Tuesday 03/05/2024

Wrote something last-minute for the writers group. The topic was “independence”. I remembered when I tried a solo bike tour, back in ’97, with mixed success. What I actually learned about myself then was, that I didn’t enjoy travel for its own sake. All my enjoyment of travel came from sharing the experience with someone else. By myself, I didn’t care. So I wrote about that, cribbing from my old bike ride report.

Then to FOPAL to finalize my shelves for the upcoming sale. And back to practice guitar. That was about it.

Monday 03/04/2024

It was spritzing rain outside and anyway I needed to be in the auditorium before 10, so instead of the usual walk I went down to the gym and did 2 miles on the treadmill. Then to the auditorium to run the First Monday Book Talk. This featured Vickie Rozell (her family was very distantly related to the famous Pete Rozell) talking about publishing her father’s memoir. It was partly about her father’s childhood growing up in a semi-rural Compton CA, but more about the process of self-publishing a book. She wanted to encourage us oldsters to do that, self-publish our memories.

Then lunch with the speaker and some others, mostly from the Drama Group (see last week). They were interested because Vickie’s day job is with regional theaters, she both directs plays and teaches theatrical directing. So lots of chat about local theater.

After lunch I sat with Lynne and her ukulele and my guitar and tried to play some songs together. She wants to do that, reminiscing about how she used to have a ukulele group who would meet at various homes and play together “but they all died on me.” Anyway we have an idea of what we could perform together at the May concert.

Sunday 03/03/2024

An uncommitted day, oh my. Didn’t do much at all. Left the building to spend an hour at FOPAL. This is the week before the monthly sale, so I did a bit of work to prep my section. I’ll go back again on Tuesday I think.

Practiced guitar for an hour. Generally lounged around otherwise.

Saturday 03/02/2024

Started the day by going out for coffee with Lennie. This was by arrangement; I wanted her insight on dealing with the staff on the issue of the music practice room. That is a project that has been stalled for a year and I couldn’t get any info from the staff person in charge, who is a perfect example of a petty bureaucrat. Lennie was sympathetic and, as president of the Resident Association, had some insights into the workings of the staff. Anyway I like her company and it was a nice coffee outing.

After lunch I went off to the Museum to lead the 2pm tour. That went well, a big crowd at the start that thinned down to about 20 at the end.

I was feeling lonely so I called Edie and she was able to join me for supper and one-on-one chatting which was very nice.

Friday 03/01/2024

After the flurry of activity — I ran five (5) AV events in 4 days, six if you count chairing the committee meeting — Friday was completely uncommitted, which when I looked at the Google calendar earlier in the week, pleased me a lot. The empty day looked like a nice soft pillow where I could lay my head at the end of a busy week. Except when I thought of it as time to catch up on all the things I had put off.

Notably taxes. I’d put off filling in the tax man’s workbook until after all the 1099’s were in, but they were in now. So there was that. Plus, there was the video recording of the drama group performance that needed to be edited and put up on Vimeo. While I was working on that I got a polite email from Dave T. who organized the Tax Planning event of Tuesday, wondering when the video of that would be available. Oh shit, I had completely forgotten that. And there was the suggestion from the AV meeting, that we put the Green Room key in a key box at the AV desk.

Well I got all those things done. Drama video. Tax video. Walked to Ace Hardware and bought a magnetic key safe. And did about the first half of the tax workbook. Plus a half hour of guitar practice.

The monthly Channing House newsletter is out and the cover article, by Peter, is about the AV committee. He did a nice job, finding the history of volunteer AV back 20+ years. Anyway a picture of me is on the front page.

Thursday 02/29/2024

Took a standard walk first thing. One, because I didn’t get one yesterday, and two, because they were doing the annual fire alarm test, and the fire alarm warning horns and flashing strobe lights would be on for half an hour from 9am, while they verified that strobes and horns worked in every apartment, so better to be out walking at this time.

Then I spent some time organizing info for the AV team meeting at 2pm. There have been some problems where the Zoom link for events, posted in the daily calendar email, have not worked when clicked upon. Researching the causes was a deep rabbit hole but worth going over. Another issue was the Green Room key. This is a room behind the stage, nominally for performers to prepare or wait for cues, but also partly turned into a storage hoard by the gift shop volunteers, well, that’s another argument. But it is kept locked. I have a key, but there’s a key kept at the front desk that anyone can borrow.

Two excellent ideas turned up in the meeting, both from Alice. One, let’s have one of those magnetic key safes with a Green Room key attached to the AV desk. Two, there’s an easy safety net when a zoom link doesn’t work. Just go to zoom.us/join and type in the numerical meeting ID. No need to manually start the zoom app or anything. I will push for this to be added to the bottom line of every daily calendar.

In the evening I experimented with videoing myself playing and singing. Needs work — it was out of focus, as a photographer I’m embarrassed — but will be useful as a way to work on my performance. I can stand to watch myself; I have a pretty good stage presence and demeanor, and sing on key most notes. Need much more rehearsal.

Wednesday 02/28/2024

Today was the big day for the drama workshop group. They performed their package of one-act plays twice, once at 10am, to an audience of about 40, mostly AL people from the Lee center; and then again at 7:30 to a packed house, at least 75. They did pretty well, got some laughs, generally a good time was had by all.

The AV side of it was complex, they were using all 4 wireless mics and two hand-helds, plus a stage light setup, plus I had to hit the blackout button on cue at the end of each scene. Plus I recorded both performances using our camera, which meant trying to frame the action and follow actors as they moved around.

I was nicely thanked by all and sundry so that was nice.

Tuesday 02/27/2024

At 8:30 I went down and set up the auditorium for an event that was to start at 10. This was tax planning presentation sponsored by the Heritage Circle. As an event it came off very smoothly, about 45 people in the room and 18 more on zoom. No tech glitches whatever, pat pat pat.

The content wasn’t of direct use to me, although I learned a few things. I had not heard of Charitable Remainder Trusts before, for example. Handy for people who are older, living in a home that has appreciated a lot. Some other useful pointers but nothing I could use immediately.

So, lunch. Sat with Lynne and we strategized about how we would perform in the spring concert. Probably going back to my original performance plan, not sharing the stage with her.

Down to FOPAL for a 2:30 session of computer book pricing. Back for supper, and at 6:30 back to the auditorium, this time to support a woman who is giving a book talk next week and wanted to rehearse, and wasn’t free in the daytime. So Gigi, who organizes the book talks, said sure, come on over at 7pm and rehearse. It was a useful rehearsal, working out how to show everything she wanted to show on the screen.

Monday 02/26/2024

I took my standard walk and felt fine. Did some music practice. Then I went down for an early lunch and from that, went to the auditorium to warm the system up for the drama group, who plan a full tech rehearsal of their upcoming show — last rehearsed like two months ago. There’s a lot of setting up. They use all four wireless mics plus 2 hand-held ones. And they want a video recording, so I have to manage the camera during the skits. So that dragged on until after 3pm. Then I went up to my room and edited the video clips, breakout out separate videos for each of the 5 skits in the show. And sending dropbox links to the actors.

Had a very pleasant supper with the Allens and Dr. Margaret. She probably wouldn’t mind me calling her a salty old broad. Anyway, fun.

Sunday 02/25/2024

Usual Sunday morning. This time of year, the plants take very little water; watering everything took about 3 minutes. Did some music practice. Then it was time to depart for the SWBB game. The carpool was reduced to one person, me. Patty went to the Symphony in SF instead; David G rode his bike, Martha likes to walk to day games. So I drove alone.

I had already made up my mind — I’ve been saying this for months — that this would be my last season, I won’t renew my season ticket next fall. But this was the final home game of the season, so it was the last time I’ll sit in that seat that I’ve occupied for, oh, I don’t know — 20 years? Probably that long, or nearly. At the end of the first quarter I was sure; I really just don’t care, I don’t feel any emotional investment in the team or the program or the venue. So I told Nancy Sabbag, who has been sitting next to me for most of that time, that I wouldn’t be back.

Then, at half time, I got up and just didn’t go back. I felt pretty emotional about it, but also sure. Later in the afternoon I drove to an auto parts store and bought a plain chrome license plate frame. Our car since about 2015 has worn a rear license plate frame that has “Stanford Women’s Basketball” on it. I removed it and replaced it with the plain frame. I kept the old one; I couldn’t stand the idea of dropping it in the recycle. I put it with other historical memorabilia in the history file in the closet.

Later on I had a very productive music practice session. I almost have “Puff” to a state where I can perform it without embarrassing fluffs. And I just kill on Seeger’s “My Get Up and Go”.

At supper time I sat with Patty and Mildred and Miriam, and I told them about basketball and Patty had some strong feelings about my dropping out of the carpool and not sharing games with her and others.