Day 62, “Yosemite”, Insurance

Thursday, 1/30/2019

I spent the bulk of the day at “Yosemite”, the CHM’s big storage space on Yosemite avenue in Milpitas. With six other regular volunteers I worked on “palletizing” a number of machines. These are smaller units that were stored at floor level. Aurora, the curator, wants to move them to one of the higher racks with the fork-lift. To do that, each unit has to be gotten onto a pallet and strapped down with “cordlash”, a high-strength fabric strap.

Allen, Steve, and Dave Bennet move a piece of a PDP-11/70 onto a pallet

Palletizing is heavy work, especially when you consider the volunteers are as old or older than the historic machines they’re moving.

One persistent problem is plastic foam. Designers liked to incorporate foam into these machines for sound deadening or air filtration. Unfortunately after 40+ years, the foam degrades to a crispy, dusty texture that fragments at a touch into a sticky snow that coats the inside of the machine and encourages corrosion. Foul stuff! I spotted black snow in one machine and traced it to air filters that had not been removed when the machine was initially archived several years earlier.

At lunch I mentioned having visited the Hiller aviation museum and it turned out four of the eight people at the table had been there, some several times.

Insurance

Back home there was one piece of mail on the doormat: an envelope from The Prudential. Thinking it would be an ad, I almost tossed it, but when I opened it found a check for $5000 — the payment for Marian’s IBM life insurance. I’m not sure how it came about that she had this policy. Maybe it was a perk they offered in the years before I was hired; or maybe it was an optional payroll deduction thing. I certainly wasn’t offered life insurance, that I recall.

At any rate, this check is one of the last pieces of bureaucracy related to her death. The books aren’t quite closed; I had an email from the financial advisors, saying they are preparing the paperwork to merge her IRA accounts into mine, and would get it to me soon.

This was a bit of a surprise. I had assumed that on her death, her IRA would have to be closed and the long-deferred federal tax on it paid. If I understand the email, though (and I’ve asked for a clarification) it looks as if her IRA will simply be merged with mine, and the money will continue to be tax-deferred. That’ll be a nice perk for a widower! Possibly with more net value than the old life insurance.

Basketball

Stanford women played at Cal. I lost track of the time and didn’t start the audio stream of the game until just into the fourth quarter, when the score was tied 69-all. (Which reminds me of the old joke about the couple who arrive late at a baseball game, to find the score 0-0 in the ninth. “Oh good,” says the wife, “we didn’t miss anything!”)

In the next few minutes Stanford got down by 5, then came back to lead by 1 point. With seven seconds left, Cal’s Aja Jones drove the lane and made a layup on the buzzer; Cal wins by one point. The announcer on the Stanford audio stream was going nuts, talking about the best basketball game he’d seen all season. Cal plays at Stanford Saturday afternoon; I’m looking forward to attending that game.

Day 57, museum, inspection, sale, play

Last night was the second time I’ve gone to a highschool game to see a future Stanford player. The last was on Day 33, to see Hanna Jump play at Pinewood. This trip was to Mitty HS in San Jose to see Haley Jones , considered the #1 recruit in the nation for the class of 2019. She was impressive for sure. Surprisingly for a 6-1 player (tall for high school) she ran the point most of the time, but also penetrated to score under the basket, and had lots of rebounds, too. Coincidentally the little group of 8 or 9 Stanford fans had picked an historic night to watch her. During the third quarter she broke the Mitty High record for career points scored, a 28-year-old record that had been set by — wait for it — Kerry Walsh, better known today as a many-time Olympic Beach Volleyball champion.

On the way back, Harriet and I talked about senior living issues. It developed that she has a friend who recently moved into Webster House, another ILF that I’m interested in. (It’s just on the opposite side of University Avenue from Channing House.) She is going to find out if her friend would be willing to show me around there.

Saturday, 1/26/2019

Went to CHM for the second Saturday in a row, to lead a tour of SCU students. Didn’t bore them too much, I think. Back home and changed to normal clothes; and went off to eyeball three ILFs located North of me, starting with

Voralto Belmont

I think this may have been a mistake by Alan, because the Voralto site says it offers “Concierge-Level Assisted Living & Private-Pay Skilled Nursing” — no mention of independent living. It’s an odd place, built like a castle on top of a steep knoll above Ralston Avenue. Down below, around Ralston and El Camino, there are plenty of restaurants, a Safeway, a Walgreen’s. It’s not a pleasant neighborhood, with six lanes of traffic intersecting four lanes, but there are lots of services. I am amused by the website linked above, which gushes that the Voralto (I keep trying to write Voltron) is

just steps from the Cal Train station, El Camino Real, HWY 101, Downtown Belmont,… within a minute’s walk from the many fine dining restaurants and boutique shops that Belmont Village has to offer…

The first 200 or so of those steps (and the final 200 returning) are on a very steep street with an elevation gain of at least 50 feet. Once on the flat, it is only a couple tenths of a mile to Caltrain, and there are quite a few local restaurants, if you want to call Panda Express “fine dining”.

Anyway, I think the Voltron is off my list because it isn’t really Independent Living. Next up was

Peninsula Regent

in San Mateo. The Peninsula Regent is a buy-in community: you buy a condominium apartment and then pay a monthly fee for food and services. In theory at least, you or your heirs will be able to sell your condo. (The website mentions the staff includes “licensed Realtors to help in purchasing or selling your membership and condominium”)

My first visual impression was of an old, respectable hotel. I mentally guessed it was of the 1950s. (I note the website has pictures only of interiors.) I didn’t take a picture but here’s a screen grab from Google Street View:

pregent

(The scaffolding is no longer there.) The impression is of a stately hotel of the last century. In fact, per the website, it went up in 1986, so not so old. Does that mean it is seismically safe? It offers mainly independent living, but also has 20 assisted living units. It is not clear how that transition is handled, if it can be temporary, etc. No skilled nursing.

Then I explored the neighborhood. It is located just outside San Mateo’s very pleasant downtown, ‘B’ street. What a nice walkable neighborhood! Not quite as nice as University Ave in Palo Alto but quite pleasant. My next stop was almost exactly as far from the town center at 2nd and ‘B’ but on the opposite side,

The Stratford

which is very similar. The Stratford describes itself as “a beautiful, 11-story condominium building… has the distinct look and feel of a 5-star hotel.” That’s the first impression it makes to the eye: a grand hotel of the last century. Like the Regent, their website doesn’t show any exteriors. Here’s a street view grab:

stratford

As a location, this is very good, just a couple blocks from that nice downtown and facing a park. Just like the Regent, it claims to have assisted living but not skilled nursing. In fact this and the Peninsula Regent are kind of twins in location, facilities, and price.

And probably too expensive for me. But I enjoyed looking at them. Then home to do a blog post. Later, I have a ticket for “Shakespeare in Love” at the Peninsula Theater.

Day 56, busy busy

Friday 1/25/2019

Started the day with a short run, only 25 minutes. Then after shower shave dress in my docent outfit (proper slacks and my official red Museum shirt) I sat down to clean up some deferred desk work.

One job was to get the form 1099R for Marian’s 2018 pension into PDF form. All the other 1099’s (of which there are 8 total) arrive as PDFs, or are downloadable from the provider, Schwab or whoever. But this one arrived in the mail as paper, and I need it as a PDF with the others to submit to our tax accountant. Well, not a big deal. That’s why we have an “all in one” printer that copies and scans. But I’ve never actually scanned off this printer. Just on instinct I opened the Mac Preview app, which is Apple’s swiss army knife for documents, looked under the File menu, and there it was: “import from scan” with a submenu listing the attached printer. Two minutes later, badda-boom badda-bing, PDF.

Next job was to call VIA Benefits, the IBM health agency. I want to know that Marian’s account is properly closed. I called them first on Day 13 when they couldn’t talk to me because they needed proof I was Marian’s executor. I’d sent a packet of proof then. So I called again today. The pleasant phone rep “Candy” told me she couldn’t talk to me because blah blah, I said, but I sent blah blah, she says, oh I see on the file a note here, the legal department said the document was “missing page three” so it wasn’t complete.

Rubbish, I did not say to Candy. I just had her verify the address to send, hung up, and prepared a new packet of copies of Marian’s will, death certificate, etc etc, making sure that every page was copied. Had it all addressed and sealed when I realized, her will names “my spouse” as executor. So I opened the package and added a copy of our marriage certificate just to prove that I was the “spouse” in question.

Then it was time to go to the museum to lead a tour, stopping at a post office on the way to mail that packet. It was a light day at the museum and my tour group numbered only four. I asked, they were not in a hurry, so I deliberately took it slow, made a couple of extra stops. Ran over the allotted hour by 20 minutes, but they stuck with me.

Did this post, and now I’m going to run up to Belmont and get a quote on a dash-cam. Later… Yes, I have booked installation of a nice dash cam for February 5th. I mean to get the car waxed soon, too.

I’m going to close out this blog post. Tonight at 6, I and another Stanford WBB fan are going to drive to San Jose, to Mitty HS, to see a highly-touted Stanford recruit play. I’ll tell about that tomorrow.

Day 51, coffee hissy fit, ILF drive-by

Sunday, 1/20/2019

Did the NYT big puzzle in record time, 26:19, yay me. I’m using a new approach to crosswords and it is working well.

Headed out at 8am for coffee. Drove to Baron Barista, because it’s close to The Avant on El Camino, which I want to eyeball. Alas, at 8:15 they were very apologetic that their pastry order hadn’t arrived. As an almond croissant was the whole purpose of my visit, I smiled and said “sorry, bye”. Just down the street was a Starbucks. It’s an odd one, squeezed into a building that’s the shape of a skinny wedge of cheese. For some reason they have tinted windows with shades pulled down. It was almost too dark to read the paper. But they displayed almond croissants so I ordered one and a, quote, “Grande Dry Cappuccino”. The dude leans down and gets the pastry from below the counter and it’s wrapped in cellophane. Sigh, ok, I don’t complain. I pay and find a table with a little light and put down my paper and my hat and my jacket. And wait. There’s two guys and neither doing any coffee-related activity. Finally the one guy brings out my coffee, which was nice of him, except when I pick it up, it weighs at least 8 ounces, it’s two-thirds full. I don’t say anything but I am fuming inside. If I wanted a fucking latte I would have ordered a fucking cup of hot milk with a dash of coffee, I think. And then, why am I here? To eat a stale pastry and have a coffee I don’t want? And I put on my coat and pick up my paper and start quietly out, quickly walk back and pick up my hat, and leave and drive to my usual P.A. Cafe in Midtown, thinking on the way what a gem of a place it is. The staff have been there forever; they bake all their pastries on site; they make your drinks as you request them. It gets noisy, true, but that’s because it’s a success and people love it.

After reading the paper I drive by

the Avant

It’s the place that charges $4000 more per month than several other ILFs including Channing House. I am not impressed with the exterior, other than a nice entry, the side exposures look like a motel. I don’t see the extra money on the outside, anyway. I wonder if they charge extra for off-street parking? Well, I’ll never find out, because I am verifying it is much too far from the nearest shopping street. It’s a good half-mile to California Avenue. So it fails at my first requirement. Which is a bit of a relief, frankly. I can finally stop wondering how they justify their rates.

I drive that half-mile to El Camino at Oregon, park, and walk around

Sunrise Palo Alto

an ILF that (I only now notice) also advertises “a special community for the memory impaired”. In fact, looking now at their web page, they really don’t bill themselves for IL, but rather for “personalized living options” and “continuing care”. Which I read as, more for the sick and the feeble, less for the independent.

Sunrise is a month-to-month place which — I only just now realized from Alan’s info sheet — also charges $8200/month for a 1BR unit. Oof! Well, to the eye it’s a decent looking building, fairly new. (Looks a little more like $8k than the Avant.) The ground-floor street corner is a large dining room. There are only a couple of people visible in it. The windows on the next corner reveal what is clearly the staff break room with several nurse-looking types chatting around a table. There appears to be an underground garage. Frankly, Channing House is looking better all the time. Well, time to head off to

Basketball

The Cardinal women dominated WSU behind a career performance from Alanna Smith. Back home I polished up three remaining loose ends in my game. Next time I work on it, it will be package it as a stand-alone app.

Day 48, price of hot water

Friday, 1/18/2018

The Prius has been telling me it “needs maintenance soon” for a few weeks. It doesn’t, but earlier I scheduled it for an oil change today. Drove it to the Toyota place for its 8:30 am appointment, then walked the two miles back. Depending on what time they call that it’s ready, and on how I feel, I will either walk back to retrieve it or take a Lyft.

Meantime I put in an hour at my software project, adding another feature, which went in and functioned after only a few silly errors that took maybe 20 minutes to fix. Applied some time to another on-going project, starting a list of ILFs that I want to check out and scheduling time to go and do that. I’ll get a good inside look at Channing House on Saturday when I have dinner with Craig. But I want to take casual, outside looks at the some others, and make some notes, in order to decide which ones to request tours of. There are two on El Camino that I can easily eyeball on Sunday morning. I’ll be recording my reactions in this blog, of course.

About 1:30 the water heater guy arrived. After diagnosis, it’s the gas control unit. $415. OK, sure, do it.

Back on Day 38 I mentioned making an inventory of our basketball memorabilia, in particular items related to the San Jose Lasers professional team of 1996-98. Nobody I’ve talked to among the Stanford fans really wants any of it. I mentioned this to Greta, one of the CHM staff, and she suggested History San Jose. Great idea! So I took a few minutes to fill out their item-donation form with the particulars of the best items. Hope they want them.

I did walk back to Toyota, so with some other incidental walking later, I hoofed about 4.5 miles today. After a bit of supper I headed out to Maples to see the Stanford women play UW. It was a nice game, early lead, up by 30 in the third quarter, lots of minutes for the bench players.

Day 46, taxes and books and a painting

After yesterday’s writing, I packed up two boxes of books to take to FOPAL on Wednesday. This consisted mostly of bird books and birding-related books. I had no idea we had so many books about birds and birding. Marian had accumulated them over the years; I recognized only a couple. I’ve no intention of ever spotting another bird; that was her hobby that I supported but didn’t really enjoy. So losing those books is another shard of the prior life, but not one that caused much emotion. Well, a little — when I riffled the page of her most-used birding guide and saw all the check marks and notes in her handwriting of what species we’d seen and where.

Another half-box was the books by and about Arthur Ransome that I mentioned back on Day 35. I received the two additional, $1 books that I ordered then. Now I arrayed them all on the table and sat down with eBay to see what prices such books were getting. And quickly realized that my collection was still incomplete, there was one more novel and at least two more popular biographies that I didn’t have. So much for selling a complete bookshelf. I put the books in the box for FOPAL.

Except for one. Most of the books are paperback, but one is cloth-bound, and on looking inside I realized it was a first edition, or at least a first American printing, dated 1942. Similar Ransome hardbacks are on eBay for $50 and up, so I took some pictures and put it up on eBay. We’ll see.

Got an email from Craig wondering if I wanted to visit Channing house or not. Very timely, given how I’d just put my ILF decision back on track, so in a quick exchange we agreed to meet Saturday afternoon.

The rest of the afternoon, I added yet another feature to my program, and to my delight, the new feature worked exactly right first try. So that wrapped day 45 nicely.

Wednesday, 1/16/2019

Went for a run, it was OK. Back home did some desk stuff. Paid a credit card bill. Created the folder to hold all the tax info for 2018, using the 2017 folder as a model. Key item here is to download the PDF copies of a total of eight form 1099-Rs, from all the various accounts we have that generate those (two Social Security, two pension, four brokerage). Made a checklist of all the tasks to do going forward with the taxes. That doesn’t really get busy until February.

Booked myself to attend the PAC-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament, in Las Vegas March 7-10. Bought one reserved seat, booked a hotel room, booked the flights. This will be the first time I’ve traveled anywhere as a bachelor, and indeed the first flight since… I think since October 2017 when we returned from NYC. Hopefully the gummint shutdown will be over by March?

In the mail: the official document from the Neptune Society, stating that Marian was “respectfully delivered to the sea” on January 10th. I have to say, the Neptune Society has been a class act the whole way, supportive, responsive, professional. I’m glad we signed with them all those years ago.

One of the items I want to get rid of is this painting: 4337722_orig

We commissioned this; it was actually painted for us; we met with Dean Linsky (click the link to see his website) in Yosemite Valley in 2004 and walked around with him pointing out features we liked. A couple of months later the painting arrived, and it has been on our wall ever since.

Looking forward I don’t want to try to house it in a small apartment. Linsky’s work is marketed mostly through New Masters Gallery in Carmel. I’d like to consign it there for sale, but I’ve been having a hard time getting any info out of them by email. So today I called up and spoke directly to the gallery owner, Bill Hill. I have to say, Bill’s telephone manners are abrupt. Although his gallery has been in business for years, he’s clearly not a salesman type. I emphasized how I would have to depend on his expertise to know what the painting would go for, and at his request sent a cell-phone shot of it again by email. Maybe this time he’ll look at it.

Anyway, off to FOPAL, taking two boxes of books. And home for a quiet evening.

Day 36, Stanford Memorial

Sunday, 1/6/2019

Went to the nearby coffee shop to read the paper, but had to leave early because someone had brought in a very cute lad about 7 years old who, though full of energy, was coughing, hoarsely and continuously, hrrroorrkkk! He had been taught to cover his mouth but he was being perfunctory about it, barely swinging his forearm in front of his face as he hacked, so there was plenty of room for his germs to get out. I bundled up my paper and beat it away from the little germ-ball.

Around 11am Dennis arrived, then Jean, then Darlene and Jesse, and off we went to Maples Pavilion for the WBB game against UCLA. Coach Amy’s comps were in kind of a corner, but at least we were all together for what turned out to be a very exciting game, Stanford falling behind by 20 at one point before clawing back into the game and taking a firm lead only in the last 6 minutes to win.

Then we moved across the arena for the “Behind the Bench” talk, which opened with a very nice tribute to Marian. The pictures I’d supplied looked great on the Jumbotron, and announcer Betty Ann Boeving read a short, clear tribute. After the similar tribute to DeeDee Zahwaydah, Tara ad-libbed a couple more sentences about Marian. It was very nice, and nice for Jean and Darlene to see the regard she was held in there.

On return to the house I invited Darlene and Jesse to make free of the remaining items of Marian’s clothing, and they each took a top, more from politeness I think than real desire. Next week the remainder goes to the ACS shop.

Day 34, game day

Before the diary, a thought on the topic of

Not Screwing Up

The anxiety I’ve been having spells of this month? I’ve mentioned it several times. The best description would be the sinking feeling you get when you realize there was something you were supposed to do and you now realize you forgot to do it. Well, I had a bit of an insight on its source: I’m afraid of screwing up.

Here’s the thing: I, probably very much like most people, am prone to forgetting things or overlooking things. But for several decades I’ve been able to rely on Marian’s good memory and practicality to catch my mistakes or oversights before I make them. “Are you forgetting that…” or “You do remember we have to…” were common sentence openings for her, to me. Not so much the reverse, although once in a while I would think of some consideration she’d missed.

Now I don’t have that steady oversight. I lost my co-pilot; I’m flying solo. And apparently, it scares me. To a degree the fear is legitimate. I will screw up, forget things, drop balls. People do.

I find myself compensating, making lots of lists, checking my online calendar often, reviewing the upcoming hours to reassure myself that I have all my obligations under control. The extra efforts in home maintenance (treating the leather cushions, refinishing the table tops) are ways of asserting my ability to maintain in a general sense. Hopefully with time I will regain some confidence in my own wits.

Friday 1/4/2019

Started with a run. Exchanged emails with Scott about where to have lunch. Put in 90 minutes on one of my programming projects. Met Scott for lunch. Chilled out for the afternoon. In the evening, went to the Stanford WBB game against USC. Will tell the results tomorrow.

Day 33, a full day

Yesterday evening, coach Amy Tucker came through in spades, saying comp tix for my party for the Sunday game would be at the player window. I’m sure my relatives will be impressed with their seats. But somehow this exchange got into my brain and kept me wakeful much of the night. Anticipating this party, completely inane and unreal worry that I’d offended Amy, who knows? Worry worry and toss and turn.

Thursday 1/3/2019

The middle of the day is filled with my first cataloging shift at CHM in over two years. I’ve spent many hours over the last decade cataloging objects, but stopped doing that activity in favor of leading tours. A few weeks ago I was invited to schedule myself for cataloging sessions again. So today I was to show up at the museum’s Shustek Center at ten. One little problem: I’d been to the Shustek Center only once before, for a tour when it first opened a couple of years ago. I knew it was near Milpitas, but couldn’t remember exactly where.

Well, no problem, I’ll just get it off the CHM website. Um, no, I won’t; the site absolutely does not give that info. I’m pretty good at using search engines, and I could not find the address of this building. After an hour I did turn it up, using the online equivalent of brute force. I opened the online PDF of the Museum’s glossy annual magazine for the year the Center opened. There was an article about the creation of the new site, and buried in it was the address. Apparently that PDF wasn’t being indexed by Google.

Everyone at the site was very welcoming. I did some good work cataloging a rack of 1950s-era plugboards for IBM unit-record machines, and enjoyed lunch with a cheerful group of 8.

Back home by 3pm, just time for a little rest before heading out for the day’s second activity. One of the Stanford WBB fans, Harriet, had organized a group to go to Pinewood high school and watch a Stanford recruit, Hannah Jump, play. Five of us met at Harriet’s house for a good, simple meal at 5, and then off to the Pinewood campus in Los Altos Hills. I rode in Arlene’s Tesla, the first time I’ve ridden in a Tesla. We were all impressed by the quality of play in the game between the Pinewood Pumas and Sacred Heart Prep: the girls are fast, athletic, and intense. Pinewood won, and Hannah looked like a college-ready player.

Back home at 8:30 to find lots of watchable TV programs on the DVR. Quite a nice day.

Day 28

Saturday, 12/29/2018

To-Do list:

Drop off Marian’s knitting
Drop off canned goods
Buy a belt

Explanations. Early on I collected all Marian’s knitting supplies — a fat sack of assorted hanks and balls of yarn, three nice cloth binders each holding dozens of knitting needles, some other knitting doo-dads — into a basket. I offered the collection to a friend who had often talked knitting with Marian, but she said no thanks, she had all that stuff. So now the collection needs to go to Jean, who will take it to the Church thrift shop. So I went through the basket again before putting it in the car, and spent the next half hour sniffling. She worked so hard at that hobby, enjoyed the challenge and even the frustrations (“Oh no, I made a mistake three rows back!”), created nice things. And of course had all her tools perfectly organized. It’s just deeply saddening to see it go.

The canned goods? Two bags of unopened tins and jars from our pantry. I cleaned out the pantry a week ago, dumped a lot of partly-used stuff (I expect never to use panko crumbs again, or the opened box of cake mix, or a half bottle of balsamic, etc. etc.), but I set aside the unopened items, meaning to donate them to some food bank. I had a notion there was a donation barrel at the local Safeway, but there wasn’t. So this morning I googled food banks and have the address of the nearest, coincidentally not far from Jean’s where I have to go anyway.

The belt. My weight dropped significantly over the past months. Per my PAMF online records, it was 185 this past August. Sometime in November I noticed my weight was just under 180 for the first time in several years. This week it has been bouncing between 176 and 178. That’s not an unhealthy weight for me at all, and not unprecedented. Back in 2009 we both did calorie-counting for several months, and I see by the PAMF records I was at 176 then for a couple of visits, before climbing back up into the 180s. (For the record, my high school weight was 165.)

Anyway, the result of being smaller is that I’ve been having to hitch up my jeans often. My belt is in its last hole and isn’t doing the job; it needs to be one hole shorter. I could punch another hole, but the belt’s at least ten years old, so why not buy a new one, sized to fit me in the middle of its range?

To-Done

Mostly. The food bank (at the Mountain View Community Center) wasn’t available; Center closed for the holidays. Got a nice belt. Dropped off knitting stuff. (Later Jean emailed to say she would offer it to another relative who’s a knitter. That would be nice!)

Then did a thing I’d written on the list with a question mark: “Campbell?” Looking ahead to where to live, I place a high priority on being close to, or actually within, some walkable town center, so I can easily stroll to shops and restaurants. I had a vague recollection that Campbell had such a center, so I drove down to look at it. Campbell does indeed have a compact, interesting and “Historic” town center. I walked around and was impressed by the dozen or more attractive restaurants, a couple of coffee shops, and lots of people strolling.

Back home and then off to a

Basketball Game

where I had an awkward moment when two fans, Fred and Cheri, asked “Where’s Marian?” I thought everybody we knew among the fans would have heard, at least from the banner that was on the fan website for a week, but nope. I wonder who else I know hasn’t heard? It was awkward; and taken aback, I just baldly said, “Oh, you haven’t heard! Marian died just earlier this month.” Which was rather a shock to them, and I apologized for being so blunt, “dumping it on you like that” I think I said. Making lemons out of lemonade. Well, so it goes.