Saturday Journal

Imp Watches Yoga From A Safe Distance

Saturday 4 was the Toastmasters Region 1 District 2 Division D International Speech contest. I served as one of the timers. Since my computer does not seem to have the horsepower to support Zoom backgrounds (without super strange special effects) I was the other timer, which suits me fine.
I enjoyed the contest and the contestants were skilled. I saw consistent issues related to speaking on a laptop, notably

• Directing the speaker's eyes
• Glasses that both reflected light unhelpfully and concealed expressions
• Difficulty working with crowd reaction, since there is no crowd.

I can now better appreciate why professional speakers like to work with an audience.
--
It is easy to lose track of the days, which makes journaling even more important, but easy too to let things slip. I am writing this Wednesday 4/8(!) so I don't recall whether I actually attended the Saturday Virtual Zoomba by Reema, but I'm pretty sure I did because I sent her a small donation sometime that week and she sent a thank you on the 4th.
I enjoy the virtual zumba; it's not as good as an in-person class but it's better than youtube videos because I have more of a sense of being with people. This makes me happy, and also less likely to goof off.
---
Ed has been promising to work more on the garden but he is distracted by other things and never does, after the first day or two of busting sod. I don't really care but I am concerned that he seems to be meeting with people as he works out the business with his landlord's mold. I am not getting a sense of urgency about fixing that problem; he says the landlord has the money to pay for it so I don't see why she doesn't just hire someone and set a timeline. I need to be a little more insistent on a plan. He's not much trouble other than the risk of bringing in COVID and the general annoyance of having someone around, but I need a plan.

Rhubarb Growing Multicolored

Moderation Friday

My top priority Friday was moderating the "Heritage Tourism" panel at an all-day WSBA/WPTL CLE "Cultural Heritage Protections in U.S. and International Law", moved abruptly to the internet (of course). I listened to the program all day, and learned quite a bit.
Since I've been in Toastmasters, I list to presentations as presentations, trying to figure out how, why and above all whether they work. I'm afraid that while as speakers, everyone seemed very, very knowledgable, but yet their presentations suffered from the curable presentation problems. There were no pauses to enable the audience absorb information, little vocal variety, mostly unclear introductions lacking memorable statements of purpose and conclusions with minimal practical calls to action.
They put so much effort into education, but if it does not lead to action (such as better advocacy) what is the point? We really do need a Toastmasters program for these people.
---
I volunteered to moderate the Heritage Tourism panel because my friend and colleague Regina put out a general call for help on the WPTL listserve. I gave the usual "if no-one else will do I, then I'll be the back up." By now I should realize there is no substantive difference between this and actually volunteering for the position, but I'm a slow learner ;-)
I had qualms. I have no experience moderating panels and no expertise on the subject matter.
Regina reassured me, "No problem!"; she sent me a list of questions to ask the panel and some links on the subject to study. I smiled confidently, knowing I can read questions aloud with the best of them!

BUT: At our final preparation meeting, I suddenly realized I'd missed a few things.
1. I was to introduce the speakers. This was no problem; I simply asked them to send me the introduction they wanted and added that to the script
2. I was also to introduce the panel itself. This is where my blood ran cold (dun-dun-DUN!!!!).  As the first to speak, it was my job to connect the audience to the panel so that the audience would be interested from the start. They needed to know why they should care beyond merely getting educational credit. We might even want to urge them to do better at something related to the subject matter.

And: it was the last panel of the day. You know what that means. We had to wake up the audience!

Connecting with audiences is something we work on quite a lot with Toastmasters. The easiest way is through story. Humans love stories; even when we are performing relatively analytical thinking, what really grabs our attention is the story. In this case:

• This is a CLE, so the story must be grounded in law
• A good story has people in it we relate to; maybe us, maybe tourists, but best of all the people of the heritage sites 
• Over the internet, image and sound are primary, but it's helpful to involve as many senses as possible, to accommodate different perceptual styles
• This particular story must flow from the legal issue and lead to the panel discussion.

This is what I drafted:

[SHOW SLIDE WITH BULLET-POINTED LEGAL DEFINITION]
"The US National Trust for Historic Preservation (https://savingplaces.org/ ) defines "Heritage Tourism" as "traveling to experience the places, artifacts and activities that authentically represent the stories and peoples of the past".
Tell me: this definition is written from whose point of view?
The Tourist.
Not the People Touristed
What if we flip the script?
Define "Heritage Tourism" from the point of view of the people who are or were there?
[NEW SLIDE]
 “Coming to our place to look at our stuff. And maybe at us”
Do you ever wonder: The people who are or who own the objects of tourism, how do they feel about our lawyerly analysis of their legal rights to their own heritage?
Do they care?
What do they want?
Our earlier speakers today showed great knowledge of this, but what about the majority of lawyers?
My personal heritage is Majoritarian-American. 
Can I feel what Angkor Wat may be to Cambodians, or whaling to the Makah?
[THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD PLACE FOR A NEW SLIDE]
Pffft! You can not feel the feelings of another person.
But: we can be better allies, we can serve them better as lawyers if we try to empathize
Let us try something small, right now
[THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD PLACE FOR A NEW SLIDE]
Close your eyes, in your imagination, come with me, to an ancient cathedral, located in a beautiful bustling old city
We enter, touch the sacred water, smell the incense, kneel on the padded kneeler and light a candle for my mother, start a silent prayer, and
In comes a tour group!
With T-shirts and flip-flops!
[THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD PLACE FOR A NEW SLIDE]
The guide points at the stained glass, at the candles
Everyone takes pictures
We are the background to their heritage tourism experience
My mother’s candle is part of their heritage tourism experience!
How do you feel?
The tourists are not trying to be annoying
The church, the people of the locale, the country need tourist money,
But sometimes we can't help thinking about whipping the moneychangers from the Temple
That would be an overreaction
But this thought experiment may help us empathize
With people who are connected to heritage tourist sites
And the law of heritage tourist sites."

---

Now that the audience was emotionally engaged with the people of the subject matter (and entirely avoiding the tough issue of the rights of locals vs world heritage), we launched into the questions and discussions. It went pretty well.

Step back: Let us analyze this introduction.

It starts with a legalistic definition of "Heritage Tourism", bullet pointing elements like good little lawyers.
Then it asks about people: "Whose point of view is this?"

It introduces the parties to the problem - Tourists and The Touristed - by flipping the script.
Problem: the latter are hard to relate to because they're not here and - mostly - We Are Not Them.

So: the script invites us into a story where *we* are the touristed

It excites an emotion connecting us to the objects of our legal analysis.

I hope that this at least woke the audience up.
---
ALSO:

In a live panel, the speakers themselves are the image that draws in the audience. On the internet, it's different. As it happens, our presentation tool does not support a "Talking Heads" format, but even if we were using one that did, nothing is less interesting than a row of talking heads.
WSBA had prepared for us a minimum image (thank you!) but it was my job to come up with something that better supported presentation effectiveness.

The panelists sent me a list of tourism sites that they wanted to talk about. I grabbed a bunch of wikimedia images to put up as slides (being careful to credit them on the slide as required - disrespecting rights to the image is bad, but doubly bad given our subject matter!).

In other programs, the slides advanced in rigid order. But during the show, because it was a discussion, we hopped from site to site and so had to  show a slide of whatever site the speaker was talking about. This is a different way of doing things than previous presentations I'd worked on - not worse - just different. Figuring out how to synchronize image with speaker is something to think about.

I also put up slides with the text of the prepared questions. I felt that might help listeners, because sometimes I don't catch the audio version of a question. Was that actually useful? I would like to experiment with the tool to see about posting the questions from the audience - I think that may be the purpose of the "Push To All" feature.

We proactively encouraged audience members to submit questions and observations; I read them to the panel as if they were other panel members. I had to remember to monitor both the "Group Chat" window and the "Q+A" window for audience participation. Also I now realize that it might have been helpful to use "push to audience" so the audience would have the visual as well as the audio of the question.

I sent the introductory script and images to panel members for review. This really helped. It is just too easy to fall in love with one's own words and not hear them from the point of view of another.  Also, Panelists Know Things - after all, they are on the panel for Reasons. The comments and edits sent back were absolutely essential for quality. 

I would like to do this again, after studying the skill of moderation more. I would better prepare the script and visual support, with plenty of spare images to support where the Q+A hopped. Perhaps we could also practice a panel discussion or in other ways prepare for this new format.

This might be something other Sections are working on too. Let me know if others are interested; joint efforts can be helpful!

Thursday Preparing for Friday

Arthur On The Shelf

My most important project today was preparing for tomorrow's seminar. I had volunteered to moderate a panel on a subject I knew nothing about - Heritage Tourism - but my friend Regina needed a volunteer so I put my hand up.
At some point, I had felt an interest in increasing my work on improving my body. It might have been an increasing awareness of aging, spurred by the approach of retirement or the difficulty of taking a selfie without eyebags or perhaps an increased awareness of mortality as the coronavirus crisis grew. It may have been a reaction to watching Madfit and getting a sense that I needed to "work, work, work, bitch" as the song goes (which I never heard on that youtube channel, but was yet another favorite at Reema's Zoomba.) I discussed upgrading my efforts against high blood pressure, had an examination with Dr. Ryan (since Dr. Wendy was on vacation with family), and decided to give

Today's Inspirational Message

By Anonymous

the Cardatone another few weeks.
Those few weeks ended during the Governor's "Stay Home" order, so I emailed Dr. Wendy what to do next. She asked how I was feeling and how was my self-measure doing. I admitted that I had misplaced my BP monitor but I am feeling good. In fact, I'm feeling better than usual, which might be because I'm not forcing my body to fit my work schedule. I do miss my friends but I stay in touch online (we have started virtual Zumba classes!) I am careful to go outside at least twice a day, in the morning together greens and in the afternoon to take a picture. I start most days with fitness exercises, which I enjoy. If it were not for the awful tragedy and the many deaths, I would say this is a good lifestyle for me. It is as if I were in training for retirement.
At first, Dr. Wendy suggested we meet on her porch for her to measure, but then she suggested if I was feeling ok (haven’t been feeling any symptoms like dizziness, headache, chest pain), then to put off coming in for a blood pressure check until the crest of the wave passes. She has no way of knowing whether she is a carrier and does not want to risk passing it to me. I feel the same way. She offered to clean her bp machine and leave it on the porch for me, but I think I will engage in a renewed search for my own.
---

Stan's House: Still In Progress

When I took my evening walk, Mary Ellen O'Connor greeted me from her porch where she was smoking. We talked about stuff in general and eventually, as we discussed the 'rona, she mentioned having a box of gloves to donate, but how? I offered to take them to my nurse friend Jenn.
---
I was so enthused about my many  projects that I completely forgot to log into Zoom Zumba. Ooops!
---
In the evening we had a run-through for Saturday's Toastmasters Division D contest, at which I am serving as Timer. These are fun people to hang out with, and I always learn something. Today Heather addressed my concerns about toggling mute/unmute by telling my that, after researching the issue, she discovered Zoom has a temporary unmute: holding the spacebar down. I experimented and it worked great! We all enjoyed the thrill of discover.
---Ed called to say he was spending the night  out at a friend's. He is not around much and, if it were not for the 'rona, would be no concern at all. I thanked him for keeping me advised so I won't stay up to make sure he can make it in.

Busy Woden's Day

Hold Fast
We will get through this.

Today I awoke determined to get back to my exercise regime, which I had skipped yesterday. I have to recognize that part of social distance is depressing the mood, depressing the mood leads to less enthusiasm for exercise, and that leads to further depressing the mood.
Once Ed had departed for his day's work I got things going: yoga, madfit, some ab work. I felt great!
I did the usual chores: blancing yesterday's crop of greens, cleaning, updating http://4freeCLE.com . I felt gratitude at the garbage being collected as usual.

Sanitation Workers Are Essential!

I had two priorities, other than the usual: meeting with Anne and Regina at 1 to do final prep for the Friday webinar, and then deliver food through feest.org
Both went pretty well. I had at first thought I would just be reading some questions, but that is Regina's correctly clever recruiting: she provided the absolute minimum I would need to do, and my own sensibility is driving me to practice, rewrite, and practice again. I'll have to remember the technique; it seems to me it is VERY important that the minimum be sufficient in case the recruit really does not have the time to do more, but perfectly fine to leave gaps to be filled in.
In this case, I thought over the storytelling lessons I've practice in Toastmasters, and came up with an idea to draw in listener interest even though we were the last program of the day.  I sent them the rough draft, am eager to here if it suits their taste or needs a re-write.
Earlier in the day, as I worked through the pile of mail, Tamsen called and canceled her request for me to pick up some hair ties as I went out and about today. Either her sewing person already had some or they decided to go another way.

Food Deliveries funded by FEEST.org

The food trip also went well. I departed late because the WPTL call ran over an hour, but I called Jimie' to inform her and that was ok. She had a handmade mask using hair ties - just like what Tamsen had described. Shopping took longer than I had figured; much of the delay was me trying to figure out how much was the right about for a family of 8 - I'm used to feeding a family of me!
They took a couple of photos - one for the money donor, one for me showing my "HOLD FAST" gloves. Then it was time to deliver. I learned from the delivery:

• First, make absolutely sure that my phone is fully charged or that I have a charger in the car. Google Maps was running on fumes toward the end LOL 
• Second, the difference between Building C and Building D is very important. I was half of a very silly comedy sketch working this out today, you can imagine the rest haha! 
• Third, next time I will definitely print out the shopping list on paper. Doing everything on a cell phone is a nice in theory but in practice the print is way too tiny

There will definitely be a next time, since I am very glad that the organizers put this together, and I hope to do this again next week!

Ant Trap Monster

I must have left something sweet on the countertop because the sugar ants were back like crazy. I washed with water and they came back; then I washed with soap and water and was sure to bring up a few suspicious spots. I also made one more ant trap - version 2.0 based on a catfood cup.

Social Distancing Tuesday

I am working on establishing a routine, modified by opportunities such as education opportunities.
I intend to start with cat care and self care - specifically exercise. However, I skipped exercise today with no good reason.
I put in a couple of hours of 4freeCLE updating; there were more COVID-19 webinars, plus many new ones from MBHB. Midmorning I listened to a  GoToWebinar  "Live COVID-19 Q&A with WebMD Chief Medical Officer". It was interested but mostly just confirmed things I already knew.

I responded to Heather's inquiry about helping out at Friday's District D contests with a note about the issues I'd had being timer:

• For a stopwatch, I was using the Toastmasters app on my cellphone (silenced of course). Partly through a speech, someone called. This overlaid the timing software. I cancelled the call, and the timer reappeared, briefly reading 1:20 then reading 0:38. I puzzled; did the call reset the timer or was I imagining things? Fortunately, the speech concluded while the Karen was still showing yellow, so I concluded the 0:38 was correct and the speech had not run overtime.
• I forgot about my Alexa. It spoke up to help out at some point, but fortunately I was muted.
• The rules for when to time a 1 minute end-of-speech pause vs 2 minutes end-of-contest pause are simple but executing on the rule it did not always go correctly. I want to try a full script for the role; easy to write and perhaps silly to need, but I’ve found scripts useful in other kinds of webinars.
• I started the 1 minute/2 minute times when the TM stopped talking instead of when TM started talking. I puzzled over this but no-one complained.
• Zoom’s mute/unmute indicators are confusing to me. Intellectually I understand the tool, but execution is problematic. The controls are not beveled, so there is little difference between an active control (something that effects change when you click on it) and a mere display (something that doesn’t change things.) I see the word "mute" in the upper right corner of my image as an indicator meaning that I’m muted, whereas it really means “click here to mute”. The icon in the lower left corner, of an old-school microphone crossed out, contradicts it so when in the moment of action, I have to stop and figure out which one to punch. I took to unmuting 15 seconds before time expired so there would be no impact on performance. 

I called Ed to check whether he's ok; I did not see him here last night or this morning. He told me that he is helping someone with something. Later he called me saying the insurance company was sending someone over to either get started or assess, but finally he called and said no one had showed up so he's coming back here, although he likes to sit in his truck and read.

I tried the noontime WSBA Legal Lunchbox webinar but the link didn't work for me. I wrote to WSBA but I imagine they're pretty overloaded right now, and I don't really needed the credit.


Buy Nothing posted an Alert of free food being distributed at a church I got a couple of bags, leaving one at the door of someone I'd previously got groceries for. The other bag I offered to the lady who begged on Henderson but she rejected it, saying should could only drink Boost because she didn't have her lower plate. I wasn't going to give her money. I suppose she might have lost her plate since the last time she accepted a big mac from me, but maybe not.
Then there was a 2nd announcement saying they had milk. I went back and say milk crates of those little cardboard cartons. I took a bunch, intending to offer them to the lady who begged on Henderson, but habit took over and I went home. I'll try that tomorrow.

I'd texted Heather asking for a bupronex refill for Arthur; she replied that the precription was out because Arthur needed to go in for his annual checkup. Well, I've got plenty of time for that. They explained the procedure; I'd park in the garage and all again; someone would come and get Arthur, then they'd call me when he was done in case I had to make any decisions. It went smoothly; I just read my email and before long got the call. Arthur was down half a pound so they wanted to do blood work if I agreed. I agree. They asked if Vanessa was paying for it, and I suppose I could have said yes since she'd agreed to help with his bills, but I think she'd the support of her local family right now and I'm pretty well off; so I said I'd cover it. Arthur was quiet when he came back; we should have the news soon.
One thing I've noticed is that although he'll eat crunchy cat snacks and sometimes dry cat food, he avoids wet solid food; he loves to lick up the gravy but leaves behind the dried meaty bits. I hafe tried different ways to get him to eat it all but this is not something he wants to do. It seems very wasteful, and now he's losing weight so I wonder if he's just not eating enough.

I worked my way through the outstanding mail, trying to delete anything that was only news and not an action item. I'm done to about 3 action items. When I retire, I'llhave toi get better at this; at least I'm getting plenty of practice!

Busy Monday

Today's major activity was a WSBA/WPTL webinar "Justice And Accountability in Syria". I always look forward to hosting these programs, but this was the first one I was doing from my home studio, rather than WSBA.
I treat the time before the show starts, when the speaker has called in but we are not live, as a structured interview. After greeting and thanking the speaker, and a little chitchat, I usually confirmed the pronunciation of the speaker's name and any unusual words in the introduction; I neglected that this time, and as a result stumbled over his last name during the show.
In previous shows, I had had to work to fill the time between the speaker calling in and the show starting. Today, for no reason that I know, I realized that I had some perfectly good questions to ask to keep the conversation flowing;  the questions I always prepare just in case the audience doesn't ask anything. I prepare these questions by going to the speaker's website and seeing what are the topics and controversies that interest the speaker.  While waiting for the clock to tick to showtime, I casually dropped those questions into our conversation. It worked great; the speaker knew those subjects well and gave answers that were nuanced and enthused. In retrospect, this is obvious; I was inviting the speaker to tell me something on a subject that I knew interested he. Conceptually I circled the questions that seemed to most interest him and crossed out one or two duds.
I will have to add the pre-show interview into my standard script.
I had the script taped to the wall so I could read it looking straight out, not down, as I had learned from Toastmasters. With all this preparation, I was concerned because with only a few minutes to go before showtime, there were about two persons in the audience! However, the show must go on; I avoided answering the speaker's question on the house size because I did not want to discourage him. Eventually we got a crowd of 26; I guess people were just signing in at the last moment or even a couple of minutes late.
Earlier this month I had discussed the section with Regina. She expressed frustration that it was acting like a mere "hobby section" rather than one that actually did anything. I agreed with her on this, since I had been feeling much the same thing (and went into some detail with my last attempt to recruit volunteers.... I should write about that sometime.)
This had put on my mind the subject of action. I noticed that the speaker's organization had a website, http://www.syriaaccountability.org which had a newsletter and facebook/twitter links. I slipped into the script a challenge to the audience: the organization was enabling us to earn a free CLE credit; we need to go to the website anyway to get more information, so while not also subscribe to its  newsletter or link to its facebook. Suddenly the lecture seemed even more meaningful, because we were taking action, however small.
One thing I did not do right was not to confirm the pronunciation of his name. I felt embarrassed at stumbling over it, but perhaps few noticed. He was very good humored but I suppose being tortured can put things in perspective.
---
Around 5:15 pm I logged into Reema's first Zoomcast Zumba. It was surprisingly fun, since I could dance limited a little by the size of my home office. It was better than following youtube videos because I felt with people in some sense; perhaps this engaged the social pressure to work harder, or perhaps the music selection was comfortable and familiar. I had to cut the dancing short to help as a Timer at a Toastmasters contest. What I learned from this

• Using cell phone for timing can be a problem if someone calls; when you reject the call and get back to the timer it might be off 
• Alexa likes to butt in at unhelpful times
• Keeping track of 1 minute vs 2 minutes was not well done; I should have made a script like I do for other events 
• The mute/unmute indicators are confusing to me. The word "mute" means that you're not muted; the relevant indicator is a cartoon of phone or microphone crossed out 

The call was from Ed; I called him back and he talked about what he did today. Basically his landlord is not able to get the insurance company to send someone out for another two weeks. This is bad for her because mold is bad stuff and shes elderly; it's bad for him because he's elderly too, and recovering from cancer. Ed says his landlord's friend is encouraging her to get a note from her doctor saying she has to get out of the house right way. I'll call her tomorrow and encourage this; I can't send Ed away in the present conditions but I don't want an unrelated roomie right now. He is as little trouble as he can be but it's still another person in my space.

I love these tiny daisies. I suppose they have another name, but I like to sing "Tiny Daisies In My Hand" like Elton John.

Walking About

Burger Boss Speaks For Us All!

2 Fingers, closed for the duration, posts helpful signage

Child care on the walk home, closed

Food

Dropped off a bag of groceries for a shut-in; someone had been there before and left some cans. It must be awful to be too worried to get out but that's a reality for the immunocompromised. We're all in this together!

There are so many reasons to love this tree. Most obvious is the beauty of the blossoms. Its courage in growing on the reverse side of a hill -so it's lower although not short than I am - is interesting. But notice its base. It looks like the original, massive tree was cut down (probably when they converted the cherry orchard to wartime housing) and out of the stump this grew. There's a metaphor for life!

Green Harvest

These were in my yard all along, and I never knew how good they are steamed and added to an omelette, or left crisp and added to a salad. I don't want to be a farmer because that is way too much work, but taking 10 minutes to gather greens for the day is a nice way to start the morning!

---

I updated 4freeCLE with LexisNexis and TASA and a few others. The COVID19 content is gettting a lot of hits, and I need to show there's other stuff too. --- I picked up some groceries for someone from "Buy Nothing" and have tried to observe good social distancing. It is very satisfying to be so useful, although shocking that I should be so much better off than so many. --- Tomorrow Ed and his landlord will physically go to the local office of their insurer to demand approval of work to mitigate the mold. I called her and we discussed the matter; the insurance company seems to be dragging its feet; I volunteered to help yell at them or at least publicize their perfidy. Both she and Ed have compromised systems (he's 75 and just survived cancer - he became homeless because he could not stay in that house what with the mold. I think I'll talk this over with Cyril tomorrow and try Lisa Herbold again if necessary. --- There are many sad announcements on Twitter of persons dying untimely from the disease. Very sad. Another sad thing I read was not intended so; it was a commentary by one of my beloved nieces - a very nice person - that her father claimed he was social distancing but really he had just alienated everybody. This is probably true, but sad nonetheless. --- I just feel lucky to have my house (plus or minus the mortgage), the ability to pay my own way, and friends.
---
And now: the heat went out. The controller in the living room is blank. I flipped breakers and messed with the filter: no result. I called WES at the number on the heat pump; due to the emergency their robot took my number, promising a callback. They actually did call back within a few minutes, and offered either a tech this evening for around $300, or one tomorrow for around $129. Since the projection is for heat to get down only to 43, I went for tomorrow. Ed says he'll be inside (after all, he had been sleeping in his truck) and Heather got the space heater. I experimented with heating a pot of edamame on the stove: it does warm the kitchen but I don't want to overcook the beans; next time I'll use just water (I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying "next time" ha!)