Friday, 1/10/2020

Went for a run this morning, first time since a week ago. Felt a bit feeble for the first couple of blocks but after I warmed up, it was fine.

Back home to do stuff. Exciting stuff. Refilled my pill cases for the week. Refilled the shampoo and conditioner bottles in the shower. Got on the Anthem website and figured out how to pay them the $3 I owe them for my prescriptions.

Did I mention? (no) that my prescription meds arrived yesterday, so that part, the home delivery, is working. Also didn’t mention that yesterday I mailed the checks for the 4th quarter estimated tax. I don’t tell you everything, Dere Diary.

What isn’t working is using Bill Pay at the credit union website to pay the monthly insurance bill. Back in December, they billed me for my first month of coverage (just $20.60), and I thought I had ordered Bill Pay to pay it. But now Bill claims not to know about that; and Anthem shows me as owing them for January and February. It is just barely possible that I failed to click the last “do it” button in the bill pay process. That has happened once before, causing an embarrassing overdue notice from Palo Alto Utilities; and on that account I take pains to not write “Scheduled” on the statement until I have actually clicked “Send Money” on the website. But, maybe. So I very carefully went through the process to send $41.20, double-checked the address, definitely clicked “Send Money” and noted the confirmation code. That should cause a check to reach them on the 15th, and I’ll check online after that.

Lynne (a different Lynne from dinner last night) is preparing the elevator poster for when I give a talk about my book in April. She showed it to me yesterday and I didn’t like the headline. So now I rewrote it and slipped it under her door as promised. Later she showed me the revision and I approved it.

Last Tuesday Susan consulted with me about self-publishing, which she wants to do. I took along a couple of books to show her, the photo books we made for the SWBB team back in 2011-13, to show what the current print-on-demand platforms can do. I left them with her because Harry, her husband, wanted to see them. Well, apparently Wednesday evening they put the two books in #621 cubby in the mail room.  (There is a two sided bookcase with one shallow cubby for each of the 200-odd rooms, mostly used for house announcement letters, or for anything else you want to pass to somebody, “I’ll drop it in your cubby tomorrow”) But they weren’t there last night, nor now. She might have put the books in the wrong cubby, but says they had my name on them. Mystery. Who’d take two nice picture books and keep them? She’s put out a note on the CH email list; maybe they’ll be returned. They were my only copies; however, they are still there at Blurb.com, and can be ordered — at $42 each. Premium paper, full-bleed color printing etc. If they don’t show up, I imagine Susan will order them, or if not, I will. No biggie. Other people have commented darkly about things disappearing from the open cubbies. But when I looked today, I noticed somebody’s cubby had a MacBook Air in it. That’s trusting.

Put in 30 minutes on the novel, added 300 words, but realized that I’d strayed from the structure I laid out in the outline I put together weeks ago. Must think.

At 2pm the staff put on a 50’s-themed party in the lobby, to kick off the upgrade of the fifth floor. Did they do a 60’s party last September when the 6th floor started to move out? I don’t remember. Listening to Little Richard and Elvis and Rock around the clock, I was struck by two things about that music. One, how simple it is, drums, acoustic bass, and one more instrument; and two, how fast the tempos are. Compare Tutti Frutti to something contemporary, like the band Pom Pom Squad that I just heard highly praised. They’re both rock’n’roll, both musically minimal, and both boundary-pushers (and I just bet that Mia Berrin and Richard Pennyman could have totally bonded, talking about eye makeup) but dear goodness the modern band is playing a dirge compared to the early one.

There were snacks at the party, so I skipped supper. Lenny rode with me to the SWBB game against Cal. Stanford took an early lead and romped to a 33-point win, leading by over 40 at times. Cal scored just one basket in the third quarter. The same teams meet again at Cal on Sunday, which must be a glum prospect for the Cal team.

 

 

 

Thursday, 1/9/2020

Once more avoided left-side sleeping, and got up to no-vertigo. That shouldn’t feel like an achievement; it should feel like normal. Hopefully it is.

Today’s event was that, as I noted a few days back, I’d signed up for a bus trip to the Legion of Honor museum to take in their special exhibit of paintings by Tissot — a name that if you search it, will tell you a lot about expensive swiss watches, but not much about the guy who painted lush, detailed pictures of society people in London and Paris in the late 1800s. Fun pictures to look at, pictures that let you invent stories. This one, of three rather dissipated looking people on a motorboat on the Thames…

The interpretive sign made much of the air quality, which was a hot topic in London at the time, and of the implied social criticism of carrying three bottles of champagne for a party of three people. I was impressed (possibly because of recent experience of vertigo!) with how there are no perpendicular lines. Everything is at an angle, everything is swaying and unstable. And yet the people are unconcerned, even bored (lots of Tissot’s people look bored). Was that a social comment about the uncaring upper classes ignoring social unrest? Or just an accurate picture of boats on the water?

That aside, the thing that was impossible to ignore in these very large canvasses was the man’s almost insane attention to detail. He was famous for painting womens’ clothes in photographic (well, photography didn’t exist) detail. Here’s a segment of one painting.

That’s about 1/8 of a big canvas. Imagine painting all those stripes, one at a time, getting the light values and angles right so all the wrinkles and folds are consistent. Then painting the lace edging. Then painting the stitching in the silk stocking. Then the grass…

So there were about 15 of us, of which I was probably the youngest, certainly the most spry. Our bus got there about 10:30, and we were scheduled to depart at 2pm. It took me an hour to see the Tissots, and I was hungry, so I checked out the museum cafe, whose menu didn’t attract nor did a long line for service. Hmmm. I have over 2 hours to kill. Got out the phone (had to walk to the far side of the parking lot to get service), checked the map, yes, there are a couple of casual eateries a mile away on Balboa street. Walk? Nah. I called a Lyft. Had a very tasty panini at the Simple Pleasures Cafe. Very San Francisco place, and don’t ask me to define that, but it was very different in tone and decor from anything in Palo Alto. And a Lyft back. Total, about $25 for travel and lunch, which was not a whole lot more than the museum cafe would have cost.

I went into the museum again, and joined the 12:30 docent tour. This lady, Fern, showed us a couple of paintings in the normal collection that related to Tissot’s work, in being contemporary in time but different in treatment of subjects. She did an excellent job of this. As a docent, I love seeing other docents doing good tours.

Still time to kill. So I walked down the hill playing peek-a-boo with the bridge.

Bus finally left, all home safe. At 5:30 I joined Harry and Susan who had invited me to supper along with Betty and Jerry (another guy about my age and spryness), and Lynne. Pleasant meal, nice people.

 

Wednesday, 1/8/2020

I did make myself sleep with head elevated, or on my right side ditto, most of the night. Got up from bed very carefully and stood up and felt … nothing. Okay then. Walked carefully down the stairs to breakfast, back up, maybe just the tiniest whiff of vertigo on turning my head left or right.

Off to FOPAL early because this is the last day to tidy up my section before the sale weekend. Process 5 boxes, price and shelve twenty books. Straighten everything up. Take my pre-sale inventory count. All good; no vertigo! Do another hour or so of sorting, and leave at noon. Normally I’d stay around to sort in the afternoon on a Wednesday, but don’t want to push this.

Treat myself to a lunch of a choc. shake and chili at Gott’s. Then recall I’ve been meaning to visit the Cantor and it’s right over there, practically in sight from the Town and Country center.

The Cantor is featuring a new acquisition, OY/YO. I don’t know where they will eventually put it, but for now it is right in front. I like looking at the Bing through the O.

Oy, that’s yellow. I enjoyed the Jordan Casteel heroic-sized portraits of Harlem residents, and the newly-acquired Ansel Adams Surf Sequence. He took five shots of surf water patterns from some cliff on Highway 1. Interesting that the Museum’s page chose the middle one of five to show; I thought it was the best also.

Every time I look at Adams’ pics I think, I’ve taken that. Or seen that. Everybody has! There’s probably some tourist on that cliff on SR1 right this second taking that shot. But Adams was the first, the one who opened everybody’s eyes to the pictures that were there. Plus, he did it with a plate camera, swapping negative holders in and out. So the “sequence” of five is not successive shots of the same wave, as a modern with an iPhone might take, but five shots from a locked-off tripod of successive waves.

Tuesday, 1/7/2020

Had an uneasy night, sitting up to read for an hour around 2am. That was an exception, I’ve been sleeping quite well lately. But when I got up, I discovered I had mild vertigo. Just enough that, one, if I don’t keep a careful visual horizon while walking, I tend to lurch; and two, if I lean forward, I feel seasick. This sucks.

Nothing scheduled for today, but I would like to go do some sorting. I think I will try.

I did try, and after less than an hour, the constant moving and turning was building up nausea, so I went home and spent the rest of the day in my recliner, not turning my head. I had meant to attend the 4th floor resident meeting and napped through it. Blah. Going to bed to sleep on my back with head elevated.

Monday, 1/6/2020

“2020” is easier to type than “2019”. So there’s that.

Spent the first half of the day at FOPAL, getting the Computer section ready for the sale weekend coming up. Supper time, it was “mixer monday”, where you draw a table number from a hat as you go into the dining room, and sit at that table. Sat with Pru and Helen and… well, good on me for remembering Pru without prompting, anyway.

Since there is no museum work planned for this Thursday, I signed up for a bus trip to the Legion of Honor museum to see a Tissot exhibit. That will be my first experience with a group outing at Channing House.

Sunday, 1/5/2020

For my Sunday morning coffee I decided, since the weather was fine and cool, to walk to the old midtown place. It was 1.1 miles going. Now I see that I had 4.3 miles for the day. Good work, me.

Next was to definitely buy a duvet and cover. I have been shopping online for this, and again this morning, and decided that Macy’s had acceptable ones. So off to Stanford Shopping Center. Macy’s didn’t. Despite the website claiming that what I wanted was available for free pickup at my store, no. They had very few duvet covers, and only King and Twin sizes. Boo.

I was walking toward Pottery Barn when I passed Mizu and decided to look in. And they had nice plain-looking ecru duvet covers and duvets in Full size. OK. Done. Put those in the car and headed for the campus. Sat in the car for a while, then into Maples for the 2pm SWBB game, against UW.

The Huskies have been doing well, and against us in the PAC-12 tournament last year, they made it close, behind 39 points from their star, Amber Melgoza. The first half today looked like a repeat, with the score tied at the half. But whatever Tara put in the water at half-time worked; the team went on a tear and opened up a big lead in the third quarter and won going away — holding Melgoza to “only” 17 points.

Back home, I put the duvet into its cover — getting a duvet into a duvet cover is a lot easier when you have two people, I must say — and put it on the bed. Looks fine, if low-key.

Had a nice supper sitting with Helene, Janet, and new residents Kay and Don. Kay and Don, Kay and Don… trying to make names stick.

Back in my room I noted the Road Scholar trip page that I’ve had cached for a couple of weeks and decided to pull the trigger on this trip: “Splendors of Switzerland by Rail” for June 10-25. I went through the purchase process, paying $250 down, and bought the trip insurance package, another $715. I can cancel losing only those amounts anytime before April 4th, a date I noted in my calendar. Next task is to call their support line and make sure the $3000 credit from when I had to reschedule the Greek trip, is applied to this one.

 

 

Friday, 1/3/2020

Went for a run, which felt ok, no issues. I had been told that Paul, the in-house tech guy, wanted to check my wi-fi in preparation for the move back, at 10. Thinking this would involve gathering all the MAC addresses for the new ClearPass system, I made all six internet-connected devices (laptop, desktop, kindle, chromebook, printer, and iphone) cough up their MAC addresses, and printed those out.

In fact, he wasn’t ready to do that, just wanted to check and label the Comcast box. But said if I wanted to email them to him, that would be good, so I did.

Next up, trying to log into the Anthem Medicare drug benefit site, which hadn’t worked previously. Yes it did work now. I was happy to be in, but (of course) when I checked my prescriptions, it knew of none. Naturally they wouldn’t have got that info from Humana… I guess I am not saying that in a sarcastic tone. Not much anyway.

What does deserve sarcasm is: there is no info on the site telling you how to add a prescription. You know, simple stuff like, “tell your provider to send the prescription to…” All they had was, “call the number on the back of your card.”

Which I did, and got the fairly simple info on pharmacy name, address, fax number, and sent that info in a message to my PCP.

I needed a big jar of aspirin. I have 1000-tablet bottles of tylenol and ibuprofen, and my big jar of aspirin, which I take daily, had just run out. So I walked over to CVS on University. Big bottles of all the name-brand pain killers, but only 100s of aspirin.

I’d had an email from Jean saying please stop by to pick up your annual Christmas present of biscotti. The Paweks gave the Cortesis a big package of chocolate-coated biscotti every year for many many years, and I guess she wants to continue that tradition. So I drove down there. Picking up my mail had noted a flyer from the Lamplighters, touting a production of G&S Princess Ida at the MV performing arts. Jean had gone with me to HMS Pinafore there last year (Day 252, August). I asked if she’d like to see another, and she said yes, so later in the day I bought tickets for that.

At the Walmart next to her place I got a bottle of, not 1000 aspirin but 500. Well, that’s a year and half. So, back home, I got an email from Lenny, could she get a ride to the game tonight? Game! I hadn’t looked at the calendar, but of course there was a SWBB game. So i drove to that, taking David G. and Lenny. Stanford played a bit sloppy, but it was good enough to beat WSU by 20. Sunday brings UW which will be a larger challenge.

 

Wednesday, 1/1/2020

Woke with a scritchy throat and feeling not quite. Breakfast downstairs, then ended up taking a post-breakfast nap. Killed time until time for lunch. Helene had invited me to her birthday lunch–she was born on new year’s day. There were about a dozen people at the table. Conversation at my end involved some stories from people who been children in the Philippines at the start of WWII and knew people who had been (or had themselves been? not clear on this) interned in civilian POW camps.

In the afternoon I checked and yes, I had a slight fever, 0.5F over my usual temp. OK. Sat around reading. Today, being a big holiday, there was no supper service. I had picked up my brown bag supper after breakfast. (I think they should call that service, which they do three or four days a year, the “supper sack”.) Mary Beth, the floor rep, put out an email suggesting we all meet in the 4th floor dining room for supper, but (a) I didn’t read it until I had almost finished my sandwich at 5:30, and (b) didn’t want to share my virus. So a very quiet evening.