Day 198, gym, FOPAL, furniture

Tuesday, 6/18/2019

The morning routine is shaping up as pretty comfortable, not greatly changed from the old one. Make a cup of coffee in the apartment; sip it while reading the paper and watching the pre-recorded TV news. But in order to get anything to eat, I need to dress and leave the room. This kinda messes things up. The flow would be better if I could just eat adequately up here before dressing.

I just may in future start breakfasting on a meal-replacement drink. Not Soylent, although that would work. There’s another of the meal-replacement companies I follow that will sometime soon release a low-carb drink that I’ll try.

Today I wanted to drive to the YMCA. So I dressed in exercise clothes and went down to the dining room. When it is open, there is also an area with take-away food in a refrigerator. I had never checked it before. The selection for breakfast was not great. I took a bag with half a raisin bagel and a squeeze tube of Philly cream cheese. I noshed on this while driving to the Y.

On return from the Y, I did two errands. One was to stop at the UPS store and hand in the AT&T modem. They had sent me instructions and a sheet with a bar-code to print, and return was just that easy: hand the device and the sheet over the counter, get a receipt. So that was nice.

Not so nice was the next item: I went to my former home on Tasso street to pick up a couple of items. With many of the furniture items gone it has a vacant, neglected air that is really saddening.

Here I need to write about something that happened Saturday. There was so much to describe on that move-out day, and I skipped this, but pulling away from the house today I remembered it and think it was important to put down.

Saturday, after the truck had been loaded, I got in the car and started the drive to Channing House, and no surprise, was hit by strong emotions at the thought of leaving home. I was weeping as I drove, but part of the emotion was a kind of rage and determination. I was shouting our loud, lecturing myself, about You planned this; you mean this; it was a great house but and at this point it turned into a kind of chant or curse, no more fucking a/c breakdowns, no more fucking roof rats, no more fucking earthquake insurance, no more fucking noisy refrigerator, no more fucking worn-out dishwasher … and on for a couple of blocks naming all the irritations and stresses that came along with home ownership. So when I headed down the ramp into the C.H. garage I still had wet cheeks but was also felt oddly purged. During the last couple of weeks there were so many occasions when “This is the last time I’ll ever…” But there were lots of things that were good to never do again.

Today, pulling away, I was sad, but mostly sad because the place that had been home, didn’t feel like home any more. Another shard, falling away.

Back at CH I took a shower and got ready to go out again when the Wanda the 6th floor housekeeper knocked. I’d met her in the hall yesterday and was told that Tuesday was the day for her to clean my unit. I’d suggested Thursdays would be better because I was out all day. Now she told me that Thursdays at 2:30 would be her time in the future. Very accommodating.

I drove to FOPAL and put in an hour culling, pricing and shelving computer books. Then I felt rather feeble and tired, and realized, oh, right, I hadn’t had anything to eat all day but half a bagel. I got a sandwich at the nearby store and sat in the car to eat it. After a bit of rest, I put in two hours sorting before coming back.

Deborah had told me that someone was coming to see the sofa tonight so I planned to go out once again for that. But while I was eating dinner, I got another text; the person wasn’t coming. That left it open to stay at CH and see the second in a series of Hollywood musicals, Fred and Ginger in Swing Time. It’s the one with “This Is a Fine Romance”. Silly plot; two or three spectacular dance sequences.

Back in the room at 9, I realized I have SYTYCD on the DVR from yesterday. I think I’ll sit up and watch it.

Day 184, AT&T, FOPAL, upgrade, SYTYCD

Tuesday, 5/4/2019

Exercise this morning was a brisk walk to the Y and a round of exercise. The exercises I do there, that I think have the most benefit, are not possible with the equipment in the CH gym, so I will likely keep my Y membership.

That’s not a large expense but it annoys me because I thought I would be dropping it. But that annoyance was assuaged this morning when I had an

email from AT&T

saying that “my bill” was past due. No indication of which bill. So here’s the thing: for nearly a decade I’ve had DirecTV with auto bill-pay. A year ago AT&T absorbed DirecTV and its website, and now anytime you try to look at your DirecTV account, you end up being shuttled willy-nilly into myAtt.com account management. There it kept showing me that my $60 monthly bill for internet is paid up all proper. There is no freakin’ way to get from that account page to my DirecTV account, to check up on my bill or payment method for the TV service.

Well, there must be, because after I switched browsers and went through the sequence a fourth time, suddenly and magically I was looking at my bill for the month’s TV, $153. And I supplied the credit card data they already had and paid it.

One of the pleasures of leaving this house will the fun of calling AT&T and terminating both the internet and TV services. Saving me just over $210 per month, which more than makes up for the much smaller YMCA membership bill.

Now, true, at CH I will be what I have studiously avoided becoming for twenty years, a Comcast customer! Always avoided it because of Comcast’s horrible reputation for customer service. Hah! At CH, I’m not the customer; a medium-size business (Channing House) is the customer. I will be paying a small amount monthly for a Comcast, excuse me, XFinity, DVR, which costs extra. (I went over this in detail with Craig yesterday.) But that will be a pittance compared to what I’ve been paying DirecTV/AT&T all these years.

Anyway.

Yesterday when I spent time at

FOPAL

tidying the Computer section I was appalled at the flood of donations that came in and were piled up waiting to be sorted. Today another volunteer speculated that it was the result of the Palo Alto city-wide garage sale over the weekend — all the books that didn’t sell in garage sales, were boxed up and dumped at FOPAL. And some actually were “dumped”, about 8 boxes were just left outside the door, which is rather discourteous.

So I went down today again and spent another three hours sorting. Didn’t eliminate the backlog but took a serious bite out of it.

Then I bought a pound of coffee and some toilet paper (there wasn’t quite enough left to cover two more weeks) and headed home. From there I went over to CH to attend the

monthly Upgrade Update

meeting. This was to let all residents know the status and progress of the rolling floor-by-floor renovation. This meeting was particularly for the Seventh and Sixth floors.

The 7th floor people got their dates for when they would move back to their renovated apartments (August 12-23), and we 6th floors got the dates for when we would be moved out to temporary units (August 26 to September 9th). (Note to self: thoughts of taking some kind of cruise in the fall: book for mid-September.)

We also learned what our temporary units would be, and got floor plans for them. I will be moving to the 4th floor and the West side. The unit is almost the same size and layout as #621, so there won’t be any need to store any of my furniture, and most of it can go to the same relative position. The only problem I foresee is that my plants will have more light and heat from the Western exposure. Rather than hanging around an hour for supper I just went on home for a simple meal and to watch episode 1 of season 16 of

So You Think You Can Dance

Marian and I watched the previous fifteen seasons of this show and enjoyed them all. When I noticed the DVR had recorded SYTYCD I was a little worried, on two conflicting accounts. Would it be too hard to watch, being bothered by thoughts of “She would have enjoyed this so much”? And conversely, would I find out it wasn’t as good as I remembered, and wouldn’t be fun to watch when I didn’t share it with another fan?

Fortunately, neither. There were sniffly moments when I thought about how Marian would have enjoyed it, but they weren’t too frequent or intrusive. And the show was just as good as I remembered. Better than some years, in fact. In some past seasons they have tinkered with their format in various unfortunate ways. This year they seem to have gone back to the original format, augmented with a whizzy new stage — which incorporates a circle of cameras, so they can capture a dancer in the air and show them in full 3D — and new judges who aren’t embarrassing. So, yeah. Good watching.

Day 183, men’s group, FOPAL, tech, realty

Monday, 6/3/2019

The CH Men’s Group met at 10 and I was to introduce myself and “talk about anything you like”. So I gave a capsule autobiography with some pictures culled from my collection. Maybe I’ll write that into this blog at some point.

In order to get my usual exercise, I walked from Tasso street to Channing House and back again, net 10,900 steps for the day. Then I went to FOPAL to do the Computer section work. There were eight boxes of books waiting. I ended up keeping about 30 books, sending seven boxes to the bargain room. I ruthlessly discarded into the garbage can somebody’s donation of a bag of 50 or so, 3.5-inch floppies. Nobody cares and they aren’t recyclable. I also put in the recycling a complete FrameMaker product box, containing a set of manuals for that software. Nostalgia: there was a period around 1992-3 when I used FrameMaker 40 hours a week, writing manuals at Informix. It hasn’t been supported, or used, this century, and wouldn’t run on any existing hardware.

Pricing, as usual, turned up some “high value” (average online price greater than $25) books, including one boring looking little textbook whose prices ranged from $70 to over $200. Those went into the “high value” cart for those volunteers to sell.

From FOPAL I drove back to CH to attend a tech group meeting at 3pm. This was to introduce ClearPass, a system of access control for the CH internet provision, so that each apartment could have, in effect, its own little wi-fi network carved out of the big building network. In this way, your laptops, phone, desktop and wireless-connected printer can all see each other — you can print on your printer from anywhere, and your Macs can use Apple file sharing between them — but other users in the building can’t see them. It seems pretty slick, making a couple of hundred apparently unique wi-fi clusters out of one big system. They claim they use this solution for major universities so each student in a dorm has a unique “micro-net” for their devices. I took a bunch of notes on the phone.

Drove home via Safeway to pick up a few groceries. About six, Chuck called. He’d talked at length to the other agent. As was said before, the Lawyer Lady loves the house but is currently tasked with a huge responsibility for a “billion dollar contract” (probably an exaggeration) within her law firm and hasn’t had time to make any decisions. Her visit to the house on Friday was a success, she and her decorator friend love it even more.

I told Chuck I could sympathize with her having this huge crisis, and don’t mind her thinking about it longer; but on the other hand, I want to sell. We agreed he would re-run the ad in the Daily Post that he had suspended last week in respect of their offer. And we talked about how soon after I move out (in 12 days!) we can list the house. Sometime in July.

Day 177, unstructured

Cannabis report: 18mg CBD/4.5mg THC taken between 7:30 and 9pm had little effect. Perhaps a bit of dizziness when settling into bed. No other noticeable effects. Well, perhaps I had fewer wakings in the night. I think I’m done with these experiments.

Tuesday, 5/28/2019

Started the day with a walk to the YMCA. Then was faced with a blank calendar, for which I’m not well prepared. Put in an hour on Zooniverse, which is my #3 volunteer activity after CHM and FOPAL. Put in a couple of hours playing my space game. Did some reading.

Chuck sent the estimate for the appraisal, which I OK’d; and also a the counter-offer document for my e-signature. So that’s been presented. Tomorrow, or anyway this week, we will know if the house is sold. I don’t plan to go any lower than the counter.

Walked down to Philz Coffee out of boredom. Now looking at whether to go over to CH for supper, or just veg. out here. I don’t like blank calendar days.

Then Chuck called; he needs a couple of signatures to complete the counter-offer. I drive to his office and sign several bits of paper. Then, since I’m out in the car and it’s 5:30, I drive on over to CH for supper.

Day 170, FOPAL

Cannabis report: The Kiva gummies are fairly large. It occurred to me when I took two at 9:15, that a gummy, which largely dissolves in the mouth as you chew it, should be processed a little faster than a soft-gel or a chocolate. However, I felt no effects at all in the following hour.

Did the 12mg CBD/3.6mg THC dose affect my sleep? Possibly! I only woke up enough to check my watch one time (12:45), as opposed to 2-3 times in a typical night. I slept soundly from then to 6:10am. Now, how can I get a clearer picture of the situation? Should I not take any tonight? Unfortunately, sleep quality is so subjective that the placebo effect, or its inverse, is inescapable. The only way to be sure would be to have identical-looking gummies and have someone randomize them for me.

I think I’ll just continue with the third preparation I bought, the Kiva chocolate which has 5mg/5mg. That’s 40% more THC. Possibly will edge the THC level to where I’ll feel a buzz? But half the CBD.

Tuesday, 5/21/2019

Sent off an email to the advisors, saying I want to move on the infamous Form 706, estate tax portability. Walked to the YMCA through light rain showers, and back.

Since tomorrow has several things happening, I decided to do my FOPAL work today. I found 6 boxes of computer books waiting. After culling and pricing I shelved maybe 40 books, and sent four boxes to the bargain room. Then I did an hour and a half of sorting.

Bought a few grocery staples, then went home via the hardware store where I bought two, combination smoke and CO detectors, with voice alarms. A tinny little voice, based on what I hear pressing the Test button, but certainly if this voice starts squawking at you about smoke in the middle of the night, you’ll wake up. Tomorrow I should find time to mount them.

Tonight is a presentation of 42nd Street in the CH auditorium. There’s a resident, Robert, who is a film buff and organizes series of films. This is the first of an American Musical series. I had supper, and in the supper line was greeted by a couple of women as “the new man”. OK… Unfortunately the film didn’t really hold my interest. I left after about 40 minutes of it.

Day 167, dish, movie

Saturday, 5/18/2019

I’d been aware since yesterday that Saturday was a blank on my Google calendar. Nothing scheduled. But I know how important it is to Get Your Butt Out Of The House And Do Something. An aimless day of sitting around feels awful. So, eating breakfast, I’m thinking what to do, what to do.

Bailed out in part by the daily event calendar from CH. At 3pm they are going to show The Green Book in the auditorium. That’s a movie I meant to see in the theater and couldn’t sync up with Dennis to go. Also I’m curious to see how good their projection system and sound system are. So that’ll be the afternoon.

For the morning, well, a walk. Where? Why not the famous Dish walk? I’ve only done it once that I recall. Marian and I walked up as far as the Dish and back (a 2.5 mile round trip) maybe 5 years ago. I know it’s very popular and parking around the trailhead is scarce. Still, it was only 8:30, so I thought there should be space.

There wasn’t a spot on the first pass but I looped back and got a spot on the second. In hindsight, it would make great sense to take a Lyft to the entry gate, especially starting from Webster street.

The walk is pleasant but not easy; there are several steep upgrades. I did a full loop, nearly four miles, 9000 steps per the Health app, and 19 flights of stairs to show I wasn’t wrong about the upgrades. There were lots of people, of all ages and physical conditions. And turkeys:

From there I came down to California Avenue and had a cappuccino and a scone for brunch. At home I played two hours of the game I’m exploring. Then it was time to head for CH and the movie.

The projection system is just OK. It’s a big video projector mounted to the ceiling, and with the lights dimmed its color and brightness are OK. But something was wrong either with the DVD or the projector settings because it was showing the image at the hi-def TV 16:9 aspect ratio, while clearly it should have been in the slightly wider, widescreen movie ratio. Everybody looked slightly skinnier and taller than life. It wasn’t a bad mis-match and I could it ignore it most of the time. The sound also was OK, although it seemed like mono; if it was stereo the speakers aren’t far enough apart for the size of the room.

The movie was OK. Viggo Mortenson did a wonderful job of being an ignorant Italian tough guy. Mahershala Ali was impressive as both an actor and as a pianist. The script tried too hard and unsubtly to push the audience’s buttons, but it was hard to resist the manipulation.

cadillac-deville-1962-5 I could forgive a lot because the film also featured a 1962 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. I have a history with this car. When I first came to San Francisco, a dropout from the UW, my sister Joyce let me live in her apartment and also got me a job as a flunky at the Cadillac dealership where she was the PA for the dealership manager. So for one long summer I had the job of parking customer cars and bringing them back when the customers came to pick them up. I hopped in and out of these pretty machines hundreds of times. I can remember exactly how the steering wheel and shift lever felt under my hands.

After the film I sat around in the lobby reading for a bit until the initial 5:30 supper rush had subsided, then had a decent supper and came home to watch the Warriors, for the second game in a row, come from behind to beat Portland.

Day 156, showing, floor meeting

Last night I watched an episode of the New Zealand based crime show, Brokenwood Mysteries, streamed off Amazon Prime. Times past, I’ve used my Sony Blu-Ray player for this. It has the software to handle streaming video from various sources. However, its interface is really clumsy, as well as slow-responding. So this time I just streamed on the laptop. Now, I could run an HDMI cable from the laptop to the TV, and maybe another time I would. However this time I just reclined in my chair and rested the warm laptop on my tummy. Through the bottom half of my bifocals, the screen is about 25% bigger than my 48-inch TV. And the controls for pause, play, skip forward or backward, toggle subtitles (needed with NZ accents!), are all responsive and intuitive.

So the streaming experience on the laptop is at least as pleasant as that on the big screen. But somehow, leaning back with a laptop on my chest seems more self-indulgent than sitting up, watching exactly the same content, on the TV across the floor.

Tuesday, 5/7/2019

I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind wanted to fuss about a decision I made Friday. This is about a custom museum tour. I told on Day 151 about how I’d signed up to lead a custom tour of comp. sci. students on this coming Saturday. Then I had tried to contact Katharina, the docent manager, by email and phone, to express a concern about the timing and content. She’d ghosted me. On the Thursday, at Toni’s advice, I’d left a voice mail for the museum staff member who’d booked the tour, Poppy.

Well, Friday evening, after getting no call-back from Poppy, I removed my name from the schedule for that tour. Let them find somebody else. But now, at 4am, I am regretting that decision. My not leading the tour won’t help anything and probably won’t even be noticed by Katherina or Poppy. So at 4:30am I got up, got out the laptop, and re-booked myself for the tour. Now I see that another docent, Kim, has signed up for it as well. That’s appropriate, supposing the scheduled 30 students show up. If as is typical, it’s only half that, it’ll be overkill.

Then I did sleep until 6:40. About 8:30 I walked to the YMCA gym, for the first time in weeks. Back home, I tidied the house for showing at noon. I had been storing boxes containing disassembled, new furniture in the living room. I moved them to the middle room. Then I left and sat the local coffee shop until Chuck texted at 12:40 that they were out. This client is a single mom, an attorney, and she seemed interested. Chuck says she would like to see it again with her daughter and a friend. So that sounds good.

At 4:15 I went to CH for the sixth floor meeting. I’m trying to learn a lot of names. Phil, Jean, Ruth, Marcia, Gwen. Hope a few of those stick. After supper, came home to veg. out.

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 117, estate no-sale, lunch

Friday, 3/29/2019

Exercise today was to walk (not jog) to the nearest ATM for my bank, the Stanford Federal Credit Union. That’s 1.8 miles each way, per Google maps, and the iPhone agrees, showing 9,338 steps for the day.

Chuck the realtor arrived at 11, along with Sheri Galvin, a vivacious older woman who runs estate sales. She looked the house over, admired it extravagantly (“I’d buy it myself if I didn’t have my family living with me”) but ended up saying, “I don’t see $10,000 here! I need to see that before I can afford to run a sale, I have to pay my assistants and make a little myself out of my 35%.”

She did offer to help me run the sale myself, if I wanted to. For a fee she would come for a day and price everything, loan me card tables for displaying stuff, and so on. I’m thinking seriously about that.

Meantime, as I explained to her and to Chuck, I am in limbo, waiting on Channing House to come back to me with specifics. Here’s what I know will have to happen.

Kim Krebs calls me in to show me a contract.
She and I agree on what upgrades will be done to the unit, for example re-do the kitchenette, replace the drapes, and — Chuck reminded me — I take a close look at the bathroom and maybe ask for improvements there.
That gets added to the contract; really, want it on paper.
We agree on a time-line for the unit upgrades. That work is done by C.H. in-house maintenance staff, and I have no idea how fast they work or what kind of back-log they have.
I liquidate the mutual funds in the one Schwab account to fund the needed entry fee. Here I’m not certain of the exact procedure, do I do it over the web, or should I have my financial advisor do it?
Money gets wire-transferred from my Schwab account to C.H.; same questions as the preceding step.
I have legal occupancy of the unit, yay! Except, can I start moving in, or do I have to wait for the upgrade work, and how long will that take?
At least, with legal occupancy, I can bring Tyra the decorator in to plan, and I can start moving items from the house to the unit, if only to stack boxes in closets.
Tyra has a design and she and I go buy furniture to be delivered.
When (almost) everything I want to keep is out of the house, schedule Sheri to assist, and set a date for a sale.

All that could start happening as soon as C.H. finalizes my application. I don’t know why that didn’t happen this week, after I got medical approval. I picture my application sitting on somebody’s desk while they check my credit rating. (Hmmm…. I put a freeze on my credit ratings a year ago. Well, if they need to know, they can ask me. Now, where did I put the info on how to un-freeze a rating… I think I know…)

With all this in mind I went to lunch with Scott and Steve. Lots of talk about our mutual pasts at IBM.

Back home I ran the DVR through the WBB games that involved PAC-12 teams. Sixth-seed UCLA gave 2-seed UConn a scare, but finally lost. Oregon State gave 1-seed Louisville a respectable game and lost. ASU lost to 1-seed Mississippi State. Oregon, a two-seed, started slow against upstart 6-seed South Dakota State, but pulled ahead in the second half to win.

Day 108, a room of one’s own

Wednesday, 3/20/2019

Morning rain precluded a run, so I drove to the Y, did 20 minutes on a treadmill and some exercises. Back home I fixed a problem with

my iPhone!

For weeks it has bugged me that the “lightning” plug doesn’t want to stay in the phone. I use a lightning-to-USB connection to listen to podcasts while driving, and a lightning-to-audio “dongle” to connect my earbuds to listen while exercising. And the damn little spade connector wouldn’t stay in. I supposed that I would have to get it repaired at one of the independent shops, or maybe I would have to trade the phone in at the T-Mobile store, such a pain.

But on a whim I picked up the computer and googled “iPhone lightning won’t stay in” and of course, the internet knows all about this and the second or third link was how to fix it. With a toothpick! It turns out that the little rectangular hole in the bottom edge of the phone likes to pick up pocket lint. And each time you cram the connector in to charge the phone, it just tamps the lint down to the bottom. Gradually you build up a springy little pad of fluff at the bottom of the hole. Two minutes carefully probing with a wooden toothpick popped out little wads of lint. A shot of canned air, and boom! The plug stays in!

So in a good mood I set off for Channing House where — not to bury the lede — I was

offered a unit!

Not just a unit, but a very attractive, corner unit that just glows with sunlight. I walked in and said, “oh, wow.” Here is a pair of snapshots to show the impression on walking in.

Looking left – bedroom and bath over there

Looking right, kitchenette and side window

Well, ok, beige room. But lots of light. The outside deck extends across both rooms, and can be accessed from both. And it is about 6 doors down from Craig, the ex-IBMer who first showed me around C.H. back on Day 50!

When talking about the cost of entering C.H. I had been talking about the fee for a large studio on a lower floor, which is what I had been shown at first, and was all I thought was available. This is a large 1BR on a higher floor, so the entry fee (and the monthly rent) is about 20% higher. I don’t think I’ll put the amount here. But I can afford it, and this is a really nice room, I think. I can make a life here.

There are a couple of drawbacks to it. One minor one is that I’ve put in a couple of hours moving bits of furniture-shaped paper around the floor plan for that large studio. That time, and the uncounted minutes of imagining life in that space, are out the window. All to be done again.

The one real drawback is the rolling renovation at C.H. Right now they are moving people back to the 8th floor and off the 7th. Around the end of August, they will finish with the 7th floor. They will move the 7th floor back and at that point, probably September, they will evacuate the 6th floor, and I’ll be moved to another unit. Sometime around a year from now, they will be moving the 6th floor back and the 5th, out.

Among the changes in the renovation are that they place all the HVAC in the ceilings. Notice the heating unit to the right in the picture? That disappears, as does a similar one in the bedroom. Right now some of the electrical wiring is in visible channels around the top of the walls; that also disappears.

Well, this was a surprise, I expected to be told it could be weeks or months. But it appears that, pending a couple of more bureaucratic steps, I could be signing for this unit in a couple of weeks. Which means that probably early next month I can begin moving stuff I mean to keep out of the house directly to there; and hopefully turn the house over to Chuck and Amy to “stage” and sell in April; hopefully to close in May.

From there I went directly to my haircut appointment with Chris. I told her about all this, and how I really feel I

need a designer

to help me choose which furniture items to bring from home, and what to buy to complete this much larger space and how to arrange it all. Chris said, heck, my niece is a good designer, let me put you in touch with her. So that contact may turn into something.

From there I went to spend 3 hours sorting books at FOPAL; and then home to write emails to the tax person, to the financial advisers, and to the realtor. And then to do this blog. Hmph. Such a day.