Lunch with TCL, with a home without internet or cable

 

Recently, I celebrated by ##'th birthday.  Today, TCL and I scheduled lunch together at a local (for her) restaurant to celebrate.  Sadly, this meant that I'd be dressing as Mario for the next 3 days.

But first....

As usual for a Monday, I dropped RQS off at the train station for her ride home  On the way to get a quick buttered roll at the local deli, I noticed the following:

Guess what's coming to town?   

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Once I had my buttered roll in hand, it was off to TCL's place.  It took less time than expected, and I had to kill time before pulling in to TCL's driveway.  TCL asked me to bring something small and light into her house.  The place reeked of cat!  I'm glad I don't visit that often.  I was glad to be able to get back into the car and drive to the new Italian joint in town. Both of us wanted to try the new place, but we found it underwhelming.  The food was good, but the portions were small.  We'll likely end up going to the "usual" hang out next time.  And then I drove TCL back home. 

I decided to take the Bear Mountain Bridge home, as I expected fewer traffic jams going North, instead of going East.  Although the road was detoured due to a washout,  it didn't take much longer to get to the bridge than it usually does.  And then, it was the "Goat Path" to Peekskill, a 5 minute drive to the library to pick up a book on hold, and a 5 minute trip to the supermarket to pick up food for the week.

Once home, I started on this blog - and then the internet went out for a couple of hours.  There went the Zoom with my Texas friends.  But I didn't want to try to stay awake for them and not be at the top of my game.  So, I sent a message to say that I've postponed things until next week due to an internet outage, and then I tethered my main computer to my phone to catch up on things. 

 

 

A mess to clean, a lunch to enjoy, and some laundry to wash

 

My apartment has always been in one degree of mess or another.  One can say that I've drowned in clutter over the years, and have come out of it with varying degrees of clutter removed from the mess.  Today, I have to clean up some of the mess, meet CCS for lunch, and do some laundry.

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This morning, I was supposed to have a zoom with my niece in London.  I really wasn't in the mood to rush a conversation, nor was I in the mood to be talking too much, when I had a lunch engagement 30 minutes later with CCS.  So, I asked my niece to postpone for a week, and that worked for both of us.

Next, it was getting ready to pick CCS up.  She had some work done on her arm, and she is not able to drive while the arm heals.  So I had to put her address into my phone's GPS so that I could find her place. Once I picked her up, it was off to the restaurant for lunch.  We caught up on a lot of things, the disposition of family autos, her upcoming cruise, the sale of my family homestead and more.  it was a good conversation that had to end too soon.  So, I dropped her off at her place, and rushed back home for an urgently nee bio-break.

When I had the chance, I opened up a package from Kohl's - a new dress had arrived.  I wasn't sure if a 3x would fit me, but it did - the waist wasn't as tight as it could have been on me.  And it will be a very comfortable addition to my wardrobe for this summer.

I ended up taking a nap and woke up as the sun was setting.  Knowing that I was in for the night, I stripped off my makeup and finally prepared to do some laundry.  It was nice to get out as Marian again, and I hope to be able to finally get my nails done soon....

 

 

A visit to the doctor and a zoom with the girls.

 

Although my doctor only sees me looking like the image on the left, my Texas friends have only seen me looking like the image on the right. Today was a half-and-half day for me, and I hated looking like the fellow on the left when I'd rather look like the "girl" on the left.  But then, Alfred, like Bugs Bunny was not afraid of putting on a dress when it is called for.

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Today started with me not getting enough sleep overnight.  I was running on 3-4 hours of sleep when I woke up, and it didn't make sense for me to go back to sleep before going to the doctor's office at 9:45 am.  As expected, the doctor was running a little late, and I could have arrived at 10 am without losing any time.  However, with this visit, I saw my doctor relatively quickly (for him) and had the chance to tell him about the problem I've been having with my leg and the problem I've been having with my GI-Tract.  

With the doctor's visit out of the way, I got a bite to eat and went home to take a nap.  Even though I woke up around 1:00 pm/1:30 pm or so, I didn't bother going out again before the zoom meeting with my Texas friends.  This was just as well, as I had some co-op business dropped on my lap, and I had to sign a document which would allow us to start negotiating the final cost for something previously required by our bank.

Around 7:00 pm, I got dressed as Marian and prepared to start the zoom around 8:00 pm.  Now, I wasn't in the mood to talk a lot, as I was still tired.  But I wasn't going to cancel things for tonight, as I don't want to get into that habit.  My Texas friends came on first, followed by RQS.  We caught up on what is going on in each others' lives, and the zoom lasted longer than usual.  Around 10:20 pm, we ended the meeting, and I went out to CVS to pick up some stuff.  While driving, I made my nightly call to RQS and we caught up on each other's day.  I mentioned to RQS that when I mentioned the possibility of our friends visiting NYC, that it wasn't shot down out of hand.  RQS noticed it too.  But I'd rather see them in a city like Chicago, Philadelphia or Boston, where all of us would have to travel to get there.

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All in all, this wasn't as bad a day as it could have been.  If a friend didn't cancel dinner for tonight, I'd have had no emotional energy left to enjoy the zoom with our friends.  So, things worked out for the best after all.