Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Gary and the Dow

The MSNBC crawl said, “Dow has biggest one-day point drop in history.”

I said to Gary, “That’s misleading. I would prefer to know the percentage of the drop, not the raw number of points.”

“NO NO DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND THIS IS AWFUL.”

”It’s awful, but it’s not the most awful -“

”IT’S THE BIGGEST POINT DROP IN HISTORY. DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? PEOPLE BUY INTO THE MARKET AND WHEN THE POINTS GO UP - “

“Seriously, you’re mansplaining the market to me?”

”WELL CLEARLY YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” And then he doggedly explained the concept of buy low, sell high, ignoring the fact I am federally licensed to buy low and sell high.

But I didn’t give up. “Even if it drops 10,000 in a day, that’s still not a big enough percentage to halt trading. It’d have to be ... like .... 2,000 points — “

”YOU ARE WRONG.”

I tried what I thought was a genius move. “If Trump says more women are employed today than ever in history, you know that’s only true because the population’s bigger, right? The percentage of women working could have plummeted —“

Surprisingly, that didn’t work: it just provoked more of the same. Buy low, sell high, hopefully you don’t say things like that at work or they’ll think you’re dumb, just looking out for you so you don’t embarrass yourself. (Don’t get mad on my behalf. I was openly laughing at him at this point.)

(I’m going to say this next paragraph to you all because Gary wouldn’t listen when I tried to say it to him. I know you know this. I’m womansplaining as a mainsplaining reaction. Actually, I should use the term Garysplaining, because all men aren’t like that.

Anyway, during the crash around 90 years ago, stocks took four days to go from 350 index points to 200, or 42%. Over the entire year it slid to 41 points, almost 90%. Over the last four days we went 28,105 to 25,430. 2,675 points. Almost 10%. Bad, sure, but not the worst in history. Only the “worst in history” because the amount of stock has grown.)

Of course, then they put one of these graphs on the screen and further freaked him out. 


I didn’t even try to point out the x and y axis intersection was at 25,000. Why should I? He wants to be afraid.

Contagion

I’ve been on a tear, watching all the classic 1930s movies I should have seen and never did. I started with Pygmalion (Leslie Howard, yum), then Leslie brought me to Of Human Bondage, then Bette Davis took my hand and I watched Jezebel.

Three films in a row with puzzling endings. Pygmalion, of course, had to end romantically. Even George Bernard Shaw bowed to the pressure and consigned Higgins and Eliza to what was fated to be a miserable five-week relationship.

Then, in Of Human Bondage, the hero’s motivations were baffling. Perhaps I just don’t remember what is is to be young and hate yourself. Why did the protagonist do anything or end up with anyone?

After those two peculiar endings, [spoiler] Bette Davis was suddenly cured of her Borderline Personality Disorder at the end of Jezebel. I just accepted it. Still, in what world would a woman in a hoop skirt hop a wagon headed to a leper colony? 

After doubting the movie’s realism, I noticed the obvious modern-day parallel with Jezebel: infectious disease. It portrays New Orleans as cloudy with mosquitoes carrying yellow fever. (Henry Fonda even swats one and is as doomed as Bette when she coughs in Of Human Bondage.) Today, bug-filled barges coming down the Mississippi are replaced by cruise ships carrying coronavirus. The 2020 Olympics might be affected, instead of the Olympus Ball.

Perhaps coronavirus just needs a few good cannon volleys, the germ defense of choice in the movie. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/27

I say the zebra is done. Last week it was this:

‘

Now it is this (some of the white molding is stronger)

... when it was originally this:

Next week my small project will be something from Teach Yourself to Oil Paint. I said I was going to have an easy project that doesn’t try to stretch my skills and I mean it. Sometimes I go back and play Leaving On a Jet Plane on my guitar. This will be the painting equivalent.

I did something new with the lamp. I didn’t look at what I was trying to paint, I just painted what I thought should be there. This was last week:

.. and this week I added purple shadows to the background and some wood grain to the table:

Next week I will be roughing in the flowers, and then the fun will begin with the details.

 

Review: The Gentlemen

We were scoping out what movie to see when Gary read a review of The Gentlemen.

”This reviewer says you’ll like it if you like Guy Ritchie movies.”

Then, of course, we had to look up Guy Ritchie movies. I hadn’t seen any of them. Gary had seen some bits and scenes, usually while waiting out a commercial.

I found a little video primer of what makes a a Guy Ritchie movie - crime, cursing, clever opening credits, captions, fast dialog, and split screens. I like captions and fast dialog, so I was on board.

We bandied the term “a Guy Ritchie movie” about all evening before the show. Gary would curse: I’d say, “Isn't that a little too Guy Ritchie?” When we arrived he pointed out Guy Ritchie’s name on the poster. We jostled each other during the opening credits when the screen shrieked A FILM BY GUY RITCHIE.

After the movie, heading to the car, Gary was still talking about how much he enjoyed the movie, when I stopped and covered my ears.

“Please stop talking. Please. I can’t take any more talking. I just listened to Hugh Grant talk for two hours. And don’t tell me people in Britain really say ‘cunty’ that often.”

I think I’d like Guy Ritchie movies if they were a little less Guy Ritchie.

The Big дом Dream

Last Friday, Gary had another of his recurrent Big House dreams. The last one was almost exactly one year ago to the day. (Previous visits to the Big House weren’t on any schedule, though, so I think it’s coincidence.)

As it happens so often in the Big House, it was being invaded. This time the invaders were street urchins who would come in through the windows and then run when you entered the room.

This year’s Big House was in Russia, oddly. Gary was headed back to the Big “Dom” (дом), when our Russian neighbor discovered he couldn’t get in to his Big House and tried to borrow our key. Our key didn’t work, so the neighbor called out “Security!” to summon the neighborhood security force that would let him in. 

Gary also called out “Security!” and noticed an old woman peeling potatoes nearby. She was plainly the security enforcer, because she wouldn’t look him in the eye even when he got down on the floor and looked up into her face. And then, he woke up.

Right before he took the nap that elicited this Big House dream, I told him Russia had been found to have meddled in Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. I suppose an invasion of privacy at the Sanders campaign is what launched this. Big House dreams seems to happen when Gary’s hermit existence is threatened. He must be sympathizing with Bernie’s loss of privacy.

Writing Class

My community college writing class has started. I was apprehensive that I would be the odd duck, older than everyone else, writing the wrong type of book, but as it turns out everyone one of us is atypical. There are seven of us.

Gender: 5 women, 2 men.

Age: 2 in their 20s, 1 in his 30s, rest of us over 40.

Process: I appear to be the only one who believes in outlines. No one else seems to  want to know where they’re headed. The characters will evidently just do things as you type and you go with it. 

Experience: one woman published a book in the ‘90s, a few have finished books but not published them, there are several books that don’t have endings, and one woman has a book full of book ideas. No one else had a rambling unstructured saga dropped in their laps.

When they were discussing my weird situation the class used words like Therapy and Closure, so I had to correct them. My working title is now The Spite Novel, as I intend to improve it out of pure spite.

Concern

“Are you okay?”

A young man asked me that last week. I was entering a building at the community college, he was exiting. 

I was completely fine, so I was taken aback by his concern. I had only a second to think of a reason he might have asked.

”Oh, I’m just cold,” I said, because he would soon discover it was 15 degrees outdoors (-9 Celsius). 

The cold was a handy excuse, and it kept me from huffing, “I am perfectly fine, young man.” That might not have been why he asked if I was okay.

I was opening a heavy door and I’m sure that looked awkward. 

I am in my late fifties, and the young man may have interpreted my sags and wattles as some tumorous face disease.

There is now a permanent vertical wrinkle line between my eyebrows. Perhaps I always appear to be worried. 

Perhaps he assumed — from a distance — I was a plump young college woman, who became increasingly disabled as he got closer. 

What he should have asked was, “Are you lost?” because I would have said, “I might be. My class is in the HUM building. I take it that means the humanities building? And if so, is this indeed the Humanities building?” And then I might have babbled, “Oh the humanity,” and the young man would have backed away slowly.

It was nice, though, that instead of:

”You look out of place, lady! I am concerned about you.”

”Mind your manners, you insolent puppy!”

... we said, “Are you okay?” “Oh, I’m just cold.”

News Drama

The news has latched on to this case of the “Doomsday Mom” and her missing children.

Why is this case being presented as if the children have died? I think those kids are fine. I think the 17-year-old daughter recognized her Mom is mentally ill and is drawn to a man who is probably mentally ill. Instead of embracing the new and wacky family situation, the girl took off with her young brother to protect him from her unstable parents.

I hear great relief that the mom has “finally” been arrested for abandoning her children. I’d like to give the daughter an award for finally abandoning her mom and rescuing her brother.

Of course, now that I’ve said this the children are going to be found dead in an underground shelter. 

Night Visitor

The other night we backed out of the garage and saw a deer on our corner. It froze (yes, like a deer in the headlights).

”Deer!” Gary gasped. He then adopted the special tone we reserve for the deer. “Hello, sweetie! Are you here to visit us?”

The deer, as if it could hear, bounded into our backyard. 

People. The joy. The JOY. I’ve never seen Gary so delighted. All Gary could talk about for miles was how our yard was beloved by the deer above all other yards in the neighborhood. That deer could tell we were heading off for the evening, and he knew he could chill in our yard, drink water in the heated bird bath, look in the windows, and just relax.

And really, Gary is so adorable I see why the deer visit him. I’m surprised deer, squirrels and raccoons don’t prance at his feet every time he walks outside, like he’s Cinderella. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/20

This week the zebra went from this ...

to this.. 

I felt like the zebra is close to done. I need to fuzz up the tips of the mane and do some more molding.

The lamp went from this ...

...to this ...

The lamp is a challenge. I feel like I want to pitch it and start over again, like I did with the painting of Gary. Perhaps my dislike is going to free me up to make more creative decisions and it might work out better. 

How One Get Ones Husband to Play His Drum Set

Gary’s hasn’t been playing his drums. I thought it was because his hands hurt from arthritis, or else he doesn’t want to get sweaty, or it eats into his Facebooking time.

As it turns out, he just hasn’t felt the subliminal nudge that gets him downstairs to play the drums. It appears there is a very specific nudge: I have to practice playing Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) on my guitar. 

The last two times I’ve played that, I have listened through two closed doors as Gary has gotten out of his recliner, gone downstairs, and interrupted my practice session to bang on his drums. 

I don’t know what neuron that song triggers in his brain. It was released in March 1972, when Gary was 18. Perhaps it evokes memories of parental expectations? 

More likely it’s a floaty song that I’m playing with no rhythm, and he needs to subconsciously rock out hard to restore order to the universe.

In Which I Make a Wise Spending Decision

I bumped into another article on what to do with your DNA once you have it in portable zip file format. (Well ... more likely an algorithm looked at how my ancestry searches have slowed and it planted the article in Google or Facebook.)

I actually headed for Genopalate, which claimed it can look at my DNA and recommend what my wisest eating choices would be — which vegetables will be best for me, what proteins, and so on.

I got as far as looking up the price, and that’s where they lost me. Not because the price was too high, but because there was a President’s Day sale.

Really? A President’s Day sale? Is there just too much overstock and they need to clear out the warehouse of custom-generated reports? That sounded suspicious.

Then, since I was put off by the sale, I looked up some reviews and found people are not happy with Genopalate. “They said I should eat elk! Where am I supposed to find elk?”

I actually though about it and backed away from the web page. A wise decision for once.

Walking Away

We’ve got some new philosophies at work that mean I have to start projects more slowly and take more breaks.

Usually I get Go Fever: an urge to get everything started and therefore finished ASAP. Now I’m being encouraged to make plans and get approvals and punctuate before I even begin. It’s smarter, but it’s a hard adjustment.

When I’m stuck on a work problem, it’s good to remember the answer’s in the bathroom. It isn’t, of course, but the time spent taking a break jars your brain out of its rut. The doorways you pass through on the way probably help too.

It’s hard for me to slow down at work. I can take a hobby slowly. Hobbies allow and encourage breaks. I play the guitar better after a break. I can solve unsolvable crossword puzzles after a break.

Perhaps this work slow-down is all a plot, and at my next review I’ll be told that I’m just not productive enough any more, probably my age, time to retire. It just seems so odd to take breaks at work. I suppose it’s part of “work smarter, not harder,” which assuages my guilt every week when I take off at precisely 40 hours to the second.

Honestly, there’s a department jigsaw puzzle, and every time I work on it I feel like I’m being watched. No doubt someday soon the pendulum will swing back, when they notice productivity is down.

Gary Almost Surprises Me

I could hear Gary watching television in the next room. It was s some period drama, with duchesses and arranged marriages and plummy English accents.

I was trying to work out what it was. The heroine’s name was Georgiana. ”Is it one of the Trollope novels?” I wondered. ”There’s no Georgiana in Austen, is there? Also ... why isn’t he inviting me in there? Why is he watching it alone .... oh! I know what it is.”

It was The Duchess. We saw it in the theatre when it came out in 2008, and I’m certain he’s forgotten all of it ... except for the lesbian love scene. 

I came out to tease him. He denied watching it for the lesbian scene. “No! I just like this movie. But there are lesbians in it too?”

I rolled my eyes. After I walked away, I heard him say “Awesome!”

Golden Eagle

The time Gary spotted a bald eagle he called me from the road immediately.

This time he was home for two hours before he mentioned it. This most recent eagle was a Golden Eagle instead of a bald eagle, and it was in a busy intersection, not on the winding back road.

I’m sure the next eagle he sees he won’t even mention it. And also, why don’t I see any eagles? I’m on the roads more than he is.

It is nice to see the eagles without paying $400, like you usually do to see the Eagles.

Moon Illusion Immunity

Last week I read that there was a Snow moon coming up. That article was illustrated by images like this:

There are even more phenomenal images in this article from a few years back.

I have never in my life seen a moon look like that. I have seen references to the moon illusion, and I know it’s a phenomenon, but I have never seen it. I set out to see it.

I did my research, I did everything they suggested. I found a high point with a view of the horizon. I waited until the appropriate minute. I kept waiting. Five minutes later I saw a normal sized faint full moon about five degrees above the horizon. Well, not normal, it was a ten percent larger than a normal moon. A dinner plate moon. I deliberately looked at it with things in the foreground, since I read that helped with the illusion. The moon filled up one of the arches on a McDonalds sign three blocks over. It didn’t look like it was going to swallow the Taj Mahal. 

It’s just like when you’re the only one who can’t see the dolphin in the Magic Eye painting. Do you all see the moon illusion when you look at the moon on the horizon?

Weekly Paint Progress 2/13

This week the zebra went from this ...

... to this ...

All I did was add a light wash of white to some of the stripes to do some contouring, and then I worked on the eye.

I did less on the lamp but it looks like more.

... to this.

Opera Puppets (spoiler)

When we saw Rigoletto this past summer, we noticed the main character hauls around a ventriloquist’s dummy. I asked Friend Anne if the dummy was standard and she said no. I felt the dummy was distracting and creepy. Also, it didn’t sing. The reviewer for the Post wasn’t a big fan either.

Then I watched the recent PBS broadcast of Madama Butterfly. (Evidently when she’s at the Met, she’s Madama, when she’s in Saint Louis she’s Madame.)  

[Spoiler] Do you plan to see Madama Butterfly (or Madame, depending on your proximity to the coast, la-LAH)? Then stop reading right now, because there’s a key plot point coming.

At one point she brings out her child and it’s a freaky Mummenschanz puppet. See the dark veiled puppeteers?

The reason there’s a puppeteer’s hand behind Pinocchio’s head there is because that’s where the handle is they use to tilt his head, because he wasn’t creepy enough already.

I wondered, why not have a live human child play that part? There’s no singing involved. Couldn’t a toddler be counted on to be led around by the hand and then pretend to sleep at one point? Just fall asleep and then wave a flag at the end.

So evidently using creepy articulated wood dolls to fill minor roles is a thing they do at operas now. I know I haven’t seen a lot of operas but I do not approve.

New Ancestor Data

The Ancestry.com search has been very illuminating. The DNA data just lays it all out for you. I have all the information I could ever want about Jerry’s oil-working, die-making families and Mom’s ferry-running, coal-selling mother’s family.

The big mystery ended up being my maternal grandfather. For everyone else, the DNA algorithm figured out who the grandparents were, then great-grandparents, and so on. That trail ended at my grandfather Earl F_____, just as if he was the result of rabbit-like parthenogenesis or fell from heaven.

All I could do was look at third cousins and try to see what people we had in common, which was hard, and to search for his name in the local papers, which was much easier.

In my search I found that the Post-Dispatch had a weekly column in the 1940s listing the names of new polio cases and their parents. I found his name there, dated a few months before my grandmother divorced him for his drinking, gambling ways.

I also found several obituaries for a Sister Helen F______, a beloved nun survived by her brother Earl F______. I dismissed that, until I went back to my third cousins’ family trees and saw they claimed Sister Helen, just not her brother Earl.

Three things became evident:

• When one quarter of your family tree consists of an aunt who died at 19, an uncle who died at 5, and a nun, there are no close cousins that will contribute to any DNA forecasts. 
• Earl must really have been a dog for all the relatives to shun his existence.
• I am related to Great-Aunt Helen, nun, ergo bride of Christ, ergo Jesus is my great-uncle through marriage.

I immediately found Gary, proclaimed, “I AM THE GREAT-NIECE OF JESUS,” and blessed him with the sign of the cross.

This means I am Catholic on my mother and father’s sides, so I am MORE Catholic than my half-blood husband with his convert father. I told him I did not mind our mixed marriage.

So, at the end of the DNA road, I have found a celebrity connection to beat my tenuous in-law connection to President Harding.

This totally makes up for being 100% English/Irish.

Midnight Skunk

I was recently woken out of a dead sleep by the smell of skunk coming through my closed, double-paned bedroom window. 

I sniffed myself awake. Definitely skunk. ”This is what happens when you feed the skunks,” I grumbled. “This will be just like when the house one street over stank of skunk for a week.” 

I opened the front door and sniffed. Nothing but skunk. I opened the back door and sniffed. Overwhelming skunk. 

I woke Gary up. “We have been skunked. It’s bad.”

Gary rolled over and sniffed. “Oh, I can smell it.”

It’s more probable that a) he wanted to shut me up or b) he’s so suggestible he would have said he smelled chimpanzee if I’d said that instead. Twenty minutes later he was in my room complaining he couldn’t sleep because the skunk smell was making his eyes water.

When I woke up the next morning, I sniffed both the front and back yards. No skunk. 

”What a weirdly specific dream,” I thought, until I read the Facebook post Gary wrote at 1:30 the previous night, which was about how we’d been skunked.

So now a new mystery. Did a next door neighbors’ late-night visitor recently run over a skunk? Maybe a deer was sprayed by a skunk and circled our house? Ghost skunks? Mass hallucination? I don’t know.

UPDATED: My Oscars Ballot

Here are my desired winners - to be updated tonight when I find out how wrong I am.

I don’t call these predictions. They are the nominees I want to win, not the ones I think will win.

BEST PICTURE
Ford v Ferrari 
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit     Desired Winner! Of course I want Jojo Rabbit to win. 
Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite is the Actual Winner, and it was my least favorite. 

BEST ACTOR
Antonio Banderas - Pain and Glory
Leonardo DiCaprio - Once Upon a Time In Hollywood
Adam Driver - Marriage Story
Joaquin Phoenix - Joker    Desired Winner! Hard to play “crazy“ convincingly and compassionately. He also snags the Actual Winner award.
Jonathan Pryce - The Two Popes

BEST ACTRESS
Cythia Erivo - Harriet
Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story
Saoirse Ronan - Little Women
Charlize Theron - Bombshell
Renée Zellweger - Judy   Desired Winner! Maybe acting is like oil painting, it’s harder to do an exact representation than someone you can just make up. She is also the Actual Winner.

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Tom Hanks - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Anthony Hopkins - The Two Popes
Al Pacino - The Irishman
Joe Pesci - The Irishman
Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time In Hollywood   Desired Winner! Entirely because he’s fifty and he looks nice with his shirt off. And Brad is the Actual Winner, because such a physical achievement deserves an award.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Kathy Bates - Richard Jewell
Laura Dern - Marriage Story.  And she’s the Actual Winner, as expected by everyone. 
Scarlett Johnsson - Jojo Rabbit   Desired Winner! She should win just for the scene when they introduce her character.
Florence Pugh - Little Women
Margot Robbie - Bombshell

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Irishman - Steven Zaillian
Jojo Rabbit - Taika Waititi.  Actual Winner, and I am just as happy as if Greta Gerwig had won.
Joker - Todd Phillips & Scott Silver
Little Women - Greta Gerwig   Desired Winner! I loved the non-linear timeline.
The Two Popes - Anthony McCarten

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Knives Out - Rian Johnson   Desired Winner! It was between this and 1917, and this had more dialogue, plot, and the things I like.
Marriage Story - Noah Baumbach
1917 - Krysty Wilson-Cairns & Sam Mendes 
Once Upon a Time In Hollywood - Quentin Tarantino
Parasite - Bong Joon Ho & Han Jin Won  Actual winner. I need to watch this movie again alone, so I can pay more attention. Perhaps I would like it more.

 

Minibrains (a reference to the two articles referenced in the link)

Somewhere I have a half-brother who has autism. This isn’t surprising. They’ve noticed that autism and MS run in families, and this article explains why.

Evidently it all comes down to bad myelin. If you don’t have the right coating around your nerve cells you’re in trouble. Myelin that’s too thick, too thin, or vulnerable to immune system attacks. Bad myelin spells trouble.

Proud to say I’m keeping my bad myelin genes to myself. Glad the neurologist’s working on re-myelination. Too late for my half-brother or me, I fear. 

 

Summer Concerts

I’ve booked two summer concerts already this year.

First: Barenaked Ladies, of course. They’re inaugurating a new smaller music venue located next to the old bigger music venue, so that should be fun.

Second: The Beach Boys. To my surprise, there are actual original Beach Boys touring. We might even get Brian Wilson if he feels up to it. That one will be at the homey Saint Louis Family Arena, which is like a Barbie-sized version of the St. Louis Blues’ hockey arena.

Both concerts are in smallish venues, both in July, and both require that I get with the 2020’s and use an electronic ticket on my phone. Don’t they know that some of us save the tickets from memorable concerts? 

I suppose we’ll content ourselves with iPhone photos to remember it by. Not the same, though.

Weekly Paint Progress 2/6

This week the zebra went from this ...

...to this...

(That mane will get fuzzed out.)

...and the lamp went from this...

... to this.

That lamp is too close to the wall, but right now everything that’s wrong with it can be adjusted.

At Long Last ... Pie Pie

I like Frankenbaking.

I've made the cherpumpple pie in a cake, of course -- though it does not seem to have been documented. I distinctly remember bringing it in to work.

And like the cherpumpple, or pie in a cake, I made a cake in a pie.

I've also made a Three-tiered Pie, or a pie in a pie in a pie.

Almost TEN YEARS ago I offered Gary a Pie Pie: a Hostess fruit pie buried in a pie. I never made it, but in some burst of Bakemania I made it today.

Here it is, raw. Simple. Off-brand glazed fruit pies in a raw pie crust with a half-recipe of Chess pie filling.

Not at all attractive. Clearly next time I need to use the deep dish pie pan and perhaps only use two fruit pies laying back-to-back. Slicing the pies to make them fit in a more attractive fashion was chancy - I didn't know if the filling would ooze out.

It improved after baking:

It looks good when divvied up:

Very crusty. Gary says he liked it. I took a bite and it seems the exposed fruit pie crusts are essential: the submerged crusts turn into a plumped-up cakey substance. Not soggy - more like a very moist cake. And then the exposed crust gives it crunch. 

All in all, a success. 

 

Family Update

Brother Dave - Dave’s current diagnosis is “probably cancer,” but he isn’t scheduled for any further tests or treatment for three weeks. I cannot even imagine hearing “You might have cancer. Sit tight for 21 days and we’ll get back with you.” On investigation, I see a three-week wait is the standard, but still, that must be hard.

Father Jerry - I find myself thinking about The Paternovel as I watch television. I make little notes like “a character needs to wake up in an unrecognized place” because that’s always fun, and it looked compelling on television. I don’t think this is how real writers do things. So, in order to get a little better at my new hobby of novel-writing/parent-editing, I’ve signed up for a six-week community college novel-writing class to begin later this month.

Half Step-Sister - Ancestry has finally come up with a non-white family connection. It’s not a blood / DNA match, but evidently when Jerry’s second wife went to find her destiny in Africa, she left behind a daughter in Gambia. Or, I suppose, perhaps she picked up a daughter in Gambia. I don’t know, I backed away from that information because I didn’t have hours to spend. That will require further investigation, though.

SuperBowl Fakeout

Gary and I have our own family Super Bowl ritual. The most important part of the ritual is that we reject all party invitations and spend the night, just the two of us, eating poorly and watching the television. I watch commercials and Gary watches the game, as opposed to our usual practice of ignoring commercials and ignoring football every other day of the year.

This year I thought we could break free from tradition and benefit from our disinterest. The Saint Louis aquarium has been very crowded since opening last December: I thought we could visit late in the day on Super Bowl Sunday. We could even get back home by the time the game was over and all the traffic accidents began.

Sadly, Sunday is the one day the aquarium is not open late. It was a damn good plan, though. I’ll have to find a better way to dodge some crowds next year.

Temptation Moves Next Door

Saint Louis has two premium ice creameries I know of: Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream and Clementines. Jeni’s is a chain, and the Saint Louis location is located close enough to other places I visit annually — like the hospital and the zoo — so I can easily make an exception to the diet and taste some. 

I’ve never been to Clementines because it’s just too far off my beaten track, but now they’re opening up a location just a few miles away. It’s by the closest farmers’ market and the best barbecue place. If I can’t make it out, they deliver. 

Evidently half of Clementines’ menu is liquor-laced ice cream, which I will have to ignore. Ignore, not because I’m teetotaling, but because ice cream laced with wine and bourbon sounds like ice cream laced with bile and machine oil. (Parent pro tip: if alcoholism runs in your family, dose your children with honey and whiskey when they are sick. They will forever hate the taste of alcohol. And honey.)

From what I see of the menus, Jeni's has a greater variety. I enjoy the berry crumble there. Clementines’ sober choices seem to rely on combinations of vanilla, caramel, baked goods, chocolate, cinnamon, and nuts. There are two vegetation-based flavors: vegan lemon poppyseed and honey (ugh) lavender. (I’m ignoring the blue-flavored option which is clearly there to placate children.)

However, Alton Brown has approved of them, and they’re local, and who can say no to gooey-butter flavored anything? I’m trying them once or twice this spring until the suits don’t fit.

 

Dress Code

The company dress code says that woman shall wear tailored suits or separates or dresses. The company dress code is largely ignored in my area. I’ve watched it morph from a) blazer, blouse, and pants to b) sweater, blouse, and pants to c) scarf, blouse, and pants to d) blouse and pants and I have a sweater in my locker. The men in our area stand pat with a) pants, shirt, and tie. 

Friday at 4:00 the email went out announcing the dress code shall no longer be ignored. It doesn’t affect me because I have four suits and a blazer and they all fit. In fact, there are days I make a special trip in to the office so I can get some suit use during this golden age of relative slimness. 

This policy leaves me with nine sweaters and casual tops that can no longer visit the office, with only the weekend to wear them. You say, “Certainly you can wear those in the evening,” and I respond, “What, when I’m dressing for dinner? It’s pajamas at five p.m. here.”

Thank god they didn’t do this one year and thirty pounds ago: I’d be spending the savings on new clothes.