Wednesday Walk and TM

Hannah And The Cozy Tree

Today's walk went by a tree with sweater: fun! There was also lots of other good art and an interesting design in coldframes.

I figure I might as well attend other clubs' Toastmasters meetings, learn things, and have fun. This  evening I attended another Kent Evening Toastmasters meeting. The main presentation was a speech by a radio pro about evaluation; we were encouraged to offer comments to the speaker via chat. I tried the sandwich approach, starting with his speaking, which was flawless, and then suggesting his joke about preferring the evaluation from the person who was more positive and also she was cuter would not work with some audiences. It's surprising how stuff like this slips by even well meaning old people like us.  At the end of the meeting, the asked for "Toasts": people praising something good. Mostly they toasted Toastmaster related things, but I though I wanted to recommend FEEST as ewe need drivers. However I was slow because I am shy to intrude. This is not a helpful attitude so I resolved to get my comment in there somehow. The Toast period got by me but the last literally 2 minutes of the meeting had nothing so I jumped in an made my p itch. One person asked for the spelling of FEEST, which suggested she was going to look it up and sign up yay

Mermaids In A Sea Of Strawberries

Sea Monster Amid The Waves Of Berries

This looks like an easy coldframe design

That Third Flag!

Tuesday at Toastmasters

On the way to Hannah and Julie's, I saw a house with a flock of pink flamingos, so we walked that way and saw it and other house had some sort of "Thank-You" going on. Fun!
We also saw a jay bird nest raid. The jays were circling a tree, up near the top of which a crow was raiding a nest. Eventually it flew off with what was probably a hatchling. That's nature. I am told that jays do the same to smaller birds; they are all basically feathered dinos. Still, it was a surprise.

I had found an N95 (unwrapped, but unused) in my emergency kit, and I figure we're in an emergency, so I included it in my Seattle Mask Brigade collection. Also today while picking up, I chatted with a donor's neighbor who liked to sew masks but didn't have anymore people whoi needed them. I urged her to google the Brigade but didn't feel right writing the URL down or handing out a card, because, you know, social distancing.

One of my neighbors is getting a security clearance, asked permission to use me as a reference, and needed to know when we first me. This made me look up when I bought this house .

In the evening, I enjoyed the Toastmasters Leadership Skills workshop with John LeCompte, and a little socializing after.

My N95, donated to the cause

Collection Point

Monday Walk And Talk

Nice overlook view at High Point

 The Monday morning walk went up to High Point for a look around. There's some nice views there of the downtown.
Julie put in a lot of work over the weekend with a former coworker; they're converting the chaos of slop and old flower beds into something neater and more useful.

There was a WSBA Section Leaders Zoom meeting; I don't recall much of it except that I want to write up some On24 usage procedures.
There was a TM 832 run through of the meeting tomorrow.
I finally looked at both my power and light bills and decided both were way too high. My water meter was covered in dirt so I doubted it had been read. I called the utility and was robohung up on several times, but eventually I got to a human. She gave the last read amount from last month which was only 2 units less than the reading I saw.; it was a number close to  who explained that adults normally uses about 2 units per month, also a running toilet can massively increase water use. I realized that the houseguests had been increasing water costs but it should be back to 2 units per adult by next bill.

Hannah supplements trellis art with sign

Next I talked with the electricity people, who told  me that there was no electricity being generated from my solar cells at least as far back as a year. I decided this was probably WES screwing up yet again, but this time costing me real money. I hope this is as simple as connecting disconnected wires. I had not paid close attention to the bills, so now I have to figure out what to do next.

Social Distance Dog Park

The cats won't let me sleep in past breakfast, although really Ginny is interested only in going outside and Imp just wants someone to play with. Arthur snoozes and Shadows wants to be petted. They seem to be content with dry food, except for Arthur who likes being fed something wet at midnight.

My walk first took me to the ducks to drop off some greens. They weren't by the fence when I tossed it over but I'll check with their owner, a "Buy Nothing" pal, a little later.
Then I went to the greenbelt and dog park. The urban forest trails were nice and I think it's funny that it took me so long to find them. I wish I'd gotten a pick of the Good Dog proudly carried a small log (2 or 3 inch diameter, and much longer than he was.)
There was an awkwardness when I exited the fenced part; the person before me was having trouble negotiating the gate, the leash of her unwilling dog, and everything else. I reacted as I would in The Before Time, saying I'll help with that and getting the gate. She expressed distress, and said she'd wait. I realized this was a social distancing thing and said I'd go out another way but she insisted. I am perfectly willing to implement social distancing but it is hard to break a habit.
I moved on a few surplus household items through "buy nothing", but no one wants the used rice cooker that Ron left me.The usual places for donations are closed due to COVID19, so  I will be stacking up a lot of stuff in the basement for when St. Vinny's reopens!

Saturday Cats And Flowers

Today I focussed on practicing working to the calendar - an ability I'm going to need as I assume multiple leadership roles in Toastmasters and elsewhere. I'm using Google Calendar as my basic camera, with some real-world extensions for activity lists as I drive around, as this is much moer convenient than the cellphone calendar.
The day was often wet, but I got my walk in anyway, going up to the bank to deposit a check and looking at flowers on the way back.
I was delighted to read that a program I'd worked on last month is now on the Bar website and for sale:

Cultural Heritage Protections in US and International Law

6.5 CLE credits

https://www.mywsba.org/PersonifyEbusiness/Default.aspx?TabID=251&productId=17933833

I had gotten an inquiry about refinancing a few days back so I asked about what I could get now - just a short time after I'd refinanced, but interest rates had gone down again. Today I got the reply, which was neatly laid out but basically said that my current rate was the lowest available. I thanked the agent for trying.
Flowers On My Walk:

Arthur Naps Next To But Not On A Pillow

Ginny Naps On A Bookcase

Imp Wants To Run Around

Shadow's Just Watching

Friday Walk And Roleplay

Front Yard Unsuited For Croquet

Today's morning walk went through the Gatewood Neighborhood, which has some pretty astounding houses for our area. At least one is a super b-and-b. The steep hillsides make planting a challenge and the solutions were often creative.

In the evening we started our Zoom D-and-D game. I haven't done this for ages and it was fun. I am trying something very different from my actual life: the halfling rogue, sneaky and bold. Well, maybe that's not so different.
We worked through the variety of technical issues that seem to underlie so many of our social actions today and ended up having a good time.

Thursday Miscellany

Today I did yoga and had the usual walk, hanging around and chatting with Julie afterwards, about gardening and stuff. I shopped FEEST with Leigh and a laid-off barista from Capitol Hill. I lent my weed whacker to a young couple from Buy Nothing.
I sent a suggestion to a couple of Snohomish County family members to recruit them to drive for the Snohomish Mask Brigade, but no response. I probably need to recruit more boldly.

Galen from work called; it had been 30 days since our last contact and he was just confirming I'm still employed and all that. There was talk of letting the seasonals go but since I accepted moving to permanent that doesn't affect me. There had been a lot of work to set people up to start working the phones from home but that got halted, so who knows? I heard a 3pm lecture by the Attorney action Club on IRS COVID-19 Relief Beyond The $1200 Check. It looks like they'll be doing weekly Zoom meetings and this one was pretty good; it was interesting to hear outsiders talk about IRS operations.

Ed Getting His Stuff

Ed called last night for permission to come get his wheelbarrow today. I told him that was fine and I also had a small box of his stuff he'd left behind. He came by with his friend and they loaded up. Ed assured me he'd been tested for COVID19 and was negative but he has 3 masks now that he used all the time - I was wearing it when he got the wheelbarrow. He mentioned our mutual friend Cyril being in the hospital. We wished each other well. I had not intended to kick him out immediately when I learned he was smoking (after cancer recovery) and drinking quietly in his truck, but it worked out ok because even if he is testing negative, I don't need to take a chance on him.

I probably got too excited about the Washington Legal Foundation's proposal to the section-leaders listserve that we use some of our section reserves to create a program to help attorneys struggling due to COVID19. My point was that charitable gifting unrelated to education was not within our bylaws and, even if we could figure out a way, the whole gifting process is too much work for too little impact when the best way to accomplish this worth goal is for the BOG to set up a Work Group to do much the same thing but including the whole bar. The proponent replied to the various criticisms by saying that someone from some sections had thought it was a good idea to repay the people who had contributed to whatever reserve the Section had, in particular by way of CLEs, which annoyed me since the nonmembers who contributed through CLE did it for credit not as a contribution, and it was impractical to make gifts only to those nonmembers who previously expressed a desire to make a charitable contribution, but mostly because this whole thing would be much better done via the BOG using economies of scale. Much of my reaction was due to prior attempts to convert Section balances to WSBA purposes, but also my experiment with cash gifts through DAV is that they frequently go astray; figuring out who has a claim we can help with, making sure the money goes to the purpose, and above all ensure that the recipient has a plan for avoiding this happening again is complicated, but necessary to keep this all from just being a gift to the mortgage bank.
I suppose I should have let a day go by, or not responded the 2nd time. Live and learn.

Walk, Mask, FEEST and Bill checking

It was a beautiful day for a morning walk. To the west was the Sound and to the east was the Cascades.
I did mask pickups and FEEST shopping In the evening, I reviewed my Discover bill and was surprised at its size. I reviewed the account and did not see something odd;  I see the $600 Mienecke bill for fixing the car, plus $142 for WES to fix the part that failed (and to install the external sensor that had been omitted); the Animal hospital a charge for Arthur's annual checkup and bloodwork plus more for his medications; also some for a pizza I got from Proletariat either in solidarity with small business or to celebrate my prosperity relative to so many others. I would not be able to afford many months like that but fortunately my car is unlikely to need another fix.

Tuesday Speakout

Bluebells fascinate me

Our delightful morning walk featured a lot of bluebells and other flowers.
The first bluebells I remember seeing were around the plum tree at the north end of our property. They seemed so very special, growing on their own without any beds of dirty old dirt, just coming up to greet us. We cut some (I think with permission) to give mom and she put them in water in the window, perhaps.
In retrospect, my parents might have planted them, but who knows? The feeling remains.
Today's mask pickup in my sector was canceled, presumably for lack of materials.
I participated in a noontime program, by PLI, on COVID19 impact on immigrant legal rights. This is excellent and timely information; I recommended it to the WPTL section and I hope they passed it on.
I received new artwork from Stephanie! I will put it up over the weekend; I want to do this neatly not haphazardly. I think it'll really make the living room mine.
Caliber Home Loans did not respond to my message about the error in their billing system, although I did get an email confirming my initial payment. I'm not surprised about their failure to honor the promise to respond, because of their legendarily bad customer service. I'll give them another day before taking this to the next level.
I worked on my Toastmasters responsibilities. I edited Karen's draft of a Mentorship document, which was fun, especially rewriting the introduction to introduce "Mentor" as a person in Homer's Odyssey instead of a definition in the dictionary. I hope the specific bullet items may be helpful; I suppose I should test it out myself!
I put in a little time preparing for the next contest round. Since Starburst linked to a recording of another District's co ntest, I decided to watch the speakers and see what tips I could pick up. What I picked up from Omar Rivas' presentation ( https://vimeo.com/409513379 hour 1 minute 29 second 20 ) is that I didn't need to worry about renewing my passport; I wasn't going to Paris. It's really worth watching (  ) although I'm still trying to figure out how I can learn from it.

My role for the evening SPEAKOUT Toastmasters meeting was to evaluate Karen Lezon's presentation, paying special attention to presentation skills specific to the online (Zoom) meeting format. The presentation itself was excellent, as expected, and her sound was perfectly understandable. I noticed that she not only kept good eye contact with the camera (and therefore with the audience) but varied the eye contact by looking away briefly as part of an expression, such as look to a top corner while thinking, or looking up in exasperation. This gave me the thought of "eye contact variety" which can be as important as vocal variety.