multipurposegoddess

So, I went for my training run yesterday after work - it was a good one! I felt good, Walter kept up without flagging much, my pace was good, didn't get eaten by zombies though they were on my tail part of the way. Anyway, I brought some cash with me so I could stop and buy coffee at the convenience store on the way home (they carry coffee from the local roaster who no longer sells direct to the public) and when I was checking out, the owner (I think, cashier anyway) recognized me enough to ask if I lived down in the cul-de-sac, which he knows because he also delivers pizza for a place H really liked, and when I said yes, said "your boyfriend is Harry?" and I just said "Henry" and didn't explain the whole thing. He mentioned we hadn't ordered in a long time and gave me a coupon, I said I'd been on a diet (which is true). Eventually I'll order a pizza that he'll deliver and he'll probably ask where H is and I'll tell him then.

Anyway, the point is, it was okay. Not, like, super sad. So that's a thing that happened.

Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/228224.html

Well, I got the letter from Prudential. Apparently, H didn't disclose his stay at New Bridge when he applied for the extra coverage. Which I can see him doing. I mean, we weren't supposed to actually USE that policy. I don't understand why it took them 4 months to decide that that meant they weren't going to pay me, but whatever, I don't think I have any grounds for an appeal. They're argument is that they would have not accepted his application for coverage if that had been disclosed, I can't really say that they would have.

Oh, well.

The good thing to come out of this is that for a day or so there I was convinced that I would not be able to hold onto my house (that is not the case, at least not in any immediate sense) and it was really upsetting. I want to see the orange tree we planted together the first Tu B'Shvat after we moved in grow to full size and eat many oranges off of it. I want to be able to look up at the garage door opener while I'm doing laundry and remember the afternoon we spent installing it. I want to keep the fridge he insisted we get in the space it only fits in because we spent a whole day chipping brick facade off the wall. I want to keep looking at the pale spots on the bathroom walls where he got a little impatient with the second coat of paint and waffle about whether I'll touch them up or not.

We moved so many times - nine addresses in the ten years before we bought this house - so it's a little surprising to me that I so don't want to move now. But I don't. This is our house and I want to stay. And I should be able to. Even using my nest egg for all my expenses, I should be fine for at least another year or two, and if I can get a job that covers all my expenses besides the mortgage, I'll be good for 6 years or more. That seems doable.

So that's Future Tamara's problem, hopefully she'll have more possibilities and resources available to her than I can imagine now.

Current Mood: sad
Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/154900.html

So, I ended up not doing anything particularly commemorative yesterday. It was really foggy - frequently throughout the day I could not see the house across the street - so I didn't want to drive anywhere and nothing in walking distance was a compelling enough draw to get me out into the cold and wet. And everything that could make me cry did, and that just eats up a lot of time.

I watched Friday Night Lights, which was really good for provoking more tears. Vince and his mom, especially. And drank a lot of tea. And baked a cake, which went several kinds of wrong and that seemed really appropriate. Oh, and lit this intricate and largish candle that my sister's family had given to Henry on some past gift-giving occasion - back when we lived in Benicia, so 4-5 years ago. He'd lit it a few times, and part of its niftiness is that it both melts in interesting ways and looks good while it's burning, with the flame flickering through lattices of wax. So I let it burn all day yesterday and that was nice for me, and it's got another day or two of burning left in it, I think.

Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/154828.html

I should be doing the laundry I never got to yesterday. Or washing the dishes the somehow keep multiplying in the kitchen no matter how many meals I skip. But I just now, at noon, got my coffee made, so you can imagine how quickly I'm going to get onto those chores. Also, kitten asleep on my lap.

Went and picked out a grave marker yesterday - ( here's what I ended up with )I've started having dreams with H in them. They're very ordinary dreams, we're just going about our business doing normal day-to-day stuff. In the dreams, of course, there's nothing remarkable about H being there, poking around the needing to be unpacked boxes under the solar panels with me (I'm very green in my dreams, apparently, but not very organized). Sad to wake up from, but nice while I'm dreaming.

Current Mood: wistful
Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/147503.html

I've got a lot of things to be thankful for, and I am, but I so don't feel like thinking about that right now. Sorry, holiday.

I have this Day Counter app that tells me how long it's been since a specific day, or how long until that day comes. Today it says 182 days since H died, and 182 more to the first anniversary, so that's half a year. I'm using the rule of thumb (I don't know where I picked this up, but it seems reasonable) of not making any major decisions for a year, so I'm halfway through that. Seems like a good time to check in and see how I'm doing.

In short, pretty well, I think. ( Click for longer version )

Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/146704.html

So, hey, there is actually good stuff in my life, but, sorry, gentle readers, you don't get to hear about that right now. You get the stuff I have to get out of my head RIGHT NOW before it eats up too many neurons.

( As always, tl:dr self-involved navel-gazery )

And hey, great, right after I post that the mail comes with a package from Prudential. Hello, thing I absolutely have to deal with and really don't want to! Goodbye equilibrium, you were pleasant while I had you.

Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/138858.html

The funeral home had a typo in my phone number, so they couldn't call me to tell they were in, but I called them to check this morning. Fixed the typo when I picked up the packet. So, that unlocks another section of my to-do list, basically.

The cause of death is acute bronchopneumonia with a "time interval between onset and death" of "days".

Days of pneumonia. How is that possible? My poor pookie.

I should be making up packets of documents to be sent various places, but I can't stop crying. It's waited this long, it can wait a little longer.

Current Mood: sad
Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/135383.html

Home from another memorial for Henry. It was lovely and sad and just right. Once again with people offering me help if I need anything, makes me wish I needed anything, you know?

He would laugh to hear how many people said he was the best greeter the Thurs. night meeting ever had, that's for sure. It really is an area where he made a lasting difference, though, which helps me to know. So.

Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/132110.html

So, I'm having a bad couple of days, I guess. Didn't want to get out of bed yesterday, and in fact went back to sleep after letting the critters out. Got up some time after 9, but never did get dressed or do much of anything. Today I am slightly more productive but crying a lot.

Which is all fine, probably part of some perfectly normal cycle, whatever, but it is keeping me from doing things like answering the phone or returning calls, and that's probably not good. But I just don't want to talk to anyone.

Current Mood: sad
Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/128911.html

People keep asking me how I am. it might be just the habit of how you start conversations, but it seems to take on an earnest "No, really, how are you doing?" tone that I don't know how to answer. I'm sad a lot of the time and cry often but not constantly. I'm remembering to eat, though not necessarily at normal times, but I can recognize when the misery may actually be hunger with some accuracy and treat with food.

I realized yesterday that you readers are in for a boring year of "This is my first X without Henry" posts. Prepare yourselves, it will be repetitive and not that interesting, I'm sure.

It's day 20 of 30, if my counting is correct. After 30 days my official mourning period is over. I read a commentary that parents get a year and siblings, spouses and children get 30 days because losing your parents is sort of the natural order of things and so you have obligations as a mourning child. Losing someone else in your immediate family is additionally shocking and your mourning will outstrip any obligation.

Whatever the origin, this sort of gradual change in mourning practices is actually helpful. Those first few days where you do nothing but see to the needs of the deceased - arranging for burial and what have you - honestly, there really is no time for anything else. I can't imagine dragging that process out any further. I can see the temptation of wanting to take longer and get everything right, but everything can't be right about a funeral, really, when what you really want is everyone alive again.

Pretty soon after they told me they'd found H's body, I was making phone calls and kind of slid off the couch onto the floor and thought "Ah, yes, now I understand the low bench thing. THis is about right." Sitting shiva was so exactly what I needed, and I'm so glad there were people around to make sure that's what I got. Seven days of not even having to take care of myself, much less anyone or anything else. Having indulged in that helps me get through the things that I don't want to do but have to, now.

I'm taking the 30 days as permission to blow off (or, in reality, not undertake) social obligations if I want. Slack a little on the housecleaning and the errands. Just doing what is necessary and going ahead and putting off what can be put off, not because I shouldn't be doing things, but because everything is hard. Ten more days and I'll have to shoulder a little more responsibility. Re-engage with the world that much more.

It's funny to me that I will be officially out of mourning before I have a death certificate. I find there's no predicting how paperwork will affect me; sometimes it is no big deal, sometimes it is really upsetting and I have no idea why either way. There's going to be a lot of notifying and arranging, eventually - credit cards, bank accounts, stuff I haven't thought of yet. Probably a good thing I can't do any of it yet.

Still keeping my mirrors covered. Everytime I think I might uncover them, I then think "but then I would have to look at myself" and Do Not Want.

Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/125454.html

So, you may or may not recall two weeks ago I ended a post with the news that half my tree had broken off, but it wan't the part with bees, at least? It was really like a quarter of the tree, and my family took care of chopping up and removing the branches for me the day after the funeral.

Well, the bees are safely moved into a hive in the backyard. Mostly. A small clump,I don't know if they are my bees that would prefer to live in the tree or a new and much smaller swarm, but they are clumping up in a branch of the same tree.

Only they can't really do that anymore.

Yesterday I noticed a crack in one of the other of the trees four trunks (it's a very confusing tree, complete with cement filling parts of it), took a closer look today to confirm that, yes, it is a crack but, no, none of my birdfeeders, etc., were hanging on branches that issued from the cracked trunk, so I fiigured I'd wait until tomorrow morning when it should be cooler and trim off some of the smaller branches and see what I could do.

About an hour after that, I heard a huge crack and watched that trunk topple over and land on the other two, breaking them as well.

So I guess the bees won't be living there anymore, wherever they came from.

I got the lower two trunks sawed off and some smaller branches lopped off. It all landed inside my property and not on anyone or on anything except birdfeeders which I have mostly retrieved. The rest will be fine waiting until I'm rested and/or it cools off a little.

This is why I can never write my memoirs, contrived plot developments like this.

Day 15 of mourning, whee.

Current Mood: exasperated
Crossposts: http://tskaredoff.livejournal.com/124680.html

So, while I was still just worried that Henry wasn't answering his phone, I found a swarm of bees in the tree in my front yard. From what I've learned since then, it must have been there for a few days at least - I found it because an empty honeycomb had fallen onto my lawn.

I decided to try to keep it. Partially just the synchronicity of it all, when I found them. Partially just, you know, yay bees. They're disappearing all over the place and here some show up in my yard, I'd like to try to take care of them as best I can. And partially because Henry had a real fascination for emergent phenomena and bees have that in spades - individuals with a limited number of instinctive actions that as a collective can carry out crazy complex things. Also, honey is good.

Of course, I couldn't do much about that right away. My mom and sister went up to Sacramento and found a beekeeping supply house that set me up with a beginning beekeeping kit including a hive and frames and whatnot. We got it all set up with a feeder full of sugar water hoping the swarm would just move in, but that didn't happen. I finally called a swarm removing volunteer from a local list and told him I didn't want them removed but I did want help getting them into the hive and he is on his way.

Sweet.

Drat, someone just called from the city and said that looking at my property it doesn't seem as if I can place a hive so it will comply with the ordinance (50 ft from everyone else, basically). I had assumed that putting it in the middle of my backyard would work. Oh well, still going to try and capture it and then we'll see what we shall see. Kinda wish I hadn't bothered to ask for a permit, but I do like to be legal. If I can't comply, maybe I can apply for a variance, or maybe I will have outlaw bees.

I don't know when Arbor Day is. I thought it was earlier in the year, but 30 Rock mentioned it as an upcoming holiday in April, so maybe it actually is. Who knows?

Regardless, I might need to go plant a tree today and I don't know what to wear.

My grandma died in 2005 - September, when everything sucked and I was in that weird calm place that crises put me and awash in early pregnancy hormones and her memorial service was extremely surreal. She was cremated, but nobody knew what to do with the ashes. We are not the urn keeping type, my family. Grampa got scattered up at his ranch in Dixon; I don't know what happened to Great-Grandma's remains but they aren't on anyone's mantle.

When my grandparents built their dream house they put the deck around an enormous old oak. Eventually, the tree died and had to be taken down, but they kept the stump and Grandma had bunches of pictures of the old tree. When she divided that land and built a smaller house for herself she made the builders flag every tiny oak tree on her property so they could make an effort to avoid crushing them.

So, we are planting her an oak. We're putting it in Strenzel Meadow, over by John Muir's grave. It'll be above the creek that my parents have moved and been managing in an effort to reduce flooding on the street below, and near a big old oak. It'll be of a type that doesn't carry Sudden Oak Death, and we'll put Grandma's ashes beneath it.

Circle of Life. Best we can do.

I don't have an outfit for that. Grandma would have been overdressed in a skirt and heels, but I don't think that will work for me. We think it will not be muddy, it hasn't rained in a couple of days, but it's not a manicured lawn and I will be doing some digging.

Something that fits, something that's clean. Best I can do.

Current Mood: sad

A milestone, I guess?

Putting a Fork in the Insurance Saga

(no subject)

(no subject)

State of the Tamara

Epiphany o' the Week

Death Certificate Update

Dreamcatchers

Meh

A Few Thoughts on the Whole Mourning Process

The Tree is not Done with Me

That'll give you...er...bees

Arbor Day

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February 2019

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