Time for another public-realm update. This month has proved to be exhausting for me so far. I spent 7.5 hours a day interpreting last week, which as my interpreter friends can tell you is exhausting. Interpreting requires about twice the brainpower as most other jobs, because you are concentrating intensely all the time, with no wandering thoughts, while simultaneously converting languages in your head. So, as I said, exhausting.

I’ve also been dealing with major family issues. The estate issue is still pending - can’t remember if I’ve already mentioned that I have a hearing in New Jersey on January 26th, so I’m mentioning it now - but things are also going on at home. It’s overwhelming for me, which means it’s falling on A to do a lot of it because I am simply not together enough to do certain things myself. I’m also more emotionally affected by what’s going on, so A can tackle things a little bit more dispassionately than I can right now. Not sure yet what’s going to happen holiday-wise.

I can’t even remember all the things I wanted to do. My brain is just feeling wiped right now. I want to hop on a plane and get out of here. And not to be overly cliché or anything, because I’d like to reassure everybody and say I’m doing fine, I’m not - I am, however, hanging in there, so don’t worry too much.

We are not leaving for New Jersey tonight after all; there are a few reasons for this but the main one is Veterans Day. Government offices will all be closed, so we would have only tomorrow to get things done. Instead we plan to go up next week. A and I each get three days of bereavement leave from work, so I am thinking we will go up next Tuesday night and stay through Saturday morning (leaving earlier if we’re done earlier).

My father’s brother says the estate is worth $100,000 but I’m thinking it will be less than that. My father had $11,000 in a bank account, a heavily-modified (to hold ham equipment) Ford Escort that’s five or six years old, and his trailer. I did a little poking around and it seems trailers sell for between $8,000 and $30,000 - this one is apparently in bad condition so it will probably be at the lower end of that range. There is a bunch of electronics and ham equipment in the trailer too; no idea how much that’s all going to turn out to be worth. We don’t know who is the beneficiary on the life insurance, and we don’t know if my father had a safe deposit box, so I am thinking all of this will come to about $50,000 at most. (These numbers absolutely stupefy me, I’ve never had that much money.) $5,000 of that will be going to reimburse my father’s brother for the funeral (I’m still disappointed that I wasn’t found in time for that, and I think the delay might have been semi-intentional), and I also plan to give him a portion to thank him for doing the right thing and contacting me. The rest is going to be college money - I never finished, and I’m hoping there will be enough for me to cut work back to part-time and get a degree.

Just an update in the public realm since my last two posts were protected. On Sunday, I found out that my biological father passed away on October 30th. His funeral was last Thursday and I was not located in time even though I would certainly have gone. I didn’t know him at all; we had not had contact in more than 20 years except for half an hour on the phone about a year ago. Unfortunately, I find myself in the very awkward predicament of being his sole heir. His brother lives in Delaware, but my father died in New Jersey and according to intestate succession laws, I would likely be appointed administrator of his estate. Needless to say I have no experience with this, and having been out of contact with him I never expected to be in this position. Also, he was only 55, and while I knew he had heart disease I didn’t expect him to die anytime soon.

I am trying to figure out what to do. I was fortunate to have yesterday off (for my foot) because that gave me an opportunity to do a lot of research. I am probably going to have to go to New Jersey this Thursday to meet with a local attorney and start going through his papers.