Tuesday continued…

So after a short nap I headed out for shopping. I have it in mind to buy a sweater. My favorite sweaters were ones I got in New Zealand several years ago, and they’d sprung holes and had to be retired last year. I’d like a nice soft wool sweater to wear as a second layer, preferably dark gray, dark green, or dark brown. And where better to find a wool sweater than London in winter? How to get to Oxford Street where all the big stores are? I was going to take a bus, as Apple maps suggested, but the nearby stop it led me to had a sign, “Buses do not pick up passengers here.” Apparently it’s just for parking? I couldn’t see where the next bus stop would be, but hey: right down the block was a cab-stand. I hopped into the front one and said, “Selfridge’s, please.” Which felt very cool.

I was delighted to find from a sign inside that the cab now accepts Apple Pay! Which it did, and that makes the London cab almost as convenient as an Uber.

Selfridge’s bears no relation to any image you (or at least, I) might have about the traditional British department store. (Maybe another day I’ll take a train out to Richmond and check out Bentall’s, where we used to shop in the 70s.) Anyway, today’s Selfridge’s is just achingly modern. Wide-open floors, brilliantly lit, just shatteringly trendy wares. And crowded with shoppers. We shoppers, almost all of us, looked quite dowdy beside the brightly colored and wares and glass cases. Demographic note: London is at least as multi-cultural as San Francisco. Women whose dress and appearance suggested the middle east were crowding the perfume counter for some kind of demonstration. Upstairs in the men’s department, at least a third, I think more, of the display mannequins represented black men, which quite a few customers were.

All the men’s wear was arranged in areas by designer, familiar Ralph Lauren and Polo and many others I’d not heard of. Open racks with clothes hangers spaced out on them, no place you could go to look at sweaters, you have to search every rack. Nope. I’m not a Selfridge’s shopper. More a Marks and Spencer guy. And the big M&S was right next door. Here the store was more like, say, Macy’s in Stanford Shopping Center — well, brighter and more mirrors than that, in fact I am going to see our local mall hubs as dowdy after this. But at least the goods were more by kind than by brand. Some cashmere sweaters, even, but none with the color, or collar shape, I wanted.

I ambled through a couple more stores before calling it quits. I was at the west end of Oxford street, and there was the Marble Arch station of the Central line. Down; one stop west to Lancaster Gate; and up. Not, however, up the 78-step staircase. I took the lift.

Hung out in the room for an hour until I was hungry, then went out around the corner to The Mitre, which advertises itself as a “traditional” pub. Ate supper there with a pint of… Kronenberg. Yes, German lager, which was the waiter’s suggestion when I said I didn’t like IPAs.

Tuesday, 2/11/2020

Funny how body clocks work. During the night I woke up several times feeling very hungry. That despite having had a good supper only a few hours before. But it was about 2am UK time, which is just about supper time back home.

Anyway I mostly slept from 9pm to 7am and should now be pretty well synced. The hotel breakfast was a nice spread of stuff to satisfy a tourist from almost any country. However, tomorrow I’ll go out to the nice cafe I see up the street that opens at 7.

First, indeed only, scheduled item today was the Churchill War Rooms. To get there I walked a few blocks East along Bayswater road to the Lancaster Gate station of the Central Line. The following experience was a rush, in several senses. I had waited until after 9am just to let the morning crush pass, but it hadn’t. So you start by charging down an amazing winding staircase amidst a hurrying line of  people going to work (there is a lift, but no commuter would wait for that). Then on the platform you wait for the next train. Trains come every 2-3 minutes. The first one in was packed sardine-like at every door. Nobody got out, and nobody got in. “Mind the doors!” and off it went. I stood back and made a video of the next one. Imagine a strong breeze and rising sound from the left and then… 

(Notice the guy’s coat-tail hanging out the door?) I didn’t board that one, either. But the next one, 3 minutes later, had a lot of free standing room, so I was off. The sounds in the train are fun, also; the motor picking up speed sounds like a turbine winding up. Two stops to Bond Street, and change to the Jubilee line (which I’d never ridden before; it was built after we left England) and two stops to Westminster.

And up to ground level in a famous spot, just under the Clock Tower. “They are cleaning it.” (Firesign Theater reference that nobody will get). It was a lovely morning, brisk chill breeze and racing clouds. I walked around a bit before ambling off to the edge of St. James Park and the Churchill War Rooms exhibit. This was quite good. During WWII Churchill, his cabinet ministers, and the major military figures, all had offices in a warren of rooms under what is now the Imperial War Museum. Much of this has now been restored to its 1943 state. In the center is a museum of Churchill’s career, but before and after that you wander past room after restored room, offices, bedrooms, telephone exchanges, map rooms, etc. Here’s one of many.

During the summer it would have mattered that my entrance ticket was for 11am, but now it didn’t, and I went right in at 10. There were only a few other tourists, mostly German I think from what I overheard.

Well, seen that, now what? I decided to walk to Trafalgar Square and take a first pass at the National Gallery. En route passed Horse Guards Parade where two lines of Horse Guards were sitting still facing each other. I took a picture of a London police officer’s horse, inspecting its colleagues.

From the steps of the NatGal I looked back at Nelson facing his glory.

Admission is free to all the major museums. My only charge was to pay 2 pounds for a map. From it I learned that the Gallery has over 60 numbered rooms. I set out to visit them in approximate numerical order, checking off each one on the map. I got through less than half, and only to the 1600s, before I was full up with images.

I decided to go back to the hotel and looked for the Tube. The only entrance to the Charing Cross station I could find was chained off in a rather permanent looking way. There had to be other entrances, but I didn’t see them. Since I was now standing on The Mall with a steady stream of traffic, I thought I’d take a taxi, but the first six or so to pass were occupied. Well then… Uber? And I had an Uber back to the hotel. No free taxis passed in the five minutes I had to wait for my Uber to arrive.

My room was not yet made up (2pm) so I’m in the hotel bar doing this entry. Later, after a nap, I shall sally forth again.

Monday, 2/10/2020

I’d paid for “premium” seating on Virgin, and it was more spacious than the usual, although, to my surprise, my bag did not slide all the way under the seat ahead, which it had done on the flights to Greece. That complicated my foot positions. Oh well. On the return flight I’ll put it overhead; since premium boards first, there’ll be room.

After an OK supper they dimmed the lights for about 6 hours of the 9.5-hour flight. During that time I estimate I actually slept 4, with frequent wakings. Felt fine on arrival. Apparently LHR Terminal 3 was busy, as our big 787 parked out on bare tarmac, and we all exited via stairs to waiting coaches, which meandered through the industrial underbelly of Heathrow to a ground level door, from which of course we had to go up a couple of escalators in order to come down to the arrivals hall. The E-gate (automatic passport check with facial recognition) worked fine and I was loose in the UK. I found my way to the Heathrow Express train, today only running once every 30 minutes instead of 15, due to track maintenance from the weekend storm.

Once at Paddington, I wanted just to exit to the street, and darned if I couldn’t find how to do that. I remembered that British for “Exit” is “Way Out” and I followed those signs quite a while and wasn’t out. Rather than ask, I changed plans and followed the clearer signs to the underground.

Here I did something I’d planned to do later in the day, buy an Oyster card, a refillable transit pass. To buy that, I stuck my SFCU bank card in the slot, and it charged the 50 pounds to it, and didn’t ask me for my PIN. Hmmm. Anyway with that and about five minutes pondering the Tube map, I worked out that I could go just one stop to Bayswater and walk. Which I did, through a sprinkle of rain.

Bayswater is a busy commercial neighborhood with lots of restaurants and shops. Along the edge of Kensington Gardens there are lots of hotels, so a noticeable number of people walking along toting roller bags. My hotel is modest but adequate, as is my room. Once checked in I discovered that the British plug adapter I’d bought for cheap on Amazon was rubbish and wouldn’t give good contact to the laptop power supply. And also that I’d not packed a comb. So back out for a walk around the local shopping. I bought the comb at Boots and a better plug adapter at a funny little market hall, like a Turkish bazaar with lots of little booths (staffed by actual Turks, it looked like) selling computer accessories.

Later I spotted what should be a good breakfast coffee cafe (but I’ve paid for the hotel breakfast for tomorrow, so the cafe will have to wait until Wednesday). Nearby are a veritable UN of restaurants; I can choose between Italian, Persian, Malaysian, Turkish cuisines.

I plotted out my travel for tomorrow’s first attraction, then at 5pm, went out to find supper. I carried my umbrella but there was no rain then. I passed a pub, several hotels with restaurants, and went to the “Taste of Maylasia” just around the corner on Craven Terrace. Turned out to be a good choice. I ordered an entree of beef cooked in coconut milk, a side of pickled veg, and rice cooked with I forget what spices, but it had a floral aroma and taste.

It was all tasty and nicely presented. Beer would have been the perfect pairing, but alas the restaurant is not “licensed” so I had Coke.

While I was waiting for the check I glanced out the window and, oh my gosh it just pissing down out there! Glad for my umbrella, and that I was only a long block from the hotel.

Now my task is to stay the heck awake until at least 9pm so I can wake up at a reasonable hour in the morning. I’ll try the telly.

Sunday, 2/9/2020

With nothing to do today except travel, I started with a now-traditional mile walk to the Palo Alto Cafe in Midtown. There bumped into Harriet, who mentioned she’d just had surgery. Oh, for what? Breast cancer. Ahh! Are you ok? Yes, it was small and well contained, not even radiation for a followup.

Before leaving Midtown, I went into CVS and bought a travel-size deodorant stick — just another thing I’d had a 4am panic over. I wouldn’t get anything done without my 4am panics. Back to CH, did some reading, got an hour nap, tidied the apartment, and finally 1pm came around and I could leave. Here I am in travel trim.

The security line was more than usually annoying, having to put hat, belt, shoes, iphone and chromebook all in bins, somehow ending up with three bins separated by other people’s bins, plus my bag. But I got through it with all possessions intact, and into Gate A5 with more than two hours to pass before boarding. Well, plenty of time to read Rick Steve’s London guidebook on Kindle.

Next post from London.

Saturday, 2/8/2020

Yesterday I’d promised Peter the loan of my film scanner. So first thing after breakfast I went down to the basement to rescue it from my storage cage. Brought it up, plugged it in, verified it worked. Put the relevant utilities on a memory stick.

Called Peter, took the scanner to his room, and we got it somewhat set up. Unfortunately the Canon scanner software I’d brought was a 32-bit app and he’d upgraded his mac to Catalina so it wouldn’t run. He’s a competent user so I left it to him to find the updated version. Then tried Vuescan, which I recommend except you have to pay for it. And it couldn’t preview in transparency mode.

I was running out of time so I left the whole mess for Peter to work out.

Drove to the Museum and led the noon tour. This was odd; I started with about 15 people, and by the end was down to 3. The rest just wandered away. I’m used to some dropoff, but this was unusual. I just didn’t resonate with this crowd.

Back home I dealt with pretty much all the email that had been congealing in my inbox. About 5pm, 24 hours to departure, I checked in for my flight and printed the boarding pass. Then supper and some television.

 

Thursday, 2/6/2020

Drove to the Yosemite ave. warehouse for another day of opening boxes, shelf by shelf, row by row. We are perhaps 30% done? The group went to the Philly Cheesesteak place for lunch. As a result I didn’t feel like supper, and had a sandwich in my room.

A topic at lunch was the old series, “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries”, with those who’d seen it urging the few who’d not, to look it up. So I did look it up and replayed S1E1. It’s a beautifully made show, the costumes and sets for period Melbourne are beautiful. And Essie Davis was the perfect Miss Fisher. I remember that after three seasons, Marian and I got somewhat tired of it. But it was fun reviewing that first episode.

Wednesday, 2/5/2020

Went for a run; routine. About 9, drove to FOPAL where I put the computer section into final shape for the weekend sale, then took a break for lunch, and returned to the sorting room which was approaching the pre-sale bloat. Most sections are on “hold” meaning their managers don’t want any more books. So what do you do when you have a full box of “Nature/Animals” or “Philosophy”? You put on a post-it with the section name and pile it with others in the sorting room. I spent most of the next two hours processing donations, not to sort them, but simply to repack the books from the bags and miscellaneous box sizes they donors use, into standard bankers boxes so they could be stacked more neatly and compactly.

After supper I headed out to the Bus Barn theater (they prefer to call it the Los Alto Stage Company now but…). There is construction in the Los Altos civic center and I had to park a long way away. The play was Oslo, a retelling of the events that led up to the Oslo Accords agreement between the PLO and Israel. There were to be two intermissions. At the first one it was already 9pm; I wasn’t engaged; and there would clearly be at least 90 minutes more. So I bailed. The actors were doing a good job and the staging was fine; it just wasn’t that interesting a topic to me.

 

Tuesday, 2/4/2020

Out the door at 9:30 for an appointment at a

frame shop.

Back story: In 1978, Marian and I were in an antique shop in London (probably) and liked a fine little pen and ink sketch of the construction of an early railroad, colored with watercolor. (I’m sure there’s a name for the technique of coloring an ink drawing.) I’ve always supposed it was contemporary with the subject, that is, a drawing from life of the construction of a railroad, circa about 1830. But I suppose it could have been done later, to illustrate the history of railroads. In any case, a fine little (10×15 inch) drawing. Framed in a simple wood frame. We bought it for about £10 (Marian recorded the price as $28 in the old home-inventory spreadsheet). Hung it in the bedroom and left it there. It’s one of several art works I brought along to Channing House.

After moving back into #621 last weekend, I brought out all these framed items and leaned them on a wall to start thinking about where to hang them. And turned the railroad drawing over to find its backing paper had been attached with something like masking tape, which had totally dried out, so the backing was almost loose.

Monday I consulted the oracle (Google Maps) for frame shops near me, selected one, and their website offered appointments. I took a 10am appointment for today. The chap at the frame shop was there on time. We agreed he would replace the backing and the matte (which was, he says, not acid-free), and it would be $98, call you in a couple days.

Next stop, the

Santa Clara County Assessor.

I explained the business with the reassessment yesterday. Today I took a nice folder of all possible relevant documents and went to 70 West Hedding street, the County Administrative Campus as it calls itself on its helpful orientation map. I have to say, this was about the most pleasant experience with a government agency I’ve ever had. At 11am there were only two people in line ahead of me. The receptionist was pleasant and knew exactly what I was talking about. He said, take this slip and sit in the waiting area just over there, someone will be out to see you in a minute.

And someone was, again a pleasant and helpful guy. He explained that they have to make sure that the benefit of Marian’s estate went entirely to me, not, for example, to children or charity. He took my old trust documents away and copied them, and was quickly back. Said they would be reviewed and I’d probably hear nothing more. Unless they decided to reassess, in which case, I’d get a bill, but that didn’t seem likely.

I was out of the building and back to my car with only 30 minutes off the parking meter. Not bad, Assessor Larry Stone. The DMV you certainly ain’t.

Back home I put all the documents away, had a bite, had a nap, did some writing on the novel. Then it was 2pm and time to meet with other

A/V committee

guys to learn something about the newly finished A/V system in the auditorium. This wasn’t the official training session, which will happen tomorrow with the consultant who designed the system, but an informal one with one of the installers, in preparation for the first performance under the new system, a concert of chamber music by the Music@Menlo chamber institute.

Back to my room for a bit, then down again to hear the start of the concert. It was ok and sounded fine, but I really am not much for chamber music. So I slipped out again and fiddled around on the internet until it was 5pm and time for the

Sixth floor meeting.

This was a significant one, first because it is the first since we have all returned to the renovated floor; and second, because it was the formal hand-off from Craig Allen to Jerry Anderson. Craig is retiring after a number of years as “floor rep,” an elected position, mainly responsible for attending a monthly meeting of all 9 floor reps, and for chairing a monthly floor get-together.

Discussion this time was mostly about remaining renovation items. The floor has a budget of $20,000 to spend on upgrading the common areas, the lounge and the dining room. We are all to take the time to visit the 8th to 10th floors and note what they did with their money. Next month we’ll discuss more. Also discussion of the art works. A facilities person will be assigned for a day sometime around the 17th (although the meeting seemed to feel that was too soon) to hang all the art work you want hung in the hallway and common areas.

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned here, that Channing House is somewhat unusual in encouraging people to hang whatever they like in the hallways. The hallway wall the length of your unit is yours to curate. (As I’m at the end of the hall, my wall doesn’t get much viewing, so it isn’t critical, although I intend to have a small rotating exhibit of photographs.)

When all the hall items were taken down in September prior to renovation, there were a number that couldn’t be associated with any present residents; probably hung by now-deceased ones. Those unclaimed orphans have all been given away now. But there are plenty left waiting to come out of storage. So there will be a day of hanging; start thinking about what you want to put out there and how arranged.

Previously I’d hung my Dean Linsky Yosemite oil opposite the lounge (with group approval). Now there’s a large wall-sconce in that space. The painting would fit to one side, but there really should be something of similar dimensions and tonality to balance it. This issue was left open as it was time to adjourn to supper.

 

Monday, 2/3/2020

A week from today I’ll be in London. How about that?

Started the day with a run, which was nominal. Then I sat down to try to clarify a letter I received a couple days ago from the Santa Clara County Assessor. It referred to the Tasso street house, and asked for lots of details about the living trust, including “attach a copy of the trust document including all amendments”, and if this is not received in 15 days, the property will be reassessed. Huh? The one I sold last August? Of course it will be reassessed for the new owner, that’s Prop 13 in action. I was puzzled over the point of the whole thing, and also puzzled in detail since I couldn’t work out how some of the questions were to be answered.

So I called the assessor’s office, and the person on the line tried to be helpful, but finally pointed out that I could bring the trust documents to them in San Jose and they would do the copying and point out what they needed. OK, that settles what I’m doing tomorrow morning.

Later in the day I worked out what it must be about. It has nothing to do with the assessment of the property now, or with the fact that I sold it. It has to do with whether the property should have been reassessed as of Marian’s death, which would change rather drastically the one-half year’s property tax that I paid as part of the escrow settlement. I’m pretty sure that as the property was owned by the family trust, which continued intact, that won’t happen. But it will be nice to get it clarified.

Next up was the monthly Channing House Men’s Meeting. Recently that designation was challenged by a couple of women, and it was clarified that the men were sponsoring the meeting but that everyone was welcome to attend. The presenter this time was a friend of Bert’s, who works in the assistive device field, and he had attended the recent Consumer Electronics Show looking for all kinds of devices that assist the ailing or elderly. Fall detection is now a built-in function of the Apple Watch. There are other devices for fall detection, including room radar sensors that claim, or anyway hope, to notice when someone falls. He was rather dismissive of these. Lots of false alarms. There is “smart underwear”, basically elder diapers that incorporate a fall-detecting accelerometer in the waistband. For diabetics, there are now continuous glucose monitoring devices that are non-invasive. How? Well, one monitors your heart rhythm and somehow derives an estimated glucose level from that. There are socks, and shoe insoles, designed to analyze your gait, I’m not sure why.

As this was winding down, I headed out to FOPAL for five hours of work. Lots of books to price for the computer section, and then a massive amount of sorting backlog.

Nothing of note in the evening.