Another Jammie Day (a short post)

 

RQS and I fell asleep shortly after SNL ended, and woke up at 9:30 this morning.  With the continuous rain outside, there was no way we'd be going out today.

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We ended up watching YouTube videos for much of the day.  Did we bother getting dressed and doing laundry?  No.  Did we do anything to clean up the apartment?  No.  We needed a day of relaxation, and we had one.

My brother called towards the afternoon, and we chatted for a while before he had to run off.  Now that I have my new passport, RQS started salivating at the idea of using her credit card points to buy tickets for another cruise.  I had to explain that chasing credit card points is a foolish thing, as the hidden cost of those points (in higher prices) is a foolish game. (Don't get me on the subject of excessive American credit card interchange fees and point accumulation - Europeans don't have this nonsense, and they are better off for it.)  When she realized that she couldn't buy a cruise, she looked into buying a restaurant gift card.  What I haven't noted is that I'm looking at paying for a cruise for the two of us, using a combination of my points (I rarely ever redeem them) and cash.  I have no problems paying with cash, if there is a cash discount, and with plastic if there is no discount.

By the time we were ready for dinner, we were hungry.  Luckily, we had enough food in the house to have a tasty meal without having to go to the supermarket.  But this made us decide to do some apartment cleanup and some laundry tomorrow.

Introducing RQS to another friend

 

I've known DPV since the early days of the post-Covid reopening of society.  We dated once, realized that we'd make better friends than lovers - and stayed friends.  I have driven her to a hotel prior to her going into a hospital for an operation.  (I won't say much about this, save that she has recovered acceptably well.)  And I wanted to make sure that DPV knew that RQS and I are an item, and that RQS knew about our friendship.  So, we finally scheduled a dinner at DPV's place for RQS and DPV to get to know each other.

DPV knows that I am TG, so wearing a dress (with tights to keep my legs warm) wouldn't be an issue.  So, the one question I had to ask was: What should we bring up for dinner?  DPV said we could bring up whatever wine we wanted, but I'm glad we didn't do so for reasons we found out later.  In the end, we decided on bringing up a cheesecake - a perfect choice.  Google Maps gave us a route that got us to DPV's place in under 90 minutes.  But it was through roads we'd never take again at night - there were way too many curves and blind spots to risk driving home on those rural roads.  As a result, we were near her house 30 minutes early, and stopped at a Mickey D's for a snack and to kill time.  

This dinner almost didn't come off.  DPV's house had no heat because there was no oil in the tank.  Why she didn't get her delivery a month ago, no one knows.  But she needed an emergency delivery today, and it hadn't come by the time we were there.  So, we had to dress warmly and deal with the chill inside the house.  When we arrived, DPV wanted us to hear this Kazakh singer which captivated DPV, but had no effect on us.  It took a while for dinner to be ready, so we were very glad that we had our snack before arriving. 

When dinner was served, DPV told us a little about her life story.  We found out that DPV had been in recovery for a long time (albeit with a rare lapse or two).  We talked about how a GLP-1 drug helped her lose weight, although she has another 100-150 pounds to go.  (This was my reason for not having a romance with her.  Me being a TG was hers.)  And, we eventually talked about cruising, specifically the cruise she is taking next year.  So, I made sure to give her the link to my cruise web page.  

All too soon, it was time to leave.  We wanted to get home in time for SNL's cold open.  And we were home with 15 minutes to spare.  It was a long day, but a good one. 

If you knew Sushi like I know Sushi....

 

I've been working on a gradual cleanup of the mess in my place.  For every 2 steps forward, I end up taking one step backward.  So, I had made a little bit of a mess in cleaning up a mess.

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This morning, I awakened at 9:00, my first memory being that I couldn't get MS-Now on my TV.  It seems like I had to go through the monthly ritual of renewing my access based on my cable TV subscription.  Realizing what I had to do, I woke up and started the day's routines.  

One of the things I needed to do is straighten up some of the mess in one corner of my bedroom, finding a place for the things I wanted to keep, and tossing out the stuff I didn't find worth keeping.  But this took some time.  And, by the time I was most of the way through the task, I had to take my shower and get ready to pick RQS up at the station.

RQS got an earlier train than originally planned, and I barely made it to the station on time.  I suggested that we go to the Sushi joint in Yonkers/Scarsdale, and she said yes.  So, it was off to the Sushi place, where we feasted on nutritious dishes of little raw fishes.  And then, it was back to my place for the evening.

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When I didn't mention was that this was the first time I wore my corduroy dress with a white, long-sleeved T-Shirt as a base layer.  It was too warm for the time I picked RQS up, but perfect for when we left for home.  I must have looked like a teacher on a date, not having changed into a "date night" dress before going out.  But I was comfortable, and found that this will be one of my winter staples when the weather cools off.

PS: My renewed passport arrived today!  Now, I can plan my future cruises.

Finally, a good night's sleep!

 

Last night, I was running on empty.  Not having good sleeps for several nights, I was very tired by the time it came for my nightly phone call with RQS.  Since I planned to get up and take care of a couple of things before sleeping, I decided to get comfortable on my bed for the nightly call.  And shortly after the call, I fell asleep.  Did I get in my jammies?  No.  Did I apply cream to my feet?  No.  Did I do any of the things in my normal post phone call routine before going to sleep?  No!  I simply passed out with my phone on my chest.  Boy, the waking up at 6 am had me feeling fully refreshed for a change.

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One of the projects I've been working on is to extract a Linux distribution, load it to a thumb drive, and then install it on a 10 year old laptop.  And for some unknown reason, I have been unable to do this.  It'd be nice to be able to play with Linux on my machine before I toss it out.  Sadly, none of the software I have works properly on this machine, and I can't figure out what I'm (likely) doing wrong.

At this point, I'll likely trash this machine because it's too slow for my purposes.  Given the age of this machine, its weight, etc., I'll wipe the hard drive and then send it to E-Waste processing.  I find it amazing how much E-Waste there is, considering that almost everything we buy now days has some form of computing chip (programmable controllers to CPU's) in its design.  (Who'd have thought 30 years ago that we'd have programmable toasters, light bulbs, and microwave ovens, among other devices.)

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Going to game night was a little awkward - in getting out of the apartment.  I had piled 5 garbage bags by the door, and could only take 4 of them out.  And that was a minor problem for me. But once the garbage was in the dumpster, I was able to get to Yonkers in a reasonable amount of time and play a game.  As usual, I lost.  But I go there to have fun, and not to be competitive.

  

 

A scam phone call and other minor annoyances

 

I decided to take care of little things today.  The most important thing on this list was doing a load of laundry.  RQS prefers to have clean sheets to sleep on when she comes up here, and I only had today and tomorrow to take care of this task.  So, in spite of my legs not wanting to go up and down the stairs to use the washers and dryers, I decided that there was no time like the present to take care of this task.

While in between loads, I received a couple of back to back phone calls, the first on my cell phone (which dropped without a message), and the second on my land line (with a scam message meant to lure me into giving up my personal ID.)  This message claimed that someone had opened up a duplicate under my name and bought some electronic device that would be charged to me if I didn't react.  (Sounds fishy even describing it, doesn't it?)  Luckily, I'm aware of many of these scams, and I know not to trust calls coming in on my land line.

Although I stayed in the apartment most of the day, there were things I needed to do on the outside. I wanted to see if Lane Bryant and Kohl's had clothes I was interested in based on information from their websites.  Unfortunately, neither store had what I was looking for, and as a result, didn't spend money I was ready to spend.  Next, was dinner.  This was easy for me to deal with - a Chicken/Lamb combination at a local Halal joint.  Yum!  Yet, I noticed something strange that indicates both inflationary pressures and supply chain problems - several meat dishes have some beef mixed into the primary meat mix.  Although I don't mind this, I'll bet that some people would rather pay more for Lamb without Beef.

Once done with dinner, it was time to go to Lidl for food shopping.  $50 later, I was out the door and on the way home.  On the whole, this was a good day, but one that had me moving again.

YouTube ads - my frustrations

 

I watch a lot of YouTube videos during the day.  I find that much of the content (including some of the AI generated "slop") is more interesting than mainstream news TV, as one can get a wider range of short form media than being delivered on the mainstream channels.  Right now, I have a video on which explains all of the different type of wires/transmission protocols that can be used to transmit data.  A few minutes ago, I had on one of the many "talking heads" discussing today's political mess.  And a few minutes from now, I might be playing a video of some performance I enjoyed in the past.  But, there is a problem: The Ads.

YouTube ads can be quite useful.  But sometimes, they can be quite annoying.  For example, I am mostly monolingual.  Yet, I often get ads in Spanish.  At best, these messages are lost on me, and I can ignore them.  Yet, sometimes, they can be quite annoying if they appear way too often.  And I will avoid their sponsors if these ads come up too often.

This year, we are being subjected to way too many political ads, most of them attacks, distortions or lies. For example, I recently viewed a political ad while at RQS's place.  Even though she lives in a different congressional district than I do, she also receives the same political slop that I receive in NY-17.  Since NY-17 is a contestable district, I have seen ads labeling the Democratic candidate as a Socialist.  RQS and I ask, what's wrong with Socialism when Capitalism keeps failing us?  I'll admit that my mind is already made up my mind regarding candidates I'll vote for, and I don't want to view any more of these ads.  So, why can't I block these ads?

Lately, I've started to see QVC/HSN advertise Jewelry on YouTube ads sent to my TV.  Although I am interested in buying costume jewelry, I can not wear bracelets of short length necklaces.  It's one of the problems I have being born in the wrong gender body type.  Since I can't reject these ads and I don't find them offensive, I let them play if the TV is on mostly for noise.  Yet, if there is an ad I can't stand, I will look for the remote and mute the TV until the video I want resumes.

Well, enough for now.  More tomorrow.. 

Doing some minor cleanup in the apartment (a short post)

As my regular readers know, my place is cluttered and messy.  So, when I want to clean up some of the clutter, I have to think hard about how I plan to attack the mess AND how much of the mess I need to take care of during one cleaning session.  

For someone like me, eliminating clutter is as much a mental effort as it is a mental effort.  I have way too many dresses in my closet, and many of them seem to be duplicates of each other.  So, if I haven't worn a dress in a while (at least once during its season) AND I am not in love with the dress, it is time to toss it in a donation bag.  (I am doing the same for much of Mario's side of the closet.)  Yet, this is only half of the work.

In front of my bed is a chest, with a lot of stuff piles on top of it in several baskets.  Today, I started to attack those baskets, and started to toss stuff in the trash, or to organize it better.  The same went for some of the stuff in my storage containers and closets as I transition to a winter wardrobe. Since cisgender women tend to wear trouser like garments for casual wear, I have adopted tunic length dresses over leggings as my everyday winter wardrobe. 

But back to my cleanup efforts....

I have found paperwork in my mess, some of which needs to be preserved, and some that needs to be trashed.  So, I'm sorting through paperwork and tossing out stuff I don't need.  Clothing is put into the hamper, hung up, or tossed into donation bags.  Electronic goodies (which include headsets, cables, chargers, etc.) get sorted and either saved in a safe space, or tossed into the trash.  I recently tossed a headset and other old equipment in the process of de-cluttering my place.

Unfortunately, I am unable to do this work more than (maybe) an hour at a time.  So, I have to try to keep up with things before I fall way behind.  Once I have cleaned up this place, I will start having a cleaning lady come back on a regular basis.  Let's hope that time comes soon.