I keep thinking that I'll write a long-ish blurb in Word and edit it and everything, then not doing it. [Okay, editing for paragraphs.] So here's to extemporaneous posting:

2023 was overall a pretty good year in that I shook off the torpor that I'd fallen into during the pandemic lock down stuff. Being retired, it was easy to stay home and do nothing except swim and feel guilty for not decluttering and doing All The Things that I should've, could've, been working on.

Just before lock down, I'd offered to be the Administrator of the probate of the deceased neighbor across the street from my house. Both she and her second husband died within months of each other at the end of 2019. My interest was in helping the mom's adopted daughter with her first husband, who had mental health and drug problems, & it was quickly apparent that I knew more than the remaining relatives about dealing with a young adult with both issues. They thought they'd sell the house and give her the money. I wanted to make sure they knew to put it in a trust.

Everything slowed down during lock down. The daughter stayed with her father in Maui for awhile (he who used to own a condo on Front Street in Lahaina; yes, now ashes, but they & cats & some belongings got out) then kind of disappeared into Portland OR.

I'm still horrified that it took me so long to snap out it and really notice that no one was trying to find the daughter. I'd spent a lot of time investigating programs in OR for drug/disability people. OR has some really good programs by the by.

Once I had a housesitter, I went to Portland to try to find her. Buffista Laga had just moved across the Columbia River from Portland and helped me over two weeks as we went into homeless areas pretty much every day, handing out missing person flyers and talking to people. We, talked to people who knew her and went to places where she'd been but never found her.

I'd scheduled my last day at McMenamin's Edgefield to decompress and treated Laga to an overnight, and, um, don't remember board name, our b.org Portland resident came to meet us and we had a really nice day in a really nice place.

About 2 weeks after I got back, I got a call from a Portland Police detective asking me to contact their medical examiner. A few days of giving info, having them contact people who knew the daughter, then had to have the father talk to the medical examiner. It was her. She had died of an overdose 2 weeks before I got there, been dumped at an ER by people who left her and drove off.

I'm still kicking myself for not going sooner and have to & do take some comfort in that no one else was looking for her at all, not in her family, not the probate attorney, and if I hadn't gone to try to find her, we'd never know what happened to her. The medical examiner also said, "If it helps, I've reviewed all her medical records, and she was very, very sick."

We're now winding down the probate case. I handled the sale of the house and other related things. The death of the daughter will always be awful. Except for that, I really enjoyed working on this. I may/will look into what are the qualifications to be a public fiduciary.

I continued to swim, and head up the pool committee at the local Elks Club. It's still unbelievable to me that no one before me (except contracted pool company on a regular cleaning schedule) had ever been in the pump house or bothered to learn about the equipment (thank you, engineer parents, & electrical contractor ex-partner, for knowing a little about mechanical stuff), OR quantified how many people were swimming and when, who was paying and how much.

Dec. & Jan., there was a lot of mechanical stuff that had to be fixed in the pump house. There are trees threatening to fall on the building that I've been trying to get the House Committee to do something about for years. Only so much I can do. I went up to the pool at 1 AM last night because no one had covered the pool on a night with a frost warning. Not enjoying being the responsible one on that kind of thing, since people knew I can't do the pool cover on Sundays.

Old dear friends moved to a new house for many reasons, one main one being, they wanted a space to create community. Starting during the pandemic, an elder friend and I have dinner with them every Sunday. It's become a very stabilizing thing in my life, since I live alone when not hosting friends and am kind of sort of estranged by choice from 2 of my siblings & the 3rd lives 3,000 miles away.

My beloved cat Lily had radiation treatment for cancer on her nose in summer then had kidney problems then failure and died at home in my arms the day before Halloween. I was lucky to have had Lily examined by a very good/compassionate vet who does end of life (and other) house calls.

I see my nephew, grand-niebling and grand-niece at concerts at the music school in Berkeley where the niebling plays cello. It's astonishing how good some of those kids are - clearly heading to careers in symphonies. The school is academic and strings only including piano. And chorus.

I lost 20 pounds in the stress of subQ fluids etc. etc. during Lily's 2 month decline. I was shocked to discover it. Now I want to know what meara's drug trial was, cuz I've put a lot of it back on. It reset something in my brain during that time & was really interesting to observe.

I'm not over here a lot but / and I think of you all and love you all from afar. (Instagram cat videos have taken my heart.)

Edit: one last thing - I paid off my house. I own it free and clear now.

That was a very full year, Java! I'm sorry about the emotional roller-coaster. What a delightful thing to have a debt free home!

I should have one this spring. Even if mine is like the house version of those bumper stickers: Don't Laugh, It's Paid For. Honestly, sometimes it feels like trying to get excited about a free burial plot, even though there would be peace of mind there, too, of course.

My place isn't awful...just feeling a bit...locked in, in ways i'm not loving. Never thought I'd leapfrog right over the exciting roles in the Bochco dramedy that I imagine life to be to be the old white lady whose home is her One True Asset and who might have to stay as the surrounding neighborhood crumbles and whatnot.(and there isn't even a husband who built banisters with his "own two hands" or whatever.)

Boy java that’s a lot. But nice to see some F2Fing happening in there. And congrats on the house for sure!

2023 wasn't bad until I changed jobs, had to sign up for new Insurance, lost touch with my Psychiatrist, went without crucial meds for 2 months right in the middle of the job change madness.

I work for a big insurance company. 5 years ago they farmed off all of the processing of new applications to an Indian Consulting company. I was lucky to hang on and keep a job. i was doing the same job but became an employee of the consulting company.

after 5 years and many unhappy agents complaining, the big insurance company decided that the arrangement wasn't working, and started to switch people back to them. it was supposed to take over a year, so I didn't think much about applying for my job with them again. but my manager pushed me into applying and within 2 weeks I was hired, and then all the stress and madness arrived 2 weeks later, by the end of the year, when I had to sign up for yet another employer insurance plan I was really tired of the whole thing. and just kind of depressed. yes I have a job, yes I work from home, on and on the hamster wheel turns.

But then on my birthday, late December, my younger sister asked if I'd like to accept the gift of her old car, Hell yeah! its 10 years younger than mine, has working air conditioning, hatchback Yaris. It is also a stick shift. but I used to drive only stick before I became a local transit user.

so that was pretty great. newer car, for free. kind of brightened the whole year.

2024 is a different story.