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.

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.