I brought TCL and RQS together for the first time - a short post

 

No, that is not RQS next to me.  Instead, this strong, silent critter  just made me want to show some affection for someone who is a little different.

But to be serious....

I've been trying to get TCL and RQS in the same place for a while.  But circumstances never permitted it.  Recently, I was able to schedule a shopping trip to New Jersey to take care of some errands for RQS, and then meet up with TCL afterwards to chat.  However, I had to make sure that I was presenting as a male 😞 for this meeting to happen.

First, RQS and I went to the pet store to buy some "pill pockets" for use this coming week when we planned to take one cat to the vet for its periodic fur removal. After that, it was off to Home Depot to get some blinds for her apartment. And then it was off to Dunkin Donuts to meet with TCL for coffee. Who knew that we'd be chatting for over 2 hours, until the shop had to close.  Now, RQS has seen TCL and understands how she can ramble on and on at times.  (I do it too, and have to watch out for when I do so.)

Later on, I received a text from TCL - she loves RQS and sees how and why we get along.  I'm sure that the two of us will be seeing her again soon.

Slow cooking some ribs - a short post

 

Ribs!  Yum!

The other day, I saw a rack of vacuum packed ribs selling for a reasonable price.  So, I figured that I might have some fun with the slow cooker and have some "fall off the bone" good stuff for dinner tonight.  Since RQS was coming up, I didn't want to waste much time preparing the ribs and dealing with my oven.  (The less I use my oven when the weather is warm, the more comfortable my apartment will be.)  So, I took my crock pot off the shelf, cleaned it up, and started to prepare the ribs.

Slow cooker ribs are reasonably easy to prepare.  I do them in a simple way:

1. Take a full rack of ribs and cut them up into portions of 3-4 ribs each.
2. Pour a full bottle of BBQ sauce (whatever type I like and have in hand) and pour it in the pot.
3. Place the ribs in the pot, making sure all are covered by the sauce.
4. Turn the crock pot on high, and let it cook the ribs for 5 hours.
   Note: One may want to adjust the ribs occasionally to keep them all submerged.
   

If I want to further caramelize the ribs, I may place the ribs on a ridged stove-top grill and cook them a little more on the stove.  But I usually don't bother doing this, as I like the results fresh out of the pot.

Is there a better way to celebrate the unofficial start of summer with Ribs?   If there is, I'll enjoy it later on.... 

Meeting up with a friend from the Census

 

When the above restaurant was split between two strip malls, as single slice pizza joint in one site, and a sit-down restaurant in the other site, I would always avoid going to the sit-down place when presenting as a female as I was a regular there in male mode.  However, when they consolidated operations in this place, they stopped serving slices and became a more classy, but casual, sit-down restaurant. The old staff went on to establish and manage other places, leaving this place open for me to be a regular while presenting as a female.

I met my friend while working the 2020 census, and we both had stories to tell each other.  No, I can't say that our stories were that exciting.  But we saw each other as peers, people with whom conversation flowed freely. And we kept in contact after our terms at the census ended. Although I can't say we're close (we don't reveal the types of intimate secrets that most women share), we have shared things that we don't want certain people to know. Both of us will soon be doing some distance travel, me to take a cruise and my friend to go to a wedding.  We'll have things to share when we get together next month. 

But why is this important?

Although it is harder for many trans people of my age to make friends because of learned prejudice, it is not impossible.  Many foreign born and younger people have fewer prejudices against us because, as I see it, they are also people trying to make their way in our American culture.  Hopefully, other trans people will successfully find their ways, not giving up on things....

Another night of Drag Queen Bingo

Drag queen bingo.  It's not my normal cup of tea.  But it was part of a mid-week meetup, and I had nothing better to do this evening.  Given that there were 6 of us ladies there (myself included), it was nice to get together for something mindless and entertaining.

Like a typical Hibachi dinner, once you've seen a drag queen's performance, you've seen it all.  There is very little variation in the performance from show to show. But, in small doses, it stays a pleasant diversion when you have nothing to do.  And I certainly had nothing to do today. I was bored, so I might as well get bored with friendly people. And what is it about these performances that I find so boring?  With Hibachi chefs, it is the limit to the routines they can do with food being cooked. With drag queen performances, it is excessive exaggeration combined with lame sexual jokes.  It gets boring when one sees the same performer repeat an act with little variation from performance to performance.

Yet, I consider myself lucky.  I live in a state which protects the right of a drag performer to put on a show.  This is very important to me, as we've already seen several states ban drag performances in the name of public decency.  Who is being harmed by drag queen story hours at the local library?  The children?  I doubt it.  I'd rather have my young child read to by a drag queen than be given religious instruction by a Catholic priest.  (Yes, I know that 99% and more of the ordained priests are people I can trust.  But, in the past, the church has protected that evil 1% and rotated pedophiles from parish to parish and kept them from being held to account in a non-religious court.)  I've never heard of any drag queens molesting children, but I have heard of religious leaders doing so.

If I'm back by the time of the next show, I may end up going again.  In my way, it is a form of support for these performers, letting them know that they are appreciated.  And I hope that more people will join me in supporting their right to perform their craft without interference from the state.

A cruising promotion watch-out

 

Although I have enjoyed my cruising with one cruise line, I am leery of booking my flights with that same cruise line after hearing complaints about their ticketing issues in several forums.  My experience with this line's air travel booking was merely acceptable, but it was not something which made me want to use this service again - even if it saves me money.

Today, I watched two travel agents discuss NCL's flight booking program, and realized that I got lucky with my flights to/from Hawaii.  If I had used NCL's hotline to get assistance when United scuttled the first leg of my flight to Honolulu, I might have missed the first day of my Hawaii cruisetour. This would have been a great disappointment, as I spent almost $9,000 to take this trip and would hate to lose a day in Hawaii due to a plane's mechanical failure.  Given that NCL will not guarantee that all passengers on a single booking will fly together, and that NCL has canceled tickets on the day of the flight, I will likely never use this service for myself again.

There are some travel agents that still consider NCL's "second person flies free" part of the "free at sea" promotion, and will consider this option for their clients. So it pays to understand what one gets as part of the promotion and what one doesn't get.  Although RQS and I will be taking an NCL cruise early next year, they will not be booking our flights.  I do not trust them to get the best value for us when we can't even choose which airport that we fly out of.  As I've mentioned, I live in Westchester county, and RQS lives in Queens.  It would be a hardship for us if our flight were booked to leave from Newark instead of La Guardia or JFK.  But NCL does not allow us to specify an airport if another airport is within 60 miles of where we live.

It's obvious that we'll be cruising with NCL again, as we already have two more cruises with NCL in the pipeline.  But, given the horror stories being reported in the NCL Facebook forums and now by prominent YouTube.com vloggers, I will no longer be taking my chances and letting NCL book my flights. 

 

Managing the contents of my closet

 

I'm one of those transgender women who love wearing dresses.  If I were born in a later generation, I'd likely want to wear different garments, as the cisgender women of my generation made their transition into preferring trouser-like garments years after I grew up.  In short, I modeled my clothing preferences on that of my mother, and I may always gravitate to those garments.

Unlike my mother, I enjoy wearing clothing with simple lines and strong colors.  Although I will wear patterns, I am more into solids - in either gender presentation. Although I have more patterned tops for when I present as male, it's only because these are the only tops available in my size. When presenting as a female, I prefer to let my costume jewelry do some of the talking. But I try never to over do it with  jewelry.

Over the years, I have bought way too many items of women's clothing, and I have had to purge some of these garments as they have gone out of style and no longer fit my needs.  Luckily, some charities have been beneficiaries of my purchases.  Today, I am gradually removing the cheaper garments from my closet, those garments which wore out quickly and were not meant to last.  In short, I'm trying to remove "fast fashion" from my wardrobe.

Shifting towards more sustainable fashion requires work.  Yes, I will continue to occasionally buy lower priced garments which I know will last a year or two. But I will not do this as often as I used to do it. (A gal's got to spruce up her wardrobe occasionally, doesn't she?)  The big question becomes: When I eventually get around to losing some weight, will my taste in women's clothing change and what will happen to my wardrobe when that happens?

A tempest in a teapot, but not without reason.

 

Transgender women in sports.  Much noise has been made regarding this topic, and much noise will continue to be made until we are accepted by society.  Yet, our detractors do have a point that must be addressed.  Without puberty blockers, trans women's bodies will develop differently than cisgender women, and the jury is out on whether this gives trans women an advantage in women's sports.

An article in science.org discusses World Athletics's decision to ban transgender athletes from competing in women's sports. The reason that many give is that there is not enough information on the advantage transgenders may have due to their atypical body development.  Yet, without being willing to gather that information, this becomes a "Catch-22" situation.  We have no data, so we won't collect that data.  AARGH!  Even cisgender females such as Caster Semenya are harmed by the athletic organizations, as she has a natural, but abnormal amount of testosterone in her system. And yet, most of the science-based discussions rightfully focus on fairness in competition, and not on a person being trans or not.

However, things seem to be very different in non-elite competitions, and this is where social prejudice sets in.  The "Redder" the state is, the more likely is it to have laws which hurt trans kids from participating in school sports.  Like their adult counterparts, trans children are the focus of communal hatred, as I believe these laws were passed to prevent trans kids from leaving the closet. But these bans conflict with Federal Title-IX laws, which are meant to give equal opportunity to all without regard to gender.  ESPN's website has an interesting article discussing how young trans athletes are getting caught in the debate on whether trans people should have the same rights as cisgender people - at least in sports.

In the end, "fairness" can never be a "one size fits all" policy.  We need to know how much of an advantage being transgender gives a person before and after puberty.  And we need to know where it doesn't give us an advantage.  So how do we get this information without competition?  Until the sports authorities are willing to collect this information, trans athletes will continue to be hurt as children and as adults.