Day 37 - LA County enters yellow tier

Tiburon…Paradise Beach…

6/8/21. Tuesday

10:00–10:30 - I’m up, but I stay in bed until 10:30, then go downstairs to say good morning to the dog. She’s awake and waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, tail wagging.  I rub her tummy three times, she grabs her toy, and we go outside. I see that she pooped on the patio…great.  I clean it up and water my new, potted jasmine plants. Return inside: coffee for me; pepper-jack cheese for her. I go upstairs.

 10:30-12:00 – I eat a piece of cookie from Insomnia Cookies – L. discovered this place – and read Women’s Work.

L. returns from the sleepover in her silk pajamas from Reformation.  Apparently, J. had to get up early for a yoga class – L. interrupts the story to ask the question, Why would you schedule a yoga class at 8:30 in the morning the day after a slumber party? – but L. convinces J. to reschedule and L., J., and N. go to Undergrounds for coffee instead, with L. still in her pajamas.  In fact, the three of them run a few errands and L. never bothers to change out of her pajamas the entire time – the other two are dressed. Kind of funny.

L. goes to bed.

12:00-2:00 – I eat the leftovers from yesterday’s “Glitter and Gold” skillet and continue reading Women’s Work.

2:00-3:30 – Shower. Wash and blow-dry hair. Lotion. Covid-19 uniform. Light make-up. I listen to the BBC Newshour and Air Talk.

3:45-6:00 – I drive to Helms Eye Care so I can order my contacts. Everyone is masked, including the patients. Although I’ve left two messages explaining that the trial pair they ordered are perfect and to please order a 6-month supply, nobody bothered to return my call or confirm the contacts were ordered. This is such an inconvenience. When I arrive, the customer rep tells me the optometrist did not note the name of the contact brand so he had to ask her. I’m assuming this is why my contacts weren’t ordered but couldn’t somebody have called to tell me this? They order the 6-month supply and the contacts will arrive in 2 weeks.

Next, I drive to Home Depot and return the dead bougainvillea plant for a full refund. Then, I buy more supplies for the garage project: white paint, paint rollers, a metal plate for an outlet, and two small bags of potting soil.  Did I mention I’m sick of painting? Everyone is masked and the store is largely empty. I listen to The Best of Both Worlds.

6:00-6:30 – Return and unload my supplies.

6:30 – 7:00 - I drive to B.’s house.  We’re going to stay at a casita [read: beach house] in Tiburon [Bay Area] next week and need to discuss.

 B.’s neighbors, J. and A., are house/dog-sitting at the “big house” [the main house that sits on the Tiburon property] and the casita is a tiny house located at the back of the property, overlooking the beach. It’s free, but similar to an Air BnB in that we have to bring our own supplies, like toilet paper, paper towels, etc. We’ll be staying there for four days while J. and A. are in the “big house” and, tonight, B. and I are walking across the street to his neighbor’s house to discuss the details and any activities we might be doing together.

7:00-9:00-We have a nice talk with J. and A., figure out what we need to bring, and loosely plan our itinerary.  We might join them at Mumm’s Vineyard for wine tasting.  B. and I plan to take the ferry to Angel Island and ride bikes at some point.

9:00-11:30 – We leave and walk across the street, back to B.’s house.  We watch a 20/20 episode – Season 43, Episode 22 – Gone Girl – where the police f—ked up the investigation (what a surprise) and the woman who was kidnapped during a home invasion almost died. The police didn’t believe the couples’ account, which was factual, so they didn’t bother investigating. The suspect tried to do the same thing to another couple, but sustained a beat-down by the woman’s husband and was caught. The original couple in the story ended up suing the police department and winning millions.  Unfortunately, the woman was held in the trunk of a car for hours and repeatedly raped. It was awful.

11:30-12:00 – I leave.

Driving.

12:00-2:30 – Home and I respond to my French Cinema teacher’s email and politely tell her that I won’t be completing the Final Project and that I know she will have to substantially reduce my grade in the class.  I throw in some “ageism discrimination” examples in the hope that she will give me a B instead of a C, because she doesn’t want an age discrimination complaint filed against her [which I would never file, but she doesn’t know that].

For example, I tell her that I was the oldest student in the class [is it true? dunno] and that I didn’t think I would be able to carry my weight in the group with the younger students.  I also add that meeting with my fellow students via Zoom and filming various scenes seemed overwhelming [read: brain addled]; I don’t have an Iphone; and I was embarrassed to share any of this with the students. As a result, I opted out of the Final Project, “but enrolling in this class was worth it and you’re a great teacher!”

In reality, I just didn’t want the hassle of finding a group and participating in numerous Zoom meetings with “kids” and filming a scene in a French movie, and splicing the scenes together, and getting consensus from 4 other people throughout…I didn’t want to deal with any of it. We’ll see what happens.

-I talk to L. about the formula needed to figure out my grade. If I received As on 80% of the class assignments and an F on the Final Project (20% of the class) what will my score be. L. directs me to finalgrades.com and we plug in the numbers. I should get a 78% in the class - if the teacher takes pity on me, maybe she will increase my score by 2 percentage points and give me a B. Not sure.

-An extra credit assignment from one of my students in College No. 2 comes in, 6 weeks late. 6 weeks!  I grade it – the student gets a 3 out of 20 – and scan it back to him.

-I spend the rest of the night logging my monthly purchases for the past 6 months so I can start posting to my master spreadsheet.  For the most part, I list my expenditures in real time, on a monthly basis, but some of my online purchases weren’t noted and May’s receipts still needed to be logged. I admit I’ve been remiss. I can’t post to the master spreadsheet until everything is noted in my monthly reports – this takes some time and I kick myself for not doing this on a regular basis. I listen to True Crime Garage.

-I transfer the materials from the 4 college classes I designed onto a new thumb drive that I purchased so everything will be stored in multiple locations. You never know what can happen…

-I’m updating the due dates in Canvas for the assignments in my Summer-session class [runs in July] and I do a little more work on this project. I’m close to finishing.

2:30-3:30 – Kitchen duty and I eat pieces of cheese and walnuts for a light snack while I listen to Dating Diaries. I take the dog out and lock up.

3:30-4:15 – Night time routine. Bed. I listen to What a Day.