Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

  • Robots

    So, this hotel has two robots (Leo and Cleo) who respond to guest requests for select room service items: snacks, salads, or towels or soap.

    I arrived day one at 8:30 p.m., which, I know this now, is prime robot time, while the restaurant is open. I walked past them in their home positions in the lobby. “Just robots,” I thought. “Don’t be old. Be cool … Don’t stare at the robots. Huh, the floor selection panel is outside the elevator — oh, it tells me which specific elevator to take when I press 9 –”

    And then I was set upon by robots. They’d both been activated while I was adapting to the panel and they were now warbling at me and spinning like confused but delightful Roombas. I got on the elevator and only one followed me.

    I was headed to nine, but the robot got off at six, warbled some more, trundled off the elevator and rolled down the hall to the room that summoned it. I don’t know if the warbling is there to humanize it or if it communicates with the elevator through electronic tones like Captain Crunch. That would explain why only one followed: the warbling is to communicate with the elevator and tell it what floor it wants, and you can’t have two competing signals in one elevator.

    All week I’ve tried to think of something I could have it carry to me in the box in its head, but I didn’t need more soap or towels or snacks or salads. Gary wanted video and I pointed him to YouTube where he could type “EMC2 robots” and see lots of videos of robots arriving at the door.

    Then I realized the journey is more important than the destination, so I went downstairs and spoke to the lovely lobby staff. They sent a robot to my room loaded with nothing so I could follow it.

    It’s 3:59 minutes long, but you get to see me interact awkwardly with both robots and humans. (If the embed below doesn’t work it’s on YouTube here.)

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  • TWIL: Frank Lloyd Wright was really picky

    Look at this brickwork on the fireplace in the Robie House.

    Look how wide those bricks are. Now look in the bottom left corner between the yellow stucco column and the plain cement mantelpiece, below the mantel but above the rust colored cushion. Do you see the vertical bit of mortar that shows where two bricks are cemented together?

    You aren’t supposed to. Almost all the other joints like that have been tinted to match the brick so you can’t see them.

    I am certain Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t like that the vertical piece was not tinted, nor the one above it in the top left across from the other cement detail.

    I can only imagine the hell he would summon if his toilet paper point was in the state mine was in last night.

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  • Not disappointing

    Yesterday, the universe made me smile. I’d had a bad day. The water taxi was good, but I got very lost in Chinatown trying to find the EL after a squabbling phone call with Gary.

    Evidently, the universe sensed that I was having a bad day. The hotel has upped their toilet paper point game.

    I don’t even know how they embossed that point on there.

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  • Puzzle challenge in the room

    Looked around the room; couldn’t find the drawers.

    Found them five minutes later.

    I checked that footstool. No hidden secrets.

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  • Disappointing

    Actually this is the only disappointing thing about the hotel. I was mobbed by robots by the elevator. That was fun. Story to come later.

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  • I am vain about specific things

    This wee suitcase contains eight days of clothing, seven evening meals (see yesterday’s post), one rain-ready wig (thank you hurricane season), one fancy all-black ensemble WITH shoes for Operation Mincemeat and the 3-star dinner, and all my medicines and devices (the phone attachment that documents my tooth straightening compliance is in the mesh bag).

    Spunky for scale.

    The train is 15 min late already.

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  • I think we’ve all been there

    I’ve seen this sad story a number of times today. A man needed to use the bathroom, went to the grocery store, found it was locked, and drove his car through the doors, and then — one assumes — used the bathroom. The terse link from NBC above was the least smarmy of all the sources I saw.

    I want to tell that man in the car: honey, here’s what you do.

    Before you go to bed at night, you eat 3/4th of a cup of Kellogg’s All-Bran Buds. You doctor it with whatever you need. I currently augment mine with 1/4 cup of chocolate-covered almonds and honey-roasted pecan pieces. And half-and-half instead of milk. There you go. It tastes pretty palatable if you eat it before it becomes paste.

    For me, doing it before sleep is key. I initially I ate it upon waking, like a normal person, but then I’d have two hours of waiting, and if I needed to be somewhere at 7 I’d have to wake up at 5. Much handier to dose myself at night and sleep through the dreadnought of shrubbery frog-crawling through my transverse colon.

    This has worked for about a month now. Tonight I am making baggies of this doctored fiber cereal so that I can take it like medicine before bed in Chicago.

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  • Amusing conclusion to the pet-sitting saga

    The Cat’s owner returned today, and I asked that she pause a moment so I could view the joyful reunion.

    When that moment arrived, the Royal King of all Chonk Cats saw His rightful owner … and He immediately spun and raced into the basement.

    The punishment only lasted half an hour, though, then he emerged and demanded food and pets from his Real Mom.

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  • TWIL: some very encouraging MS news

    I know it’s only a study with mice, but every MS breakthrough began with mice. I even think I recall there were mice bred to be born with the mouse version of MS, poor things. I hope they have bladder botox made available to them at no cost.

    MS drugs work to reduce the attacks, and most reduce them by a third. This drug does that too, but it also keeps mice from becoming ill, to a degree. So that’s nice, too.

    But the big news is this drug reversed MS vision loss and paralysis in the mice who had been damaged by the illness.

    My first thought was, sign me up for the human trial, but of course my next thought was, wait, I’m not blind or paralyzed. But good news for those MS people who are. I hope they fast track this one as much as possible.

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  • Cat care continues

    I’m still cat-sitting. I’ve paid close attention to His every move upstairs, and I truly didn’t see or hear this cat pee all day and night yesterday. I was ready to take Him to the vet until FINALLY He voided His bladder at 2 a.m. People, the joy, the relief I felt.

    We have bonded so much that we trade slow blinks all the time. Especially while He’s eating. And the sweet baby eats like a raccoon. He lolls on His side, reaches up to His elevated bowl, feels around for a morsel of kibble, then kinks His wrist to snag it and pull that bite down to the floor, where he chomps on it one piece at a time.

    Intentional eating, I think that’s what they call it. Surprising he’s so heavy.

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