Texx (Ex denizen of Grand Central Starport)

My father turned 90 in 2024 Sep.
Hes always been active, having met Mom in the UCB Hiking Club.
Mom got him into international Folk Dance in the early 50s and they were on the dance floor
several days a week for over 50 years.
Moms dementia finally took them off the floor for 5 years, and after her passing,
Dad returned to Berkeley Folk Dancers.
I credit this with his survival to this age and several small strokes last winter.

I grew up in a family that hiked, camped, skied and danced.
We didnt learn til last Dec that dad had had a couple short "spells" where he didnt feel good but
recovered quickly back in Oct Nov and early Dec.

Thursday night before Dickens closing, Dad had one that lasted about 5 mins.
He told me about it the next morning.
His physician was out for the weekend so we went to visit Urgent Care, and they sent us to Alta Bates ER.
They Sent him to Summit ER and he was finally admitted there.
My fears were confirmed, he was having a series of micro strokes.
I was expecting to get him back Monday before Xmas.

My sister is his health primary and in charge of the estate.
My job is to be the canary in the coal mine in case something happens, and something did.
(This is my "rent")

As Dickens was closing and during teardown, I had no idea if Dad was EVER returning to the family home
(Thus rendering me homeless), and if he did, I had no idea if I could be away from the house long
enough to do faire again.

He was out of the hospital before xmas and ensconced in my sisters guest room out in Livermore.
They are retired and always home, so there was no worry about Dad taking a fall and laying there for hours
before discovery.
He went back in after xmas and came back out to "rehab".

This is where the hope began.
He was one of the few patients not in wheel chair
(He refused even a walker, only begrudgingly took a 4footed cane)
The therapist came to see him and they were going to spend the next week getting from bed to door.
He grabbed the cane, hobbled to the door and asked if they could go out in the hall.
They face palmed. (WOO HOO DAD!)
He proceded to manage his own rehab and in a week was back at Margarets where he was soon climbing stairs
there a half dozen times a day and helping walk the doog (Almost 1 mi on the flats)

Margaret is a mainstay in the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society and Dad eventually started coming to
some of the monthly parties.
Meanwhile Berkeley Folk Dancers was not sure they would ever see him again, that is until someone attended a p[arty and saw Dad there dancing with RSCDS.

It was decided that Dad life was in Berkely and he needed to eventually return home.
For the past several months, Ive been trying to declutter the house, keep 3.5 acres of gardens from dying,
look for work in IT, and do 5 hrs on gravyard 6 days a week at an Amazon sort facility.
Ive lost a bit more weight...

Easter weekend, something hit me and I spent a week on the bathroom floor alone.
I spent another week as a zombie doing nothing.
I am now taking body building supplements and am back up to 130 lbs.
This is both funny and scary as I broke 230 in the late 90s and until 2020,
I was fighting HARD to get my weight down! (Nervous laughter)
Some day, just to freak you all out, Ill have to trot out a pair of my pants from 1998.

1st Sunday in May, Dad returned home.
We did not need to have the "Driving talk" as he has announced on his own
that he thought he was done driving.
Hes more frail than he was and hes got some lossy spots in his vision.
On the other hand, hes out trimming a hedge today.

He has returned to Berkeley Folk Dancers 2 afternoons a week (intermediate level)
You should have seen the reaction when he walked in the room.
Last Sat he attended one of their bigger parties and it was fun watching the reaction of the whole party
when he walked in the room.

I dont think they were expecting to ever see him again.
I credit his time on the dance floor for his having survived those strokes.

FWIW, I get that whole "never say die" thing from both parents.
I actually take more after Mom than Dad.
Margaret is the one who took after Dad.

At the moment, I think Im stabilized.
In Dec, I was VERY freaked out, facing possible loss of my remaining parent
(Ive outlived all but my Dad & Sister), woried about living situation, future faire seasons etc.
I was a mess (OK a WORSE mess than USUAL...)

July 2024 is when time finally caught up with me, but I STILL insist on being the biggest 14 yr old
you ever met!
Something happened while I was working on the "Big Sort" libe in July 2024.
By the time we started building Nothern Faire last year, I was in trouble.
I had process assistants doing their best to keep me out of big sort.

First build weekend, I got off work before dawn and drove to Casa.
I dozed in the front seat of the car slightly reclining but not laying over.
Everyone was camping at just until rehearsal weekend.
I stumbled out of the car and headed for the guild yard.
I encountered our lord mayor "Geez! What the hell happened to YOU?"
I brought a cane.
As I warmed up i got a little better but I was no longer the "old guy that ran circles around the 20 yos"
That night, I rolled out a sleeping bag in a lounge chair.
The next morning, It took a half hr to get from horizontal to vertical and another half hr to get my pants on.

Next weekend, I managed to stagger out of the cat on Sat morning, and thngs improved as the day got warmer.
That night, we went to a BBQ in Holister hosted by a member of my guild (St Cuthberts).
By the end of the evening, Id probably had the equivalent of a whole bottle of red wine.
We returned to Casa and I popped by to visit those at Constables camp.
I was offered a "buttery nipple" and given the recipe and told to hit the ice chest on my own if I wanted another.
I ultimatelly made one big enough to fill my tankard.
I was moving better the next day only lightly using the cane.
Sharon noticed that I was still "lit" from the night before.

I made if through faire by getting totally trashed each Saturday night.
This is unsustainable but it got me through the season and by tear down, I took it easy and made it.


I had another go at Medicare but it didnt go well.
I can build a data centre from scratch, including floor loading calcs, power calcs, chiller calcs,
and even driving the darn forklift, but I cant make heads or tails out of that website.
I have no idea HOW the MAGATS are able to sign up for it and with my higher intelligence, I cant.

I know I have some gremlins waiting in the shadows and I need to jump on my own health.
At some point Im going to be in some real trouble.
Im trying to honor my promise to Dave, I promised not to die during faire season,
and most of all, not on site!

In 2011 I found a graphic art I can actually excell at (printing).
This spring, Im suddenly "jones-ing" to go into metal sculpture, dunno why.

Its going to be a while before I know how much of faire season Im going to be able to do.
It depends on whether Dad can be alone for a whole weekend and we wont know that for another month or two.

Ah yeah, the back thing.
Palmer Chiro College shutdown their San Jose campus and that was where I was getting my work done.
Im looking into new chiro clinics, and until then, I now sleep on kitchen floor and
never more than 4 hrs in a row.
If I sleep on a hard surface, in 4 hr chunks, the back seems to hold up.
I think those klingons are on to something.

There are a couple other medical gremlins that Ill spare you details.

Its been known that Bird Flu would arrive sooner or later.
Its a fact.

We were expecting is back in the early 2000s and dodged the bullet.
I actually took a class on how to do telecommunications in a bunnysuit.

Sadly, having seen the botched response to COVID, I dread the likely bungled response to Bird Flu.

Trump personally lost a million a day during the lockdown.
This encouraged his lackluster response.

We had a couple other things that started in China, but they were stopped in their tracks by lockdowns in China.
The local party didnt want to rock the boat witht he national party,
so they silenced the health workers in Wuhan until it was too late.

Since much of the PPE is made in Wuhan,
and most of the swab sticks are made in the Lombardi region of Italy, this loose association helped the spread into Europe.

Considering the current "Science is junk" stance in the US, we are bound to botch it again, and this time worse.

Bird Flu is far more deadly.

In Spain the mortuary industry was overwhelmed by the death rate from COVID.

Most people are not aware of the consingency plans required for large pandemics.
If it gets bad enough in New York, Central Park gets dug up for mass graves.

While Trump and his buddies drcry the financial losses from a lockdown, they have not pondered what happens to the economy when there is a New York traffic jam of dumptrucks bri8nging bodies to hige pits dug in Central Park for body disposal.
Id like to see the look on Trumps face as he sees rows and rows of dump trucks loading bodies into the pits.

Out here, Goldengate Park is a likely site for mass graves.
Each major city will have their own.
Cemetaries and mortuaries wont be able to keep up.

This is a very real possibility with bird flu.

The last pipe organ factory on the west coast is Schoenstein Organ Co, founded in San Francisco CA 1877,
moved to Benicia CA 20 years ago.
The company has come back from the dead, members of the family have also returned to the business since Jack purchased and revived it.

Each year, they have an open house where they show off whatever they have on the erection floor and have somepne play it for the crowd.
Its cool to wander the plant admiring the old tools that made the organ we are listening to.

One of the guys at Amazon, Dan grew up outside Corpus Christie TX.
I have a gut feeling Dan has the hots for me.
Dan has a partner and I dont usually date "attached" people, however and Ive been able to steer clear of even discussing the matter.

I am still on public transit after the readending the 1st of Nov.
It took a while for me to get the dragging plastic on the end of the rear bumper, and Dickensfaire and weather didnt help.
I finally got the plastic off at the start of Feb and drove it in to the body shop for the estimate.
We were expecting insurance to total it.
Since then, I get up at 2130, dress & eat dinner, at 2200 Dad and I head to BART where I catch a Fremont train.
At Fremont I have a 20 min layover before catching the 200 bus several miles till Im half mile from Amazon.
There are times when I wonder if Im the only one NOT jumping the gates at BART.
Seems like EVERYONE ELSE just steps over the turnstyle.
If all goes well, I get a 20 min nap in one of the beanbags in the Amazon break room before starting shift at 0030.
Im on Sunrise and Dan is on Morning, so our shifts overlap a bit.
When Im done, I take another nap in the breakroom and Dan gives me a lift to Oakland and I BART to Berkeley,
and transfer to another bus (after another layover) and walk another half mile home.

My commute is a LOT longer than it was with a car.

So back to Schoenstein:
Yesterdays organ is about to be shipped to "Good Shepherd Church" in Corpus Christie.
Dan is a Cantor at several churches in the local diocese and he also sings with the Livermore Opera.
I knew he would be working all day Sunday so there was no way to get him up to Benicia.
I sent him several pics from the event and finally of the sign stating where its going.

I found out this morning he was a section leader in the choir at that church!

Now, remember the car?
Well insurance called back.
Imagine our surprise when it came back 250 decutable from us and 11.5k to the body shop!
I was THRILLED. That car handles like nothing else Ive driven. It also has a kick ass sound system.
Then the body shop called back. They cant get the parts, so the car is to be totalled anyway.
Now Im NOT thrilled.

I have a mounting list of things I was going to do after faire season, but without a car everything is running behind.

The job at Amazon is a 4hr shipt with the possibility of beinf flexed up to 5 or down to 3.
For the last year, except during prime week, we are almost always being flexed down and they are trying to figure out how to get rid of Sunrise shift.
The problem is that we do a lot of things that would clash with a sorting shift, and we can sort ourselves because the machines are down for maintenence.
Cross dock moves would clash with running a regular sort.
I almost defaulted on several credit cards in Dec, but Ive managed to lower my cost of living and Im hopeful of reviving the last card this month.
Its very tough.

More later.

Where to begin?

Mopup after Rennfaire at Casa De Fruta is done.

Morning of Nov1 I was rear ended on the freeway. Impact sped me up 20mph.
Still not sure what hit me. I made my exit from the freeway to get to storage, expecting a dent in the rear.
The Rear of the trunk lid is under the rear window.
The car did what it was supposed to be and I made it unscathed.

Of course Im now on public transportation and thi8s right before Dickens started.
Dad drops me at BART at night, I BART to Fremont, take a bus and then walk last half mile to Amazon.

Financially, Im a mess not having done a tech gig in a year and Amazion having cut Sunrise shift to only 3hrs a day.
I might even be making less than unemployment now. Very bad.
I crash in the break room until morning sort completes when a buddy there gives me a ride home.
This helps alot saving me the cost on the home trip.
If/when i ever have disposable income again, I need to do something REALLY nice for him.

In Sept, we knew that we were across the same bay from last year as Alan Jeffries is back.
A week before build, we moved agaion to the end of the bay placing us at a corner and backing up to Mad Sals backstage.
We have ALWAYS been in the middle, so none of our side walls are externally skinned.
They wanted us to have windows in the side.
We werent financially ready to build more walls.
Fair offerred us some flats with windows.
Then they needed them back because they were for something else.
Same thing happened to the next 2 window flats they provided.
Install, remocve & block, rinse blather and repeat.

Things are doing OK, I guess.
A college theatre bud sent me a pic from several years ago of me running a press.
That was cool.

Saturdays, Dan from Morning sort drops me at West Oakland and i BART to SSF where Sharon & Don pick me up.
For Monday morning, Im burning a shift of leave time and coming home Monday mid day via BART.

I have been crashing on Sharons sofa at 8pm and sleeping a full 12 hrs which is novel.

What brought me to Amazon in the first place was a depressive crisis.
Last week I found myself in the same rabbit hole i was in back in most of 2020.
I was lower than low. It was a lousy way to spend last sat (my 66th).

I clocked in on Sat morning and Wei wished me happy birthday. We share a birthday, same year too.
At 8am, Google assistant also wished me a happy birthday.
Other than that, my birthday pretty much went un noticed.

Alan Jeffries hosted a menorah lighting at his shop after hours.
That was the extent of the festivities on my birthday.

I should add that Sharon wishes i could get to Colma BART at 745 and the soonest I can get there is about 810.
Usually, Sharon gets there around 845. They make ME look absolutely PUNCTUAL!

One more weekend of Dickens and then teardown.

Its rare but I managed to do 2 posts in 2 days.

The Friday night before Easter, I got up to hit the "loo" somewhere around 8PM.
Dad was starting dinner prep.
He usually starts at 6pm but Im usually asleep by then.
OK, he must be running late.

I got up again at 10 to start prepping to go to work and look for dinner on the counter.
Nothing had progressed.
Uh, OH.
He was trying to peel himself off the kitchen floor.
Double, triple, quadruple, OH SHIT!

He was hoping I could handle dinner on my own and he wanted to go to bed.
He said hed try and get by the Dr in the morning.
As he headed to the stair, I feared the worst and considered that letting him go to sleep on his own, \
he might not get up.

I decided to burn a shift of leave time and it was time to prep for an ER run.
He was able to get his coat on while I changed again.
Since we are on the downhill side of the street,
I propped him up on the counter having him hold tight as I dashed down into the basement to fetch one of Grandads canes.
We grabbed Dads medical file and put it in a shopping tote (Its kinds big)
I had him talk to me nonstop for the whole trip.

We got there around 11 and out around 5am.
I was afraid we were dealing with mild stroke.
I emailed my sister with preliminary details.
He dozed several times, I could tell when his pulse ox dropped from 99 to 92 that he was dozing.
A cat scan, 2 separate blood panels, 2 different glucose sticks and a few other things and we were out of there.
I did an online Python course on my phone from his bedside.
I was doing OK reading the overhead monitor.
It was only a couple days later before I figured out how to read the blood panel report.

I was still thinking stroke.
For some screwball reason, the hospital was thinking "Acute Kidney Injury". I did not yet understand.

Nervously, I did the CABAL meeting on Sat night and we did Easter at my sisters place.
The original plan was for me to drive but at the last moment, Dad wanted to try just part of the trip.
It was a chance to see if he could still drive.
The first mile was a Disneyland "X" ticket ride. He did improve, and we made it all the way to Livermore.
The trip home that night was better. He actually improved over the day, visibly.

A male close to 90 should have a EGFR score of 60 or more and he got a 20,
and had he gotten a 15 it would have counted as "Chronic Kidney Disease"
Once I learned how to read the panel, it was bad.

After more lab work a few days after Easter, I finally understood the reports,
and more importantly, I knew WHY they were going on about kidney and not about stroke.
Over the next 2 weeks, the numbers improved.
Hes finally up to 40 out of 60.

Hes been hypertensive, apparently prediabetic now too.
UGH, I know Im hypertensive and probably pre diabetic as well.
Colleen had been telling me for years that I was pre diabetic.

One of Dads kidneys has shrunk and is calcified, although hes not getting stones.
Apparently calcification is linked to the combination of pre diabetic and hypertension.
It would seem we are probably on the same path.

Dad has pretty much graduated back off the cane, but we keep a couple of them strategically placed around the house, like top & bottom of staires, next to external doors etc.

There more coming, but the panic is over.

Dad got Covid first week of Dec and we thought he was over it in a week.
A cough stuck around and in late Feb, I put him up to being checked for pneumonia.
It turned out to be acute brochitus and treastable with antibiotics.
He was mostly over it when we ended up in the ER and its totally cleared up now.
Looking back, hes been on long Covid.

As things clear, hes returning to Berkely Folk Dancers and hes resumed gardening for the firs ttime since Dec.
His activity is increasing and with that everything else is improving, although Id really like to get him to drink more water.
Id like to get 60oz a day thropugh him but his Dr if ok with only 1.5 litre.

Replacing the 8 glasses of 8oz each of water a day is a new formula out there,
where you take half your weight and use that for the number of oz water.
Dad is 120lbs, so should be somewhere just above 60 oz.
I should be just above 70 but Im lucky to get close to 64.

Apparently this got stuck without posting back in April:

There was a loud noise an hr ago.
I went out in the rain to check and it appears we lost another oak.
The house is up by the street with a very steep back that leads down to Cerrito Creek which is both AlMeda - Contra Costa county border and Kensington Berkeley border.
Most of the open is to steep to do anything with.

By my count we are in #14 or #15 atmospheric river this season.

We already have a couple more downed oaks in the canyon from other years.

Those Oaks are at least 50 yrs old.
The house was built in 1928.

I lost count how many power cuts we have had this season.
Some over 20 hrs.

Earlier this week, they finally cut up the neighbor's tree that blocked the whole road.

Faire ended 2 weeks ago.
I stayed over Sunday night and worked all day on tear down of Cuthberts Guild yard.
It was depressing how much more there was to do.
I had hoped we might get to something like a 1 day teardown.

Came back the weekend before Halloween, for what was hoped to be a 1 day tear down.
We also blew off the opening meeting for Dickens.
We got out of there LATE Sunday, hoping to make the Cow Palace in time to drop off the Cuthberts trailer.
I called ahead to learn that the gate we needed was out of commission, Sharon was sick, and even if we could have gotten down there, we would not have gotten in the building.

We dropped off a few things at my storage and headed to Sharons, where I got a shower and unloaded the items from the back of the truck that needed to be secured.
After shower, I had a few nibbles of chinese food, and realized thast I was in now shape to do Amazon.
I burned some more leave tiome and headed home around sunrise.

The whole workshops 1 weekend for Dickens was botched.
It turns out the Sat meeting was only for those who had never been there before and the meeting Sunday was the REAL grand meeting and not that helpful.
It seems, I am not in the ciomputer system, so i cant even entre the site without having a badge.

A LOT of Dickens is not coming back this year.
There is a combination of issues, some have valid points and some are just plain stupid.

We have been told that our pallet with our booth flats on it may not be ready for us til rehearsal weekend and we need to build what we have before figuring what we need to add and then figure out what we have space to bring.

We have a new location, next to Tavistock house and this year quite a bit more space.
I dont know how long it will be before they shrink us again.

I suspect presses will arrive night before faire opens.
WAY TOO CLOSE.

This year looks like a total cluster F**K !

Originally, I was going to go to Scottish Games in Pleasanton.
We are running behind at NCRF so i went to work more on getting Cuthberts rufinished instead.

Ive been going nuts looking for the yellow duffle and my overalls.
Did Sat AM at Amazon in Fremont, drove home to Berkeley to look one more place, then finally gave up and went to casa de Fruta.
Once i got there, I found the overalls in the chair infront of Sharons tent and the uerllow duffle in mine.
DOH!

We got a lot more work done, but we are going to be adding finishing touches over rehearsal weekend (best weekend)

At fairesite we had 111 on sat and 113 on sun.
I took off mon am from Amazon so i ciouold crash at Sghaton & Dons in Pacifica.
Don helped me in the morning over at my storage in San Leandro moving some heavy lumber.
Then in the aftermnoon, we set up and ran the print job for the bags for Rennfaire Tea with the Queen.
We nailed the set up on the second bag, a new record.
I took this morning off from Amazon too as Im suddenly very sore.

Heat usually doent bother me as bad as cold, and it mostly didnt bother me as bad as many,
but on sunday late afternoon, I suddebly felt queasy and realized that Id drunk a lot of fluid and hadnt been to the loo since early morning.
This mean I was in trouble. Someone eventually handed me a frozen bottle of water that i put under an arm pit and that really helped get me back to normal.

Im job hunting again.
The new day job is not working out.
Its easy to go from Amazon right on to it, but the onboarding process is awful and they keep throwing stuff at me that I dont have access to yet.

Provacative subject?
The story behind it is later in this post.

June flew by quickly.

I scored a new day job the 2nd week of May.
The background check that usually takes less than a wee4k, went on 2 month.
I THINK I start next week (Last week July!)

We did a lighter weight July 4th at El Cerrito.
It was great seeing the crew again.
Id seen Sky at Renn Faire last year but the rest of the crew I hadnt seen since before the pandemic.

The 1983 Yamaha Seca 900 has been at the mechanics for over 7 years and is poised to finally come home this summer.
It started out with some engine work I was not set up to do and then I kept having them do more on it
as I didnt have the time (and it was being stored indoors)

Due to my newness to cloud computing and Python Im not working as much of the year as I used to,
which impacts finances.
Its really been done for a year and I had to pay off the bill along with the amount of time Ive been living off plastic since the end of 2017.
I did pay off 2 cards last Dec.
Amazon does not cover bills, but it pays better than unemployment between gigs and with a gig
at current market rates, it helps retire debt and rebuilds cushion for next gap between gigs.

One of the problems is that many of the Indian recruiters are trying to push us into these gigs
that pay crap rates from 10 years ago.
They say "thats what the client has" but are unwuilling to remind the client that its not 2010 anymore.

I have 2 nieces.

The older niece and I were not really on speaking terms until she was mid middle school.
She felt it her duty to me rude to me because I was "mean to Mommy when you guys were kids"
I finally cornered her at 13 or 14 "OK, Whats this whole Harry Potter thing thats going on?"
That broke the ice, and now she prints with me at Dickens Faire.

Meanwhile, there is a younger niece.
I had met Bonnie once at a visit to my sisters and then my mothers older bro died.
Sister picked me up for the funeral down south, and on that day,
older niece was going through the terrible threes.
We arrives in Santa Maria and sister went to change.
A towel was draped over my shoulder and a 3 month old on top of that.
"Uh, Margaret, I dont think your kids are cool with strangers" (Older niece def didnt do non parents)
"This ones different, trust me!"
This freed Margaret and Tom to both deal with Ali. (They really needed both them to deal with Ali)
Bonnie spen the rest of the day draped over my shoulder, one arm around my neck, eyes the size of dinner
plates, typical "stoned baby" look.

Bonnie wanted to experience life at maximum volume and Ali destperately looked for the knob to turn it down.

Somewhere mid primary school, Bonnie drifted off.
I spent years trying to figure out what was going on.
Her dream was to go on to grad school in marine biology but was unable to advance after her BS degree.

For a long time, Id been trying to figure out a way to get her there and i asked a question at a family gathering along that line and triggered a meltdown, which my brother in law was convinced I did on purpose.
I just wanted to make the kids dream come true, and did not expect the meltdown, but he doesnt believe it.

About a year before Covid hit, at another gathering, I told Bonnie that I had no idea that my question would
have triggered a meltdown.
Bonnie told me to grab my coat and that we were going for a walk.
Her parents were dubious, but she told them "I NEED to take him for a WALK!"
We talked and circled the block numerous times. There were some tears, but we kept walking.
She has felt nothing in common with the family beyond name, and hadnt for years.
Also, she identified as "non gender". I think she was waiting for me to freak, but I didnt.
She also felt a tad left out "The older sibling gets everything!"

COVID hit, I almost died several times in 2020, scared the crap out of the family.

Fathers day 2021, "After lunch, Bonnie, you need to take me for a walk"
At this point, she mentioned that she thought I gave up on her in primary school.
She also mentioned that she really hated writing reports and that might have affected her marine bio scores.
I pointed out that if she disliked reports that much, she was in the wrong field for sure and missing
grad school might have been a blessing in disguise.
I also countered that Id seen her drifting away and Id spent years trying to figure out why.

Fast forward again, Easter 2022.
"Bonnie, we need to walk again. I need you to tell me who knows what so I dont say the wrong thing"
This time things got REALLY interesting.
She identified as "trans". well a lot of "non gender" identify as "trans".
Uh, well, shes going further than that. I will be told when Im supposed to switch pronouns, but not yet.
OK.
Last Dec, she talked to Kaiser. They have her on the fast track.
She was also expecting me to freak out negatively, but my reactions was "AHA! So THATS whats going on!"
She still identifies as non gender and expects to still identify after getting the body work.
"Im saying "maybe, and thats OK, but dont be surprised if having the right body suddenly
a gender spontaneously develops"

Time will tell

The family knows the top work is happening this summer.
They dont know about the bottom work or the testosterone.

Her dad still refers to "the gay lifestyle" which is BS, as lifestyles are chosen, identities are not.
He knows all about gay people because his mother was a medical transcriptionist.
Total BS.

Despite some of his past remarks, I still feel sorry for him.
Hes being forced down a rabbit hole he wishes he does not know about and i have to keep pleading with
Bonnie "DONT SQUICK YOUR DAD!!!"

Hes hanging in there, but this is going to put him through the meatgrinder.


I have also asked her not to try growing a beard until she can do it right.
A lot of trans guys try it just too soon and it looks a fright.

With a biomedical engineering background, I have kept up a little on the technology.
Bonnie has been filling in the gaps.
Ill spare you the details on how they do the bottom work.

Now we come to the subject line of this post and this is one that blew her mind.
Shes not sure which was more of a surprise,
the fact that testicles were an option or that identifying as non gender, she WANTED a set, BIGTIME!

In science fiction and fantasy convention community, I run into a LOT of insecure males.
About 15 years ago, i finally had my fill of insecure males.

At Amazon, I run into a LOT of lazy people thinking thay are being paid to hide behind a pallet and play on their phone.
I run into a lot of "Not my job" and I run into a bunch of 20 something years old WUSSIES!

Thjere are a handful of us on sunrise (1230-0530) who are over 50.
Wil is very tall black guy, shaved head, grandfather.
Oscar is a latino guy with tatoos and arms that are frighteningly huge.
And there are a few others in upper 50s and 60s.

I asked "What kind of men are these kids when a couple old men are running circles around them?"
One of the guys paused and then asnwered "The kind that wear little girls panties"
We all broke up after that one.

When a gay man tells a straight man to "GROW a pair!" something is going on.
A couple weeks ago, I lost it and went off on one of the associates and told him so.

Last week, I went off on anotherwussie kid who thought he was butch, again.
"My NIECE has more balls than you do, and HERS havent been INSTALLED yet!"

Will commented "My cousin is having hers installed in January..."


The Bay Area is an interesting place.

The contract gig I started in Oct, started with an unknown length and ended in late Jan.
Had I known that it would end so soon, I probably would not have paid off 2 credit cards in Dec,
as that depleted my reserves.

Paying off the 2 cards did improve my rating and resulted in limits being raised on the 2 cards.
That is the silver lining to my scary current situation.

Well, its been tight, but the Amazon sunrise shift has helped extend what I had left.
Im not going to make it through June without a new day job, however.

On Tuesday, I went on my first FACE to FACE interview in 3 years.
I am cautiously optimistic.

They are just starting to bring people back onsite.
As I was leaving, a convoy of flat dollies laden with boxes and boxes and boxes of paper mail to be
distributed to people as they return to their cubes.

One thing that appeals to me about the job is that it is NOT one of these horrid "Open Office" disasters.

Rumour has it that we are getting our annual raise in May at Amazon.
Last year, I got 2 of them in May, one when they converted me to white badge to blue badge,
and then a week later the annual one.

For a number of years, I have had recurring bouts of athletes foot,
which eventually ushered in toe nail issues.
I also have something that I suspect is an improperly healed broken foot bone on the left.
(There isnt a lot you can do for most foot fractures, casts rarely make a difference.)
Colleen kept trying to blame both on pre diabetic condition.
I dont see a connection.

About the time I started at Amazon, I realized there was an odd swelling in the right foot and a
tingling sensation.
I attributed that to the dramatic increase in walking that Im doing.
A year later, its still there and the tingling has spread to the left foot.
This time, Im seriously considering the possibility of foot neuropathy.

I have finally started a list of things to look at as soon as Im elligible for medical again.

Last Oct, while recovering from walking pneumonia, a set a personal best of better than 12 mi during
a 5hr shift at Amazon.
A couple weeks ago, I managed to break 15 and Im STILL trying to figure out how I managed to pull that off.
Last week, I broke 13 one of the days.

If I spend a lot of time inside a truck or on a scan line, I only get 5 or 6 mi.
If I spend the whole time doing nothing but moving pallets, I end up over 9 and usually over 10.

My parents did international folk dance for over 45 years.
When Mom got a new hip and again when she went into assisted living, the question was
"What is her sport? We can tell from her vitals that shes an athlete"
It took a while for me to realize that the answer is "Shes a dancer"
A year after Mom passed, Dad returned to Berkeley Folk Dancers.

After he retired he used to do a daily 2 or 3 mi hike.
When people see us together they think we are brothers and are pretty sure Im the older one.
My father thinks its hilarious, he hasnt turned grey yet, despite being late 80s.
For the last few years, I have resembled a skinny St Nick.
People would ask how my Dad was and Id tell them that he was in better physical shape than I am.

Amazon is in the process of leveling the field.
Im still 145 - 150, and size 29 trousers (If they can be had with a 33in inseam!) are quite comfortable.

Classical pipe organs have graces churches for centuries.
Special "Theatre pipe organs" were developed at the end of WW1 for silent film use.
American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS.org) was founded in the mid 1950s.
Our first local ATOS event since the pandemic started was last last weekend.
A number of people were surprised at how much Ive shrunk (OK I DID wear a faily tight shirt and pants)

I did get upstaged by another guy.
Chris had been in the hospital before the pandemic with somehting pretty severe.
With the pandemic nobody saw him til now.
Chris lost over 100 lbs. Ive never seen him that slim in the 40 years Ive known him.

This week, I went to the CycleGear "BikeNight".
Its finally back after the pandemic.
I won one of the raffles, a t-handle kex wrench set and a motorcycle drivechain cleaning brush.
Normally Im in bed by 4pm to be up at 10:30 to go to Amazon.
BikeNight wasnt over til after 7.
I drove to Amazon and zonked out in the parking lot and managed OK with only 4 hrs sleep.