My problem with the single nightstand between two beds is that the hotel insists on filling the nightstand with a lamp, a radio, and a phone, which means there isn’t always room for my CPAP. This isn’t as much a problem now that I have a smaller travel CPAP, but trying to make room for my older CPAP was a PITA. I remember once resorting to putting the suitcase stand with a towel draped over it on the other side of the bed.
Although at least now the hotels provide electrical outlets by the beds. But that’s another rant.
I got a long text from my cousin yesterday. My 83-year-old aunt has Alzheimer’s and is in assisted living now. Her sister, my mom, had early onset Alzheimer’s and died at 59 from it.
Vile Profanity. Now I’m going to have to get tested to see if I have the Alzheimer’s gene. I dodged a bullet by not having the breast cancer gene, let’s hope I dodge this one too.
Hosting holiday party imminently. I may actually get drunk tonight. It’s very rare that I drink (once a year? Maybe?) but I’ve had a fucking day, man. I’m breaking out the Patron soon. Someone else is bringing bourbon. I don’t have any shot glasses so maybe I’ll just have to drink it straight from the bottle…
I spent 30+ years living 15+ nights a month in a hotel. Everything on the desk goes (neatly and gently and respectfully) on the floor to make room for my stuff. Ditto everything on the nightstand except the lamp.
This is my room and I will have it accommodate my stuff first and their stuff second, if at all.
I assume you mean from cousin. If so, I’m sorry to hear that.
Good luck to you.
BTW, Alzheimer’s genetic testing is much more popular than it is scientifically accurate. Like many folks our age, I too have senility anxiety. Lots of businesses are ready and waiting to monetize our (legit) concerns. That does not mean they have legit tests. It only means they have a legit desire to take our money.
This past Saturday my family and I went out to dinner, and I used what I thought was the credit card that gave me the most cash back at restaurants, but I checked this morning and I used the wrong card. Not a big deal but it still made me groan and curse a little.
In addition to that my plugin-hybrid has been merely a hybrid for about a month and a half. The charging part was not working any more, but because we need two cars, I had been unable to take it to the dealership to have it checked out. Yesterday I did and they said they need to replace the battery, which will apparently take about a month. It is covered by warranty, and they did give me a loaner, but it is smaller than my car, and I don’t really want to drive what is essentially a rental car far from home, which I will need to do for the holidays. Also, the month is an estimate, they have to jump through corporate hoops to get the replacement ordered and after that, get it delivered and then the install it so, who knows how long I have to drive the loaner.
And finally, we just found out that a friend of the family has liver cancer. It is not someone we communicate with a lot or interact with frequently, especially since they live in a different state, but he made an important impact on our lives and we usually exchange holiday greetings. They start chemo on new year’s eve. So no matter how bad 2025 was, and it had some major downs for a variety of reasons, there is a definite possibility that on a personal level 2026 might actually be worse.
I had my first old fashioned. Loved it. But I stopped at one. I’m no fun.
We had a toast to our departed friend, and I recited some bad poetry. We ate, drank and were reasonably merry. Somehow we all ended up with crazy mothers, so we talked about that. I vented about my son’s problems at school. Although he absolutely adorably insisted on hugging every one of them goodnight, which he’s never done before. He must have picked up on the positive vibes.
Boy I’ve been missing them. One of us is going to need to start writing again so we have an excuse to get together.
That would have been nice, but they said, nope, too dangerous. I probably could have argued but since it is under warranty, I did not want to press the matter too far. I was hoping I would have gotten something similar to what I had as the loaner, but they only have what they have available so I did not make a fuss about that either.
I’m going to ask my doctor about it when I see her next. Who knows, it might have been all the DDT they were spraying back in the 50s that caused it. It doesn’t help that I have the remnants of chemo brain so I’m still a little slow on the uptake. Does not help the dementia anxiety at all.
When we first moved here twenty-six years ago, our street bordered on an old walnut grove, and it was quiet and semi-rural. It has been built up since then, which we expected. But we didn’t expect that this neighborhood would become Christmas Decoration Central. That by itself would be okay, since we can take a little drive to look at lights without having to go more than a few blocks away.
But this year our local “wine trolley”, which looks like a San Francisco cable car but is essentially an open-air bus used to ferry drinking people around our various wineries, has been repurposed at night to become a tour bus for viewing Christmas decorations. It has chosen our neighborhood and our street to drive around a busful of drinking tourists to see the pretty lights. We’re on a corner with a stop sign, and the trolley has screechy brakes. The gaggle of gogglers is super loud and shrieky, and the trolley is also playing scratchy Christmas carols. The trolley comes around once every hour as soon as it gets dark.
I finally had to get up and close my window even though it’s unseasonably warm and I wanted some fresh air in my bedroom. I’m cranky from lack of sleep last night and am contemplating petitioning the “Wine Trolley” people to knock this crap off.
I can recall some neighborhoods that were famous for insane levels of XMas decorations back in the day. And which were well-known enough that the police had to set up one-way traffic flow through the neighborhood every evening.
Then every night for about a month the streets were clogged with bumper-to-bumper idling 1970s cars full of onlookers. And pedestrians filling the sidewalks. I can remember walking a neighborhood like that with eyes stinging from the dense car exhaust.
