The celebration of life was held in the theater where he directed one of the Man of La Mancha's I was in, and it was about 2/3 full. Lots of HUGE hairy gay men, because that's what Howie was attracted to. And many theater folk and a few from the porta-potty rental place he worked for.
Howie thought I was a Trump supporter because I refused to tell him how I was going to vote. He didn't get it that it's a secret ballot. So sometime in 2016 he un-friended and blocked me on FB, and never talked to me again.
He was diabetic, and his kidneys stopped working several years before that. Not long before that his foot got gangrene, his leg was amputated below the knee, and soon after that above the knee. It didn't stop him, hardly slowed him down. First a scooter and finally a special van he could drive himself.
Mutual friends posted about his 2017 marriage to his long time sugar daddy, who turned out to have been much more than that.
Husband filled us in on the rest of the details. Howie developed a spinal injury, and in the hospital recovering from that surgery he had a stroke, and made the decision to go home for hospice. Husband was qualified on the dialysis machine with which the HMO supplied them.
In late December, Howie threw one last big party for 500 of his closest friends (I was not one of them) and then pulled the plug. He passed away with a smile on his face in the early hours of Christmas Eve.
There was a fun slide show of photos of Howie from birth to nearly death, not in any particular order. It was clear he was close to his little sister. His father was in the audience, all the way from TN.
Many people got up to say a few words, I thought about it but I wasn't part of his life after 2016, and didn't want to share that with the crowd.
There were cookies and veggies & dip & lemonade after.
I got lost trying to find the nearby Asian supermarket and ended up at the original 99 Ranch, where I bought honey BBQ pork, roast duck and ha gow. The aisle where the cans of Thai tea was was blocked by gangs of people giving samples of ramen.
Home, asked Alexa and was told the Saints lost in overtime. Later, on the phone with Baltimore sister we watched KC lose in overtime. Superbowl won't be of any interest to me this year. :-(
Went outside and howled at the moon. Pixel phone did not take good photos of the eclipse behind the clouds, so I got the Nikon out at sent it at the highest ISO, and got some okay grainy shots in the 10 minutes when the clouds parted.
Here's one:
And then as the Death Star:
Plans for tomorrow:
Hopefully some follow up from recruiters
The rest depends on the weather
