Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Dave Food

I thought I was dealing with Dave's death pretty well. My calorie intake bumped up because I was eating moderately instead of getting permission from MyFitnessPal. But then a few times a week I would eat really recklessly.  It was binge eating.

The therapist encouraged me to log what I was eating and what happened before the binge. 

Here are the comfort foods I turned to:

Buttered popcorn. It was just one night, Oscars night, and "Buttered popcorn" is not as accurate as "Popcorned butter." I went through a stick of butter and an insufficient number of bags of microwave diet popcorn. At the time I thought the catalyst was Oscars = movies = popcorn, but more probably it was because Dave would annoy me every year by watching the Oscars on his feed several minutes ahead of my tiVo and spoiling all the surprises. 

Mini Pop Tarts. You know I've been eating these. I've been going through three pouches a day, because there are three flavors, and we are supposed to eat a varied diet. And they look like dollhouse poptarts. I've actually been scaling back on those, palming them off on Gary. I see the connection with Dave in that poptarts, that was breakfast when Dave and I were growing up, Poptarts and Instant Breakfast and Quisp.

Quisp. My god they still make Quisp. I just ordered some.

I promise I will be vigilant to track what triggers me to actually pour milk on the Quisp and put it in my mouth. Right now I think my breakfast triggers are 1)waking up and 2) that's it, just waking up, but no doubt I can pin this on Dave somehow.

Well That Was Lucky

If ever anyone asks what I want to do with my body after I die, I always proselytize for full body donation. That's my plan.

The documents say to put me on the loading dock at Barnes Hospital downtown. After that, they can do what they want. I am told the medical students are very respectful, but truly I don't care. I might like to be a little disrespected.

However, the point is moot. I was looking at the documents today. Look at this stamped nonsense.

Approved in 1998, VOID one year later?

This thing has been void since 1999?

Seriously. Thank God I didn't die in the last 23 years. 

This Year's Birthday Month

Conveniently, all my major marriage celebrations take place on minor holidays,. The calendar reminds me it's Flag Day, so that's my anniversary, or it's the first day of Spring, which is on or about Gary's birthday.

He is not particular about his exact birthday, because as you know, we celebrate the Birthday Month. (During the month of ones birth one wins all arguments de facto.)

This morning the news alerted me that Spring was on the way, and thus almost Gary's birthday, and I immediately woke Gary up to tell him it had been his Birthday Month for three weeks and he had not yet exercised his Birthday Month Privileges.

He had not forgotten, He was aware. I would think we had not argued but of course we had. 

Less than an hour later he came to me and said, "I think we need to buy a bidet and install it in my bathroom."

He was evidently holding that Birthday Month card close to his vest so he could play it for something ridiculous. I sent him off to research installation. We'll just see if he follows through.

TWIL: Dutch Baby Experiment

This Week I Learned what happens when you swap out half the all-purpose flour in a Dutch baby pancake with bread flour, and you don't follow the blending directions, and you put frozen butter in the hot  pan -- and you just generally set your baby up for failure.

Instead of a flat pancake with risen edges, you get an extra brainy baby.

I can't decide if it was the bread flour that made this pancake look so cranial, or if it was the reduced surface heat from the frozen butter. 

It sank as they all do. After that it went from cranial ... to ... well frankly, a little scrotal. But it was extra crunchy around the edges, though. I'd do it again.

I don't know why I can't leave well-enough alone, though. Here's the perfectly-good recipe.

 

Rewriting the Novel: End is in Sight

Well, the end of the line-editing is in sight. Thirty pages of line edits down, thirteen more to go. I am aiming for a page a day, though to be fair I'm circling and skipping anything that's too hard, like "the climax falls apart." (It really does, entirely too much navigating here to there.)

I do still have the list of (now) 23 planned revisions, but those are things like "check for semicolons" and "make dialog consistent for [character x]." I see color-coded post-its for those. 

Though with all that said, yesterday I spent half an hour tweaking the third paragraph on the first page. 

So, progress. But based on the way I write computer programs, once it's functioning correctly I'll recognize what made it difficult, then I'll tear it all apart and re-do it again. I certainly don't do that with paintings, though. Perhaps I won't do that with a book.

Weekly Paint Progress: 3/16

This week the purple clouds went from this:

... to this.

That's not a lot of cloud for an exercise in painting clouds.

 

Review: See How They Run

I saw See How They Run on HBO a week ago and was enchanted. So clever, so self-referential, so full of easy charm. Just darling. Nominated for a BAFTA.

Somehow, unhappy people have given it a low score of 6.5 on IMDB. I don't know why these dour people kept saying, "Not that funny." "Thinks it's so clever."

It was clever! It was funny! If you've read more than Agatha Christie story it was really clever and funny.

Honestly, someone should track down these reviewers, preferably by alphabetical order by residence, and give them all whooping cough. 

If you have read more than one Agatha Christie mystery then I highly recommend it.

Potato

Me: "Gary, have you seen a raw potato around here? I put on the counter half an hour ago."

Gary (half-asleep in reclining chair): "Huh? Potato?"

Me: "I lost a potato somehow. I looked in the garage and the pantry. Let me try the laundry room." (Moments later) "Well, I got a new potato out of the potato bin in the laundry room. but I'm still down a potato."

Gary: "Potato?"

Me (Marches over to Gary, shoves laundry room potato under his nose.) "Yes. I lost a potato. It looks like this ... You know, maybe I didn't look in the back of the garage refrigerator." Puts  potato back in laundry room, goes to garage, searches garage refrigerator, comes back in.)

Me: "This is making me nuts. Where is that potato?"

Gary: "Did you look in all the drawers?"

Me: "You mean the vegetable crisper drawers? Yes. In the kitchen fridge and the garage fridge!"

Gary: "Did you search the junk drawer?"

Me: (Opens junk drawer. Sees potato.): (Wheezes with laughter.)

I wish I could say he had the original potato in there all the time, but it impresses me more that he heard me close the door to the garage, jumped out of the recliner, got a potato out of the laundry room, hid it in the junk drawer,  and appeared to go back to sleep.

(And no, I never found where the original potato was.)

(Now hiding a potato in his bed.)

Oscars

I am liking the winning big graphics on the backdrop, starting with Pinocchio.

So, did Jaime Lee Curtis revise or invent her "we just won an Oscar / Mom and Dad I just won an Oscar" after Ke Huy Quan started with "Mom, I just won an Oscar?"

I do love they were able to sing Happy birthday to James and everyone joined in.

I don't know why they bothered to remake All Quiet on the Western Front. The first one made the point perfectly, and silently. Aren't they all remakes of the same movie with the same point?

"Black Panther clothing designer utilized 3-d technology" ... it warmed my heart to hear utilize used correctly after a long month of listening to my work overlords.

Kimmel referenced The Slap, and I realized this was the first Oscars without my brother calling to entertain himself when it got dull.

Is this Lady Gaga singing the Top Gun song? I thought she wasn't coming. What's the story there?

Cocaine Bear? Delightful. 

Lady in the audience in the obstructing white wrap? Not cool. 

Why is John Travolta so smooth? Is he MADE of Botox?

What happened between In Memoriam and Best Actor? Best Director? I fell asleep. Also, at some point the Talking Heads guy sang a best picture nominee? When was that?

What diva move did this guy accepting for EEAAO have to pull to make it so the cast and everyone kept a 12 foot distance?

TWIL2: This Week I Learned

Just yesterday I learned Richard Pryor did not die from MS.

He died of a heart attack, probably from too much smoking.

I mean he had pretty advanced MS when he died from the heart attack, but still. Seems like Annette Funicello and David Lander are the only celebs I can think of who died of MS. 

 

One Like and One Dislike

Like: The thing I like to do during a work Zoom call is to go off camera, go on mute, then go into the Teams Group Chat and make snarky texts to teammates. I love to watch them react. I know I'm not the only one who does this. This needs a needs term if one doesn't exist. Smiling and Lurking = Smurking? 

Dislike: Wow, I do NOT like savory oatmeal. Thought I would. Perhaps it was because I didn't follow a recipe, I just made steel cut oatmeal and sprinkled in cheese and bacon. It was glutinous and vile. 

What is this Nonsense?

I am a cranky old lady now, evidenced by my outrage when I heard the Oscar's red carpet is not going to be red this year.

I am unreasonably pissed off about this. THAT CARPET HAS BEEN RED SINCE BEFORE I WAS BORN WHY DO THEY HAVE TO CHANGE THINGS.

Plus, they aren't saying why. Does the red carpet make a good drone target? 

This is the second collapse of an icon in the last few weeks. (Trigger warning, Saint Louisans, this is unexpectedly upsetting.)

Again, they aren't saying why. I would blame the Dalmatian. Probably jealous of the attention. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 3/9

How To Paint Clouds In Oils could be subtitled: Harness Your Inner Impressionist. I would have liked some more realistic examples. Most of the examples are very loose. 

Speaking of loose, note the cameo by Spunky Labia International Toe Porn Superstar. 
Her beauty never fades.

 

Adulterated Joy

Joy

That is a trickle of water going into the sump pump during a recent rain. It is going into the pump and not carving a canyon into the basement floor as it has for the past fifteen years.

But my joy is not unadulterated.

Adulterated Joy

A new puddle appeared on the opposite end of the basement where a puddle has never been before. 

Eating 2: Appliances

When I got my air fryer I had big plans. Fish. Chicken wings with fancy sauce. That was years ago. Now I use my air fryer to heat up Pop Tart Bites. 

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When I got my sous-vide I had big plans. Beef Wellington. Chicken Fricasse. That was also years ago. Now I use my sous-vide for this:

Take plastic wrapped pork tenderloin.

Do not un-wrap. Chuck it directly in the sous-vide.

When done, fish out the labels that have bubbled off and retrieve the package. Unwrap. Do not sear. Make no sauce. Use it in things calling for pork.

Lesson learned: Big plans all come to naught. Go directly to pop tart bites and zero-effort tenderloin.