I now wish I hadn't booked an upcoming cruise

 

Before anyone gets any wrong ideas, I am still looking forward to my cruise.  But the conditions which made me select this cruise at this time have changed, and I would have preferred to be taking a different cruise with RQS later in the year.

But first....

My uncle passed away last night.  After 91 years on this planet, it was time for his soul to depart his body and travel into the unknown - whatever that might be.  He lived a long and successful life, having won more than one industry awards in a highly competitive and visible industry.  (Let's just say that you might have seen him win one of his awards 50 years ago, or so.)  He was always there for his family when he was needed, and I'll always be grateful for the assistance he offered when my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Last year, I chose to take a California Coastal Cruise, as a fallback if my uncle wasn't up to being visited.  Sadly, he had severely damaged his hip the autumn before, and it never healed enough to allow him to walk again.  (He fell trying to take care of a wife who was suffering with dementia, when his wife should have already been placed into a care home.)  When we visited Los Angeles last June, he had just been told that he'd never walk again.  With everything going on in his life at that time, I made it a point to try and visit him again while he was still above ground.  Today, I got the news that I was about a week or two too late.

Right now, the person in charge of my uncle's affairs has not made any arrangements for my uncle's memorial service/gathering.  I likely will not be able to attend this service if held before mid May, as my prior commitments preclude making any trips.  And, even if I could attend, I will not know any of the people who would be attending this service/gathering, as they are all industry insiders.

At least, there is one good thing to come out of all of this.  I will not need to bring along any male garments for my upcoming trip. (I'm sure that my uncle would have found a way to write a humorous story about this if he wasn't the person in the casket....)

This weekend flew by way too quickly!

 

I'm not going to say too much about this past weekend, save that it flew by way too quickly!

Friday came, and I picked up RQS in Marian mode, as it would be the only day I'd be able to present as a female until next week.  After a night's rest, we decided to go out and see Ennio, the documentary about the great movie score writer, Ennio Morricone.  RQS used to make jokes about this man's name (nothing nasty, just cute), but now she knows how respected he is in the music world.  If you haven't had the chance to listen to this man's music, you must be living in an impermeable bubble.  From scores for "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" to "The Hateful Eight", Morricone has proven himself to be a composer in the same league as Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.  So, if you can, see this documentary - it will open your eyes to the greatness of this man in the world of music.

Sunday was very different, as we met TCL for dinner in her neighborhood.  Yum!  What more can I say?  Only one bad thing I can say - the restaurant isn't closer to me.  We could have chatted a bit longer, but all of us were getting tired after 2 1/2 hours of chatting at the restaurant.  All too quickly, Monday came, and RQS had to go home.  I accompanied her to Grand Central, then departed to pick up my taxes. Now, I don't have to worry about this task anymore.  Yet, I missed seeing the eclipse.  That's not such a bad thing, as I'll have 20 years to prepare for the next one.

I'm still cleaning out my old car - a quick post.

 

Right now,  my old car is sitting in my driveway.  The plates are off the car, and I'll soon be signing the paperwork needed to transfer the title to DCD.  Although I don't intend to clean out the car completely, I will take most of the next week to gradually get the rest of my crap out of the car, so that DCD can vacuum it out at his leisure.

I'll miss this car.  But I like the car I'm driving now.  It has quite a few miles before it gets mechanically old.  That's a good thing, as I don't want to have the car die on the road while I'm presenting as Marian.  (This happened with my PT Cruiser after 120k miles, and I didn't think it worth while to install a new transmission on a car that was worn out.)

In certain ways, a new car is like a new life.  Given that I have bloomed because I am out as Marian, I wanted a car that reflected my risk adverse nature and a car which I could enter and exit in a lady like fashion.  My new car allows me to do that.

A visit to Universal Standard, and then to Game Night

 

I try to go to game night every night our hosts invite us in to their home.  Sadly, I found out something about two of our regulars that I almost wish I didn't know.

But first....

A few days ago, I registered for an in-person shopping visit to Universal Standard.  Having been there for sample sales, I was prepared for almost anything.  Would the place be organized mayhem, such as it is when they hold a sample sale?  Or, would the place look like a normal store, with a little bit of everything to try on.  Today, things were much better than expected, as I was greeted with a glass of Proseco, and then the stylist asked me what I was looking for (mostly dresses).

When I go to Universal Standard's sample sales, I wear a unitard, over which I wear a shirtdress as a duster.  This way, I can take off the top layer and be able to try on clothes without other women seeing that I am wearing falsies.  I could have avoided the headaches of doing so today, as I had a dressing room all to myself.  Given this unexpected luxury, I stripped off the unitard, and got dressed in several of the outfits selected for me.  (I wish I could have taken pictures of me in each outfit.)

The first of these outfits was a white shirt with linen pants with a stretch waistband in aqua..  If the shirt were a little longer, I might have bought this outfit.  But, if my "tucking" comes undone, I don't want my pants to give away what genitalia I possess.  (I still may consider it in the future, but not right now.)  Next was a Polo shirtdress in "Botanic" (think of a rich forest green).  It looked and felt good on me.   But I didn't feel like dropping $138 for this dress right now.  After this came two items that wouldn't work on me, and I didn't bother trying on.  And then came the button-up shirt dresses I had problems with. Although the stylist (read: saleslady) said most of what she selected looked good on me, I felt that 2 of the 3 shirtdresses ranged from "not worth buying" (due to bad button design) to "acceptable as a gift" (I'd wear it if I got one as a gift, but wouldn't buy it) to "I'd buy it if I had extra money to spend".  The last of these dresses had the right length for me to wear as a dress alone, and could be worn with leggings, or worn as a duster.  What surprised me was that a jumpsuit looked nice on me.  I'd  still want to wear a shirt of jacket as a topper.  But I'm thinking of going for it.  Sadly, I had to leave without buying anything.  So, I returned home to rest a little before going back out to game night.

- - - - - - 

Game night was nothing special - even though I didn't get the chance to play anything.  There were only 6 people there (including myself), as 2 of the other regulars didn't show up.  I found out over a chat that went on at the game table, that one regular didn't like another regular because she learns new games slowly.  (This fellow is a hard core gamer who likes being the center of attention, and he doesn't get along that well with people who aren't as aggressive as he is in game play.)   Although I don't have problems with him, I now wonder what he says about me behind my back.  But that's another story.

I started to have a good time when the hostess and her son came back from his weekly Chess tournament.  Today, he got beat by someone more skilled than he is.  But he is learning quickly.  First, I chatted with the hostess for a while about things in general.  Then, I chatted with the son about chess.  I told him that I used to be decent as a kid, but I'm a terrible player 50 years later.  It'll be fun to relearn the game from him.

While at game night, Vicki sent me a message.  She'd like to go to the Flax Designs warehouse sale, where they are cleaning out inventory in what they call a "Barn Sale".  Although it will take over 3 hours (each way) to get there and back, the sale prices can't be beat.  So I said Yes to Vicki and offered the chance to have RQS come with us.  (RQS said no, so we'll shift our weekend plans by a day or so that weekend.)

It looks like I'll be doing even more shopping soon!

 

 

I get frustrated when a business says something is delivered when it isn't.

 

How many of you use Amazon and get notices that your products have been delivered when this is not so?  Well, I'm tired of these presumptive notifications from vendors, as false positives cause a lot of grief when deliveries are time-sensitive.

Years ago, I subscribed to Amazon Prime because they advertised 2-day delivery for most products.  This was very important, as Amazon was the only place where I could find a girl's locking diary that I could give to a young girl before Christmas.  Today, things are different.  On Amazon's site, they tell users to do the following:

1 - Confirm shipping address in Your Orders
2 - Look for a notice of delivery attempt
3 - Check around the delivery location
4 - Ask your household members and neighbors
5 - Wait 48 hours for the package to be delivered
6 - You can check with the carrier

You'd think that Amazon (and its carriers) could always take a photograph of the delivered object where it was delivered, and include that photo as part of an email confirming delivery.  This was helpful to RQS when her package was delivered to the building next door, and made it to her place a day later.  But false positives can cause big problems.

Quite often, I get false positives from Amazon and UPS regarding product deliveries.  The worst of these occurred a while back when UPS and I got our signals cross when I ordered a phone from Motorola.  The confusion had me going back and forth between UPS and Motorola trying to find out where the product was delivered and how to get a replacement shipped to me.  I ended up paying the first month's installment on the phone before I actually received it.  Although Amazon can be bad, but UPS can be worse because they consider a product to be delivered - even when they hand it off to the post office for last-mile delivery.  This happens quite a bit for many small items, and no notice is available on UPS's site to tell the recipient that they handed off the delivery to USPS. 

Shortly before the pandemic and during part of it, I was a customer of Freshly.  Their food was good, but their last mile delivery was terrible.  Out of 13 shipments, only 3 or 4 were delivered correctly.  My boxes were left behind entry doors where I couldn't see them, left in other doorways where no one cared about them, and in one case, left in front of a vacant apartment where the food was left to rot for a week. Although I got reimbursed for my losses, I got annoyed at the last mile delivery service they used - LaserShip.  Like many "Gig Economy" services, LaserShip bid out its deliveries to the lowest bidder, and this often meant that products were delivered incorrectly, if at all.  I'll bet that firms like this were the cause of Freshly's demise.

What in the world should we do as consumers?  For me, I'd report the products as missing as soon as they are marked as delivered and found not to be so.  Someone has to pay the cost for false deliveries and businesses have more clout than consumers to insure that their products get delivered properly.  So, make them pay the cost for the problems they created until these problems are fixed.

 

I'm almost ready to sign away my old car.

 

Sometimes, I feel like I'm negotiating a contract with the fellow on the left.  DCD asks me a lot of questions that he should be able to answer by himself, such as computing Connecticut's tax on the car which he will soon be registering.

The other day, I met for DCD for a bite to eat, and I was ready to sign the bill of sale and the title, so that he could take these forms, plus the release of lien, and get the car registered in his name.  He wasn't ready to do that, as he still had to schedule an in-person visit to Connecticut DMV to get the car registered and get the plates for the car.  Hopefully, we'll be able to take care of this soon.

- - - - - -

Right now, the old car is sitting in an assigned parking spot, waiting for DCD to drive it away.  I want it gone by the end of the month, as I don't want a car I can't drive sitting in my driveway as long as my old PT Cruiser sat after its transmission failed.  Although I gave away that car 10 years ago, it never got on the road again.  The new owner planned to get the car fixed and never did, as he passed away before he had the chance to do so.

I'm lucky to have two parking spots I can use, as one spot blocks in the car in front of it when two cars are parked in these spots.  This is not much of an issue for a married couple, as they would be able to move a car so that the blocked-in car could get out.  But it wouldn't work if the two cars were owned by non-relatives. Yet, if I could find a Cheap, Low-Mileage, Well-Maintained 2 seat gas fueled Smart car, I might buy it - if only to be able to visit RQS and have a good chance of finding a parking spot quickly.

- - - - - -

If this deal with DCD falls through, I might put my old car back on the road again, just to have something cheap to drive to RQS's place.  Hopefully, this won't happen.....

I'm gonna sit right down and write myself an entry....

 

Well, most of my friends know I enjoy much of the music from the 1930's thru the 1970's.  Disco left me wanting for music which had more than just a danceable beat.  The 1930's & 1940's were the era of the big bands, and I'll always enjoy hearing the music of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie and others popular way back when.  The 1950's brought us Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis and others.  And then Beatlemania hit in the 1960's with the British Invasion.  By the time the 1970's came around, I had started listening to Country music, and developed a taste for Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and others.  RQS has noted that most of the people who made the music I enjoy are dead.  And yet, due to the recording technology of the 20th century, their performances will always live on.

Lately, I've been listening to pop standards made popular by Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and others.  There is something about the lyrics of these classic performances that makes much of today's music sound like crap.  Yes, the Beatles and the Stones helped move music away from just being "Silly Love Songs" and brought pop lyrics into a more serious vein. 

Today's music leaves much to be desired.  Gone are the days where Cole Porter could write about a certain Miss Otis killing the love of her life and apologizing to her friend because her execution would interfere with their lunch date.  Even the Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer had fun with a serial murderer.  The lyrics of today will talk about murder, but without any subtlety.  I miss the subtlety of old music and lyrics.

There are many musicians I wish I could have seen in person.  I once had the opportunity to listen to Paul McCartney in person, and skipped out on it for an Off Broadway play.  I have seen Paul Simon, Ella Fitzgerald, Elton John and others in person.  But there is no way I will spend my money on overpriced NYC tickets, given how much coin is being demanded for these tickets.  (There is no way I will spend $500+ to see the Stones at MSG!) Given how old that many of my favorite surviving performers/groups are, I would rather spend my money to lesser known musicians and some up and coming musicians who make music that I can enjoy at an affordable price.