Musings of a Restless Mind

I haven’t posted anything lately, and that isn’t likely to change for couple of weeks, but it’s Sunday, and I’m not supposed to work on Sunday, so I write instead, but it’s not for profit, so it’s OK, right?

I noted in my post Begin…End…Begin Again that my new landlords left me a note that they were choosing not to renew my lease after 42 years of one-year leases. No hard feelings. It involves some of Crazyfornia’s bizarre laws. You see, I’ve outlived my original landlords although they didn’t die until their were in their mid 90’s. Their heirs ran the place for a few years, but eventually had to sell, and the new landlord, understandably, wants a return on their investment. The problem is California law says, if I continue to reside here, they can only raise my rent by 10% per year. Market rates would actually be 40% higher than what I’m paying, so I can hardly blame them. Instead I’m taking it as a nudge from Sharon who probably told the Big Guy to boot me in the rear and get me out of this place. In fact the last time she was in the hospital, she was facing a long rehab if she recovered, and she told me she didn’t want to go back to our current place.

Her passing meant there was no longer a case of urgency, so, although I gave away several truckloads of her crafting supplies that she hadn’t used yet to a friend who owned a craft store, that still left…, a lot…, quite a lot, and I’ve been procrastinating at getting rid of it.

First item on the agenda was to find another place to live. That took a couple of weeks, including a credit check and fiddling with my finances to show them I was capable of paying the rent—they require proof of income 2.5 times the monthly rent, and, since I’m retired and live fairly frugally, I don’t take out that much of my retirement funds each month. Then there were cashier’s checks for the security deposit and first month’s rent. Lastly there was the one hundred and five page lease agreement. The manager of the big new apartment complex assured me that I only needed to sign 60 of those pages (as well as initial almost all of them I found out).

The last wrinkle was that they required me to have renter’s insurance for liability (in case I set the place on fire I suppose). My best friend told me it would be easiest to get it through my car insurance company. Well, I’ve had the same insurance company ever since we were messed with by AAA back in the 80’s. AAA cashed my check for the wrong amount and spent months threatening me about it before I got my bank to force their bank to correct their mistake. Then they started threatening us again. Finally I got some free advice from a lawyer on how to word a letter to them that clearly dripped hints that they were in for legal action for something that was all their fault to begin with. That incident ended with a condescending letter saying they were going to just ignore the problem out of the kindness of their hearts. The next month we went with a new insurance company, and I still spit whenever someone mentions AAA, or a commercial comes on TV for them. They can rot in hell. Can you tell I tend to hold grudges? In any case, a couple of years ago, my auto insurance company was acquired and/or changed their name. Just last month, I got a letter saying they were going back to their original name, so I was prepared for complications.

I was told flat out that neither the old or new company offered renter’s insurance, and it turns out that the state which must not be named, requires you to purchase renter’s insurance exclusively from the same company that provides your auto insurance. I wonder who swung that piece of legislation? In any case, it turns out that both old/new/old companies are now owned by Farmers’ Insurance which does do renter’s insurance. So I had to cancel my current auto insurance, reinsure my car with Farmers’, and then take out renter’s insurance from them. Sigh.

Finally, that left me with cleaning out my current place and moving to the new place. Some stuff I took to Goodwill. A lot of stuff has ended up in the alley where it all disappears within a day. The schools are open again, so I donated about 600 rubber stamps to the local elementary school, and another couple hundred rubber stamps, some craft paper, various crafting tools and supplies to the local middle school. It took me several trips because I kept finding more. Another big thing is food storage containers. We had enough to keep a small army supplied, if they had refrigerated space for it. I kept a half-dozen and the rest went to Goodwill along with Sharon’s clothes. Sharon’s sewing and jewelry making stuff (thousands of beads and other supplies) went to a friend at church who sews, knits, and beads. Her jewelry I gave to another friend at church who is going through financial difficulties, telling her to sell it online, keeping the proceeds and keep what she wants for herself. It was mostly sterling and semi-precious stone rings, earrings, and necklaces. Sharon had very good taste, and a lot of jewelry. Are you sensing a theme here?

Hundreds of her cookbooks also went to Goodwill. I already donated her library of some 300 volumes on Oriental Medicine, Chinese culture and philosophy to the San Diego Chinese Historical Society. I even uncovered a few more, but that will wait until I’m in my new place. Next on the agenda is all the cooking appliances, an ice cream maker, an all-in-one bread maker, an industrial mixer, a half-dozen water heaters for tea, a half-dozen blenders, and god-only-knows what else. The Goodwill is sensitive about electronics, so those will go to the alley pickers. I’m keeping the slow cooker, the pressure cooker, and a half-dozen pots and pans. What else does a widower need?

Of our dozens of art pieces, I’m keeping the three-foot tall Green Man carved by a master Indonesian carver, the two Olaf Wieghorst plates we bought in Solvang on our honeymoon, the Therese Mather wolf painting featured in The Wolf Tale, the Denise Parise painting that inspired Sharon’s Prisoner of a Salamander Moon, the pencil drawing of a spiral staircase that my best man drew and gave us as a wedding present. Oh, that reminds me, I also found one of our wedding pictures.

Amazing! I used to have hair. Will wonders never cease?

Someday, I’ll have to tell you how two broke nobodies managed a festive outdoor wedding with an amazing view. A wedding that was performed by the man holding the Guiness world record for performing the most weddings ever with a reception catered by someone from Wales who had catered events for the Queen of England. It’s me and Sharon, you didn’t think it would be ordinary, did you? We didn’t do ordinary.

Tomorrow it’s purses, more cooking and storage utensils, and more clothes to the Goodwill. If all goes well, Disabled Vets of America will get to take the near antique desk and cabinet we inherited from Sharon’s grandparents and never used, and probably some other useful stuff. Meanwhile I’ll move a couple of bookcases into the new place along with some more ancient manuscripts—so old they’re handwritten, on parchment!. Next weekend is friends with pickups hauling the dining room table, TV set, boxes of books, vinyl records, and DVDs for me. Maybe even my futon, or maybe I’ll give that away and continue to sleep on the floor as I’ve done since Sharon got too ill to go upstairs to the bedroom.

Anyway, as you can see, I’ll be busy for the next 3 weeks, but I’ll try to make time for the 25^th anniversary of 9/11 to post Sharon’s entry to the World Trade Center Memorial Competition, the entry they ignored in favor of their giant hole in the ground. Did I mention Sharon learned drafting and architecture along with her poetry and artistic sense?