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.

Friday 05/08/2026

Another easy day at Channing House. Walked with Joanne in the morning. Did some reading. I’m reading Steward Brand’s recent book, The Maintenance of Everything. Stewart Brand, original publisher of The Whole Earth Catalog from back in the 70s? Is he still alive? Actually yeah, and writing.

After lunch I sat in on an small informal group of people who are practicing their French. Oh I was so out of my depth. I mean, they aren’t anything like fluent either, but ahead of me.

Evening it was time for one of the bi-monthly singalongs, which is always fun.

Thursday 05/07/2026

An unscheduled day after a stressful previous week. I took a standard walk in the morning. Then I did a bunch of reading, catching up on things from my to-read pile. Paid a bill. Put my music man costume back in the costume locker. Played some music. And edited the video from my book talk of Monday. Want to see me pontificate for half an hour? Here ya go.

Wednesday 05/06/2026

Four of us hiked in the Baylands in the morning. Then I spent the rest of the day in my room, reading, a little guitar, practicing my song for tonight.

Also reading fan mail. I modestly quote two emails, one about my talk Monday,

HI Dave,

Your talk on Monday was Wonderful: interesting off-the-beaten-track topic, informative and amusing, with clear slides and delivered with your easy, relaxed style.
You clearly enjoyed what you were doing — and so did your audience. It sparked many mentions, and two long, enjoyable mealtime conversations.

And one about my duet with Mary yesterday afternoon,

You two sing tunefully and in sync despite singing counterpoint ,which has to be extremely challenging, can’t wait to hear you again tonight!!!

Modest blush here.

Ate a sandwich and an orange in my room, then went down at 6 to join the other cast members to set up for the Channing House Spring Concert. First up was three numbers by the harmonica group. Then three numbers by the Chorus. And two numbers by the Jazzy Trio, that’s Arlene on piano, Kay on flute, Stew on drums. Finally the big event of the evening, our pocket version of The Music Man. I had two parts, because one person dropped out. Grouchy towns person. Then a quick change of costume and I joined Mary in a duet. She sang “Will I Ever Tell You” and on the second verse I came in and sang “Lida Rose” in counterpoint. Big applause, and at the reception after, lots of people said it was great.

So now my big performing week is over. It was weird having two performance obligations in the same week. But it feels like a huge load off my mind to have the talk and the stage show behind me.

Tuesday 05/05/2026

First thing, ran my laundry. Neighbor Patty let me go first and it was all done and put away by 10am. While the laundry ran I tidied for the housekeeper, then wrote for the writers group. The latter was easy. The prompt was “By good fortune”. So I decided to write about the lucky way I got employed by IBM, knowing nothing but having lucky timing. I had already written that up for my own records a couple years ago, so I just edited the paragraphs a bit and there I was.

After lunch I went to the Line Dance class. After that it was time to put on my costume and go to the auditorium for the first performance of our Spring Musicale, of which the closing act is our mini-music-man. This came off well, several people complimented me later on the duet with Mary for “Lida Rose”.

This was nominally a dress rehearsal, in the afternoon, but the point was to give a mid-day show that the Lee Center people could attend. And there was an audience of 30 or so, maybe more.

Early supper and then at 7pm Joanne and I were back in the auditorium to see the movie “Oh What a Lovely War“. Our movie committee had touted this heavily as a great satirical anti-war film. Well maybe. It just was neither funny nor gripping nor engaging. Just tedious, the “bits” went on too long and were too obvious without being clever. We both bailed about 30 minutes in.

Monday 05/04/2026

This was the day for me to deliver my First Monday Book Talk. I spoke for about 35 minutes, took 10 minutes of questions and comments, and that was it. About 60 people in the auditorium and they seemed to like it. Several people have said to me since that they enjoyed the talk.

When the video is ready I’ll link to it.

I immediately picked up a sack lunch I had ordered and got a Lyft down to FOPAL (Joanne needed the car to take a friend to the doctor). I worked noon t about 2:45. Called Joanne who very generously came down and picked me up. We both needed to be in the building because we had Poetry Out Loud at 4pm. My choice to read was Billy Collins’s Aimless Love.

Had an early supper and then hopped in the car and went back to FOPAL to finish up. Back home by 8. My section is now in good shape for the sale and I don’t have to think about it for a week.

Sunday 05/03/2026

Morning went out on a couple of errands. Deposited a check. Went to the Apple store and bought a packet of Apple Pencil tips. When I bought an iPad last year, for displaying music while I play, I also bought the Apple Pencil. It sticks to the side of the iPad and you can write on things. Except when I finally tried it, it didn’t work. Couldn’t figure out why. Until I noticed that its tip was funny looking. Not smooth white plastic like the rest of the pencil. Finally learned that the tip, a little white plastic cone shape, screws on and off, and can be replaced. Mine had mysteriously unscrewed itself and disappeared. Leaving a little metal stub.

No problem, Apple will sell you a pack of 4 little white plastic cone shapes for $20 plus tax. So I got that and later screwed on a tip and yay, the pencil works again.

After lunch 15 of us boarded the bus to go to the Pear theater to see their play, ANON(YMOUS). This was the last weekend so no point in recommending it or not. But I don’t think I would have. Lots of skillful acting and clever stage design and directing, but in the end, I wasn’t that involved.

Back home to read through my talk again, and practice a tiny bit of guitar.

Saturday 05/02/2026

First thing in the morning I got in Fred and drove to FOPAL where I worked from 8am to 12pm. And still left 4 boxes to process. But I knew there was too much to get done on Monday, so I did that.

Did some reading and practiced my talk. Then at 6 I opened up the auditorium for an event. Me, Stew and David G2 (to distinguish him from David G1, David M and David T) comprise the Fanboys, and we plan a quarterly series of events where we will play a concert DVD of an especially great live concert. The first one was the Roy Orbison “Black and White Night” show of a few months back.

This one was “Stax/Volt Live in Oslo” featuring Booker T and the MGs, Sam and Dave, and Otis Redding. It was a particular favorite of David G2 who had it in his very extensive collection of DVDs. About 40 people came, several left as it went on, but most enjoyed it.