Half Full? Or Half Empty?

A couple of years ago, I enrolled in The Osteoarthritis Initiative, a joint research study (no pun intended) between the Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland, hospitals. Twice a year I starve myself for 24 hours and then am pricked and prodded and probed and MRI’d to reveal how my knees look and perform in this visit as opposed to the last one. It’s a little inconvenient – going without food is not my strong suit – but I feel good about making the contribution. When the study began, there was no compensation for involvement, but I guess somebody came up with some money from somewhere and the principal investigator decided at least some of us might be motivated to remain for the five-year-duration of the study if there was a little monetary carrot to balance the stick of a sharp needle in a tender arm. So some months later, when it comes as a complete surprise – not a bad thing – I now receive a nice check for $75.00.
On the way to my bank to deposit the last check, I first stopped at The Fitzgerald to confirm some measurements. A filled-out deposit slip and the check, endorsed “for deposit,” were paper clipped to the front of a file folder that held my furniture layouts. Going up the many stairs with one of the sales staff – the elevators are not yet working – I must have brushed the check and deposit slip against my leg for they fell off unnoticed on the steps. Fortunately, a workman coming up behind said, “Hey, you dropped some papers,” and he retrieved the check and gave it back to me. I went on to take my measurements and in the process stopped at the model apartment, a completed apartment in my stack and the still unfinished space where I will actually live. Satisfied, I returned to the garage, dropped the sales lady off at her office and went on to the bank. When I got there, the check and deposit slip were missing. I looked through the file folder several times, thinking that because the check had come off the front once, I must have put it more inside, where it would be more secure. But alas; no check. I searched the car, thinking it might have fallen off the folder and gotten down on the floor. But no check. I went through all my pockets, both on my shirt and in my trousers, but no check. I went home in some degree of frustration and guilt. Losing a check. How stupid! I should have been more careful.
Now, 75 bucks won’t change my life. But I hate to pour that much bread down the drain. So I called Meghan at The Fitzgerald office and told her what had happened. She said they’d check the route taken on my tour and let me know if they found anything. She’d also alert the construction crew: many men, mostly Hispanic, in hard hats and work boots, shuffling through the construction debris. But no check. I decided to just let it go. But a week later, the stingy Puritan in me, and my managerial perseverance, insisted I do more. So I called the study office but there was no answer. I guess they only work certain days of the week. I left a message for them to return my call but, now that my quest to recover the $75.00 had begun, I wanted action. So I stumbled through the hospital bureaucracy until I finally found the pay office for the project. Carol was very nice to me but she couldn’t stop payment on the old check nor issue a new one without the authorization of the study office. Back to ground zero. I waited for the OAI office – so much of our lives is now expressed in initials – to call me back. When, a few days later, they did, I faced more bureaucracy. Robin would have to consult with the manager of the study and they would probably have to have a signed affidavit from me explaining the circumstances of losing the check (if that’s what had happened) before they could stop payment on the original and issue me a new one. She would get back to me.
A day or so later, I was working on my bank reconciliation statement and was very surprised to find that it included, on the day after I had lost the check, a deposit of the missing $75.00. My first reaction was to wonder if my memory had failed so much that I had actually made the deposit and just didn’t remember. No. I’m very careful about putting the receipts for deposits in my check book. I had definitely lost the check. So how had it been deposited in my account? Some workman must have found the check, with the deposit slip, and gone to the bank for me. What a great guy! (There are no women on the construction crew.) And what a lift! Not only had I retrieved my 75 bucks, but my view of humanity had improved dramatically. I called The Fitzgerald and explained to Meghan that the check had been found and deposited. She was very pleased. I expressed my hope that she would tell the construction manager so he could complement whoever this Good Samaritan was.
But at the same time that I was reveling in my good fortune and in the cozy warmth of man’s humanity to man, I must admit that another less positive scenario occurred to me. If, knowing from his boss that a check had been lost, wouldn’t a workman who found it, return it to the office? Wouldn’t he know that this good deed would naturally redound to his benefit, get him some points? So suppose, instead, that the workman actually went to the bank and tried to cash the check. Had the bank clerk been sufficiently astute to ask for identification to verify that this Hispanic man at the window in front of her was actually Phil Cooper? Or had she simply seized the check because it was endorsed for deposit? Would an employee of PNC Bank be that aggressive?
Life is full of conundrums. I try to look at it through a glass half full instead of giving in to the half-empty cynicism that so easily seeps into life at my age. But that’s not always so easy. So maybe I shouldn’t choose. Maybe I should be less Western in my thinking and in a more Eastern point of view, just hold both possibilities in my mind at the same time. After all, I’ll never know the truth. And both alternatives are equally valid. Anyway, my $75.00 made its way to my bank account and for that I’m grateful. 75 bucks will buy almost a month’s rent on my new parking space in The Fitzgerald’s garage.



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Plans

One of my strongest suits is logistics. I love planning. So when I decided to move to The Fitzgerald, I visited the site many times, first to pick out the specific apartment and then several more times to measure the spaces. From those dimensions, I drew a plan view and played with placement of my furniture, also carefully measured, until I decided where everything would go. As anticipated, there was a lot of furniture left over. This went on a list of things I must dispose of, one way or another. I called an auctioneer who was willing to come to see if he was interested in carting it all away for sale. I told him I’d get back to him once I had a contract on the house.

In addition to excess furniture, there were other problems. While I love my art, I have a lot of it, too much, in fact, to fit the wall space in the apartment. After I’d placed all the furniture in my mind, I went back to the building to measure wall space and planned where the art I couldn’t live without might live. Sadly some of my collection would also have to go. Naturally, I made a list, and would the auctioneer take that too, after I had a contract on the house? Further, since there are no bookshelves in the new apartment and I have lots of books – as well as other things that should go on shelves, like boxes of photographic disks and negatives and albums – I made several trips to Ikea to find a system that might solve that problem. I played with those possibilities until I had designed one whole wall of bookshelves for the master bedroom. Maybe, when that time came, I could get Eric to put it all together? Yes; he’d be interested, when I have a contract on the house. Next was the lighting. I bugged the construction manager until he sent me a lighting plan from the building’s blueprints so I could determine which switches controlled which fixtures, and where both the switches and the outlets were located. With my own lighting plan in hand – I decided I have to put up lots of track to light the spaces the way I want them lit – I went back to the building to confirm that the track would not interfere with the air-conditioning ducts. Then I went to my friend, Bob Jones, for advice on the lighting. David, Bob’s assistant, sent me a quotation covering our decisions, but I won’t be buying it, David, until I have a contract on the house. With this issue settled, I went back to my realtor to clarify which fixtures would not go with the house but would move with me to the new apartment (once I have a contract on the house). Having always coveted the Eames chair and ottoman made by Herman Miller, I visited American Office Furniture, the Herman Miller dealer in Baltimore, where Mandy gave me a quotation for them. Would that be in cherry frame with black, or brown, leather? I could decide that later, I said, when I have a contract on the house.

And so it goes. I’ve planned as much as I can, going as far as I can until… well, you know.

Stay tuned.

Living in a Stage Set

Once I put my house on the market, it had to be properly staged for viewing. I was told, nicely but firmly, that prospective buyers need to see a house not as you live in it, but as they might want to live in it. This means removing most of the things that make this house my home. Avendui, my agent, said there were too many tschotches on the cocktail tables in the living room, too many gadgets on the kitchen counters, too much fuss in my den, far too many cookbooks, sweaters on the shelf in the closet, shoes. So I went to work putting things away. The kitchen got the most extensive treatment. Gone are the coffee maker and blender from the counter in the kitchen; gone the container of wooden spoons, the whisks, the pancake turners, the spatula. Gone are the dish towels from the handle of the oven door. Gone from the side of the refrigerator are the magnets that once held cards for the appliance repair man, the handy man and the painter, gone the number for the Salvation Army and the hours of operation for the library in Roland Park, gone the photograph of Rhea and her new (now not so new) grandson and the print of Bert and me at a long-ago party. Banished from the top of the cabinets are the extra rolls of paper towels, the big glass bowl I use occasionally for flowers, the toaster/oven, the Mexican casseroles, the parchment paper for lining cookie sheets. I drew the line at the canisters of sugar and flour and tea, and the tea kettle on the stove. But the rest of the house has suffered as well. Gone from the cocktail table in the living room are the little boxes I’ve collected from all over the world, packed away in unprinted newspaper, not to live again until they reemerge in my new apartment. Gone are the animals on the chest, the framed photographs (especially those; too personal, too distracting) of my family, and the good luck Eye of Turkey in water in the glass vial that Susie somehow, miraculously, got to me without its breaking. Gone are the candlesticks from the dining room credenza, the Kleenex box from the top of the toilet tank in the guest bathroom, the piles of papers on my TV cabinet in the den, the stapler, paper weights, the note pads, the Scotch tape dispenser, the paper clip box and stamp holder from my desk, the books from the table next to my favorite chair, the throw slung over its arm to use when I’m cold. Gone are the sweaters from the shelf in my closet, packed carefully away in hard-to-see-through plastic boxes that “will read as one.” The shoes are now lined up perfectly, scrunched together like peas in a pod. And in the basement, gone are the many framed photographs of friends and family that lined the bookshelves, the photograph albums of my many trips, the little dragon cigarette lighter, the plastic wind-up toy of the monk beating on his drum, the colorful control board from a failed air conditioner from my (once) house at the beach, my photograph of Fred when he was very sick, looking out forlornly from his hospital bed. Gone from the house, in so far as possible, is my personality.

Living in this notable lack of chaos is not easy. Some things just have to come out of hiding for daily use (the dishtowels and the sponge and soap in the kitchen) and when I’m warned that a prospective buyer wants to see the house, go back in again. All the cosmetics I use on a daily basis – pills, lotions, toothpaste, hair gel, deodorant, shaving cream – have been relegated to the space under the sink where, for ease of access, they now reside in a small carton, begged from Eddie’s and which once contained cans of turkey gravy. I leave the carton out until I’m told someone wants to see the house. Then the turkey gravy carton goes back under the sink. Sometimes I forget where I put things or find them in odd locations. Where’s the spoon holder? What’s this dishtowel doing with the frying pans? Why are the wooden spoons in the refrigerator?

Presumably, this rigid military order will help to sell the house. I sure hope so. I’m not used to living in such serene surroundings. It’s like eating meals without any salt and pepper.

Stay tuned.

Giving up the House

Imagining myself living in an apartment was not so difficult – after all, I’ve done it twice before – but picturing myself giving up my house was something altogether different. 1306 Linden Green has truly been my home for almost 20 years and I have endless happy associations with living here (I have some not so happy memories of that, too, but that’s not part of this story), many of them connected with my family and my many friends: birthday parties, dinner parties, benefits and celebrations, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween. The house has also become the amber of my life, frozen with art I’ve collected, each piece with its own history, and the many objects I’ve dragged home from my trips. While some of this is transferable, other parts of the house are not. There’s the small stain on the sisal carpet in the dining room, where Fred, my English cocker spaniel, bless his heart, peed when I didn’t get home in time to take him out. There’s the dent in the living room floor where the little marble table fell over when a date and I got too exuberant doing the samba. Fortunately, the marble didn’t break. There’s the spot in the kitchen floor where a beautiful dish fell out of a too-fully-packed refrigerator, smashing into many pieces and spewing the sauce everywhere at a critical moment when I was about to announce a fancy brunch. There’s the touch-latch door in my den that will never close properly, the wall sconce that has to be coaxed to stay lit, the scorched spot on the laminate counter top in the kitchen and the one under counter light that burns for a while, goes out, and then comes back on. There are the so many things that give my house flavor, personality, uniqueness. Sentimental me; I wondered if I could face giving all that up.

In time, I came to realize that this “stuff” is all associated with my past. So I just decided to let all that go. Focus on the future, I said to myself. Think about a whole new way of living, in a whole new environment. Imagine the possibilities, the excitement, the learning. You’ve grown stale, I said. Stretch! Grow! Become!

When I realized I had begun to speak of 532 as “my apartment” (shown in the lead photograph on the top floor between the glass bridge and the vertical construction pylon), I knew it was going to be okay. I put my house on the market.
Stay tuned.

More Travel

Yes, I’m traveling again. But no, not to some exotic location touted in the pages of those glossy travel magazines. Instead, I’m going just five blocks away to The Fitzgerald, a new apartment building on Mt. Royal Avenue at the foot of Bolton Hill.

For more than a year, I’ve considered selling my house and moving to an apartment. My reasons, gently sloshing around in the back of my head, seem, when examined in the front, both sane and practical. The house is really bigger than I need; I live in only a few of its rooms. The house is in good shape now, but in any house built 35 years ago, disturbing problems of maintenance suddenly appear with upsetting practical and financial implications. The garden I’ve loved and carefully tended is now beautifully mature but my failing knees – even the replaced one – prevent me from working in it comfortably. And once the mosquitoes come, my extreme allergic reaction to their bites prevents me from enjoying the greenery, which I now rush through on my way to my car, slathered with mosquito repellant, a pungent cologne sure to make me unpopular at dinner parties. Further, I realize I’ve reached an age when I want a simpler life, and have given up the dream, albeit reluctantly, of a second home somewhere in the woods where I might use that second set of stainless steel I’ve been saving in the basement since closing my apartment in New York. No; I’m ready.

In retrospect, I realize I was even ready a year ago. But I was also smart enough to understand that my living environment – and the way I live in it – is critical to my happiness. When the thought of moving first popped into my consciousness and I consulted a realtor, we couldn’t find an apartment that spoke to me of home, that possessed the necessary features: an unusual configuration with possibilities for the expression of my creativity, sufficient wall space for my art and a place where I would feel down-sized but not down-graded. So I gave up the idea. Still, it persisted. So when The Fitzgerald opened its rental office in a trailer across the street from the site on April 1, I decided to investigate.

I’ve watched the building going up for some time and have been intrigued by its strange design and configuration. Clad in what looks like corrugated panels of dull blue plastic, the two most prominent wings of the building, five floors high and connected by a stack of three covered glass bridges, come forward toward the street like giant pliers not quite closed. (As I try to make this description as accurate as I can, the building sounds really ugly and I’m sure some will find it so. But to me, it’s just interesting, and unlike any other building I’ve seen anywhere.) Because of the angle of Mt Royal Avenue, the western wing’s six end apartments have angled walls with a lot of glass. These looked interesting. Inside the trailer, Meghan showed me the site plan and the layouts of the apartments I wanted to see. She gave me a hard hat and we went exploring. Tramping through plaster dust and threading our way around cables hanging from the ceiling, we made our way to apartments 532 and 533, the ones that looked interesting from the street. I liked them both immediately. Meghan explained that the one looking north was already reserved for the owner of the restaurant planned to go in on the first floor. But the one facing south was available. I took floor plans of them both and went home to see how my life might fit into these unusual spaces.

Both apartments consisted of a large room designed to function as a living, dining and kitchen space, with a granite-topped island facing the angled windows. Both had two bedrooms and a small den, two bathrooms and lots of closet space. I played with both designs and decided that I preferred the larger apartment. I went to work trying to fit my furniture into the spaces. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to find room for what I thought essential. Placing the art was much more difficult. The flip side of having all that light from such large windows, was not enough wall space for paintings. I forced myself to decide which art was essential and which I could give up. I still didn’t have room for it all. So I decided I would just have to live like the Cone sisters, who had so much art that they hung it stacked almost to the ceiling. I’d just do the same.

Confident now that I could live in 532, I visited the rental trailer again and gave Meghan a deposit that took the apartment off the market. But with that accomplished, I now had to face giving up my house. Could I really do that?

Stay tuned.