Disassembly Required

I have a Realtor now. Jan Thornton, who has been sending promotional notepads several times a year (how we got on her list, I have no idea). I have been using them for my web design, as they are just the right size upon which to put lists of code snippets, image lists, hexidecimal color values, etc.

She's a seasoned professional, and I felt immediately at home with her. She had done all her homework (even pulling the court filing for the probate petition) and brought an excellently presented packet with all the realty information I could want about my place, comps in the area, sales trends, etc. We spent about an hour and a half touring the house, her sharp eye pointing out positives and negatives about the place and suggesting things to improve the value of the property.

One of the things that impressed me most about her was she asked about Steve, how he died, and even asked if I thought that a prolonged death was better than an unexpected one (a friend of hers lost her husband when he was hit by a car just walking down the street one morning). People are so hesitant to speak about death, but she knew this was the reason I was selling. She left me with the info packet and several numbers of painters and contractors she uses regularly.

One of the things she was stressing was remove just about everything from the house. I had planned on taking out extraneous pieces of furniture, but she was saying take down everything on the walls except a very few generic pieces. She explained that house hunters have a habit of looking at the things in a home, and this distracts them from looking at the space itself. She really made a lot of sense.

When we arranged the appointment, I told her that the place was messy because I was decluttering, and to expect nothing immaculate (I'm in the final stages of getting Steve's things donated or trashed). But after hearing her talk, I realize that I have to go through the whole process again, clearing out things I want to keep (my precious stuff!) in order to prep the place for open houses, etc.

Actually, it does make sense to move all the stuff out before the painters and contractors descend to do their work. But after all the emotional turmoil of culling through Steve's stuff, now I have to box up what little is left of him that I decided to keep. With a sinking feeling, I realized I was stripping down our only home, painting it up like a whore and putting it on the auction block. I sense another emotional wall approaching: the sale and release of this special place may be more difficult than I thought.

So next week the contractors will start coming by, checking work to be done and providing quotes. One of the first things she said was, "You need to get rid of the popcorn ceilings, some people don't mind them, but lots of people hate them and will write off your place, no matter how great it looks." I said I thought that was a lot of work and would be expensive. "Oh, no," she said, brushing my concern away with her hand. "They just put everything in the middle of the room and clean them off before they start painting; no problem."

I was most pleased to find that the comps for similar properties were at or above what I was expecting to list this place for. Also, she said there are only about half the normal number of condos on the market in Pasadena right now, which makes it a strong seller's market, and prices are supposed to rise by 7.5% this year, so we may list the place well above what I thought my asking price was.

So I'm taking a few days off to visit the Central Coast, but I'll be back in time to collect the information Jan's compiling for the improvements. June, we hope, will see the beginning of this process. Once I have an idea of the cost of improvements, I'll stop by the bank and pull the needed cash from my personal line of credit, which will then become an part of escrow when the place sells.

My goodness gracious; it's just one adventure after another these days.

How to Start Beginning

Many years ago, right after high school, in fact, I worked as a paraprofessional at the local mental health clinic in San Luis Obispo. My dad had worked there, but the family moved when he took a job in Alaska, so stayed behind, being gainfully employed.

One of my duties was to sit in on group therapy with members of the Day Treatment program (people with chronic mental illness who are able to function outside an institutional setting). Having to sit in therapy with seriously ill people not only brings elucidation of one's own sanity (and insanity), but also provides genuine human insights.

One day the group therapist was dealing with emotional outbursts about depression and suicidal thoughts. A verbal conflict had broken out between several of the group members, and the therapist shouted, "SHUT UP!" Everyone stopped. He cocked his ear. "What do you hear?" Everyone strained against the quiet. "Nothing," was the general reply. "There's a bird outside the window, singing." Everyone smiled as they acknowledged the masterful mocking bird in the bush as beautiful, nodded, "Oh, yeah." There was a sudden serenity in the room at the connection. "That bird's been singing since we walked into this room; never stopped." People are so ready to grapple with the horrors of life that they often screen out the beauty sitting right in front of them.

That was a good lesson in making choices for me.

Another session, not nearly so dramatic, dealt with something vital: beginning. A group member was talking about how she tried to do things (it was a eclectic list of fairly simple life tasks). "I try and try and try, but I keep failing," she sobbed. "It's such a vicious circle." The therapist replied, "Don't try. When you try, you set up a situation where you win or lose. Simply begin. Without trying, just begin. And if you only do what you want for two minutes, you haven't tried and failed, you have begun. The next time you begin, you can focus on the doing, and not the winning or losing." That one rang a bell for me, even back then. "We are beginning things every day. And as we begin, we become."

Self-actualization was big back in the '70s.

I'm having a problem with beginning these days. In the past months I've gotten really good at being overwhelmed, depressed mourning Steve's death and dealing with the paperwork that ensued. We're reaching the end of that now, and although I'm still grieving, I've got to put some time, energy and thought into beginning. I've created a detailed four-page to-do list (plus a PERT flowchart) of what needs to happen to get the house on the market; that was a genuine begin. I could have done it two weeks ago, rather than putting obstacles in my own way and halfheartedly failing to surmount them. But rather than beat myself over this wheel-spinning, I take this Memorial Day weekend to begin, over and over and over again. Trying feels nothing like beginning.

NEWS FLASH! Just now, for the first time, I realize the real fear here: if I sell the house we lived in together, if I move from the city we called home, if I start anew in a new town, I'll somehow dishonor and forget about Steve; he'll end up like the memory of an old college roommate. So I sit in the house and declutter and clean rather abstractly and avoid driving or going outside. The house is a widower's Womb/Tomb/Cocoon for me. This is all I have left of our life, our marriage, our joy, our love, and I know in my heart I've got to leave it all if I'm to survive.

I now see why widow(er)s keep the cremains and a nice picture of the Loved One: it's a compact and portable way to make sure you remember them without letting the fact of them overshadow your remaining years.

Steve had a great sense of humor. We laughed, even to the end, over the things he'd say. We had mostly good times and many priceless moments. All that drained from my life when he died. I know, deep down in my soul, that I can't have that kind of joy and enjoyment in my life without bidding goodbye to this house, this place where it all ended last year.

Tired of Looking Back

A year ago Steve was beginning his first round of chemotherapy treatments. He said there were no side effects, but I think he was hiding them from me. Even while he was declining and dying, he didn't want to burden me with his illness. His birthday is coming up (June 9), and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that, emotionally. The real kicker will be when our wedding anniversary rolls around in August.

You know, I'm really sick of thinking about what happened a year ago or six months ago. I'm sick of being depressed and then realizing the day marks come morbid milestone in Steve's demise. It's very difficult, to say nothing of confusing, to be mourning Steve and our life together while I'm also trying to build something significant for myself on the other end of this process.

Everything I do with the house seems to be temporary. I know there's a long list of stuff that has to get done before I can get a good price for the place: spruce up the kitchen, update the baths, paint, new lighting fixtures, new carpet upstairs. I will know more when a Realtor comes through and talks about it to me.

Kittie and Dave came down last weekend and helped finish up the office reorganization. While Kittie and I were busy with that, Dave absconded with the upstairs (good) vacuum and gave the downstairs floors a thorough going over. The upshot: I now have my work station set up at the large desk now, and I think the extra elbow room, cubby holes and storage space will help keep me more organized than I have been. And that weekend was the first time the house has been clean from top to bottom.

Some really good news: Social Security finally came through with the spouse's survivor benefits, and I got a big fat deposit of payments going back to the month Steve died. On top of that, there was a sizable refund check from one of the medical providers. Feeling flush for the first time in months, I of course began writing checks for medical bills, HOA fees, and personal loans, leaving enough for the next couple months until income streams flow a little more predictably.

Also, the deed transfer came through in the probate courts, so the house is now legally mine to sell. I haven't gotten the final paperwork in the mail, but my lawyer e-mailed a copy to me just so I'd know that closure is imminent.

I'm still in my diurnal variations, staying awake until 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning and sleeping until noon. I was feeling very bummed out about this, but then realized that it has minimal impact on my life. I simply schedule my appointments in the afternoons. Also, with the heat wave we've been experiencing, it's not really comfortable outside until 9 or 10 at night. By sleeping during the day, I cut down the time I have to run the air conditioning to only three hours a day.

Today is not so bad: the last three days have been 102 in the shade with no breezes as all. The humidity is 5% to 7%, which is why we're having all these wildfires. And in the areas where they're burning, they do have high winds, and the flames can pour down (and up) a hillside with the speed of flowing water.

Along with massive wildfires comes the unhealthful air quality. Even this far away from San Diego, the smoke gets caught by the upper-level winds and carried over the entire southern section of the state: You can smell it in the air, feel it crusting over sinus membranes, parching your airways with the mere task of breathing.

There is a moderate cool-down coming at the beginning of next week, so hopefully that will be some relief, but that will only be followed by another hot spell. This kind of weather usually waits until late June or early July to really hit. Then the heat stays around until November. That works out to seven months of summer, seven months of living in air-conditioned boxes, cars and cubicles.

Also, last week I got a call from a company that wants to hire a graphic designer to develop a monthly newsletter (and a possible brand identity redesign). The interview went really well, and I think there's a possibility that this will be a lucrative and consistent income source.

That's about it. I'm hoping this is the first weekend I can actually clean the whole house in one day and without stumbling over Steve remnants about which I then have to make decisions. There is still a good half dozen boxes that need to be wrapped up for donation. I have to make a list of the stuff, since I'll be taking it off my taxes for this year. Last year, donations were over $1700.

I realize that I am now using this blog entry as an excuse not to go downstairs and dust. I groan at the chores aspect of the activity, but look forward to the piquant smell of the wood furniture polish.

Mmmmmmm. Lemony.

The Pasty Heart

This first part was written on Saturday, April 26

The last week or so has been down and dismal for me. My borderline agoraphobia is trying everything it can to assert itself, showing up with its psychic disruptor buddy, insomnia.

Now, I haven't had severe insomnia since back in my twenties. My dad used to refer to it as my "diurnal variation." Basically, I'm getting to bed between 4 and 7 a.m. in the morning, sleeping until noon or 1 p.m., then getting up and feeling shitty about being incapable of getting back into a routine that matches that of the outside world. If I had things that I had to get done, I might be bouncing back faster, but the only thing of note for this month seems to be six months since Steve died.

Fancy highball glasses do dye double duty.

Kittie and David came down for the Easter weekend, which was a nice surprise (like they haven't been coming down every other weekend for months). Kittie had made it through tax season and put together a holiday care package, including our Easter dinner, which we had on Saturday, since they had to leave in the mid-afternoon on Sunday.

On Saturday we got a start on cleaning up the office, which has become a tangle of piles of paper and corners festooned with cat hair clumps the vacuum did not retrieve on its last pass in the room. We got it to the point where the cupboard was nearly cleaned out. But like so many times before, clearing out stuff from anywhere ends up with me feeling exhausted from the emotional portion of the experience, and with stuff getting moved from one room to another, still without a real new home.

Overview of the festive fabrications.

After an hour or so working in the office, Kittie and I went downstairs and set up the Easter egg dyes. Once we were finished with our ova fabulosi, Kittie turned to putting dinner together. She had brought a spiral-sliced had and a box of au gratin potatoes. I provided the frozen peas.

We had a lovely meal. Afterwards I brought my desiccated Peeps down from on top of the refrigerator, we hauled out the candy and baskets, and Kittie put two Easter baskets together: one for them and one for me. Needless to say, there was a lot of sugar consumed in the week following (which exacerbated the the insomnia and agoraphobia, no doubt).

Pretty nifty for Satan's testicles

So this weekend, I continue on the office, sorting, tossing, cleaning, organizing. Slowly, the things in the piles are finding homes and the trash bags and donation boxes are filling up. There is a kind of catharsis in seeing a new organization appear in the office. I'm really looking forward to being able to invite clients over without making apologies for the mess and the cat hair.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

This part is being written on the date indicated above

Clearing out stuff is a lot more complicated than I'd thought, especially with the surprise piles of papers that Steve left. Every time I clear out a cupboard or organize a pile, I come across more papers from early in the century or late last century that need to be shredded, an activity which can take several hours, depending on the number of staples to be removed.

And here it is, early May, and it's in the upper 90s and lower 100s here in Pasadena. I always get depressed when it's hot outside, so that hasn't helped my demeanor or insomnia.

I've decided that the mountain of paperwork that has been generated by Steve's death is going to get its own box; it's the only way I'll be able to clean the office up and get back my surfaces. What with the VA, sundry medical bills, IRA conversions, taxes, mortgage, line of credit, property deed, bills and half a dozen other things I'm not remembering at this point, every surface on both desks is stacked with piles of records.

Once the desks are fairly clean, the office will have progressed to the point where I am ready to pull all the wires and plugs from underneath the desks, remove Steve's computer and move mine to the larger desk (which is the one Steve had when I moved in). This is going to be a more daunting task than it sounds. 

As each layer of technology has been added, so has a tangle of wires, which tangles with the tangle of wires from the previous upgrade, which tangles with the tangle of wires that was here originally. So I move in with an extra computer (another layer) and we add a wireless router to the modem (another layer). We convert to cable Internet service (another layer); add peripherals (printer/scanner, phone/answering machine, cable TV split, fax phone lines, back-up drives): it's my own little techno-Gordian knot.

You may wonder why I'm so fixated on getting the office in order, but it has to do with my theory of hairball flow. I've been so frustrated being unable to keep the downstairs clean for more than a day or so, and realized the cat hair was floating down from the source (Marcel), and until I got his chair and the office in general clean, organized and under control, I wouldn't be rid of the hairballs.

So once the upstairs is organized and clean, the dilemma of hairballs on the bamboo floors downstairs should be mitigated. I worry about this from an aesthetic point, since I'm going to have to keep the place looking presentable once it's listed.

I have to keep reminding myself that I'm halfway across this sea of shit that is the first year after a spouse's death. At times, I sense glimmers of normalcy and happiness through this mourning process, so I'm hoping things become downhill-easy from here on out. But I'm not counting on it.

Six Months Is Half a Year

The moon is full tonight over LaLaLand, which means the nuts are coming out of the woodwork. Not just here, but everywhere; we just have a greater concentration of them in L.A. It's warm, too, with the outside temperature still in the 70s at nine o'clock. More people walking on the street tonight, talking just a little louder than normal, laughing a little harder, neurons twisted skyward as the night's orb pulls at the oceans of lunacy inside them. Nor am I immune.

The baby in the apartment building next door is wailing away and the parents jabber back in some Pacific Rim language. This is not racism, just accurate reporting. Far from being immigrants living in squalor, this couple is attending Cal Tech and the infant will grow up in an upper middle-class environment, no matter where in the world the family settles.

I bit the bullet and went down to sign my tax return today. I asked about the overage in the cost versus the original estimate, and he explained that he thought all the files were coming as PDFs and Quickbooks, so he hadn't figured in the time to input the figures from the paper documents I left with them. In any case, the taxes are done and out of my hair.

I just finished watching "Alice," a bizarre retelling of the familiar "Alice in Wonderland" story by Czech director Jan Svankmajer. It's streaming on Netflix now, so if you have the service, take the time to see it. It's only 90 minutes long and the imagery will stick with you long after the viewing. It just proves that the East Europeans can take anything and turn it into another bleak surreal statement on postwar industrial angst.

I got a call from sister Kittie last night, and she and husband Dave are planning to come down for the weekend, since tax season is now over. This means I am beholden to clean the house before they arrive, since they're both sensitive to the hair and dust that I acclimated to months ago. Still, I can't see euthanizing Marcel because he sheds too much; that would really piss off Steve.

It's so depressing: I vacuum and dust upstairs one day, then vacuum and dust downstairs the next: within two or three days, black clumps of cat hair are clinging to the carpets upstairs and dancing along the floorboards downstairs, and the sheen of clean shows its first dull coats of dust. Here in the city, there''s so much crap in the air and it all settles in when I open up the house to cool it off in the evenings. I've lost my discipline for chores: making to-do lists doesn't seem to help. I need a drill sergeant or a maid, I'm not sure which.

Bob McBroom came by and picked up the Beretta last weekend. We both decided that since Steve had gifted him the gun before his death that we didn't need to go through the rigamarole of registering it again. And, besides, Steve had purchased it from a friend and never registered it in his own name, so the paperwork would have been complex and would have required going back 15 years to find out if the original owner had registered it in the first place. I just wanted it out of the house.

Bob's a contractor/handyman by trade, so we discussed what things might be done to the house to improve it value and sales appeal. Of course, an interior paint job is a must, as only one room has been painted in the last 10 years. There's minor finishing work in the kitchen that has to be tended to, but I still want a Realtor to let me know where it's wisest to spend the money.

The two clients that I was going to begin working with last week both were unavailable: the antiques dealer was in the midst of doing a design home for the annual fundraising tour here in Pasadena, and my poet was in London and not interested in diving into web design talk on a transcontinental basis. I heartily agree with her and let her know how jealous I was that she was in London. It brought back memories of the trip with Steve and our hideous/hilarious hotel in Paddington (an experience that predates this blog).

I think things are getting better for me, because happy memories of Steve no longer make me cry. But still, just thinking about him, connecting with the sense memory of having him near me and the comfort and love I felt quite literally makes my heart ache. And I still tend to burst into tears over the mere mention of kind and noble acts by good people. There is hope in the world yet, and I'm looking forward to a time when I can feel content on my own and feel a stable sadness I can endure when I think about Steve.

My sister Kittie, whose first husband died, told me that it would take about six months for it really to hit me, and her estimate is spot on: yesterday was six months to the day of Steve's death. It's one of those things you don't really realize until it's almost past. I just wonder how many more months it will be until I'm not riding in the wake of all that death, decay and grief.

Well, this is certainly a peppy little entry, don't you think?

One thing I did realize in ruminating yesterday: I am the one who controls how fast I move away from that awful time. And if I drag my feet about getting things done, I'm the only one who has to endure it (except you good folks who read this blog). But from now on, I shall be keenly aware of when I'm taking time because I need to and when I'm just spinning my wheels in an overindulgence of my depression and mourning.

I'm feeling another me emerging from all this; a guy who is ready to kick his own ass in order to get things moving. He's a doer, not a weeper. Perhaps I should leave the planning to him and dutifully follow his orders about how I'm going to get from Point A to Point W in a reasonable and rational way.

I just have to remember to go down to the garage each morning and read my license plate: "OK TODAY." That, as much as anything else, is Steve's legacy to me.

Things Don't Go Away

It's 93 degrees today; hot as hell and it's only early April. There is a light breeze outside, so it's not too bad, but it reminds me of one of the reasons I really don't want to stay in Pasadena. Hearing the police helicopters circling incessantly last night was another. The half-dozen police and fire sirens in the evening air melded with the chopper blade whacking the air: all sounds that I never heard on my trip.

After the bags were unpacked and stuff put away, I was so happy to be home. It took three or four nights of sleeping in my own bed to remedy the sore muscles in my back. But looking around the house, I realized that everything I had left behind when I went on my three-week journey was still confronting me upon my return. One thing that did strike me when I walked through the front door: this is really a pretty nice place I have here.

Worry No. 1 is cash flow. The Social Security Administration has still not figured out how to deal with benefits for same-sex marriages. You'd think it would be fairly simple: just apply the same standards, controls and regulations to all married couples. But, no, it has to take months upon months of bureaucrats writing and revising and double-checking to get things up and running. Meanwhile, half of the monthly income I had been expecting is nowhere to be seen. Sure, I'll get a nice lump sum when they finally get their act together, but until then I'm forced to start drawing out of the IRA in order to pay the monthly bills (well, not quite yet, but within a month or so). Hopefully, things will have started to flow by then.

Worry No. 2 (and reason to be pissed at Steve): I figured I'd be getting a grand or so back from my tax return, but it turns out, between federal and state returns, I owe $72. It's not a huge sum, but it isn't the small windfall I had expected, either. Turns out Steve didn't have taxes withheld from his Social Security, so the federal refund (and them some) was eaten up by that. At the time, I thought we had an awful good cash flow, considering one of us was retired. You'd think a bookkeeper would think of these things. But then, he had more important things on his mind, as did I.

So, I spent the first week after my return in an insomnia-induced funk, sometimes an abject angst, wondering how I was going to get from Point A to Point W way down the line. My trip gave me a real sense of direction, but the unknowns are like a crowd of people watching the parade going by, and I am alone, with no one to hike me up onto his shoulders so I can see and appreciate what's going on. I miss Steve so much it aches. And there is nothing in this entire world that can take the place of touching your spouse, holding them close and knowing that you're not alone.

I've made the decision to sell the house and make a move to La Crosse to be near my brother Steve and his extended family. There were three big factors for the La Crosse decision; first was knowing that I could take the equity out of this place, purchase a nice home in La Crosse and have a sizable amount left over to squirrel away in the IRA; second was wanting to be around to watch my great-niece, Natalie, grow up; third was my desire to experience the seasons.

I have several clients who are OK with a long-distance design relationship, as most everything is sent and received via Internet and e-mail, whether for online design or print work. I'm also hopeful that there will be some source of part-time income available in La Crosse, be it new clients there or a part-time position with a local design firm. I've crunched the number several times and even being overly liberal about costs, it still looks like a very doable thing.

So today I contacted a Realtor about coming over and sizing up the condo, letting me know what she thinks it's worth, finding out whether dumping a couple thousand in redoing the kitchen and baths would make for a better asking price. Luckily, Pasadena is a seller's market right now, especially in the lower price brackets, and this is an ideal starter home for someone. I just feel it in my bones.

So after my weeklong funk, I started making my calls and arranging for my appointments, and I'm feeling much better about things. I simply have to focus on my car's license plate, which I inherited from Steve: "OK TODAY."

Completing the Circle

Wednesday morning in Everett, I got up at 4:45. Coffee was already brewing, and I had packed most everything the night before. I was operating on six hour sleep, but I would have plenty of opportunity to snooze once I was on the train.

Small towns pass on the way to Seattle

Chance had to be dropped off at school and Jim had to get to work, so there was no way he could drive me into downtown Seattle to catch my train. Instead, he dropped me off at Mukilteo to take the Sounder (a commuter train) into King Street Station, where I would board the Coast Starlight for my return to Los Angeles.

The Sounder arrived as 6:56 on the dot, and I boarded with a few dozen other riders for the trip into Seattle. We arrived around 8:20, so I sat in the marble-clad waiting room, nodding off once or twice, until the train was called. There were two lines formed, one for coach passengers and one for sleeping car passengers. The second line was perhaps 20 people, while the coach line stretched along into the waiting room and doubled back on itself.

View from the King Street Station platform

The sleeping cars were boarded first, and I found my car with little trouble. The attendant was genial enough, but made no offer to help lug my bags up to my compartment. I was to find this was his M.O. for most of the trip. I managed my bags up the stairs and into my roomette, got myself situated and tried to get comfortable. (Three weeks of plane seats, unfamiliar beds and train rides had left my back sore and kinking.)

One of the features of the Coast Starlight is a Parlour Car, which is for the exclusive use of the sleeping car passengers. The Parlour Cars are actual cars from the old Super Chief, which used to ply its way from Los Angeles to Chicago before Amtrak was formed. Five of these cars were found in a Southern Pacific Railroad boneyard, and Amtrak rescued and refurbished them for use on this line.

In the Parlour Car, there are swiveling lounge chairs, banquettes with small tables for cocktails, a full bar and a half-dozen booths for dinner service. And although the passengers in the sleeper cars could opt to head one car down to the dining room for meals, slightly tastier fare was available in the Parlour Car. WiFi and two movies a day in the downstairs theater were also supposed to be available, but a last-minute swap in equipment meant these amenities were not available on our train.

Just as the train was pulling out of the station, at 9:35, Bob came by and offered me a split of champagne, which I graciously accepted. I noticed with some chagrin that my window was facing east, not west, so I would not be getting the spectacular ocean views once we got into California.

Debbie, the Parlour Car attendant stopped by a bit later, taking my order for lunch and letting me know about the Parlour Car services. Once the train was well on its way, I pulled out my laptop and started working on writing a story that's been in my head for the last couple years.

The 12:15 lunch seating rolled around and I was still writing. Debbie got on the train intercom and announced, "Mark, time to wake up and have lunch." By the time I finished my turkey panini, I was a celebrity of sorts in the sleeper cars.

I went back to my room and wrote a bit longer, then decided to pop in a DVD and watch "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean."

That afternoon, Bob stopped by to say he liked to make up the beds between 8 and 8:30. I told him I would probably not want mine done until 10 or 10:30. He didn't seem too happy about it, almost like I was there for his convenience and not the other way around.

Mist and forest in the Oregon mountains

Dinnertime rolled around: pot roast with wild rice pilaf. The Oregon mountains were moving past the window, covered with mist moving in and out of the coniferous forest. Out of dozens of shots, I have one good image suggesting how stunning the view was, even as the light was beginning to fade into night.

I returned to my room after dinner, watched the first part of the "LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring" DVD, and around 9 o'clock, I pushed the call button. Bob showed up 10 or 15 minutes later and made up the bed. After my evening ablutions (fairly quick on a moving train), I watched the rest of the movie and retired to bed.

I slept soundly and woke up early the next morning. In the night we had passed through Northern California and came into Emeryville around 8 a.m. I went to the Parlour Car for breakfast, but all Debbie had was an egg, bacon and croissant sandwich. It was a little on the stale side and obviously microwaved before being served up. While I was there, Debbie took my orders for lunch and dinner.

I knew that the rest of the ride (another 12 hours) was going to provide little in the way of scenery on my side of the train (and it was landscape I had traversed numerous times), so I went back to writing, breaking only for a lunch of vegetarian lasagna. After lunch, my back started to sing a song of strain and pain from the constant bumping and gyrating of the train, so I lowered the seats and stretched out for a nap, which lasted straight through the dinner service.

Around 7:30 I went to the Parlour Car, which was now closed for service, and gave Debbie a tip for all her attention and excellent work. I was hoping to talk her out of a soda, but she said everything was stowed.

According to my calculations (and those of the Amtrak app on my iPhone), the train would be getting in about a half an hour early, so I texted Jessie (who had insisted upon picking me up at the station) and let her know. As it turned out, she pulled into the station at the exact moment the train pulled in. And now the truth about Bob.

As we were pulling in, Bob stopped by the room of two pretty young women and asked if they needed help getting their luggage downstairs. They said no. There was also myself (no spring chicken at 60) and an elderly couple, at least in their 70s, who also might need some assistance, but he didn't even offer it. I got to watch as this dottering old man lugged his roll-around case down the twisting stairs, nearly losing his balance on several occasions. The old guy stopped in front of Bob, standing inside the train, and tipped him. Bob thanked him and watched the old guy wrestle his bags off the train and onto the platform. When it came my turn to leave, I gave Bob the nastiest, most steely gaze I could, hoisted my bags off the train myself and left him without so much as a fare-thee-well, much less a tip. (I had planned to toss him a quarter, but didn't have change with me.)

I took the stairwell down to the pedestrian corridor and made the short trek to the waiting area where Jessie greeted me with a big hug. We got to her car, put the luggage in the back, and I showed her the shortest route to the 110 (Pasadena) Freeway.

We talked about the trip on our drive to my house. She helped me in with the bags, and I told her she didn't have to stay. I'm assuming she had things to do at home, as she seemed ready to get back to what she was doing.

The house was in amazing shape. Aria had obviously been there earlier in the day, because the cats' litter box was clean and there was canned food out for the cats.

Marcel was the first to greet me, and he seemed annoyed and a little put out. Patty was furtive to begin with, but soon was coaxed to sit on the couch next to me. Once she got some petting, there was no stopping her, and she's been a pig for attention ever since. It was not long before I was unpacked, in my bunny suit and ready for bed. I stayed up long enough to watch the 11 o'clock news, see what the weather was going to be like for Friday, then I headed up to my very own bed and slept for a long, long time.

Friday was a day off, snoozing, posting the Everett entry to my blog and watching TV mindlessly. Saturday I organized my three weeks of back mail and caught up on "Upstairs, Downstairs," which I had started watching back in Wisconsin. Today I plan to organize myself for the next week and all the pickup chores and business meetings which will bring me up to speed after such a long absence.

I would not forgo the trip I've just taken for anything. It was a wonderful way to re-establish contact with family I hadn't seen in a long time, and a way to get out of myself and my life and routine in Pasadena. I feel fairly confident that I will be all right moving forward this year.