I was focusing on how to make my leftover chicken palatable for the five minutes Gary spent ranting about Elon Musk. According to Gary, Musk has a plan to build a robot-operated satellite factory on the moon.

That’s why I was a little distracted when he stopped ranting and I said, “Maybe Elon’s just talking. Maybe he’s trying to distract us because that old part of one of his spaceships fell into the moon today.”

And then the seven-year-old version me who lives in my head said, “You live in science fiction but you sound bored about it!”

I have noticed that I have been getting more compliments lately. They fall into these categories.

Comparisons with actresses

I have been told I resemble actress Catherine O’Hara twice in the last few months. I assume this is because I am wearing a wig, and because she had a long jaw, as have I. Then I heard a comparison to Joan Cusack, and I thought, “That tracks, another long-jawed woman.” I haven’t heard any comparisons to Meryl Streep for decades, but we can all agree her jaw is generous as well.

Wig Compliments

Speaking of wigs, when strangers tell me my hair is so pretty, I usually answer, “Thank you, it’s a wig,” which is a correction and a downer. I cracked the code this weekend though. When someone said my hair was pretty, I replied, “I think so too, that’s why I bought it.”

Youthful appearance

Last year I was 62, and I told my honest age whenever asked, and no one said diddly-squat about it. This year, I answer I am 63, and jaws drop. Productions are made. Skin care secrets are demanded. (Yes, even though I currently have a pimple on my left chin.) I answer “Noxema?” Of late I confess to using the Pricey Cream on both sides of the wattle now, but not the face, because it is so dear. I can take these compliments more gracefully than I can compliments about my plain face or wonky figure. I suppose that’s because people back it up with objective measures, pointing to their forehead vs my forehead.

Speaking of being 63, Hyatt Hotels starts giving the senior discount at 62. I will be 64 when I check in next week. I’ve always piggybacked on Gary’s senior discount. Nice to get some use out of it myself.

I am trying to schedule three vacations all at the same time and it is just a bad idea. Way too many moving parts.

I started the day with vague plans for a Monday to Friday in Kansas City. Our hilarious niece is there, so that’s a non-negotiable, but everything else is in play. Well, I do want to see the Mucha exhibit at the shuttlecock museum. (I am too lazy to look up the real name, but it’s the only art museum with a giant shuttlecock on the grounds. At least, I hope they still have it.) Then I started adding on extras like the buried steamboat exhibit (I’ve already seen the WWI museum, thank you), and then evaluating what the best non-barbecue restaurant is without the aid of the Micheline organization, and then do nice restaurants take a reservation for one person, and do I need to hire a male escort, and all those considerations. So I have booked nothing … and that starts in 10 days.

In addition, I had planned to go to Houston to see NASA in September and then Chicago in December for the Choir! Choir! Choir! concert. Again, I had a plan: plant myself at the Chicago hotel next door to the venue, move to a nicer hotel after, see the Obama museum, eat at a three-star restaurant, see all the parts of Chicago that Gary is not interested in.

But that all went up in the air when I saw Choir! Choir! Choir! had the same concert in Houston in November, and November in Houston beats Chicago in December by a nautical mile, so those two dates had to be switched, which means I can see Operation Mincemeat in Chicago … and I am starting to appreciate what travel agents do.

This all began when the first domino fell and I discovered BNL is only a third of the bill at Choice A) their concert in St. Louis in 11 days or Choice B) Kansas City in 12 so that drops my interest by 66.66666%.

However, they are going to be in England in December …

Well, I am now the ashamed owner of a Tempur-Pedic adjustable bed. I really don’t like the idea at all. I suppose Gary has decided I need to start behaving like the elderly person he is. (Pauses to make a mildly vulgar sexual gesture.)

The night before it arrived I was catastrophising about how it wouldn’t fit, they would damage the room while installing it, all the usual two a.m. anxiety. I got up, found Gary, and expressed myself pointedly.

I went back to my non-adjustable bed, flopped down in a funk, and immediately thought of workarounds for every crisis.

• Mattress doesn’t fit in the sleigh bed frame? Just remove the never-seen side of the frame that’s directly against the wall.
• Room requires rearranging? Zoom calls would no longer have my closet doors as a backdrop, plus, move the hated air purifier into the closet and run it weekly.
• Mattress mechanism power cord will bend against the bed frame and start a fire? Rescue a flat plug strip from the power strip larder downstairs and thus consolidate all the visible cords by the window.

When the bed was finally successfully installed the next day Gary put a pillow case on his head and danced about.

I then elevated the head and foot a little and put on the fitted sheet, and again made the guttural sound when I lowered both sides and the sheet went taut.

I got in the bed and jacknifed the bed into maximum high-head-and-feet position. It made me into a human check mark. I flattened it, got out of bed, and did the same again: highest head, highest feet, and found that without my butt anchoring the mattress to the frame the mattress just kept going skyward, like a silver tray balanced aloft on the fingertips of a snooty waiter.

Later that evening I again assumed the jackknife position while watching TV and developed a backache. Gary reiterated what the saleswoman said, that it takes a month to soften up. And then — amazing — he invited me into his bed (joy!) so that he could lie in my bed and soften it up for me (despair).

I’m going to buy new bedclothes for it this weekend. That might help me see more of the positives.

I’m planning a vacation – actually three vacations. I haven’t been on vacation since 2018 so I need to make up for lost time.

Now that Gary’s feeling better, I thought he might come along, but he recently admitted he wasn’t feeling that much better.

So that means 50% off of air, food, entertainments. Ergo – spend twice as much on air, food, entertainments.

I was making lists of things to do in Chicago, and it occurred to me I’ve never eaten in a hotel with Michelin stars.

(*Type type type, someplace called Smyth. Ooh, not only three Michelin stars but also number one on the Best Restaurants in America. Can’t make reservations that far in advance. And but Jesus that’s expensive. Still doing it, though.*)

As always, no stars in St. Louis. I knew that already. Just figured we weren’t good enough. I looked for Michelin stars in Kansas City and Houston, not expecting to see any, but then there are some one-stars in Houston.

”That’s not right,” I grizzled. “Certainly we have better food than Houston.”

Turns out Michelin only goes to the cities it pleases, and no city in Missouri has pleased it. Fine, your stars, your rules, Michelin. But really, no stars for New Orleans? That’s just criminal. (Grizzles again.) Now I’m not going to get a table at Smyth for flouting the system.