I had two things on my docket for today, and I almost forgot the one I wanted to take care of the most....
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When I got up this morning, I didn't feel fully rested. Instead, I felt like a battery that was charged to 90% of capacity, but needed a little more juice to bring myself to full alertness. For a change, I awakened before 7:00, and was out of the bed for the day before 8:00. If my 7 hours of sleep could be counted from the time I put my CPAP mask on, I'd have had a full night's sleep. But I didn't start falling out until 1:30 or so, and that was reflected in how I felt.
Taking it easy all day, I didn't start to get ready to do a volunteer stint at the LGBT center until 2:00. This meant that I'd get to the center around 3:30 for my shift. And today, my tasks were a little more interesting than usual (but not much). First, I had to do a Powerpoint slide, a flyer and a couple of calendar updates for an LGBT related movie to be shown next month at a community theater. Once done with that, I checked all of the LGBT Center's resource website links, making sure that their site contains only validated links. This took up the better part of my 2 hours there. And then the alarm pop-up came on my phone - I had a meetup scheduled in Southport, Ct. for dinner - OOPS! I almost forgot that!!!. So I walked over to my car, started to play some tunes, and off to dinner I went.
When traffic is running smoothly, driving from White Plains to Southport takes about 35 minutes. However, if one is dealing with rush hour traffic, the drive can take 3 times as long. Tonight's drive took only twice as long - and I got to the restaurant shortly after 7:00. I remembered this restaurant's location from years ago. It is the former site of the Southport Brewing Company, a brewpub that an ex-girlfriend and I used to frequent a few years ago.
Parking my car and entering the restaurant, I noticed that there were no seats available at the table in the background of the above picture (where the meetup's hostess was sitting). So I sat down with the ladies at the table in the above picture. It was a pleasure being treated as one of the ladies, and even more of a pleasure when the hostess came over and greeted me very warmly. (If I were presenting as a male, I'd interpret this woman's physically warm greeting very differently. But I digress.) She makes me feel that it is worth the effort to come to this group's meetings, as I know she remembers how long it's been since I've been around to one of the group's meetups.
Service at the restaurant was very slow. We didn't have our orders taken until 8:00, and didn't even have food until 8:45 or so. For a busy night (this was Fairfield County Restaurant Week), they didn't staff the place well. And by the time we were finished with dinner and paying our checks, it was coming on 9:45. Even our hostess was unimpressed with the place, and will likely never schedule another dinner there in the future.
Leaving the restaurant at 10:00, I called GFJ for the ride home, and we chatted for the next hour. As much as neither of us had a lot to say, it was good to know that there was someone on the other end of the line who cares for me, someone to keep me company on a boring drive home. She is the reason why I said in one email: "There are some things I want more than transition." Hopefully, GFJ knows that our relationship is that important to me....
