It Feels Later

[howeird]

It's not like I woke up early. I think I was up at ~ 10. By 10:30 I was on a park bench in the Rengstorff House garden, reading an old Discworld book. At around a quarter till, a young woman in a Shoreline T-shirt sat in one of the benches across the pathway, with a sign announcing the interpretive walk started there. If I had not munged my toe, I would have been interested in the walk, but I was there to see the house when it opened at 11. She only waited till 11:08 before bailing. Somehow I don't think Tuesday mornings is an intelligent time to have these walks after school has started, unless they work out group tours with senior centers or schools.


I waited till 11:15 to go inside, and was given a tour by one of the docents, whom I would guess is in her 70's. Very nice woman, she knew a lot about the house and its history, and did a good job of pointing out the details. I had intended to take lots of pictures, but nothing really caught my eye. Except for a pair of nondescript chairs, nothing in the house is original, and many items in the rooms are there because Shoreline doesn't have any other place to store them. Only the bottom floor is open to the public, the top floor is admin offices for the park.

There are a lot of interesting artifacts, though, including a cylinder recording player which has a very clean and loud sound. Much better than the Victrola across the room. That was the music room, which also had a piano almost from the right period, and focused on one of Rengstorff's descendants, a fellow named Perry Askam, who was in at least two Broadway shows, and played the lead in a touring company production of The Desert Song. IMDB also credits him in three movies. On the wall opposite his portrait, is a family tree which shows that jazz great Dave Brubeck is also a descendant.

After the tour I limped over to the creek, and shot some birds. I thought I saw a great blue heron, but after following it for a bit I'm not sure. Any birders out there know?

Read some more at my local Starbucks, then home to pack up the G1 phone and D300 and take them to the PO to ship to the eBay auction winners. The proceeds will pay for the D90 and most of the MyTouch phone. Also sold an old Moto phone, but the winner didn't pay for it in time to make today's run.

Spent some time last night putting all the prints into photo albums which have been sitting in my bookcase for about 3 years. Except for one stack which I need to get a separate album for, photos I took in 1969 when I was a summer intern studio cameraman at KOMO-TV on their morning show. Shari Lewis, Mrs. Miller, Dr. Irwin Corey and someone I think may be Charo. I also did a set of Tiny Tim, mounted on poster board, which may have been lost when Mom & Dad moved out of the house.

Plans for tomorrow: Kaiser for a follow-up podiatry appointment, they probably need to do some work on both big toes.
One more eBay item to mail
Need to buy a replacement aquarium heater for the one I tossed last night which was stuck on "boil".
Maybe take out the trumpet and try the music-minus-one selections from Wicked which has been sitting on the piano
According to one of the Android apps, there is a brass instrument repair place 3 blocks from my apartment. It's on an awkward stretch of Old Middlefield Road which means it is really 6 blocks away if I drive. Maybe I'll check it out tomorrow.