OK, so here we are. I've been back at work for two weeks, although taking some afternoons off to make phone calls. Work has been fine, everyone has been very supportive. I went to the office for the first time this past Wednesday, so got to have a lot of good water-cooler conversations. Our HR …
Author: Eric Peterson
Conductor, hornist, singer, business analyst, New Yorker. Happily gay-married. Knit and ice-skate for fun.
Tool Time
So... now it's Saturday, May 28th and C has been safely sent off in style. I am completely exhausted and peopled-out. Dad was staying through through the weekend, but Sam had to head back home immediately to work on a project, and had a Saturday morning flight. Friday night, he starts looking at his phone. …
The Funeral
Friday, May 27th, was a beautiful blue-sky day. I was grateful that, unlike the viewing, I didn't really have to do much of anything except be present and brought from place to place. It felt like we had very little downtime between Thursday's and Friday's events. Sam, Dad and I got up, I made sure …
The Viewing
Ah, yes, thinking about the day of the viewing, I realized I did forget some plot points about the day before. First, I had gone to the bank to pull cash out of our household account for the funeral home and for incidentals, and also to get quarters for laundry. Turns out, they had no …
Interregnum
Tuesday and Wednesday (May 24, 25) were days of catching up and nailing down. After the 'go go go' of getting the funeral planned, I actually had some time to do some normal things that were outstanding and bugging me, like retrieving the mattress cover from the laundromat, and going to Astoria to pick up …
Funeral Sherpa
If you've ever driven on Queens Boulevard, you know that there's a long string of cemeteries smack in the middle of Queens. But you may not know that a little farther north, about where the Brooklyn Queens Expressway meets the Grand Central Parkway, there's a nice little cemetery on Astoria Boulevard called St. Michael's. In …
Sidestepping
Thanks, everyone, who's commented on the last few blog posts. As Brad pointed out, this is cathartic for me to do this storytelling, and will help down the road when I'm wanting to revisit. Some nice comments on the writing (awwww! thank you!) and several comments on how brave I am to put this out …
Clocked with a frying pan
Over the next week, and indeed up to now, I've been slightly manic and overly perky, particularly when interacting with other people, as if I'd had not quite enough sleep (completely true) and way too much coffee (not true at all). My friends were eying me askance, wondering when I'd break down. ("How is he …
So, what the hell happened?
How did a man in his mid-'60's, so close to retirement he could taste it, suddenly leave us behind? Close friends and family know most of this already. The last few years for our household (as for most of us) was a shitshow. I'd gotten laid off at the end of 2018, then spent most …
Charles is gone
Charles Keiser, 1955-2022 He was always my angel. His memorial page is here. You can still watch his funeral service on-demand from the church website, although I don't know how long that will be up. I'll follow with more (much more) detail later. I've got enough blog material for the rest of the year, maybe. …
The Toast Point Page 