Monday 02/23/2026
First thing was to walk to the Sutter Health cardio lab, a mile, to perform a “stress echo” test. Where they stick about six little cardio sensors on me, and take an echocardiogram, then I walk on the treadmill to 85% of my max, then lie down and the technician takes another look at my heart on the echo machine. Max heart rate is the old 220 minus your age, i.e. 137, times 0.85 is (picks up phone) 116. Thanks to the metoprolol I take, it takes a while to get up to there but I eventually did. Everything seemed to be working smoothly, but now I wait for the cardiologist’s comments. Is that artificial aortic valve still sealing properly? Any electrical anomalies?
From there I needed to go to FOPAL. Joanne needed the car, she was meeting a friend for lunch, so I took a Lyft. I was carrying my laptop and my shiny new barcode scanner. I have found that scanning books and pricing them right at my section is much more efficient than what I did for the last 5 years, carry them back to the sorting room to use the computers there.
Just as I was wrapping up about 12:30, Joanne texted: she was done with lunch, did I want a ride? Sure, so I waited a bit in front of Piazza’s market and soon she came tootling in.
So next up was two meetings. The first, the Scribble&Sketch team meeting. Scribble&Sketch is the Channing House literary magazine, issued twice a year. Getting it produced takes a committee of about 10, and I joined this team recently in the lowly position of proofreader. So not a big commitment. But today was the day to plan the tasks and schedule for producing the summer issue. The meeting was chaired by, guess who? her majesty the recently appointed Production Editor Joanne Tyler. Who runs a good meeting.
Immediately after I went to the Common Areas Advisory Group meeting. This was to introduce a newly-hired designer, and to see her sketches of the very first phase of the ground floor remodel. A general brighten-up for the lobby and entryway. We saw and commented on her choices of colors and floor coverings and furniture and such, and gave her lots of good feedback and comments on how we actually use these spaces (so please don’t screw them up).
Codgerville 