Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Gary Drug

Gary before the thyroid drug:

It’s been a week now that Gary’s been medicated for his thyroid.

On the first day  he was literally pounding on his skill from the seizure activity and panic attacks. I'm amazed he made it to day two.

For the next few days, he was fairly normal. Then, at two am, he burst in the room and announced he could feel his feet.

"MY FEET FELT WEIRD AND THEN I REALIZED I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO FEEL MY FEET FOR YEARS NOW AND NOW THEY'RE BACK! AND THIS FLOOR IS DIRTY!"

That went on a day ... and then other body parts started waking up. In answer to your question, no - the painful body parts. His chipped elbow started hurting again. His torn shoulder. And then today his lower back began acting up again.

Still, he's decided he rather be alive and in pain than sick and numb.

Today I asked why he wasn’t watching the news. “I DON’T KNOW! IT’S THE THYROID PILL! THE PILL TELLS ME WHAT TO DO!”

Gary this week:

Snowpuppy / Snowgiant

Last week's snow was perfect for packing. There were several excellent snow sculptures on my drive to work.

(Not my photo - it was taken by Friend #4, who lives nearby.)

I took this photo - even though I took it a week late. The snowman below was originally ten feet tall. They must used a ladder to add the head. The warmer weather melted off a third of its height, its hat, and the facial details.

There was supposed to have been another snow storm yesterday, but it fizzled out.

Placebo Revisited

This just happened: I found a bottle of turmeric among my medicines. "What on earth?" I thought. "Why do I have a bottle of turmeric?"

Side effects of turmeric: loss of memory of events that happened less than a month ago.

It would seem that burping up a capsule of the stuff was enough to put me off turmeric. I did not have enough success to get the delusion we all get when drugs work: "I feel better so I don't need these drugs that are the reason I feel better."

Small-Minded Dogma at Chick-Fil-A

Thursday night, for a variety of tedious reasons, we ended up having dinner inside a Chik-Fil-A.

Gary started reading his phone (rude) and of course that launched a political rant about Republicans and how corrupt they are.

Gary: [boring rant edited for time and content] " ... and that's why all Republicans are corrupt."

Me: "Stop. Listen to yourself. Stop saying 'all' and 'every'. You sound small-minded. You can't lump people like that."

Gary: (louder) "YES I CAN. BECAUSE ALL REPUBLICANS ARE CORRUPT." This he says INSIDE a Chik-Fil-A.

I'm sure all the other patrons in earshot began praying for him immediately.

 

Gary Health

Well, the test results came back and my poor husband is indeed hypothyroid. We had a brief fight about it ("Gary, stop dismissing this!" "Ellen show some sympathy!"), then realized once again we were having an Information Deficit Fight, then we went off to the internet to gain all medical information.

I found basic facts (Can you Die From Hypothyroidism?), while Gary dove deep and found the relation between the thyroid and his epilepsy (evidently your thyroid can be affected by epilepsy meds, or else both conditions are on the same gene).

He did learn the thyroid controls the metabolism because it produces the regulating hormones. He's decided that's why he swings between "I'm freezing!" and "I'm boiling."

Gary hit the word "hormone" and latched on. I asked why he was so particularly testy one day and he grumbled, "Hormones! I'm hormonal!" He gets hot? "I'm having a hot flash! Hormones!"  I'm amazed. I would have thought a real hot flash would send Gary directly to the emergency room.

Terrifying. He is now exacting payback for my menopause.

Gum

Sometimes I chew gum when I am hungry at work. My work area has recently been rehabbed, and part of the rehab is the recycling station.

Paper / Recycle / Landfill / Compost. I am stymied on where to throw my used gum. I no longer have my own trash can, and I chew too much to swallow anymore - smaller throat or bigger gum, I can't tell.

So where does gum go? Obviously not Paper. I would say Compost, but I've seen it come out of the trash at home and it is moving further from nature, not closer to it. It's like dried caulk. Also, I'm pretty sure one of these ingredients doesn't biodegrade: Xylitol, Mannitol, Blue 1 Lake, Acesulfame, BHT (TO MAINTAIN FRESHNESS) (Geez, CALM DOWN Gum Labelers), Neotame.

I'm drawn to Recycle because I get the idea that there is a large plastic component to this gum. Not from the ingredients, but the gum itself. You start off with nice soft gum and it gets harder and harder as you chew it. That's not natural.

That's why I just throw it into Landfill, since it's Pascal's Wager: if I'm wrong and it's compost, it can still degrade at the landfill, but if it's artificial I don't want it clogging up the works at the recycling place, or choking some dolphin somewhere.

Work Ellen

One of the reasons I've been quite happy that Gary quit his job five and three-quarters years ago is that I don't have to deal with Work Gary anymore. Work Gary was an ass. He would come home angry, yell at me, I'd ask why he was angry, and it always turned out he was angry at someone at work. But of course he couldn't yell at them, so he'd end up yelling at me. I would always point that out with, "I am not the person who is making you angry. Take it out on the people at work. I am not a punching bag."

Not that he's retired, the stress ball has been passed to me. I'm the one yelling and having nightmares. I've been routinely annoyed about work the past month, not pleasant to Gary, and at one point he said, "Take it out on the people at work. I am not your punching bag."  Touché, mon chere, touché.

Gary is now the one studiously avoiding conflict. Case in point: Wednesday his car battery was dead, and in the past some of our most epic fights happened while trying to use jumper cables, with the combination of Fear of Death and our main fight trigger: Lack of Knowledge. Add in a touch of Man Shame and every fight was inevitable. This time, he bought new cables, researched how to use them, gathered supplies, put on his headlamp, and all I had to do was start an engine. It was amazing. No fight at all.

Lady Garden Blight Returns

My affliction is back, despite a respite of almost half a decade. The labia is again weeping blood from the outside, not the inside. (See here. In fact you should see here, because that post-menopausal post from five years ago sums up my attitude today.)

Since my reproductive hormones have utterly shut down now, I would have thought that would be the end of my pudenda problems. But, actually, it's comforting, since I know I can write off endometriosis or hormonal fluctuations as a cause for the spontaneous labial bleeding.

It's probably been an infected ingrown hair, only ... there's no hair there on the inner lady curtain. Or perhaps there is, only they are small. I have fuzzy hairs everywhere else now, why not.

Really, that's should be my attitude about the entire crotch issue. All the emotional attachment to my labia is gone now that I am 'paused. Do what you want, crotch: spontaneously bleed, spout glitter, rub together and make sounds like Cuban diplomatic crickets. Over. It.

I Brave the Fifty Three Hour Brisket

Remember when I was too chicken to cook beef? I couldn't bring myself to brine a brisket for almost a week and then cook it in the sous-vide for two days. Well, I am braver now.

I think I balked at the five days of brining, because my new recipe requires only a half hour marinade and then two days of sous-vide, followed by three hours in the oven.

I know it will be cooked through. I think the texture will be great. I'm sure it's going to taste bad, because I used the marinade I had on hand, which was a Lime-based recipe, but the sous-vide directions had me add liquid smoke. Smoke plus lime? I can see a lime-flavored barbecue chicken or shrimp, but beef seems strange.

------ 53 Hour Pause for Brisket to Finish -----

The texture was excellent, but I couldn’t taste the marinade or the liquid smoke, which might have been a good thing. Since it needed sauce, I made barbecue sauce from scratch and we couldn’t eat it (I added too much vinegar, somehow.) Luckily I had enough self-doubt to serve thar on the side.

Mph. It was okay. Still not as good as any pork product in the sous-vide.

 

Snow

So, last year we didn't get the snowblower out at all. We've taken to storing it in the basement instead of the garage. There was an anticipated snow earlier this year so I brought it upstairs, but that ended up being light enough to melt.

So, now we have actual snow. I am wild with excitement. I'm looking through the larder and making plans for all the meals for the next three days. In additon, I was very excited to blow snow tonight.

We disagree about when to use the snowblower: once every 7 inches (me, so 3 passes for the forecast 24 inches) or once at the end (Gary, who thinks you can blow off just the top layer). We agreed to disagree and that Gary would run the snow removal process. That will be fun to watch.

I'm also having a lot of fun watching the news, because I am always tickled when our weather report leads the news on CNN.

I don't think this has happened before though: it snowed enough to bring Jim Cantore to town.

Gary Cheats

No, he hasn't cheated on me. I'm just referring to how he cheats on these games we've been playing.  Since he bought me a new game for Christmas, and then I found him a game right after Christmas, we've been having to modify the "house rules" ("house cheat modes") for two new games.

These games are particularly appealing because they are collaborative, not competitive. In most games I grew up with, winning a game meant you beat the other competitors.

These new board games make the players collaborate to beat the game, not each other. One might pit all players against a related game app that is playing out on an iPad, or against a narrative that is dictated by random card choices.

I mentioned to someone at work that Gary, the most ethical human I know, cheats at these specific games.

"But those are collaborative games. You work together to beat the game. Why would anyone cheat on a collaborative game?"

I answered, "Because he has more fun when he isn't losing," but I didn't really think about it till later.

Why does my husband, the most ethical man I know, break the rules only for these games? He would never, ever cheat at a competitive game. I wouldn't either, but I can understand the appeal. You could tell yourself that you had bested the other players in more ways that one.  You know, "I win, plus I did it because I'm smart enough to make fools out of the rest of you."

(I can assure you, Gary never would do that. I have a friend, let's call him "Joe", and thirty-five years ago Gary spotted Joe cheating at Hearts. Whenever I mention Joe, Gary interrupts with, "Joe? JoeWhoCheatsAtHearts?")

With a collaborative game, you aren't going to feel smug that you are besting your friends, because you're all on the same side. If anyone would be mad at you, it would be the game designers, or the programmers who set up the iPod app. It's like ignoring your wife when she gives you driving directions, versus ignoring Siri. Actually, when he ignores Siri, he also swears at her when she suggests any other route than the one he's set on.

And, similarly, when we cheat at our game, there is a lot of swearing too. When we read along with the instructions on the iPad, it sounds like this:

Gary: "it says, ‘Add the hotel lobby. Place a door where indicated. There are some chairs you could use as a barricade. Place a barr ’- Fuck barricades!"
Me: "Yeah! Fuck you and your barricades, game."

We don't do the barricades, what can I say? It's a house rule.

So I suppose we're looking at the game as an authority figure, just like Siri, something that's trying to boss us when we want to have fun.

God forbid we ever go to a square dance.

Volatility

I distinctly remember the 2008 crash, because it was my first year working at a financial firm. I remember the groan that went up after every closing bell when we - and we were just the support staff - realized how much the market fell.

I was particularly excited by the prospect that they would throw the "circuit breaker," which happens when trading is halted because too much money has been lost. I find the idea very comforting. The market can't lose 30% in a day. Sure, it can lose 6% a day for six days in a row, and then we're all screwed, but not all in one day.

Since 2008 they have changed the circuit-breaker rules. Now, If the S&P loses 7%, trading halts for fifteen minutes.

So I have decided (and this is just for me, this isn't advice) that I am going to stop looking at the lower right corner of any news channel on volatile days. Dow drops 1,000 points? Don't care. Wake me up when the S&P drops 150.  Anything else I'm just going to write off as political instability leaking into the market.

Value Study

So here's the latest on my oil painting glazing project. This is for the still life of the napkin, teacups, and the cranberry glass bowl (it's on its side leaning against the wall).

All I'm doing right now is the value study, in which you paint a black and white version of your painting. I keep working on it and it's pretty overworked at the moment.

I still need to make two parts darker, and one part less dark. Can you find them? The answer is below the image.

Less dark: the, um, evocative crease in the napkin that runs from the top middle to the middle right needs to be lighter. I should probably back off on the middle of the napkin where the cups meet as well.

Darker: Somehow I completely missed the shadow that the cup on the left casts on the cup on the right. I goes halfway up the cup. I drew it: you can see the line. Plus, I need to raise where the edge of the table is, otherwise the bowl must be hanging off a nail in the wall to be where it is.

Of course, I selected two cups which are essentially white, a white napkin, and a black background, so I'm going to be challenged finding some colors to glaze on top of what's there.

What Went Wrong With My Last Apple Pie

Hestia, Greek goddess of the hearth, was chatting with her brother Hades. They could see me baking an apple pie in Missouri from their perch on Mount Olympus.

”Jesus, I hate her,” Hestia sighed. “She’s so smug about her apple pie.”

“Jesus?” Hades asked, "What does 'Jesus' mean?"

"I don't know. It's some slang humans use. Still, look at her, thinking she's so good at pies. Let's mess with her."

Hades giggled, gestured, and suddenly the properties of water on Earth changed so that the four tablespoons of water that have always been sufficient for a double crust were no longer enough.

"Ha HAH!" Hestia laughed, "Look at her, all confused. 'Durr, this was enough water last time.' Now she's putting the dough in the refrigerator for thirty minutes to rest. There is no WAY that pie crust will work."

Back on Earth, I asked Alexa to set a timer for thirty minutes.

Hestia demanded Hades find out who I was talking to. Hades got on line and told her that Alexa is an in-home assistant that people use, sometimes, to set timers, and the she is not actually Greek.

When the timer went off I assembled the pie. I knew it was doomed, so I didn't even bother making a lattice. I stuck it in the oven and had Alexa set another timer for the first thirty minutes.

Hestia cackled and whispered to my Alexa, "Alexa, cancel all timers."

"Canceling all timers," Alexa obediently whispered back.

Luckily, after I cleaned up the kitchen I asked Alexa how much time was left.

"You have no timers."

"FUCK." I said. Hades and Hestia high-fived.

I yelled, "Alexa, SET A TIMER for ... for ... (sigh) fifteen minutes!"

"Setting timer for -"

"Oh shut up." I was mad. I was even madder a minute later after I accidentally knocked the whipped cream canister off the top shelf of the refrigerator, and it fell on my kitchen floor, popped its cap, and the nozzle broke off.

"DAMN. IT." Then I set about to fix it, since Gary had said he had been looking forward to Apple Pie with Whipped Cream.

I put the canister in the sink, pushed the nozzle back on, and got a faceful of propellant. And the nozzle fell off.

Hestia snorted, "Whippets! Just say no to drugs!"

Hades said, "Nice one! I didn't even see you do that."

"Huh? I thought you did that." Then they both doubled over laughing when they realized the whipped cream was entirely my fault.

So here is my pie. No lattice. The edges are burnt because the crust protector didn't go on at the right time. No whipped cream to hide it.  And frankly, that is pie sand around the edges, not pie crust.

Cursed. Cursed pie. No more pies for me.