Day 182, mostly baseball

Sunday, 6/2/2019

This is the day the Lawyer Lady is supposed to respond to our counter-offer. At some time I expect a text from Chuck saying whether we have sold the house or not.

Off to breakfast at the usual place. Punched the last hole in the discount cappuccino card. Not quite perfect timing, I expect to come there one more time, and will have to pay full price for a cappuccino. Caught the cinnamon rolls just as they came out of the oven. Warm cinnamon roll, num.

Stanford baseball has lost one game in its regional, so has to play the other loser today at noon. If they win, they will be allowed to play Fresno State at 6pm, and if they win that they will be allowed to play Fresno State again on Monday to see which team advances to the final four in Oklahoma. Since I paid for a regional pass I had better go.

Between breakfast and noon, I assembled some pictures to accompany my self-introduction to the Men’s Group at Channing House, on Monday. Then off to the baseball game. Lovely weather for it. I spotted several Stanford WBB players in the stands. Stanford got off to a good start, and in the seventh inning they batted around, running the score to 11-1. I decided that was a “W” and left at that point, about 2pm.

At 6pm I was back to Sunken Diamond for the second game. I had my cell phone charged up and with ESPN open in the web browser I could follow the Warriors-Toronto NBA game between pitches. The baseball turned into a marathon. At 8:40pm they had only finished the fifth inning. The Warriors game was over (Warriors won) and Stanford was ahead 6-4, and it was dark and chilly. I decided I had had enough, and went home to listen to the rest of the game on the radio. It didn’t wrap up for another 90 minutes, but did end with a Stanford win.

Around 9:30 Chuck texted that the other agent had not gotten back to him. Expect something tomorrow morning. Are they playing games? Nominally they had only to Sunday to respond, then the counter would be automatically be dropped and the deal is off. Well, what do I know.

And so to bed.

Day 178, FOPAL, Luskin

Wednesday, 5/29/2019

After a run in the morning I went to FOPAL about noon and worked through 4:30.

In the morning and again in the afternoon, a chap at CH was asking if anyone had a slide projector; he’d recently been handed a collection of 50-year-old slides and wanted to look at them. I did, so I told him I’d bring mine over.

I wanted to attend a lecture by Fred Luskin scheduled for 7pm, so I drove over about 6:15. I set the projector by my chair as I ate, and shortly Harry introduced himself and took the projector.

Luskin is the director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project. I was aware of this, having written about it in the first version of my book. His main point on this night was how easy it is to demonize the other, to “see all the bad on that side”, and how important it is, for personal contentment as well as for the good of society, to change your attitudes.

What I was thinking during the talk was how difficult that change can be. To demonize, to “see all the bad in the other” is a tempting posture. It relieves stress, because it removes ambiguity. Ambiguity is stressful and upsetting, and we all like to avoid it. But forgiveness means allowing the possibility of good will, and even good arguments, to the other side, whatever the other side might be for you. It means embracing ambiguity, not resolving it. In addition, a point Luskin didn’t make, there are people and powerful organizations who benefit from persuading you to demonize. That’s how you get people to contribute, to vote, to volunteer, and to fight. I’m not criticizing him for not making that point, because his intent was to teach personal practices that make forgiveness easier.

Day 175, coffee, shoggoths, supper

Sunday, 5/26/2019

Out for coffee as usual. This weekly ritual continues to be a focus of grief. I haven’t written much about grief lately, partly because it hits less and less often. But it does come, and not only when walking to coffee. Today I was thinking about the irony that Marian wasn’t even that fond of the Sunday morning walk to coffee. It was me that wanted it as a definite break, doing something unlike the other mornings to mark the end of one week and the start of the next. She’d have been happy, I think, to stay home and have the same coffee as usual. So it’s a bit ironic that it is on just these walks that I remember her most poignantly.

Part of grief, part of the loss of a partnership, is the lack of anyone to share what you see. Anything you notice, anything unusual, any change in the neighborhood or the weather, what’s your first impulse? Well, mine was, and still is, to point it out to Marian. An observation shared is more real. If only I see that there’s an unusual bloom on a bush, or somebody walking along with a cute dog or an unusual hat, or a new construction fence to herald imminent demolition of another house — if only I see that event, is it real? Pointing at it, hearing, “Huh, yeah,” back from your partner: then it’s real. Real-er anyway. Real in a different way, not only because somebody else verified that you saw something, but that they concur with your interest or concern, and so validate that.

Living without a partner to share and validate your experiences is a different life. What’s a constructive response? Well, journaling is one. Hence at least one reason for this blog.

At 12:30 I left for Redwood City. I have a ticket for Shoggoths on the Veldt, a production at the Dragon Theater, one of several local theatres I sometimes attend. Today’s play is a Victorian fantasy. From the program, “When famed Victorian explorer Melford Pumbleshire is torn to pieces by something horrible and unseen while on safari in deepest, darkest Africa, his redoubtable fiancé Euphonia Riggstone must lead an expedition to put his unquiet spirit to rest.” She hires a supposedly rugged adventurer who turns out to be seasick and gun-shy; along the way they meet a refined Victorian lady who turns out to be the high priestess of the Black Temple; there are not one but two woman-on-woman knife fights, and a fairly clever twist ending. I would love to edit the script, which I am sure could be trimmed by ten minutes at least, and I think a couple of important plot points were lost when the background music obscured some dialog, but still it was a lot of fun.

For a cannabis trial tonight I’m going to take more THC than I have before, trying to find out at what level I get a perceptible “buzz”. Three squares of chocolate, 15mg CBD, 15mg THC, at 8:15pm.

Later, nearing 10pm, I may feel a little bit dizzy. I’ll go to bed and continue in the morning.

Day 171, smoke alarms, lunch.

Cannabis report: took one of the 5mg:5mg chocolates at 8:30. Nice chocolate flavor and some aroma of espresso. As of 10pm I felt exactly nothing. And my night’s sleep was typical/normal, woke several times.

So I guess I have shown, one, that I am insensitive to THC at the 5mg level. I am curious to know how much it takes to feel any intoxication. And two, that 10+mg of CBD may have improved my sleep. I need to think about which of my purchases I want to double-up on tonight.

Wednesday, 5/22/2019

Started with a run, as usual. Fiddle-farted around with something, I don’t remember what, until 12:30 and time to meet Scott for lunch. Afterward I realized I was not too late to do sorting at FOPAL. Yesterday I did extra time there assuming I would skip today, but in fact went down and did some sorting anyway.

This evening, I belatedly realized, is when I’d booked myself for Mama Mia! at the Hillbarn. I think I’ve only been to the Hillbarn one other time, several years ago. It’s a nice venue. They had steeply-raked seating around two sides of the room, and an elaborate Greek Taverna on the other two. The house was packed and very enthusiastic. The lady next to me insisted on sharing with me all the other times she’d seen this show, and often urged me to have fun. The large cast worked very hard through a whole lot of choreography, my goodness so much dancing. The two female leads had good voices as well.

Heading home at 10:30, highway 101 was down to two lanes for construction. I didn’t get home until 11:30, so did not take any cannabis. I want at least an hour before bedtime to assess any effects.

Day 145, actual parking and stuff

Friday, 4/26/2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 144, Shustek, play

Thursday, 4/25/2019

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

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

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

Day 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 126, quiet Sunday

Sunday, 4/7/2019

Breakfast and newspaper as usual. Spent a couple hours looking through the last of the 1985-6 science fiction manuscripts. I was surprised to find that I had during that time worked out in great detail a mostly-water world I called Pelajis. Twenty-five years later I restarted a book based on that world and as best I recall, I did not refer back to the prior notes at that time. That half-finished novel is still an open project, one of two I mean to return to when my living arrangements are stabilized later this year.

Went to a Stanford Baseball game. Here I very foolishly completely misjudged the weather. I had worn a long-sleeved pullover and a sweater going to and from the coffee shop at 8am. Now I kept the long-sleeved shirt on, put on a straw hat, and went to the game where, sitting in full sun, I was pouring sweat after two innings. I got up and moved to stand at the back in minimal shade but that wasn’t comfortable, so after another two innings, I left. I am just not invested in this Stanford team yet to be interested in their efforts for their own sakes. Since I’ve paid for the season pass I’ll keep attending.

Back home, I finished fiddling with the scanned slides on the computer. I made sure they were all properly keyworded, meaning that for instance, the names of the people and places in them appear in the keyword meta-data of the JPG file. I moved them to their appropriate folders by group name. I forced a backup of the disk. I went on to our SmugMug online gallery and uploaded the new images that hadn’t been uploaded before. That completes the effort to capture and digitize our photographic history.

Tomorrow the physical slides go.

Day 124, finances, docent, cleanup

Friday, 4/6/2019

Began with a run, which makes this the first week in a long time when I’ve actually run three times, M-W-F, which is my nominal goal. I cut the route a little short because of impending rain, but still, over 30 minutes of jogging.

Spent a little more time going through the box of old notes and files from my career as a free-lancer in the 1980s. Most significant were the notes and other items from my attendance at Clarion West, a six-week residential science fiction writer’s workshop. I took some very nice pictures of my classmates, who I now barely remember. I had saved notes from talks by several visiting lecturers, established authors like Norman Spinrad and Suzy McKee Charnas. The primary thing I now remember from that intense six-week immersion in writing and critiquing is that it ruined me for reading for enjoyment for a long time. It was more than a decade before I could pick up a science fiction book, or any fiction book really, and just read it. Well, it also taught me that I didn’t have what it takes to write fiction, although that didn’t stop me trying (and hasn’t yet).

Next up, I sat down with my laptop and updated the Portfolio spreadsheet I created on Day 31. This meant opening the Schwab month-end statements for the four remaining accounts (two accounts for Marian’s IRA now having been merged into mine), and copying figures from them into the spreadsheet.

This was the final thing that I had been using Marian’s iMac for. I have demonstrated that I can use Godot to open all financial websites and update the portfolio info, so the machine on Marian’s desk is now superfluous. The obvious next steps are to format its disk, and put it into the nice Apple return box that’s waiting on the floor by the desk. I stuck the Mac OS boot USB stick into a USB port on the back of it and then stopped. I was starting to cry, and damn it I have to go and do a Docent tour in an hour.

This shit is not getting easier with time and practice. Bleagh.

I went to the museum and led the noon tour. Attendance was light and my tour group had just four people!

On return I spent some time reading more of my writing from that mid-80s period when I tried to be a science fiction writer. I did some good thinking then, and came up with some interesting ideas. What I didn’t produce was any good characters or plots. Nor do I like the prose style I was using to describe my ideas, stuffy, pseudo-academic.

Driving to and from the museum I was recalling how Marian would have felt about my sentimental regard for her computer. I believe she would have said, “That’s pretty silly.” So, channeling her pragmatic personality, I booted the iMac from an install USB stick and formatted its drive. Then I packed it up. The Apple return program provides very nicely designed packaging with a clear instruction sheet. It took five minutes to have the machine securely boxed up and ready to go.

I got an email from Channing House: my walk-through and meeting with Angela, the manager for upgrades, will happen at 10am Tuesday. After that I should know for sure when I can start moving in.

I planned to go to a Stanford Baseball game starting at 6pm, leaving at 5:15. To pass the time I read the first three chapters of On the Road and for fun, read it aloud, which suits Kerouac’s prose. Then I left, stopping at the FedEx office to drop off the iMac.

I stayed at the game to the seventh-inning stretch, but the Candlestick-like chill had me shivering and yawning so I left with Stanford ahead 1-0, listening to the game on KZSU going home and at home. The rubberized drawer liner I ordered was on the porch, so I lined the drawers of the new toolbox while Stanford got ahead 2-0, and then UCLA tied the game in the top of the ninth. Now it’s after 9pm, and the bottom of the ninth, and I’m so glad I left early… ok, it’s a tie game, bottom of the ninth, two on, two out, full count. Here’s your live play by play: foul… ball four. Bases loaded, winning run at third. Ball. Ball. 2-0 count, hit into left, it drops! Stanford wins, 3-2.

Still glad I left.

Day 112, stuff, and baseball

Sunday, 3/24/2019

Another Sunday morning. Walked to the coffee shop for a cappuccino and to read Sunday paper and do the big crossword puzzle. On return, went to brush my teeth and noticed that the Braun electric toothbrush head was looking distinctly worn. Well, I know where we keep spare ones; and in looking found another trove of

stuff.

There’s a stack of little drawers — part of the custom cabinetry that was made for our 1974 bathroom remodel — between the toilet and the shower. Toothbrush heads are in one of those. So I started opening them, and was immediately reminded that here was another goddam set of drawers that needs to be cleaned out. So I went and got a plastic trash bag and discarded years-old cough and cold meds, bottles and tubes of sunblock and bug spray, stuff Marian used on her nails, etc. Down in the last drawer there were a couple of spare Braun toothbrush heads. I kept those, and some of the fresher cold remedies.

Now I was on a roll. I gathered up a pile that I had been dithering over for days. This was a collection of Stanford Women’s Basketball Media Guides from 1996 through 2015. Marian had gotten a Media Guide (a glossy magazine with player bios, team stats, records, all the deets) each year since we became season ticket holders. I had thought there would be a continuous run, but when I looked through them last week, I was surprised to find the run stopped with the 2015-16 season. Had it been complete with the last two (2016-17 and 17-18), I would have felt really obligated to find a new home for the collection. (Although I have been dithering for days over how to advertise such a set to fans, how to find the one fan who would want it.) Now I know it isn’t complete, so… Right. Today’s a good day for clean-out. I dropped the stack into the blue recycle bin. End of that dither.

There was column in today’s paper about the problems faced by children when a parent dies and leaves them with the dilemma of a house full of stuff to dispose of. I can well believe it! I’ve been tossing stuff for weeks and am strongly aware of several pools of stuff still lurking and looming and daring me to come at them. I can sympathize with any elderly, feeble person who shirks the task of de-cluttering right to the end.

Each piece of stuff has no intrinsic value, is worth zero, zilch, nada, to you or to anyone else — yet each piece has associations that tug on you. Marian referred to those media guides when she updated the alumnae section of the fan website, or checked on prior records when a player seemed to be approaching some kind of team landmark for scoring or blocks or whatever. The pile of media guides was of no use to me, in fact it had negative value because I don’t want to spend the mental energy to figure out where to store them or how to preserve them in the future. Their highest and best use is to be pulped in the recycler and to become new grocery bags. But throwing them out somehow suggests I am denigrating the use Marian made of them, denying her diligence in documenting the team. Which is really stupid; and indeed I can imagine her disdain of any such sentimentality.

Continuing the roll, I cleared a couple shelves of one of the big brown steel cabinets in the shop. Two big roasting pans into the recycle. When was the last time we roasted anything large? A couple of the slides I scanned last week were from a Christmas dinner we hosted in 1992. That may have been when that roaster was last in an oven. But there it was, carefully laid away in the shop for the next time we needed it. Doing these discards and thinking about the care, the practicality, and the ultimate futility of it all, caused enough emotion that I recorded a symptom on the app for the Zio patch I’ve been wearing (and which I can finally take off in two days). Time:10:30 to 11, symptom: skipped/irregular beats, activity: strong emotion/grief.

Well, off to a

baseball game.

This was my first visit to Sunken Diamond in a couple of years, and my first sight of the seat I selected when I bought my season ticket. Sunken Diamond is a very nice place to watch baseball. Here’s the view from my seat.

Also this was the first time I’ve watched a baseball game in several years. I’d forgotten how slow a game it is. Stanford had a two-run lead after seven and I decided to do something else and left early, following the rest of the game on the car radio on KZSU.

What I wanted to do before 5pm was to hand off one of the four (4!)

laptops

that are cluttering the place up. There’s Marian’s old MacBook Air, it’s at least 6 years old, I think older. It was getting flaky, the keyboard and track pad not acting right, so about this time last year I got her a new one. After that I installed Ubuntu Linux on the old one and it actually runs fine that way. My MacBook Pro of 2013 was also showing age so as noted in these pages I replaced it with the slow-arriving Godot, that I’m using now. So, too many laptops. Apple has a buy-back program that I need to start using. (Putting that on my to-do list for tomorrow right now.)

In the meantime, I offered Marian’s newer Air to her sister Jean, but Jean wasn’t interested. So instead I offered it to Diane, a long-time friend of Jean’s who I’ve met a few times. She wanted it, so I took it down to her this afternoon.

Stopped at the Westwinds Nursery on Middlefield on the way home, looking for plant hangers and stuff. I’m thinking ahead about that big deck on my C.H. unit. I plan to take 5 or 6 plants, 4 for the deck and at least one of two similar ones to hang indoors. I don’t really need to get any hardware now; I just had a notion to remind myself what’s available.

In the email, finally a response from Chris’s niece Tyra, the decorator. She’s really busy she says, but is curious to know what I am looking for. I’m thinking she doesn’t listen well, because I was standing there when Chris left her a phone message describing me and what I was looking for. But whatever. I replied with a sentence or two, and left it open that if she was really busy, perhaps it wouldn’t work out.

It’s a bit awkward because I also asked Chuck to tell his designer Amy that I wanted design help. We’ll see who’s more interested.