Day 14: Basketball

Saturday 12/15/2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 13, mo’ paperwork

Friday 12/14/2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 10, Lunch and handyman stuff

Tuesday 11/12/18

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 8, Sunday make and mend

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

Sunday 12/9/18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 7, and some musing

Saturday 12/8/18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 6, leather, papers, dishes, blood

Friday, 12/7/18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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

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

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

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

Day 5: root of the malaise?

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

Sidebar: Fifteen cushions

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

Thursday, 12/6/18

Walking, thinking

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

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

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

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

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

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