4.006 aye, matey; tech; dinner

Wednesday 12/07/2022

I was thinking about this today: that the arbitrary number 80 is having an effect on me. Not strong, but every once in a while I find myself thinking, should I be doing that now I’m 80? Where that is something perfectly normal that I’ve been doing out of habit for a long time. Like putting on my socks while leaning against a wall. As if my brain is saying, come on, an eighty-year-old guy should sit down on the bed to pull his socks on. I’m not unsteady, no danger of falling, but my brain is acting like an over-concerned nanny trying to protect the senile old guy from himself.

I may have set myself up for this. For years I’ve been saying “when I’m 80, I’m going to start smoking again” — on the basis that smoking wouldn’t shorten my life. Something else would kill me before the tobacco could. So I got in the habit of treating 80 as a magic boundary: you cross that border and you’re into the land of sudden death. Anyway now I catch my brain wanting me to act “appropriately” for my age. Shut up, brain.

Oh well. I ran a zoom event again today, the last one for me for the month of December I’m happy to say. It went well, no tech glitches. When I was playing back the recording of the meeting I had a moment of panic because it seemed there was no audio. Ha ha, audio was fine; I had muted the speaker on the Macbook.

At 5, cousin Darlene and partner Jessea arrived as planned. Darlene was Marian’s second cousin, i.e. her mother was first cousin to Marian and Jean. Darlene at age 5 was a flower girl for Jean’s wedding, 70-odd years ago. I like Cousin Darlene very much, she is a character. I had invited them to have dinner at Channing House. I showed them around the 11th floor overlooking the valley, and then my apartment, and then down to dinner. I had reserved a table for 5, and I’d invited neighbors Connie and Carolyn, but Carolyn had to beg off with a cold. Neighbor Gwen was just passing in the hall when we learned that so she came instead. We had a very pleasant dinner.

All sorts of stress relief now: a social event successfully executed, and the last AV event of the year done. Sleep well tonight…