Glad your mom’s procedure went okay, Matt.

I attended my first class at the local technical college in nonprofit leadership. I am in the class with the founder/director of the local Pride event and he is excited about my idea for a Queer Resource Center.

about my idea for a Queer Resource Center.

I see synergy coming with the roller derby community.

Dropped Matilda and her luggage off at the CIEE center this morning then came back to the Ryokan, put up a DND sign and took a frickin' nap.

Matilda has met her fellow students. They are all a bit shy, but Matilda (much like Cybervixen at the first F2F) is a human icebreaker and she got them talking by the end of day. Matilda typically bonds with the teachers even more than the students and that was no different here as she got on well with Sayako, who had lived 10 years stateside, four in the Bay Area.

In about an hour, Matilda will meet her host family and they will take her home to Osaka where she will spend the weekend. I probably won't see her again before I leave on Monday, but I thought I wouldn't see her after I dropped her off this morning and she forgot her scarf, so I made my way back to the center this afternoon and delivered it and got a big hug from her.

So far my cunning plan to awaken Matilda from her grief torpor seems to be working. The minute we walked into our room at the Ryokan, she put on her Yukata (robe) and sat down at the low table and began to work on her phrasebook.

She has not shown a jot of interest in any academics since JZ was diagnosed so it's heartening to see her engage with learning here.

ION, I just discovered I'm about 4 blocks from Kyoto's best cocktail bar, and that's about two blocks from an otter cafe. I'm just not going to exhaust this neighborhood before I have to leave.

Alas, the crash is big news here in Boston, several prominent members of our very competitive skating club were on the flight.

All of Trump's deficits were on display in his 'press conference'. Such a strong and decisive leader!

Am I perhaps a touch bitter?

David, I’m so happy you and Matilda were able to take this trip and she is going all in on being there. JZ would be so proud of her. And, in the brief time I’ve spent with her, I can definitely see how she’d play that icebreaker role. The group is lucky to have her with them!

Glad to hear about the trip's good effect on Matilda! I bet this is going to be an experience she treasures all her life.

This is an incredible experience for Matilda. So happy for her.

I've avoided almost all of the vile response from TFG to the crash. Alas, I did see the DEI bit. My first thought was that he looked worse and more clownish than ever. I've started trying to dip into some morning news, on delay so I can fast forward as needed. I was watching BBC news, but I don't get a delay option with that channel. This week I tried CBS morning news. They are more excited about being awake than I am, but they have some arts coverage.

Today I have to clean all the things. I have SIX women arriving in the next couple days. SIL and 5 friends. My sister is also arriving on Monday night, but I am picking her up at the airport at 11 PM and heading directly over the alley to my FL sister's place where I will stay for a few days leaving DH to deal with the house full of women! We have adequate couches/air mattresses for all the bodies, but I can't even imagine where the luggage and toiletries will accumulate. I am leaving six little stacks of beach towel/bath towel/face cloths for each of them on the dining room table. I suspect DH will give up and take Skinner and head to a friend's house and just let the girls have the master bed/bath too. eta: the beach cabana here at the condo has a great private shower in the women's room so that will be a help.

Happy Friday.

Laura that all sounds busy and a little hectic.

What are everyone else’s plans for the weekend?

Tonight I DJ for my dance event. Tomorrow I am joining two friends who live nearby and doing a progressive dinner thing—apps at one, soup at mine, dessert at the third. Just five of us but hoping we can do it again with more in the future. I do need to clean my house before that though, which yikes.

Donating blood this morning was an exercise in nibbled to death by ducks.

First, when I got to the building half of the parking lot was taken up by three massive police SUVs and an ambulance, so I had to back out and park around the corner.

Second, the New York Blood Center suffered a cyber-attack 2 days ago and their computers are all still down, so the site was incredibly backed up with people filling out their intake forms on paper.

Third, my hemocrit was low and they had to do a second finger stick to confirm (second draw was fine, apparently I'm just low in that one finger?)

Fourth, the machine that agitates the blood and measures how much is in the bag was completely nonresponsive at the station they put me in, so they moved me and swapped it out for a working one. The second machine felt strongly that I was bleeding too slowly and should be doing it better, so every few minutes it would beep angrily and one of the nurse techs had to come over and slightly reposition the needle, which hurt like hell.

I have never worked harder for a pack of Lorna Doones and 8 ounces of cranberry juice in my LIFE.

Yikes, that is A Lot, Jess! As a former blood donor (can't anymore due to ... everything) and recent blood recipient, thank you!