Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Close to Home

So far I have known three people who caught the virus. One didn’t even have symptoms, one had every symptom but recovered, one is still suffering. And now, I know someone who died. 

Not a close friend, but a popular, healthy, middle-aged co-worker in another department, and people are reeling. I was scheduled to have a meeting with her and five others last Monday, and I just … mentioned it obliquely and then we went on with the work. 

Whenever someone mentions her death, I have that instinct to ask “why”- as in “why her?” and implied in that is “what did she do wrong?” And of course she did nothing wrong, I am sure. 

Remarkable though that it’s been over a year and people are still dying. Not over yet.

I’ll Take That Spare J&J Vaccine

I read last week that the government found itself with a surplus of Johnson and Johnson vaccine. Evidently interest in the J&J vaccine dropped after that blood clot scare, and they were left with too much vaccine that was due to expire. 

I’ll take your scraps, I thought at the time, just pass it my way. I could use a booster. I would be happy to be hooked up to an IV drip of vaccine and they could keep measuring my antibodies until I ding and I’m done.

Evidently the Powers That Be sniffed the vaccine and decided it would still be good for another month or so, so that’s fine. I’m happy enough here at home. If I’m not out next March I might lose it a little.

Rewriting the Novel: A Scene Just Shows Up in My Head

I was heating up some Chicken Parmesan for lunch, and as always I thought, “Chicken Par-MEEE-zhun” as that is how we pronounced it in my youth, and it occurred to me that the mis-pronunciation of Italian food names might be a way to highlight my heroine’s adjustment to her new environment. I’d been trying to think of slang she wouldn’t know but pronunciation’s less jarring.

And then various characters weighed in on pronunciation and that was a whole scene, and then one of the ladies made a snide remark about oil workers and that was another scene. 

And then it wrote it down on the refrigerator whiteboard and it all stopped, damn it. Do real writers just have these episodes all the time?

Lawsuit Waiting to Happen

I was excited when someone told me they now have Roundup weed killer in gel form. This is perfect for my bed of ground cover transplanted from Moms that is now overrun with chameleon plant.

Every year I pull up the invasive chameleon plant and it pops right back up, as if severing the root grid makes two more. It’s enmeshed with Mom’s good transplanted ground cover. Every other leaf is good and the next is evil. And of course, I can’t spray accurately enough to kill only the evil ones.

Supposedly, i can apply this gel to the offending plant leaves and skip the virtuous leaves. 

Someone is going to mistake it for jumbo size extra strength men’s deodorant. You peel off the foil on top just like deodorant. Then they will apply it to their armpits and get cancer.

This is a really bad packaging idea. Hope it works on the chameleon plant.

Weekly Paint Progress: 6/10

This week the pansy got an extra dose of brown to calm everything down. So it went from this:

… to this:

The proportions are wrong, per usual, but that’s a little closer to this:

The cliffs went from this:

… to this:

I like my cliffs better than the one in the book. And frankly, I have begun to notice little inconsistencies in the book - it seems almost as if they correct things from step to step and they do not cop to it.

Damnogram

There’s been a vague pain on my left, ambling between my left armpit and left underboob, kicking tender parts and complaining when I rub it looking for lumps.

I had to get a mammogram anyway. I called, and after I scheduled one for the end of the week, I remembered I needed to get a bone density test because I am just that f-ing old. The re-scheduler asked why I’d decided to get a mammogram anyway.

Did I say “Because it’s been two years” and leave it? No I did not. I said, “Because it’s been two years and my left armpit started to hurt.”

And thus my simple in-and-squish-and-squish-and-out mammogram morphed into a diagnostic mammogram requiring an extra doctor’s visit. 

Of course, nothing hurt anymore when I walked into the exam room. Then he added a little elbow grease during the breast exam and I squawked.

“Ack! Sorry. Sorry I yelled. That did not feel good.”

Which was a WEIRD thing to say, because it suggests I thought it felt good up to that point, and I was in that mid-breast exam social situation in which one don’t make eye contact with one’s doctor while he’s kneading one’s bosom anyway. Awkward. 

He found no lumps, but he also found no muscle strains, so I’m approved for a diagnostic squish in a week and a half. I’m also signed up for the bone density scan on the same day, which I am sure will “feel good.”

Fox News

The fox that brings me so much joy visited us nightly, and then some over-protective raccoon mom went after him with her claws. The fox cried. It was a heartbreaking sound.

After that, no fox. 

Until yesterday! 

It would appear the Fox has found out that momma opossums are much better natured than momma raccoons. 

Mystery Man

Well, now that we have the Navy report on unidentified flying objects (TL;DR - “dunno”) there is still one mystery left: the Somerton man.

Looks like that may be solved someday by forensic genealogy.

Tamam Shud!

 

Rewriting the Novel: Back on the Horse

Well, I’ve gotten the heroine in trouble and I’m very vague in how to get her out, so that’s what I worked on this week. No actual sentences, just brainstorming how she survives on her own after her husband flakes on her. 

I’m not even punctuating / just putting slashes between thoughts / the woman has no skills / go back and give her skills / cheating / is sewing a skill? / too curtains 

(“Too curtains” is “too much like Scarlett O’Hara sewing her way out of her Tara Tax crisis.”)

The most recent brainstorming had her sleeping on the train until I researched 1930’s train fares and realized that would be too expensive.  If I have her sew for money how would that work? She could borrow a needle, but where would she get the thread? Could she dismantle the warp and woof of some fabric to get thread?

It amazes me how this is still hard even though I control everything in this universe. I keep going down Coincidence Road (she finds a needle in the gutter!) and then I write “/cheating/”.

I was discussing this with Friend Anne, and she immediately suggested a perfect resolution, perfect from a metaphor point of view and perfect in its realism. Not only that, it’s one of my favorite things to do: debugging. So now the Heroine can fix broken things. There’s already a radio in the plot, so now I have to research how hard it is to fix a radio, and maybe a treadle sewing machine, or any other 1930s technology.

Drone?

I looked out on the night sky Thursday evening. 

“My god, Venus is huge,” I said. I went to get the binoculars.

I thought it might be a helicopter, because it was seemed to be hovering in one place. 

By the time I got back with the binoculars it was much larger, moving west to east, and seemed to be headed for me. 

I lifted the binoculars but I had trouble finding it in the sky because now it was moving too fast. I realized I could just look up and see it - and just then it was obscured by a branch of the tree by our driveway.

I just waited a second and then it was right over my head. It seemed to be a silver accordion trivet, the size of a twin bed, and the silver was like a chrome rainbow. There was also a flashing red light, so unless the aliens comply with FAA regulations it was not an alien spacecraft. Also, it made a low hum.

It was like this, but probably simpler, and more rainbow pastel.

Not a typical drone shape at all.

Well God Bless the NIH

I was all pouty on Facebook about how everybody else is fully immunized and gets to go out and play and I’m grounded. No doubt they read my post and now as a result the NIH is going to study the immunosuppressed to see what can be done to get us some antibodies. 



Excellent. Shall I be Spartacus again? It does mean 2 years of blood tests and going off my drugs for a month.

Weekly Paint Progress: 6/3

This week the pansies went from this:

… to this:

Close to this?

No! Sigh … I know, I got carried away with the light green. Maybe I’ll do a golden-brown wash over everything. I always say that. Maybe this time I’ll do it. But I kind of like the carnival colors in mine, too.

The seascape went from this:

… to this:

That horizon is wonky. 

Math

I once heard someone describe himself as “house-poor“ in that he had money, then he bought a house, and then saw the amount of money he was spending on the house.

We are now “car-poor.” (I am not saying I am actually poor, I am aware I am not.) There are the taxes, the fees for the license, the alternative fuel decal, the un-installed home charger, and soon: the upgrading of the electric wire coming into the house, the circuit box downstairs, and then installing the home charger.

Still, all this means is that I have been doing math, calculating what comes in and what goes out  and if we need to wait on installing the charger. Because I’m happy to wait: I’m not going anywhere. Four hours of charge time vs two days charge time, no difference.

Regrettably, even with the aid of spreadsheets and the Alexa, I find that I get a different number every damn time.

I eventually discovered what I was doing wrong: I was too lazy to type or say exact numbers, so I was rounding up but sometimes down. And while skipping the dollars and cents is fine as a rule, skipping the dollars and cents and then multiplying by the nine months left before the savings will be tapped in December really throws things off by about a thousand.

On the other hand, this more exact pass got a more satisfactory number and then I stopped. If I do more math I might be in debt again. 

Almost Done With Intro to Modern Cars 101

A few weeks ago I read through the Mini manual and made a list of thirty things I felt I needed to practice hands-on. 

I then reconsidered three things and deleted them from the list:

• pressing the concierge button and asking a question of a living human (nope)
• testing the alarm system with no guarantee the red button on the key fob will turn it off (nope)
• Watching a video on the dashboard display, requiring that I “jailbreak” my iPhone, and I will not do anything with “Break” and “Phone” in the same sentence (nope)

I got busy and now I have only a few things left to practice:

• Parallel park with the self-parking assist
• Use the cruise control (never used cruise control in Gary’s car)
• Turn the lights on manually just in case the dark sensor stops working.

I feel pretty comfortable with the car now. Still get giggly when I accelerate in sport mode. I can still remember when I had to manually roll the windows up and down in my first … well first and second and third cars. All this tech is dizzying.

Memorial Day

I suppose Saint Valentine is in heaven (one assumes) and cringes when he hears, “Have a sexy Saint Valentine’s Day.”

Which is to say, again, people at work said, ”Enjoy your Memorial Day!”

I mean, to be fair, I am going to enjoy a day off, but still.