Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Neighbors are Moving

The neighbors across the street are moving because they have sold their house. (The Biden yard sign didn’t influence anyone, I imagine.) They’ve been our neighbors since 1988. I still don’t know their names. The husband is Gary ... something that starts with a V or an R. 

Here are the names of some of our other neighbors: 

• Neighbors over there (waves hands to the right)
• Cookie’s parents (Cookie the poodle has been dead for decades.)
• Witness Protection (nod to the left).
• Crazy neighbor
• Son of crazy neighbor

We do have a couple whose full names I actually know. And why do I know their names? Because they’re written down, one in a text and one in a letter permitting me to trim part of their tree. That letter even gives their last name. Wow. 

 I vow to speak to the new neighbors and write down their names.

September 2020

I made the mistake of watching the 9/11 footage last week.  I watch it every year. There are just some things so horrible your brain never absorbs them, and no matter how many times you remind yourself, you still can’t believe it. 

Similarly, I can’t count the number of times this year I’ve had to say, “Did you ever think we’d ever be in a global pandemic?” And no matter how often I say it, I cannot believe it.  

The double punch of watching the replay of an unthinkable attack, while avoiding an unthinkable virus, just did me in. Evidently I can only absorb one unthinkable thing at a time. Perhaps some people can’t absorb any unthinkable things. Hence 9/11 deniers and covid deniers.

What was the year Bowie and Prince and Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher died? 2016? It was the same year Trump was elected, speaking of unthinkable. They had the Zika virus, too. That was a bad year. 

And good god, 1918 - 30 million people died in six months from their global pandemic, and there was an active World War — and evidently someone poisoned people in Chicago restaurants: didn’t know that. Happily, no movie stars died because there were no movies. 

But you know what didn’t happen in 1918? Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn’t die in 1918, she died last night. That unthinkable event unleashed such a level of cursing on Facebook that two friends wisely removed their TeddyJ affiliations from their profiles. 

Damn it all to hell.

Stop Me If I’ve Said This Before: man of the family

Abandoned Draft Version:

The first neuron feels an electric charge, and when the charge builds up enough that person discharges all the distress to the next neuron down the line. Eventually when enough energy is discharged, you will have activity: a muscle moves, an eyelid blinks.

Here's how most families work. Certain people are nerves. Certain people are muscles. The nerves pass electrical impulse betweem them. A charge builds up, it becomes too much for one nerve to bear, and the electical excitement is discharged to the next nerve down the line. The first nerve feels great then, of course, and takes a nap, leaving the next nerve to unload on nerve number three, and on and on.

Eventually the last nerve unloads on a muscle, and the muscle jumps from all the nervous energy that's been amplified down the line. The muscle does something - usually what the nerves tell it to do.

Gary's a nerve. There is no question.

Present Day:

... and I must be the muscle? I think this was a long way of saying that Gary believes “a problem shared is a problem halved.”

Weekly Paint Progress: 9/17

The Big picture will be based on this photo:

What is that, four colors? Easy.

I am this far:

The pears went from this ...

... to this:

New Chair

Thirty-two years ago Mom bought us a chair, to ensure she would always have a comfortable living room chair she could use when she came to visit.

It was a nice enough blue La-z-boy, not one of those giant Taj-Mahal padded monstrosities, but a sleek, acceptable model.

Then at the turn of the century, the living room went all-out Mission/Craftsman, and there was a reproduction settle and a Morris Chair, and the modern-day blue chair was shunted into the bedroom and became Gary’s chair. 

A few years ago, Gary deemed the living room Morris chair too uncomfortable - so we compromised and added a Mission-inspired faux leather recliner for him. He accepted it, but would never recline in it, out of loyalty to his blue chair.

The blue chair was so dear to him that he would repair it when bolts and screws pinged off the frame when he reclined.

Gary’s loyalties changed early in the pandemic, when his lungs felt bad enough that he wanted to sleep in a recliner. Then, twice, the blue recliner refused to un-recline and Gary got caught like a turtle on its back. As a result, one early morning when I was too asleep to argue, the living room faux-mission recliner and the torn, worn, and broken La-z-boy swapped places.

“No” I said, when I woke up.

But he pled Covid-lung, and he couldn’t recline in this without the fear of being trapped, and he would consent to recline in the faux-Mission recliner in the bedroom now, and I realized the pandemic meant that no one would see it anyway. 

It’s been defiling the living room for months, but when he became stuck in the blue chair again in the living room while watching the news (picture an angry purple-faced turtle), a new compromise was reached. A twin of the now-beloved faux-Mission recliner has been purchased, but for now the twins will stay in separate rooms, and the blue La-z-boy ...

” ... will be out out at the curb,” I said.

“Really? Your Mom bought us that chair.”

”She is looking down from heaven and believe me, she is behind me on this.”

”It can’t go out with the trash.”

”Well, then, down in the basement.”

“No, I can use it in the computer room when I read the newspaper.” 

I suspect it will be used as a base for the unread paper collection, freeing up the black trumpet case, but whatever.

Next time he is turtle-trapped in the blue chair I will force him to put down the newspaper and watch an episode of Hoarders.

Shipt Call

We have been using Shipt to get our groceries. A few days ago we placed an order, and we didn’t pay attention and missed the Shipt text messages, so the shopper had to call Gary to ask a few questions. Gary apologized profusely for not being by the phone to get her texts, then gave the phone to me to authorize a bacon substitution, and then I apologized  as well, then I asked for Vidalia onions, if she didn’t mind, apologized again, and hung up.

When I took a moment to read her first text it said, “Hello, this is your Shipt shopper and favorite next door neighbor.” 

Months ago, when my neighbor recommended Shipt, she mentioned she delivered for them, but I had never seen her in action.

So that was odd. I felt I needed to go out and greet her at the door and entertain her to make up for my politeness and formality. Then her husband came out, and her three small children arrived and demanded to know why a mommy’s car was parked in the wrong driveway. 

Luckily I had already tipped 20% online, or else that would have been even more awkward.

The Reign

Gary has been feeling a little bit better - enough that he can stay awake for four or five hours a day, so we are back to binge-watching television in the evenings. 

I came upstairs from painting last weekend and I noticed he was still watching what he’d had on when I started painting two hours before. 

“You have to watch this,” he said, breathlessly, “It’s really good. It’s all about Mary,  Queen of Scots.”

“Mary, Queen of Scots!” I said in the obligatory Monty Python voice.

“You would love it. It’s a historical drama.”

So I asked about the only bit of MQofS trivia I know. “Does Elizabeth’s I’s rival in love end up at the bottom of the steps with her neck broken? I remember that was so suspicious she couldn’t end up with the man she supposedly loved.”

”Yes!”

”Did they mention the rival had advanced breast cancer and that’s probably what really did her in?”

”No, you are wrong. I mean, she did have cancer but then she threw herself down the steps and framed her husband. Mary wouldn’t do that.”

Based on the cancer-nod to historical accuracy, I decided to give it a chance. It was like history slanted toward teenagers. Or tweens. Tweens who would own a grimoire, like my husband, and believe in seers and prophecies. 

It was called Reign, and as the IMDB review states in the first sentence, “This is a show for girls.”

Days later, after it was all over, we went to Wikipedia to sort out what was true and what was not, and he was bereft to hear some of his favorite characters were not historically accurate. (“No! Not Leith! He wasn’t real? Are you sure?”)

Then he was bereft and wrote some poems in his grimoire. 

 

Can I Take Another Year?

Dr Fauci says to hunker down. Life won’t go back to normal until the end of 2021. 

Doctor, I love you, but I cannot hunker any harder. I’m already doing extra hard hunkering. Way harder than a person with an immune system operating at 100%. 

But solidly at home for another six seasons? Is it possible?

 

Call For Calm

I wonder if the Trump politicos knew that the Woodward recordings would come out right before the 9/11 anniversary. 

I certainly heard the similarities, listening to the documentaries on 9/11. I got to hear both George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani say, “The most important thing For a leader in a crisis is to appear calm.” 

Did they know that September 10th would be the perfect day to make the “Calm” excuse? Sure, they said, “Trump downplayed the risks of the pandemic so people would remain calm.” Then the next day we see images of a clear-eyed, young, still-sane Rudy on 9/11 assuring us that we just need to stay where we are, stay in our homes, and we’d be fine.

Of course, to make the comparison accurate, Rudy should have walked through the  streets (without a mask on, remember) and he should have said, “Lung cancer from breathing in this epic cloud of dust? It’s like having allergies. It’ll be gone in a month, like magic.”

Stop Me If I’ve Said This Before: sex lives of high school teachers

Abandoned Draft Version:

High school dq t c gay not gay

Present Day:

I did actually post the story of the high school teacher who got the student pregnant, denied it, and yet married her, losing his job (but probably avoiding a statutory rape charge).

I did not mention the other teacher, who hosted an event for students at his apartment, where he had an impressive display of Playboy magazines fanned out across his coffee table. I was accustomed to Playboys, given that Dad was a fan, but there were SO many, especially compared to how Dad squirreled his away. I was taken aback. The teacher shrugged it off. “It’s just a magazine.”

Years later I mentioned it to a man who had recently met the teacher in question, and that guy said, “I don’t know why a gay man would have Playboy magazines.”

”Oh, he’s not gay,” I said, thinking, did you not hear me? Playboys! Obscuring the entire coffee table!

My friend replied, ”Oh, he’s gay,” and then made a convincing case that was more than hearsay but less evidence than I’d want in the 90’s if my job were on the line.

The only thing the two stories have in common is that they gave me a peek into the sex lives of the common suburban high-school teacher. I don’t know that I needed those peeks. I know that I was a common suburban high school teacher at one point and I hope I was as neuter as the angels.

Weekly Paint Progress: 9/10

This week the crypts went from this ...

... to this:

I don’t like the detail on the arch that I added. But, I like everything else. The stoop looks right now. So, even though the far left crypts should still bee even darker, it’s done.

This is the original photo:

I never could get that arch right. And the sidewalk never got dark enough, but I like most parts of it.

The pears went from this ...

... to this:

This one is going to take forever. The crypts took like three months, didn’t they? These pears are an eighth the size but the glazing will put you all to sleep.

Briar Patch

I was conversing with the young people at work about our “development objectives.”

(If that phrase sounds like corporate double-speak to you, well then congratulations to you. Nice to be independently wealthy. We working class have salaries based, in part, on our personalities. My personality flaws are part of my work review and my managers get to play amateur therapist on a semi-annual basis to determine what is wrong with me so I can change.)

I find this foreign, but the young co-workers don’t. They accept this, but find it demoralizing, so I was thinking of ways to alleviate their pain. (Works Cooperatively — 5 out of 5.)

It occurred to me that we could all game the system. I could go into my next review and say I struggle with Works Cooperatively, then just sit on my rear until my next review, when my boss will applaud me for my efforts; having noticed many examples of me Working Cooperatively.

I was amusing myself thinking of how to best recommend this to the young people, and thought I should call it the “Briar Patch Strategy.” 

Luckily, I caught myself. A quick check on the Internet proved that Kids Today have heard “please don’t throw me into the briar patch,” but they think it means “don’t throw me under the bus.” They don’t know the whole story of the clever rabbit — born and bred in the briar patch — begging that he not be thrown into the thorny place that only he knows how to navigate.

“Don’t throw me into the briar patch” is such great shorthand, much more pithy than “tricking someone into punishing you with something you excel at.” Sadly, it’s from the controversial Uncle Remus stories. I can see how people today think the Uncle Remus stories are racist, and I blame that mainly on the Disney version, Song of the South. I’d never seen any of that movie before five minutes ago, and now that I just looked it up on YouTube, damn, that’s racist.

I didn’t learn my Uncle Remus lore at the movies, I picked it up in book form. I clearly remember reading the 1880’s stories out loud. Picture my ten-year-old self sitting cross-legged on the carpet in my sunny yellow-wallpapered suburban home, phonetically sounding out:

‘Drown me des ez deep ez you please, Brer Fox,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, ‘but do don’t fling me in dat brier-patch,’ sezee.

(When I realized “sezee” was “says he,” I felt like I had solved the Rosetta Stone. I went out and told my mother. I was an adult before I heard Brer was short for Brother.)

So while the current 30 year olds might not know of the briar patch, here’s a 2006 animated film called The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, which brings the stories back, minus the dialect and the Wise Uncle telling the stories to the white child. I just bought it and watched it just to wash Song of the South out of my head.

The Briar Patch is the climactic scene. So if kids saw it in 2006, maybe in about five years I’ll be able to reference “briar patch” again and young people will know what I mean.

Gary. Chair. Hair. Outlet. T-shirt.

Feel free to rag on the non-mission blue La-z-Boy defiling the room. There’s a tear in the back that I mean to ironically patch with duct tape.

Zozobra Burns

There is a tradition in Santa Fe New Mexico. According to my brother (and this is confirmed by Wikipedia):

• Once a year people go to the Newspaper office, write down their grievances, and put them in a box. The box holds slips of paper, legal documents, anything that brings you “gloom.”
• The gloom documents are stuffed in the head of a five-story-tall marionette. 
• The giant marionette is propped up in the town square, sporting a new hair color that changes every year.
• At night children dance about it chanting, “burn him, burn him.”
• The Big Box o’ Gloom is placed at the giant marionette’s feet and is ignited.
• The marionette “roars” and writhes, and then its face explodes in flames.
• It burns until you can see the metal framework, then the cables are cut and it collapses in a pile of flames. 
• They play popular songs. 
• There is also street drinking.

My brother woke me up at ten at night to watch Zozobra burn. He has had a bad 2020. As have we all. There are usually 10,000 complaints in the box o’ Gloom. This year it was 100,000 items.

I approve of this burning puppet scheme. (I approve of all things involving marionettes). I might need to have my own mini Zozobra event on the barbecue.