What to do?

I just realized that today is August 6. That means tomorrow is my parents' anniversary, the first one since my father's death. I think it's tomorrow, anyway. Year after year after year I've gotten the date wrong. Usually I think it's the 10th.

I have no idea what to do. I don't know what my mom will do. The good news is that my aunt and uncle are in town, so at least she has some people in the house with her. I suppose I'll just go over there tomorrow night. Any brilliant ideas?

Recycling

My mom has recently been taking on the task of cleaning out my dad's old office. This is not your traditional, movie-set office built out of rich mahogany and lined with leather-bound books. My father's basement dwelling featured an array of old desks, random tables, very old radios, rolled up rugs, kids' beds, boxes, shelves...you name it. And he is an "organized chaos" type, meaning that he has stacks of papers here, there, and everywhere, and what's in the stacks doesn't necessarily make sense. For instance, we've found old birthday cards, co-worker resumes, and brochures for Florida vacations mixed amongst financial statements from companies in California. It made sense to him, I guess.

My mom would prefer to have a bulldozer come into the room and plow everything away. She has taken the more prudent approach of at least looking through the papers and shredding documents with account numbers or other important info. But otherwise she's basically shoving everything into garbage bags and saying goodbye.

I'm not one to cause a fuss or impede important progress, but it makes me a little mad that she's not necessarily recycling all this paper. Last week, I came up with the plan to quietly start taking papers with me and recycling them at my apartment building. My mom caught me yesterday afternoon, and I'm not sure she appreciated my efforts. I received a series of guilt-laden lines like:

"Okay, Ted, if it will make you feel better, I'll dig through those bags in the garage and make sure all the paper gets recycled."

"Well, if it will help you sleep at night..."

Sigh. My relationship with my mom has changed quite a bit since my dad's death, and I don't take it very well when she's upset. Or mockingly upset. I know she's just giving me crap because all she wants to do is get the house clean so she can sell it, and she doesn't want to deal with things like recycling paper.

But I do, dammit. At least a little bit.

Lazy

The lack of posts may suggest that nothing interesting is going on in my life. Not true, I say. I've simply been lazy about writing it all down here. In the interest of my laziness, here's a brief overview of my recent life:

1) I'm going to be an uncle. My sister-in-law is three months along, as of Wednesday. I'm not supposed to know about this yet. And I'm not supposed to tell anyone. Shhhh!

2) My sister in Chicago is in love. This isn't new news, but my mom recently met the guy and talks about the besotted couple every time we're on the phone. I'll be shocked if my sister isn't married - or at least engaged - by the end of the calendar year. Knock on wood.

As an aside, the origin of the word "news" once came up in a holiday Trivial Pursuit battle. The three Men vs. the three Women. The more obvious (and correct) answer is that news is essentially the plural of new. Thus, news is a group of things/items/stories that are new. However, before we ever came up with that answer, my dad deduced that news was an acronym for North, East, West, South - thus a newspaper would be a collect of items from all directions. We thought the answer quite clever and went with it. We were wrong. But I digress...

3) I've also met a lady friend. Unfortunately for you, that's all I'm going to say on that subject. It's going well at the moment, and I don't want to jinx it.

4) After about three months of what felt like walking through sludge, my mother and I signed off on some big financial stuff on Tuesday. It felt good to finally take a big step in the right direction.

Those are the good things...the bad?

5) Word around the office is that a round of layoffs is coming on Friday. As in two days from now. Do I think I'll be on the list? No, but I'm still nervous and it's still a bad sign.

6) In conjunction with #4, it's become more and more apparent over the past couple weeks that my mom and I were given an unwise piece of financial advice. Given my lack of knowledge in investment products, I feel a little odd making such a statement, but every person we checked with strongly urged us not to invest in the advised product. We were smart enough to do our due diligence (an overused phrase, by the way) and seek outside council. The bad part is that the advice came from a man who has known my dad and family for 30-some years. I want to believe he really is just looking out for our best interest. I want to believe he isn't just trying to sell us his product. I want to believe he didn't actually use some underhanded, sleazy tactics to try and persuade my mom and I to invest in his product - but he did. And that fucking sucks...pardon my language. My dad would be openly furious, and it often took a lot for that man to show such emotion.

That's all I have at the moment...

The Quarterback

I think I aged 20 years in the past two days. On Tuesday night, Charles Schwab gave me two tickets to a private suite at the Timberwolves game. 'Twas not a big deal - other than the fact that I haven't been honored in such a way since I was about 12 years old. Back then, I was the smiling kid trailing behind my successful father. They were buttering up him, not me.

On Wednesday, I found out I have people. And I'm their quarterback. Huh? Me?


I have no fewer than six financial advisors, two accountants, two personal bankers, and one lawyer. They're my people. According to them, I'm their quarterback, and I need to coordinate all of them in the name of the team owner - my mom. Yikes.

These people are supposed experts in their fields, and they aren't in charge of one cent that belongs to me. Yet they listen to what I say because my mom pays them to. Me, a guy who knows little about anything outside of fantasy football.

Betwixt you and me, I'm quite intimidated and scared by my task. This is my inheritance. This is what my dad and I talked about in the few, brief moments we had while he was sick. My mom would tell me that my dad is watching over me...and wincing every time I make a mistake or ask a stupid question.

Hamdog

Karah has recently expressed concern about the lack of greens and variety in my diet. I know I'm not the picture of food pyramid perfection and I know I give in to temptation a little too often, but I'm not altogether upset with my diet. Could I use more broccoli? Sure.

Coincidentally, Mental_Floss posted a blog entry today about the worst foods ever. I've never indulged in any of these delicacies, although I believe there's a restaurant in Arden Hills that serves a version of the hamdog. What's that? In Mental_Floss' words: "Half hamburger, half hotdog, this bad boy is a hot dog wrapped in a beef patty, then deep fried and covered with chili, cheese, onions and topped with a fried egg."

First reaction? My heart hurts.
Second reaction? Hey, why no green peppers? Bacon?

In the right circumstances, I think my dad or brother could have come up with this monstrosity. With the exception of the deep fried part. My father was the type of eater who always mixed the items on his plate - basically no matter what it was. My brother also loves to smash foods together. I've been witness to some odd combinations in my day.

Yes, Karah, worse than mixing peanut butter, jelly, and cheese together in a sandwich...

Talking to Chuck

I've been talking to Chuck quite a bit over the past three months. The quick-of-mind and ad-aware among you will realize that means I've spent quite a few hours dealing with Charles Schwab. My father, mother, and I all have/had accounts at that fine institution, but I didn't pay significant attention to my own, meager balances until my dad's passing.

In past years, I'd only think about funding my IRA when a statement reminded me or when, for instance, my dad would suddenly ask me while we were waiting to tee off on the eighth hole. "Say, did you put any money into your IRA yet this year?" My face turns red. A sheepish "no" crosses my lips. Mental notes are made. Then forgotten. At some other time, I'll explain about my amazing, fiscally conservative grandfather who passed on many of his traits to his eldest, highly successful son. And how those traits didn't fully move on to the next generation (me).

Anyway, I've been helping to settle my dad's estate, transfer his accounts, deal with my mom's accounts, and other fun stuff at Charles Schwab. Oddly enough, they treat you pretty well when you have more than a few measly dollars hanging out in an IRA or basic account. They also repeatedly show you books full of pie charts, investment plans, past results, the history of large caps and small caps and bonds and CDs and blah blah blah.

I fancy myself a fairly bright cookie. I'm no genius, but if you show me the same pie chart six or seven times, I get the point. I've attempted to use that knowledge to rearrange my own portfolio. See that? I'm using words like "portfolio" now. Baby all grows up. I spent a few weeks selling a couple things, buying a lot of things, moving funds, and generally acting like I know what the hell I'm doing. This shit scares me. I hate gambling because I hate losing money, but I fully understand the quarter-to-slot and dollar chip-to-blackjack dealer transactions. Investing? Well, I think have some of the basics down, but I know it's not simple. I'm probably not maximizing my potential gains. I'm probably not protecting myself against loses. I'm certainly out of my league. I probably shouldn't be checking the balances every day.

But...I'm trying to stay positive. All I can really do is try a few different things and see how they work, right? My dad would either be proud of me for taking charge or scoffing at some of my investment decisions. I'm not sure which it would be, and I'm sure he wouldn't have shown his feelings either way.

Congrats Colts

The Colts are on the verge of wrapping up a sloppy Super Bowl win over the Bears. I'm pleased for Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison, Tony Dungy, and, ummm...David Letterman? I have a bunch of friends who are Bears fans, which means I should have been cheering for the Monsters of the Midway. Truly, though, I didn't care much one way or the other. I'm a pretty big football fan, but these two clubs are not on my short lists of clubs to love or hate.

It's been a little weird watching the Super Bowl this year. Because I have a short attention span, I've been flipping back and forth between the game and "Meet Joe Black." I don't particularly like the movie, but I tend to get sucked into flicks why wasting time on my couch. Anyway, I'd already been thinking about my dad earlier today (particularly when I saw a friend's mom this afternoon and particularly when I heard about another friend's aunt passing away), and "Meet Joe Black" obviously drove more thoughts about my father and death.

He would have been cheering for Dungy and Manning, I think. He would have fallen asleep during the third quarter but woke up during the post-game celebration. He would have called me tomorrow, brought up all the game's turnovers, and told me it was time to bring all my tax stuff over to their house. There are a lot of tough days and nights when it comes to remembering my dad. He'll undoubtedly come up in this blog again and again, and hopefully it doesn't become unbearable for readers

Or maybe that's "reader." Hi Ben.