Meeting with RQS's friends (a short post)

 

I wasn't originally in the mood to meet a couple of RQS's friends.  Not because I was against meeting them, but because the two of us would have to wake up early on a Saturday to do so.

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Getting up early is not something RQS and I do on weekends.  As I write this at 9:15 am, I've been out of bed for 30 minutes and RQS is still sawing wood.  I expect that the lumber mill will be running for another hour or so.  (But I still could be wrong.) So, we wouldn't have as much energy as many people do when starting the day.

After getting showered and dressed, we drove down to Yonkers to the Irish Coffee Shop for brunch with her friends.  The conversation flowed like water, and it allowed all of us to be open about things we might keep to ourselves under other circumstances (e.g. the presence of a parent who has strongly different political views.)  Given one of her friends' career choices was to help the transgender community, I decided to out myself, and was met with open arms.  

All too soon, brunch had to end.  We promised to meet again, then RQS and I went to Stew Leonard's for food shopping. $100 later, we were out the door and on our way home for the day.  Although we planned to go out again, we were in for the night. 

Someone is definitely interested in me, and....

Today, I took off from work to spend the day with FH.  Although I like her as a person, she would rub me the wrong way if she were anything more than a friend.  But first....

As usual, I didn't get much sleep the night before, and didn't become fully conscious until 10 am.  At that point, I knew that I would have to get ready to pick up FH in Yonkers, and then take a drive to see the changing leaves in the Hudson Valley.  I knew I was going to be a few minutes late, and texted FH.  However, she was much more delayed than I was, as she was 45 minutes late.  AARGH!  Luckily, we were able to start out on our day by 1:30 pm.

According to the New York State Fall Foliage guide, the Hudson Valley should not be at peak color, nor should most of the leaves have fallen.  The only place that FH noticed good color was along the Taconic Parkway going towards Red Hook.  From there, we doubled back to Rhinebeck, passing by the site of the Dutchess County Fairgrounds - where she was disappointed that the fair was over.  And then, it was over to Saugerties and Woodstock.  On this drive, the leaves had already fallen off most of the trees in the towns we passed through, when we expected them to be before their peak.

When we finally reached Woodstock, FH wanted to get pictures of herself.  Of course, I obliged her - we were in a scenic area, and she always tries to get her picture taken with pretty scenery as her background.   Once the obligatory pictures were taken, it was back to Woodstock where we spend 90 minutes walking around the town.

Once it started getting dark, we headed to New Paltz for dinner.  Along the way, she asked me about my dating life and why I'm seeing MWL.  How are the conversations on a par with what we have?  I had to finesse the question. She then asked about whether MWL knows about Marian.  I told her so, and mentioned that MWL has already met me in female mode.  In reality, FH was wondering why she wasn't my girlfriend and was fishing for a way to make that happen.  There was no way I was going to tell her about CWS at this point - CWS, so far, is on the same wavelength as I am in many ways.  After dinner, FH said that she'd take care of dinner as a way of thanking me for driving her home.

Dinner at Pho Tibet was uneventful. The food was tasty, the Pho was good, but I was unimpressed with their Momo Dumplings.  I'll be sure NOT to order them again.  Next time, I'll look for a better Vietnamese restaurant to go to.  (Too bad that I'm no longer in contact with one person - she'd know a good place to go to.)

 

PS: CWS was away this weekend.  Hopefully, our schedules will work out for us to get together again next weekend....

PPS: I spoke with Vicki about FH, and she felt that FH was merely looking for a "friend" who'd drive her places.  For the most part, I agree with her.  Yet, if I have nothing to do, it's nice to hang out with someone - even someone who is a user.

 

 

My arm was stuck again, and I'm feeling great ...so far

 

There is no way I'm going to post MY vaccination card online.  A completed card (unlike the one in the above photo) will note who gave you the shot, when the shot was given, which vaccine was used for the shot, and which lot number the shot came from.  In my case, I have given two doses of the Pfizer vaccine that were given at the Yonkers Armory, 3 weeks apart.  Soon, I'll be able to meet with some friends (already vaccinated) that I haven't seen in way too many months.

But first, I have to deal with going to work every morning, when I don't really want to get out of bed....  

 

Today started with me waking up later than usual.  I had told my boss that I'd be coming in after I'd been vaccinated, and this allowed me the luxury of getting up late.  And getting up at 8:30, instead of 6:00, was a great pleasure.  With a leisurely cup of coffee, I scanned my email and renewed my prescriptions.  

Instead of going to the office then going to get vaccinated, I took it easy and went straight to the vaccination site.  However, I was running a few minutes later than planned, so I decided to pick up something on the way to the office.  Unlike 3 weeks ago, I took the exact route that Google Maps' Navigation suggested.  But I knew that the return trip would be on a different route.  First, there was a lot of construction on the way down, and I didn't want to hit those traffic jams.  Second, I planned to pick up food at a local Mickey D's.  That didn't go as planned.  Instead, I ended up going to a Dunkin' Donuts for a totally forgettable breakfast sandwich.  At least, I got to work only 5 minutes later than planned.

After work, I stopped off at Target for a while, then went to Boston Market to pick up a "Buy One, Get One Free" dinner.  While on the way, TCL looked up the specifics of the offer - it applied only to Chicken based dinners.  Even then, they were still making a slight profit selling a whole chicken (2 half chicken dinners), with 2 sides for each dinner.

Arriving home, one of my neighbors called me looking to get in contact with the president of the co-op.  I don't know what she wanted, but I don't want her talking about me.  (I often forget to put my mask on upon entering a common space when getting home.)  Since our president has private phone numbers, I will not give them out.  Nor will I pass on the message.  Any complaints this woman has can go through our managing agent's site representative.

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Tomorrow is a day where I'm expected to show up at 8:00 am.  If I feel good, I'll go in.  If not, I'll take a needed rest....

It was a long day for me....

 

Today was a busy day for me. It was the last 8 hour day at the census.  It was a short visit with the folks from my Thursday night gaming sessions.  And it was dinner with Vicki.  By the time I got home, I was totally exhausted and unable to pay any attention to a book I was trying to read, or to the TV on in the background.

Starting off the day, I woke up before the alarm clock and proceeded to get ready for work.  This would be the last day I officially had to be on site by 7:00 am, and I knew I'd be exhausted all day. As usual, I arrived at the office a few minutes late (don't tell my boss), and proceeded to surf the web all day.

After a quick attempt at napping, I drove to Yonkers to see my game night friends for what be my only chance to see them until next spring. The visit was way too short, and if I didn't have dinner scheduled with Vicki, I'd have stayed until the sun went down. But 6:00 came way too soon, and dinner was scheduled for 7:30 in Mahopac.

Picking Vicki up around 7:00, we got to dinner on time.  However, it was a blessing that the restaurant wouldn't allow us to open the bottle of wine Vicki brought with her.  We chatted about many things over dinner, not discussing the elephant in the room: What do I do with FH and FL? How do I sort things out?  So, on the ride home, we finally chatted about that.

When we got to Vicki's house, we chatted about relationships, and I learned something about her and about myself.  Vicki has strong feelings about my ex-girlfriend, and tends to get into a lecturing session if the ex comes up.  I only wanted to reference her in context of the other two ladies, and it triggered something in Vicki.  But Vicki mentioned something in passing about someone we once knew - the fellow who introduced us said I was cheap, and the ex mentioned that in her "nastygram" to me on my birthday.  

Am I cheap?  Frugal yes, but I don't think excessively cheap.  I only wish I had a person who knew me well enough to give me honest and objective feedback.