Tuesday 04/14/2026

Out the door at 7:45 to walk to the doctor’s office for the blood draw that would have been done last week if I hadn’t forgotten I was supposed to be fasting. That done, I walked back. Somehow I see I racked up almost 4 miles for the day.

Proofed two more files for Scribble&Sketch, paid a bill, and cleaned the apartment for the housekeeper.

At eleven I attended a talk by a rep from Waymo. She touted Waymo’s safety record and how convenient they are, all of which is true. During Q&A she, being from the PR department, did not have any real answers for why Waymo always charges from 10 to 50 percent more than Lyft, or why they still can’t come into our parking lot and up to our front door, like Lyft and Uber drivers do. But it was a nice presentation.

After lunch I went to the line dance class. I am pathetic at this, but it is a nice gentle workout anyway. I enjoy watching Joanne and a couple of the other students who actually can dance well. While I try to reproduce their steps, but always a step behind.

Did some guitar practice. That was about it for the day.

Monday 04/13/2026

Resident Association meeting at 9. During the meeting I was thinking what a great demonstration it is of the Channing House culture. The library volunteers were featured, and they were introduced and asked to stand in groups, because there are different subgroups who do different things. But all told there must be 15 people involved in keeping our library up to date with the latest books (“We buy a lot of mysteries because that’s what people ask for”) and organized. All resident-organized and run, no staff involvement, as with a number of other activities like the gift shop.

After that a brief pause and then another meeting, of the Transition committee, devoted to helping integrate the people who will soon be buying into Arris, our new second building three blocks away. Discussed a number of issues, of which the most interesting technical issue is, transportation. Should CH hire a driver just to shuttle back and forth? Or can we acquire a self-driving car to do it? That’s my preferred solution. I think the cost of owning or leasing our own Waymo or Zoox vehicle is competitive with the cost of a staff person, and it works longer hours.

Anyway, picked up a lunch sack and headed out to FOPAL. There I spent three hours, one hour doing the post-sale cleanup, and two hours processing 6 boxes of donations.

Back in time for a nap, then early supper at 5:30. I and Joanne joined Jerry and Betty, and right after supper we got in their car and off to Stanford, to attend a concert at the Bing. This was to hear Samara Joy, a noted jazz singer. On the way back I was saying it was one of those “high respect, not so much enjoyment” things. She used to sing standards but now she has a regular group of 7 musicians and they perform as a unit, with her voice as the lead instrument among them. Lots of scatting, lots of vocal decoration and improvisation, not much in the way of recognizable lyrics or melody. So, appreciation of a tight, well-rehearsed and very skillful set of musicians, but nothing to hum along with.

Sunday 04/12/2026

I know, rain is not a big deal many places. But California is in a precipitation shortage so far this year. All the ski resorts in the Sierras closed at the end of March because the snow was gone. So this weekend a nice series of showers blew in on Friday and are still showering even now.

Joanne and I had planned to go to a music festival, Ploverfest, in San Francisco. But yesterday I discovered that Ploverfest had been rescheduled because of weather, to two weeks on (at a time when we are signed up for a different outing). So we had nothing to do today, and rainy weather to do it in.

I pondered while watering my plants this morning and then scoured the intertubes for “what’s on Bay Area” and found that at the Hiller Aviation Museum, just a few miles up 101, they had a special with a bunch of model railroad clubs exhibing in the museum lobby. Sounds like fun, so after lunch we hopped in in Fred and drove up there. Joanne had never been to that museum, and I had only been there once, maybe 8 years ago.

We looked at the other exhibits, it’s a huge barn of a room that is just stuffed with real planes, parts of planes, pictures of planes, and other aviation stuff. Also stuffed with a lot of little kids, apparently a lot of families thought it would be good to take the kids to the aviation museum on a rainy Sunday. Which actually gave a nice atmosphere.

After a couple of hours we followed up another “one of these days” ideas, and went over to REI and shopped for camping chairs. Looking for really light-weight but stable chairs to take to outdoor concerts. And we found some so we bought two and stowed them in the back of Fred.

Then down to Menlo Park to the coffee shop next to Kepler’s books, to sit and sip and chat about our neighbors. With as many neighbors as we have, there’s never a shortage of conversational topics. Pretty nice Sunday.

Saturday 04/11/2026

In the morning I stopped by the gym and did one round of the machines. Then walked on to Cafe Zoe to reward myself. Saw a few light drops of rain on the return. 2.6 miles for the day.

Put in an hour on the upcoming book talk. Then at 1pm met with Joanne and Betty, the Production Eds for our magazine, about some of the things I had done when proofreading last week that had been a little confusing. We are now on the same page I think, so later I re-did three documents in the desired way.

Then met with Mary and several cast members of MM to explore the costume locker in the basement. This is a 4×4 cage maybe 6′ high that is stuffed solid with props and costumes from a decade or more of skits and shows. We picked out things to wear for MM, then carefully re-packed the cage.

Practiced a little guitar. Read a bunch of stuff on the internet. That was about it.

Oh, we had planned, just for fun, to go to Ploverfest, a music festival in SF celebrating the first year of Sunset Dunes, the park created on what had been the Great Highway. Good thing I checked their website because they had rescheduled for two weeks ahead, 4/26. Probably because of a bad weather forecast for this weekend, huh? So now we have nothing to do tomorrow. And it is going to rain most of the day.

Friday 04/10/2026

Joined Joanne for our Friday morning muffin ramble, with the change that it was raining! Haven’t walked in the rain in while.

Practiced some music. I’ve had a suggestion from another resident that we sing together; also I have agreed to be the entertainment at the October birthday dinner. So on those accounts, I guess I will keep practicing guitar. (The birthday dinner is a monthly event, one section of the dining room is set apart for people whose birthday is in that month. And customarily some residents, usually Kay and/or Jerry, but sometimes others, provide a brief musical entertainment ending with singing that song. So, like three songs total.)

Then I spent a couple hours working on my book talk. It’s coming along. Then it was time for the weekly rehearsal of “Channing House Meets the Music Man” or another way to put it, the Cliff Notes version. Anyway, it took almost as much time to set up the auditorium before and shut down after, as it did to do the run-through. Oh well.

After supper I was settling in my chair when I remembered there was a sing-along and rushed downstairs, knowing Joanne would have saved a seat for me, and she had and I was only 10 minutes late, bleagh. Oh well.

Thursday 04/09/2026

First thing today was a 9am appointment with my doctor, Dr. Chu. This was a quick touch-base review, and I was supposed to be NPO so they could get a fasting blood draw but of course I forgot that. So I will have to go back next Tuesday morning for that.

Anyway, back at home I completed editing the second video I started yesterday, Prof. Durham talking about his book on the Galapagos, Exuberant Life. Pretty good talk.

Then I did some proofing for Scribble & Sketch. I am officially a proofreader for the mag. I found one typo in the seven short pieces I inspected.

Finally I got serious about the book talk I am supposed to give on 5/4. This is part of the First Monday Book Talk series. Looking back, it turns out I already gave a talk about my book on a First Monday — July 6, 2020. Cast your mind back to July 2020. That was like a month into the pandemic lockdown. At Channing House all meetings and events had been canceled. We were all just learning to use Zoom, which was s much simpler app then than it is now. I talked about my book for the Nones, and explained what a None was, and why I had thought they needed a book.

Hah, turns out they didn’t, or at least, nobody bought the book. But I will do something different this time. I think.

Wednesday 04/08/2026

Joanne is back but not in time to organize her usual Wednesday hike, so we went on one just the two of us, around the Baylands for 2.5 miles.

In the afternoon I worked on editing videos. I got one complete, the other has another hour of work left. The finished one is a talk by sports journalist Phil Taylor about various sports stars he has met. Pretty good talk.

6th floor meeting, then 6th floor dinner. Then I came up to my room to mix breakfast shakes and do the blog, then it will be back down to the auditorium to hear a lecture on the aging brain. Heck, I have one of those.

Tuesday 04/07/2026

Tidied the apartment for the cleaning lady. That always seems like a big deal, but in fact it takes 15 minutes, max. Then I printed the pages of the presentation for my 10am meeting. Talked to Patty, she will be out of the laundry room by 9, so I sorted my laundry, and a little after 9 started the first load.

At 10 I met with Patty, in Rhonda’s office, with Rhonda and our new IT czar Jean. He’s a jovial chubby guy from Belgium, so that’s Zhann not Jean. The purpose was to review what Patty and I thought should be done to the media center, slash TV lounge, on the 11th floor. Rhonda and the Heritage Circle committee had approved a grant to get this work done; now it was time to make it happen.

I had made some diagrams and pages with bullet points. It was well received. Jean is quick and knowledgeable. He has worked a similar position at The Forum, another large senior residence, and oversaw similar installations there, and knows reliable consultants and contractors.

The meeting was over by 10:30, which allowed me to attend the writers group on zoom at 10:45. I had actually written something. The cue was, “what I am looking at right now”. So I sat down in my recliner this morning with Voice Memo running on the phone. I closed my eyes, and for 5 minutes I described what I could see on the inside of my eyelids. I thought that was pretty clever. I edited transcript a little and that was my essay.

Finished up the laundry. Exchanged emails with Joanne, who got back this morning. She needed the car at 1pm. She left it in the parking lot at 2. So I went to the Line Dance class and right after, took the car and headed down to FOPAL. There was some last-minute tidying up I hadn’t had time for yesterday. Got that done.

Had a quick and solitary dinner and that was the day.

Monday 04/06/2026

Took the standard walk, with an early 7:30 start. Back in plenty of time to set up the auditorium for the First Monday Book Talk. This time it was Prof. William Durham talking about his book on life in the Galapagos Islands. He was a smooth and experienced presenter, which helped make everything run smoothly.

Then I picked up my lunch-to-go and headed out for FOPAL. This is the week before the sale. I had 9 boxes to process, which I did get through, but there is still some tidying-up to do. I need to go back for an hour tomorrow.

Back about 3:45, thinking I was going to the Poetry Out Loud meeting at 4, but when I looked at my email, I realized there was a Common Areas Group meeting at 4 as well, and I opted to attend that. We reviewed some of the plans for remodeling the ground floor. Which have changed considerably since the last time we saw them. Oh well.

Sunday 04/05/2026

Sunday morning rituals aside, I put on my red docent shirt and headed out to the Museum, stopping at a Safeway to get a couple of things including a sandwich for my supper. Because I had just totally forgotten that this is a bag-supper day, dining staff going home after lunch for the holiday, and I forgot to pick up my sack supper before 10am. Dope.

Had a nice tour, 25 people all seemed appreciative of my spiel. Afternoon, I printed as set of pictures for my hall gallery. I see the last time I changed it out was day 7.054, so only 2+ months since I put up the pics of France. Maybe I’ll wait to like 7.044, 90 days after, to put up the new set. (See yesterday for one of the ones I printed up on 11×14 paper.)

It always pleases me when I run a nozzle check on the Epson printer, after it has been sitting barely used for weeks, and all the nozzles are printing perfectly. I want to feed it a treat or something, there’s a good printer.