Day 26, out of town visitors

Thursday, 12/27/2018

Today I had a long-planned visit from Joanne and Brad. Joanne is the daughter of Marian’s college roommate and long-time friend Lolly. Marian liked Joanne and Joanne shared Marian’s interest in birding. Joanne and Brad planned this visit back in November, expecting, of course, to see Marian. When that sadly did not work out, they came anyway and I was glad of their visit.

Besides Joanne and Brad, there were their daughter Sierra, and Ria, a visiting student from Thailand. As I had planned, I gave Joanne a silver and onyx pendant that Marian had made when she was learning jewelry-making in her 20s. The pendant is kind of large and clunky, but Joanne seemed to think it was quite wearable.

Then with some trepidation I invited the three women to look at the remaining items in Marian’s closet, those “better” items that consignment stores didn’t want (see Day 20). I thought they might flip their way through the hangers and see just old-lady stuff, but in fact they seemed to enjoy looking at everything and critiquing each other’s taste, and took away several items each.

Then as planned we went to look at the Stanford campus, although since the trip was planned Sierra has decided not to apply to Stanford. After a short walk around the quad and a bit of a drive around, they dropped me at home and headed off to meet another friend. So that was a pleasant and warming visit.

In the afternoon I spent another couple of hours on a programming project and actually made some progress.

In general I think I am feeling more comfortable in my new life. I haven’t been bothered by that low-level anxiety for several days. It’s easy to trip into spasms of grief of course (I nearly broke down explaining the provenance of the pendant), but on the other hand I’m noting little satisfactions. Every partnership requires compromise, and when the partnership ends, those constraints are removed. I mentioned in passing on Day 9 that I’d gotten rid of three ferns that I’d never liked. That was one compromise eased. Here’s another: I stopped at the grocery store yesterday and among other items, bought a loaf of bread — bread of a brand that we never had in the house because Marian didn’t like it. I did like it, and now I can bring it home when I want. Trivial, but a tiny up-side to the process of fitting into a new life.

Day 24, Christmas

Tuesday 12/25/2018

Had a very quiet morning: a walk around the neighborhood, then couch-potatoed for two hours catching up with my YouTube subscriptions. I only subscribe to a few people’s channels, but I hadn’t looked at them in weeks and they’d been busy creating content. (Which makes me feel mildly guilty for not producing any content for my little channel with its 150 subscribers. Well, I’ve been… busy?)

During the morning I had very thoughtful phone calls from Dennis and from Marc, which made me feel connected. Appreciation for that.

That brought me to 2pm, when I drove the mile to Chuck and Suzanne’s house and got to participate in an elaborate and cheerful family Christmas dinner. Which also made me feel connected. So all told, a pretty good Christmas day.

Day 23, Calendar, Cushions, Varnish, Amazon, Good Grief

Monday 12/24/2018

My Calendar

It’s Christmas eve, and as of the morning my calendar for today and tomorrow was completely blank. This did not perturb me. I have intentionally, deliberately ignored everything about the holiday season this year, first as Marian was getting sicker and neither she nor I wanted any celebration; and of course after she died I did not want to go through any empty motions.

In an academic sort of way I thought it might seem sad to have nothing to do Christmas day, not so much because I desired company, but because if someone asked me later in the week, “What did you do on Christmas?” I would have to say (no doubt in an Eeyore-like monotone) “Ohhh, nuthinnn.” Which would be embarrassing, and would provoke entirely unwanted sympathy from the questioner. Or maybe I could lie, invent dinner with a relative the questioner doesn’t know.

I went for my customary run, which felt fine. During it, I got a text from my friend Suzanne, very graciously inviting me to share supper with them on Christmas day! I replied with a grateful acceptance, and now I have something on the calendar for tomorrow.

I texted back asking what I could bring, and Suzanne suggested “flowers for the table”. Sure, I thought, no problem… oh, wait. It’s Christmas bloody Eve and I have no idea where to get a flower arrangement, OMG OMG OMG what’ll I do? Yelp to the rescue; there are at least four florists within a mile radius. I walked into the nearest and the proprietor, a very pleasant woman, said, “Well, there’s this one I’m just working on,” and showed me a nice arrangement of red candles and red roses in pine branches (not botanically convincing, but a good color match). So I stood by and commented as she finished it with lots of sprigs of tiny white blossoms, so it ends up a bit like miniature fireworks. So that’s set.

Cushions and Varnish

After that I finished putting Leather CPR goop on all the green cushions for the second and last time, and put yet another goddam coat of urethane varnish on the little tables, because there were two little screw-ups in the previous coat that I couldn’t stop seeing.

Amazon Fail

Back in 2014 when I was an original backer of Soylent, my first order of Soylent came with a pretty Takeya pitcher for mixing a day’s nutrition. Last week, the plastic top ring split, so I ordered a replacement from Amazon. According to Amazon it was delivered to my porch Saturday at 5:30pm. That would be 15 minutes after I left the house to get supper and go to a movie. It wasn’t there, and didn’t show Sunday; then today when I got back from my run, on the porch was the empty box. It had been crudely ripped open, and inside was only the little air pillows for packing. Inside my mail slot was a business card of a Palo Alto police officer, with the note, “Inform Amazon your package was stolen, if that was the case.” I assume the officer had found the emptied package somewhere and brought it around to my house.

Well, you know, Amazon offers no way to tell it, “My package was stolen.” You can return a shipment if the goods or the package are damaged. I started down that path but realized, how could I return an empty box? It would just confuse things. Back to the “where’s my stuff” link: nope; Amazon doesn’t give you any way to say, my package was stolen, please send another. At least, that I could find. It was only $18, I just ordered one.

Good Grief

Pathways Home Health, the company that provided home care for Marian after her operation, and again during her Hospice period, send me a brochure on Grief Support. Based on this I think I’m getting off pretty lightly:

As we grieve during and after the death of a loved one, we may feel numbness or anxiety, shock or fear, nausea or exhaustion. Confusion, denial, or disorientation are also common. … You may feel flooded with sadness, guilt, or a sense of being in a fog.

OK, I’ve recorded anxiety a couple of times, although not the last few days. Surges of sadness, definitely; although the strongest of these are associated, as I’ve written, with the loss of a lifestyle or life-pattern, rather than the loss of a person. When I think of Marian I feel pity and regret. But the sadness of bereavement is different, comes at different times and from different triggers. (I still can’t bring myself to take down that list of entrées from the bulletin board; and there is a whole closet I am carefully avoiding.)

Anyway they offer a “Partner Loss” group session on Tuesdays, resuming January 7th. I will think about this; maybe I’ll attend one.

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 5 cont.

Drove to Oakland for a very pleasant lunch with Darlene and Jessea. Talked about lots of things, their issues and mine. Back home, looked at

Another movie

Waitress got 34 minutes before I got bored. I’ve liked Nathan Filion since Firefly days, and it was fun seeing Andy Griffith as an old codger. This time instead of giving up I started skipping forward. Got to the ultrasound scene where out of nowhere Keri jumps Nathan for a passionate kiss. Nope, don’t believe it. Out at 52 minutes.

Think I’ll watch a few episodes of “The Great War” on youtube.