Tag Archives: food

1/30/2020 – DOG, web project, tennis, dinner

Thursday

Got up at 5:30 am. Worked on updating DOG website for the next season. Then worked more on the timeline here.

Tennis lesson at 11 am.

Troubled left knee was concerning. But once I got going it proved to be just a little annoyance occasionally. Saif introduced the idea that I should be flicking my wrist during my ground strokes. I seem to have interpreted earlier instructions to indicated keeping the wrist immobile during the stroke. Flicking the wrist involved letting the racquet drop below the ball and the flicking the racquet in an upward direction as the arm carried through the stroke. Will have to work further on this.

Big revelation was the time we took with my serve. He pointed out that I am rushing the whole arm motion from then time I toss the ball in the air. Now that I toss the ball quite far up I can slow down my back swing and the wind up to only accelerate during the last quarter or so of the whole swing path. This worked wonders. I hit one ball after the other over the net most landing in very close to the service line. I also had time during the serve motion to think about where I was hitting the ball.

HAL Meeting with Mayor Kamal Johnson

Held meeting with the mayor to provide him with an overview of library operations, future plans, and budget. He is very young, Emily did her usual good job. Gary Sheffer spoke about the History Room. Theresa Parsons chimed in; Bill Stenehjem was present. Toni Koweek represented the Friends and gave a longer than necessary description of their activities. Very good meeting. He is quite familiar with the library but hopefully this gives him a better view of ours issues and the overall program.

Dinner with SJ Williams and Pauline Decarmo

Went to Barnwood. Were horrified at the announcement that there was no fried chicken available. Did eat our dinner. Lots of chatter. Followed up with visit to Dave Drake at Swoon for drinks. Very crowded at the bar. Pauline and I talked about her billing practices. 

7/30/2019 – HAL, clean up, tennis lesson

Tuesday

Did some of the standing exercises with the exercise bands….monster walks….These Indian clubs showed up in the mail:

Ducked out of the UTMH team meeting today. Cannot stand the blather…. Caught up on HAL stuff. Set up meetings with board members…looked at ellenliburt.com website in advance of tomorrow’s meeting with Ellen. Spent time getting ready to transfer the new UTMH website to the domain. Also watched more videos about prostate cancer and treatments, especially robotic prostatectomies. Updated my exercise protocol pages.

Sudden, quite violent thunder storm with hail descended at about 1pm. Power went out. Took Karen to library on the way to Saugerties. Tree limbs and trees down over in Catskill.

Tennis lesson at 3pm. Worked on hitting backhand crosscourt. Spent a lot of time on crosscourt rallies, both forehand and backhand.  Ended with serve. Saif seemed pleased that my toss is finally high enough to slow down the swing of the arm and racket. Ted Dewsnap showed up for Saif’s next lesson as I was leaving.

Put a big pile of recycling out. Got rid of many computer boxes that have been upstairs in the barn for ten years. Started working on new motion detector light over door to office. Will come in handy when the shorter days return in a couple of months. 

Karen made a real meatloaf with a mixture of veal, pork and beef. Excellent.

More Boston Legal

7/7/2019 – lawn care, DOG, drinks at Swoon

Sunday

Listened to more of the Bag Man podcast about Spiro Agnew. Lots of things we have not known about before. Shopping at Walmart because Karen needed to pick up some pills. DOG gallery sitting. Mowed back yard with push mower for first time this summer. Perhaps I should look for an electric mower?

Drinks with David Drake at Swoon.

Received the following via WhatsApp from Jonathan on Thursday. He is in Vietnam.

I asked today where it is was taken. He replied “Nghia An, central VN. Starting point for Ho Chi Minh Trail.” Then he added the following story: 

Well, we’re at this goat restaurant in Nghệ An, we’d been there a while, maybe halfway through the meal when an at first faint and then progressively louder cry of a young goat was heard until it was dragged right past our table by it’s two front legs…. the goat knew what was up, we were within ten feet of the set up… it was really overwhelming… I cleared the fuck out of the restaurant for the last part… then they got to work on it, with the carcass but not the workers just slightly out of view …

He sent along these videos:

4/29 – 4/30/2019 – work, book club, MRI, dinner

Monday and Tuesday

Still underpowered from cold. Foggy and low energy. 

Met with Tony Kieraldo at Rev about UTMH matters. He told me about his music tour in Europe and Lebanon. We talked through a new social media campaign to develop leads for UTMH. Bright guy. Also met with David and Seth. The, late afternoon  Ole. Missed an appointment at PT with Corey Smith. This has not happened before. 

HAL NonFiction Book Club – picked up Erika Born out in Ghent because Nick was busy and couldn’t come. Good discussion of Drawdown edited by Paul Hawken. Emily, Karen,  Lisa Stewart, Erika Born, Nancy Kuster, Michael O’Hara, Ruth Tamaroff, Juan Flores(new) and Bob Braunlich from SunCommon in Rhinebeck. Michael gave a good description of how a carbon tax could be implemented.

Up promptly Tuesday morning. Enema in preparation for the prostate MRI up in Latham at ImageCare. Arrived at 10:30 back in car at 11:40. 30 minutes in the machine. Wait for the results.

Emily called from the library to discuss how to handle requests from Register Star for video from security camera on second floor that may have caught the altercation between Tom DePietro and John Friedman during a Common Council meeting last week. Camera belongs to Galvan but is recorded on our equipment. The police had come by earlier and taken a copy with Galvan’s permission. Emily will refer them to Galvan for permission to release.

Long nap in the afternoon. Dinner at Dave’s in Catskill. Karen made a salad and I made rice pudding.  Lamb, saag paneer, yellow sauce, cheese cake by Hazel.

8 pm looking west.

 

4/19/2019 – web project, work, drinks at Le Perche

Friday

Cold slowly departing. Spent much of the day working on various aspects of updating and integrating materials into this website. Long telecon with Troy Web. Making good progress on many matters. Communication seems much better. Talked with Matt who had not done very much.

Long nap. Made red lentil gorp.

Went to Le Perche to meet Richard and Roberta Cummings for drinks. We had run into them last Saturday at Bob’s. They told us that Friday was a Le [perche night for them. They didn’t show this evening. Chatted with staff. Talked a bit about Karen’s book group discussion the evening before about Michelle Obama’s book. Jonathan called Karen from San Francisco where he had participated in a conference and given a talked he described as most important. Very warm damp weather in the evening.

4/18/2019 – cold, diary project

Thursday

Cold continues. Spent good part of the day in bed. Rest of day working getting posts here up to date.

Karen returned from her talk in Boston around 1pm. She seemed uncertain about how the talk had been received. This despite lots of evidence during and after the talk that people were engaged and moved by the project. She went off to her book group. I drove the car around the block. High tide on the river.

Then beef with scallions at Red Chopsticks.

 

4/16/2019 – cold, work, web project

Tuesday

Still feel pretty crappy. UTMH team meeting was short – 30 minutes. No Ole, Wexelman or Gayle. 

Reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker piece, “Under Water – can engineers save Louisiana’s disappearing coast?” (4/1/19).

These two maps jump out as a starting point.

Wrote up a description of the HAL  Fundraising Committee for next Saturday’s board mtg.

Spent rest of the morning and most of the afternoon updating transferred posts. Categories and tags. 

Reviewed Karen’s book presentation for tomorrow. Only needs better sense of Parker’s condition, capabilities….

Made chicken salad for dinner.

Watched MidSomers Murders followed by a Veep. 

2/10/2019 – snow, lazy day, dinner with David Drake and Hazel

Sunday

Woke up to 3 inches or so of slushy snow.

Mostly lazed around. Karen started cooking around 2pm. Seemed to occupy the whole afternoon. She follows recipes.

David Drake came at 4:30 with new acquaintance Hazel (last name ??). We drove over to Ward’s Auto on 9 to drop off the Corolla for repairs. Dinner followed. Hazel is 73, lives in Athens near her kids and grandchildren. Twice married. Worked for doctors following time in Kingston with second husband with a string of restaurants.

Leaky dishwasher again. Gasket around door gets dirty.

3/3/2019 – brunch, sluggish day, snow

Sunday 3/3/2019

Up at 6am. Puttered around aimlessly. Brunch at Home|Made Hudson across the street with Dave Drake. Food only so so.

Tomato cobbler with cheese.

…. long nap in early afternoon. Brief trip to ShopRite. Bumped into Ted as I was leaving. Made gore with hot Italian sausages for dinner. Also a salad with lettuce. Maybe getting into more salads. lots of chewing.

Snow started at 7:30. No walk in the snow because there was nothing underfoot even at 9pm.

2/28/2019 – DOG, UTMH, Tennis

Thursday 2:/28/2019

Up early, 4:45am. DOG web forms. A little UTMH. 

Went to History Room at the library to participate in a psychology experiment for Caitie Hilverson, daughter of Liz Dolan. Involved solving a puzzle. . Tower of Hanoi.  After 3 rounds with 3 disks one try at 4 disks. Solved that in 17 moves, one more than the minimum. Then was asked on video how I had solved the puzzle.

Tennis lesson. Need to focus more on early prep with feet for ground strokes. 

Made carrot mushroom loaf. A favorite.