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 189, grief, shopping, annoying news

Sunday, 6/8/2019

For perhaps the last time I walked our old route to the Palo Alto Cafe for coffee. On impulse I decided to return the way Marian and I sometimes did. From the cafe we’d turn left on Middlefield for a couple of blocks, then up a little pedestrian alley and through Hoover Park, a nice green space with a playground, a Little League ballfields, and trees. This decision gave me some discomfort today, because as I passed the little playground it came back to me very strongly how Marian would often stop here and swing on the swings for a few minutes. It meant something to her, some recollection of girlhood; and one of the few times she indulged in play. This memory had me sniffling and blinking all the way home (and a bit now).

Well. At 10 I headed out in the car to take care of a couple of shopping errands. First to Bed Bath & Beyond to buy a better blanket for my new “Full” size bed. The one I bought a few weeks ago is really not satisfactory, although I’ll take it along for backup. Also I bought a pillow, as the one I’m using now is several years (at least) old. Back home I tested out the one I bought; it is quite satisfactory. So those two items went on the pile of things to be loaded in the moving van next Saturday.

Second stop on the shopping trip was at Lowes home store. Here I needed to buy a vent cover for the furnace outlet in the kitchen. A couple of weeks back, I broke the existing one by leaning back in my chair with one chair leg on the vent. It looks bad, and I thought I’d replace it for the new owner. More importantly, I needed to buy cabinet pulls for the new cabinets in Apt. 621. I selected some nice-shaped brushed-nickel handles.

At 5pm I drove to Channing House. First stop was Angela’s office in the basement to drop off the door pulls. She was at her desk, and glad to see me because she was just about to write me an email. There’s been a snag in the scheduling. The two counter-tops, one for the remodeled kitchenette and one for the bathroom vanity counter, have been back-ordered. She’s been promised them for sometime between the 10th and the 17th, and just maybe one of them might be installed before I move in on the 15th. But if they are both still missing, I won’t have any kind of basin for washing hands or spitting toothpaste. Toilet, shower, closets, all OK, but no basin. We joked about how I could brush my teeth in the shower.

She had reserved one of their guest apartments for me to sleep in, if I don’t want to complete the move, but I said I’d tough it out. Worst case, I can come back and sleep at 2340 Tasso for a couple of nights, although I don’t expect to. It’s annoying but I can’t get angry about this; I’ve lived through construction projects and know how they can go. Angela does an amazing job coordinating a dozen or more projects simultaneously and I’m not going to grump at her.

Her second annoying news came when I told her that I’d be on my way to Greece on September 6th, which is the last day of the move-out period for the 6th floor. So, could she please schedule my move to temporary quarters for earlier in that week?

Well, actually, no, we can’t. We always do it from the end furthest from the freight elevator toward it. And #621 is the last apartment right next to the freight elevator. So probably mine would be the last or penultimate move. OK, I said, as long as you can do it without me. Yes, no problem. We’ll work with you to plan the move, we’ll know where everything goes, and you don’t need to be here for the actual move.

So there we are. Moving in with possibly no sinks, and when I come back from my cruise, I’ll see my temporary unit for the first time.

Day 188, scary purchase, transistor, dvr

Saturday, 6/8/2019

One week from right now (9am) I will be preparing for the moving van to arrive. But this morning I did something scarier: committed to a tour in September. I’ve been talking for a while about taking some kind of cruise or tour, probably with Road Scholar, in September, after I’ve been moved to my temporary flat. Where to? people asked, and I casually said, oh, maybe the Greek Islands.

So yesterday I opened up the Road Scholar website and browsed around, and continued doing that this morning, and finally settled on this one: “Island Hopping in the Aegean“. It seemed the best combination of places, dates, and especially price, because single-occupancy wasn’t a huge penalty over double. It took a while to muster the courage to click through the purchase process, and I hesitated a long time before committing and am still spooked by it. But it’s done. Unless I decide to bail in the next couple of weeks, I’m at least financially committed to spending September 6-20 cruising in a small ship around some Greek islands.

It would have been so comfortable to have just said, “nah, I’ll think about it later” and clicked away. I could feel the pull of mental and emotional inertia, like the gravity of a black hole… Some of the impetus to go through with it was that I spent some time yesterday and this morning reading through our New Zealand travel blog. Just ten years ago we did those six weeks in a van around both islands. Funny, an ongoing theme in those blog posts is the constant hunt for internet connectivity. I bet that isn’t such a problem today.

Spent a bit more time completing the documentation package for Katie the Tax. Then left for the Museum, stopping on the way to mail my estimated tax payments. I have to thank the Channing House email list for that. Although I had the envelopes and vouchers ready to go in the “Current Tax Year” pendaflex, with a post-it on them saying “mail before June 15”, I might well have forgotten. But there was an email earlier in the week reminding everyone that the deadline was coming. OMyGod yes! I thought. And wrote the checks and stamped the envelopes.

I wanted to put a return address on them but realized that my return address stamp, which I’ve been using since the 1980s, has the wrong (old) address. So I hand-wrote the 850 Webster return address, and then went online and ordered return address stickers.

At the museum I led a tour for, initially, 25 people, but several dropped off so I ended with about 15. Only notable thing was that someone swiped my transistors! I had two TO-5 transistors in a little plastic box, which I let the group hand around, it makes the comparison to the vacuum tube (which they have handled at a prior stop) much clearer. Today, the little box didn’t come back to me, and when I asked the group at the next stop, nobody had any idea. Bummer.

I went out for supper, then while watching Jeopardy I made a list of all the shows I’ve got subscribed on the DVR. Planning to subscribe to the same ones, or most of them, on the new XFinity DVR after moving in.

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 186, Yosemite, realty

Thursday, 6/6/2019

Buzzed over to Yosemite for a day of museum work. Sherman and I did photography, and ran out of work to do about 2:45. While chatting in the lobby I got a text from Chuck. Two texts, actually, and an email. He was excited because he was actually on the way to a weekend trip to the Russian River, and nearly out of cellphone service, when he received the signed counter-offer from the agent for Lawyer Lady. She has accepted our price, and wants only extra time to complete inspections.

All I needed to do is print the document, sign it, scan it, and send the scan to Chuck’s office for it to be forwarded to the other agent. I headed home to do that, and had the PDF on the way before 4:30. The L.L. has nine days to find some problem and cancel the deal, but otherwise, the house is sold.

For the last several days, well, weeks really, I’ve been in short-timer mode. Bought toilet paper Tuesday and actually thought, last time I’ll every buy T.P. again. Tonight it was, I’ll only haul these garbage cans to the curb one more time ever. And so on.

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 164, FOPAL, realty, mover

Wednesday, 5/15/2019

I have Deborah coming with someone to look at the furniture at 1:30, and Chuck is bringing the Lawyer Lady for her third look at the house at 12:30. That means I won’t be free to do my usual 2-4pm shift at FOPAL, so I decided to go and do that this morning instead. From 9-12 at FOPAL is the physical equivalent of a run, right? Wait, let me check. No, only 3700 steps as of 2pm. But it doesn’t record how many boxes of books I lifted and carried, does it.

I had meant to do a lot of sorting but discovered in fact there was a large collection of computer-related books already sorted, to be culled and priced. Actually, I recognized them. At least two weeks ago a chap presented himself at the usual donation time with a slew of small boxes of books. We loaned him our dolly to bring them from his car, and I remember showing him a narrow gap in the mountain of donations to stack them in. Only now, in the week past the sale, have they surfaced.

On examination, these were the library of a programmer who is now (I presume) retiring; anyway clearing out his collection. Maybe 200 fat paperback volumes on Java, JavaBeans, C++ and similar software platforms. Most published in 1998 through about 2008. Generally the older stuff goes straight to the bargain room. Nobody wants to buy, for example, a book whose cover proudly says “Current for Java 6” when a quick check on my iPhone shows me that Java is now at release 12, and support for release 9 was just discontinued.

Anyway I priced 50 or so volumes and ended up shelving 40 of them. Four boxes of books went on the cart labeled “H2”, the number of the bargain room, where they’ll sell for $1 or if not, eventually be recycled.

That brought me to 11am, and I did regular sorting for an hour more. I went around to the adjacent grocery store and stocked up on food so I would have something to eat in the evening. (But also told myself sternly, that I’ve paid for meal service at CH, and it is hardly any more distant than the restaurant I went to last night. If I don’t want to cook, I can just drive over there and have a nice nutritionally balanced meal.)

While eating a very tasty deli sandwich in the car I exchanged texts with Chuck. The Lawyer Lady had showed up with a contractor in tow, which surprised Chuck. She apparently wanted to get an opinion, either on the condition of the house or on the feasibility of some remodeling she has in mind. Was it OK with me to let a contractor look around? Yeah, why not. Nothing to hide. Then they had questions, relayed in texts. When was the furnace and A/C installed? etc. Hell, I don’t know, this century I’m sure. Later Chuck said they worked out from the maintenance record on the front of the furnace it was 2008. Apparently the contractor didn’t raise any red flags. We’ll hear more soon, I hope.

At 2pm Deb rolled up with Ron and Carol, a senior couple, in tow. They looked briskly at the furniture. Carol didn’t seem impressed. I don’t think it was what she wanted. I said goodby to them as my phone rang. It was Mr. Lunardi from the moving company. We agreed that his crew will show up at 10:30 on the 15th (ooh, exactly a month from today) to pack me up and move me. Actually there will not be a lot of packing-up. I’m betting they’ll have the truck loaded ready to roll by 12:00.

Day 163, Adobe, Suli, mover, bed

Tuesday, 5/14/2019

…and WordPress has lost me another 200 words. If you start a post, write a few nice paragraphs, then leave the window open for a few hours, when you come back and start editing it will say “error trying to save” and whatever you do, your draft is toast.

Well, what I said before was, in my email this morning was a warning from

Adobe

that my Creative Cloud subscription would soon renew. I’ve been paying for the privilege of using Photoshop and Lightroom, but with the end of slide scanning there is little need for either. I’ve got Pixelmator and GraphicConverter which are each capable image editors. I do make use of Adobe Bridge to organize images and search using metadata tags, but I think I have an older version that will still work without an annual rental. Or I can get used to iPhoto if I have to.

So I killed the subscription, and incidentally discovered that I also had a subscription to their web page editor, DreamWeaver. That must be a relic of when Marian used an earlier version of DreamWeaver for the FBC fan site. Anyway, killed that too.

Then walked to the YMCA for a few exercises, and back. At this point I got out the CH handbook, “Moving” page, and called the top name in their list of approved movers. Left my name for a callback. Then I waited (and waited) for Suli the housecleaner to appear. She didn’t come until 1pm; I filled the time in part by starting the laundry. And exchanging texts with Chuck: the Lawyer Lady wants to look at the house again, is 12:30 tomorrow OK? Oh heck yes.

Suli did her work, we chatted, and basically said goodby to each other. She’s been working for us for at least 20 years. She was pleased that just yesterday she had found a perfect new client to take the place of her bi-weekly visit to this house. I gave her the check, saying it was a little bit bigger than usual; she said thank you without actually looking at it. It was actually quite a bit bigger than usual.

Now it was too late in the day to go down to FOPAL, where I have been meaning to go today, to try to tackle some of the huge backlog of contributed books to sort. What else to do? Well, there was the matter of a

bed.

I’ve been going back and forth on the question of the bed for months now. First I was going to leave the Queen bed behind, get a new Full size one. Then I changed my mind, I’d keep the bed. But more recently I have flip-flopped again. It really feels stupid and annoying to be sleeping in one-half of a bed. Almost all my furniture in the new place will be new. The old bed would dominate the new bedroom. I want a cleaner break with the past.

On a previous visit to IKEA I selected the mattress I would buy; I have an iPhone picture of the label. But I didn’t actually pick a frame. So now I decided to go do that. I drove over to IKEA and went backwards on their route because I remembered that the bedroom stuff was last in the winding trail.

Of their frames, one jumped out at me right away as a perfect complement to the rest of my “midcentury modern” choices, the Trysil. It’s not expensive, it’s in stock. All I have to do is figure out how to get it, and the mattress, over to CH and assembled. I believe when the time comes, like a couple of days before official move-in, I’ll hire a TaskRabbit to do it.

I went home, and shortly noticed I was hungry, so went out, aiming for Armadillo Willy’s but as I approached it I noticed a restaurant I hadn’t eaten at in donkey’s years, Estrellita’s Mexican restaurant. We IBMers used to eat there back in the … eighties? So I went in, had a nice plate of Chile Verde.

While I was eating, the moving guy returned my call, but his news was that the CH resident notebook is out of date. The moving company he worked for closed up shop a year ago. He was friendly about it. But dang, now I have to find another.

On the way home I stopped for gas, noting it had been almost exactly a month since I last filled the tank. 80mpg, 791 miles on a tank; let’s hear it for the plug-in hybrid.

Day 157, will signed, FOPAL

Wednesday, 5/8/2019

Went for a run. The sat down to do a couple of things. Changed my address with my health insurance. Then checked something because I woke up fussed about it at 4:30am. I’m developing this bad pattern of waking up around 4am and, even though I get up and pee, I don’t go back to sleep but instead fuss and fret about something. Today it was wondering if I had the documentation I needed in order to set up my T-Mobile micro-cell at CH. What?

I’ve been using T-Mobile phone service for years, but the service was always feeble around our house, two bars and sometimes only one. Last year I heard you could do this, and I went to the T-Mobile office and said, I want one of these things. They said, “sure” and gave me a box. It’s a box that acts as a local cell tower, using your internet. Once I installed it, I had four solid bars all around the house and out to the sidewalk.

But at 4am I was all fussed because I couldn’t remember how I set it up. How did it know the local wi-fi? Did I hook a laptop to it? I didn’t remember doing that. Shut up and go to sleep! So now at 11am I just go directly to the pend-a-flex folder where I stored the user manual for the device and look, and it’s a wired connection. It needs to plug in a cable to your router or modem or whatever. That’s why I didn’t remember connecting it to the wi-fi; because I didn’t have to. Just hook up its cable and that’s it.

Will that work at CH? Probably, but I will let that wait until I get there, get moved in, and can call on the local tech committee.

Next I emailed neighbors Thane and Gloria. I didn’t mention, on Monday, day 155, I had walked across the street and asked Thane if they would witness me signing my new will. (I did mention the new will on day 150.) Monday Thane said Gloria was away, but would be back Tuesday night. So now, Wednesday morning, I emailed to ask when would be convenient for this. Instead of replying, the two of them showed up at the door ten minutes later.

We chatted for a while; I told them about progress in selling the house; I signed the will and they signed as witnesses; and they left.

I put the will into the Lawyer’s prepaid envelope and took it to the actual post office to mail it. Then I continued on down to FOPAL and spent four hours sorting. It’s the days just before the biweekly sale and the sorting room is overflowing with books.

Then I bought some groceries, spending about twice what I spent the last two times. The reason is I bought a bottle of wine, a wedge of Brie, and some crackers. Why? Because on Monday, when Chuck texted that the potential buyer wanted to come back with her daughter and a friend (that hasn’t been scheduled yet; hope she hasn’t changed her mind), I texted back “great, I’ll set out cheese and crackers and wine” and a smiley-face emoji. Humor. Or not? Because Chuck texted back, “great idea”. Well… ok… So I bought some wine and cheese and crackers. Along with a pound of coffee. And my grocery supplies: a rotisserie chicken, which will supply meat for several meals, and some fruit, and a loaf of bread.

Got home at 5 planning to sit and chill. But looked at my email.

One, the invoice for taxes from the tax accountant. OK, print invoice and put on desk, will handle it tomorrow.

Two, quote from Angela at CH on my upgraded closet doors. I must sign and give back before she can order, with a 2-3 week lead-time. Print and set aside to take to CH… when?

Three, email from health insurance, two EOBs. I print them to file in the medical expense folder.

Four, email from Angela, the stainless steel sink I’m paying extra for, she only just noticed, is “tiny” at 14 inches wide. Is that ok? If not, she can look into alternatives. Why is this now an issue? I can’t get over there to look before tomorrow night. What size is the not-extra-cost sink?

Now it’s 5:30. Enjoying your time of chilling? Said “bleep it” and drove to CH to hand in the signed quote for closet doors, and to measure the existing sink. Came home and wrote to Angela about that.

I could have stayed over there to eat, but came home for a chicken leg, orange, and protein shake instead.

Day 154, Art and stuff

Sunday, 5/6/2019

Did the NYT puzzle at home in hopes of being late enough to the coffee shop to get an almond croissant, but had to settle for a cinnamon roll instead. Walked along as customary admiring the sky and thinking about being a widower, being consciously aware of being single and thus (a) free and (b) lacking a partner. The “free” part was underscored when, yesterday, I was reviewing the old Scandinavian travel blog. Its text does not mention health issues, but I remember how on that 2014 trip we were already somewhat handicapped by Marian’s lack of stamina; avoiding stairs and long walks. I swear I never felt the slightest resentment at how her declining strength limited our activities. Finding a minimum-stair route, or passing something up because it was too much walking, was just natural; we as a partnership did what we could do. But now, sometimes, I am aware of the release from those constraints, being able to climb stairs or walk up a hill without a second thought.

On the other hand, the absence of a partner shows up often. Whenever I notice some change in the neighborhood, or unusual garden item, I automatically think, must share that with… nope. That’s the the key thing about having a close partner: you validate your experiences by sharing them. Case in point: later today, driving on University Avenue, I notice a large, unusual sculpture in the front yard of a house. But there’s nobody to share this discovery with. Did I really see three, 8-foot tall crows, one perched on the garage roof? I think I did, but without anyone to tell it to, it isn’t quite real.

Did a couple of chores, including closing my YouTube channel. This is a task that has been moving from to-do list to to-do list for weeks. I have a modest channel where over the past two-plus years I’ve posted reviews of meal replacement products, Soylent, Huel, etc. Looking ahead, it just isn’t going to be practical to do this at C.H. But I feel a certain obligation to the 120 or so people who’ve subscribed to my channel. You subscribe to a channel in order to be notified when new content is posted. I won’t be posting any more, and I owe it to my tiny public to tell them so. So I recorded my 90-second farewell message and posted it. (Later in the day I got several “thanks and best wishes” comments on that video. Nice!)

Also paid a bill, and sent a form to the financial people.

About 10am I departed for Hunter’s Point in SF, for the Open Studios day. Over the next two hours I must have stepped into 75 or so studios and looked at, or at any rate glanced at, 300 images and objects. The studios are spread over several old administrative buildings for the former Naval Shipyard. I verified that I definitely prefer figurative art, although some of the abstract smooshes of color were pleasant to look at; and that I like whimsy.

I liked the work of Erik Joyner, whose thing is “robots and donuts” in every possible whimsical or satirical combination.

hair-cut-930x702 — Unlike most of his work this one lacks donuts.

I almost bought a miniature of that print but couldn’t quite bring myself to spend $30.

Joyner is just for laughs, really, but one artist whose work I really, really liked is Carol Aust. Her studio was in a basement and I might not have gone down the stairs to it, except that this huge (5-foot wide) painting was hanging in the hallway above.

eight-pelicans_30x60_0 — Carol Aust — “Eight Pelicans”

I really, really like that. To the point where the $4000 price tag does not seem impossible. After the house sells and I’m feeling flush again… and if I can find a suitable wall for a 5-foot painting… maybe…

Stopped at CH to check the mail and pick up a new garage fob (the first one quit working). Then came on home.