Day 10, Lunch and handyman stuff

Tuesday 11/12/18

Walked to the Y for my little workout. On return, put all the leather cushions back in the couch and chairs. They look great. I might do another round, I have plenty of the goopy stuff. Then I pondered the table-nest project.

For years we’ve had and used a set of three small nesting tables. They are elegant, delicate, Danish Modern perhaps, though a bit of a Japanese curve to the edge of the largest of the three. That one has for a number of years supported a potted plant; the other two went anywhere we wanted a table for the moment.

The project part is, the largest has circular stains where the plant pots got wet, and the others have stains, and their glue joints have dried out and started to separate. Yesterday I used Gorilla Glue to repair the loose joints in two of them. But I mean to sand down and re-stain the top of at least the larger.

That means finding a stain to match the existing color. And, while handling the middle-size one, I realized that it has lost a screw, a rather large 4/20 with a conical head, not your standard item. So I tossed that table in the car and went off to lunch with Scott (Hi Scott!) at Michaels on Shoreline.

Coming out of Michaels, the phone rang. It was Maria at the Neptune Society, informing me that Marian’s cremation had taken place over the weekend, and her ashes were now back at the Neptune office in San Jose. I’d emailed her yesterday saying that we would not be using the family cruise option, but to go ahead with the standard service. She had called to let me know that Marian would be scattered on their next cruise, January third. I’ll receive an official scattering document signed by the boat captain after that. Meantime, the death certificates should be ready sometime this week.

I continued up 101 to Embarcadero and thence to Ace Hardware, my go-to hardware store now that Orchard Supply closed. There I found a stain/urethane paint that looked like it would match, and found a match to the missing screw. Back home I spent a half hour with the orbital sander getting the stains (mostly) out of the top of the bigger table, and coated it with the stain. It’s drying now. We’ll see.

Day 9, plowing through the to-do

Monday 12/10/18

Forgot to mention that when I met with Jean on Saturday, she gave it as her firm opinion that there was no point in seeing Marian’s ashes scattered. “She’s not there,” she said. So that cinches it: I won’t pay for a “family scattering trip” but rather let Marian’s ashes be scattered anonymously. I sent an email to Marian’s cousin Darlene to that effect, as she and her partner had been interested.

This was only one item in a long to-do list, which I just plowed through today.

Some of the items: plan a trip to the DeYoung museum for myself to see their Gaugin exhibit. This is a step in my “do stuff” program. I figure to go to the city via CalTrain and Lyft, and will probably want to do that often, so I needed a Clipper card, and to print out the CalTrain schedule for reference.

Monday is the day for watering plants. Marian watered our extensive collection of houseplants every Monday for decades. In June, before the big operation, she handed that job off to me with careful instructions. I’ve been doing it ever since, but the number of houseplants is declining. I eliminated three ferns from the bathroom that I’ve never liked.

And I feel a lot of responsibility for our prize plant, the 7-foot “ponytail palm” in the huge pot. How to get “Beau” (beaucarnia recurvata) settled in a new home has been bugging me for months. Hopefully it’s settled now; Liz, a niece of Jean’s who is a landscape gardener by trade, has said she’d be glad to take him. She’ll be around next Sunday to pick him up.

I also paid a few bills: ’tis is the season for insurance premiums, four of them that all come due in December. Today I paid the homeowner’s and the big one, the California Earthquake coverage. And again had a little spasm of grief. Marian set bill payment at the Stanford Credit Union, so each of our recurring bills could be paid with a couple of clicks. There it was, “earthquake insurance” as an item in the list of payees. Just fill in the amount and specify when the money should be sent, all thought through and neatly prepared.

Here’s another. Two years ago, for reasons I don’t remember, Marian ordered a couple dozen bulbs for miniature cyclamen, and planted them at random spots all around the front yard.

They are peculiar little beasts: the flowers come up from bare ground in September (and Marian saw them this time). Then the rosette of tiny leaves comes in as the flowers fall off. The leaves get thicker all spring and then disappear in late summer. And unlike some of our attempted plantings, these have settled in and thrived.

Walking in from the car today I saw how all the leaves had popped up in the past week, and somehow that just tore me up. Still does as I write this.

Day 8, Sunday make and mend

Last night I ignored the several worthy movies still on the DVR (Three Billboards, The Post, etc) and instead remembered that a few weeks ago I’d started to re-watch my boxed set of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, getting through the first movie. Thought I’d take a look at the second; watched the first disc (90 minutes) before I yawned my way to bed. I don’t think I’ve seen the second and third movies since I saw them in the theater. Anyway it held my attention pretty well. The CGI Gollum is a delight to watch.

Sunday 12/9/18

Today it is exactly a week since my wife died. (You know, I should have designated that “Day 0” instead of “Day 1”. Then this would be Day 7. Well, too late now.) For the first time I went to the same coffee shop we went to on Sunday mornings for many years. Not exactly a mistake to do this, but I was feeling pretty emotional while parking, walking in, and ordering. I don’t want to avoid such trigger occasions! I need to walk through them, re-experience them in the new context, so I can reclaim them for my new circumstances.

For the past year, in fact, Marian had us avoiding that coffee shop (the PA Cafe in Midtown) because it has become so successful with groups of friends who sit around big tables and talk at high volumes. I was a bit earlier than usual this time, but by the time I left it was, I admit, getting unpleasantly noisy. Next weekend I’ll go to the place we frequented the last six months, which is much quieter.

At ten I drove to the Computer History Museum to lead my first docent tour of the new life. I didn’t expect any emotional distress, because this activity has always been something I did alone. And indeed there were no upwellings of grief to spoil my presentation as I led a dozen Comp. Sci. students from UCSC through the place. Of course there was nobody at home to ask how it went. But that was after.

I noticed that a number of events I knew were coming had disappeared from my Google calendar. (Side-note: for decades we posted upcoming appointments and events on a physical calendar on the kitchen wall. Earlier this year, with so many medical appointments to track, I finally set up an online calendar so we’d have this info in the laptops we both used. So much more convenient; should have done it ten years ago.)

Well, but where had those events gone? Doh! of course, I’d shut down Marian’s calendar and unlinked it from mine. What had disappeared from my calendar were all the events she had posted to her calendar. So I went through and re-posted the concerts she’d booked, and all the basketball games, which had been her domain.

Then I caught up a little pending maintenance: there is a set of small, nesting tables, more Danish Modern, two of which had developed loose joints. Glued them. Going to do some more leather recovery, too. This Leather CPR product is doing a world of good for the old green cushions. I need to finish the first pass, and will probably do a second.

Tomorrow I must start work on some of my more substantive projects. But it’s the weekend now, ok?

Day 7, and some musing

Saturday 12/8/18

Awoke at 7am, the latest I’ve slept so far, and the first time I’ve had eight hours’ sleep. That’s good. Weighed myself; 177.6, which means I’ve lost a couple of pounds this week. I remember two weeks ago telling Marian I was down to 180 for the first time in a long time. And when I saw them Sunday night Dennis and Toni commented I seemed to have lost weight. Stress, the weight reduction plan for widowers.

After a leisurely start, spent an hour doing more reconditioning of sofa cushions. Then went out to shop for groceries. This was a little eerie because although I was at the same store that I’ve used a hundred times before, I wasn’t there for the same things. All I wanted was a little fruit, some pickles, and some zero-cal sodas. The shopping wasn’t preceded by a planning session with Marian, deciding what we’d cook for the coming week. This was one more instance of what I wrote about a few days ago, that every familiar action now is stripped of its former context. Like a play being performed on a bare stage, with the set and props whisked away.

These ordinary actions will continue to feel eerie and misplaced until, I suppose, I have done them sufficiently in the new, solo bachelor context to make them familiar again. It reminds me of when we quit smoking, cold turkey, after having been heavy smokers for decades. The cravings would come as you did some familiar action that had been linked with smoking: have a cup of coffee, want a cigarette; finish a chore, want a cigarette; etc. The cravings didn’t go away until you had done each trigger action enough times without the cigarette to make them familiar.

Another musing occurred to me while I was zoned out in the chair at the blood center yesterday: that we constantly validated each other. I’d come in from a run, she’d say “how was the run?” and I’d say “good” and she’d say “excellent.” She’d finish updating the bills and I’d say, “good work.” “I started the laundry.” “Good!” “I changed the bed.” “Good for you, thanks.” Any little thing accomplished or achieved by one, the other would administer a little validation pat.

Well, that’s over. Got to be self-validating now.

Went down to sister-in-law Jean’s place to set her up with Marian’s iPhone. She trained touch-id for her finger and we tried out the timer, the maps, the camera, and the Lyft app. She’s fairly computer-savvy and will probably pick it up.

Now I have an afternoon and evening to fill with no social engagement. Wonder what I’ll do? Think I’ll start with a nap.

Day 6, leather, papers, dishes, blood

Friday, 12/7/18

Here’s what I’ve done today as of 4pm:

Put leather conditioner on 2 more cushions and the arms of a chair, so one chair is done. Took about half an hour and was actually good exercise, standing, leaning, kneeling, rubbing/wiping.

Spent half an hour plugging numbers from the last couple of months of Schwab statements into this huge spreadsheet that Marian designed to track the values of our multiple brokerage accounts. For various good reasons we have four pots of money, managed by different brokers. (One account, Marian’s IRA, will be closed next spring.) She delighted in getting all the summary numbers for all the accounts into one spreadsheet, with totals at the bottom, and automatic calculation of percent change annually and month-to-month. She wasn’t well enough to update it for the October and November statements, so I did that now.

Called the “Honey-do” handyman outfit to find out why they weren’t here taking oak leafs out of my gutters. Sidenote, when I’d scheduled this two weeks back (i.e. day -5 or so) I’d consciously thought, “This is the last time I’ll make this call (ISMISEP).” Well, Michelle — we’re on a first-name basis because I’ve used them for various things for 20 years — was all apologetic, big job in San Francisco, blah blah; and we reschedule to next Thursday.

Drove to the Stanford Blood Center in Menlo Park to donate blood. The receptionist looked me up and said, “Oh, this is your 78th!” I knew I’d donated often, but that’s… a lot.

Stopped on the way home to buy a night-light for the bathroom. Another sidenote, we’d put a night light in the outlet in the bathroom when Marian started getting really weak, to help her if she got up at night. It was a crappy thing with a glare-y little incandescent bulb that you had to turn on with a switch, and I was always forgetting to turn it on. During the Day 1 de-invalidizing I chucked that thing in the bin. Today I bought a smaller, LED version that turns itself on and off automatically.

Not feeling all that up, I next took an hour nap, and felt better. So I brought out our dinnerware service and inventoried it. We bought this complete service for 12 in the 1970s. The clean design and warm colors of Rorstrand’s Annika suited us both. Here’s a sample…

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I knew that there were bits damaged or missing (40 years of daily use after all) and thought if the casualties weren’t too bad it could be complete again. Indeed they weren’t. In the end, there are four dinner plates with chipped edges — my fault, every one — and one missing coffee cup. (No idea when that disappeared.) So I quickly found them at replacements.com and ordered those bits. Shortly I’ll have the full service (it includes sugar and creamer, teapot, casserole, and two baking dishes!) in good shape, plus four chipped but serviceable plates extra. I have a purpose in mind for all this. Later.

Delving into various cupboards to find all the Annika pieces reminded me of how much stuff I have to get rid of. There must be 25 flower vases in one cupboard. We aren’t hoarders, and the house is very neat and tidy. But there’s a lot of stuff all neatly organized and tucked away in many cupboards and drawers.

I spent a while mixing up some Keto Chow. Background: for several years I’ve been blogging about and reviewing meal replacement products. When Marian asked me, back in October, what I planned to do about eating when I was alone, I said, “No problem, Soylent,” and she laughed. But I was serious. I have no interest in cooking for myself. I cooked for both of us for the last 6 months (and rather well if I do say) but there’s a quantum difference between cooking a meal for two, and for one. I’m a competent cook but I get no pleasure from it, and it’s just boring to prepare food and then immediately eat it. So I mean to eat nutritional shakes, with occasional restaurant meals. I’ve wanted to try the latest version of Keto Chow and will, starting tomorrow. Tonight, actually.

OK I had a little insight while sitting in the chair having blood drawn, but this is too long. Tomorrow.

Day 5 cont.

Drove to Oakland for a very pleasant lunch with Darlene and Jessea. Talked about lots of things, their issues and mine. Back home, looked at

Another movie

Waitress got 34 minutes before I got bored. I’ve liked Nathan Filion since Firefly days, and it was fun seeing Andy Griffith as an old codger. This time instead of giving up I started skipping forward. Got to the ultrasound scene where out of nowhere Keri jumps Nathan for a passionate kiss. Nope, don’t believe it. Out at 52 minutes.

Think I’ll watch a few episodes of “The Great War” on youtube.

Day 5: root of the malaise?

Finished up Day 4 by watching a Midsomer Murders episode, the TV equivalent of comfort food, while applying leather conditioner to one of fifteen large leather cushions.

Sidebar: Fifteen cushions

Sometime in the late 1970s, we bought a Danish Modern set of sofa and two armchairs. Spare, angular wood frames supporting big soft cushions all the same shape, for seats and backs. Sometime in the early 2000s we realized the leather had dried and cracked and looked pretty bad. Shopped for a while but couldn’t find any equivalent seating that we liked. So we hired an upholsterer to basically rebuild all 15 cushions in new leather, dyed the same deep-green color. Now, 15 years on, that leather is holding up but looks a bit tired and stressed. I ordered a big bottle of “Leather CPR” two weeks ago, figuring the slow hand task of working conditioner into the cushions might be a nice project for “when I’m a bachelor”. Ok, starting that now. Anyway, back to today.

Thursday, 12/6/18

Walking, thinking

Walked to the Y, did my exercises, walked home. Thinking all the way, trying to isolate and examine this not-quite-constant feeling of anxiety, malaise. What is it that eats on me? I think I have a handle.

For 45 years, Marian and I formed a tight little mutual support group of two. Psychologically siamese twins. For most of that time, the act of walking home from the gym had the context that I was walking home to where Marian was. This fact of being part of a couple was the basic context (or milieu or background) for every act. Yes, I went to the gym and returned on my own initiative, I didn’t have to, I chose to. But in the deep background, whatever I did, I did in the context of being part of “Dave’n’Marian”. It didn’t supply “meaning” exactly, but was the water in which we goldfish swam.

And that’s gone; the context, the background stripped away, leaving all actions isolated in space. The practical reasons for going to the gym, or going at that hour, are exactly the same as ever.

And yet, because there’s no context except me and my choice, it seems to call the act, every step in it, into question; seems to demand justification, or re-verification.

Hopefully this will fade as I begin to establish a new context for myself as “Dave the Bachelor”. Toward this my friend Wally is a model and an inspiration. He lost his wife a decade ago, and now leads a very interesting, confident, self-sufficient life. When we met for the Jake Shimabukuro concert Tuesday night he mentioned how he was just back from New York City, where he’d seen the Rockefeller Center Christmas special. I, figuring he had business there, said, “Great, so why were you in New York?” “For that!” he said, “And for some art galleries and things.”

That’s the kind of bachelor I want to be: one who goes out and gets experiences for his own sake.

Day 4, busy busy

Wednesday, 12/5/18

Went for a run this morning. Then did a lot of fiddly work at the desk. Before describing that, I want to talk about

Vague feeling of malaise

Yesterday I wrote about the sudden, acute grief spasms. This is different. I’ve noticed it off and on since day 2: a slight nervous, stressed-out feeling, as if there were something I should be doing but aren’t, or somewhere I should have gone to but didn’t, or as if I were running late for something important.

But none of that is true. I know when and where I have to be and what I need to do — god knows I have enough TODO lists across the desktop. But my mind knows that something’s not right, and is flogging me for it. Not sure what to do about this; only if it goes on too long I will surely suffer some physical effect of the stress.

OK, back to the

Fiddly work

Called Goodwill, verified that they would accept the wheelchair. It’s almost new, I doubt if it has rolled a mile yet, and cost $500. I suppose I could try to flog it on eBay, but suppose I did sell it for $300-400. Then I’d have the pain of figuring out how to ship such a big unwieldy thing, and getting it shipped. Give it to Goodwill, get a receipt, call it a $400 charitable contribution next tax time.

What else? Called the service number for Marian’s Alaska Air credit card to close the account. Called Wilderness Travel, where we had put ourselves on the wait-list for a solar eclipse cruise in 2019, with a $1000 deposit. Asked to get off list and deposit back. Had to then send them an email saying the same thing. Then: reimbursement will be to the same card we used to pay the deposit. Oops, that card was reissued with new numbers a couple of times since. No problem, they said, the credit card company will work it out.

Wrote to Dennis suggesting a movie for the weekend. Wrote to Darlene & Jessea suggesting lunch. Then began the task of cleaning up the file drawer in Marian’s desk. Pulled out a lot of stuff that is no longer relevant, emptied a number of pendaflex folders into the recycle bin. She had beautifully-organized files on our garden plants, for instance: botanical names, care instructions, etc.

I don’t care, because,

ISMISEP

That’s my new watchword with regard to anything related to home maintenance. Dishwasher is old, and washer/drier older, refrigerator older still? ISMISEP. Plants should be fertilized in the spring? ISMISEP.

It’s an acronym for “In six months it’s someone else’s problem”. If I’ve not closed escrow on the sale of the house by June, I’ll be surprised. If ISMISEP is not true, then I’ve decided to stay on, in which case I’ll be spending upwards of $15K on appliances and several times that on a bathroom remodel. Nope. ISMISEP.

Now going to take a nap, then take the wheelchair to Goodwill and some stuff to sister in law Jean.

Day 3

Tuesday 12/4/18

It seems incredible it has only been 2½ days since Marian stopped breathing. I’ve accomplished just a ton of stuff in that time, busy busy busy. But first, a few words about

Grief

It just comes on at unpredictable times, then passes off. Something reminds me of our life together — as when, yesterday morning, I passed the local ice-cream store and suddenly remembered she always ordered mocha almond fudge flavor — or it will be nothing at all, just a sudden uprush of pity and regret. And the eyes prickle, the throat constricts, the voice, if I’m talking, becomes thick and broken. A deep breath, a shake of the shoulders, and it passes off.

So these little fugues, every couple of hours or so, are the metronome to my days. But in between them, today I was

Making Arrangements

Walked to the Y on Ross Road, did my little round of exercises, walked back in plenty of time to strip the bed and put the linens in the washer. Then drove to San Jose, to the office of the Neptune Society, where Maria led me through reading and signing all the papers that have to be read and signed in order to get somebody cremated and scattered at sea, all proper and legal.

There’s a decision to be made: do I want to see the ashes scattered off the Marin coast near Angel Island? If so, I have to reserved a spot on a sailing of their “family” boat for $495. Or I can just let it happen anonymously on their standard scattering cruise where nobody witnesses the operation. That service is included in the fees we paid back in 1997 (Marian’s signature on the contract, from back before her handwriting deteriorated…)

I’m on the fence about this. Do I want the finality of this little ceremony? Marian is gone; the ashes won’t be her in any sense. I’ll consult with her sister, see if she wants in.

Housekeeping

On return, Suli, our cleaning lady for many years, had arrived, and had already guessed from the rearranged furniture what had happened since her last visit two weeks ago. But we shared a bit of a cry. “Oh, I hoped I would see her one more time,” she said.

After Suli had finished and left, I sorted the rest of the laundry and got that going. And put the sheets back on the bed. And called a two of Marian’s insurance companies. Oddly, the drug benefit company said they would be informed by Medicare, and would process the termination then. The other, AARP medicare supplement, didn’t say that, and processed the change at once. Whatever.

Finally I reverted Marian’s phone, an iPhone 6s, to factory default and then installed Uber and Lyft apps on it with new accounts. The plan is for Marian’s sister Jean to use that. She’s not had a smart-phone; and I’ve offered to let her use this one, while keeping it on my T-Mobile family plan. It would probably cost me money to go back to a single line plan anyway.

Still plenty of time then, for

Entertainment

About 4 weeks ago, while I was sitting in the audience at the Pear Theater waiting for the play to start, I checked my email (as one does) and saw one from the Fox Theater in Redwood city announcing a concert by Jake Shimabukuro. Knowing he sells out quick, I managed to get two good seats before the lights went down in the theater. A week or so later it was clear that Marian’s strength had declined such that she wouldn’t be able to attend using her walker, but the theater assured me she could come in the wheelchair.

Well, that didn’t come to pass, and yesterday I contacted our friend Wally and asked if he’d like to come. I left early in order to get a quick supper at the Five Guys burgers next door to the Fox, which was fortunate since traffic was a mess. I know how traffic is, on a rainy evening at 6pm; yet it always comes as a surprise. Anyway I did manage a quick bite, met Wally, and attended the concert.

Jake is truly a master and for this tour he has teamed with two other virtuosi, Dave Preston on guitar and Nolan Verner on bass. Still, I thought the concert was a little bit long and repetitive. The absolute best moments where when Jake stood alone and played a standard, acoustic ukulele. His ability to pull sophisticated, complex counterpoint out of that tiny instrument is amazing.

So home to fold the last load of laundry — including Marian’s three favorite tops; another grief spasm — and write a blog post.

Day 1 – de-invalid-izing

Sunday, 12/2/18

In the morning, in the hours waiting for the hospice nurse to come and “pronounce” Marian dead, and the further hours waiting for the mortuary crew, I hung out in the kitchen, notifying people. I wrote the final journal entry on Marian’s cancer blog. Posting that automatically informed the many people who’d registered to it.

Then I went through my Google contacts list, then got her laptop and went through her contacts, cross-referencing and making a list of everyone we knew who hadn’t registered to the blog. I wrote up an email based on the journal entry and BCC’d that to those 20-odd names. And I made a few phone calls to close relatives.

But with the removal of the body, and nothing more to do, I moved around the rooms, and it felt — stuffy. Over the months of increasing illness we’d accumulated a thick layer of “invalid stuff”. A walker. A commode (horrible thing, she hated using it even more than I hated emptying it). A wheelchair. An oxygen machine. Elder diapers (“insurance pants”, we called them). And medicines everywhere, in the bathroom cabinet, in the bed table, in the kitchen.

I opened every window in the house and turned the HVAC fan to “circ”. Then I rounded up every bit of invalid stuff and corralled it in one room. Anything that might have value for someone else, I stacked in an island in the guest room, but a lot of stuff that didn’t, went into the trash. Illness and feebleness and stinks — out!

I collected all her meds, 30-40 pill bottles and tubes and boxes. They made a fat bundle in a plastic grocery bag; I’ll take them to the clinic to deposit in their medicine discard bin. (And now I just remembered there’s another little cache to get.) Eventually I was shivering (the air coming in the windows was about 60F) but the place felt cleaner.