I took this morning off, have the afternoon off anyway (thank you, organization which decided to change ‘summer Fridays’ from ‘off at 3:00’ to ‘entire half day off’ this summer). And I have Monday off for Juneteenth (again, thank you, progressive organization I work for). So I should be able to get a bunch done this weekend.
Today, after my powerwalk and cleanup, I’m going to descend on the Social Security Administration unannounced to apply for survivor benefits. The original advice and plan had to been to skip the national telephone line and call a local office, but all the local offices list the national line as their number, and I could never get through, so I’m like, eff it, I will assemble all the paperwork and just show up. There are several local Queens offices, all equally (in)convenient for me to get to, so my plan is to go to the one in Flushing and then go shopping afterward at Macy’s. I need new sofa pillows and some other things. Also, khakis if they have my fatass size.
Apartment is in pretty good shape. At the moment, I have a fridge full of food, so much so that I will probably want to plan my way how to get through it so nothing goes bad before I get to it. (You mean, like how everyone who has to feed themselves does it? Yes, that.) I had Chinese delivered last night, and have half of that left, and had a nice celebratory dinner at Queensboro the night before (more on that in a bit). Need to start thinking about weight loss again, but I’m reasonably stable now and not eating outrageously.
I ordered a bunch of storage containers for the tools that will work much better in the dumbwaiter space than the shelves C had, and I can start that process this weekend. (I might leave the rest for when Allison’s man, a carpenter, shows up and hand him the tool organization task.) I also ordered a bunch of cardboard boxes, because I think I will be just boxing up stuff that is taking up space and which I know I wont need any time soon. Whether those end up in a corner somewhere or in a rental storage closet is TBD.
My brother arrives on Wednesday through the weekend, and I think I’m going to give him the task of emptying out the closet shelves of C’s (big) closet so we can organize that stuff, possible put it in vacuum-sealed storage bags (which I also ordered and which have arrived) and put it in my (small) closet so I can move into the big closet. This may finally also resolve the ‘appendix’ question, which I will describe in great detail at some point.
Yesterday, I finally met with my lawyer, who’d done my will last year, to hand over C’s will and get going on that. We don’t expect it to be particularly complicated, and so far I haven’t gotten a lot of grief about just handling accounts and stuff on my own without an official stamp of approval. Although as we knew might happen, I got a letter today from a bank telling me they’d frozen our joint household account. I’d already pulled about half the funds out of it for just such a contingency, it’s not a big deal, but it’s annoying – particularly since I’d already set up some bills to pay and now I’ll probably have to redo that. [edit] oops, it’s his credit card that got frozen, which is fine. The joint account seems to be good.
Also, C’s organization is being slow and somewhat dumb about finishing their half of the paperwork for the life insurance policy from them. Since that’s the only chunk of money that I know for sure is coming to me outside of ‘the estate’ and how much it is, I would like that to be settled sooner than later so I can start resolving the ‘money coming out of the wrong bucket’ issues. In no danger here, just something to keep an eye on.
Otherwise, continuing to deal with account stuff, making sure that utility bills are now in my name and getting paid. C got a phone call from Prudential saying ‘I see you’ve closed your 403b account, let’s discuss what you want to do with it.’, so I called them back and said, ‘yeah, about that…’ and so now they know why that account was closed and will be getting back to me with followup paperwork. I used my organizational and business-analytical superpowers to set up a task list for the banks: for each account, do they now know I’m the person who administers it? Can I log in online? Do I have an ATM card? Have I successfully transferred money in and out of it? Are the statements coming to me, and are they being delivered electronically, and to the correct address? … and so on. Similarly for the utilities.
And I continue to work (slowly) through the death notices and thank you cards and so on. I know that the widow is given some social slack for this, on timing, and I’m going to take advantage of it. (I’ve been assured, actually, that I don’t actually need to thank people at all, formally, but I want to.)
Friends are offering me the chance to go out of town for weekends with them, and also encouraging me to go to their concerts and so on. I’d like to, but I’m finding that crowds and lots of noise are overstimulating in a bad way right now, so am resorting to the default ‘thanks, but no’ for now. Saturday night is the QUO concert I was supposed to be playing in, and I’d love to go, but I’m playing it by ear – and right now, my gut tells me that it’s going to freak me out too much. I know that’s going to go away in time, I have patience. As for out-of-town weekends, I’m going to probably wait until later in the summer. I am getting to the point where things aren’t just bugging me to get done now now now so much, and a few more weeks of solid attention should bring me to a ‘new normal’ where I can take time off without worrying about it.
The nights are still weird and long, but not that long because I start to fall asleep at 8:15 (and then wake up at 4:00 am). This is a pattern I need to Nip In the Bud quickly, and shift that window back, which I will. The news has shifted from ‘horrible mass shootings’ to ‘let’s hold the Trump administration accountable’, which I’m all for, so that’s become more fun to watch, as I slowly knit a mitten. And I’m not doing huge amounts of narrative TV yet, but am watching Stranger Things. And I finally started watching RuPaul’s Drag Race (season 3), which is just the sort of silliness I need right now.
The celebratory dinner on Wednesday was because I took a positive step forward in getting my conducting career going again. I won’t go into detail unless it resolves in the way I hope, but I do have hope.. We shall see. Anyway, it turns out that the Queensboro has a delicious linguini in tomato sauce with shrimp and chorizo which was exactly what I wanted.
Enjoy the weekend, my dears!
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