Saturday 03/06/2021

I wanted to follow up on the one location for a Forest Bath walk (2.083), Huddart Park. I was on the road by 8am. Climbed the narrow, winding Kings Mountain road, along with bunches of bicyclists. I was pleased to find that the park has quite a bit of parking and at 8:30 only a few cars were there. I walked 3/4 of a mile out on the trail and then back, by which time about half the spaces were taken. I drove on home. Later I made a date with Dennis to walk this trail next Sunday morning.

The rest of the day I alternated between working on the MG model, and taking critical notes on the strategy book. I am almost finished with that, and have a list of very cogent questions to ask of our present staff. Oh, and naps.

This was the third day this week when I’d declined house supper (because the offered menu was so blahhh). Had a healthy and tasty supper of an open-face cheese and salami sandwich, with an open-face PBJ for dessert. And dried apricots reconstituted in the microwave with a few ounces of white wine.

Friday 03/05/2021

After my walk I made myself work at the taxes and finished several more pages of the workbook. It will be easy to finish next week. I found the remarkable fact that I didn’t pay anything to doctors during 2020. Consider I spent several days in the hospital and had a major surgical procedure and several CT scans, that’s remarkable. At one point I sent a query to the billing department at Stanford, saying “I see all these many EOBs that end with ‘You may be billed $x’; when can I expect to see some of these bills?” and they responded, don’t worry about it. So I didn’t, and I have yet to see a bill. The City of Palo Alto sent me a bill for some insane amount of money for the two mile ride to the hospital, but added, “return this with your insurance information” and later set the account balance to $0. Medicare FTW.

Then I spent an hour reading and making notes on strategic planning documents. So that was two ticky-marks on my todo list. I glued a few parts on the model and then it was lunch time.

At 4pm it was time for Rhonda’s weekly open meeting. She was pleased to announce that for the 6th week in a row we have zero cases or quarantines of staff or residents. The prowler who has gained entry to the Tower garage multiple times was confronted by some of our staff on his most recent attempt, and may be scared off now; but we are consulting with a security company about improved physical security, whatever that means.

And the big news, the dining room will reopen, but not until 4/21, when we officially take over food services from Sodexo.

Rhonda wrapped her meeting at 4:45, and shortly I went to the 11th floor to watch the Stanford Women take on Oregon State in the PAC12 semi-final game. There were about ten of us, masked and spaced out, in the TV lounge. It is way more fun to watch a ball game in company than alone. The Beavs kept it close in the first quarter, even led for a few minutes. Then slowly but inexorably Stanford pulled away, opening an 11-point lead at the half, and ending the game up 30.

Thursday 03/04/2021

First thing, about 7am, I prepared the final two volunteer sign-up sheets. I won’t be sad to see that duty end, although it is not really arduous.

Did Victoria’s aerobics. Before they started at 8:15, I had a call from Facilities. As warned in an email yesterday, they needed to shut off the “angle stops” on my toilet and vanity, to facilitate work on a plumbing problem on the 4th floor. Sure, come on. Which the guy did. But now after aerobics, smelling like a cat, I had no shower. Fortunately they left the supply to my kitchen sink on, so I got to take what my mother used to call “a spit bath” in front of the kitchen sink. Oh well.

By 9am I was on the way to FOPAL. On Tuesday I had to leave 5 boxes of unchecked books and decided I would come back a second time, on Thursday AM which is the other time my section is allowed by their covid schedule. I got through all five boxes, sending most of them to the bargain room, in under 2 hours. I kept about 15 books as saleable, and another 10 or so that priced out to “high value” (over $25 used on Amazon).

After lunch I did some business, paying a couple of bills and updating my spreadsheet that tracks the total value of the Nest Egg with January and February statements. The bottom line grew 1% in January and 5% in February. Apparently a good month for the stock market.

At 2pm it was time to watch the Stanford women open their PAC12 tournament play, versus USC. Because it was also time for Wanda to clean my apartment, I relocated to the 11th floor and watched the game on the giant (90-inch?) TV there. (Which frankly is not very good. It’s a Sharp Aquos, over 5 years old, and lacks in brightness and saturation.)

Stanford just romped in this game. They had a 20-point lead at the half, and finished up more than 30, and basically put on a clinic of “See what we can do? And you can’t stop us?”

After, my toilet water was back on and my room spic’n’span. I painted a few tiny parts for the MG, too. There are a lot of tiny parts to this kit. But the end is in sight.

Wednesday 03/03/2021

Went for the usual walk first thing. Stopped at CVS on return to pick up two prescription renewals. Then shortly it was 10:30 and time for a zoom meeting I’d been waiting for, for quite a while. This was a catch-up meeting with the group of cataloging volunteers at CHM, with whom I’d spent many Thursdays for the prior couple of years, and not seen since 2019, really. There was one previous catch-up zoom meeting last fall, and I had just forgotten it. Wondered about “when’s that CHM meeting, should be about now” and looked in the calendar and it was the prior week. So I was careful not to miss this one; and Greta was careful to send out reminder emails in the preceding days.

The meeting was kind of a bust, although it was good to see the whole gang and all looking healthy. There was a presentation on the progress toward replacing our catalog software, Mimsy, except that the progress had been, well, not exactly nil, but not impressive either. The paid staff have been working from home at things like standardizing the nomenclature we use to describe artifacts (“super computer” or “supercomputer”? and what actually qualifies as a supercomputer?) which is useful but not exciting. They haven’t actually chosen a software vendor. The CHM CEO, Dan’l Lewin, is a former Microsoft executive, and has been pushing for a Microsoft partnership; Microsoft would like to “get into the GLAM market” where GLAM means “galleries, libraries, archives and museums”. So there’s no actual software being proposed yet, just a lot of wonderful hot air (IMO of course).

Between then and the 2pm meeting of the RA executive committee, a couple of things happened. One, by chance Mary Beth, the head of the CH Gift Shop, stopped by to talk to my cross-hall neighbor, and then came over to my room to let me know that the Gift Shop might not be such a source of funds for a while, as they are considering a remodel that will be expensive. The Gift Shop is the primary source of funds for the RA. They’ve been closed through the pandemic, and are now planning a reopening. So that was news to pass on to the Exec Committee.

Shortly after came an email from Kim the HR: the staff had met and talked about the volunteers and agreed that it was indeed time to wind up the program. With the relaxation of restrictions (we are able to visit each other’s rooms, share meals in the floor dining rooms, people are said to be sharing meals or drinks in each other’s apartments although that is not officially allowed) and the increase in activities (see re-opening Gift Shop above), the volunteer work is less important as a relief from loneliness and boredom. So Friday the 12th will mark the end of resident volunteer meal delivery. Came 2pm and I presented the first item, and together with Marcia presented the second.

Following I realized I needed to do a final tally of volunteers. Some time ago I wrote a program to read in a sign-up sheet and save the names of who signed up in a master record, with a tally of the times they’d volunteered. I ran it on the first few weeks of the program. Now I needed to run it on all of the weeks to now. That meant fussing with the code to fix an issue or two, and finding a way to apply it to 30 or 40 little spreadsheets. Took almost to supper time but I got it done. A total of 98 residents signed up for at least one task from August to now. 45 of them signed up for 20 or more tasks. The winner was the diminutive but vigorous Michele, who signed up for 175 things, mostly meal deliveries. She nosed out Colin who did “only” 152.

Tuesday 03/02/2021

Did the aerobics. Then had to hustle to make a 9:30 meeting with Marcia and Kim The HR. Subject? Is it time to wrap up the volunteer meal delivery service? We’ve had a few people question the need for it, and it is getting harder to get the sign-up sheet filled for the week. A group of maybe 20 people really enjoy doing it. And, if we end that, do we also end the volunteer package reception task? Those are the two big ones, with sign-up sheets and an attempt at 7-day coverage of a staff task. There are also four (I think?) other, smaller, self-organized volunteer groups: indoor plant watering, outdoor plant maintenance, trash pickup. Being small and self-organized, we can leave it to those volunteers to decide for themselves if they want to quit or not.

Kim agreed to bring the whole subject to the next staff meeting and let us know what Rhonda and James (manages front of house staff) think. On return from the meeting I called Menlo Optical and made an appointment for 4pm.

Spent some time on the tax workbook. I think I can wrap that by Friday. Spent some time on Estate Planning. Sprayed one coat of clear on the bonnet panels. Then it was time for lunch and from there, to FOPAL. I processed several boxes of books, but several remain. Plus I want to follow up a suggestion from Chuck Spalding, who relieved me on the Computer section. His idea was, since we have a glut of books (owing to no sale days in covid times) maybe I should triage the shelves of priced books and pull down any priced below some limit like $5. I want to do that. I think I will go down on Thursday morning.

At Menlo Optical the optician took measurements from my existing frame. I had planned to keep it, and became sure of that when he told me that it wasn’t made any more. Funny story (not), the frame was made by Seiko, and Seiko a few years ago decided not to make and sell frames any more. Just quit the line of business. Recently, he said, a different company has started up a line of exact copies of the Seiko frames, but it’s new and he can’t vouch for their quality yet. Anyway, I should hear my lenses are ready in a week or so.

Monday 03/01/2021

Today on the Google Calendar was completely empty, nothing scheduled. Hah, but Google doesn’t know about the lined pad lying on my coffee table on which I’ve been noting things I need to do. So after the usual walk, I went to work on them.

First was to spend some time filling out the tax workbook for the tax preparer. We’ve been working with them for decades, and I am so glad I have this simple-minded workbook with hundreds of easy questions to answer — as opposed to actually trying to do the tax return myself. I filled out several sections of it.

Another thing was to spend time reading background materials for the Strategic Planning Committee. I’m going to start abbreviating that SPC because I suspect it will come up often. Today I spent nearly 2 hours making critical notes on a book on MARKET FORCES: Strategic Trends Impacting Senior Living Providers by Jill Johnson MBA. Lots of platitudes. I’m trying to dig out the practical points that could be turned into future objectives.

I just realized I completely forgot about one item I meant to do, to call Menlo Optical and get an appointment to bring my new prescription around. Dang.

After lunch I relaxed into working on the model car and immediately ran into a snag. Probably the two most important panels of the body are the left and right sides of the bonnet. These two panels:

They are flat and right in the middle and an essential part of the look. Any flaw in a flat panel like that will be obvious. Believe it or not I have most of the other panels looking as good (and same color as) this picture. I just finished gluing on the headlights and foglights and the front fenders look that good. But not those bonnet panels. Through a series of rookie mistakes I had messed them up. I tried sanding them down with 3600 and 6000 grit wet paper but they just kept getting worse.

So I decided to strip them and start over. That meant a half an hour soaking them in alcohol (it melts the acrylic paint) and scrubbing the paint off with a toothbrush. And then bringing the spray equipment back to the bathroom from the porch. I sprayed one color coat (fortunately I have some red left) after lunch, and a second coat after supper. Clear goes on tomorrow and hopefully that will do it.

In food-related news, we got an announcement email saying we have hired our new Dining Services director, one Joshua Aranda. This is the guy who will report directly to Rhonda and manage the new food service when Sodexo packs up and leaves in April. Boy, they can’t go soon enough. It is getting more obvious that they just don’t care any more. From tonight’s menu I had ordered “green salad with vegetables”. This consisted of a heap of chopped greens topped by one (1) slice of cucumber and about 8 pinto beans. That was the “with vegetables” part. The main course was polenta with mushroom sauce. That can be a good dish and I think I’ve liked it before, but not tonight. I left most of it and finished with a homemade PBJ.

Sunday 02/28/2021

Did the usual things. Forced myself out for a moderate walk. Dennis called and mentioned the topic of Forest Baths or Forest Walking, which is apparently a thing. I checked out a few recommended walks but they are either hard to get to or have very tiny parking areas at their trailheads.

Watched the Stanford Women in the final game of the year, beat Cal easily. Pottered with the MG, gluing on a few more parts. Forgot to prepare the next week’s sign-up sheet for the other volunteer activity, package reception, until reminded by Marcia around 7:30. I’m a doofus.

Saturday 02/27/2021

Started with an early drive to San Jose to meet Dennis for a walk. Had some family business to transact and just take a nice walk. But this was the first time we had met in real life for more than a year. That was a fun change.

This was interesting: I let the GPS in the car have its head and it took me by a different route than I had ever taken before. All the times that Marian and I visited Dennis, we went up to 280 and down to Meridian Ave. But it is actually shorter and simpler to take 101 to Almaden Expressway and Curtner. That would have been true from Tasso street also.

I put some pieces on the MG model. Part of the enjoyment of a good model kit is appreciating all the little details. In the MG, each headlight has four parts: a chrome shell, a chrome bezel ring holding a clear plastic lens, and inside, a tiny little clear plastic bulb inside it. After it’s assembled, it would only be by chance the viewer might peer inside the headlight to see, oh, there’s a little bulb in there.

Patty, Gwen, Phil and I had agreed to have pizza for supper tonight. I ordered two, 14-inch combinations from New York Pizza for delivery at 6. Actually the guy showed at ten til. Brought the pizzas to the 6th floor dining room and divided them into four half-pizzas. I took mine back to my room. I believe the others ate together in the dining room. Since we are not supposed to have more than two people eating together, I opted out.

There has been a bit of trouble getting volunteers to fill all of the slots in the meal delivery sign-up sheet. I talked to Marcia about this and she had a bit of gossip that strongly suggests management is really close to opening the dining room. When that happens, when there is no longer the need to deliver meals to rooms, the volunteer program will be naturally over. So we’re hanging in a bit longer.

Friday 02/26/2021

First thing I headed out for the easy walk to PAMF where I had my eye exam. I was somewhat disappointed at a relatively small change in prescription, but at least there’s nothing else seriously wrong with my eyes. No sign of nasties like macular degeneration, and my “senile cataracts” are not any worse than before.

Back at CH I took the first of two tech assistance calls under our new policy: for the first time in a year we can enter the caller’s apartment! It has been awkward; if they had a problem with a laptop or iPad we could meet in the lounge, but if it’s a desktop machine or printer, basically we could only give telephone advice.

Today I went into Jean’s apartment where she was having trouble getting some Word documents she had been sent by email, to open in Word on her Mac. I don’t know what her problem was, or what I did differently, but when I put my magic fingers on her keyboard, I was able to get the documents downloaded and opened in Word, and saved to a new folder on the desktop where hopefully she can find them later. Twenty minutes.

After lunch I took a call from Randy. He and his wife have lovely new MacBook Pros each, and they use an HP printer from both. The problem was, the printer was not printing any Blue ink. Color images looked like crap with only yellow and magenta, no cyan. I futzed around with the printer, I found the HP Utility that was in Randy’s MacBook and used it to clean the cartridges and print an alignment page. No luck, or rather, no cyan. I popped the cyan cartridge out, cleaned its little contacts, put it back. Nope. Now I noticed the printer was showing an error message, this cartridge (Cyan) is not usable or some such rubbish. Tried another, new, cartridge. Printer says, thanks for using genuine HP cartridges, but sorry, that cartridge is not usable.

I told Randy, printer is busted. I used Yelp.com to show him there were printer repair shops around us and urged him to call one. And that was that.

At Rhonda’s 4pm open meeting, the news was that, since we’d gone weeks without a Covid case in resident or staff, and because we had 97% vaccination, they have decided to close what has been the Covid wing, and return it to its normal use as offices and meeting rooms. Rhonda recalled how at the worst time last fall, there were 10 beds occupied by Covid patients. I had not realized it got to that height, I thought we had like 4 at a time, a couple of times.

Thursday 02/25/2021

Did the aerobics class and then around 9am settled down to a long to-do list, 13 items scribbled out at various times this week. By lunch I had scratched off 11 of them. One I just put off. One because I can’t read my own writing and can’t figure out what I meant.

One of the items was to schedule an eye exam. I had messaged my doctor about being unable to find how to book an exam using the website. Her nurse practitioner replied yesterday with phone numbers to call. So today I called the one for the close-by facility and to my amazement, I got booked for tomorrow at 9am. Usually PAMF appointments are weeks ahead.

Other tasks on the list were to book the echocardiagram and follow-up with Dibiase in May. Did that. And the big, big item: to start filling out the tax workbook for the tax accountant. It has a number of sections and I did the first section today.

At 2pm I vacated the room for Wanda, and decided to take the car out for a ride. I drove over to Coyote Hills park on the East end of the Dumbarton bridge.

That was about it. Well, let me gripe: supper was inedible. Nominally a piece of veal with Marsala mushroom sauce. The sauce was OK but I cannot imagine what they did to the veal, a big slab of meat that was just not chewable. I munched and munched on the first bite and eventually got it where I could swallow it but didn’t try any more. I think Sodexo is getting revenge for us kicking them out — but their contract doesn’t end until April. Oh dear.