Saturday 07/13/2024

Another easy day, favoring the foot which has continued its recovery although my left big toe is still fatter and pinker than its right-side counterpart. Still, I expect by tomorrow to be good enough to do the docent round I’m scheduled for — 33 international students, it says. Hopefully with another docent?

Drove the five blocks to the CVS store and picked up a couple of prescriptions – but not the allopurinol that I hoped for. On Friday I placed a message to my PCP asking her to prescribe that. I think that may have happened but later in the day, because around 4pm I got an ambiguous text from CVS that a prescription had been received, but it didn’t say for what.

Walked around the farmers market and bought a handful of apricots and peaches. Then down to the Peet’s coffee shop to stock up on my morning coffee beans. On return I found a package had arrived, and very timely.

Last two times I ran a docent round, the battery in my little belt amplifier ran out before the end. Which told me its rechargeable battery was getting old. So I took it apart and got the numbers off the battery and ordered a new one from DigiKey. And it had come today, just in time for tomorrow’s tour.

That’s the device with the old battery, I should have taken a pic with it apart. Thing to notice is that little connector? It’s keyed so it can only go in one way. And when it was in, the red wire was on the right. Fortunately I took a skeptical look at the new one and its connector was wired just the opposite, so the red wire would have been on the left if I had plugged it in. I had to get the wires out of the connector and put them back the other way. Imagine my relief when I turned it on and it lit up and worked.

Friday 07/12/2024

I got a better idea of how effective a half tab of codeine was, when it wore off later in the night, and my foot became extremely painful. I resolved to take the next day very slow, and to eat a minimum of food. So spent most of the day in my apartment, in my easy chair. Took a lot of naps. And through the day, the foot got better. By evening it was still a bit tender, but I could walk almost normally.

Thursday 07/11/2024

A good time was had by all. What more can a happy promoter say? I was the promoter for a concert by the Keller Sisters. Several of us had been to hear them at the San Gregorio General Store (Days 4.255, 4.344, 5.135). I wanted them to play a concert here. As I’ve hinted, the job of booking music acts has been pretty much in the hands of one resident for a while, and her tastes run to classical and occasional jazz. Sheryl and Kerry do rock/pop/folk, original songs and covers. So despite me and several other residents recommending them, no move was made to book them. So a couple months ago I just took it on myself to book them. Which caused some resentment, but I stayed cool — but I was extremely concerned that the concert go well. I set up the auditorium at 5; the musicians arrived at 6:30 as scheduled. I had one minor A/V hitch: I knew as pros they would want a monitor speaker, a speaker turned toward the stage so they could hear themselves. Unfortunately our monitor speaker had developed a 60-cycle hum. Quite unacceptable. But they were chill and go by without..

We had about 70 people in the auditorium and just about everybody had a good time. I saw a couple of people edging out the back door after a couple of songs; well, you can’t please everybody. Lots of people hung around after to chat with the musicians and talk. It was a success. So hopefully our performing arts committee will be a little bit looser about who they’re willing to book in future.

My foot was really sore, several people commented on my limping. At 5pm I took a half of a tab of codeine — I stashed away a bottle of it from hospice days. It didn’t make a lot of difference, of course I can’t say how hobbled I would have been without it.

Wednesday 07/10/2024

First up was to go have my teeth scraped at 8:30. However it was laundry day also, so I started a load on the way out. Then, because my left big toe was quite painful, I took the car for this 6-block ride to the dentist office; and I remembered that Dr. Marx had said cherry juice was said to be a folk remedy for gout, so afterward I drove to the grocery and bought some. During the day I drank nearly a quart of cherry juice and I can’t say that it helped.

Other than that I didn’t do much. Actually there were like six little tasks that I had been meaning to take care of, that I took care of, but I won’t try to write them down as they seem so trivial. I also completely forgot that this was the day for the 6th floor dinner, and ate a sandwich in my room and napped right through it. Getting old, you see.

07/09/2024

Woke up with sore left big toe; here comes gout. Slows my walking.

Actually wrote something for the writers group, on hobbies. Sounded profound, got some sincere sounding “great” and “excellent” remarks.

Have had no contact with sis-in-law Jean for days so, called her up and made a lunch date. We went as usual to Eric’s Deli Cafe, chatted and got caught up. She’s perking along ok at 96.

Dinner was a planned outing with neighbor Edie. I’d helped her a couple times with her computer and she wanted to treat me to dinner, so we did. Nice. But I had a beer. One beer, and I can’t stay awake. I’m going to bed early.

Monday 07/08/2024

Well, I did something yesterday. But I went to bed without posting; first time in a long time.

Resident Association meeting. Long session at FOPAL getting my section set for next weekend’s sale day. And cleaning up the chaotic sorting room. Little guitar work.

Sunday 07/07/2024

For Sunday morning breakfast I decided to go back to 2017 or so, and take my NYT crossword to the coffee shop in Midtown. I went by car rather than walking. Very pleasant sit, puzzling and noshing on a big cinnamon roll. Then I took the car to the car wash by Town & Country. Once a couple of months of dust are washed off, the polish I had done in January (Day 5.045) is still effective, really glossy and feels delicious to the hand.

This was the day that a whole bunch of CH people were going to the Pear Theater. I was driving along with 3 others. At 1:30 we loaded up and went. The play was Chaplin and Keaton on the Set of Limelight, imagining what it was like the one time, in 1951, when Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton worked together. I had to applaud the actors, this was a lonng play, over 2 hours of actual performing, many lines which they delivered with great skill. And applaud the backstage crew as there were many, many sound and light cues in this long play. I couldn’t recommend anybody go and see it, though. Chaplin and Keaton argue endlessly about the value of movies, whether they are pure entertainment or they should have a higher purpose. Did I mention how long it was? It was long.

Back home it was time to start prepping in my role as producer of a concert. I’ve mentioned the Keller Sisters, some of us have gone to hear them 2 or 3 times at the San Gregorio General Store. And a few weeks back, without official sanction from the Entertainment Committee, I reserved the auditorium and booked them for Thursday the 11th. Causing a small flutter and controversy among certain people who thought they had an exclusive on booking musical acts — but who couldn’t be bothered to even inquire or contact music acts that other people recommended to them. Anyway, by the Entertainment Committee agreed-on rules, the producer of an event can put a notice on the bulletin boards on each floor a week before an event. So I’m late for that, but I made a nice little notice and went around to all the floors and put it up tonight.

Had breakfast in the dining room, second time in the month I think? Chris B, the building maintenance head guy, was walking around just schmoozing with people. He’s naturally a nice guy but this must have been intentional “management by walking around”. Anyway I took advantage to bend his ear about a long-pending project.

Have I written about this before? Don’t think so. A couple of years back, there was an “Open Space Task Force” of staff and residents, taking inventory of the available community spaces around the building, after all the pandemic measures, special wards and beds and closed-off spaces etc, had been undone. One decision of that group was that the volunteer-run gift shop, AKA The Treasure Trove (TT), should consolidate all its stock in one place. The TT gets frequent donations when residents move to AL or die, and they have lots of furniture, clothes, artwork, dishware, and the like. Then, and still today, the TT gang have their stock of stuff in a room on the 6th floor and also have stuffed the back-stage “Green Room” with racks of clothes. We have to be nice to them because they generate a steady stream of income for resident projects. But they take up a lot of space.

There is a sizable room on the 1st floor near the actual Treasure Trove store, with nothing in it a couple of rollaway beds stored by Housekeeping, but for months nothing happened. Thing is, if the TT could move into it, they would free up the room here on 6, and a group of residents who play instruments have proposed to convert that to a music practice studio. We’ve talked to Rhonda about it, and still nothing has happened. Anyway, I got Chris B. to sit down and listen to this extensive history and maybe, just maybe, something will begin to happen.

At 1pm I put on my red shirt and went down to the museum and led a tour. The museum was jumping, it was a special Wells Fargo day or something? Place was packed. I had over 30 people at the start of the tour, and still 25 or so at the end.

On the way back I stopped at Ace Hardware and got a couple rechargeable batteries to replace some dead ones in the wireless mic on the 11th floor, and went up and replaced those and tried it out and everything is working there. Also updated the “user manual”, my super simple instruction book for the 11th floor system. And emailed the AV group about this.

You don’t believe it’s super simple? Here’s the page on the microphone.

Friday 07/05/2024

Took the standard walk, starting at 7:30, back before 9. Beating the heat, although in fact the forecast heat was not bad today.

At 9:30 set up the auditorium so Mickie could practice with her slides, for a presentation at the next RA meeting on Monday. To my surprise, Mickie, who is quite smart and with it, and who was at one point in her career, the mayor of Menlo Park, was not a skilled presenter. The presenter’s slides are shown on the big screen on the end wall. The presenter, if facing the audience, has her back to the screen. Mickie took the microphone off the stand and stood with her right shoulder to the audience, looking to her left at the screen, and read the bullet points off her powerpoint presentation. What?!? Oh well. Not my presentation.

After that, knowing there was a big backlog of donations at FOPAL, and having the day free once I had shut down the auditorium, I headed down there and spent 2:30 doing sorting.

Back home I set about answering several questions about the 11th floor equipment that had come up. That took a couple of hours. Not going to go into detail. Wireless mics, bleagh.

Thursday 07/04/2024

Thought to treat myself by walking to Cafe Zoe for breakfast. Disappointed to find when I got there that for the holiday they wouldn’t open until 11. Walked back through increasing heat, without breakfast.

At 3pm joined Mary and Kay in the Lee center main lounge to perform music for about 20 people. Mary and Kay do flute duets, sandwiching my performance. Did three songs, didn’t mess anything up, got a nice little hand.

At 6, we 6th floor people took our sack suppers to the 11th floor and picnicked there. Back to 11 at 8:30 for the 4th party and sing-along, and watching fireworks from all around the Bay from our 11th floor penthouse.