Day 146, hazardous waste, docent,

Saturday, 4/27/2019

If the tentative schedule holds, exactly three weeks from today I will be moving into my unit at CH.

Took a leisurely start as usual on Saturdays, but at 9am arrived at the Palo Alto Utilities’ Household Hazardous Waste site. This is open Saturdays 9-11. I’ve been putting aside all the paint, bug spray, and other chemicals as I went through the garage, and now took three boxes of cans and bottles in the back of the Prius. They check your i.d. as a resident, take the containers out of the back of the car, say thank you, and off you go. Feeling morally and physically cleaner.

At home, I made copies of the five different forms that I’d filled out for Chuck, various disclaimers and disclosures and advisories one must sign to sell property. One, a detailed four-page questionnaire disclosing just about every possible thing that might affect the value of a property, was almost as much work to prepare as income tax. My first attempt had me trying to put explanatory notes in tiny little spaces provided. Then I got another copy and put the notes on a separate sheet. Anyway, done now. I put the originals in an envelope for Chuck to pick up next time he stops by, and my copies in a new Penda-Flex for the sale of the property.

Then, remembering that Chuck said he might bring a prospect to view the house Sunday, I tidied the shit out of things, made all ship-shape. While doing this, Chuck stopped by briefly and took the forms, saying he would probably bring someone to see the house tomorrow.

I changed to my docent uniform and went to the museum to lead a tour. A quiet Saturday, only eight in the group. Drove on home stopping to pick up a couple of food items, including some deli take-out for supper. Set out the foam mattress and waited for the junk guys to come by. Which took a while, but eventually two friendly dudes in a white truck came and took away the foam mattress. Another thing off my mind.

Tonight is “fireworks night” at the Sunken Diamond and I just don’t feel like going, sitting out in the chill — it has gotten chilly — through all nine innings to see fireworks. So, staying home and catching up on the DVR backlog. Amazing Race, Midsomer Murders, yeah.

Day 145, actual parking and stuff

Friday, 4/26/2019

Went for a run, fine. Killed some items from the every-growing to-do list, starting with reviewing the draft documents that lawyer Nancy sent. One of the documents is a complete rewrite of the “Cortesi Family Trust” which will now be named the “David Cortesi Survivor Trust”. The change of name, I suspect, will mean that I have to get my three Schwab Accounts, my bank account, and who knows what else, changed, because their nominal “owner” has changed name. We meet next Wednesday and do a whole lot of paperwork.

Second item was to arrange to get rid of a mattress. Back-story: when we first got our McCrosky mattress, Marian wasn’t happy with it. We added a padded mattress cover. Still not right. Noting that the foam mattress in the RV was just to her taste, we went to the foam store in Palo Alto — does that still exist? yup, Tallman’s House of Foam on Hamilton is still a thing — and bought a 3-inch thick queen-size piece. That, on top of the McCrosky and under the padded cover, was just right.

So now, I have after extensive dithering, decided to take the bed with me to CH. It’s a pretty piece of furniture and it’s here, no shopping needed. I don’t really need a queen size, but there’s plenty of room. But… somehow I felt I didn’t want to transport that foam sheet. I don’t need it; the basic McCrosky is fine by me. And it looks hokey. So, when I changed the bed linen last, I pulled it off.

Well, that left me with this very unwieldy, 3-inch thick queen-size piece of foam that weighs about 20 pounds and is very awkward to carry; it really wants to flatten out from any rolled or folded position. And it won’t fit a trash can. And it looks like shit leaning up against the wall of the house. So I went on Yelp and they have this marvelous way of getting quotes from multiple vendors, and quickly had a bid from JunkX to come and pick it up Saturday between 3 and 4.

Glowing with accomplishment I collected the new padlock for my storage unit, and a suitcase and my toolbox to store in said unit, and drove to CH. Parked in front, went in, picked up the magic sensor for the driveway, and drove around to the garage entry. The gates responded to my sensor and I went in and parked in my new stall. Schlepped the tool box and the suitcase through the winding corridors between the new building, where I park, to the basement of the old building, and to the Residents’ Storage section.

Used a tool from the box to cut the zip-tie on my storage cage, put the stuff in, and applied the new padlock. I had intended to eat lunch at CH but forgot all about that plan and just reversed my path to the house.

In the afternoon I went to a Stanford Baseball game. They weren’t doing well, committing four errors in the first five innings; I got bored and went home and caught up on some TV. Although I’ve been so busy, evenings, that I’m way behind my DVR.

Day 144, Shustek, play

Thursday, 4/25/2019

OMG, I forgot to click Publish on Wednesday’s blog, and didn’t write this on the day. Went to the Shustek center for cataloging.

On return home had a quick meal and went out again to the Bus Barn (aka Los Altos Stage Company but everyone likes the old name better) to see their production of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. At lunch, Gretta said she saw this play produced a few years ago in Seattle and it was a wonderful experience.

This one, not so much. Half an hour in I was thinking, OK, they’re trying hard but I will leave at intermission. One hour in I was thinking, Oh no! They aren’t going to have an intermission! Then they did take a break, and I went home. The problems were multiple. The stage dressing had to serve as the backdrop for all scenes, interior and exterior, and it just didn’t make sense for a lot of the script. A more serious problem was the acting; several in the large cast just were not up to being convincing, let alone engrossing. Ma Joad was excellent, Grampa Joad was entertainingly manic until he died 20 minutes in. Tom Joad was hard to understand and his “okie” accent came and went. Oh well.

Day 143, parking, filing, house ad, fopal

Wednesday, 4/24/2019

Opened the day with a run. Then I was about to set to work organizing files when I remembered getting an email yesterday evening about parking at CH. Checked the email, it was from a staff member named Payal, saying to call her to look over available spots. Oh! There are available spots? I called, she was at her desk, and we arranged to meet at 10am, it then being 9:40. She said, good, she had another person to show around at 10am also.

I zipped over to CH and said to the desk person I was there to see Payal. Desk person picked up the phone and called and said, “Mr. Cortesi is here to see you…” She knew my name! This is kind of neat.

Payal is a tall, 30-something woman with a pleasant manner (like every other staff member I’ve met). The other person looking for a parking space turned out to be Tammy, a diminutive Japanese(?) lady who like me is just moving in, to the third floor in her case. Together we descended to the garage to look at available spaces. After reviewing several, Tammy settled on one, asked my opinion on it, I concurred it was a good one. It’s just on the right of a pillar, and I pointed out she would always have room to open her door, nobody could get close on the left.

After Tammy left, I explained to Payal how I really want a spot within a few feet of an electrical outlet so I can keep the car charged. I would just hate to go back to driving a “normal” Prius, getting the ordinary 50mpg and toting around 100 lbs. of batteries I don’t use. So we looked at the available spots in this, the Tower garage (under the main building), and there was one that would do. However there is also the option of the Lee garage, under the new skilled nursing annex. OK, let’s look at those.

It’s something of a long and winding road through the basement of the Tower to get to the Lee garage, so that’s a bit of a drawback. OTOH, the Lee spaces are $10/month cheaper. And it turned out that there was a 110v outlet in reach of almost every space there. I picked #10, a wide spot with a wall on one side and an outlet right next to it. So that’s settled, and a great relief to my mind.

Actually I’m feeling better about CH for several reasons. Night before last I had a middle of the night tossing session, feeling some buyer’s remorse about this large step. But after the very friendly floor meeting yesterday, and yet another pleasant and productive interaction with the staff today (plus getting the exact right parking setup), I’m feeling happier about it all. It ain’t cheap — it’s about the daily fare of a cruise ship, which offers about the same level of service — but I have to remind myself that not only am I getting a comfortable residence, food, and service out of it, I have the assurance of lifetime care if (when!) my health deteriorates. Never to be a burden on, nor dependent on the good will of, my few relatives? Priceless.

So home from that to finish up the file organizing. Penda-Flexes in a banker’s box, but all ready to drop into the file cabinet I bought, which is still in its cardboard box over there, waiting to be unboxed after it gets moved to my unit. Whenever that happens.

Chuck called saying he’d just emailed the copy for the house ad! I made a few comments, and asked that he change the specific street address to just “Old Palo Alto”. This is very exciting. I am expecting he will be bombarded with queries. I hope I won’t be disappointed in that.

After a quick lunch I was about to leave for FOPAL when I checked my calendar and realized I have an appointment for a hair cut at 12:30! Glad I looked, off I go for that. Chris was enthusiastic about Channing House. From there I went to FOPAL and spent 90 minutes pricing and shelving books for the Computer section, and another 90 minutes doing sorting. Home to chill and hydrate and perhaps nap.

Day 142, dentist, lunch, floor meeting, dinner

Tuesday, 4/23/2019

Began the day by walking to a mile-plus to my appointment for dental hygiene, and walking the return, stopping at C.H. en route to check my mailbox. Disappointed that with all that walking, the phone shows only 7,000 steps.

Spent some time organizing penda-flexes. (No, auto-correct, it is not panda flexes!) I like making sense of all these old files, discarding outdated and irrelevant stuff, organizing the remainder into simpler categories that will be easier to remember.

Then it was time to meet Scott for lunch. Pleasant meeting, I’d say just-ok food at Dan Gordon’s, who, Scott pointed out, was presumably half of the former Gorden-Biersch Brewery, whose restaurant was once in that same space.

On the way to lunch I stopped at MaxiMart Pharmacy to get a refill of the antibiotic pills I take before any dental procedure (to protect my replaced aortic valve). Oops, prescription expired. Leave it, we’ll apply for a renewal, check back tomorrow. They know me by sight, partly because I’ve gotten meds there for 20 years at least, but more because I was in there what feels in retrospect like every other day all last fall, picking up one or another med for Marian. It was probably only once a week, really, but I had some bad emotions walking up to the door, from all the associations with her long illness. But now, this is for me, and I’m not ill, just getting a preventative med. So it was alright.

On the way back I stopped for a few groceries, including the indispensable peanut butter. Should I get a big jar? I’ll be on a full meal plan in a few weeks. Oh hell yes, I can have peanut butter in my room, to eat at my own bistro table in my kitchenette.

Soon it was time to leave again for the Sixth Floor Meeting. Craig was in the chair and did a good job. There were 30 or so people there; I learned the names of about five, and was pleasantly greeted by all. The topic of the meeting was the upcoming move off the sixth floor so the great rolling renovation can have it. Here’s the time-line:

August 12-23, the seventh floor people move out of temporary units and back to their renovated permanent units.
Temporary units are cleaned.
August 26-September 6, sixth floor people move into temporary units.
Around January 2020, sixth floor moves back, fifth moves out.

Angela, who I met with a week ago to choose decor options for my unit, is in charge of this. So far they have done the in/out swap for the tenth, ninth, and eighth floors and have it down to a science. She explained the process in detail and pretty well satisfied everyone.

From there I went to supper with Craig and Diane, and damn it four other women whose names I didn’t get. Wait, one was Eva. I also met Jerry and his wife (name?) and saw their apartment, on which they did an extreme renovation when they moved in two years ago. It’s very attractive, extremely “modern” with gray and black cubes and track lighting. Jerry is very technical and has a complex computer setup with multiple large monitors. I’m going to like him, I think; I certainly intend to call on him as a resource getting my various devices working with the CH systems.

I excused myself after one cup of coffee to go to a Stanford Baseball game. Got there at the bottom of the second, Stanford behind 4-1. The next two innings Stanford hit three or it may have been four homers and went ahead 9-4. I left after two hours and it was only the sixth inning.

Day 141, ‘nother day of doin’ s**t

Monday, 4/22/2019

Began the day by watering the plants. There are only six, but they are all doing well. I haven’t managed to kill them. I look forward to having their company at the new place.

Then I went for a run; 38 minutes of steady (if slow) jog, felt good all the way. God bless podcasts, though. I doubt I could do any kind of exercise if I had to do it without distraction in my ear.

Settled down to the killer to-do list. First up: apply for a residential parking permit for downtown Palo Alto. Have to upload a picture of my driver’s license, which of course has Tasso Street on it, plus some document that shows the new address. I make a PDF of a couple of pages of the CH contract I just signed. Upload these, click “apply”, it comes back and says, that address isn’t eligible for a parking permit, or no permits are available. Uh-oh. Do the whole process again just to be sure; same result.

Call the number given, get nice woman who says, “Yeah, Mister Cortesi, I was watching you upload these, I was just waiting for you to call.” OK, that’s weird. Bad enough I have Google looking over my shoulder at every email. But whatever; she takes my email address and says “OK, you’re all set” and gives me some directions on how to download and print a temporary permit.

I email Craig asking how to get a login for the CH resident’s web portal. He replies almost instantly, get one from the front desk. I email Kim asking what I need to do, to get the process of applying for a parking space started.

Friday I received a long letter from my lawyer. I’ll call her Nancy because in fact that is her name. Anyway, it had endless details on how as an executor I should go about making an inventory and valuation of Marian’s estate. So I wrote an email back saying, in short, “She owned nothing that wasn’t part of the trust, why I gotta do this?” More nicely phrased with specifics of course. But in fact I found our “Community Property Agreement” in which we each said, “whatever’s mine is yours, too”; and also a separate agreement in which we both said that whatever possessions we had or would get, clothes, jewelry, whatever, was part of the family trust. Plus her will making me her heir. So if I’m satisfied with no detailed inventory, shouldn’t nobody else need one. We’ll see if Nancy agrees.

Cleaning out the garage, I found an old iPhone 5s. Apparently when I got my newer 7s, I put the old one in the box. OK, now what to do with it? Search for “donate old iPhone”, find Secure the Call which repurposes old phones as 911-callers for homeless people. They provide an address label, but clearly I need a padded envelope too. So, time to go out and stuff.

Stop one, the local CVS to buy a small padded envelope. Stop two, the hardware store to buy a padlock. Stop three, Channing House. Talk to the girl on the front desk. She doesn’t remember how to create resident logins, and who does it out for lunch. We arrange she’ll email me about it. Then I go in to the dining room and have lunch: salmon, and a nice mixed-veg sauté.

During lunch I get an email from Chuck; they are going to put up an ad as we discussed Friday, would I please take some pictures to use in it. OK, another thing for the list.

Then I go down to the basement to see if I can find the Fitness Director, so as to sign a waiver, so as to be able to use the gym excuse me, Fitness Center. Fitness director appears to be out. Also, oddly, the door to the gym appears to be locked, although I can see someone inside using equipment. My room key doesn’t fit the door. What’s the deal there? Well, next time.

I go into the garage and check it out. There are 51 spaces, about a fourth are empty in the middle of a weekday. When I try to go back into the basement, the door is locked. My room key fits the handle but doesn’t operate it. Then I spot a camera and a button and a sign, “please stand on the yellow spot when pressing the blue button so we can see you.” I stand on spot, press button, almost instantly the door clicks.

I take the elevator to the top, the 11th floor, and have a quick look around this public space. It’s a large-ish room with a rather large (72-inch?) TV at one end, lots of armchairs, and some tables. Windows on three sides with a view of the hills to the west and the east. Big open walking decks on each side.

Nothing left to do, so I head out and make stop four, my bank to deposit a Via Benefits check. They promised to send a direct-deposit form to me; it hasn’t come yet.

Back home I take pictures of several rooms. Unfortunately I got rid of my wide-angle lens some time ago and I can’t get a picture of the inside of the bathroom. I use the iPhone’s panorama feature to get the kitchen, but the bathroom is just too small, the panorama looks bizarre. I do not take a picture of the outside, because at this stage I don’t want people to be able to identify the house and come knocking.

I set up the new padlock, it has a four-letter combination. I had planned to set it to DAVE but alas! it has no V! So I set it to DALE instead. Now I need to go back to CH install it. Later!

I rewrite the much-shortened to-do list, adding a couple of items. I print the mailing label for Secure the Call and tape it to the padded envelope and put the old phone in it and seal it. Aha! In the mail is the deposit form from Via benefits. I fill it out, put it in a stamped envelope, address it. Now I need to go to the P.O. and also, wash the car. Out again!

I drive to the Post Office and mail the Via Benefits envelope and the old cell phone. Drive to the car wash and buy the Prius its first bath since it got polished on day whatever? And to the grocery store for a few necessaries. And home. I need to put together the pictures I took to mail to Chuck. But I want a nap, too! What will I do?

Day 140, easy Sunday

Sunday, 4/21/2019

I deliberately did little today, and avoided looking at the full-page to-do list on the dining room table next to all the C.H. documents I should read and file. Had a pleasant coffee and crossword time at the local coffee shop, which was unusually quiet well past 8am. I guess people were either at church or preparing a Sunday dinner.

About 11 I drove to the museum to do the noon tour. Ken, another docent, was also there; they usually schedule two of us for weekend tours. But the parking lot was nearly empty and few people were in the lobby so we agreed there wouldn’t be enough people to split in two groups, so he went on home. I ended up with about 12 people.

For supper I thought about going to C.H. and decided I didn’t want to; and instead drove to Town and Country shopping center for a burger and a beer.

This exposed a problem I am going to have to deal with in coming weeks: general shyness and introversion and enjoyment of a quiet meal. For all these decades, Marian and I had the custom of sitting down with our plates in the living room and watching TV (often a cooking show) while we ate, and talking little.

This won’t be an option at Channing House. Once I take up residence, I will need to eat at least supper in the dining room. Which opens a whole can of (trivial, but real) worms for the born introvert. Which table to sit at? Who to sit with? What to talk about? Initially at least some residents are going to want to get to know the stranger in their midst. I’ll have to talk about myself and be affable and shit. I’ve eaten in the dining room twice now, once as Craig’s guest and last Friday — and I see I didn’t mention that in the blog! — I went back there and ate alone. There were enough tables that I could find an empty one and nobody came by, except the waiter. (You fill your plate in a cafeteria-style line but there are waiters who provide drinks and take away used plates.)

Choosing a table was fraught; I was early, and had no idea of the conventions and customs. I was afraid I’d end up at somebody’s regular table and they’d come in and… what? Be offended? Give me a break. But this is the kind of thing an introvert deals with. If you don’t understand it, consider yourself lucky.

Day 139, planting Marian’s tree

Saturday, 4/20/2019

For some reason I’ve been anxious about this day for days, and woke up repeatedly in the night before. Well, part of that was that I expected to need to “say something” and had been working up a cute little 3- or 4-minute eulogy, practicing it as I walked various places (and while tossing in the night), trying to get where I wouldn’t completely break down while delivering it. Part of the anxiety was being a host, feeling responsible for the success of an event or the pleasure of the attendees. Marian used to suffer that feeling to an extreme degree, so maybe I was channeling her (joke).

In the end (and of course) it all went off fine, and I didn’t have to say a thing. Catherine Martineau, head of Canopy, did a nice, and brief, talk about the three people who were having memorial trees planted today. Then we set to work.

Denise, Scott, June, me, Jean, Darlene, Dennis, Liz, and the tree

The site was alongside a very popular bike path, one I’ve ridden many times. The tree is out in the clear but somewhat sheltered from wind, and should grow well. I look forward to checking it over the years.

We adjourned to brunch and then everyone scattered, satisfied with a job well done. My only “host” role in the end was to have chosen a restaurant that was easy to get to and had good parking, yay me.

In the afternoon I did a bit of sorting of folders. One job is to collect pend-a-flex folders from a couple of different drawers, get rid of unneeded stuff, and organize the remainder into folders that I can remember. The present folder tabs have evolved over a long time (like every other damn thing I have) and are redundant and contradictory.

One folder had various documents about the purchase of the house, the original mortgage (long paid-off), etc. I moved those to the “brown binder”, the estate documents binder that is kept in a fireproof box. One folder was “Appliances” and contained the user manuals, and receipts, for pretty much every major purchase: stove, bedroom set, washer/dryer, etc. etc. And some things we don’t have any more.

I’ll keep working on this task tomorrow and Monday. I have ordered a small file cabinet to use at C.H. and it has shipped, so I’ll put the newly-organized folders into that, their future home.

Spent an hour finishing a book I’ve enjoyed reading. It’s a treat to find fiction that I can actually get into and enjoy reading, in this case the works of Becky Chambers. There’s a sub-genre of Mystery called “cozy mystery” (“in which sex and violence are downplayed … and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community” — Wikipedia). Chamber writes what I can only call “cozy sci-fi” and I love it.

Day 138, signing at Channing House

Friday, 4/19/2019

Showered, shaved, dressed as formally as my wardrobe allows (slacks, sport coat, gray turtleneck) and at 10:15 drove to C.H. where I sat down with Rhonda Bekkedahl, currently COO, also incoming CEO, to sign all the various contracts involved in becoming a member of a Continuous Care operation. Done! Well, it will be done when they have successfully tapped my Schwab account for the six-figure entry fee. Let’s see… nope, hasn’t happened yet. Not my problem.

Got my room key; got shown my mailbox and my storage locker. The latter is a large (roughly 3×4 feet and 8 foot tall) wire cage in the basement.

Got a parking sticker for the car, however it is not clear yet whether there is an available slot in the underground garages. In any case I need to get a Palo Alto resident’s parking permit; with that I will be able to park anywhere on the surrounding streets and ignore the 2-hour limit signs. But I seriously don’t want to leave the car on the street all the time. We’ll see.

Declined the opportunity to have lunch there. I am now able to eat any and all meals there but I won’t start doing that before next week. This is a stressful weekend and I’d like to not start on that whole new to-do list until later. Right now I am going to sit down and read through all the bumf I’ve been handed.

Well, there is a lot to know. It’s going to be like living in a nice resort hotel. I’ve got lots to do, starting next week, to begin moving in, emotionally if not yet physically. Today I ate a simple supper at home, but tomorrow, or Sunday for sure, I need to go have supper over there.

One piece of furniture I didn’t secure yesterday is a desk. This afternoon I spent a lot of time searching the web for an L-shaped desk — because I want an L-shaped desk, damn it, for the corner of the bedroom — that had a keyboard tray — because I want my keyboard lower than the standard 30-inch desk height — and also a file drawer and a drawer for stuff. This is a combination of features that is not common. There are stark, modernist L-shaped desks that have keyboard trays but no drawers, and L-shaped desks that have pedestals with drawers but no keyboard tray. And then filter those by color, didn’t want black or dark brown or white. Finally found one, sold both at Walmart and Amazon for $100 more. But Walmart’s web page said, sorry, we can’t ship that to your Walmart. So I ordered it from Amazon; the box of knocked-down parts should arrive next week.

Big day. Vegging out with a book.

Day 137, Furniture shopping

Thursday, 4/18/2019

Began the day by going to the Yosemite warehouse for museum work. Unfortunately the work got hung up on trying to make a camera work. Museum IT staff had loaded a donated laptop with Windows 10, and the camera utility that they use to drive a Canon SLR to take pictures of artifacts, wasn’t compatible. So time was being wasted trying to download a new utility. Then we all went to lunch. After lunch there was little more progress, so I bailed early.

I wanted to visit Living Spaces, a large furniture store recommended by Amy. It is on that side of the bay, convenient to the warehouse. I’d planned to visit it at the normal quitting time of 4pm, but took the opportunity to go early.

Amy recommended another place too, West Elm, and I’d seen several attractive pieces on their website, but all with extended delivery times. So maybe Living Spaces would have something.

It’s a vast place but had little to attract me. The had a couple of L-shaped desks, but they were in a faux-rustic style, deliberately crude finishes. Ditto the media centers. No bistro tables, no love seats. One fairly attractive accent chair, but upholstered in a strong autumn-brown which would stand out, or else force me to buy everything else in a matching color.

So I drove back to my side of the bay and went to West Elm. There I arranged to buy the things I want. Two items I could have immediately from stock: a chair and a bistro table. A media center will come in a week, so it will be delivered here. Two chairs to go with the table won’t come until the first week of June, so will have to be delivered to me at C.H. (and in the meantime I won’t be able to sit at my bistro table). The very nice love seat, really a short couch, will come after that. So on moving in I’ll have only two chairs, the new one and my recliner, and a box to set the TV on. Well, and a bed and a coffee table and some plants and pictures from here.

In between these, I was trying to buy tickets to concerts during the Stanford Jazz Festival in July. Supposedly members could begin to buy tickets today, but I couldn’t. Email to support got sympathy but no improvement. At the end of the day I’d bought one of the five events I want to attend. Unless their website magically starts working over the weekend, I think I’ll try to buy in person at the Stanford ticket window.

But that’s for next week. The next few days are busy. Tomorrow is a big day, I go to C.H. and sign the contracts and become an official resident. Not able to move in, but at least I could eat meals there.

Saturday is a tree planting for Marian. I’ve been practicing a 3-minute talk.