Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Steven Page and the Art of Time Ensemble Are Coming to Town

Steven Page is finally visiting Saint Louis!

He comes with the Art of Time ensemble, doing a "re-imagining" of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. They idle quite a while around St. Louis in October, with one show in Urbana Il, 3.25 hours away, one in St. Louis (Oct. 17) at the Sheldon, one in Columbia Mo (90 minutes away), and one in Kansas City (4 hours away).

My love of this man's voice surpasses even my hatred of the Sheldon Theater. Plus, in October it'll be cold and uncomfortable instead of hot and uncomfortable.

 Allow me to embed a little taste.

 Sigh, tenors. Tenors and violins. My right hand is twitching at this moment.

Losing My Mindfulness

While I still haven't brought my mindfulness rock out of its package, I have been viewing videos on mindfulness: ones my counselor published, and a Harvard video. Supposedly, when you succeed at it, you don't dwell on the past or worry about the future, you just connect with the moment. 

You have to breathe, and concentrate, and center yourself. It seems to be yoga minus the physical effort.

In fact, it reminds me of the last few minutes of my yoga course at the MS Society, when we took five minutes to focus on breathing. I fell apart in tears on the last day. I think everyone assumed I would really miss yoga, but actually right before I'd left for yoga Mom and Dave had argued and it was the first moment I'd had to think about it.

I cry during my mindfulness exercises, too. I think that proves I'm bad at it. Strangely, they also make me impatient, as if I need to level up to advanced mindfulness. If only I were a Scientologist and I could just pay my way to Nirvana.

It also reminds me of Gary's latest enthusiasm, ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. He spends hours watching attractive women whisper and tap books and rustle pages, waiting for his scalp to tingle, or some such sensation. I tried it and found it was like the Magic Eye visual phenomenon, in that the appeal is lost on me even though I focus on it for half an hour. (Here's an amusing conversation about ASMR. Pretty on the nose.)

Well, it looks like my mind is the next body part to get under control.

The End of Innocence

When we view the videos of what Gary calls the "Backyard Wildlife Buffet and Petting Zoo," one thing we watch for is animal sex. Of course, animals giving birth would be the ultimate, but impossible, so we've been keeping an eye out for the next best thing,  wildlife getting it on.

In the beginning of the video below, Gary claims he saw some skunk-on-skunk action. We rewound and replayed it over and over, like you do with porn, and while I have to admit the male is impressively male, I don't know if there was any action. Any action took place in the second of dark at the start of the video.

I finally conceded there might have been sex, just so we could watch the rest of the video.

Then the lights came on, and we saw all the raccoon babies staring, horrified, at the skunks. "In front of the BABIES!" Gary said, judgementally.

"Oh, they don't know," I said. AND THEN I WATCHED THE BABIES.

THE HORROR.

I Finally Get to Strange Donuts

Everyone in Saint Louis but me has been to the hot new donut place, Strange Donuts. Gary slept in, so I went there to get one of everything. Well. Two of everything.

The thing is, a Strange Donut is a cake donut. Mom loved a good cake donut, and happily she lived close enough to Old Town donuts to get her weekly fix. I inherited her appreciation for the cake donut with the crispy crust. Deep fried cake. Who wouldn't love that? Gary. Come to find out, Gary doesn't love the cake donut. It's like I don't even know him.

Strange Donuts mix it up every day. There are a few normal donuts, but most have some little twist. At times they have a Stranger Donut. The latest was a donut crushed into a waffle shape, topped with fried chicken, to make a Chicken and Waffles donut. I missed that one, but I applaud the effort.

These were today's donuts.


 
Fat Steves
These are token "normal" donuts, the donut cousin of the white rice at the Chinese restaurant. I didn't initially plan to get these, but I wanted some donuts for Gary in case he was put off by the odd ones.



Glazed
I think this is what turned Gary against all twelve. Picture a glazed donut: a suspension of fat and sugar that dissolves in your mouth. This was not that. This was a cake donut with glaze on top, as the long johns above were cake donuts with icing on top. I understand his dismay. If they had sold me a French cruller and it was actually a cake donut, I would be none too pleased.

Maple Bacon
Well, here we go. Goodbye to the donuts that should have not been cake, on to the donuts that cannot be poor imitations because you've never had them before. This was unexpectedly bacony. 25% maple, 75% bacon. And it looked like real bacon.

 
Chocolate Whiskey Sour
Chocolate? Yes! Whiskey? No. Sour? What? Huh? That was orange glaze dribbled on it, but I couldn't taste it.

Peaches and Cream
A little too tart on the peach side, but the cream was lovely. This was one of my favorites.


 

Blueberry Lemon Sage
This was primarily cake donut, but in addition there were equal parts blueberry, lemon, and sage. 70% donut, 10% each of the lemon, blueberry and sage. I could have used more. 

Chocolate Haze
This was your classic crispy chocolate cake donut. Very nice.

Gooey Butter
Saint Louis is proud of our signature baked good, the gooey butter cake. It has a base like a chewy brownie, topped by a cloud of almost raw batter and powdered sugar. It's cake mix combined with a few sticks of butter. It's not just the taste, it's the texture. This donut asked sweet, I suppose, and buttery, but it felt like a donut.

General Custard
I asked why this donut was in the "normal" side of the display case, and the cashier answered it was just a typical custard donut. I always shun the custard donuts. No more. Never again. This was wonderful. Like an eclair, but a donut. God!

 

Rainbow Party
This was another classic donut. They could have named this Kid's Cereal Donut. Color and sugar and not much else. 

Southern Comfort(?)
This might have been named southern sunrise instead of southern comfort. I'm not sure. I didn't notice an alcohol taste, or a sunrise taste. It tasted sweet.

When I was done tasting each one, I finished off the buttery tart peach one and the chocolate custard. (If anyone is curious, all my calories today came from donuts.)  I thought about how sad it was that Gary doesn't like cake donuts - really, how did I marry him - and how my mom would have dealt with the selections at Strange Donuts. She would put on a pained expression and pitifully, patiently ask, "Don't you have any plain ...cake ... donuts?" 

Gary's Father's Day Gift From His Babies

Gary announced his intent to make turkey soup, and I announced my intent to document his turkey-soup-making process, which involves sauteeing all the vegetables separately before putting them in the soup, and then he elected to make his soup after I went to bed.

That's why he was up making soup after midnight. It was officially Father's Day when he woke me up at three a.m. I had to be up at three anyway to run a test for work, but still I could see there was something extra he wanted to tell me.

"What's up?" I asked.

"The baby raccoons attacked me," he said, and chortled.

He said:

I was waiting while the onions cooked down in the butter, and I sat back down to read my iPad at the table by the french door. The house was filled with a delicious smell of onions, and maybe some of it wafted outside. I glanced outside and saw two little heads pop up in unison by the food dish. They made eye contact with me, and then suddenly they set off running full tilt at the house!

I thought they'd stop when they got to the patio, but they flew over the patio, leapt up on the stoop, and launched into the french doors at full speed. Then they tried to break through the door! They pounded their little paws on the glass and scrabbled as hard as they could, all the while making this crazed growling sound.

I was aghast. I was worried the glass wouldn't hold. They had these big eyes that said, "I WANT TO TEAR YOUR HOUSE DOWN."

I did not scream like a woman. Instead, I started to get up, just to see how close I could get to the door before they ran away --

I stopped him in this obvious lie. "You mean, you went to open the door, and then make them a plate of sauteed onions piled into a cone shape, and then pet them and dress them up until they infected you with rabies?"

No,he said, he didn't get a chance to even consider it, because Momma Raccoon twitched her tail and the kits "froze, then vanished like Zorro into the night."

A Tale of Two Theaters: BNL / The Nice Guys

It was the best of theaters, it was the worst of theaters.

In the past week I've been entertained at the best theater I've ever been in (the Starlight Theater in Kansas City) and the worst theater (a movie theater some miles away from my home).

Best Theater: Starlight Theater in Kansas City

The Starlight Theater is in Kansas City, and frankly, it is better than any venue in Saint Louis. Here's a photo from their website:

That shows off the brick proscenium, which is itself impressive, but it doesn't show the Disney-like array of fountains and flowers and wine bars you snake past on the way to your seat. It's just ... cunning, that's the only word I can think of for it.

Our seats were not the very best, but they were good:

This was the first BNL concert I've ever been to where there were seats in the mosh pit area. One of the openers, Howard Jones, had to plead with people to stand up and dance. I eyed the aisles leading up to the stage (and the large aisle in front of my seat) and thought, "Well, I guess there'll be dancing in the aisles, then." But no. See that lady in the purple shirt? People who tried to boogie their way to an upgrade got a dance-withering stare.

(Given the recent events in Orlando, many thanks to that lady for providing any security at a concert or dance party.)

The BNL Concert was, as usual, hugely enjoyable. I haven't watched Game of Thrones but I can imagine the words to the theme are indeed, "Horses,Tits and Horses." For the first time, though, I didn't recognize most of the songs in the encore medley. I need to get on that. I'm sure if I listen to one pop radio station for one hour I'll be caught up.

My only regret is that I spent half an hour getting Moscato and I missed seeing the bulk of OMD's set.

Worst Theater: Regal Cinema in Winghaven

We went to see Two Nice Guys at a movie theater that is a few miles from us. Just a few miles away, but in the Twilight Zone.

For some reason Gary wanted to see this comedy with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. He knew the critics panned it. He was aware that he'd wanted to see it last week, and that this week suddenly we could only find it in one theater.

But, then, he read this quote, and he was sold.

"Dad, there are whores here n'stuff."
"Don't say 'n'stuff.' Just say, Dad, there are whores here."

And, to be fair, I laughed out loud a number of times. I also sat there in  ... what's the German word for bored and in disbelief? Unglaubengelangweilt. I was in Unglaubengelangweilt. There was a final chase scene that must have lasted twenty minutes. EVERY car blew up (with no provocation.) EVERY major character crashed through something made of glass. EVERY minor character fell from a great height. Ridiculous, but not hah-hah ridiculous.

And the venue? A movie is supposed to take you out of your environment, and it didn't, because our environment was just creepy.

A) This cinema in Winghaven is one of the Regal Cinema chain. I have never heard of this chain. It's all AMC and Weherenberg in my suburbs. During the trailers various celebs showed up in pre-show ads promoting Regal cinemas. It was like we were at an off-brand cinema.

B) I don't know about other Regal cinemas, but the row we sat in had only two seats, because the rest had been removed ... I assume because of blood splatter or vomit or something else. Or, perhaps, they're replacing them with the leather reclining heated seats and our row was the only one they'd done the demo on.

C) It was isolated in a spooky farm field. This theater sits on a new exit in highway 40, Winghaven, where they opened the MasterCard headquarters ten years ago. There's a fancy shopping center, and executive homes I once gawked at, and a place where I once spent fifty dollars for lunch. However,  the theater's not on the executive side of the highway, it's on the other side, and in my city that makes all the difference. There's nothing on that side of the highway but wildlife. You can tell they situated themselves in the middle of an imaginary shopping district that never materialized.

I suppose to be completely parallel, with good venue/ good art / good staff in KC, the cinema should have bad venue / bad art / bad employees, but all the employees were great. Funny, helpful, laid back, great. I had four interactions. The ticket seller was funny, the concession guys were helpful, and the ticket taker let us wander in and out for the hour we spent killing time because Gary will be late for weddings, funerals, but THE MOVIE IS STARTING IN NINETY MINUTES WE CANNOT BE LATE.

Summary

I'd go back to the Starlight to see a bad play, and I'd go back to the Regal Cinema to see BNL.

Counselor

So I did go see a counselor, and it was not what I expected. I think I expected someone to call me on my bullshit, and my bullshit was not called on, Instead, she was very supportive of my concerns. She listened, and was calm, and yet horrified at the appropriate times.

She had three suggestions. I've got two weeks to do these things. I don't want to do any of them, but of course I'm not taking care of myself well right now, that's why I'm seeing a counselor.

A. Go back on just a wee dose of the Celexa. I'm waiting until the next time I have a teary episode. Of course, I cried a few times in her office, but I did not sob. Gary, of course, has been campaigning for the Celexa for weeks. "So I won't cry when you treat me like crap," I say.

B. Call a friend and cry to them, instead of Gary, since Gary isn't objective and will make the situation more emotional.

C. Hang on to this plastic pebble she gave me when i start to get emotional. I'm afraid I couldn't contain my skepticism when she made this recommendation. I don't want to do this any more than I want to take the drugs again instead of dealing with things, or crying to a friend instead of dealing with things, but it's supposed to promote Mindfulness, which is supposed to be a documented stress-reducer. I can't turn my back on stress relief, given that stress makes the MS worse.

Still .. holding a rock and going to my happy place doesn't seem like an effective way to deal with my emotions. Thrashing things out in my head seems like a better plan. I guess if the issue is that I've lost my mom and I fear losing Gary, and loss isn't something you can fix, you just have to deal. Fight isn't working, so flight is the prescription. For the next two weeks, anyway.

.

 

The Happy Event

Mr. and Mrs. Gary S______

Are happy and proud to announce

After months of waiting and pounds of dog food

The Arrival

of Five Bouncing Happy Kits

at 2:34 a.m.

on the Seventh of June

There was one touch and go moment.

The kits hung out off and on till 5:15 am.

Testing the Mental Health

Since I made the appointment with the counselor two weeks ago, I've cried only once. I suppose this is like when you schedule a haircut, prompting your hair to look as cute as possible.

The last bout of tears was when we were driving to see Ken in the hospital. Gary was relating how Ken refused to "let" his wife call 911, and I said "Don't be that stubborn." I meant, "Don't be that stubborn when you are 92 and get pneumonia," but Gary thought it was just a random comment his present attitude, and set into me. A simple miscommunication, but somehow it turned into a big deal. Since then, he's been a cuddly bear.

I think the real issue is that both of us fear losing the other, because it's obvious now that it'll happen someday. I lost Mom, he was at risk of losing his Dad. Maybe we're both just suffering from the pressure of loss that we don't speak about.

Secrets. Hate them. Especially secrets I keep from myself.