Tuesday 06/18/2024

Looked ahead at a full day so begged off the writers group for once. I had nothing anyway, the topic was “Envy” and I couldn’t come up with anything.

Had breakfast in the dining room for the first time in forever, and then headed off to FOPAL, getting there at 9:30. What with one thing and another, I worked nonstop until 12:30.

Stopped at the grocery store for a power bar and got home just in time for my 1pm appointment with a resident for a tech squad call. A 2017 iMac that runs veeeeerrrryyyy sloooooooowly. Like 5 minutes to reboot, another 5 minutes before the Safari browser comes up. I’ve seen this before. I don’t know the exact cause but I strongly suspect soft (recoverable) disk errors. Owner did not have a backup drive. I strongly urged getting one, showed her the amazon page for a Seagate 2TB USB drive. Also showed her how to order a new iMac because why not. She has a relative who works at Apple so will get a discount. I said when she got a new one, give me the old one. I will run do a deep multipass erase of the HD and reinstall an OS, and I bet it will be all snappy again. She can donate it to our gift shop.

That brought me to time to meet with Kay and rehearse our performance for the birthday dinner tomorrow night. I’ve only played these 3 songs like 50 to 100 times each and yet I kept making mistakes. Ugh.

Then spent an hour at the SFJazz website. Today was the day that next season’s tix went on sale to members. I picked out 5 concerts to go to, starting in September.

That was the excitement for the day.

Monday 06/17/2024

Took the standard walk this morning and it felt fine. Hip and right leg thigh muscles at 98% of normal. Hopefully that episode is over. (Yah, right.)

The Event Coordinators meeting was a little interesting. Going over the calendar revealed that I had personally booked and scheduled an outside band (the Keller Sisters, see day 5.168). This caused some angst with another resident who considers herself the person who books outside entertainment. Fortunately nobody else in the committee was bothered by my boldness.

After lunch I drove down to Los Altos for my annual exam, excuse me, Medicare Wellness exam. Dr. Marx was as nice and pleasant as ever. We talked about my various problems, but nothing to do about them. My lab work looks ok.

Back in time for Rhonda’s monthly open meeting. This was the one where as promised she presented the financial results of the package of changes that they made in the dining services four months ago. Which were not impressive. Any savings pretty well washed out by inflation. So a couple of restrictions that had been added, were loosened, to applause.

Sunday 06/16/2024

Nothing exciting happened today. Although I will say that sleeping with a pillow between my knees may have given me less hip pain in the night. So there’s that. Otherwise, a quiet Father’s day. Nice holiday lunch with fancy menu.

In the afternoon I spent an hour with gemini.google.com producing material for the novel: media reactions to an impending alien ship arrival. Got it to emulate Fox news, Rachel Maddow, Neal deGrasse Tyson, etc. Which it did very well.

Supper was a sack sandwich with only two other people in the floor dining room — many people were away with relatives. Benefit of having kids.

Saturday 06/15/2024

Walked around the Saturday (downtown) farmers market, bought a few apricots and cherries. Then at 10am into a store with bedding, I forget which (Scandia?) and bought an outrageously expensive down pillow. Now I have two pillows, and can try Scott’s recommendation for hip pain.

Evening, I and Joanne went to the Bus Barn to see their production of Young Frankenstein, the musical. It was a very silly play but very well produced and the singers and dancers were good. On the way home, Joanne looked up the movie. Without looking, what year do you think you saw Young Frankenstein, the movie produced by Mel Brooks, starring Gene Wilder and Madeleine Kahn, with Marty Feldman as Igor? Doesn’t seem so long ago, does it?

Nineteen fucking Seventy Four, people. Fifty goddam years ago.

And once again the Bus Barn has a 2:30 show starting at 8pm. Going to bed now.

Friday 06/14/2024

In the morning, I took the standard walk. Although I still have a little sensation in the right hip, my gait is nearly back to normal and I completed the walk fine. The big event of the day was a musical performance during the TGIF party. I believe I’ve mentioned our custom of monthly TGIF parties, each one hosted by a different floor in turn. This month was the 9th floor’s turn. The current “floor representative” — an elected position, organizes floor activities — for the 9th floor is Mary Robell, and as part of organizing the 9th floor’s TGIF she wanted to do something musical. She asked me to perform a duet with her, as I’ve mentioned, “An Old Fashioned Wedding” from Annie Get Your Gun. I’ve been rehearsing it for weeks now, alone and with her and today was finally the day. It came off ok.

Jerry obliged by taking a video of us. This is it — that link will be good for a month maybe, after that I’ll take it down.

Here as in other recent videos I’m seeing increased signs of aging. I’m really getting that “old codger” look now, much more noticeably than, say, 2019. Oh well. So it goes.

So as planned I took off shortly after that and had no trouble getting down to the Sunnyvale community center for a concert by Tom Rigney and Flambeau at 7pm. Excellent show. Glad I went. Back home by 9:30, too. Us old codgers need our sleep.

Thursday 06/13/2024

No breakfast, off to PAMF for a blood draw at 9am. Must have been 15 people in the lab waiting area. But because I had made an appointment using their app, my name was called after only a minute. Sorry, suckers.

Then down to University avenue for a cup and a cake, and to CVS to buy a mucus reducer (guafenesin) which I hope will help keep my throat clear prior to my singing performance tomorrow, when I sing a duet with Mary R. at the TGIF party. I have to hit B3, the B below middle C. Sometimes when I try, it comes out a rich vibrant note, and sometimes a squawk, depending on how clear my throat is. So I took one 1200mg timed-release guafenesin and have to say I didn’t notice any more or less mucus in my throat through the day. Well, worth a try.

Then I drove down to the Sunnyvale community center, just to see where it was and where the parking was. I have a ticket to a concert there for 7pm tomorrow night. So tomorrow’s timeline is, 4pm, rehearse one last time with Mary; 4:45pm perform with Mary; 5-5:30pm eat snacks and chat with my neighbors at the TGIF; 6pm get in the car and drive to Sunnyvale for the concert. So I wanted to know the route and where to park, as the timing may be tight.

Back to CH, quick lunch, change into my red shirt and slacks, and off to the museum to lead a tour. This was a private tour for the employees of a financial firm, mostly 20-somethings I would judge. They were nice.

Back home at 4, change clothes again, and at 5:30 join a friend, Joanne, for a walk to a local restaurant. This was a very pleasant outing.

Wednesday 06/12/2024

Laundry day. Also took care of some shit. Scheduled myself for some blood tests in advance of my physical next week. Tidied away a lot of various things that had accumulated on my coffee table. Went out and bought a few things, including a new plant. Potted same plant. Bought some wine because tonight is the 6th floor monthly meeting and dinner, and I haven’t brought wine to dinner for months. Then I sat a table four 4 with Craig and Diane and Sophia, and Craig had brought two half-full bottles of wine, so it ended up I was the only one drank any of my wine. Which was a good thing because it turned out to be not very good. Bad choice on my part. I dumped the rest of the bottle after supper.

Tuesday 06/11/2024

For the writers group assignment “write about a toy or book from your childhood” I wrote about the “Freddy” series of books by Walter Brooks, starting with Freddy Goes to Florida. I wanted to write about the only toy that comes to mind, which was a Space Patrol ray-gun that was part flashlight, but I couldn’t find any online pictures that matched my recollection, and anyway what’s to say about it if I can’t really remember how it looked? But I took a look at a few pages of Freddy Goes to Florida online and was amazed by the quality of the writing.

Monday 06/10/2024

Time for the Resident Association meeting. This one was significant in that Rhonda’s part was quite lengthy. Looking back I see I didn’t even mention the focus group meeting on wednesday 6/5. This all dates back to last year when an outside firm ran a satisfaction survey, the same survey used at a number of other senior residences. CH came in low on several points, where our low was like 85% happy, compared to other facilities taking the same test that were 89% or 92%. Not huge differences, but apparently the Board had said, we need to look better on the next survey. Or maybe Rhonda, who is a noted figure in Leading Age, the trade association of elder facilities, doesn’t like scoring lower than her peers.

Over the prior two weeks staff have been running small-group focus groups to discuss the areas where CH didn’t do as well as others. The one that I participated in was about the low score in “communicates clearly with residents” or some such question. We talked about just doing frequent feedback, returning to issues that have been queried before even when there is no real progress to report.

Today when we got to the Staff Input part of the agenda, Rhonda spent 20 minutes going over all sorts of pending projects, what has been done, or why we are waiting on permits or for agencies to respond, etc. It was actually quite interesting and definitely an improvement in communications.

From there to FOPAL for the post-sale triage, eliminating the books that have not sold in 4 sale weekends. And processing another box of donations.

At 3:45 I met with Kay and we practiced for the birthday dinner. This is a bi-monthly event where people with birthdays in those 2 months sit together in Quad 4 of the dining room, and customarily there is a short (10-15minute) musical performance. In the past that has been classical with Kay on flute and John on piano. But next time it will be me on guitar with Kay on flute backing. We sounded pretty good.

Sunday 06/09/2024

Usual Sunday morning. Then drove down to FOPAL at 9 and tidied up my section, rearranging and neatening books. People make such a mess while shopping. Also I think there are some volunteers who go around after the Saturday sale hours are over, and they try to make the shelves look attractive. However they pay no attention to my careful organization of shelves by topics, and just distribute books by color and size to fill the shelves. Anyway, I put it all to rights in about 5 minutes, then drove to the California Ave market. No interesting musicians this time, but score! I found one vendor selling Blenheim apricots. They are so rare. I bought a pound and a half. That’s what I had for lunch later, about 6 apricots. So good. Hopefully I can get them all eaten before they mildew.

Practiced some music. Went for a medium walk (2.5 miles for the day). Had dinner with neighbors in the dining room.