Saturday 06/12/2021

Lovely Saturday morning. I paid some bills and filled out the May details in the Nest Egg spreadsheet. Then I went for a 1-mile walk ending at the farmer’s market where I picked up my usual delicioso pastry, and some cherries.

I treat cherries similar to grapes. I buy a pound or so of either one, and want to nibble on them for a week. To keep them from getting mildew, I run a sink full of cold water and pour in a glug from the bleach bottle. I swish the fruit in the bleach water and then rinse them off and let them dry on a towel. Then they generally keep in the fridge for more than a week.

At noon it was time for Stanford baseball. I had forgotten but two people, as I walked to lunch, asked if I would put the game on the 11th floor tv. I’m not the only person here who knows how to get that tv showing the Roku, and to find ESPNU on the Roku. But I’m the only one who cares about college baseball. So I ate lunch quickly and went upstairs and did that.

I watched the game itself on my own TV. I wanted to do other things on my computer during. Stanford just dominated Texas Tech or the second game in a row. I was paying attention when Stanford loaded the bases with two out, and hit a grand slam. Fun.

For supper I didn’t feel like eating in our dining room. I went for a walk up University Ave. Lots of people around and restaurants open, but nothing that attracted me. Walking back I passed “Indian Street Food” and bought a “bowl” based on lamb. When I got the box home I found I had enough food for a small Indian village, or anyway at least three people. Basmati rice, some kind of beans and peas, lot of spicy ground lamb. Nice supper, with a can of beer.

Friday 06/11/2021

My temp on arising was 97.3 and I felt distinctly “healthy”. Can’t definite more closely, just somehow the body was humming along normally. Temp at 5pm, 97.7. I’m back, baby. Felt good on my usual 2.5 mile walk.

At 10:30 I joined a small group to be introduced, or re-introduced, to the fitness center. It has some interesting machines, and a new one, a recumbent cycle with “virtual reality” routes on a screen, is supposed to be coming soon. I might do something down there. Anyway, the payoff for this was learning the key code to unlock the door.

Spent the rest of the day doing this and that around the apartment. Nothing exciting or worth note.

Thursday 06/10/2021

So 10 hours of sleep didn’t change anything, my morning temp was still 98.9. Maybe this is my new normal? Because at 5pm, after a full day of work, it was 98.8.

Anyway, no issues driving to Fremont, and working 5 hours (10-noon, 1-4), and driving home. Didn’t feel like eating in the dining room; had a pleasant supper of a sandwich and some cherries that I bought on Tuesday.

Wednesday 06/09/2021

My temp on arising was 98.9 (1º above normal). This is getting annoying. I don’t feel particularly ill. Am I ill? Should I worry?

I’m particularly concerned because tomorrow is the first day in 14 months I plan to go to the Shustek Center for a full day of volunteer work for CHM. Well, it’s really only 10am to 4pm, with a break for lunch; on the other hand there’s a half hour commute drive each end. Anyway, I don’t want to run out of gas hand have to quit early.

So I kept my morning walk short and had a couple of naps. And went to bed early (temp then 99.0).

The meeting of the Resident Association exec committee was more complicated than usual. Rich (who moved in about the same time I did) has been promoting the idea we should have more medical personnel on site than we do.

What we have is a nursing staff who are primarily occupied with the SN and AL sections. There is a Wellness Office in the tower where during business hours a nurse can always be found to consult with IL residents.

Rich points to the fact that until 2018 we had two PAMF doctors who spent part of their hours on-site. That was actually mentioned in CHM’s online marketing materials. When Rich pointed that out to Rhonda, those mentions disappeared promptly.

As Rhonda explained to the Ex.Com. today, first, the two PAMF doctors only treated PAMF patients. If you were a Kaiser client, for example, they didn’t/couldn’t bill you. But then Sutter Health bought up PAMF. They ran the numbers and said, ok, if you want one of our doctors on-site it will cost you $500K/year.

We still have a doctor as our Medical Director, who makes regular rounds in SN and is available to AL, and who supervises the Director of Nursing. But for IL, all you get is free transport to appointments outside.

Which is — I checked today — exactly what my CH contract specifies I’ll get. Nursing on call for first-aid, free transport to appointments. Emergencies, call 911, or the nurse will call for you.

However, we once had more. And Larry Basso (a distant relative of Dennis), who is part of Rich’s committee, remembers the CHM founder, Dr. Russell Lee, and today emphasized that tight integration with PAMF was part of Lee’s vision.

So what Rich and company wanted was RA permission to conduct — well it wasn’t clear what. Not a survey but some kind of information gathering to determine what medical presence our residents expect and want. He has mentioned having a Nurse Practitioner on staff, but that wasn’t said today.

After the committee left the Ex.Com. members discussed it and decided the petitioners needed to be a lot more specific. Pres. Carol is going to draft a response.

Part of the pressure for this is that coincidentally staff announced a preliminary fee schedule for optional nursing services. Turns out us old farts have been calling on the nurses for lots of non-illness things such as: help putting in eye drops; help putting on compression socks; care of surgical wounds. There has not been a clear demarcation of what services are free and what are billed, and for how much.

This has been causing quite a bit of talk as one might imagine.

Anyway early to bed.

Tuesday 06/08/2021

Did the aerobics class at 8:30 on the 11th floor. Worked a bit on Pelajis. After lunch I went to FOPAL where some retired engineer had donated his library, and most of it ended up in boxes for the Computer section. Maybe a fifth of it I rerouted to the Sci/Technology section because they were books on pure engineering topics, electrical (designing switching circuits) or mechanical. Most of the rest were just pristine copies of 15-25 year old computer science texts. A few of those are classics, whose topics don’t change (much) with changing software versions. A book on data compression, for example; the algorithms for that were worked out in the 80s and haven’t changed. But most of them were on topics where there have been major revisions in the software since the books were published. These books, hardbacks in lovely condition, are going to be recycled.

At 4pm was a special zoom meeting with CEO Rhonda. It having been announced only yesterday, there were only maybe 50 participants. Here’s the news.

Several years ago, all units on the second floor were remodeled completely, as part of building the separate nursing facility. That space had been for nursing, then it was made into 14 nice 1- and 2-bedroom apartments.

The HVAC system for these, specifically the cooling, requires plumbing for chilled coolant to come into the ceiling of each unit and be split across three distributor units in the ceilings. The plumbing is complex because it’s a full circuit, cold liquid out, warmed comes back to the chiller. All the connections in this plumbing was made with crimped connectors.

Early on the crimped connectors showed a tendency to leak, so when the full upgrade started from the 10th floor down, the architect spec’d brazed connectors. But now the leaks on the 2nd floor are getting very troublesome. The coolant leaks into the ceilings and stains them, and has to be replenished, and other issues.

So Channing House is going to spend the money to fix this problem now. Fortunately when people who have been displaced by the just-ending upgrade of 3 and 4 move back, that will open up enough units for the 2nd floor people to “go camping” as we say. The original contractor has accepted responsibility for the crimped connectors and will eat the cost of replacing them. There will be some costs they don’t eat, the move-out and move-back costs for a start. But bottom line, the upgrade process that started on the 10th floor 3 years ago, and which was going to be finished in August, will now run into December.

After that meeting by zoom, we had our 6th Floor meeting IN PERSON UNMASKED in our lounge. How nice that was.

Monday 06/07/2021

Morning temp was 98.8, so I am not really finished with the whatever I had last week. Kept my morning walk shorter. During the day I worked on software and on Pelajis.

At 7pm I set up the Stanford baseball game on the big screen on the 11th floor. Several people watched the game with me. Stanford finally won, 11-8, but the nine innings took 4:10 to play and I am going to bed now.

Sunday 06/06/2021

Thought I would walk to Mme Collete’s and get a pastry. But as I approached, just after 8am, I could see they weren’t open. Disappointed, I turned and walked back and had breakfast in the dining room for maybe the first time. Ordered pancakes, they were huge (and somewhat tough if truth be told).

Worked on the software project in the morning, and on Pelajis in the afternoon, and finally at 5 it was time to go to Stanford for baseball. If Stanford had won that would have been it, they would move on to the next round. But they not only did not win; they played a four-hour game with many long innings and pitching changes and all the things that stretch out a game. So it was after 10 when the pod car, in this case Patty’s Honda Fit, pulled in to the garage. Of us four, I think only Prudence is determined to go to the deciding game at 7pm tomorrow. I’m dubious; I think I may watch from home until the late innings, then perhaps go to see Stanford win — if they look like doing that.

Saturday 06/05/2021

Yesterday Dennis suggested a walk and then attendance at a girl’s basketball tournament. His son Bill’s daughters Kaitlin and Kaylee were playing. (Grand-nieces, I guess?)

So we did that, walking my usual 2.2 mile walk with a stop for coffee. Then off to Menlo College. The 12-14 year old girls play ferocious basketball, very high energy. They are pretty skilled at defense and ball-handling, but their shooting percentage is low. Anyway K & K’s team won 36-30.

After lunch I had a nap and worked some on the software project. Then it was 5pm and time for Stanford baseball. I and my pod partners went in Martha’s car this time. Stanford won fairly easily thanks to a big second inning. The game took 3 hours, so home at 9:30 and to bed.

Friday 06/04/2021

In the morning I had a half a degree temp more than the usual, 98.3, so labeled myself “convalescent” and instead of a walk, took the car to do some errands. Bought a few groceries.

In the open parking lot of the Safeway, I re-activated my Toyota Safety Connect. I had renewed that service a month ago, but gotten a letter saying it needed to be activated, basically by getting it where it had a cell signal and pushing a button twice.

Thing is, I had another letter from Toyota saying that Safety Connect in my car used an older protocol (something-3, so one less than G4 less than G5) which was to be discontinued by the carriers in 2022, after which it wouldn’t work anyway.

Dropped by the post office to manually mail my estimated tax payment checks. And (I remember at this moment) completely forgot to do the other item, stop by CVS and pick up a prescription that’s waiting. Well, tomorrow.

Had a quick lunch and it was time to join my pod-mates to watch Stanford play North Dakota State in the NCAA baseball regional. I dug out almost my only long-sleeved shirt to avoid getting sunburnt on my arms like I did last Saturday. It was one I’ve owned since (I think) the 80s and kept for nostalgia. Stanford won, so tomorrow they play in the winner’s game at 6pm, so I can wear a short-sleeved shirt for that.

Hmmm. Now at 10pm my temp is 99, so technically I’m not well yet. But I feel fine.

Thursday 06/03/2021

Had a slight temp and small feelings of illness in the morning. However when the nurse checked me after lunch my temp was normal by her infrared gun. When I said I felt ok, she removed the red dot and I was free to come and go.

I didn’t do any coming and going, other than to go down to dinner. Tomorrow I will do some errands in the morning, and hopefully will still feel well as 12:30 when I leave with my “pod” of 4 for the baseball at Stanford.