Didn’t really see the eclipse yesterday. Crowds were gathered around 56th and 57th Streets, 7th and 8th Avenues, yesterday around 3pm. I glanced up and it was just the Sun behind some clouds. I was on my way to the hardware store on 9th to see if they had odd-sized hex wrenches. They did, but not the 7mm or 5/16″ ones I thought I wanted. Bought a $5 packet of metric ones, hoping the 6mm or 8mm would do the job. And they did! I was able to take the desk apart in less than a half-hour! The top hex screws took 8mm’s and the side ones took 6mm’s. Which further raises the mystery of how I put the thing together in the first place, since I couldn’t find proper hex wrenches around the apartment. Having no specific memory of the time (late 2008? early 2009?) I can only speculate that we had a lot of bicycle tools about, and they included metric hex wrenches. But where are they today?
The rat exterminators were in last Friday and again today (Tuesday). They sealed up holes in closets, a heating pipe access door in the corner behind Moki’s desk, and the radiators. I think they’re coming back once more. And I have not seen any new rats since their Friday visit.
A pleasant relief, an amazingly pleasant relief this morning when I forced myself to open the lawyers’ Certified Mail letter to me that arrived a week ago. It’s about the lease and tenancy since Moki’s death. Well, they just want to know the relationship and how I may be entitled to carry on the tenancy. And was I the executrix or did I know who was. Phoned the lawyer (Barkin? Berkin?) back, he called back leaving his mobile number, finally we connected. Meek little Jewish fellow, sounds like. Seems relieved that M and I were married, because all he has to do is pass that confirmation on to Jeffries Morris (landlord). I wrote a little letter and sent a copy of the marriage license to him, at 60 East 42nd Street, mailed it from Rock Ctr Station.
The upshot to all this is that landlord and I are at least in communication, they’re not about to throw me out promptly, and maybe I can find a way to raise a year of back rent. All it would take would be me working for a year. Working in a real job, full-time, or even two part-times, and writing up a shitload, and maybe even lucking into that VCF settlement. Or getting money from welfare on the grounds that I am old and destitute.
Made myself strange soft burgers this afternoon with half a can of black beans, some ground beef, onions, breadcrumbs and various spices. Have been thinking about this for a while. Mixed together in the baby Cuisinart, grilled on the Cuisinart clamshell griddle, served on Arnold sandwich thins. Insipid consistency from all that maceration in the food processor, but edible and I suppose nutritious.
Doctor Dan died a month ago. I just found out last week. He had a memorial service at our favorite church, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian. Where we often attended the Foglifters AA meetings.
Much beloved by the staff here. His brother Richard’s been around, living in the apartment (3-O), and I think packing up today. Hoped to meet him but I guess I never will. Just as Dan kept saying we should all have lunch together, Michael and him and me, and Rae when she was still part of the scene (Alzheimer’s creeping in a few years ago), and time after time I said yes, but we never did. Last time I spoke to him was in the lobby. His colored caretaker was taking him for a walk with one of those rolling walkers, and then I saw him coming back, sitting in the device’s seat. Couldn’t walk far at that point, I guess. This would have been perhaps a year, two years ago.
Rae Baymiller, Dan Hamner
I was thinking of those walker-seats when Moki stopped walking last summer. I could go down to Bigelow’s orthopedic department on the second floor and get him one of those gadgets. I didn’t, and if I did he probably would never have used it, and it would have quickened his death.
I do miss him so much. What I’ve said for over four months is still true. I’d rather have him here, messy and in bed and barely awake when awake at all, than not have him at all. In those last weeks I still entertained the idea that I was going to pray him back to health. And maybe I could have. He made noises about maybe going to Mass together with me, and I pooh-poohed this because it was such a trial just for me to go to St. Paul the Apostle’s. This I truly regret. He might have liked it. It might have done the trick.
He even mentioned the possibility of getting married in the Lady Chapel at St. Patrick’s. We talked about this repeatedly over the years. We couldn’t have afforded it, not toward the end, certainly, and I doubted I was up for making the arrangements for a formal wedding. And maybe I thought my family would think slightly perverse to get married at the same place my parents had married 60-odd years before. Then the years slipped by and I had no birth family at all. My mother gone, and aunts and uncles gone, my sister gone, her husband gone, my brother Patrick killed on the highway long before any of them. Tim still around, Claire still around, but we don’t talk and I don’t really know them. And now what little family I had in Moki is gone as well. I am tearing up, badly, for the first time in weeks. Need to go out and buy some V.
Half pint last night, I think half pint night before. Whole pint on Saturday night because I was knackered from Governor’s Island, with the long waits for the ferry, the carrying heavy loads in the wind and drizzle and hail, and sore feet from the yellow Kinvara’s that I bought on the cheap in 2013 in Red Bank (Sheehan Classic) but maybe have hardened up over the years.
Delighted to find a handwritten letter from Amy Bishop Anderson, in her max-security women’s prison down in Alabama. Turns out she stayed in touch with Rob Dinsmoor and his sister Mara over the years, and Mara informed him that Rob had a stroke after Christmas. Mara’s having a lunch up in Laconia NH in June or July. I may go if I can. I learned about this on FB. Mara’s running the Rob account. I posted a mention of the letter from Amy, and how she doesn’t have internet “at her place of business.”
Finally finished the Yockey proofreading chore for Greg. This was the last part of Imperium. He added many footnote glosses and rationalized the punctuation and spelling. I advised him that the word ‘technics’ in the 1948 original should not be converted to ‘techniques.’ But that the word ‘technic’ which for some reason appeared in the original should indeed be revised to ‘technique,’ as it has been.
I did this work for free. I also did a bit of newspaper and genealogical research for him. Perhaps he’ll give me an honorarium. He hasn’t even paid for the Brasillach that went up last week.
A lot of email exchanges with Laura last week, some occasioned by the fact that I had to sit around and wait for the exterminators on Friday. She asked me about the earthquake in New York. Yes, there was a faint tremor of a few seconds that I felt late morning while waiting for the exterminators. Didn’t realize it truly was a quake till I saw news reports a few hours later. And then Laura mentioning it and remarking that I had said nothing in my email about it. Other things we talked about were Laura’s revived hopes to get money out of her father’s estate, if there’s any left. And Terri Jentz, whom she seems to remember I was obsessed by, back in the day.
