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 176, FOPAL, realty

Cannabis report: 15mg/15mg did give me a slight buzz, a little hint of vertigo when moving or turning over, and that persisted until the small hours. I did not sleep any better. The only real effect of the THC was to increase the effect that I remarked on three days back: on the edge of sleep, I was treated to a wild show of abstract art on the inside of my closed eyelids. For several minutes — maybe? maybe only a minute or two, but long enough to think, “very pretty, but I’m not sleeping, go to sleep”) — was looking at fields of intricate patterns, or figures like claymation animation, in rich colors. The one definite difference that THC makes.

In the morning I had a dull headache and felt foggy for a while. A hangover? Or just coincidence, I can’t say. But definitely, THC intoxication is not worth pursuing for its own sake.

Monday, 5/27/2019

A day with no scheduled activities on the google calendar. I’ll have to meet with Chuck at some point and make up my mind as to whether to counter-offer the Lawyer Lady. I start the day by jogging a different route, down Oregon Expressway and over the pedestrian bridge to the SFCU office by the golf course, where I can deposit a benefits check. Yes, Via benefits is still sending paper checks even after multiple attempts to set up direct deposit on their website, and a call to customer support which got me a paper form to return, which I did. For some things they do electronic transfer, for others they don’t. I’m giving up on them.

Then I went to FOPAL where there were seven boxes of books piled up by the Computer section. I culled them and priced the better ones. This turned up three that were “high value”, books that have online prices of more than $25. That’s always fun. They go in a special cart to be dealt with by the volunteers who sell the high-value ones on eBay. I ended up with about 35 books worth reselling, and priced and shelved them. Then I spent another 90 minutes doing sorting.

I picked up a few food items at the grocery store nearby and brought them home. Chuck stopped by a bit after three and we discussed what to do next. He’d had no new calls despite the ad running over the weekend. He says that a year ago, such an ad would have produced several calls. I want to get the sale done with, so we agreed he would present the counter-offer we discussed on Friday, tomorrow. Hopefully they will react favorably and we will be on the way.

I’m not quite sure what experiment to make next with cannabis. Two gel-caps, 20mg CBD, didn’t have a soporific effect. I am not interested in upping the THC. The only thing that might have made me sleep better was the time I took two of the gummies. That was 12mg CBD and 3mg THC. I think tonight I’ll take three gummies, 18mg/4.5mg. That should be comparable to the two gel-cap dose, and do nothing, but maybe there is something about the gummy formulation that is different.

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 169, blood, bed, realty

Monday, 5/20/2019

Cannabis report: a soft-gel containing 10mg CBD, 2.5mg THC, had no effect. An hour after taking it I might have felt just a tiny bit buzzed, about ½ glass of ale buzzed, but it could just as well have been imagination. And there was no difference in my sleep, either in duration or frequency of waking. So tonight I will try the 3:1 gummies. Each gummy contains 6mg CBD, 1.8mg THC, so I will take two, for a total of 12mg:3.6mg. That will be 20% step-up in CBD, 50% in THC. Effects to be reported tomorrow.

After my run, I decided to try giving blood again. Back on Day 66 I tried to donate blood and was turned away for low hemoglobin, 11.9. Following that I talked to my doctor, who wasn’t much concerned, and have been taking an iron supplement. For a month I took one daily; for the last few weeks only two per week. Stanford blood center has been sending out emails, critical shortage of type O (my type), so I’ll give it a try.

My hemoglobin came in at 15.9, four points higher than the last time. So I was allowed to donate.

Following that I drove to IKEA again. As noted a few days ago, I selected a bed frame there. But later, reading customer reviews on the IKEA website, there were a number of people complaining. The headboard of this “Trysil” frame has gaps between the cross-boards. People complain that their pillows slip out between the mattress and the lower cross-board. In the picture on the product page, it doesn’t look like that would happen. However, when I look at it in the store it is clear there is a gap of an inch or two between the bottom of the board and the top of the mattress. Why?

I figured it out. Some of the IKEA mattresses are 9-10 inches thick, and some are 11-12 inches thick. At the store, the Trysil frame is displayed with a “Morgedal” mattress, which by coincidence is the one that I had selected on a previous visit to the store. The Morgedal is only 10 inches thick. On today’s visit I tried other mattresses, and settled on the “Haugesund” model, which is 12 inches thick. When placed on the Trysil frame, the Haugesund mattress will be flush with the bottom of the lower board in the head.

In a bunch of texts Saturday, I agreed with Debora the sale manager that her buyer would pick up the dining table and chairs on Friday the 31st. After that time, the dining room here will be empty. I will move all the boxed furniture that I’ve collected (flat-packs of a desk, a file cabinet, a chair, a table) into the dining room. To them will be added a media console, two more chairs, and a love seat, all scheduled for delivery from West Elm in the first week of June. During that week of June I will also go to IKEA and order the bed frame and mattress to be delivered here. All to be stacked in the dining room.

Then on the 15th, the movers can just move all that into the truck first, followed by a few boxes of my possessions, art work, television and computers, for the move. I will also have scheduled a TaskRabbit contractor to come to CH that afternoon to help me assemble at least the bed, if not all the other things. Hopefully by sundown on that Saturday I will be fully moved in. We’ll see how that plan works out.

Later Chuck came by with realty news. The Woman who Works at Apple has dropped out. It’s odd; according to her realtor, the woman and her mother both love the house, but when the realtor asked them, it was the father who told her, he didn’t think the house was right for his daughter. Hmph. Butt out, dad.

The realtor for the Lawyer Lady is pretty sure she won’t go above $2.5M. That’s not enough, in my opinion and Chuck’s. Although it is not too far off my target. Chuck thinks she could afford to go higher, just wait and see.

Meanwhile he’s not getting a lot of calls from the ad. He got one call today, a buyer in Santa Clara who is looking for a fixer-upper. I suggested, and he agreed, that he’ll call her back and make the pitch that although this house is not in need of fixer-upper type maintenance and repairs, like you see on the TV shows, it definitely would benefit from, and increase in value from, serious remodeling. She can have all kinds of fun renovating the kitchen or adding a second story.

We also signed a bunch of disclosure and advisory forms. One relates to the need for smoke and CO detectors. So that’s a to-do item for me, which I can easily handle: get those installed. I have a smoke detector in the bedroom, but haven’t tested it in a long time. Its battery is probably dead. I had one in the living room and took it down, I don’t remember why. And have never had a CO detector. Well, we had a CO detector in the RV we used to have, and had to disable it because it constantly went off in the night, I guess from the CO of our breath while sleeping.

Day 166, grumpy, map, docent

Friday, 5/17/2019

Today’s main activity is to lead a docent tour at the museum at noon. Right after breakfast I decided to follow up on something I’d noted by chance yesterday, that the

Hillbarn theater

is doing Mama Mia, which I’d never seen and should be fun. So I went to their website and tried to buy a ticket. Mostly sold out but there are seats for next Wednesday, fine. Advantage of being a widower (look on the sunny side…) I want only a single seat, and there were some scattered around in the center. Nice. Try to check out. It wants me to sign in or register. Sigh. Register. Wants name, email, address, age(!?), telephone number and of course a password.

You know what? Just sell me a ****ing ticket already! It so irked me I just closed the window and went for my run. But now, writing about it — nose biting for purpose of face spiting? — I went back and filled out their ****ing form and gave them a ****ing password. Nicely they present a menu of emails you can opt out of. Good! Opting outoutoutoutout. So.

Did my run, 37 minutes of jogjogjog and felt good (who’s old? Moi?). Showered shaved dressed in my red docent shirt and sat down to do another little chore I’ve been meaning to do: work out an equivalent to my current

jogging route

but starting at 850 Webster. Go to Google maps and map my present route. It turns out to be 2.6 miles from home to the coffee shop where I usually stop. About 2.4 miles of actual jogging; the tenth mile at the start and the last tenth I usually walk.

Then worked out a route of exactly the same length, but quite different terrain. Well, all flat like the present route, but different scenery. North on Webster street to San Francisquito Creek; follow a curving street along the creek; cross a footbridge into Menlo Park for a loop up Willow Road; cross a different footbridge back into Palo Alto (passing El Palo Alto, the town’s eponymous redwood tree), and down a back street to a coffee shop on University Avenue. Exactly 2.6 miles.

Got an email from Chuck, a slew of

realty disclosure

statements. My goodness there are a lot of different disclosure statements. Lead paint. Carbon monoxide detectors. Earthquake hazards. Some of them I couldn’t see how to fill out. Chuck had sent them as e-signature files, where you try to write your signature using the mouse. Instead I print out all eleven pages, look them over. Sign some obvious ones. Send an email back, need some guidance on these.

Then at 10:30 another email from Andrew, they have only the first of the four-page form that I’ve given them now twice. I get my copy from the pendaflex folder box and stop by their office on the way to the museum to drop it off.

I give my tour to about 15 people, get a round of applause at the end. E-chat more with

Chuck.

Of the two prospects, the Lawyer Lady’s agent has submitted an offer of $2.5M. However that was a misunderstanding. L.L. has just changed agents and the new one was not up to speed, didn’t realize that the latest ad had specified an asking price of $2.9. When Chuck pointed this out, she said she would consult with her client but didn’t know how much higher she could go.

As to the other prospect, the woman who works at Apple, Chuck has not heard back despite leaving several texts and a voice mail to the agent. That agent is a long-time Palo Alto realtor and Chuck thinks it is unusual for her not to respond. However during the showing the other day, she had commented to Chuck about planning a knee replacement operation soon, so possibly there is some health issue. Anyway, we left it that Chuck and I would meet Monday afternoon to talk about the disclosure forms, and hopefully one or both agents would have come back with something by then.

In the evening I combined an errand with supper. Earlier in the day, the

Prius

had popped up a message “Key Fob Battery Low”. Oh! Now, how do I open up the Prius key fob? I’m pretty sure I’ve done it before but don’t remember how. Youtube to the rescue; just click in the search bar and start to type “Prius key…” and “…fob battery replacement” pops up, and there are a dozen videos.

Turns out it is stupidly simple; Toyota did a great job on this design. The key fob contains a physical key that pops out when you press a button. I knew about that and actually used the physical key once when the 12V battery went flat. Turns out, they designed the key blade itself as a tool that exactly fits a slot at the bottom of the plastic fob. You pull the key out, turn it around, and use it as a lever to pop open the case of the fob. And there’s the battery. Nice!

I noted the number and went to Midtown where I bought a pair of the CR1632s and had supper at the Thai restaurant.

Day 162, Documents, FOPAL, realty

Monday, 5/13/2019

Watered the plants, then went for a run. On return I opened the big envelope of documents from the Lawyer, and brought the

fireproof box

out to the table.

The fireproof box was a purchase of a decade ago, when we were separating ourselves from Wells Fargo. This was actually before Wells Fargo got in so much public scandal; they just did a few things that annoyed us, and we moved our money to SFCU. That has worked out very well, the local Credit Union gives excellent service, and their web interface is very usable. But besides our money account at WFB we also had a safety deposit box. What to do with the birth certificates, car pink slips, etc. from there?

Turns out, you can buy a heavy box that will resist a house fire for 40 minutes or more. It probably couldn’t survive the kind of ashes-to-the-foundation fire we’ve seen in the major California wildfires, but it could stand up a typical single house fire where the fire department can give it its full attention. (It should certainly survive any kind of fire that might start at CH, a cement building with sprinklers.) We got one and gave up the WFB box.

The main tenant in the box is the Brown Binder, the binder of estate documents: the Trust, the Living Will, Power of Attorney, Burial instructions — basically, everything my successor Trustee needs to take care of me if I’m completely incapacitated, or to wind things up after I’m dead. Previously, these were all about Marian and me as a couple, with each of us naming the other as heir, conservator, etc. Now they have all been redone simpler to handle just my affairs as Survivor Trustee.

I went through the Brown Binder and replaced all the old docs with new ones. There were a couple of informal docs I write. One is the Document Locator, which explains all the others as well as listing things like credit cards and bank accounts and so on — key facts the Successor Trustee needs. Another is my Digital Directive, listing all the online accounts and passwords to be shut down. Both were much out of date and I spent an hour editing them and printing them and putting them in the binder.

Finally I went through all the contents of the box, moved a couple of things out; Marian’s birth certificate for example went to the Marian History folder elsewhere. And put it all away with a sense of accomplishment. I also paid the

utility bill

but was brought up short when looking at it, because there was a $36 balance still due, and a $0.70 late fee. What? Simple explanation: the prior bill was for $284, but when entering it in the bill-pay app, I apparently keyed in $248. Hmmph.

Anyway, off for FOPAL, where I spent two hours culling the Computer shelf. Sent books that had been there three or more months to the bargain room; lowered the price on some that had been there two months; moved some sub-sections around. Then went to help with sorting as a flood of donations were coming in the door. I could only do an hour because I got a text from

Chuck.

We were to meet at 4, but he asked if I could come earlier. Sure, no prob. I drove over to his office near California avenue. He had some news from the two showings yesterday but nothing firm yet. The Canadian Lawyer lady has been shopping, it seems, since 2016, and greatly regrets having missed out on some small cottage on Webster street nearby. Chuck knew that house and said mine is much better. Also the C.L.L. had brought her daughter and also a friend who is a decorator. This decorator friend, Chuck says, went on at length about how handsome the house is. She was still verbally pointing out its highlights when the next party arrived at 5:30, and Chuck says he was delighted because “she couldn’t have given a better sales pitch” for that party.

The second party is a single woman, 30-something Chuck estimated, who works at Apple. She came with her realtor and her mother, who is apparently ready to finance, or help finance, a purchase. They also went on at length about how charming the house is.

So the odds seem good that we should get an offer or even two this week.

I also talked to him about the IRS Form 706 that the Lawyer and the Advisors want me to file. The point of it is to preserve half of Marian’s Estate Tax Exemption so I, or more properly my heirs, can use it to shelter more of my estate. The tax accountants have quoted $3500 to prepare this form and I kind of choked on it. But with Chuck we penciled some numbers, trying to forecast what my estate will be if I live another 20 years. Would it be big enough to exceed my own exemption? Yeah, under some assumptions, as much as a third of it could be exposed to Estate Tax, which would represent a considerable tax bite on the final value of the Trust.

Home for a very casual supper (I’m getting pretty lazy about feeding myself) and some TV.

Day 155, FBC and FOPAL and mixer

Monday, 5/6/2019

Started the day with a run, departing earlier than usual, 8am instead of my normal lazy 9am departure. That was so that I could get home, shower, and get back to the local coffee shop to meet with Harriet at 10am to talk about Steve’s idea for a

revived Fast Break Club.

This was an enlightening meeting. Harriet brought her friend Leslie who is a Stanford WBB alum as well as having worked in the WBB office.

We all agreed that Steve’s ideas were a complete non-starter unless there was real, enthusiastic buy-in and support from the WBB office, and Tara in particular. Leslie explained how, since the program is now completely funded from the Athletic department, there is no real concern about attendance. Steve’s strongest argument for a new fan organization is the slow decline in average attendance over the last decade, but the department and WBB coaches and staff really don’t care. Their job performance isn’t rated based on attendance. Only if we can find out what they do want, or what would help them with things that do count, like recruiting, would we get support. So job one, she thought, would be talk to the coaches and try to find out what would seem like a benefit to them.

After that, even with Office support, the problem remains of how to recruit new fans, especially younger parents with daughters. Here again Leslie knew something that I (nor I think Harriet) had known: that parents of high- and middle-school students, and the students, coaches, and teachers, all work off the school website and other social media these days. So if you can get any parent to post a fan-club event on their school’s site, that’s how to get things known.

We left it to Harriet to take these thoughts back to Bob and others in touch with Steve, and talked a little bit about Norway, where they want to tour next winter. My experience was only in the summer, and they’d read the blog, so there wasn’t much I could add, except to recommend Stockholm for a visit. Turns out Leslie has a relative in Helsinki, which is a reasonable ferry ride from Stockholm.

A bit later in the morning I found myself with

nothing to do,

and that’s a first! Almost nothing on the old to-do list. I’ve been expecting this time to come, but I thought it wouldn’t happen until I had moved in to CH. I pictured a day when I am moved in, all my furniture set up, I water the plants and then… nothing on the schedule.

That will be when I will have to start rearranging my days to apply time to three different long-term projects I’ve had on the back-burner for a year now, including two books. Well, fine, but not today. I decided to go down to

FOPAL

and make sure the Computer section was in good order. There were four boxes of books waiting. I went through them, sent ¾ on to the bargain room, and priced and shelved the rest. The section is looking quite good, if I do say so. I’ll hit it again Wednesday and Friday and it should be ready for the sale weekend. After an hour doing that, I spent another 90 minutes doing sorting, and had the sorting room almost tidy when the usual Monday volunteers showed up. So I came on home and actually played a computer game for an hour. Then I went over to CH to check the mail and for

supper,

which turned out to be a “mixer”. As you enter the dining room there’s a resident with a hat containing small numbers. If you are willing to participate you take a number, which is the number of a table. In this way you sit and eat with people you haven’t met before. I did it, although in fact I haven’t met anyone at all. But prior times I’ve eaten there, I’ve sat by myself and read a book. This time, I sat with — let me see — Carol, Julie, Betty, lady whose name I can’t pronounce, and Colin. Colin is a chatty guy with a bit of a British accent and wild bushy eyebrows. He just had a 90th birthday party last weekend; and he played tennis this morning. He said he always asked new residents some questions, I said go ahead, and asked if I play bridge (yes) but then he wanted me to play in his duplicate bridge group and I really don’t want to play duplicate. He asked if I sing, well, I can carry a tune, great, every Wednesday we have a sing-along over in the Lee Center, you must come. Do I play tennis? Sorry, no; this is where I found out he plays tennis regularly. Do I dance? Nope! I think I’m down as a poor quality recruit in his book.

And so home. Chuck messages that he has a potential buyer who wants to see the house, can I clear out around noon tomorrow? You betcha!

Day 152, shopping, fitness, paperwork

Friday, 5/3/2019

First thing, I called Angela’s number at CH and to my surprise, got her live. Arranged for her to leave the upgrade estimates at the desk for me to sign. Then went on a a run. Then headed out on a shopping expedition.

First stop was Stanford Federal Credit Union. Back story: in April I used the SFCU website bill-pay system to pay a medical bill, $504 to Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Early in May I got a note in the PAMF messaging system asking if I’d please pay my $504 bill. So I replied that I had, $504 on 4/9. They replied, we don’t see it, but send us some proof, email to blah blah include account number, etc., and we’ll try to find it. Grump grump grump, off I go to SFCU. Nice guy opens up the account and prints off a couple pages showing indeed, $504 went out from my account to PAMF’s account on 4/9.

So later in the day I scan this and start to append it to an email to the given address when I have a thought. The SFCU bill-pay app was set up by Marian, with a menu of known recipients; for each one, an account number etc. Looking at the summary of recent payments I see that in fact that payment of 4/9 went to the recipient named “PAMF-M”.

Uh-oh.

Yup, in the menu of recipients is another named “PAMF-D”. Looking at the details, the one I paid to had Marian’s PAMF account number, not my PAMF account number.

So that led to a considerable change in the tone and content of the email to Sutter Health billing department. From “Look how wrong you are,” to “Can you straighten out my stupid goof?”

From SFCU I drove to Wegman’s Nursery, and then more or less on a whim, to another nursery on Ralston Ave. in Belmont. Neither had anything like hanging plant post I need.

Now on to Stanford shopping center, Macy’s Men’s store. I had various clothes that need upgrading or replacing. One, my Jockey shorts are wearing out, not surprising they’d have holes being at least ten years old. Easy enough to buy a dozen of those. Two, I need a couple of pairs of jeans. I tried on a bunch and finally didn’t choose any. I did confirm that despite having lost over 10 pounds in the past year, my correct size is still 36W30L exactly as it has been for ever. But I couldn’t find the right combination of color and fit, and decided to go home, check what I had, and order exact replacements online.

Three, polo shirts. My standard summer shirt is a Lands End Supima cotton polo. Sadly Land’s End isn’t selling the one of their colors that I like and looks good on me, a deep brown. Maybe I could find a nice polo shirt at Macy’s? I looked at a bunch and didn’t like any. Not even actual Polo ones, the kind with a little polo player embroidered on them. Or the ones with an alligator. No good colors and all felt crude to the hand. Back to the internet.

So I zipped home with my bundle of tighty-whiteys and quickly changed to shorts and a t-shirt and drove back to CH for my Fitness Evaluation with Clark. Clark (his last name is not Kent, despite his definite mild manner) had me do six or seven things while he timed me. How many times can I stand up and sit down again in 30 seconds, and so on. He promises in a few days a consultation and a fitness program.

Signed Angela’s forms so work can start on my unit, then back home again to start the laundry, send that email to PAMF Billing, order the wax plant poles from Amazon, order two pairs of jeans from Levi’s, order one black and one dark gray polo from Land’s End. Also waiting at home, the statement for my next six month’s of car insurance. I note that I am protected at $1M for bodily injury, but $100K for property damage. Catherine the insurance agent had suggested upping it to $1M for property damage also, but on consideration, I don’t see it. I wrote to her saying I would leave it as-is.

Throughout the day I’d been hoping for a call-back from Poppy, the tour organizer at CHM, and it never came. That’s very disappointing and I am going to take myself off that tour… done.

At 7:30 there is a concert at Dinkelspiel I want to attend. Time for a quick supper and a nap first.

Day 150, documents and delays

Wednesday, 5/1/2019

Started with a run. Then killed time, basically, until noon. Well, I did do the a few remaining change-of-address entries online. After all, it’s only a couple of weeks now to move-in. (Hah! see below!) Then ran out to get the antibiotics that I ordered at the pharmacy back on day 142, and then forgot about.

At 1pm I drove up to San Mateo, an office park just off highway 92 and 101, to meet with my

lawyer.

She was recommended several years ago by the financial advisor to handle routine paperwork, but that time we only corresponded by email and real mail. This time we met so she could notarize everything I needed to sign: a revised family trust, a new durable power of attorney, new living will, and a number of other documents needed to document to the State of California and the County of Santa Clara that I was now the sole trustee owning this property.

She also advised having my tax persons file a form 760 or 706 or something so that I could continue to claim Marian’s half of the estate tax exclusion. I don’t know. I guess.

Also I have a new will, which I need to sign in the presence of two witnesses. Unfortunately she couldn’t procure a second witness from the rent-an-office space, so I had to take the will home and need to get two witnesses together to sign saying they saw me sign it.

Chuck called to say that the forms I gave him are unreadable. Wut? Also, that

Nancy, the divorcee

that he mentioned in passing a few weeks ago, was the person to whom he showed the house yesterday, and she liked it, and did not audibly snicker when he said “three million”. However, her financial situation isn’t clear. The divorce court has ordered that her house — not many blocks from mine, it would appear — must be sold as part of the settlement. However, Chuck thinks she and her ex have inflated ideas of its value, so it may take some time to sell. In the meantime, would I be interested in “carrying back” some part of the purchase price, in the event she wanted to buy now and finish paying when that deal went through. Hmmmmm.

Shortly after I got home, Andrew, Chuck’s son and office manager, dropped off the packet of forms I’d filled out and handed in. Indeed, all my signatures and other marks (checkboxes, explanations) were almost invisible! Immediately I deduced what had happened. I had filled out these complicated forms with my favorite

erasable pen

because I did keep going back and changing stuff. Very, very bad idea. I know that the pen is erased by heat, you rub its hard little eraser nub rapidly and the friction heat makes it disappear. Well, I am guessing that Chuck tossed the envelope of forms on the seat of his car, or a desk by a window, and they got cooked by the sun, bleaching all the marks.

I quickly sat down with the copy I’d made of the forms (my copy is perfectly legible) and re-did all the marks and signatures with a real ballpoint. So that’s ready when Chuck comes by later.

Next thing was an email from

Angela the move-in manager,

with the news that, owing the delays getting cabinetry made and blah blah blah, my new target move-in at Channing House is… June 16th. Shit. I have serious hopes of getting this house sold by then. If necessary, I will move out to a motel. I put a higher priority on selling the house. The moving company I am trying to contact does storage as well. I can have my goods moved out on one day, and moved in many days later, if necessary.

I texted Deborah the estate sale person with this news. And will tell Chuck when he appears. But my message to him is still, full speed ahead.

Here, have a wax plant:

Day 148, first missed post

Monday, 4/29/2019

This is the first post where I didn’t write the post until late the next day. I’ve done some in the morning of the next day, but this is the first where I just forgot entirely. So sorry, Dere Diary.

There’s nothing in the Google Calendar for the day, either. I recall I went for a run, and afterward… oh, right! Afterward I sat down to begin the process of changing my address with various organizations, the credit card, the DMV, and so on.

I also finished cleaning out all the drawers of “the red chest”. This is an old, six-drawer, school file cabinet, sturdily built in fumed oak. My sister Joyce acquired it at some point. Then it went to my Mother who, in her inimitable fashion, brush-painted it in a deep red enamel. When my parents closed up their home to move to an elder facility, the red chest came to us. I recall that Marian and I spent quite a bit of time stripping the red paint off it to reveal the old finish. Then we stuck it in the garage where it has been used for miscellaneous storage ever since. Sunday and this day I spent time going through all the stuff in it, throwing stuff into the garbage, or setting it aside for the sale.

Some things in it might be use to a future owner of the house. There’s a plastic tub with miscellaneous hardware bits, the unique brass door hardware off a couple of the original doors, matching glass knobs for cabinets, etc.

After a couple of hours of that I realized that, owing to the planned visit to The Lawyer on Wednesday I wouldn’t be able to do the usual sorting at FOPAL, so instead I went down there for the afternoon. Priced and shelved some books in the Computer section, and did some sorting.

Chuck texted me to ask if it would be alright to bring a client to view the house at noon. Sure!