Tuesday 03/09/2021

After aerobics I sat down at the computer to finish the tax workbook. And found to my surprise that there were no more pages that needed filling. Foreign taxes? Foreign income? nope and nope. So I uploaded all my documents and the workbook and that was that. A couple of hours later tax lady Katy, who has processed my return at the accountant office for several years now, emailed that she had it and would contact me if she needed more.

I had decided not to participate in the writers’ group this week. I gave the leader, Connie, the excuse of doing my taxes, but the real reason was the cue this time: write a letter to a sibling, dead or alive, or imaginary if you like. I tiptoed up to the edge of the pit I would have to look into, to write about either half-sister, and pulled the lid over it and tiptoed away. Nope. I think I have a mature understanding of them as flawed human beings but… nope. Not going to write to, or about, either one, to share with the public.

So I did an errand walk around downtown Palo Alto. CVS for a prescription. UPS store to verify they did provide notary service, and they do. Then to the T-Mobile store to enquire about the same kind of signal booster that I used to have at Tasso street, a box that connects by internet and acts like a little local cell tower. They don’t stock them in the stores, call customer support.

After lunch I drove to FOPAL and did 90 minutes of book processing for the computer section. Back in time for the 4:45 monthly 6th Floor Meeting. No real business to transact, just an hour of zoom chit-chat.

Monday 03/08/2021

The big event today was to be the Resident Association meeting. Big because I and Marcia were an agenda item to declare the end of the volunteer programs. I did three minutes on the history of the program, and the astonishing numbers of meals delivered, etc. Marcia did about the same, talking about all the keen things people can do with their time now in-house restrictions are being lifted, in case they miss their volunteer gigs.

Afterward I got what felt like a big job out of the way, rewriting the “will” portion of the family trust. Turned out there was just one part, Paragraph B of Section Seventh, which spelled out how the value of the estate was to be divided among various beneficiaries when the final Trustor (me) died. Marian had crafted most of this, allocating almost equal shares among a long list (nearly 20) of the second generation after us, of Cortesi and Lacrampe relatives. I wanted to make some adustments in that, and to add one more beneficiary, so I worked up a new “Amendment to Paragraph B of Section Seventh of the blah blah long name of trust“. Now all I need to do is to get it notarized and insert it in the famous Brown Binder of estate documents.

You would think Channing House would have an in-house notary. I asked the email bulletin board and at least 20 people told me that Priya (a well-known member of the staff) was a notary. So I wrote to her, and nope, her commission has lapsed. I called the Financial Advisors but they are doing office work yet. Priya recommended the UPS store. I’ll check them later.

Sunday 03/07/2021

First thing, after reading the paper and watering the plants, was to meet with Marcia and work out how we would present the end of volunteer activity at the RA meeting tomorrow.

Then, I wanted a good long walk, so I took off and walked to California Ave (almost 5 miles for the day). There I would have bought an excellent almond croissant, but the line at that booth was much too long, so I settled for a lesser pastry elsewhere.

After lunch I did a bit of work on the MG, and finished studying the book on marketing retirement homes. At 5pm it was time to go to the 11th floor to watch Stanford in the PAC12 tournament final game. The game was to be on ESPN2, but unfortunately the really important Big Ten Wrestling Championship was running overtime. They announced that the tip-off had been delayed to 5:15; then when the wrestling was still going, they said the game was on ESPNews. Unfortunately, the Xfinity box on the 11th floor is not authorized for the Sports and Entertainment package, of which ESPNews is part.

I returned to my room where I was pretty sure I could get ESPNews. And I could. Stanford started off hot, ran out a 26-point lead in the 2nd quarter. Then they went cold in the third, and UCLA closed to within 9 points. In the fourth, Stanaford found its stroke and finished the game again up by over 20. Weeee are the Chammmm Peeons!

Saturday 03/06/2021

I wanted to follow up on the one location for a Forest Bath walk (2.083), Huddart Park. I was on the road by 8am. Climbed the narrow, winding Kings Mountain road, along with bunches of bicyclists. I was pleased to find that the park has quite a bit of parking and at 8:30 only a few cars were there. I walked 3/4 of a mile out on the trail and then back, by which time about half the spaces were taken. I drove on home. Later I made a date with Dennis to walk this trail next Sunday morning.

The rest of the day I alternated between working on the MG model, and taking critical notes on the strategy book. I am almost finished with that, and have a list of very cogent questions to ask of our present staff. Oh, and naps.

This was the third day this week when I’d declined house supper (because the offered menu was so blahhh). Had a healthy and tasty supper of an open-face cheese and salami sandwich, with an open-face PBJ for dessert. And dried apricots reconstituted in the microwave with a few ounces of white wine.

Friday 03/05/2021

After my walk I made myself work at the taxes and finished several more pages of the workbook. It will be easy to finish next week. I found the remarkable fact that I didn’t pay anything to doctors during 2020. Consider I spent several days in the hospital and had a major surgical procedure and several CT scans, that’s remarkable. At one point I sent a query to the billing department at Stanford, saying “I see all these many EOBs that end with ‘You may be billed $x’; when can I expect to see some of these bills?” and they responded, don’t worry about it. So I didn’t, and I have yet to see a bill. The City of Palo Alto sent me a bill for some insane amount of money for the two mile ride to the hospital, but added, “return this with your insurance information” and later set the account balance to $0. Medicare FTW.

Then I spent an hour reading and making notes on strategic planning documents. So that was two ticky-marks on my todo list. I glued a few parts on the model and then it was lunch time.

At 4pm it was time for Rhonda’s weekly open meeting. She was pleased to announce that for the 6th week in a row we have zero cases or quarantines of staff or residents. The prowler who has gained entry to the Tower garage multiple times was confronted by some of our staff on his most recent attempt, and may be scared off now; but we are consulting with a security company about improved physical security, whatever that means.

And the big news, the dining room will reopen, but not until 4/21, when we officially take over food services from Sodexo.

Rhonda wrapped her meeting at 4:45, and shortly I went to the 11th floor to watch the Stanford Women take on Oregon State in the PAC12 semi-final game. There were about ten of us, masked and spaced out, in the TV lounge. It is way more fun to watch a ball game in company than alone. The Beavs kept it close in the first quarter, even led for a few minutes. Then slowly but inexorably Stanford pulled away, opening an 11-point lead at the half, and ending the game up 30.

Thursday 03/04/2021

First thing, about 7am, I prepared the final two volunteer sign-up sheets. I won’t be sad to see that duty end, although it is not really arduous.

Did Victoria’s aerobics. Before they started at 8:15, I had a call from Facilities. As warned in an email yesterday, they needed to shut off the “angle stops” on my toilet and vanity, to facilitate work on a plumbing problem on the 4th floor. Sure, come on. Which the guy did. But now after aerobics, smelling like a cat, I had no shower. Fortunately they left the supply to my kitchen sink on, so I got to take what my mother used to call “a spit bath” in front of the kitchen sink. Oh well.

By 9am I was on the way to FOPAL. On Tuesday I had to leave 5 boxes of unchecked books and decided I would come back a second time, on Thursday AM which is the other time my section is allowed by their covid schedule. I got through all five boxes, sending most of them to the bargain room, in under 2 hours. I kept about 15 books as saleable, and another 10 or so that priced out to “high value” (over $25 used on Amazon).

After lunch I did some business, paying a couple of bills and updating my spreadsheet that tracks the total value of the Nest Egg with January and February statements. The bottom line grew 1% in January and 5% in February. Apparently a good month for the stock market.

At 2pm it was time to watch the Stanford women open their PAC12 tournament play, versus USC. Because it was also time for Wanda to clean my apartment, I relocated to the 11th floor and watched the game on the giant (90-inch?) TV there. (Which frankly is not very good. It’s a Sharp Aquos, over 5 years old, and lacks in brightness and saturation.)

Stanford just romped in this game. They had a 20-point lead at the half, and finished up more than 30, and basically put on a clinic of “See what we can do? And you can’t stop us?”

After, my toilet water was back on and my room spic’n’span. I painted a few tiny parts for the MG, too. There are a lot of tiny parts to this kit. But the end is in sight.

Wednesday 03/03/2021

Went for the usual walk first thing. Stopped at CVS on return to pick up two prescription renewals. Then shortly it was 10:30 and time for a zoom meeting I’d been waiting for, for quite a while. This was a catch-up meeting with the group of cataloging volunteers at CHM, with whom I’d spent many Thursdays for the prior couple of years, and not seen since 2019, really. There was one previous catch-up zoom meeting last fall, and I had just forgotten it. Wondered about “when’s that CHM meeting, should be about now” and looked in the calendar and it was the prior week. So I was careful not to miss this one; and Greta was careful to send out reminder emails in the preceding days.

The meeting was kind of a bust, although it was good to see the whole gang and all looking healthy. There was a presentation on the progress toward replacing our catalog software, Mimsy, except that the progress had been, well, not exactly nil, but not impressive either. The paid staff have been working from home at things like standardizing the nomenclature we use to describe artifacts (“super computer” or “supercomputer”? and what actually qualifies as a supercomputer?) which is useful but not exciting. They haven’t actually chosen a software vendor. The CHM CEO, Dan’l Lewin, is a former Microsoft executive, and has been pushing for a Microsoft partnership; Microsoft would like to “get into the GLAM market” where GLAM means “galleries, libraries, archives and museums”. So there’s no actual software being proposed yet, just a lot of wonderful hot air (IMO of course).

Between then and the 2pm meeting of the RA executive committee, a couple of things happened. One, by chance Mary Beth, the head of the CH Gift Shop, stopped by to talk to my cross-hall neighbor, and then came over to my room to let me know that the Gift Shop might not be such a source of funds for a while, as they are considering a remodel that will be expensive. The Gift Shop is the primary source of funds for the RA. They’ve been closed through the pandemic, and are now planning a reopening. So that was news to pass on to the Exec Committee.

Shortly after came an email from Kim the HR: the staff had met and talked about the volunteers and agreed that it was indeed time to wind up the program. With the relaxation of restrictions (we are able to visit each other’s rooms, share meals in the floor dining rooms, people are said to be sharing meals or drinks in each other’s apartments although that is not officially allowed) and the increase in activities (see re-opening Gift Shop above), the volunteer work is less important as a relief from loneliness and boredom. So Friday the 12th will mark the end of resident volunteer meal delivery. Came 2pm and I presented the first item, and together with Marcia presented the second.

Following I realized I needed to do a final tally of volunteers. Some time ago I wrote a program to read in a sign-up sheet and save the names of who signed up in a master record, with a tally of the times they’d volunteered. I ran it on the first few weeks of the program. Now I needed to run it on all of the weeks to now. That meant fussing with the code to fix an issue or two, and finding a way to apply it to 30 or 40 little spreadsheets. Took almost to supper time but I got it done. A total of 98 residents signed up for at least one task from August to now. 45 of them signed up for 20 or more tasks. The winner was the diminutive but vigorous Michele, who signed up for 175 things, mostly meal deliveries. She nosed out Colin who did “only” 152.

Tuesday 03/02/2021

Did the aerobics. Then had to hustle to make a 9:30 meeting with Marcia and Kim The HR. Subject? Is it time to wrap up the volunteer meal delivery service? We’ve had a few people question the need for it, and it is getting harder to get the sign-up sheet filled for the week. A group of maybe 20 people really enjoy doing it. And, if we end that, do we also end the volunteer package reception task? Those are the two big ones, with sign-up sheets and an attempt at 7-day coverage of a staff task. There are also four (I think?) other, smaller, self-organized volunteer groups: indoor plant watering, outdoor plant maintenance, trash pickup. Being small and self-organized, we can leave it to those volunteers to decide for themselves if they want to quit or not.

Kim agreed to bring the whole subject to the next staff meeting and let us know what Rhonda and James (manages front of house staff) think. On return from the meeting I called Menlo Optical and made an appointment for 4pm.

Spent some time on the tax workbook. I think I can wrap that by Friday. Spent some time on Estate Planning. Sprayed one coat of clear on the bonnet panels. Then it was time for lunch and from there, to FOPAL. I processed several boxes of books, but several remain. Plus I want to follow up a suggestion from Chuck Spalding, who relieved me on the Computer section. His idea was, since we have a glut of books (owing to no sale days in covid times) maybe I should triage the shelves of priced books and pull down any priced below some limit like $5. I want to do that. I think I will go down on Thursday morning.

At Menlo Optical the optician took measurements from my existing frame. I had planned to keep it, and became sure of that when he told me that it wasn’t made any more. Funny story (not), the frame was made by Seiko, and Seiko a few years ago decided not to make and sell frames any more. Just quit the line of business. Recently, he said, a different company has started up a line of exact copies of the Seiko frames, but it’s new and he can’t vouch for their quality yet. Anyway, I should hear my lenses are ready in a week or so.

Monday 03/01/2021

Today on the Google Calendar was completely empty, nothing scheduled. Hah, but Google doesn’t know about the lined pad lying on my coffee table on which I’ve been noting things I need to do. So after the usual walk, I went to work on them.

First was to spend some time filling out the tax workbook for the tax preparer. We’ve been working with them for decades, and I am so glad I have this simple-minded workbook with hundreds of easy questions to answer — as opposed to actually trying to do the tax return myself. I filled out several sections of it.

Another thing was to spend time reading background materials for the Strategic Planning Committee. I’m going to start abbreviating that SPC because I suspect it will come up often. Today I spent nearly 2 hours making critical notes on a book on MARKET FORCES: Strategic Trends Impacting Senior Living Providers by Jill Johnson MBA. Lots of platitudes. I’m trying to dig out the practical points that could be turned into future objectives.

I just realized I completely forgot about one item I meant to do, to call Menlo Optical and get an appointment to bring my new prescription around. Dang.

After lunch I relaxed into working on the model car and immediately ran into a snag. Probably the two most important panels of the body are the left and right sides of the bonnet. These two panels:

They are flat and right in the middle and an essential part of the look. Any flaw in a flat panel like that will be obvious. Believe it or not I have most of the other panels looking as good (and same color as) this picture. I just finished gluing on the headlights and foglights and the front fenders look that good. But not those bonnet panels. Through a series of rookie mistakes I had messed them up. I tried sanding them down with 3600 and 6000 grit wet paper but they just kept getting worse.

So I decided to strip them and start over. That meant a half an hour soaking them in alcohol (it melts the acrylic paint) and scrubbing the paint off with a toothbrush. And then bringing the spray equipment back to the bathroom from the porch. I sprayed one color coat (fortunately I have some red left) after lunch, and a second coat after supper. Clear goes on tomorrow and hopefully that will do it.

In food-related news, we got an announcement email saying we have hired our new Dining Services director, one Joshua Aranda. This is the guy who will report directly to Rhonda and manage the new food service when Sodexo packs up and leaves in April. Boy, they can’t go soon enough. It is getting more obvious that they just don’t care any more. From tonight’s menu I had ordered “green salad with vegetables”. This consisted of a heap of chopped greens topped by one (1) slice of cucumber and about 8 pinto beans. That was the “with vegetables” part. The main course was polenta with mushroom sauce. That can be a good dish and I think I’ve liked it before, but not tonight. I left most of it and finished with a homemade PBJ.

Sunday 02/28/2021

Did the usual things. Forced myself out for a moderate walk. Dennis called and mentioned the topic of Forest Baths or Forest Walking, which is apparently a thing. I checked out a few recommended walks but they are either hard to get to or have very tiny parking areas at their trailheads.

Watched the Stanford Women in the final game of the year, beat Cal easily. Pottered with the MG, gluing on a few more parts. Forgot to prepare the next week’s sign-up sheet for the other volunteer activity, package reception, until reminded by Marcia around 7:30. I’m a doofus.