Back in Stockton

Last week I was able to serve as an ‘emotional support cousin’, helping my cousin Carey to try to figure out the situation with her late father’s ex-wife’s final wishes. Confusing? Maybe. My uncle was married 3 times, first to Carey’s mom, then to K, and lastly to C, his widow. K never had children of her own, nor did her late husband B. She said that her plans were to leave her estate (such as it is) to her step-daughters (Carey and her sister), and B’s step-daughter. K passed away suddenly last month, and as is too often the case, a will and/or trust could not be found. I mean, there was a will, but it was 13 years old and her wishes and circumstances had changed quite a bit since then. She told her friends that she wanted Carey to handle her estate, though she never asked Carey if she were up for this task, especially since she lives over 400 miles away. But there is nothing in writing. So Carey drove up from San Diego on Saturday, and I took a couple of days off from work and spent Tuesday and Wednesday with her. The first goal was to get her out of the house, as she had not left for a couple of days when I got there. My favorite place to eat in Stockton is Manny’s California Fresh, where I enjoy a delicious avocado burger. I was really looking forward to that little taste of home, but sadly they are closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Neither of us have lived in Stockton in decades, so we ended up going to Applebee’s. It was fine.

After that we took a little tour, going by Manny’s to see if they were in fact open on Wednesdays (their website says they are only closed on Tuesdays, but yelp or whatever says closed T & W, and their phone didn’t even ring). Here we are in front of their closed door, with the sign (that I am blocking) that says no avocado burger in our future.

Then we drove by the building that used to house Mr. Steak, the restaurant where I worked for 2 years in High School. It has been a laundromat for decades, and the last time I drove by it was under some pretty major renovation (the top of the building was removed) and I assumed they were tearing it down.

Nope, they redid the floor plan and put on a new top 1/2 building, and it is still a laundromat. We went inside and I showed her where the tables used to be, where the kitchen had been, and where the walk in fridge was, which is where I was the evening that we were robbed at gunpoint. That’s a whole nother story, I think. The short version is that I never saw a gun, but I did see one of the robbers.

Anywho, I did a search online to see if I could find any pictures of the Stockton Mr. Steak from way back when, and got the nonsensical blurb at the top of this post. AI is surely going to take my job someday, but I don’t think we’re there quite yet. So I found the black and white picture of a different Mr. Steak, and this picture from google maps is what the building looks like now.

Wow, that’s a lot of talking about Mr. Steak. Sorry. We then drove by our grandma’s house, the one that we worked together to empty and sell back in 2021, when our Great Aunt Flo moved to an assisted living facility. It looks almost exactly the same, right down to the stickers that she had put in the window. I thought we were selling it to a family, but the neighbors say they rarely see anyone coming or going. Strange.

After that, back to work. K’s house is extremely organized and clean. She was very particular, and kept everything just so. She had files for everything, even toasters and such. It was hard to believe that there was no current will. Perhaps she has one with a lawyer somewhere? We can’t find anything. She was a big believer in paper, printed out receipts for things she bought online. So it’s weird. But there it is. That was Tuesday. Wednesday, we started thinking that without a will or anything giving us permission to be there, we didn’t really have to right to take care of anything. We did find a directive from years ago naming K’s BIL as someone who had the power to allow her remains to be cremated, which had become an issue. That was a big relief, and the proper parties were notified. The other thing that my cousin managed (though she had to stay 2 more days after I left to manage it) was to capture K’s semi-feral cat. The cat, Bentley, was an outdoor cat, mostly belonging to K’s husband B. When B died, K started letting Bentley come into the house at night. Since she died, Bentley had been coming into the garage via a cat door, and some of K’s friends had been feeding him, but no one had been able to catch him. My cousin worked on that for several days, finally tempting him with some lickable treats. One of K’s friends is giving him a new home, but she lives several hours away, and she is in the middle of a move herself. So my cousin ended up staying another two days to take care of him. Poor thing was love starved after having no contact for over a month. He was an outdoor cat, but not as feral as I thought. Hopefully he will adjust to his new home.

One thing that K used to like to do when she had guests was to put a mint on their pillow. Neither Carey nor I were too thrilled with the idea of sleeping in K’s bed (she didn’t die there, she died in the hospital), so we shared the guest bed. Carey thought it would be funny to put a mint on my pillow. I laughed and then went and got ready for bed. The light was out when I came back a bit later, and I forgot about it, so I slept on it. I woke up in the middle of the night and rolled over and found it with my hand, and thought, “what’s that? Oh, it’s the chocolate mint!“ GROSS. It looks like someone pooped on the pillow, but it’s just chocolate. Clearly, Carey did some laundry while she was there as well.

Hopefully once K’s computer can be accessed, some official documentation can be found. A will, a trust, a lawyer’s name. Fingers crossed.