The best part of the day was doing the laundry

 

 

Years ago, this storefront was where the Whine and Dine meetup group used to meet.  Since then, the restaurant has closed, the meetup group shut down, and the owner moved to Texas to live a new life.  Why do I bring this up?  To answer this, I go back to the old phrase: "This too shall pass."

- - - - - -

Virtually everything now is being affected by the pandemic - even though we have a vaccine which will be available to most of us in the spring.  Most of us have 4 to 6 months before we are able to get vaccinated, and we will have one last season of being shut in our homes before we start the process of living lives that resemble the "normal" we remember from 2019. But those 4 to 6 months are a long way away, and the positive infection rates in New York are about 5% of all those people being tested for Covid-19 infection. 

Recently, several get-togethers I scheduled with some people have had to be postponed because of Covid-19.  First, I was supposed to meet with JM for a walk.  One of her friends that she met up with could have gotten infected, so JM waited until the results of her friend's Covid-19 test came in before risking new contacts with her friends.  Over the weekend, FL was in contact with two people, both of whom tested positive.  So FL cancelled dinner with me, and went to be tested for infection.  If she tests negative twice, then we will get together for dinner one week later than planned.

TCL and I try to talk with each other every day.  It's our way of making sure that there is someone there looking out for each other on a regular basis.  She's looking to adopt a new cat (or two) and I hope she finds one (or two) she likes.  As for me, I don't have that much to say in our conversations.  But the pandemic has affected both of us, as she is very concerned about letting anyone into her house.  Minor house repairs are being delayed, as she doesn't even want a handyman inside her house.  And I can't blame her.

Everyone I know is affected by the pandemic, and it looks like I'll soon have to become a hermit as well.  Now that people are retreating indoors, the high point of today became doing the laundry - as this got me out of my apartment for a while.  After a dinner with Vicki and shopping with FH over the weekend, I doubt that many people will be comfortable meeting with others inside their houses or indoors at a restaurant.  

As I try to remind myself, "This too shall pass."

 

 

More reports from the dating front - printer problems & someone overly inquisitive.

 

I figure that once someone wants to break up with me, that I should take her at her word.  Last year, my then girlfriend broke things off - and it hurt me much more than expected.  Our after-breakup dispute caused us to say and do things that hurt each other, ruining what should have developed into a solid friendship.  I'll always feel sorry about that.

Why do I mention this?

Well, FH is a nice woman.  But I think she's uncomfortable trusting me.  No, I'm not talking about dealing with my dual-gender life, though that is an issue. But it is something much more mundane - trusting me to know what I'm doing, when I don't know all of the details about what I'm doing.  Without a certain amount of trust in the person, neither a friendship or a romantic relationship can work for long.  But for now, it seems that we are filling each other's needs.

The other day, I was over FH's place, and she asked me to figure out what was wrong with her printer.  Details that should be coming in as solid black were being printed in a bluish gray.  Since she had replaced all 4 of the print cartridges a couple of weeks before, I had my doubts of whether a new print cartridge was needed. And if it was, I had to make sure which cartridge needed to be replaced, as color printing is an "additive process" and I didn't want to buy a new cartridge unless it was really needed.

When I started my diagnostic process on the printer, I was getting a little flak from both mother and daughter.  The error message they saw said that toner was needed.   Yet, the printer status reported that the black toner was at the 95% level.  FH overly depends on her daughter for anything related to technology.  In several ways, she's training her daughter to be the "man around the house", letting the daughter take the lead in things such setting up computers, assembling "kit" furniture, etc., when I feel that FH should have been using these opportunities to show some grit around her daughter instead of indulging her. (At times, the daughter seems to be 21 going on 15.)   So mother and daughter argued about whether they should buy more toner, while I wanted a little bit of peace to figure out what was really going on.  As a result, I was using my call phone the way people might use a fidget spinner - a distraction to keep from focusing on something frustrating me.

Once I finally started to make some progress, seeing what was really going on, I decided to find the printer's manual, and read an online copy.  In that copy, I found a section related to printer calibration.  So I decided to run that process, as they had installed new toner cartridges 2 weeks before.  About 5 minutes later, we were able to print a document - and the black areas printed as black areas, without a touch of the blue/gray print we saw before.  

Now that I was done, FH was very thankful.  Unfortunately, it was time to leave, and it was back to Croton for the night. 

- - - - - -

Before Thanksgiving, I "Swiped Right" on a woman in New Jersey.  I made the mistake of responding to her direct message.  She peppered me with questions, some I answered and others I didn't.  Overall, I got a very bad feeling about this woman.  She mentioned that black men seem to be very loving.  (So, what?  I identify as White, though I have Black ancestors from over 100 years ago.) Then, she peppered me with questions that she had no right to be asking at such an early stage of knowing each other. Add to this, she wanted my FB information (which I wasn't going to give), and it felt that she was trying to set her hook into someone who had a few extra bucks. She wanted to rush into a video chat, and yet, when I mentioned Zoom, she didn't bite.  Something was very far off. Once I found out that she had 4 rental properties in the Philippines, warning lights came on for me.  She may have lost her family's prior American "Sugar Daddy", and saw me as a potential mark.  Once I saw her using the English language in a very flawed manner, I knew that something was very wrong.  So, I unmatched her, and let her move onto another mark.

- - - - - -

As you can guess, there are other women with whom I communicate.  Until the pandemic lifts, I will have a hard time meeting any of them.  But if I do meet them and things work out, I'll be sure to let them know about my female side earlier, not later, in the developing relationship process. 

 

Sometimes, I like to find diamonds in the rough.

 

The above picture is one of many from a stock photo collection once issued by Corel on CD-Rom.  They didn't know the value of these photos when they sold the CDs, and now sell use of these photos on an image by image basis.  If I had known how pretty many of these images are, I'd have dropped a wad of cash and bought a complete set of 200 CDs.

 

These pictures seem to have been shot on the best of old Kodak film stock.  They have the warmth that today's photos often do not have.  (The images were saved in an obsolete format, and had to be converted to JPG.  As a result, they may need color correction that I won't bother with for my blog.)

Given that it has been the better part of 20+ years since I bought these disks, it will be hard to find individual disks I am interested in owning, such as for New York City, Washington, DC, and America's national parks.  So, if you know someone who still owns these disks and wants to sell them, please let me know.

All I want for Christmas

 

I have to be realistic about romance and me.  I'm a failure at love.  You could blame it on my bi-gendered nature.  You could explain it away from attachment issues from childhood.  You could just say that I'm selfish.  No matter what is the root cause, I've loved and lost way too often.

Fortune granted me 11 years with my late wife.  She was no saint, but I would like to think that she could have accepted me for who and what I am now.  However, could I have accepted what she was while becoming a more mature adult?  I'm not sure.  Over the years since then, I've dated a string of women - with no long term success.  Most recently, I was in a relationship for 5 years, and failed at that as well - in part, because of who and what I am.

My Christmas wish is simple - to find a lasting love, and to be able to show her I really care.  What is your Christmas wish?

The high point of my day was dinner

 

I won't go into too much about today.  My ex and I had an interesting exchange of emails.  And thought it brought up feelings in me (and probably in her), it was a productive exchange that will likely continue over time.  What's more important is that I had dinner with Vicki tonight.  Although I can call on her for help, I always have to remember that she is a married women, and has only limited time for me.  

Vicki has a positive accomplishment of note - she has been able to lose enough weight to switch herself into the category of "overweight" from "obese".  I must relearn how, how much, and what to eat, so that I can also lose my excess weight.  It will be hard for me, given that I eat out all too often.  But with the pandemic and winter coming, I'll bet that we will soon have the same shutdowns that plagued us this spring.  However, I think that this time, most businesses will be allowed to stay open, as we can't afford the social safety net needed to keep people home and keep people and businesses solvent. So, without the excuses to eat out, I may just be successful in my attempt to lose weight.

 

 

 

 

Something to be thankful for, but....

 

What can I say about this Thanksgiving? It certainly wasn't what I would have wanted or planned. Yet, I am thankful for it....

Without going into all the other options that didn't pan out, there was one option that opened up to me too late for me to say "yes".  But I'd have rather this option had not opened up.  My friend, TCL, had invited one of her friends over to have a Thanksgiving meal with her at a local restaurant.  This gentleman is a little bit of a flake at times, but TCL made sure that I understood that her friend had a very good reason to skip the meal - he had to be admitted into the local hospital.  Although I can't go into any more details, TCL was able to show me that his situation was serious, and that he needed immediate treatment and care.  I wish I could have then said yes to TCL, but I already had plans with FH and didn't want to break them.

Many people might not have known that Boston Market was open (in a limited way) for Thanksgiving.  People had a very limited choice of meals, as the stores were doing Thanksgiving Feasts to go. Lines stretched out the doors, and out to the back of the stores. Yet, they moved quickly, as evidenced by the one I was on.  After picking up 3 meals (1 each for FH, her daughter, and me), I was off to Forest Hills for dinner.

Once I reached Queens, I decided to look for plastic utensils, so that we didn't need to clean up anything. I ended up driving through Flushing, and the area is even more built up and more like a part of Asia than I remember it being.  (The heart of Flushing is one of New York's newer Chinatowns, and I wanted to see what has changed since I was there last.)  Eventually, I made it to FH's place, and I was extremely lucky to find a place in front of her door.  Even more so, I was lucky that the door was open to her building, since both the doorman was on duty AND that the temperature was in the 60s when I arrived.

Even though I bought 3 meals, the only thing FH's daughter wanted to eat was the Mac & Cheese bowl I picked up.  The girl (she's 21) is a very picky person, and didn't even want to eat anything else on the table.  Once dinner was complete, FH and I went to her cousin's house for an outdoors holiday chat, and I eventually dropped her off at her place a little before 9 pm.

Would I have chosen this day, knowing how things would be?  Probably not.  But I am grateful that FH is comfortable introducing me to her cousin and his daughter. And I am grateful that I had this place to be on Thanksgiving, a holiday I could have easily spent alone and depressed.

 

 

Exchanging emails, a helpful lunch, zooming with Texas, and another lost friend.

 

Well, I had an exchange of emails with the ex, and I found out that either the leader doesn't want me at the meetup, or that the ex doesn't really want me there.  I have learned to distrust anomalous situations.  However, something good came of this exchange - we said a lot more in the exchange than we said when we were together.  No, I won't go into details here, but let's say that our problems were set in motion by a clash in communication styles, a few mistakes from me, and fear on her part.  I can easily say that if we understood each other's methods of communication, we'd have been able to be friends. But I have many doubts that this is possible, as I feel that she is still holding in way too much anger towards me to risk having that friendship.  So this put my mood for the day into a "down" mode, and I was glad I had lunch with a friend coming up.

There are only a handful of times that I have ever felt so down when someone leaves my life. And it always has been a woman who triggers this depressed feeling.  The ex triggered it last year, and it still plagues me.  Today was a day I needed to talk with someone, and FL was my scheduled lunch date.  She made me feel a lot better, telling me two things of note.  First, she noted that many women are socialized to be excessively nice, and do not stand up for themselves in ways that men will understand.  As a result, when women finally get to the point where they can't stand something, men have totally misread their mates and the women are ready to exit. (It doesn't help that many men don't know how to restrain themselves physically. But that's another issue - and I'll side with women here.)  This was likely the case with the ex and me.  Second, she gave me a clue of how I should bring up my bi-gender nature with a new woman, noting how what I said to her caused her to have issues. (I won't go into this here and now.  Maybe I will at some future date.)  I'm grateful that she wants to be a good friend.

Later on, I had my Zoom meeting with the folks from Texas.  There were only the three of us ladies on the line, and we had a good chat.  I couldn't help but to note my depressed state, and I was glad that these two women were there for me.  

- - - - -

You may wonder why I didn't call Vicki today, when I really needed to be with and talk with friends.  First, she's the type of close friend who I can call on for almost anything.  But I can't call on her often.  She'd be upset at me if I were to mention the ex, as Vicki feels that the ex is playing a game with me.  And she could be right.  I wonder what will happen in the other meetup groups next year when Covid-19 is "extinguished."  I'll deal with that problem when it comes.

Sometime soon, I expect another email from the ex which will trigger more feelings in me.  However, I hope I made her think about some things - not to cause her grief.  Instead, to trigger some introspection, in order to see that we both screwed up big time in the last year we were together.  As much as Vicki would tell me to run away, I wouldn't mind finding a way to have a friendship with the ex.  (I'd hate to feel that extreme sense of loss again, especially twice triggered by the same woman.)

- - - - - -

On other matters, I have been trying to find a close friend who has totally gone off the grid. WDS was my best man at my wedding, and I was there for him when his wife died. Even after a few years of not seeing each other, when he found out that I got a new job, he gifted me a top of the line iPad. We emailed each other every few months, and last communicated in May. Well, I tried to reach him by email several times, and no response.  Given that we are living in the age of the pandemic, I have grown very concerned for him. So I read through our past emails, and found the name of someone who helped him Agility train his dog. And I sent an email to this person (after doing a Google search for her), asking if she knows how to contact him.  Hopefully, I'll be able to locate him, alive and kicking.  Given that he lives in Florida (a high Covid-19 infection rate state) and that he has a minimal traceable presence, it would be nice if this person can give me a phone number, or tell me what happened to him.  I'd hate to find out that I lost another friend, and that he left no instructions to contact people like me.

 

PS:  He finally responded to my email.  In the past, he'd respond quickly.  After my follow up, I asked for his phone number.  No reply yet on that request.