Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Dear God, this is my life now

I’m starting week 2 of the Zepbound now. Ignore all anecdotal evidence your friends tell you. Listen to me, your one true friend. Or listen to my sources who have more than one week of experience. We are unflinching. 

What your friends say: You will lose ten pounds a month. What I say: Factor in your age and your desire to keep your gallbladder. You will lose five pounds a month. This is still 40% more than you would lose dieting and exercising on your own at your age. 

What your friends say: The side effects go away. What I say: You will find you stop provoking the side effects. When the slice of Swiss on your turkey sandwich keeps you dizzy with nausea until two in the morning, you stop eating Swiss. 

What your friends say: You just eat a healthy diet. What I say: Yeah, a healthy diet for a dam-building beaver. It's like 25 grams of fiber. And then you have to throw a huge amount of low-fat protein on top of that, so you start looking at recipes like this one.

Ugh.

AI tells me that 5-10 percent of users stop because of the gastro-intestinal side effects. That number seems low to me right now. 

TWIL: Skunk season

Five days ago, I was awakened between three and four a.m. by a skunk just outside my bedroom window. The smell woke me.  It wasn’t a fresh skunk spray: I could still breathe. It was just the smell that says a skunk is nearby.

The smell was accompanied by the sound of an animal scrabbling at the foundation of the house. 

“Ah well,” I thought, “You won’t get far tunneling into the basement.”

The next night, again, awakened between three and four by the smell, but this time no scrabbling. And the next and the next. I resigned myself to two weeks of sleeping six feet from the Skunk Family, because that’s how long skunks stay in a den.  

Two nights ago the stench was particularly bad. Gary happened to be up. He weighed in. “ELLEN YOU ARE CRAZY THERE’S NO SKUNK WHAT YOU SMELL IS THE DEAD MICE IN THE BASEMENT,” followed ten minutes later by, “I CAN’T BREATHE ELLEN THE SKUNK SMELL IS EVERYWHERE.”

I investigated “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE,” and that’s when I learned that February to March is Skunk Mating Season. (They didn’t take advantage of the assonance and call it Skunk Fucking Season. I bet they wanted to.)

So we might be saddled with wee skunklets for over a month. Last night a dog barked right outside the window, and it snowed, so I will check tomorrow to see if I see any animal tracks. 

Drama Hungry

There is a nasty combination when you are well into your sixties: at least for women. Well, at least for me. There's an increase in appetite - all the appetites - coupled sadly with a decrease in drama.

Looking forward to eating the dinner you planned to make? It will be good, but not as surprisingly good as the first time you made it. Any sexual activity is great, really great ... really, really great ... what was I saying ...oh, yeah, great, but it's as reliable as clockwork. Literally. No surprises.  

I know at my age some women develop an appetite for gambling, no doubt to get some element of surprise. 

What you see above is my self-rationalization for why I am still so obsessed with this Fascinating Horror YouTube channel.  Honestly, I can spend hours thinking of these people, going about their lives, boarding a train, taking a ferry, walking under a big tank of molasses, suddenly, boom, surprise, flattened, drowned, suffocated by molasses. 

 

Valentine

On this Valentine's Day, I realize I have had a lot of love in my life for someone who actively shoves love away. 

At the moment, I am not feeling any love. It is noon and I have already had two (two!) squabbles with Gary.

Thank God I don't have children and grandchildren or potentially even great-grandchildren to squabble with too. 

What I do have is dogged commitment, and I prefer that. Maybe not on Valentines day so much.

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/13

This week the Croquet Balls went from this:

... to this.

When it was originally this:

I don’t know how I managed to make  the three primary colors so ugly. Sigh.

Medical week: Gary report

Gary had to go to the doctor late last week to have medical professionals look at his UTI, his blood, and to check how he’s faring on the antibiotics.

He didn't look good. It took him ten minutes to leave a urine sample. He and his cane hobbled out of the bathroom slowly down the hall to the exam room. The assistant was captivated by the rash, but the nurse practitioner focused on his fatigue and pain and all the issues. 

Gary brought up the rash, in passing, just to say, “It’s just something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”

I snapped, “Do you want to live with me for the rest of your life? Because I’ve had it with this rash.” Then I slapped down his “brave” facade and I told the doctor how he wakes up every day in agony, itchy skin on fire, clawing at himself.

After that I noticed she reacted to his complaints with sympathetic coos and tuts. I can’t blame her. I did sound awful.

She ordered  a urinalysis, which came back clean, with no UTI left, and about nine blood tests. It was evident by the way she grouped them ... well, evident to Google and AI ... that she was looking for three possibilities:

Lupus or some autoimmune disease [SPOILER: not it]

Dermatomyositis, another autoimmune disease [SPOILER: not it]

(Also not it: My favorite Gary diagnosis,  with symptoms dating from over a decade ago: Giant Cell Arterisis.)

However, the next one rang the bell.

Prostatitis, an inflammation of the prostate. That appears to be it, given the way that his prostate PSA number spiked.  I like this choice, given that it sometimes causes a rash. Maybe he’s had a low level of this for over a year? 

Anyway, more antibiotics for him (the dread Cipro).

It’s been four days, and we  both might be imagining it, but the rash seems to be receding a bit. 

Medical week: neurologist report

I feel like I’m always at one doctor’s office or another. Urologist every three months, GP every year, neurologist every year, it’s a lot.

“I need you to see a dermatologist once a year,” the neurologist said last week.

“Oh, come ON.”

“You’ve been on this medicine since 2007, when the clinical trial began, and there’s a risk of skin cancer.”

He then made sure I knew I was being recorded, becuase he was using AI to take his notes.

He asked how the bladder Botox was going.

I said “It’s FANTASTIC!” And then I summarized the varying results I’d had. 

The AI-generated notes read, “She continues to receive Botox injections every three months, noting that the first and third treatments were 'fantastic,' while the second set of injections was less effective.”

In all it was a really good visit. He reassured me that having fewer lesions didn’t necessarily mean that I was progressing to the next phase: it was possibly because MRI machines are more accurate than before.

I also volunteered for any studies to see the effects of Ozempic on brain inflammation. I’m not doing that, but I am taking a good chunk of bonus money I’ve accumulated and I’ve already started paying directly for some Zepbound.

The first Zephound shot took me back to my interferon days. The first few months are discounted if you can shelf-administer the shots with a vial and needle.

I took the first beginner dose two days ago, and now ... I have gained three pounds and I smell like paint, for some reason. Early days though.

Medical week: bladder botox report

Since I’m on the three-month schedule, I’ve had theee doses of the bladder botox now. The last one was two weeks ago.

Dose 1

Pain: Hurt like someone poking needles in your bladder. Concurrent Chit-chat: Bad Diagnostic tests. Results: Heaven. 80% improvement. Still triggered by some things; still had rage pees if Gary provoked me.

Dose 2:

Pain: Hurt like someone poking needles in your bladder without sufficient anesthetic. Concurrent Chit-chat: Worst urinary diseases. Results: Bad from the jump. No improvement, plus my bladder felt stretched and itchy the first two months. 

Dose 3: 

Pain: Out of six pokes, I really only felt one of them, however, that one levitated my rear  stirrup-high. Concurrent chit-chat: Some TLC channel show about a woman with Tourettes syndrome. Why? I hope because it is a distracting medical topic, and not because he suspects I have undiagnosed Tourettes. Results: I didn’t even pee on the floor immediately after, as I am wont to do, and I didn't even use the busy urologist’s bathroom. Instead I held it all in until I found a bathroom down a long hall in the medical building. 

It’s been well over a week since then, and I atill patter my feet with delight every time I use the bathroom. 

TWIL: Pickle jar

This week I learned that since 2012, a never-ending supply of pickles has been placed in a busy St. Louis intersection. 

Evidently the rest of the city knows this, and I don't. This is because the pickles are between the north and southbound lanes  in front of Nordstroms at West County mall. I've never seen the pickles because they lie south of my mall access point. 

Pickle facts. 

• It's not the same jar of pickles. Brands change, it's just ... always pickles.
• Sometimes the pickles dress up for the seasons. They masked during the pandemic. Recently they had candy canes from Christmas. 
• The pickles come and go. When they come, there is elation on the Team Pickle Facebook page, and proof of life is documented.

I don't know how I got this information. I truly don't. Reddit maybe?  Reddit has been sending me emails with things it thinks I might like. At any rate, when the page tells me there are pickles again I am making a special trip to see them.

Paint issue

So last April, I climbed up to the left top edge of this sage green painted wall, so I could fix the sloppy paint job Gary had done. 

But when I got up there, I found I had fixed it already.

Evidently.

Last week I glanced up and found that the sloppy paint was back. See it? 

I'm just putting this out there so that next winter, when it's cold enough that the house contracts, I don't look at that CRACK and think Gary doesn't know how to paint. 

And, bonus: I'm not going to worry about the sticking sliding closet door in the entryway, the coldest spot in  the house. 

What is this monstrosity

Let’s define our terms.

This is a popover.

This pitiful pale button below is not a popover 

That monstrosity is what my new microwave is trying to pass off as a popover. Such a false use of the term. I mean, you could describe it as “What happens when a popover enters the density of a black hole” or  “Deflators” or “Egg-flour-milk wads.” 

Seriously. This makes me lose faith in Williams-Sonoma. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/6

This week the croquet balls went from this:

... to this.

Horrible in new ways? Clearly the top left needs to be more purple, though it isn't in real life. And why does the mallet scare me?

Will Curse of Oak Island ever end?

I was just blowing through the most recent episode of Curse of Oak Island, talking back to the narrator, as I do, and one of rhe Laginas said “Will this be the day? God, I hope so.” 

“Whoa,” I thought, “Marty ... or Rick ... I can't keep you straight ... that’s a shift in attitude.”

Then I realized every show starts the same, “It’s a new day in Oak Island and Marty and Rick and their team, blah blah blah,” and I thought, it’s designed to be the same. The brief is: have a show in which there is no arc, no learning. Like Seinfeld, but not even remotely funny. 

But now Rick-or-Marty is showing just a little touch of frustration, like maybe he actually heard my comments about how they’re drilling into a sinkhole.

Then I thought about how Seinfeld ended with the same conversation as it began. I don’t want that. I want this to be the last season, with everyone slowly realizing that there has never been any hope. Some may take the Sisyphus path and say they enjoyed the journey. I see this for the metal detector guy. Or maybe there is a twist in which the Canadian government sweeps in and accuses them of making the island into Swiss cheese and it becomes the start of the Great Canadian-American War. 

And of course there has to be an epic scene in which the pessimistic brother accuses the optimistic brother of ruining his life and then the metal detector guy almost digs up a find, but gives up, and camera pans and it’s either some bottle cap or a gold doubloon, but it doesn't matter, because they gave up.

That would be nice. But no, it won't happen, because this show will never end. 

The fever

I walked into the house Saturday and Gary announced that he had tried to pee and something was not right down there. I asked for specifics and he said he did not feel good in his urinary parts.

A fight ensued because he refused to let me take his temperature.

Gary: YOU ARE NOT TAKING MY TEMPERATURE I KNOW WHEN I HAVE A FEVER GET AWAY FROM ME.

Ellen: [Bursts into tears, goes away.]

Gary: [Comes back in twenty minutes, apologizes.]

He let me take his temperature every four hours, and then at five am I touched his forehead, screamed, and ran for the thermometer. 103. 

Ellen: You need to take Tylenol.

Gary: [See above, only replace taking the temperature with the Tylenol. Tears, apologies.]

After he took the Tylenol we cycled through the fight sequence above from emergency room to urgent care to a virtual visit. (I CAN’T GO OUTDOORS! BIRD FLU! OUTDOORS IS JUST A GIANT BIRD TOILET).

The nurse practitioner on the phone sent me out for Tamiflu and home tests for Covid/Flu and UTIs. And as you know, he has a UTI. Hopefully he’ll be better by his follow-up with the doctor on Friday.

Later on Sunday he actually said, WAIT HOW CAN I HAVE A UTI IF I DON’T HAVE A UTERUS?