Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Cookie throwdown

Work is having another attendance-required on-site event like the one in February, and I feel a need to show my devotion to my co-workers with cookies.

Of course, I will be shaping my love into ATK's Cherry Chocolate Oatmeal cookie form, but KC made me wonder if maybe this time I should up my game and use browned butter, or maybe follow the recipe precisely and use real oatmeal. So I concocted  a test between the exact recipe and one with those two variables, and then, because my first stab at browned butter became black butter, I wanted to test three more variables: black vs brown butter, crystallized ginger vs dried cherries, and semi-sweet chips vs Baker's chocolate.

I present three cookies. Three cookies enter, one cookie leaves.

The biggest difference was Batch 2 vs all other batches. Batch 2 was way too sweet, with the sugar-coated crystallized ginger and the semi-sweet chocolate. Still a good cookie for someone with a sweet tooth, like Gary (when he's done with the steroids). The blackened butter did not affect the flavor at all, in fact the cooking of the butter did not change the taste, only the texture. They were drier, which was odd because I added the tablespoon of water you need with browned butter. Batch 2 was still good, and will be sacrificed to the lion that is Gary. 

Batches 1 and 3 existed to test the exact ATK recipe with two small changes: a) browned butter and b) the real oats they recommend vs instant oats they will allow. Butters did not matter. Real oats were chewier and instant were crispier, as they promised. Instant oats for me all the way. 

So, this means I need to make the Batch 1 recipe version with no alterations but for the instant oats, and I will have cookies that represent my love for TeddyJ. Oh, and more cookies for Gary. 

Weak pitiful northern lights

Friends got better photos by leaving the city, and if this ever happens again I might do that. But then, I still feel that any recordings of immobile auroras only visible with night mode are far inferior to the real ones they have up north. Though, if I saw those I'd think "well, there are even brighter lights in the Yukon"  or "Iceland" and on and on.

So here are my very lame suburban St. Louis Northern lights. But lights, nonetheless.

You can barely see a pink glow above the trees, and maybe a green glow behind them.

This was a weird lavender shade, even later at night.

There's a little pink running from the top of the tree in the left down to the cluster of trees in the middle. One may need to embiggen.

I'm okay with my lame photos. Like I said, someone else will always have better ones.

TWIL: Compliments from across the world

I read this fascinating article from the BBC analyzing why some people might not take compliments well.  They feel the reason may be cultural.

"One study of Nigerian English speakers found that 94% of collected compliments were accepted, compared to 88% in a study of South Africans, 66% in a study of Americans, and 61% in a study of New Zealanders."

I remember one of my former bosses at TeddyJ gave me such high praise that it made me really uncomfortable. I told him that in the future I would only be accepting factual compliments, like "You met your deliverables 80% of the time" or "I heard no complaints from your co-workers this trimester."

(He actually did try, and finally hit the mark, and then stopped being my boss for other reasons, sad to say.)

I read in the article that Germans give fewer compliments, but the ones they give are more truthful. I would like that.

And, from what I read elsewhere, they love an understatement. Evidently, if a German likes the food you've provided, they say "This is edible." 

THAT would be the perfect compliment for me. Factual and funny.

I started to think I needed to move to Germany, and then remembered that Gary is 25% German. Sadly, that German compliment gene must have been in the missing 75%. He spent so much time last night complimenting the quesadillas I made (admittedly from scratch) that I finally said, "It's the steroids. Everything tastes good when you are on steroids." 

Seriously, though, it's a really good article. Lots of information on the consequences of compliments in children and the like.

Gary Loopy: Yogurt

Gary, steroid-crazed, stormed into my room last week. 

"ELLEN ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME YOU SAID YOU WOULD CHECK THE EXPIRATION DATES ON THESE YOGURTS AND I JUST ATE TWO AND THE EXPIRATION DATE IS NOVEMBER THIRD!"

"Yes?"

"NOVEMBER THIRD! NOVEMBER!"

"Gary. What month do you think it is? Because it is October."

(Looks hard at me.)

I said, "Who is the president?"

He said, "Hmpf," and stomped away.

Gary Loopy: Hail

Gary hasn't had all of the mania I had when I was on steroids (albeit I was on 40% more). He says his epilepsy and migraine meds being him down so he isn't as driven as I was.

However, he has had some bursts of loopiness. The first one was The Hail Incident. 

He came in to my room and said it was hailing outside. It was 70 degrees. 

"Gary. It's too warm. And it's not even cloudy." 

"DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME I KNOW WHAT HAIL SOUNDS LIKE."

An hour later he came and got me and made me listen to the bathroom ceiling fan.

"SEE? HAIL. IT GOT INTO THE CEILING FAN." To be fair, the ceiling fan did indeed sound like it had a chunk of material in it.

Or, as I said, "It sounds to me like a squirrel secreting away nuts for the winter dropped a shelled nut down the bathroom vent and it's banging around in the fan." 

"THIS IS YOUR FAULT BECAUSE YOU HAD THE WORKMEN PUNCH A HOLE IN OUR ROOF AND ADD A NEW VENT FOR OUR MASTER BATH WHEN THE OLD ONE WAS JUST FINE."

Whaaaaat? In no way did that happen. I foolishly defended myself and it got worse from there. 

At some point the "hail" "melted" and the situation was resolved. If I remember correctly the new fan cover is on a hinge. If Gary falls asleep today I'm getting in there to see if anything falls out. 

If he wasn't on steroids I would be concerned about cognitive decline.  

Weekly Paint Progress: 10/10

I heightened the colors and pulled together the palette and the tracing for Granceil.

I added the purple, not because I saw it but because it should be there.

Huh. New tracing projector made her noticeably more narrow. Weird. You know, perhaps putting the canvas on an easel that has wheels isn't prime tracing procedure. Have to correct that.

The ghost image behind her is an early draft of Gary the Tongue.

Rewriting the Novel: Some spots

I did a lot of work on the novel over the weekend. I would say three of the seven chapters need major transitions to incorporate new text, plus one chapter needs to be created out of whole cloth.  

What this means is that most of it is polished, and parts are back to the shitty first draft level. If this book were a man, he would be a strong handsome man with good hair missing a hand and with a gaping bloody gouge in his torso.

He needs multiple weekends before we can get back to the fun stuff: the waxing, the buffing and oiling. Sticking by him, though.

Man Breast Equivalent

Here’s what I thought about yesterday morning.

Women have breasts. If you have them you know. They catch a lot of attention. Even when you are older, and you aren't as inclined to ratchet them up, they’ll still encounter a fixed stare. Or you’ll sense someone tall behind your shoulder and your hand will instinctively go to your neckline.

So, if women know about the draw of their breasts, are men aware of the draw of their forearms? I’ll see a man with his sleeves pushed up and I think, “Yeah, you know what you’ve got.” But perhaps he doesn’t.  Perhaps he’s just warm, or his sweater’s stuffy.

And then sometimes you’ll see a man with his sleeves rolled up because he thinks that draws a lady's eyes to his crotch level, and if so, no, just stop doing that, man. Instead, cross your arms over your chest so your forearms touch. That’s the best. 

Or perhaps I am entirely wrong, and men just have forearms. 

New Bathroom Feature

When I researched how to get into a locked bathroom door, I discovered that I can purchase decorative hinge pin finials. Here’s one for the medical bathroom:

... and one for the door to the basement in honor of Goldie.

They are very heavy, made from what seems to be brass. Took three weeks to arrive from China.

Also, let this be a reminder to all of you to take a moment and dust the tops of your hinges. 

TWIL: Steroid interactions

No one here likes licorice, luckily, but I recently learned that steroids and licorice are not two great tastes that taste great together.

Per WebMD, ”Licorice can decrease how quickly the body breaks down corticosteroids. This can increase the effects and side effects of corticosteroids.”

So, good to know. Hopefully, I never need to use this information because licorice is vile.

Bladder botox: start the clock

Bladder Botox Part Two 

I got some more botox last Wednesday, because what I got three months ago was effective but short term. At the end of the three month minimum I was back to my usually spotty self.

Three things of note from this visit:

• Ow. It hurt a bit more this time, not less. I took Tylenol beforehand, thinking I'd get ahead of it, but that didn't work at all. I think I yelped for every one of the six shots.  (Still completely worth it.)
   
• Stories. I told him how much I appreciated it last time when he distracted me with stories of awful tests, and this time I wanted bladder disaster stories. He told me about flukes that cause cancer by constantly irritating the bladder. (I did not know that being constantly irritating can cause cancer; no doubt my husband could make a joke about that.)

• Paper. Afterward, my legs were dangling off the exam table when I asked how long I had the room because it took so long last time to get all the fluid --

Suddenly, the assistant began putting a heavy layer of paper towels under my feet. "Take all the time you need."  And when she was gone I stood up and peed on the paper on the floor like a puppy. Very odd sensation. I cleaned up after myself, obviously. 

So, let the countdown begin. I already have another appointment for January.

Fox sounds

The other evening, around 8:00 at night, I was sitting in my room and heard a fox scream.

Fox screams are very distinctive.

I heard it the next morning too. I didn't look outside, because I didn’t want to witness what was going on. Look at the little fox on the left of the video above. He is me. I didn’t want to know.

The third time I heard it, I did look.

The sound was the new high-speed sander the neighbor was using. Not a fox at all.

 

Weekly Paint Progress: 10/3

This week in my continuing effort to get away from realism, I will begin painting my Granceil. Grandmother Lucille, my Mom’s mom.)

(It occurs to me that someday there will be a Grandmother Jennifer.)

This began as a black-and-white photo that was then tinted with color by my Aunt Delores. I used an iPhone to take a photo of it.

So, now I will be making a painting of a photo of a painted photo.

I want to have some fun with the palette too. And as always, I want to get looser and chunkier.

Oh that’s cool. Mom and Grandceil and I have the same hairline. 

 

Gary considers his voting options

Now that the election's only about a month away, Gary's considering how to do his civic duty in his current sickly state.

Back when the bleeding sores were sapping all his strength, he felt he might need the wheelchair if he was going to wait in line for hours.  I hauled the mystery hospital wheelchair up from the basement (after the requisite half hour of  NO YOU CAN'T HAUL THAT WHEELCHAIR UP THE STEPS IT'S TOO HEAVY YOU WILL KILL YOURSELF AND DAMAGE THE WHEELCHAIR). 

That reassured him he could wait in line in comfort. 

However, now that the steroids compromise his immune system (as he reminds me each time I try to hold his hand) he’s even considering early voting, which in Missouri is called “in-person absentee voting”. No lines, supposedly. 

He’s in charge of getting this set up. I anticipate we will be back in line in early November.

Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter turned 100 today.

I am ashamed to say that I did not vote for Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election, instead I tossed away my first significant vote on John Anderson, who, per Wikipedia, opposed the requirement for registration for the military draft, which Jimmy Carter had reinstated. This made him appealing to many liberal college students who were dissatisfied with Carter.

Well, I feel bad about that now. Happy birthday Jimmy Carter.