Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

In Which I Experiment

There was a time in my life when I had thin, fine, long, curly hair. It is now thinner by at least 50%, finer, curlier, and shorter - because it falls out before it can grow. The hairs that stay taper into invisibility. In the photo below my bangs are actually below my nose, you just can't see the bottom three inches because it's so fine.

You know, my hair. I've mentioned it before.

(A particularly bad photo. My face is as lopsided as Sarah Huckabee Sanders. And she has great hair to counter it.)

There was a brief shining moment in which I had really healthy hair - and it was because I was between MS drugs, so it wasn't worth the payoff.

A friend at work knows all the hair replacement ins and outs, and she brought in one of her now-discarded wigs for me to try on.

I always thought that if I was going to go Wig, I'd go Big. Massive piles of big luscious hair.

Nope.

 
 

And I will tell you why. Because I look odd. I've been trying to analyze why I look so odd. I think that usually, my pitiful hair halo must distract the viewer from everything else that is wrong with all my other hairs. Eyebrow hairs? Way too much eyebrow filler. Eyelash hairs? Utterly gone - so much so that there isn't much for the mascara to hang on to. And the 55 year old lady fuzzy face hair? All there.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by my good-natured face, and the fact that even given the Worst Photo Angle Ever With The Photographer Positioned Below You The Horror, I don't look too fat. Growing gracefully into my baggy grandma eyes and crepe neck. Just hairless in the wrong spots and too artificially hairy in the right spots.

Gary did not react well to the photo. ("You look like you have a raccoon on your head. This is as bad as the Brazilian ten years ago.") Friends in the office unanimously said it was too much hair for me to handle. Friend #3 tried to convince me I could pull it off if I pulled it back, so it would seem like less hair. (Friend #3. She has gorgeous thick straight hair.)

Hm, I thought, maybe I've been wrong. Maybe I should try a wig with less hair. Then I remembered, Mom... she had fine hair too, and I still have the wig she had in the late sixties. Maybe she got a wispy wig that would be appropriate for a baby-haired lady.

Nope.

 

My Mom, Angie Dickinson.

So, the struggle continues. Evidently there are many other options out there. Perhaps the Bumble and Bumble Textured hairspray that arrives on Monday will be the answer.

Trivia Roller Coaster

Up: Last night's trivia was at the Foundry Art Center, a very short drive from my home. I love the locale, especially since the upper floors are filled with artists in loft spaces.

Down: Even though I've been there many times, last night I missed an exit and got mired in a local movie/entertainment area for ten minutes.

Up: I bought raffle tickets to enter the art raffle. There was a lot of exciting art, much of it not raffled off, but I was interested in a number of the raffle items as well.

Down: Turns out I mistakenly bought tickets to the basket raffle instead of the art raffle.

Up: I won the oil painting starter kit basket raffle. Goodbye guitar hobby, hello oil painting hobby. At least this hobby only cost me $10 in raffle tickets for the supplies.

Up: We were tied for first after the first round.

Down: We were tied with six other teams.

Up: We were alone in first after the fourth round.

Down: Some other team edged up on us and took first place from us for a round.

Up: We got it back and won by one point. Of course we returned the money, as you do, but I came out ahead anyway because I won the $150 oil painting kit.

Down: Oil paints are very messy. I see why people rent studios in the Art Foundry instead of painting at home.

Gary's Retun to Cooking

Now that he's over the flu Gary has returned to his cooking duties. He hasn't wanted to task himself too much, so he started with Rice-a-Roni. We've never had Rice-a-Roni before. (I don't even really know how the box got in our house; I think he might have bought it for his parents but the flavor didn't suit them.)

He announced he was making the Rice-a-Roni at 6:00 pm.

At 6:07 he said "Dinner's ready."

I knew something was wrong."How is that possbile? How did you make it?"

He boasted, "I added my own flavors, and some chopped tomatoes. It's really good."

"No, how did you make it that fast? Is it instant rice?"

"IT'S FINE IT'S DELICIOUS."

It was not delicous.The fluid did permeate the outer layer of the rice,but only barely, so each grain was a hard pellet encased in a gummy shroud that stuck to my teeth. It was bad enough that I couldn't eat it, and I try to eat everything he makes. Gary wolfed his down insisting that "IT'S JUST AL DENTE."

It was a new dish for him, so I gave him a pass, and, I don't know, maybe some people like gummy rice pellets and that's why it's considered the San Francisco Treat.

The next day he didn't feel up to tackling his usual steak or chicken, so he tried another new dish, a frozen meal-in-a-bag.

Five minutes after he started I heard a small explosion from the kitchen, plus a high-pitched shriek, plus some cursing. I didn't even go in. I can't go running every time he shrieks, especially now that the ants have invaded our kitchen again.

When we sat down to eat I asked if the screaming was ant-related. "No," he said. "Stupid directions."

I was impressed, because he had learned from his Rice-a-Roni mistake and was at least reading the directions.

He continued, "The first direction was to heat the oil, which I did, then the next direction showed a picture of a measuring cup of water, and I thought, well, that's not right, I can't add water to hot oil but I followed the directions, and of course it exploded."

I thought, there is no way a company told him to fry water. Something is missing from this story.

I asked, "They didn't say to add anything to the pan, like garlic or onions ..."

"Well, yeah, I looked at it again after it blew up and it did say to add meat. But there wasn't a picture. I was following the pictures."

"Because you're what, suddenly illiterate?"

"The words are tiny!"

All this time I thought he was just too stubborn to think that someone else could tell him how to make food. ("THESE RICE-A-RONI PEOPLE ARE TELLING ME TO OVERCOOK THIS RICE. FOOLS.") In reality, he just can't see the small print. I sympathize. I had to print out the Toll House cookie directions a few years ago because the print on the bag is too small.

I said, "Oh, stop right there. If it's in a box or bag I'm making it from now on. You are not making anything else with directions." Small print doesn't stop me. I've been known to take a high-def photo of small print and enlarge it on the phone to be able to read it.

Happily, last night he made some direction-free pasta and it was perfect. 

Spice Revolution

The other day I got some onion powder out of my spice rack and it rattled. That's when I realized my spices are old.

(They aren't as old as those 1970's tins would suggest - I buy new spices and funnel them in.)

America's Test Kitchen has done some taste tests in which Penzeys spices have held up well.  I pocketed Gary's newer supermarket onion powder along with my petrified onion powder and headed to Penzeys. (Yes, we have separate spices. Separate accounts/beds/spices, kids, that's the secret to marital bliss.) I would say I headed out to see how Penzeys compared, but I suspect the plural possessive of Penzeys, which is itself a plural possessive they just gave up on, might be Penzeyses.)

That plan failed once I got there because I snorted too much of his into my sinuses and I was overloaded. I couldn't tell the difference between Penzeys and his preferred spice brand, Spice Islands. So, just assume all my plural possessives will be wrong for this post, because if I tried you'd see things like "Spice Islandses sample compared well with Penzeyes sample."

My nose recovered enough to be able to tell the difference between Ceylon cinnamon and Chinese cinnamon, though. I know in the rest of the world Chinese cinnamon is just called cinnamon. Of course I got both (one for sprinkling and one for cooking) and then I smelled the granulated toasted onion and had to have that.

Of course I ended up restocking a third of my spices, plus extra things like the fancy cinnamon and the toasted onion. Happily I was able to resist the vanilla because I have a giant vodka bottle of home-brewed vanilla in my cupboard. (Lah LAH. Fancy. No, you just steep vanilla beans in cheap vodka for half a year.)

And it occurred to me that if I like vanilla-flavored vodka and Coke, I might really like vodka-flavored vanilla and Coke. Hm. And I could have Chinese cinnamon toast too. Hm. Interesting.

Of course, since I came home excited about spices, Gary had to be the voice of reason and point out everything wrong with my plans. (I didn't tell him about the vanilla Coke.)  I've been making him Butter Chicken while he's had the flu THE LAST SIX WEEKS, so if he doesn't let up on the scorn I'm going to put the wrong cinnamon in my next batch of Butter Chicken. Then we'll see who the spice snob is.

Triple Witching Day Miscellany

• Holiday

There needs to be some term for when three holidays fall on the same day. You often get a Passover/Easter overlap, but when it hits April Fools Day, I just don't know how to act. Even though picturing Christ emerging from the tomb and giggling "April Fools!" is pretty satisfying.

• Passwords

I spent six hours yesterday changing all my passwords. (Usually, this is where I'd type "I do it every year," only some websites cheerily told me I last changed it three years ago.)  Six hours. Sixty-eight passwords. I know there must be some new technology that I can use. I was very particular about changing my password safe, ticking each one off the printed list, and now it occurs to me I didn't shred the printed list.

(One hour interlude while I locate the shredder and shred the list).

• Guitar Update

In my crawl toward my goal of playing both the melody and accompaniment, I have made a small breakthrough. It looks like I'm 3/4th of the way there on Blowin In The Wind. I can play the melody notes and 2 of the three harmony notes. Now I just need to train my thumb to hit the bass notes. Of course, my "thumb" is actually my birth defect, so it'll be extra inspiring when I get it right.

• Druuuuugs: The Reckoning

You know how I have that great deal in which the drug company pays my deductible each year, so essentially I pay nothing for my $6,300 a month MS drug? It's a great deal for me. Of course I'm aware it sucks for the insurance company, and no doubt all our rates are higher because of it. Well, the insurance company sent me a letter stating that they wouldn't let the drug company do that any more. I protested as much as I could, and then gave in, since the drugs go generic next year and then my drug company free ride is over anyway. Even if the generic is 90% off, it's still $630 a month ... or $7,560 a year, so I might as well get used to paying my deductible anyway. Technically, I've got four years worth of deductibles invested in my health care savings account, because I knew this day woud come. I'm not complaining, I got nine years worth of fabulous drugs for free. I'm not complaining about my MS effectively being cured either. I'll pay what I have to for stable MRIs. And now if I go on the generic version, we get to see how much of my total remission is due to the placebo effect. Science!