Instructions to the Age Seventysomething OLLI Online Learning Students

          (Mostly verbatim quotes from a U.C. OLLI “OLLIGRAM”, 5-22-20)

Let’s get ready, OLLI students!

The second week of our OLLI Online classes is coming up.  

Soon you will get your JOIN MEETING email link

asking you to ACCEPT or DECLINE the meeting. 

If you click ACCEPT, your email

will go to your DELETED EMAIL box

and you will have to go there to get it back.

To join the class

look for “JOIN BY BROWSER”

after you click “JOIN MEETING”.

You may have to install an ”EXTENSION” 

to Safari for this to work. 

If you have a question

use the QUESTION & ANSWER TOOL. 

If you still have tech issues

send a chat to the host and

keep your WEBEX CONTROL GUIDE

with you at all times. 

If there is difficulty

with your Cisco WebEx Meetings App, 

click JOIN MEETING

and JOIN BY BROWSER.

You may again need to install an EXTENTION (sic). 

Be sure to MUTE YOUR MICROPHONE

as a courtesy to fellow class students.  

If the audio or video cuts out

try moving closer to your router,

mute the video camera icon,

and turn off devices like Roku, firestick, etc. 

And DO NOT CLICK ON THE ANNOTATE BUTTONS

for they send automatic messages to the presenter.   

Any other questions?

Call the OLLI WEBEX ASSISTANCE LINE

513-538-7711

Good Luck! 

And have a fulfilling online learning experience.  

Two Dogs

Lil Paws is the naughty one

A little punk pipsqueak 

Who yaps at the big guys on Ludlow Ave. 

Even the Great Swiss Mountain Dog

Thirteen pounds but 

The loudest barker in our neighborhood 

Back home Lil Paws chews up undies

Ball point pens

Pastries on the breakfast table  

Pooped on the rug two times

Ate two holes in the quilt

Clearly a descendant of wolves  

But remarkably cute nonetheless 

Loves being petted

Snuggles up at night in the bed

Likes to lie on my chest  

Iko is older, better mannered

Never does anything wrong 

But he doesn’t have quite as much fun  

Twice the size of his Yorkie brother

Though still he gets bullied around 

A miniature Schnauzer

Rarely groomed, lots of mats 

Iko follows me from room to room 

Like my buddy  

Naps at my feet

Puts his paws on the arm of my chair

When he wants attention  

A pretty good rough-houser

Lies on his back

Grumbles contentedly 

And kicks four legs in the air 

Both dogs like going for walks

Lil Paws charges out in front

Straining on the leash

Pulling me along

But Iko lags behind

Sniffing every pole, every hydrant

Or clump of gladiolas

The dogs growl at pedestrians in masks

But otherwise are one with the world 

Now What?

These masks are making me edgy

Are those my neighbors or crooks?   

The world has lost half its smiles   

And where are the pretty girls’ looks?  

And what about staying apart?

Six feet may, in fact, be too little

No handshakes, no hugs, no touches

Connections are tattered and brittle

We’ve lost many good things in life 

Imprisoned as we are in our house  

The germs are the guards for this jail 

At least I’m locked up with my spouse 

Will this be the plot for the rest of our days?

Can we have any hope we'll defeat the malaise?

Ear Wax Terrors

I’ll tell you of a ghastly experience  

It came as a hair-raising shock

Like marooned in the wastes of Antartica

Or entombed by a large granite rock

I asked Dr Z about ear wax

He peered in my ears, left and right

“Yep, you’ve got plenty of wax,” he said

His nurse would take care of the blight 

The nurse squeezed hot liquid in each of my ears

Then she switched on her vacuum device

Whoosh, the wax popped from my left ear

But my right ear she had to do twice

I didn’t hear well as I drove the car home

My left ear, I’d say, was okay

But then I discovered, my right ear — stone deaf

Mere words can’t describe my dismay

I worried the wax had simply gone deeper  

The surgeon might slice through my head 

Perhaps my eardrum was suctioned out

That part of my brain was now dead

I called the office in dire panic

“Try peroxide in your ear,” said the doc

“If it’s not any better by Friday

“Come back in at eleven o’clock”

My wife took the job as my medical aide

Each morning she filled up my ear

I still couldn’t hear a word of NPR

I returned to the doc, full of fear

           

The nurse said she thought that my wax now looked softer

She swished and she swushed and a big chunk came out

My ear, my life, was miraculously saved

So pleasing to hear myself shout

The eeriest feeling is being stone deaf

Even if it’s only one ear

I’d lost all connection with the world’s right side

Many things on my right I hold dear 

"The Dance of Life" by Edvard Munch

Midnight on the Norwegian isle 

A full moon glitters on the lake 

While villagers cavort along the shoreline

Spinning, twirling to the mesmerizing music

A gray-haired man lustfully dips his partner 

While a man in black and his partner in red slowly sway

Hand in hand, arms stretched downward

The man’s face, yellow in pallor, the mask of death

The woman, dark circles engulfing her eyes

Sad, absorbed, resigned

The last dance the doomed couple will know

A woman in white stands to one side 

Smiling, fresh and innocent, virginal 

To the right, an older woman, adorned in black 

Hunched over, face glum, hands clasped

Gazing at the couple, contemplating their demise

The dance of life persists but moments more 

Until the dancers sink down to the netherworld 

The Wrong Button

Every few years

the cardiologist calls me in

to do a nuclear stress test

I get excited

They always are impressed

at how well I do on the treadmill 

Or so they say 

(They probably say this to everybody)

This last visit the technician said

my target heart range

because of my (quite advanced) age

would be one hundred twenty

No problem

I do that all the time at the gym

When I reached one twenty, he asked

how I was doing

and I said I’d like to do more

I’d like to set

a new personal record

He raised the incline

He jacked up the speed

Run run run run run

Run run run run run

When I reached 136 b.p.m. the technician said

“Oops, I pushed the wrong button

“I’m afraid we’ll to have to stop”

He said he was very sorry, but he’d

gotten all the data he needed

No need to start over

I was more sorry than he was

I wanted to beat my old record

And I don’t really believe

that he pushed the wrong button

He just said that

so that he could stop

without asking my permission

I’ve been practicing every day on the treadmill

Next time I plan to set an even higher record

No wrong buttons allowed  

My Week (In Memoriam)

Monday, the day for a trip to the gym 

How is it possible I don’t get slim? 

Tuesday, six-thirty, I’m off to line dancing 

A grapevine, a cha-cha, a bit of of fine prancing 

Then Wednesday eve, our class for zumba

I’m so-so at salsa, more shaky on rumba 

Thursdays I walk to my office from home

It’s there that I fail to write a new poem

Friday at five I have wine with a friend

I uncork the bottle, we sip till the end

Saturday it’s time for the Musee de Art 

A pleasing respite for the mind and the heart 

Sunday, some football or hoops on TV

Then Masterpiece Theater for Katja and me

That, in a nutshell, is my normal week

A few parts are boring, but most are tres chic