Saturday 5/2/2020

All days are quiet now of course. But when I got up I decided I would not go for a walk today. Spent the day entirely in the room. Did some coding.

Played a little of Hiveswap. I’m ambivalent about this. The game is cute and inventive, but it’s basically a puzzle game. I don’t mind solving easy puzzles, but the hard ones are just so arbitrary. Example. In this game our adorable avatar Josie is trying to thwart some multi-legged serpent monsters. One traps her in the basement. Command Josie to  thwack it with her flashlight; that doesn’t help. OK, what else do we have? She has some doggie treats, have her throw some at the monster. Monster eats treats and says something snappy, but isn’t defeated. Josie is proud to be a dancer, click to have her put on her ballet shoes, click the monster. Graceful Abscond! says the game, but no, she bumps into the monster and hurts her knee. Have her put on her tap shoes and do her tap dance. Monster says something scornful. But now if you try the ballet shoe escape after the tap dance routine, now she gets by the monster and up the stairs. You have to do it in the right order, or it doesn’t work. Arbitrary.

I saved the game and quit when she’s stuck in the kitchen with another monster who is keeping her from getting to the carrier pigeon with the marbles she needs to decode the…never mind. I will go back to a youtube walk-through to find out what arbitrary sequence of actions I have to do to solve that.

First thing, though, I coated the coffee table with generous amounts of Liquid Gold. Four hours later, the wood had entirely slurped up the oil. On the left, glossy with a coat of oil. On the right, later. I didn’t wipe it, it just drank up the oil.

 

 

I’m delighted at how the color has come back. See yesterday’s post to see how it was kind of yellow-gray. Now the deep red-brown I remember is coming back. It’s a nice piece. The top is made from four pieces of wood, with “book-matched” grain and almost invisible seams. The legs are pure “mid-century modern”. It is lightly “distressed”. You can see a black spot; that’s from a mistake with a sharpie 20 years ago. There’s a very small cigarette burn from the early 1980s when we still smoked.

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In the evening I watched some of a movie. I have this web page saved, “The 100 best movies on Amazon Prime tv”. One was The Thirty-Nine Steps which I watched Wednesday night. Tonight I tried Annihilation, Natalie Portman agonizing over a strange DNA-morphing alien thingy. So slow. Nice that the adventurers are a bunch of women. But it gets dreary and threatening and I got impatient. I pause the movie and take a look at the Wikipedia article. Oh goodness. That’s stupid. I exit the movie and watch a Rifftrax short feature instead.

Friday 5/1/2020

At last, the first of May! (Memory brings back from my college days, “Hurray hurray, the first of May, outdoor screwing begins today” — as if any of us were doing any screwing in any locale. But I digress.) No, the first of May means, it is not a fashion faux pas to wear straw hats in public! (Only a boor would be seen outside in a panama hat before May Day or after Labor Day.) I own a couple of very nice panama hats, and I’ve been putting off wearing them on walks until now.

I don’t wear any hat on my runs, which I took one of this morning. Then back to the cell, oh get real, it is a very nice and comfortable apartment. Did some coding. Then at noon came the email from Ace Hardware, so after lunch I walked up there (in my straw hat) and they brought out my bottle of Liquid Gold. I did a test application and it looks good.

Couple coats of that and the table should look a lot better. However I decided to wait until tomorrow to apply it. This morning I had taken all my recycling to the collection area down the hall, so I have no newspapers to put down. Tomorrow’s paper will serve to protect against spills. Ok I was smart enough to move it off the carpet, but I don’t want oily stuff getting on my vinyl plank floor either.

Later the bluetooth game controller I ordered last week arrived. I paired it to the big iMac and was disappointed to find that Vendetta didn’t respond to it. I have a couple of other games to try with it.

Friday brings CEO Rhonda’s 4pm phone meeting. It’s actually a zoom meeting but most people attend by phone. Anyway the big news today was that with the modification of the shelter orders, construction can restart on our 5th floor upgrade. That’s very good news. Doesn’t affect me directly, but there are a lot of 5th floor residents who in early February moved out to temporary quarters, and suddenly found themselves with no schedule for when they could move back.

In response to a question from someone else, Rhonda clarified that only contractors who could be limited to the 5th floor would be coming back. They can enter and exit via the freight elevator and never interact with residents in any way. But there is no unlocking for the contractors who would enter current units. Which means, sigh, the Valet company, to whom I paid a sizeable deposit back in February, can’t come in and remodel my closets.

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In the latest Channing House newsletter there is a timeline of our virus response. It is amazing how much has gone down in two months:

• 2/28, first confirmed case in Santa Clara county
• 3/2, dining room stops all self-service, removes anything multiple people would handle
• 3/4, limit of 3 people per elevator
• 3/6, library, gift shop close; dining room limits to 3 people per table
• 3/9, 9 cases in SCC; residents must sanitize hands before entering dining room
• 3/11, all outside visitors banned
• 3/12, NBA and NCAA seasons canceled
• 3/14, start checking staff temperatures on entry
• 3/15, begin checking residents’ temperatures on entry
• 3/16, official “shelter in place order” announced; new hand-washing room installed and residents wash hands before entering dining room
• 3/17, dining room closed; residents pick up take-out meals in brown paper bags; gym closed, fitness classes canceled
• 3/22, no more entry from the garage, those who want to use their cars must park on the street
• 3/25, start of food delivery to each resident’s door; first fitness classes on zoom

So that was “a year in a month”, says Rhonda, of the staff handling all those changes so fast.

 

Thursday 4/30/2020

Started the day with Veronica’s early-morning aerobics class at 7:15. I was the only attendee, so I had a personal trainer, in effect.

Then, after a suitable time reading the internet, it was time to clean! Thursdays have been the usual day for cleaning. When I first moved in, Wanda, the housecleaner for the 6th floor, asked what day I would like my room done, and I opted for Thursdays, because I was usually away all day Thursday, doing artifact stuff. So for months I would come home to a clean apartment with vacuum cleaner tracks on all the carpets, like the mower stripes on the outfield before a baseball game.

Then came the virus, and Wanda got promoted to apprentice nurse’s aide, and I went without cleaning for a sad amount of time. Then last week I got my DIY vacuum and swiffer, I wrote about that. So today was DIY cleaning day. I have a checklist of all the surfaces that need to be (a) dusted (with or without pledge), (b) sprayed with cleanser and wiped, (c) swiffered, or (d) vacuumed. It’s a long list. Plus changing the bed linens.

However, I got through the whole thing in 2 hours, before lunch. In the afternoon, a little coding, a little Affinity Photo review, and that was the day. I didn’t even turn on the TV in the evening.

I finished reading The thirty-nine steps, which is really not a good book. So much casual cultural stereotyping. Some quite unbelievable coincidences. At one point, Buchan has written himself into a box: he’s set a big deadline in mid-June but he started the action in late May. He’s got over a week to fill before the next thing can happen. How does he pass that week? His hero has had malaria in the past; he has a malarial relapse and spends a week in bed in a conveniently safe cottage. One week of narrative time, compressed into a page. Problem solved, for the author.

One thing I want to do is to get some life back in the wood of my coffee table. It’s a beautiful object; I’m sure Marian paid a bundle for it back in the 60s; but it really has dried out and taken on a gray tone. I know it would come back to a deep reddish brown with some oil of some kind. I sought The Google’s advice and it comes down to either Scotts Liquid Gold or Old English Lemon Oil. I opt for Scotts. But for some reason the shipping time on Amazon is weeks.

Well, somebody mentioned recently that Ace Hardware was doing curbside pickup; I have a nice Ace Hardware just up Channing Street. So I go on the Ace website, select “my” store, and order and pay for one can of Liquid Gold. Email: order received. Please wait for the “order ready” email before coming to the store. Expected date: 4/30.

However, the email doesn’t come. Tomorrow, one hopes.

Evening, I try out a game, HiveSwap. It’s cute, and has actually amusing dialog. It’s one where there’s a plot, and you advance the plot by walking your character around various rooms, clicking on things to look at them and solve puzzles. I get frustrated early by not being able to solve a puzzle, so I go to the YT and watch a walk-through of the first bit. Oh, is that what it was. Actually it looks kind of fun, and I think I’ll go back to it and play some more.

 

Wednesday 4/29/2020

Didn’t mention that last night, I watched the Hitchcock Thirty-Nine Steps on Amazon Prime. Oh, I just realized that in the movie, they refer to “thirty-nine steps” but they never explain what they are or why they are significant. They talk about “warning all thirty-nine steps” as if they were agents or something. It left a bunch of other plot threads dangling, as well.

That said, I have to say the movie was better in several ways than the book. The long sequence of Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat handcuffed is still entertaining.

Today would have been shopping day, when I compile a 6th floor grocery order, but nobody wanted anything, or at least, nobody filled out one of my order forms, so I didn’t do that.

Today was also car freedom day, when I could take the car out briefly; but I opted not to. There just isn’t anyplace to go, and still be back in the garage by 11:30. We are allowed to go out before 11. Maybe next week I’ll take the car out at like 8am, go down and walk the baylands trail, and be back by 11:30.

Last week when I turned in my menu, I canceled out Wednesday supper, planning to treat myself to pizza. During the emails between neighbors about shopping, Patty suggested canceling dinner next week and splitting a pizza. Then it emerged that she had actually canceled her tonight’s dinner as I had, so we are doing that. This is better than doing it solo, as I won’t have half a 14-inch pizza in leftovers, as I would have doing it alone. So, tonight is pizza and beer night. And it was delicious.

 

Tuesday 4/28/2020

Today is the weekly CH Writers’ group, a lengthy Zoom meeting at 11. I’m not enthusiastic about what I wrote, but whatever. Maybe I won’t read it.

I was thinking this morning: as we come out of quarantining (late this year or early next), what changes will there be in popular opinions? There are so many customary things we are not doing right now, and we are getting along without them just fine. Afterward, when those options are open again, how many will we just not bother with?

I think grocery shopping will come back with a bang. People are going to so savor the experience of wandering the aisles of a grocery store at leisure they’ll do it more than ever. Instacart et. al. should be planning now for a precipitous drop-off in business. Bank the cash now, kids, because lean times will be coming.

Restaurants will come back strong, also. Bars, too, I imagine, though I don’t frequent any. I miss the experience of eating out and I’m sure lots of other people do as well. So Doordash and Uber Eats will fall off a cliff. Another business that will come back fast is nursery outlets. Gardeners are suffering right now because they can’t go browse the perennials and bedding plants, and as soon as they can, they will.

I think that online ordering of everything else, however, will remain high. All the people who never, or rarely, ordered stuff online, are now finding that eBay and Amazon and all the other outlets are so easy, so convenient, so responsive. You realize you need something, and instead of adding it to an errand list for getting tomorrow, you just reach for your computer and in a minute that item is on its way to you, no further thought.

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Did the morning cardio session by zoom. Veronica was pleased we had 3 people for this 7:15am meeting. Did some coding. Took a walk. That was about it.

 

Monday 4/27/2020

Went for a run. Was on the street by 7:20 and felt great all the way.

Rest of the day was pretty much standard: some coding, some writing. The writing was for tomorrow’s writer’s group meeting. The cue this time was, review some cultural experience you’ve had in the past two weeks. So I wrote a review of a fantasy novel I’d just read. That’s it. Here’s my fuschias on my spiral plantstand on my balcony.

Sunday 4/26/2020

So I’ve been tracking my weight and it’s creeping up, I’ve gained a couple pounds in a month. Not a catastrophe, still juuuust under 175. I used to weigh in the high 180s for years, although I didn’t weigh myself very often. Then in the middle of 2018, I discovered I was down to 175, a full 10 pound drop, which was verified when I had a physical in early 2019, and the doctor commented on it. That was probably due to stress, dealing with Marian’s illness. I certainly changed my eating habits drastically while she spent weeks in the hospital; and when she was back home, and we were back to our usual meal schedule, we both ate more lightly than we had in healthier times.

I’ve been pleased that I kept to that 172-174 range since. I was under a fair amount of stress still, in the transition year of 2019, and as I noted in this blog then, eating adequately but very minimally. But now, for going on 10 months I’ve been settled in comfortable circumstances, with no stress and regular food service on tap three times a day. And I still hung in that range — until the last couple of weeks. What up, body?

Actually it took only a very few seconds of thought to realize what up. Or down, rather. Since early 2019, I have been spending about 6-10 hours a week at FOPAL, much of it on my feet, often carrying boxes of books. And I’ve been spending about 6 hours a week at the CHM warehouse, mostly on my feet. And typically 2-3 hours a week at the museum,  giving tours. Call it 15-20 hours a week of light exercise. Now? Maybe four, one-hour walks a week, so my exercise is down by 11-16 hours a week.

That’s a fair number of calories that I have not been burning for the last month. Really,  the only surprise is that I haven’t gained more and faster. Light exercise burns 250-300 calories an hour. To compensate for my lost volunteer work I need to reduce my intake by, roughly, 250*15~=4000 calories per week. Divide by 7, call it, oh, at least 500/day less intake.

I’ve already put in my weekly menu request for the next seven days. I’d like to get it back so I could X-out all the desserts that I left in. I had already canceled breakfasts, having instead a 400-calorie low-carb shake. “For the duration” I must eat only the protein serving and the salads in the house dinners and lunches. Also the veg, when it is not (a) overcooked or (b) carrots. (Our kitchen loves carrots.) Skip the rice, potatoes, other carbs. And the desserts, dammit. Well, their desserts are not that wonderful. I can deal.

So, at supper, I dumped the dessert, which was some kind of blueberry pudding and really not appetizing anyway. Also the veg, which was overcooked.

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Today was gardening day, i.e. the day for watering the plants. I have fuschias! Two of the plants I bought the last time I was able to go to the nursery are fuschias, of quite different looks. Both of them started blooming this week and very prettily.

A couple of weeks ago I took some cuttings from one of the old wax plants and put them in water, hoping for roots. They’ve stayed green, but no roots. Oh, well. Today I potted them anyway. Somebody gave me a nice-looking hanging pot; it hangs nicely from my spiral plant-stand. I thought I’d use that. Then I noticed that it looks nice but it has no drain hole. That’s not acceptable; what to do? I remembered that in my drill kit, I have a small masonry bit. So I took the pot down to the storage unit in the basement, hauled out the drill, and started drilling. I wasn’t sure the pot wouldn’t shatter, but if so, eh. But it didn’t; the bit went right through it in three places with hardly a chip. So, drain holes.

Back upstairs, load it with potting soil, stick in the cuttings, water, hang. Good luck, wax plants. We’ll see.

Did some programming which was fun. The interpreter code that I’m translating is in Java, a very verbose language. I was delighted to translate a many-line function into a slick recursive one-liner. Shades of APL days.

And that was Sunday.

Saturday, 4/25/2020

So friend Joanne has read the novel and besides spotting a typo, says it needs more action. Guess what the one other beta reader who has responded said? That was 14yo Shivam, who said, needs more stuff happening. But he liked the ending. Dear goodness, the chapters are short and there’s something happening in each one of them. Gotta amp it up somehow.

Did some coding on Crafting Interpreters, brought it to section 8.2, it executes expressions and the print statement. Next, adding variables.

For variety I turned to another ongoing project, learning better to use Affinity Photo, the app I chose to replace Photoshop. Went through a tutorial chapter.

Did some reading. I have downloaded several free (Kindle Unlimited) books and am reading through them alternately. Except yesterday, Craig posted to the house bulletin board about the pleasure of re-reading classics, and mentioned John Buchan. That reminded me of The Thirty-Nine Steps. I read that when I was quite young and enjoyed it. In more recent decades I’ve seen the Hitchcock movie (I think on PBS?) and also attended the theatrical version, I think at the Hillbarn theater? Anyway, 30 seconds on the keyboard and I had a copy from Gutenberg.org. So I read the first third of that today.

Meanwhile I was exchanging emails with Prudence who wants to replace a failing MacBook, about whether to buy a refurb or a new Air. It’s a tough decision.

Chatted with Dennis. Got an email from Laurel. A long-time friend of hers has died of Covid-related illness. Two days ago I mailed Laurel a check for some tiding-over money. Clearly she hadn’t received it, so I answered, asking if she’d checked her PO box lately? She wrote back, “why?” and I didn’t answer.

The little green tin of Bag Balm arrived. It definitely makes the backs of my hands less dry, more flexible. And I smell like a veterinary’s office. But nobody smells me but me, so it doesn’t matter.

 

 

Friday, 4/24/2020

Oh my. The days are starting to run together. But I try to keep some structure. Today, as on Monday and Wednesday, I went for a run. About a block out, I began to feel that something was missing. Oh. My mask. I was out without a mask. I opted to keep going but kept well wide of the few other people I saw.

Spent a couple of hours moving into Chapter 9 of Crafting Interpreters, which entailed changing around everything I’d done in Chapter 7 and 8, to handle statements instead of expressions.

Took two (2) naps out of sheer boredom.

At Rhonda’s weekly phone meeting, the big news was that an employee had tested positive for the Covid. But however, that employee had for the last three weeks been on leave, quarantined at home, because one of their relatives had had symptoms. So they would likely not have been able to infect anyone here. Dodged a bullet there, we did. And hurray for the house policies that sends someone home for a possible contact; and hurray for the employee who admitted to the contact.

Had a zoom “cocktail party” with Betty and Jerry. And that was about it for the day.

Oh, my newspaper recycling basket came from etsy. As did my soap dispenser gel. So there are only two ordered items circling in the stratosphere waiting to land.

Oh my goodness, I forgot the really big news! For a couple of weeks I have been hoarding a diminishing supply of kleenex. Down to a little wad in each of two boxes. And of course they aren’t in the stores. Somebody ordered some in last week’s grocery order and none came. Well, I was putting the gel soap refill bottle away in the cupboard under my bathroom vanity and I found: two boxes of kleenex!! which I had bought weeks ago, stored, and forgotten about. Such a relief! I can blow my nose for at least another month.

Thursday, 4/23/2020

First thing, I zoomed into Victoria’s 7am aerobics class, half an hour of stepping and reaching and stretching. This time, since I had a shirt on, I connected with video on. And one other person, Michelle, connected. This is a nice way to feel like I’ve had some exercise. Since I usually am up by 6:15, I’ve had my coffee and read the paper. Little exercise; shower; breakfast; boom.

Did a little coding. Then went out for a walk. After lunch, this being Thursday, my bag of clean linens arrived at my door. Although I did the cleanup on Tuesday, I got out the vacuum and the swiffer and did a once-over lightly, just to get into the rhythm, as Thursdays have been the traditional day for my unit to be cleaned. (Come back, Wanda!) Made the bed. Took the old sheets and towels down the hall.

Yesterday I did a little research googling and verified that I could (quite easily) transfer all the apps and data from my old phone to a new one, myself. So I’m thinking about ordering the SE, not waiting for the Apple stores to reopen. Today I talked to an online customer rep at the Apple store, to verify another point. Just about a year ago I turned in Marian’s iMac and some other stuff, and got Apple gift cards, which have been sitting on my desk since. I wanted to know, if I bought the new iPhone SE online, could I use one or more gift cards to pay? Assured I could. So now I’ll wait until it is actually available.

Piddled around doing other online stuff. That was pretty much the day. Oh, two different people called me up for mac help. I have got to find a way to stop that. I don’t want to be rude, and anyway if they call the tech line, Bert will likely refer the call to me. But still.