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.

Getting out and about when it's cold outside.

 

Provincetown, MA.  It looks beautiful after a snowstorm, but I wouldn't want to live there in the aftermath of one.  It's been a week since New York's last major snowstorm, and cars are still stuck in the snow on many New York City streets.  When I next visit RQS at her place, I'll need to take mass transit, as there will not be any available parking on the streets if I were to drive there.

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It's been a week of sub-freezing temperatures, and my stadium coats have gotten the most use they have gotten in years.  One advantage of this weather is that the snow won't melt and leave ice patches in dangerous places.  Given the mountain of snow that was plowed in front of my car (there was no other place to put it), I expect to see the remains of last week's storm hang around well into February.

RQS and I decided to go out today.  She wanted to get some coffee and try out the French Press I have in my kitchen.  As for me, I wanted an excuse to go out.  So, we bundled up, and out the door we went.  Off to Home Goods, and then to dinner.

Well, RQS found her coffee, and I decided to go to the same buffet that Vicki and I went to the other day.  This time, I overdid it.  Way too much food, but all of it was good.  On the way back, we took a route through back roads until we hit a roadblock.  Seems like a quarter mile section of road was out, and there was a 15 mile detour because of it.  As for me, the detour still brought us home without returning to the open section just past the detour.

A trip into NYC for a Sample Sale

 

As you can see, I've written this post about 2 weeks before you see it.  Today, I decided to take a trip into NYC to see what Universal Standard had for sale, and whether there was something I'd find worth buying.  But I wasn't sure if I'd bother to go into NYC today, as the temperature was 15 degrees Fahrenheit with a light breeze.  BRRRR! 

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When I got up this morning, I could feel the cold coming through the windows.  There is only so much that can be done to heat up an apartment when the weather is this cold.  Yet, around 10:30, I decided to get showered and dressed, and made it to the station with 20 minutes to spare.  

The train made it to Manhattan by 12:45, and I was at the pop-up store before 1:30.  One catch - there were 4 storefronts with the same numbered address, each with a different letter to identify their places in the building.  (e.g.: 262-A, 262-B, 262-C, and 262-D)  But once I found the place, it was easy for me to go through the racks.  Sadly, I only found one garment worth buying.  But that was OK.

Next, it was off to find something to eat.  I found a bagel shop on the corner, and ordered a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich on a poppy bagel. Add a can of soda to that, and guess what I spent - roughly $20.  I could have gotten the same in my neck of the woods for half the price.  But I was hungry, and wanted something to fill my stomach.

Finally, it was back to Grand Central and a wait for RQS.  She arrived around 3:30, and we were home by 5:00.

Now to try on my new dress....