A day at home, a dinner with Vicki

 

Last night, I was playing around with ChatGPT and asked it to generate a picture of me (face previously altered to look more feminine) standing in San Francisco on a nice summer's day.  I wish I could have been that woman in the picture in real life.  The AI version of me exudes happiness in her smile, and she projects a form of confidence that can't be ignored.

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This morning, I got up at my usual time and decided to cook breakfast - eggs and corned beef hash.    It's one of my quick go-to meals, as all I do is open up a can of hash, heat it up, then scramble in a couple of eggs.  It's a one skillet meal that I can make with a minimum of fuss.

After breakfast, I decided to relax, as I was not in the mood to do any type of decluttering.  Instead, I waited for an Amazon delivery that put 2 packages by my door.  The first package contained a set of mouse pads - the thing I needed most for using my mouse while sitting on my sofa.  The other package contained a watch "repair" kit, with spring pins that could be used to connect a watch strap to the base of the watch.  (The kit didn't contain all I needed to make fixing the watch band I had an easy job.  But it had just enough stuff for me to reattach one end of the watch band to the other.)  At least I learned a little something new by doing this task myself.

Around 5 pm, I left for dinner at the local Japanese restaurant.  Vicki was there on time - I was 10 minutes late.  Today's conversation was not as intense as it could have been.  Instead, it was relaxed, in part because Vicki had just had a facial and was already relaxed.  We talked about my latest cruise, and her husband's truck.  But very little talk of a serious nature.  And that was a big relief.  Yet, the issue of how I dressed on the cruise came up.  I mentioned that I dressed as Mario, as I didn't want any possible contact with Federal Government employees while presenting as Marian, as I don't want to be hassled by the Orange Snowflake's Gestapo.

Once done with dinner, I found out that Game Night was cancelled.  So I drove to Walmart to pick up a few items, and then to the supermarket to pick up ingredients for another batch of onion soup.  By the time I got home, I wouldn't wait to take off my bra and falsies, my wig, and most of my clothes to get into something comfortable.  

Tomorrow, RQS comes here again, and I start work on another batch of onion soup....

The most important thing I did today was polishing my nails.

 

I rarely get the chance to leave polish on my nails, due to the unpredictability of when I have to present as Mario. Today, I had the chance to paint my nails, knowing that the polish would stay on for about a week.

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Last night, I ended up staying up late, not realizing what time it was, and realized that I wouldn't be able to do much until I fully woke up.  And I didn't have much energy to do much when I finally woke up around 10 am.  So, I wasted time during the day, and decided to do my nails in late afternoon.  

Once my nails were done, I figured that I should do some research on a minor issue - How do I remove the cover on my bathroom ceiling light fixture, so that I could replace a light bulb?  This doesn't seem that complicated, but without being the one who mounted the fixture and installed the bulb, I wanted to find out in advance of need.  So, off to YouTube I went, and I found a solution which should work for my fixture.  (Or, at least, I hope so.)

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This coming weekend, we're expecting at least 8 inches of snow.  Although I'm tired of shoveling the white stuff, I'm glad that I live in an area that experiences the 4 seasons.  Ideally, I'd live in a place with a covered garage where my car could stay parked in bad weather.  But until I have to move away from here, I'm stuck because of my lower cost of living - my monthly maintenance fee is less than half of what I'd have to pay in rent for a similar apartment.

 

 

PS: The YouTube idea worked!   I cleaned the cover, and put it back.

 

 

 

It's hard not to get upset watching the news these days.

 

Lately, the Orange Snowflake has shown signs of declining mental facility.  In short, his senility is getting worse, and no one is willing to take the risk of removing him from power under the terms of the 25th amendment.

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Each time I watch the news, I have to be careful not to watch it too closely.  The snowflake and his actions seem to monopolize the news.  And I have to be careful not to watch too many YouTube videos, lest I get angry and "howl at the moon."  I have to turn away each time I hear his voice, as the mere sound of him sickens me.  (Thankfully, his niece distorts his voice whenever she plays a video clip of him speaking.)  

Today, reporters mentioned that he rambled on for 2 hours, repeating his old "hits", threatening both military and trading partners, and looking like a lunatic that should be in a padded room.  Unfortunately, he's free and many minorities aren't - they live in fear of his ICE Gestapo.  (My friend from the imaging company is married to someone who doesn't look "Aryan", and fears him being alone in his car and getting pulled over in an ICE raid.)  I try to think of these things as little as possible, as I know that I can only deal with so much crap that upsets me during any given day.

When I watch the news, I try to find a network affiliate's local news on YouTube.  In a half-hour, I am able to keep up with local events that concern me, and look for more information when I need it.  (I found this approach to be useful when a fire burned down 4 buildings a block away from RQS's place.)  The biggest benefit to this approach is that local news usually doesn't cover national events.

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I can'r wait for this national disaster to end.  Hopefully, it will be soon.

RQS had to go home today

 

It's been a long time since I went to the theater with the above ceiling fixture.  It felt like RQS was here for a long enough time for her to become a fixture here.  (And that made me feel good.  I wish she could be here even longer.)

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Unfortunately, RQS had to go home today.  She had a doctor's appointment in the city, and I had a lunch appointment with CCS up here.  We both got up early, and I got showered and dressed in my cold weather outfit - tunic dress, leggings, all covered by a stadium coat for warmth.  RQS was a little surprised that I owned a woman's stadium coat for cold weather, when she bought be a men's stadium coat for Christmes.  But I always make sure that I wear solely female clothes when presenting as Marian, and male clothes when presenting as Mario.

Around 11:30, I dropped RQS off at the station, and had 90 minutes to kill.  So I went to the bookstore to kill that time.  When I got there, the first thing I did was to fix a zipper malfunction with my coat.  And then, I went and read some magazines for an hour.  After that, I drove to Starbucks to get something to drink, as I was falling out due to lacking enough sleep.  Then, I killed some more time before meeting CCS at the restaurant where we had lunch.

Neither CCS nor I had a lot to say today, but we both enjoyed seeing each other. The food at this place was very good, and I was surprised about how good the hamburger I had tasted today.  We left the restaurant at 3 pm, and I went home for the day.  Arriving home, I sat on the sofa and fell asleep for a couple of hours.  And then I was awake, watching videos for the rest of the evening.

MLK jr. Day (it's starting to become a day for store sales)

 

Years ago, the United States made Martin Luther King Jr. day a national holiday.  There was a lot of resistance to this, given the racial history of this country.  Yet, the holiday has endured, and most people accept it as part of our yearly calendar.  Sadly, we have a president who would eliminate this holiday if he could, and return this country to the 1950's. Or worse, to Germany in the 1930's.

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RQS and I had two things on the docket for the day: (1) Getting her watch band resized, and (2) Going to Costco to get a second arm rest tray on which she could place her glasses and phone.  While at the jewelry store, I asked to get my watch band fixed, and found out that my watch was as good as dead.  (It didn't help that I hadn't used my automatic/self winding watch in ages.

It was nice to be out as Marian again.  And going to Costco required me to present as Marian, as my ID card has my feminine image.  So, once we left the jewelry store, it was off to the Zwilling factory outlet to shop for knives - where RQS bought some to add to her kitchen supply.  And finally, we were off to Costco.

It took a while for us to get to Yonkers, as I ended up taking the side roads to get there.  The parking lot was busy, and it took a while to find a good spot.  Well, we ended up walking all around the store, found the items we wanted, and left the store 45 minutes later.

On the way home, we chatted with TCL a bit, and came home to relax.  Before we retired for the evening, we watched the film, Operation Mincemeat - a serious take on the real life mission.

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Tomorrow, RQS goes home, and I go back to seeing friends for lunch and dinner.  At least, I should be able to do my nails again and keep the polish on for the better part of a week.

 

 

PS: After a few minutes of shaking the watch to recharge the internal battery, the watch started to keep time again, and I knew that all I needed was a fixed watch band. 

This was another Sunday that I didn't go to church (another short post)

 

I had originally planned to go to church today, but the snow on the ground scotched that plan.  Instead, I stayed in bed and relaxed most of the day.

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With the slop on the ground, I figured that going out as Marian would be overkill today.  So, I cleaned off the car, ran down to the local supermarket to pick up some goodies, and went back to the house to rest for a while.

A bit later, RQS and I got ready to go out, and then went to BJ's for a shopping tun.  $115 later, we were on the way home.  And once at home, I got back in my jammies, then prepared dinner.

As I noted in this entry's title, this is a short post.  I'll have more to say tomorrow.

Snow (a very short post)

 

The weatherman said that we wouldn't get much snow today.  So, when I heard the plows in the driveway, I knew that I'd have to move my car.  So I transferred my money and ID into my male wallet, tossed on a pair of jeans and a warm shirt, and went outside to move my car.

Once I cleaned off much of the snow from my car, I drove to the supermarket to pick up some orange juice.  And, of course, that OJ run turned into a full bag of groceries and other stuff.  RQS was wondering why it took me so long to return, and I explained how a planned $5 visit turned into a $50 visit.  RQS was cooking some lentil soup.  So I made a pastrami sandwich, then tasted her soup.  It was good, but it was missing something.

Then, I changed back into my flannel nightie, and said we were in for the evening.  As I said in this entry's title - today, would be a short post.   More news tomorrow.