Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Weather update

For those following CNN - there was a tornado in my area. If neighborhood rumor is to be believed it hit two blocks from us. I refuse to go look.

A stately oak tree came entirely up out of the ground in our back yard. And another is leaning on the house. I don't think the roof is damaged.

It's been two hours and the emergency vehicle sirens have just started to die down. Two of the three streets to our neighborhood have been closed. The police are barricading the one that would lead to the flattened houses.

When it really began to storm I peeked out the front window, then I talked Gary into going down to the basement. On the way to the basement HE looked out the front and yelled "my God, look at this!"

Worst straight line winds I have ever seen, like a hurricane. We both ran to the basement.

In about ten minutes we both really really had to use the bathroom.

So I guess that's why people are advised to hide in the bathroom, because there's a toilet conveniently placed there for when you are afraid.

So the whole neighborhood is out, sharing rumors and offering help and competing for the worst tree damage (I think we won).

Photos later.

Leaving My Language

English is my first language. I have no second. Well, I sometimes have little chats with myself in Latin, but just because the voices in my head know the same words I do.

Recently, I almost convinced a Mexican woman I spoke Spanish. We were talking about small mammals, and she said, "We had a ... I don't know how to say it in English .. mapache -"

"Raccoon?" I asked.

"Oh, you know Spanish!"

"No, you were making a mask out of your fingers when you said 'mapache'."

So in a few days we fly to Quebec City, where they speak French. I am not prepared. I need to download the French translation apps to my iPhone again. All I retained from Paris is "Sortie" (Exit).

Gary is prepared. Gary is limiting himself to French porn exclusively. "Faisons-le comme les ratons laveurs font!"  

Warning, with Apologies to Jenny Johnson

When I am an old woman I shall wear Poise pads,

Not the largest but the second smallest size, for when I cough.

And go for walks at four with my husband around the subdivision

In high-arched shoes that don't suit me.

I shall go to Walmart and keep the receipt

And then take a nap with Gary from five till eight

And then wake up to fail at the crosword puzzle

Because on Wednesdays it gets hard.

But thank God retired men who are working their way through Netflix

Find video concerts for dark punk cabaret bands.

The Dresden Dolls make us feel our ears are a little less routine

And that we could someday spit in the street given the opportunity.

Cheaters

When I was 25 or so, I taught PC skills to adults at the Chrysler plant. When students failed to show three weeks in a row, my teaching partner and I had to call to see if they intended to drop. 

One student, call him Ed (because I don't remember his name) missed three weeks, so we called, and asked his wife if he intended to drop class.

"He hasn't been to class? For three weeks?"

The next day, Ed arrived, he didn't intend to stay for class, he just wanted to tell us how disappointed he was that we left that message with his wife. It got him in a lot of trouble. I remember his exact words because in response to all of our protests, he would only say, "I wish you hadn't left that message with my wife. It got me in a lot of trouble."

I was glad my partner LeAnn was there, because after he left she said what I was thinking, "I was not aware I was obligated to cover up my student's affairs."

"Yeah. Is that part of our job? He really expected us to help him lie to his wife."

Well, friends and neighbors, if you are cheating on your spouse don't look to me to be discreet on your behalf. I can't keep my own secrets; don't expect me to keep your secrets too. I know it's not "appreciated" when a spouse finds out a painful truth, but if I see you canoodling with someone else, start inventing an identical twin because I will tell your wife, or husband, or boyfriend.

When Mom and Jerry were separated, Jerry's neighbor in Texas called Mom once when Jerry's "friend" Suzanne spent the night. Mom's complaint was about the woman's tone: she seemed gleeful. I wouldn't be gleeful. I'd be factual.

I don't know if I'd go as far as making a call to alert someone that cheating was going on. But then, isn't that enabling the cheater too? Participating in the lie?

This isn't actually a current issue in my life, I've just seen too many episodes of Mad Men lately, and it makes me mad. Still, canoodlers, you're on notice.

Privacy

I don't know if I like the CNN show Reliable Sources because of my journalist genes, or because it means Fareed Zakaria is done droning. In contrast, the host of RS almost breaks into jazz hands. At any rate, I like it.

Today's show included a review of Google Glass, and the journalists on the panel were concerned about the continuing erosion of privacy. You could be out on the street and someone walking toward you wearing Google Glasses could be recording you! "Creepy!" they said.

That isn't creepy. That isn't an invasion of privacy. Journalists reporting on your relationship with your family and your custody issues after you come out of a ten-year abduction, okay, I can see that as an invasion of privacy. But how can you go out on the street and then complain that someone is looking at you while you are in a public, not private, place? Or is it the recording that's creepy, or the posting to the internet? Journalists ... that's essentially your job.

Obviously, I don't have a very strong sense of privacy. My Aunt Carleen did, which may be why she rarely ventured into public places after she retired. She had her groceries delivered. We found out that her apartment burned down when the news broadcast her wandering around the front yard in her caftan. She moved to an apartment directly across the street.

Mom once mentioned that Carleen would be a little less agoraphobic if she'd just leave her apartment every once in a while, which: true, can't argue with that, but why on earth would she be alarmed that people might look at her? Or talk to her? Or that she might find herself in an unfamiliar place?

She wasn't always like that; when she was in her thirties and forties she'd visit Martha's Vineyard every summer. I don't see the beach at Martha's Vineyard as a private spot. She was in a big black bathing suit and it was a very public beach. Why would retirement lock her into her apartment?

Of course, I worry that Gary is going to Carleen out on me now that he's retired. He hopped right up when I suggested we go grocery shopping. He was happy in the hotel in Kansas City. I reassure myself that my Dad retired, my Mom retired, they left the house on a regular basis.

We shall see.

Is That Your Husband?

The tree man had been in the yard with Gary, looking at the tree Monday's storm knocked down. I hadn't seen either of them for half an hour when the tree man was at the front door again, all alone.

He knocked, I answered, and he asked me, "Is that your husband?"

"What?"

"Is that your husband?"

"Who," I asked, looking around. Is who my husband? Who are we talking about here?

"Is that your husband?"

Then I realized he meant "Is the man I was talking to half an hour ago (who is no longer in the vicinity) your husband, as opposed to your boyfriend or older brother?"

"Oh!" I said, "Yes, he is."

"Well, I gave him the wrong copy."

This week I have been wondering if "that man" is my husband. As soon as he finished watching every episode of Alias, he started assigning himself tasks. He's done one thing every day this week. One day he mailed in his IRA rollover information, one day he got the tree estimate, one day he dealt with the phone guy (the storm took out the tree and the phone). And then today when I came home tired and cranky, he filled the dishwasher in response to my pointed stare at the sink of dirty dishes.

Our unspoken agreement is that all requests remain unspoken. I don't like to nag, and Gary vehemently shut me down when I tried to have a conversation about the division of labor. However, pointed stares are met with action. I'll need to summon up silent-movie drama stares to get the floor swept, though.

World War One Museum In Kansas City

I've wanted to see the World War One Museum in KC since Dave at Blogography gave it such a glowing review. Before I went, here's what I knew about WWI:

• In Flanders field the poppies blow
• Archduke Ferdinand
• Downton Abbey Season 2
• Doughboys
• Lusitania

Not exactly World War One for two hundred, Alex. I stepped into the museum, bought a ticket, crossed the clear bridge over the poppy field and was met by a docent who asked, "Why do we use the poppy to symbolize World War One?"

"InFlandersfieldsthepoppiesgrow," I rattled off, smugly. ERRRBUZZNO. Wrong answer! Well, I think she gave me points for knowing the poem (points off for switching "blow" with "grow"), but the correct answer [spoilers, if you plan to go] is that the weaponry contained nitrates that killed all the plants ... except poppies. Evidently poppies love nitrates, so Flanders fields were dead except for the nitrate-sucking poppies.

And that glimpse of red poppies was as uplifting as the experience got. You walked over the blighted field with the pretty poppies and that's the last you see of life and happiness for a few hours.

As a museum, the presentation is just incredible. We've seen guns and posters and cannons before, but what about peeking into a bunker and hearing the sounds? Standing in a giant hole made by a shell? Sitting in a tiny room while "Dulce Et Decorum Est" is read to you?

Gary only made it through Flanders Fields, Dulce Et Decorum Est, and one other before he couldn't take it anymore. It's a sad museum. But of course, since it's an American museum, it's divided into two parts: the War before America, and the War after America. In fact, it's literally divided into two parts: the first part starts with war posters for the European war years, then there's a short film about the war just before America joined in, then war posters for the American war years.

The layout of the place forces you to draw comparisons. You pass that entry to the U.S. years and there are gleaming weapons and scalpels and fancy tanks and guns and all the war-winning stuff, while the pre-America side has klunky grenades on sticks.

I don't think I've said "I didn't know that" as often in any museum. For example, why did the U.S. enter the war? The Lusitania, right? I distinctly remember that exam question in Jr. high. BUZZZNO!  The Zimmerman telegram disclosed that the enemy bribed Mexico to attack us. Again, I had no idea.

Eventually we made it through the war, came out the other side, and did not have the emotional strength to climb up to the upper exhibits or the tower.

I remember seeing Gallipoli in college. When it was over and Mel Gibson was all riddled with bullets my date snarled, "HAPPY NOW?" After the museum, Gary, bless him, just said he was depressed.

My Relationship with the Raphael Hotel

I can walk into a Super8 motel and be above it all, certainly. Even more, I can walk nearly naked yet unblushing through the lobby of the Jazz in Chicago. I can even chat pleasantly with the front desk at the Hotel Lancaster in Paris (as an equal, though, not as a ruler. Liberté, égalité, fraternité.)

Yet for some reason the Raphael Hotel in Kansas City turned me into a Jerry-Lewis-level doofus. I was not the aristocrat in any transaction.

It's not them, it's me. Everyone at the hotel was tremendously helpful and friendly.

First, we had a rough drive down. We were both on edge. Gary was so on edge that when said "turn here!" at the entrance of the Raphael, he insisted, "No! This isn't it! This is the Rape-hall Hotel!" I was no better: when the valet opened my car door I had my hands full, then I had to find my car key. After a minute of fumbling I dumped the tangle of iPhone chargers into his hands so I could dig through my purse.

So, my chance to gracefully exit the car, perhaps murmur "why thank you" and press a tip in his hand was shot. Then, I was rattled enough to answer the front desk honestly when they asked how my trip had been. Then, I overshared that the night manager had a very pleasing face. I just dug myself a big hole and climbed the social ladder right down to the bottom.

As we opened the door to the room I vowed to be genteel the next time I encountered anyone. Then I fell in love with the room. I don't like what most hotels call a "suite," often it's just a normal room with more air. This one was three rooms: the bed room, the sitting room, and the bathroom.

The water pressure in the shower could peel off a layer of skin, and the toilet flush echoed down the hall. Turbo shower, turbo toilet, comfy beds, giant tv.

The next day I went down to breakfast and fawned over the waitress and the food. I went to the front desk and grovelled and cooed when they loaned us a tie to replace one Gary forgot. (It was the official hotel staff tie. Gary threatened to walk about and give orders like a boss.)

Then, I couldn't get in the room. The key didn't seem to work. It just flashed red and green. The front desk explained that meant someone in the room had thrown the deadbolt. I explained that meant Gary was taking a shower. SEE? WHY? Why must I open my mouth? It was like i was a giggly girl with a crush.

At about this time Gary began tipping both valets simultaneously: literally, tipping with both hands.

I swore again to be cool and elegant the next time I saw the staff. Instead, I had some KC BBQ and had to gush to the front desk and the bellman how great it was while I stuffed a complimentary cookie into my maw. I talked with my mouth full. The final straw.

I went to bed and swore to be the reserved lady the next day, the one who fits in to such a nice place.

I woke up and dropped a full cup of coffee on the carpet. Coffee bomb all over the floor and wall. I sacrificed three clean towels to clean it up.

So of course I had to skip the express checkout and apologize in person to the front desk. They were, of course, very nice about it.

I must return in disguise someday and be the type of guest they deserve, instead of a hoosier doofus, which is what I am.

Where I've Been

I've been watching our niece graduate in Kansas City. Gary's quite a good travelling companion when there's no work tape running in his head.

Right now I am wiped out, so instead of telling you the plans we are slowly carving OR the hotel OR the family we met OR the WWII museum, I present you with a much more practical link: How To Order Off the Menu At McDonald's.

Fine eggs and a tie

Gary forgot his tie, and when I wondered aloud to the front desk where I could find one before nine they loaned us a tie. Very nice. The eggs Benedict are as nice as the service.

This place speaks my language

How skinny is this asparagus?

How skinny is this asparagus?

My hair is thicker than this asparagus. 

This is the New Princess Merida of asparagus.

Abercrombie and Fitch wants to knit this asparagus a custom sweater.

Bon Mot In Waiting

Now that the news has broken that some wealthy Moms hire disabled tour guides so their kids can go to the front of the line, I can not WAIT until the MS gets me. I'll be plunked into that wheelchair and announce, "I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!"

Sad State of Affairs

We were in the car Sunday when Gary decided to molest me. I don't remember why. Usually he just honks my breast, which stimulates nothing but an eye roll, but this time he opted to rub vigorously at my privates.

"First," I announced, "You are an inch away from what you are aiming at. And second, what you are aiming at is covered up by a Poise pad."

He was a lot less repelled than I thought he would be.

Every Time I Get Him Out They Pull Him Back In

Here was the conversation at the S______'s, late Mother's Day.

Ken said, "Oh, Gary, I hear they're hiring in the IT department at Boeing"

"Dad, I'm retired."

 "Well, if you get --"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO," I shrieked.

I had to howl because it was the third time someone suggested Gary re-join the work force. I only just now got him into the house! I don't want him to leave. I'd like him to see all the other things he has other things to offer to humanity. No, that's a lie. I don't want him to offer anything to anyone but himself, and sometimes me.

He loaded the dishwasher this week after I unloaded it and left it gaping open. Baby steps.

He decided tonight he'd had enough Starbucks through the years and it was time to step back from The Teat. I think there must be a happy medium between "FOUR STARBUCKS A DAY!" and "NO MORE STARBUCKS EVER IT IS DEAD TO ME."

I think I've found out which Workaholic type he is. The All or Nothing.

We Are Entertained

Well, I just finished The Handmaids Tale and it was delicious. Gary asked me what it was about and I knew if I told him I'd ruin the first third of the book, in which she drops the exposition like little crumbs. I loved it, screamed when it "ended" right before the epilogue, and thank you to all who recommended it.

Gary's first project in retirement is to watch every episode of Alias ever, but as a warm-up he watched all two seasons of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil. I enjoyed it as well. The high-school insults are remarkably creative. I'm waiting till the first moment Hot Mom slips up so I can call her a "dick mitten."

I would be interested in going to see The Great Gatsby, but how can anyone but Robert Redford be Gatsby? Of course, Carey Mulligan is more like the Daisy in my head than Mia Farrow. All I really care about seeing is the woman who has shaved off and repainted her eyebrows. That image has never left me.  

I am ashamed to say the plot did not stay with me from high school or the seventies movie. If you asked me yesterday what I remembered about Gatsby it would be the images: pastel shirts, yellow convertible, shaved eyebrows, spectacle billboard, green light and boats beating toward the shore. There's a plot though. I totally forgot how Gatsby ended up. ([SPOILER!]Dead in the pool!) I probably don't remember the plot since there was no conflict between new money and old money in my middle class life.

I'm the same way about all the books I read in class in the high school. I remember the rat mask from 1984 but not the plot. (I think I've confused the plot of 1984 with Brazil.) We read The Old Man and the Sea, and I remember the Man vs Nature conflict but not a single bit of the man's story. He catches the fish and dies at the end? Right? I had no conflict with nature, myself, certainly not surviving on a boat with a big fish.

Of course, I can best remember the books about my two daily conflicts: Man vs Snotty People (The Scarlet Letter, any Austen book) and Man vs The Right Thing To Do (Raisin in the Sun, The Crucible).

I can't criticize my reading list too much, because my newly-integrated high school chose South Pacific for the musical, Raisin in the Sun and, strangely, Huckleberry Finn, which we had to read out loud to appreciate the dialect. If I recall the N-word discussion, the teacher wrote it on the board, said "I hate this word," told us the etymology and carefully selected only reading passages that didn't have that word in there, and otherwise we were to remember Huck's ignorance when we saw it.

Truth be told, watching Gary sleep and watch tv till the wee hours has put me off home-based amusements. I need a project. It might be time to divide the peonies. No, wait, i need to re-learn the guitar first.

Tonight's Google Search: What Happens When Workaholics Retire?

What Happens When Workaholics Retire?

Executive Summary: It's bad.

The Long Version, written specifically for us with the help of recording devices planted in our house disguised as common household ants and spiders, says the retired workaholic:

• Depends on excessive consumption of alcohol or prescription medication. (Neh.)

• Has no close friends. (Well, yeah.)

• Watches television constantly and yells at pundits on the screen. (And is named ... Gary! And has a gallbladder scar, we know, we've seen him naked.)

• Interactions with family members are by force, not choice. (This one doesn't sound like Gary at all.)

• Can be verbally abusive.

• Impatient with others.

• Suffers from depression and anxiety. (Hope not. Too soon to tell.)

• Nothing pleases him and there is no joy or happiness in his life. (Right now the TV show Alias brings him great Joy.)

Some articles suggest transitioning with a two-three month period of nothing, followed by a hobby. (I said one month, but okay, three months works too.)

They suggest:

• Woodworking
• Writing his memoirs
• Designing building plans for a future home (BIG HOUSE DREAM come to life!)
• Discovering new genres of porn
• Running, swimming, body building (I can see this)
• Taking classes in painting
• Teaching himself to repair electronics
• Painting the house
• Building and maintaining a vegetable garden (I can see this too)
• Restoring an old or classic vehicle (nope)

The article suggests you determine what type of workaholic you are dealing with and steer him (very gender biased) toward the right set of hobbies, but I can't tell what type Gary is. He seems to be the savoring type that doesn't like projects to end.

All I know is the article wraps up the workaholic section with "please consider professional counseling because retirement can easily expand into decades of misery for all involved."

Précis: DECADES of MISERY.

And This is Why I'm Starting Early

I asked Gary if we could discuss the vacation in Quebec, because we need to make some decisions and reservations, and I have found that if something goes South the blame is softened if the blame is shared.

On the downside, I have to force Gary into decision making mode.

It was as if we were buying the Honda Fit all over again.

In the last two hours, he has gone in these directions.

No whales! Why would we want to see whales?

Must see whales.

We have to go on the tour bus to see whales, we can't drive ourselves, because we don't speak French and all the signs will be in French.

Screw the whales, we must see the fjords east of the whales. It's only a four hour trip! We could probably make it in three.

Well, we could do whales if they're on the way to fjords, but only if we tack on the penguins at the end. (I think he's planning a day trip to Nova Scotia.)

Whales above all other creatures. Whales whales whales.

Screw whales. Elk.

And the final verdict: we must not tie ourselves down with plans. Let's just see what happens when we get there.

 

A Modest Proposal

If I understand correctly, a "majority" in the U.S. Senate is 60 out of 100 votes. In a normal country, a majority is 51, but at some point the Senate made a rule that if a vote was "only" more than 50 but still less than 60 on one side, then the other side would filibuster and "talk out the vote," as they say in Britain.

So I would expect to see filibusters all the time, or at least a lot of the time, whenever a vote was over 50 and under 60, but senators are pussies.  They just decide that just the threat of a filibuster is enough and 60 is the new majority, because they don't want to waste the nation's time by going through with the actual filibuster.

I say no. I say I want them to work, and if a filibuster threat keeps a valid law from passing when it has a mathematical majority, I want to se the damn filibuster. Work for it. And these are the rules:

None of this crap where you can take a five minute break to pee every hour. No. You gotta hold it. Did Jimmy Stewart pee? I think not.

No food or drink or lackeys bringing you candy. I don't know when they added this bogus exception. No food, all talk, all the time.

CNN would get to cover the filibuster without interruptions, with a special Pee-Cam trained on the senator's shoes so we could look for puddles.

Oh, no wastebaskets near the filibuster. We had an alderwoman pee in a trashcan at a political function, I think, I imagine because she didn't want to yield the floor.

You can still filibuster; you just have to work for it so I can at least be entertained. I feel this is reasonable.

Gary helped cook for the week!

Clockwise from top left: spaghetti, corn casserole, zucchini, asparagus, chicken soup, spinach quiche, white chicken chili, roast vegetables, and zucchini pizza casserole in the center. NOT PICTURED: pie. I ran out of eggs. Damn. So, obviously I am easing Gary into cooking. He chopped all vegetables and made the pasta.

A Long-overdue Visit to Snopes

I saw this "rare" butterfly on Facebook.

Hm. Something about that looks a little Photoshopped. Is it the pot antennae? Iffy. I followed the butterfly from Facebook to Snopes.

I thought it would be airing its wings on page one of Snopes, but Snopes must not be in the butterfly de-bunking business.

Instead, I found out that:

NYC Mayor Bloomberg was not denied a second slice of pizza by a disgruntled restaurateur. That's sad, because I kind of believed that story on Twitter.

Sarah Palin did not call for an invasion of the Czech Republic because the Boston Bombers were from Chechnya. I totally bought that one too. (And what is SP doing to her hair? All wrong.)

Both those stories came from The Daily Currant so I've added them to my blogroll (soon to be shifted to Feedly before Google reader leaves.)

Never found the butterfly, though.

 

Retired man