Almost Panic Time

Vacation time is rapidly approaching. In fact, we board a big tour bus early this Friday morning bound for Colorado.

Each of us are allowed one suitcase for the trip which lasts ten days. I have to figure out what to pack in that suitcase to get me by. Plus, we have to guess at possible cooler temperatures at higher elevations. It's times like this I wish for my pre transgender guy days. A few shirts, pants and underwear and I was ready to go.

Example of the tour bus (and company) we are taking.

It's mind boggling for me since the suitcase also has to hold my CPAP breathing machine, so I can sleep at night.

This is actually Liz and I's fourth bus tour so we are familiar with how unforgiving the seats can become on a long trip. To fight back fatigue, Liz bought us a couple of back support cushions to take along.

I guess I am becoming the typical senior citizen traveler, if I like it or not.

Dining Out

Last night we went again to the usual upscale Italian restaurant we normally go to...perhaps for the last time. No, nothing out of the ordinary happened. The obnoxious cross dresser was there along with Liz, myself and a recovering older person who needed assistance So we  were able to stop and give her a ride. She is recovering from a fairly serious foot operation.

It was interesting in that we had a chance to really talk to her by herself. She was talking about how long it took to establish a feminine life and how she didn't really want to be seen with anyone closer to home who could tie her back in with her old masculine life. She has established herself as a new member greeter in her church. Plus, she is a board member of the "Rosie Reds" a women's auxiliary of the professional baseball Cincinnati Reds. At the age of eighty, she has established herself as everyone's grandma.

As we talked, I had a chance to insert how bored I was with going to the same place all the time, not to mention how tired I am with the same old bullshit from the obnoxious cross dresser.

Due to our upcoming vacation, plus a ghost tour we are going on, I won't have to worry about seeing him for at least a month.

Unfortunately, that isn't quite true because this Thursday we are going to another social the night before we leave for Colorado (from Ohio).  The cross dresser nearly always comes but there are plenty of other transgender peeps to interact with.  It should be interesting this week because the venue is being moved from a local small independent restaurant who didn't want to stay open past nine for us, to a large corporate restaurant/bar.  As a former restaurant manager myself, I am sorry to see us move. On the other hand I understand.

I am sure I will have plenty of other chances to write about it later.

Happy Ending

I had another chat with the support group moderator (Transgender-Cross dresser) concerning her infatuation with supporting the anti LGBTQ Chick -fil -a. In fact, I tagged her on Facebook  with yet another story of how the chicken joint's head guy called their stand against us a "higher calling."

She fired back at me how she considered herself a "proud transgender woman" and was breaking down barriers when she ate there. I told her again how backwards that was and the only barrier she was breaking down was the company's lower profit margin.

Surprisingly, she agreed with me and said she wouldn't eat there anymore! Good for her. If she is true to her word, at least I did my part to impact the bottom line of another anti LGBTQ company. Liz used to go to Hobby Lobby for some of her craft needs until we learned of their right wing evangelical leanings. Every little bit helps!

I may have to consider another coffee place after this rant from Connie:

"Not much risk involved by giving your money to someone who only likes your money. If she thinks she's being an activist, I would call her a "Chicken Activist." :-) I won't even patronize Seattle's own Starbucks because Schultz sold our Super Sonics to Oklahoma - plus, I don't really like burnt coffee at high prices. Schultz likes to burn coffee and basketball fans, I guess. He will allow trans people to use the restrooms, but you might have to wait until the heroin addict is through shooting up in there. But, hey, nobody's perfect, whether they be a CEO, a moderator, a trans person, or a drug addict. ;-)"

The problem I have is there aren't very many "neighborhood" coffee shops near me to patronize. I need to find out where "Mad Llama Coffee" is to see if it is close enough to go to. I had their coffee and a couple pastries a week or so ago at a farmer's market and loved it.

As far as the sports go, as many of you know, we have our own problems here in Cincinnati. 

Sarah McBride

From Washington (CNN)"Transgender activist Sarah McBride announced Tuesday that she's running for a Senate seat in her home state of Delaware.

Sarah McBride

McBride, 28, would become the first transgender person elected to a state senate if chosen to represent Delaware's 1st District. McBride made waves at the Democratic National Convention in 2016 as the first transgender person to speak at a major party convention.

McBride said that her campaign won't center on her identity, but instead hinge on expanding affordable health care and reforming the state's criminal justice system.

"A lot of people know me because of my advocacy in the LGBTQ community, but I want to be clear that that has not been my most formative experience," McBride told CNN on Tuesday.

McBride said the experience of caring for her late husband through a battle with cancer shaped her focus on health care, particularly her charge to increase access to paid family medical leave.

"I don't want anyone to go through that experience, but I also know that thousands of people are going through it every day," McBride said."

Good luck Sarah!

Are You Kidding Me?

At Monday night's transgender - cross dresser support group meeting, I walked in innocently enough expecting the moderator to go overboard once again expounding on her favorite topic...herself.

Instead she was somewhere missing in action but a Chick-fil-a cup was sitting in front of her seat. I almost just got up and left. Instead, I stayed and let her know my displeasure.

I said I thought the group was not political in nature and why should she bring politics into it. Of course she gave us all the same old song and dance about how she was helping the transgender cause by eating there. In reality, all she is doing is helping a company which hates the LGBTQ community.

Of course nothing was solved and maybe I got my point across with some of the other attendee's.

Only time will tell.

Say it Ain't So!

After twelve and a half years writing a blog, Stana at Femulate is calling it quits.

Stana

Very simply, most of you know, I have referred to her blog as the "gold standard" of transgender related blogs. You could always count on it to be well written, informative and full of wonderful pictures.

I will miss it totally. Stopping by Femulate was my first move every morning when I set out to figure out what I was going to write here in Cyrsti's Condo.  Many days it was like walking through sand to figure out what (if anything) I could possibly add to create yet another post. On many of those days, Stana was my push to get up and get moving.

Truthfully, after some 5600 published posts, I wonder if I should go away too. I think what I am going to do though instead of shutting down the blog, is instead taking a couple courses on creating a more professional site.

At this point in time, I am thinking of taking some of my vacation (coming up soon) to think about it.

In the meantime, I will always admire and respect Stana for her efforts.

She will be missed!

More Transgender Flowers

Due to the state of my life lately, this comment is actually several days old and includes another comment/picture from Connie. Much of it revolves around the concept of "passing" in a feminine world:

"Because of the work I do, I interact with dozens of people every day. It is usually they who start the conversation, as I'm basically there to water beautiful flower baskets, and people want to tell me how lovely those flowers are. I just reply with a feminine-sounding "thank you," but oftentimes I'm asked how I keep them so nice and lush. If I've passed up until this point, that's OK, but attempting to keep my feminine voice during a conversation, and keeping my feminine appearance during a longer face-to-face encounter lower my chances of passing with each tick of the clock (Is that what they mean by "clocked?")

My philosophy on passing is based on passing muster. This may, or may not, include blending in. I pretty much draw attention to myself while working, but it's in a positive way. I realize that there are many people who may size me up before saying anything at all to me, and I'm confident that, for most people, I am passing muster. What I think is the best test of this is that I seem to be approachable. It's a lot different than interacting with sales people or servers, whose jobs are to be nice to the customer - whatever they may think about a trans woman. 

At one of the locations where I work, on the pier amidst cruise ships and smaller harbor tour boats, there are more tourists from all over the world than there are Seattle-ites, so I'm often asked for directions or recommendations on the best places to see or go to eat. I'm sometimes taken aback when a good ole boy from the deep south approaches me with such questions. I mean, he easily could have gone to the visitor center right there, but he chose to come to me. I think I have the longest conversations with these guys, because I want them to know that a trans woman can be just as approachable and engaging as anyone else. Maybe some of them don't even figure out that I am trans, but it doesn't matter. 

Every once in a while, someone will compliment more than just my flowers. I have sometimes been told that I am pretty, too. Women are more likely to be sincere in saying that, but I've heard, "the flowers are almost as pretty as you are" from men more often than I would like (men think they're so clever with their come-on lines). 

Even if nobody spoke directly to me, I could take solace in the mere fact that I hear, all day long, parents say to their toddlers in tow, "See, the lady is watering the flowers!" At least they're calling me a lady, and I'm sure their kids will grow up accepting that I am, as are all trans women."

Thanks for the comment!

Busy Day

Yesterday turned out to be a much busier day than I expected. In fact, it turned out to one of those "Army" style days when you hurry up and wait.

The morning started with an always exciting trip to the DMV to get new tags for our new car. Well, it's new to us! I didn't think I would be needed, so I grabbed a seat to wait for Liz to wind her way through an insanely long line to get to a clerk. It turned out since my name was on the title too, I had to step up and be part of the process. All went well until the clerk asked how we described our relationship for the record. I said "Partner." She glared at me and said "How long?" I glared back and said eight years and she seemed satisfied and went on to the next question. After an eternity, the whole fun filled process was over.

Next was Liz's eye appointment. The only thing I can say, the place was air conditioned and had comfortable chairs. Soon we left and headed to one of the close neighborhood specialty food stores to look for produce. After squeezing the mango's it was past time to head to the pharmacy because they close every day for a lunch break between 1:30 and two. Liz was offered some sort of a discount card for her prescription. That was the good news, the bad news was she had to call a number to get it. Of course by that time, the lunch break was upon us and we ended waiting the extra half hour to try to get the prescription filled. It all turned out to be for naught because the phone lines were closed till Monday.

All of the fooling around made us late for our next appointment.  We were supposed to pick up a friend and be at a restored Cincinnati church which has been made into a craft brewery and event center. We were checking it out for perhaps holding a future Witches Ball there. Also we were supposed to meet the disc jockey we were thinking of using this year. By the time we got there, we were a half hour late. Personally, I loved the place. It brought back fond memories of escaping a hot humid day in a cold bar drinking cold beer and relaxing. Although the meeting itself made it hard to relax, I was treated like any other person in the place.

The disc jockey was a trip. We as a group got some push back for using him because supposedly he was a neo nazi in his past. So, we wanted to meet him naturally, to hear his side of the story. Interestingly, Liz said if he avoids me, maybe he is a Nazi. Because they would be more apt to steer clear of a transgender person.

To make a long story short, I don't think he is or was a Nazi and someone is just out to get to us through him. It's sad because all the money raised goes to charity (homeless shelter) and we don't make anything for what essentially is huge pain in the rear. I keep thinking this will be the last year.

After taking our friend home, we finally were able to stop at an Aldi Food Store and do some light shopping for a late dinner.

After all of that, we ran out of time and the day came to an end. Thank goodness.

Lesson learned? If and when you get a chance to live a full life as a transgender woman...never look back!

Flower Girls

As luck would have it, I stopped during my walk at a neighbor's house down the street to admire one of her flower beds. As I did, she came running out to talk to me. It turns out I was the first person in the neighborhood to notice and appreciate all of her hard work. With all the rain we have been having the flowers are doing quite well.

As always, I was a bit self conscious because I hadn't even bothered to put on any make up which of course I don't for my morning walks when I meet very few people. She was so engrossed with talking about her garden, she didn't even seem to notice. After all, she wasn't wearing any either and may have found it odd if I was wearing any either.

Ironically, a better example of a flower girl adding beauty to her plants just came from Connie:

Connie pointed out the picture was actually taken last September "when the flowers were on their downside." Sort of like she was. Well, we can all claim that!

Seriously, I am sure she gets a lot of compliments on  the beautiful flowers and herself.

Thanks for sharing :).