Life is short and so am I...

Lordy I’m tired. What a whirlwind weekend. I was up early on Thursday morning for my flights to Fargo. Both were annoyingly delayed due to “small mechanical problems”. I barely made my connection in Dallas and then didn’t get in to Fargo until after 10 Thursday night, just as the last bit of sunlight was disappearing into the night. I loved the late night light in Fargo, looooong days with light starting around 5 am and disappearing about 10.

Friday morning I was up so freaking early for no reason. I woke up about 6:30 which was 4:30 my time, it should have been the other way around LOL I read while Bob slept til 8. We got up and headed over to Todd’s place. It was the first time I was able to see the home we bought him. We did a good job LOL It is a very nice condo, and great space for him, Angie and Kelly. Todd’s mom Lois was there so we took her and Kelly to breakfast while Todd and Angie got things ready for the wedding that afternoon. I really enjoyed seeing Kelly again. She’s grown a bit, but still totally adorable. And she does love her grampa. I’m amazed at how much I love that.

After breakfast we hung out a bit then went back to the motel to get out of their way and rest a bit. I was beat after traveling the day before and waking up so early. Around 3 Bob and I went to pick up Bob’s sister, Wendy, at her motel and then headed back to Todd’s for the wedding. The house was full with mostly Angie’s family. At first glance, very North Dakota religious redneck, but overall friendly. The two families didn’t mix much which was fine.

Angie’s mom was running about putting ummmm… boutineers? Is that what they are called? Flowers to pin on lapels LOL on all the immediate family. Angie’s father, brothers, and children, and Todd’s family… Lois, then Bob. I just sat and watched all the goings on. Then someone said they had one more flower and Angie’s daughter said that it was for Todd’s “other Dad, Phil”. I was touched, and didn’t expect it at all. And so began the rest of the weekend of being introduced as Todd’s other dad, or Todd’s Dad. Even Todd called me “his other dad”. I’ve gotten used to being called Kelly’s grampa, but this was the first time I was referred to as his dad. It really was unexpectedly touching to me. Todd has been a part of my life the same 25 years that Bob has but this was the first time I ever really realized he feels the same about me that I do about Sandy, my dad’s wife. Sandy is a parent and a friend and important part of my life. Realizing I meant the same to Todd was nice.

The wedding. It was very nice. They held it in the neighbor’s yard under a giant tree. Angie’s 3 older children stood by her side, and by Todd’s side were Kelly and Todd’s cousin Kent. Angie’s friend Jason performed the ceremony, in a kilt, which I hear really really irritated Angie’s parents LOL They are very religious and a kilted officiator and a non-religious ceremony is not what they would have liked for their daughter’s wedding (bad enough it was her second wedding LOL). The wedding was very from the heart, I could tell Jason cared deeply for Angie and Todd and was very sweet. They were pronounced man and wife and then did a secondary ceremony where they, and then each of the four kids, poured colored sand into a bottle, to celebrate the blending of their two families together. It was really a very nice touch.

After the ceremony Todd barbequed hamburgers for everyone… he needs work in his bbq skills, they were all raw inside, bleh. LOL… Kelly was eating hers and asked Todd’s Mom “why is this all red inside, I’ve never seen a hamburger red inside”. Lois just said that just means it is extra yummy. I wanted to beg to differ but didn’t want to confuse her even more. But bleh… he needs to learn to cook them better. After dinner Bob and I didn’t stay too long and went back to the motel for a quiet rest of the evening.

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast then went to pick up Wendy and head to Valley City, an hour west of Fargo. Angie’s parents were hosting a wedding reception at their house there and we headed up a few hours early and met up with another of Bob’s sister’s, Paula for lunch before the reception. Paula lives ummmm… I have no idea where, but somewhere deeper and a few hours away in North Dakota, so it was easiest to just meet her in town before the reception. Lunch was in a weird little restaurant called the Viking Room, and we had the sweetest little gay waiter. Lordy what a peppy little queen he was LOL Paula brought her husband and two year old grandson who she was babysitting for the weekend. He was pretty adorable. One of Paula’s daughters, Betsy, showed up with her two little ones. OMG, one of them was a holy terror. A holy terror!!!!! I think something is wrong with him honestly, he is beyond hyperactive and downright defiant. Truly… what a freaking little brat. After lunch we took him to the park to try and run off some energy (it didn’t help), then finally headed to Angie’s parents around 4. Angie’s parent’s house was decorated in an odd mix of holy crosses, religious-y artwork, and Harley Davidson stuff. It was pretty clear that Todd’s family (two gay dads and a bisexual mom) was not their cup of tea, but on the surface at least they were very friendly and nice and welcoming. It’s always hard not to feel the undercurrent of “they sure are nice too bad they are going to burn in hell” floating in the air towards us, but at least everyone was friendly. I spend quite a bit of time with Kelly until she wore me out, then mostly sat quietly watching all the friends and family socialize.

Soon it was time to head back to Fargo. We got back a little after 9 and I crashed fast knowing I had to be up at 4 for my flight home. Flights back to San Jose were easy and uneventful. But, still exhausting. After I got home I spent most of the afternoon being lazy and giving Sophie kitty lovins. Not much else.

This week, I suspect it will be quiet with Bob gone. I don’t think I will do much for the 4th tomorrow. I may wander up to the top of the hill and watch the fireworks over San Jose tomorrow night. Or not LOL Bob gets home Sunday so I anticipate a lazy week ahead. I even loaded up on lean cuisine frozen dinners to keep from cooking (or more important going out for fast food).

Happy Monday and enjoy your 4th y’all!

Home again home again, giggity giggity.

Back home in sweltering California after a nice trip away. Overall, the trip went well with a few bumps. I’d have to say the experiment of taking my Mom and Aunt Marlene on a cruise was a bit of a failure though. My Aunt was fine but my Mom, well… it didn’t go great. My hope was that a cruise vacation would be much less active, and technically it is, but still too much for her. I think I nearly broke her a few times on this trip. The walking, even just across the ship, is tough for her. Walking in New York and on the excursions off the ship, I think I nearly broke her a couple of times. Her weight and back problems are really ummmm… weighing her down (no pun intended). Most of the trip I could tell she was really struggling with pain when we were walking. Also all the food was just too much for her. I know she had an upset stomach much of the trip too. Sadly, I know she spent a good deal of the trip hurting from walking, upset tummy and being cranky. Of course, it didn’t help that she stopped taking her anti-depressant the day we started the trip (which I found out from Mar on day 5 of the cruise). She fucking pisses me off with this sort of thing. Years ago on a trip to Hawaii she decided to quit smoking, without telling us, then was a raving bitch the whole trip and we had no idea what was going on. This time, she didn’t take her depression meds because they made here sleepy the next day, so she skipped them. And by the 4th day it was showing and I was just assuming the mood change was related to her not feeling good (which contributed I’m sure). Marlene got the brunt of it, usually after the door closed to their cabin and Bob and I headed away leaving them alone. Mar was very clear that my Mom was *much* nicer when she was in front of me than she is when the two of them were alone. By the end of the trip she and Mar were barely speaking, not good. The chances that we will get Mar to take another cruise with us are slim, unless we go with my cousin Jennifer and her family (which we have discussed). If we go with Jen and her family it may help to take some of the tension because Mar is much closer with them, which would leave Mom to Bob and I most the time. Ugh. hahaha

New York… such an interesting town. So much to love and so much not to. I kept thinking that… “I love this” and “ugh” hahaha We stayed at Night Hotel Times Square which was just a ½ block off the square on 47th street. Perfect location for getting to everything. We got to town, had dinner at an Irish pub across the street from the hotel then wandered Times Square, stopping at Junior’s for their famous (and so yummy) cheesecake before bed. Friday I got us a New York City Pass for museums and stuff which included Hop On Hop Off bus tour tickets. We hopped on the bus and it drove us around Mid-Town seeing the sites and yada yada. We got off at the stop closest to the 9/11 memorial and walked towards the memorial. It was just too long of a walk for my Mom though. We had to stop several times but finally made it to the memorial site. The museum was swamped, literally a multiple hour line to get in, so we ended up skipping it knowing my mom couldn’t stand in line that long. We headed over to the One World tower and went up to the top. I had bought front of line passes for that so we were able to skip the major line and go straight to the elevators. It’s a long way up, definitely the tallest building I’ve ever been in. Such beautiful views with all of New York below. After that we headed back towards the bus pick up point. My poor Mom was really struggling. We just walked a block and stopped, walked a block and stopped. Pretty much the entire trip went that way. We finally got back to the bus and took it back to Times Square. We never did use our New York passes, except for the bus, the walking was just too much for my Mom. I was bummed we spent the money but oh well. After resting at the hotel a bit we had dinner and then were off to the Schubert Theater to see Hello Dolly with Bette Midler, two days before she won the Tony!!! Thankfully I’m a planner, sometimes I start formulating ideas in my head long before actually making a full decision on them. I bought these tickets back in September I think, not totally sure how I was going to use them and then built this vacation sort of around them. I figured if it turned out we didn’t go to New York I could easily sell them on stubhub. But yay, we used them and it was such an awesome show. We were up in the Mezzanine but the seats were great. I could see Bette’s face so clear and well, and every little nuance she brought to the performance was in full view. Thank goodness for Broadway’s smaller theaters. I honestly wasn’t totally sure I’d like the show. I don’t enjoy a lot of the older “classic” musicals as much sometimes, and after buying the cast recording there certainly weren’t many toe tapping songs to stick in my head. But… I loved it. I probably wouldn’t have as much as I did if it had been another actress, but Bette made it her own. She was Dolly Levy to the tee and it was fun seeing it just two days before she won the Tony.

The cruise… this was my first cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line. We were on their ship, the Gem and I think NCL ties with MSC as my least favorite cruise line. At best I can only rate them a C. The ship, while only 10 years old, was not in tip top shape, lots of small things adding up, like elevator buttons not working or poorly designed set ups. The one highlight was dinners in the restaurants you have to pay an additional fee for. I had one of the best steaks I’ve ever had at their steakhouse, and I loved their Churrascaria (Brazillian BBQ where they walk around with meat on sticks). But the rest of the food in the non-fee restaurants… it was pretty unimpressive. We ate in the buffet (so so), the Chinese restaurant (bad), and the Irish Pub (terrible). Other than food, service was meh. The entertainment, pretty bad. All the bars and lounges had very mediocre to bad (and very loud) entertainment such as piano, karaoke, a newlywed style game (so bad) and a hypnotist (so so so so bad). On the main stage we sat through a painfully bad Second City comedy show one night and watched a county music review another before we gave up on the nightly main stage shows. The country music one at least had good singing, but the dancing and “theme” felt like a really bad version of one of these Kids of the Kingdom type shows you’d see at Great America or something. Mar and I were totally cracking up because half the audience got up and gave them a standing ovation after the show. She turned to me and was like “were we watching the same show, or have they changed the definition of standing ovation???”). She and I laughed about that a few times. But I think that is the crux of my whole experience with Norwegian… I’ve done much better, many times. I’m sure to people who had never cruised before, or only every left their little red state once in their life, thought this cruise was the bee’s knees and an incredible experience. I’m sure if I’d never been cruising before I would have been in awe of it all. But I have, and I think I will stick with better cruise lines in the future LOL

Itinerary… I love the Maine/Canada itinerary, though I liked the one we did on Holland America better a few years back. This time we went to Halifax in Nova Scotia, St John in New Brunswick, and Bar Harbor and Portland in Maine. I just love it up there. The weather could not have been more perfect the whole trip and we got to see sites like Peggy’s Cove and the Bay of Fundy changing its tidal direction. In Bar Harbor we took a bus tour through Acadia National Park and then met up for lunch with my Aunt Dotty, her boyfriend Chuck, son Bob and his wife Barbara. It was a great, but short, visit. In Portland we took a tour that stopped at a lighthouse and then spend some time in Kennebunkport.

People on the ship… it was a slightly older crowd and very straight (duh). I’d say most were East Coast people. Bob and I did go to the “Friends of Dorothy/LGBTQ meet and greet” the first night and met a handful of guys that we were able to chat with here and there the rest of the trip. That was a nice bit, to have a little gay interaction here and there at least. Actually, we met one handsome Italian man named Max and ended up having a fun little 3-way with him a few nights later. It was the first time Bob and I had sex together in years. It was fun, and Max was a good guy to sort of break the ice with us dipping into those waters again for the first time in ages.

Homecoming… disembarking the ship went well. I was a little nervous about our 1:00 flight out of JFK so we elected to do the self-disembarkation where you carry your own luggage off the ship and get off before everyone else. It was a breeze, even with me carrying my luggage and my mom’s and we made it to JFK in record time, plenty of time for us to make our 1:00 flight that ended up delayed until 2:30 LOL Sadly, once we were at JFK I started checking my mail and such and got a message that my cousin Randy had died on Thursday. I told my mom and she was pretty upset, but then I got another message and found out my cousin Becky was hospitalized in ICU, she had a grand mal seizure after she found out Randy died and was not doing well at all. She is doing better today from what I hear and may be out of the hospital tomorrow, but what a terrible thing to come back to. I didn’t want to tell my mom until we got home but Bob told her anyway. She was devastated, more so about Becky than Randy but still, she was very upset. It made for a very long trip home for her I’m sure, especially since she and Mar were barely talking to each other at this point. I think they didn’t say 5 words to each other the entire way home :P

We came home to a heat wave, it is sweltering hot out there this week. Over 100 degrees most the week I think. Once back in California Bob and I dropped my Mom and Mar off at their places. We got home about 8:00, rested a bit, then decided to be crazy and go to the monthly underwear party at Renegades LOL. OMG, I needed a gay night out after 10 days with my mom. It was a lot of fun, so warm and so full of fun men in their undies. I made out with a couple I’ve wanted to for quite some time and had a great time. Bob got a little too drunk though :P We took Lyft home and picked up my car the next day LOL

Sunday, recovery day, unpacking and getting caught up with things at home. We went grocery shopping late in the day. For some reason the entire frozen section was blocked off, sorry Bob, no ice cream. We got to the checkout, and had just 3 items left to go through price check and *poink* heat wave power outage. GRRRRR. Apparently it had been happening all day, which is why the frozen food was blocked off. Such a waste, they have to throw it all out. We waited about 20 minutes for the computers to reboot, the checker said it would take 10 minutes but just as it was coming back up the power blinked again and the 10 minute reboot started again. Thankfully they got us through the next time and we were finally able to get checked out and take our groceries back to a very empty fridge LOL I was glad they didn’t have to throw all our stuff out too, which they would have had to do if we had ended up leaving it.

So… long update, I’m sure I missed lots. I’m sad things didn’t work out so well for us to do cruises with my Mom on this trip. Overall it was just exhausting to me. I pretty much had to run the show every moment we were gone. She, Mar and Bob were just so completely lost the whole time it seemed. I swear we couldn’t walk out a doorway without them looking at me to know what way to turn. I know I’m a bit of a control queen at times but this was just too fucking much, they had no independence at all :P and having to do the whole balancing act of being patient with my Mom and brokering peace with her and Mar, and keeping Bob happy too, not the most relaxing trip. I think cruises are probably out for us as a group in the future, and we may just be limited to renting a condo by the sea in places like San Diego or maybe Hawaii. At least when we rent a condo we are all in the same “home” and it helps Ma and Mar not be locked in a room together alone so much of the time. I guess we will see what plan I can come up with in the future :)

Ok… back to work. I have a ton of emails and such backed up from being gone. I best get back to it. Cheers!

Every weekend should be a 3 day weekend. That is my opinion and we should all change to a 4 day work week.

I do sometimes consider signing up to switch my schedule to 4/10’s (four 10 hour days) or 9/80’s (nine 9 hour days a pay period) but never have done it. I think I would do better with 9/80s. I am almost always here over 9 hours anyway and would be nice to get Friday off every other week. But… I’m too lazy to make it happen LOL

The weekend was a good long one. We had lunch with Dave, Aaron and Steven came down from SF for lunch on Saturday. Was great to see Aaron, I don’t think I’ve seen him since he was out from New Mexico in December. And always a nice time lunching with Dave. They all headed on to motorcycle up north for the rest of the day and Bob and I went home and relaxed for the afternoon.

Sunday we went to breakfast with some friends, finally at a different spot than the normal place they go to every Sunday LOL Our friend Bob seems to be doing somewhat ok after dealing with lung cancer for over a year now. I think the prognosis has switched back over to “not good” in the last couple of weeks but he is dealing with it all. I know it is very rough on him and his husband both but they seemed in good spirits.

Yesterday we went over to Santa Cruz, wandered around Capitola for the morning, enjoying the beach and looking at the beach-goers LOL Bob was in a rare shopping mood so he ended up buying a hat and a new rug for one of our entry ways. It was expensive. Now he wants another just like it for the upstairs door. I’m hoping he will forget, we can’t afford it :P

After our Capitola wander we headed up to Bonnie Doon to see my Dad and Step-Mom, Sandy. We have been trying to get my dad to agree to let us visit at the house for a long time now, well over a year I think, and he finally relented. It’s just so much more comfortable and nice to visit with him at the house instead of a quick lunch at a restaurant. I feel a little bad because I know he wants to go to a restaurant to meet largely because he doesn’t get a chance to get out of the house much anymore, but it had been just too long since we could actually sit and talk where he could hear at least part of the conversation as opposed to a noisy restaurant where he hears none of it. It was a great visit. He and I talked quite a bit, about his brother, my work, and other stuff. I sat down with him and showed him how to do tables in Word. He had been wanting to create a table to use so he could keep track of whether he had fed the dogs or not when Sandy is gone for a few days. So, we created a dog feeding schedule table for him to check off every time he feeds the dogs LOL. He really has become an old man in so many ways. It’s hard watching him get older and older and more forgetful and all of that. But… it was a good visit.

Unfortunately the snacks that Sandy made for us didn’t sit well, I think Bob and I both ended up with mild food poisoning of some sort all night. Bleh it was not a pleasant way to end the weekend. I feel a bit better now, good enough to go to work at least, but Bob was still feeling pretty yucky when I left this morning. Hopefully this will be a quick tummy issue for us both.

That seems to have been it for the weekend. We are heading in to pre-vacation mode this week, we leave Thursday next week so just a little over a week to start pulling everything together. I’ve been training our new office manager at work to do some of my work while I am gone, but she really is only going to do the lowest layers of it. But, better than nothing at all at least.

Happy 4 day work week y’all!

It was quite a weekend. Friday was Bob’s and my 25th anniversary. 25 years since our first date. That first date night we each went to our weekly HIV support groups (mine was for those with HIV, I think his was for those who lost someone), then we met up in the lobby of the church the groups were held at. We went to Burger King and then back to his house to watch TV and eat. His son came home soon after we finished eating and I wasn’t sure what the story was or if Bob had overnight guests when Todd was home or what. So, I politely said it was time to go and ended our date. Possibly the only man I didn’t have sex with on the first date and I married him, I’m so traditional hahaha Anyway, our story has many twists and turns and ups and downs over the 25 years since, but we are still here and still moving on. Yay for that.

I took the day off on Friday so got to sleep in a bit. We got up and exchanged cards and the annual year in review letter I write for us every year. It was a much less tumultuous year this time around, another yay.

Bob had a HIV planning meeting to go to for a short bit then he and I headed over to Santa Cruz for a beach day. OMG it was gorgeous over there. It was warmer and nicer at the beach than it was in San Jose. Amazing. First thing I did when we drove in to town was stop at Ferrell’s Donuts. My favorite donut shop ever. Lordy I remember so many drunken stops there when I was a teenager. DONUT!!! Lol. So we got donuts to enjoy later and headed on towards the beach. We parked the car near the yacht harbor and walked along the beach and cliffs quite a ways. We eventually made our way up and over the river to the Boardwalk. We rode the Big Dipper roller coaster and walked around a bit before stopping to eat, he had an ice cream cone and I had a giant corn dog. It was clearly a day of decadence hahaha. We slowly made our way back to the harbor and the car (it seemed much further going back) and then headed back to San Jose, with my pirate’s booty of Ferrell’s donuts waiting for me to enjoy through the weekend LOL

Once we got home I rested a little bit before we got ready for dinner. We went over to pick up Ty and Tim and head to Saratoga to meet with Joe and Dan. Ty and Tim are notoriously late and I knew our dinner reservations would not be held if they were late, so going to pick them up and take them to the restaurant seemed like the easiest way to ensure they were on time It worked.

Joe and Dan also showed up on time and we headed in to La Fondue for our big anniversary dinner. I had come up with the idea of all of us having a fancy dinner together since Joe and Dan hit 25 years last August and Ty and Tim did in September. Joe, Ty and Bob were all close friends back then and it’s so interesting to me how 3 of them ended up coupling up with Dan, Tim and I for a lifetime right around the same time. 1991/1992 seemed to be a good period for couples. I know a few others that coupled in that same period.

Dinner was awesome. I love fondue restaurants and hadn’t been to La Fondue in prolly 20 years. The group was totally confused on how it worked and how to order, it was hard for me to not be totally grumpy over their confusion. It seemed so clear to me LOL Finally, when it came time to order, I just said “do you guys just want me to do this?”. They agreed so I got all the things I wanted, yay for confusion hahaha.

The set up, you get a salad to start, then the next course is a cheese fondue. You have about 8 different cheese fondues to choose from. Since we were a group of 6 we got to choose 2. They just weren’t getting that. I ordered us the cheddar beer and four cheese mushroom wine fondues. They do the melty cheese thing in the pots and bring you big trays of things to dip in them… breads and veggies mostly. OMG… so yummy.

The next course was the entrée course and you pick assorted meats to cook in the fondue pots. I picked 3 assortments, one that was mostly different marinated chicken and pork, one that was sirloin, lobster and shrimp, and the last one was the wild game plate… kangaroo, antelope, buffalo, alligator, wild boar and venison. They bring you the meats, all cut in to cubes and then you cook them in the fondue pots. The Sheldon in me was having a very very hard time with everyone else. I would put meat on my 3 fondue sticks and place them nicely in the pots, knowing where they were and blah blah blah. Everyone else was just putting the meat in, forgetting which was theirs, taking *mine* that I had so carefully chosen and placed where I would know it was mine LOL I can laugh at it now but it really was irritating the heck out of me at the time. Leave my meat alone!!! All in all it was fun though and so yummy.

The end was chocolate fondue for dessert. O! M! G! so good. We ordered a dark chocolate with ummmm… other stuff in it, and a white chocolate with Bailey’s Irish Cream. They brought couple of trays of things to dip… pound cake, rice crispy treats (win!!!), snickers bars, marshmallows, cheesecake, ice cream balls, fruit… lordy so much. And so good. What a nice night it ended up being. Though I really was about as stuffed as stuffed could be when we were done. The bill came out to just under $700, yikes! Definitely a special occasion type splurge, but very worth it.

So, we drove Ty and Tim home, and went to bed so completely bloated and full, I still didn’t get to start eating the donuts I bought hahaha. Saturday we were pretty lazy, didn’t really have breakfast or lunch after our big food day on Friday, and just took it easy. In the afternoon we finally went to go see Beauty and the Beast. I’m a little iffy on Disney remaking all its animated classics in to live action classics but it was a fun movie. I think I enjoyed it as much or more than the original so all good. It really is such an easy cash cow for Disney, redoing their movies again. I enjoyed the Jungle Book remake well enough, and now Beauty and the Beast so go them I guess.

Sunday was a do nothing-ish day. I fiddled around with copying old VHS tapes to DVD (thanks for Dave for letting us borrow the recorder) and got quite a few copied. One of my oldest tapes though, the first RSVP cruise tape in 1992, just won’t play. I’m bummed. But, I think the film quality may be ok, it’s just the tape mechanism. I will just have to pay to have it converted to DVD I think. We ended the weekend with me making stir fry for dinner and watching Guardians of the Galaxy in preparation for going to see GotG volume 2! I'm looking forward to it.

So wow… that was a longish post. Haven’t done that in a while. Now I’m ready for a nap hahaha. Happy Monday world!

We totally bated all weekend, or Bates-ed may be more appropriate. We binge watched our way though the final season of Bates Motel, and watched the original movie Psycho Friday night. Tonight we will watch the series finale. I’ve loved Bates Motel since its first season in 2013. Vera Farmiga and Freddy Highmore played out Norma and Norman Bates so freaking well. We taped the final season instead of watching it as it went along and went ahead and started watching it last week. The final season finally intersected with (or reimagined) the original movie, bringing in characters Marian Crane and Sam Loomis. The care they put in to recreating some of the scenes from the original movie, including the very famous shower scene (but with a huge twist) was awesome. There were some scenes that truly were copied word for word and movement by movement. I love it when a show pays such a homage to the original they so clearly loved. After a couple of episodes dealing with the Psycho storyline, they moved on past it. Tonight we will watch the grand finale.
I have no idea what to expect for how it ends, I’ve deftly avoided spoilers on this one. I can’t wait!

Otherwise, we didn’t do much at all this weekend. I did more tape and CD clean up. All my old compilations are now copied to the computer. Glad to have that done. There was one very important (to me) one I couldn’t find, a CD copy of an unfinished musical my friend Gilbert Moreno wrote before he died called Tales. I still have the original cassette tapes but couldn’t find the cd I had copied them on to. It wouldn’t be a big deal except I don’t have a working cassette to CD player now. Looking for it I actually found a whole box of cd’s and cassettes that I had never opened or looked at since we moved. But the Tales cd I was looking for wasn’t in it :( But I did find a whole bunch of recordings from when I was a kid. All on cassette tape, boooo. I need to fix my damn old stereo to get those copied to cd LOL If I remember right, they start out as recordings of me as a baby, screaming and crying, with Beethoven playing in the background (don’t ask) and then some when I was a little older and learning to talk with my dad asking me questions. One piece I do remember from them is my Dad asking me the sound a cat makes and my little "meow meow meow", then he did more animals and I dutifully repeated their respective barks and moos. Then he asked what sound a turtle makes... this was followed by a loooong silence as my little head tried to figure that one out. Finally I said "turrrrtle! turrrrrrtle!" LOL There are also ones from when I was a little older, reading stories like Clifford the Big Red Dog and just being a little chatty thing entertaining myself with the tape recorder LOL I really really need to get those all copied to CD. Anyway, I found that little treasure trove, but no luck finding the cd copy of Tales. I finally gave up but then it struck me that maybe I had copied the files to the computer long ago. Bingo. I found the folder on my computer and hooray, it was a good copy so I copied it to cd and hooray, I have multiple backups on several platforms of Gilbert’s big unrealized dream. I don’t want to lose that ever! I wonder if anyone else out there still has copies. Anyway, in my search, I ended up putting about 90% of the box of cd’s I found in the recycle bin. In addition to the cassette tapes I found, I pulled a handful of cd's that were sentimental to me but the rest were ready to go. Another box gone. :)

Yesterday I skipped the (what apparently is now an *every* Sunday) brunch with some friends, but Bob went ahead and went. I don’t know why, but doing brunch every Sunday with the same people at the same restaurant gets old to me very quick. I'm so weird some times. I get very resentful about things that are an "every time" sort of thing. I think that is why season tickets to theater and the chorus and such are not a good idea for me. Just another weird part of my psyche I guess. Anyway, maybe if they were a closer group of friends I’d be more into it, but I really don’t want to rush out to meet them every Sunday morning. It’s terrible but I think I’d even be more into it if they tried different places. But… same bat time same bat channel next Sunday is their M.O. Thankfully Bob is good with me skipping occasionally. While he brunched, I went to the farmers market (another reason I don’t want to do brunch every Sunday, I love the farmers market and would miss it since it closes at 1). It was such a beautiful morning, and lots of cuties out in the market for sure. Oh, and nice fruits and veggies hahaha. It’s still just a tidge early in the season, not a huge variety, especially of the things I look for, tomatoes, corn,nectarines, melons, etc. But I did get some big artichokes and a very very sweet half box of strawberries. MMMMMMM. Oh, and I got garlicky cheese curds too, mmmmmm.

So that was about it for the weekend. Nothing social on my end really. Just a nice quiet weekend at home with my cat and my hubby, yay. :)

Ok, I’m glad the drought is being taken care of but I’m really starting to get over all the rain. I’m ready for warm sunny days. Seems like it is rainy every few days lately. It rained pretty good yesterday, and the rest of the weekend never really was very spring-like and nice. It’s been downright cool the last few days. Though, I say that and it still is a heck of a lot warmer than other places LOL

I had a fair to middlin’ weekend. Pretty lazy overall. We gave each other our haircuts on Saturday afternoon and we went to the monthly underwear party Saturday night. I had a bleh time. I was having a bad esteem night. I was feeling very old, out of shape and out of the loop all evening. I almost left early and gave Bob cab fare home but I soldiered through. He had a good time at least.

Sunday Bob went to brunch with some friends. I just wasn’t feeling social at all so I skipped it. I’m sure it bugged him but oh well. From what I hear, the restaurant wasn’t very good so not sorry I missed it hahaha. The rest of the day was the normal. Grocery shopping, nap, blah blah blah.

We’ve been watching Twin Peaks on Amazon Prime. I had no idea there were so many things I could watch since I’m a prime subscriber. It’s not just about free 2-day shipping LOL I’m enjoying re-watching it. It was so unique back then. I imagine little 1990 me watching it, and having my head blown every week at how crazy it was. Now… it’s a little crazy but been redone and topped many times over in the last 30 years. Ugh tho, I love the music, it was such a huge part of the show, but it’s also so permeating in your head too. It’s been an earworm stuck in my head constantly since we started watching it. I can’t help but wonder if it might actually be contributing to this funk I seem to be in. That maudlin music stuck as an earworm in my head over and over, triggering some feelings and memories from a very bad time in my life. Interesting thought :P

And that’s about it, all quiet on the west coast for now.

Phew… it was a busy weekend, and ***Spring*** yay. It was so warm and nice all weekend. Too bad it is supposed to turn cool and rainy again later this week :P

Friday was a holiday for me, happy Cesar Chavez Day. Yay for a 3 day weekend at least. Bob and I had tickets to go to the SF Gay Men’s Chorus so we decided to make a night of it. We got up there, checked in to the motel and then headed out to Midnight Sun to meet dhbearguy for drinks. Dave wasn’t performing in this concert so he got tickets to join us and see the show. He was joined by his cutie friend Jess and after a couple of drinks we grabbed dinner then headed to the theater for the concert. I have to say, I am just a little burned out on the chorus concerts. I don’t know if it is because I have gone to so many of them, or if it’s the ritual of going to every single one that is burning me out. The first half of the show was very nice. I can totally acknowledge how beautiful a job they do, but I found myself fidgety and not as into it as I feel I should be. I was hoping for a much more uplifting 2nd act but unfortunately things went horribly bad during intermission. As we filtered back in to the theater post-intermission, it seemed to be going a little long. Tim, the choral director, came out and told everyone that there was a medical emergency with one of the singers and the show would be delayed a bit. Tim came out a few more times and gave some minor updates, tried to stretch things along, doing a question and answer bit, talked about the upcoming tour in the South, etc. In the end, the rest of the show was cancelled. Dave was texting with folks backstage and it turned out one of the members had a heart attack and died right there on stage. What a horrible thing. Bob and I went ahead and left the theater and Dave stayed behind to go backstage and be with his chorus brothers in that horrible time. I felt so sad for them all. It had to have been a long rough night for so many of them, I know the SFGMC are truly one big family and losing one of their own right there had to have been devastating. They did carry on the next day, doing two more concerts that had to have been full of tears throughout. It had to have been both hard and healing for them to sign where they had just lost a member the night before.

After the concert, Bob and I were a little shellshocked about it all but carried on. Neither of us knew the man who died, but I was mostly concerned about Dave and others I knew in the chorus who were hurting that night. I contemplated just going ahead and crashing for the night when we got back to the hotel but Bob was up for going back out to the bars so we went on out. I ended up having a blast. I had a few drinks, we ended up meeting a few guys that were chatty and fun. One of them was a big Baby Huey cutie that was 22 and just adorable in a great big lunk of a cub sort of way LOL I had a great time flirting and chatting, ok and later on making out, with him. One of the other guys took a liking to Bob big time. I think he took a liking to us both but I really wasn’t interested in him, physically or mentally. I actually found him just a little annoying, but by the end of the evening he was all over Bob and I was super happy to see Bob getting some attention and lovin’s for once. We closed the bar and I stood outside talking and flirting with Baby Huey and a couple other guys. Bob and his little buddy came over and Bob told me he heading out and was going to swing by the guys apartment on his way back to the motel. OMG… he’s never done that before, like ever, in our 25 years. Leaving the bar with someone else? Kind of awesome though, good for him. He knew I wasn’t interested in doing anything with the guy so a 3-way was out, so he went ahead and went with the guy. I really was happy he did that.

After he left, I kept chatting out in front of the bar. This total hottie came up and asked if he could bum a smoke from one of the guys I was talking with. He was such a cutie. Baby Huey and I were totally flirting him up, and feeling up his furry chest and butt LOL We were all talking and suddenly he made a statement about being afraid to play around with anybody, because they all have AIDS and blah blah blah blah. I let him blather on a bit and was thinking “ok, I’m over this, time to go” but then I was like fuck it and said, “dude, can I be totally honest with you? I’ve been poz for over 30 years and when you start spouting off stuff like you just did, you don’t come out sounding very good”. He was very apologetic, and was sorry for offending me, which he didn’t really offend me, but a lot of other people would have taken it to heart big time. We talked a bit more, I edjumacated him a bit more on HIV and all that stuff, then bid him a goodbye with a hug and another nice feel of his furry butt LOL I walked Baby Huey to the corner and he asked if I wanted to come over to his place for a bit and I just gave him a big kiss and a “next time” and headed back to the room to crash. Bob showed back up at the room about 4. I was still amazed LOL

I woke up wide awake at 6:30, grrrrrr! I hate that. I read for a while until Bob finally got up and we headed on back to San Jose for a very quiet afternoon at home. I got a real nice nap in, or finished the previous night’s sleep hahaha We did not much else at all the rest of the day or evening, still wiped out from Friday night.

Yesterday we got up and headed over to Santa Cruz to have lunch with my dad and Sandy. We went over a couple hours early and took a long walk along West Cliff, watching the big waves and the surfers, then walked along the Boardwalk, making myself very hungry with all the sweet and salty smells of amusement park food. It’s always so hard when we go wander around the Boardwalk when I knew we are going to have lunch afterwards cause I want to eat all the bad food right now! LOL

Lunch with Dad & Sandy was nice. Just by happenstance it was their 40th anniversary, which was probably a bigger deal to me than it was to them LOL My dad looks pretty good. Definitely getting older and older every day but for 82 and a forever broken leg, he’s doing pretty well. It had been almost 4 months since we’d seen them, so I promised myself I wouldn’t let it go that long again!

The rest of Sunday was pretty quiet. Grocery shopping and TV mostly LOL And now back to the regular non-holiday work week. Bleh. With rain on the way, bleh bleh. LOL Oh well, more sunny days to come soon after I’m sure. Cheers y’all.

hmmmm... I've been cross-posting my posts from dreamwidth but I'm not sure everything comes through the same. I answered some of the March question thingees last week but when I tagged the folks who asked the questions it came out weird. They aren't referencing the LJ tags. I hope this is working right :P

anyway, GRRRRR! Rotten start to the morning. A car was parked blocking my driveway this morning. I could not get out of my garage, just no way. I honked and honked. Shook their car hoping an alarm would go off. Cursed a bit, then finally gave up and went upstairs to get the keys to Bob’s car and took it to work today. I left a note in big letters saying if they do it again I will have them towed, but truth is there I doubt I could have had it towed any time quickly. GRRRR, I’m gonna be grumbly over it all morning.

Other than that, it was a good weekend. Saturday Bob and I went up to SF and met up with Dave to see the latest Peaches Christ show, Legally Black starring Bob the Drag Queen. What a fun show. The parody of Legally Blonde was spot on. It really helped because Bob and I made a point of watching the movie Friday night, so it was very fresh in our heads for the show the next day. It made me all the more impressed with Peaches’ shows.

After the show we went with Dave for a quick drink at Midnight Sun, then had dinner at the Cove before heading back to San Jose. I was pretty beat but Bob really wanted to go out to Renegades for their underwear party later that night. I almost sent him alone LOL But, I dragged myself there and once there had a nice time. We actually ended up staying until almost closing. I had a real nice time sitting and talking with an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while, and Bob enjoyed watching the cuties in their skivvies LOL

I think I got to bed about 2:30, then was up, wide awake at 7. My ex Sal was coming over from Santa Cruz about 9 to pick up a butcher block/table Bob and I “borrowed” 23 years ago LOL Sal and I were boyfriends in the mid-80s, and were still very close friends when Bob and I got together. When Sal’s partner Steve died in 1993, Sal had a house full of Steve's stuff to try and part with. Bob and I were moving in to our first apartment so Sal gave us Steve’s table for the apartment. Sal being Sal… it was a “permanent loan” instead of just giving it to us. We’ve happily used it in every home from apartment to condo to house. But, there was just no place for it in our new place so when we were prepping for the move out of the house I called Sal to ask if he wanted it back or should we just get rid of it. Of course the hoarder he is said “OMG yes, of course I want it back” LOL It’s been sitting in our garage for a year and a half since. It was too big to fit in our car so Sal has always been waiting for a friend of his with a truck to come get it. So… he finally came and got it yesterday. I only got to visit with him for a short time, his friend had to get back over to Santa Cruz and get to work, but it was good to see him. I don’t see Sal often, but when I do I can always see bits and pieces of both why I fell in love with him *and* why I broke up with him all those years ago. He’s a good man, I’m glad he is still in my life :)

So now there is a nice big empty spot in the garage where that damn table was, and the long term memory of our friend Steve has left the house. And Sal has his 23 year old loaned table back hahaha I bet he puts in it his storage place and it isn't seen again for years :P

I think that is about it for the weekend. I wonder if that car is still blocking my driveway. GRRRR! Happy Monday folks!

Stooooopid time change. I hate it. I wish they had dropped the whole thing but I guess the bill that was making its way through the California law process died a quite death. Bummer. Who cares if it would have made New York 4 hours ahead part of the year :P

We had a good weekend, timechange or otherwise. I got up early Saturday morning and went to Kaiser to get my labs done. I’m about 2 months overdue :P So far all the results look really good though. Cholesterol and liver tests are just a tick over the normal range and my blood sugar could be better. Still no results for the HIV things like viral load and t-cells, those take longer but I don’t expect any surprises there.

Yesterday Bob struggled through the time change and got himself up and off to breakfast with some friends of ours. I passed on going to breakfast and went ahead to the farmers market on my own, then did the weekly grocery shop. It’s still just a tidge early for the farmers market, not much of interest to me there. There were some strawberries this week but they were a little underripe. Another week or two and things should start popping there.

Some friends invited us to go see King Kong in the afternoon so I skipped my normal Sunday nap and went to see the big ape on the screen. It was a good enough movie, kept my interest (and awake LOL), but not anything OMG awesome about it. It gets a solid B in my book. Will be interesting to see how they tie it together with Godzilla in the sequels, now that they are building their new shared monsterverse of movies.

After the movie we had dinner at Yard House, so yummy. Unfortunately our friends fish tacos were not yummy. I didn’t try them but everyone else agreed they were bad. Bleh.

Today is David’s 50th birthday. I’ve spoken with him a few times over the last week, after not having much contact the last 6 or so months. He seems to be doing ok. Not doing meth, so that’s a plus. He seems to be sticking with the Catholic church, though I’m not sure he’s continuing on his path to become deacon as he once was. Something happened but he isn’t clueing us in on it. I suspect the church came down on him because of the homosexuality thing, not to mention the meth addict issue. I’m not thrilled with his closeness with the Roman Catholic diocese, but whatever keeps him from using is good I spose. Anyway, today is his 50th,and I’m thinking of him. And I’m thinking of how my 50th is right around the corner too. 50 years old. So wild. :P

I think I’m finally over my cruise cold, yay for that. I actually just caught myself humming sitting here at the computer, that’s a good sign I’m feeling back to normal, hooray. lalalalalala. Oh, wait, lala was a mistake… humhumhum. I’m so glad it wasn’t a terrible cold but it did make for a long week dragging my ass to work and trying to do things like, you know, breathe LOL The only downside to it being gone… I can’t postpone my appointment with the dentist this afternoon to have a cavity filled. BOOOOOO! Going under the drill today. Bleh.

So, Bob and I had a good weekend, still mostly recovery mode, but we did venture up to SF Saturday night to dinner with dhbearguy & Jake at the always yummy Big Lantern, then were off to see show “Silence, The Musical”, a parody of Silence of the Lambs. OMG, what fun, and a whacky and dark show hahaha The cast was awesome, channeling Clarice, Hannibal Lector, and Buffalo Bill incredibly well. It truly was a funny funny show.

We didn’t do much the rest of the weekend. Yesterday was beautiful so I made my way to the Farmers Market. It was still a little too early in the season on anything super yummy to buy but was nice to walk in the sun in shorts and t-shirt and look at all the yummy eye candy out doing the same. We ended the weekend with me bbq’ing shrimp and sausage for dinner. It was still dark out, the light hasn’t extended that late, but was nice enough out for me to bbq. It was the yums.

I’m still desperately behind at work but getting caught up, hopefully the next couple of days will see me caught up and moving forward with my regular day to day stuff.

I’m still reflecting a bit on the cruise and such. There were a few times where I said to Bob and others that I wished I could be the person I am on the cruise in real life. I was just so confident and comfortable socially for that one week of the year. Going up and striking up conversations with strangers, walking around feeling 6 foot tall instead of 2 foot tall, flirting my ass off… just plain feeling good about being *me*. It was such a nice feeling, and so rare in life and social situations for me. Even Dave P commented on how I seemed much more comfortable in my skin than I normally do. Bob and I talked about it, it caused a couple of tiffs between us. He took my saying that I wish I was more like I was on the cruise to mean I wanted to go out and be sleeping around with every guy in San Jose. That wasn’t what I meant LOL I had to talk quite a bit about the difference between feeling confident and having some self esteem, versus having sex with everyone. The last thing I want is to ho around San Jose, but I’d like to be able to walk in the bar here without feeling my normal anxiety issues and you know, talk to people, instead of staying in the back corner watching everyone. I know there were times he felt a bit left out on the cruise, I was on hunting mission at times, but in the end we took some time and talked things out. Yay for that.

OMG… the other thing that stands out on this cruise, height! LOL There were SO many little guys on this cruise. I’m 5’5”, and I’m used to being the little guy in the group, but there were a lot of hot little guys, 4’10”, 5 foot, etc on this cruise. It seems like every time I turned around I had some little guy coming up and giving me lovin’s and hugs and kisses and mmmmmm. Dave P and Bob both noticed that too. At one point I was hugging this guy who had to be like 4 foot 8 at most. I was just towering over him, he was so adorable. And everyone was there going OMG, Phil, you’re so tall. I was playing like GRRRRRRR I’m a giant, GRRRRRR. It was hilarious really. I loved it. And then I realized I was doing ALL the things I absolutely detest taller guys doing to me. I was rubbing the top of their head. I was picking them up off the floor. I was playing “I’m a giant, grrr” LOL I felt a little bad about it, since I knew how much I hate it when guys do that to me. But OMG, they were just so sexy and cute and I wanted to rub all over them hahahaha.

So I guess that is enough cruise thinking for now. Back to work thinking I guess. Bleh. Is it vacation time again yet? LOL

Cheers