Catching up on my reading. (A short post)

 

This is the book that I've been reading lately.  Unfortunately, I have no more renewals left on the book. It means that I'm supposed to return the book to the library by the end of the day.  Of course, I'll do my best to finish the remaining 325 pages by tomorrow night.

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I keep hemming and hawing about signing up for a dinner group in NYC.  To join will set me back $20/month, and I'm not sure if I want to spend this kind of money, plus the cost of dinners, and the cost of weekly trips to meet new people.  It might be worth joining the group for a month.  But I'm not sure whether this kind of commitment is worth it.  Yet, it might be nice to go into NYC on a regular basis for a while.

Right now, I have several more hours to make this decision.  I'll write more about this soon.

Getting used to a reorganized kitchen (a short post)

 

I wish my kitchen was this useful.  Sadly, I have too much stuff in the kitchen to make it truly useful.  It would make things easier for me if I were to get rid of items I don't use.  But to do that would mean making hard decisions that I'm not ready to make right now.

This weekend, RQS straightened out my kitchen.  But I hadn't yet had the chance to use it.  Today was my chance.  First, I had to drop RQS off at the station to return home.  And then, I could go home to rest.  Given that it was a dreary day AND that I had no plans to go out later, I got dressed as Mario just to drop RQS off.  After a quick stop at the deli to get a breakfast sandwich, it was home for the day.

Once home, I took a needed nap, and then started work on reorganizing information I'll need to create another cruise tool.  So, that killed some time until dinner.  There was some salmon in the fridge, but I wasn't interested in that.  Instead, I was more interested in the "more than" half chicken from last night.  Cutting off the remaining right breast (RQS doesn't carve a bird well) and full left leg, I proceeded to prepare this part of the bird for nuking.  Next, I made some flavored rice, then cobbled up some gravy to ladle over the bird.  Finally, I warmed up the bird and had a hearty meal.

Regarding the placement of some items in the kitchen, I switched the garbage can's spot with the original place for the rolling cart, Now, I don't have to move the cart each time I want to get utensils from the drawer.  RQS is good at finding the energy to do this kind of reorganization, but not as good at figuring out a practical final state.  Maybe that's why we work well together - we complement each other in our areas of weakness.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping to get out and (maybe) get my nails done.  Then, it should be another week as Marian.

Saturday, a trip to IKEA. Sunday, a brunch not eaten.

 

Saturday would be a day spent presenting as Marian.  But first, RQS decided to help organize the clutter which was my kitchen.  So, for half the day, I didn't bother doing much.  But at 4 pm, we ended up driving to IKEA to look for a rolling cart.  $143.00 later, I had the cart and other needed items coming home in my car with us.  Both of us knew NOT to work on any IKEA assembly (including simple ones) until after we had a chance to sleep and get some more rest.

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Sunday would be a day spent as Mario.  We had negotiated noon as a mutual time for brunch, as RQS's friend insisted that we meet no later than noon because her grandchild would need her 1 pm nap.  I was a little miffed, as I knew that the friend didn't want to bend or accommodate our needs.  But, since this friend was down from Boston, I said OK to having lunch at noon, missing church for the nth Sunday in a row. !0 minutes before we were to arrive at the diner, the friend called asking us if we could meet at 1:30 pm.  Both of us were annoyed.  We altered our plans for the friend, and now she wanted to change things.  Both of us were peeved.  Her friend didn't care what she was doing to our schedules.  Only her schedule was important.  So RQS said we'll have to get together another time, and we proceeded to have lunch on our own.

What to do next?  Well, we hung out until 5 pm, assembling the rolling cart we bought the day before, then drove to BJ's to pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner, and then went back home to eat.  For the most part, it was an OK day.  But one that could have been much better if we had been able to keep our original plans for the day.

The day started with phone calls

 

Anyone who knows Commercial Street in Provincetown, MA will notice something very wrong about the AI generated image above.  I gave ChatGPT instructions to draw me in front of the Lobster Pot restaurant in Provincetown and got the above picture.  Can you tell me what's wrong with the image?

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There were several things on my docket for today, and two of them involved phone calls.  First was a call to RQS to tell her NOT to bring up her fancy dress, as we'll be a little bit more casual tonight when we go out for dinner.  The second had me being more apprehensive, as it was to return a call from my doctor's office.  I found that the assistant couldn't get the GLP-1 drugs cheaper than the prices I found, and was asking me to check with my mail order pharmacy to see if they had a better price for the drugs.  So, I have another phone call to make soon.  RQS would be coming up later in the day, and that meant that I also had some laundry to take care of before  I picked her up at the train station. 

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Around 1 pm, I put laundry into the washer, and started my process of getting ready to go out.  By 3:30 pm, my laundry was done and I was ready to go out.  At 4:30, I picked up RQS at the station, and we drove to Chappaqua for dinner - French Food on the last Friday of Restaurant Week.  It was a good thing we got there when we did, as the place was empty when we got there, but getting full by the time we left. The food was very good, but I made one mistake in my choices: I chose the wrong liquid in which my mussels were prepared.  I chose the white wine sauce, when I had a craving for something like the Dijon mustard sauce.

Once we were done with dinner, we went to the supermarket to do some shopping.  And finally we were home for the night.  It was nice to take off my bra again.  RQS will never understand why I want the headaches of being female, but then, how many people understand us TGs?