Day 149, iPhone, fitness, showing

Tuesday, 4/30/2019

After breakfast I tidied the house, partly because the cleaning lady is coming, and partly because some stranger will be looking at it with Chuck at noon. I left Suli’s check with a note warning her that Chuck would be coming by at noon.

At 10am I had a date with the fitness director at CH, to be given an orientation to the fitness center and sign a waiver so I can have a key to the place, so I can use it. Beforehand I loaded several items in the car destined for my storage cage in the basement: my toolbox that I had out for the Repair Cafe; my old IBM CE toolbag which now contains my cordless drill and an assortment of attachments and bits; a backpack I found in the garage and want to keep.

Oh, and five large plastic bags of cables: USB, HDMI, Cat-5, digital optical, and audio cables. They had been neatly sorted in the Red Chest and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t sell in an estate sale, and would get trashed. I had emailed Craig asking if the Tech Committee at CH had a stock of cables, and he said they did, in “the tenth floor computer room”. I must check that place out.

Anyway, parked in the underground garage (for the second time) and schlepped all that stuff to the storage unit in two trips. There is an amazing long winding path from the new underground garage, down a short flight of stairs, through four doors (one which has a camera and has to be opened by the desk person) and around several corners, to reach the Resident Storage Area in the basement of the older building. Well, that’s conveniently close to the Fitness Center, so fine.

I was disappointed in the Fitness Center. It has a rather thin assortment of machines. In particular the two pieces of apparatus I like to use at the YMCA are not there. I had expected I could drop my YMCA membership, but now I’m wondering.

My iPhone battery has been a concern for some time. It’s showing that annoying trait of failing batteries, making a sudden, unpredictable drop in power. It was fully charged at 10pm last night, and was only 15% at 6am. OK. So from CH I went to the iPhone fixer guy I’ve used before on El Camino near California. He could do it by 1pm. Good. I left it and walked to California avenue and found some lunch.

After lunch I went to pick up the phone with its new battery, and got a reminder of just how deeply that little device works its way into your life. I’m walking along and realize, Oh No, I’m making all these steps and they aren’t being recorded in the Health App! I won’t get credit for this walking.

Phone comfortably back in pocket, I went off for another deferred errand. It’s already past the time of year when I (we) have traditionally changed over from a feather duvet, to a blanket and a knitted bedspread. The duvet cover has needed laundering but I’ve been putting the change-over off, because we had only one blanket, and I had long disliked it, and that blanket was one of the first things I discarded as part of the cleanup right after Marian’s death. (I see I didn’t mention it, but it went in the trash early on.)

So today I drove down to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a simple queen-size beige blanket. Back to the house. Suli was just finishing up, she said Chuck and someone (she didn’t describe who or how many) had come and gone. I made up the bed with clean sheets, a blanket, and our colorful crocheted bedspread. That makes it properly summer.

I spent an hour continuing the project of printing pictures and putting them in frames. Here’s the one I worked on today:

I’m really pleased that I’ve got my cheap little Epson printer tuned so that it produces very nearly that depth of color, when printing at best quality on good paper. The rose really jumps out of the frame. I am not quite sure how I’ll make use of these at CH but most other residents have art on their walls and I will also.

I drove to CH to eat supper and check out two things. First, my apartment. It still pleases me to walk into it; it is just a pleasant, welcoming space. However, it doesn’t have what I was hoping for, a place to hang the two wax plants that are thriving in hanging pots, one in the kitchen and one in the living room. They are just coming into bloom, tiny star-shaped white flowers with little translucent amethyst gems in the center. Really. I’ll post a picture soon. Anyway, how to keep them over there? I need some kind of plant hanger. I think I’ve seen such things, but…

The other thing was to check the tenth floor computer room. Yes, the tech committee has a stock of cables, a few, on a couple of shallow shelves. I guess my collection will stay in the basement for now. But there was a sign up that gave me a chuckle:

Day 148, first missed post

Monday, 4/29/2019

This is the first post where I didn’t write the post until late the next day. I’ve done some in the morning of the next day, but this is the first where I just forgot entirely. So sorry, Dere Diary.

There’s nothing in the Google Calendar for the day, either. I recall I went for a run, and afterward… oh, right! Afterward I sat down to begin the process of changing my address with various organizations, the credit card, the DMV, and so on.

I also finished cleaning out all the drawers of “the red chest”. This is an old, six-drawer, school file cabinet, sturdily built in fumed oak. My sister Joyce acquired it at some point. Then it went to my Mother who, in her inimitable fashion, brush-painted it in a deep red enamel. When my parents closed up their home to move to an elder facility, the red chest came to us. I recall that Marian and I spent quite a bit of time stripping the red paint off it to reveal the old finish. Then we stuck it in the garage where it has been used for miscellaneous storage ever since. Sunday and this day I spent time going through all the stuff in it, throwing stuff into the garbage, or setting it aside for the sale.

Some things in it might be use to a future owner of the house. There’s a plastic tub with miscellaneous hardware bits, the unique brass door hardware off a couple of the original doors, matching glass knobs for cabinets, etc.

After a couple of hours of that I realized that, owing to the planned visit to The Lawyer on Wednesday I wouldn’t be able to do the usual sorting at FOPAL, so instead I went down there for the afternoon. Priced and shelved some books in the Computer section, and did some sorting.

Chuck texted me to ask if it would be alright to bring a client to view the house at noon. Sure!

Day 147, repair cafe

Sunday, 4/28/2019

Woke up early, too early to go to the coffee shop. They bake their own pastries and the good stuff doesn’t start coming out of the oven until 7:30 and later. So I did the NYT crossword puzzle at home, as in the old days. Then to coffee and read the rest of the paper.

Back home it was soon time to head out to a day of work at the Palo Alto Repair Cafe, one of my favorite volunteer activities. I and my apprentice, Ritchie, had some quick successes. Box fan that doesn’t work: take off the grille so we can see the inside and very obviously one wire of the power cord was dangling free of the switch. That was easy.

I must say, Ritchie has a degree from Stanford, a doctorate in astrophysics from CMU, and is working at NASA, yet he was ridiculously deferential to me and my vaunted repair knowledge. A couple of other easy fixes seemed to cement my reputation, but then we got the microwave from hell that used up two hours with no fix.

The youngish client had picked this microwave up where it had been abandoned in a school dormitory. It behaved oddly in the following way: plug it in and all seems fine, it beeps and the clock waits to be set. But now, open the door. The interior light comes on, that’s ok, but also the rotator motor in the base, that rotates the glass plate inside, starts when the door opens, as does the cooling fan in the back that cools the thyratron or whatever that tube is. When you close the door the light goes out and the rotator dish stops and so does the cooling fan — and they remain off, even if you start the oven heating. So they are just backwards, on when they should be off, and off when they should be on.

We screwed around with it and then I called in Lawrence who is the main organizer of the event and a veritable God of appliance repair. He fiddled with it for half an hour, which is a lot because he is in constant demand for consultations during these events, and didn’t make any progress. Finally we decided that very likely, somebody had messed with the wiring, there was a wiring error somewhere, and nobody wanted to take on the job of finding a wiring diagram online and tracing all the connections to see what was wrong. So button it up and give it back.

When I got home at 4pm I texted Chuck to see when I needed to vacate so he could show the house as he thought he would, and he texted back, not today, they didn’t call back to confirm.

So I relaxed, made a little food — my eating habits are getting more and more casual, this time it was bacon and an egg and a protein shake — and chilled.

Day 146, hazardous waste, docent,

Saturday, 4/27/2019

If the tentative schedule holds, exactly three weeks from today I will be moving into my unit at CH.

Took a leisurely start as usual on Saturdays, but at 9am arrived at the Palo Alto Utilities’ Household Hazardous Waste site. This is open Saturdays 9-11. I’ve been putting aside all the paint, bug spray, and other chemicals as I went through the garage, and now took three boxes of cans and bottles in the back of the Prius. They check your i.d. as a resident, take the containers out of the back of the car, say thank you, and off you go. Feeling morally and physically cleaner.

At home, I made copies of the five different forms that I’d filled out for Chuck, various disclaimers and disclosures and advisories one must sign to sell property. One, a detailed four-page questionnaire disclosing just about every possible thing that might affect the value of a property, was almost as much work to prepare as income tax. My first attempt had me trying to put explanatory notes in tiny little spaces provided. Then I got another copy and put the notes on a separate sheet. Anyway, done now. I put the originals in an envelope for Chuck to pick up next time he stops by, and my copies in a new Penda-Flex for the sale of the property.

Then, remembering that Chuck said he might bring a prospect to view the house Sunday, I tidied the shit out of things, made all ship-shape. While doing this, Chuck stopped by briefly and took the forms, saying he would probably bring someone to see the house tomorrow.

I changed to my docent uniform and went to the museum to lead a tour. A quiet Saturday, only eight in the group. Drove on home stopping to pick up a couple of food items, including some deli take-out for supper. Set out the foam mattress and waited for the junk guys to come by. Which took a while, but eventually two friendly dudes in a white truck came and took away the foam mattress. Another thing off my mind.

Tonight is “fireworks night” at the Sunken Diamond and I just don’t feel like going, sitting out in the chill — it has gotten chilly — through all nine innings to see fireworks. So, staying home and catching up on the DVR backlog. Amazing Race, Midsomer Murders, yeah.

Day 145, actual parking and stuff

Friday, 4/26/2019

Went for a run, fine. Killed some items from the every-growing to-do list, starting with reviewing the draft documents that lawyer Nancy sent. One of the documents is a complete rewrite of the “Cortesi Family Trust” which will now be named the “David Cortesi Survivor Trust”. The change of name, I suspect, will mean that I have to get my three Schwab Accounts, my bank account, and who knows what else, changed, because their nominal “owner” has changed name. We meet next Wednesday and do a whole lot of paperwork.

Second item was to arrange to get rid of a mattress. Back-story: when we first got our McCrosky mattress, Marian wasn’t happy with it. We added a padded mattress cover. Still not right. Noting that the foam mattress in the RV was just to her taste, we went to the foam store in Palo Alto — does that still exist? yup, Tallman’s House of Foam on Hamilton is still a thing — and bought a 3-inch thick queen-size piece. That, on top of the McCrosky and under the padded cover, was just right.

So now, I have after extensive dithering, decided to take the bed with me to CH. It’s a pretty piece of furniture and it’s here, no shopping needed. I don’t really need a queen size, but there’s plenty of room. But… somehow I felt I didn’t want to transport that foam sheet. I don’t need it; the basic McCrosky is fine by me. And it looks hokey. So, when I changed the bed linen last, I pulled it off.

Well, that left me with this very unwieldy, 3-inch thick queen-size piece of foam that weighs about 20 pounds and is very awkward to carry; it really wants to flatten out from any rolled or folded position. And it won’t fit a trash can. And it looks like shit leaning up against the wall of the house. So I went on Yelp and they have this marvelous way of getting quotes from multiple vendors, and quickly had a bid from JunkX to come and pick it up Saturday between 3 and 4.

Glowing with accomplishment I collected the new padlock for my storage unit, and a suitcase and my toolbox to store in said unit, and drove to CH. Parked in front, went in, picked up the magic sensor for the driveway, and drove around to the garage entry. The gates responded to my sensor and I went in and parked in my new stall. Schlepped the tool box and the suitcase through the winding corridors between the new building, where I park, to the basement of the old building, and to the Residents’ Storage section.

Used a tool from the box to cut the zip-tie on my storage cage, put the stuff in, and applied the new padlock. I had intended to eat lunch at CH but forgot all about that plan and just reversed my path to the house.

In the afternoon I went to a Stanford Baseball game. They weren’t doing well, committing four errors in the first five innings; I got bored and went home and caught up on some TV. Although I’ve been so busy, evenings, that I’m way behind my DVR.

Day 144, Shustek, play

Thursday, 4/25/2019

OMG, I forgot to click Publish on Wednesday’s blog, and didn’t write this on the day. Went to the Shustek center for cataloging.

On return home had a quick meal and went out again to the Bus Barn (aka Los Altos Stage Company but everyone likes the old name better) to see their production of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. At lunch, Gretta said she saw this play produced a few years ago in Seattle and it was a wonderful experience.

This one, not so much. Half an hour in I was thinking, OK, they’re trying hard but I will leave at intermission. One hour in I was thinking, Oh no! They aren’t going to have an intermission! Then they did take a break, and I went home. The problems were multiple. The stage dressing had to serve as the backdrop for all scenes, interior and exterior, and it just didn’t make sense for a lot of the script. A more serious problem was the acting; several in the large cast just were not up to being convincing, let alone engrossing. Ma Joad was excellent, Grampa Joad was entertainingly manic until he died 20 minutes in. Tom Joad was hard to understand and his “okie” accent came and went. Oh well.

Day 143, parking, filing, house ad, fopal

Wednesday, 4/24/2019

Opened the day with a run. Then I was about to set to work organizing files when I remembered getting an email yesterday evening about parking at CH. Checked the email, it was from a staff member named Payal, saying to call her to look over available spots. Oh! There are available spots? I called, she was at her desk, and we arranged to meet at 10am, it then being 9:40. She said, good, she had another person to show around at 10am also.

I zipped over to CH and said to the desk person I was there to see Payal. Desk person picked up the phone and called and said, “Mr. Cortesi is here to see you…” She knew my name! This is kind of neat.

Payal is a tall, 30-something woman with a pleasant manner (like every other staff member I’ve met). The other person looking for a parking space turned out to be Tammy, a diminutive Japanese(?) lady who like me is just moving in, to the third floor in her case. Together we descended to the garage to look at available spaces. After reviewing several, Tammy settled on one, asked my opinion on it, I concurred it was a good one. It’s just on the right of a pillar, and I pointed out she would always have room to open her door, nobody could get close on the left.

After Tammy left, I explained to Payal how I really want a spot within a few feet of an electrical outlet so I can keep the car charged. I would just hate to go back to driving a “normal” Prius, getting the ordinary 50mpg and toting around 100 lbs. of batteries I don’t use. So we looked at the available spots in this, the Tower garage (under the main building), and there was one that would do. However there is also the option of the Lee garage, under the new skilled nursing annex. OK, let’s look at those.

It’s something of a long and winding road through the basement of the Tower to get to the Lee garage, so that’s a bit of a drawback. OTOH, the Lee spaces are $10/month cheaper. And it turned out that there was a 110v outlet in reach of almost every space there. I picked #10, a wide spot with a wall on one side and an outlet right next to it. So that’s settled, and a great relief to my mind.

Actually I’m feeling better about CH for several reasons. Night before last I had a middle of the night tossing session, feeling some buyer’s remorse about this large step. But after the very friendly floor meeting yesterday, and yet another pleasant and productive interaction with the staff today (plus getting the exact right parking setup), I’m feeling happier about it all. It ain’t cheap — it’s about the daily fare of a cruise ship, which offers about the same level of service — but I have to remind myself that not only am I getting a comfortable residence, food, and service out of it, I have the assurance of lifetime care if (when!) my health deteriorates. Never to be a burden on, nor dependent on the good will of, my few relatives? Priceless.

So home from that to finish up the file organizing. Penda-Flexes in a banker’s box, but all ready to drop into the file cabinet I bought, which is still in its cardboard box over there, waiting to be unboxed after it gets moved to my unit. Whenever that happens.

Chuck called saying he’d just emailed the copy for the house ad! I made a few comments, and asked that he change the specific street address to just “Old Palo Alto”. This is very exciting. I am expecting he will be bombarded with queries. I hope I won’t be disappointed in that.

After a quick lunch I was about to leave for FOPAL when I checked my calendar and realized I have an appointment for a hair cut at 12:30! Glad I looked, off I go for that. Chris was enthusiastic about Channing House. From there I went to FOPAL and spent 90 minutes pricing and shelving books for the Computer section, and another 90 minutes doing sorting. Home to chill and hydrate and perhaps nap.

Day 142, dentist, lunch, floor meeting, dinner

Tuesday, 4/23/2019

Began the day by walking to a mile-plus to my appointment for dental hygiene, and walking the return, stopping at C.H. en route to check my mailbox. Disappointed that with all that walking, the phone shows only 7,000 steps.

Spent some time organizing penda-flexes. (No, auto-correct, it is not panda flexes!) I like making sense of all these old files, discarding outdated and irrelevant stuff, organizing the remainder into simpler categories that will be easier to remember.

Then it was time to meet Scott for lunch. Pleasant meeting, I’d say just-ok food at Dan Gordon’s, who, Scott pointed out, was presumably half of the former Gorden-Biersch Brewery, whose restaurant was once in that same space.

On the way to lunch I stopped at MaxiMart Pharmacy to get a refill of the antibiotic pills I take before any dental procedure (to protect my replaced aortic valve). Oops, prescription expired. Leave it, we’ll apply for a renewal, check back tomorrow. They know me by sight, partly because I’ve gotten meds there for 20 years at least, but more because I was in there what feels in retrospect like every other day all last fall, picking up one or another med for Marian. It was probably only once a week, really, but I had some bad emotions walking up to the door, from all the associations with her long illness. But now, this is for me, and I’m not ill, just getting a preventative med. So it was alright.

On the way back I stopped for a few groceries, including the indispensable peanut butter. Should I get a big jar? I’ll be on a full meal plan in a few weeks. Oh hell yes, I can have peanut butter in my room, to eat at my own bistro table in my kitchenette.

Soon it was time to leave again for the Sixth Floor Meeting. Craig was in the chair and did a good job. There were 30 or so people there; I learned the names of about five, and was pleasantly greeted by all. The topic of the meeting was the upcoming move off the sixth floor so the great rolling renovation can have it. Here’s the time-line:

August 12-23, the seventh floor people move out of temporary units and back to their renovated permanent units.
Temporary units are cleaned.
August 26-September 6, sixth floor people move into temporary units.
Around January 2020, sixth floor moves back, fifth moves out.

Angela, who I met with a week ago to choose decor options for my unit, is in charge of this. So far they have done the in/out swap for the tenth, ninth, and eighth floors and have it down to a science. She explained the process in detail and pretty well satisfied everyone.

From there I went to supper with Craig and Diane, and damn it four other women whose names I didn’t get. Wait, one was Eva. I also met Jerry and his wife (name?) and saw their apartment, on which they did an extreme renovation when they moved in two years ago. It’s very attractive, extremely “modern” with gray and black cubes and track lighting. Jerry is very technical and has a complex computer setup with multiple large monitors. I’m going to like him, I think; I certainly intend to call on him as a resource getting my various devices working with the CH systems.

I excused myself after one cup of coffee to go to a Stanford Baseball game. Got there at the bottom of the second, Stanford behind 4-1. The next two innings Stanford hit three or it may have been four homers and went ahead 9-4. I left after two hours and it was only the sixth inning.

Day 141, ‘nother day of doin’ s**t

Monday, 4/22/2019

Began the day by watering the plants. There are only six, but they are all doing well. I haven’t managed to kill them. I look forward to having their company at the new place.

Then I went for a run; 38 minutes of steady (if slow) jog, felt good all the way. God bless podcasts, though. I doubt I could do any kind of exercise if I had to do it without distraction in my ear.

Settled down to the killer to-do list. First up: apply for a residential parking permit for downtown Palo Alto. Have to upload a picture of my driver’s license, which of course has Tasso Street on it, plus some document that shows the new address. I make a PDF of a couple of pages of the CH contract I just signed. Upload these, click “apply”, it comes back and says, that address isn’t eligible for a parking permit, or no permits are available. Uh-oh. Do the whole process again just to be sure; same result.

Call the number given, get nice woman who says, “Yeah, Mister Cortesi, I was watching you upload these, I was just waiting for you to call.” OK, that’s weird. Bad enough I have Google looking over my shoulder at every email. But whatever; she takes my email address and says “OK, you’re all set” and gives me some directions on how to download and print a temporary permit.

I email Craig asking how to get a login for the CH resident’s web portal. He replies almost instantly, get one from the front desk. I email Kim asking what I need to do, to get the process of applying for a parking space started.

Friday I received a long letter from my lawyer. I’ll call her Nancy because in fact that is her name. Anyway, it had endless details on how as an executor I should go about making an inventory and valuation of Marian’s estate. So I wrote an email back saying, in short, “She owned nothing that wasn’t part of the trust, why I gotta do this?” More nicely phrased with specifics of course. But in fact I found our “Community Property Agreement” in which we each said, “whatever’s mine is yours, too”; and also a separate agreement in which we both said that whatever possessions we had or would get, clothes, jewelry, whatever, was part of the family trust. Plus her will making me her heir. So if I’m satisfied with no detailed inventory, shouldn’t nobody else need one. We’ll see if Nancy agrees.

Cleaning out the garage, I found an old iPhone 5s. Apparently when I got my newer 7s, I put the old one in the box. OK, now what to do with it? Search for “donate old iPhone”, find Secure the Call which repurposes old phones as 911-callers for homeless people. They provide an address label, but clearly I need a padded envelope too. So, time to go out and stuff.

Stop one, the local CVS to buy a small padded envelope. Stop two, the hardware store to buy a padlock. Stop three, Channing House. Talk to the girl on the front desk. She doesn’t remember how to create resident logins, and who does it out for lunch. We arrange she’ll email me about it. Then I go in to the dining room and have lunch: salmon, and a nice mixed-veg sauté.

During lunch I get an email from Chuck; they are going to put up an ad as we discussed Friday, would I please take some pictures to use in it. OK, another thing for the list.

Then I go down to the basement to see if I can find the Fitness Director, so as to sign a waiver, so as to be able to use the gym excuse me, Fitness Center. Fitness director appears to be out. Also, oddly, the door to the gym appears to be locked, although I can see someone inside using equipment. My room key doesn’t fit the door. What’s the deal there? Well, next time.

I go into the garage and check it out. There are 51 spaces, about a fourth are empty in the middle of a weekday. When I try to go back into the basement, the door is locked. My room key fits the handle but doesn’t operate it. Then I spot a camera and a button and a sign, “please stand on the yellow spot when pressing the blue button so we can see you.” I stand on spot, press button, almost instantly the door clicks.

I take the elevator to the top, the 11th floor, and have a quick look around this public space. It’s a large-ish room with a rather large (72-inch?) TV at one end, lots of armchairs, and some tables. Windows on three sides with a view of the hills to the west and the east. Big open walking decks on each side.

Nothing left to do, so I head out and make stop four, my bank to deposit a Via Benefits check. They promised to send a direct-deposit form to me; it hasn’t come yet.

Back home I take pictures of several rooms. Unfortunately I got rid of my wide-angle lens some time ago and I can’t get a picture of the inside of the bathroom. I use the iPhone’s panorama feature to get the kitchen, but the bathroom is just too small, the panorama looks bizarre. I do not take a picture of the outside, because at this stage I don’t want people to be able to identify the house and come knocking.

I set up the new padlock, it has a four-letter combination. I had planned to set it to DAVE but alas! it has no V! So I set it to DALE instead. Now I need to go back to CH install it. Later!

I rewrite the much-shortened to-do list, adding a couple of items. I print the mailing label for Secure the Call and tape it to the padded envelope and put the old phone in it and seal it. Aha! In the mail is the deposit form from Via benefits. I fill it out, put it in a stamped envelope, address it. Now I need to go to the P.O. and also, wash the car. Out again!

I drive to the Post Office and mail the Via Benefits envelope and the old cell phone. Drive to the car wash and buy the Prius its first bath since it got polished on day whatever? And to the grocery store for a few necessaries. And home. I need to put together the pictures I took to mail to Chuck. But I want a nap, too! What will I do?

Day 140, easy Sunday

Sunday, 4/21/2019

I deliberately did little today, and avoided looking at the full-page to-do list on the dining room table next to all the C.H. documents I should read and file. Had a pleasant coffee and crossword time at the local coffee shop, which was unusually quiet well past 8am. I guess people were either at church or preparing a Sunday dinner.

About 11 I drove to the museum to do the noon tour. Ken, another docent, was also there; they usually schedule two of us for weekend tours. But the parking lot was nearly empty and few people were in the lobby so we agreed there wouldn’t be enough people to split in two groups, so he went on home. I ended up with about 12 people.

For supper I thought about going to C.H. and decided I didn’t want to; and instead drove to Town and Country shopping center for a burger and a beer.

This exposed a problem I am going to have to deal with in coming weeks: general shyness and introversion and enjoyment of a quiet meal. For all these decades, Marian and I had the custom of sitting down with our plates in the living room and watching TV (often a cooking show) while we ate, and talking little.

This won’t be an option at Channing House. Once I take up residence, I will need to eat at least supper in the dining room. Which opens a whole can of (trivial, but real) worms for the born introvert. Which table to sit at? Who to sit with? What to talk about? Initially at least some residents are going to want to get to know the stranger in their midst. I’ll have to talk about myself and be affable and shit. I’ve eaten in the dining room twice now, once as Craig’s guest and last Friday — and I see I didn’t mention that in the blog! — I went back there and ate alone. There were enough tables that I could find an empty one and nobody came by, except the waiter. (You fill your plate in a cafeteria-style line but there are waiters who provide drinks and take away used plates.)

Choosing a table was fraught; I was early, and had no idea of the conventions and customs. I was afraid I’d end up at somebody’s regular table and they’d come in and… what? Be offended? Give me a break. But this is the kind of thing an introvert deals with. If you don’t understand it, consider yourself lucky.