Friday 02/28/2025

Started by taking the standard walk (2.4 miles) with Joanne for company. Stopped for coffee and a pleasant heart-to-heart chat.

Half an hour break and it was time for Line Dancing class. Then down to lunch, after which I set up for the monthly AV meeting. Three of our members individually sent regrets for one reason or another. However, everybody had picked events to do off the shared spreadsheet, so the five of us who showed chatted a little and broke up.

In the remaining afternoon, I did something I’d wanted to do for a while: learned the chords and rhythm for “Nobody knows you when you’re down and out” from this video.

I had been invited to a table with David M. and Karen, for the monthly Webster Street Grille. That’s where our Dining Services lays out a fancy meal–and I do mean fancy, five courses, each a plate with a pretty little serving in the middle — on the 11th floor. Anyway David and Karen had invited me, Hannah, Mable, and Joanne (quite coincidentally?) to join them so we did. Really a nice meal. Plus I think our chefs and servers enjoy practicing like a real restaurant. Lots of good conversation.

Thursday 02/27/2025

This morning I took on the large task of breaking the dragon-wing begonias up. As I’ve mentioned Marian planted these back around 2015, give or take, and they grew on our front porch until I moved here in 2019. The micro-climate of my balcony here is quite similar to our front porch on Tasso street, a couple of hours of sun each morning and then shade the rest of the day, and they have thrived. But after a decade they have gotten too big and pot-bound, so I wanted to split them up. I had forgotten that Marian carefully put a layer of shiny beach pebbles on top of the dirt. The pebbles aren’t shiny any more, but my first job was digging them out of the dirt where they were firmly embedded. Then I stabbed all around the edges with my highly professional tool, a table knife. And I was able to lift them out.

Then came the job of dividing the plant, which was not easy. There is a solid wood core under all those shoots. But I got it done, twice, and now two have become four.

I am wondering which of the four will thrive. Have I killed any? Probably all four will be fine. Later in the spring, when they have a big ball of foliage and start to bloom, I will give two away.

Later in the day I did an hour of music, then I sat down for a little work on my taxes. All my 1099’s are available, so I downloaded those, and I assembled a final spreadsheet of all my tax-deductible contributions. There’s nothing left to do except fill in the accountant’s workbook, which I expect to get done Saturday, I think.

For dinner I had set up a proper dinner with guests, specifically the Greene’s, relatively new residents, and me and Joanne. This is something other people do all the time, reserve a table in the dining room and invite guests, and bring wine, and you know, dine. I’ve only done it a few times, like lunch with Jean and Darlene a month back. So it was very nice. Joanne is extremely sociable and knows how to draw people out and keep a conversation going.

Wednesday 02/26/2025

Started the day with the bi-weekly laundry. Wrapped that up by 10. Got an early lunch at 11am. Then I went to Home Depot and bought a couple of large, cheap, planting pots. Only after I got them home did I realize I will have to drill drain holes in them. But no prob, they’re some kind of plastic and I hav a drill. Also potting mix. So I am set up to divide the big begonias.

Brought all that back and transported it to my balcony. Then went to a different nursery because I had forgotten saucers. Then to the Rinconada library for the FOPAL social do, to say goodby to Janette, who has been running this organization of mostly volunteers for a decade and is retiring.

Back to CH for the Good Times committee post-mortem meeting, discussing all the things that went wrong or could be improved from the ValDay show. Although everybody who talks to us says they enjoyed it, they also say things like, not enough seats, ran too long, etc. So we have a list of things to improve.

Left that meeting early at 3:30 to join Joanne for a walk. We talked about lots of things but nothing personal.

Had dinner with the Goldens. David G. is running a lecture event tonight, which I think I will go and attend.

Tuesday 02/25/2025

Love that date, 2025-02-25. Did a bunch of shit in the morning including squirting peppermint oil around the engine compartment of the prius. Probably pointless. Also, filed a claim on my car insurance for the $4155 bill. State Farm very helpful. We shall see what comes of it. Even half back would be nice.

Writers meeting; I had nothing to contribute. Then went out in the car shopping for large planting pots. I mean to divide and repot my giant begonias, and step one is to buy two nice pots, about 14 inches high and wide. The present plants are in really nicely decorated earthenware pots. I shopped the Ladera nursery and Wegmans and was disappointed in the small selections. Stopped at Stanford Shopping Center at the Pottery Barn. Guess what the Pottery Barn has very little of? Pottery. Did some online shopping and found that very likely Home Depot has what I want. Will check tomorrow.

At 3 I set up the audio on the 11th floor for the annual meeting of the Heritage Circle, the people (including me) who have donated to our resident-created and -managed improvement fund. Which is now pushing toward $6M, despite giving out grants left and right to improve life here. For example it provides the money to hire proper coaches to take people to SF for the symphony, ballet and opera (none of which I take advantage of).

Had dinner with Marc and Sophia and a couple of other people, nice group.

Monday 02/24/2025

Having no car I decided to walk the 3 miles to FOPAL. I left early and stopped half-way at Midtown for coffee and roll and a banana. Then on to FOPAL, where I processed two boxes of books finishing just at 11am.

While en route David G had emailed that he and Peter would be rehearsing for a lecture tonight, at 11am, did I want to join them? So I hurried my work, then called Joanne. She had emphatically told me that she was available to drive me places, so I took her up on it. She picked me up at 11:15 and I was able to join David G and Peter at 11:30.

Also I had received a call from Crystal at Toyota that my car was ready. So at 3pm I met with Joanne again and she drove me down there. The car seems alright. Later I checked my insurance and it appears that my Comprehensive coverage should apply to rodent damage. So that’s a job to do tomorrow, submit a claim.

I got back just in time for the 4pm meeting of the Common Spaces Task Force. This is a committee of residents to advise Rhonda and staff on revision of the many, small and scattered spaces around the campus used for public purposes. Like the hobby craft shop, the sewing room, the computer room, and many others. My interest is to finally get some action on creation of a music practice room and to rationalize the storage used by the gift shop so as to get their racks of used clothing out of the backstage Green room. A dozen people on the committee so there are 25 opinions on everything, but we’ll see.

The lecture was by Urmi Bahu, a friend of Peter and his late wife Juthica. Urmi was here from her home in Calcutta to attend Juthica’s memorial last week. She manages New Light India, a charitable trust that provides day care and schooling for the children of sex workers. She’s an impressive person with a great story to tell.

Sunday 02/23/2025

After watering the plants and doing the big crossword (in 31 minutes, hey baby I still got it) I decided to walk to Cal Avenue. Which I did, and browsed the farmers market. Kinda wish I ever cooked any more, it would be fun to buy some ingredients. But no.

Was disappointed to find that the Backyard Brew coffee place, in a walkway tucked between two buildings, was “temporarily closed”. Dang. Now where should I get a nice cup and a cake? There are other coffee shops on that street but they didn’t please me. Go back downtown? Oh hey, there’s the CalTrain station right there, I could catch the next train, ride one stop, less than 2 miles, to the downtown station, and be right next to Verve. So I did that. 9800 steps, just under 4 miles for the day.

The rest of the day I fiddled around with music, and then somehow or other ended up reading our old Germany blog. (Which is still online.) In 2010 we did 6 weeks in Germany and blogged it in great detail. At some point I had converted it (and our other long travel blogs) to PDF and downloaded it. And some time recently I had clicked on the PDF. And now I started reading it. Which took about 2 hours to get through. Ah, the 2010s, when it was still an open question if your hotel would have working wi-fi. But it was a nice trip.

Saturday 02/22/2025

Spent time in the morning reading and practicing guitar. After lunch I went up to the 11th floor and set up the lecternette for Romie’s birthday party. Romie is a resident, a pleasant woman who I’ve not had much conversation with. She (or her two daughters) organized this 80th birthday party and invited lots of relatives and about half of Channing House as well. Nice event, nice birthday cake after.

Ate supper alone in my room feeling a bit sorry for myself. Not a great day.

Friday 02/21/2025

Started the day well by walking up to Town&Country with Joanne and having a nice coffee at Douce France. Got back at 10, and at 10:30 joined the line dancing class. I had to leave it early at 11 for the AI interest group meeting. This was a pleasant chat among me and Bert and David G and Helen G.

While there an email arrived from CHM on a fun-sounding AI-related event. We may decide to put that on a screen at CH for a group watch. Also talked about a series of AI-related lectures at the Avenidas senior center and agreed that somebody from our group should attend to see if we wanted the same speaker to come to CH.

Later in the day I did a run-through of the songs that I might perform if at some point I decided to do a solo concert. They come to just over an hour, which is a bit too long. But I sounded good to myself.

Had dinner with Peter who wanted to talk about using an AI to generate a specific kind of image, and also Edie and Bob, which made a pleasant table.

Thursday 02/20/2025

I wanted to go to FOPAL for one little thing, but have no car. Joanne had urged me to use her Subaru and I did, for that short trip. With that done and the car back where it belonged, I had an uncommitted day ahead.

The day was uncommitted because I had planned to spend it across the Bay at Shustek doing artifact work. However I have decided to give that up. I’ve been meaning to cut back on my volunteer workload, but not sure exactly where to cut.

Yesterday, I realized that I couldn’t go to Shustek because the Prius is still at the dealer being de-rodentized. (No progress report today, either; must call tomorrow.) When I said this aloud, Joanne had said, well, you can use my car. I guess I drove it well enough Sunday night that she trusts me, but I demurred. Not wanting to impose, not wanting to be responsible for somebody else’s car for a whole day. But then, thinking it over, I realized that, at that exact moment when it occurred to me I couldn’t go to Shustek, my immediate reaction had been: relief — I was glad not to have to go.

And that answered the question of, where to cut back my volunteer stuff. I could cut out the weekly day of artifact work. I would get basically an extra day a week, what a gift! I’ll continue being a docent, which is much less of a time-suck. Well, it’s three hours per tour: changing to my red shirt, driving to CHM, giving the tour, coming back.

So today was an unplanned day, except for an hour going down to FOPAL and back. I spent most of it reading. Took a short walk before supper, during which I saw a Waymo (driverless) car cruising a local street. They are supposed to be extending their service to this area, and this car would have been on a test run.

Wednesday 02/19/2025

I didn’t take a morning walk because one was scheduled for later in the day. I got a request from Peter to edit down a documentary so he could use a segment of it in a lecture he is sponsoring next Monday. So I did that.

Then Bert sent an email to the AV list pointing out that the 11th floor lecternette had been damaged. So I decided to fix it. The lecternette is a PA system on a rolling steel cart. At some point a decorative board had been fixed to the front side of the cart to conceal a mess of wires. This board had originally been attached with double-sided tape, which had dried out over the past probably 15 years or so. Then somebody had done a piss-poor job of attaching the board with screws, and it was falling off. So I mounted it properly, which meant using my power drill and a tape measure and some screws I got from the hobby shop on the fifth floor.

All that killed the time until lunch. After, at 1 was the monthly FOPAL volunteer zoom. I was interested because the one and only paid staff, Janette, who has held the place together as long as I’ve been around and before, is retiring, and I wanted to hear how the FOPAL board was doing on recruiting a replacement. Answer, not much; they haven’t finalized a job description yet.

At 1:30 I joined Joanne in the lobby; she had organized a walk. We were joined by The Other Joanne and her partner Erika, and we went for a 4 mile walk in the Arastradero Preserve. Back around 4. Then at 5 I joined Lou and Alice who had invited me to drinks at their place and then dinner. Peter was invited also, and the four of us socialized nicely through dinner.

There was an interesting talk at 7:30 by Vishal Subramanyan, a young nature photographer who recently gained fame for getting the first photograph of a rare animal, the Mount Lyell Shrew. He gave a great slide presentation of his pictures of bobcats, mountain lions, horned owls and other animals, all shot live in the wild.