Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Plans

How is this month not like any other month?

Because it is the birthday month.

In two and a half hours, by the time I finish watching Mr. Selfridge (aka Big Hat Sunday on PBS), the birthday month will be over.

This weekend I meant to organize the garage, or at least clean the basement door, but instead I woke up at 3 am and purged the linen closet. If I get the garage and basement sorted after work this week I won't have a single project left.

Instead of projects then, I suppose I can have fun. I approached Gary with the idea of visiting Chicago in April for the river tour, and he was not intrigued.

That would be some fun scheduled for April, then in May we have a graduation in KC, in June we see Quebec City, then in July it's Nashville to see BNL, Ben Folds, Boothby Graffoe, and Guster.

I have to do something: I've had "clean basement" on my to-do list for years.

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, She is a Psycho Bitch

The only bit of math I have retained is that order in which you solve expressions, only because it fits neatly in the language hemisphere of my brain because of the mnemonic device "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" (Parentheses, Exponentials, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction. Spoiler: This is a lie.)

 I can remember the mnemonic because my left hemisphere works. I would comfort myself that math pros can do the math but can't remember the mnemonic. Hahahaha: justice. Then I remember Friend #4 who can write and calculate in her head simultaneously.

So, intermittently on Facebook you'll see a question like this:

Then, in the comments you'll see a variety of answers, each insisting they are right. I felt confident I could get it right, because I had my dear Aunt Sally to guide me, especially since there were no parentheses or exponentials. (It's odd that in English a parenthesis connotes a topic is less important; in math it is most important. I wonder if people who use both hemispheres read this parenthetical statement at the top of their lungs instead of the confidential tone I use to write it.)

I wasn't brazen enough to share my answer the entire world on Facebook; I just sent it to Friend #4, and let my friends see it.

Five, I said.

Hot Mom immediately commented that she and her eleven year old daughter both got seven, how did I get five?

I replied:

My: 6-(0)+2/2

Dear: 6-0+(1)

Aunt: 6-(1)

Sally: 5

Logic!

Friend 4 replied that no, seven, and here is why:

P - Parentheses - Left to right, solve all parentheses first.
E - Exponents - Left to right, solve all exponents.
MD - Multiplication and Division - Left to right, solve all multiplication and division in the order they appear.  They have equal weight, so do not skip division to do multiplication later in the expression.
AS - Addition and Subtraction - Like MD, they have equal weight, so solve them left to right.

This concerned me, not only because now I can't do fourth grade math, but I was concerned about the Middle East and wherever else they read right to left. How confusing must that be? They would be hard pressed to answer five as well, because the subtraction is on the right.

What we need is a new mnemonic, one with four words instead of six. (I almost wrote "seven words," then I counted on my fingers.) But in the third word, there must be an M and a D, in that order (left to right). Similarly, the fourth word needs to have both an A and an S.

I've got "Please excuse MacDuff's ASpirations," which doesn't make sense because it was the Macbeth's who were ambitious. "Parents enjoy McDonalds' .... Apple Snacks?" No that's two words. AppleS? No, that S is too easy to ignore.

Piggies Exhibit McDonalds Ass?

I like that one but it won't play to the fourth graders. It's too declarative as well. Aunt Sally had a little mystery to her.

 

And the Devil Shall Be Known as Amazon Prime

I remember all the warnings when the first debit cards showed up. "It makes it too easy to spend money!"

Not really. Easy? You want easy?

I was at my keyboard and I noticed a pen on my desk.  "I hope that isn't my last pen like that."

I clicked twice, typed my password, did a search and clicked once.

 

My elbows didn't even move. I will still have to go to the door Tuesday and bend over to pick up the package.

When I broke the twenty year old plastic strainer, and just now when the can opener died after ten years, I did have to go to the effort of walking from the kitchen into the room where my PC is. Of course, why did I go to all that effort? I could have walked only as far as the iPad.

Goose

We had the same spring snow that Denver and KC had. It inspired some inventive snowmen in our subdivision: a snowman holding an Easter basket, a snowman with bunny ears. Our cars were trapped by the foot of snow. Monday morning I was shoveling the smallest path possible to the street when a neighbor came by with a snowblower. Gary came out of the house in time to tell the neighbor HOW to SNOWBLOW. No, hon. This stranger is doing us a favor. Don't tell people how to do you a favor.

Then of course Gary wanted to pay the neighbor, which I talked him out of. It's as if he doesn't know how to say "Thank you."

Because he only allowed the neighbor to snow blow one driveway, I had to take him to work the next three days. On one of those days I spotted a goose. At first glance it seemed to be perched nobly on a hill of snow, but then on closer inspection I saw this goose was disgusted. He slowly picked up a webbed foot, placed it on the snow, then shifted his weight onto the foot, which then "pop!" broke through the ice crust and sank a half inch into the snow. You could hear him sigh. Then he daintily picked up the other foot, positioned it, shifted his weight, "pop," damnit. If his goose beak could have curled with distaste it would have. Eventually he made it to the street, where he shook his tail.

I feel like the goose tonight. I'm making no progress, and my attempts are humiliating. Gary's been working late and I'm falling into the traps that plagued me when we were first married. I wait for him. What I should do is occupy myself with a project, something he would interrupt if he was here. I should flap my wings instead of picking my way along in mild disgust.

You know, that clinches it. I'm organizing the garage. He'll hate that as much as when I organized the basement, but it's better than spite drinking or waiting dinner on him until ... what time is it? 12:15 am.

Supreme Court

First off, it is terrifying to read the transcripts that come out of the Supreme Court. The nine members of the court talk over everyone else, so the transcript can ony get part of every third sentence. Really, go here. It's ridiculous.

Second, of course, I need to apologize to Missouri because I have not been popping out State Babies. No one told me about "the Government's interest in regulating procreation through marriage." That was the foundation of the argument against gay marriage, "that gay and lesbian couples can be denied access to marriage on the ground of an interest in responsible procreation." (I suppose "spite" wasn't a wordy enough reason.)

And here I have not been procreating responsibly. I have not been fulfilling the "vision of marriage as procreation of children."

You know what's next? The gavel comes down and sterile couples have to get divorced. And I bet the voluntarily sterile couples have to get divorced first.

Very creepy words to hear discussed by the highest court of the land.

15pt Bullets

• I was recently advised by someone looking at engagement rings that stores don't have engagement rings as small as mine anymore (1/7th of a carat, or 15 point). "Those are promise rings."
• I am not treated with such disrespect by the concierge at the hotel in Quebec City. She has written me two emails that begin with "Bonjour, Madame S______." So, screw you promise ring girl! Madame S______ can squish you like a bug.
• Madame S______ was in the midst of heavy internet research on Quebec City when the concierge sent her a pdf of exactly that information. I know the Relais & Châteaux hotels excel at customer service but I was not expecting psychic abilities.

Joe

In the early nineties, when I worked at Eliot, Joe H____ asked, "Do you want to see the World Wide Web?"

"The what?"

"The web. I'll send you an email that shows how to open it."

He sent instructions on how to see the Trojan Room Coffee pot.

I wrote back, "I don't get it. Why can't they just make more coffee when they get there?"

Luckily, Joe did not give up on bringing the Internet to Eliot, and a few weeks later he tried again. I was there, and so was Martha, a forty five year old (OLD!) elegant lady who was only working to keep herself entertained.

Joe was explaining that the web wasn't just all about coffee pots; there were books on there too. "You can read books on the screen. What book would you like to read?"

We rolled our eyes at the idea at reading a book on screen, but Joe seemed to really think this web thing had merit. Martha said, "show me Pride and Prejudice."

He brought up Pride and Prejudice, and indeed it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

"Yup, that's Pride and Prejudice," we said. "We have this book at home." Why wouldn't people just read the copy of Pride and Prejudice they have at home? Seriously.

I asked, "Why is Mr. Bennet's name in blue?"

Joe said, "That means it's a link. You can click it and read more." Which we did. There was Mr. Bennet's estate (£2,000 a year) and a link to every time Mr. Bennet is mentioned in Pride and Prejudice. Then we yelled at Joe for wasting our time on coffee pots when there was this amazing thing out there.

I mention this old story because Joe later went on to companies other than Eliot, but starting next Wednesday he'll be sitting a few cubes away from me at TeddyJ.

Decision!

A decision has been made on the vacation!

Gary and I were going back and forth on vacation options, and prices, and such, and he backed off of Hawaii when we totaled it up. It would cost almost what Paris cost, and we aren't excited enough for a Paris outlay of cash.

The cheapest one (half the price of other locales) is Quebec City. Quebec City has:

Waterfalls

Scary bridges over the falls

Hiking trails

A river

A cliff

A funicular to take you up the cliff

People who speak French but will not speak French to us

French food

The Museum of CIVILIZATION BITCHEZ (that's how I read it)

Fortress walls to walk on top of

Cannons

An old church

Day trips to windmills

Quaint narrow streets

Changing of the guard

Pancakes with maple syrup

Lobsters who need to die for their sins

A boat to take you across the river and possibly feed you fancy food

Potential whales (I hold out zero hope)

Chipmunks (I have seen one chipmunk in my life and it was in Canada)

NO bears

An elk-watching hike

A cruise to look at 100 penguins

A cruise to look at a Irish Potato famine quarantine island (that's at the bottom of the list.)

So, that's the plan, man. We can head to Montreal on a day trip if we crave the big city, or head north if we want the country.

Fear of Fire

This evening I brought 20 years of tax returns up from the basement, popped them in the Weber kettle out back, doused them with lighter fluid and torched them, as you do.

Not out of spite. I just didn't want to wear out the shredder. I didn't want to just pitch them either, and cooking them was the best alternative. I suppose I could have been truly fearless and dumped them in the trash. Come to think of it, why didn't I? Oh, wait, social security numbers, identity theft, that's right.

Instead, I faced my biggest fear, the crippling fear of being set on fire while burning your 1997 tax forms in a Weber kettle. BBQphobia. IRSWTFBBQphobia.

It was hard, and scary, and it took me an HOUR and a HALF to burn it all, including the Turbotax CD that got in there by accident. (Burned right up.)

The worst part was that there was a slight wind, and the wind picked up flaming bits of W2s and launched them toward the neighbors' house. The neighbors that barbeque non-stop in summer. The ones who are one with the embers. Whereas I was chasing the embers around with a stick knocking them out of the sky before they could leave my yard.

The fire almost got me once because it hypnotized me. "Wow.Look at that. Let me poke at this tax form. Wow. That flame just touched my hand and it didn't hurt." Then I woke up and realized that's how the fire gets you. That;'s when I got a longer tree branch to poke the fire with. I know, wooden branches are probably not the best pokers. However, both birdbaths are sanitized now because ever time it caught on fire I doused it in the birdbath, and the water would boil for a second.

I'm afraid of fire, which I think is perfectlly reasonable. I've heard two people this week say they are afraid of cruises. They both couldn't go on a cruise because if something went wrong, they'd just be out on the ocean.

At the time I heard that I thought, "No, you go to the lifeboats. Then you go to the helicopter or the coast guard boat." But to each his own, I suppose. I don't trust myself around fire, they don't trust the Carnival company around the ocean.

 

 

 

Using Ways

You know how you can usually blast through poor translations and still get the gist? I have no idea what these two underlined statements mean.

Happy Kevin Spacey Day

The bagels I had at nine o' clock Saturday night crawled out through my ears at three a.m. Sunday morning, or at least they tried, and that type of indigestion is only cured by sitting up and watching television.

Of course, I fell asleep at five, and woke up partway in the late morning when I heard the beginning of The Usual Suspects. "Oh! I love this movzzzzzzzzzz..." and I slept until I heard "The cripple! Which way did he go?" I hit rewind and watched the entire scene. I heard it described as a B + movie with an A+ ending.

It made me remember when Kevin Spacey accepted the Academy Award and gave a shout out to Keyser Sose. What a sweet boy, huh?

And then after waiting for Gary to awaken and then after waiting for Gary to prepare for the day, he and I watched episodes 4-13 of House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey. We only intended to watch one or two episodes but he is just sooo delicious, and I get hurt if he doesn't lean in to the camera and confide his evil schemes to me often enough in each episode.

It took up so much of the day that I declared it Kevin Spacey day. SpaceyDay topped my list of blog topics. (I've discounted a number of blog posts the last few days, because I don't think you want to know about mucous cysts (shocking images), where the Galapagos Islands are (shockingly not by the Cook Islands), or the equally shocking Prophecy of the Popes (we're on the last pope now, FYI). I am so ashamed by those topics they don't even deserve Wikipedia links.)

So after we watched the last episode I trundled in here late at night to write up my Kevin Spacey tribute since I had spent my whole day with him. I checked CNN for some background noise. The 1980s Atlanta Child Murders? I switched to our public TV station and began to listen to some documentary on Johnny Carson while writing this post.

I was in IMDB looking for that link to House of Cards when the Carson doc really caught my attention. Who's that voice? The narrator? Kevin Spacey. Seriously. Freaked me out a little.

New Pope at the Dentist

Wednesday afternoon, Friend 2 got Friend 4's email message: "White Smoke!" I checked www.istherewhitesmoke.com and guess what? Gotta Pope. I had high hopes for a brown pope.

As it turned out, I was on the way to the dentist when the habemus papam came on the radio, and after hearing the name I assumed he was at least a latte shade of pope, but no. Both parents are full Italian.

The dentist was wearing red sneakers in preparation for popehood. I wondered if he'd been wearing them all week, but I didn't ask, because he was busy grinding my chipped tooth down with a Dremel. I didn't mind the noise as much as the smell of hot tooth.

After they applied the tooth putty they told me specifically not to move my lip, and they even packed my upper lip with cotton. We waited quietly while my tooth hardened.

The dental assistant in the next cubicle asked her patient, "Is Francis of Assisi still a saint? I thought he was de-sainted."

"Don't ask me; I'm Jewish," the patient said, exasperated.

My dentist and assistant fell into muffled hysteria. I made that strange sound you make when you laugh while your upper lip is packed full of cotton. (Enh! Enh enh!)

Here's the result:

No before photo, because I was distracted by the pope pomp. The front left tooth in the photo above had the bottom right corner knocked off. Maybe five percent of the tooth.

Of course now that the front left tooth is even, the front right tooth looks wavy. I can see myself turning into the Michael Jackson of teeth. I'd get the right front tooth fixed, then the next tooth on the right will be too round.

I thought Saint Christopher had been de-sainted, but evidently not. The ony true saint demotion I've found was Saint Ursula of Saint Ursula and the Virgin Horde.

Drugs of My Youth, or, the Return of Science Girl

Here is my theory. When we are young - babies, toddlers, pre-teens- our bodies learn. Our bodies learn how to react to drugs, and then they never forget. My body took penicillin once as a child, learned how to react to penicillin (projectile vomit!) and since then it has never forgotten.

So, my theory says that the most effective drugs for us are the ones we took in our youth. I tested this out with the gunk head cold. In my youth a cold meant Coricidin. I took the Coricidin for the first time in years and those tiny red pills worked better on my cold than any of the Extra Strength new fangled formulas I've bought as an adult.

As a child I always got a dose of Nyquil for a cough, but of course that was the Nyquil of my youth, before there was DayQuil, that could have been named AlcoQuil, because it was a shot of liquor. That, along with the Bourbon honey and lemon croup cure, taught my body forever that hooch fixes a cough. If I'm coughing, give me a shot and my immune system knows where to go and what to do.

Sadly, the alcohol in Nyquil is down to 10% now. Not only that, the only Sudafed I can find is the Sudafed PE. PE must mean Placebo Effect. I need the stuff my body learned on, full meth Sudafed.

If my theory holds that what you got as a child works best as an adult, then I should turn to full sugar Seven-up for any nausea and Midol for all reproductive complaints. I take that back. Midol never worked.

Perhaps the reason I have this Vitamin D deficiency is because I haven't had Chocks for decades.

Two Buck Chocks.

 

 

Movie Recommendation: Timer (2009)

Man, it's one o'clock. I would have gone to bed an hour and a half ago but we started watching a movie called Timer. Interesting premise: everyone gets wrist timers that countdown to the moment they meet true love.

Watch it. It's on NetFlix. Quirky, funny, interesting.

The Social Pressure of Meeting New People

There's a new employee at work. I tell you, I am terrified. There's a countdown ticking till I say something inappropriate to him. Other people can wait for the new person to embarrass herself. I jump right in and embarrass myself first.

Oh, here's an example. In Chicago I met the husband of one of Hot Mom's friends. Within minutes I was asking his opinion of a college boyfriend's experimental masturbation with Vaseline and a rolled up slab of liver. In minutes, I tell you. I can not tell you what his opinion was because the conversation shut down immediately.

(I'd be more than happy to hear your opinions, though.)

So now, there's this new employee, and he's a real straight arrow as far as I can tell, and then Monday a new female employee ariives, so TWO people to not talk to when more than anything I want to hump their legs and ask them about their salaries.

DONE! Basement. DONE!

The before:

The after!

Look at the air! The vacancy! The stark nothingness!

Everything I own now fits on one wall.

The past twenty seven years. I'm like a freaking Buddhist, man!

The pure of heart can see Mom in the corner, approving,

Honestly, I feel like I just bought a new house. We still have to assemble two more sets (the ones on wheels). They'll be filled with nothing, at first, and then in twenty five more years I suppose I'll have to do this all over again.

We Have Been Productive.

Must be the vegetables.

Gary keeps saying how we can sleep on them like bunk beds ...

Tired of Vacation Already!

Gary and I narrowed down vacation choices tonight.  

Quebec City. Pros: inexpensive. Cons: not enough there to keep us for a week, I think.

Hawaii - the Big Island. Pros: lava! Hattie! Cons: been there (Maui).

A Mediterranean cruise. Gary pulled this out of nowhere. Pros: we could spend a few days in Venice before. Cons: expensive.

The cities below were met with Gary's scorn and were deleted from the list.

Tokyo. "No! It's dirty and crowded and too expensive."  I began to explain that the Japanese are supposedly a nation of germophobes and I can't picture them tolerating dirt, but the goal was to strike choices off the list.

Ireland. We're city folk, not country folk, and the focus in Ireland does seem to be on the landscape.

Buenos Aires. I believe they are truly toting Argentine pesos about in wheelbarrows, but it's a false economy to go to a cheap city you were never interested in visiting. It's the tuna fish coupon of travel.

Tofino Canada. The week we plan to go is in June, and Gary got the idea that June is spring break in Tofino. It sounded to me like the Relais & Chateaux concierge would chase any spring breakers off our beach, but again, the goal was to delete.

Now, according to a budget travel article I read on stalking natural disasters, where we should be going right now is Sicily, in the hopes that Etna scares tourists off. Ghoulish but appealing.

Movies I Gave Up On

I have no patience with movies any more. If I'm not interested after half an hour: click, delete. It's the wicked Amazon Prime again. When a movie downloads free to your PC there's no investment. Amazon Prime is evil. (It's the primeval Amazon.)

I had hopes for My Brother's Keeper. There's a mercy killing, confessed to and recanted, and a trial. What's not to love? Beards. Oh, and hoarding. I think I got as far as the scene when the documentarian quizzes the completely inarticulate brother. "How did that make you feel?" "I dunno."  "You don't know how you feel?" "Yup." And it went oooooooon. Stop it! Edit that out already. It felt like a five minute news segment made into a 90 minute movie.

I think I watched forty minutes of Around the World in Eighty Days. Then I noticed it was three hours long and bailed. Why did it get five Oscars? Why did it start with ten minutes of explaining who Jules Verne was? I decided to delete anything more than two hours off my list, and now I will never see The Deer Hunter.

Secrecy. It's about secrecy! And the government! Juicy! And you know what? The government is secretive! I swear, they spent thirty minutes telling me the government has secrets, and NOT telling me what those secrets are. 

Rock of Ages. I made it to the first Tom Cruise scene. Were there other scenes? I will never know.

I will come back to Beasts of the Southern Wild someday when Gary isn't next to me screaming POOP SHES PLAYING WITH POOP every time mud showed up in a scene (which would be every scene). As it is I only got as far as the scene when the teacher warns the water will rise.

I almost, almost bailed on Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, but instead I repositioned myself directly in front of the tv, cranked up the speakers, and focused on lip reading because otherwise it's all sighs and mumbles. That was worth it. I even bought her biography after.

Let me know if I gave up too early on any of these (besides Beasts, because I think that's worth a revisit. Or is it?)

Mr. Tooth

After 36 consecutive waking hours spent watching episodes of Warehouse 13, I asked Gary if he ever felt bad wasting his weekends. Perhaps he might feel better if he made lunch, like I did, or did the taxes, like I did, or even loaded the dishwasher, or ....

Of course he reminded me it was his birthday month (frankly, undistinguishable from all other months now). Then, he said, "Watch this!" and snapped in his Invisiline braces.

"I'm doing that!" he said. "Every minute I have my braces in I'm working on my teeth."

His teeth are straightening out quite nicely, but it is making him tooth-proud. A few months ago we were eating out and he gasped.

"What is wrong with your tooth?"

"What tooth?" I ran my tongue over my teeth. They were all there.

"Your front tooth is chipped!"

"Well, yes, it's been chipped for years. Ever since I wore that TMJ tooth thing for a year. Part of my tooth broke off in it."

"And you never got it fixed?"

"Well, it's just a little chip."

"A little chip! You look like Honey Boo-boo's mom."

This was harsh, and he immediately took it back. He also took it back in front of everyone else we saw that day because I made sure everyone knew the extent of his evil.

Later he claimed that he was just particularly sensitive to teeth since he is suffering so much to have his teeth straight. (Not for vanity, he's doing it so his teeth stop shifting and cracking.)

I mentioned this past week I have a dental appointment Monday morning.

"OH!" he said, "To have your tooth fixed?"

Well, no, doofus, to have a cleaning, but since I am so snaggle-toothed I guess I'll check in to it.

Amazon Prime

So, what they don't tell you when you get Amazon Prime (so you can watch documentaries on your PC for free) is that the shopping monkey jumps right on your back and rides you like a donkey in Tijuana.

That's why I was scrolling through the day's "deals" and saw this:

Of course I clicked on the first item.

I can't find it again now, but that seems like a good price, doesn't it?

==========================

Later: Wait, no, it's right here in my recently viewed items.

 

March Forth

March is Gary's birthday month, which he will spend focused on his favorite activity: working. That means I have time to work on my new resolutions.

Usually at New Years I resolve to lose one hundred pounds or plod on the treadmill thirty minutes a day. Neither of these makes me feel good. I think the trick to resolutions is to resolve to make yourself feel good.

I did find out something surprising when I was cleaning out the basement. I'd come home tired, and most days I just flopped down on the couch. However, on some days the basement had something that had to be done, so I catered to the basement instead of my butt and I felt more energetic after.

It makes no sense. It goes completely against the spoon theory. Of course, I'm sure that's because I'm just tired, not experiencing neurological fatigue. If it's summer and fatigue hits I'm sure I'll be absorbed by the mattress and drool like always.

I tested it out with Gary a few times this week, and on the days he went to the basement with me and we put together shelves we experienced more energy instead of less. We even ended up going to the in-laws and shoveling snow.

So, move more when I am tired is resolution number one. Only if it makes me feel less tired, though, and is productive. I can tell you, I do not feel energized after half an hour on the treadmill. The garage begs to be cleaned out, though.

And of course, eat more when I am hungry is resolution number two. And what I need to eat more of are vegetables. I hate to say it, but the only place I eat vegetables is at work. If it's dinner, if the vegetables aren't part of the entree, they don't get made. If I'm working at home I don't get veggies, I just keep ladling carbs into my maw, and that doesn't feel good at the end of the day.

I do have one good spinach-filled recipe, and I made some cream of broccoli soup (YES IT IS VEGETABLES), but aside from that and chopped salad, I haven't any favorite recipes chock full of vegetables. (I don't know why, but I don't call bell peppers and artichokes vegetables. Are they? What about carrots? Do they count? I don't even know.) I need some good field-tested recipes involving veggies.

My last resolution for March: keep up with the goats. Goats sing Bon Jovi. The goat thing doesn't seem to end!