Today is the weekly CH Writers’ group, a lengthy Zoom meeting at 11. I’m not enthusiastic about what I wrote, but whatever. Maybe I won’t read it.
I was thinking this morning: as we come out of quarantining (late this year or early next), what changes will there be in popular opinions? There are so many customary things we are not doing right now, and we are getting along without them just fine. Afterward, when those options are open again, how many will we just not bother with?
I think grocery shopping will come back with a bang. People are going to so savor the experience of wandering the aisles of a grocery store at leisure they’ll do it more than ever. Instacart et. al. should be planning now for a precipitous drop-off in business. Bank the cash now, kids, because lean times will be coming.
Restaurants will come back strong, also. Bars, too, I imagine, though I don’t frequent any. I miss the experience of eating out and I’m sure lots of other people do as well. So Doordash and Uber Eats will fall off a cliff. Another business that will come back fast is nursery outlets. Gardeners are suffering right now because they can’t go browse the perennials and bedding plants, and as soon as they can, they will.
I think that online ordering of everything else, however, will remain high. All the people who never, or rarely, ordered stuff online, are now finding that eBay and Amazon and all the other outlets are so easy, so convenient, so responsive. You realize you need something, and instead of adding it to an errand list for getting tomorrow, you just reach for your computer and in a minute that item is on its way to you, no further thought.
Did the morning cardio session by zoom. Veronica was pleased we had 3 people for this 7:15am meeting. Did some coding. Took a walk. That was about it.
Went for a run. Was on the street by 7:20 and felt great all the way.
Rest of the day was pretty much standard: some coding, some writing. The writing was for tomorrow’s writer’s group meeting. The cue this time was, review some cultural experience you’ve had in the past two weeks. So I wrote a review of a fantasy novel I’d just read. That’s it. Here’s my fuschias on my spiral plantstand on my balcony.
So I’ve been tracking my weight and it’s creeping up, I’ve gained a couple pounds in a month. Not a catastrophe, still juuuust under 175. I used to weigh in the high 180s for years, although I didn’t weigh myself very often. Then in the middle of 2018, I discovered I was down to 175, a full 10 pound drop, which was verified when I had a physical in early 2019, and the doctor commented on it. That was probably due to stress, dealing with Marian’s illness. I certainly changed my eating habits drastically while she spent weeks in the hospital; and when she was back home, and we were back to our usual meal schedule, we both ate more lightly than we had in healthier times.
I’ve been pleased that I kept to that 172-174 range since. I was under a fair amount of stress still, in the transition year of 2019, and as I noted in this blog then, eating adequately but very minimally. But now, for going on 10 months I’ve been settled in comfortable circumstances, with no stress and regular food service on tap three times a day. And I still hung in that range — until the last couple of weeks. What up, body?
Actually it took only a very few seconds of thought to realize what up. Or down, rather. Since early 2019, I have been spending about 6-10 hours a week at FOPAL, much of it on my feet, often carrying boxes of books. And I’ve been spending about 6 hours a week at the CHM warehouse, mostly on my feet. And typically 2-3 hours a week at the museum, giving tours. Call it 15-20 hours a week of light exercise. Now? Maybe four, one-hour walks a week, so my exercise is down by 11-16 hours a week.
That’s a fair number of calories that I have not been burning for the last month. Really, the only surprise is that I haven’t gained more and faster. Light exercise burns 250-300 calories an hour. To compensate for my lost volunteer work I need to reduce my intake by, roughly, 250*15~=4000 calories per week. Divide by 7, call it, oh, at least 500/day less intake.
I’ve already put in my weekly menu request for the next seven days. I’d like to get it back so I could X-out all the desserts that I left in. I had already canceled breakfasts, having instead a 400-calorie low-carb shake. “For the duration” I must eat only the protein serving and the salads in the house dinners and lunches. Also the veg, when it is not (a) overcooked or (b) carrots. (Our kitchen loves carrots.) Skip the rice, potatoes, other carbs. And the desserts, dammit. Well, their desserts are not that wonderful. I can deal.
So, at supper, I dumped the dessert, which was some kind of blueberry pudding and really not appetizing anyway. Also the veg, which was overcooked.
Today was gardening day, i.e. the day for watering the plants. I have fuschias! Two of the plants I bought the last time I was able to go to the nursery are fuschias, of quite different looks. Both of them started blooming this week and very prettily.
A couple of weeks ago I took some cuttings from one of the old wax plants and put them in water, hoping for roots. They’ve stayed green, but no roots. Oh, well. Today I potted them anyway. Somebody gave me a nice-looking hanging pot; it hangs nicely from my spiral plant-stand. I thought I’d use that. Then I noticed that it looks nice but it has no drain hole. That’s not acceptable; what to do? I remembered that in my drill kit, I have a small masonry bit. So I took the pot down to the storage unit in the basement, hauled out the drill, and started drilling. I wasn’t sure the pot wouldn’t shatter, but if so, eh. But it didn’t; the bit went right through it in three places with hardly a chip. So, drain holes.
Back upstairs, load it with potting soil, stick in the cuttings, water, hang. Good luck, wax plants. We’ll see.
Did some programming which was fun. The interpreter code that I’m translating is in Java, a very verbose language. I was delighted to translate a many-line function into a slick recursive one-liner. Shades of APL days.
So friend Joanne has read the novel and besides spotting a typo, says it needs more action. Guess what the one other beta reader who has responded said? That was 14yo Shivam, who said, needs more stuff happening. But he liked the ending. Dear goodness, the chapters are short and there’s something happening in each one of them. Gotta amp it up somehow.
Did some coding on Crafting Interpreters, brought it to section 8.2, it executes expressions and the print statement. Next, adding variables.
For variety I turned to another ongoing project, learning better to use Affinity Photo, the app I chose to replace Photoshop. Went through a tutorial chapter.
Did some reading. I have downloaded several free (Kindle Unlimited) books and am reading through them alternately. Except yesterday, Craig posted to the house bulletin board about the pleasure of re-reading classics, and mentioned John Buchan. That reminded me of The Thirty-Nine Steps. I read that when I was quite young and enjoyed it. In more recent decades I’ve seen the Hitchcock movie (I think on PBS?) and also attended the theatrical version, I think at the Hillbarn theater? Anyway, 30 seconds on the keyboard and I had a copy from Gutenberg.org. So I read the first third of that today.
Meanwhile I was exchanging emails with Prudence who wants to replace a failing MacBook, about whether to buy a refurb or a new Air. It’s a tough decision.
Chatted with Dennis. Got an email from Laurel. A long-time friend of hers has died of Covid-related illness. Two days ago I mailed Laurel a check for some tiding-over money. Clearly she hadn’t received it, so I answered, asking if she’d checked her PO box lately? She wrote back, “why?” and I didn’t answer.
The little green tin of Bag Balm arrived. It definitely makes the backs of my hands less dry, more flexible. And I smell like a veterinary’s office. But nobody smells me but me, so it doesn’t matter.
Oh my. The days are starting to run together. But I try to keep some structure. Today, as on Monday and Wednesday, I went for a run. About a block out, I began to feel that something was missing. Oh. My mask. I was out without a mask. I opted to keep going but kept well wide of the few other people I saw.
Spent a couple of hours moving into Chapter 9 of Crafting Interpreters, which entailed changing around everything I’d done in Chapter 7 and 8, to handle statements instead of expressions.
Took two (2) naps out of sheer boredom.
At Rhonda’s weekly phone meeting, the big news was that an employee had tested positive for the Covid. But however, that employee had for the last three weeks been on leave, quarantined at home, because one of their relatives had had symptoms. So they would likely not have been able to infect anyone here. Dodged a bullet there, we did. And hurray for the house policies that sends someone home for a possible contact; and hurray for the employee who admitted to the contact.
Had a zoom “cocktail party” with Betty and Jerry. And that was about it for the day.
Oh, my newspaper recycling basket came from etsy. As did my soap dispenser gel. So there are only two ordered items circling in the stratosphere waiting to land.
Oh my goodness, I forgot the really big news! For a couple of weeks I have been hoarding a diminishing supply of kleenex. Down to a little wad in each of two boxes. And of course they aren’t in the stores. Somebody ordered some in last week’s grocery order and none came. Well, I was putting the gel soap refill bottle away in the cupboard under my bathroom vanity and I found: two boxes of kleenex!! which I had bought weeks ago, stored, and forgotten about. Such a relief! I can blow my nose for at least another month.
First thing, I zoomed into Victoria’s 7am aerobics class, half an hour of stepping and reaching and stretching. This time, since I had a shirt on, I connected with video on. And one other person, Michelle, connected. This is a nice way to feel like I’ve had some exercise. Since I usually am up by 6:15, I’ve had my coffee and read the paper. Little exercise; shower; breakfast; boom.
Did a little coding. Then went out for a walk. After lunch, this being Thursday, my bag of clean linens arrived at my door. Although I did the cleanup on Tuesday, I got out the vacuum and the swiffer and did a once-over lightly, just to get into the rhythm, as Thursdays have been the traditional day for my unit to be cleaned. (Come back, Wanda!) Made the bed. Took the old sheets and towels down the hall.
Yesterday I did a little research googling and verified that I could (quite easily) transfer all the apps and data from my old phone to a new one, myself. So I’m thinking about ordering the SE, not waiting for the Apple stores to reopen. Today I talked to an online customer rep at the Apple store, to verify another point. Just about a year ago I turned in Marian’s iMac and some other stuff, and got Apple gift cards, which have been sitting on my desk since. I wanted to know, if I bought the new iPhone SE online, could I use one or more gift cards to pay? Assured I could. So now I’ll wait until it is actually available.
Piddled around doing other online stuff. That was pretty much the day. Oh, two different people called me up for mac help. I have got to find a way to stop that. I don’t want to be rude, and anyway if they call the tech line, Bert will likely refer the call to me. But still.
Went for a run; good. Then to business. I had received an email from Road Scholar saying that had credited me with $3242 for the canceled Swiss trip. But that trip was fully funded. The $3242 was the amount I had paid by check. There was another ~3000 that was paid via the credit for the canceled Greek trip of last September.
So I called them, and as usual their phone support was good. Justin found the records of the payments, said yes, the trip was fully paid for, but it’s “in two different places”, and I should get another email showing the additional credit.
That, and a little internet reading, brought me to 10am when I went down to the basement and took the car out for its weekly freedom ride. Was it Chuck Berry who sang “No particular place to go”? Why, yes it was! Thing about driving in the shutdown, there is literally no place to go. I had an hour-plus before they would close the garage doors. I thought to drive up Page Mill to Foothills park, where there’s a viewpoint looking North toward the City. On this very clear day, I thought I would probably be able to see all sorts of detail.
Alas, at the foot of the uphill part of the road was a warning sign, “Foothills Park Access Closed.” Oh, fudge. I settled for a quiet drive along Arastradero and down through Menlo Park. Lots of bicyclists out on a lovely day, cool yet sunny. Lots of California poppies along the road edge, only a little lupine yet. Almost makes me sorry I gave up biking. Almost, but not quite.
In the afternoon, some coding on Crafting Interpreters. Oh, and a package arrived. I was thinking this morning, I have five different items coming toward me:
Two cases of Sparkling Ice, the no-cal soda I drink,
A box of refills for my Frixion erasable pens; that one is apparently coming from Japan and has been in transit for a couple of weeks,
A woven basket to hold newspapers for recycling, that I ordered from a maker on Etsy,
A bottle of gel hand soap refill from Amazon,
A box of Bag Balm, because my hands are getting dry and scaly from all the washing; this was out of stock at the maker but I found a box on eBay.
I picture myself like some kind of wizard on a tower, commanding my flying monkeys to come to me from all corners of the compass. So this afternoon the Sparkling Ice came in, and I’m set for another 3 weeks on that at least.
In the morning I zoomed in to an aerobics session that Veronica, our recently hired fitness person, had scheduled for 7am. I was the only attendee at that Zoom meeting. I did not share my video because I was only wearing shorts. So poor Veronica led her class of one, represented as a black square with my name in it, through half an hour of aerobics, enough to get me sweating a bit. Next time I’ll put on a shirt and share my video.
At 9am I realized the CH Writer’s group was to meet at 11am, and I hadn’t written anything. The “cue” for the week was “illness” so I threw together something about my aortic valve replacement. It went over well, although some of the others had really interesting and well-written pieces, better than mine.
During the morning I tidied up the code I wrote and tested it. I had completed Chapter 6 of the Crafting Interpreters book. Later in the day and after supper I went back and added two features to it based on some extra-credit “challenges” at the end of the chapter.
Just after lunch there was a knock, one of the guys from facilities delivering my Swiffer and my vacuum! The vacuum was a bit of a disappointment; it’s just a Dust Devil hand vacuum with a long handle and a floor head extension. No carpet brush. But I set to work.
First I went around with a rag and dusted all the horizontal surfaces. Getting all the dust onto the floor, right? Then I moved all the furniture onto the carpets. I swept the hard floor, then swiffered (swiffed?) it. I used both sides of one of the wet pads, turning it solid gray. I probably should have changed pads halfway.
Then I moved all the furniture off the carpets and went to work with the vacuum. I did pick up a fair amount of stuff, so I guess the vacuum will do. This is its little filter cup after doing my two rooms.
It feels good to have that out of the way and have the tools to do it again next week.
Started with a run; felt good and strong. On return, emailed my neighbors to see if they wanted to do shopping this week. Then tried to get into the Road Scholar website. As before, it didn’t seem to complete the sign-in. However it occurred to me that the problem might be browser- or ad-blocker-related. So I tried in Safari, and bingo, logged in immediately.
Went to My Trips:Upcoming Trips and.. there are none. Aha, the Swiss trip has vanished? So I called their help line. “Jeff” (that’s probably his real name, he had a nice mid-america accent) said, yes, we haven’t gotten all the emails out, but that trip has been canceled. (Me quietly: yeah!)
We went over my options. Initially they were going to go through the trip protection insurance plan and refund money. I opted instead to leave the whole sum, which is about $6K, with Road Scholar as a credit, which I can use anytime in the next 3 years. I don’t need the money, and I’m doing a favor for the organization by letting them hold it. Of course I am also taking a risk: they might not survive. If they go belly-up, I probably will lose that sum. But I think they’ll pull through.
Later on, I spent several hours writing code for Crafting Interpreters. I clarified a couple of things I’d been very puzzled by. Tomorrow I get the fun of testing my code.
I was disappointed that my DIY vacuum was not delivered today. Tomorrow, I hope.
The Covid is still lagging: barely up to 2.4M cases, so the doubling time has stretched past ten days. On the other hand, Denmark has reopened their elementary schools. Thanks, Danes, for taking the point. Hope you don’t suffer too much, but I bet you will.
Late in the day I got a call from Grace. She’s one of a couple of people who call me direct with their computer problems. How do I politely tell them to call the tech support line first? In her case, I had to. She has gotten herself completely balled up trying to change her password with Sutter Health on her iPad, and also apparently uses some kind of Sutter Health (Palo Alto Medical Foundation) app on her iPhone and that’s wedged as well.
Now, I know I could probably resolve these problems quickly, if I could put my hands on her devices. But we are not supposed to do that. I was just talking about that with Craig and Bert yesterday. Yes it is probably perfectly safe to put on gloves and a mask and pick up the device and wipe it down and fix it and give it back — but we are not supposed to do that. However, house staff can do that, and specifically Vanessa, our new IT director, could. But Vanessa is up to her ears trying to on-board herself to our systems. So I persuaded Grace to put in a tech call, passing the buck to Bert.
However, I did score a major tech coup today. We had a call from a different person, Joan, who was unable to complete purchasing prescriptions from her health insurance, because she couldn’t see part of their web form on her screen. Bert and Craig both assumed the problem must have to do with her ancient Mac Mini, which apparently had been gifted to her by her son, complete with an old Windows USB keyboard. (Gee, thanks, son. Now, you fucking cheapskate, go buy your mom a $999 Macbook Air.)
To me this was clearly not a Mac problem but a browser issue. I guessed that she had deliberately or accidentally used command-plus to zoom the display in, and now the web page wouldn’t fit in the window, and she couldn’t figure out how to do a horizontal scroll to reach the “buy” button. I lectured Bert on the use of the zoom keys and how it was in the view menu too. And a while later, Bert sent along Joan’s grateful email, she had successfully zoomed the display out and could see it all now. Yay, me.
Yesterday I watered the air plants and today, one bloomed!
Back story: in 2015 Marian and I drove to Oregon for the SWBB games at Oregon and OSU. These basketball weekends always have a free day between games. For this open Saturday we decided to drive from Corvallis toward the coast, probably aiming for Newport. I can’t recall which of three possible routes we took; all involve narrow roads through forests, with occasional small towns.
Somewhere, Newport or one of the other small towns, we stumbled upon an arts and crafts fair, and among the vendors was a guy selling air plants. We bought one, a little ball of spiky curved leaves, and brought it home.
We set it on a windowsill, on a small green saucer that we had lying around. Every other time we watered the house-plants, we would dunk the air plant in a bowl of water to soak for 15 minutes; then put it back on its saucer for another two weeks. Over the years it has gotten slightly larger, so it now hangs over the edge of that saucer.
Once, probably in 2017, while I was watering the plant, I mis-handled it and one of its branches broke off. Rather than tossing it, I set the branch in its own little glass saucer next to the main plant.
Yesterday it was again time to water the air plants, and while dunking them, I noticed that the top leaves of the smaller one had turned a nice pink color. Oh dear, was it dying? It looked the same as always except for the color. This morning, only 24 hours later, the two-inch-tall plant has bloomed!
iPhone pic. I shot several with the Nikon and, to my surprise, this was the best.
Sister in law Jean responded to my email celebrating the blossom, saying that there is a separation between the pollen and the stamen, so clearly it is not meant to be self-fertilizing. But it’s unlikely that the right insect will come by, so perhaps I should take a toothpick and move some pollen from the anther to the stamen, and then I might get some kind of fruit. I will do that!
On Thursday I turned in my menu for the week and I carefully and obviously marked a big X through the breakfast choices and wrote “NO BREAKFAST”. I thought that menu started today. In fact, I’m sure; last week’s menu finished on Saturday, I remember that.
Nevertheless this morning a server rang my doorbell at the usual time and handed me the full default breakfast including oatmeal and coffee. Whuuut? I was momentarily unsure about the starting date so I took it. But we gonna have a problem if they come tomorrow. Problem was, I had already made for myself and eaten a delicious breakfast involving green grapes, bread, and peanut butter. So I had to toss most of this one.
Then for two hours I got domestic again. Watered the plants, and fussed over them a little. Got out the spray cleaner and rags I was given, and Cleaned The Bathroom. All the mirrors and counters, the shower doors (both sides) and all the walls and floor of the shower, and the toilet, and wiped down all the stuff that sits on the counter. Done. If I only had my DIY vacuum… I looked on Amazon and there are decent looking cordless vacuums around $120. I sent off a cheerful email to Kim asking if she could ballpark the arrival time of the vacuum. If she can’t, or if it’s weeks, I may just buy my own.
Lenny, who wants to help the tech squad, emailed that she’d like to try TeamViewer, so after lunch we coordinated on that. Her hangup was the extra part of the T.V. install where you have to go into System Settings and authorize it for two permissions. That was a problem with Maggie yesterday, too. I talked her through that and then I could control her computer, and then ended that session and she was able to set up and control my computer.
Later Craig forwarded a tech call from Randy, a 4th floor resident I met while living down there. He “can’t get any mail” on his Macbook. Craig says he is hopeless with tech stuff; Craig couldn’t help him; he has probably lost his PacBell password; and “his wife has given up on him”, technically only, I hope. Anyway I should feel free to pass on this help call. Without actually talking to Randy I can guess that somehow his Macbook has forgotten the login for the POP/IMAP server at PacBell. I was helping someone work through those settings the other day, too. On the Mac it is partly in System Settings: Internet Accounts, and partly in the Mail app’s preferences, and… not something I would want to try to talk someone through on the phone. But he’s not going to be able to manage the TeamViewer install, either.
So I called Craig back and asked if it was legit to have somebody hand over their machine, in a bag, and I could disinfect it and probably fix the problem. Craig thinks that’s not allowed for us residents. However, the staff can do it. We have a new IT person, Vanessa, just come on board, and he will talk to her. So I’m off the hook for that Mac problem.
I mentioned I’d written to Kim (communications/marketing) about the vacuums. She asked Victoria (housekeeping) who wrote to me this afternoon that they have the vacuums and will be delivering them starting tomorrow! Yay!
Then I moved all the furniture off the carpets and went to work with the vacuum. I did pick up a fair amount of stuff, so I guess the vacuum will do. This is its little filter cup after doing my two rooms.
