The weekend started early with a visit to the theater

 

I'm not sure how many of us will recognize the lead performer in this picture.  He has told the story about The Day the Music died (February 3, 1959), and has had an active career since then.  He still makes records today with musicians such as Eric Clapton, Marc Knopfler, and Paul Simon.  If you haven't guessed his name by now, this is Dion Di Mucci, the singer of such hits as "The Wanderer", "Runaround Sue". and more.  And in his mid 80's, he still puts on one heck of a show!

But first....

It's a Thursday, and RQS was scheduled to come up a day early for tonight's concert,. Our plan was for me to visit my doctor in the morning, to change into Marian Mode, and pick her up at the train station 3 hours later.  

First, I went to my GP/Internist, and he hectored me about my weight, while checking out my leg problems.  He was much more focused on my weight as if it were a moral problem, never having recommended a dietician to help me plan my food intake.  Yes, he did check out my muscle responses with his rubber hammer.  But I felt I got much more out of last week's visit to the podiatrist, with recommendations for physical therapy (for lower body strengthening) and to an Orthopedist (to check for Spinal Stenosis).  Needless to say, that if a foot doctor is giving me a better path for dealing with the problems I'm having with walking, then it's time I start looking for another GP/Internist.

Next, I went home and took care of some minor cleaning up I had to do (my place had become a pig sty due to my leg issues), then picked RQS up at the station.  Stopping to pick up food for the weekend, I met someone with whom I worked at the census.  We had a nice chat, and then it was back to my place to put the groceries in the fridge, and to rest before going to dinner. and the theater.

Around 5:30, we left for the theater, and I was very glad to have prepaid parking across the street from the theater.  (There was no way I wanted to hunt for a parking spot in Port Chester, NY on a dreary day.)  Then we found a nice restaurant across the street, Inca Gaucho, were we both feasted on seafood.  Around 7:30, we walked over to the theater, climbed up 3+ flights of stairs to reach our seats in the nosebleed section.

The show started at 8:15, with Chazz Palminteri talking about the music heard in his Bronx neighborhood - Dion and the Belmonts.  (BTW: Chazz would be performing his one man show the next evening.) And then Dion came on stage. Dion put on a solid performance, opening up with some of his newer music (great and mature stuff) before transitioning to his hits.  He closed with "Runaround Sue" and "The Wanderer", where people were either standing up or dancing in the aisle.  For a man in his mid 80's to get an audience rocking this way, it's a miracle.  But then, so is much of Dion's life. 

 

Another visit to my doctor (a short post)

 

This is going to be a short post, as I am frustrated for understandable reasons.  I went to my doctor today, and got some more hectoring about my weight.  

Normally, I will fluctuate within a range of two or three pounds at any given time.  Today, I was at the upper range of my weight when I went to see him.  He asked me about the GLP-1 drugs, and then said that his office doesn't have the time to track things down.  Yet, later on, chatting to one of his staffers, the staffer said that she had received information that I had been approved for the bridge program, and that I am not alone in people from his office that she has been working on paperwork for these people.  

In short, it looks like my doctor is starting to check out of much effort needed for his practice.  (I could be very wrong on this.)

It's frustrating to find out that a foot doctor, someone who casually saw me less than a week ago, gave me a script for physical therapy and a recommendation to see an orthopedist, and then to find out that my GP didn't even ask me about the visit to the other doctor.  

So, the big question is:  When do I make my move to another GP?  

Politics - I hate all the ads

 

Not many of us would recognize the above snapshot from a political ad from the 1960's.  It only aired once, and its impact was devastating.  This ad implied that if Barry Goldwater was elected, we'd have World War 3. It was one of the best ads to air only once, as it scared people into NOT voting for Goldwater.  And, in many ways, it led to many of the scare tactic / "vote against" ads we see today.

Lately, my TV has been bombarded with ads for the Democratic and Republican candidates for Congress in NY-17.  The incumbent, a Republican, does very little for our district, and his only accomplishment is to have increased the SALT (state & local  tax) deduction  to $40k for the next 3 years.  At the same time, he voted to gut much of the federal government safety net that takes care of many of America's poor and unemployed.  His opponent will get my vote, simply because she is Anti-Trump, where the incumbent is solidly Pro-Trump.

Although this is a mid-term election, it is as important as most presidential elections, as it may give the Democratic party the power to check our current president.  I'm hoping for this, as I'm tired of our Orange Monster blaming all of his failures on everyone else.  Given that we're in an illegal war with Iran, our president needs to stop the monster before he goes completely bonkers (if one could say he hasn't done so already).

I expect that in 2 years, our presidential election ads will make it impossible to watch TV without getting disgusted by the ads.  The Democrats will bet everything to regain the presidency when the monster is supposed to leave office, and the Republicans will be fighting to retain the presidency.  Given that virtually no one in the Republican party was willing to check the monster when they could, I expect that they will continue the culture wars that the monster made part of his toolkit.  

It'll take a lot of money, time and effort to undo the damage our president has done to our country and the world.  I hope that this mid-term election becomes America's start to undo the harm the Orange Monster has visited on all of us. 

Finally, a day out as Marian. (a short post.)

 

 

I had only one "Must Do" on my task list for today - Lunch with Vicki.  And this was the only reason I had to go outside today.

 

Vicki and I haven't had the chance to get together since before my recent cruise, and I'm almost always dressed as Marian when we get together.  So, around 11:00, I got dressed, and went to a local diner to have lunch with Vicki.

 

- - - - - -

 

Vicki has lost a lot of weight over the past few years, and she has what they call "Ozempic Face".  There's a certain lack of fat in her face which normally thin women don't have.  Assuming that I eventually get my GLP-1 drug prescription fulled under the Medicare Bridge program, I'm willing to suffer that change.  (Of course, if I'd keep the weight off for several years, I'd get skin reductions to look "normal."

 

But I digress....

 

For the most part, I was the one doing most of the talking over lunch.  I had stories to tell, and Vicki was in a listening mood.  Both of us ordered the same dish for lunch - a mango steak wrap that dripped juice.  The dripping was the big problem with the dish - it ruined the wrap, and we both were eating the contents of the wrap without the wrapper.  We enjoyed the taste, and might order it again - if there wasn't a juice puddle below the wrapper.

 

Around 2:15, we left the diner and went on our ways.  I proceeded to the supermarket to get food to last me a day or so, as RQS will be up here for a concert in Port Chester tomowwo night. 

 

 

I just met a notary named Maria.

 

Maria and I have been having problems in getting together as of late.  Her daughter is planning to move out of state with her kids, and Maria can't wait.  She's at that stage of life where she's raised her 2 daughters, and is now helping her daughter to raise the next brood of kids.  Maria deserves her freedom, having been both divorced and widowed in the years I've known her.  She deserves the chance to have an unfettered love life with a nice fellow without having to worry about her children and grandchildren.  But the demands put on her by her daughter has made this impossible as of late.  So, when Maria and I scheduled a short session to get my remaining foreign birth registration paperwork taken care of (papers notarized), it was something that carved out precious time that was being called on by her daughter. 

 

I was awake early, and didn't start to get moving until 10:15.  I was out the door by 11:00, and met Maria at noon.  It took some time to make sure that everything was notarized/stamped properly (Foreign Birth Registry form, Grandmother's marriage certificate, Copy of  my US passport photo page, and 4 passport photos, 2 of them with notary stamps.  We were done within 30 minutes, and I went to Walmart while she went on an errand for her daughter.  (That's more than enough about Maria's life for a long while.)  By 4:00, I had mailed off the paperwork, and was ready for the next thing scheduled for the day - a co-op board meeting.

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The co-op board meeting went smoothly. We now have a full complement of board members, and we're getting close to the light at the end of our tunnel.  Hopefully, these new members will have a lot to contribute when they get accustomed to how the board does things.

 

Cruising while En-Femme - Something I'd like to do again.

 

I haven't risked cruising as Marian since before our current president was elected.  His Anti-Transgender policies are meant to push us back into the closet so far, that we will never find our way out of it.  With his failure to govern effectively, competently, or predictably, his reputation has gone into the dumpster.  And if the Democratic party retakes the House of Representatives this fall, we may finally see a check and balance on this evil man's antics.

Although my first 2 cruises were in the late 1990's, I didn't start cruising again until the early 2000's with my former cruise partner (FCP).  And all of the cruises I took after that were in Marian mode, with one exception - a cruise with XGFJ.  When cruising restarted after Covid-19, my first cruise was in Marian mode.  Once I met RQS, half my cruises were taken as Mario, and the other half as Marian.  Unfortunately, the 2024 election changed things for us transwomen.

I'm lucky, when I present as Mario, the image and data on my passport matches my gender presentation. So, I have no problems dealing with US Government "Security" personnel (CBP, TSA, ICE) due to my gender presentation.  But what would happen if I present as Marian?  I don't know.

Unfortunately, due to health problems, I was unable to schedule a 5-day cruise to Bermuda in which I'd have risked traveling as Marian.  And the next cruise I'm likely to take will have me traveling as Mario again, as I'd be traveling to several Caribbean islands where being a member of the LGBT community is a crime.

So, when will I cruise as Marian again?

Assuming that the Democrats retake the House (and, hopefully, the Senate), I want to find an inexpensive New York <--> Bermuda cruise to take in the spring. Bermuda has no problems with my presentation, as I've asked people there about this before a cruise I took as Marian.  Let's hope I can do this sooner than later.

A quick fix for a problem originating elsewhere.

 

About a week ago, I started to have problems connecting to femulate.org.  Stana's blog has been around for many years now, and I doubted that anything she did would be causing problems for me.  When I tried to connect to her site with Firefox, I got the following message.

I never had problems connecting to this site before, so I emailed Stana, and she gave me the following fix:

Although this fixed the problem, it is a patch for something going wrong elsewhere.  Normally, most of the blogs I link to are updated on a daily basis.  Yet, none of these blogs have been listed as being updated for several days now:

 

All of these sites have been updated during the past week.  So, I wonder if there is a problem within one of Google's sites, specifically in blogger.com/blogspot.com, where this issue might originate.  Yet, it still might be elsewhere, as my site displays this same information in the chrome browser. 

So what could be causing this problem?  It's obviously related to Firefox and Blogger.  It is subtle, and I bet it will be fixed eventually.  Until then, I'll have to use workarounds. 

- - - - - -

Recently, Femulate.org reported on the same problem from a different angle.  Stana reports:

I received several emails reporting that My Blog List in the blog’s sidebar was broken. Instead of displaying the latest posts from the blogs on the list, it was displaying posts more than a week old.

I checked my blog’s settings, but nothing seemed amiss. Then I visited other blogs in the Blogger universe and, lo and behold, their blog lists were not updating either.

It turns out that other users have brought the problem to Blogger’s attention. However, at the time of this writing, the blog lists are still not updating.

Now that it can be shown that the problem originates with blogger.com, I now have an explanation for why this blog (and others) have had a reduction in visitors.  Hopefully, this problem will be resolved soon.