Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

The Vote

Less than one hundred days until we vote. Here are my voting options in the state of Missouri:

Hold my breath and stand in a big cloud of Covid. People in my area don’t mask up. I am certain if a mask was required in order to enter the polling place it would be stripped off once inside, and if required inside, our residents would complain that masking was a new Jim Crow law designed to stigmatize loyal supporters of the President. Masks or not, they could argue that social distancing will create lines long enough to discourage in-person voting, where most of the covid-denying president’s supporters will be. It’s the reasoning I would use if our loyalties were reversed.

Vote with an absentee ballot. Absentee ballots require a reason. I was surprised to see that Vulnerability to Covid (over 65, immunocompromised) is a valid excuse this year. But of course, how do I prove I’m immunocompromised? If they just take it on faith, it could later be called into question. And of course, it doesn’t feel good that absentee ballots will probably be counted only after the race is called. It would be as if I lived in California or Hawaii - sure, my vote counts, but not for the purposes of the media and the “calling” of the election.

Vote by mail. This intrigues me. The governor signed a law for this year that if you order a ballot and get it notarized, you can mail it in. I’m pretty certain that will be contested too. And - doesn’t that negate the whole idea of a secret ballot? If it’s like other things I’ve had notarized, they have to witness you filling it in. I have no voting secrets, but it’s another irregularity that could end up putting the result in the courts. 

I’m worried that if the vote is contested, that will delay the results, perhaps past the day they certify the electors, thus keeping Trump in office. So it’s possible that the Safe Harbor rule they argued in Bush v Gore 2000 would keep him in office if he tries to drag it out, right? And he loves dragging things through the courts.

I just heard former Republican chair Michael Steele say that absentee voting and voting by mail are the same thing. The difference is that in my state (one of 16), you can vote absentee in person early, and absentee requires an excuse and generally mail-in requires a notary, though for the August 4th election I read that if you have an excuse you don’t need a notary. I think we’re just going to bundle up and vote in person. God, this is going to be awful.

Weekly Paint Progress: 7/30

This week the crypts went from this ...

... to this ...

This week I need to compare values. Those bricks will be knocked back. I am not straightening a single line. Done to death with that.

The flowers went from this ...

... to this ...

Stuck in My Head

I decided I wanted to crack the code on the Key Signature With All the Sharps, so I searched the internet for the different fingering recommendations for all the key signatures. Couldn’t find it. Looked on the shelves and found a book I bought 13 years ago that contains nothing but that information.

So I spent two hours of practicing scales last night, and boy is my pinkie tired. Worse, I have do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do-ti-la-sol-fa-mi-re-do stuck in my head.

Usually the way I get rid of an earworm is to look up the words. Not an option. It’s still in my head, and I’m practicing more scales tonight.

Color Adjustment

While I might someday be the old lady who cannot use the remote, I do like new technology. I think that must be because I remember old technology. Gather round, young’ns, and let me tell you about ye olde television color settings.

When I first married Gary, he had a black and white television. My family had purchased a color television ten years earlier, so this was an adjustment. My Mom made a few remarks, and may have fronted some cash, and the soon we had a color television. 

One day Gary said, “I think these colors could be brighter. You had a color TV. How do you make it brighter?”

”There’s a color dial Dad said we were not allowed to touch.” That would be the same Dad who fixed the TV after Gary adjusted the image to colors accurate only on Mars.

I don’t blame Gary. I screw up and adjust colors every time I paint. There are infinite ways to screw up color.

I thought of this last night when Gary was watching TV and said, “I think these colors could be brighter.” 

Then he got the remote, navigated to the menu, and picked one of five color settings off the menu. Definitely better.

Upstairs Downstairs

I am almost done with season one of Upstairs Downstairs, and I was disappointed enough to Google “Worst season of Upstairs Downstairs.” Happily, it seems if a viewer makes it past season one, she won’t be disappointed again until season three.

I give the show credit for discussing topics taboo in the early seventies, but it hasn’t aged well at all.

Sexual Harassment - I hope that in future seasons the footman Edward is gelded in some regrettable cutlery incident and stops sexually harassing the parlor maids. 

Sexuality - Ironically, gay footman Albert is discovered to be “a pervert” while Edward is grabbing and pawing at every bottom that walks by.

Mental Health - Cook has a nervous breakdown, steals a baby, and is cured by the butler’s romantic interest in her.

I’m holding out hope that season two is better. 

Pershall Closure

The circled red condominium is where I lived from 6-12 years old.

The blue line is the radioactive creek a few blocks away.

The green line is Pershall Road, currently closed, because they are digging up all the still-radioactive soil, contaminated by the radioactive creek, itself contaminated by radioactive Manhattan Project byproduct that washed into the creek.

Usually I can ignore this. My brother can’t ignore this. He is very resentful.

Happily, last week a surgeon sliced him open for a non-cancer reason and - hurrah - saw no visible cancer in his abdomen. So, Mallinckrodt Chemical, he escaped. Right now I think he’s skeptical. I am sure when he recovers from the surgery he will be pleased.

Baseball Opening Day Weirdness

Things I like about Cardinals Opening Day:

I actually liked the fake crowd noise. I noticed one long fly ball that almost made it into the seats, and the “crowd” made the appropriate ascending and descending “AhhhAHHHHHHHROOOAAARRRawwwwwwww...sigh” sound. I pictured some sound guy twisting a dial as the ball almost made a home run and then didn’t.

I expected to hate the designated hitter, but I did not, because instead of assigning one batter to sell his soul (as is required of the designated hitter, see the Rules) the Cards are going to pick random batters to be the designated hitter. They’ll keep swapping out the batters, which is reminiscent of Whiteyball and Barenaked Ladies concert set lists.

What I didn’t like was the absence of the Clydesdales. Though it seems there is just the one team, there are many many Clydesdales, even alternate Clydesdale when an original Clydesdale is unable to perform his duties. So I know there are at least ten bored Clydesdales tapping their giant hooves and wondering why they aren’t being photographed. I would accept a socially distant Clydesdale, or a Clydesdale masked with a feedbag. 

I also felt it was nice that they kept Fredbird on the payroll, but couldn’t they have had him kick back instead, hang out in the dugout, put his feet up? They had him retrieving foul balls. He looked sad.

One final suggestion: the red face coverings were fine. The white face coverings were creepy.

I have a neck gaiter with a raccoon printed on it. How did no one think to print some of these up with a Cardinal beak?

Bruno the Bear Update

From Arkansas TV - https://www.nwahomepage.com/around-arkansas/bruno-the-bear-spotted-in-northeast-arkansas/

========

IMBODEN, Ark. (KARK) – A strange visitor was caught passing through Arkansas.

It was no ordinary black bear.

It was the famous Bruno the Bear.

This is the fourth state Bruno has been spotted in after starting his journey in Wisconsin.

Even though Bruno is popular, Arkansas Game and Fish says to remember he’s still a wild animal that weighs hundreds of pounds.

“But if it’s just out in the wild, then let it be a wild animal, and it’s certainly great to watch him and admire him,” says Keith Stephens, Chief of Communications with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. “But just don’t get to close and for goodness sakes, don’t feed them.”

The purpose of Bruno’s trip is to find a mate and his own territory ahead of hibernation season.

Bruno must have done his research.

According to Game and Fish, Arkansas has around 5,000 to 6,000 black bears.

======

Hmph. Bruno didn’t like the female bears in Mark Twain National Forest. Perhaps the other Forest bears were mean to him for being the outsider, it IS Southern Missouri, who knows. (I apologize, that was an unnecessary city girl slam on Southern Missouri.) At any rate, he is now a three hour drive away and still moving South.

 

Best Mask So Far

This was going to be one of Gary’s two raccoon masks. Too bad. It’s mine now.

I almost can’t wait to go out in this mask.

Weekly Paint Progress: 7/23

This weeks the crypts went from this ...

... to this:

I know it looks like nothing happened. That’s because I tweaked and repainted all the vertical lines. I also did a lot on of Un-doing on the 3rd crypt from the right. Every time I looked at it another proportion was wrong. And about every value is wrong, that’s the next pass.

My floral project is going to look like this:

... but right now it just looks like this:

Viruses Are Sneaky

If viruses were people they would be sociopaths.

Polio Viruses are Vengeful - Mom got polio at 13, and died from post-polio syndrome at 71. Will Covid do the same —will the after-effects kill the survivors sixty years on? Poliomyelitis will wait to get its revenge, Covid may as well.

Cold Viruses Wear Disguises - Sure. You think you’ve got a cold. You go to work or to visit your grandparents and then boom, Grandma’s dead, or a co-worker’s baby. You didn’t have a cold, you had RSV masquerading as a cold, waiting for you to carry it to someone too old or too young or too sick to survive it.

The Virus is Calling From Inside the House - In the Sixties they discovered a virus in the brain of a man, John Cunningham. He died from a brain disease caused by that virus. They then named the virus JCV, for John Cunningham Virus. I imagine in the afterlife JC must have been pleased to have his own special virus, until they found it in someone else. And someone else. And in the water supply, and in ninety percent of human beings. Almost all people have this virus that can kill you if it gets in your brain. Luckily, most of you have a sturdy blood-brain barrier that will not allow John Cunningham entry. One nice thing about the new drug I’m taking, it seems to be the first drug with no deaths from the brain problem that killed John Cunningham: PML. I can’t think how they dodged that bullet. It’s very encouraging, though.

Zoom Makeup

I was on a zoom meeting with just one other person, and she was wearing makeup. Not cool. All the other women in our team have stopped wearing makeup or styling their hair entirely. But in the meeting was this one woman in her little screen panel all dolled up, while I was in the panel next to her, and I didn’t look like the same species. My face was doughy and pink, lips colorless, hair insane, no eyelashes. Worst of all, I only appeared to have the part of the eyebrow that slants up from the nose. My descending eyebrows were too washed out to be seen.

I spent half an hour staring at all the differences in our faces, until I excused myself to “visit the restroom,” where I did nothing but quickly draw on the descending half of my eyebrows. 

When I came back she said, “You go to the bathroom really fast.”

So I had to tell her that I was threatened by her eyebrows and I couldn’t take it anymore.

She said, “Mine are microbladed. It’s a semi-permanent tattoo. It lasts about a year. I got it done and then the pandemic struck.”

My mourning the two pair of work pants I bought the night before our office shut down is nothing compared to spending $500 on microbladed eyebrows. What about the people who bought perfume no one can smell, or shoes no one can see? Worse, what about people who spent money liposuctioning their thighs and now they’re never seen standing up? It’s just a little extra bit of sadness courtesy of the virus.

Trumpet Music

I have practiced all the tunes in the guitar books I bought thirteen years ago - the ones I can play, anyway. (Why does BNL write in the key that has five sharps? (Still don’t know the key names. Clearly I did not get very far in my music theory book.)) I needed new music.

Then, I found Gary’s trumpet sheet music books. Fascinating. There are three staffs - one for each valve, I guess - and there are no words, so it’s really exercising my ear. 

He came in and complimented my playing, and I said I was using his trumpet books.

”Sure you can do that, but you’re playing in the wrong key. The trumpet is B flat and the guitar is C. It’s okay, you’re just half a tone off.”

After I collected the brain matter that was flung about the room by the explosion, I said, “So, if you play the C note on your trumpet ... are you telling me it doesn’t sound like the C on my guitar?”

“Yes.”

”You LIE.”

He wouldn’t get out his trumpet and prove it to me. But my mind was blown, and I spent the evening asking him questions like:

”When a symphony orchestra tunes up and the piano hits a C, does everyone play a C, or do they go up or down and play the note on their instrument that is closest to a C, like do the trumpets play the B flat?” (He says - hesitantly - they play B flat, and that musicians can do that easily.)

”So if I want my guitar to play the same notes as a trumpet, can I just put the capo on the first fret?” (No, that makes it higher, not lower.) “Are there capos for trumpets to make them half a note higher?” (He says no, if you want that you have to buy an entire trumpet that is made in C. I don’t know if I believe this. It seems there could be something you could jam in somewhere to make it narrower to change the frequency.)

 ”If a guitar is C, and a trumpet is B flat, what key are people?” (He said C, but I think that was just to get me to shut up. Later on we decided that when singers ask the pianist to play a song in D, that’s because that’s the key their vocal chords are in.)

The best part was I remembered I had a capo, and if you put a capo on the first fret it is much easier to play all the BNL songs in the key of five sharps.

Skunk Encounters Of the Third Kind

Late last night I was playing my guitar. I was just sitting there in my room: playing, relaxing, breathing; and then suddenly: playing, gagging, crying.

I had taken a deep breath of skunk. A recently discharged skunk must have just walked under my front window.

”GARY OH MY GOD GARY COME IN HERE AND SMELL THIS. GARY! ... GARY?”

I heard the back door slam and Gary came in.

“Gary! We’ve been skunked again!”

”I know,” he called out happily, “It was so cute!” 

Our conversation after that was a call and answer of me wailing “Can’t you smell that?” and Gary saying either A) “That nutty aroma? I’m sure it will waft away” or B) “It was so cute! You should have seen it!”

Eventually the smell dissipated enough for me to have a conversation. Here’s what happened.

1) Gary was taking some bags of peanuts to the backyard. He had on his nerdy headlamp so he wouldn’t disturb the animals with the porch light. He stepped on to the porch.

2) There was a skunk on the porch. It immediately went in to skunk DEFCON 5: Stomping, in which the skunk stomps its front feet as a warning.

3) Gary, seduced by the cuteness of the skunk, whispered, “Oh, you’re so beautiful! Look at you!” He whispered so as not to “alarm the skunk.”

4) The skunk, alarmed, went to DEFCON 4: Scooting Backward while stomping. In retrospect, Gary thinks that he should have turned his headlamp off, because the skunk might have been blinded by the light and not have recognized him. Gary was still hypnotized by the cuteness and was cooing baby talk.

5) The skunk went to DEFCON 3: Raised Tail, and then, according to Gary, skipped DEFCON 2 entirely (which is Whipping Around to Show the Glands). So, instead of aiming his rear at Gary, the skunk had his butt pointed away from Gary when he went to DEFCON 1. 

6) Gary claims the skunk did not emit a full spray. “He was just young and he got too excited. It was just a little premature skunk poot.” 

After Gary finished describing it from his point of view, I was more sympathetic. The baby skunks are pretty cute, and when they stomp and scoot, it’s hard to look away from the skunk siren song.

How cute are they? Here’s a video of a stomp and a scoot when a baby and a mom take on a raccoon that is no smarter than Gary.

Unimaginable

I think back to the days when I was first married in the mid 80’s, when I realized someday it would be the year 2000. I remember I wondered if I would have a house in the suburbs when we rolled over to the new millennia. I wondered what grocery stores and technology would be like. I wondered if we’d do anything more with the space shuttle.

I must have had a pitiful imagination, because I could never have imagined that in 2020 I would see the TV images below in a span of 30 minutes.

Some of it’s good, some of it’s bad, but it’s all unimaginable. 

Boy Scout Class Action Suit Commercial

When I see this solicitation to join a class action suit for abused Boy Scouts, I picture some writer — accustomed to starting with “If you’ve been injured in an accident” — typing out “If you were abused as a Boy Scout ... “ and pausing a moment to shake his head in disbelief. Just for a moment, though, because something so monstrous is now so commonplace. 

These Pandemic Numbers

This CNN image makes me think of the video they plan to play in case of the imminent destruction of the earth. Did they have a plan for possible pandemic coverage? 

I Thought This Would Be Coming, I Just Thought There Would Be Aliens

I was looking at the NASA page on my flat little computer that sits on my belly (that I also never imagined) and saw that not only is there an International Space Station like in 2001: a Space Odyssey, but it’s twenty years old.

The Thing That No One Saw Coming.

I mean seriously. Talk about the unthinkable being commonplace.

Lone Elk Park: Coronavirus Edition

One of my favorite places to go in Saint Louis is Lone Elk Park. Gary and I visited there last weekend. It’s the perfect place to go in quarantine: a wildlife park you drive through with the windows rolled up. No exposure to any humans. 

I was concerned that everyone else would have the same idea. Not quite.

• Number of cars driving through the park: normal
• Number of people hiking through the park: insanely excessive
• Number of animals we saw first time through: zero

I saw at least twenty people hiking through this park, fishing, eating, drinking beer,  lounging idly right next to signs that say LEAVE YOUR CAR AT YOUR OWN RISK / DO NOT APPROACH THE ELK. 

I have never seen so many people, and so of course I have never seen so few animals. The second time through I saw one deer far away by the lake, Gary spotted some buffalos with their backs to us as far away as they could get, and then the entire herd of elk decided to hoof it to the middle of the lake where they pointedly glared and said, “You people are contagious. Keep away from us with your bat disease.”

Poor animals. Four months of shutdown, during which I am sure they were certain humans had been eradicated, then suddenly all the humans came back, got out of their cars, and took over the park more aggressively than ever before. No wonder they were avoiding us.

Weekly Paint Progress: 7/16

This week the crypts went from this ...

to this:

The light is different because I thought I’d move it upstairs where the tape is. A friend asked me if I was drawing it from a photo. I answered that using tape to make straight lines can’t really be considered drawing.

The seascape went from this ...

to this:

It was meant to be the image below, and I think I am pretty far afield, but there must be a reason this was the last demonstration in the book. Must be hardest.

Step-by-Step, Bit by Bit

I’ve really exhausted all the paintings I want to do from my step-by step book. Either all the others have results that are too specific (Portrait of a Random Businessman), too easy (Hot Pink Peony Closeup) or too difficult (Portrait of a Kitten Detailing Every Hair).

I like learning from books, and I think it goes way back. Below is the first art book I ever had.

It is also step-by step book, published when books cost a dollar (probably the mid-fifties). I didn’t buy “How To Do Watercolors” — it initially belonged to my artistic Aunt Dolores, who died six years before I was born. When I was six and my Grandceil realized I drew to amuse myself, she gave me all Dolores’ art supplies. 

But, look at the bottom of the back cover:

Yes, both books are step-by-step books published by the Walter Foster company.

Talk about early influencers - this influence came from beyond the grave.

Rewriting the Novel: July

“I will work on Jerry’s novel when I take vacation in July.”

Nope. I spent a lot of time not working on it, but I also spent time thinking about why I’m not working on it.

I have determined that I need to recalibrate my expectations to line up with my other artistic efforts. 

If you ask me if I can paint, or play the guitar, I would say, “I’m learning how to paint,” or “I’m learning how to play the guitar.” But who says, “I’m learning how to write fiction?” No one. No one says that. Yoda says the opposite.

Well, I defy Yoda. I say “Try or Try not. There is no do.” I think that’s essential for me - if I were to present something to others and say “I paint,” they would look at what I painted at any point and say, “No, you don’t.” 

But were I to say, “I am learning to paint,” then they might say, yes, you are.

Early Portrait of the Artist as an International Toe Porn Superstar:

Later Portrait of the Artist as an International Toe Porn Superstar:

So, that’s the trick: do this for my own amusement and neural growth, not for any audience. It’s odd to think of a novel that way, because I would think that compared to painting or guitar a novel would be more communicative and less expressive. Don’t you need a reader to have a novel, and don’t you need to consider them over yourself while you are writing a novel?

Perhaps not for the first draft. Perhaps that’s what I need to get started. So that’s my new plan. I give myself permission to write a novel no one will read, a novel that is awful, a novel that just gives me practice writing a novel. I’ll be working on it forever, so when I die look on the cloud for a novel that is not about 1930s oil fields, but about space politics in the year 3535. 

And hush, I know this is all the opposite of what I said last month, how I can’t get started because I don’t have an end point. Shhhhh. It’s part of the learning process, and the process is what’s beautiful.

Do Re Mi

So, sometime last week I said I was going to try to up my guitar skills by training  my ear and perhaps learning some music theory basics, like why you never have an F sharp and a B flat in the same song. 

Somewhere buried in YouTube videos about megahertz and chord roots I saw an advertisement for this wonderful “long-lost technique” for learning music called the Kodály method. 

“Cool!” I thought, “That sounds great.” 

You know what the Kodály method is? It’s this:

... and ... 

This stunned me, because Wikipedia says that this method - all this ta - ta - ti / do - re - mi business - came about in the mid fifties. I can attest it was entrenched in the late sixties: I have a distinct memory of a music teacher giving me the Sol sign at shoulder height and saying “ti - ti- taa!” And clapping, lots of clapping.

What I find amazing is:

1) There was a time — evidently before the mid-fifties — when people learned to sing, and they did it without without any do - re - mis or  ti - ti - taas.
2) The Sound of Music came out in the mid-sixties, just ten years into this method, and already “do - re - mi” was enough of a thing to star in a song.
3) There is advanced do - re - mi. It is how you express the sharps and flats. Do - di - re - ri, etc. Go here for all the notes.

And, it’s no wonder that when I began reading music I asked, “What note is ‘Do?’” Evidently I learned “Moveable Do.” It’s “Fixed Do” that would answer that question, and I believe the answer would be C. 

I am skeptical that this method is out of favor. How else could you ever know what notes were?

What Threw Me Down the Rabbit Hole at 3:30 Last Night

Last night I woke up at 3:30 — that special hour when your brain chemistry dips and your bladder fills and your REM cycle skids off the road. 

When this happens to me I play a crossword and do some light “reading.” Reading so light that it really needs those quotation marks. Not just Facebook light, Cracked magazine listicle Facebook light, where I “read” this:

“Wait what?” I said (because I have no ready vocabulary other than what I read on Cracked). “They found the ruby slippers?” I remembered vaguely that one of the pairs of ruby slippers had been stolen. (If you want a deep dive documentary into the provenance of the four known Ruby Slippers, including the St. Louisian who owned a pair, check out the long documentary The Slippers on Vimeo, or better yet just read this part of the Ruby Slippers Wikipedia article.)

Last night, though, I just went straight to a short (20 minute) documentary, Who Stole the Ruby Slippers, which just left me disappointed, because it wrapped before the sting operation that recovered the shoes.

I didn’t find out about the sting until about 4:30 in the morning, when I found this long wonderful read on the Washington Post. 

I won’t tell you who — allegedly — did the deed, but I can tell you I learned three things from that article:

1) The FBI really needs to take an evening and watch The Sting with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. I’m not sure if they know what a sting is. 

2) Pro tip: I always thought that if a stolen item is eventually found, then the item is returned to the person it was stolen from. Nope, not if an insurance company paid a claim. If found, the item belongs to the insurance company that paid out. 

3) Art extortionist is a terrific job. Evidently, it’s quite an honorable profession, very above board. Really, I want to retire and take up a new career as an art extortionist.

Buried in the long Washington Post link above is the assumed identity of the alleged thieves, but frankly it’s so dull compared with the rest of the story I can see why they buried it.

And that is why I finally fell asleep at dawn. I recommend you read the article above at a reasonable time.

Pallisers Annotated

In Which We Summarize Mom’s annotations on the Palliser Series by Anthony Trollope. 

On the title page she notes how many times she has read it:

The annotations for Can You Forgive Her were focused on underlining every time Trollope uses “it does not signify.” She also commented on this description of George Vavasor’s work habits:

“... when he was at his desk he did not whittle his ruler, or pick his teeth, or clip his nails.”

Mom’s annotation was “obviously not a State Employee.”

Phineas Finn is completely unblemished. There are no notes of previous readings. There are two mysterious check marks on page 163, apropos of nothing. They do not not signify.

The Eustace Diamonds and The Duke’s Children are similarly unsullied. 

Phineas Redux is the one book in the series Mom did not have, but my eBay replacement copy just arrived. I will have to note this on the title page for anyone who might get the series as a whole in the future.

The Prime Minister (read twice) has an additional note on the title page: “In this book we are taught the meaning of the word vulgar by Mr. T.” I find this odd, given that if I remember, The Eustace Diamonds had a vulgar heroine. Mom has numerous annotations in this one: comparing Mr. Brock to Eisenhower and Phineas Fin to Nixon, noting where Mr. Wharton class-trashes other characters (including Lady Eustace, told you), and when Anthony Trollope restates his theme Mom writes “Tony does tend to beat a dead horse.”

But then there is this:

In response to Trollope detailing the “perils” of having a daughter, because one must either be too indulgent or a tyrant, Mom writes, “The man says it in a nutshell.” Of course, I don’t remember Mom being either a tyrant or a pushover, so I would say I have the estimable Mr. Trollope to thank for that.

A Recent Conversation With Gary

When Gary gets enthusiastic about a movie he has seen, he tends to relate the plot with such detail that you could watch the damn move in less time it takes to get the Gary re-enactment. 

About twenty minutes in to his version of every damn detail of Warrior Nun, when I pointedly pointed at the bored expression on my face, he said, “Wait, be patient, I’m almost at the best part.” Then he talked for ten minutes more, until I said:

”And THEN Glencora goes to Europe with Plantagenet Palliser, even though he’s just been asked to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

He went on. ” ... So then the one nun says, even though she’s been healed with the magic halo ... wait .. what?”

I continued, ”So she decides it’s better to be a Duchess than to be poor and in love with Burgo, but then she gets pregnant and it’s really cute how Trollope lets you know because it was serialized in the London papers and of course they couldn’t say someone was ‘pregnant’ and —“

And that’s how I got Gary to stop telling me about Warrior Nun.

Weekly Paint Progress: 7/9

This week the crypts went from this ...

to this ...

I swear, short of writing a computer program I have done all I can to correct those angles and they are still wrong.

The seascape went from this ...

to this ...

Man, that’s bright. The next step in the book better tone that down.

Separate Lives

So, it’s the oddest thing. Since he retired, Gary and I have spent all our evenings together, but during his recent illness, we kept apart. He’s feeling better now, but yet somehow we’re still keeping our distance.

I’d say we only spend every other evening together. it’s very odd. In the past if I went into the bathroom and didn’t return within a minute he’d want to know where I was and what I was doing and if I was coming back. Nowadays, I pick up, go downstairs, and he can occupy himself. Surprisingly, he doesn’t care if I’m coming back.

There’s no active resentment. I guess we figured out that we get along better in smaller doses. Or, more likely, he has a mental quota of how much time we should spend together, and now that I don’t leave the house ever, he fills his quota in the morning and doesn’t need me in the evening. 

Strange days, strange days. 

Musical Influences

When I was about twelve, in 1974, I got a bright blue handheld transistor radio as a gift. I started at the bottom of the AM dial and the first station I found was KXOK, back in the day when it was a pop rock station, and the very first song I heard was Billy Don’t Be A Hero.

Dad only listened to KMOX conservative talk radio, and Mom came to their marriage with four Pete Seeger records, so I believe this was the first pop song I ever heard. 

I’ve been thinking of this lately, because I requested hounded piano-playing friend Dave to play it during one of his Facebook concerts. I was as obnoxious as the guy who yells “Free Bird.” So obnoxious that he eventually played it.

Of course, I haven’t heard the song in decades. Hearing it again made me wonder how much influence this song had over my opinions. Here are some of my personal preferences that may have been established by my first pop song.

Preference #1 - Anti-war. Billy Don’t Be a Hero has a strong anti-war message.  I don’t know if twelve year old me had any opinions on war or peace. My Dad had been in Korea, and Mom didn’t play her Pete Seeger albums when he was around. Perhaps BDBAH inspired me to begin challenging Dad’s view on the military.

Preference #2 - Pro key changes. I am just barely able to recognize a key change, but I like them. I like them a lot. I think that must be why the ends of musicals always, always make me cry. They must double down on the key changes at the finale. 

Preference #3 - Pro-plot progression. Billy’s alive, Billy ignores his fiancé’s advice, [spoilers!] Billy’s dead. There’s a tidy plot in there. I still like a song with a plot.

Preference #4 - (Barenaked Ladies foreshadowing) Peppy music with tragic lyrics. I don’t know why I find it so satisfying to have an upbeat catchy hook paired with subjects like clinical depression or addiction. 

So, did the song influence me, or was I already formed and that’s why I liked the song? Was there some baby-duck level of bonding that happened here? Did I imprint on Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods? What if I’d heard Don’t Rock the Boat first instead of second? Because I’d like to know where I got these notions.

 

UPDATED: For Every Bear You See There are Ten Bears You Don’t See

Late on Sunday night:

Evidently a black bear is on his way to my house. They say he’s looking for love with a female black bear, but no bear in Wisconsin or Illinois suited him. Now he’s trundled his way through several states and been spotted in Hannibal, Missouri, and if he continues his southern path he is welcome to eat some peanuts in our backyard. Perhaps he might hook up at Ladies’ Night at the S_____ Peanut Buffet.

They have given him the name Bruno. Evidently Bruno is the default name for lovelorn bears; there was a more dangerous Bruno the brown bear in Europe at one time.

Our Bruno is a harmless, peaceable black bear. However, wildlife experts all agree, “Don’t approach the bear.” No one says, “Tickle his belly, feed him by hand, he likes that.”

*********

[hours later] BREAKING NEWS:

Okay, he really seems to be headed straight for us. I mean - I have driven on Interstate 79, the road he is on. It leads directly to our house. He’s about thirty miles away.

******

[then a few hours after that] BREAKING NEWS:

Okay ... now he’s 19 miles away.

Bruno, Bruno, you’re our bear / Have some peanuts / Please don’t eat us. 

******

[Updated the next morning]

The Internet claims that Bruno, after his long journey south, was intercepted by people from the wildlife department and from the Saint Louis Zoo. Supposedly he was rehydrated, sedated, and relocated to a large lake near Hannibal, which, yes, is back up north where he was at the beginning of this post. 

I am suspicious. This makes no sense. If the bear is looking for love (or as one local paper tweets, Bruno the Bear is DTF), are there willing female black bears at Mark Twain Lake? If not, won’t Bruno just wake up and say, “Damnit, I was just here. I walked in a circle.” Wouldn’t it make far more sense to truck him south of Saint Louis so he just jumps over the dangers of the city?

****** 

[minutes later, after consulting a map]

Aaahhh ... wait. I bet he’s being shipped south to Mark Twain National Forest, not back north to Mark Twain Lake. (We’re a little proud of Mark Twain.) That’s better. The Forest has a lot more going for it, including recent reports of other black bears, plus the largest nearby city is a college town. 

Still, if any Wisconsin bears pledged money for the Bruno walk-a-thon they might argue he cheated.

******

[later that morning]

Here’s the official story. It does not mention “Mark Twain” anything, but “Mark Twain”  was referenced enough last night that I’m pretty sure he was taken to Mark Twain National Forest. It will be interesting to see what he does next. What if he backtracks and turns up on the doorstep of the Saint Louis Zoo, DTF?

 

Review: Hamilton

I had no intention of getting yet another streaming service, especially a Disney one, but then Disney offered the filmed Broadway production of Hamilton on Independence Day. 

I had concerns. ”What if they sing too fast for me to understand the words? What if I’m the only person alive who doesn’t love Hamilton? What if I don’t ‘get’ it? What if I’m the old lady who doesn’t like change?”

(That last concern was because yesterday morning we watched Sweeney Todd. I complained that back in my day musicals had chords that progressed, not this rambling Sondheim nonsense, then Gary asked, “isn’t that just like an opera?” So now I have to accept Stephen Sondheim musicals, and now I was forced to accept yet another musical format in the same day.)

Of course, I loved it, just like everyone else in the world. I understood almost every line, even without the closed captioning I rely on for The Pallisers. King George was my favorite character, Lin Manuel Miranda is a genius, it deserved all the Tonys, I share all the popular opinions. 

Independence Day

Feeling fairly dependent this Independence Day. Dependent on the CDC for a vaccine, on Amazon for toilet paper, on the grocery delivery, on the news. 

I don’t mind depending on the government. Were I in a house three miles east over the Missouri River, my local government would have sufficient sense to require that I wear a mask. As it is, I am under the thumb of the Saint Charles government, where we evidently have taxation without education. St. Charles feels its unmasked citizens can be “trusted to do the right thing.” 

Based on the number of masks I’ve seen around, “do the right thing” means “open your maw as wide as possible and infect everyone, and only the holy will survive.”

Perhaps in December I will emerge and find that all the unmasked patriots are dead in the streets. That would be interesting, or at least an education.

New Vacation Options

Now is the time transportation companies should begin to concoct new ways to travel.

Just like everyone in the current circumstances, until there is a vaccine I would only consider traveling domestically by car. I’d be poking along in little-four hour jumps, inching my way to national parks, or Machu Picchu, or the Yukon. It would take time, but I’d get there.

Were I to travel overseas, well, first they’d have to have me. But let’s say they allow the dirty Americans in again. I couldn’t fly there unless we were shuffled in to a gutted plane one by one, told to stand on a x, and they we would have a vacuum tube lowered around us that sealed us in (with our own personal house air in a slow-release canister). 

I could only get on one type of cruise. 1) One that runs at turbo speeds and gets up to Europe in two days. 2) We would sleep in those Japanese hotel drawers, again, with our own imported air, run through tubes up our noses. And we would have to be catheterized as well, I suppose. Price you pay. 3) During the day we would be required to be up on deck in the sunshine. I suppose we could be on deck chairs with our heads in space helmets. 

Well, come to think of it, why don’t we just use space helmets for everything now? Can’t touch your face, can’t contaminate other people. It could have an air conditioning system so you won’t get hot or fog your glasses. So, maybe it’s time for me to invest in Tesla stock: I’m guessing they’ll be making the personal space helmets.

Of course, there will be someone saying, “The government can’t make me wear a space helmet!”  Or the President refuses to wear his space helmet in photos.

Weekly Paint Progress: 7/2

This weeks the crypts went from this ... 

... to this:

It is clear I need to apply tape to this one to keep the lines moving to the vanishing point. It’s wobbly already.

 The beachscape went from this ...

to this:

I don’t quite understand why those grasses are painted in those colors - they get painted over entirely.

Band of Brothers Vs The Pallisers

Gary reads this many books at one time:

Given that, I don’t know why it troubles me so much that I am binge-watching two shows at once. The two shows are as different as you can imagine: The Pallisers (50% romance and 50% political intrigue) and Band of Brothers (15% relationships and 85% battle scenes). 

I’m not all-in on either of them. I may switch to reading the Pallisers books instead, especially given that I have Mom’s copies and there’s a good chance that they will be annotated.

I was reminded lately that Mom and I watched A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and even though we’d read the book we sobbed like teenagers at the end. That’s added to the list of things to watch. Or, books to read. (Currently I’m in the middle of reading Devil in the White City, and as you can imagine, I’m not happy with the proportions of Architecture and Murder. Less architecture! More Murrrrrderrrrr!)

I think I would like Band of Brothers far better if they condensed each battle scene to a few shots. “I have no ammo!” “Who’s this new fella Fitz?” then: Bang! Whiz! followed by “Where’s Fitz?” “Fitz didn’t make it.”

I know it’s a true story, and that the men at the beginning are probably the older versions of the actual soldiers, and usually the documentary aspect would clinch it for me, but I just can’t abide taking up so much time with the Bullets flying and the plot at a standstill. I’m only on episode 4, though. Perhaps there’s more dialog and plot progression in later episodes.