Apricity South 2

January 30, 2026 - Friday 

Day two of the Alohaukulele mini-fest was another “fun packed, knowledge shared kind of a day.” I joined Rich’s breakout bass lesson for the heck of it - should have stayed with the main group. I’m not interested in playing bass and was lost from the get go.🤨

Back in the main group, we learned from Devon Scott how to Solo Like a Pro with picking, vamping with root chord as intro, adding rhythm to your hold, picking the scale of C going up and then down, adding a 7th to spice it up.. Sounds easy, but it takes practice. Video in body of email…

Bonus concert with Jay Nunes and Greg Gent…

Rich actually won a raffle prize of a leather pick…

Girls and boys Wildcats had games at home tonight. Leanna’s team won by a lot and she scored her first career 3-pointer. YAY!

Will watch tape of the boys game tomorrow night - great entertainment…

January 31, 2026 - Saturday

Noodled a while on techniques learned at the mini-fest. Then I started my walk, stopped to meet Charlotte’s son, Tom, chewed the fat for an hour. 

Back on the walk when the wind came up and it got misty so I turned around, stopped at Betty’s for a cup of coffee! This wall art is made from recycled plastic bottles…

Time 2.5 hours! Distance walked .75 miles!

After a lunch of cottage cheese, I started working on end of month reconciliation. In the evening, we watched Jake’s game from last night. 

February 1, 2026 - Sunday

Extra layers for the walk today as it was 39 degrees with the wind picking up. 

Beautiful garden in spite of the cold. May have to be covered tonight as temps are plunging to 31 degrees. 

I check my remote thermostat for house in Lee, MA periodically - especially with the sub-zero weather they have been experiencing. There has been an info message about maintenance on Feb. 4 which I skip over. Today there was another message about my wifi being disconnected from the thermostat - for support, call this 800 number. So I called and was told that someone needed to be there next to the thermostat and router in order for them to help. So I called my beloved son at 7pm on a frigid night to go check it out. He went immediately but by the time he slogged through the uncleared 2 feet of snow, and called the number, they had closed! Ugh! That wasn’t the worst part, he called and told me it was very weird - part of the house had no power - lights flickering and flashing on and off like poltergeist! He checked the breakers downstairs twice and flicked them too. Nothing! So I called my electrician, Scott, and explained what was happening so he could know for the next day. He was so patient listening to me babble on and then said, “ I think I’ll go down there tonight and check it out because my father’s funeral is tomorrow!” What? 🥹😱! He insisted on going to meet up with Randy. He looked things over and decided to turn on the electric space heater in the bathroom upstairs in case the gas stove didn’t come back on. Daughter-in-law, Kristie thought to have Randy open the faucets to a trickle when on his way home! He went back and did it. Scott said to call Emergency Electric number - we were out of phase?!?!?!?! After screaming at a robot who was trying to find out how I wanted to pay my zero balance, I finally got through to Carlos (a real human being) who assured me it would be fixed by midnight! It’s on the pole NOT in the house. 

Before heading to bed completely spent, I checked the thermostat one more time - it was working and connected to the internet! Randy’s phone had showed it connected the whole time - so I don’t think the two things were even related.

February 2, 2026 - Monday

When I got up at 7, I picked up my phone to call Randy, and he was already calling me. He was at the house and assured me that power was on, electric heater was turned off, and the wifi was still working. Later in the day, I got a message from the thermostat company apologizing for issues customers had yesterday. Call it what you will, but if I hadn’t asked Randy to check the thermostat, or Scott hadn’t come down, we wouldn’t have known about the power outage and the house would have frozen up! Oy! 

No swimming today - just brisk walking it off today. 

February 3, 2026 - Tuesday

Went to Publix and then walked my walk. The Activity Committee met last night and texted me this morning - the Rec Center won’t be available for tomorrow’s jam as they are setting up for a big, open board meeting. That’s fine - we had people come to our place instead. They also asked us to change our time to 4-6pm after the staff left - NOT! So we will proceed with our jams sans-Activity Committee! It kills me because they are always asking for ideas and involvement. I proposed this idea last August and got very little feedback on it until I started posting my own ads on the Facebook page. 

Went to Betty and Joe’s for cocktails. They had a nice spread of cheese, crackers, hot dogs in a blanket, etc. Charlotte came as well and we all had a nice visit.  

February 4, 2026 - Wednesday

Was able to walk in a T-shirt and capris this morning. Then got busy cleaning and setting up for the jam. That’s one good thing about having it here - forces us to be presentable!

Rich has declared Wednesday “his day” since apparently all of the other days are peppered with my activities. So we went for a quick burger at the Elks for lunch. He will also start going to the Art Club on Wednesday mornings…

At 2pm, there were 6 jammers and as we talked more about ourselves, we discovered we are all from New England (NY, MA and CT) except for one from Ohio. Another player is definitely joining when he gets down here because he offered his house which has a studio with sound board, amps, monitors, et al. He plays professionally back home in CT. 

February 5, 2026 - Thursday

Woke up to rain and wind so didn’t walk as we went to ukulele strum and sing for the morning. 

Watched Jacob’s Monday game - other than that, a quiet, lazy afternoon and evening.