Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Julie and Laine!

I have summoned forth a blog!

I might have tried to comment months ago, but as I remembered when I tried again, I don't have a WordPress login or the password for the web version of Facebook. So I made a Wordpress account but I still can't comment. 

Go to Trees and Tea for Plumbing Misadventures and Photography. Laine makes lovely photo art and Julie makes lovely word art. 

I would add them to my blogroll but the blogroll hoster is kaput. But today is not the day to remind Laine and Julie that blogs are passe. But maybe Trump Inauguration 2.0 is the best day to resurrect good things, not bad things.

TWIL: silk and where it comes from

I knew silk came from silkworms, but I always imagined the thread came directly out of their butts. Wrong! Mouth > spit > cocoon > worm murder > uncocooning > thread.

 

Review: Pride and Prejudice: A New Musical

Well, finding the movie was a little more exciting than seeing the movie. (Precise title: "Pride and Prejudice: a New Musical"). I had big expectations.

At first I couldn't get into it.  It was like the Peter Dinklage Cyrano. If the plot hinges on sexual and emotional restraint, you just can't buy it when a character bursts into song. And they shifted the point of view so that Elizabeth Bennet addresses the audience directly, so it's first person not third. So instead of feeling the slow secondhand embarrassment of watching her family sabotage her, you hear her shrug in song, "This is my family, and except for Dad, they are all idiots."

Even more disappointing when Darcy shows up at the  first ball. Instead of wondering what inscrutable Colin Firth is thinking, you can hear him sing his inner monologue. That's no fun.

But then it takes a turn and gets quite funny. Side characters emerge to transition between scenes. Bingley's sister sings/drawls an insincere invitation to Netherfield. Priggish Mary Bennet intones the change in settings.

And then it starts to make sense: You KNOW what Mary is like because you've read the book twenty times, and you already HATE Caroline Bingley. So it's almost like a parody: the humor comes because you read the serious version before.

The best laugh comes when Jane falls ill at Netherfield. "Oh," you just thought, "That's when Lizzie visits, and then Darcy says she has fine eyes." Only here, before saying anything, he bursts into song with "I like her EYES!" and the audience laughs. 

So, the exposition is awkward, but the fun begins when it starts getting self-referential. I think they should just explain up front that there's a prerequisite that you have to know every word and scene before it starts, so the actors can skip the exposition. Maybe the audience needs to take a pre-test? I don't know. If you can find it, watch it and let me know. 

If you haven't read Pride and Prejudice already, well, really, I weep for you.

YouTube Premium: Worth it already

So, I don't know if this is related to my recent subscription to YouTube Premium, but the algorithm looked into my soul and now I see, in my feed ...

... the musical version of Pride and Prejudice.

 

 

Weekly Paint Progress: 1/16

This week Croquet Balls 2025 went from this ...

... to this.

I know. It doesn’t look like much happened. And I do remember the drapery is gold. Hoping if I wash over this purple with gold that the opposite colors become shadows. 

Back to the new microwave

So, I was excited by two features of the new microwave: the "From Frozen" and "Soften Butter" buttons.

From Frozen

The promise: A fully frozen steak transforms into a seared, crusted medium-rare steak with minimal work. The machine starts in defrost microwave oven mode, then switches to the convection oven mode to cook the steak, then switches to the grill to give it a crust.

The reality: I added the frozen steak, hit the From Frozen button, said it was meat, 8 ounces, and hit Start. A bit later it chimed at me and I flipped the now semi-frozen steak. Then I left it alone.

What I got was a steak that was damp, brown in the middle, and mildly grilled one one side. Nowhere near as flavorful as a defrosted steak that's been heated on high in a deep pan (to minimize grease spatter clean up). 

So, that was disappointing, but it was a big ask: cooking a seared steak from frozen in an oven, not a pan. I was very impressed with the even-ness of the defrost, I'll be happy to use that again. Then I'll take that defrosted steak to a hot hot pan on the stove.

Soften Butter

Oh my god. It softened the butter perfectly. Ideal. Worth all the money just for this.

Sickness Saga Continues

I have been the healthiest member of my family for a long time. Mom of course started off post-polio. Dave's asthma started early and his learning and mental difficulties hit at puberty. Dad started his three forays into cancer in his early forties. I am familiar with the caregiver role. 

Gary is not familiar with the role of sick person. He's just a bundle of pride and pity. I was going to bring the microwave in from the car ala the Mom Method: keep the 50 lb box in the trunk where the store put it, dismantle it in situ, carve it down to the 33 lb microwave itself and cary that in, and, separately, the various accessories.

Gary argued about how stupid that plan was, angrily staggered out to the trunk and returned, panting, with the 50lb box on his shoulder. He wouldn't allow me to break down the outer or inner boxes, citing my physical and mental weakness.  Then he complained that he was too weak to do it, and that was also my fault.

I won't go through the rest of the conflict, but generally he was too sick to carry anything, and yet at the same time insisting he had to do everything, and also I was too stupid and weak to help. It was like watching a lame lion tell all the other lions that only he could take down the antelope, because they were all too dumb and weak. 

I can see why old men turn into grumpy old men. I don't want to be around for it. I also need to find a way to tranquilize my lame lion, or do things behind his back to save his pride. 

Microwave saga continues

So I woke up Sunday to Gary complaining about the microwave and how it was GOING TO BURN THE HOUSE DOWN ELLEN.

"No, it is not --"

"IT IS TWENTY YEARS OLD.”

And that's when I realized what Gary's "problem" with the microwave is. It's not what the microwave does or doesn't do, it's what the microwave is. It's an old microwave. It's not 70 year old microwave, like Gary, or a 62 year old microwave, like me, or 20 year old microwave like he claimed, but it is at least sixteen years old. 

"Well," I thought, "There probably have been some technological microwave advances in the past sixteen years." And then I found a combo microwave-air fryer-convection oven that did three times the work but only cost twice as much. 

I showed it to Gary, who gasped, "That's exactly the one I wanted!" So there you go, his fire concerns were all a scheme to turn me against our aged yet faithful microwave. So I called Williams-Sonoma to put one aside for me. 

When I arrived I found Gary isn't the only man lusting over this three-way microwave. The woman at the register said, “It’s a good thing you called. This was the last one. A man brought his wife back with him to see if she’d like it and I had to tell him you had snagged it. He wanted me to call if you didn’t come pick it up.”

So, sorry fella, my husband gets to paw at the microwave you wanted "for your wife." Shoulda put a ring on it, as they say. 

TWIL: What Street Corn Cheetos taste like

I brought Cheetos to trivia. It was going to be a Cheeto buffet:  Puffs,Cheetos-flavored popcorn (sadly, unavailable), and this new thing: Mexican Street Corn Flavored Cheetos.

I've had street corn. I remember it was tasty: corn dampened with a mild cheese sauce, a touch of spice, salt, and maybe a bit of lime. It tasted like 80% corn, 10% cheese, 7% spice / salt, 3% lime.

These Cheetos? 40% corn, 20% spice / salt, 20% cheese, 20% lime. The balance was all wrong. It tasted like cheesy foot acid. Over-salted cheesy foot acid.

I took a bite and advised against it. Then after seeing my face, three people tasted and made, yes, the same face. 

And you. You want to try it now. If you do, believe me, you will make the face.

More nonsense regarding Gary and cooking

“MICROWAVE IS BROKEN,” Gary said. “I JUST HEATED UP SOME SOUP AND IT IS COLD.’”

”Did the microwave make noise?” I asked.

“YES IT MADE NOISE AND TURNED BUT IT DIDN’T COOK. NOW I HAVE TO THROW THIS SOUP AWAY.”

(I know that sounds like I’m making this up but I swear I am not.)

“Gary, we have pots. You can heat up a pot of soup on the stove.”

“NO, I’LL JUST EAT IT COLD.” 

Gary actually likes to eat food cold. Pasta, usually, not soup.

--- Later that night ---

“ELLEN I HEATED UP THAT SOUP IN A POT AND IT WAS WAY BETTER THAN IT IS WHEN YOU HEAT IT UP IN THE MICROWAVE.”

“Gary, see this pork I’m eating? I heated it up just now in the microwave. The microwave is fine.”

“NO IT DOESN’T HEAT ENOUGH TO KILL THE BACTERIA YOU WILL GET SICK.”

“Whatever.”

“I AM NEVER USING THAT MICROWAVE AGAIN.”

--- The next morning.---

“ELLEN I NEED TO TELL YOU DON’T EAT THAT PORK YOU ATE YESTERDAY. I HAD SOME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND IT IS UNDERCOOKED. IT DIDN’T FALL APART. I HAD TO PULL IT APART WITH MY TEETH AND IT WAS STRINGY.”

“Because you ate it cold. Heat it up in --”

“I WILL NEVER USE THAT MICROWAVE AGAIN IT IS BROKEN.”

SO, I am actually heating the pork on low in the oven so that I can “prove” to him that it’s “cooked” now. I know anyone else would lie, “Oh, yes, I cooked that more when you were napping” but I don’t want to lie.  Just like I don’t want to argue. 

More worries about the LA fires

As long as I can change channels when people start to cry or shout, I've been fascinated by the coverage of the LA fires. The fire departments have bee battling them for days and still there's zero containment, what with the Santa Ana winds carrying embers to drought-dried shrubs. 

So now I'm worried about more combustible areas. What if an ember ignites the La Brea tar pits? That's only 14 miles away from Pacific Pallisades. The tar pits were closed today because of the fire. (I don't know what tar pits even look like. I've always pictured, well, pits, of tar, just simmering out in the elements with a path neaby and a rope you can hold on to. Are they enclosed? Air conditioned?)

Later: After checking the web site, it looks like there are exhibits inside and outside, and that there is an exposed outdoor lake of asphalt in which some current day animals get stuck. 

There's also an enormous oil field under LA. Almost every well is capped, but who knows if there’s a crack leading to some bottled-up gas ready to ignite?

Things are bad enough without any catastrophizing from me. 

 

Weekly Paint Progress: 1/9

This week the 2025 Croquet balls went from this:

... to this.

The wet paint on the balls isn't photographing well. It's better than it seems.

 

It's like a foreign language commercial

I just had to suffer through this commercial below. (By the way, I just upgraded to YouTube Premium, so no commercial for me, but that does mean I can't see to select commercial-free content for you. Apologies if you had to watch a commercial before watching a commercial.) 

Is it just me? I could not understand over half of this commercial, because I do not speak child. I could only understand the children listing the ingredients. "Appuz" = "apples." 

I feel like this commercial is specifically designed to play the competitive momming game. (If you don't feed your child dragonfruit, what kind of monster are you?) But then they bump up the game so if you don't understand what these children are saying, well, you are to be pitied, you probably don't even eat dragonfruit yourself.

God bless this commenter. What IS the last kid saying?

 

What do you want out of sex

I just began reading "Come Together," by the same woman who wrote "Come As You Are," and it asks an interesting question, which is: why do you want to have sex with others? What motivates you? 

She promptly knocks down the obvious answer ("Feels good") because you could also feel good by yourself.

So I thought about it, and what I kept coming back to was "To reward someone." Not in a transactional way, like, "You emptied the dishwasher like I asked, here is some sex for you." More like, "You have a good heart and are a good human and I think you deserve to have everything you want from me." 

But then I began thinking, what are some other answers for other people? Power, I guess, the power to elicit a reaction from the other person. Maybe validation that you are attractive? Maybe wanting attention just in general -- now that I think of that one I wonder why that was not my immediate answer, because it is my motivation in so many other things. 

I wondered if perhaps that was just a Gary-specific answer, and no, all the guys I wanted were pretty pure of heart (or presented themselves that way, I suppose). Before Gary, as a teenager, I thought more than once: "You are an honorable, non-grabby boy. As a reward, here are some of my grabbable parts, have fun, fella."

I don't know where I got this idea that I am the Jumbo Bonus Prize for a virtuous life. It's peculiar.