Day 189, grief, shopping, annoying news

Sunday, 6/8/2019

For perhaps the last time I walked our old route to the Palo Alto Cafe for coffee. On impulse I decided to return the way Marian and I sometimes did. From the cafe we’d turn left on Middlefield for a couple of blocks, then up a little pedestrian alley and through Hoover Park, a nice green space with a playground, a Little League ballfields, and trees. This decision gave me some discomfort today, because as I passed the little playground it came back to me very strongly how Marian would often stop here and swing on the swings for a few minutes. It meant something to her, some recollection of girlhood; and one of the few times she indulged in play. This memory had me sniffling and blinking all the way home (and a bit now).

Well. At 10 I headed out in the car to take care of a couple of shopping errands. First to Bed Bath & Beyond to buy a better blanket for my new “Full” size bed. The one I bought a few weeks ago is really not satisfactory, although I’ll take it along for backup. Also I bought a pillow, as the one I’m using now is several years (at least) old. Back home I tested out the one I bought; it is quite satisfactory. So those two items went on the pile of things to be loaded in the moving van next Saturday.

Second stop on the shopping trip was at Lowes home store. Here I needed to buy a vent cover for the furnace outlet in the kitchen. A couple of weeks back, I broke the existing one by leaning back in my chair with one chair leg on the vent. It looks bad, and I thought I’d replace it for the new owner. More importantly, I needed to buy cabinet pulls for the new cabinets in Apt. 621. I selected some nice-shaped brushed-nickel handles.

At 5pm I drove to Channing House. First stop was Angela’s office in the basement to drop off the door pulls. She was at her desk, and glad to see me because she was just about to write me an email. There’s been a snag in the scheduling. The two counter-tops, one for the remodeled kitchenette and one for the bathroom vanity counter, have been back-ordered. She’s been promised them for sometime between the 10th and the 17th, and just maybe one of them might be installed before I move in on the 15th. But if they are both still missing, I won’t have any kind of basin for washing hands or spitting toothpaste. Toilet, shower, closets, all OK, but no basin. We joked about how I could brush my teeth in the shower.

She had reserved one of their guest apartments for me to sleep in, if I don’t want to complete the move, but I said I’d tough it out. Worst case, I can come back and sleep at 2340 Tasso for a couple of nights, although I don’t expect to. It’s annoying but I can’t get angry about this; I’ve lived through construction projects and know how they can go. Angela does an amazing job coordinating a dozen or more projects simultaneously and I’m not going to grump at her.

Her second annoying news came when I told her that I’d be on my way to Greece on September 6th, which is the last day of the move-out period for the 6th floor. So, could she please schedule my move to temporary quarters for earlier in that week?

Well, actually, no, we can’t. We always do it from the end furthest from the freight elevator toward it. And #621 is the last apartment right next to the freight elevator. So probably mine would be the last or penultimate move. OK, I said, as long as you can do it without me. Yes, no problem. We’ll work with you to plan the move, we’ll know where everything goes, and you don’t need to be here for the actual move.

So there we are. Moving in with possibly no sinks, and when I come back from my cruise, I’ll see my temporary unit for the first time.

Day 184, AT&T, FOPAL, upgrade, SYTYCD

Tuesday, 5/4/2019

Exercise this morning was a brisk walk to the Y and a round of exercise. The exercises I do there, that I think have the most benefit, are not possible with the equipment in the CH gym, so I will likely keep my Y membership.

That’s not a large expense but it annoys me because I thought I would be dropping it. But that annoyance was assuaged this morning when I had an

email from AT&T

saying that “my bill” was past due. No indication of which bill. So here’s the thing: for nearly a decade I’ve had DirecTV with auto bill-pay. A year ago AT&T absorbed DirecTV and its website, and now anytime you try to look at your DirecTV account, you end up being shuttled willy-nilly into myAtt.com account management. There it kept showing me that my $60 monthly bill for internet is paid up all proper. There is no freakin’ way to get from that account page to my DirecTV account, to check up on my bill or payment method for the TV service.

Well, there must be, because after I switched browsers and went through the sequence a fourth time, suddenly and magically I was looking at my bill for the month’s TV, $153. And I supplied the credit card data they already had and paid it.

One of the pleasures of leaving this house will the fun of calling AT&T and terminating both the internet and TV services. Saving me just over $210 per month, which more than makes up for the much smaller YMCA membership bill.

Now, true, at CH I will be what I have studiously avoided becoming for twenty years, a Comcast customer! Always avoided it because of Comcast’s horrible reputation for customer service. Hah! At CH, I’m not the customer; a medium-size business (Channing House) is the customer. I will be paying a small amount monthly for a Comcast, excuse me, XFinity, DVR, which costs extra. (I went over this in detail with Craig yesterday.) But that will be a pittance compared to what I’ve been paying DirecTV/AT&T all these years.

Anyway.

Yesterday when I spent time at

FOPAL

tidying the Computer section I was appalled at the flood of donations that came in and were piled up waiting to be sorted. Today another volunteer speculated that it was the result of the Palo Alto city-wide garage sale over the weekend — all the books that didn’t sell in garage sales, were boxed up and dumped at FOPAL. And some actually were “dumped”, about 8 boxes were just left outside the door, which is rather discourteous.

So I went down today again and spent another three hours sorting. Didn’t eliminate the backlog but took a serious bite out of it.

Then I bought a pound of coffee and some toilet paper (there wasn’t quite enough left to cover two more weeks) and headed home. From there I went over to CH to attend the

monthly Upgrade Update

meeting. This was to let all residents know the status and progress of the rolling floor-by-floor renovation. This meeting was particularly for the Seventh and Sixth floors.

The 7th floor people got their dates for when they would move back to their renovated apartments (August 12-23), and we 6th floors got the dates for when we would be moved out to temporary units (August 26 to September 9th). (Note to self: thoughts of taking some kind of cruise in the fall: book for mid-September.)

We also learned what our temporary units would be, and got floor plans for them. I will be moving to the 4th floor and the West side. The unit is almost the same size and layout as #621, so there won’t be any need to store any of my furniture, and most of it can go to the same relative position. The only problem I foresee is that my plants will have more light and heat from the Western exposure. Rather than hanging around an hour for supper I just went on home for a simple meal and to watch episode 1 of season 16 of

So You Think You Can Dance

Marian and I watched the previous fifteen seasons of this show and enjoyed them all. When I noticed the DVR had recorded SYTYCD I was a little worried, on two conflicting accounts. Would it be too hard to watch, being bothered by thoughts of “She would have enjoyed this so much”? And conversely, would I find out it wasn’t as good as I remembered, and wouldn’t be fun to watch when I didn’t share it with another fan?

Fortunately, neither. There were sniffly moments when I thought about how Marian would have enjoyed it, but they weren’t too frequent or intrusive. And the show was just as good as I remembered. Better than some years, in fact. In some past seasons they have tinkered with their format in various unfortunate ways. This year they seem to have gone back to the original format, augmented with a whizzy new stage — which incorporates a circle of cameras, so they can capture a dancer in the air and show them in full 3D — and new judges who aren’t embarrassing. So, yeah. Good watching.

Day 183, men’s group, FOPAL, tech, realty

Monday, 6/3/2019

The CH Men’s Group met at 10 and I was to introduce myself and “talk about anything you like”. So I gave a capsule autobiography with some pictures culled from my collection. Maybe I’ll write that into this blog at some point.

In order to get my usual exercise, I walked from Tasso street to Channing House and back again, net 10,900 steps for the day. Then I went to FOPAL to do the Computer section work. There were eight boxes of books waiting. I ended up keeping about 30 books, sending seven boxes to the bargain room. I ruthlessly discarded into the garbage can somebody’s donation of a bag of 50 or so, 3.5-inch floppies. Nobody cares and they aren’t recyclable. I also put in the recycling a complete FrameMaker product box, containing a set of manuals for that software. Nostalgia: there was a period around 1992-3 when I used FrameMaker 40 hours a week, writing manuals at Informix. It hasn’t been supported, or used, this century, and wouldn’t run on any existing hardware.

Pricing, as usual, turned up some “high value” (average online price greater than $25) books, including one boring looking little textbook whose prices ranged from $70 to over $200. Those went into the “high value” cart for those volunteers to sell.

From FOPAL I drove back to CH to attend a tech group meeting at 3pm. This was to introduce ClearPass, a system of access control for the CH internet provision, so that each apartment could have, in effect, its own little wi-fi network carved out of the big building network. In this way, your laptops, phone, desktop and wireless-connected printer can all see each other — you can print on your printer from anywhere, and your Macs can use Apple file sharing between them — but other users in the building can’t see them. It seems pretty slick, making a couple of hundred apparently unique wi-fi clusters out of one big system. They claim they use this solution for major universities so each student in a dorm has a unique “micro-net” for their devices. I took a bunch of notes on the phone.

Drove home via Safeway to pick up a few groceries. About six, Chuck called. He’d talked at length to the other agent. As was said before, the Lawyer Lady loves the house but is currently tasked with a huge responsibility for a “billion dollar contract” (probably an exaggeration) within her law firm and hasn’t had time to make any decisions. Her visit to the house on Friday was a success, she and her decorator friend love it even more.

I told Chuck I could sympathize with her having this huge crisis, and don’t mind her thinking about it longer; but on the other hand, I want to sell. We agreed he would re-run the ad in the Daily Post that he had suspended last week in respect of their offer. And we talked about how soon after I move out (in 12 days!) we can list the house. Sometime in July.

Day 182, mostly baseball

Sunday, 6/2/2019

This is the day the Lawyer Lady is supposed to respond to our counter-offer. At some time I expect a text from Chuck saying whether we have sold the house or not.

Off to breakfast at the usual place. Punched the last hole in the discount cappuccino card. Not quite perfect timing, I expect to come there one more time, and will have to pay full price for a cappuccino. Caught the cinnamon rolls just as they came out of the oven. Warm cinnamon roll, num.

Stanford baseball has lost one game in its regional, so has to play the other loser today at noon. If they win, they will be allowed to play Fresno State at 6pm, and if they win that they will be allowed to play Fresno State again on Monday to see which team advances to the final four in Oklahoma. Since I paid for a regional pass I had better go.

Between breakfast and noon, I assembled some pictures to accompany my self-introduction to the Men’s Group at Channing House, on Monday. Then off to the baseball game. Lovely weather for it. I spotted several Stanford WBB players in the stands. Stanford got off to a good start, and in the seventh inning they batted around, running the score to 11-1. I decided that was a “W” and left at that point, about 2pm.

At 6pm I was back to Sunken Diamond for the second game. I had my cell phone charged up and with ESPN open in the web browser I could follow the Warriors-Toronto NBA game between pitches. The baseball turned into a marathon. At 8:40pm they had only finished the fifth inning. The Warriors game was over (Warriors won) and Stanford was ahead 6-4, and it was dark and chilly. I decided I had had enough, and went home to listen to the rest of the game on the radio. It didn’t wrap up for another 90 minutes, but did end with a Stanford win.

Around 9:30 Chuck texted that the other agent had not gotten back to him. Expect something tomorrow morning. Are they playing games? Nominally they had only to Sunday to respond, then the counter would be automatically be dropped and the deal is off. Well, what do I know.

And so to bed.

Day 173, OMCA, realty

Cannabis report: taking 10mg/10mg had little, if any, effect. I woke up a couple of times around midnight and two AM, and both times noticed something possibly THC-related. As I’m falling asleep, I often “see” abstract patterns of light or color, which are entertaining and fun to notice. This night, I noticed that I was seeing unusually varied and detailed images, like a crazy slide-show of abstract art. I don’t recall now any of the images, only that they had a different quality, more varied and more detailed, than my normal falling-asleep experience. Could have been the THC — except that this was 3 and 4 hours after consumption.

Friday, 5/24/2019

Shortly after waking realized that it is just over a week to the six-month anniversary of Marian’s death. Which is significant in that, absent any firm offer on the house, I need an appraisal done to establish its value. I had discussed this with Chuck last week, and he assured me he knew an appraiser who would do a good job on short notice. At that time we were expecting a possible offer from Lawyer Lady so left it to “next week”. Well, I realized this morning, it’s the last day of “next week”, and there’s a holiday next week.

So I texted Chuck at 7am to initiate the appraisal today if possible. He replied OK, but later I learned that an appraiser can be instructed to come up with a value “as of” a particular time. In this case, the appraiser will be instructed to state the value “as of” Marian’s death. Quite possibly that will be a higher value than the house will sell for in today’s market, with the result I might actually have a loss for income tax purposes.

Then it was off to Oakland to meet with Darlene to visit the Oakland Museum of California, or OMCA as they call themselves. The main reason was to view the photographs of Andrew Russell, who used a cumbersome wet-plate view camera to document the building of the transcontinental railway. He it was who took the iconic picture of the completion:

east20and20west20shaking20hands20at20laying20last20rail

The pictures are amazingly detailed. They’ve taken some of the 8-inch square negatives and printed them 8 feet square and you an walk right up and count leaves on bushes.

Darlene was interested in the exhibit “Queer California: Untold Stories”, pointing to pictures of marches she and Jessea had participated in. We had lunch in the museum cafe and then I headed back, arriving home in good time for Chuck to drop by.

His main news was the official offer from the Lawyer Lady (her name is Daphne, I learned). We went over the offer, and then we penciled out a lot of numbers starting with my goal for net proceeds, adding all the fixed costs and taxes that will be charged in escrow, adding in 5% commission (2.5% to each broker). This gives my bottom-line number, and it is surprisingly close to what the other agent stressed was an absolute top-line number from Lawyer Lady. There’s a lack of clarity about whether the other agent expects to take her 2.5% commission out of escrow, or if she will be paid directly by the buyer and so not be dipping in the escrow pot. In the worst case we’re only 4% apart.

After hashing it around awhile, I want to wait and not counter until next week. This is because of a foolish hope that a better buyer might see the ad in the Daily Post and call Chuck over the weekend. If that doesn’t happen he will present a counter-offer on Tuesday.

Later I went to CH for supper. On the way through the basement from the garage I stopped at Angela’s office. She was in and could give me good news on the unit. The custom cabinets for the bathroom are in, and the top (not clear if that’s the top for the kitchenette counter or the vanity counter), and demolition should start soon. There should be no problem completing the job for the 6/15 move-in date. We talked about how she should let me know when she has scheduled the last step, which is deep-cleaning the carpets. After that I can start bringing stuff in, if there’s anything I want to move ahead of the 15th.

Day 165, Yosemite, CH

Thursday 5/16/2019

Drove through unseasonable heavy rain showers to Yosemite, the Museums warehouse for a day of work. Aurora, the curator, assigned me to work with Ken doing photography. She’d turned up a couple of boxes of previously cataloged artifacts that had never been photographed. We have a new volunteer, Tom, who spent a long career in Burroughs and its later incarnations as part of Sperry. Aurora had him sit with her all day as they went through every Burroughs-related artifact in the catalog and he added or clarified information in the descriptions.

At four I headed back toward Palo Alto but not simply home. In the daily CH schedule — which I now get in my email every morning — it said that there would be a ceremony in the lobby to welcome Rhonda Bekkedahl, our new CEO. She’s been acting CEO for a few weeks, and in fact it was she who conducted my signing day a few weeks ago. I sat across from her at her desk and she led me through each of the numerous documents I had to sign. She was warmly congratulated by the chairman of the Board, who noted that both the outgoing CEO (who retired last month) and the Board as a whole were unanimous in recommended Rhonda as his successor. She’s been an executive here for some time, COO for a year. So she knows the organization and is apparently liked by the staff and the residents.

Anyway this is the first time I saw the whole membership, or at least most of it, assembled in one place. The lobby is large and it was pretty full of a crowd of a couple hundred people. I was looking around trying to feel like I fit in, but I don’t really, which is due to a mismatch with my quite inaccurate self-image. When I’m not actually looking in a mirror, I fall into the habit of thinking of myself as middle-aged. Um, dude… that train pulled out 20 years ago.

OK, fair enough, but I think I am in better physical shape than most of the other residents. However it is easy to notice how many are tottery or have wheeled walkers, while overlooking the large minority who are walking freely, standing straight and conducting animated conversations. Like Colin at dinner the other night, 93 and plays tennis every day.

Anyway, nobody there uses an actual Zimmer frame type walker, thank the lord! All nifty three-wheelers. If I saw anybody pushing one of those aluminum frames with tennis balls on the back legs, I’d… I don’t know what I’d do. But I would be profoundly disappointed.

After the meeting the dining hall had opened so of course I had supper there. I ate alone. Should I have invited myself to join one of the tables with three or four other people? Yeah, probably. But I’m not going to beat myself up about this. It just isn’t going to happen that I learn a bunch of people’s names and faces right away. I feel like I’m desperately clinging to the five or six I tried to remember from the floor meeting last week.

On the drive home I conceived another route that may be more fitted to my nature. I will not try to learn all the names, and I will not go out of the way to socialize at meals. I will relax and be my nerdy self, but I will also volunteer for multiple committees, of which there are many. I will learn people in small numbers, by repeated exposure in committee meetings and volunteer activities. From that may arise invitations to sit with people at meals. Or not; I really don’t care about that.

Day 157, will signed, FOPAL

Wednesday, 5/8/2019

Went for a run. The sat down to do a couple of things. Changed my address with my health insurance. Then checked something because I woke up fussed about it at 4:30am. I’m developing this bad pattern of waking up around 4am and, even though I get up and pee, I don’t go back to sleep but instead fuss and fret about something. Today it was wondering if I had the documentation I needed in order to set up my T-Mobile micro-cell at CH. What?

I’ve been using T-Mobile phone service for years, but the service was always feeble around our house, two bars and sometimes only one. Last year I heard you could do this, and I went to the T-Mobile office and said, I want one of these things. They said, “sure” and gave me a box. It’s a box that acts as a local cell tower, using your internet. Once I installed it, I had four solid bars all around the house and out to the sidewalk.

But at 4am I was all fussed because I couldn’t remember how I set it up. How did it know the local wi-fi? Did I hook a laptop to it? I didn’t remember doing that. Shut up and go to sleep! So now at 11am I just go directly to the pend-a-flex folder where I stored the user manual for the device and look, and it’s a wired connection. It needs to plug in a cable to your router or modem or whatever. That’s why I didn’t remember connecting it to the wi-fi; because I didn’t have to. Just hook up its cable and that’s it.

Will that work at CH? Probably, but I will let that wait until I get there, get moved in, and can call on the local tech committee.

Next I emailed neighbors Thane and Gloria. I didn’t mention, on Monday, day 155, I had walked across the street and asked Thane if they would witness me signing my new will. (I did mention the new will on day 150.) Monday Thane said Gloria was away, but would be back Tuesday night. So now, Wednesday morning, I emailed to ask when would be convenient for this. Instead of replying, the two of them showed up at the door ten minutes later.

We chatted for a while; I told them about progress in selling the house; I signed the will and they signed as witnesses; and they left.

I put the will into the Lawyer’s prepaid envelope and took it to the actual post office to mail it. Then I continued on down to FOPAL and spent four hours sorting. It’s the days just before the biweekly sale and the sorting room is overflowing with books.

Then I bought some groceries, spending about twice what I spent the last two times. The reason is I bought a bottle of wine, a wedge of Brie, and some crackers. Why? Because on Monday, when Chuck texted that the potential buyer wanted to come back with her daughter and a friend (that hasn’t been scheduled yet; hope she hasn’t changed her mind), I texted back “great, I’ll set out cheese and crackers and wine” and a smiley-face emoji. Humor. Or not? Because Chuck texted back, “great idea”. Well… ok… So I bought some wine and cheese and crackers. Along with a pound of coffee. And my grocery supplies: a rotisserie chicken, which will supply meat for several meals, and some fruit, and a loaf of bread.

Got home at 5 planning to sit and chill. But looked at my email.

One, the invoice for taxes from the tax accountant. OK, print invoice and put on desk, will handle it tomorrow.

Two, quote from Angela at CH on my upgraded closet doors. I must sign and give back before she can order, with a 2-3 week lead-time. Print and set aside to take to CH… when?

Three, email from health insurance, two EOBs. I print them to file in the medical expense folder.

Four, email from Angela, the stainless steel sink I’m paying extra for, she only just noticed, is “tiny” at 14 inches wide. Is that ok? If not, she can look into alternatives. Why is this now an issue? I can’t get over there to look before tomorrow night. What size is the not-extra-cost sink?

Now it’s 5:30. Enjoying your time of chilling? Said “bleep it” and drove to CH to hand in the signed quote for closet doors, and to measure the existing sink. Came home and wrote to Angela about that.

I could have stayed over there to eat, but came home for a chicken leg, orange, and protein shake instead.

Day 156, showing, floor meeting

Last night I watched an episode of the New Zealand based crime show, Brokenwood Mysteries, streamed off Amazon Prime. Times past, I’ve used my Sony Blu-Ray player for this. It has the software to handle streaming video from various sources. However, its interface is really clumsy, as well as slow-responding. So this time I just streamed on the laptop. Now, I could run an HDMI cable from the laptop to the TV, and maybe another time I would. However this time I just reclined in my chair and rested the warm laptop on my tummy. Through the bottom half of my bifocals, the screen is about 25% bigger than my 48-inch TV. And the controls for pause, play, skip forward or backward, toggle subtitles (needed with NZ accents!), are all responsive and intuitive.

So the streaming experience on the laptop is at least as pleasant as that on the big screen. But somehow, leaning back with a laptop on my chest seems more self-indulgent than sitting up, watching exactly the same content, on the TV across the floor.

Tuesday, 5/7/2019

I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind wanted to fuss about a decision I made Friday. This is about a custom museum tour. I told on Day 151 about how I’d signed up to lead a custom tour of comp. sci. students on this coming Saturday. Then I had tried to contact Katharina, the docent manager, by email and phone, to express a concern about the timing and content. She’d ghosted me. On the Thursday, at Toni’s advice, I’d left a voice mail for the museum staff member who’d booked the tour, Poppy.

Well, Friday evening, after getting no call-back from Poppy, I removed my name from the schedule for that tour. Let them find somebody else. But now, at 4am, I am regretting that decision. My not leading the tour won’t help anything and probably won’t even be noticed by Katherina or Poppy. So at 4:30am I got up, got out the laptop, and re-booked myself for the tour. Now I see that another docent, Kim, has signed up for it as well. That’s appropriate, supposing the scheduled 30 students show up. If as is typical, it’s only half that, it’ll be overkill.

Then I did sleep until 6:40. About 8:30 I walked to the YMCA gym, for the first time in weeks. Back home, I tidied the house for showing at noon. I had been storing boxes containing disassembled, new furniture in the living room. I moved them to the middle room. Then I left and sat the local coffee shop until Chuck texted at 12:40 that they were out. This client is a single mom, an attorney, and she seemed interested. Chuck says she would like to see it again with her daughter and a friend. So that sounds good.

At 4:15 I went to CH for the sixth floor meeting. I’m trying to learn a lot of names. Phil, Jean, Ruth, Marcia, Gwen. Hope a few of those stick. After supper, came home to veg. out.

Day 152, shopping, fitness, paperwork

Friday, 5/3/2019

First thing, I called Angela’s number at CH and to my surprise, got her live. Arranged for her to leave the upgrade estimates at the desk for me to sign. Then went on a a run. Then headed out on a shopping expedition.

First stop was Stanford Federal Credit Union. Back story: in April I used the SFCU website bill-pay system to pay a medical bill, $504 to Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Early in May I got a note in the PAMF messaging system asking if I’d please pay my $504 bill. So I replied that I had, $504 on 4/9. They replied, we don’t see it, but send us some proof, email to blah blah include account number, etc., and we’ll try to find it. Grump grump grump, off I go to SFCU. Nice guy opens up the account and prints off a couple pages showing indeed, $504 went out from my account to PAMF’s account on 4/9.

So later in the day I scan this and start to append it to an email to the given address when I have a thought. The SFCU bill-pay app was set up by Marian, with a menu of known recipients; for each one, an account number etc. Looking at the summary of recent payments I see that in fact that payment of 4/9 went to the recipient named “PAMF-M”.

Uh-oh.

Yup, in the menu of recipients is another named “PAMF-D”. Looking at the details, the one I paid to had Marian’s PAMF account number, not my PAMF account number.

So that led to a considerable change in the tone and content of the email to Sutter Health billing department. From “Look how wrong you are,” to “Can you straighten out my stupid goof?”

From SFCU I drove to Wegman’s Nursery, and then more or less on a whim, to another nursery on Ralston Ave. in Belmont. Neither had anything like hanging plant post I need.

Now on to Stanford shopping center, Macy’s Men’s store. I had various clothes that need upgrading or replacing. One, my Jockey shorts are wearing out, not surprising they’d have holes being at least ten years old. Easy enough to buy a dozen of those. Two, I need a couple of pairs of jeans. I tried on a bunch and finally didn’t choose any. I did confirm that despite having lost over 10 pounds in the past year, my correct size is still 36W30L exactly as it has been for ever. But I couldn’t find the right combination of color and fit, and decided to go home, check what I had, and order exact replacements online.

Three, polo shirts. My standard summer shirt is a Lands End Supima cotton polo. Sadly Land’s End isn’t selling the one of their colors that I like and looks good on me, a deep brown. Maybe I could find a nice polo shirt at Macy’s? I looked at a bunch and didn’t like any. Not even actual Polo ones, the kind with a little polo player embroidered on them. Or the ones with an alligator. No good colors and all felt crude to the hand. Back to the internet.

So I zipped home with my bundle of tighty-whiteys and quickly changed to shorts and a t-shirt and drove back to CH for my Fitness Evaluation with Clark. Clark (his last name is not Kent, despite his definite mild manner) had me do six or seven things while he timed me. How many times can I stand up and sit down again in 30 seconds, and so on. He promises in a few days a consultation and a fitness program.

Signed Angela’s forms so work can start on my unit, then back home again to start the laundry, send that email to PAMF Billing, order the wax plant poles from Amazon, order two pairs of jeans from Levi’s, order one black and one dark gray polo from Land’s End. Also waiting at home, the statement for my next six month’s of car insurance. I note that I am protected at $1M for bodily injury, but $100K for property damage. Catherine the insurance agent had suggested upping it to $1M for property damage also, but on consideration, I don’t see it. I wrote to her saying I would leave it as-is.

Throughout the day I’d been hoping for a call-back from Poppy, the tour organizer at CHM, and it never came. That’s very disappointing and I am going to take myself off that tour… done.

At 7:30 there is a concert at Dinkelspiel I want to attend. Time for a quick supper and a nap first.

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: