Day 197, run, bridge, organize, dinner

Monday, 6/17/2019

Woke early, and then tossed and turned as the light through the flimsy drapes grew. I love my Eastern exposure but it comes with early light. Somewhere around 5:50 I remembered my “napping hat”. It’s an old knitted cap, very amateur (I don’t think it was Marian’s work) and quite loose. Which makes it perfect for napping. I can pull it down over my eyes and because it’s loose, it doesn’t press like a sleep mask does.

So I got up and rooted around and found the napping hat. Put it on, lay back, and slept soundly for another 40 minutes. Doesn’t mean I’ll let Angela off the hook for the dark drapes I was supposed to have, but it’s a help.

The newspaper arrived under the door at 6:30, a perfect start to the first weekday of life in the new place. The adventure is to see how many of my old, pleasant habits I can maintain here, and how many I have to modify. I made my usual cup of coffee and read the paper, with the KTVU “Mornings on 2 at 5AM” playing. For years I’ve been recording that show on weekdays, so the DVR can play the news in the background while I read the paper, and I can fast-forward the commercials if they annoy me. The new DVR is doing fine. Wow — it was just like at home.

I did the Monday crossword and was very pleased with a fast time (5:40). Entering it in the spreadsheet, it brought my 2019 Monday average to very slightly better than the 2018 average. (Who’s a nerd?)

First break in routine was breakfast time. As I’ve said to a few people lately, for 40 years I have always been able to have breakfast in my bathrobe. Now I have to put on clothes for it! So I put on my jogging shorts and a t-shirt and went down to the dining room. Oops; it wasn’t open at 7:25. What sluggards have we here? I killed time with a sudoku until the door opened. Had a nice low-carb breakfast of egg and bacon, and headed out for a run.

This was the first time to run the route that I mapped out a few days ago, with the same net distance as my old route. It was interesting. Also humbling. I was going along Webster near University when I realized that a youngish woman was keeping pace with me. She was walking briskly, but still. I turned it up a notch to pull away.

I had been tapped for Craig’s bridge club at ten, so I didn’t stop at a coffee shop. Back home I showered and also shaved and brushed my teeth in the shower (no bathroom sink, remember?) and had a few minutes for my usual internet browsing.

Bridge was duplicate-style. I haven’t played duplicate since… I think it was probably the 1980s when Marian and I tried to play competitively for a few months. We even took lessons from a local expert to improve our conventions. We earned a few master-points but it just wasn’t fun after a while. This was probably my fault; I just couldn’t seem to develop the card sense for good play of the hand, and we kept being beaten.

Well, today I only made a few stupid mistakes, and on the whole didn’t embarrass myself. But geez, 22 boards is a lot of bridge. I guess I’m committed for next Monday but that may be it.

For what was left of the afternoon, I worked on moving in better. I toted stuff down to the basement storage. I decided to move my clothes from one closet to a different one; then I moved less-used stuff to that closet. I moved all the remaining boxes in off the porch and lined them up in the bedroom. One box was the printer; I unpacked it and set it up and tested it.

There are two boxes of office-related stuff I need to go through tomorrow. Three boxes have books and objects that need to be on a shelf of some kind. Buying a handsome, open, shelf on which to put a few books, my decorative objects, and the house phone, is high on the to-do list.

A bit of a nap and it was time for supper. I’d been invited to eat with Betty and Jerry, and they added Gwen. So I got some very pleasant socializing. Well, it’s always pleasant to talk about yourself, which they encouraged me to do, but they are interesting people as well. There’s lots of interesting “real people” at Channing House, as Jerry pointed out.

I did what I shoulda done weeks ago, added two “pages” to this site (as opposed to blog posts) about me and about Marian. Then I put what WordPress calls a “menu” — more like a navigation bar — with links to them across the top.

Busy day. Big to-do for tomorrow, including, hopefully, selling the sofa and chairs.

Day 196, settling in

Sunday, 6/16/2019

I definitely need those blackout curtains. Or well, I suppose I could buy a sleep mask but I don’t like wearing those. Anyway, awake at 6. Paper didn’t arrive until 7:30; I hope it will come earlier on a weekday.

Awake, and dressed, with no paper to read, I started assembling the desk. It went together fairly easily, and was done about the time the paper arrived. Later in the day I unboxed and set up my big iMac and the file cabinet. Here’s how my almost-complete bedroom/office looks now.

Panorama makes it all wonky. The printer will sit on the cabinet to the right. Out on the deck are some boxes of stuff yet to be sorted out, as well as a big pile of empty boxes to be disposed of.

I took the paper and walked out to find Sunday morning coffee and a baked good. I first looked in at Blue Bottle Coffee on University. Not a nice atmosphere, dark and cave-like, and I didn’t think much of their baked good selection. So up the street to Paris Baguette. Better baked goods. Still not right. On the way home (note word choice) I noticed that The Prolific Oven is even closer than the other two. That’s where I’ll try next week.

Now I launched on a long mess of errands. Things to get from the old house, things to buy. Paper towels for a fascinating example. At Fry’s I got a short coax cable to solve the splitter interface problem. Then at 12, Bill, the buyer of the bed, came in his large SUV, and I helped him in the half-hour long task of breaking down the bed. It was pretty complicated with various drawers and frames. Eventually he got all the pieces fitted into his car and off he went. Unfortunately he did not want the fine McCroskey mattress, so now I have that to dispose of, along with the pillow-top and the mattress cover that were over it. And the feather duvet. Well, that might sell.

At 2340 I took down the AT&T internet modem and tossed it in the car. After a few more stops, and thinking I was done, I remembered it. Oh heck, I have to back-track to the AT&T store at Page Mill and El Camino. I do that, and walk in with the modem under my arm and say, I want to cancel my internet. Oh no, says the friendly young floor rep, you have to do that online. Then they will send you a return kit for your modem.

Meanwhile, I’ve received an email saying the return kit for my DVR is on its way. Despite the fact that I’m positive I purchased the DVR, I realized it is stupid to refuse to return it. It has no use to me anyway, and nobody would buy it. So, I’ll return it.

Back at 621, I fiddled with getting the TV to work, and set up the big iMac, and took a short break before heading out to meet with Chuck. I did not feel like driving more, so on impulse I took a Lyft to his office just off California Avenue.

Bottom line from a long discussion: we really don’t understand L.L.’s motivations or her situation. She has treated her own agent as well as me, rather badly. However, that deal isn’t over yet. She put $50K into escrow. The deal isn’t over until she presents a document for me to sign, telling the escrow manager it is ok to return that. She hasn’t presented it, and conceivably still could come back to close the deal.

In the meantime, we are under no obligation to her, and can market the property to anybody and sell it if we get another offer. So we talked about the timeline for doing that. The critical path item is to get the house emptied, so that it can be painted. That can’t happen until The Sale. Later I talked to Deborah, and she really can’t hold the sale before July 6-7. After that she needs another couple days to clear any unsold items either to trash or a charity. So Chuck is now to schedule a painting contractor to start work on 7/11. He will also get a quote on my favorite upgrade, converting the step-in tub/shower to a walk-in shower. And if the L.L.’s foundation inspection has any action items, we can do those as well.

Back home again, I set up my new Comcast X1 DVR. Its remote has voice input, which I rather pooh-poohed but in fact it works amazingly well. You hold down the mic button and say “Find So You Think You Can Dance” and release the button, and it immediately shows exactly the words you said in text on the screen and executes the search. In this way I quickly set up subscriptions to the 25-odd shows I had subscribed on the old DVR.

The only time the voice unit failed was when I asked for the car show, “Find Fantom Works” and it looked for “Phantom Works” and said it couldn’t find it. Ok, B for effort.

Anyway, the TV is working, the DVR is working, sound bar is working, both computers are up, all the furniture is assembled. I have a stack of boxes as well as a lot of stuff that is just piled in a closet to sort out, but it’s a good start.

Day 195: Moving out

Saturday, 6/15/2019

Up about 6; look out; no newspaper in the driveway. That’s as it should be. Later today I expect to find my newspaper on the floor in front of the door of #621. Made my coffee, dressed, sat for a short while to drink the coffee. Then launched into the Saturday to-do list I’ve been curating since about Wednesday.

First up, strip the linens off the bed and start them laundering. Fold the colorful crocheted bed cover we made (hey, I crocheted at least 1/5 of the squares!) and set with other soft things to be packed.

Strip the mattress cover and put it in a pile with both pillows, to be discarded. Under its cover the McCrosky mattress looks good. I hope that Bill, the buyer of the bed, will take it with him tomorrow. Organize all the crap in the bathroom. All medicaments and supplements in a single bag. Toiletries and blah blah arrayed around the sink. All the little drawers opened and emptied. Finish coffee, put cup in dishwasher and start it. Several other things.

About 7:30 I had pretty well cleared the list. Looking at the plants on the porch, I noticed that two of them — shit, I cannot remember what they are, common name “Chinese something”, big green leafy things that thrive in indirect light — are kind of flopping out of their pots. Their stems have grown and want to lean. They could easily flop around and break during transport. Check online: Summerwinds nursery opens at 8:30.

Then I work my way through DirecTV and into myATT and find the customer service number, and cancel my DirecTV service. Shavonda, the rep, is very pleasant. Toward the end she is telling me I can return my AT&T DVR anytime in the next few — hold on there, Shavonda. I bought this DirecTV-made HDR-2 myself from Amazon.com, when we switched to hi-def about eight years ago. Oh. Well, it shows here that when you first started, a long time ago, you got a DVR from us. Well, I seriously doubt that, but if I did, it is gone to I don’t know where. Well, we probably don’t care it being so old and all, but… and she kind of leaves it hanging. If they bill me for a DVR… I’ll probably just eat it.

I drive down to Summerwinds and buy a bundle of 2-foot bamboo sticks and some plant ties. Stop at Peet’s for a cappuccino to go. Back home, I stake the Chinese wossnames in their pots. Then move a couple of boxes of video and computer related parts including my new XFinity DVR and modem, to the car, rather than having the mover box them.

Laundry and dishwasher finished; I fold the linens and stack them with the other linens and towels that may or may not sell. Empty the dishwasher and put the few mugs and utensils I’m taking to my mini-kitchen, in a designated section of the kitchen counter.

And it’s 9am and nothing more to do but wait — for the movers at 10:30, and for the L.L. and her Ex coming sometime to do a foundation inspection.

When I weighed myself this morning I was 170 and a fraction. In the fall of 2018 I noticed that my weight was down to 175 from (probably) about 185 a year earlier. That was pretty clearly due to stress and irregular meals while dealing with Marian’s illness. The past few months it has been fluctuating between 172-174. This past two weeks I’ve lost another 2 pounds. I am almost down to the 169 that I considered normal when I was in college. I feel perfectly healthy; so I’ll put this down to the stress of the impending move. It will be interesting to see if it pops up in July after I settle in.

At 10:15 the movers rolled in and went to work. Three young guys, tall, muscular, talking among themselves in some middle-european language. They are fast and thorough. They wrap every small object in paper. They tape every box on every seam. They wrap every piece of furniture in quilts, tape the quilts down, then wrap that in plastic sheet. Despite all the wrapping, they are done and the truck is loaded at 12:40. They head off for lunch, I go to CH to pick up my key and see the room for the first time in a month.

It’s pretty much how it should be. First: the morning paper is right there. Let’s hear it for the SJ Merc circulation department.

However, I’m supposed to have black-out curtains in the bedroom, and do not. There’s a bodged job of mounting a bar in the kitchen closet. These things to be taken up with Angela on Monday. Also, in the kitchen I have only a plywood counter, no sink. In the bathroom, ditto. Some of the cabinet doors don’t open; this may be because of the missing counter top, or rather, the temporary plywood counter top.

Nevertheless, the unit is just as pleasant as I remembered it, bright, airy, with a great view to the East where I can just make out the profile of Mount Diablo. I have been left a tray with some brie and crackers and a champagne glass, and in the fridge is — a bottle of champagne! Nice. Also, useful, the brie and crackers, since lunch service is just over. I nosh on cheese and crackers, and the movers come through the open door at 1:30.

Luis, from the maintenance staff, also arrives then. Since the bed parts aren’t up yet, he starts on my cafe table and chairs, then abandons them to attend to a problem with the building HVAC system. The movers keep bringing stuff in, and I keep directing them to put things here, or there, which is difficult since most of the load is square boxes with minimal notes (“Living room”) written on them.

Eventually the bed parts are in and Luis returns with a partner, and they set to work.

It’s very complicated and takes the two of them over an hour. Meanwhile I finish assembling the two small chairs and the cafe table, and also the armchair. I also open all the boxes. Some of them I move to the deck to be dealt with next week. Some I move to different places and partly empty.

At a certain point I email a panorama of the general look to Amy the designer who helped me plan the furniture.

The panorama mode makes it look weird. Also I’ve added and moved stuff since, but that was the basic living room arrangement and it’s quite comfortable and inviting in real life. I need another piece or two, especially a bookcase for the small number of books I still have, and/or some kind of shelving to display decorative objects that are still in a box. But basically this is it.

When the guys finish the bed I thank them lavishly and they go. (N.B. tipping is verboten at CH, so at least I don’t have to worry about should I have tipped or not.) I make up the bed with the sheets provided, and my new blanket and pillow, and the old crocheted bed cover. I realize I stink, and take a shower. The shower is OK. I dress in clean clothes and go down for supper at 6:40.

While I’m eating I get two things on from Chuck. First is, he has forwarded to me a voice-mail that he received from the other agent. (I didn’t know you could do that!) In the voice mail the agent, Lynn, explains in vague terms that Daphne was expecting to get “a certain signed document” from her ex-husband, and she has not received that document, so she can’t go forward with the deal. In a follow-up text, Chuck says he is “just deeply perplexed” and “It sounds as though their divorce has some loose ends which were not revealed to us.” Oh, yah think?!? It was the same ex-husband who came with her not once but three visits. It’s all just — this is highly unprofessional stuff from a woman who’s supposed to be a partner in a law firm.

Chuck and I will meet tomorrow at 4 to plan what to do next. Obviously we are not going to accept any more tentative or conditional offers from this buyer. If she came along and said, OK, I’m ready to put the full agreed price into escrow and sign now, no ifs or buts, fine, I’d take her money. But nothing less than that.

After supper I set up my Comcast modem which is providing me with sparkling internet access right now. I did not attempt to set up the new DVR, in part because the splitter that Comcast gave me, to divide the cable between the modem and the DVR, has a male input, while my wall plug has a male output. Splitters don’t do gay sex. So tomorrow I need to get either a short piece of coax or a splitter with a female input.

Also I’m a little bit tired, can’t imagine why, and I’m going to go and sit up in my new bed and read and hopefully sleep.

Day 194, counting down to move

Friday, 6/14/2019

First up, I went for a run (“the last run on this route” — just about every thing I did today was “the last” something.)

Then I rearranged the to-do lists, moving “Kill AT&T and DirecTV” to Saturday morning, just in case they would actually cut off service immediately. Then did a bunch of small things, including the laundry. I’m trying to arrange so that all my clothes are either clean, or on my body, when the movers come.

I found two drawers of stuff I’d never triaged! One was the travel drawer, all the stuff like toiletry bags, foreign plug adapters, etc. that one would rummage through when packing for a trip. The other was just a drawer of “decide later” items that I’d collected back in, probably, December. Well, “later” is here, so I went through that, selected a few things to keep, left the rest for Deborah to try to sell.

I was still flip-flopping on the TaskRabbit thing. TaskRabbit support responded with the PDF of their Certificate of Insurance, so I emailed that to Angela. (Responded at 8am to a ticket I opened at 10pm, not bad.)

Then I drove to Channing House and found Angela in her office. She was in the middle of conferring with the new Director of Facilities, who introduced himself, so that was handy. We settled that I would get at least enough Facilities help to set up the bed, and as much more as they would be able to do on a Saturday. She reviewed the PDF I’d sent, and she and the Facilities guy looked at it and agreed that normally, such documents name the organization, in this case Channing House, specifically, and this one was generic. She said she would ask them for a customized one, and I saw later she’d written to support@taskrabbit, copying me, but I doubt there will be any useful reply. So I canceled that Task, and I’ll rely on CH staff.

Back home, I shut down the big iMac and packed it up in the original form-fitting Apple shipping box. And then… there’s nothing more to do, today.

Well, while at CH, I picked up my mail, and there was the bag of TO-5 form transistors that I wanted to replace the two a museum visitor filched. So I have the transistors to show-and-tell. (Specifically the TO-5, which look like metal top-hats on three legs, because that is the shape of the transistors on the circuit boards that are on display. It’s an old style not much used now, but I think having the one I show look just like the ones on the exhibits, is important.)

OK, but I hand the transistors around for inspection in a little clear plastic box. It was the perfect size, about 2 inches tall and about ¾-inch square, to hold two transistors. I can’t remember where I got said box, but it is gone now. So I spent a wonderful half hour on the internet trying to find a similar box. Amazon, Etsy, Ebay, Nope.

At 3:30, Deborah texted, could I see a buyer for the desk today? OK. So I hustled around and cleaned the dust off Marian’s desk. Sam arrived and we carried it out to his car and he gave me cash. Deborah says with Craig’s List, cash is king. I’m not used to having a wad in my pocket. I need to do a cash deposit pretty quick, my money clip is stressed.

Deborah wanted to know how old the desk was. I am not sure. Marian had it when we married. From 1965 to 1968 she was in Hawaii and I doubt she would have shipped a lot of furniture back and forth. So I can only guess she bought it between 1968 when she settled in her apartment in Menlo Park and started working at IBM’s Watson Court building, and 1973 when we married. I told Sam it was probably bought around 1969-70, and he was very impressed. “So, it’s like… fifty years old already?” He looked about 40-ish to me, so I guess, anything is an antique if it’s older than you are?

A week ago, a Susan Gilbert at CH emailed asking if I’d join them for dinner Friday night, so at 5:15 or so I need to leave for that. A Social Event. Tidied myself up for that.

OK let’s try to remember names. Susan and Keith Gilbert. Keith said, “Your biggest problem moving in, is remembering all the names. Like me.” I gotta like this guy! They’ve been at CH for just a year. Ann Clark, Bob Schwaar, longer time. Lennie Stovel, she is new also, and hasn’t moved in yet. Impressive people generally. Lennie managed software development for Stanford Libraries. They’d all attended colleges like Wellesley, MIT, Stanford.

Burning off the last recorded shows on the DVR which will be shut down later.

Day 193, Shustek, realty, bed, TaskRabbit

Thursday, 6/13/2019

A strange emotional thing this morning. As I was starting my drive to the Shustek center for a day of artifact work, I was thinking about the impending move, and suddenly I was full of emotion, sadness, grief. I was driving down 101 wiping my eyes and cursing that I didn’t have any Kleenex in the car.

I’ve been cruising along, staying on top of the situation, managing the logistics of buying furniture, packing, scheduling, like a boss, and while occasionally feeling unfocused anxiety, not any strong emotion. And suddenly this business of moving house was a major thing. I couldn’t talk about it without my voice getting husky and breaking. It’s like grief for my lost partner, but now for losing a home. Or, as I wrote back on day 3 or 4, another big shard of the old life falling away.

Well, you can say this for grief, it sure clears the sinuses.

At Shustek, Greta asked me to do packing. After new objects come in and are cataloged, they move to the “need photo” rack.

Tray of seven happy artifacts waiting to be scanned

After they are photographed, they move to the “pack” rack. Now small artifacts get stowed in acid-free cardboard trays, which get stacked in acid-free cardboard boxes and, after all the bar-codes have been scanned so we know what box every object is in, the boxes will get shipped to the Yosemite warehouse for shelving.

The last time I did this work was seven or eight years ago, when the museum was packing the whole collection for the initial move to the Yosemite warehouse. It’s a nice Tetris-like puzzle game. The objects may be in this tray for many years. They shouldn’t be touching each other, because over time plastic can weld onto whatever it touches. We use archival bags and bits of foam to ensure that, and to keep them from moving. We test movement by tilting the tray 30º each way, nothing should move.

So I did that for three hours plus a break for lunch, then I had to leave early in order to meet with Chuck and Deborah at 3pm. Chuck had not met Deborah before; she was recommended by someone he used to work with but this was their first meeting. They got on well; I imagine he will call on her to manage client sales in the future. Chuck and I discussed the L.L. and her husband. He still isn’t sure what motivates her. She’s pretty tightly wound, apparently. We just don’t know if she is going to go through with the deal or will have a panic attack and pull out at the last minute. The last minute would be 5pm Saturday, when the time mentioned in the acceptance letter expires.

Chuck had just gotten a text from the other agent, saying that L.L. and her ex-husband slash architect wanted to do one more walk-through and inspect the foundation — on Saturday morning. I said, if they don’t mind stepping between guys moving boxes out to a van, sure. So maybe I’ll get to meet her. I’m not worried about them looking at the foundation, there’s a good story to tell there, about having it repaired and the house bolted down in 1990.

We talked about what to do if she does bail, and scheduled the day of the big estate sale with Deborah, for July 6/7.

About this time Bill, a client of Deborah who wanted to see the bed, arrived. He looked at the bed, gave me $200, and we arranged he could pick it up Sunday at noon.

On Wednesday I’d emailed Angela to confirm having Facilities help setting up furniture on Saturday. Today she wrote back saying I could have two hours of free facilities time and somebody would be available 2-4 Saturday however, the person might be called away if there was some higher priority item to do. What?

So now I tried to set up a TaskRabbit arrangement. But Angela said, they don’t allow outside workers without a Certificate of Liability Insurance. Now ensued a period where I texted back and forth with the particular “Tasker” I’d chosen, while myself delving deep into the TaskRabbit.com website, trying to find the elusive C. of L.I. He thought he’d found it, but it was at a URL that could only be opened by someone logged in as a Tasker, not by a Client. Eventually he sent me a screen capture of the document, which I forwarded to Angela, but by then it was after 5pm.

Later that Tasker just canceled out of the job. I restarted with another, but at 9:30pm he had no more luck at finding the elusive document. He said he’d try to get back to me by tomorrow at noon. Meanwhile I sent a late email to Angela stressing I would want a Facilities person between 2 and 4 Saturday. I figure if I also have managed to qualify the outside contractor by then, fine, there’s work enough for both.

I may end up assembling my bed by myself, and will be rather grumped if that occurs.

Day 192, A/C repair, FOPAL, Elton John

Wednesday, 6/12/2019

Last night I had good results from the Yelp “get quotes from several vendors” system. Three of four HVAC companies responded to my request for repair of the condenser fan. Two said, maybe next week or later. But one said, “Thursday” and then said “Maybe tomorrow”. This at 10pm!

With no A/C, the only way to get the house temp down is to open all the windows, set the HVAC on “circ”, and wait for the outside air temp to go down. Which it did only very slowly (where oh where has the onshore flow gone?). It was past 2am when I felt any need to get under the blanket. At sunrise the outside temp was 73, the inside 75. They were pretty well equalized by 7am, so then I closed the windows and drapes. The house is quite well insulated for an old building, and it will probably stay under 80 until mid-afternoon.

Now (8am) I’ve nothing to do but wait for (1) a callback from the HVAC company and (2) the arrival of the appraiser, and Chuck, around 10am.

8:40, yelp message from the HVAC (Herz Appliance Repair) that a repairman is coming between 10-11am. I am pleased.

The appraiser, a cheerful guy about my age who says these estate-related appraisals are 80% of his business, rolled in at 10. He busily measured the house and took a page of notes, and said he would email me the PDF in a week or so.

The repair guy came and in two minutes had spotted a large capacitor in line with the compressor and fan, which had bulged and melted in a most dramatic way. It took an hour during which he spent a lot of time on the phone getting advice from somebody, but he replaced it and the system works again, yay!

I spent 3 hours at FOPAL tending my computer section and sorting. During which Chuck texted that the L.L. and her ex-husband — who apparently actually is an architect! — want to have one more look, around 7:30pm, ok? Oh, ok. No, wait; Deb had said that a buyer for the bed would come at 6:30. So I texted her, and she texted back that the buyer had never gotten back to her, “Craig’s list flakes” she grumped. So there was no conflict; L.L. could come ahead.

I had somehow skipped lunch, so about 4pm I went to the In-and-Out burger place on Rengstorff and had a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake, nummm, as both lunch and supper. Then home for a brief nap, and to pick a movie to go out to, by way of passing the evening away from home. I picked Rocketman, an Elton John bio-pic because it was nearby and started at a convenient time, 6:30.

The movie was a rather sad downer, in that it very convincingly portrayed Reg Dwight’s loveless childhood and his miserable loveless life up until he put himself into rehab. It had about the steamiest man/man love scene I’ve watched. It would have been steamier than usual if it were a hetero sex scene, but with nude guys… Well, that’s just me, the innocent who (apparently unusual in this day and age) doesn’t watch porn on his computer.

Also unlike music bio-pics, and here I am thinking of Bohemian Rhapsody which I watched just a few weeks ago, Rocketman did not have a lot of emotionally satisfying musical performances. It seems to me that in Bohemian Rhapsody, in between all the drinking and sex, we got to watch several complete, or nearly-complete, Freddy Mercury performances. In Rocketman there is just one real “wow what a great song” scene, when Elton first performs “Crocodile Rock” at the Troubador in L.A., the breakout performance that made him a star in the U.S. And even that one, they cut short. All his and Bernie Taupin’s other great songs are done in snippets, or as accompaniment to big production numbers.

The movie only gets happy in the closing credits, when it shows you the real Elton John and recaps his career since getting sober, “28 years and counting”, his charity work, etc.

During the movie Chuck texted that the L.L. and her ex were done, and things still seemed positive.

Day 191, power out, stuff, painting, condenser

Well, last night was interesting. About quarter to seven I was watching TV when I noticed red lights reflecting on my walls. Looked out, there’s a fire truck parked in the street. And just then the power went out.

I joined other neighbors on the street. Pat and Rich down the block had noticed fumes coming from a transformer on the utility pole opposite their house. They called various numbers and got no quick response, so finally they called 911 and got a fire truck in 5 minutes. The fire crew were standing around looking at the fuming transformer (like a 30-gallon oil drum up at the top of a rather high pole) when the power went out for our block.

The P.A. Utilities arrived a few minutes later, as one guy in a van. He looked up at the pole and talked into a mic. A few minutes later a truck with a cherry picker arrived. This guy went up in the air and looked at the transformer close up. And came down and talked on his mic for a while.

I went back in the house. It was now too dark for reading print. I read on my laptop for an hour, by which time there were two utility trucks, working different poles along the street. So I went to bed. As on the previous night, our Pacific Ocean cooling breezes failed to come in. It was still over 80º at 9pm. Expecting the power to come on, I lay on top of the bed in my clothes.

At 10pm the light came on! I had just sat up when it went off again. I looked out; the utility guys were still working. At 2:45am I got up to pee; they were still working, now on a pole across from my house.

At 4am the lights came on to stay. There were still two Utility trucks and several workers. Hats off to the P.A. Utilities for working all night. This morning I see there are what looks like new transformers on two poles. Mind you, each pole has wires coming off in several angles to serve different houses. It is no joke steering the bucket of a cherry picker up through that to remove and replace heavy pieces of equipment — in the dark. Good work, guys.

Tuesday, 6/11/2019

Owing the heat I decided not to do explicit exercise this morning. Instead stayed in and took care of more minor to-dos.

I went around the house clipping the Virginia Creeper tendrils back from the windows.
I went on eBay and found somebody selling old-style (TO-5) transistors and ordered a few to replace the ones that some visitor pocketed from me (Day 188).
I made PDF files out of my Medical Power of Attorney and Advanced Health Care Directive documents — the same documents I need to hand in at C.H. — and emailed them to the people named in them as my representatives, Dennis and Darlene.
Then I went on the DocuBank site. This is a site where you can file your medical info, and you carry a card with your user id and a PIN, and any provider can download your info. I checked; yup, it had my old Advanced Directive, naming Marian as my rep. So I uploaded a new one.
I went out to the Comcast/XFinity store and picked up my new DVR and cable modem boxes, and stopped at Fry’s to buy a digital audio cable.

Somewhere in this flurry, Deborah texted to find out when a buyer could take my bed. I said, I don’t need it after Saturday. Could they get it Saturday? Um, no, I’m gonna be kind of busy; is Sunday OK?

Chuck texted; the Lawyer Lady wants to come by “with an architect” to measure the house inside and out to make remodeling plans. Could they come at 2? Oh sure why not. So at 1:45 I left and for lack of a better option (in hindsight I can think of several) went to FOPAL and did sorting for 2 hours.

Then at 4 I came home, changed shirts, and drove to CH for the 6th Floor Meeting and supper after.

This meeting was helpful in one way. CH encourages people to hang their art on the hallway walls. The wall outside your unit is your gallery space. You are supposed to identify your prints and paintings with your name on the back, but there are many that are not identified. People die or move away, their relatives don’t pick up their art (or don’t care), things collect.

There is a large painting of a lighthouse just opposite the 6th floor lounge where the meeting is held. Agenda item 1, Craig announced, is that one of the residents would really like to have this for themselves, as the wife grew up near the depicted lighthouse. The painting has no name on it and nobody has claimed it. Would the assembled meeting be willing to give the painting to so-and-so. Aye, so moved.

Next, what to hang there? Someone had offered a painting of the Stanford Quad. A picture of it was passed around on Craig’s phone and nobody much liked it. Well, I have my Linsky painting of Yosemite Valley and had been wondering where I could hang it for public view that would have adequate light. I put my hand up and offered it, and later passed around its picture on my phone. Everyone liked it, so that’s done. On Saturday it can go straight up on the wall opposite the lounge.

After supper I looked at my phone and found Chuck had texted about the L.L.’s visit. One, it wasn’t an architect she’d brought, but her ex-husband! Looking for his OK? Apparently he approved, anyway. Two, the $50K deposit has been wired to the escrow. That doesn’t mean the sale is locked in, she could still pull out, but it’s pretty solid. And three, oh by the way, while they were there, they noticed the A/C condenser smoking, and pulled the breaker on it.

See the first paragraph of yesterday’s post! Did I jinx myself? I put the breaker back and tried the A/C. I could hear a relay click, but the condenser fan doesn’t turn. The condenser is pretty old — I could go get the red binder and check, but why — so not a surprise. I went on Yelp and did the thing where you request quotes from multiple vendors. Hopefully I can get it fixed this week.

Day 190, early bird gobbles worms left, right

Monday, 6/10/2019

This is the first day of the week leading up to my move to Channing House. Also the second day of a heatwave. Yesterday the A/C started up for the first time this year. I was pleased it seems to be working fine. I worry about something expensive breaking before I can get the place transferred to its new owner.

Due to the promised heat I started my run at 7:30, and was back in the house about 8:40, which is the hour when I usually set out, in cooler weather. Showered and shaved I started into a to-do list. Item one was to plant out the Bathroom Plant. Long boring story here. For decades we’ve had some kind of green plant in a nice pot behind the basin in the bathroom. There’s a triangular space just right for one. For the last, oh, decade? it has been a single plant, some kind of a thing that grew up in a single stem putting out radial shoots with pretty finger leaves, kind of like a miniature cannabis. Every couple of years it would get too big. Marian would ruthlessly whack off the top six inches, throw out the bottom, stick the cut-off top in fresh potting mix, and it would grow up again, a single stalk with pretty leaves. Last time she did this, I took the bottom with its root ball and planted it out in the back garden.

OK, I’m moving out, the new owner will likely demolish and rebuild the bathroom (at least, that’s what Chuck would have done as part of “staging” the house, had we got to that), so the plant needs to go. I took it out of its pretty pot; put that with the other pretty pots to be sold for two bits each, if that, in The Sale; dug a wee hole next to its previous incarnation, which is thriving in the back yard, and stuck it in. Good luck, little plant.

Next up, the wax plants. These are sentimental favorites of mine. They started from a single cutting that Marian’s long-time friend Lolly gave her. They’ve been hanging in two windows for at least a decade, surviving on a single, weekly watering, putting out copious blooms of their tiny amethyst and white flowers a couple times a year. I want to take them with me to CH, just for nostalgia’s sake, but how? It is possible to have pot hangers put up but it requires scheduling a facilities person, and also knowing where you want the bracket to go. No way to set that up prior to the move. So I bought the wrought-iron hangars in the picture on Amazon. They aren’t tall enough to handle the existing pots, which were suspended by two-foot-long wires. So I bought the nice hanging pots shown, also on Amazon (although I did shop three local nurseries first). Now it was time to transplant them.

The one in the kitchen window was growing in a round pot smaller than a tennis ball. I knew that inside that pot would be a solid sphere of roots and I would have to break the pot to get it out. I did, and it was. I cut it back quite a bit first, then broke the pot and moved it, pulling and tucking the branches to pass through the strings. And soaked it good.

The one from the dining room window was easier to get at, sitting in a 5-inch plastic dish. Again a solid root ball, actually a disk, which just fit the mouth of the new pot. This one I didn’t cut back, but that meant I had to do a lot of violence to the limbs to get them between the strings of the pot. Yeah, I could have untied the strings and re-tied them. But I didn’t. Anyway there they are, and if they don’t just wither up and die from the abuse, they’ll do nicely on the deck of my apartment.

About now I called Chuck to get a status on the sale. He had talked to the agent, who hadn’t heard anything from her client, but thought they would want to bring a building inspector and perhaps an architect, sometime this week. The appraiser is scheduled to visit on Wednesday. I don’t need an appraisal for the sale, but I do need it to document the value “as of” December, so Katie the Tax can properly calculate the value of Marian’s estate. If by chance the appraiser comes in with a number higher than we’ve settled on with the buyer, I could possibly claim a tax loss on the sale. (Hmmm — if by chance he came in lower than the sale price, I would by the same logic have to pay for a capital gain!) I don’t care about either; I will only emphasize to the appraiser that I want a number that will be bulletproof under the gaze of an IRS agent.

To-do items continued to fall: I mopped the kitchen floor, which needed it; I swept the wood floors in the bedroom and living room; I got out a copy of my Health Care Directive (aka “living will”) and my Power of Attorney and set them aside to drop off at CH next time I’m there, which I should have done two weeks ago.

Then I did something I only conceived of in the middle of the night last night. I was imagining showing the new owner around, giving her the benefit of years of experience with the house. I’d like to do that IRL, although it probably won’t happen. But, in the depths of the night, I imagined she would want to see the attic, and I remembered that in the attic there were several rat traps I had placed the last time we had unwanted roof-rat tenants. And very possibly there would be a mummified dead rat in one of them. Not cool! So I got out the ladder and climbed up into the attic and cleaned out the rat traps. There was one mummified rat, but it was out on the floor, not in a trap. Odd. Then I climbed under the house, just far enough into the crawl space to grab the three rat traps that I had put under there two years back (no dead rats). All into the trash. Now, if Lawyer Lady wants to see the attic or crawl space, she won’t be shocked.

(I am assuming that a thirty-something partner in a law firm is not a handy-person, rather one whose only acquaintance with screwdrivers involves orange juice and vodka, and who’ll have only a remote intellectual interest in things like attics, drains, or irrigation. That might be totally unfair! It would be pleasant surprise to find she really was into home maintenance topics.)

Next item on the list was to order my Channing House TV service and DVR from Comcast. I called the number Craig game me and got an odd message, “the service you request is not available at this time, try again later.” (I did try later and got to a helpful customer service rep who set me up. I’m getting the fancy DVR that Craig recommended, and an upgraded channel selection, for a total of $25/month. Which is about $115 less than my current DirecTV subscription runs.)

And then I wrote all the above, and it is just 11:05. Let’s hear it for early starts! Next scheduled event is the 12-2pm window when my last two bits of furniture from West Elm are due. I think I’ll have a nap.

The furniture delivery arrived about 1pm, two very courteous guys unboxed and brought in my new settee and my media console. I am very pleased with the settee; it looks like quality, and the color and style of the woodwork exactly matches that of my 50 year old coffee table (it’s actual mid-century modern).

The media console looks good and its color and style coordinates well with the other items. There’s a bit of a problem in that my sound bar doesn’t fit very comfortably in it. From the web catalog page I had hoped it would. Actually, it might fit; if rotated up on its front edge it could tuck into the back, but I’d need to hold it in place with duct tape or something. Or it would fit nicely if I took a jig saw and cut out two, 4×6 rectangles from some uprights, heh. To be determined. Also the subwoofer box doesn’t go into it. I may look for a smaller subwoofer.

Once the delivery guys left, I went out into the heat (over 90 in the shade) and went down to FOPAL. On this day-after-sale weekend it is time to look at every book in the section. Ones that have been around for 3 months go the bargain room. Ones with prices over $4 get repriced lower. Then I culled the 5 boxes from the sorting room. These had a very high proportion of books over 10 (many over 20) years old. If they don’t cover some relatively timeless subject, they go. I ended up pricing and shelving only about 20 books from the five boxes.

I grabbed some bottles of soda from the grocery next door, and on impulse some Indian food from the deli counter, and headed home to relax in the glow of a day of accomplishments. Yay, me.

Day 189, grief, shopping, annoying news

Sunday, 6/8/2019

For perhaps the last time I walked our old route to the Palo Alto Cafe for coffee. On impulse I decided to return the way Marian and I sometimes did. From the cafe we’d turn left on Middlefield for a couple of blocks, then up a little pedestrian alley and through Hoover Park, a nice green space with a playground, a Little League ballfields, and trees. This decision gave me some discomfort today, because as I passed the little playground it came back to me very strongly how Marian would often stop here and swing on the swings for a few minutes. It meant something to her, some recollection of girlhood; and one of the few times she indulged in play. This memory had me sniffling and blinking all the way home (and a bit now).

Well. At 10 I headed out in the car to take care of a couple of shopping errands. First to Bed Bath & Beyond to buy a better blanket for my new “Full” size bed. The one I bought a few weeks ago is really not satisfactory, although I’ll take it along for backup. Also I bought a pillow, as the one I’m using now is several years (at least) old. Back home I tested out the one I bought; it is quite satisfactory. So those two items went on the pile of things to be loaded in the moving van next Saturday.

Second stop on the shopping trip was at Lowes home store. Here I needed to buy a vent cover for the furnace outlet in the kitchen. A couple of weeks back, I broke the existing one by leaning back in my chair with one chair leg on the vent. It looks bad, and I thought I’d replace it for the new owner. More importantly, I needed to buy cabinet pulls for the new cabinets in Apt. 621. I selected some nice-shaped brushed-nickel handles.

At 5pm I drove to Channing House. First stop was Angela’s office in the basement to drop off the door pulls. She was at her desk, and glad to see me because she was just about to write me an email. There’s been a snag in the scheduling. The two counter-tops, one for the remodeled kitchenette and one for the bathroom vanity counter, have been back-ordered. She’s been promised them for sometime between the 10th and the 17th, and just maybe one of them might be installed before I move in on the 15th. But if they are both still missing, I won’t have any kind of basin for washing hands or spitting toothpaste. Toilet, shower, closets, all OK, but no basin. We joked about how I could brush my teeth in the shower.

She had reserved one of their guest apartments for me to sleep in, if I don’t want to complete the move, but I said I’d tough it out. Worst case, I can come back and sleep at 2340 Tasso for a couple of nights, although I don’t expect to. It’s annoying but I can’t get angry about this; I’ve lived through construction projects and know how they can go. Angela does an amazing job coordinating a dozen or more projects simultaneously and I’m not going to grump at her.

Her second annoying news came when I told her that I’d be on my way to Greece on September 6th, which is the last day of the move-out period for the 6th floor. So, could she please schedule my move to temporary quarters for earlier in that week?

Well, actually, no, we can’t. We always do it from the end furthest from the freight elevator toward it. And #621 is the last apartment right next to the freight elevator. So probably mine would be the last or penultimate move. OK, I said, as long as you can do it without me. Yes, no problem. We’ll work with you to plan the move, we’ll know where everything goes, and you don’t need to be here for the actual move.

So there we are. Moving in with possibly no sinks, and when I come back from my cruise, I’ll see my temporary unit for the first time.

Day 188, scary purchase, transistor, dvr

Saturday, 6/8/2019

One week from right now (9am) I will be preparing for the moving van to arrive. But this morning I did something scarier: committed to a tour in September. I’ve been talking for a while about taking some kind of cruise or tour, probably with Road Scholar, in September, after I’ve been moved to my temporary flat. Where to? people asked, and I casually said, oh, maybe the Greek Islands.

So yesterday I opened up the Road Scholar website and browsed around, and continued doing that this morning, and finally settled on this one: “Island Hopping in the Aegean“. It seemed the best combination of places, dates, and especially price, because single-occupancy wasn’t a huge penalty over double. It took a while to muster the courage to click through the purchase process, and I hesitated a long time before committing and am still spooked by it. But it’s done. Unless I decide to bail in the next couple of weeks, I’m at least financially committed to spending September 6-20 cruising in a small ship around some Greek islands.

It would have been so comfortable to have just said, “nah, I’ll think about it later” and clicked away. I could feel the pull of mental and emotional inertia, like the gravity of a black hole… Some of the impetus to go through with it was that I spent some time yesterday and this morning reading through our New Zealand travel blog. Just ten years ago we did those six weeks in a van around both islands. Funny, an ongoing theme in those blog posts is the constant hunt for internet connectivity. I bet that isn’t such a problem today.

Spent a bit more time completing the documentation package for Katie the Tax. Then left for the Museum, stopping on the way to mail my estimated tax payments. I have to thank the Channing House email list for that. Although I had the envelopes and vouchers ready to go in the “Current Tax Year” pendaflex, with a post-it on them saying “mail before June 15”, I might well have forgotten. But there was an email earlier in the week reminding everyone that the deadline was coming. OMyGod yes! I thought. And wrote the checks and stamped the envelopes.

I wanted to put a return address on them but realized that my return address stamp, which I’ve been using since the 1980s, has the wrong (old) address. So I hand-wrote the 850 Webster return address, and then went online and ordered return address stickers.

At the museum I led a tour for, initially, 25 people, but several dropped off so I ended with about 15. Only notable thing was that someone swiped my transistors! I had two TO-5 transistors in a little plastic box, which I let the group hand around, it makes the comparison to the vacuum tube (which they have handled at a prior stop) much clearer. Today, the little box didn’t come back to me, and when I asked the group at the next stop, nobody had any idea. Bummer.

I went out for supper, then while watching Jeopardy I made a list of all the shows I’ve got subscribed on the DVR. Planning to subscribe to the same ones, or most of them, on the new XFinity DVR after moving in.