The only reason I got dressed was to shovel out my car (a short post)

 

It is the last weekend of the year, and several inches of snow fell last night.  There was only one reason for me to get dressed - to move my car, so that the plow could clear the spot.  Luckily, I had parked my car in a visitor's spot the night before, so I only had to brush off the car, scrape the windshield a little, and move the car back to my already plowed packing space.

When I came back inside, RQS wondered whether I had even started the process of cleaning off the car.  And I was getting ready to get undressed to be able to relax for the rest of the day.  And rest we did, watching several movies and videos on the TV, making excuses not to do some laundry. Yet, we finally took care of that task around 3:30 pm.

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Snow days are common at this time of year, and I cherished the forced relaxation time we get on these days.  Yes, we will do laundry on these days when at my home.  But I can often stay in my jammies for much of the day.

One thing I've noticed is that I am slowing down.  Getting older is a drag, but the alternative would be far worse right now. For everything, there is a time and a season.  Right now it's winter outside, and I see that stage coming in my life.  And I'm comfortable with that.

Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the house....

 

Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the house....

Well, the stores were all stirring with people returning gifts, and those shopping for food in advance of the oncoming snowstorm.

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RQS and I knew we had to go out to get some food before the snow started, and we didn't get out early enough to get a lot of things done.  I decided to go out as Mario today, as there was no sense in presenting as Marian on a day where I might need to present my legal ID.

Our first place to stop was the local BJ's.  However, the parking lot was too crowded for us to risk spending time there to return an item I bought before Christmas.  (I can return the item as soon as I shovel out my car after the snowstorm ends.)  And then, it was off to Trader Joe's - a place much more crowded than usual, noted by both the numbers of shopping carts in use and by the lines of people waiting on line to pay for the food in their carts.

Next, was a stop at the drug store.  I was supposed to pick up a prescription for a GLP-1 drug.  However, when I saw the price of the drug ($510 for a low dose), I decided NOT to buy it.  I'll discuss this with my doctor when I see him in January.  There is no way that I'm going to spend that much of my after tax money on a drug which may aggravate other problems I have with my body - and I'm referring to my GI Tract.

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When I got home, I checked the prices for GLP-1 drugs on my plan, and they are insane.  Unless the price drops significantly, I will not bother with these drugs,  RQS wanted to suggest a few things, but I knew that having her try to help when I'm not ready for help would make things worse.  Thankfully, she knows how to read me well enough to let me process things if I cut her off.  Our communication style and skills may not be perfect, but we are lucky to be able to air things out before they fester and make things worse.

A snowy weekend - and I left my car at home.

 

I had planned to be with RQS this weekend, but this put me at risk of getting fined by my co-op.  By the time I would get home, I expected to clear off 7" of snow from my car and possibly get dinged with a fine from my co-op.

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Friday started with laundry - 3 loads of it.  By the time I was packed, out the door, and on my way to RQS's place, it was 2-3 hours later than expected.  I didn't make it to RQS's place until 7:30 pm.  Luckily, she had already started to cook dinner when I left the subway and transferred to the bus to her house. The rest of the evening wasn't that exciting.  We fell into our usual routine and watched a couple of movies before felling asleep.

Saturday came, and with it, the exterminator.  Each month, the exterminator is scheduled to take care of RQS's building, and today was the day.  Once his visit was over, it was off to the library to drop off some books, and then to one of our go-to restaurants for a bite to eat.  They were about to close, so we decided to get this food to-go and eat it at home.

Around 7 pm, the snow started to fall and I knew we were in for the night.  Although we weren't planning on doing anything this evening, it made me feel a little worried - if I didn't get home early enough on Sunday, I could have some problems with my co-op.  As they say, "the die is cast", and I would deal with things after getting home.

Sunday came, and there was less snow on the ground than expected.  Even with this, I figured that I should leave RQS's place a bit early, so that I could shovel out my car in daylight and move it back into my assigned spot.  This way, the co-op has less of an opportunity to ding me for not getting my car into the street so that the driveways could be cleared.  I left RQS around 1 pm, and made it to Grand Central in the nick of time to make the 1:50 train to Croton.  By 3:00 pm, I was home, and had a chance to finish this post before shoveling some snow....

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On other matters....

It looks like the Orange Snowflake is trying to put the LGBTIQ community back in the closet.  (Not that we didn't know this already.)  We've seen him give executive orders to (fr now) make it impossible to get a gender marker changed on federal documents, as well as erasing any statistics that refer to LGBTIQ's from federal websites.  This is the first step among many in which he intends to hurt us.

Why do I mention this?

Stalin made sure that no statistics were kept for his reign of terror.  It is estimated that 28 million people lost their lives in the gulags while he was in power.  We may not be able to stop the Snowflake from deleting our history for now.  But we can throw a wrench into his plans in regard to another at risk group - the illegal immigrants.  How, you may ask?  Get congress to act by requiring that accurate statistics be kept.  The public has a right to know how much the Snowflake's removal efforts are costing, as well as being able to know how many illegals of each category are being removed.  The more data we have, the more tools we can have to force congress to act when the time is right.

Right now, GOP members of the house and senate are afraid of losing power.  What they don't know is by surrendering their chambers' powers to the Snowflake and the SA Nazi (Musk), they are surrendering their own power and won't get it back.  We've seen this happen before.  But now, we can take a different path of activism.  Lawsuits can be filed in friendly federal courts, and slow down the march to tyranny.  I suggest that everyone buy copies of On Tyranny, and How Democracies Die to understand what is going on, and how we can cause the Snowflake some grief.

By the time you read this, I'll be back from my cruise.

 

I've been alluding to this cruise for a while.  However, for purposes of safety, I didn't want to start talking about it until I returned.

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When we booked this cruise, I was thinking of how RQS and I could spend some time together in a warm climate, while I presented as Marian for a few days.  Over time, we settled on the above 10 day cruise.  But the idea of me spending time as Marian went by the wayside, as I couldn't get information from the DR regarding whether I'd have problems with a gender presentation which conflicts with my legal ID.  In addition, we had a snowstorm the weekend before we left, followed by sub freezing temperatures until the day we were to board the ship.

After the holiday season, the thing I wanted to do most was to hunker down inside for a few months and come out of hibernation when spring comes.  Instead, I ended up having to plan for a trip I wasn't completely excited about taking.  About the only thing that interested me about this trip was the possibility of visiting historic sites in San Juan, something which was impossible when I made port there on an NCL cruise which arrived after 4 pm.

As I've mentioned in this and my other blog, I am not a fan of cruise lines "hot docking" their ships, so that multiple ships can be in port on the same day.  I feel that this is a disservice to cruisers, as one is often unable to have a chance to properly enjoy a port. In fact, I chose an Alaska cruise with one of my criteria being whether the ship spent a full day in each of the Alaskan ports where the ship docked.  Our January cruise does not "hot dock" at any of its ports, but it will spend 6 days at sea (including Embarkation day) on a 10-day cruise.  We made a trade-off to have full port days and extra days at sea to have our 10-day getaway.

Given that we are sailing on MSC in a sub-optimal inside cabin below the entrance to the buffet, I expect that we'll have to deal with noise coming from the deck above. Neither RQS nor I are impressed by the quality of MSC's entertainment.  Yet, it is good enough for us to have considered sailing the line again.  The same goes for the food.  Unlike what we got used to on Princess and NCL, MSC's specialty dinner package offerings do not give the same bang per buck. On this trip, we opted NOT to buy specialty meal packages in advance and to enjoy the food served in the main dining room, with the possible exception of going to the on-board taco joint..

MSC is a line known for low priced cruising.  It also has some of the most reasonably priced shore excursions compared with similar excursions offered by NCL  Both RQS and I feel that NCL's excursions have been excessively marked up by the cruise line.  Contrast this with MSC, where we get good excursions at a very reasonable price.  On our past Bermuda cruises, NCL was charging $140 for a tour that visited the Crystal Caves, while MSC charged $80 for a similar experience.  (I may be comparing apples to pears here, as NCL offered an extra stop on its tour.)  Yes, MSC does a quite bit of nickel-diming, but in general one will get decent value for money spent.

While I'm cruising, I'll be writing posts about the cruise that you'll be seeing here over the next few days. Hopefully, you will enjoy our exploits.  One thing I am certain to do will be to ask the people at the pier whether "My Sister" (as I refer to myself when presenting as Mario) will have trouble at the port if she presents as Marian, but presents Mario's ID.  (It worked in Bermuda, why not elsewhere?)

Thank god for computerized fraud detection!

 

This is another short post, as I am tired and have to get up early in the morning to avoid an incoming snowstorm.  As I write this, I just got back to RQS's place after seeing a Broadway Play (more on that tomorrow), just in time for SNL's Weekend Update.  And shortly afterwards, RQS and I plan to go to bed, so that I can start getting up around 7 am.

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The highlight/low light of the day was figuring out how I will deal with the inability to use a now compromised credit card.A new card (with new account number) would be sent to me, but not before my upcoming cruise.  This will force me to spend a couple of hours updating the credit cards for all of my regular payments such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Uber, etc. once I'm home.  One doesn't realize how many places where one uses a card for payments until one thinks of all the subscriptions and stored payment information that uses a selected account.

If the weather prediction wasn't for snow, I'd have planned on taking my time to go home.  Instead, I'll have to rush home and start on fixing things.  Keep your fingers crossed that no more accounts have been compromised.