The neighborhood pool is open. They got the damage to the downstairs of the clubhouse repaired. That means the downstairs bathrooms are available. And that means we could open the pool as scheduled. Danita volunteered to be the chair of the pool committee. So far things are running well enough. Danita has really enjoyed spending some time in the pool.

A couple of weeks ago we went to a very nice members evening at the Walters. Saturday we went to a very nice members evening at the BMA (Baltimore Museum of Art). We started off with a morning brunch at Gertrude’s. It was much nicer than we expected. There were small portions of about a dozen different items. Each was very good. My favorite was the chocolate rolls. They had plenty of chocolate. The weather was picture perfect — sunny with flowering plants everywhere. We had time to take a stroll around the statue garden. Afterwards, we went to a presentation about a forthcoming exhibit. It will focus on female artistic creators in 1600 – 1700. We had a great time. I would be hard pressed to say one museum did a better job than the other. They were both very nice events.

When we got home, I was in for a surprise. I was over half way on a bike ride when I heard something fall. I stopped and found pieces of my bike in the gutter. That’s never happened to me before. I found the pieces and was able to put them back together. I don’t know if what I did is correct, but it seems to be working OK. This is a record — to have a bike problem like this in less than 200 miles of riding. Here’s hoping this is a one-time event.

Today we went to a BSO concert. The conductor was our upcoming new music director, Jonathon Heyward, who got a generous round of applause when he first walked onto the stage. The music started with a modern piece that both of us actually liked — Blue Cathedral by Higdon. We aren’t the only people who like this piece. It’s been played by over 100 other orchestras. Next up was Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. It had all the bombast Tchaikovsky could generate. The pianist didn’t hold anything back. I’ll bet all 10 of his fingers are bruised. After the first movement, there was unprecedented and well earned spontaneous applause. It didn’t slow down until the pianist finally indicated he should play the rest of the piece. It was all the bombasity anybody could ever want. The concert finished up with the full, romantic sounds of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. All in all, a tremendous concert.

That’s a lot for one week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

As members, we were invited to a reception at the Walter’s Art Galley, celebrating a major revision of their Eastern art exhibit. The new displays are quite good. Before the gallery opened, we enjoyed some appetizers. There was plenty of food and it was all very good. At 7:00, they opened the gallery to non-members and started offering deserts. We had a great time.

While the reception was great, the trip to and from wasn’t. We drove up in heavy rain. In spots it was difficult to see the lane markings. We went up Howard St., which we hadn’t done in a number of years. I saw mostly abandoned derelict buildings. It was a huge change from what I remember Howard St. being. Coming home we went down St. Paul St., which looked a lot better. We had plenty of time to examine buildings closely as we ended up coming home about the same time the ball game ended. It must have taken 20 minutes to get to I-95.

The pool will open soon, which means our office manager has to print out an updated pool book. This is a list of every resident who has a pool pass, organized by the home address, with a picture of each person issued a pass. The office is still baren so we have to cobble together enough stuff to get the job done. I had the pool pass software set up to use a photo badge camera, which kicks out 400 x 600 pixel photos that perfectly fit in the allotted slots in the pool book pages. What I didn’t realize is that lots of residents sent the office manager pictures from their cell phones. These are fine, but the files are huge — up to 6 MB. Christy’s computer was groaning trying to pump out about 400 pictures. I gave myself a four day crash course on Microsoft Windows Image Acquisition, which can automatically compress pictures. (Yes, it took me four days. I’m somewhat less than half-fast these days.) I updated the database program to compress pictures as they are entered in the database, and also wrote a one-time program to compress pictures already in the database. The one-time program takes 5 minutes to run through the existing pics. I’ll probably install it Monday.

We had an unannounced Tex Mex food truck Wednesday. Unsurprisingly, they got next to no business because nobody knew they were there. We saw the truck, but we were already on route to have dinner out. A second Tex Mex food truck was announced for Friday, but they cancelled due to heavy rain. We had our mouths all set for Tex Mex, so we and the Jonses went to California Tortilla for dinner, then to a frozen yogurt place for desert.

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

We have a beautiful fox living in the woods behind us. Over the winter, the fox decided that our porch was part of his territory. He was probably attracted by some small critters living under the porch. I wouldn’t mind, except he was marking his territory by pooping on the porch. While I was cleaning, the fox came out of the woods. I yelled at him to chase him away from the house. He turned his back to me, took a few steps towards the woods, and pooped in the grass. Then he nonchalantly wandered off. The good news is, he hasn’t pooped on the porch since then.

It was a busy week. Monday plumbers came to replace the kitchen faucet and some leaking water valves. Tuesday we took Mom to see “Murder in the Heir”. It was our first time visiting the Charlestown auditorium. I think a resident wrote the play. It was quite well done and very enjoyable. I picked up my bike Thursday. They advised me to come after 2 PM. The bike wasn’t ready until 6:30.

We went to a volunteer dinner last night. We went to the restaurant at the Columbia golf club. The food was not very good. It was tasteless and over cooked. Desserts included mini-cheese cakes and cookies. I had two cheese cakes — one coffee and one chocolate. I couldn’t tell the difference from the taste. But the company was good. We had a good time.

I got my bike set up for riding. I’ve had two rides so far. I like the bike. It offers a quiet ride and excellent brakes. Unfortunately, it still has the same old engine (my legs). I’m as slow as ever, but I get there eventually.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Now that we are well past the freezing season, I went to turn on the outside water spigots. That’s when I remembered the valve to the back spigot is leaking. When the plumber comes, I want to get as many issues solved as possible. I made a list of all the minor plumbing issues. The plumber will be here tomorrow.

Tuesday Danita and I are looking forward to attending the play “Murder is in the Heir” at Charlestown with Mom. It’s a production put on by resident volunteers. It should be fun.

There’s bad news on the bike front. An essential bracket broke. (Inside the yellow circle.) Fortunately, I was near the end of my trip and pretty close to home. This was tremendously discouraging. I took it back to the dealer. They can get another bracket. There have been so many problems with this bike. After I upgraded the brakes a month ago I thought that all the issues have been resolved and are behind me. All of a sudden, I’m back to walking home. And this from metal fatigue on a solid metal bracket. It’s the last straw for this bike. From beginning to end, this bike has been a terrible disappointment. I decided it’s the end of the road for this Hase.

The old bike was a tadpole configuration — two wheels in the back. I decided to switch to a delta configuration — two wheels in the front. Two and a half years ago, delta bikes had the rider basically laying on his back inches above the road. Today you can get a delta with a more upright position. Behold my next bike — a Trident Stowaway II. Like many deltas these days, the bike can be folded in half for transport. My bike should be in sometime this week. Mine will be blue. Here’s hoping this bike will be reliable. While waiting, I cleaned the deck and porch.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The inspector found nothing wrong with our attic insulation. That was good news.

One of our board members asked me to post some new rules to our website. Normally, my role on the website is to “keep the lights on”. Each of the condos has somebody who has volunteered to post content. This time the board member asked me to do the posting because the volunteer wasn’t being responsive. I shouldn’t have done it, but the board member asked so nicely. I got caught in the middle of an old lady cat fight. What a mess. I finally got myself out of it. It seems that for me, old age comes easily, wisdom not so much.

When we took our Texas Trip, we moved doctors appointments. Mine got all bunched up. This week, I saw my dermatologist. That was the penultimate appointment. I have one more in a couple of weeks, then no more doctors until September. Woo-hoo! I think I have way too many doctors.

Easter is a bad day to go to a nice breakfast restaurant, but it’s a pretty good time to go to Panera. Especially if I can get a totally free breakfast. I had a bonus free soufflé, and I’m still in my free coffee club. Danita will qualify for a free breakfast the next time we go.

We went to Ed and Lynne’s for the afternoon and had a great time. There was a ton of very good food, and plenty of good conversation. Here’s a couple of pics.

I don’t know why, but Panera continues to offer us freebees. They gave us two months of free coffee. That comes in handy for Men’s club, as our clubhouse is still closed and we are meeting at Panera. This week, Panera added a dollar off any order. This reduced the price of a bagel and coffee to less than a buck. Danita and I spent the mornings of our anniversary week at Panera. Thanks, guys!

That wasn’t fancy enough for our anniversary day. We noticed the new breakfast restaurant JAM has tasty-looking muffins, so we got carry out “super muffins” for breakfast. They were tasty and large — and at $5.50 a muffin, the price was in the stratisphere. But it was fun and different. After dinner, we went to our favorite bakery and got super deserts. They were about the same price as the muffins, but the deserts are worth it. Danita’s Napolean was so large we needed a dinner plate to hold it. I got a personal chocolate fudge cake. Both were delicious. Neither of us could eat the whole desert in one night.

Speaking of the closed clubhouse, the clubhouse flood was caused by the fire suppression pipes freezing. The builder that built our clubhouse also built our house. I hired an inspector to see whether the fire supression pipes are correctly insulated. The inspection is scheuled for Monday. Fingers crossed. If it’s not done correctly, the fix is labor intensive.

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

We had National Pi day Tuesday (Pi is 3.14). Danita was up to the challenge of celebrating one of the geekiest days of the year. We had bacon and chedar quiche and a blueberry-lemon desert — complete with a blueberry 𝜋.

Mark, Jiajia, and Mira visited. Of course with Danita cooking, we ate like kings. We took Mira to the Howard County nature center. Mira had a blast, looking at books, seeing small animals, and in general the atmosphere. We also took her to the nicest playground we know of. It’s a short ride from our house, and practically brand new. Mira spent an hour just getting comfortable with the place. She finally got into banging notes on a xylaphone that looks like leaves on a tree. Just then it started raining. The playground emptied out in nothing flat. We even found a new restaurant that offers excellent food at reasonable prices. It’s called JAM. They took over the old Expectations restaurant which we didn’t like, in spite of it’s popularity.

Unfortunately, I only got one good pic.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Afer a fabulous trip, our lives are returning to normal. We’ve attended two concerts. The first was the symphony orchastra. We invited Mom to the second, as it was offered at UMBC, just down the road from Charlestown, where Mom lives. The music was — unconventional. Besides that the chores are in normal swing. The taxes are filed. Many of our doctor visits are done.

My dentist recommended an expensive treatment as a preventative measure. It didn’t sound right to me. I looked up the procedure on the web. I couldn’t find any suggestion that the treatment is approprate as a preventative measure. I got a second opinion from a second dentist. They agreed with me. This wasn’t the first time my dentist has recommended treatments that weren’t required. I now have a new dentist. As a bonus, the new dentist is closer to home.

Just before we left on our trip, our neighborhood clubhouse suffered fromwater damage caused by a frozen fire suppresion pipe. They are just now beginning repairs. It’s put a real crimp on neighborhood activities. However, we were able to enjoy a food truck dinner with our neighbors. Men’s club is meeting at Panera. One resident called a home inspector to see if the insulation was adequate for the fire suppression pipes in his house. Not surprisingly, he found that the insulation was not properly done.Several other residents decided to have inspections done. I plan to have our houe checked out in the comming weeks. Fortunately, the season is slowly turning to warmer weather. No matter how severe winter might be next year, we have plenty of time to get this addressed.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had a fine visit with Jul and family. We had an adventure with the kids, taking them to the Charlotte science center. They had a lot of fun. Vacation is over. It’s time to head for home.

We had a fine time catching up with Dick and Darlene. We’re off to North Carolina.