My Personal Rainbow
It is a transitional weather morning here on my hilltop. It rained and was stormy yesterday and last night and it looks like today it wants to alternate between that weather and clear and sunny by tomorrow. I am sitting at my desk on hold with some service provider or another. I have started to be in the habit of acknowledging that I now live on the West Coast and the rest of the civilized world (my apologies to the people of Asia, but I just don’t deal with them that often) has been up and working at whatever they work at for some time. That means that if I have administrative business to do, which always seems to be the case, even in retirement, I do it early in the morning before I otherwise start my day. My list of chores for this morning include (in no particular order):
1. To change the trustee of my life insurance trust to my sister from my 7-year dead accountant on three different insurance policies,
2. To try to cancel my DirectTV satellite service now that my kids have told me that I’m stupid for paying $250+/month for an antiquated service that can be had for $69/month through WiFi streaming,
3. To make sure I have not been terminated by my new homeowners insurance carrier for my and my son’s house on Staten Island since he got a strange notice of a bill due without a dollar amount,
4. Connect with a freight forwarder and logistics person who are trying to allow me to drive an hour down to the Mexican border to pick up two peeled cedar tree trunk posts to complete my Hobbit House construction.
5. Settle up with the stucco guys in cash since I’ve defaulted to just two coats (I knew that would happen).
There is probably more administrative nonsense to handle than that, but that should take me as long as my patience will allow. It’s 8:30am and I’ve been at it for over one and a half hours already and most of that time has been spent on hold or listening to hemming and hawing from some low-paid service representative on the other end of the phone located anywhere from Nashville to Tampa to Jakarta, wherever the latest crop of English-speaking (sort-of) phone service reps are residing these days. It makes me wonder if they are still going into call centers or whether they too are doing all this in their pajamas.
Meanwhile, the weather out my window is jumping around between sunshine and dark storminess. I can see for many miles in several directions from this office perch of mine. I can see about 40 miles of the Pacific Ocean out to the West and I can see the hills and valleys heading northward all the way to several of the nearby mountain ranges. The mottled sky this morning is a constantly changing canvas of blue and white clouds and foggy-looking rain and dark stormy clouds. It all constantly changes just like my mood depending on the success rate I am experiencing with whatever service rep I am speaking with and the degree that they are either trying to help or thwart me.
A few moments ago, the sun broke through to the northwest and a rainbow appeared over the Bonsal/Fallbrook basin where people with small horse farms tend to live. The rainbow landed from the west and seemed to head out to sea from there. It was there one moment when the skies temporarily cleared and the sun came streaming down. Then it was gone as quickly as it came and was replaced by what looks like sheets of rain. I’m not sure I would recognize distant sheets of rain in the air except that just a few moments ago I was in the middle of just such a sheeting rainstorm, so I can more easily guess what that looks like from afar.
Speaking of sheeting rainstorms, let’s discuss dealing with three separate life insurance companies around something as simple as a change of trustee to a pre-designated alternate trustee due to the death of the prior trustee. Each one reacts slightly differently to that event and each has forms. They all require you to send them everything but the kitchen sink to document this to the hilt. Whatever I can document I have and had it notarized and had my sister (the successor trustee) notarize. The big stumbling block seems to be getting a death certificate for the 7-year dead accountant. New York State will only allow a family member to get a death certificate. I guess there are lots of CIA-types trying to assume false identity because it is simply not easy to access a death certificate. I even asked my trust attorney for help and she threw up her hands. I have indirectly communicated with the accountant’s spouse, who seems to be some sort of recluse and who I do not know personally. She has now decided to provide me with a copy of the death certificate, and then I can only hope that a copy will suffice since she has made it clear that no one is getting the original death certificate. I can pay an online service $53 and get a certificate except once I’ve paid they tell me I need to be a family member. So, I am now at the mercy of a woman I don’t know and the U.S. Mail, God help me.
The funny part is that this Life Insurance Trust was set up in 1991 with my then lawyer originally and then transferred to a new trust document in 1996 with my accountant (the one who died in 2014). I actually have all the relevant original and transfer documents, but who knows what each insurance company has in their files. I actually have two different tax ID numbers for the two trusts so that certainly doesn’t make it any easier. And the REALLY funny thing is that Life Insurance Trusts like this are not really necessary to take things out of my estate for tax purposes any more since the thresholds have outpaced my accumulation of wealth. I’m not sure what that says about the system or me, but that’s where it stands and I will eventually get it sorted out but not this fine stormy morning. My notes say I have been calling each company weekly for five weeks now. Sigh.
I managed to also get through to the Staten Island homeowners carrier (State Farm) and the agency told me that for some reason their Autopay was not Autopaying them. I felt like saying that’s not my problem, but I know all too well that they will quickly turn it into my problem, so I just gave them a credit card to debit for the full annual premium and that solved the problem. Throwing money at a problem is always comforting.
Speaking of throwing money at something, I just threw a wad of cash to the stucco manager and told him he needed to take all the extra stucco mix with him, which he was happy to do. Just then, the skies opened up and we got hailed upon while he was loading the stucco. He was quickly trying to cover the stucco mix because like Lot’s wife in the Bible, it turns to stone very quickly.
And to round out my morning (it’s now almost 11am and I’ve been at this since before 7am), AT&T succeeded in agreeing to cancel my DirectTV account, saving me $250+/month AND the shipping logistics company called to say that the eagle has landed (albeit down at the border as opposed to the depot where it was suppose to be shipped 30 minutes closer to me) and my cedar tree-trunk posts are in and can be picked up tomorrow. Just now the skies opened and a rainbow has formed (truly) falling right on my property to the north since the rain is only falling on my hilltop apparently. That is my own personal rainbow on this otherwise stormy and storied administrative morning.