I am writing this blog post from SFO airport departure gate 21, using the airport’s free wifi. As I am seated here, I am wearing comfortable leather jeans, dress cowboy boots, and a dress shirt.
Why this combination and how did I get here?
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I hate to have to do this, but I knew it would happen sometime. I am taking a one-week break from posting on this blog.
Why?
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We have had a bout of rather extreme cold and snowy weather in the DC area — and we’re not alone, with the majority of the central, southern, and eastern U.S. experiencing extreme cold relative to their respective averages. Another segment of the Polar Vortex broke south again, and is the culprit to the cold misery that millions of us are experiencing. (Sorry to sound a bit geeky, but my professional side is coming out.)
So back to the situation at hand. Or should I say, situation at-foot.
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Yep, we did get some snow around where I live yesterday after all. Sorry, no photos, I didn’t have time to take any. But trust me, we got a whopping six inches! (15cm).
Schools, offices, businesses, and even the Federal Government were closed. However, I worked at my paying job all day from home. I don’t get paid unless I work; I don’t get “snow days” as paid time off. So I worked.
But when my ten hour work day was over, I pulled on and laced up my Chippewa Logger boots, and…
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Yesterday was a holiday in the United States — the birthday of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King. I had the day off work, but worked anyway. I finished helping my recently deceased sr. pal’s daughter clean up her mother’s condo, took a few more sr. pals to the grocery store to stock up in advance of the oncoming, world-ending, monumental, massive, overpowering, mind-boggling…
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I wrote a post the other day titled “Boots Out of the Blue” about a pair of expensive Lucchese Classic black cherry smooth ostrich boots showing up at my house with no note or method to identify who sent them.
I finally resolved the mystery of their origin.
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This is a story about how a case of “discrimination by ignorance and delay” was resolved by a very powerful elected official who represents my spouse and me in the United States Senate. This senior Senator has a reputation for kicking butt and taking names, and getting problems that her constituents have resolved quickly.
Our story relates to challenges we faced as a newly married couple and legal recognition by the U.S. Government.
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It’s funny how a “bootman” like me gets new boots without even trying.
The other day when I arrived home, my spouse said, “your boots arrived.”
Me: “what boots? I didn’t order any boots.”
Spouse: “there’s a box by the door that looks suspiciously like the same size box as what boots would be shipped in. The sender was something like ‘cowboy’ or whatever…” as he gave me that quizzical look that he gives when he thinks that I know more about something and I’m not saying.
I opened the box and pulled out…
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I have a number of personality traits, or quirks, that combine to make me different from many others. I have blogged about some of those traits over time.
This time, I am writing about my positive outlook on life. And with some crap that has occurred to me, as is the nature of life itself, it’s a wonder that I haven’t gone over the edge and wallowed in “woe-is-me, awfulness, shit-gone-to-hell” attitudes.
I have been estranged from some family and people I thought were friends, forced into long-term unpaid “job hiatus” or even quit some jobs, and have been crapped upon and treated poorly by some people. My one-and-only man in my life is sick again and sometimes that makes him miserable and hard to be around.
Why, then, with all the crap in the world that has happened to me, do I remain bright and positive? Why do I have a healthy, forward-looking attitude? Why do I drive some of my friends and co-workers crazy with happy-peppy good cheer? Why do I believe that there is sunshine and a rainbow after clouds and gloom?
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This coming weekend marks the umpteenth year that the second largest gathering of The Great Leather Clan occurs in the U.S., for “Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend.” Am I donning my tall black Dehners, full leather, Muir Cap, and going?
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