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 151, Yosemite and email

Thursday, 5/2/2019

First thing this morning I found in my email, a message from Angela saying that I could move in to CH in May as scheduled, if I was willing to put off the kitchenette and bathroom remodels until after I had moved out again in August. That’s a tough choice! I really don’t like the old stuff; it looks…old. It would be galling to have to live with it for several months. Big issue would be: if I hang around in the old house until mid-June, does that impact the process of selling?

While I was thinking and killing time for my 9:15 departure to the East Bay, Chuck stopped by pick up those pesky forms. He sat to chat for a few minutes, and reassured me that it should make no difference to selling the house, if I move to CH in May or in June. That was the only real consideration, so I decided that I’d take the later date. Among other things, that means that the delivery of my last couple of pieces of furniture, scheduled for the first week of June, can come here, and I’ll have all that I ordered for moving in.

So, off to Yosemite for a day of cataloging. Fun: we cataloged a robot, a big one, over 6 feet tall, called “Baxter”. The cute eyes aren’t there, it’s just an LCD screen. rethink-robotics-closing-down-3

I rode to lunch with Toni and asked her opinion about a problem I’m having with the museum. The manager of docents is Katherina, and Katherina doesn’t seem to communicate well. I have signed up to lead a tour for a group of computer science students from UCSC on 5/11, and I really want to make sure they get a 1401 demo. I emailed Katherina about this last week, and left her a voice mail on Monday. No reply to either. What did Toni think? She thought, call the front desk, find out which person was in charge of booking that tour, and talk to them. So I did that; turned out the person responsible is Poppy. So I called Poppy: not in. I left a voice mail explaining my concern. She didn’t call back this afternoon. Maybe she will tomorrow. If she doesn’t, I’m going to cancel out of that tour. Let them find another docent for it.

51nxkcatq4l On the way home I stopped at Westwinds nursery to see if they have any solution to The Wax Plant Problem. I want to keep the two wax plants; they hang from hooks in windows; there is no hanging place at CH. I have this hook-stand in my Amazon shopping cart but would like to buy locally. Westwinds didn’t have anything like it. I think I’ll check Wegman’s tomorrow

At home I sat down with the intention of chilling out for an hour. But first I sent an email to Angela confirming that I wanted the work done now with the later move-in. I also questioned the cost of one item in the quotes she’d sent me. Late in the afternoon she acknowledged that she’d miscalculated, and sent updated quotes for a couple of items. Hah, glad I checked. But she says I need to sign the quotes for work to start. Tomorrow first thing I need to call her and find out when to meet. I also replied to an email from my insurance agent, and to Darlene about a date to see an exhibit in Oakland. And my hour of chilling-out was gone.

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!

Day 138, signing at Channing House

Friday, 4/19/2019

Showered, shaved, dressed as formally as my wardrobe allows (slacks, sport coat, gray turtleneck) and at 10:15 drove to C.H. where I sat down with Rhonda Bekkedahl, currently COO, also incoming CEO, to sign all the various contracts involved in becoming a member of a Continuous Care operation. Done! Well, it will be done when they have successfully tapped my Schwab account for the six-figure entry fee. Let’s see… nope, hasn’t happened yet. Not my problem.

Got my room key; got shown my mailbox and my storage locker. The latter is a large (roughly 3×4 feet and 8 foot tall) wire cage in the basement.

Got a parking sticker for the car, however it is not clear yet whether there is an available slot in the underground garages. In any case I need to get a Palo Alto resident’s parking permit; with that I will be able to park anywhere on the surrounding streets and ignore the 2-hour limit signs. But I seriously don’t want to leave the car on the street all the time. We’ll see.

Declined the opportunity to have lunch there. I am now able to eat any and all meals there but I won’t start doing that before next week. This is a stressful weekend and I’d like to not start on that whole new to-do list until later. Right now I am going to sit down and read through all the bumf I’ve been handed.

Well, there is a lot to know. It’s going to be like living in a nice resort hotel. I’ve got lots to do, starting next week, to begin moving in, emotionally if not yet physically. Today I ate a simple supper at home, but tomorrow, or Sunday for sure, I need to go have supper over there.

One piece of furniture I didn’t secure yesterday is a desk. This afternoon I spent a lot of time searching the web for an L-shaped desk — because I want an L-shaped desk, damn it, for the corner of the bedroom — that had a keyboard tray — because I want my keyboard lower than the standard 30-inch desk height — and also a file drawer and a drawer for stuff. This is a combination of features that is not common. There are stark, modernist L-shaped desks that have keyboard trays but no drawers, and L-shaped desks that have pedestals with drawers but no keyboard tray. And then filter those by color, didn’t want black or dark brown or white. Finally found one, sold both at Walmart and Amazon for $100 more. But Walmart’s web page said, sorry, we can’t ship that to your Walmart. So I ordered it from Amazon; the box of knocked-down parts should arrive next week.

Big day. Vegging out with a book.

Day 137, Furniture shopping

Thursday, 4/18/2019

Began the day by going to the Yosemite warehouse for museum work. Unfortunately the work got hung up on trying to make a camera work. Museum IT staff had loaded a donated laptop with Windows 10, and the camera utility that they use to drive a Canon SLR to take pictures of artifacts, wasn’t compatible. So time was being wasted trying to download a new utility. Then we all went to lunch. After lunch there was little more progress, so I bailed early.

I wanted to visit Living Spaces, a large furniture store recommended by Amy. It is on that side of the bay, convenient to the warehouse. I’d planned to visit it at the normal quitting time of 4pm, but took the opportunity to go early.

Amy recommended another place too, West Elm, and I’d seen several attractive pieces on their website, but all with extended delivery times. So maybe Living Spaces would have something.

It’s a vast place but had little to attract me. The had a couple of L-shaped desks, but they were in a faux-rustic style, deliberately crude finishes. Ditto the media centers. No bistro tables, no love seats. One fairly attractive accent chair, but upholstered in a strong autumn-brown which would stand out, or else force me to buy everything else in a matching color.

So I drove back to my side of the bay and went to West Elm. There I arranged to buy the things I want. Two items I could have immediately from stock: a chair and a bistro table. A media center will come in a week, so it will be delivered here. Two chairs to go with the table won’t come until the first week of June, so will have to be delivered to me at C.H. (and in the meantime I won’t be able to sit at my bistro table). The very nice love seat, really a short couch, will come after that. So on moving in I’ll have only two chairs, the new one and my recliner, and a box to set the TV on. Well, and a bed and a coffee table and some plants and pictures from here.

In between these, I was trying to buy tickets to concerts during the Stanford Jazz Festival in July. Supposedly members could begin to buy tickets today, but I couldn’t. Email to support got sympathy but no improvement. At the end of the day I’d bought one of the five events I want to attend. Unless their website magically starts working over the weekend, I think I’ll try to buy in person at the Stanford ticket window.

But that’s for next week. The next few days are busy. Tomorrow is a big day, I go to C.H. and sign the contracts and become an official resident. Not able to move in, but at least I could eat meals there.

Saturday is a tree planting for Marian. I’ve been practicing a 3-minute talk.

Day 127, history triage

Monday, 4/9/2019

Began with a run, 37 minutes, felt good. At home, suddenly wondered, all those paper manuscripts from the 80s — don’t I have those on disk? Sure, I must do. They were computer files right from the start, typed into Word Perfect under CP/M and saved on 8-inch floppy disks. At some time in the 90s, I remember getting ready to shut down my CP/M system for the last time, and cobbling up a serial connection from it to my then-new Mac, and moving the files across. I must still have these files.

And of course, I do, or most of them. They are sitting quietly in the Documents folder on the Mac. One story appears to be missing, and one major fragment. I’ll key those in today. Then I can recycle all the paper. I plan to keep paper only of the two stories that sold to a major magazine, along with the copies of the magazine itself.

Next project: dumping the slides. I decided to take some pictures of this process. Concentrating on that helped avoid excess emotion.

pics_dump

The slides more than filled the can and the slides from the last boxes went into bags.

pics_in_can So that’s done. Major check-mark on the to-do list. Major milestone in The Transition.

There remains a large shelf of saved memorabilia that I need to triage but I think I will wait on that until tomorrow. I am really close to being done with clean-outs; close to the point where I could walk through the house filling a few boxes and pointing to a few bits of furniture to be packed, and know that everything else is for the sale.

Today I am going to type in two stories that I want to preserve digitally, and then go have a look at FOPAL, make sure the Computer section is squared away for the sale this weekend.

Later: I did type in one of the stories. Of course as I was entering it, I couldn’t help myself improving it with lots of little tweaks. So I made the copyright line, “Copyright 1986, 2019 David E. Cortesi” which is kind of cool.

Day 113, jewelry, FOPAL, basketball

Monday, 3/25/2019

Began the week with a run, 40 minutes of my 4.5mph pace, felt just fine. I had a list of things to get done. One was that Louise was coming with the jewelry she’d taken for appraisal, at 10:30. Two were online, so I did them while waiting. One was to review my museum schedule and sign up for docent tours for the month of April.

The other was to go to Apple’s trade-in page, and arrange to trade in three Macs for apple store credit. The process is simple; you enter the serial number of the device and answer a few questions about its condition. Then their recycling vendor sends you an email to confirm, and later a custom box to return the device. When it is received, you get a gift card in the amount. I’m returning Marian’s old Air, which was made in 2006, I learned after entering the serial number. Got lots of good use out of that one! The other two are my old 2011 MacBook Pro, and Marian’s 2017 iMac which sits on her desk. (It was a recent replacement for a Mac mini that served her a long time; and it was preceded by a Cube — remember the Apple Cube?)

I realized from the email that the return offer is only good for 21 days. I’m not sure I’ll be ready to send off the iMac in 21 days. I use it for all financial stuff, bank statements, reviewing brokerage accounts, credit card bills. Just because the Chrome browser in that system knows all the passwords for those accounts and fills them in. Silly! I have the passwords; there’s no danger of getting locked out. I can do that work equally well from laptop Godot or my big iMac.

Louise texted she’d be an hour late, so I zipped out in the car to take care of two more items. One was to go to the Stanford ticket office and make sure that my WBB season ticket account was alright. Yup, it turns out I had indeed unsubscribed from emails from them (while shutting down all Marian’s email subscriptions). That’s why I never had a chance to buy a good seat for this weekend’s games. Fixed now.

The other job was to return some fluorescent bulbs to the hardware store for recycling. Back home, I had an email from Canopy about the memorial tree planting for Marian, now with a time and other info. So I composed an email to the people who wanted to attend. While I was working on that, Louise showed up. So I answered the door sniffling and had to go blow my nose before talking to her. She’s done a marvelous job documenting Marian’s bling. We talked about how to sell some of it, and she will get back to me with more info.

After she’d gone, I headed out, first to Office Depot because I wanted to see what kind of office furniture they had. For the new place, I want some kind of cabinet to set the printer on, with space for printer stationery and hopefully a file drawer. And I looked at desks, because initially I’d been thinking I’d keep Marian’s desk, but now I’m inclined to want something a little lighter, more open. Office Depot stuff didn’t attract me. Ikea’s desks are better.

From there I stopped at FOPAL to check on the Computer section. There were several boxes waiting, so I culled them and priced the keepers. Two hours logged in the book. I learned something today about the bargain room, where I send the unsaleable Computer books. But time presses, I’ll record it later.

Had a few hours to relax and eat some supper; then it’s out to the Stanford second-round game against BYU. I’ll report on that tomorrow.

Day 110, many appointments

Last night’s play, at local playhouse The Pear , was the world premier of

Sojourn

by Evan Kokkila-Shumacher. It was… interesting. The staging was clever and attractive. The acting was competent. But it was a lot longer than it needed to be. I almost left at intermission, but stayed for the second half to see if they could resolve the many issues; in the end I don’t think they did.

The setup is that two astronauts have been launched on a no-return mission, to pass Jupiter, then Saturn, then apparently to just keep going on toward the Oort Cloud. They have aboard fertilized human eggs and incubators and are supposed to keep decanting babies to be raised up as replacement crew members. This whole mission plan seems, in hindsight, screwy, impractical, and pointless, but it is revealed gradually through the first act so the screwiness doesn’t really hit you until you’ve left the theater. On the ship, things have gone profoundly wrong. Back home at NASA, the management wants to cut funding. But all the stage time is taken up by endless, repetitive arguments. The two astronauts argue in circles about the mission plan. Back home the mission director and a nasty manager argue in circles about funding and the value of the mission. It was all quite tedious and I thought, even as it was going on, that the main points of debate could have been conveyed in a third the amount of dialogue. But then you’d have a one-act play, I guess.

Friday, 3/22/2019

Today is full of scheduled to-dos. After a shower, shave, and dressing in my Museum Docent clothes, I sat down to assemble some

financial documentation

that I was supposed to have included in my initial C.H. application! I was politely reminded of the need for this stuff in an email from Kim, just after the email telling me I could have the nice 1BR unit. It took a while to assemble the needed documentation (basically, proving I had as much assets as I claimed).

One item wanted was a copy of “the first few pages” of our 2017 tax return. I thought I knew exactly where to lay hands on that. There is a small banker’s box with a folder for each of the last five year’s tax returns, organized meticulously (of course) by Marian each April. I opened it, there was the folder for 2017, but it only included the supporting documents — not the actual spiral-bound return document from the accountant. The folders for 2016, 15, and 14 had their returns, but not last year’s. Thinking about it… the taxes would have been finished just about when Marian got her pancreatic cancer diagnosis. We got really busy around then, with lots of doctor appointments and procedures. (I commented more than once that, when you get cancer, you have a new job: you are “doing cancer” for the duration. It just occupies your life.) So not too surprising that, either we didn’t keep the spiral bound printout, or more likely, we didn’t ask for one because the return was e-filed.

At 9am I sent an email to Cindy at the financial advisors’, and at 9:40 she had emailed me a PDF of the 2017 return. I’m getting great support from that outfit. Printed out the first 8 pages, added it to the other copied statements showing the value of various accounts. I had promised this for Monday but I think now I will drop it off on my way to the Museum for an

11:30 tour.

Which was a bit of a mess. On the volunteer scheduling site it was given as “11:30” but in fact the group arrived at 10:30. I got there at 11:00 but Mike, the second docent, didn’t show for another 15 minutes. I had the group of 40+ herded into the 1401 lab and vamped about that machine until Mike arrived. Then we split the group up and started our normal tours — he very generously offering to do his in reverse, from the present backward, so we wouldn’t conflict.

Then, five minutes in, a CHM staff person interrupted me to remind the group that their lunch would be ready upstairs at 12:00. Only now it was 11:20 and I was barely started on what is usually a one-hour tour. I edited myself severely and managed to get them off to their lunch about 12:05 but it was not a relaxing experience. For me; they seemed to enjoy themselves well enough. But seriously: this is the second time in a month that the museum staff has screwed up the scheduling of a custom tour.

I stopped on the way home to buy coffee. I use three scoops for my morning cup, and had only enough left in the canister for tomorrow. But I’m getting to be such a

short-timer;

everything I do has a resonance of, will I do this again? Will I finish this pound of Peet’s Gaia Organic in the old house, or will it last until I’ve moved to C.H.? I bought a pound of bacon because I like to fry up a couple strips and an egg for supper. Will I actually finish that pound, or will I have to throw some away because I’ve moved to C.H. where meals are laid on? It’s an uneasy, but exciting way to live.

Next event was the 2pm arrival of Chuck

the realtor

We reviewed the termite report and he confirmed the low price of fumigation and the reliability of the company he’d used. So it really isn’t a big deal or problem for the sale. He still hasn’t gotten input from any developers. We went over my likely time-line: that I could be signing for my C.H. unit as soon as next week or the week after, and when that’s done, I can begin moving things out of the house into C.H. Which means that almost surely by May he can have the house to stage and sell. He was taken aback by the speed of events but accepted it. I also asked if his stager, Amy, whom I met back on Day 94, would be open to my paying for design assistance in fitting out the new place. He said she did do that and he would let her know I was interested.

I also googled the niece of Chris the hairdresser, who she had recommended as a designer two days ago. She has a small website touting herself as a designer. However she had not responded to the voicemail that Chris left for her two days ago. I sent an email to her business address. We’ll see who responds quicker.

Then off to C.H. to meet with

Ilsabet

who is a resident of C.H. and a client of Chuck’s. I’d asked to meet her because she has an “Alcove” (large studio) and at the time I thought that was what I’d be offered. Now I’ve been offered a 1BR I don’t care so much, but I kept the appointment just to begin making acquaintances in that community. She’s a very pleasant lady and we chatted about room decorations and antiques for a few minutes. She had an idea of what I might do with the numerous decorative objects that aren’t valuable enough to sell. She suggested I donate them to the C.H. Gift Shop, which is run by residents to generate money for the library and for newspaper subscriptions for the lobby. They give a receipt for tax purposes, she assured me. I think this sounds like a grand idea.

two scratches

Louise the gemologist was to come by at four, but she emailed earlier saying she wasn’t done with my report, so we postponed to Monday.

I had planned to go to a Stanford Baseball game at 6, but light sprinkles of rain continue, so I passed on that. No fun sitting in the open on a wet plastic seat — assuming they even hold the game. That left a whole afternoon open to install the

sound bar

which I did. I removed the receiver and its subwoofer and five speakers from around the room, and connected the DVR directly to the TV. Connected the sound bar and it works OK, definitely better sound than the TV itself, definitely not as good as the old 5-channel system. However, the sound bar has an output to drive a separate sub-woofer, so I brought back the woofer and hooked it to the sound bar. That helps, adds “meat” to the sound even when the woofer is set low.

Fed myself and watched some TV. Quite a day.

Day 107, money money

Tuesday, 3/19/2019

Had the annual talk with the

Financial Advisors.

The firm is Sullivan and Serwitz, and for several years, we’ve met with only Bob Sullivan, but today his partner Marshall Serwitz sat in as well.

Bottom line, I’m financially fine. According to their conservative model, I can spend money at a generous annual rate (almost surely more than I’ll actually spend) and I still won’t be able to keep up with my principal’s growth, even at a conservative projected growth rate. So I will almost unavoidably die richer than I am now. Yay me; or rather, yay us, because it was the money we earned as DINKs, conserved by our naturally modest desires, that was the foundation.

As for what I had seen as a vexed question: In the event that C.H. offers a unit before the house is sold, how to finance the entry fee without incurring big capital gains and/or paying high interest? Not an issue at all! First, thanks to my being a recent widower, all of our investments have a new “basis” — not just the house, which is a huge benefit, but even the mutual funds that we bought into back in the 80s. So I can sell any amount of those shares, should I want to, and pay no capital gains. But, they pointed out, it would be equally simple to get a standard home loan through e.g. Quicken Loans, secured by the house. Almost surely at a lower rate than the 10% annual that C.H. offered.

Or, the advisors’ suggestion was to ignore C.H.’s timing; go ahead and sell the house as quickly as possible so as to have the liquid cash in hand whenever C.H. is ready to offer a unit. Well, that means moving twice, say I, like moving into another ILF with a monthly rate.

Not necessarily, they said. Look, you don’t want to keep much of your furniture anyway, right? True, I agree, about 5 or 6 pieces all told, and a few boxes worth of other stuff. OK, you put those in storage. Storage units are cheap. You pack your clothes and move into a long-stay hotel, or a vacation home rental. It would be cheaper than moving into any ILF.

This turns out to be true. They referred me to “Vacation Rentals by Owner”, VRBO.com (the link is a search for Palo Alto at under $150/night) and there are lots of cottages and apartments I can rent for extended periods around $100/night, which comes to $3000/month, which is substantially less than any local month-to-month ILF; the difference being, no food service. OK, given a kitchen I can feed myself for not much, just as I do now.

So the picture they proposed is that I (1) move out to a rental, (2) take my time saving whatever possessions I want to keep into a storage unit, (3) sell the house, (4) wait comfortably for the unit I want. The local housing market is showing signs of turning down, they said, so the sooner you sell, the better.

I took all this under advisement. A critical time will come tomorrow at 11 when I sit down with Kim Krebs at C.H. and find out what the actual prospects are. If she says, you can have X unit next month, that’s one thing. If she waffles, indicates it may be weeks to months, then I may implement the advisors’ plan.

There were other points. The house and everything else is part of a family trust. With the death of one of the joint trustees, the trust documents need to be revised. They will set up an appointment with the attorney who drew up the trust, probably for May. So there will be that to do. Also I had to sign and notarize several documents related to changing the ownership of the various Schwab accounts to me as sole trustee.

From there I did some

errands:

Got the car washed, first time since it was waxed, poor thing. Bought some groceries (like, $30 worth, see above). Got some cash from the ATM. Then home to

throw out more

… I want to say shit, but that’s not fair. I cleaned up a couple of shelves of things, and most of the things on the shelves went into the black landfill box. There were collected CD-ROMs and manuals for software. Photoshop CS2? Really? (Current version is 7 or so.) Also two or three versions of Windows, which I ran (still can run) in a virtual machine on the Mac. I used to do that when I was maintaining an app that a few other people used, and I had to test new versions on Windows as well as Mac.

Then more serious stuff: a fat binder which has all the historical receipts for house maintenance. This has been often used. When the hot water heater goes out, as it did a month ago, it’s handy to be able to look back and see who installed it. That’s where I could look up how much we paid to fumigate in 2005, but I disdain to do that. Anyway that has some value going forward, if only for the curiosity of a buyer.

Next to it was a fat binder that set me sniffling for the next half hour: Marian’s medical records. She kept every test result, every procedure, going back forever. Organized, with tabs for easy lookup. Anytime a doctor wanted to know, when did you have this or that, she could tell them, oh that was in ’93, or ’07 or whenever. So I looked at it and debated with myself. Under what possible circumstance could I ever imagine me or anyone else wanting to refer to this? None! For any reason? Certainly not for nostalgia’s sake; illnesses and medical procedures are not what I want to remember her by. And yet… it really hurt to put that in the trash. Another shard, falling away.

It’s 5:30; I’m going to feed myself and then watch something stupid on TV. Naked and Afraid should do it.