Monday 07/04/2022
First thing I went for the standard walk, which was fine. Not long after my return I went to the auditorium to meet with Ian. Today’s event was a book talk by Prof. Patnode, who has given a number of such talks here. He never has media to project, he wants a whiteboard and a podium and that’s it. So this was supposed to be a simple, audio-only event, which Ian had signed up to manage.
Unfortunately George, the event manager, decided on his own and without consultation, to advertise the event as “auditorium or zoom”. Since it was in the daily calendar, the house email list, and the signs in the elevators, we had to provide zoom support. Which Ian has never done. Hence my joining him. We set things up using Ian’s PC and the talk went fairly smoothly. Actually it went very smoothly for the 35 or so people in the auditorium. One (1) person attended on zoom, and owing to various issues, they got audio problems and video drop-outs and what-not. Every time we do this we “learn something new”, i.e. we fuck it up in a different way.
When the talk was over and the equipment tidied away, I headed down to FOPAL where I had to get my section ready for the upcoming sale weekend. I was back by 2:30.
Laurel had started an email thread reminding me of childhood 4th of July events, which I wrote up for her, and then copied the email and re-edited it to make an essay for tomorrow’s writers group.
Like all holidays, the dining staff prepare sack suppers which we are supposed to pick up after lunch. As has been our custom for the last few months, many of the sixth floor residents gathered in our dining room to picnic on our sack suppers as a group.
Following that, I went down to the auditorium to grab a mic stand, and then up to 11 to help my volunteer Kass set up a simple one-mic arrangement for the 4th of July party. That was all set by 7:15, well ahead of the start time of 8pm.
Back to the apartment where I washed an amazing number of dishes considering I basically have a service for one, period. And refilled the hummingbird feeders and mixed up breakfast shakes for the next four days.
Then it was 8pm. Neighbor Carolyn had an operation last Thursday, an ankle replacement. She is using a wheelchair and I had agreed to wheel her up to 11 for the party, but now I found out that she wasn’t feeling up to it, and had decided to go to bed early. So I went up to the party, had a root beer float, listened to some very amateurish musical performances (well, they meant well and are our neighbors, so no criticism here).
The air was remarkably clear and the sunset light on the hills was lovely. I took some pictures that I need to process a bit. I watched the start of fireworks, then called it a night.
Codgerville 