10-15-2025. Got up at 4am or so. Weighed 198. Turned on KUSC all night. Made Verve coffee. Going to run out before new package arrives maybe Thursday apres-midi. The half and half I added to penultimate coffee was a bit sour. Drank it anyway, almost unconsciously. Needed the caffeine. Later in the morning, made another cup and used fresh half and half. Much, much better taste. Faint aroma of citrus. Reading Thomas Pynchon’s “Shadow Ticket” which is a blend of Garrison Keillor midwest humor and Raymond Chandler tough guy detective talk. Enjoying it. Like walking through a noisy party where everyone’s talking cleverly. Puzzled about where the plot is going. Started in Milwaukee, but now they are in Budapest. Lots of artistically scavenged motorcycles—flathead Harley, MotoGuzzi, etc. But it’s not as much fun as Henry James. Rained during the night. I wasn’t sure I was really hearing raindrops and didn’t want to get out of bed and go to the window in order to check. Turns out, it did rain. Today is clear blue skies with puffy clouds. Light, gusty winds. Perfect day. Practiced ukulele and songs for Thursday folk music at Linwood Howe 3rd grade. Still early in the year, so students sing softly.
10-21-25. Waiting to drive to Hillary and Tina’s Sumner Drive place to drop off Hill’s car. She left it at Wooster while on honeymoon on Ibiza, just off the coast of Spain. Eli washed her car. I finished reading Stephen Greenblatt’s “Dark Renaissance” biography of Christopher Marlowe. Born in 1564 same year as Shakespeare, but he died at only 29 years old. He co-wrote second and third parts of Henry VI with Shakespeare. Greenblatt makes a point of showing how each Marlowe play captures a part of his personality. Tamberlane showcases his tremendous drive and desire for acclaim. Jew of Malta demonstrates an ability to use the frequently outrageous strategies of Machiavelli to achieve any end. Dr. Faustus reveals that Marlowe knew he was making a bargain with the devil when he did spy work for English government.
10-22-25 I generally get up at 4:00am and immediately make coffee—Verve, pour-over, from a single Latin American farm, which varies each month. This week it’s Costa Rica. I sweeten it with a teaspoon of Trader Joe honey. And when I pour the hot water over the grounds, I keep the kettle at least 6-8 inches high, so the grounds really froth around. This means I make sure I have a kitchen towel under the coffee mug and saucer, so the tiny excited splashes don’t stain the counter. An article in the NY Times featured a physics professor who did experiments until he found this perfect pour-over technique, which is the “high pour.”
Sometimes, when I can’t go to sleep at night, I listen to playlists I’ve “curated” on my Smart Phone—Brahms’s violin sonatas, Schumann’s Chamber Music, Miles Davis Kind of Blue—Legacy Edition, “Guitar Fandango” which has a hodgepodge of my favorite guitarists, etc. These playlists have fifty or sixty songs and can go on for several hours, and sometimes I wake up with the songs still playing. I keep the sound down pretty low, so I won’t wake up Allie across the hall. Right now I told “Alexa” to play Mozart piano sonatas, and the music started right up. When I asked Alexa what sonata it was she said, “Sonata #1 in C major, K279.”
I usually go for two half-hour walks around the neighborhood — one in the morning, after it warms up a bit, and one in the afternoon, when it has cooled down. I use a high-grade aluminum “Montem” hiking or trekking pole for balance and stability. It’s got a very comfortable imitation cork hand grip and strap, just like a ski pole. While I’m walking around, there is lots of construction going on. They just about finished a big new house kitty-cornered from our backyard. It is nicely designed and looks like it belongs in the woods. At the end of our Wooster St block, on 18th Street, two old corner houses have been totally demolished, with tractors smoothing down the dirt getting ready to lay out guide-lines and long wooded planks they use to pour concrete for the foundation.
Sometimes I use wireless earplugs and listen to music from an old iPod that I got in 2010 when I was still teaching at West LA College. The battery died, so I bought a “power bank” which I plug into the iPod and keep in my back pocket. The iPod has 3415 songs, 315 albums, 126 artists, and 119 customized play lists on it. Lots of Grateful Dead that I got from my brother Stan’s collection of Dick’s Picks CDs—a total of 86 albums. So I’ve got 10 different versions of “Scarlet Begonias” spanning thirty years, and 15 different copies of “Going Down the Road.” In addition, I’ve got albums of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, all of Mozart’s big operas (Don Giovanni, Cosi Fan Tutti, Marriage of Figaro), Debussy, Ravel, Crosby Stills & Nash…..and of course Bob Dylan (24 albums). It makes the walking lots easier to have music to listen to. When the battery in the iPod died, I was worried because I could only play 2-3 songs and the power would just stop. The iPod has a funny 30-pin plug on it, and so I had to hunt around on Amazon to find an adapter that would hook up to the power bank. But once I got that adapter, it was “Easy Peasy” as Allie likes to say.
10-25-25. I’m really enjoying the final volume in Philip Pullman’s “The Book of Dust” trilogy—the Rose Field. It’s got spies, suspicious “experimental” theologians, flying ‘Gryffons.’ Lyra Silvertongue, sometimes known as Lyra Bellacqua, is the heroine, and she’s trying to find the secret of how ‘rose dust’ enables communication between people. I have already read the three volumes of “The Golden Compass” about how the alethiometer (sort of a spiritual sextant) enables people to seek answers to complex questions. And now I’m 1/3 of the way through Pullman’s second trilogy that is supposed to tie everything together. He writes really well. So, honestly, I’m enjoying this much more than Thomas Pynchon’s “Shadow Ticket” which had a lot of clever wordplay but was like watching an endless display of minor fireworks. With Pullman, the challenge is to determine how much to read each day. It’s 630 pages long, so it’s a choice between rushing through it and reading 100 pages a day, because the plot is so compelling, or slowing down and savoring 40-50 pages a day, but then sometimes losing some minor thread of the plot when I’ve stopped reading and then don’t come back to the book until a day later.
Tonight is the second game of the World Series. Last night in Toronto, the Dodgers lost badly 11 to 4 to the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays got 9 runs in the sixth inning. So tonight, Sunday, is a must-win game for the Dodgers. The next three games will be in Los Angeles. So if they win tonight, and “sweep” the three games in LA, they could be world champions. But if they lose tonight, then even if they win three games in LA, they will still have to return to Toronto and win an “away” game with Toronto fans understandably screaming their heads off for their home team. The great homer star of the Dodgers Shohei Ohtani did get a home run. So it was pretty dismal.
10-27-25. It turned out that the Dodgers did win Sunday night, 5-1. Hooray. But, Shohei Ohtani did not get any hits. So tonight, Monday night is game three in Los Angeles. The series is tied 1-1. Tyler Glasnow will pitch for the Dodgers. Game starts at 5pm Pacific Coast Time. Jim Brown, who is up in Bishop in the Sierra Nevada mountains, sent me a text this morning, so I know he’s excited by the game.
I did my 30 minute walk this apres-midi, where they have just about put in all the real grass landscaping for the black craftsman-like house on Shenandoah. There were plumbers at the corner house on 18th/Shenandoah apparently collecting the pipes for scrap metal. I saw two nicely painted plumber trucks.
When I finished my walk, I followed it with ukulele practice, so I’d be ready for my Thursday afternoon sing-along with the third grade at Linwood E. Howe School. We sing songs like Jenny Jenkins, Sweet Betsy from Pike, Erie Canal, John Henry, Yankee Doodle, Wabash Cannonball, Home on the Range, Follow the Drinking Gourd, So Long Its Been Good to Know You, This Land is Your Land, Oklahoma Hills (that’s three Woody Guthrie songs) Froggie Went A-Courting, The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, Happy Trails, and On the Road Again. That’s a lot of songs to practice and be ready to sing. So be honest, I transposed almost all of them to either C or G. So I just have to keep the correct sequence of chords in my mind. Erie Canal is in F, I think. Drinking Gourd starts off on D minor. And Sweet Betsy may be different. But the rest of the songs are mainly in C. This Land is Hour Land starts on G. We can’t do all of them in 30 minutes at school. But I let the students request which songs to sing. So I have to gave them all ready. After practicing those songs on the ukulele, I brought out my guitar and played some of the same songs on guitar, where the chord fingers are a little different. G on a guitar is C on a ukulele. C on a guitar is F on a ukulele. D on a Guitar is G on a ukulele. I do that so don’t forget how to play guitar. It just seems easier to use the ukulele with a small combo-amp with the third graders.
10-28-25. Dodgers won last night 6-5 and the game went 18 innings. Left-handed first baseman Freddie Freeman hit a solo home run in the bottom of the 18th to clinch it for the Dodgers. Game started at 5:08pm and ended at 11:50pm. So Dodgers are ahead 2-1 in the series. Shohei hit two home runs last night, and he pitches tonight. No rest for that guy.
Really hot today. In the low 90s. Took a half hour walk at 8:00am, then did half hour of exercises—squats, leg extensions, heel raises, lunges, as well as pointers, planks, deadlifts-insect, glute bridges. Then some stretches with elastic bands for my arms and chest. Walk every day. Exercises 4 times a week.
10-29-2025. 93 degrees today. I took my 30 min walk early when it was delightfully cool. Then did half hour of exercises. Dodgers lost 6-2 last night so the series is tied 2-2. Fifth game is tonight and then two more games in Toronto.
I go to bed every night at around 8am and fall asleep pretty quickly. Then I wake up at 12:30pm or so and struggle to get back to sleep. I have a “smart speaker” that I can request to play various “playlists” I have created— Debussy piano sonatas, classical guitar, Miles Davis “Kind of Blue.” Usually it seems I can’t fall asleep for about an hour, then I sleep again. Maybe wake up an hour later. As Proust reminds us, you can fall asleep and then wake yourself up out of a sound sleep because you think you are still awake and you still can’t fall asleep. So I drift in and out of sleep. Perhaps dreaming that I am awake. Even in these short slumbers, I can have dreams. I try to never get out of bed until after 4:00am. Because, of course, when you have insomnia, there is always the temptation to get coffee which is an instant high, but only for a few hours. I’ve tried taking 5mg of melatonin. But I read in AARP that there is no real research that it works. So I lie in bed at 1:00am, try to relax and hope I’ll drift into sleep again. Or that I’ll wake up in a dream.
11-06-25. Dodgers won the World Series in 7 games. Finally beat the Blue Jays 5-4 in the 11th inning. The Dodger hero was Yoshi Yamamoto who pitched the final two and 2/3 innings after only NO days rest, allowing no runs. Usually a starting pitcher gets four days rest. But Yamamoto got none. Dodgers were down three games to two, and they had to win two games in a row against the Blue Jays in their Toronto home ballpark. So Dodgers had a tough uphill job.
11-10-25. It’s Monday morning. I got up just before four AM. Went to bed at 8:30 after watching two enjoyable and relaxing episodes of Murder, She Wrote—as this is our usual family wind-down activity. Slept soundly until midnight, and then seemingly couldn’t get back to sleep. Maybe I dozed in a Proustian manner and dreamed that I was awake and having trouble falling asleep. I listened to a Saxophone Serenity playlist I made—John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley , Johnny Hodges, Sonny Rollins— which was still playing when I woke at midnight. I switched to Mozart piano sonatas and it seemed very faint and difficult to comprehend, so maybe I was dozing. Later on, I turned the volume up and enjoyed listening. Maybe I was truly awake by then. I could really hear the melodies and phrasing. Joyful, playful, inventive. Nothing tragic or too emotional as Beethoven sonatas might be.
Just before 4:00AM I got out of bed, made coffee, and read Proust. “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Bloom” is my current volume. The app says that I’m 96% done. I’ve read it maybe ten times over the past half century since Winter Study at Williams in 1968, and I still find new things to admire. Proust comparing Albertine’s face to the changing sea surface at Balbec. Each day he notes something different. A beauty mark that seems to skip around her face. On her cheek, near her nose, finally below her lip. Young Marcel seems to like Andree more, but Albertine is the vivacious life of the party, so gravity pulls him to her.
11-12-25 I started re-reading “The Guermantes Way” this morning. I’ve got the French version, plus two Scott Moncrieff translations, one with very helpful footnotes by William Carter, a Proust biographer whom I’ve read. Basically, Carter annotates every proper name and noun in the novel. So any time Proust refers to an opera, an obscure poet, an obscure aristocrat, or a key scene in an earlier volume of Proust’s own novel, Carter provides a helpful footnote. If Proust employs a coy vernacular word or expression which Moncrieff misunderstands, Carter explains it and supplies the perfect translation. It’s very handy.
Today, the day before the weekly Thursday folksong singalong, I tried to practice all the folksongs I usually play on the ukulele— on the guitar! For some crazy reason, I can’t play the songs in the same key on the two different instruments. Additionally, the guitar sounds bright and flashy and covers up my voice. What sounds really perfect to accompany my voice on the ukulele, seems strident and harsh when I try the guitar. I really have to yell to make my voice sail over the guitar chords. One thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve had the same fluro-carbon strings on the ukulele for three months, and they sound a little dull. And so I’ll change them over the Thanksgiving break. That’ll give them time to stretch and settle-in. So, played folksongs first on guitar and then on ukulele today.
Did my usual stretching and strength exercises this morning—3 reps of 10 squats sitting on a chair, then 2 reps of 12 knee extensions. Then I use 25-lb elastic band stretched under my feet for bicep curls, then under my knees for stretch over my head. I stand on each leg for 15 seconds. Try to balance like this for three times on each leg. Wall is close by if I wobble too much. Then, I do 4 reps of 5 lunges holding on the bedside. 3 planks. 2 reps of 25 glute bridges on the bed. Lots more exercises, but it sounds silly listing them. I listen to KUSC Classic radio while I’m working out. Plus I do a half hour morning walk and a half hour afternoon walk. The new black and brick Yosemite/craftsman house on Shenandoah just behind outhouse is done. They were just putting in the grass sod. I saw the owner on my walk and complimented him. “Let’s just hope it sells he joked.
Eli made her famous salmon pate with last night’s leftover salmon. I ate it with the grain/seed Trader Joe crackers I enjoy so much. Dinner tonight will probably be roast chicken thighs. It is Allie’s therapy night, so we won’t eat until 6:30pm, when Allie’s Zoom session is done.
11-13-25. Thursday. Folksongs with 50 third-graders was today. At lunch, I prepared by eating more of Eli’s salmon pate and the grain/seed crackers. Since it’s going to rain tonight, I improvised “It ain’t gonna rain no more” on C and G. “Bullfrog sitting on a lilypad, looking up at the sky…..” Students seemed to love it. We did “So long it’s been good to know you,” “Miller’s Will,” “Clementine,” “Follow the Drinking Gourd” “Jenny Jenkins” of course, “Three Men Went A-Hunting” and finished up with “This Land is Your Land is Your Land” with the obligatory Linwood Howe verses—“This school is your school, this school is my school…” Students are singing much more heartily than in the first weeks when they were eerily awkward and silent. But yesterday, on some of the choruses, they were enthusiastically and boisterously [mostly boys, anyway] raucous. I just noticed, that there are two twin boys in the class who don’t look exactly the same, but for a while I thought one student kept changing his position in the room. I finally saw both of them at the same time and deduced they were twins. It’s hard to really think and make astute psychological deductions like that when you are playing chords on the ukulele and singing songs at the same time.
11-14-25. Friday. It’s been raining off and on all day. To keep up my strength, I put a thick slice of buttered Italian Pannetone under the broiler, let it get crisp, and then added it to my usual much healthier, but less exciting breakfast—oatmeal, raisins/nuts, and fruit. It tasted great, especially the raisins. I am still getting up at 4:00am, doing my Verve coffee pour-over coffee and reading in the morning. It’s my special time. As I mentioned somewhere above, I’m re-reading “The Guermantes Way” with the William Carter annotations and really enjoying it. I’m barely started, but am up to the page where his father gets Marcel a ticket to the Palais Garnier Opera to see the famous actor La Berma (Sarah Bernhardt)in Racine’s “Phedre” but all Marcel is interested in doing is gazing at the aristocrats in the prestigious, luxury box or “baignoire”[off to each side on the stalls level] of the Princesse de Guermantes (who is different from the Duchesse), where the Duchesse de Guermantes and all her relatives congregate. Proust describes the scene like a vast underwater grotto, where the nobles are mermaids and tritons. All the excitement that he once felt on seeing Berma act on stage has been replaced by Marcel’s fanatic devotion to the Duchess de Guermantes. For Marcel, French high society has replaced the stage. As luck would have it, his family has moved into a “wing” of the Guermantes mansion in the Faubourg St. Germain. So Marcel gets plenty of chances to spy on the Guermantes family.
11-20-25 Thursday. It’s raining again. It began just before Eli and I took off for Linwood E. Howe and my usually folksinging class with 50 third graders. The singing went well. My voice is a bit raspy and hoarse, but, using a couple Luden’s cherry cough drops, I made it last for about 7 songs—Drinking Gourd, This Land is Your Land (including the special “This school is your school” verses), Yankee Doodle, Oh Susannah, Oklahoma Hills, Bones. As luck would have it, because of the downpour, they were on "rainy day schedule” and the folksinging class (which is in a special room) ended five minutes earlier than normal, so students could return line up by their “real” classrooms and be called when their parents showed up at the front gate.
I am reading a series of “Warrender Saga” books by Mary Burchell. There are 13 volumes, and they tell the story of various vocal artists who sing in operas conducted by the famous conductor Oscar Warrender. I’m reading my 4th book now, and I really love them. The author fills them with insights into actual operas and how a singer makes a role/character “come to life.” The first volume was how Warrender met his wife, who, of course, is an opera singer.
My absorption in the Warrender Saga means I’ve been fickle to Proust’s “Guermantes’ Way” for about a week. Proust is much deeper and probing, and I’m very familiar with the plot after all these years. Right now, infatuated young Marcel is “stalking” the impeccably well-dressed Duchesse as she walks around the Faubourg St. Germain. So, I’ve earned a break. Besides, the Warrender Saga stories are fun. The take place in London, mostly. So the characters go to rehearsals at Covent Garden, eat in nice restaurants near Piccadilly Circus, and stay in hotels like the “Gloria” with seems to be modeled on the Savoy. There are several regal “prima donnas” who need to be pampered and humored. The conductor Oscar Warrender is an intimidating genius, probably like Herbert Von Karajan, who has a very human side which is only revealed when the plot depends upon a surprising revelation.
12-1-25. We had a lovely Thanksgiving trip to Oakhurst just south of Yosemite. We encountered light tulle fog just as we crossed the Tejon Pass, but by the time we reached Oakhurst the skies were blue and the sun shining. We checked into our favorite hotel, the Best Western, but, unfortunately, the restaurant was closed on Tuesday, so we had Mexican food—burritos, shrimp and octopus carnitas, a nice Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, etc. at a nice place two buildings down. The next day we drove into Yosemite and toured the Mariposa Sequoia Grove. We could see the tall, thick ancient 100 foot tall sequoias next to the even taller, thinner California coastal redwoods. Unfortunately, there was squishy melted snow on the wooden boardwalk, so I couldn’t walk all the way with Eli and Allie. Instead, I turned back and found a paved service road which had more direct sunlight, so there was no melted ice. From the service road, which was pretty steep, I could see Allie and Eli on the forest trail, so I had to turn back before I reached the Grizzly Giant Sequoia, which looks like it has huge, thick, gnarly, tree branches stretching around it. They don’t spread straight outward like real branches, but sort of curl around the trunk, like a bear’s arms. Our reward for all the hiking involved was to have a late lunch at the Oakhurst Grill restaurant at the Best Western. I had salmon, salad, orange slices and beets. Allie had a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. Eli had chicken fettuccine.
After lunch, we moved to a “chalet” on Bass Lake. Truth be told, we got hungry later on in the evening, and Eli and Allie walked to a nearby store and bought in a Di Giorno thick crust pepperoni pizza that tasted wonderful.
The next day (Thanksgiving, Nov 27) we took a steep hike on “The Way of the Mono” trail directly across the lake from us. Its had little signs along the trail explaining various aspects of Mono Indian life and identifying all the various kinds of trees—at least 5 different kinds of oak. I was especially glad to see a Manzanita tree with its red bark clearly identified, because, as I boasted to Allie, as a boy scout I’d always loved to be able to identify that distinctive tree. The trail was really quite steep with lots or boulders, so I was glad I had my hiking pole with me. I took a nap and at two pm it was time for our Thanksgiving Lunch at Ducey’s by the Lake. In a booth overlooking Bass Lake, Eli had lamb chops, Allie had Prime Rib, and I had grilled halibut. We had a wonderful bottle of Ferrari-Carrano Chardonnay to drink with it. It was an expensive bottle, and the written description on the label had about 15 fruity adjectives—vanilla, hints of apricot, melon, etc. It was really nice.
The next day (Nov 28), we went to “Fresno Flats” which was a small set of historic 19th century structures in an older part of Oakhurst. It had two one-room school houses, which interested Allie a great deal. There was an Edison cylinder phonograph as well as a old-fashioned Victrolla which played 78rpm disks. Both were in perfect working order. I had never heard an Edison cylinder played before. It has a diamond needle which is set down upon the rotating silvery cylinder. They had a whole chest full of cylinders to play. Unfortunately, they didn’t play an old opera recording. The guide was a retired high school teacher who knew everything about each object in the room, so his tales, demonstrations, and explanations were quite informative.
12-12-25. It’s less than a week until we fly off to the Big Island of Hawaii on Thursday, December 18. Allie has to teach until the end of that week, so she’ll fly on Saturday December 20, and we’ll meet her at the airport. Already, I can’t wait to taste the lunch at the Fish Hopper with its view of Kona bay with the waves splashing on the wall. Or driving up into the Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation and getting bags full of real Kona Coffee beans. Or biting into a gorgonzola and pear pizza, or a total mushroom pizza, at Kai restaurant with its tables near the lava rocks right on the water. They always have my favorite Overboard IPA from Big Island Brewhaus which is located in Waimea where you get a view of the bright, shiny observatories perched at 13,700 feet. Nearly always, there is snow on top of Mauna Kea. Big Island Brewhaus doesn’t ship to the mainland, so I only get to taste it’s beers when I’m in Hawaii.
At one point in our 12 day vacation, there will be a 2 hour trip across the “saddle road” to Hilo for lunch under the awning at Pineapples or inside at Cafe Pesto.
12-15-25. I've got my big green Samsonite suitcase packed for the trip. Come to think of it, I had a maroon colored Samsonite suitcase when I went away to Williams College back in 1964. It was wrapped in canvas and lashed to the top of the truck on a Triumph TR-3. And we did encounter some rainstorms in Arizona and New Mexico as we crossed the USA. Well, that was a long time ago--61 years in fact. Spent today reading "Musical Masquerade" which is the penultimate novel in "The Warrender Saga" of opera books that I've stumbled into and am enjoying so much. There heroine Kate is singing a famous duet--Silvio and Nedda-- from Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci." The baritone she's singing it with is very flirtatious. The accompanist is also in love with her. So the rehearsals are full of delight and anxiety.
Did my half hour of stretching and strength exercises right after Allie left for school. Worked with Eli to sort out the joint trust and her personal asset trust papers that Vanguard wanted us to re-notarize and mail to them. I filled out the forms, and Eli took them off to the local Postal Express office. Then we watched 2 hours of the updated "Upstairs/Downstairs" which BBC produced. Took my 30 minute walk. Came back and practiced guitar for 45 minutes. WWII is beginning in Europe and the male lead is high up in the British Foreign office; he works for Anthony Eden, and he is always grumbling about Neville Chamberlain caving in to Hitler.
Since there is no third grade music singing until January 8, I've put away my ukulele and started working on the guitar again. The old songs, like Scarlet Begonias, Sugaree, DCBA-25 (those 4 letters are the chords of the Jefferson Airplane song), White Rabbit, Watching the River Flow, Truckin' and even Heartbreak Hotel are slowly coming back to me
