Day 20, More closet work

Friday, 12/21/2018

A drizzly morning so instead of the long walk I like to take on a Friday I drove to the Y and ran a half hour on the treadmill. Back home I revisited the problem of disposing of the “better” selection of Marian’s clothes — the four bags and several hanging items that Jean thought were too good for her church’s thrift shop, and should be consigned, with the receipts perhaps going to Stanford Women’s Basketball. This was a brilliant idea of hers.

However, I emailed two basketball friends who I thought might know about consignment shops, and they replied that they didn’t. So I started researching them. Actually Yelp lists second-hand and consignment clothing shops. A couple in Menlo Park, a couple in Los Altos.

From the sites for these stores I got a better idea of the kind and quality of clothes they want and how they operate. It wasn’t looking very promising, frankly. So I unpacked the four bags and did another division of sheep from goats, that is, setting aside only items with fine fabric (cashmere, silk) or brand names that I recognized as not being run-of-the-mill store or catalog brands. About half made the cut and went back to the closet: leather coats, silk or cashmere tops, a couple of other obviously fine items.

On Santa Cruz ave. in Menlo Park is the American Cancer Society “Discovery store” where donated clothes are sold to benefit cancer research. I took the two big bags of lesser items there. Then I checked out the two shops in Los Altos. The lady at one said she was overstocked, she might look at my things in January. The lady at the other was quite negative: people look for high-end designer brands (the only one of those that Marian had was a little blouse from DKNY); leather and faux-leather jackets don’t sell well; silk and cashmere tops are pretty slow. Welp, that just about eliminates my inventory.

Probably in January, unless another idea surfaces, I’ll take the remaining items to the ACS shop.

In the evening I finished playing The Return of the King and spent some time going through the bonus material on the third disc of this “extended edition”. As to the film, I was most impressed by the way Peter Jackson and crew created battle scenes. The seamless mix of live and CGI and model work to produce the chaos of a fantasy battle is amazing. I still don’t forgive him for discarding the chapter “The Scouring of the Shire”. He addresses this directly in one of the bonus talks: to him, the story was all about Frodo. He just didn’t see the wonderful possibilities for irony and humor in this closing chapter, or the importance of finishing the arcs of Merry and Pippin. It could all have been done in three minutes of film.

Day 19, Marian’s closet

The play last night was oooo-kayyy I guess. Into the Woods is a very complicated play with lots of characters, and the Los Altos group did a very good job of staging it in the confines of the tiny Bus Barn Theater. My seat was in the front row and I had to be careful not to stretch out for fear of tripping one of the actors. Most of the cast was competent (the young woman playing Cinderella was really good). But the play itself, oh my goodness. The first act ran an hour and a quarter, the second didn’t start until 9:40 or so, and it is slow and full of long, soliloquizing songs with very little melody. Didn’t get home until 11pm.

Thursday 20/12/2018

Walked to the Y for a workout in chilly fog. Then spent an hour beginning the process of clearing out all Marian’s clothes. I started with drawers in various cabinets. When sister in law Jean arrived, we began the process of dividing the clothes into “thrift shop” versus “consignment”.

Jean said her church’s thrift shop would take all used clothes, even shoes and socks, which surprised me. So everything worn-looking or inexpensive went to them, about 8 large plastic garbage sacks to stuff into the trunk of her car.

Almost that much bulk, four plastic sacks and some jackets and ensembles still hanging up, are the “consignment” collection. I don’t know anything about second-hand clothes stores, so I have emailed a couple of women who might, for advice.

This was not too bad an emotional experience, as long as I kept focussed on the practical job at hand and took care not to picture Marian wearing any of the items or remember a time when she got it or wore it. I was astonished at how much she had neatly (of course) packed away. She had at least 20 nice scarves in a wide variety of patterns, and she almost never wore a scarf. I recognized just one, a very soft knitted lavender-brown one. She bought it in Germany because we kept seeing German women who were wearing scarves and she thought the style looked good.

One object just broke me up. I tried to talk about it to Jean and just could not make my voice work. (Fortunately emotion doesn’t clog up my typing fingers the way it does my throat and mucous membranes…) Sometime in the 1990s, Marian embarked on making a quilt, based on a very elaborate pattern of stitched flowers. She bought the fabric and the matching thread; she stitched probably four complete squares out of the twenty or so in the pattern; cut and sewed parts (stems, petals) for a few more. But she found her eyesight just wouldn’t support the very fine hand-stitching required. She stowed the project neatly in a drawer; once every few years she’d take it out and look at it; but she could never finish it.

So here is this unfinished quilt, a pile of neatly-cut fabric sections, paper patterns and templates, and small boxes of completed components, representing probably a couple hundred hours of work with hundreds more to finish it. Does it go to the landfill?

Jean took it and said she was confident that the thrift shop people would find someone who wanted it. I hope she’s right; anyway it is a relief to have it out the house, I guess.

Day 18, Books and Haircut

Last night’s adventure was to attend a “story slam” put on by The Moth. Back-story: my niece Laurel has been trying to connect me to her friend Ed Lewis, who has an avocation as a story-teller. Ed was going to be in San Francisco for this slam, and we agreed to meet before the event to eat. My friend Scott was interested so we drove up together. Ed is a cheerful guy with a lot of stories. At the slam, anyone can put their name in a bag, from which ten names were drawn to tell their stories in five minutes each. Ed’s name wasn’t drawn. His professional opinion of the tellers who were chosen was not positive, except for the two who were scored highest by the judges. Those two really did tell gripping personal tales with confidence and panache. Ed invited us to come to a story-telling festival he’s running in January to hear “really good, professional tellers.”

Wednesday, 12/19/2018

After a run (another good one, 40 minutes nonstop and felt fine) I spent some time trying to master this WordPress blog’s styling. Ended up using the WordPress online chat for help, which was quite helpful. But I really would like to get an archive of prior posts in the sidebar, similar to what Blogger offers, and it doesn’t seem possible.

New Gig

At 1pm I went for my first volunteer gig at FOPAL. This was quite enjoyable. I’m going to like this weekly 2-hour gig. What I’m doing for now is sorting. FOPAL has defined about 60 interest categories, like “computers”, “classic literature”, “travel narrative”, “movies/tv” and so on. Each category has some shelf space in the big Sale Room, where the monthly book sales take place. Each category has at least one volunteer “manager” who prices and arranges her category’s books on the shelf before sale day.

People come to the door with bags and boxes of books as donations, and of course these are not nicely categorized. The donation boxes and bags pile up in a small mountain in the center of the Sorting Room. Around the walls of the Sorting Room are shelves with boxes labeled for each category. What I and other sorters do is to open a donation box; look at each book; decide if it is worth keeping at all, and if so, into what category box to drop it. Then put the book in the box for its category. When a category box fills up, move it to the appropriate area of the sale room for the category manager to handle.

It’s a fun job, good mental exercise evaluating the books, and physical exercise as well, walking back and forth and carrying heavy boxes of books around. Nice people to work with, too, as one would expect at an all-volunteer outfit.

Haircut

Since the 1980s, Marian and I both had our hair cut by Chris Johnson. She gave Marian’s last shampoo and blow-dry the week before she died. On the way home from that appointment Marian asked what I planned to do about haircuts when she was gone. I said “Oh, probably stay with Chris, no point in changing”. So today was the appointment for haircuts that we’d made weeks earlier. I left early from the FOPAL gig to make the 4pm appointment. Chris and I kind of talked around issues, not doing a lot of reminiscing about Marian, so I only choked up a couple of times.

Home for a rest and supper, then I go out again at 7:30 to see Into the Woods at the Bus Barn theater.

Day 17, Shards keep falling

Tuesday 12/18/2018

I hit a couple of smaller instances today of the emotions triggered by the removal of “Beau” on Sunday, where the grief was not for the loss of my wife, but for the visible removal of a piece of the life I am leaving behind.

Similar thing today. I started by recycling a stack literally 6 inches thick, of paper transaction records and monthly statements from the early years of our managed accounts, and some other historical records dating back into the ’80s. When that wad dropped into the blue recycle bin it was like there was a mechanical connection to my sinuses. I just choked up. At old papers of no value, papers that we stopped accumulating over 15 years ago and hadn’t looked at between then and now?

Here’s another trivial trigger: the corkboard in the kitchen where we thumb-tacked things to remember. I started pulling irrelevant stuff off it. Out-of-date notes about museum exhibits to see, phone numbers of vendors I’ll never use again. Stuff. And I got to the printed list of the thirty-odd dishes that we liked to cook. It was a reminder list, so when we were planning the week’s menu on Sunday, we could look the list over and say, oh, right, I’ll do that pasta, you can do this stir-fry. Won’t be doing any of those dishes again. I know this, in fact I’ve been living very contentedly and healthily off meal replacement shakes supplemented by fruit and the occasional can of tuna, for two weeks. But to pull down this visible reminder of the old life was just — hard.

More and more I am coming to grasp that as a widower perhaps the least of my bereavements is the loss of my wife. With her went an entire, carefully-crafted lifestyle. It doesn’t go all at once; it peels away in chunks, or shards as I found myself saying on Sunday. And each shard that drops away is a fresh bereavement.

A more direct trigger came a bit later. While organizing the now stripped-down file drawer in the desk, I saw yet another folder labeled “Stocks”. What? How many stock broker folders were there, for pete’s sake? It turned out, this one was possibly the oldest. It contained Marian’s records of her IBM Stock Purchase Plan purchases. Heart of it was a small spiral-bound leather notebook in which were her hand-written records of employee stock purchases starting in 1962, and continuing to 1980. There were other papers as well, a printed spreadsheet showing the purchases and changes in value over time as the stock split and so on.

Historically and financially these are of no value. All those shares were accounted for and sold in ’95, the capital gains taxes paid, and the money pooled in our managed account. I recycled the papers but I could not bring myself to trash the notebook. It was so typical of her that she would, one, keep a record in a journal in her neat draftsman’s printing over twenty years of employment; and two, retain that in her desk, ready for reference, for another thirty years. I put the journal into the “Marian” folder. I’ll probably never look at it again, but it is just beyond me to discard it, at least yet.

Anyway the cleaning lady came and went, the house is all spiffy. I stained the two table tops, got the car washed, and faxed my witness report to the insurance company for the lady whose Prius I saw bashed the other day. Takin’ care of bidness. Gonna take a nap now; and then going out with Scott for the evening. Report on that tomorrow.

Day 16, Takin’ care of bidness

Monday 12/17/2018

I suppose “takin’ care of bidness” could be the default title of a lot of these posts. Went for a run and was pleased it went well, 35 minutes of my gentle jog (4.5mph when on a treadmill) without stopping except for a couple of traffic lights, and felt good.

After a shower I spent a couple hours continuing to tidy and organize and discard stuff from the various file drawers. I’ve a 6-inch pile of Schwab monthly brokerage statements, and some other categories of paper financial records, all from the era 1997 (when we set up our trust and managed accounts) through about 2002 when it seems Marian decided it wasn’t worth it to save them any more. But I broke out some sub-categories, like the documents that show the history of how our respective IRAs rolled from company to company, or the documents that establish when we each bought IBM shares, and how much they sold for. I wrote an email to our financial advisors’ office listing these groups of records and asking if I can recycle them. I’m guessing all this stuff is dead history, but I haven’t heard back yet. (Later: yes; recycle the lot.)

I set up a wide pendaflex in which to collect everything related to getting Marian officially deceased, bureaucratically speaking. The Neptune Society docs, the notes from different banks, and so on. One section that looms a bit ominously is the inch-thick pile of Medicare EOBs dating back to spring when her illness began. So many services rendered by PAMF and by Stanford Health, each specified as “provider billed” (huge sum), “medicare approved” (1/4 that), “you may be billed” (a pittance). But the pittances add up, and so far as I know, I’ve yet to see any kind of bill from either PAMF or Stanford. So the thick wad of EOBs is the bulk of that pendaflex. I’d love to see it go in the recycle bin.

Spent an hour sanding the tops of the other two little tables, then put them away. Tomorrow looks pretty busy; I’ll try to paint them Wednesday, maybe.

Eduardo’s Gutter Cleaner crew indeed merit their 5-star rating on Yelp. They pulled up 15 minutes ahead of schedule and were gone an hour later. All the leaves are off my roof, my downspouts are sluiced clean, and the house looks tidy from the street. Good.

Got a head start on tomorrow by stripping the bed and washing the linens. This something I normally would do on “Suli day,” the day the cleaning lady comes, which is tomorrow. This was also the scheduled quarterly day to rotate the mattress, five minutes of heaving and hauling, and something I will continue to do (once more? twice?) as only one side is getting used anymore.

Emotionally a pretty tranquil day, which is welcome after yesterday.

Day 15, Highs and Lows

Sunday 12/16/2018

This day started out with

A High

which requires some back-story. For mumble-mumble years, every Sunday morning Marian and I walked about a quarter-mile to the coffee shop in Midtown to read the Sunday paper and have cappucini and sweet rolls. Late last year, some quite noisy groups of friends started occupying the place Sunday mornings. This particularly annoyed Marian, so we switched to the much quieter (in fact, so quiet one wonders how long they’ll be business) Baron Barista, about 2 miles away. That meant driving, not walking, which was OK because Marian’s walking distance shrank steadily over that time anyway.

Last week I mentioned how it was quite an emotional experience to go back alone to the P.A. Café Sunday morning. Today I had the notion to go to Baron Barista instead; and then had the sudden notion, “Wonder if I could walk that?” A quick check of Google Maps showed it was 2.2 miles and 40 minutes, which seemed well within my capacities, so off I went, paper under my arm.

Swinging along it dawned on me, with a real jolt of pleasure, that I was doing something that was only possible to me as a bachelor. Even a decade ago, such a walk would have been out of the question for Marian, and so wouldn’t have occurred to me as a possibility. Here I was, doing a new thing that was possible only in my new life. Trivial though it was, it felt good.

Later, the Downers

Forty-odd years ago, Marian brought home a “pony-tail palm” (beaucarnia recurvata) which over time grew and grew until “Beau” towered nearly 7 feet above the rim of the pot, and had branched out like a menora.

Knowing that my time in this house was limited, I have worried about what to do with Beau for months. I wanted to find a new permanent home for this plant, and hated the idea that it might end up in a compost pile. Fortunately, Liz Shaw, a niece-in-law of Marian’s sister Jean, is a landscape gardener by trade, appreciates plants, and agreed to take Beau into her own home.

The arrangement was for her to come today and at noon sharp, she and her son Spencer pulled into the driveway. They very professionally staked and tied Beau’s branches, moved him out to the truck, and wrapped him securely in a sheet. They roped him him securely into the bed of the truck and he was off to his new home.

I had not expected this to be an emotional event; after all this was exactly what I wanted to have happen, had planned for, and marked the end of my responsibility for the plant.

But it was emotional, very much so. I had a hard time controlling my voice saying goodbye to Liz, and for half an hour after they left I wandered around the house, sniffling and wiping my eyes — closer to actual tears than I’ve been since Day 2 — and mumbled a couple of times, “Just shards of the old life, going away,” which was the best I could do to sum it up.

Up a little

So I’d had the plan (since Dennis wasn’t able to join me for The Green Book) that I’d go see Ralph Wrecks the Internet solo. It was time to execute, so I blew my nose and acted. I love modern movie going. I bought my senior ticket for Century 16 on Fandango.com, had the ticket sent to my phone, walked into the theater 15 minutes before showtime to wave my phone at the scanner, sat down in my reserved lounge chair and reclined it. Aside from the fact that they showed twenty minutes of previews after the start of the nominal show-time of 2pm, it was a good experience.

Day 14: Basketball

Saturday 12/15/2018

I had conflicting feelings coming into this day. Stanford Women’s Basketball was a central part of our shared experience for the past 20 years. We attended every home game and quite a few away ones. Marian put thousands of hours into maintaining the fan website, with some help from me in the last two years. The team and their success or failure was always a good topic of conversation between us. And at least half the people we know to talk to are fellow basketball fans, met at Maples Pavilion or on the road.

So today was the first home game since Marian’s death. I had to attend — I’d pretty well promised her to keep following the team, and I would feel unfaithful to her memory to not follow through. On the other hand, I was getting emotional just thinking about going. The last time I was there was Marian’s last game; here’s a picture of us taken by one of our friends at that game:

I knew I’d have to be accepting of lots of “How are you” hugs and “We miss her” and so on. But as with all the other shared experiences, I need to re-inhabit this in my new person, or I’ll never feel comfortable.

So I went, and it was a pretty good experience. Our long-time seat-neighbor, Nancy (who coincidentally lost her husband to pancreatic cancer a few years ago) was kind and practical. Su stopped by and talk at half-time, and Don.

The whole experience was much improved by the team’s performance. On Day 1, in the afternoon, I listened to the audio stream as they lost ugly to Gonzaga, and actually thought, “Oh, Marian, I’m glad you can’t hear this…”; and this game was against Baylor, ranked #3 (Stanford is ranked #11), so it didn’t rate to be a win. But in fact the Cardinal took an early lead, stretched it to 18 points in the third quarter, and held on to win by 8. An exciting game in front of a large and very enthusiastic crowd. So it was a fun to watch and to cheer at, and people were very kind.

Before the game I walked to midtown and got some 9×12 mailers, addressed the packet for Via Benefits, and mailed it on the way to the game. On return I put a final coat of clear poly on that little table, and I think it’s going to look alright. If it does, fine, I’ll redo the tops of the two littler ones, which are also worn and stained. If not, I’ll have a judgment call as to whether to sand it down and try again, or give up.

Closed the afternoon watching Cardinal Women’s Volleyball in their national championship game. Did they win? I’m posting this now, before it’s over.

Day 13, mo’ paperwork

Friday 12/14/2018

Went for a run first thing. On return, began the process of informing IBM benefits of Marian’s death. Tara, customer service rep, put me on hold for several minutes while she “typed a notification to survivor services.” Took my phone number and email, and promised that in no more than 3 weeks, I’d receive a packet with information on what benefits there are and how to claim them. Marian’s pension should stop, but if a January payment appears (unlikely) it will have to be returned.

Tara also suggested I call Via Benefits, the administrator for the IBM Retiree health benefits (as contrasted to pension and insurance). So I did, and eventually was connected to customer rep Colton, who thanked me for the information and asked if I had any questions. My main question was, what benefits exactly had Marian been getting, aside from the “SHAP”, an annual payment to assist in purchasing supplementary coverage. Well, Colton was sorry, but he was unable to talk to me in any detail. You see, he had to be assured that I was in fact Marian’s executor. (Probably a HIPA thing.) He sent me an email listing the documents they would need to see. Unfortunately the email was a generic form letter that didn’t actually address post-mortem executor proof.

So, I dug out and made copies of a her notarized “Nomination of Conservatorship of Body and Estate” naming me, and her will, naming me as executor, and added a copy (but not an original) of the death certificate, and made a cover letter. But I don’t have an 8×11 envelope so I’ll go buy one and mail that wad tomorrow. All to find out what exactly Via is, or rather was, doing for her and us.

Then I spent an hour re-sanding that little table and re-coating it with varnish. Hopefully getting a better result.

Started on the process of clearing out the “back file drawer”. For a long time we’ve had a large tub-file drawer full of pendaflexes in the custom wall unit in my office area. It has been the repository of folders of “stuff not to throw away.” Earlier this week I cleaned out most of the smaller file drawer in (what I think of as) Marian’s desk. Now I’m going to winnow out all that old stuff, with all due appreciation of family history etc. but if it hasn’t been useful in the last five years, say, it better be really significant or it goes. What survives will move to the desk drawer.

First up, after chucking a couple of obviously out of date things, was the folder of maintenance records for the car. Amazingly little maintenance required by a Prius. One or two trips a year to the dealer for a routine service. One change of tires. The folder includes the original purchase records and window sticker; I kept them for nostalgia.

Had a phone chat with Dennis about our plan to see a movie together on Sunday. It’s not going to work; he’s got a relative coming in and we couldn’t get times to jibe. So try to reschedule for next weekend, assuming the movie we were going to see, The Green Book, is still playing… OK, I decided I’d treat myself to a solo movie on Sunday afternoon instead. On a whim, Ralph Breaks the Internet. But oh, noes! I never saw the original Wreck-it Ralph, so I won’t know the back-story! Can’t go to a movie without being up on the canon! No problemo, it is downloading from DirecTV On Demand as I write. An expense of $3.99; but on the other hand, if I really hate it, I’ve saved the price of a real movie ticket.

Eduardo, Mister Highest-Rated-on-Yelp Gutter-Cleaner-Outer, finally got back with a date, which to my surprise is next Tuesday. Yay. Be glad to have that done.

Signed up for every Thursday in January to work on collections for CHM. So: Wednesdays at FOPAL sorting books, Thursdays documenting and storing objects for CHM. Tomorrow I’ll sign up for some Docent tours as well. My calendar is filling up nicely.

Day 12: SSA, FOPAL, incidental drama

Thursday 12/13/18

First order of business today was to drive to the Neptune Society in San Jose to collect the five official copies of Marian’s death certificate that I’d ordered. I’ve been advised I could need up to eight, but so far I actually haven’t needed one.

Before I could do that I got to throw a

Hissy Fit

Honey-Do Handyman were supposed to clean the leaves from my gutters last Friday; as I noted then they didn’t show and didn’t tell me until I called them that day. Same deal today: I left a message last night asking to be told when the guys would show up. No response. I called this morning and left a message at 8am. No call back. At 9am Michelle answered the phone and gave me the same apologetic song and dance, big job in San Francisco, tried to make it work but just couldn’t, blah blah. I confess I yelled at her. “Extraordinarily busy? You’ve been extraordinarily bad a communicating! Forget it, I’m gonna get somebody else.”

You know what? You can’t bang down a cell phone. Stabbing the little red icon extra hard doesn’t have the same effect.

So I called the top-rated gutter cleaning service on Yelp. Then off to San Jose and from there to

Government Bureaucracy

I went to the Social Security office in Mountain View. I wasn’t sure how long this would take, but figured it couldn’t be any worse than the DMV. Actually it pretty nearly is. The waiting area has seats for maybe 30 people. So when they are filled, the security guy at the door won’t let you in. There was a line of about eight when I arrived, and I got in after about ten minutes. (When I left, the line outside was over 20.)

Inside, you check in at a screen and get a number, then wait to be called to one of 15 windows. I was Z937. I swear they called all 9 other Z93x numbers before me, as well as lots of other numbers. But after almost exactly two hours I was called. And could not complete the process because, in order to properly adjust my Social Security status, the very friendly and apologetic agent had to see not only Marian’s death certificate, but our marriage certificate. Which I didn’t have with me.

So I got an appointment for a call-back on 8 January. At least, no waiting that time.

Next up was to drive up to Ace Hardware for more painting supplies for refinishing the tabletops. But along the way I encountered

More Drama

Driving north on Alma in downtown Palo Alto, approaching Addison, I saw the big SUV ahead of me side-swipe a parked Prius. Audible thump, both cars bounce. SUV slows down, continues to the next corner, Channing, turns right. So do I, as I’m going to Ace Hardware right there. I park right outside the store and watch the SUV across the street as it pauses. I note the license, and go into the store.

When I came out it was gone. Just for curiosity I drove around the block, parked on Addison, and looked at the red Prius. Sure enough, a big paint bruise on the left quarter panel. And no note visible. So I wrote up a note describing what I saw and the license number, and my phone number, left it and went on because I had an appointment at

FOPAL

I joined Friends of the Palo Alto Library a decade ago, when we decided to fire Wells Fargo and go with a credit union. We had no direct connection to Stanford, but you can join Stanford Federal Credit Union if you are a member of FOPAL. So we joined. (Today I learned that more than 100 people a year join FOPAL for exactly that reason, to get an account at SFCU.)

Now I want FOPAL for its volunteer opportunities. Today I met with Janette Herceg, who is the volunteer coordinator (and FOPAL’s one and only full-time paid staff person). It’s an astonishing organization. Using mostly volunteers, they have a throughput of over 30,000 books a month; that many donations in and about that many out via their sales or to recycling.

So I’ve agreed to initially work as a sorter on Wednesdays, when they are short-handed. There are other jobs that I may graduate into, but there’s a lot to be learned.

This evening the Prius owner called, very grateful. We agreed she’d pass my info to her insurance agent and take the agent’s advice about contacting the police. Leaving the scene of an accident is a felony, but I don’t personally feel like pursuing that angle.

Day 11, city adventure

Losing a TV show

Last night I scrolled through the DVR list and sort of automatically started playing the latest episode of the cooking show, Cook’s Country. And quickly realized that I didn’t care about how Basque fried chicken is made!

Oh, this is so sad! Cook’s Country and its sister show America’s Test Kitchen were two shows that Marian and I could watch together and talk about. “We could make that.” “Nah, too many ingredients.” But now: I don’t expect to cook an actual entrée ever again. I don’t care about easy ways to make suppers. And there’s nobody to exchange snarky comments with about over-elaborate recipes. So this is the first TV show that I’m dropping because its main interest for me, was sharing it with Marian. Went through the DVR subscription list and dropped one other, Dancing with the Stars. The rest of them I have enough interest in to keep watching — even Top Chef , which is a whole different kind of cooking, a performance art, that I can admire without needing the personal connection.

Anyway, that was last night. Today (12/12/18) I went on

A City Adventure

The plan was to take Caltrain to the City, Lyft to the DeYoung museum, see an exhibit of works by Gaugin, and return the same way. But walking to the Caltrain station I was hit by lots of

Anxiety

I found myself again beset with formless anxiety—that feeling you might get when you realize there’s something undone, or overdue, or mistaken, but with no specific object or reason. I knew I was doing what I planned to do; knew it was a viable plan; knew I was ahead of schedule. Whence the fretting?

And realized that what was missing was Marian’s agreement in the plan! Here’s how it is with partners: One says “I think I’ll do thus-and-so Wednesday.” And the other, “We were going to such-and-such that day.” “Oh, well, maybe in the afternoon…” “When will you be back, I need the car by…” and so forth. Every activity gets cross-checked and tweaked to be sensible and efficient. Before, if I were to set off for the city for a day, it would be with the comfortable assurance that I’d shared the plan with Marian and her practical mind—the mind that had so often caught me in simple oversights—agreed that my plan made sense.

Don’t have that now! Rechecking all my intentions, I carried on with

the Adventure

Which all worked smoothly enough. I’d actually spent five minutes reading up on Gaugin before I left and learned more from the very nicely arranged and documented exhibit. But, meh. Not a fan of his paintings, except for one or two of the later ones, like Reclining Tahitian Women. But I kept wandering through the other galleries and quite enjoyed the room full of big landscapes, California and Hudson River School, and was quite amazed by some of the huge carvings in the collection from New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Had a nice lunch in the café and started back. On the train home, Maria from the Neptune Society called to say that the death certificates will be ready tomorrow. So tomorrow I need to get them, then visit the Social Security office and make that notification official. According to Jean, when she reported Bill’s death, she was given the option of choosing which payment to continue receiving, his or hers, and obviously you pick the larger, which in my case, would be Marian’s.

I have also uncovered an ancient IBM Life Insurance policy that might or might not mean I have $5000 coming from them. Not clear, but I will also be notifying them tomorrow or Friday, once I have the certs. in hand.