Category Archives: Hudson Area Library

7/29/2019 – exercises, puttering, HAL, nonfiction book group

Monday

After breakfast did exercise routine. Puttering. Created some questions for the book group meeting on White Trash. Karen was off in Cambridge at Soup Group. Greeted one of the 50 photographers in the gallery to see her work. Read more of Stalingrad.

Broke up the many computer boxes I had brought down from the 2nd floor of barn. First step in a clean out. 

Met with Emily Chameides at the library at 5pm. Talked through lots of issues. 

Nonfiction book group at 6 pm. 8 people attended despite promises from four or five more to show up.  Two new people: Anna Maria Assevero and Peter Daley. She has joined the library board. He is a friend of Erika and Nick from another book group. Good discussion. 

7/12/2019 – work, tooth cleaning, HAL mtg., drinks

Friday

Breakfast at Bob’s followed by shopping. UTMH – write new collateral about billing process, Troy Web telecon. Talk with Matt Almeida. Tooth cleaning. Looks like another tooth in upper left is infected and should be extracted.

Send this note and pictures to Ted and Chad Silver in ref a conversation we had after doubles night on Tuesday.

Subject: Warhol and the Last Supper
Chad and Ted,
Here are some pictures of this work now at The School in Kinderhook. Chad, you are right about the materials.
 
This might be my favorite Last Supper. But I also really like the Tintoretto version. Looks like a bunch of inebriates hanging out.
 

 

HAL Fundraising Committee meeting at Miranda Barry’s house. New member, Charlie Whittingham, experience fundraiser. He dove right in. Theresa Parsons, Gary Sheffer and David Murphy also participated. Charlie will bring some fresh eyes to our issues.

Ellen Feldman arrived for a weekend visit. Ted and Anne came over for our biweekly drink. Lots of talk about Paris since Ellen has just returned from her three month stay there.

7/8/2019 – web project, house, UTMH

Monday

Up at 6 in a rush. Karen discovered that the upstairs toilet had overflowed all night long flooding the bathroom and now leaking down, fortunately, onto the side yard sidewalk. What a mess. I had clogged up the toilet the evening before. The toilet has been running for years. Now stuffed up, it overflowed and continued so for hours. Took five minutes or more with a mop to get all the water up. Amazingly none of it had escaped into the rest of the house.

Karen went to her exercise class. Put laundry in machine. Looked at the leak in the roof that had caused the plaster in the cabinet over the washing machine to fall down. Got step ladder and opened hatch to attic. It was immediately obvious that the leak came from failed flashing around the cast iron vent pipe. Have to find name of roofing company.

After breakfast I put off doing much of anything for UTMH and HAL that I was supposed to be working on.  Brief conversation with Seth and a few notes was the entirety of that work. Sent note via Slack that I would not attend tomorrow’s team meeting. Only dealt with nonfiction book group matters. Recent newsletter outreach by Tina Lesem and Brenda had produced three new people wanting to participate in the discussion of White Trash.

Just before noon Mike Herman called and appeared almost immediately to look at the front fence. He will start work in a few weeks. His daughter, who looks like a teenager but is in her early 20’s, was with him. Karen came too. We settled on things including repairs to the brick in Bruce and Sam’s house. She came out and agreed to an off-the-cuff $300-$400 bill for the masonry repairs. Mike will delete the priming and painting cost from his estimate.

Went to bank to deposit my UTMH pay check.Had lunch at Chinese restaurant by the park. Spent time in the factory working on the consolidation project for this website. Karen and I talked about her birthday tomorrow. Settled on going to The School in Kinderhook followed by lunch at Cascades.

For some reason I decided to tear up the rear deck to repair the rotten flooring. What a mess I discovered.

The supporting joists, particularly the one close to the sun room are severely rotted. Karen came a looked, too. I sent a note to Mike Herman asking for him to return to examine the mess and make a proposal. As I noted to him, “This is beyond the scope and scale of this weekend warrior.” I covered the chasm up with a sheet of plywood.

Made coleslaw and heated leftover curried lamb with vegetables for dinner. We ate in the sun room. Need to do this regularly instead of in front of boob tube.

Read more of Grossman’s Stalingrad – up to page 106.

 

6/29/2019 – Bob’s, HAL Gala

Saturday

Bob’s for breakfast followed by food shopping. Drop off a big pile of UPS boxes to return last Fall’s book show entries.

Went to library at noon to help with set up for Gala Party. Moved chairs, furniture, cooking equipment, plates etc. Worked with new board member Bill Stenehjem. Nice guy. Went back at 4:30 with 240 lbs of ice. Less than the 400 lbs Betsy Gramkow suggested. But seemed that 1 1/2 lbs per attendee should work. Then worked with Gary Sheffer and Betsy to put furniture out in the rear garden for outdoor cocktails. No sooner everything set up then a big thunderstorm drowned that plan.

Party was fun. Ted and Anne came as our guests. I spent quite a bit of time schmoozing the crowd. Had interesting conversation outside around cigarrette smoking ith Shanekia MacIntosh and Zia Anger, young staff and volunteer for tech programs for kids. When we left at 9:30 or so there were still 40 or more people hanging out including some dancing. Call for the Cause raised $30k in about 15 minutes.

6/24/2019 – web projects, work, tennnis, book group

Monday

PT with Corey Smith at 7:30am. Asked him about a private consult to set up a home exercise protocol using the mat, rubber bands, and weights I already have.

Spent many hours working on integrating old websites into this one. Adding many new Projects as well as posts. Lots of material to work on. Played tennis with Ted at 1pm. Felt infinitely better than yesterday’s outing. Won a set 6-1. Pretty bouncy all and all.

Non-fiction book group. Just six people. I hadn’t read the book, No Ashes…. Pretty good discussion nevertheless.

6/20/2019 – HAL, work, tennis lesson, Karen’s book group

Thursday

PT with Corey Smith at 7:30 am. Very productive.

Scrubbed through more old files from earlier websites. Lots of stuff to consolidate here.

Tennis lesson with Saif. Focus on less power and more consistent stroke paths. Toss ball really high for serve. Stretch up to reach the ball. Wrist is bothering me. Moved mouse pad to opposite side of keyboard. Will see if this helps.

Karen started cooking by mid morning. Her book group is meeting here. I cleaned the two rooms – vacuum, wash floors, etc. rearrange furniture.

I left for Bob’s for dinner at about 6pm. Came back around 7:30pm. Book group didn’t leave until 9:30 or later;

6/14/2019 – DOG, UTMH, RBC, Narcan at HAL, tennis, drinks at Ted and Anne’s house

Friday

Spent most of the day hanging end of newest DOG show. UTMH telecon with Troy Web, Matt Almeida, David Ackerman. Migrated website from diary.markorton.com to markorton.com. 

Emily Chameides sent me a text message at 4pm:

Just had to call 911. Found someone passed out in men’s room. Greenport Rescue and HPD responded and they revived him. Glad we caught it in time.

I was in the car going to play tennis. Saw the ambulance already at the library. I responded later. She replied:

Yes. Glad they came quickly and revived him. We have narcan but I called 911 first and they came so quickly. Glad I didn’t need to administer.

I stopped by her house on 5th on my way home from tennis. She was sitting on her stoop. We chatted about the incident for a few moments, the emotional burden of finding unresponsive bodies and then deciding what to do. She and Paul have Narcan training. But she pointed out that this guy was really big and it happens that they get aggressive when revived. But the Greenport Rescue came so quickly that she didn’t need to work that over too much.

Tennis was a first outing after the trip and illness, first time in just a day shy of four weeks. Trouble striking the ball squarely. Volleying OK. Ted was like the Energizer Bunny. I was fairly dead. Only played for an 45 minutes. 

Drinks with Ted and Anne. Ted had made a big plate of deviled eggs. Shared notes of our trips. They had taken ten students from Marist to Paris for ten days. As usual the conversation was loud, abrupt, back and forth.

Ended evening with another The Closer. 

6/10 – 6/12/2019 – airplane illness

Monday – Wednesday

Went to PT at 7:30 with Corey. Very good session. Came home. By 9 I was in bed chilled and feeling terrible. Temperature over 101. Head buzzing, weak muscles but no respiratory symptoms. Also constipation continued. Felt marginally better Tuesday morning. Slightly lower temperature. Spent most of day in bed. Very little appetite. Drank lots of water. Several people showed up at 1pm to hang art. Fortunately she is competent with tools. I had little to do. Karen was off at a doctor’s appointment 

Spoke with Miranda Barry via UberConference in late afternoon about Wednesday’s HAL Stakeholder event. Still no appetite and still constipated…..

Wednesday morning showed up and I felt considerably better. Weighed 220 lbs. Down from 227 just before we left for Europe on 5/20. Told Seth and David that I would come back to work on Thursday. More time in bed.

Went over to the library at 4pm for set up of event. Not a great turnout but important foundation people showed up and stayed largely til the end. Spoke at length with Richard Koskey about tennis in Hudson during the 1979s and ‘80s. He asked if I might play with him after he gets used to some new corrective contact lenses. Maybe August.

Went home and got in bed.

New at HAL

Summer reading program.

 

Costume from Mad Hatter Parade.