Friday 10/25/2024

Today I spent some time fiddling with a PC. After I told Mary Beth, who runs the gift shop, about how Romie’s iMac was ready to sell, she mentioned that another resident, Dennis, had a Dell laptop to give away. So I went and got it, and decided the best use of it was to install Ubuntu Linux on it. I had to fiddle around a bit to make it work, including a rather arcane bit of tech to make the internal audio speakers work. I searched the internet for “Dell Ubuntu internal speakers don’t work” and got many hits, finally finding one that explained how to add two lines to a certain configuration file. This is not something the average user would know how to do — use the gedit editor in supervisor mode to edit a config file 3 levels deep in /etc. But I did, and when I rebooted, voila, the speakers worked perfectly. Anyway, there’s a nice laptop for someone, probably an employee, to buy for a kid to use.

My dinner tonight was at the “Webster Street Grill”, a special fancy dinner that our dining services stages every month or so. You pay extra for it. David G and his wife Helen had assembled a party for this and invited me. This was a six-course meal, the chef getting to show his stuff. It was pretty good, not every dish was four-star but not bad.

I had to leave a bit early; I had promised Sandy that I would check in with her in the auditorium as she was running a jazz concert. She didn’t actually need any help but appreciated the reassurance I guess. There were two musicians. Terrigal Burn on piano and Tamara Dunn singing. He’s mostly a musician; she has a day job, professor of immunology at Stanford.

Mr. Burn didn’t make a friend of me for sure. He didn’t arrive until 7pm (for a 7:30 show) and came with a cart full of his own audio equipment that he proceeded to put together, except he needed more power outlets, oh wait this will do, fuss fuss fuss. Tamara didn’t arrive until 7:15, so no time to do a proper sound check. And Mr. Burn then spends 2 minutes talking to the audience without a mic, until he notices that people are yelling “can’t hear!”. And she didn’t stay close to her mic, wandered around so her volume varied. Amateurs. Still, they were both quite talented and the music was nice, what you could hear.

Thursday 10/24/2024

Took the standard walk in the morning, since I didn’t yesterday. Then went to the 11th floor and inspected the “mechanical room” there, where it is proposed we might keep a mobile tv. There is space, but there are several drawbacks that would have to be corrected. I took some pictures and wrote a judiciously-phrased email with pictures, to the relevant staff members.

I finished upgrading Romie’s iMac, wrote a sale info sheet for it, and messaged Mary Beth who runs the gift shop about it. She hadn’t answered by the end of the day. In fact, people not answering my mail is beginning to bug me. I wrote to Connie, who I think of as a writing peer and a friend, three days ago asking her to review an essay I wrote on the “pledge of release” idea. She hasn’t answered, nor answered my polite note that I sent this morning. Something is not right.

Did some reading for once, two long New Yorker articles that Joanne had xeroxed for me.

Went out at supper time and walked around California avenue instead of eating here.

Wednesday 10/23/2024

First thing today was by prearrangement, I met with Romie to install her new iMac, replacing an old iMac that had gotten just soooo slooooow. Set it up and started it loading from the old backup drive. Then went to an 11am meeting with Rhonda, Gerald, and Bert to discuss AV requests for the next cycle of Heritage Circle grants. This got a little contentious, first because two of the grant requests turned out to be under $2K and Rhonda doesn’t think HC grants should be so small, they can be funded from the Gift Shop. And the other request is Bert’s idea of a “video wall” to supplement the projection screen in the auditorium. He’s been fascinated by video wall tech for a couple of years, and I think there’s nothing in it to benefit us at all. In the end, Rhonda punted to us, asking the AV team to come up with some firm recommendations. End of meeting.

At 1:30 I met with a lady from the Youth Community Services and handed over the old guitar to be a donation.

At 4:55, David M called from the auditorium where he was setting up for the evening lecture. No audio coming out of the system. I had no clue, I said, quick go find Gerald before he leaves for the day. By the time I got down to the auditorium the problem was fixed. Gerald saw that somebody had turned down the master volume in the software. We NEVER do that, so didn’t know to check. Who did it? Dunno. But one more thing to check.

After supper I was settling in to playing around with Romie’s old iMac, I have hopes that after I reformat the hard drive and install a later OS, it will not be so dog-slow, when the phone rang. Again from the auditorium, the speaker needs a charger for his MacBook, do I have one. Uh, yeah I guess. So I bring the charger for MacBook down to the aud. so the speaker can show his slides. Boy that’s a rookie mistake, going to give a talk and your laptop isn’t charged. Anyway I had planned to listen to the talk on Zoom but now I’m down there, so I sit in the back and listen. This guy was one of 49 or so architects working on the Apple HQ building and he had lots of pictures and statistics about what a marvel it is. Among many other amazing stats, the whole circular thing sits on rubber isolators and can move up to four feet in an earthquake. So I got my power supply back and came away.

Tuesday 10/22/2024

Today was an all-day outing to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park — near Santa Cruz — also home to the Roaring Camp steam railroad. A record 40+ people had signed up so we had a big and very comfy bus. Took the steam train ride,

and afterward, walked the loop trail through the big trees. Here’s neighbor Martha for scale in front of the largest tree in the park.

Did a few email chores, had dinner, participated in the Tuesday sing-along in the lobby. Just another day in comfort city.

Monday 10/21/2024

Started my walk a bit early so I could meet Dennis at Peet’s in Town and Country around 8:30. That is almost exactly when I got there, and he was 2nd in line for coffee behind me. So punctuality runs in the family. We called Laurel while sitting outside feeding crumbs to the red-wing blackbirds.

Down to CH and to the monthly Event Coordinator meeting at 10:30. The usual secretary was away so someone asked me to make a voice recording, so I just started Voice Memo going. Afterward I discovered that the phone automatically makes a transcript of a voice recording, so I could send that to the chair, very handy.

Made myself a lunch of a sandwich made of leftover pulled pork from my BBQ dinner last night. Then down to FOPAL where I met with Henry at 1pm. He had volunteered to shadow me so he could do the computer section if I was unavailable. Super-nice guy, he has been doing LP record sales for some time so was familiar with looking things up online and pricing things.

Back to CH with no real time for a nap darn it, for Rhonda’s monthly open meeting at 4. She walked the assembled residents through the budgeting process for employee compensation, in all its many forms, stressing that this was 70% of our operating costs, while we have a goal of being an “employer of choice” in the senior residence industry.

Got a wee short nap and then a simple supper and it was time to set up for a concert. This was Nova and Daniel, Nova being a performer and a vocal instructor at Stanford, Daniel being a professional keyboard player, piano, organ, classical, pop. They put on a terrific show of songs by Cole Porter, really top-notch professional entertainment. They were happy to allow me to record it, so I spent the show switching among our 3 cameras to get good views and closeups.

Sunday 10/20/20224

Well, not so low, just unstructured. Didn’t do much all day. Well, put new strings on the new guitar because I didn’t like the feel of the ones the store had used. Probably identical, but new strings feel better anyway.

I have arranged to give the previous guitar, the Yamaha, to a kid in East Palo Alto. I contacted Mora, the director of the Youth Community Services, who I helped put on her lecture Wednesday evening, and she arranged for one of her people to pick it up this coming Wednesday. This evening I got an email thanking me from one Diego Torres. Little premature but shows a good spirit.

I went out on my own to a BBQ place and had a beer and some pulled pork for dinner. Now I might finally do some of the writing I’ve been promising myself to do all day.

Saturday 10/19/2024

Walked out for coffee with Joanne in the morning. Nothing more to say there. Put on my red shirt and went to the Museum and led the noon tour for about 20 people. Got a nice little hand at the end. Played some guitar.

Friday 10/18/2024

Did several things today. First thing I woke up knowing how to finish the “un-commitment” pledge and edited that into the prior day’s post. I’ve been living with an inner dopamine glow from yesterday afternoon to now, so pleased am I with those insights. I got the same glow back in the day as a software developer when I solved a really tough bug.

I took the standard walk, all good. Then reviewed guitars at the Martin website, learning about the one that I tried and liked yesterday. After lunch I dropped off my ballot and drove down to Gryphon and bought the guitar, a D-18 (but you know, they all look pretty much alike). It’s somewhat smaller than the one I’ve been using, and incredibly light, yet noticeably louder. You ask, how can an acoustic guitar that is smaller, be louder? It’s all in the structure. They talk about how there’s a layer of carbon fiber under the bridge and the internal bracing and the sitka spruce top, blah blah, whatever; bottom line, smaller box, more noise. Importantly, it’s more mellow than the old one, and lacking that nasty ringing on the top strings that’s been bugging me.

Edited the video from the presentation I ran last night and put it up on our Vimeo channel. So crossed off almost everything on the day’s to-do list.

Thursday 10/17/2024

Nice day for a lot of reasons. Didn’t do much, well, went back to Gryphon and tried a couple of guitars, but I forgot to bring my checkbook so didn’t actually buy one, but picked one that I probably will buy. We’ll see. Saw a headline about Elon Musk contributing $75M to the Trump campaign, which inspired me to go and contribute another $1000 to the Harris campaign — and fuck you, Elon.

But I had a philosophical breakthrough, busting a problem that has baffled me for months. I refer you, gentle reader, to my First Year Review essay, linked at the top of this page. Scroll all the way down that lengthy document to the last heading, “Looking Ahead”, where I was working out the reasoning behind the firm decision that I would never have another romantic partner. No, don’t bother reading all that; I’ll summarize it here.

This was a decision I reached early in the bereavement process. To quote myself,

At my age, any anticipated pleasures of love are very much trumped by the anticipated pain [of bereavement]. Or, by the pain of the alternative, being the partner who goes through the dying process, dependent on the generous care of the other. Nope nope nope.

This actually made more and more sense as time went on. But on the other hand, there were internal forces and external events that were making me question it, and the internal mental argument was uncomfortable.

Here in a retirement home I see many sad examples; I can name four husbands whose wives are in the nursing side, or should be, and the husbands spend much of their time being with the disabled partner, who might be comatose, demented, or have multiple impairments from a stroke. Joanne and I were talking about some of these cases over dinner the other night and she said something like, “There ought to be some way to relieve that…” We just left it there; but today, her remark clicked with something else to give me a whole different picture of the possibilities of late-life romance.

First, what dawned on me this afternoon (reader, you might think it should have dawned on me a little sooner, but hey, I’m slow) was that the partners we see around Channing House, whose lives are being limited by their spouse’s failed health, all signed up for this. I mean that 40, 50, 60 years ago, these folks vowed “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.” Today, spending their last years aiding a disabled spouse, they are simply fulfilling that vow. And they deserve great moral credit for doing so. And we really can’t fault them for holding to whatever they think their vows require.

But after that thought, came another: You don’t have to make that sort of commitment when entering into a partnership. And, late in life, you should not. But… what kind of commitment would you make? I started trying to imagine a variation of the classic marriage vow that didn’t just skip the “sickness or in health” part, but denied it, inverted it, flipped the script. Something like this,

In our health I rejoice in your companionship, but I want never to hold you back. When I am disabled in body or mind, my joy then will be in knowing you live on in health.

Suppose two people said that to each other. Would that make actual bereavement any better? Well, no; if you love somebody, and they die, you’ll suffer. But in the more common event, where one partner doesn’t die but their body fails, then I think yes, both people could feel better, even joyful, that they had previously made such an “un-commitment” vow.

Next morning update! It would be possible for the “un-commitment” to soften the pain of bereavement, at least. Read this new extended version:

In our health I rejoice in your companionship, but I will never hold you back. When I am disabled in body or mind, my joy then will be to know you live on in health; and I mean my final thought to be a glad “you live!”

Oh, man, that makes me tear up just reading it.

If two people said this to each other, I think the pain of the survivor would be softened when the other passes. Whether they did or didn’t actually have that final thought, they meant to, and that makes a huge difference on “survivor guilt”.

Wednesday 10/16/2024

Multi-tasked running the laundry and editing the video for the presentation last Sunday.

At 11am I was supposed to join a meeting regarding the AV team’s requests for Heritage Circle grant money, for the next grant cycle. However the meeting was postponed to next week when Rhonda was delayed.

After lunch I joined the monthly FOPAL volunteer zoom meeting. Janette (manager) mentioned my desire to recruit somebody to back me up in case I wanted to take a vacation, and another volunteer in the meeting, Henry Yu, volunteered for that. Later in the day we emailed back and forth and set next Monday to meet.

At 2:30 I went to the Car-Free club meeting. That’s a group composed of people who have (or plan to) give up their cars, to share info on using forms of public transit. The organizer, Maryanne, had wanted to see how to mirror a phone screen on the big TV in the Activity room. Then it turned out she didn’t need to do that after all.

Had an early-ish supper and went into the Auditorium to set up for a lecture. This was some people from East Palo Alto Youth Community Services, a volunteer organization that gets young people from EPA (the relatively poor side of Palo Alto) doing public service. The director, Mora, was very helpful and checked out. She had been here Monday to plan the event, we laid out the stage differently from the usual, with the podium on stage left and chairs for a panel stage right. It all went off pretty smoothly. Sadly, residents are a bit burned out on lectures, there have been so many candidate nights and such, there were only like 25 people in the room. Just the same I had a good time using our three video cameras to get different angles on speakers. Pity there were only 3 people signed in on Zoom to appreciate my work.