Going to RQS's place for a change

 

 

 

It's been a while since I've been to RQS's place, and it was time for me to make an appearance.  But, alternate side of the street parking has been suspended for a while, and I was warned that I wouldn't find a parking spot.  So, I knew that I'd be taking a cab to the train station, then the subway to Queens, and possibly a bus to RQS's house.  It would be a pain - especially with the subways on a weekend schedule.  Yet, I didn't realize how much of a pain this would be.

 

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I didn't start to get moving until 10:30, and proceeded to get showered and dressed.  Around noon, I went out for my usual sausage and egg sandwich, then called the cab service around 1:00 for the ride to the station.  By 1:45, I was on the train and heading for Grand Central.  This would be the easy part of the trip.

 

Once at Grand Central, I had to make it from Manhattan to Queens.  I made the mistake and followed Google's directions for the subway:

• Take the #6 line to Canal Street.
• Transfer to the J line to Essex Street.
• Transfer to the M line to Myrtle/Wykoff
• And finally, take the bus to RQS's place.

Well, Google didn't take into account one thing - I was toting a suitcase.  The Canal street transfer is not accessible for those using wheelchairs.  Even though I am able bodied enough to walk, I would need elevators to make the transfer at this station tolerable.  Instead, I should have taken the #6 to Brooklyn Bridge (a known accessible station) and made the transfer there.  Sadly, Canal Street is a complex station with many confusing passages (with staircases) to navigate - and I must have walked up and down at least 5 flights of stairs with a heavy suitcase.  AARGH!

Now that I made it to the platform, I saw my train pull away.  It would be almost 10 minutes for the next train to come. At least, I was still sheltered from the sub-freezing wind outside.  I hopped on the train, and made it to the next transfer point, where the train had just pulled into the platform.  And now, I was on the train that could take me close to RQS's place.

Finally, I made it to Myrtle/Wykoff.  I had a decision to make.  Do I leave the subway system and take a bus to RQS's place?  Or, do I take the subway 2 more stops, and go down 4 flights of stairs to make it to street level, then walk to RQS's place?  The accessible station won out.  Leaving the station, I hoped that the MTA's bus schedule was correct - I'd only have a 5 minute wait for the bus.  This may have been the second big mistake of the day.  Once I was outside, I was hit with a blast of wind that almost knocked me to the ground.  If I didn't find shelter from the wind, I'd get frostbite - it was less than 10°f outside, and 5 minutes' exposure to the cold would be the maximum one should risk.

Luckily, I didn't have to wait long for the bus, and I was finally within 10 minutes of RQS's place.  But this trip would take longer than the expected 10 minutes.  First, there was the streets, narrowed by snowbound cars which hadn't moved since the big snowfall 2 weeks ago.  My bus was stuck waiting for an Uber to unload.  In normal times, the bus could squeeze between the Uber and cars parked on the other side of the street - but not with snowbound cars on both sides of the street.  Next, there was construction/demolition equipment at the end of the block, taking up more than their share of space.  (This is where a fire displaced 120+ people 2 weeks before, just around the corner from RQS's place.)  Finally, I was in walking distance of RQS's place - and by 4:15 I was inside her apartment, enjoying both the warmth of the place and the aroma of meatballs being cooked.

It's amazing how evil our president is (a short post)

 

It's hard to believe how ugly this man's soul must be.  I've been totally disgusted with this poor excuse for a member of our species for a long while now.  He has no standards, and yet, he's still in charge of our government. He has turned a division of our government into his own Gestapo.  He has destroyed the department of justice.  He is destroying our economy.  And yet, he is still in power. 

Like many TG people, I am avoiding the headaches of coming into contact with Federal government officials while presenting as Marian.  Next year, I will be trying to renew my US passport, hoping that I have not been placed on our government's blacklist.  (Yes, citizens with some names, mostly Middle-East/Arab in nature, are being prevented from getting passports.)  My desire is to be able to leave this country when I can, just in case the remaining safeguards that preserve our freedoms fail.

Assuming that the Democratic party regains control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 elections, I see one way that he (and the rest of his regime) can be forced out in 2027 - denying the government for funding of any of its functions.  The Orange Monster has destroyed the rule of law.  So, why not deny the government the money to pay any of its employees, essential or not.  What would happen if the government was shut down for months?  Would the military stay on duty?  What about Air Traffic Control?  So many parts of government would cease to function when people stopped showing up for work.

But how could this force the monster out?

The answer is simple.  The Democrats in the House could say that both the President and the Vice President MUST resign before they will allow the government to be funded.  The Speaker of the House, a Democrat, becomes president, and then he can start work on cleaning up the monster's mess.  Even better than this, he could serve for a little under 10 years, as he could be elected to 2 terms in his own right.

If money makes the world go round, then the people who control the money can control its spin.... 

 

I was exhausted, and it wasn't yet 3 pm.

 

I was awake by 7, even though I didn't have plans to leave the house by 10.  Why was I awake this early, you might ask?  Well, I had to drive to Summit, NJ to see my cousin who will be going to hospice soon.  He'll be the second of my cousins to die, and I wanted to make sure that I got the chance to see him while he's still above round.

It's a 90 minute drive from my place to Summit, mostly along highways.  To avoid the tolls on the Garden State Parkway, I decided to take I-287 to SR-24 to reach Summit, and then side roads to the hospital.  It wasn't a hard drive, but a boring one.  

When I reached the hospital, I found something quite unusual: One enters the parking garage on the 4th level, and can go down or up to find empty parking spaces.  Once one is at the main entrance to the hospital (floor 5), one can go down or up to reach patient levels.  In short, the entry levels are not on the "Ground floor", something that can be confusing to a first time visitor.

To use an expression, my cousin looked like "death warmed over."  He had almost no energy, and he was spending a lot of what he had left to talk with me.  He was under heavy medication for pain, but not enough to have made this visit not worth it.  We talked about our family, and people who died decades ago.  We talked about our ethnic heritage (specifically about the Caribbean Island that our shared grandparents came from), and how our grandparents came to America.  He mentioned that I should check into getting a third citizenship from this island, but I had to tell him that one can only get citizenship by descent if one's parents were citizens of this island country.  

All too soon, it was time to leave.  My cousin spent all of his energy speaking with me, and it was time for me to go.  He'll be barraged by visitors tomorrow, and I expect that will take the last of his remaining energy away from him.  I know that if he dies during the week, that I won't be able to attend the wake or the funeral.  At least, I paid my respects to him while he was alive.

I did plenty of nothing, and nothing's plenty for me.

 

I didn't think much of writing anything today, as I had nothing much to say. I didn't get up until 10:30, and only made it to the sofa for most of the day.  It was a classic jammie day, where staying in a warm apartment made much more sense than going outside.  There was food in the freezer, Cokes in the icebox, and bread in the breadbox.  I could easily get by for a few days if needed.

What I did do was fine tune the cruise blog entry that I screwed up over the weekend, and get it ready to be published next month.  No, it won't be as good as my original post.  But it will be good enough for people to read and learn something from.  And that's all I want for now.

Sometime late in the afternoon, I got a text from my brother.  One of my cousins is being moved into hospice, and I'd like to see him before he passes away.  Now, I didn't get from whom he got the information, nor did I get a call back number for the relative who made the call.  

With one exception, all of my cousins are older than I am by 10 years or more, and I have only seen one of them in the past 20 years.  So, it won't be a great loss for me, as none of them ever made the effort to develop a close relationship with me.  If I'm lucky, I'll get to see him before he may be moved to another hospital.  If not, I'll have made a long drive for nothing, as I will not ruin a weekend with RQS, nor will I give up any more of the Marian time I had scheduled for the weekend.

To make things worse - On Saturday, I'll have to take mass transit to get to RQS's place, as there is no available street parking there. And I'll have to make it back here by Monday for lunch with a friend, then a co-op board meeting.

I took it easy today, until I didn't.

 

For most of the day, I worked on finishing up the reconstruction of my Queen Mary 2 entry in my cruise blog. This was not much of a challenge, as I gave up the idea of needing to be as complete as I was in my original version of the post.  All I had to do was restore images, rewrite text, and skip providing my opinions of each dish presented in 12 nights on the ship.

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I spent the afternoon in my jammies, and took my time doing things.  The library called to let me know that a book on hold for me had arrived.  As much as I didn't want to remove my nail polish, I knew I had to do so before going to the library, as I had to present as male. So, I stripped off my nail polish, got showered and dressed, and drove to the library.

Once I picked up my book, it was time to get some grub.  I made the mistake of going to the local Halal joint and ordered a meat combo.  Where I used to work in NYC, there was a Halal cart with a fantastic chicken and lamb combo.  Add a large helping of white sauce, and a dollop of hot sauce and one would get a cheap, hearty, tasty and filling meal.  Sadly, I have never found a Halal joint or cart selling food that good again.

When I returned home, I started to eat my dinner.  Once I started, I knew I wasn't going to finish it.  So, after eating the meat part of the dish, I tossed the rice, "salad", and fries - I didn't need to stuff myself with starches.

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Now that I've dealt with the need to present as Mario for the week, I can now get my nails done again, and keep them polished for a couple of weeks.  (Valentine's day is coming, and I want to look my best when I take RQS out that evening.)   

I'm not going to do everything all at once.

 

I'm not going to do everything all at once.  That's a lesson that can be overwhelming to most people, as they look at the big picture before breaking it up into little, more manageable tasks that need to be done.  In the case of my other blog, I have to rebuild and rewrite all text from scratch, including my impressions which were lost to a typo.  So, expect me to keep you informed of my progress over the next few days.

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Unlike yesterday, I was able to wake up around 6 am.  However, I did it on (maybe) 4 hours of sleep.  So, I knew that I'd be tired later in the day - and I was. For many people, if they have to go to the toilet in the middle of the night (or early in the morning), they usually fall back to sleep once they relieve themselves.  As for me, the movement needed to get to the toilet is just enough to bring myself to full consciousness, and knock my sleep/wake cycle out of whack.  So, when RQS got up, she saw me semi-conscious on the sofa.

Once I woke up again, I knew that I would need another nap.  Around 2 pm, I drove RQS to the station for her return home, and then I picked lunch at Mickey D's.  (Sadly, there were no places serving what would fit my food cravings, so I had to settle for a fish sandwich.)  Arriving home, it was time to nap - and I didn't get up again until 6 pm.

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Now that I was awake, it was time to sort out my mail, and start work on the travel blog again.  At least, all my photos were still safe on blogger, and I could use some of what I wrote for this blog as tools to refresh my memory of the cruise I took in November/December. 

Last night, a typo erased a week's worth of work.

 

As I've mentioned before, I have a travel related blog for which entries are published on a monthly basis.  Due to a typo I made on my Chromebook with a mistaken way of trying to prevent a loss of data, I lost my March 2026 entry.  Luckily, I can reconstruct most of what I've written, but not everything.  So, I'll spend the better part of this week rewriting the entry.

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I didn't get any sleep last night, so I made a decision not to start the blog post rewrite until tomorrow.  With this being said, I was able to relax a little, knowing that I didn't have to jump into any hard work until tomorrow.

Every Sunday, I make a decision when at my house - do I go to church or stay in bed.  A warm, comfy bed wins out most weeks.  This week, it was a no brainier - stay home and rest.  I would likely fall asleep during mass anyway.  (And I did fall asleep after RQS cooked breakfast.)

Both of us decided to make it a Jammie day,   We watched YouTube videos, as well as watched movies on the TV.  We now miss our nightly routine of watching the Perry Mason series, as it is no longer available on Amazon for free.  (I guess I'm going to kill my Hulu subscription and take one up with Paramount Plus.)

When I had a moment, I decided to look up the church schedule, and found out why services were being held in one building and not the other this month - the building in which I usually would go to is being used as a homeless shelter in this frigid weather.  Although I don't think they planned for this sub-freezing weather, I'm glad that they had perfect timing for helping the homeless.  Next, I found that ALL the pictures I uploaded to Blogger were intact.  So I don't have to upload them a second time as I rewrite the blog entry.

Tomorrow, RQS goes home and I expect to be busy.  So, I need to recharge.  More later.