By the Dozen

August 31, 2012

Like every year so far this century, it began on May 24 and ends today on August 31, for today is…


DAY
100

With Round 12 coming to an end, let’s review!

Day 3, meeting Kathleen in Georgetown, finding place to park. Finding expensive parking meters. A nickel gets you a minute and a half. It says that. Make that finding world’s most sarcastic parking meters.

Day 9, Victoria has come to DC! We welcome her with dinner at Full Kee in Chinatown.

Day 10, to LGBT poetry slam with Kathleen at Busboys and Poets. Girl who won was quite awesome.

Day 13, uh oh, Kathleen needs to go to ER! Going to be a late night.

Day 17, charades! Well, more a game of Taboo we’re calling charades. Sort of both.

Day 21, first board meeting in almost five months. Passed a corporal punishment position paper at last. Then a whole lot of staff issues. And a repealed bylaw change that was foolishly done in closed session where no one could see it was being done. Ugh.

Day 23, oh look at that, lost admin status on NYRA site for, well, I don’t really know why. Also, movie night with Kathleen, Alexander, and Victoria, if we gave up on the movie 15 minutes in and just chatted. Started #16tovote on the 16th from there.

Day 24, wow, #16tovote on the 16th with the most participation, a whopping 97! How’d that happen? 🙂

Day 25, Hunger Games!

Day 27, yes! Back to doctor for more Dexilant and more trying to figure out WTF is up with my continuing chest issues.

Day 32, another board meeting. Sort of. Walked out with two others to kill the quorum to stop a vote. I’ve hit a new low.

Day 33, wow, I think the “sides” of NYRA’s board are a lot like what Lewis Black said about Democrats and Republicans. One is a party/side of bad ideas and the other is a party/side of no ideas.

Day 34, got a call. Mom’s having heart problems. So I drop her off at ER. She’s admitted. Maybe she’ll finally find out what’s wrong.

Day 36, Mom’s released from hospital, with still no really helpful information. Come on, medical profession, get it together!

Day 37, yikes, big ass severe thunderstorm! Power flickers a couple of times.

Day 38, but with only those power flickers, I was lucky! Most of the area was still without power. Oh, and family got tree branch through the ceiling, from tree that also crushed air conditioner. So with no power or AC, they had to leave and stay at a hotel. Later that evening, dark Connecticut Avenue is dark!

Day 42, Fourth of July! Time for ‘splosions! Except… no ‘splosions because county’s still worrying with storm damage. Bleh. While I get stuck by stupid NYRA board again into making annoying decisions.

Day 43, very early morning, made decision, now STFU board. And later yelled at Nigel for insulting Keith. And then yelled at Samantha because she was bothering me. And told people the Annual Meeting will be in Philadelphia. Whatever. Went to visit family stuck in a hotel and calm brother who was getting game rage.

Day 44, holy fuck, that’s right! The Annual Meeting is less than a month away. With all the board votes out of the way at the moment, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks! Have to put… something… together.

Day 46, off to Verizon Center to see… Coldplay! Bought my ticket day-off… obstructed view FTW! Also, they gave us these little lanyard thingies and told us to put them on as part of the show… ha! They light up! Neat!

Day 48, Catching Fire!

Day 49, this happened.

Day 50, the midpoint, the Fifty Fifty! Went to downtown DC for some reason and wandered around a lot, beside Capitol, in front of Supreme Court, into Union Station. Then back to Gallery Place. More wandering. Found yummy salad place.

Day 51, oh, hey, ‘splosions! Late ‘splosions from fairground. Also, lots of sushi with Alexander and Victoria.

Day 54, #16tovote on the 16th! Going pretty well. Except not feeling that great.

Day 55, crap, I’ve got a cold. Been afraid of that with mysterious chest issues still happening on and off, even with Dexilant. Nonetheless, a pretty normal one.

Day 56, another doctor’s appointment! That cold was poorly timed for that. Doctor gave me some anti-inflammatories to see if that helps.

Day 58, cold mostly over, at Shady Grove to head to DC to meet others at Full Kee again… uh oh. I don’t feel so good. Chest hurts all day. Now I’m dizzy. Mouth is dry. Lasts for several minutes. So instead… called dad and now it was my turn to go to the ER! So another EKG. Another bloodwork. Another set of x-rays. And… nothing. They can’t find a thing wrong. Well, good about that but… WTF?!

Day 59, family still stuck in hotel waiting for house stuff to be fixed, I’m stuck with them after the ER stuff.

Day 61, odd, NYRA Twitter password isn’t working… aw crap. I was afraid of that…

Day 64, Mockingjay!

Day 65, Olympics! Opening ceremony! With… lots and lots of British stereotypes. And simulated skydiving Queen. And all the countries marching in are carrying a weird bowl… oh, they’re each a piece of the torch. Neat!

Day 66, dinner and then watching Olympics with Kathleen. And wondering WTF I’m going to do about the Annual Meeting. It’s a week away. Is anyone coming…?

Day 67, uh oh. One person I thought was coming to the Annual Meeting might not now since it’s unclear who’s coming or what’s happening. Got to do something.

Day 68, briefly consider switching Annual Meeting back to DC. Wait no! It’s too soon now. A couple people already made travel reservations. So I guess it’s still Philadelphia?

Day 69, still wasn’t sure about city choice, so Kathleen had to talk some sense into me over the phone to just do it in Philly and be done with it. Okay. With some tweaking, this may work.

Day 70, up extra early because neighborhood is to do some street work. Come home from work to find… they didn’t do anything. -_-

Day 71, up early again in case they do street this time… nope. All the while, what to do for the Annual Meeting? Two days away and no real agenda…

Day 72, still no street work. Crap! Annual Meeting is tomorrow! Got to get ready. Got to coordinate. Got to see what happens. Got to try not to freak out…

Day 73, up really early, pick up some food and cash and Victoria and Alexander, and north on I-95. For the… ANNUAL MEETING!!!! Well, yeah. We park. We find the room. We get in… alright, ten people! Me, Alexander, Victoria, Jeff, Stefan, Hendrik, Chris, Rob, Keith, and Bill! Okay, it’s certainly not last year, but we can work with this. So we first decide on lunch and have some Philly cheesesteaks. Of course. Bill gives an Annual Report (no laser pointer, that’s for Alex only, so the laser pointer retired with him). Keith talks about Votes for Youth stuff. And we get to chatting and chatting about NYRA. Then election results. Then Bill and Keith need to go, but the rest of us keep chatting until we need to be out of building. And off to a nice fun Chinese dinner. And back to hotel room to watch Olympics and all.

Day 74, back to meeting. Alexander puts together some questions we should answer during our discussions. So we might have scratched the surface in the course of the day, during which we also went to eat Indian food. And more discussion until Jeff needs to go to catch his flight home. Alexander, Victoria, and I wander the campus for a while until we retrieve my car and head back south on I-95… right into a severe thunderstorm! Oh no! Dark clouds! Lots of wind! Now lots of rain! Hard to see! A sign ahead says there’s a Subway at Exit 2 so I say “We’re going to Subway!” and promptly exit. So we sit and eat at Subway for a while and wait for the storm to pass and discuss more NYRA stuff. Then Subway closes so we get back on the road and have fun and get back to DC around 11pm or so. What a weekend!

Day 76, eek! Bill and Alex are vocally unhappy Usi was reelected to the board. Big fight on e-mail list. Usi asks not to be insulted. Alex calls her a fucking bitch and tells her to leave. I tell him to shut his hole. He tells me I ruined NYRA as much as she did. Keith and Stefan beg for peace. You know, NYRA stuff.

Day 80, landlords come by earlier than I want to wake up on a Saturday to try to fix bad electrical circuit.

Day 81, to Red Lobster with Kathleen. Later in meal, we ask for more biscuits and since we’re almost done, waitress brings them in a to-go bag. When we’re later trying to divide up the biscuits between us, waitress says “I’ll get another bag.” So we wonder, does she mean another empty bag to move half of the ones we have or a whole other full bag? And she returns with… a whole other full bag of cheddar bay biscuits! Win!

Day 84, Bill tells me I can’t run NYRA’s Twitter anymore because I’m too friendly with Usi. Hmm. Interesting.

Day 85, #16tovote on the 16th! Or, well, supposed to be. Sort of. Not quite. There were #16tovote tweets anyway. Then after taking care of something that afternoon, was half an hour late for board meeting! Gah! And… Usi resigned. Sigh. :irked:

Day 92, Kathleen’s having back surgery! Better take her and her family to place and keep everyone company. Keep the sheep calm and all. What a day! Surrounded by O’Neals!

Day 93, new Facebook page. It’s called I Support Youth Rights.

Day 97, O’Neal family made me dinner. Awww!

Day 99, eh, not a whole lot went on.

And, finally…

Day 100. Today! Also not a whole lot went on, other than being let out of work early before the holiday weekend. Watching the Nats shut out the Cardinals. Yay!

Completed 2011 and looked with worry at the oncoming 2012, with the feeling of riding in a boat into a dark tunnel, feeling the currents get steadily quicker, hearing rushing waters somewhere ahead. That’s about right. I suppose the question is, with four months left, while some nasty parts are past, what else is going to happen?

As these 100 Days of Summer draw to a close, that’s the question that remains. The uncertainties continue. But somewhere, sometime, something will get better. Some glimmer of light will appear and steer that boat into calmer waters. Or at least some place more joyful. This tunnel is dark.

So that’s it for the 100 Days of Summer, Round 12. Until May 24, 2013, in whatever shape the world is then.

This has been Day 100 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 12.