multipurposegoddess

Worm Bin #2 came yesterday, but it seems to be missing all its hardware. I'm going to go look for the missing bag of parts probably a few more times over the weekend, but if it's really not there and not just hiding from me, it looks like I will have to send the whole huge box back and wait for a replacement. Bah. AFAICT, the Green Worms are doing okay - they aren't on the surface anymore, at least and I saw at least one wiggling around the chard.

I think I forgot to mention that said worms are, of course, Red Wigglers, the Cadillac of Worms (which I sing to them all the time).

Today's mail brought a bill for H's corporate credit card for $250. I called to see what that's all about, but it was going to be a 6 minute wait on hold according to the automated thing that answered, so I took the automated voice's advice and will call back later. Probably something I do have to pay, which is disheartening. Such a round number, I hope they can tell me what the charges are. Were. Cover. I'm not sure what verb goes there.

For breakfast today I decided to have Cold Lazy Woman's Pho Ga, ie chicken broth with a lime squeezed into it. Yum. I love soup for breakfast whenever I think to have it, I wonder why it isn't more common.

( It's more insurance business and nothing juicy )

I should make that my official sign off: "In short, whatever."

So, over the past few years, DH got a couple of stock option packages and a couple of outright stock grants as bonuses and so forth. With his death, the timeline on all that shifted - we (everything is in his name so it is weird to talk about, pronoun-wise) immediately vested 100%, apparently, and the options will expire next May .

I've been slowly closing accounts and generally trying to get everything into my name and, let me tell you, it's a huge hassle. Everyone needs their own paperwork and different assortments of official documents and everything has to go  through the mail because everyone has to have originals of everything, so huge swaths of time are lost to just waiting for everything to get where it needs to go.

Meanwhile, my savings are almost gone, I don't know if I will be able to make any of my payments due in October. My Social Security benefit, if I can ever manage to actually apply for that, will buy me some groceries, but that's about it. I have to wonder how they came up with that number for the lump sum, it's so specific yet I can't imagine what it might correspond to.

So, I realized yesterday that the login info for the stock account is all still good. Motorola stock is up a couple of bucks from the exercise price. It's starting to seem like cashing all that out and having the funds wired to the joint account would be the simplest way to resolve the question of my right to the account  (I've had no dealings with the bank that holds that account, other than getting statements, I have no idea what kind of rigmarole would be involved in getting the assets in my name but I'm fairly sure it would be significant just because it generally is) AND give me some breathing room to figure out what to do next.

And yet, it would be awfully nice to have a chunk of stock sitting there quietly appreciating. Just because. And Prudential could totally surprise me by paying my life insurance claim with alacrity

The DMV's talk of probate has convinced to wait a while before trying to do anything with the 401k, I think. It ought to be fine where it is.

ION, the coffee concentrate with cream added seems to have frozen more solidly than the straight concentrate. Surprising. The extra large ice cube trays are working out nicely so far. Unfortunately, frozen concentrate + boiling water = tepid coffee, but that's pretty easily remedied.

Edited at 8:49 am: Prudential just called me to let me know that the death certificate I mailed last week got there. I kind of love them right now.

Edited again at 9:20: Social Security was very easy once I got past being on hold. In fact, shortly after the recorded voice told me my wait was 10 minutes, it came back to tell me that I could punch in my phone number and get called back rather than sitting on hold the whole time. I wish I'd known that the first time I called. As it turns out, I could take care of the whole thing over the phone and don't have to go into the office at all. Nice.

I got what I fervently hope will be my last ever rental security deposit back today. And it's much more than I expected - I thought our pet deposit was non-refundable and any cleaning would come out of security, but most of it was covered by the pet deposit so I feel like I'm barely out anything. Pretty cool.

No candle lighting for the first time in a while, because we used the last two last week and I forgot to get more. Whoops. Maybe we will go to service tomorrow morning to make up for it.