Tuesday 09/14/2021

Went for the usual 3-mile walk this morning. Since I didn’t do it yesterday, and since the aerobics class is on zoom only currently. Felt just a bit of sensitivity in the hip/glute/lower back when setting out and thought about cutting it short, but kept going and as I warmed up it was fine. Getting on top of this back pain thing slowly.

Again I didn’t have anything prepared for the writers group. Others did, of good quality as usual. One, Prudence’s, got a lot of chuckles and I am going to include it below just to fatten up this very ordinary post.

From that meeting I went to FOPAL where I completed the triage of my section, then processed two boxes of books. I was amused to find in the donations, a set of programming manuals for X-Windows and Motif. My that takes me back. That was one of the first GUI systems, back in, oh let me run ask Wikipedia, 1987. It was quite significant to me when I was working at Informix about that time.

Had dinner with the Craig and Diane Allen.

OK, here is Pru’s piece on the topic of “when I am sick”. Try to read it in an English accent.

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I do try to make a little sickness go a long, long way. I have to, because there is so little of it.

I last had a cold in 2013.

I last had a fever of over 100 in 1960.

The only interesting thing that my body has ever done is to grow lumps, and my lumps don’t tend to translate into scenes in which people bring you small meals, and wipe your brow.

The first of the lumps was the most interesting. I was thirteen, and can still remember the feeling of importance when I was told what was inside the lump. It was TB! I was somebody, finally. I was a person with TB!

True, it wasn’t the most dramatic form of TB. I wasn’t going to fade away in a garret, with a tenor lamenting my last breath. My TB came from a cow, and it had settled in a salivary gland, not the lungs. Still, it got me a lot of attention in my boarding school—and not just attention, but salad. At that time, my mother was in the thrall of an expensive quack called Dr. Latto, who had already engineered a remission of her own TB—the grown-up sort, in the lungs—by having her sing several times a day (although she was totally tone-deaf) and sunbathe naked lying on an army-surplus silk parachute. For me he prescribed jumping up and down in cold water, rubbing my neck with olive oil, drinking carrot juice and eating nothing but salad and a baked potato twice a day for a year.

It worked—or something worked. When I brought my once tubercular salivary gland to Palo Alto twenty years later, and it freaked out my new doctor, I was able to tell him, “It’s just a harmless lump.”

“We don’t trust any lumps in this country,” said the good doctor. He arranged for it to be removed—and the verdict? Totally harmless.

There was a little more excitement twenty years later, when another lump turned up and I had a return of that old “So this is what it feels like to have a real disease I wonder what dying is like” feeling because it was first misdiagnosed as a sarcoma of a particularly lethal kind.

Ooops.

Sorry, said the PAMF pathologists the next day. Our bad. It’s just another harmless lump for us to cut out.

Maybe that gave PAMF an idea for a business plan: search, and there will be lumps. If you find excuses to give people enough MRIs, might you not find one or two?

So yes! They’ve found lump No. 4—harmless, but out it should come, because, remember? We don’t like lumps.

At least it will earn me one or two of those elusive days in bed.

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Monday 09/13/2021

Today was the Residents Association meeting, which President Carol had moved back to its historic start time of 9am. So no exercise. My only part was to give the Treasurer’s report. The two months since the last meeting have been a wash, financially. We spent just a bit over $100 mostly on a stock of masks for the front desk to give out free. We took in just over $100 in profit from the literary quarterly, Scribble and Sketch.

Several new residents were introduced. In addition the Heritage Circle grants for the year were announced. The Heritage Circle is a trust built from contributions, currently $5 million. Each year residents present grant proposals and the trustees fund what they can. Interesting this year: a grant for bike storage lockers. I don’t ride any more but some do, and they park in the garage. Unfortunately that’s down a steep ramp, and stuff has been stolen from bike bags.

The meeting ended with a demonstration of how you can do online ordering of meals either for delivery or pickup. So for fun I ordered a sandwich to pick up. After picking it up I drove to Fopal and spent three hours doing the first proper post-sale triage of my section in more than a year. This means to look at every book (about 450 on my shelves) and decide what to do with it.

Depending on how long it has been on the shelf, I can either: leave it for next sale; lower its price and leave it; or send it to the bargain room. The book goes to the bargain room if it has already been marked down to $2 or $3, or if it has been in at least two sales and I just don’t like it, for its age or condition.

I got through about 2/3 of the section, and filled four boxes for the bargain room, in three hours, and felt fairly tired. No exercise today? 3 hours standing and bending down and standing up.

Sunday 09/12/2021

Well that was an unpleasant night. Waking up at 3am to realize that I had not gone to the play nor had I made a blog entry. Then tossing for a while thinking about other things. Today I got back on top of stuff a bit.

With my morning coffee I booked a seat at the same play, at the 2pm matinee today. Then, after I had watered the plants and done the big crossword, I executed a decision I had made about 3:45am. I gathered up all the parts of the Chrysler model and scrapped it. I had just f’d up the body so badly that it was give up, or else strip all the paint off it and start over. But I’ve no confidence I could do any better a second time around. I need to learn about acrylic paint and airbrush technique before I do that again. I have several more models in the closet that I could work on, but not right away. For the time being my modeling tools and materials are neatly put away and my desk is clean again.

Another decision was the software/writing project I’ve been working on for a few weeks, redoing the classic Software Tools in Pascal in Python, has several basic flaws. I won’t put the details here but I need to rethink that, maybe scrap it, certainly re-do major portions of what I’ve done.

After lunch I went to the play, Mothers of the Bride, at The Pear. It’s about Hannah, who is planning a perfect wedding with Reed. She’s trying to choose a gown aided by her birth mother, Kristy, who divorced her father years ago and in fact is now on her fourth marriage.

Kristy disdains Beth, Hannah’s stepmother who enter shortly. Beth married Hannah’s father years ago. She’s a very conventional, conservative Catholic, and the sort who tries to put a good face on every disaster. They are joined by Ginny, the birth mother of Reed, and so soon to be Hannah’s mother in law. She’s a free-spirited holdover of the 60s. And then enters Liv, the shockingly young wife of Reed’s father (Ginny and he were never married). Liv is a self-centered internet influencer and thrilled that Emma Watson is following her.

It takes quite a while to work all this out but it finally wraps up to a warm hearted conclusion about the value of marriage and family. Here’s the cast near the end.

It was kind of surprising that having everyone in masks didn’t seem strange or impede the flow of the play. There were a lot of mimosa’s drunk; they would very naturally slip the masks off to sip, and slip them back on.

Last thing, after supper I took the Macbook and the DVD player to the auditorium and tested it. It works just fine; the Macbook mirrors its screen to the projector perfectly and the sound system is fine. Perfectly easy to play a movie that way.

Saturday 09/11/2021

It was national Let’s Get All Serious About 9-11 day. Three thousand killed in one dramatic day with vivid television images. How about 250 times as many, 700 thousand and counting, lost to a virus in 18 months But not in one day and place no decent TV. Oh well.

Anyway, went for a pleasant walk, picked up a pastry at the farmers market, and basically passed the middle of the day in pleasant quiet.

Now, here’s the disturbing part. I had booked a ticket to see a play at the Pear theater, at 8pm. Put it in the google calendar. Printed the e-ticket and put it on the table by the door. Reminded myself of it in the morning. Had seen and deleted two emails from The Pear about “glad you are coming don’t forget your proof of vaccination.”

But from supper time on, I just forgot it entirely. Watched another episode of Firefly on the DVD player. Remembered that I’d taught Joanna how to set up the sound for the big TV on the 11th floor, and resolved to go make sure it was working for her, before her 8pm show. And did that, went up and hung out on 11 until 8 to see that her concert was well started. She had no problems; about a dozen people came to hear Verdi’s Requiem, and I went downstairs and watched the start of the Stanford-USC football game. And not long after half-time (latest-starting PAC-12 game ever), I went to bed.

Having forgotten all about the play, and all about making a blog entry too.

Now, this is not unique. I remember very well indeed how I had booked myself for the Boogie Woogie Festival at SFJAZZ, one summer Sunday in 2019, and forgot all about it until late that day. That still rankles.

Yesterday I wrote about Bill B., whose memory is shot, so he only remembers recent events for half a day. And knows it. And makes wry jokes about it. But it’s not a good life he’s living.

Shit.

Friday 10/09/2021

Went for the standard walk. My back tenderness is improving.

At 10am I met with Mary Ann to see why she couldn’t make her DVD player work with her new TV. I actually couldn’t answer the question. It seems that the DVD player itself is broken somehow. Fortunately she says her son asked her why she even had one, saying he never uses his. So she is going to have her son bring his unused DVD player and plug it in.

At 2pm I met with Joanne on the 11th floor. She wants to show Verdi’s “Requiem Mass” when broadcast by KQED tomorrow evening, on the big TV on 11, to a small audience. But she had to know how to turn it on, and to turn on the sound system. All of which is (IMHO) overly complicated. But I didn’t set the system up. Bert did, and wrote the instruction sheet. So we went through the instructions and she did it a couple of times, so should be good to go tomorrow.

Some months back, I loaned my Apple Superdrive — very small USB powered DVD player — to Bill B. Now I want it back so I can try playing a movie in the auditorium. Bill is a charming and likeable guy but he is also suffering from severe loss of memory. He cheerfully agreed that he probably did borrow the drive from me, but doesn’t remember doing so nor where it might be now. But he was happy to help me search. I found the drive where it should be, plugged in to the back of his iMac. I know it was in its fitted box when I gave it to him. We had a good look around for the box but couldn’t find it. He felt bad about that and I spent some time saying, no problem, and trying to ease his chagrin. Fortunately, as he said to me, “It’ll be gone by supper time.”

When I got back to my room I wanted to test the drive. Looking in my basket of DVDs (which I have not touched since I moved in) I grabbed the boxed set of the complete Firefly series and stuck the first disk in. Gosh, but that was a good show. I think I may just watch that.

Thursday 09/09/2021

No exercise out of laziness. Due to increased Covid restrictions, the aerobics class, along with other classes that had been done in person on the 11th floor, has been made Zoom-only, and I didn’t feel like zooming in.

Off at 9am to the East Bay, Fremont, the Shustek center. Spent the day cataloging along with Steve Madsen. We cataloged a holographic projector made at IBM Research around 1950, and about 6 big circuit boards which were were part of a massive donation from someone who worked at Quantel, a UK maker of digital products for the broadcast industry.

Back home by 4, took a nap and made a sandwich, then rolled out the door at 6:30 to attend a soccer match. Harriet, basketball buddy, had gotten two seats from another basketball fan, for the Stanford Women v. USF Dons, and invited me to come along.

I know it’s sexist but USF Dons just doesn’t sound right for a women’s team. A Don is a Spanish nobleman, right? So they should be the Doñas, right? Or maybe the Donnas?

Anyway, the sky was unusual. Sometime around 5, clouds started coming in. This looks like the build-up to the forecast of possible thunder-showers tonight. It made an unusual sunset.

I have not watched much soccer and have not found it very interesting when I did. This game didn’t change that. It must be the most frustrating game ever, to play. It appears nothing ever works the way the player wants it to. Thwarted at every step.

The Doñas had a good defense, and although the ball was in their end of the field a lot more of the time than it was near Stanford’s goal, nobody scored in the first half, or until about the 70th minute. Then the ball bounced off the top bar, down onto the Doñas goalie’s hands, back up to the bar, and into the goal. That’s how the game ended, Stanford 1, USF nil.

Wednesday 09/08/2021

Went for the standard walk this morning, the one I cut short yesterday, and finished it. The difference? This time I pre-medicated with two Ibuprofen. I imagine that’s what did it; anyway the hip pain wasn’t an issue.

I started my laundry at 10am, and finished it after lunch. Then time for a nap and off to the Resident Association Executive Committee meeting. One thing discussed was that there is a list of over 25 new residents either just moved in or booked to be moving in to CH in coming months. Each move also entails, typically, remodelling a unit to suit the incomer’s tastes. But people are feeling confused and upset. There is a lot to be known about CH, and the documents we give new residents are sadly out of date. Discussion of how to better and faster orient new residents.

At 4pm I met with neighbor Margaret about a problem she has with mail. She sends mail to the Channing House Writers address, which is a Google Group. It never shows up. Other email is working fine. I was as baffled as she. I had her leave the Group and had the moderator (Jerry) reinstate her. It made no difference.

At 5:45 I joined a group of 5 others for dinner as planned.

Tuesday 09/07/2021

I went out for a walk this morning, and my hip started hurting half a mile in, so I cut it short. This is not good.

Writers group at 11; I had not written. Then down to FOPAL for final prep of my section before the sale this weekend. Second regular open sale after Covid. I had disposed of a bunch of books that hadn’t sold since last year, so hopefully I will have a little more action this time.

I bought a few groceries and came back to CH for a nap. Then at 4, drove down to Jean’s in Mountain View, where at 5 Marc Lacrampe arrived. He’s on a bit of a drive, from Seattle to visit one son in Portland at Reed College. Then to Jean’s, and tomorrow he goes on to pick up another son and camp 3 nights in Tuolumne meadows. We went over all our shared news at length and ate pizza with a nice fruit salad Jean had prepared.

Monday 09/06/2021

Today is the day for the first event in the auditorium since February 2020. And as chair of the AV committee, I took it on myself to make sure the stage was set up and the audio was working.

The event was the “first monday book talk” when on the first monday of the month, they get in somebody to talk about a book. Hopefully an author. The author was me, back in 2019 shortly after I moved in. But today it was Darwin Patnode, who was to speak on the works of Stephen Crane, notably Red Badge of Courage, which as Mr. Patnode summarized it, sounds like a very unpleasant read. Although apparently it is assigned by high school lit teachers often.

Anyway, Mr. Patnode likes to have a lectern and a whiteboard. No need for the screen, projector, HDMI hookup to show PowerPoint slides.

Every event has an organizer, and the event organizer committee is one of the biggest and most active. Normally it would be up to the event organizer to find a white board and position the lectern. This event is organized by George who is getting a bit, um, doddery? So I took that on. The event was to be at 11am, and at 8:30 am I commenced my search for the big whiteboard on rolling casters. About 10 I was getting more than a bit antsy but finally a member of our depleted staff (labor day!) found it in Angela’s office.

So the event came off just fine. Here is a panorama taken from my post back of the AV console.

The seating has been arranged for a maximum audience of 50, and everybody has to be masked. Oh, I think the speaker took off his mask? I don’t have a picture to prove it.

In the afternoon I worked on the Chrysler, removing the frisket covering all the chrome trim areas. I am so crap at this. After scratching the my spray paint job twice I was near to chucking the whole thing. But I will carry on and see if I can rescue it.

Sunday 09/05/2021

My back was feeling like it could use a rest — this is getting a little better but slowly so I didn’t do any strenuous walking today. Just half a mile to go to CVS to pick up prescriptions. Then reading and hobbies. Watched a Giants game in the evening for the first time in a long while