Happens to the Best of Us in Everyday Ramblings

A fading but lovely hellebore in the morning light with a bunch of sturdy daffodils.

Finally, we are seeing spring, just past the equinox. The trees have started budding, the crocuses opening up. The wind still has that winter edge to it…

I have what I think is reassurance from the project manager that the contractors will not be working in my apartment until April 17th. The plan is to have them finish that week, but she said today that the plumber and electrician might need to come in after that.

At least I have a target. I need to be out the day before with the kitchen empty. If I am lucky Carlo and I will be able to come home the following Monday and start the process of unpacking and resettling. Not that I expect Carlo to be much help in anything other than his natural supervisory capacity.

The key to the storage area across the hall is arriving next Monday so I can start moving things in there then.

When I went this morning to record the weekly mat class with the little AI device that gets my iPhone to follow my movements, they had changed all the prompts and I did a whole hour’s practice thinking I was recording when I wasn’t.

An hour later I taught my regular morning class, and I noticed when I went for a walk after that class that I was a little sore. I am sure that had something to do with the frustration at the technical glitch. I did, just barely, figure out the right prompts later and after lunch I did the whole thing over again and this time it recorded.

The technology is moving even faster than it was.

We decided during our board meeting a few weeks ago that we would have one of the wonderful, retired actors or at least someone with a good voice record our two monthly newsletters. They aren’t that long. And they are full of lovely inspirational poems, recollections, and essays.

Somehow it got to be my job to figure out how to do that. My yoga friend guy, who records a podcast every week uses Zoom. I am not sure we want this to be a podcast, just a way that someone who would like to encounter the materials in the newsletters could hear them instead of reading them. Today I was trying to figure out how to put up a lovely picture to look at while listening if you weren’t doing chores or whatever.

I have been playing around a little with ChatGPT and today I got access to Google’s Bard. I asked it to write me a story about 700 words long that included a woman, a turtle, an old window in a frame, and a ruby that takes place on the island of Antigua in the style of Grace Paley.

It wrote an okay story. I can for sure see using the AI as a collaborator. It named the turtle Hector. That made me laugh. The woman is named Maria. The ruby was hanging in the old window frame, a touch I would not have thought of. So, I can see how using the AI could be helpful for sparking ideas.

None of the guys at the Thursday coffee group had tried one of these large language chat bots yet so I am going to bring my iPad with me tomorrow to show them. The cool thing about Bard is that it gives links if it is pulling info from somewhere. That is a big improvement over ChatGPT3.

My discussion unit leader for the League of Women Voters has been nominated to be President of the local league. She is very well suited for it. She is also now one of my most regular students. The other morning see was feeling off and it felt pretty serious. She was having palpitations and the Kaiser doctor she spoke with told her to call emergency services. Both the fire department and an ambulance showed up. She lives alone and it was early in the morning.

She said at one point she had 8 men in her house. Her heartbeat was irregular. They had her chew an aspirin and took her to ER in an ambulance. It turns out after all the tests she was severely dehydrated.

Drink your water today, okay? She got busy and forgot. She is fine now.

Happens to the best of us.

Last updated March 22, 2023