Category Archives: 2020

12/7/2020 – Monday – Life’s Little Instruction Book, library…..

Karen brought out a pile of books from her collection upstairs. This to select ones for each of the kids and grandchildren for Christmas. Amongst them was this little book:

The author is H. Jackson Brown, Jr. Once I opened it I quickly formulated my Christmas present to the same crowd. 

I spent several hours combing through the little book for ones that I liked, writing little explications or critiques. Now I am working though the ones that I think are silly or wrong. Finally I will add some wisdom from Mr. Wonderful. I want to print it as a little booklet.  Karen has suggested Mr. Wonderful yawning for the cover.

Library Board Development Committee meeting

Very productive meeting to get this important process rejuvenated. Miranda Barry, Carol Pledger, Caitie Hilverman, and AnnaMaria Assevero.

Orton Sibling Zoom

Everyone in attendance. OK. Wondering about sending email suggesting a shift to every other week?

12/6/2020 – Sunday – walk, Leiden Zoom, dinner with Dave and Hazel

Snow on the Catskills already….

Went for a walk. Not our usual  route. Down  to  the Promenade, then on to the water  treatment  plant,  up 2nd to Robinson. At end of 3rd walk down steep hill and back up to Washington St. At the Fire Station walked around to County Social Services building this revealed a path across the eastern end of Oakdale Park. Through the woods to clamber on up to Oakwood Blvd. Along Oakdale Beach on 6th St on to Warren and then home. 3 1/2miles.On Robinson St.

Past the County Social Services bldg. to the path around the eastern end of Oakdale Park.

A lot of this was new territory for us. And new perspectives on well know ground.

Zoom with the kids in Leiden

Jesse scored in the top ranks for selection to the high schools in Leiden.

Dinner with Dave and Hazel

Karen roasted a beer can chicken, made tomatoes and cabbage stew, and I made faro. Dave brought his homemade butter nut pecan ice cream. Temperature was 30 degrees. Dinner lasted for 1 1.2 hours. With the 2 hours with Ted and Anne Saturday looks like a tank of gas lasts for around 4 hours.


More Brokenwood tv

12/3/2020 – Thursday – work – tennis lesson – cooking – library

UTMH work – not much – boring meeting with Seth, Ryder, and Erin….. about how to document new features…..

Paddle-ball court at Total Tennis

Tennis lesson featured a lot of new drills. Instead of usual warm up did volleys and touch and volley. Lots of footwork practices. Health monitor on phone said I took over 5,000 steps in an hour. Roughly 2.5 miles of running. Tired.

Cooked first bean dish in a long while. Vaguely followed a black beans and rice recipe from Moosewood.

Emily Chameides sent me a query about things wrong with the mobile version of the library website.

12/2/2020 – Wednesday- tennis amidst snow flurries – end of outdoor season??

Spent time trying to get Lightroom up and running to replace Photos app, and UTMH work. Went to play tennis with Ted at 2:30 pm. 40 degrees but little wind. Balls didn’t bounce much so many ball were hit at ankle height. Then we had snow flurries. Time to end the outdoor season?? When will the city take down the nets? Usually already happened by this point in the year.

Hung up banner for last DOG show of the year.

Watched more of Homeland and Ally McBeal

12/1/2020 – Tuesday – leaks, reference sources

Woke up this morning to this article headline in the Guardian. Torrey reported just last night that there have been no new cases in Victoria for 28 days and no new deaths. He refers to this as a “double donut”.

Water dripping from sink front.

Saw this photo of a book carousel. Mindful of the dictionary carousels that were on a vertical axis, too. My resource access strategy is on the right.

The leak under the kitchen sink required two trips to Lowes for parts. The discovered that the threads on the drain assembly are stripped. New drain. Might as well buy a whole new drain, dishwasher stem, J trap assembly…..

11/27/2020 – Friday – Dermatology, walk, tennis

Drove Karen up to East Greenbush for a reading of the biopsy on her upper lip. Fortunately the results are fairly benign. A pre-cancer finding. Now hopefully successfully eradicated through a cryogenic procedure.

Drove to Papscanee Island Nature Preserve for a walk. This park is located on the Hudson River in New Castleton, NY. 3.5 mile walk. Flat with occasional muddy section on the trail. Nice to be walking in a new environment.
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There must have been a very strong wind storm recently. Whole trees blown down….


Tennis with Ted in the afternoon. Esther Hanig drink at 5:30 via Zoom. Post Thanksgiving debrief…..

4/30/2020 – 7/1/2020

I have not felt motivated to write much during this period. The pandemic and its associated tribulations interfere.

We’ve been quite busy with socializing mainly virtually but with warm weather outdoors chiefly people’s backyards. We’ve moved our drinks with Ted and Anne to our backyards on a weekly schedule. Dave Drake has come by for food a number of times. He is working his way through a myriad of curry dishes. Zoom meetings weekly with Esther Hanig, Ellen Feldman, Dave Drake, the Orton siblings, the Leiden crew. 

With less regularity Andrea and company have Zoomed and appeared here physically. Though we have seen Noah and Nyla twice now in the backyard once including Noah’s girlfriend Kiara Guyton. Andrea actually talked with us for almost two hours in a singe stretch. Probably my longest conversation with her in decades. Nyla wrote a great high school essay, “Aunt Jemima Ain’t Chure Mammy”

4/28/2020 – Tuesday – walk – neuroscience course – Dave Drake drinks

Breakfast w bran muffin, banana, and apple. Andrea called and spoke with Karen for a long time. Included me to look at pictures of a house in Sagaponick NY that Andrea has successfully bid $1.5 million. Fully furnished vintage 2002. 2 areas of land. Pool. Good rental property.

Standard walk. But 3.4 mph pace. Definitely the fastest yet.

Listening to lecture 10 in the neuroscience course – vision and visual perception. Also watched the new podcast from the HAL History Room. Gary Sheffer and Kelly Drahushuk on the cemetery. Worked on catching up on my diary on markorton.com.

Drinks with Dave Drake at 6:30pm…..

More Persons of Interest.