Dog Walk Revisited

Well, I finally managed to figure out how to get pictures of my new place on my blog.  It turned out, though, that I couldn't really find images I liked enough.  This is hardly informative, but at least it's something.......one end of the living room.  Perhaps another time.....................

There has been no progress on dealing with Mike's death.  We wait for Amber, Mike's estranged daughter, to decide if she wants to be counted as a survivor and therefore sole beneficiary of his estate.  It's hard to absorb the fact that he is all ready to be buried (I identified the remains over the computer) but nothing else can be done until she decides what she wants to do.  His house and all his belongings sit untouched.  It seems to me that there must be a danger of people helping themselves to his considerable belongings.  Probably the police are in charge of that until some decision is made about his beneficiary.  

Meanwhile my life goes on.  I have begun a series of paintings of Eastport in the hope that I can have an exhibit at the end of the summer.  When I lived in Bangor I did a series of paintings called "Dog Walk" and every one of them(about 20 paintings) sold at a gallery that exhibited my work.  It was my one minute of fame, I guess, but I wish I still had them.  Money disappears, but paintings last forever. I had three dogs at the time and I called the exhibit "Dog Walk" because I painted scenes that I saw everyday as I walked the dogs in the streets of downtown. They were featured in all the paintings, walking ahead of the viewer at the end of their leashes in front of me, just as I saw them from the rear. If I get it together, I'll call the new paintings "Dog Walk 2".  Elliot will make a good model.

I an wavering a bit on my thought to let Amber have all Mike's inheritance.......just a bit though. I don't think I'm up for the furor.  I'd rather just let it go.

 

Unwelcome Developments

 Well. Life crawls along, for me at least.  I had forgotten, believe it or not, that my brother had a daughter, albeit an estranged, adopted one.  They haven't seen one another in over twenty years.  She graduated from high school and, unbeknownst to my brother, left home the next day.  She has never contacted him.  Somehow, he knew where she lived, though, so the police were able to track her down.  She is, therefore his sole heir.  When she was contacted she refused to deal with the situation, shocked as she was, right away.  So things are in limbo at this point.

How complicated things can become.  My brother had a lot of money and a valuable estate.  She is the sole heir.  I was tremendously relieved to think I wouldn't be involved in the disposition of his estate, but if she continues to   refuse it, I may still have to deal with it.  I will be the owner of a big luxurious house in Florida, complete with swimming pool and HUMMER vehicle.  I will have money like I never dreamed of, investments, property,.....he was saving to move back to Maine and had almost a hundred thousand dollars in the bank.

I am happy with my life right now, living in subsidized housing without a penny to my name.  I have always disliked money and what it does to people.  I am hoping against hope that his daughter will take everything.....she deserves it.  She had a terrible childhood and left home the morning after she graduated from high school, never to contact anybody in the family again.

Well, right now I feel very anxious.  When I found out that they had located his daughter I was relieved at first, thinking I could continue my life as it is.  But when she refused to claim her inheritance.............well, I may be able to refuse it, too.

In a way it must strike the officials dealing with this case that Amer and I, his only family at this point, do not want his money or any of his considerable estate.

What will happen?

New Life, lost life

 I feel as if I have started all over again, so different is my life from anything it has been before.  The biggest change, of course, is my environment.  I live in a beautiful apartment that seems so unlike anywhere I have lived before.  I am surrounded by people I don't know,  Many of whom are handicapped in various ways.  The other tenants, like me, are simply poor.  I ride an elevator to get to the ground floor and have learned the code that opens the door to the outside.  I go to the bank to get quarters to use in the laundry room, which is modern and clean.  A lot of the residents here are elderly and sick.  It's beginning to seem like a place where people go to die ................

Somehow I didn't finish my post, which got lost because I couldn't find my camera and I wanted to post pictures.  Well time has gone by and still I haven't found my camera.  I may have forgotten how to post pictures.  I hate to acknowledge that my brain suffered some cruel changes after the small stroke I had.  Still, I go on pretty much as always, trying to adapt.  Life here is easy, so my diminished brainpower hasn't cause me too much trouble.  Forgetfulness makes life stay pretty much in the present.  Slowly I make progress in putting things in context, though.  I doubt if anybody notices much difference.

The big news is that my brother had a heart attack and died yesterday.  When he didn't make his usual Sunday telephone call yesterday, I knew something was wrong.  He didn't answer the phone when I tried to call many times.  Finally I called the police and asked them to check on him.  They found him dead, sitting in front of the TV.  

There are so many consequences, emotional and practical, of the death of a person who has always been there and then is not.  I'm not going to try to describe them, and I 'm sure they are familiar to us all.  Mike lived in Florida.......he had a lot of money, compared to me,  He had a beautiful Florida house with a large pool, he had every material thing a person could want, all of which will have to be dealt with, presumably by me.  I have no idea how I will do this.  

Right now I have no more to say.

Whoops

 I thought I had finished my last post, but somehow I neglected to post it....not that I had much to say in the middle of my move.  I have been living here for over a month now, and  Carrie has visited twice....once because I had a mild heart attack the day of my move and again after I had recovered.  There's no need to describe that bump in the story of my life.  I am pretty much recovered and settled in.  This apartment is beautiful, spacious, and certainly one of the nicest places I have ever lived.  I am on the third floor (the top floor), surrounded by huge windows that look out over treetops and the street below.  It is so quiet here I hardly know there are other people in the world, let alone here in the building.  It was once an elementary school, which may account for the construction that creates the silence.  It is a little unsettling.

I was expecting and looking forward to having an acquaintance and fellow artist in the apartment next to mine, but I found out yesterday that she died a week ago while visiting her daughter in Portland.  Once her apartment has been cleaned and renovated someone new will be my neighbor.  The fact that this place will most likely be where I die is a little unsettling, but I expect to get over that.

Every morning and evening I have to take Elliot out for a walk, which is probably good for us both.  He used pee-pads in the house before, with one short walk a day when the weather was good.  Here we stroll around the neighborhood morning and evening, a routine I hope to get used to.  Right now it seems like an inconvenience, especially since I had to postpone my hip surgery again because of the heart attack.  I hobble along with my cane and am probably cause for gossip in the neighborhood.  Elliot is probably considered irksome because he strains and barks every time he sees another dog, which is too often.

So, I begin what is most likely the last chapter of my life.  I will post pictures once I figure out how to use my new camera, or my cellphone, whichever comes first.

Moving

I have been almost been overwhelmed by the amount of work moving necessitates.  I have mostly recovered from my heart attack despite the level of activity the move has necessitated.  Every day I make at least one trip to the old house to load up the car with the multitude of items still left there.   A few days ago I found a sleeping bag, bedding, a huge TV, and an empty pizza box next to the front door.  Apparently someone is either living there or plans to be.  Everything that I left there is still untouched, though, so I assume the new tenant plans to leave my things alone.  Just in case, though, I packed everything I could into Phyllis' tiny car, including my desk chair, many books of Indian flute music, and food from the cupboards and refrigerator.  The chair was a major problem both loading and unloading, but I managed it, in the pouring rain.  My printer sat on the sidewalk in a shopping bag for at least 45 minutes and I can only hope it wasn't ruined.

Anyway, though I still have some more things to get, they are things I can live without.  Of course I could live without most of my possessions, but I wouldn't really want to.

So much has happened...........

 So, I am now settled n a new apartment.  The time between my last post and this one has been full of upheaval, both good and bad.  The move from Water St to here is still not quite complete, but I will soon be fully HERE.  I've rarely lived in such pristine elegance.  The apartment was completely redone after the last tenant left, so every fingerprint from now on will be mine.  I will post some pictures in the near future, but the story of the move must take precedence.

I had been sorting and packing my belongings for weeks, exhausting myself to the point that I actually suffered a heart attack on moving day.  I ended up going to the hospital three different times, once overnight.  It's the first time I ever rode in an ambulance, and I hope to never repeat the experience.  So the process of moving ended up being quite a production.  Luckily my daughter arrived, planning to help with the move, and ended up doing a lot more than anticipated. I did not stay at the hospital, but certainly felt lousy, so most of my participation in settling in the new place was to order her around.  She was a willing slave and did my bidding expertly.  I am still recovering to some extent, but have forced myself, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep my activity to a minimum.   I still feel uncharacteristically tired and out of sorts, but expect to recover completely eventually. "Resting" is not ordinarily part of my repertoire and almost impossible.

So life has certainly had a number of changes, but none to compare with my blogger friend whose husband died during the same period of time.  I can't imagine how terrible she must feel, how much change she now has to face, how her whole life has turned upside down. My heart goes out to her.  I mention it here only because I could not write her a personal note.......I felt too sorry to put it into words.  Know I'm thinking of you, dear friend.

Post Christmas

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 Well, Christmas was a big zero this year, thanks to the fact that I wasn't interested in doing anything in particular.  I did talk with Jesse (my son) and his wife via Zoom........what a trip that is!  My daughter didn't do much either, though we did talk.  We talk every week anyway, though.

My reason for posting now is that I have news about my living situation finally.  I had applied to several subsidized housing agencies (as I have in the past and then backed out) and finally reached the top of two very long waiting  lists here in Eastport.  I had thought of going back to Bangor, and I had actually applied there as well.  Still, I guess Eastport has become my home now and it appears it will remain so.  The situation has always been complicated by my insistence on having my pets wherever I go, but this time I managed to convince both places to allow me not only to have my dog and cat (and birds), but to have a two bedroom apartment (which ordinarily one person can not have).  I still don't know which place I will get because of another applicant having not made up her mind which apartment she will take, but both places are perfectly acceptable to me.  They are quite different, but either one will be fine with me.  Both are still in sight of the ocean.

Also, I have again changed doctors, and this one is actually ready to fix my hip.  Basically I decided to dismiss my rather obnoxious attitude that this area didn't have doctors I could trust , and made an appointment with one in Calais, just a half hour from here.  This will make everything so much easier, not to mention quicker.  So I am about to have some big changes.  I hate to leave this house, where I have lived since 1997, but I have to accept that I can not afford to stay here.  I've lived in apartments before, though, and never minded doing so......as long as I can have my babies and an extra bedroom for a studio where I can paint.

Otherwise, life goes on.  I don't know if I've mentioned that an old friend of mine died recently and left me her car.  This, too, is going to be a life changer for me.  The car I had did not run most of the time.  My friend Phyllis (age 98) died recently and left me her car, a Mini Cooper.  It's a great car and I am very happy to have one I can depend on.  I can drive even with my bad hip for short distances and I'm thrilled to have reliable transportation again.  Eastport is so far away from everywhere and has no public transportation, and I am absolutely neurotic about asking anyone for help of any kind, especially transportation.

That's the way it is at this point and things are looking up. (The painting I posted is one I did a year or so ago, but I never posted it and it's one I really am proud of...it's big.......maybe 30x40).  

In two days I will be 77.  Its hard to believe.