Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Mini Update

One nice thing about the pandemic is that we really don’t need two cars. It’s entirely possible we just take the sick Mini off the insurance and leave it in the garage ... well, forever.

But, Gary’s Honda Fit has as many miles as the Mini, and if it goes out then we have zero cars, and then I think, you can buy a lot of taxi rides for what a new car costs. 

But thinking ahead, in a year or so, there will be concerts and museums and visits to other cities, and potentially there won’t be the $7,500 tax credit for the electric Mini. 

I think we just need one more thing to tip us into car buying mode. A discount, which Mini evidently doesn’t do. A good price on our trade-in.

“OR, WOULDN’T IT BE COOL IF THEY DELIVERED IT RIGHT TO OUR DOOR?” Gary said. “WE LOVE GETTING THINGS DELIVERED.”

True. That would do it.

I Continue to Shrink

Gary noticed it last week. “What shoes are you wearing? You’re short now.”

Confirmed at the doctor’s office: I’m down another half inch. After years of 5 foot 8, I went to 5 7 a few years ago and now I’m 5 feet 6.5 inches.

I also have a bone density test coming up now. I can’t imagine how I could have weak bones: I’ve never broken one, my favorite drink as a child was milk, my labs have me over the top of the recommended range for vitamin D, and I am right in the middle for calcium. 

What I can’t get over is that I am now literally less of myself. Very disheartening.

Signs

One thing about Gary: he doesn’t like to be told what to do. I know, no one likes to be told what to do, but Gary hates it so much he even resents road signs.

We were in the car together for the first time in months, and he encountered two road signs he felt were trying to oppress him. 

The first sign that stepped outside its station and dared to tell him what to do was a “NO OUTLET’ sign. 

“I HATE THAT SIGN. NO OUTLET. STUPID SIGN TRYING TO KEEP ME OFF THAT STREET.”

”I think it’s to keep you from getting stuck  — “

”NO THOSE PEOPLE DON’T WANT ANYONE TURNING AROUND IN THEIR PRECIOUS STREET.”

The next sign was worse: it didn’t just boss him, it tried to play mind games. 

It was a digital sign that said our exit was going to be closed for construction starting at 9 that night. 

”I DON’T READ THOSE ELECTRONIC SIGNS. WHO KNOWS IF THEY’RE EVEN RIGHT.”

I thought, “Of all signs, the electronic up-to-the minute signs would be the most accurate: no one has to come out and unscrew the sign,” but I didn’t want to be seen as defending the double-plus-ungood signage mind control plot.

Rewriting the Novel: Halfway Begun

Well, I looked at my outline and I’ve hit the midpoint, and I counted the words, and I’m at 30,000. Thirty thousand very very poor words, but exactly half of what’s expected. 

It’s almost all dialogue that could be pared down to make room for pithy descriptions. 

I think I’ll be hard-pressed later  to find the right number of words for the second half, given that in parts the outline truly says “Something happens here.” Maybe this is where that inspiration thing kicks in.

Vaccine 2: Giving it My Full 74%

I got my second vaccine. This time it was a drive-through, just as organized and efficient as when I came for the first shot. 

As you know, the doctor said if Covid vaccines act like flu vaccines, this will protect me against 74% of the covid viruses I encounter. I suppose that means there’s a 26% chance I will carry it to others and infect them.

The first military person to review my form said, “Now, I see you’re immunocompromised. Did they discuss with you that you will have reduced immunity?”

I thought, “They? Who is they?” I agreed that “They” had anyway.

Five minutes later the next camo-clad woman said, “You take a medicine to reduce your immune system?”

”Yes, Mayzent, for MS.”

”And you have discussed with your doctor that you will have reduced immunity?”

Damn. It. Asked me twice, this time specifically about the doctor. Poof, gone, any hope my doctor was just being overly cautious. I am NOT going to DisneyWorld. I’m not going outside until that curve bottoms out entirely.

Took 15 minutes this time before I got the shot, 15 min wait, took an hour overall with travel.

Side effects? None so far. Will there be any? I’ll have to add 25% to any I have to get an idea how others are suffering.

Fauci Fight

The news is full of this feisty exchange:

The Wall Street Journal says Fauci should have just answered the question, which I imagine would sound like, “We think 500 people can die per day then we start opening for business.”

Still, Jim Jordan is pressing that these constraints are standing in the way of our liberties. Well, sure. The Declaration of Independence lists the original God-given rights, with life the first on the list. If we started with the pursuit of happiness, liberty, and life we’d have a different country. 

So, yes, shut your mouth, Jim Jordan.

Weekly Paint Progress: 4/15

This week the salt shakers went from this:

... to this:

Bleeehhh.

The town went from this:

... to this:

Cadence

I am almost done with MSNBC. My problem with MSNBC? 

• My problem with MSNBC it the way they have this annoying three-part cadence.
• My problem with MSNBC is the way they repeat everything three times.
• My problem with MSNBC is how they speak as if there’s an audience ready to stand and applaud when they make the same point three times in a row.

I think it’s called Anaphora. It’s most obvious on Morning Joe. The commentators and the pundits do it, and they all do it poorly. We do not have a dream. We do not fight on the beaches. We grow annoyed. We grow annoyed at Mika. We grow annoyed at Joe. We grow annoyed at the daily talking head. 

Rachel Maddow’s already too repetitive  but not to this degree: if she starts this nonsense I’m shunning the entire channel.

Sick Car

We dropped off the Mini at the mechanic because it’s been oddly doggy. Not quite enough pep to get up a hill easily. Not enough pep to go from zero to anything easily. If I’m at a stop sign at the bottom of even a slight hill, then I am doomed unless if I stomp on the gas and roar the tachometer up to 6.

 I am going to transcribe the remarkable conversation I just had with the mechanic at Dobb’s.

”Hello, Mrs. S_____? I’m calling about the Mini? We got one of our mechanics to drive your car, and I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what’s wrong. It’s something wrong with your transmission.”

Gary had suggested that I had just forgotten How To Drive a Car, so I asked, “So there IS something wrong?”

“Ooooohhhhh yeeeessssss.”

Then he recommended that if I had to maybe I could find someone who would rebuild the transmission entirely. That’s already happened; it was still under warranty when Mini rebuilt it the first time.

So, it’s been 13.5 years since the last car hunt (begin the journey here, then skim to here). This hunt might be easier, Gary wants an all-electric car, and we actually could reincarnate the current Mini in electric. Subtract the rebate and it’s only a few thousand more than we paid for the Mini 16 years ago. And, while the Mini I bought in 2005 wasn’t reliable, evidently in 2015 Mini got religion and they are now loyal and true. 

Or, we could get the transmission fixed. That “Oooohhhhhhh yeeeeessss” really scared me, though.

Not News

This is not news.

Why doesn’t this headline say “Son Behaves Like a Human” or something similar? Why has People magazine been shoving this at me all weekend?

This Is Why We Don’t Use ‘One’

I visited the Wikipedia pronouns page because we’ve hired some Southerners  which stemmed a work discussion about “you all” filling in as the second person pronoun, with “all y’all” meaning a specific number of “you all”.

Pronouns are just a mess. We’ve given up the fight on “his or hers” and went with “theirs” (or rewrite).

Seriously, One The Pronoun? I’ve always explained that you don’t punctuate the passive pronoun it as “it’s” because you wouldn’t write, “The man trained the dog to put it’s paw in hi’s hand.” And now you give me one’s as the possessive pronoun.

And on top of that it isn’t Oneself? Or Onesself? It’s onself? Really?

Of course, I’m using Wikipedia as a reliable source. That’s my problem. Of course, I have too many books to find my Chicago Manual of Style.

Basement

Well, even after we got the drainage fixed, the puddle in the basement welled up on the New Year’s Day ice storm, but it was an ice storm, and there’s expansion and blockages that go with it, so I let it slide.I just cursed a lot.

The ice storm cursing was nothing compared to the cursing last week. I read in the paper that parts of the St. Louis metro area were flooding because there was so much rain and no place for the water to go. Our puddle hadn’t show up for three months, so I decided to go down to my dry basement and feel smug. 

Puddle. Epic cross-basement puddle. Usual corner puddle combined with stair landing leak trickling all the way to the drain.

Before the drainage work, we’d have a puddle every time it rained. Now it has to be a newsworthy event to prompt a puddle. I need to remember that that’s still an improvement, and no one in this neighborhood of rabbit warrens and river clay has a totally dry basement.

The smartest thing I could do is rearrange the basement so my art area is no longer on the border of the puddle so I don’t even look at it (on the now rare occasions it makes an appearance). But that would require more electrical outlets in the basement, and the moving of light sources. I did suggest we put Gary’s drum kit in the wet corner, just to see his reaction, which was very satisfying.

So, a puddle every season is better than a puddle every week, and at least the puddle is contained. And at least there IS a basement, given the current tornado season. Time to mop it out of my mind.

———— one day passes

Only ... that was yesterday. There’s a puddle again, and frankly, it barely rained. Time to rearrange the basement. Or to put in a new back porch. Or to meditate every time it rains.

When the Abnormal Feels Normal

I was driving with Gary, returning from the only other stop on our bubble path, when I said, “Hey, do you want to go out to dinner? We haven’t gone out to dinner in ages.”

And then I remembered, there’s a reason we haven’t gone out to dinner, there’s a global pandemic, hello.

So strange that I’ve become so used to the pandemic that I’ve forgotten there’s a pandemic.

Weekly Paint Progress: 4/8

Okay, here’s a new reference photo for the salt shakers:

...and it’s this far:

I don’t have high hopes for this one. I think it will just be fun.

The town went from this:

... to this:

 

Things to Burn on the Barbecue When the Pandemic is Over

When it is all over, I am seriously lighting up the Weber grill and burning these things:

• A paper mask
• A roll of toilet paper
• A symbolic pair of roomy sweatpants 
• An Amazon box

What else goes on the fire?