what is on
May. 3rd, 2014 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacWe cleared out my mother's apartment on Wednesday. Five hired people from the liquidator took five hours to haul it all away. Now all that's left is one room with the things my brother and I are to take. I've already begun taking my home. My other brother had all his stuff shipped back east. He boxed it all up and we took it to Fed Ex ground services.
I've also had to deal with her largest physical possession, her car. We can't sell it until the title is reissued in the name of the estate, and we couldn't undertake to change the title until a 40-day period had passed, perhaps to ensure that the owner is really dead. That's just passed, and then it takes another month for the title to be reissued, the DMV said. In the meantime, since we're leaving the apartment, I had to find a place to keep the thing. No room here. I called up a storage company which has units big enough to drive a car into. They said $240/month. I said I was hoping for something less than $200/month, since that's what it would cost to keep it at airport long-term parking (my backup plan). Then they had an idea. They have even larger units, far more expensive, but with drastic first-month discounts, and yes, they were willing to let me have one in the knowledge that I intended to vacate it after a month. So the car is now snug and secure in a locked indoor space for $50.
I've been to the tombstone maker (is there a word for such a person, more specific than "stonemason"?). Same little old guy who made the stone for my brother in the adjacent grave, over twenty years ago, not looking much older, and with the same fount of Yiddish aphorisms on the inevitability and randomness of death. I offered him another from a different tradition: "Is life a boon? If so, it must befall that Death, whene'er he call, must call too soon." (I didn't mention its source.)
I'm still trying to get the trust back in Michigan to send me a monthly statement for March.
All this activity keeps me distracted, though a small part of me cringed when I wiped her now-useless phone number from my cell phone contact list.
What else has distracted me? Concerts, concerts, we've been to a few concerts. Here's the ones I can remember.
1. Back in Chicago, I heard the Chicago Symphony, because why not. Esa-Pekka Salonen, whom I've heard in LA, conducted his own Nyx and the Janacek Sinfonietta. Great brass work in the Sinfonietta, as you'd expect from CSO. Christian Tetzlaff played the not overly exciting Dvorak Violin Concerto. I hadn't realized it when I bought the ticket, but this is the same violinist I'm going to hear, albeit playing a different concerto, in San Francisco in a couple weeks and have undertaken to review. You travel and travel, and you don't get anywhere, because the traveling virtuosi have gotten there first.
2. When I was editorially directed to attend the Ives Quartet playing a new piece by Julian Waterfall Pollack, I wondered, "What salty expletives would Charles Ives have had for his namesake quartet playing the work of such a purveyor of smooth jazz?" In the event, the work was a little edgier and less anathematic to my idea of Ives's tastes than I'd have expected, but I still made that conceit the theme of my review, and, despite the resulting waffling, my editor really liked it.
3. Next, off to hear something called the Master Sinfonia play backup warhorses by Rachmaninoff and Dvorak for my second reviewing hat. A reasonably good job for an amateur group; I'd be willing to hear them again.
4. Up to the City to attend Baroque specialist Ton Koopman energetically leading SFS in J.S. Bach and - the special reason for my interest - some tangy music by C.P.E., my favorite of the sons of Bach. Great work on a C.P. cello concerto by Peter Wyrick, SFS's own #2 cellist.
5. B. and I walked down to the local high school for their annual musical production, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a work I'd known only by name. Terrible singing, inaudible diction, but good high-school acting and an amusing script. One character spells words by going into a trance; another, by writing them out on the floor with his foot. Me, if asked to spell a word, I mime typing it.
I've also had to deal with her largest physical possession, her car. We can't sell it until the title is reissued in the name of the estate, and we couldn't undertake to change the title until a 40-day period had passed, perhaps to ensure that the owner is really dead. That's just passed, and then it takes another month for the title to be reissued, the DMV said. In the meantime, since we're leaving the apartment, I had to find a place to keep the thing. No room here. I called up a storage company which has units big enough to drive a car into. They said $240/month. I said I was hoping for something less than $200/month, since that's what it would cost to keep it at airport long-term parking (my backup plan). Then they had an idea. They have even larger units, far more expensive, but with drastic first-month discounts, and yes, they were willing to let me have one in the knowledge that I intended to vacate it after a month. So the car is now snug and secure in a locked indoor space for $50.
I've been to the tombstone maker (is there a word for such a person, more specific than "stonemason"?). Same little old guy who made the stone for my brother in the adjacent grave, over twenty years ago, not looking much older, and with the same fount of Yiddish aphorisms on the inevitability and randomness of death. I offered him another from a different tradition: "Is life a boon? If so, it must befall that Death, whene'er he call, must call too soon." (I didn't mention its source.)
I'm still trying to get the trust back in Michigan to send me a monthly statement for March.
All this activity keeps me distracted, though a small part of me cringed when I wiped her now-useless phone number from my cell phone contact list.
What else has distracted me? Concerts, concerts, we've been to a few concerts. Here's the ones I can remember.
1. Back in Chicago, I heard the Chicago Symphony, because why not. Esa-Pekka Salonen, whom I've heard in LA, conducted his own Nyx and the Janacek Sinfonietta. Great brass work in the Sinfonietta, as you'd expect from CSO. Christian Tetzlaff played the not overly exciting Dvorak Violin Concerto. I hadn't realized it when I bought the ticket, but this is the same violinist I'm going to hear, albeit playing a different concerto, in San Francisco in a couple weeks and have undertaken to review. You travel and travel, and you don't get anywhere, because the traveling virtuosi have gotten there first.
2. When I was editorially directed to attend the Ives Quartet playing a new piece by Julian Waterfall Pollack, I wondered, "What salty expletives would Charles Ives have had for his namesake quartet playing the work of such a purveyor of smooth jazz?" In the event, the work was a little edgier and less anathematic to my idea of Ives's tastes than I'd have expected, but I still made that conceit the theme of my review, and, despite the resulting waffling, my editor really liked it.
3. Next, off to hear something called the Master Sinfonia play backup warhorses by Rachmaninoff and Dvorak for my second reviewing hat. A reasonably good job for an amateur group; I'd be willing to hear them again.
4. Up to the City to attend Baroque specialist Ton Koopman energetically leading SFS in J.S. Bach and - the special reason for my interest - some tangy music by C.P.E., my favorite of the sons of Bach. Great work on a C.P. cello concerto by Peter Wyrick, SFS's own #2 cellist.
5. B. and I walked down to the local high school for their annual musical production, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a work I'd known only by name. Terrible singing, inaudible diction, but good high-school acting and an amusing script. One character spells words by going into a trance; another, by writing them out on the floor with his foot. Me, if asked to spell a word, I mime typing it.
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no subject
Date: 2014-05-04 05:15 am (UTC)Some storage places around here have outdoor parking spots that they rent. Good place to keep a boat in the off season, e.g. Don't know how the rate compares to an indoor, closed space, but if need be it might be cheaper.
Ah, the CSO. One of the best things about living in Chicago, I think, was getting the chance to see them. A lot.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-04 11:26 am (UTC)I'm happy with $50 for a month's storage, and it's safe from accidental dings from other parties.
Worst thing about CSO is the cramped, 1904-vintage seats in the balcony.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-05 07:43 am (UTC)Such a person would be called a monumental mason here.