4.055 laundry, docent, event

Wednesday 01/25/2023

I was scheduled to lead a private tour at 11, and it’s laundry day, so I started the laundry at 7:30 and had it all put away by 10. So off to the Museum to guide 17 students from a Catholic university in Korea. They were cute but not very attentive. Possibly their English was not up to my speech level? Although I tried to slow down and simplify. Anyway a core about 6 stuck close and listened, the rest kind of wandered off. Which is fine.

Back in time to get lunch in the dining room. Idled away the afternoon. At supper time I made a sandwich for myself and when I took the first bite of it, a crown fell off. Actually more than a crown, it’s like most of a tooth with a spike at the bottom, so more like an implant. Anyway, I now am chewing only on the right, and tomorrow I have to try to get that fixed. Shit.

At 6:30 I went down to back up David M running an event. He was facing a new problem: it was an Auditorium plus Zoom event, but the first one where there was a music component, a number by a singer playing the piano. So how to make sure the music got out to the Zoom audience? Also, music over Zoom usually sounds bad. He had fought the same problem at his volunteer gig at the Congregational Church recently. Turns out, Zoom recently introduced some audio tweaks that you have to disable. He was able to find the right settings on our equipment. Then we had feedback, and it took a while to run that down. But we did, and then the event came off nicely.

Gloria Hom had assembled six other China-descended residents and they took turns talking about Chinese New Year memories from their childhood. It was pretty interesting.

Best laugh was when Gloria was trying to explain about the cycle of 12 animals, and the cycle of five elements, so your birth year gives you an animal and an element. She said her eldest daughter was a Fire-Horse, “which means, nobody is going to marry her.” Somebody in the audience immediately asks, who did she marry? Gloria, “Oh, I found her another fire horse, so that’s ok.”