DISCOVER

Yesterday is about bills and paperwork.
I hate it.

I gather mounds of paperwork, bills, stamps, folding files, brochures, my laptop and my kitchen trash can in my bedroom,
to bait myself into paying, placing, filing, and calling. With added insurance bills, folders on health care, booklets on living wills, a care giver's guide (for me)... it's just awful.

I try to to set up bill pay (on line). Con-ed's webpage doesn't believe it is actually me that is signing up. According to them, I have the wrong personal details. I need to print something out and send it to them to prove it is me.

My printer is broken. It won't work with my new operating system, my new laptop, so I give up. I let go of that little dream.

None of these web sign in applications actually work consistently. I have been signing up for disability online.
They give you a code number so that you can return to your application whenever you like.
The code doesn't work when I go back to it. I took a picture of it. They don't recognize it.
It is discouraging. I start over.

I open my Discover card bill.

The Discover card quietly upped my interest to 30% without notifying me ( I notice, my blood racing).

I call them. The representative responds (without missing a beat)

"Oh, no problem, I can reduce that to 20%".

Discover makes a profit from people who don't carefully look at their bills.
This is cynical and un-american.

"No thanks (say I) I will simply pay off the balance, and let my card go dormant.

(FOREVER)

Canceling is a ding on your credit.

"and hey you, you on the phone, I know you need to make a living, somewhere, somehow... but you work for a dishonest company, and you are carrying out their dishonest practices and this may harm you in life (in the greater scheme of things) something to think about to consider, so ... so best of luck to you!"

(I really did say something like that)

I check my bank balance online.
I've ordered a slipcover for my tattered sofa.
Pottery Barn has billed my twice.
I sit on the phone with Pottery Barn and my bank going through last transactions and answering pre-setup questions about myself (mother's maiden name) to prove it is me.

When dealing with this kind of thing, one needs to be carried by the current and not fight, or you will drown.
One needs relax and not react.
According to Kaballah, each time you react, you are closer to death.

I take a break.

I go for a swim. I go at 7 in the evening and there are happy kids in the pool with parents. My building feels communal and nice.

When I get back from my swim, Jackie (my neighbor, my sitcom neighbor) has left me pasta with clam sauce and a refreshing summer salad on my kitchen counter. Jackie is Italian and knows how to cook pasta perfectly. It is delicious. I text her "thnx".

I check messages.

My cousin Winslow called.
My uncle, Winslow senior, has died this morning.

(I just had lunch with him at the Ritz in Naples a year and a half ago)

Old age is a slippery slope. When my aunt died, Uncle Winslow quickly followed.

I call my cousin back.

I sit on my tattered couch in the almost dark and have a formal conversation with Winslow on my iphone.
Winslow (my age) is a highly paid executive and speaks in complete sentences, declamatory sentences, like he's running a conference call. He uses my name in the middle of every sentence.

His approach makes me defended. But he is doing the best he can. This is the way he has learned to communicate. He is a good cousin to me and I am jealous of his restored Arts and Crafts home, two vacation homes, and million dollar salary.

I am sad for uncle, but he was lost without my Aunt.

I didn't know him well. But I'm glad he was my uncle.
He was an admirable man, tall and handsomely American, president of the bank, a regular guy, a direct descendant of the May Flower. When he married my aunt, they discovered that thery were actually very distant cousins. (odd)

There was conflict between my parents and my aunt and uncle.
My aunt had their parents' 1920's large Adirondack style summer home on many acres looking over Lake Michigan, secretly deeded to her (without my father's knowledge). I guess my father was hurt, but my mother was enraged.

it could be argued that it made sense, my father (permanently on the east coast) simply wasn't around.
Still, some discussion was required. I guess they didn't talk much in that family.

I don't know or understand any of that. I'll never know what went on.
But I WILL miss seeing my uncle.