Day 61, book sorting etc

Wednesday, 1/30/2019

Went for a run and it felt good. It’s amazing how different these runs feel, when there is no obvious difference in any other factor. Same amount of sleep, same time of day, same air temperature, feeling just as healthy — but today I felt comfortable and confident and just cruised along. Monday it was a slog, effortful, not painful but felt right at the limit of my oxygen intake.

Back home I spent an hour going over my program to make sure all the copious comments — I wrote it in “literate” programming style so it reads like an article with code interspersed — were readable and accurate. Then I posted it to the learnPython subreddit and awaited the awed and admiring comments. Yeah. At the end of the day I had exactly one, and no up-votes. Pbtbtbtbtb…

Went to FOPAL with two more boxes of books, including a complete run of the “Miss Read” books. Well, maybe not a complete run, looking at that wiki page, but more than 25 of them. Two and a half hours with four people sorting and we could just about keep up with the stream of donors coming through the door. Made barely a dent in the 5-box high wall of boxes with books donated from previous days.

Day 60, programming, museum, cleanout

Overnight I thought of some ways my living cost estimate could have gone so wrong. One, I had the taxes at 1/2, forgetting there’s another $1K payment to make (tomorrow!). I had not included TV and internet in the utilities, another $2K+ per year. Also it had not occurred to me to think about how our monthly bill on the main credit card is always over $1K, so we pay out at least $12K-$15K per year just via that route. Of course that includes almost all food, but it does not include the gardener, taxes, or utilities, which are paid directly via the bank bill-pay app. But the simplest approach was just to realize that our expenses had matched our income for years and years, so our income was a very good ballpark estimate of our cost of living. And that number is in the same ballpark as the monthly fee at many ILFs.

Tuesday, 1/29/2019

Walked to the Y, did my round, walked back. Did computer work: running virtual Windows and Linux machines to package my game for Windows 7, Ubuntu, and Mac. Here are the executables. The source is here. Tomorrow I’ll think of where to post to invite people to try it.

Decided to go visit the Hiller Aviation Museum. Spent a couple of hours there. I was nearly the only visitor so could play with a couple of simulators freely. In one, you are supposed to land a Boeing 737 at SFO. I was disappointed to find if I increased throttle and raised the nose, I couldn’t just fly around the Bay Area ad lib; the simulator got funny and stopped.

Two days ago on impulse I stopped at an “estate sale” sign on my way home. Browsed around a house where, I learned, nine siblings were trying to clear out the house their late mother had lived in and they’d all grown up in. There was stuff, stuff, stuff. Someday in the not too distant future I will have to clear this house out, and I won’t have the help of any siblings.

So on arrival back home, with this in mind I stepped into what we called the APR closet. (Because it is the closet that opens off the APR, i.e. the room whose purpose we could never settle on, so it was the all-purpose room or APR.) This is a closet I’ve been dreading because there is so much stuff there I need to decide what to do with. There are family memorabilia that I’m sure other relatives would want (heck, things I want: high school annual?) (On the other hand, Seriously? What is the possible point of keeping a high school annual that is fifty-fucking-nine years old? A good fraction of the Bethel High School graduating class of 1960 are dead, and the rest wouldn’t remember my name, nor I theirs without a program.) Memorabilia aside, there is a lot of stuff that is trash and needs to go.

Nerds that we were, we kept reference material — maps, brochures, guides — from every trip we took. After the trip, we’d used the material to organize the 35mm slide show for a trip. Then Marian would neatly (of course) organize it in folders by region. Here’s about 2/3 of them:

The only justification for this was that we might go back there someday, and we wouldn’t have to scrounge for maps and info. The only folders that ever got used that way were the first four. We often went back to Washington or Oregon, and could go into the APR closet and dig out a useful map before each trip.

Of course all of this is just so 1990s. Paper maps? Really? Beyond that, most of them are literally from the 1990s or earlier, and hence out of date. It took half an hour to sort all this out, pull the bear clips and paper clips out and put the paper in the recycling bin, and the plastic folders ditto. In a few of the folders I found real nostalgia-inducers. The Germany folder, for instance (about five folders off the right edge of the picture) had my complete trip plan, 20+ pages of detailed info on the stops we would make, with notes. The New Zealand folder had Marian’s trip plan, ditto. But we documented those trips with pictures and with blogs and I have all the images stored on the bigger Mac. None of this paper had been looked at since a week after the relevant trip ended, at least ten years ago and in some cases, twenty. Out! Just the same, it hurt.

I was astounded by one find: two fat binders in which Marian had collected a ton of memorabilia about the San Jose Lasers, the professional women’s basketball team that lasted only two years. I had no idea she’d done this: game programs, media guides, and pages and pages of news clippings, all organized by date. I don’t think she ever referred to the material after 1998; she certainly never mentioned it or shared it with me. It’s a potentially valuable historical collection and I set it with the other Lasers memorabilia that I already knew about. Which reminds me, that I’d submitted a donation form to History San Jose offering that material a week ago, and have had no reply. I need to follow up on that, even more now.

Also in the APR closet were some garments of mine I rarely wear. (The APR closet was to us what an attic might be to others.) Two pairs of Expedition-brand trousers, light, no-iron, can be washed out in a hotel sink and be dry the next morning. Last worn on the trip to Italy in 1999. I tried them on. They fit, but frankly look as unstylish as shit. I’m embarrassed I toured Italy in them. Put them in a pile for Goodwill.

Next up, my one sport coat. It’s OK, it fits, but it’s kind of tweedy and bulky. Probably a real fashionista could identify the decade I bought it. (I wouldn’t doubt it was the 80s.) Anyway, I am not throwing it out but have made a mental note to replace it.

Finally, my one suit. Quite a nice one, a Borcelino, but… it doesn’t fit me! I currently find a 38 waist a little bit loose, and I’ve been wondering if I couldn’t fit in 36 jeans. But this suit: no way, I could not possibly fasten that waistband. The jacket has a rather nipped waist and although I could button it, it was clear in the mirror that it wasn’t happy being buttoned. I’ve been my present weight and heavier for a long time. When did I buy this suit, that I fit a 36 or 34 waist? When might I possibly have worn it last? It’s a mystery. Well, it is possible that my body has changed shape, thickening at the waist with age. Maybe I could have worn it twenty years ago, weighing as much as I do now or more, but having younger, springier abs to hold it in?

I looked carefully at the pants and jacket, wondering if a seamstress could let it out. Looking at the pants seam, it might yield another half-inch maybe, no more. As for the jacket, you’d have to open up the lining and fiddle with curved seams. So, never mind; the suit has to go.

Day 59, a button and a money rethink

Monday, 1/28/2019

Started with a run, which was ok. Then ran a string of errands: to DiMartini’s for some fruit; stop at Trader Joe’s; stop at JoAnne’s Crafts; Piazza for a few other groceries. Wait, crafts?

My favorite jacket has a broken button. I’ve been keeping the jacket alive for years; in 2017 the lining started to fall apart and I paid to have it relined, as the shell is fine. I’ve replaced buttons on it before, the buttons on the cuffs tend to snag on things. Just as I decided to do something about this broken one, I realized that our collection of spare buttons went off in the sewing box that, along with the sewing machine, I gave away yesterday. There was probably a match for this button in it, but now it’s gone. Well, it’s not an odd button, I’ll get another. And I did, going into the craft store near Trader Joe’s, 5 minutes looking through the button racks, there was a card with buttons close enough to the originals. I spent longer waiting in line to check out than I did finding the button.

Home, put away groceries, sewed on new button. Fortunately I did not give away all the sewing equipment. There was a separate drawer where the pincushion, scissors, a few spools of thread lived. I actually had the thought yesterday to gather those up and dump them in the sewing kit, but decided no, hang onto basic tools I might use. And the next day I used them.

Money money money

While driving along earlier I’d been mentally reviewing what I wanted to talk about with our financial advisors — excuse me, my financial advisors — when we meet in March as scheduled. The most pressing issue I thought of was to address the change in income. In round numbers, Marian and I had a combined income of about $6000/month. Her social security and IBM pension were both higher than mine. Now that she’s gone, my monthly income is about $2000. But my expenses are only slightly reduced. (Food a bit less, one less person wanting shoes and clothing and books, etc., but those don’t add up to $500 per month. Utilities, insurance, maintenance all continue virtually unchanged.)

I’d got that far in my thinking when I realized that for at least two decades we had been living on that combined income and it had been just right: money out was usually equal to money in. If we took a trip or made some other big purchase we’d move money in from one of the investment accounts. But we never moved money back to an investment account. Net cash flow pretty close to zero.

Now, I realize, my net cash flow is roughly negative $3500/month. I’m not worried by this; I have ample reserves to make up the difference for many years to come. The question for the advisors will be, what accounts to take it from, and at what intervals. However, this realization that we’d been spending just what we made at $6000/month cast a whole new light on the analysis I made on Day 43.

Staying, Going

Back on Day 43 I did a rough calculation of how much it cost me to live right here, and I came to a number of $25,000 per year. But that can’t be right! Because for the past two decades Marian and I have been living right here and spending $72,000 a year, the amount of our combined pensions. We are not known for riotous living, either. No big parties. And the major vacations, and the two cars we bought over that span, were paid for out of investment accounts, not by saving up. So when I figured my cost of living I was low by a factor of almost three. I had to have been! Where did I go wrong?

Well, never mind that; what about the sticker shock I got, when I thought about the monthly costs of ILFs? They looked so expensive in comparison; the least expensive charging double what I thought I could live on.

They don’t look so expensive now, do they? As a couple we were living modestly on $6000/month. As a bachelor, history says I would need only a bit less, say $5000/month.

What does a 1BR unit at Channing House cost? $4650/month.

Hmmmm. Not such a rip-off after all.

Pulling chains

Sent some emails to people to remind them I’m waiting. To my niece to see if she wanted the china set. (She quickly replied with an apology, and no, they can’t use it.) To a friend who had a friend who might be able to appraise Marian’s jewelry. To a friend who has a friend at Webster house.

And a second email to the gallery in Monterey that I contacted on Day 53. You send an email using their web form, and you get a cheerful automated reply, “We’ll get right back to you.” But they don’t. I’m really forming a bad opinion of the art gallery business.

Computer stuff

Spent some time working on the computer. I need to transfer my game to Windows and package it there. I run Windows in a virtual machine in my “big” Mac system. But it’s been months since I fired up the virtual machines, and of course now Windows wants to update itself with months of maintenance. After the usual amount of fiddle-faddle and rebooting I got the job done, a working game on Windows.

Day 58, Repair Café

The play was well done, lots of clever stagecraft, complicated blocking and dance routines, all very skillfully done. The lead part, Shakespeare, was very well played. I like the female lead less well. Whatever.

Sunday, 1/27/2019

For the first time in a long time, I stayed home on a Sunday morning, breakfasting on a meal replacement shake. I don’t mean to establish a new pattern. It was that I needed to leave by 10am to attend the Repair Café. I enjoy these events in part because I like fixing things, and in part because as a “fixer” I am also a “mentor” of some college student “apprentice”. My apprentice this time was a pleasant young woman named Leela who has a Master’s in electrical engineering but felt she lacked hands-on experience. She was eager to get those hands on, so I mostly just stood back and advised. She had never soldered before, and one fix involved soldering some wires that had broken off a battery holder. I showed her one joint before handing it over to her. She was delighted with the way solder melts then instantly freezes when you take the iron away.

During our lunch break, Leela mentioned how her mother was a seamstress, and she’d like to do sewing herself, but didn’t have a sewing machine. I said, you want one? And ended up giving her Marian’s. Nobody else I had asked was interested; I was planning to give it to Goodwill. Leela was very grateful and I’m sure she will put it to good use.

In the evening I caught up on some of the TV that has been stacking up on the DVR. In particular I wanted to watch the US Skating Championship, where the Ladies competition was won by a new phenom, 13-year-old Alyssa Liu. This is a show I would have watched with Marian, and she would have been delighted to see a new skating star emerge.

Day 57, museum, inspection, sale, play

Last night was the second time I’ve gone to a highschool game to see a future Stanford player. The last was on Day 33, to see Hanna Jump play at Pinewood. This trip was to Mitty HS in San Jose to see Haley Jones , considered the #1 recruit in the nation for the class of 2019. She was impressive for sure. Surprisingly for a 6-1 player (tall for high school) she ran the point most of the time, but also penetrated to score under the basket, and had lots of rebounds, too. Coincidentally the little group of 8 or 9 Stanford fans had picked an historic night to watch her. During the third quarter she broke the Mitty High record for career points scored, a 28-year-old record that had been set by — wait for it — Kerry Walsh, better known today as a many-time Olympic Beach Volleyball champion.

On the way back, Harriet and I talked about senior living issues. It developed that she has a friend who recently moved into Webster House, another ILF that I’m interested in. (It’s just on the opposite side of University Avenue from Channing House.) She is going to find out if her friend would be willing to show me around there.

Saturday, 1/26/2019

Went to CHM for the second Saturday in a row, to lead a tour of SCU students. Didn’t bore them too much, I think. Back home and changed to normal clothes; and went off to eyeball three ILFs located North of me, starting with

Voralto Belmont

I think this may have been a mistake by Alan, because the Voralto site says it offers “Concierge-Level Assisted Living & Private-Pay Skilled Nursing” — no mention of independent living. It’s an odd place, built like a castle on top of a steep knoll above Ralston Avenue. Down below, around Ralston and El Camino, there are plenty of restaurants, a Safeway, a Walgreen’s. It’s not a pleasant neighborhood, with six lanes of traffic intersecting four lanes, but there are lots of services. I am amused by the website linked above, which gushes that the Voralto (I keep trying to write Voltron) is

just steps from the Cal Train station, El Camino Real, HWY 101, Downtown Belmont,… within a minute’s walk from the many fine dining restaurants and boutique shops that Belmont Village has to offer…

The first 200 or so of those steps (and the final 200 returning) are on a very steep street with an elevation gain of at least 50 feet. Once on the flat, it is only a couple tenths of a mile to Caltrain, and there are quite a few local restaurants, if you want to call Panda Express “fine dining”.

Anyway, I think the Voltron is off my list because it isn’t really Independent Living. Next up was

Peninsula Regent

in San Mateo. The Peninsula Regent is a buy-in community: you buy a condominium apartment and then pay a monthly fee for food and services. In theory at least, you or your heirs will be able to sell your condo. (The website mentions the staff includes “licensed Realtors to help in purchasing or selling your membership and condominium”)

My first visual impression was of an old, respectable hotel. I mentally guessed it was of the 1950s. (I note the website has pictures only of interiors.) I didn’t take a picture but here’s a screen grab from Google Street View:

pregent

(The scaffolding is no longer there.) The impression is of a stately hotel of the last century. In fact, per the website, it went up in 1986, so not so old. Does that mean it is seismically safe? It offers mainly independent living, but also has 20 assisted living units. It is not clear how that transition is handled, if it can be temporary, etc. No skilled nursing.

Then I explored the neighborhood. It is located just outside San Mateo’s very pleasant downtown, ‘B’ street. What a nice walkable neighborhood! Not quite as nice as University Ave in Palo Alto but quite pleasant. My next stop was almost exactly as far from the town center at 2nd and ‘B’ but on the opposite side,

The Stratford

which is very similar. The Stratford describes itself as “a beautiful, 11-story condominium building… has the distinct look and feel of a 5-star hotel.” That’s the first impression it makes to the eye: a grand hotel of the last century. Like the Regent, their website doesn’t show any exteriors. Here’s a street view grab:

stratford

As a location, this is very good, just a couple blocks from that nice downtown and facing a park. Just like the Regent, it claims to have assisted living but not skilled nursing. In fact this and the Peninsula Regent are kind of twins in location, facilities, and price.

And probably too expensive for me. But I enjoyed looking at them. Then home to do a blog post. Later, I have a ticket for “Shakespeare in Love” at the Peninsula Theater.

Day 56, busy busy

Friday 1/25/2019

Started the day with a short run, only 25 minutes. Then after shower shave dress in my docent outfit (proper slacks and my official red Museum shirt) I sat down to clean up some deferred desk work.

One job was to get the form 1099R for Marian’s 2018 pension into PDF form. All the other 1099’s (of which there are 8 total) arrive as PDFs, or are downloadable from the provider, Schwab or whoever. But this one arrived in the mail as paper, and I need it as a PDF with the others to submit to our tax accountant. Well, not a big deal. That’s why we have an “all in one” printer that copies and scans. But I’ve never actually scanned off this printer. Just on instinct I opened the Mac Preview app, which is Apple’s swiss army knife for documents, looked under the File menu, and there it was: “import from scan” with a submenu listing the attached printer. Two minutes later, badda-boom badda-bing, PDF.

Next job was to call VIA Benefits, the IBM health agency. I want to know that Marian’s account is properly closed. I called them first on Day 13 when they couldn’t talk to me because they needed proof I was Marian’s executor. I’d sent a packet of proof then. So I called again today. The pleasant phone rep “Candy” told me she couldn’t talk to me because blah blah, I said, but I sent blah blah, she says, oh I see on the file a note here, the legal department said the document was “missing page three” so it wasn’t complete.

Rubbish, I did not say to Candy. I just had her verify the address to send, hung up, and prepared a new packet of copies of Marian’s will, death certificate, etc etc, making sure that every page was copied. Had it all addressed and sealed when I realized, her will names “my spouse” as executor. So I opened the package and added a copy of our marriage certificate just to prove that I was the “spouse” in question.

Then it was time to go to the museum to lead a tour, stopping at a post office on the way to mail that packet. It was a light day at the museum and my tour group numbered only four. I asked, they were not in a hurry, so I deliberately took it slow, made a couple of extra stops. Ran over the allotted hour by 20 minutes, but they stuck with me.

Did this post, and now I’m going to run up to Belmont and get a quote on a dash-cam. Later… Yes, I have booked installation of a nice dash cam for February 5th. I mean to get the car waxed soon, too.

I’m going to close out this blog post. Tonight at 6, I and another Stanford WBB fan are going to drive to San Jose, to Mitty HS, to see a highly-touted Stanford recruit play. I’ll tell about that tomorrow.

Day 55, cataloging

Thursday 1/24/2019

Nothing remarkable today. It was the day for spending all day at the Computer Museum work site, the Shustek Center in Fremont. Spent the day working with Steve Madsen cataloging old stuff. Oldest thing, no doubt, was a Hewlett-Packard Audio Oscillator model 200C (the link is to a model 200B; the one we cataloged differed only in being wider with holes to mount in a 19-inch rack). On the bottom of the case somebody had written in marker pen, quote,

RETUBED 11-12-57

Nice, huh? In 1957 somebody renewed the vacuum tubes in that machine!

Certainly the oddest objects were the parts of a prototype game from 1975 called “WillBall”. It was intended to be a game in which two players competed to control the position of a ball using mental powers through biofeedback headbands. The ball was controlled by a magnet under the game table which was moved by a Rube Goldberg lash-up of rubber belts pulled by stepper motors. The whole thing was meant to be driven from a program written in BASIC running in an Apple II. Don’t imagine it worked too well.

Anyway, a nice day working with a friendly crew of folks. This is one of my main sources of socialization. Home to do a little programming and watch some TV.

Day 54, haircut and FOPAL

Wednesday, 1/23/2019

Went for a run in the chilly morning. At 11, departed to get a haircut from Chris, just like on Day 18. There was this difference: as I pulled into the Ladera Shopping Center parking lot, I automatically scanned for open slots near to the top — just as I had twenty or more times over the last two years or so, parking to minimize the distance for Marian to walk. And suddenly realized, wait a minute: I can walk just fine. I don’t need to park close to the entrance. I can sashay across the length of the parking lot with no difficulty. And pulled into the first available spot.

Claiming my new life. I never felt any resentment at Marian’s limited mobility, or the limitations it forced on us both. If I thought about it at all, I admired her matter-of-fact, dignified acceptance. This is how I am now, was her attitude, and this is how we deal with it. Parking close to your destination, avoiding stairs, skipping activities that needed many steps — these was just ways the partnership operated.

But I’m living a new life now, and it has pluses and minuses. One of the advantages is that I no longer need to compromise with limited mobility. (Well, for now. How long will I be freely mobile?) Today I consciously realized that advantage.

I loaded two cartons of books and went to FOPAL where I sorted for 2 and a half hours. Afterward I drove down to say hello to Jean. I took a bag of books. When she was at the house last, she took all of Marian’s Tory Hayden books (Hayden wrote books about saving troubled children). Well, that was a genre that Marian had loved. Cleaning out the next shelf I found another dozen books of a similar kind by other authors. Now I brought that bag of books to her and we chatted a bit.

Day 53, Pasta and Chateau Cup.

Tuesday, 1/22/2019

A chilly morning by California standards, 42º at 8am, and I was pretty cold as I walked to the Y in my shorts and a light jacket. Did my round and walked back, not stopping at the coffee shop (for once).

Passed the time waiting for the cleaning lady to show, shopping for a dash cam for the Prius. This is in line with my decision of way back there, to keep the Prius indefinitely (it has 57K miles now, and I doubt very much I’ll ever see 100K; and many of these “gen 3” Prii go 150-200K before needing a battery). If I’m keeping it, I might as well upgrade it a bit. Hence the dash cam. Yelp seems to agree that the best shop for this is one in Belmont. Maybe Friday I’ll drive up there.

Once Suli arrived and started work, I headed out to do things. First a stop at Fedex on California to fax a signed paper requested by our broker. Then to a car wash to get the Prius cleaned up. And then down to Cupertino to do a drive-by of Chateau Cupertino, the low-price leader among the list Alan compiled for me. At $3500/month they are the least expensive of the month-to-month places. As such they deserve a look-see and maybe a proper tour if I like the outside.

Alas, I didn’t like the outside. They are pretty close to the corner of De Anza and Stevens Creek, in an area filled with fairly new, multi-story condos and offices. The building itself has no charm; while not ugly, it is not a place I’d be pleased to come home to or to bring a guest to. Although their website claims that “Residents enjoy local mall shopping and restaurants of every flavor” in fact it’s more than half a mile to the nearest restaurant (The Counter) or coffee shop (Philz). I drove around a bit but the ambience was not pleasant. It would be no fun to walk these streets, even the smaller ones, never mind 6-lane De Anza or Stevens Creek.

Back home, I refreshed the hummingbird feeders. The plastic flowers on the three feeders are getting tatty, petals falling off etc. If I was staying I’d buy new feeders, but ISMISEP.

Then I tackled the shelf full of canisters of assorted pastas and grains that I mentioned yesterday. The concept that I’ll probably never cook another meal is not one of the things I had realized before Marian’s death. I’d anticipated a lot of things, but that aspect came as a surprise. Yet it follows inexorably from being single. I am feeding myself properly (weight stable at 175, no beri-beri yet) but I spend at most ten minutes preparing food; that’s how long it takes to mix up a tuna salad, or to fry two strips of bacon and scramble an egg in the grease while peeling an orange. Or I go out. And of course in an ILF the food is made for you.

Which leaves me with a full set of cooking utensils and a big accumulation of ingredients. The dry foods shelf had a dozen canisters: barley, couscous, lentils, at least six kinds of pasta, dried potato flakes. Microwave popcorn. I cleaned it all out, dumped the food into green bio-bags and put them in the green bin. Put the canisters into the dishwasher and ran it. They’ll go in the Great Garage Sale that I anticipate will happen sometime later in the spring. There was some emotion at dropping yet another shard of the old life, but there was a kind of triumph in it, too. Cleaning out. Making space. Along the same lines, I think I’ll go pack up two boxes of books to take to FOPAL tomorrow.

Realized that it’s been more than a week since Day 46 when I spoke to the owner of the gallery in Carmel about selling my Linsky painting. And he hasn’t replied. I wonder how he stays in business? Because frankly, he behaves like a jerk. How could I trust somebody to handle the sale of (what I believe should be) a $6000 painting, when that person doesn’t reply to emails or return phone calls? So there is a second gallery mentioned on Linsky’s website. I check their site and see that one of the principals is named Simic. One supposes this is somehow connected to the now-departed Simic Gallery where we bought the painting in the first place. I emailed them.

Day 52, Grief blips

Monday, 1/21/2019

By and large my emotions have been pretty upbeat and calm for a while now. What earlier on I called grief spasms have not been a problem, and I haven’t been troubled by that anxious “day late and a dollar short” feeling for some time. Which is all to the good. But there are little blips of grief that pop up from two sources. One is doing something that we did together, now for the first time alone.

Today I went out for groceries and went to DiMartini’s fruit & veg place in Los Altos, for the first time as a bachelor. For the last several years we always made that the first stop on our habitual Sunday grocery round. Marian loved that they provide samples of all the fruit. She enjoyed tasting all the different varieties of pear, for example, to decide which to buy. I wanted to go to DiMartini’s because I’ve been stocking grapes and oranges to eat with my meal replacement drinks for variety, and I’ve been unhappy with the quality I got at our usual grocery store. But walking around DiMartini’s, sampling fruit, without Marian, was… rough.

The other thing, that pops up quickly and annoyingly often, is my instant, unthinking reaction when I see something that she would have enjoyed. One of the plants alongside the path to the door is going nuts, popping up a mass of new sprouts and already showing buds. (I’m embarrassed to say I don’t even remember its name.) Every time my eye falls on this over-achiever the thought, “Oh, she’ll love that” starts to run through my mind and bangs into a wall of reality. I’m afraid spring is going to bring more of these.

I went for a run this morning, it went well, 45 non-stop minutes of my pathetically slow pace. But it is a jog, not a walk, that I’m doing. Then shower and shave and dress and go for the groceries. While putting away the groceries my eye fell on the bottom shelf of the door of the fridge. This shelf is kind of overhung and shadowed by the larger pockets of the door where we put eggs and milk and salad dressing and such. I had cleaned out those pockets earlier, during the first week as it came home to me that I’d never be cooking a “real” dish again. I kept the capers and the mustard and the mayo, though, because I’ve been making myself tuna salad, but a lot of things like tomato paste and lime juice and so forth went out.

Now I’m looking at the bottom shelf and realizing it is kind of a black hole where little-used bottles went for retirement. I emptied it of six or eight bottles of stuff: maple syrup (been at least 2 years since we made pancakes), molasses (no idea when last used), hoisin sauce (what? must have had a recipe that needed it, but which, and how long ago?), karo syrup… Emptied them all down the sink with hot water and put the containers in the recycle. (There’s a whole closet shelf of canisters with various pastas and such that I need to tackle, but not today.)

Blog post, then out to do a docent tour; the museum is open this MLK holiday and docents were asked to please try to cover. If anything happens I’ll update or add to tomorrow’s entry.