Friday 01/16/2026

Joined Joanne for our Friday morning walk. We get our gossip on, I learn all sorts of things about my neighbors.

Then I took a tech squad call to help Margaret get her printer to work. Easy.

Soon it was 11am and time for the monthly AI interest group meeting. Inconclusive talk; it always comes down to, what can we actually accomplish. Not a lot.

Then off to FOPAL to spend 3 hours trying to reduce that massive donation. I made some progress but there is much more to do.

Had dinner with Gloria, Jerry and Walt. Walt is hard of hearing (a little hard of thinking these days too). I was rather proud of myself for keeping the conversation going and him included.

Thursday 01/15/2026

Today the Car-Free group had scheduled an outing, to take the #21 bus that loads just across the street from us, down to Mitchell Park for a walk. I decided to go just because I thought it would be interesting to ride that bus one stop further than the group planned, and get off close to the FOPAL building.

The group as a whole were not used to riding the bus, and three had walkers. Stew and Lou, organizing, assured everybody it would be fine. The phone-savvy among us had the Transit app up, and could see the countdown for when our particular bus was coming. At 1 minute to go, it came around the corner right on time. The driver flipped out the ramp, making it easy for the walker users to get on, and off we went.

So at FOPAL I sat down with my computer and went to work on the massive wall of boxes. I spent four hours, 10 to 2, working, and made a visible dent. Then hopped the #21 going the other way to get back. Bus riding is easy for a senior these days, I just tap my senior Clipper card on the reader as I get on and it charges me $1.

I figure to go back, probably using the bus again, tomorrow afternoon and again Sunday.

Wednesday 01/14/2026

First thing today was a hike with Joanne and Martha. The plan was to walk the Dish, but our 9am departure was too late. There were no parking spaces within a mile of the trailhead. So we diverted to the Arastradero Preserve. My gout attack has faded out, and my feet felt fine. (3.5 miles for the day)

Lying in bed at 5am I realized a better way to work at FOPAL. The boxes of donated books are stacked in front of my section (see picture, 2 days back; there were 8 more boxes today). As taught me by the guy who had the section before me, I would go through them, pick out the books that looked saleable, put them on a cart, and trundle them to the opposite end of the building where I could sit at a computer and use a barcode scanner to quickly enter the ISBNs into bookfinder.com to get prices. Then I would bring them back to shelve them.

Well it dawned on me (5am, “dawned” heh heh) that I have a laptop and the scanners in the computer room have USB plugs. So I could steal a scanner, and do the pricing right there at my section. Check the value, mark a price on the flyleaf, and shelve the book all in one pass.

So I grabbed my laptop and went down there and tried this out and it did work. I don’t know how much time it actually saves, but it feels more efficient. I need to go back tomorrow and maybe Friday and Sunday to begin to catch up.

Sixth floor meeting at 4:30, fun, welcomed two new residents, Bob and Nancy, to our floor.

Tuesday 01/13/2026

Busy morning, tidying up for the housekeeper, and running over to CVS to pick up a prescription. But also wanted to write something because it has been over a month since I’v contributed to the writers group. The prompt was, “winter memories” and I had nothin’. But I called Dennis and he reminded me of hot rocks, which I hadn’t thought of in decades. So I wrote about that (see below).

Ran my two loads of laundry in between lunch, the housekeeper, and the line dance class at 1:30. After supper, Joanne came to my apartment and we watched the movie Train Dreams, which she had wanted to see. We agreed that it was beautiful and did a great job of recreating early 20th century logging and other period stuff. But there really wasn’t much story for the last half of the movie.

Hot Rocks

In the two-story farmhouse where I grew up, my parents’ bedroom was on the ground floor, but i slept on the second floor.
The ground floor was comfortably heated from multiple sources: the wood-fired range in the kitchen, an open fireplace at the far end of the living room, and, central to the ground floor and near the staircase, a large, handsome, enameled, wood-fired stove. (Chopping firewood and keeping wood boxes filled were my primary chores.)
The second story was heated, rather optimistically, by convection: warm air finding its way from the kitchen and living room stoves up the staircase.
Winters in Western Washington are characterized by endless, misty rainfall. Temperatures are not drastically cold; people would remark on it when the puddles had a skin of ice on a chilly morning. But it is consistently damp and chilly, and going to a chilly bedroom to climb into a chilly bed could be discouraging.
Hence: the hot rocks.
Our land was basically glacial till, the mix of rocks and sediments left by ice-age glaciers as they retreated back up the skirts of Mount Rainier. Which meant we had a plentiful supply of rocks, many stream-rounded. My father had collected 3 or 4 smooth ones, each about the size of a coconut and weighing 3 or 4 pounds. These rocks sat, during the day, on the flat top of the enameled wood stove in the living room. They got hot; not hot enough to burn but too hot to be held comfortably in the hands.
When it was time for bed, I would take a sheet of newspaper from the kindling box and wrap a rock thoroughly in the paper. I can still remember the scent of hot newsprint. I would cradle the rock in my arms and climb the stairs to my chilly bedroom, and shove it down between the sheets to the foot of the bed. I would hastily change to my PJs and climb in to the chilly sheets, and probe with my bare feet for that blistering-hot orb at the foot of the bed. It was deliciously warm.
The rock would stay hot long enough for me to fall asleep. Usually it would be a cool stony lump bumping my toes in the morning, but if I was active in my sleep, it would sometimes find its way to the edge of the bed and drop off onto the floor with a heavy thump. Either way, I would remember to bring it downstairs the next morning, back to its warming spot on the stove.

Monday 01/12/2026

Off to FOPAL first thing, as I needed to be back by 1pm. First Monday after the sale weekend, and I needed to scan all the books for ones that has seen three sales, and either send them to the bargain room or lower their price. This was made a bit difficult by what I found waiting.

That wall is twenty-one boxes of computer books. With, I’m told, more coming. I am sorry I don’t remember the guy’s name, anyway, he died in a car accident recently and his family is donating his collection which seems to be rather large. And of good quality, too, because I processed only four boxes today, and pulled out at least 20 books valued above $30 on Amazon, for our “high value” group to sell.

Back to CH and at 1pm joined the drama group in the auditorium to try out the new microphones I had found for them, and work on lighting arrangements.

Then to a different meeting at 2:30. This was the “transition” group, residents trying to think up ways to make residents of our new, satellite building, integrate into our “Channing House culture”. Or want to do that.

Some reading, some guitar, dinner, that was it.

Sunday 01/11/2025

Ankle gout much improved. Took an easy 2mi walk after breakfast with no problems.

Joanne and I met for a late lunch at 12:30. We won’t be having supper until 7:30 so we hit the Channing House Sunday Brunch layout hard. Then off to my room for a nap and to read.

At 3:45 we met at the garage and headed out for Oakland, to the Piedmont Piano Company on San Pablo (which is not in the Piedmont district, but whatever). Same place and same event as February 2025, a concert by pianists Stephanie Trick and Paolo Alderighi. I’ve been a fan of her for probably 15 years. It was an excellent concert.

The show wrapped up at 6:30 and we headed out to supper at a place that Joanne had booked, the Parkside Grille in Portola Valley. It’s been there a long time but I had never been in it. It was excellent also, comfortable, quiet, good service. We had some good, solid talk about “us” and what our relationship should be. We are in good agreement on all points.

Saturday 01/10/2026

Just a bunch of unrelated events strung out with periods of reading and naps.

At 9am I went to help Gloria install a printer. Gloria is not very bright for a retired economics professor. We had told her the tech wouldn’t install any more HP printers. They are too complicated and always cause problems.So she bought another HP printer. Then called me instead of calling tech squad. OK, that might have been smart of her. I have to work on my boundary-setting skills.

Anyway the printer installed quite smoothly, I was surprised. However she had not done her shopping carefully. The only way to load paper in this printer, is to drop it into the slanting rear paper feed. It doesn’t have a drawer underneath like many printers. When she figured that out she realized it would never work in the under-counter space she meant to keep it. Then when it was installed, I said, ok, what shall we print? And she picked a 3-page doc and said, print both sides. Um, sorry Gloria, this printer does not have auto-two-side printing. So she screwed up this purchase two ways and means to send the printer back or sell it. And I contributed an hour to a pointless installation.

Next up was a meeting with Jean who needed some coaching in use of iMovie. She is diligently working on learning to use iMovie so she can edit the videos of our lecture events, relieving me of that job. She’s getting there. But it’s amazing how people can use computers for decades and not know things.

Then lunch and at 1pm, I got a visit from a nurse practitioner. This was free perk of the IBM/United Healthcare insurance, an annual wellness check. Turns out I’m well. Lamp, key, flower. Those were the 3 words I had to remember. Making me as sane as El Presidente.

Friday 01/09/2026

Well, one foot, the right, developed “front ankle pain” and swelling along the top of the foot. It had actually started Tuesday night, and I exacerbated it with all the walking on Thursday.

Except for the location, the symptoms are of gout. I usually get gout in one or the other big toe. But a long time ago I absorbed the medical latin for the symptoms of gout (or any infection): rubor, dolor, tumor, calor. Redness, pain, swelling, heat. Dolor I’ve had right along. This morning I noticed the swelling. Tonight there is starting to be some color (it’s very handy, having two feet so you can compare them and see one is pinker (handy feet, he he)) and, putting a hand on the top of one foot and then the other, the calor is also there. So, presumptively, I have a gout attack in a new location. The “Talus” or the tendons overlying it.

So I did not join Joanne for our usual Friday morning “muffin run”. She insisted on bringing me the bread I would have bought at Trader Joe’s, had I been able to go.

I did walk, at 10:30, the quarter mile to the dentist for the dental hygiene I had to skip yesterday. Otherwise I had a quiet day, played the guitar a bit, read some. Went to the song-along at 7pm.

Thursday 01/08/2026

First thing was to walk up to the new doctors’ place for a blood draw. Appointment at 8am, so walking from 7:30, and no breakfast of course. Stopped at Starbucks on the way back.

No sooner back than, about 10, Joanne texts suggesting we go for a walk. So we do, across the creek to Cafe Zoe. And back.

I have a sandwich in my room and a short nap, and then decide to do a round of the machines in the gym. Not back from that very long when I get an email from Marcia about the lecternette (sound system) on the 11th floor, which she plans to use on Saturday. I decide to go check it out and I find that the power cord is not working. Or intermittent. I get some tools and take this cord, which is a 15-foot extension that was bodged into the system by some prior resident a decade ago, off, and take it to the shop on the 5th floor and take it apart. I expected to find a break where the cord comes out of the box, but no, eventually I prove that the intermittent open is in the molded plug. So the only answer is to go to the hardware store and buy another 15-foot 3 wire extension and replace the old cord. But the hardware store is a mile away. Other days I might walk. Today I’ve already got nearly 5 miles in, so no. I drive.

I finish the repair job about 5 and I am bushed. I take a can of beer and go down to the dining room and treat myself to a burger, fries and my beer.

5.4 miles, 12,800 steps. And a gym round. I think maybe I go to bed early.

Wednesday 01/07/2026

Started out for a 9am dental hygiene appointment. And of course they asked, did you take your pre-med? I’m supposed to take an antibiotic before any dental procedure, to avoid the chance of mouth bacteria getting into my blood and colonizing my artificial aortic valve. Which apparently is a thing. And I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. And I even mentioned that while going over my meds with Dr. Chu yesterday. So had I taken the amoxi this morning? Of fucking course not. So they can’t do the thing.

I rescheduled for Friday.

Then I was able to go for a stroll with Joanne, up to Whole Foods. Last week I had ordered this little amplifier from Amazon, and when I tested it I found that it added a reverb or echo to the mic input, and no way to turn it off. So I wanted to return it, and Whole Foods (now an Amazon company) has an Amazon return desk. So we walked up there.

Unfortunately when I got the return authorization from the Amazon website, it had only offered returns at Kohl’s. And the young man at Whole Foods was apologetic but no, even though I had this official return QR code, it would only be good at Kohl’s. So we had a walk for nothing but the company.

Then I hopped in the car and drove to Kohl’s in Redwood City. I had never before in my life been in a Kohl’s. It looks like another version of Target. But they did have an Amazon return desk and they took my package no problem. So that worked.

Later I had a good hour of music practice, and read some more in my boring books.

After supper I was supposed, I thought, to set up the auditorium for a lecture. The lecture was in the monthly calendar and in the AV calendar, but it had not appeared in the daily calendar that is displayed all over the place, which was odd. But I set up the auditorium and finally about 7pm got hold of Mickie, who was the sponsor of the talk, who was very apologetic, very sorry that I hadn’t gotten the word that the lecture was canceled. So, A, we could have gone to Hamnet tonight instead of Tuesday, and B, I didn’t need to set up the auditorium. Now I shut it down.