Day 208, washer, docent, dinner, play

Friday, 6/28/2019

Started the day with a run, ending at yet another coffee shop: Mademoiselle Collette, which Harriet has praised a couple of times. Cappuccino: good. Pastries: legit. I had a Koign Amman, a pastry I first had on our French vacation several years ago. This one was pretty close to the real thing. The only drawback to the place is its small size; it is basically a 20×20 foot cube, about the size of my apartment, and noisy. There are pleasant seats outside, however, and I may try those for Sunday morning.

Next official thing on the calendar was a docent tour, but about 9 I got a phone call from “Tarla”, the person who was supposed to look at the washing machine at 2pm. Could she send George her handyman to look at it now? Oh, sigh, I suppose so. I drove over to Tasso street to meet George who came up in his pickup truck from San Jose. He was tasked by Tarla with making sure the washing machine functioned, and taking it away if so. However, Tarla and he appear not to be the greatest planners. She hadn’t told him it hadn’t been paid for. When I said, the price is $100, he was taken aback, then said, ok, he could pay me and get it from Tarla. Then he looked at the washer and while I was making it run through its cycles, I pointed out that it weighed well over 200 pounds, and he didn’t have a dolly, so how was he alone going to get it up my gravel driveway to his truck, and without a lift gate, how would he load it?

He talked at length to Tarla, who sounded like a confused drama queen on the phone and seemed to want to blame him and/or me for the mixup. Anyway, no sale, and George went off to try to get Tarla to pay him for his mileage and time. Best of luck with that, George.

My docent tour group was the smallest ever, just one couple. Very nice people but it was weird talking to just two. I am so used to projecting my voice to lecture to a dozen or more. I had to back off, and use a conversational voice, and generally lower the pitch of my presentation. But they enjoyed it.

Dinner was a date with Betsy and her husband George. She has the task of introducing new residents at the monthly Residents’ Meeting which is a week from Monday. She quizzed me at length on my work history etc. We were joined at table by Bob. Bob retired from running Stanford’s overseas campus in Germany for many years. All these people are over-achievers, I feel very… modest. Kind of like when I went from high school ace to being just an average one of the herd in college.

A little after 7pm I made the ten-minute walk to Lucy Stern center to see A man with two guv’ners by the Palo Alto Players. I saw a production of The servant of two masters, the classic by Golden, some years ago. This is a modern version, updated from medieval Venice to 1963 England, and played with lots of bravura slapstick physical comedy and bad British accents. It was pretty entertaining.

Day 206, many errands, FOPAL

Wednesday, 6/26/2019

I started the day with a run. At several points my pace was interrupted by texts from Chuck. Lawyer Lady’s agent had texted him, quote,

Chuck, I just received this text from [Lawyer Lady], “Lyn, I am so sorry about the delay. I am in negotiations (complex license). As for Tasso, I would love to buy it but I cannot swing it at the [our counter offer] price.” Chuck, this was my first communication with [Lawyer Lady] since last Friday. I think it is best for your seller to move ahead without us. Again, my deepest apologies, Lyn.

In further exchanges — Chuck likes long text conversations — Chuck noted that right at the start, Lyn had given him a “qualification document” showing that this buyer was qualified to finance the price we set in our counter. So “cannot swing it” really means, either “don’t want it” or “I want to dicker”. I texted to Chuck, and suggested he quote it to the agent,

We are not interested. We would accept her PROMPT acceptance of our original counter. Otherwise we are done with this negotiation.

We agreed he’d give them a deadline of Thursday noon, after which he would inform the escrow company that we are “out of contract”. I am not sure what happens then to the deposit she placed to open the escrow. Probably goes back to her, although I think we would be justified in keeping some of it, after the amount of jerking us around she’s done.

Back at the barn I assembled some stuff and headed out for a day of going and doing.

First stop was the Wheeler Accountants office in San Jose, to turn in the thick packet of documentation I have assembled so they can compute the actual value of Marian’s estate, and thus how much of her estate tax exemption transfers to me.

Next was a visit to Yamagami’s nursery in Cupertino. My aim is to replace a pot that broke on moving day. It was one of a pair of elegant high-fired pots. Actually I want to replace both, because the remaining one is only 9 inches wide and the plants really need 11-inch pots. I don’t know where Marian bought them but I was hoping, Yamagami’s. They do have a very large selection of pots, many more than any other nursery I know, but nothing like these. However, I bought a pair of I think rather pretty glazed pots.

I used the phone to find the nearest US Post Office, just a mile away, and went there to drop off the DVR for return to AT&T.

Next up, the grocery store next to FOPAL to lay in my favorite no-cal drinks and some snacks for the room. Then, about 11:30, I went into FOPAL and spent 4.5 nonstop hours, cleaning up the Computer section and sorting.

At this point I am not ashamed to say I felt a little bit tired. I headed home but via the T-Mobile store where I meant to return my micro-cell. We always had lousy T-Mobile reception at Tasso street, one or two bars in the living room and “No Service” at the back. That was only an annoyance until Marian got sick and we needed to make lots of phone calls. T-Mobile very nicely gave me the micro-cell, a box that hooks to the wi-fi and acts like a local cell tower. Four bars in every room, it was wonderful!

Now at Channing House I have an acceptable 3 bars everywhere, so I don’t need the micro-cell box. However, the nice young lady wouldn’t take it because I “didn’t have all the parts”. She particularly noted I didn’t have the original yellow CAT-5 cable that came with it. On the way home I remembered there is also a little antenna dongle that I hadn’t brought either. So now I have that to do over.

Anyway, home to chillax and have some dinner and maybe watch the Democratic Debate.

Oh, that revealed a weakness in the voice search for the X1 box. When I said “find debate” all it could find was the PBS show, “The Debate”. When I said “find democratic” all it found was some Netflix show called “Democrats”. Only when I said “find democratic debate” did it find “National Democratic Presidential Debate”. Why couldn’t it find that title for the first two searches? (It’s definitely artificial but I don’t know if it’s intelligent.)

Day 204, planning, bridge, FOPAL

Monday, 6/24/2019

My second Monday here. Last night coming out of the dining room I nabbed a roll and a banana, and that’s what I had for breakfast this morning. Eating in the room, before dressing and going out, is much more satisfactory for me. Take in a little fuel and go.

Go I did, leaving at 7:30 for a run, the third time I’ve run this new route. The phone app doesn’t give consistent results for the distance, but it’s about right, around 40+ minutes of (pathetically slow) jogging plus a few minutes to walk the last few blocks. Being so early I didn’t stop at a coffee shop. The earliness was to be ready for the Monday bridge game beginning at 10:15.

Before I went out to run I discovered that the button on my usual shorts was loose and almost off. So on return I got out the small sewing kit I’d brought from Tasso and sewed it back on. Also after returning I finalized the estate docs for the tax people, and printed out the various maps and forms needed when I go to help with registration, tomorrow morning on campus, for Tara Vanderveer’s summer girls’ basketball camp. They want us there outside Maples pavilion at 7:45, which I calculate means I have to be out the door by 7:15.

I only had to play the first session of the bridge game this time, because I have an appointment to meet with Angela to review the completion of my apartment. I have a few QC things to bring to her attention, but mainly I want to get straight how to have a piece of furniture (the planned bookcase) delivered.

That interview was pleasant. She agreed to have fixed a couple of minor sloppy construction items and we talked about the move-out in September, and what work would be done during the renovation. To have furniture delivered, contact her.

That done, I felt the pull of my section of books at FOPAL and went there, arriving about 3:30, and staying three full hours. There was a wall of 18 boxes in front of the section. I culled them and sent 16 boxes to the bargain room, and priced and shelved about 50 books in all.

Back home just in time for the final minutes of dinner service. And then to spend a relaxing evening in the glow of much accomplishment.

Day 201, lunch, Time Capsule, DVR, mail forwarding

Friday, 6/21/2019

Went for a run first thing, without breakfast. I don’t want to go into the dining room in my t-shirt and running shorts and shoes, and there’s nothing in the to-go case that I can eat while running (whatever that might be, I really can’t imagine). So, went without. Health app said, 2.5 miles.

Had a baked good and coffee at Prolific Oven then stopped at the Walgreen’s on University to find a sleep mask. Jackpot! Found a good sleep mask, one with an adjustable elastic band and convex eye-covers, so there will be no pressure on the eyes. The sun through the drapes at 6am is just amazingly bright. Have I written that I spoke to Angela about the missing drapes, and it was a misunderstanding between us? She thought I was willing to wait for them when they replace the drapes as part of the upgrade this fall. I had thought they would be installed now.

Well, I can’t disagree that it makes sense to wait until the drapes are replaced; but that leaves the problem of sleeping past sunrise, which will be getting earlier and earlier in the next couple of months. The problem will solve itself in September when I am moved to the 4th floor West side. Meantime: a sleep mask.

Next I solved a technical problem: getting my Apple Time Capsule to work in the C.H. internet ecosystem. It turned out, thanks to the magic of Apple technology, to require little more than plugging it in and turning it on. I put it next to the Comcast modem and connected with a cable. It immediately found the internet and began to broadcast the same Wi-Fi signal, “Cortesi Home”, that it has been serving for several years. I don’t want it to do that; that network is redundant and unneeded here. However, it turns out you can use the Airport Utility to make it “hide” its network. So the name won’t show up in the long list of competing wi-fi networks in the building.

Meanwhile my laptop and desktop both found it and immediately began backing up to it. So, problem solved. After they’d both done complete backups, I shut the Time Capsule down. I’ll start it up every week or so for another backup, or if I need to recover anything.

Now it was time for lunch with Scott and Craig. Craig drove us to Town and Country in his newish red Prius. It makes my 7-year-old Prius look dowdy. I had been thinking — and still do think — there is no practical point in buying another car. The 2012 plug-in will serve me just fine for as long as I’m likely to drive. But… on the other hand… the new ones have some safety features mine doesn’t… and smell nicer… Maybe next year, after the house is sold and my finances are solid…

Scott and Craig reminisced at length about the old days at IBM. I had worked longer in the same organizations as Scott so knew roughly what he’d done during those years, but I had no real feel for Craig’s career. It was interesting to learn.

For a couple of days FedEx has been texting me about the progress of “your package” — what package? I couldn’t think what I would have ordered that hadn’t already come. Today I guess it might be the package from AT&T/DirecTV for returning the DirecTV DVR. When at 4:50 I got a text saying my package had been delivered, I drove over to Tasso street and sure enough, it was the DVR return box. I am still sure I bought that DVR but heck, I’m not going to fight AT&T over it. If they want to recycle it for me, great. I packed it up per instructions, but it was now to late to deliver it to the Post Office.

I gassed up the car (first time in a month, almost 800 miles on a tank at 91.4 mpg, let’s hear it for the seven year old plug-in hybrid!) and stopped at the hardware store to find some kind of snake oil to improve the finish of my teak coffee table. It’s a beautiful piece of furniture but it has the patina of 40+ years of benign neglect.

Back home I checked the mail, and there was a letter from my insurance company, addressed to me at 2340 Tasso, and officially redirected by the Post Office computers to the new address. So my address-change has truly been processed.

I guess I live here now.

Day 197, run, bridge, organize, dinner

Monday, 6/17/2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 194, counting down to move

Friday, 6/14/2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 190, early bird gobbles worms left, right

Monday, 6/10/2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 187, anxiety, paperwork

Friday, 6/7/2019

Starting last evening I began having mild anxiety, similar to the first couple of weeks. I guess the reality of the house being sold coming home? In reality, everything is on the planned track: the last bits of furniture arrive today and Monday … I have a modest list of things I need to do before a week from today to be ready for the move … everything is fine. Just fine. Tell that to my brain at 4am.

After a run, which felt fine (and the air was cool again), I settled in to assembling all the papers that the tax accountant wants to do that estate form, in summary,

Copy of death certificate (of course)
Copy of Marian’s will
Copy of family trust
Dec. 31st statement for bank account and each of six (6) Schwab accounts
Debts (of which we had only the December credit card statements)
IRS form 712 documenting the life insurance payment
Appraisal for home (I could use the price that has been accepted by buyer as the value, but I think I’ll wait until the appraisal “as of” December comes in)

and a few other odds and ends. That took a couple of hours and still isn’t done. It turns out that IRS form 712 has to be filled out by, not the beneficiary of the life insurance, but by an agent for the insurance company! Fortunately I still had documentation showing that this IBM group life policy was paid out by The Prudential, and the claim number. After an email to Katie the Tax, who recommended calling Prudential, I did that, and the customer service rep — after I got to her through a many-layered phone menu — quickly arranged for the form to be made and sent to me.

Part-way through this the IKEA delivery arrived. I must say IKEA’s contractor handled this very well, with two voice-mails the day before giving the delivery window of 11-2, and then calling half an hour before to say the truck was “5 to 30 minutes away”. Two long skinny flat packs for the bed frame, another pack of folded up wooden slats, another pack of two metal braces, and the mattress rolled up like a giant 5-foot long burrito.

I drove over to CH to check on the apartment. Although I couldn’t get in, I could hear power tools being used inside. I’ve been corresponding with Angela about the sink, and she has reminded me I committed to buying my own cabinet pulls. I need to do that tomorrow. Stopped at the bank to deposit a check, a small refund for overpaid car insurance. Then flaked out for the afternoon.

Day 185, FOPAL, furniture, volunteer dinner

Wednesday 6/5/2019

Went for a run. It seemed a little harder than usual, possibly because, for the first time this year, the air was already warm at 9am. About 11:30 I went down to FOPAL for the usual Wednesday sorting session.

Back home I found an email from Katie the tax accountant, giving a list of the documents they will need to proceed with the estate tax filing, the infamous Form 706. It looks like an hour or more finding documents. I decided to defer that to Friday.

Also in my in-box: email from IKEA giving the delivery time for my bed and mattress: sometime between 9am and 9pm Friday. That led me to refresh the page tracking the order of my remaining furniture items. Back in April I went to West Elm and ordered a bunch of things (Day 137). A couple of items I took home that day as flat packs; they are now in the big pile in the dining room. A couple more arrived last week. Two other items were delayed. Now, refreshing the tracking page, I see that the last of them has arrived at the local warehouse.

Let’s see, I had a piece of paper documenting my last conversation with the West Elm deliver center, where did I put it? Panic, panic. Not in any penda-flex. Oh, there’s a banker’s box where I put all the stuff from the top of the desk. Hah! inside it, along with pictures and desk items, is the piece of paper with the receipt and phone number.

So I call the delivery center and the nice person sets me up for delivery on Monday. That will complete my furniture; everything will be here by Monday night, ready for the movers to take to CH on Saturday. Wow.

On the day I move I will need to unbox and assemble: a bed, a settee, a table, two chairs, an arm chair, and a desk. The bed is the only essential one, but I arranged with Angela to schedule a Channing House Facilities Person to assist me for three hours, 2-5pm that day. She is supposed to get back to me if that won’t be possible, owing to it being a weekend, in which case I will have to hire a gig worker, probably from TaskRabbit.com, the outfit that IKEA suggests for assembly work.

At 4:40 I headed out, to the Museum for the annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. A pretty low-key event, 50 or so gray-haired folks getting thanked by the Museum staff, free dinner and drinks. Some interesting news was mentioned by both Len Shustek (the board member and major donor, whose name is on the Shustek Center in Fremont where I spend alternate Thursdays), and by Dan’l Lewis, the CEO. When 20 years ago the Museum was able to buy its present building from the bankrupt Silicon Graphics (wow, has it been that long since SGI went under?), the $25M purchase included not just the big white building at Shoreline and 101, but 17.5 acres of land surrounding it. Most of that acreage is asphalt parking lots. Meanwhile Google has been buying up all the surrounding land, with future plans for a huge development, thousands of homes and retail.

Len reviewed some of the other computer museums, and talked about how difficult it was to create a museum that would last. The excellent Living Computer Museum in Seattle had only one major donor, Paul Allen, who died last year. Now its funding is in doubt. One I’d never heard of, the American Computer and Robotics Museum in (of all places) Bozeman, MT, is struggling. It was the work of a married couple, and now the husband has died and the widow is trying to carry on. So with these examples in mind, the Museum board is considering what they might do with some of their parking lots, possibly developing part of the space in a way that would increase the Museum’s endowment substantially and help ensure its longevity.

Day 180, dining table exit, real estate

Friday, 5/31/2019

I went for the usual run in the morning. I don’t recollect now (24 hours later) what I did to pass the time until the scheduled feature of the day, the arrival of the people who’ve bought my dining table and chairs (day 164). They showed a bit ahead of time and we loaded the table, the two leaves, and the six chairs into their rather large SUV. It all fit well, and off they went.

I felt a bit emotional about seeing this furniture go, but not as much as I feared I might. It was one of the first things Marian and I bought together, but I cannot now remember the actual buying of it. I’m sure it came, like most of our furniture, from Danish Concepts or some similar Scandinavian-flavor place. The round table occupied the center of our octagonal dining room for about 40 years. At least 15 years ago the table top had accumulated some scratches, and we sent it out to be refinished.

The leaves got little use. For maybe 20 years, through the 90s, we hosted a party of five every other month when we would meet with the Kellehers and our mutual friend Randy. To set for five required putting in one of the leaves. I have a couple of pictures of times we hosted Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner for more people, and put in both leaves to seat eight or nine, but those were rare events, a dozen times at most.

After Randy died we continued to alternate months between our house and the Kelleher’s but with only four diners, no leaf was needed. For the last few years, since the Kellehers moved into a retirement home, we didn’t do any hosting, and only used the table as a convenient place to set things. We ate our own meals in the living room, watching TV.

Once the table was gone, I proceeded with the plan I’d had in mind for a week, since Deb texted to say the table was sold and would go on this day. Namely, I moved all the boxes of furniture I’ve bought for the new apartment, into the dining room, and stacked the other things I’ve already packed for my move on them. It makes one compact cubical heap about 4 foot on a side. That cleared out the spare room, and there I have collected all the things that are also going with me but which need professional packing by the movers, art work and such.

During this Chuck texted to say that Lawyer Lady’s agent had been in touch. Her client has apparently been working 20 hours a day on a major project at her law firm and hasn’t had time to ponder our counter-offer; could they have through Sunday? Sure, no problem. And also, she would like to visit the house one more time with her friend the decorator. Could they do that today at 4? Yeah no prob.

So I tidied up a bit, and left the house at 3:30. I sat for a while in the car near Peers Park, then drove over to CH and sat reading in the lobby until the dining room opened at 5:30. After supper I came on home.

In the evening Jean emailed to ask if I would be willing to drive her to the wedding of Robert Lacrampe. Robert is probably late 20s, early 30s? He is the youngest child of Pierre Lacrampe, Marian’s and Jean’s cousin. I last really interacted with him when he was a teenager. I remember him as a cheerful and intelligent kid who liked to pronounce his name the French way, hhhrrro-BEAR.

Anyway he is getting married on July 20 in Calistoga. Ceremony at 5, then “cocktails (formal)”, then dinner. Google maps says 2:30 to 3:00 hours drive time on a Saturday. That means a 1pm departure for me, pick up Jean, drive to Calistoga, and even if we skip the dinner and leave after an hour of schmoozing, probably a twelve hour round trip, 5-6 hours of driving. Plus, I no longer have a suit; and if I have a necktie I probably don’t have a good shirt to wear it on. Nearest I can get to “formal” is a brown sport coat with gray slacks and a black turtleneck.

Well, I spelled this out to Jean in an email, not saying “no”, just saying here’s the deal. We’ll see.