Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

World War One Museum In Kansas City

I've wanted to see the World War One Museum in KC since Dave at Blogography gave it such a glowing review. Before I went, here's what I knew about WWI:

• In Flanders field the poppies blow
• Archduke Ferdinand
• Downton Abbey Season 2
• Doughboys
• Lusitania

Not exactly World War One for two hundred, Alex. I stepped into the museum, bought a ticket, crossed the clear bridge over the poppy field and was met by a docent who asked, "Why do we use the poppy to symbolize World War One?"

"InFlandersfieldsthepoppiesgrow," I rattled off, smugly. ERRRBUZZNO. Wrong answer! Well, I think she gave me points for knowing the poem (points off for switching "blow" with "grow"), but the correct answer [spoilers, if you plan to go] is that the weaponry contained nitrates that killed all the plants ... except poppies. Evidently poppies love nitrates, so Flanders fields were dead except for the nitrate-sucking poppies.

And that glimpse of red poppies was as uplifting as the experience got. You walked over the blighted field with the pretty poppies and that's the last you see of life and happiness for a few hours.

As a museum, the presentation is just incredible. We've seen guns and posters and cannons before, but what about peeking into a bunker and hearing the sounds? Standing in a giant hole made by a shell? Sitting in a tiny room while "Dulce Et Decorum Est" is read to you?

Gary only made it through Flanders Fields, Dulce Et Decorum Est, and one other before he couldn't take it anymore. It's a sad museum. But of course, since it's an American museum, it's divided into two parts: the War before America, and the War after America. In fact, it's literally divided into two parts: the first part starts with war posters for the European war years, then there's a short film about the war just before America joined in, then war posters for the American war years.

The layout of the place forces you to draw comparisons. You pass that entry to the U.S. years and there are gleaming weapons and scalpels and fancy tanks and guns and all the war-winning stuff, while the pre-America side has klunky grenades on sticks.

I don't think I've said "I didn't know that" as often in any museum. For example, why did the U.S. enter the war? The Lusitania, right? I distinctly remember that exam question in Jr. high. BUZZZNO!  The Zimmerman telegram disclosed that the enemy bribed Mexico to attack us. Again, I had no idea.

Eventually we made it through the war, came out the other side, and did not have the emotional strength to climb up to the upper exhibits or the tower.

I remember seeing Gallipoli in college. When it was over and Mel Gibson was all riddled with bullets my date snarled, "HAPPY NOW?" After the museum, Gary, bless him, just said he was depressed.

Where I've Been

I've been watching our niece graduate in Kansas City. Gary's quite a good travelling companion when there's no work tape running in his head.

Right now I am wiped out, so instead of telling you the plans we are slowly carving OR the hotel OR the family we met OR the WWII museum, I present you with a much more practical link: How To Order Off the Menu At McDonald's.

How skinny is this asparagus?

How skinny is this asparagus?

My hair is thicker than this asparagus. 

This is the New Princess Merida of asparagus.

Abercrombie and Fitch wants to knit this asparagus a custom sweater.

A Modest Proposal

If I understand correctly, a "majority" in the U.S. Senate is 60 out of 100 votes. In a normal country, a majority is 51, but at some point the Senate made a rule that if a vote was "only" more than 50 but still less than 60 on one side, then the other side would filibuster and "talk out the vote," as they say in Britain.

So I would expect to see filibusters all the time, or at least a lot of the time, whenever a vote was over 50 and under 60, but senators are pussies.  They just decide that just the threat of a filibuster is enough and 60 is the new majority, because they don't want to waste the nation's time by going through with the actual filibuster.

I say no. I say I want them to work, and if a filibuster threat keeps a valid law from passing when it has a mathematical majority, I want to se the damn filibuster. Work for it. And these are the rules:

None of this crap where you can take a five minute break to pee every hour. No. You gotta hold it. Did Jimmy Stewart pee? I think not.

No food or drink or lackeys bringing you candy. I don't know when they added this bogus exception. No food, all talk, all the time.

CNN would get to cover the filibuster without interruptions, with a special Pee-Cam trained on the senator's shoes so we could look for puddles.

Oh, no wastebaskets near the filibuster. We had an alderwoman pee in a trashcan at a political function, I think, I imagine because she didn't want to yield the floor.

You can still filibuster; you just have to work for it so I can at least be entertained. I feel this is reasonable.

A Long-overdue Visit to Snopes

I saw this "rare" butterfly on Facebook.

Hm. Something about that looks a little Photoshopped. Is it the pot antennae? Iffy. I followed the butterfly from Facebook to Snopes.

I thought it would be airing its wings on page one of Snopes, but Snopes must not be in the butterfly de-bunking business.

Instead, I found out that:

NYC Mayor Bloomberg was not denied a second slice of pizza by a disgruntled restaurateur. That's sad, because I kind of believed that story on Twitter.

Sarah Palin did not call for an invasion of the Czech Republic because the Boston Bombers were from Chechnya. I totally bought that one too. (And what is SP doing to her hair? All wrong.)

Both those stories came from The Daily Currant so I've added them to my blogroll (soon to be shifted to Feedly before Google reader leaves.)

Never found the butterfly, though.

 

Ricin in the Coffee Grinder

Evidently, the Nutjob who attemped to poison the President (not the Elvis Nutjob, but the Child Molester Nutjob) bought castor beans off of eBay to make the ricin, then  ground 'em up in his coffee grinder.

This answers what has been a pressing question for me. Back in the day, I wrote some training for first responders that spelled out, essentially, terrorist methods for killing people. The Anarchist Cookbook was one of my resources. I remember thinking it was way too easy to make poison from green potatoes or castor beans.

Further research led me to this: the castor beans sold in the US no longer contain the chemical that turns into ricin. (I don't remember how I know that. I think the government might have told me. Shh.) At any rate, I imagine Nutjob ordered foreign castor beans and got around the genetic mutation we apply to our beans.

Recently, when Meredith's next door neighbors sliced trays of potatoes and let them sit outside, I speculated they might be using sunshine to increase solanine, the deadly compound in green potatoes. Meredith ignored me. No one has died next door. I tried to back myself up with a reference to The Anarchist Cookbook, which used to be very easy to find online, but I could no longer find it and I was a little hesitant to hunt for it.

 

Bullets by the Names

• Movie Recommendation: Bernie. Worth it just for the hymns alone.
• I'm glad I read the censored Anne Frank. It's 30% shorter without the clitoris/ labia references. They would have been a distraction in a high school setting. Then again, her period slipped (seeped?) into the version I read, and no reference was made to her monthly "sweet secret." Class just moved right past that. I do remember we debated if she was in love with Peter, which seems silly now that I know she was discussing her clitoris with him. (Evidently I wasn't paying attention in '99 when the "uncensored" version came out. Lately a mom is in the news because she doesn't want her daughter reading it in class. I can see that. If she had a son I can certainly see that. Of course, grown women should read what they want, and as soon as I finsh The Handmaid's Tale I might start on that.)
• I don't know who Jas. Townsend is and why he and his sons are sending me their glossy catalog in the mail. I have no need of their tankards, capes, or bonnets. The $90 men's breeches make me suspect the Hilton Private Jet travel company sold my name to them.

 

Earring

On Maundy Thursday, a week and a half ago, I was in the basement of the TeddyJ parking garage and saw this earring dangling on the phone jack outside the elevator.

I picked up the earring, then I tried to put it back. Couldn't do it. It fell on the floor three or four times, but since someone else had taken the time to mount it on the phone jack I felt I needed to put it right back where I'd found it.

I never was able to encircle the jack with the earring as shown above, but I did manage to jam the hoop into the jack and balance it that way.

That evening, I came out and saw someone else had put it back on the jack the "right" way. (No doubt after dropping it a few times.)

I pass this earring every single day. It never moves. Dozens of employees park in the basement and I know they all file past that earring daily. It's like a sacred earring, now, and no one wants to be the person to topple it off the phone jack because GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN.

Time Lapse Garage Photography of the Last Day and a Half

My garage, yesterday evening (I only took a photo of the left side because it was so horrible):

Yesterday at midnight

This morning:

And now! The right side! The right side which Gary likes because it looks like all the tools are standing at attention:

The scandalous left side:

And the particularly glorious panorama! Embiggen to see its true glory.

 It was a good workout.

The Drive Home

 When you go out to an event with Caroline, the event doesn't matter: the drive matters. Caroline is always willing to explore strange new roads, to seek out new houses with holiday displays or all the belongings in the front yard, to boldly go in to Bridgeton to show me how much it really does smell.

Bridgeton is a suburb here in Saint Louis that stinks so much that the government is suing the source of the stink, a landfill simmering right below the surface.

I work in Bridgeton, and I've never smelled it. I expressed doubt to Caroline on our drive home. She immediately swung her minivan around and drove toward the intersection of 70 and 270.

We were going up the ramp when I said to Caroline, and I quote, "Well, maybe there's a slight OH MY GOD THAT IS DISGUSTING."

My body rejected that smell so forcefully that I stopped breathing. My hand automatically pinched my nose. I eventually let myself breathe through my mouth, as Caroline is doing in the photo above. She complained the smell was tainting her mouth. We drove a mile before my fingers loosened on my nose.

The landfill in Bridgeton has been percolating for years. I know a former fire chief who has wonderful stories about flaming cockroaches swarming out of the glowing cracks.

I hope the people of Bridgeton win their lawsuit against the landfill company. It is the closest landfill to my house, but happily I'm upwind of it.

Carbs. It's What's For Dinner.

Friend #4 has a friend who is training at the Culinary Institute, and tonight was her night to show off her skills.

Ten bucks got me this.

Embiggen to read the menu.

 

Plans

How is this month not like any other month?

Because it is the birthday month.

In two and a half hours, by the time I finish watching Mr. Selfridge (aka Big Hat Sunday on PBS), the birthday month will be over.

This weekend I meant to organize the garage, or at least clean the basement door, but instead I woke up at 3 am and purged the linen closet. If I get the garage and basement sorted after work this week I won't have a single project left.

Instead of projects then, I suppose I can have fun. I approached Gary with the idea of visiting Chicago in April for the river tour, and he was not intrigued.

That would be some fun scheduled for April, then in May we have a graduation in KC, in June we see Quebec City, then in July it's Nashville to see BNL, Ben Folds, Boothby Graffoe, and Guster.

I have to do something: I've had "clean basement" on my to-do list for years.

Goose

We had the same spring snow that Denver and KC had. It inspired some inventive snowmen in our subdivision: a snowman holding an Easter basket, a snowman with bunny ears. Our cars were trapped by the foot of snow. Monday morning I was shoveling the smallest path possible to the street when a neighbor came by with a snowblower. Gary came out of the house in time to tell the neighbor HOW to SNOWBLOW. No, hon. This stranger is doing us a favor. Don't tell people how to do you a favor.

Then of course Gary wanted to pay the neighbor, which I talked him out of. It's as if he doesn't know how to say "Thank you."

Because he only allowed the neighbor to snow blow one driveway, I had to take him to work the next three days. On one of those days I spotted a goose. At first glance it seemed to be perched nobly on a hill of snow, but then on closer inspection I saw this goose was disgusted. He slowly picked up a webbed foot, placed it on the snow, then shifted his weight onto the foot, which then "pop!" broke through the ice crust and sank a half inch into the snow. You could hear him sigh. Then he daintily picked up the other foot, positioned it, shifted his weight, "pop," damnit. If his goose beak could have curled with distaste it would have. Eventually he made it to the street, where he shook his tail.

I feel like the goose tonight. I'm making no progress, and my attempts are humiliating. Gary's been working late and I'm falling into the traps that plagued me when we were first married. I wait for him. What I should do is occupy myself with a project, something he would interrupt if he was here. I should flap my wings instead of picking my way along in mild disgust.

You know, that clinches it. I'm organizing the garage. He'll hate that as much as when I organized the basement, but it's better than spite drinking or waiting dinner on him until ... what time is it? 12:15 am.

Supreme Court

First off, it is terrifying to read the transcripts that come out of the Supreme Court. The nine members of the court talk over everyone else, so the transcript can ony get part of every third sentence. Really, go here. It's ridiculous.

Second, of course, I need to apologize to Missouri because I have not been popping out State Babies. No one told me about "the Government's interest in regulating procreation through marriage." That was the foundation of the argument against gay marriage, "that gay and lesbian couples can be denied access to marriage on the ground of an interest in responsible procreation." (I suppose "spite" wasn't a wordy enough reason.)

And here I have not been procreating responsibly. I have not been fulfilling the "vision of marriage as procreation of children."

You know what's next? The gavel comes down and sterile couples have to get divorced. And I bet the voluntarily sterile couples have to get divorced first.

Very creepy words to hear discussed by the highest court of the land.

15pt Bullets

• I was recently advised by someone looking at engagement rings that stores don't have engagement rings as small as mine anymore (1/7th of a carat, or 15 point). "Those are promise rings."
• I am not treated with such disrespect by the concierge at the hotel in Quebec City. She has written me two emails that begin with "Bonjour, Madame S______." So, screw you promise ring girl! Madame S______ can squish you like a bug.
• Madame S______ was in the midst of heavy internet research on Quebec City when the concierge sent her a pdf of exactly that information. I know the Relais & Châteaux hotels excel at customer service but I was not expecting psychic abilities.

Joe

In the early nineties, when I worked at Eliot, Joe H____ asked, "Do you want to see the World Wide Web?"

"The what?"

"The web. I'll send you an email that shows how to open it."

He sent instructions on how to see the Trojan Room Coffee pot.

I wrote back, "I don't get it. Why can't they just make more coffee when they get there?"

Luckily, Joe did not give up on bringing the Internet to Eliot, and a few weeks later he tried again. I was there, and so was Martha, a forty five year old (OLD!) elegant lady who was only working to keep herself entertained.

Joe was explaining that the web wasn't just all about coffee pots; there were books on there too. "You can read books on the screen. What book would you like to read?"

We rolled our eyes at the idea at reading a book on screen, but Joe seemed to really think this web thing had merit. Martha said, "show me Pride and Prejudice."

He brought up Pride and Prejudice, and indeed it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

"Yup, that's Pride and Prejudice," we said. "We have this book at home." Why wouldn't people just read the copy of Pride and Prejudice they have at home? Seriously.

I asked, "Why is Mr. Bennet's name in blue?"

Joe said, "That means it's a link. You can click it and read more." Which we did. There was Mr. Bennet's estate (£2,000 a year) and a link to every time Mr. Bennet is mentioned in Pride and Prejudice. Then we yelled at Joe for wasting our time on coffee pots when there was this amazing thing out there.

I mention this old story because Joe later went on to companies other than Eliot, but starting next Wednesday he'll be sitting a few cubes away from me at TeddyJ.

Using Ways

You know how you can usually blast through poor translations and still get the gist? I have no idea what these two underlined statements mean.

Happy Kevin Spacey Day

The bagels I had at nine o' clock Saturday night crawled out through my ears at three a.m. Sunday morning, or at least they tried, and that type of indigestion is only cured by sitting up and watching television.

Of course, I fell asleep at five, and woke up partway in the late morning when I heard the beginning of The Usual Suspects. "Oh! I love this movzzzzzzzzzz..." and I slept until I heard "The cripple! Which way did he go?" I hit rewind and watched the entire scene. I heard it described as a B + movie with an A+ ending.

It made me remember when Kevin Spacey accepted the Academy Award and gave a shout out to Keyser Sose. What a sweet boy, huh?

And then after waiting for Gary to awaken and then after waiting for Gary to prepare for the day, he and I watched episodes 4-13 of House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey. We only intended to watch one or two episodes but he is just sooo delicious, and I get hurt if he doesn't lean in to the camera and confide his evil schemes to me often enough in each episode.

It took up so much of the day that I declared it Kevin Spacey day. SpaceyDay topped my list of blog topics. (I've discounted a number of blog posts the last few days, because I don't think you want to know about mucous cysts (shocking images), where the Galapagos Islands are (shockingly not by the Cook Islands), or the equally shocking Prophecy of the Popes (we're on the last pope now, FYI). I am so ashamed by those topics they don't even deserve Wikipedia links.)

So after we watched the last episode I trundled in here late at night to write up my Kevin Spacey tribute since I had spent my whole day with him. I checked CNN for some background noise. The 1980s Atlanta Child Murders? I switched to our public TV station and began to listen to some documentary on Johnny Carson while writing this post.

I was in IMDB looking for that link to House of Cards when the Carson doc really caught my attention. Who's that voice? The narrator? Kevin Spacey. Seriously. Freaked me out a little.

New Pope at the Dentist

Wednesday afternoon, Friend 2 got Friend 4's email message: "White Smoke!" I checked www.istherewhitesmoke.com and guess what? Gotta Pope. I had high hopes for a brown pope.

As it turned out, I was on the way to the dentist when the habemus papam came on the radio, and after hearing the name I assumed he was at least a latte shade of pope, but no. Both parents are full Italian.

The dentist was wearing red sneakers in preparation for popehood. I wondered if he'd been wearing them all week, but I didn't ask, because he was busy grinding my chipped tooth down with a Dremel. I didn't mind the noise as much as the smell of hot tooth.

After they applied the tooth putty they told me specifically not to move my lip, and they even packed my upper lip with cotton. We waited quietly while my tooth hardened.

The dental assistant in the next cubicle asked her patient, "Is Francis of Assisi still a saint? I thought he was de-sainted."

"Don't ask me; I'm Jewish," the patient said, exasperated.

My dentist and assistant fell into muffled hysteria. I made that strange sound you make when you laugh while your upper lip is packed full of cotton. (Enh! Enh enh!)

Here's the result:

No before photo, because I was distracted by the pope pomp. The front left tooth in the photo above had the bottom right corner knocked off. Maybe five percent of the tooth.

Of course now that the front left tooth is even, the front right tooth looks wavy. I can see myself turning into the Michael Jackson of teeth. I'd get the right front tooth fixed, then the next tooth on the right will be too round.

I thought Saint Christopher had been de-sainted, but evidently not. The ony true saint demotion I've found was Saint Ursula of Saint Ursula and the Virgin Horde.

Drugs of My Youth, or, the Return of Science Girl

Here is my theory. When we are young - babies, toddlers, pre-teens- our bodies learn. Our bodies learn how to react to drugs, and then they never forget. My body took penicillin once as a child, learned how to react to penicillin (projectile vomit!) and since then it has never forgotten.

So, my theory says that the most effective drugs for us are the ones we took in our youth. I tested this out with the gunk head cold. In my youth a cold meant Coricidin. I took the Coricidin for the first time in years and those tiny red pills worked better on my cold than any of the Extra Strength new fangled formulas I've bought as an adult.

As a child I always got a dose of Nyquil for a cough, but of course that was the Nyquil of my youth, before there was DayQuil, that could have been named AlcoQuil, because it was a shot of liquor. That, along with the Bourbon honey and lemon croup cure, taught my body forever that hooch fixes a cough. If I'm coughing, give me a shot and my immune system knows where to go and what to do.

Sadly, the alcohol in Nyquil is down to 10% now. Not only that, the only Sudafed I can find is the Sudafed PE. PE must mean Placebo Effect. I need the stuff my body learned on, full meth Sudafed.

If my theory holds that what you got as a child works best as an adult, then I should turn to full sugar Seven-up for any nausea and Midol for all reproductive complaints. I take that back. Midol never worked.

Perhaps the reason I have this Vitamin D deficiency is because I haven't had Chocks for decades.

Two Buck Chocks.

 

 

Amazon Prime

So, what they don't tell you when you get Amazon Prime (so you can watch documentaries on your PC for free) is that the shopping monkey jumps right on your back and rides you like a donkey in Tijuana.

That's why I was scrolling through the day's "deals" and saw this:

Of course I clicked on the first item.

I can't find it again now, but that seems like a good price, doesn't it?

==========================

Later: Wait, no, it's right here in my recently viewed items.

 

Tuesday Bullets

• Pope

I can see this Pope getting on the helicopter, flashing the peace sign, and then is granted a suspicious pardon from the guy he picks to replace him. Also, when it comes to Pope coverage, Colbert is killing it tonight. Go to http://www.colbertnation.com/ and look for the video from 2/26/2013.

• Itching

Tonight, Gary complained he was itching all over.

"Oh. Why do you think you're itchy?" I asked.

"Because I haven't had enough sugar."

Does anyone else suffer from this? Is it common? Can it be fatal? Is it like HFCS DTs?

• Seriously, Missouri?

Earlier this month, someone in the Missouri House proposed a bill to make it illegal to propose anti-gun laws. No one really took that seriously. Now a House committee has decided that if there are any Federal anti-gun laws, Missouri will just punish anyone who enforces them. Because that stands a chance.

 

Millennium Park

As I say, this is my first visit to Chicago that ventured outside the museum walls. Well, to be fair, one year we crossed Grant Park all the way to Navy Pier, which held no appeal for me. On the other side of the Art Institute (Here There be Dragons) lies the Millennium Park, circa 2004.

It is a "park" chock full of metal, that's what it is. I suppose they wanted to have all the metal sculptures and installations be a counterpoint to the lush nature.

I'm sure that's a fine idea when nature is lush, but in February it's like a metal and glass park in a metal and glass city, with faces of Chicago citizens trapped in carbonite like the child above.

Another cold rectangle.

Of course, no one could complain about Cloud Gate ("The Bean").

Great place to see if the Eggplant Fox makes your butt look big.

Cloud Gate must look incredible on a summer's day when no one's around, or at night.

There's another sculpture I felt a connection with, the one on top of the pavilion. What does this look like to you?

St. Louisans will recognize it as a tangled version of the Gateway Arch. A vision of the Gateway Arch blown up by resentful Chicagoans who are sad Ernest Trova didn't choose to live there? Yes.

The Big Snow of My Youth

Nemo has been making me remember the big blizzard of my youth. I look about ten, so it would be - wait. I can look it up!  It was 1973. We got a foot overnight. So nice when the internet confirms my reality.

Of course in my mind I am six and that yardstick is totally covered.

I also recall the St.Louis Blizzard in '82, when they closed UMSL for a week. Fabulous. I hated going back.

CNN Tickles Me

So there is a manhunt on for a nut job who killed three people. First, though, he sent CNN a package containing this:

It tickles me so much that CNN keeps showing the photo of the DVD and NEVER even suggests they might play what is on the DVD. Must be driving the nut job even more crazy.

Basement Progress

First, the junk men came out and hauled away all my carefully organized junk.

I took some photos to compare the before and after.

Before

After

Before

after

I know! They look exactly the same. Then I found the photo that will express how much progress has been made.

Tony and Alex standing by my junk. They were halfway done.

It looks like I'm junking perfectly good stuff, except for my grandmother's sewing cabinet which has gone legs up in the far corner. They load all the trash in first, then they organize the rest by the charity it goes to - Goodwill, etc.

It made me very proud I had organized it into a trash pile and a donation pile. Evidently sometimes they show up and there has been no preparation. People just start pointing at things.

They were very knowledable about my junk. They admired Gary's old bike, and spotted the pidgeon coop I paid $75 for at the Antique Mall (yes, it was possibly my worst decorating decision ever) and knew the name of the car featured in an old photo of my Dad.

Oh, and they put all of Gary's weights into that bench (the one under the Jane Fonda Steps) and hauled it all up at one time.

Now, most of the basement is in that stage of mid-organization when remaining stuff is piled in the middle of the room, but there is one corner that is complete.

The best part was finding that the plastic drawers fit perfectly in the corner.

You can't see it, but each drawer is labeled with the contents, and after I purged I found I have far more drawers than contents. Many drawers have only one thing. So, drawers are labeled "Tiny croquet set" and "small rubber chicken" and "millinery supplies."

And look at this workbench! It's like a man doesn't even live here!

Pre-Shelf Elf

I need to say this before the Christmas tree and this ornament go back to the basement.

This ornament has been - I can't say "in my family," that makes it sound like an heirloom. Start again. I did not throw this little elf away when Mom died, though I threw away his five brother elves, and though I knew them since birth.You can only imagine the sense of power I had as a child, straightening his legs, wadding them back up, pulling them out, wadding them back up.

Note the casual crossed-leg posture my elf has adopted. An extra dose of cuteness. Or constipation.

So, on Thanksgiving day I see this floating past Macy's.

My first thought: I thought WE were the only family with the little elf. Second, that elf is barely protecting his shins. Why didn't they cross his legs? And what is wrong with his ears?

Once again I have missed out on some child-centered pop culture. Evidently there's a new book about The Elf on The Shelf, and these elves sit on shelves and spy on children. I suppose this elf's posture was an homage to my elf, called a "knee-hugger" on ebay.

I still like my elf. I still pull out his legs. Secure elf. Wad up his legs. Insecure elf.

Slither Gets Two Thumbs Up From Gary

After I spent four hours sorting and cleaning and consorting with mouse crap, I arose from the basement to find Gary watching Slither.

He roared over the sounds of non-stop screaming, "Sit down and watch this movie with me! It's a great movie!"  It was then I decided to donate his weight set to Goodwill.

Right now as I type this the movie finished and he is yelling about how great it was.

Oh, now he's in my room. Live blogging.

"They were nuts only giving it three stars! It wasn't stupid at all! It was ... elegant! It was an elegant movie. You HAVE to watch it with me. It bears watching two or three times." 

I'm watching that movie as soon as he helps me clean up the basement.

This Was The Year That Wasn't

The Year In Health

Gary's migraine started bad, kept us from traveling, but got better, until his back went out and kept us from the Nephew's wedding and then we thought his heart was bad, and then we thought his wisdom teeth were growing back, so he slept with bandaids over his mouth for a while.

Mac started out sick but has improved, but still, Mac's health has kept us from traveling.

I thought I'd had a heart attack, but it was the cats. I definitively do not have colon cancer. I found out what was causing me to explode in 2011. (Not my vagina at all!) But I went back to physical therapy for another frozen part.

It assume I still have MS but I still can't get an MRI for my brain. Oh, and it seems I can't control my thoughts unless I have 10mg a day of Celexa in my system. Not normal, but 75% less than what I had before. I gave it a shot.

And no matter what, I'm still four grand ahead every month.

The Year In Entertainment

The best GNO's are the ones when everyone else works and somebody dies. I tried surprising Gary with a party. That worked well.

I read ... how many books? One. Bitter Brew. Heard most of it before, except for the exact addresses of all the Busch compounds.

The Chinese Lantern Festival was disorienting. We had great seats at the Cards game. The Museum of Transportation was transporting. The brewery was intoxicating. Argo to the Five Star Lounge.

We went to concerts: Ingrid Michaelson, Mike Birbiglia concert (and movie) Crosby Stills and Nash, Regina Spektor, Leslie Buckingham, Paul McCartney, Blue Man Group, and everyone but Alanis Morrissette. Of course, Paul was the best.

The Year In Eating

I ate yellow watermelon, pork belly, fresh pasta, churrasco, fusion, The Shaved Duck, risotto cakes, and chocolate,

The Year In Learning

I learned how to make cheese, that intense pain makes me laugh, and that you can't say the r-word for any reason.(Even as an educator. As one childed friend said, the "r-word is the new-n-word." FYI, child-free friends. None of the child-free folks at work knew.)

I learned how to make pie crust, and that flour spreaders go for the throat.

The Year In Nature

I lost a little interest in the northern lights. Cottonwood troubled me. Hail plagued us. Clouds disrespected me.

International Toe Porn Superstar Spunky Labia sported the natural look.

The BirdCam caught opposums, birds, squirrels, and racoons. Ducks showed up, just walking the street. Best of all, we hung out with some cheetahs.

The Year In Round Numbers

I turned fiddy.

A Loss for Words

Ugh, nasty day. I woke up with a headache, then the blender flung boiling potato-leek soup on my right boob and arm. (Gary's reaction when he heard: "BUTTER! Put butter on it right now!" Luckily he was not home at the time, so it's faded to just two small blisters. And my boob isn't buttered.)

I took to my bed shortly after the scalding and tucked in for the day, so nothing much happened, and what happened I documented in photos.

This is the best thing to happen since the iPad arrived. We have gone from this:

 

to this:

My pallet of Christmas gifts arrived on a forklift:

and, this was strange, gMail gave up on trying to sell me things in that advertising space at the top of their page.

Queer, isn't it? But, that's over now. Now they want me to buy Hartford AARP insurance, bastards.

Just a Link, Really

I read an article on Cracked last week that I enjoyed immensely. I'm not the only one: it has become one of the week's trending posts.

I recommend you read the whole article here, but you could also read the outline below. The outline doesn't have the excellent Cracked writing style or the videos of the best scene in Glengarry Glen Ross. Or the tremendous cursing. I've deliberately made it dispassionate so you'll be motivated to follow the link. It is called:

Six Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person

(And it is haaaarrrrrrrsh. Trigger warning for harshness.)

Thesis: It doesn't matter who you are, it's what you do. 

#6 The World Only Cares What it Can Get From You

This sets up the premise that the World needs help, and if you aren't there to do something helpful; the World doesn't care if you're a nice guy or not.

#5. The Hippies Were Wrong

Containing the Glengarry Glen Ross "COFFEE IS FOR CLOSERS" scene, this section posits that "You are not your job" is a false premise. You are what you do for others, and that's usually your job.

#4. What You Produce Does Not Have to Make Money, But It Does Have to Help People

For the men: women expect you to be nice. What else do you bring to the table? (Specifically, can you play the guitar?)

#3. You Hate Yourself Because You Don't Do Anything

This contains a video even I found distasteful. (Bye! NOW you're clicking that link up there!) However, the premise here is that one must DO something, even if it is flapping ones junk while wearing a cape distasteful.

#2. What You Are Inside Only Matters Because of What You Do

It matters who you are inside, but only because it makes you do good works. The writer quotes Jesus a few paragraphs after "What [does] the collective power of 'good thoughts' provide? Jack fucking shit."

#1. Everything Inside You Will Fight Improvement

... in which the writer checks off every rationalization his premise makes you feel.

As I say, follow the link for the good stuff. And yes, I get the irony that by leeching off his article I'm not doing anything myself.

 

Ancestry

A wild hair tickled me and I got the free subscription to Ancestry.com.

Is it just me, or is geneology depressing?

The first set of relatives I looked for was Jerry the Dead Technical Father and his kin. And how';s this for a commercial, I looked on the family tree and there I was. I didn't realize I would be on the family tree. I'm just an unnamed female profile because I'm not quite dead yet, along with Dave and the half-siblings Ive never met.

Also depressing? Ancestry.com thinks Mom is still alive. Suzan my short-term stepmother must be dead though: her generic female profile has a name.

From there, I looked up Jerry's grandfather the opium addict. I found him but no mention of his sons tying him to a tree to detox. So, that was sad. I thought about adding it, just as a sort of tribute.

I searched for one of Gary's great-aunts who had been entailed. I found his grandfather, along with loads of information. For example his grandfather owned a radio at one point. It's there in the summary. Other than that, Gary was familiar with all the grandfather information. No news there.

That seems to be the issue, either the person is a mystery or you already know all the details. Plus, little things bothered me. For example, someone listed Jerry's father by his nickname and had him married to my grandmother's identical twin sister. So, not only do I not know the man, other people don't know him either. Kind of sad.

Brothers and Sisters

I think of my brother every day. Mainly because he calls me every fucking day, but on days like this I think of the brother I had when I was young.

He was four before they began trying to determine what was wrong with him. He met with some specialist who was so impressed with Dave's dyspraxia that he published an account.

In kindergarten he was diagnosed as "hyperactive." (No one used the initials in the early 60's.) 

In grade school they pegged him as learning disabled. On top of that he could not control his temper, or any emotion, really. He was scary, especially in my emotionally repressed household. No one could tell when Dave began drinking at fourteen. I don't think he was an angry drunk: he was an angry sober. In junior high he began attending a special school for the emotionally disturbed.

He began bringing home the friends he made at the School for the Disturbed, and his friends were scary. One tried to break our front door down once when Mom and Dad were out.

The new school lasted a few years until Dave hit high school (and one of his friends asked me if I slept naked). Then he went to a day program at Our Lady of Grace, a local child center for emotionally disturbed kids. They use the term "psychiatric care" now, of course at the time there were no drugs for emotional problems. We had six months of family therapy visits. I only cried once. The doctor wanted to discuss what was wrong. Really? My brother has no emotional self control and you want to analyze my feelings? Really?

Then he got violent, ran away from home (yay!), found Jerry, threatened a family friend, was thrown out, lived in his car, sobered up, moved back, got married for six months until he was diagnosed as manic depressive and she got a restraining order.

"So then I'm manic-depressive?" Dave asked his doctor. "I'm not learning disabled or hyperactive or emotionally disturbed?"

Sorry, the doctor said, you're all those things. Plus, manic-depressive. Full-on, the hard-core delusional type. Paranoid delusions. It was nice that he turned his anger on the spies at the Phone Company who were bugging his apartment, because until then I was sure he'd be coming after some member of our family. Sure. We all were sure.

Eventually, after years and years of self-medicating and prescription medicating he found a drug that seems to work. (An Abilify-based cocktail of meds.) He still loses his temper (he just cussed out his insurance agent) but his anger is moderate and directed at actual slights, not perceived slights, or perceived murder attempts by the upstairs neighbor.

The sad thing is, on days like today, and so many other days this year, people think, "Why didn't the family do something? Surely they must have known." And of course they did know, and surely they did something, there were probably special schools and counseling and family therapy. Like any other illness, you have to be sick enough to be diagnosed, and with mental illness that means sick enough to kill your mother and a classroom of children.

WARNING: DISTURBING IMAGES OF AN EYEBALL.

I left at three to take the dog for a checkup. (FYI, the dog is skinnier than he has been in years; maybe his butt just looks big because the rest has shrunk.) I stopped off to say good bye to Marcia.

This is Marcia, in case you haven't seen her in the last one hundred plus pounds:

"Bye Marcia, I'm taking Mac to the vet."

I felt strangely patriotic looking at Marcia's eye red white and blue eye. "Uh - what's wrong with your eye?"

"Oh," she said, "You mean this?"

Yeah, the blood dripping inside your eyeball? That? YES THAT. (Ignore the manicure. She regrets it. I thought it was festive.) I had to look away. Then I had to take a photo.

I KNOW. She called her eye doctor's receptionist, who blew it off, and so Marcia blew it off. She said she was blow drying her hair last night with her head hanging down, that's what must have done it.

Yeeks. I'd be at the doctor's office demanding to know what had impaled me in the eye.

A Reasonable Person

It's nice to know that the "reasonable person standard" is used to make decisions in many areas of life. I'm happy that when a court has its final say, ultimately every delicate flower is supplanted by a stodgy reasonable person.

You know what isn't reasonable? Killing yourself because you got punked.

"A nurse duped by a prank phone call at the hospital treating the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge has died in a suspected suicide."

I know we all should be sad sad sad about this nurse's death. I heard Piers and Anderson immediately take pains to haughty it up and say how the prank wasn't funny. I heard how the DJs facebook pages were filled with "BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS" comments.

But there's no way this nurse was a reasonable person. No blood on anyone's hands as far as I can see.

What IS THIS?

It's going to be 73 on Monday? What is this horseshit? Is this not the Northern hemisphere? Is this not December?

My pear tree has BUDS ON IT. I just bought a winter coat. How am I supposed to get in the Christmas spirit when it's as hot as a black leather steering wheel in a car that's been parked on the top floor of a parking garage on the surface of the sun?

Visual Motivational Aids

Has anyone had a colonoscopy recently?

I had one in my mid-thirties, and now that I am fifty I get to have a regularly scheduled colonoscopy in December.

I got the materials in the mail, and they include a handy visual aid of what the inside of your colon looks like if your preparation was Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor.

I will not scan the photos in. Imagine if you will ...

Excellent: a spotless colon. No puddles or poo. Also, it has ridges. I suppose when it's empty it just accordians like that.
Good: a spotless colon that has a millimeter of fluid in the bottom. It still has ridges. I remember my last colonoscopy, and I remember the doctor having to vacuum up a few yellow puddles of bile. I don't know how that happened, because believe me, after half a year of irritable bowel syndrome, three days of Jell-O, and a gallon of bowel prep I am amazed I even had a colon.
Fair: This colon is one third full of fluid sewage. And there are no ridges, for some reason.
Poor: Yeah. It's poop. Yellow poop coating the sides, worming its way about the colon. Eww. I just looked at it again. Ewwww.

Gary did not say "ew." Gary screamed and threw the paper across the room. Gary's colonoscopy isn't till January.

I plan to drink extra bowel prep poop juice so my colon is pink and dry and ridged like the Sahara. I have something to aspire to now.

 

Audiences

Remember when we went to the Regina Spektor concert years ago? There were some very loud young women behind us and Gary had to snap his fingers at them?

I thought that was a freak occurrence.

Turns the Regina Spektor concert we saw on Staycation '12 was populated by the same 21 year old demographic, and they were every bit as loud. If the music got louder, they got louder. Stupid girls! Get your skinny juvenile ass to a coffeehouse. You can talk there all you want and no pesky Russian singers will try to drown you out and it won't cost you more than a few bucks.

It wasn't just me; I saw a tweet from another attendee complaining about the people behind her in the balcony. The same yapping crappy disrespect.

On the other hand, the Lindsey Buckingham concert the next day was very polite, except for the people at the bar. He played one very soft song and I am afraid you could hear the loud bar conversations. Again, people, there are bars you can go to that do not have a huge concert hall attached. Go there to get drunk and bellow.

In contrast, no one said shit at the Paul McCartney concert.

 

Paul McCartney! EEEEeeeee!

You want him? He's in the middle.

"Whhhiiine," you whine, "I can hardly see him."

If you want, you can go to my Paul photostream and see the full size version. You'll see early on I don't know how to use the HDR setting on my iPhone. It all looks a bit Peter Max.

But the real star of the show? Our SEATS. Look at that! Third row, stage corner.

He's right there! I could pat his butt!

Someone asked if the band had a name, like "The Beatles" and "Wings." Not that I can tell, unless it's "Lucky."

Next to Paul is the young man who gets to be the bass player for Paul McCartney. That'd be like being the guy who accompanies Elton John on the piano. You can also see the drummer in the back being bald and funny, and he can sing. He's paving the way for Tyler Stewart of BNL to join the band. They all seem to have the air of "I AM SINGING SERGEANT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND WITH PAUL MCCARTNEY."

Paul knows that. He held some singalongs: Ob-la-Dee, Gove Peace a Chance, Hey Jude.

He also has a very selective way of interacting with the audience. He'll read your sign. I didn't understand all the signs at first, especially all the ones that said PAUL SIGN ME! My favorite sign? "NA" Not a lot of signs spelling out "Na, na na nananana." Just NA.

It was all very exciting.

The most exciting part was when the fireball exploded in my face.

I'm not kidding.

Yeah, I'm just listening to Live and Let Die, and you know how it starts all sweet singing about an open book, then suddenly bam, jam, Live and Let DII-IIEEE, whomp, boom?

Boom. See above. I was not expecting the pyrotechnics and I thought "NO! What happened? Great White fire! TRAMPLE!" but then a very choreographed row of shooting flames were right in my eyeline at the edge of the stage. VERY HOT FIRE twenty feet from me.

The I saw the guy with the safety vest leave the fire area and I thought, oh, okay, fire done. Nope, fire moved to back of stage.

So, the fire moved to a safe spot. But no. Right on the last chord, another big fireball exploded in my face. Fireballs are HOT. I, however, did not wet my pants, thanks to my vaginal physical therapy. I was able to wave both arms in the air thanks to the shoulder therapy.

Really the best concert so far.

Beer

"Don't tell anyone you don't like beer," Gary said. We were walking into Anheuser-Busch to take the Brewmaster brewery tour.

Minutes later, everyone in the tour group was asked to name two favorite beers. While waiting my turn I crafted a response about the AB heritage in Saint Louis and my Dad and how he had us serve him everything on those round beer trays and in the meantime Gary stuttered out "I uh - I don't really like beer! "

It's possible my dislike of beer began early, when I went on a school trip to the brewery. I think I was in grade school. What I remember was walking on a catwalk, and seeing a man test the product in an open foamy vat that stank of beer.

The catwalk is still there, but there's no smell anymore, unless you count the lovely smell of whatever they use to power wash the floors.

 

We tasted the beer the first time while it was being beechwood aged (yes, they throw actual wood in the vats so the yeast has something to adhere to). That dose of beer was vile. It was 8% alcohol and warm. Straight stomach acid. Vile. VILE.

Later we got a pre-pasteurized, pre-bottled dose right from the vat.

I didn't get a picture of the guy firing the beer right into his mouth from the pigtail. That beer was acceptable. A guy on the tour explained the reason I liked it was because it was near freezing and cold knocks out the effects of tannins. ("Tannins!" I said. "I hate tannins!") Evidently I've been drinking too-warm beers right from the can instead newborn beer suckled from the icy teat.

Fueled by some city loyalty I bought a six pack of AB light cider at the grocery the next day. Blehahahahah. (Shudder.) Still nasty.