Friday 09/19/2025

Took the standard walk alone, sigh. At 11 joined the AI interest group meeting. Rather inconclusive discussion of a proposed link-up between CH and the Stanford Robotics lab, where they want to study the use of robots in care for the elderly. Our COO Elvira joined the meeting but it isn’t clear to me what Stanford wants or what Elvira will ask for.

Had lunch, took a nap, then went to the auditorium and did the hour of prep work to set up for the evening’s show, Broadway at Channing. The decorating committee had done a great job, show posters all over the place. Lots of other people than me involved in this. Here is a quick shot of the audience, well over a hundred. Mary and Jerry are singing “Only Make Believe” from Showboat.

The show came off well, the audience was happy, lots of compliments afterward. There were multiple technical glitches, but none that stopped the show or were even noticed by the audience, so that was ok. Here’s me and Susan H doing “Supercallifragilistic”. Thanks for Roberta for the picture.

Had half a beer in the lobby and then went back in and spent 30 minutes cleaning up and putting shit away. This one seemed more stressful than prior shows. I’m glad to put it in the rearview mirror.

Thursday 09/18/2025

Down in two senses, I had no scheduled commitments, and I was feeling rather depressed for some of the day. I started by walking up to Town & Country, mainly to buy some bread at Trader Joe’s. I sent a couple of cogent emails on various topics.

At 10:30 there was a sponsored presentation on electric vehicles in the auditorium. I was kinda interested so I went. The presenters from from Evucation, a non-profit promoting EV use. They did a nice job, making the case that the lifetime cost of EV was somewhat less than the lifetime cost of a gas-powered car, and contributes less to carbon load. But about half way through I was realizing more and more that I will never buy another car of any kind. Fred Forester is enough vehicle to get me and Joanne to the end of driving years. So why was I sitting here listening, and I got up and left.

I don’t know if it was that train of thought, or just that I had no scheduled things to do, or something else, but the rest of the day I had a case of whats-the-use-itis. Hopefully that will improve because I have a date to talk to Joanne on the phone at 8pm. Should cheer me up.

Oh, interesting thing. Among people I know here at CH, there are three different sons or daughters that are moving their families out of the USA. One daughter, with husband and children is moving to Mexico. Another person’s son and family are relocating to Portugal. And another son and family are moving to France. Is this a sign of a trend? Or coincidence?

Also at lunch, Elvira, our COO, wandered into the dining room and sat down at the table I was at and had her lunch while chatting with us. Although a naturalized US citizen, she is originally from the Ukraine, and has friends who live in Russia. The conversation turned to politics, and she commented that among her Russian friends, there is a feeling that “you know, all empires come to an end, and they think this is happening to the United States.”

Wednesday 09/17/2025

Took the standard walk in the morning, cleverly timing it so that I could have coffee at Verve and get to CVS at 9:45 on the dot, for my Covid shot appointment. Later CVS sent my vaccine record as they knew it. Interesting that I have had 2 Covid shots per year, for the past 4 years. I am sudden death for any virus silly enough to try to infect me.

There has been a custom of a 1pm zoom meeting of FOPAL volunteers on the Wednesday after the sale, for some time now. So at 1pm I clicked the old zoom link and there was no meeting. The new volunteer coordinator didn’t want to have a meeting, but apparently didn’t think to announce that. Oh well.

At 2 I joined a meeting that Bert had set up, with a representative of a German company that has developed an AI-based system for evaluating people for the likelihood they will have a fall. Falls are very common among us old farts, which I only came to realize after moving here. It seems like you hear about somebody having a fall every month at least. Sometimes it only results in bruises or less; sometimes it breaks a bone; sometimes it starts them on a decline that ends in assisted living status or worse.

This outfit’s test involves shooting cell phone video of a person as they stand up from a chair, take 3 steps, turn around, three steps back to the chair, sit down. The video uploads to the cloud and is examined by their AI. Plus there is a lengthy questionnaire about health related subjects. The output is a percentage score, likelihood that the person will have a fall in the next six months. The idea is that a physical therapist can use this to find people to work with on exercises for balance etc. They have numbers to show effectiveness in reducing fall frequency in a retirement home.

There is a subscription fee for this service. So the question we couldn’t answer was, how would Channing House make a business case to justify this on-going fee? How do you quantify the cost of falls, or the benefit of reducing the number of falls? Bert is going to work on that with our staff.

After supper, Stew had asked me to run some the video and sound for his group to practice their dance routine for the song “One” from “A Chorus Line”. So I went down and ran the video over and over while they practiced.

Tuesday 09/16/2025

Writers meeting, nothing special. At noon went down and started setting up the auditorium for the dress rehearsal of the broadway show. It went ok, not too many flubs. Of course I have half a dozen notes on changes to make to the video. Tomorrow.

I’ve been messaging back and forth with my PCP trying to get some action on the renal cyst. On Monday she referred me to a urologist I’d seen before. Today his scheduler called, first opening would be 10/13, a month ahead. I said forget it, and messaged PCP again, saying, please just refer me to Dr. Tamrazi, the interventional radiologist who drained the cyst back in 2021. I don’t need to talk to a urologist about the cyst.

Then I fumed for a while and thought about what Joanne does. Joanne pays a monthly fee to be a client of a “concierge” medical practice. Meaning your doctor is on call. Although not necessarily any better seeing specialists. But I’m thinking seriously about it. I’ve been a client of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation since the 70s, when they were that organization. Somewhere in the oughts they were bought by Sutter Health. Maybe time to part ways.

Had on of my Dead Guy Ales with dinner. I am not accustomed to alcohol any more. Ready to pass out now.

Monday 09/15/2025

Headed out for FOPAL first thing. Thanks to my having handed off some of the AV chair duties to John M, I didn’t have to go to the event coordinator’s meeting. Did the post-sale triage. Bought coffee and a couple of other things.

Then I went to Gryphon Instruments and had a strap button installed on the guitar. I had been using a strap that tied with a lace to the head but it was awkward and also was compressing my ulnar nerve causing nerve pain in my left hand. So I got a wide padded strap but it needed to attach to the body of the guitar, not by a string to the end of the neck. They put in a nice gold button on the heel of the neck by the body. The new strap feels good.

Back to CH in time for lunch.

At 4 it was time for Rhonda’s monthly open meeting. She was supposed to share something about the new satellite building. She had a lot about the finances of the new building but could not yet disclose its actual location. Many people are sure they know which of the nearby buildings it is, no two the same guess. The debt will be guaranteed by Cal Mortgage, a state agency. They did a very thorough examination of the deal including an appraisal of the combined buildings, which was very positive as to value and future market prospects.

Sunday 09/14/2025

Sunday morning again. I decided to get some steps in, so I walked to Cal. ave. and back again, 4.3 miles for the day. Yay me. Didn’t see a thing at the market I wanted. So whatever.

Put together what is hopefully the final version of the Broadway video. Did a couple other minor Broadway-related things.

Worked on two songs I’m trying to learn, Ticket to Ride and Bruno Mars’s Count on Me. Two simple little pop songs. Not. There is nothing simple about Ticket to Ride. (In that video they are clearly faking playing along to the record.) Count on Me is actually not difficult except for getting the time right. He plays around with the rhythm, throws in little extra beats and such.

Saturday 09/13/2025

The production of Cabaret was excellent, great dancers and music. With the 8pm curtain it was 11pm before I got to bed. Still got downstairs what I thought was early in the morning, to see Joanne off on her trip but she was already gone.

I did an inventory of my balcony garden. I had thought to go to the nursery and buy one or more additional plants, but in the end, decided not. I did some maintenance and repotted one plant, but I have enough now.

I did go out shopping, to IKEA, to buy a new pillow. My current pillow was from IKEA in 2019, when I moved in to CH, and its stuffing was pretty degraded. On a whim I also went to a liquor store and stocked up on my favorite beer. I have enough Rogue Dead Guy Ale to keep me for months, at the usual rate of one can with dinner every couple of weeks. Heavy drinker here.

Funny thing: I also bought an IKEA pillow and some Dead Guy Ale four years ago, on Day 2.235.

Did some music practice, alone and then with Susan on our performance of Supercalli.

Talked to Dr. Margaret about my renal cysts. The report from the ultrasound on Friday said the one big one is 15 x 16 centimeters, which is, um, large? Imagine a rubber ball the size of a large grapefruit, full of pee, tucked up under your ribcage on the left side. Certainly have to do something, at the least, drain it as I did 4 years ago, Day 2.238. But I’d like to discuss doing something more permanent. That would be some fashion of laparoscopic surgery to physically reduce the cyst. But maybe not; the draining process is simple enough that I could go on repeating it, perhaps annually, forever. Why risk any kind of surgery, even laparoscopic?

Anyway I had now crossed off every item on a long list I started a few days ago. Yay me.

Friday 09/12/2025

Met with Joanne and her friend from up North, Jan, at 8:30 and we walked up to the Town and Country shopping center and Joanne’s favorite coffee shop, Douce France. Talked a lot. Here’s a coincidence for you: Jan, who lived mostly in the Seattle-Tacoma area, wanted to hear about my growing up there, and when I said our mailing address was Graham, she lit up and said, oh I used to know a guy from that area. What was his name… Doug. Doug… and after a couple of minutes she remembered, Rasmussen! Douglas Rasmussen!

Well, Doug Rasmussen was a classmate of mine through grade school and high school! Has to be the same guy. Of course I never stayed in touch so I had no idea what happened after high school. Jan thought he married someone named Susan and settled in Tacoma.

So we three sat with coffee and yakked for an hour, then they headed back. I hung around the shopping center because I had an appointment at the nearby PAMF for a flu shot at 11, and an ultrasound at 11:30. For the latter I was supposed to drink 24oz of liquid in the hour before, so I sat around doing that until 11. Got the flu shot. Got the ultrasound. Walked on back home in time for a meeting where a Stanford Robotics person talked about robots and what maybe they could do for senior facilities.

Practiced some guitar, specifically trying to learn to play “Ticket to Ride” and “Bye Bye Love” off YT videos.

Now going to go to the Bus Barn theater to see “Cabaret”. Report tomorrow.

Thursday 09/11/2025

Only one schedule commitment today, a rehearsal with Tom in the auditorium at 2. I spent the rest of the day catching up with various pending things. I put together the video of the book talk last monday, that took a couple of hours. Maybe three. I made a list of about 8 other pending things that needed attention and crossed off about half of them.

Oh, a couple days ago my new Pendleton blanket arrived. First new bedding for a few years. Here it is new out of the package, with creases.

The creases have pretty well smoothed themselves out after 3 days of use.

Wednesday 09/10/2025

First thing, met with Joanne and we drove to the Baylands and had a very pleasant walk, just the two of us. Tomorrow a friend, Jane, flies in to join her and Saturday they two will fly off for a week in Port Townsend.

Then I spent several hours taking care of the various changes to the Broadway video needed from the rehearsal issues. Then I dropped in on Pam in the nursing center, and found she is on the final slope. Her friends Judy and Florence were with her and told me she hadn’t eaten in a couple of days, and although more or less conscious, she isn’t responding or talking.

Then I worked on the video from the book talk last Monday. And completely forgot there was a 6th floor, floor meeting today. And once again nobody bothered to come down to my room and say “yo, bro, meeting time.” I feel like an idiot for zoning out like that, but I also feel rather hurt.

Ordered dinner for takeout and it wasn’t edible — just a lousy piece of meat. What a waste. I’m going to write a complaint email next.

Then I did remember there was a talk at 7:30, this time by a guy representing the Final Exit Network, a volunteer organization that provides guidance to people wanting to end their lives. California, along with 11 other states, allows Medical Assistance in Dying. This is a multi-step process, requiring two MDs to state that you have a terminal illness that will kill you in 6 months of less, a very specific prognosis that doctors are often unwilling to sign. Plus other paperwork and delay. That can be a high bar.

However, our speaker said, suicide is not illegal, although assisting a suicide can be. The F.E.N. councils people on ending their lives other ways. The simplest way, if you decide it’s time, is to stop eating and drinking. That has its own acronym, VSED, voluntary stoppage of eating and drinking. It’s a common exit route, especially for people in hospice, who can get morphine for any discomfort. A little more elaborate, but much quicker, is to inhale nitrogen. Fun fact: people used to end their lives inhaling helium, easily available for filling party balloons. No more; for several years it has been common for helium containers to have oxygen mixed in exactly to avoid suffocation, accidental or purposeful. But canisters of nitrogen are also readily available–sometimes used to fill auto tires, or for welding, etc.

I don’t feel any desire to end my life but it was kind of morbidly interesting.