Hilton Head Island: sex change; delayed; cost/benefit ratio; number of religions; the restaurant on the top of the world

I had a sex change yesterday.  Relatively painless.  Requiring only an hour at the DMV office to which Carol drove us.  She insisted on my getting my I.D. card corrected.  Killjoy.  I really would have liked to see if anyone ever noted the ‘F’ for female.  However I am again designed M.  Presumably for male, but maybe for mundane.

Later yesterday I received a telephone call from the surgeon’s receptionist stating that he has been taken ill, so I will not be repaired until June 7 at the earliest.  This is a serious disappointment.  I want to get this done and my life back.  Permit me a long sigh.

In CONQUERORS I read that Vasco da Gama’s first voyage to India resulted in a profit of sixty times its cost.  I also read that in the seven years from that first voyage in 1497 to 1504, of the 5,500 men who sailed to India, 1,800 died before returning to Portugal.  That is a death rate of 33%.

This morning In A LITTLE GAELIC KINGDOM I read of the Peacockes (sic), a family that ran a hotel carrying the family name for several generations in Connemara.  The Peacockes were Protestant in that overwhelmingly Catholic region.  I quote:  When a new Catholic Bishop came out from Galway to test.the local children’s preparedness for confirmation and asked ‘How many religions are there?’, he was puzzled by the answer he got:  ‘Two.  Our religion and the peacocks.’

I thank Larry for this link to ‘climbing’ Everest the not so hard way.  Yesterday was the 71st anniversary of when Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit after a somewhat different experience.

https://dnyuz.com/2024/05/25/spa-sushi-posh-digs-the-bougiest-way-to-climb-everest/

The logical progression is obvious.  Soon an entrepreneur will build a helipad 100’/30 meters below the summit.  If you can helicopter to base camp and avoid weeks of dreary walking—and walking is so last century, why not fly near the summit and avoid all that tedious climbing too?  Not to mention having to stand in line.  Having deplaned, the wealthy ‘climber’ would have access to an escalator to carry him the final few feet to the summit where there will be a revolving restaurant where he can enjoy the view, dine in style and sip champagne while taking a selfie to celebrate his ‘conquering’ Everest.