Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Spring Cleaning

I understand why people wait until spring to clean. Everything looks so filthy in the winter light anyway, so why bother? You clean, and then the sun shines a floodlight at floor level and every speck of dust casts a foot-long shadow.

But last week I was outside and the air was full of oxygen, and I thought, "I could go back home and clean." But I did not, because the sun was setting.

That made me wonder, what are the perfect conditions for spring cleaning?

1. Your house has to be reasonably clean already, because spring cleaning is devoted to crazy stuff like dusting the baseboards and door tops.
2. The house must be filled with spring sunlight, and ALL the interior lights must be on, the better to see the filth.
3. Daffodils must be up so you can place a vase of them on your table.
4. It cannot have rained in the last day, because wet footprints will mar your shiny floor.
5. No one can have mowed in the last day, again, because you don't want grass bits on your floor.
6. It cannot be too hot. Eighty degrees is too hot.
7. It has to be a weekend, because you won't get the full sun during work hours in the spring.

And of course, this is why I haven't done any spring cleaning for ...let me think ... five years.

Cookbook

So here is my 1,000+ page America's Test Kitchen Cookbook. (Sans dust jacket: dust jackets are bogus).

I went through the index and started putting post-its on all the pages that interested me.

I used up the entire pad.

I am very excited. 

Snare Drum

I was sitting in the balcony at Powell Hall, listening to the Messiah last Christmas, when I asked Anne, "Do you feel that? Is this entire row of seats vibrating like the balcony's about to collapse?"

"Not that I've noticed," she said, calmly.

At intermission I walked about and was able to report that either the entirety of Powell Hall was vibrating or that it was just me having some type of internal episode.

***********

A few weeks ago at the end of the Apollo 11 documentary I noticed that the vibrations were back in force — there was a snare drum in my pelvis playing a drum roll.

**********

The next week I was leaning forward in the computer chair, and the vibrations felt like my heartbeat was in my belly, only racing and thready. I remembered that my grandmother died from an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

(Had I not taken that anxiety tangent, I would have gone to the Google instead and found out that internal vibrations are common, and caused by - hello - anxiety and - hello - Multiple Sclerosis.)

But instead of Googling, I thought of Grandma and used the computer to make an appointment with my GP. (Under "symptoms" I really did report there was a snare drum in my pelvis.)

**********

The night before my appointment, Gary and I finally Googled my symptom. Neither of us found aortic aneurysm: instead he found uterine cancer and I found anxiety and (after I searched the exact words "internal tremor") MS. Of course, we found these things after it was too late to cancel with the GP.

**********

Keeping the appointment seemed reasonable the night before, yet the next day while I was driving to see the GP it seemed like a really bad idea. I kept rehearsing what I would say to him, but there was just no way to say, "I am suffering from Abdominal Drumming" without sounding nuts.

So, when the nurse knitted her brow and said, "I have no record of any appointment for you," I leaned forward, poked my finger at her and said, "YES. Keep it that way."

"I can look to see - "

"NO. I was never here," and poof, like that, I was gone. When I got back to the car I discovered I was a week early, and as such had plenty of time to cancel, which I did.

I have a neurologist visit early next month. I might mention it there. Now that I've been tracking it the last few days, it seems to be simply the excitement my guts feel when I supply them with fiber. Apples and salad make my belly's heart race.

UPDATED: I Weigh In On the Saint Louis Bagel Controversy

 I went out, and while I was getting the car washed, a Saint Louisan tweeted this photo of vertically sliced bagels:

His tweet says, "Today I introduced my co-workers to the St. Louis secret of ordering bagels bread-sliced. It was a hit!"

And then of course the internet turned on him. Can you imagine, you send out a nice little tweet and suddenly you're you are the number one topic on Facebook?

I have had bagels sliced this way, and as I replied to Alex:

1. More cream cheese delivery surface.
2. Less than 250 calories per serving.
3. No one gets the crappy side vs the puffy side.*

I don’t ask for this slice pattern, but I think it's polite to slice bagels this way. I support, you, bagel guy.

* Of course, equal portions isn’t always important in Saint Louis, given that we deliberately slice pizzas in squares, not wedges.

=========

UPDATE: Panera (which operates here under the "Saint Louis Bread Company" name) has peppered the metro area with these billboards.

Gary’s Birthday

A week ago, on Gary’s birthday, I called him to see if he wanted some acknowledgment of his day. We have this debate every year. Gary feels that since he is celebrated and pampered every day of his birthday month, any celebration on the actual day is moot. Every day in March is his birthday. I was not raised with the "birthday month" hogwash tradition and I need to mark the day.

"Let's go out to dinner," I begged him. "Let's go to that place where you had Piglet, the pork chop."

"Okay, sure," Gary sighed. "I'll shave."

Five minutes later, he called me back, all pouty.

"It's MY birthday and I don't want to go out. I want you to come home and bring me Chinese food."

Bringing home dinner is not a celebration, I thought. Bogus.

So instead of just bringing home Chinese, I zipped over to the bookstore and bought him a copy of Salt Fat Acid Heat, so he doesn't start thinking he can get away with ordering me to bring home Chinese every night. To counter his no-recipe cooking style, I also got myself a copy of America's Test Kitchen's Giant Compendium of Every Recipe Ever Plus the Complete Winners of Every Food and Equipment Challenge Oh My God (and if you are intrigued buy it there on Amazon where it is essentially half the price.)

Driving to get the Chinese I noticed a newly-opened Mellow Mushroom pizza parlor -- the same place we enjoyed in Asheville, NC. So he got a book, a pizza, and Chinese food for his birthday. Everything he never asked for.

Pixies/Weezer

When a friend posted on Facebook that he had to unload some Pixies tickets, I thought back to our missed Pixies concert. "This is meant to be," I said. After an easy transaction the tickets were on my printer.

And, even better, the seats were great:

And, even better, when I posted that photo on Facebook, I discovered that Friend #2 was at the same concert, and she came by to say hi.

And, even better, Pixies were great in a legendary, historic kind of way, and Weezer was great in a  showmanship kind of way.

People sat for Pixies and stood for Weezer, which seems a little wrong given how influential Pixies were. I liked their music better, but I could not make out most of their words.

The sitting and standing proved to be difficult for Gary. He seemed to get stuck in his seat. I couldn't understand why. Then, after the man next to me almost elbowed me in the bosom during a Weezer-inspired air punch, I moved to Gary's seat and found it was a full third smaller than all the other seats.

Gary even danced a little, and he's been quite the homebody lately, so it was good to see him enjoy himself again.

Muzak Timeslip

I went in to Wendy's the other day for what must have been the first time in thirty years. Last time I went there, the burgers were square and the tables looked like this:

The tables no longer have the antique newspaper ads printed on them, and I can't tell you if the burgers are square because I had a baked potato.

The baked potatoes are the same as thirty years back, and so is the music. I was alone, with an hour to kill, so I was able to listen closely to the Muzak, specifically Caribbean Queen.

As best as I can tell, Billy Ocean is singing "Caribou Queen." When I listened closely, I made out "Caribyew Queen." I had to go to the internet to find out the lyrics, and then Wikipedia to see that in other countries it is "African Queen" and "European Queen." ("Yuropeen Queen," to my ears.)

From SongFacts:

The first version of this song was titled "European Queen (No More Love On The Run)" and released in the UK. In went nowhere, so Ocean and his team edited the song, changing it to "Caribbean Queen." This version was a hit in both the US and UK. A third version, "African Queen," was made for that continent. The video was edited for the different versions so Ocean would be singing the right words.

Only, you know, he isn't singing the right words. The "Caribyewn" isn't a place. Caribbean is four syllables, no matter how you pronounce it.

Later that night I was in the grocery and I heard Heart and Soul over the muzak, of all things. Evidently Train made a single that uses the tune. I wanted to yell at the ceiling, "Why did you change the words? They were adorable!"

Sin Upon Sin

8:45 am: apple for breakfast, because I am visiting the new Dapper Donut mini-donut franchise and I don't want to be hungry. Just one donut.

9:00: Minimum order of donuts is three. I order three. Gary balks at three. Gary overrides me and orders 24.

9:01: Three hot mini-donuts for brunch.

9:02: Eight hot mini-donuts for brunch.

12:00: All the leftover Chinese for lunch, because all the wicked foods need to be gone by tomorrow when the diet starts anew.

4:00: Hazelnut ice cream bar that's been in the freezer for months because Gary won't eat it.

5:30: One leftover slice of pizza that MyFitnessPal says is 490 calories, which seems steep, especially since we got the thin crust, St. Louisans that we are.

It is 10:19. I am going to go eat the last bit of garbage food that is floating around the house (a frozen Lindor truffle) and then go to bed and digest this 1,500 calories into the half a pound it is destined to be.

Progress of Bath Face

Here is where we last left the Face of Gary in the Roman Baths:

I scribbled away with the marine blue to get the values right.  This is how it looks now - his face needs to get a wash of pink so it isn't so blue:

His mouth still isn't right. He just looks cranky, not pulling a face like he is in the original photo below:

The statue's mouth is wrong as well. I think there needs to be a lot more shadow on the statue's upper lip and a shade more on Gary's.

I meant this one to be much looser, more alla prima, but it didn't happen. Since I did that one teacup value study it appears that I don’t move on until I get the darks right. So that means just like the teacups, it won’t really be right until the highlights go on, and that’s the last step.

The Torture of the Self-cleaning Oven

I opened the oven the other night and of course, smoke billowed out of it, and Gary began yelling.

"Gary, calm down. That's not the food burning, it's the stuff that dripped on to the oven floor the last time we cooked something."

"Well can't you clean that up?"

"I would if I were ever permitted to use the self-cleaning oven. I can't use it if you're in the house, and you're always home now that you're retired. Plus, it has to be spring because I need all the windows open so you can't smell even a hint of the noxious fumes. You say they poison you."

(The fumes, I admit, are noxious, and I don't know why: all the oven does is heat up to 750 degrees and incinerate all the organic material. Somehow, though, it smells like chemicals. I don't mind smelling the odor, but Gary is convinced it is going to send him into respiratory arrest.)

This time though, he shut himself in his room and "allowed" me to clean the oven. After the three-hour cremation of five years of pie fillings and pizza crumbs, I opened all the windows and doors and ran all the fans. Finally, I went in to tell him the coast was clear.

It was hard to open the door to his room because he had jammed towels under it. I’m surprised he wasn’t wearing a gas mask.

What Games Reveal

When I was in high school, Mom and Dad hosted a croquet game in the backyard.  I don’t remember the exact rule, but Dad was presented with the option to either a) proceed toward a wicket or b) wallop an opponent’s ball across the yard. He chose option b. The opponent, Bob (Mom’s best work-friend), immediately left the party, outraged.

Games seem to be designed to reveal a person’s deepest personality flaws. Dad was competitive beyond all reason. Bob .. I didn’t know him well, but I imagine that perhaps he took things too seriously. 

Gary and I played our game today in an epic four hour session. We won spectacularly, but the journey to the finish line was ugly. Our worst traits were revealed in the stress of the game.

I am impatient. Gary could not find the cards quickly enough for me, given that they were in alphabetical order. I would say ugly things like, “The Pocket Watch card is under the P’s,” and then sigh deeply. Every time. 

Gary casts blame. There was one door-opening move I chose not to take, and it cost me, because  Gary then prefaced every move with, “Well I wouldn’t have to do this if you had opened that door. What were you thinking?” He was relentless. 

We had to have a little tiff about it, and then I shut up about alphabetizing and he shut up about the damn door and then we enjoyed the game again.

Apollo 11 Part Two

Last Friday I was really cranky because neither Gary nor I had gotten a good sleep the night before, yet while Gary spent that day sleeping I spent the day working. To cheer me up, Gary suggested I go see Apollo 11 again, but this time he went with me.

I noticed a few things I missed the first time.

1. I confused Florida Launch Control and Mission Control, so it is still possible I got pushed out of Mission Control.
2. Michael Collins jaunty moustache grew quite a bit during their 18-day post-voyage isolation.
3. Three cinematographers listed in the credits are the Apollo 11 astronauts.
   I looked it up on IMDB, and it says, "Several of the recordings captured by the astronauts during the mission are featured in this documentary. These recordings by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins earned them honorary memberships in the American Society of Cinematographers."

What Sparks Joy

Though I've never read Marie Kondo's book or seen her show, I like the term "Sparking Joy."

Here is a list of what consistently sparks joy in my life.

1. Watching the opening credits of Last Week Tonight and hitting the pause button at just the right second to see the weekly custom title card.
2.  Saying "Alexa, turn on the light" and having the light magically turn on.
3. Walking from the house into a fully-lit garage or basement ... those happy welcoming lights are on every minute.
4. Coming home from work and seeing Gary's car in the garage, after years of coming home to an empty house.
5. Coming over the hill on Page heading West after Bennington and looking at that fairly unsullied horizon.
6. The key change when Pete Seeger sings We Shall Overcome at Carnegie Hall.
7. The morning hair-washing / tea-making ceremony without a wasted second, in which I wash my hair in the four minutes it takes to steep my tea.
8. The way my soda can fits in my pulled-out bedside table drawer, and how the power-strip and music books fit in the side panels of the guest room sleigh bed.
9. The pantry, with the pots and pans hanging on hooks and the spices in tins on the back of the door.
10. The black-eyed Susans outside the kitchen window.
11. The daffodils that still come up outside the laundry room at the end of February.
12. Mom's picture filed in my bill basket.
13. The powerstrips installed under the desk and table that so there are no droopy wires. Everything is dressed so snugly that it looks as if  the table is wireless.
14. Waking up every day without an alarm, because I'm done sleeping.
15. The framed silkscreen of me from high school.

High School

I heard some co-workers comment that their teenager feels self-conscious all the time. Of course, everyone dismissed it with "every teenager feels that way," but then later it occurred to me that perhaps yes, teenager, you ARE being watched all the time.

1. I distinctly remember when I was dating Virgil, a lunch lady mentioned to me that she enjoyed his performance in a recent play. "He's your boyfriend, isn't that right?" Well, yes, but I didn't think the lunch ladies followed our entanglements as if we were featured in US Weekly.

2. It was astonishing how many utter strangers remembered me at my tenth reunion. There were 700 people in my graduating class. The strangers would explain that we had lockers in the same hall, or that I was in their geometry class. I never ever said a word in geometry, yet this stranger watched me closely enough to remember my name ten years later.

3. You don't even need a reunion now to realize how many strangers were watching you, you just need to get on Facebook and see all the friend requests from people you should remember from your teens, but don't.

Add to that all the times you met a friend's mom and she exclaimed, "Oh, YOU'RE Ellen. My daughter talks about you all the time." Remember how you and your friend would want to die of shame? That Mom was speaking the truth: all teenagers should feel self-conscious because they are indeed being watched.

Public Service Announcement

This is a public service announcement.

If you have an expensive drug, a high insurance deductible, a mail order specialty pharmacy, a very nice Co-pay assistance program, and a health savings account, know one thing.

This is the order of billing:

1. First billed: Your husband’s HSA card, because it is on auto-pay.

2. Then they bill: Anything else.

Even if you say, “Be sure to put any payments on the two co-pay assistance cards, and don’t touch the HSA.” Doesn’t matter, because you explained that to the human, but the computer does the billing, and the computer taps into the auto pay card immediately, even if it is your husband’s card used for his dinky little non-specialty stuff.

Luckily Gary did something that caused me to look at the HSA and I discovered to my horror that my year’s deductible had been sucked out of there (instead of handed over to the co-pay program). I spoke to a very nice man at Express Scripts pharmacy and he explained that auto-pay doesn’t play well with others.

I would have been very calm and mindful, but regrettably this happened after Gary got me up at one am with a false alarm saying that he had lost his medicine. Happily, he found his meds, I found the deductible issue, and everything got straightened out eventually after one sleepless night. 

I’m trying to turn this into a positive by raising awareness of the evil that is the auto-pay pharmacy card. FYI.

Gary's Hobbies

I was digging around in the junk drawer and I saw some junk I did not recognize. After some research, I realized it was a wine foil splitter from back in the day when Gary was into wine, five years ago. Gary dropped wine four and a half years ago, because he follows his interests until BAM suddenly he's off wine, or biking, or making pie. “I am off lifting weights.” And weights are then dead to him.

At least I drop interest in hobbies as soon as I buy some expensive accessory. Gary gives no warning.

Gary's current interest is the Mansions of Madness board game. He owns every expansion pack and fiddly accessory you can find on Etsy. We’ve played it since Christmas. We have won exactly one round.

We were considering having some friends over to play, until he decided we would need to take the iPad that the game runs on and plug it into a giant monitor so everyone can see it, and do we have any monitors large enough, and maybe we need to buy -

"Stop right there." I said. "We are not buying a big-screen TV to play games on."

And since then he hasn't played the game. It's taking up our entire dining room table and we haven't touched it for two weeks. Now I fear he’s off games forever. Then again, maybe this is the secret to making him drop his hobbies. Maybe I’ve cracked the code on how to make Gary drop an obsession I don’t like. Maybe I just need to tell him his 18 hours cable news binges are using up too much electricity.

China?

Ah, jeez. I read that now if I want to travel to Europe I have to get a visa (though I also read that maybe I don’t).

I might as well get a visa, because the way Gary's been waking me up to show me photos of temples perched on top of spiky Chinese mountains, I suspect he may want to go to China.

He woke me up to look at that photo at two in the morning. I asked if he’d like to see that.

"No," he says, "I could never climb that high."

I just sent him a link. China for Seniors. I bet a helicopter would drop us at the top.

 

New Toy

Last week Gary bought this dog dish, because Gary feels his parents’ dog is no longer challenged by licking treats out of a Kong. Evidently pets like to chase their food around.

After it arrived I said, "You know who would love that? The raccoons." I know that our raccoons feel their lives are too easy.

He surprised me by saying, "I would love to use that. I should at least test it out."

"I just bought grapes."

It was surprisingly difficult.

George Bernard PShaw

What’s your opinion of George Bernard Shaw? My opinion just plummeted in half an hour last night.

Here's what happened. I thought of that line, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

I reminded myself that George Bernard Shaw said that. Then I figuratively patted myself on the head for knowing that. Then I wondered, “What play is that from? Major Barbara? I bet it is. I’ll look that up.” 

Nope. It isn’t. I don’t know why I thought GBS said that: the Internet said definitively it was said first by Irina Dunn,  then made popular by Gloria Steinem. 

Annoyed, I wondered, “Why did I think that was Shaw? I suppose because he has strong female characters. You know, like how he was interested in phonetics, so he’s the guy who proposed you could use G-H-O-T-I to spell ‘fish’.”

Looked that up. Again, not George Bernard Shaw, but at least it’s often credited to him instead of its originator, Charles Ollier.

So, I had started the night thinking I knew five things about GBS: 1. Paired fish and bicycles (wrong), 2. Invented creative spelling of fish (wrong), 3. Wrote Pygmalion (confident about this one), 4. Wrote Major Barbara (checked and verified), 5. Wrote Passion, Poison and Petrifaction (hard to believe)

Back in my Senior year of high school, I told Mom I was going to be in a production of Passion, Poison and Petrifaction, a one-act play by George Bernard Shaw. It was a small role, the Landlady, but it was all written out phonetically so the cockney accent was easy. Here I am in costume in a typically awkward pose (I'm facing forward):

My prom date Virgil played Adolphus.

Mom cornered me after she saw our performance. “I thought you said George Bernard Shaw wrote that!”

“He did!”

“What, did he write it in junior high school? That play was awful.”

You can go here and judge for yourself.

Last night, because I was already questioning everything I thought I knew about GBS, I double-checked and he did indeed write it, as an adult, the same year he wrote Major Barbara. He wrote it to raise funds for charity, though, and dashed it off in a few weeks.

So, that is why my option of him took a nose-dive in one night. He isn’t responsible for two clever quotes I’d attributed to him, and I re-read the horrible P,P,&P play. Not the man I (erroneously) gave him credit for.

Shape-Shifters and Double Agents

If I'm watching a movie, the second any character is revealed to be either:

1. A shape-shifter or

2. A double agent

... that's the moment I groan and check out. I am not going to invest any energy in a movie that intends to confuse me.

Oh, and while I'm complaining, add all those Mission Impossible movies to that list. I'm not going to follow each scene on two tracks: the one in which I believe that's Tom Cruise, and another in which I guess which evil character has donned an absurdly accurate Tom Cruise mask.

 

Crust, Continued

Of all the crusts I have made since my big crust breakthrough, I would say all told only 40 percent of them were good. Most were sandy, or tough, or tender to the point of dissolving. I just could not get a reliable result even though I felt the raw dough was consistently the same. 

This weekend, just when I was planning to make quiche, I watched America’s Test Kitchen and The Ladies were recommending we take a new approach to pie crust: a food processor.

”Done that,” I yawned, “and it was not good.” I am a purist.

I ignored the recipe until they grated some butter and froze it. 

I sat up. “What was that again?” It was almost like the frozen butter dots I wanted last year.

The Ladies explained that the way you you make this processor crust is that you combine two doughs: one for tenderness and stability and another for flake, instead of trying to make one crust that can do both and always erring to far on one side: too stable or too flaky. 

The next day I made two batches, one with unbleached flour and one with bleached, and the unbleached one was significantly easier to roll out, so it won.

Looookit. Yum.

Here you go. I really recommend you watch the episode of America’s Test Kitchen if you want the science and the The Ladies amusing commentary.

• Take 10 Tbls cold unsalted butter. Grate off 2 Tbls and freeze, then cube the rest.
• Weigh 3.75 oz all purpose unbleached flour and add 1 Tbls sugar and 1/2 tsp salt.
• Put the flour mixture in a food processor and pulse twice.
• Add cubed butter and process for about 30 seconds until it turns into a ball. 
• Take that ball out and break it into pieces and put them back around the blade.
• Sprinkle 2.5 oz flour on top and then pulse five times to make the dough incorporated and crumbled.
• Take the crumbly mixture, put it in a glass bowl, and add the shredded frozen butter.
• Stir in 2 Tbls ice water.
• Press the mix with a spatula to judge if it seems rollable or if it needs another tablespoon of water. If it does, add an extra 1-2 Tbls ice water.
• Make into a tight 5 inch disk, wrap in cellophane wrap and rest in fridge 2 hours (yes! surprising!) to 2 days.
• Sit the disc out for ten minutes, then roll it and put it in the pie pan.
• Rest in fridge 30min before baking at 350.

 

Pie of Lies

When I was diagnosed twenty years ago someone, probably my neurologist, drew a pie chart that showed that when diagnosed, 10% of people with MS have the mild kind, 40% have the relapsing-remitting kind, and half have the progressive kind. I was in the 40%. "Cool," I thought. Already, I was winning.

Then, he divided my 40% pie slice in half, to show that only 50% of my type would jump slices to the progressive slice of the pie. I had already dismissed the bad side of the pie, so I saw this:

"Well, that's nothing to worry about," I thought. Tiny slice of bad news.  I was comforted to see my impending doom sliced up into manageable bits.

Of course, at the time I was actively brain-damaged, and did not recognize this for the Jedi mind trick that it was, and I can't even say that I let go of that pie chart memory until last month, when I tried to find it for a co-worker with a newly-diagnosed friend. I looked for it on the MS Society website, where they do not have my interactive, diminishing pie chart. Instead, they have many disheartening line charts, with lines that go up and do not come all the way back down like I have always assumed they do. 

Since I saw that pie chart years ago, my MS has taken a ridiculously easy course. Only two relapses and then stopped in its tracks by the Gilenya. No relapses for eleven years. Bye, bye, MS Progressive Pie. 

I am not looking at those line charts again, because while I realize now that the pie is a lie, it still comforts me. It’s a sugar pie, made of placebos, I guess, and we know that placebos still work, even when you know they’re a lie.

Latest Oil Painting

My latest painting attempt: I want to reproduce this photo of Gary in Bath:

So far, it looks like this:

They had to cozy up to go from the landscape photo to the square canvas. I sketched the outline in paint before I decided I might want to glaze instead of alla prima. Next step: I need to shade Gary's face.

New Apollo 11 Documentary

Gary is a still a little sick, so I left him at home while I went to watch the new Apollo 11 documentary. 

Summary: Do you get excited when you hear there are lost episodes of The Honeymooners or I Love Lucy? This is The Moon: the Lost Episodes. Remember that beautiful footage of rocket stages dropping away into space? Evidently NASA lost the equally stunning film of the Eagle docking with the command module, and Buzz getting out of the LEM, and now it’s all in this movie along with Kissinger greeting the astronauts and astronauts shaving in space and Michael Collins and his jaunty mustache. Dazzling.

Detail:

• I saw it on an IMAX screen, from a seat in the third row. That was actually great, because it filled my entire field of vision and all the coughing and germs stayed behind me in row six where the good seats were. 
• It was a little exhausting because I had to keep looking left to right to catch everything. I gobbled that movie up with my eyes.
• I was also exhausted because every time there was a photo of a crowd of people I had to scan over every face for technical father Jerry. It sounds pitiful, but he could have been there. Really, he worked there at that time.
• I have always thought that when I was five, Jerry pushed me out of Mission Control during our tour of NASA, but my brother contends it was the computer room, and evidently he is right. There is an amazing dolly shot of Mission Control, and the exterior is not where I was told that girls were not allowed.
• Seriously, though, how do you LOSE film of a billion dollar space mission? Did you confuse it with the footage of all the other moon missions going on at the time? 

Spam Spam Spam Spammity Spam

Recently I read my gMail spam folder. It's all scams: they'll send a huge payout if I send them what seems like a relative pittance.  Scammers have branched out from the Nigerian prince's millions and are promising a variety of things as payout. The most intriguing was a red diplomatic box I supposedly forgot in a locker at Heathrow airport.

The pittance I was supposed to send to secure the payout varied as well. Most emails were looking for a few hundred dollars as a "processing fee" or to cover the FedEx bill, but this request surprised me. (Edited for incomprehensible content.)

THE BOARD [of] DIRECTORS OF WESTERN UNION AND FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE ... STATED THAT YOU ONLY HAVE 5 HOURS GIVEN TO RECEIVE YOUR FIRST PAYMENT OF $3,000 USD BUT YOU [must first] SEND [this] DEMAND WHICH IS ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU HAVE, JUST TO PROVE HOW SERIOUS YOU ARE.

CapsLock scammers, you got me going with the Western Union / Finance Ministry alliance. Why back down with “ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU HAVE?” Points off for lack of commitment to your craft.

I thought it was interesting that the most creative scammers only wanted information instead of cash. The humblest request came from a Mrs. Grace Felix: a lovely woman regrettably trapped in Syria who would send me her all funds if I just sent her my name, address, and cell phone number. I liked her immediately.  You get an A+, Grace Felix email scammer. I'm sure you would not have been as nice on my cell phone when the real scam began.

Another request for information came from a diplomat, who had a been visited by some Australians assuring him that I was dead. “You are giving 24hrs to confirm that you are still alive. If you are still alive, You are to contact me back immediately with the below information.”

The emails from the scammers who only wanted information were much better written than the ones that demanded up-front good-faith cash. I suppose scammers going for the long con paid more attention in school. 

A number of the writers were advanced enough to employ irony. Christopher Wray, F.B.I. agent, was concerned that I had not yet received my funds.

I notice that you have being receiving numerous emails from people who claims to have funds coming to you ... those people has being investigated and confirmed to be a Fraud.

(The F.B.I is not the only agency looking out for me. The combined forces of the BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION and THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT warned me about corrupt and frivolous Bank officials diverting my funds to "their private accounts in order to satisfy their selfish interests.” That little bit of self-awareness tickled me.)

But the very best spam email came from the Widow Calista Gibson. It's well capitalized, and punctuated, and it had some nice exposition and character development too. In just a few paragraphs she sketched out her cancer diagnosis, her millions, and her spat with her brother-in-law. Go here if you want to read it in full. I've read other Dying Widow scam emails now, and the one that came to me is just a work of art. She ends with:

Please reply now as my health is pretty bad, It’s urgent and very important you keep this email confidential.
Have a blessed day and do not forget to pray for me.

Balls. Ballllls, Mrs. Gibson. If the Nigerian Prince has his own Wikipedia page, I think The Widow Calista Gibson deserves her own entry.

 

Eureka Springs

Mom would stock up on groceries in the fall and then not set foot out of her house all winter. "I am in for the duration,” she would say. 

It looks like I will be in for the duration as well, given the viruses wafting about in the dry air, and the ice storms, and the like. I don't even have any entertainment booked until late late April, when Patton Oswalt makes up for the concert he canceled.

Because I haven't left the Saint Louis Metro area for a year, I want a vacation, even with the risks.

I'm not looking too far afield, because I'm hoarding airline miles, and also because after this week the prospect of getting into a tube filled with viruses is not appealing. One place I was considering is Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

It's supposed to be a really interesting little town, and it's only about a five hour drive away. There's allegedly an excellent art museum nearby, there's a wildlife park, and the town is supposedly a sweet little Victorian gem.

I broached it to Gary. "EUREKA SPRINGS ARE YOU CRAZY WHY WOULD I WANT TO GO TO THAT PLACE OF ..OF ...CHARLATANS?"

Evidently, among the faithful, the springs in Eureka Springs are said to have miraculous healing properties. So of course now the whole town is tainted. Strike it off the list. 

I did try a Google search for “Midwest science vacation” but that gave predictably poor results. Hmph. We will probably just run down to Saint Genevieve and visit the tiger park there.

Disease, Continued

If I have been sick in the last two weeks, and you have been sick as well, then God help you.

Our conversation goes one of two ways:

You: *Sneezes*
Me: "OH DO YOU HAVE A COLD?" (Makes Sign of Cross, leaves)

or

You: "Ugh, I just got over the worst cold last week."
Me: "Oh! I just had a cold. Did it start with insomnia, and then the next day did you have congestion for a few hours, but then that night your nose started running non-stop for the next two days, but only on one side, and then you puked and had epic diarrhea and then you felt better?"
You: "Yes!" (or sometimes, "Noooo ... ?")

I will always try to see if we had the same virus, not to find which of us is Patient Zero, but to bond. 

One time I had this conversation:

Him: "Sorry I missed the meeting last week, but I was out with the stomach flu."
Me: "Oh! I just got over the stomach flu. Did yours start with distinctive, echoing gut noises, and after that did you keep getting dizzy because all your bowel contents, like, repositioned really fast?"
Him: "Yes! It was just like that!"

And you know what, I forgave that guy for almost certainly giving my that stomach flu, because the enemy of my virus is my friend.

What Passes for News

This story was on the local news a few days ago. It's the tale of Saint Louisans who rally and come to the funeral of a local veteran who had no relatives.

I anticipate that I will die with no relatives. I have a brother who isn't in good health, I had step-relatives but we don't keep in touch, and my closest cousins are second cousins once removed whom I have never met, and  so I read this with special interest.

I think the article was written very ambiguously. Since the article does not say specifically that the crowd at the man's funeral consisted of total strangers, I think what I am reading about here is a funeral well attended by a man's friends and acquaintances.

It is remarkable that someone has friends? Is it remarkable that elderly people have friends? Is it remarkable that veterans have friends? Why is this news?

Gravity is my Dumbwaiter

We store extra toilet paper in the basement.

Late Fifties Comedies

I have a soft spot for late fifties comedies. You know, the ones with the cartoon-like soundtracks, in which a trombone makes a wah-wah editorial comment after a particularly wry joke. The ones with a calypso number in the middle. The ones that, for some mystifying reason, cost $3.99 on Amazon Prime.

I recently watched Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, so I could hear:

"She couldn't speak English, being from Texas," (Mean!)

and

(On being told that kissing a celebrity puts him in the major leagues) “I guess all my kissing up to now, that was bush league.” (Nasty!)

And then, since I had sick days to fill, I watched Send Me No Flowers, Lover Come Back, Let’s Make Love, and Down With Love, because I became hypnotized by Tony Randall. Watch Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter and tell me you aren’t watching Stephen Colbert. I can’t tell you why, though: it’s something about his timing or inflection.

And, if you are wondering why I didn’t watch Pillow Talk, I have every word of that movie memorized, so it isn’t funny to me anymore. Well, except for “it’s MY place,” that line kills me every time. 

 

Disease

It is cold and flu season and, right on schedule, I have a cold.

Last cold and flu season I asked Gary, "Why is there a season for colds and flu? Why would a virus care what the temperature is? Do they only reproduce when it's cold?" He did some research, and it turns out that it's not the heat, it's the humidity. If the air is dry, as it is in winter, viruses fly farther, are lofted higher, and can be transported directly into other people's noses. Whereas in summer, it is humid, so the viruses cannot fly and they sink in the damp air. There are just as many viruses in summer, only they are on the soles of your shoes.

This season, even though I have been wiping my workspace down with Lysol and avoiding human contact to the point of rudeness, I have caught a cold. I don't know where it could have come from. Sure, eight days ago I had a staff meeting with two people who had been out sick the day before, and then a week ago I went to a happy hour, but I have been working at home every day since that. I haven't spoken to anyone but Gary. I have received packages: perhaps the FedEx driver or even someone at Amazon is sick.

This particular cold is remarkable in that symptomatic relief seems to make it worse. You feed it Coricidin or Tylenol Cold and Flu, and it laughs at you and then it opens up the mucus valve. Disgustingly, I have been lying with my face on a tea towel all day and just letting my nose drain.

Yesterday I got out of my sickbed, just energetic enough to cook dinner. I washed my hands vigorously, fished the roast out of the sous-vide,  and made new potatoes in the new stockpot. (I thought of KC and lifted the strainer insert out slowly.) Then, I seasoned those new potatoes to taste. (Nibbles potatoes.) "Not enough garlic." (Nibbles potatoes.) "Not salty enough." I am sure if I fed those potatoes to someone with a raging head cold they would say the potatoes are delectable, but Gary does not have a head cold, and I fear he finds them over-seasoned. 

And then, this morning, at four in the morning my body decided to expel the virus via all digestive routes. Happily, the chicken soup I had for lunch seems to be staying put and rehydrating me. 

Every time I have a cold I think, “This is the worst cold I have ever had,” but people, this really IS the worst cold I have ever had.