old trumpeter. The electric guitar guy looks to be in his 50s, and his mother lives here at Channing House.

I made it fun for myself by using our cameras to try to get a good video of their performance, cutting between cameras to get the best shot as people traded solos.