Tuesday 08/03/2021

For the first time in over a year I ate breakfast in the dining room. Ordered two pancakes which were good but rather tough. I was planning to go to aerobics at 8:30, but on my way up in the elevator at 8 I was joined by Marcia, who reminded me of the Strategic Planning committee at 9. Since aerobics ends at 9, I would be late, so I skipped aerobics. I took the time to concoct something for the writers group. And therefore was late to the meeting anyway.

I am not happy with the SP committee. I need to talk to Marcia who chairs it to better understand what is going on.

That was over at 10, and immediately Bert called, saying, let’s go check out the Green Room back of the stage. Turns out the Green Room, which I’d never been in, used to be a place for artists to prepare, and for us to store microphone stands and other stuff for various events, including a two-drawer file for the Events Committee, which I don’t think Pam, the current Events Committee chair, even knew about.

However in the past year the room had been taken over in part by housekeeping for storing their stuff, so we sorted all that out along one wall. Bert will request Housekeeping to move it.

That brought it to time for the writers group at 11. Following that I grabbed a sandwich from the grab and go refrigerator, and went to FOPAL. The sandwich was terrible and I didn’t finish it. But I cleared up my section, bought a pound of coffee at Peets, and headed back.

At supper time I was displeased with the menu and the dining room service, couldn’t find anyone to sit with, and in a snit went down to my car and drove to Armadillo Willie’s for a pulled pork plate.

Monday 08/02/2021

First thing, off to Sequoia Hospital radiation department. After being registered — I was told to bring proof of vaccination, which I did, but they never asked for it — I got into a back-opening gown and had to lie down on my stomach, on the sled of the CT scanner.

They took one scan, and tested the ultrasound, and then the doctor went to work. There was the quick nip of a needle injecting lidocain on my back, just below the bottom rib on the left side. Then there was a general sense of pushing and wiggling, which was him getting close to the cyst. From there on, there were no more sensations.

Shortly the fluid started flowing. After a few minutes he called for another bag. “There, that’s 500cc.” And a while later it was, “Still coming, another bag please.” Eventually I filled three bags, 1450cc, or three pints of liquid that looked a lot like my favorite amber ale.

Then I got up, put my clothes on, and headed on home. Well, not quite. When I saw the doctor in his office last Wednesday, I had walked away from my hat. I’d called in and they were keeping the hat for me. So first stop was the doctor’s office, just up the hill past the hospital, to get my hat. The home.

Took off pants and shirt and weighed myself: exactly 3 pounds lighter than I had been at 7am. Took my blood pressure: 108! But 3 hours later it was 138. So not sure what the story is there. I was quite hungry for lunch and again for supper, although I didn’t eat any larger quantity than I have been doing. I really don’t feel any different.

Wrote a short thing for tomorrow’s writers group.

I have put the Chrysler on hold for a few days, pending arrival of some paint. The entire interior is done in this off-white color, seats, dash, doors, like in this picture.

I have no paint that cream color, so have ordered a couple of bottles of “ivory”. Orders from hobby stores take days to arrive.

At supper, neighbor Gloria was talking about not being sure about her Mac’s time machine backups, so I volunteered to look. Went to her place and yes, time machine working just fine, but that led to another question and another. Spent an hour trying to answer her questions. Quite often I couldn’t. I am clueless about iCloud drive, for example, and about Mail. Which are two things every mac user around here has problems with.

Sunday 8/1/2021

Another day going to bed without posting, or thinking of posting. Rats.

Walked the baylands. Futzed around the house.

Saturday 07/31/2021

In the morning I took a moderate walk, ending at the farmers market where I patronized the other baker, buying a monumental peanut butter cookie. Like, so large I literally couldn’t finish it in the morning and had the final bits as dessert after supper.

The rest of the day I spent some time on my two hobbies. On the 56 Chrysler, I completed assembly of the motor.

The next step in the instructions has me assembling the wheels. The chrome wire-spoke wheels are molded in very nice detail, but the chrome is solid. In order to make the spokes stand out, and appear to be open to the back of the wheel, I dabbed flat black paint into them. Then wiped the paint off with a Q-tip soaked in alcohol. Came out pretty good, especially with the wide white-wall tires in the kit.

Friday 07/30/2021

After my morning walk I went on an errand run. First to find my favorite beer. I keep this in stock in my room, and occasionally take a bottle down with me to drink with my dinner, so a six-pack lasts a couple of weeks or more, but now I’m out.

The beer comes from the Rogue brewery in Oregon and distribution is spotty and inconsistent. My prior supply I got at Bevmo, but when I went in there last week they had none. Fortunately the brewery website has a “beer finder” — put in your zip code, see a map with their latest deliveries. Today it is at the Grocery Outlet, a store I’d never been in. But yup, there it was. So I have two six-packs, which should take me into September or longer.

Next stop was IKEA where I bought a pillow earlier this year. That pillow has kind of surrendered, lost a lot of its punch. So I bought a different kind this time.

Hah, here is why it is fun to keep a diary. Turns out it was Day 2.062 when I went out and bought beer at Bevmo and also, went to IKEA for a pillow!

Worked on hobbies and napped the rest of the day. Dinner with Patty and the Youngs.

Thursday 07/29/2021

Did aerobix and then headed off to Shustek for a day of cataloging cryotrons. (I mentioned cryotrons a month ago, 2.192.)

Huh. Not much else to say.

Wednesday 07/26/2021

For exercise, instead of my walk, I went to our gym and put in 40 minutes on the cyber cycle, which is actually fun as well as a good workout. That ensured I would have plenty of time to leave for my appointment with Dr. Tamrazi, interventional radiologist. I’m not sure, and didn’t ask, but I think this is the same guy who did a needle biopsy on Marian’s pancreas back in 2018. No matter.

We talked about how the ballooning cyst has compressed my stomach and displaced some other organs. If we drain it, it’ll fill up again, in anything from a few weeks to a few months. But it might not fill back to its current size. To my surprise he is concerned, but not worried about my being on the anti-clotting med Plavix. He sees a simple approach, with a very fine needle and catheter, and doesn’t think there be any bleeding problems.

Bottom line, the procedure is scheduled for this coming Monday morning. He will use a local anesthetic so I don’t need to be NPO, and can drive myself home. This is all very convenient because at the end of next week I am due for another CT scan, as part of my one-year (not quite but nearly) follow-up on the aortic dissection. That will show the state of the renal cyst four days after draining it.

So, back home by noon, in good time to do my laundry. Busy busy (not).

Tuesday 07/27/2021

Today I did a disturbing thing, somewhat reminiscent of an event back in 2019 that upset me.

In 2019 I had booked a ticket for the SF Boogie Woogie festival, a Sunday afternoon and evening event at the SF Jazz center. Then I completely forgot about it and spent that Sunday afternoon instead in a sight-seeing drive. Only after getting home and much too late did I remember the concert.

Something similar, this morning. My usual Tuesday schedule is the aerobics class, than pass time in my room before the writers group meeting at 10:30. Leave the writers at 12 if they haven’t finished by then, grab a sandwich to go, and drive to FOPAL to attend to my section, returning around 4.

My usual Thursday schedule is aerobics, shower, dress, and immediatelyget the car and head out to either Shustek or Yosemite to do Computer History work all day.

I was aware, yesterday evening, that this was Tuesday and reviewed then what I meant to do. However, this morning, after the aerobics, I somehow switched tracks to Thursday, sort of. I showered, dressed, and headed out at 9:15 to FOPAL, where I signed in at 9:40, and did the usual routine work. Processed 5 boxes of computer books, got my section all tidy, and only then realized: wait a sec, I’m done by noon when I usually only get here at 1pm. Wait, why did I do this before lunch?

And realized that I had short-circuited my usual Tuesday. Blown off the writers group, and now had a free afternoon where I usually don’t.

It would be perfectly fine if I had done that deliberately, for a reason, for example a conflicting medical appointment or something. But I didn’t. I just mixed up my plans — and didn’t realize I was mixing them up, for a couple of hours.

No big deal, no real mistakes made, appointments missed, or money wasted. But it’s upsetting that I had not a thought that I was doing something unusual or contrary to my original plan, for a couple of hours. If you take the slippery-slope outlook, this is the kind of thing that ends with one cheerfully strolling out the door having forgotten to put on pants.

Monday 07/26/2021

Went for a walk. Commented on Bert’s proposal for the big A/V upgrade to the auditorium. He immediately called me; I had read the wrong document. So I read the right document and then went up to his apartment to talk about it.

Worked a bit on the Chrysler. Trying to do it right, painting the parts and letting them completely harden before gluing them on.

Then I did some photoshopping. Over at Yosemite for months there has been this very large sepia print of a man reading a book. When I was there Thursday I took a careful shot of it with the phone. Today I replaced the book with an iPhone.

Sent it to Aurora at CHM who replied it had made her day.

Sunday 07/25/2021

I watered the plants, then did the Sunday puzzle in very good time. Then my plan was to attend a classic car show in Los Altos. But I had suggested that to Dennis, who checked the website more carefully than I had. He called back to say, hey, it says here, residents only, reserve in advance. Bummer! So that was out.

Somebody in the dining room had been talking about local farmers markets, and mentioned that the Menlo Park one was, they thought, better than the California Avenue one. Well, let’s go see. So I walked the 2+ miles to Menlo Park and checked it out. It is not, in my opinion, better, in fact missing several amenities like a flower seller, or snack food. Or places to sit.

After I took a Lyft back (I could have walked back, and probably should have) and spent some time working on my hobbies. The 56 Chrysler is impressing me. The engine has details such as a transmission dip-stick tube. Just crazy amounts of detail. After I get it assembled, and little decals on it, it will be worth being a stand-alone model. It would be a shame to put it into the chassis where it can’t be seen.

Felt dubious about going down to supper, planned to sit by myself and read, but fell in with the Allens and Lennie and had a very pleasant meal and chat.