It was a mostly nice week. We had a food truck dinner with the Jonse’s, a neighborhood trivia night (our team didn’t do very well this time), and a concert at UMBC. The concert was a string quartet. They played Mozart and Bartok. The hook was the Mozart’s piece is known ad “Dissonance”. Who knew Mozart wrote anything like this? Not me for sure. The Bartok was — well, we expect dissonance from him. One thing about this kind of music, you’ll never know if they got some of the notes wrong. As usual, the descriptions were nearly as entertaining as the music, with “intervallic relationships” and “palindromically arranged movements”. Someday I’ll have to look up what this stuff means.

Danita’s knee isn’t getting better quickly. She is doing less walking than a week ago. The good news is that she has good range of motion, and she can use the stairs.

I wanted to make a minor change to my bike. I ran into trouble and tried to solve it myself. That was a bad move for sure. Suddenly I had a bunch of parts all over the garage. It shouldn’t be that hard to put back together. It’s bearings and races. Somehow I don’t seem to be able to figure out how to put it back together. I’ll be taking a trip to the bike shop today, and also losing the best biking weather we will have this week.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The excitement this week started Thursday. The roofing company started. They weren’t scheduled to work on our roof until December. But they changed their minds, deciding to remove all the fake chimneys first. And they also decided ours would be the last chimney removed Thursday. Both of our cars had to be parked on the street. I was using one car to visit Mom, Danita was using the other for her PT. Danita moved her car, but I didn’t know because I was at Charlestown escorting Mom to her doctor. Danita tried calling me several times, but somehow my phone connected to Mom’s hearing aids. We kept on stopping to answer the phone only to have an unsuccessful conversation. Mom’s anxiety started taking off. Talking to Danita through Mom’s hearing aids, I was able to say I would call her back after Mom was at the doctor’s.

By 4:00, they hadn’t started on our chimney. I figured they would wrap things up and go home. I was wrong. The goal was to get my chimney down. That day. They started a little after 4, working like crazy. Time moved on. By 5 the sun was down. It was getting dark. The crews kept on working. By 6 it was dark out. The crew strapped headlamps to their heads and kept on working. 7:00 came and went. They tied headlamps to trees and posts and kept on working. They finally got done about 7:30. I have to had it to them. When they were done, our roof was totally waterproof and everything was picked up, except for one headlamp tied to our tree, bravely shining light throughout the night. Any stranger that decided to take a nighttime stroll would never guess roofers had worked on my house at all. Crews came back Friday to finish chimney removals. They knew exactly the best way to remove the remaining chimneys. They were more relaxed. All chimneys were down by 4:00. What an amazing crew. It was strange to see them walk on the roofs with no safety lines and concern, just as if they did it every day. ;-)

Although that was be far the most unique event of the week, it was far from all the excitement. We had a neighborhood party Friday (soup & sandwiches). We went with the Jonse’s and had a good time.

Saturday morning we had a free members only brunch at Gertrude’s at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The food was excellent as always. The talk was given by the artist LaToya Ruby Frazier. Her exhibit is about Baltimore community health workers, especially during COVID. Besides being a good artist, she is an excellent speaker. She gave a vivid description of what life was like for the under-privileged during COVID. Here’s one of her photos. What a powerful statement.

Saturday evening we attended the neighborhood volunteer dinner. Quite honestly, the food wasn’t very good. That’s not the main point, of course, but it would be nice if the food was hot and not dried out.

That would be enough for most retired folks, but we had more. This morning we had breakfast at Panera where we both had discounts. It was counting day at church. This afternoon, we attended a concert at UMBC. The Inscape Chamber Orchestra offered pieces by Shostakovich and others. The music was quite good, but the writeups these groups give themselves stretch the imagination. We heard the group “reach across genres and generations, and transcend the confines of the traditional classical concert experience”, which is something I might have missed if I hadn’t read the program.

It’s time for dinner here in Snowden Overlook. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There’s no doubt of the season. Some trees are still strutting their stuff, but most are dropping their leaves. This can make for excitement when riding on the bike trails — in places it is difficult to see where the pavement ends and the dirt begins.

Danita is getting better, but much more slowly than she wants.

We enjoyed a delightful sour beef dinner at Ed & Lynne’s Sunday. The food was great, the conversation was quite satisfying, and the drive was uneventful.

That’s it for us this week. I hope everybody is doing well.

Fall colors are everywhere. We have sunny skies and pleasant temperatures. In short, it’s a fine week.

Danita’s recovery is slow. She uses the steps, but limits her trips. She has discomfort in her knee. The PT folks suggested a compression knee brace/sleeve. It should be delivered later on today.

We had a neighborhood concert yesterday with light snacks and deserts. The music was Motown, with emphasis on the Temptations.

I got my COVID and flu shots at Wegman’s. They had cool kids Band-Aids with Pokemon characters. I have no idea what their names are. It was fun, even if I couldn’t show them off under my long sleeve shirts.

Every once in a while we go to a financial planning seminar. We get bona-fide invitations with no obligation to sign up for services. We get a nice free dinner. We just might learn something we don’t already know. I was sorry we attended one Thursday. The dinner was great. I had crab soup and a crab cake entre. I polished it off with half of a very rich piece of chocolate cake and half a slice of key-lime pie. The presentation was a different matter. It was centered on the idea that we might need to go to a nursing home some day. If we do, we’re likely to spend a small fortune on care. UNLESS … The scheme used some kind of a trust. We would not own our assets, be we could get the benefit of using them. If we need a nursing home, we will be eligible for a Medicaid room, practically free, because we wouldn’t own any assets. It all sounded complicated, entangled, and very shady. Who knows what would happen if their worst case scenario panned out? I’ve run across this idea a couple of times. It’s not for me. Nor would I work with lawyers that made this an important part of their practice. But the dinner really was nice.

This it for me. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The major topic for our HOA (Home Owners Association) has been our roofs. Leaks have been steadily increasing. Areas that should use fireproof plywood didn’t have it. The fake chimneys can’t be properly flashed. The HOA did studies, consulted engineers, and discussed. This culmination came last week. The board decided we needed to remove the chimneys, replace all of the plywood, and install 40-year shingles. Last Thursday, we voted for and approved a special assessment of $6,565 per household. Only three households voted against the proposal. With good weather, all of the roofs should be replaced this year.

Danita and I attended another concert this weekend. This one was a piano concert at the Second Presbyterian Church near Guilford. (That’s the old money area of Baltimore). The music featured CPE Bach, Hyden, and Schumann. Einav Yarden is an amazing pianist. We were planning to cap the evening with a French dinner at Petit Louis Bistro. Petit Louis accepts reservations. We didn’t know how long the concert would be. Earlier in the day, I checked the website and saw that tables were available. But when we got there, they were jammed. We did a pivot to hamburgers and cheesecake at a brewery restaurant.

We’re looking forward to some very nice weather. Temperatures will approach 80. The fall colors are starting. It should be a wonderful week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Last weekend we attended a jazz trio concert at UMBC. The music was not exactly what I expected, but it was interesting. The highlight was the drummer. He single-handedly kept multiple rhythm patterns going simultaneously. It was a tour de force from the best drummer I ever encountered. This weekend we attended another UMBC jazz concert. This was a “big band” performance of music from Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. We’re looking forward to another concert next week.

Danita is doing much better. She walks without a rollator or cane, but she still has pain and limits her activities. She started her PT.

Most of my time this weekend was spent on the new Residents database. I’m not done, but I made quite a bit of progress.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Thursday, Danita decided to walk to Target, use a coupon, and get a Target plastic bag. (They cost $.05, but they’re really good for small trash cans, and buying a box of small trash bags is $0.10 per bag.) She stepped of a curb in a perfectly normal way and experienced extreme pain in one knee, radiating down her leg. She called me. I was on my bike, about half an hour from home. I picked her up and she iced it all afternoon. She was having a very difficult time hobbling around with a cane. The next day, we saw the doctor. He said it was almost certainly soft tissue damage. We got an X-ray just to make sure, got her a knee brace, picked up some prescription strength Motrin, made a Physical Therapy appointment, and borrowed a rollator from our neighbor. (I remember the days when many of our friends had babies, and baby paraphernalia flowed around the neighborhood. It seems there is a parallel for us seniors.) Danita has been very good about staying off her feet. She is already on the mend. But it will be a while before she’s up and around.

Normally, we like to go downstairs to watch TV for a couple of hours in the evening as we unwind and prepare for bed. Stairs are out of the question for Danita, so I moved the TV from the guest bedroom to the living room. It’s one of the first affordable “1024p” big-screen TVs. It’s heavy beast. I got it downstairs undamaged. It will be a good trick getting it back upstairs later on. I had everything wired up and working in less than an hour, which included an uncounted number of trips upstairs and downstairs to grab just one more thing I hadn’t though of. Right now the TV is sitting proudly smack dab in the center of the space between our two sofas.

Of course we had to keep up with our important activities. We had a gelato food truck Thursday. Danita authorized me to get any flavors I thought she would enjoy. I didn’t hear any complaints. Friday was a neighborhood party featuring savory and sweet pies. This was the very first time I drove to the clubhouse to attend a party. The rollator was very helpful getting Danita to a table. I was the only person who went through the buffet holding two plates.

Danita’s feeling good enough that we plan to attend a jazz trio concert tomorrow at UMBC.

I was planning to write this blog on Monday. For the last month, I’ve been working on a really cool update to our Residents database. Installation will take quite a while as I will have to review nearly 300 pages of pool passes to make sure everything is perfect. This was a great weekend to do the installation because our staff is in mandatory training Monday. I have three days to do the work. Unfortunately, they changed their password and didn’t tell me. But now I have more time to do cool things like writing blogs.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We took 5 days to visit Jul & Pat. Thursday we drove to Staunton to see Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor”. I found my seat uncomfortable and ended up standing in the isle part of the time. The play was great fun, we both enjoyed it. We spent the night at a B&B. The breakfast was quite good. The menu was on the cup. (No, I didn’t try to buy the cup.)

We didn’t know this, but Friday night through Sunday was Staunton’s annual Harry Potter Festival. It is extremely popular, and looks something like this. The first two restaurants we tried were both closed, getting ready for the festival. We got out of town just in time.

The drive to Jul’s was tense but uneventful. As everybody must know, there was a 1,000-year rain in western North Carolina. Highway signs were blunt: “Do not travel in western North Carolina. All roads are closed”. We saw buckets of rain. We were fortunate not to encounter a single serious accident. When we got to Roanoke, the GPS routed us on back roads to Greensboro. We decided to follow the GPS on the theory it might know about an accident on the interstate. By the time we got to Jul’s the rain was all over. We had two days of beautiful weather. The only activity that was closed due to rain was a corn maze that had muddy ground.

Saturday we visited a farm. Their highlight attraction was a rope climbing thingy.

Of course, before getting on the rope thing, one has to complete the waiver. Which was 100% online. Which Danita and I had great difficulty filling out on our phones. We decided to let Bryon and Elizabeth do the waivers themselves.

Then the kids can have their fun.

The roller was the most challenging part of the climb.

Sunday we played mini-golf, had ice cream, and watched the movie “The Wild Robot”. Bryon works at the theater. He gets a few movie passes every month. He was able to get passes for all six of us. We got the premium seats for free!

Jul is about a half hour south of the movie theater, so we left directly from the movie. We decided to try a Hilton “Tru” hotel. It was fine, but too expensive for what they offered. I found a highly rated diner for breakfast this morning. It’s the first time Danita and I were the only white people in the diner. The staff couldn’t have been kinder or more welcoming. The food was very good and incredibly cheap. The rest of the ride home was uneventful.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had a week full of excitement. Maia’s birthday was Thursday. “We” (meaning Danita) picked out some small toys we thought she would enjoy. We didn’t expect a Fisher Price toy to be anoyingly noisy with no volume control. Sorry about that Mark & Jiajia.

Thursday is also the day I had lunch with Tony. We had been going to a First Watch that was about half way between us. It has become extremely noisy. Either that, or the noise is the same but we are less successful hearing each other. This month we decided to try a Panera which was right up the street. It was much easier to converse, but we were welcomed by a sign that said the Panera would be closing in a week or so. Fortunately, they are not closing, but moving to a new location two blocks away.

Sunday we heard the US Navy Sea Chanters.

Rick and Suzy were in town and joined us for the concert. We’ve heard this group before and knew we would have an enjoyable concert. But those pants look rather uncomfortable. The sponsors of the concert asked us to check off how we heard about the concert. They had the usual assortment of sources – internet, newspaper, etc. I didn’t fill my sheet out because they didn’t include “wife”, which is how I knew about the concert. Afterwards we went to Stella Notte for a delightful dinner.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

This was an active week. Monday we were watching TV, gearing down for the day when all of a sudden, Danita jumped out of her chair and said “OH SH–!” This is the very first time she ever did anything like this, which made me extremely concerned. It turns out it was Danita’s turn to close the pool, and she forgot to do it. Of course, the pool is residents only during the week this time of year. Every resident who uses the pool knows when it closes. Closing consists of checking chemical levels and putting up some “Pool closed” signs. Danita sure got my blood pumping for a short while.

Tuesday (almost a full day later!) was the presidential debate. We watched the first half of it, then turned it off. I noticed that neither person actually answered the question that was asked. They simply pulled out the practiced answer that was reasonably close to the question. We found it boring. But that was the second debate of the day. The first one started at 7 PM in the clubhouse. Our HOA finally concluded that all of our buildings need new roofs. There’s obviously a lot that could be said, but the most important point is that we just finished a major rebuilding effort to address water intrusion. The cupboard is bare. It looks like we will have a $7500 special assessment. This issue is much more interesting to all of our residents. I expect we will pay our assessment later on this year.

Wednesday we had our Mediterranean food truck. Their food is quite good and not too expensive. We had our food truck dinner with the Jonses.

Friday we had the last grilled hamburgers and hotdogs party for the year. We had a nice selection of sides and deserts.

Yesterday we went to a concert offered by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. The highlight piece was Antonín Dvořák’s “Symphony No. 9, From the New World”. It was nice, but for me the outstanding highlight was Duke Ellington’s “New World A-Comin” with piano soloist Russell Wilson. This is a piece for piano and orchestra. Russell Wilson is the pianist for the President’s Own Marine Corps Band. In fact, he is performing at the White House today. In preparation for our concert, he listened to an old recording of the Duke playing it at Carnegie Hall. He figured out the exact notes and fingering Duke used, and that’s what he played for us. Then he offered a spontaneous second piece, an Ellington rag. Who knew the Duke did ragtime? Russell Wilson knows a thing or two about tickling the ivories.

All week the weather has been perfect. Last week the bike was in the shop. I got it back Monday. I spent the week putting some miles on my bike.

Today we’re doing nothing (other than me counting for our Church). We could use a day of rest.