Sheltering in Place

[Drunk Monk]

761: I have 3 facility tours in Santa Clara, then a quick visit to mom which will likely put me in the commute home. Plus I have to work.

[Drunk Monk]

762: Kung Fu, sort my mom’s finances to figure out how we might meet the exorbitant senior care facility prices and wrangle with her insurance and medical, symphony (hoping that Stacy will be well enough to go tonight).

[Drunk Monk]

I was sleeping soundly until Yuki had some issues with a dark rodent in our front yard.

763: I spent yesterday cleaning so I have to do my mom’s stuff, plus some work, then off to a concert at the Frost.

[King Bob]

A dark rodent? is that dark as in "dark wizard"?

[Drunk Monk]

Dark as in 2 in the morning during a black moon so all I saw was a nefarious shadow. So yeah.

I’m guessing it was either a possum or a skunk.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Ninja Capybara?

[Drunk Monk]

764: work & mom. This is a gargantuan week - another concert, a screener, and most likely moving mom to a senior care facility, assuming she’s discharged this week. I must move a lot of money around to get it going - it’ll cost around $10k to get started for the first month.

[Greg]

Ugh. Good luck.

[Drunk Monk]

Like I said, this week is a beyotch.

Our street has no parking signs all over it for the week. We moved our cars dutifully. I’ll be in svale all week so that’ll alleviate the crunch. We saw a car get towed this morning. Not sure who’s it was…

Of course, no construction has happened yet.

But now, as I was changing my laundry I heard ‘This is the Santa Cruz police. Come out with your hands up!’ They’re raiding my neighbor Buck’s place again. I count 6 cops, two with assault rifles covering the flanks. There’s squad cars up and down the street (in the no parking zone) with lights flashing. The cops were at the open door for a while but now they’ve all gone inside.

I feel for Buck. He’s a good guy, industrious, an amazing gardener. He does have a drinking problem but that’s been under control lately, since his gf and son left. He has tenants in the granny unit on his property that have not paid rent since the pandemic began. But Buck has always been cool with me, friendly and supportive. We have another neighbor who is crippled from birth - no muscle mass - Buck helps out a lot there moving him (they asked me to do it once but I wasn’t strong enough - he’s heavy, maybe 200 lbs and fragile so I didn’t want to risk it). Anyway, if I didn’t have enough distractions…

[Drunk Monk]

Whatever happened at Buck’s, it’s bad. They’ve cordoned off the yard with police tape and are questioning all the neighbors. I just spoke to a detective. It’s an ongoing investigation so they could not reveal details.

And it was Buck’s car that was towed. I’m still watching to see if a coroner comes.

[Greg]

Well, crap. Police activity is never fun.

[Drunk Monk]

Buck is gone

Forever

Our backyard neighbor got it from the cops (who are still here gathering evidence)

The disabled guy who lives just a few houses from us died last week. I only met him once. Apparently Buck grew up with him and that death, coupled with his ex taking her chickens and the squatters in him sublet pushed him over. That’s what our neighbor thinks. 

I just had some of those eggs for lunch. We still have a few more. Couldn’t be more local or organic unless I kept chickens myself. 

Aw Buck. He had a good heart. He just suffered from a terrible mental illness. 

Wonder what will become of those squatters…

[Drunk Monk]

The last time I spoke to Buck was Saturday. I was coming back from Kung Fu and we crossed paths in front of our homes. He asked me if I needed eggs. I said no because he just gave me 14 - my usual dozen plus 2 extra. He told me that Chelsea planned to take the chickens and ducks (I usually got a few duck eggs too) and he was thinking of getting his own chickens because they had built an efficient coop and he found it easy to maintain. He was in good spirits - at least it seemed so - how did I know he was going through so much?

I’d witnessed him when he hit rock bottom. He sat with me in our veranda and we talked. I remember when he passed out in the gutter in front of his house. We became closer during the pandemic because we both lost our jobs. I talked to Chelsea a lot too but we stopped corresponding when she moved out with their boy, Reef. They were a sweet Cruz family when times were good - young, strong, beautiful. But there was that dark side when Buck would drink and rampage.

I will sorely miss him. We weren’t that close but always friendly, always greeting each other warmly when he wasn't binging. And he seemed to have gotten control of that lately. He seemed healthier in the last few months, throwing himself into his yard work. 

I spent a lot of today working on my mom’s stuff - finding documents, talking to caregivers, insurance, etc. Buck’s drama, plus the Roe v Wade news, on top of that made today so soul crushing. 

And now the cops just pulled out. They left the light on at Buck’s…

[Greg]

I think the mortality clock needs to take it down a notch.

[Drunk Monk]

On top of that, one of my dog park friends, the Tai Chi teacher, just lost her sister.

765: All staff telemeet, then over to svale for some banking business, then a visit to mom (Tuesday is her eval day so she may get discharged soon) then up to SF to meet Tara for Lorde at BGC for RM - first indoor concert (except for the symphony) and I have trepidations given the Covid rise.

I’ll be in svale until Friday sorting mom.