Out at 8:30 to drive first to PAMF for my fall flu shot. I could get a flu shot from my new Concierge PCP, but unfortunately he cannot bill my UHC Medicare Advantage plan. PAMF can do that. So can my local CVS pharmacy, but PAMF sent an email, time to get your flu shot, so I went with them.
And then on to FOPAL where there were 9 boxes of books waiting. I got through them about 12:15, and came on home. Thinking as I came, you know, I could not do a normal 8-hour workday any more. Lunchtime and I’m pooped. (Dude, you’re old. Accept it.)
In the afternoon I did various things. Responded thoughtfully to some email threads. Oh, used Claude to make a spreadsheet for our shared car expenses. Remains to be seen if J. will be willing to use it.
Flashback to the Moonlight Walk of a couple days ago. I look like an idiot, as usual. Joanne looks cute, also as usual.
Normal Sunday morning; so nice to have a routine. Off at 10:30 for the museum to lead a private tour.
Tour was sort of a fiasco. Apparently Google has a deal with the Museum, they get two docent-led tours per year. This was to be one. Someone at Google told our person that they would have 32 people. So word went out, we need two docents for Sunday morning 11:30.
I got there at 10:45 and waited around. Then Dave Hoyt, another very experienced docent showed up, and we waited together. 11:30 passed, no Googlers. Then a woman with two kids showed up, said she was from Google, and “a couple” of others were coming “soon”.
We talked it over and obviously they don’t need two docents. Since I had signed up first, Dave Hoyt got to leave early. I hung around talking to the nice woman and her two well-behaved kids, about 5 and 7 I would guess. I had expected a group of high-powered tech types. But she worked in HR. And the ONE other person who showed up to join her was also clerical. So my big tour of tech types turned into a stroll around the exhibits with two women and 4 small kids.
I edited my talk on the fly to toss out a lot of more technical points and shorten things up so as not to stress the kids. We had a nice time and wrapped up in 45 minutes. But this was not best use of docent time for sure, and I made sure that the people behind the desk would register that fact with our tour bookers.
Quiet afternoon back home, playing with my computer. In the middle of the night I had decided to do a thing and now I did it. Over the last couple of years we have put on several “Good Times” shows with different kinds of music, most recently the Beatles, but C&W, early 60s, show tunes. For each show I made an elaborate video with music videos and lyrics. Those were sitting around on the drive and I wanted the space back, so yesterday I had moved all that stuff to the trashcan. But didn’t empty it.
In the night I realized, I have a way to back them up. In a drawer I have a box of writeable DVD discs, and I have a DVD burner. I haven’t burned a DVD in 8 years, but I still could. So this afternoon I pulled those videos out of the trash, burned them to a DVD, and stowed it away safely. Then I trashed them again and emptied the trash.
A day of little stuff. Well, did some research and bought a laptop that will do to replace Dennis’s old machine. No big improvement in features, but at least will run current Windows. Initially I drove down to Best Buy and confused myself thoroughly by looking at all the laptops laid out on counters. But all the feature details were spelled out in tiny font on little labels fixed to the counters and it was hard to get a picture of the different models. So I came home, got some advice about the appropriate HP model from my friend Claude, then shopped online.
Did some other making and mending around the house, did my round in the gym. Watched another lecture in the Great Courses sseries with Joanne. That’s about it for the day.
Took an early muffin walk with Joanne. Got back before 9:30. Right at 9:30, Leah pulled up and I got in her car and off we went to Dennis’s place. He’d been having some computer problems, and since I am not good with Windows, I brought in Leah as a consultant. She and Dennis worked through some of his issues while I sat by and played with my phone 😉
At 5pm, I went downstairs and met with Joanne, Rob, Nancy, Prue and Lennie to car-pool to the annual Palo Alto Moonlight walk and run. Several thousand people participate, although this was my first time, and Joanne’s. The others had done it multiple times. Prue shot a picture of me and Joanne with the moon rising behind us, but I don’t have it yet. If it’s any good, I’ll post it here when she sends it. Meanwhile, here’s 2 pics I took.
Hundreds and hundreds of people for the 5K walk.Harvest Moon over the baylands
5K is 3.1 miles. That plus the muffin walk in the morning gives me 5.2 miles for the day.
A day with nothing scheduled on the Google calendar app. Oooh, scary!
Took my standard walk. Later in the morning I did some gardening, cleaning out one old plant and potted a new one.
I took care of a long-standing issue. Back like 4 years ago toward the end of the Covid days, on behalf of the Resident Association I ordered a case of face masks. A big cardboard box with several dozen smaller boxes of N-95 masks. About 5 boxes got used. Then the cardboard carton sat on my deck and I ignored it.
Months ago I asked somebody on staff if they could use the masks. Sure, they said, leave them, I forget where they said. Anyway I didn’t do it, just left the carton on the deck. Well, today I got rid of the damn carton. Found another staff member, Alejandra, and got her permission to leave the carton in her office, and I went and got it and carried it down and left it. The masks are finally gone.
Did some reading, wrote some emails. Ate supper early. At 7 I will join Joanne in the auditorium to see a movie.
Joanne had chosen not to lead a hike this week. Instead just we two took a local hike, walking down to the Edgewood Market for chai lattes and return (3.9 miles).
After lunch I did a little work for Scribble & Sketch. Jerry had an idea for a front cover showing Santa with a dog entering our new satellite, Arris. Point being, pets are allowed at Arris. He had generated a picture showing Santa with a large furry dog with a wreath around its neck and “antlers”. Joanne wanted a related picture for the back cover, so I used Midjourney to generate a similar dog, now lying on a lounge chair on a balcony with an eggnog.
Jerry wanted some changes, so I made them.
Tonight I ran the AV for a lecture by Iris Nemani, the artistic director of the Stanford Live arts program. She’s responsible for booking and scheduling dozens of performing artists who come through Stanford in a year. She gave quite an interesting talk.
Laundry day, housekeeping day. I spent the morning tidying up and running the laundry. Then at 10, went to the auditorium for a presentation on dealing with dementia. The writers group had postponed its weekly meeting because several of us wanted to attend this one-time class.
One of the many resident-organized volunteer committees here is The Buddies. This is composed of residents who commit to frequently visiting a “buddy” who resides in the Lee center, that is, someone who needs assistive care. Some of those are at some stage of progressive dementia. The Buddies had asked for training on how best to interact with a buddy in that condition. Staff had organized this presentation by two women who had been in elder care for more than 30 years each.
The presentation was based around the “best friends” approach advocated in the book The Best Friends Approach to Dementia Care. A lot was stuff I had read at some point, but some were new and enlightening to me. Bottom line, you could say it’s all about taking extra effort to be a decent, caring human being.
Then I met with Bert and Kass to learn about the plan for the Appreciation Fund Kickoff. I am going to have to assist with the rehearsal, although Bert will run the actual show.
Joanne and I took a nice walk up to Town & Country to talk, go over our schedules for the upcoming days.
I ate a sandwich in my room and went to the 11th floor to prep the music and tv system there for the planned Contemporary Music Exposure meeting. And the stupid 11th floor TV would not talk to my computer. Piece of junk. People were starting to gather and I couldn’t get it to work. Bert came around but couldn’t think of anything helpful either. So I said, let’s go to the auditorium. Then somebody said, Tuesday night, they’ll be showing a movie. So I said, ok, cancelled. Then Marcia called from the auditorium — no movie tonight, come on. So I and all 25 people who had come for the event went on downstairs and I set up there.
And we listened to all of Arianna Grande’s new album, Petal. Which I don’t think anybody liked. I certainly didn’t. The music production was boring and simple-minded, just synthesizer chords and percussion. And her lyrics were not great either. One person said, If I was her mother I’d be heartbroken, this is a girl in mental trouble.
Anyway I have learned my lesson, future CMX’s will be in the auditorium. I had resisted that, wanting the more intimate group setting upstairs, but the equipment is not to be relied on, and the whole think worked fine downstairs.
I have been waiting for the equinox, promising to do a couple of things. Of course I just assumed it was 9/21 like usual, but on ho, it’s 9/23. Don’t care. This morning I changed my bedding, putting the light wool blanket away and bringing out my feather duvet, which hasn’t been on the bed in a long time, also changing the throw on the back of the couch for a slightly different look, and–drum roll please–turned my mattress. AND tomorrow I start wearing long-sleeve shirts after a long summer of wearing polos.
The a standard walk, back in time for the monthly 10:30 am EvCo meeting. IT Czar Jean Tinant presented the future resident platform, Cubigo, to the group of people who put on events. I’d heard about Cubigo at ResTech meetings, but this was the first time he had showed it to normal (non-techie) residents. Also he showed us what the screen in the new elevators will look like. Which is pathetic, 13×7 inches, half the area taken up with logos and floor numbers, about a playing-card size space for any kind announcement or info.
Back to my room after lunch and had a visit from Leah, talking about a special project I want her to take on.
In between and all around, I finished preparing the video of our Beatles party the other night. I can’t put the link here because it is full of copyrighted music. But I sent the link to the people who performed so they could see themselves.
And at 4 it was time for Rhonda’s monthly open meeting, at which she presented a new plan for dining services. They have entered into a “partnership” with Unidine corp. All our dining services employees will move to be employed by Unidine. Many supposed advantages will flow from this, we are told. We’ll see.
Yesterday’s dinner featured scallops and lobster tail. I am not a fan of lobster tail. I presume the chef knew what he was doing, but it seemed undercooked and stringy to me, and I didn’t like the flavor. Oh well, our table, with Lou and Alice, and David and Karen, and me and Joanne, was lively with good conversation.
Although dinner nominally started at 5, it was 5:15 before they actually started serving the first (of seven) courses. Joanne and I had to start walking for the theater at 7pm and in the end, we didn’t get our dessert. The servers were just plating little blueberry upside-down cakes when we had to head out.
The Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder was fun. A musical kind of in the style of a Gilbert & Sullivan musical, very witty but very rapid lyrics, lots of word-play. Clever staging but I missed some of the jokes from just not understanding the lines. Anyway it was amusing and well produced.
Sunday 09/20/2026
Usual Sunday morning. At 11, I drove to the Museum and led the noon public tour, which went fine.
In the afternoon I attended a Sunday @ Home, my 6th floor neighbor Rob talking about his experiences working for a firm that provided technical assistance to the Navy doing searches. He described the work his firm did (before he joined it) helping to find a lost H-Bomb in 1966. Later searches included consulting on finding the ship of gold, a treasure ship that sank of Massachusetts, and other searches.
In the evening I got distracted from blogging to work on the video of the Beatles show, having had a cool idea for how to edit it. Went to bed early.
An extra-value day as Bill Pawek used to say about any travel day that would leave you exhausted. Started with a walk up to Trader Joe’s with Joanne. Then I sat down to do the prep for the Contemporary Music Exposure coming on Tuesday night. This involved copying the lyrics of all the songs on Arianna Grande’s latest album off the lyrics site, Genius.com, and pasting them into my document template. Resulting in an 8-page document. Taking that downstairs to the big copier and making 24 double-sided copies. Also printing out the sign-up sheet for the event, putting that on the counter where sign-up sheets are made available for people to sign. And posting to the BB email list that signups were open.
Now it was noon I had some open time, so I grabbed the car and drove down to FOPAL where in 3 hours I cleaned up all donations for my section. There apparently had been two computer scientist types who retired or died recently, so I was processing their professional libraries. Which it appears they had accumulated in the 1990s. Very little contemporary stuff. Anyway that is done.
Back for a nap, and change clothes because next up at 5pm we will join 4 other people at a table at the monthly Webster Street Grille, the house “fancy dinner”. Our dining services people seem to take great pride in presenting a high-level menu of 6 courses with wine. Anyway Joanne and I were invited by some others to join them.
After that we will walk down to the Lucy Stern theater to see A Gentleman’s Guide to Murder, supposed to be very funny. I will report on those two events tomorrow.
