Monday 09/29/2025

As Joanne was using Fred to take some of her buddies out to lunch, I had to get to FOPAL by other means. So I walked. It’s a bit under 3 miles (3.7 for the day). Only two boxes to process, but some interesting stuff. Anyway, I took a Lyft back.

At 2pm the Channing House Drama Club — the group who took lessons and directions from a professional and put on a program of short plays and skits back last January. The professional who they employed then has moved on. Today they met with Sarah Dean, the artistic director of the Pear Theater, and her choice of a person to guide the Drama Club, Efsun Sweet. She’s a nice woman who has coached drama at many levels, middle school, college, but never seniors.

I don’t intend to get on stage with them, way too much work, rehearsing and learning lines and all. But I will probably do their AV as before, and today I wanted to show the pros around our stage and green room and such. I was hoping they would agree with me that a certain collection of old scenery flats were junk and could be trashed. Alas they did not, but thought they could be useful. So darn, they have to stay.

Practiced a little guitar, did some desk work, whatever.

Sunday 09/28/2025

Channing House dining services have started a new thing, a Sunday Brunch service, a buffet, more like a smorgasbord layout, many choices of food. I missed it last week, but this week had made a date with Joanne. We got together at 11:30 and went in, piled our plates, started a table and were joined by Ellen and Prue.

Afterwards we sat in the lobby and reconciled our spending on Fred for this quarter, as per our car-sharing agreement. Because she’d paid for insurance and new floor mats, and I’d only bought gas a couple of times and one car wash, I ended up writing a chunky little check to her. The deal is working quite well, although talking over our schedules for next week, there was a bit of an conflict on Monday. Resolved by me deciding to take other means down to FOPAL.

At 1 I drove Fred down to the museum and led the 2pm public tour. This was one of those remarkable times when people just appeared magically. At 1:58 I was passing the time of day with one person, and the lobby looked empty. By 2:02 I had a group of over 15 waiting to start. I don’t know where they come from.

Quiet afternoon and evening followed.

Saturday 09/27/2025

Not much doin’ today. About 9:30 I took Fred down to FOPAL for a meeting of section managers. This was because Sven, the new volunteer coordinator, had made some changes in the layout of the main sale room, enlarging some sections, moving others. No change to my section, so whatever.

As I was putting the car away I saw Joanne coming down the street, back from getting a haircut and a pedi, and we had lunch together. Being early we could have sat at a table for 2 but on the spur of the moment I said, or we could sit at a table for 4 and see who comes along? She said, whatever you like, so we did that. Soon were joined by Bob and by Carolyn, 6th floor neighbors. Nice chat. After a break for a short nap, we met again for a walk down to Pardee park. We explored the community garden area behind that park, which I had only heard of, not seen, and she didn’t know existed. Just a bunch of plots that people can garden in, but interesting to see what people grow.

Walking back we talked about our relationship, and how we both feel it is good that we do not spend all our time to together, and although it was spur of the moment, it was just the right thing to sit at a bigger table and invite other people, rather than pairing off and being an exclusive couple.

Friday 09/26/2025

Couldn’t take the usual walk this morning, one because Joanne was entertaining a friend visiting from Portland, and two, because I had a telemedicine appointment at 9. This was with Dr. Tamrazi, the guy who had drained my renal cyst twice before, in 2021 (Day 2.238) and in December 2022 (Day 3.364). We had a pleasant chat and decided to drain it yet again although “It will fill again” he said. This will be on October 20 or 23, tbd.

Then I walked to Cafe Zoe and the long way back, skirting the creek (3.6 miles for the day).

Practiced guitar a while. I’m getting closer to being able to play “Bye Bye Love”. At 4:30 I changed into slightly nicer clothes and at 5, joined Joanne and David and Karen on the 11th floor for the Webster Street Grille. This is a monthly event where dining services gets to pretend to be a high-class restaurant, laying out a five-course meal of fancy cuisine on the 11th floor. You have to make reservations in advance and there’s a charge, I forget how much (it goes on my monthly bill) but less than a real fancy restaurant would cost. David and Karen had invited me and Joanne to join them. Very pleasant dinner.

Afterward we walked a few blocks to the President Hotel, which has a rooftop bar. Unfortunately nobody had thought to reserve in advance and it was a 40 minute wait for a table on the rooftop terrace. So we admired the view for a few minutes and walked home again.

Thursday 09/25/2025

Spent a couple hours in the morning fussing with the stuff from the Green Room. I took some items to the facilities office to be disposed of. I took pictures of a couple more odd items and sent them for comment to my email thread.

After lunch I tried to activate my Clipper card. Clipper is the universal transit card for the Bay Area. Some months back I changed my regular Clipper to a Senior Clipper. But the funds from my old card didn’t transfer over. When I checked online, the card had a $0 balance, with $90 “pending transfer”. I had called and been told “it takes a little while”. Nothing happened. I wrote a passionate request to the help email, got a reply that said, just go to a station and “tag in” and the transfer will happen. I felt dubious but today I walked to the CalTrain station and tagged in, then went to the ticket machine and checked my balance. And I had a balance; the transfer had taken place.

Back home after a nap I took my guitar to the music practice room and practiced. For supper I decided to eat alone. Sat at one of the small tables and finished reading a book (For Whom the Belle Tolls by Jaisie Lynn).

Wednesday 09/24/2025

Out at 8:30 to join Joanne, who is back from her travels, in a fast walk up to Trader Joe’s. Then spent the rest of the morning thinking about various tasks and emailing people and trying to coordinate things.

Determined to catch up on reading, spent a couple hours at that. At 3:30 went to the auditorium to hear a presentation on Parkinson’s disease. Had expected talk about symptoms and treatments, but the speaker, Dr. Michael Okun, was interested in the public health side, the rise in number of cases, increasing faster than Alzheimer’s, possible causes (pesticides? TCE?) and such. Although his book is about how to live with Parkinson’s.

The book might be interesting, Dennis check it out, but his presentation today was not really that interesting. There is another lecture at 7:30 about the Stanford travel plan but I don’t care, I’m staying in to read.

Tuesday 09/23/2025

Did stuff in the morning before the writers meeting. One, a mic stand. In a sleepless moment around 3am, I was thinking how I want to bring this 4-piece bluegrass group to perform, and in some of their videos, they have a mic apiece. We have 4 mics but do we have 4 mic stands? I knew there were three, and I’d seen one in the Green Room except that one was missing the head, the piece that holds the mic. But I thought I had seen a head in a drawer somewhere… I went and rummaged around the AV desk and yup, there was a detached mic head. Took it into the Green Room and found the abandoned stand, screwed the head on it, bingo, a 4th mic stand.

Since I was in the Green Room anyway, I took pictures of a bunch of things that should not be there. Went back to my room and made a little gallery of them. Sent the link to the gallery to a half dozen people who should know about stuff, asking for comments on what to do with them.

Then with a little time before the writers meeting, I hastily wrote a couple paragraphs on the assigned topic, “School lunches”. I’ll put it at the end.

Went from that to lunch. On return, started the laundry which was complete by 3. Had the AV team meeting at 4pm. From that I went to Peter’s apartment at 5, he was hosting a guy from Google who was looking for volunteer opportunities to work with seniors. Peter had asked Craig and Burt and me, as members of the tech squad. We had a nice dinner together. I don’t think anything was resolved, but nice chat.

Burnt spaghetti

I have wracked my brain trying to find memories of school lunches, and only turn up little faded fragments. I know that through grade school I carried lunch in a metal lunch box. I have better tactile memories than visual: the cool metal box with a smooth ridge around the lid, the glossy white interior, how the spring-loaded latch snapped into place, the feel of the waxed paper my mother used to wrap the sandwich. But of lunch as a process, a sequence, a social event — nothing.

High school even less. I’m sure there was a lunch room with tables, and a cafeteria line with trays, but I cannot mentally see the room or anything in it. My only real memory is an unpleasant one: the mouth-feel of burnt spaghetti. A regular offering was some kind of pasta bake, pasta with cheese cooked in large aluminum pans. A serving was a gummy yellow brick of pasta on your plate. And the spaghetti ends that protruded from the top of the brick were always, always overcooked, crunchy and hard. The body of the orange block of pasta was good, pasta in runny orange cheese, but I can remember how unpleasant it was to bite into any part of the surface layer, the hard pasta cracking between your teeth and the sharp ends poking your gums.

Monday 09/22/2025

Took the standard walk (ending up with 4 miles for the day). Then off to FOPAL where I expected to be done and back in time for late lunch at CH. Hah. I wasn’t finished until 1:30 so lunch was a PBJ in my room.

Common Areas group met for the first time since July, and I had completely forgotten that I had an action item from then which I hadn’t done: to plan what more work was needed in the Green Room. So after the meeting I grabbed Mary Beth the boss of the gift shop and we looked at the gift shop’s stuff still cluttering the Green Room. And I sent some emails to people who would be interested in this. But mainly I need to get in there and make a list of every damn thing that clutters the place, and what to keep, and what is needed.

Dinner with David and Karen and Linda. Fun chat.

Sunday 09/21/2025

Read the paper, watered the plants, did the big puzzle. Sat down to figure out what to do with the day. Decided I would walk to the Stanford campus, check out the Cantor museum, have an early lunch on their nice little terrace restaurant. Also noticed on the stanford.edu site that there was an exhibit of early Apple artifacts in the Green Library. So off I went for that.

Spent 40 minutes browsing around in the Cantor. Had the planned lunch. Walked to the library building. The exhibit of early Apple stuff was very small. They had an Apple I, and a prototype of the Apple II, and a couple of other things. Walked back. 4 miles for the day.

On return I realized that I had completely forgotten: today was the first day of the new Brunch Buffet service in the dining room. And I had missed it. Well, it will be back next week too.

At 3 I attended a meeting arranged by Bert and Dean to listen to two people who are researching for falls, the causes and preventions. Like the similar meeting last week, I don’t see where us residents discussing programs with outside people is of any use. We don’t have a budget and can’t commit Channing House to do anything.

Saturday 09/20/2025

Ah, a lightly committed day. Talked to Dennis a bit. Odds and ends. Played guitar a bit. At lunch, realized I hadn’t been outside at all, so went for short walk, to Gamble Gardens. Two miles for the day, I am ashamed; Joanne has been doing 6 or 7 up in Port Townsend. Well, I did climb the stairs once.

At 2pm I set up to run a documentary for Peter. The show was General Magic, the story of a startup that failed because the founders’ vision was ahead of the technology. Peter had arranged for the producer of the movie, Michael Stern, to be present, and he answered questions afterward.

Had tea and a chat with Dr. Margaret after, and helped her with two minor tech issues. At dinner with Sophia, Marc, Prue and Bob, and we had quite a nice conversation about things and stuff.