Wednesday 11/30/2022

Amazon is just stupid. OK, I received a package that I did not order. Unsolicited Amazon packages are a known issue, just do a search on “unsolicited amazon package”. One of the top results will be this page from Amazon’s own Customer Service pages. It is clear what to do: “report it to Customer Service”.

Right. How? If you go to Amazon’s customer service page proper you end up at the “Hub Gateway” to service, which gives you a big menu of issues. None of which is “report an unsolicited package”. Click on any of those options and go as deep as you like; there is no way whatever to report an unsolicited package. All the choices are very specific and none of them are relevant to the problem.

Just as well, actually, because back on the help page, it says “List of order ID(s) (at least one order is required)” — and there is no order id on the label of the unsolicited package, and no invoice inside it.

(Later: I think I will go to the Amazon page for this item and leave a negative review, maybe.)

Anyway, did the laundry. At 10:15 I had a haircut. At 11:30 I got a call from Craig. He had a tech squad call from Susan and Harry: trying to upgrade Zoom on a Mac and it wants a password. Could I take it off his hands? I knew exactly what the problem would be: the same as Florrie’s (day 3.336), a hell of lost passwords. Usually when Zoom wants to install an upgraded version, it’s no problem. But on this most recent update, it wants to change something that MacOS thinks is protected. So MacOS asks for your administrator password. For most people this is not an issue; it’s your login password that you type every time you reboot the computer. Except Harry’s computer was set to not ask for a login on reboot, so he never did, and had no bleepin’ idea what his password was. The one that his wife Susan had written down didn’t work. So now we are in to resetting a Mac login password. No big problem, but it will require you to know your Apple iCloud password … and down the rabbit hole we go. Half an hour of resetting passwords everywhere and we got it all straightened out. Susan gave me a hug for my good work.

Grab a bite and join 7 of my neighbors to lead them on a tour of CHM. That went well, and they enjoyed the 1401 demo at 3pm also.

Back home I was just thinking about putting on a Stanford sweatshirt ready to meet the carpool for the SWBB game at 6:15 when there was a call from… David M. In the auditorium, trying to set up for an event tonight. This is 5:35, and good on him for starting early. In the next 30 minutes he and I work out his problems and get everything set up for the show. The setup was different this time, something we hadn’t actually done before, but it worked. I think. Everything looked good when I left him at 6:06 to go downstairs and join the carpool group.

The game was with Santa Clara, and I thought it would be another easy win, but in fact the Broncos played very tough and stayed within 10 points right to the end. When I got back just before 9pm the auditorium was dark, so David’s event was over for better or worse.

Tuesday 11/29/2022

Did the gym round on the machines, starting only a bit later than before, 7:45 instead of 7:15, but it worked, there was nobody else around to get in my way.

Printed another bridge picture and rotated my gallery display. There are only 3 more bridges in the series. I plan to end up with both picture rails full of various views of Tower Bridge, the iconic one. I’ve been thinking, I could put together quite a nice slide show, ken-burns the shit out of those pictures. If Stew needs a Sunday At Home topic I might propose that.

Writers meeting. The topic was “my qualities that have helped me through difficulty”. I didn’t feel like being introspective — and anyway my life has been so fortunate I’ve never had to fight through any great difficulty — so I didn’t write anything. Others did but none really striking.

This is really fix up the old carcass week. Today at 3 I went over to the dentist and had a simple cavity filled. Thursday, the kidney cyst and an eye exam. Today: no anesthetic, 20 minutes in the chair, $400. Supposedly my new IBM Medicare Advantage plan would have covered that, but it doesn’t kick in until 1/1/23. I made the dental appointment before I knew about the IBM plan, and it never occurred to me to postpone it.

In the category of TMI, I have had some issues with constipation the last few months. I think there is a possibility it might be related to the renal cyst. I’m looking forward to the drainage of that, which comes up Thursday. Anyway, I have been trying adding a fiber product to my breakfast shakes, and it has had some good results. Except this morning I used the last of what I had, and the order of more has gone into Fedex “in transit” limbo. So now I went looking for the product where the manufacturer says it is stocked. First my local Whole Foods. Then over to California ave to Molly Stone grocery and then to Country Sun. Nope. Then down to Whole Foods in Los Altos where at least I found my favorite beer.

I’m going to go down to sample a concert in the auditorium. Local jazz pianist and local vocalist. Dubious.

Monday 11/28/2022

First thing, I went for a walk. My leg did not want to go the full distance (2.8 miles for the day) but I did a 2-ish mile loop. Walking a bit slower and shorter steps than normal it felt pretty good. Gonna be normal pretty soon. Walking around in the evening, it felt darn near normal, i.e. I walked to the elevator and didn’t think about the leg at all.

Back by 9:30 and it was time to do something about the glasses. Dennis called with a pointer to a place that repairs glasses, but they are in San Jose. I was going to call and see if they could fix mine while I waited, but decided first to settle the issue of when I could get an exam. With an updated prescription I could just order new lenses and frames, and if that was soon enough, I could make do with the masking tape fix.

So I called the optometry group at PAMF and waited on hold for 27 MINUTES and gave up. Better use of my time would be to go there, so I did. Drove over, parked, found my way to second floor of Jamplis bldg, stood in line for just two minutes, and was able to make an appointment for Thursday. Yay!

Went on down to FOPAL and processed a bunch of books. When I clean out my section after a sale, sending everything that has seen 4 sale days to the bargain room, I always worry if the empty spaces will fill up again. But they are filling nicely.

Back home. Went down at 5:40 for supper, didn’t see anybody I wanted to sit with and nothing on the menu I wanted, so I quietly exited back to my room. Remembering on the way, that I had the box of leftover pasta from Saturday. Heated that up, it was delicious. Heck with socializing.

Sunday 11/27/2022

When I picked up my glasses to clean them, which I do every morning right after toweling off from my shower, the left lens fell out in my hand. Huh? The frame had broken, the metal snapped just above the middle. So that became a priority issue right away. I dressed and went down to the basement to get my soldering iron from my toolbox in my storage cage. Brought it up and, no go. The metal of the frame didn’t want to hold solder. I tried a drop of superglue. Nope. So I fell back on a little strip of masking tape, which did the job for now.

You like the “meta” here? Glasses photographed over the blog about glasses? Huh?

I had a docent tour at 12, so I put on my red shirt and headed out at 10. Over to University avenue to LensCrafters. Nope. The guy there said there was no way any of the hundreds of frames on display would fit my lenses. There’s no such thing as standardization in frames, apparently. It has been a year and a half since I had an eye exam, so I put in a request for an exam appointment at PAMF. Probably Monday I’ll hear when that will be. Hopefully the masking tape can hold up for a few weeks.

Off to CHM, led about a dozen people on a tour. Back home. Called up George M and clarified some things about the three (!) upcoming events he is sponsoring.

Then it was time for the SWBB game from Hawai’i. Supposedly that was on TV. Hah. It was on ESPN+, which is a $10 a month subscription thing. I listened to the audio stream instead.

Saturday 11/26/2022

Indulged in some food today. I walked (2.6 miles total) ending at the downtown farmers market for the first time in months. Bought a chocolate hazlenut swirl, also 2 lbs of dried apricots. Ate on that sucker.

There was a SWBB game, second day of the Hawai’i tournament, at 2pm. Only audio. They romped. I’m glad I didn’t travel to the tournament.

At 4pm I met with David M. and Lennie in the auditorium, and we walked through the process of initiating and running an event using the Zoom Room tech. David M will be running a real event on the 30th. Lennie late in December.

I decided to continue the food indulgences by taking myself out to supper. I drove over to Mike’s in midtown. They have really good pasta. I had a plate of some kind of pasta shape I can’t even spell, with pesto and sausage, it was excellent. Also, as I’d known it would be, a very large serving so I brought half home in a box.

Friday 11/25/2022

Went for a walk in the morning. Still having to moderate my stride. 2.3 miles for the day.

Dropped down to FOPAL, which turned out to be a good idea as there were 7 boxes waiting. I processed four. Then back home in time to listen to SWBB streaming audio — no TV — from their game in Hawai’i. They won.

Had dinner at the community table, being sociable.

Thursday 11/24/2022

In the morning I went for a walk. I had to shorten my stride and go slowly to avoid pain, but by the end of the day I see I have 2.1 miles total. So really walking.

I had been invited to lunch by Sandy, along with three other people. Marcia, Kent, Jean. Anyway, pleasant group. Then frittered away the afternoon and had my sack supper along with only four other sixth floor residents in the floor dining room. Dr. Margaret had baked two pies in the floor kitchen. She had entertained some family in her apartment for lunch, but brought the last half of a pumpkin pie to share. So that was nice.

Wednesday 11/23/2022

So the big activity today was to lead a docent tour for 9 of my neighbors. This had been set up and arranged by Barbara B., who arranges museum outings and other such day trips. The museum entrance fee is paid by Channing House directly, and billed to the monthly fee of each person who attends. In order to keep the group small I had specified we would use the small bus, which holds 9 plus the driver. I’m doing a second one next week. There was a wait list on the sign-up sheets for both trips.

The bus left at 1. I led my tour from 1:30 to 2:30, then people had a few minutes to hit the gift shop or bathroom before the 1401 demo at 3. Everybody was very enthusiastic and complimented me a lot on the presentation.

My leg/hip held up very well. It’s almost better.

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Oh. The number in the title. Something is wrong. Somewhere back there I messed up. The official year of this blog ends on 12/2; 12/3/2018 was “day zero”. So today should be day 3.356 not 3.346. Oh well.

Tuesday 11/22/2022

Used the gym in the morning. The days I want to do it, Tues/Thurs early, are not well chosen. Harry and Susan and Larry are all in there. I am going to try going half an hour later, 8am instead of 7:30, in future.

Anyway, I found out which specific exercise twinges my injured hip. It’s the leg-lift, where you bring your leg up against a weight load. Others, including pedaling the cyber cycle, no problem. Also, this evening, I was walking around downstairs for several minutes not even thinking about the hip, so it is definitely mending.

The writers group met at 10:30. The cue this week was “a perfect day”. All I could come up with was what I had written for the same group, way back in July 2021 (https://codgerville.net/2020/07/08/1-219-writers-fopal-model/) so I read that again.

With nothing more on the schedule I went and got in the car, and drove down to the P.A. Cafe at Midtown, and sat at a table there for an hour plus, writing on the novel. Mostly extending the synopsis/outline and adding notes on a twist I thought up at about 2am this morning. There is just a staggering amount of work left to do. I get very daunted thinking about what has to be done to finish it.

Had dinner with Marcia and Kent and Sandy.

Monday 11/21/2022

Tried going for a walk. Nope, the hip isn’t ready. No pain or problem sitting, lying down, or standing; only when actually swinging the leg.

At 10:30 it was the Event Coordinator’s meeting. I noted all the events for December in the magic A/V spreadsheet and almost all are covered. So probably I won’t have to hold a team meeting this month, which will please everybody I think. Spent a couple hours in the afternoon emailing people and making schedules and stuff.

After the meeting I went down to FOPAL, where I found a couple of boxes of books to process, and spent an hour doing sorting just for fun.

And only now at 7pm do I realize, I meant to attend Rhonda’s open meeting at 4, and I completely forgot. Just blew right past it. And I was interested, she was supposed to present some of the pictures taken by the professional photographers last month. Crap.