Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Gary Drumming to the Beat of a Different Drummer

I cashed in a Birthday Month card and commanded that Gary entertain me on the drums while I painted.  

I’m sure he’s done it before, but I’ve never noticed, he makes up his own drum part. All this time I spend on the guitar trying to mimic the artist, and Gary goes past that and makes up his own.

I listened, thinking Sweet Little Sixteen really has a charming drum beat, but it doesn’t: Gary’s version has a charming drum beat.

I only have a few days left in the birthday month. I’ll need to play that card again.

Milk

Mom’s friend Carleen would buy a quart of milk every week, and if she had any left over from the previous week she would pour it out.

I know she did this because Mom was so scandalized she would not let it go until “Aunt” Carleen explained there was only one spot for the milk and having milk in two locations in the refrigerator Would Not Do, and Carleen felt strongly about what Would Not Do and what Would.

This past year I have come out strongly on Team Carleen. Gary gets a quart of milk a week for his cereal, and he uses all but one half cup before the new quart comes in. I’ve been taking one for the team and chugging that milk, but really, I could use those calories for something better. So I have begun pouring out the half cup, just like Carleen.

It’s Gary’s milk, and he feels strongly that the symmetry of one Quart one Week should be maintained. 

Perhaps this is why I have been having these partial-waking episodes in which I think Mom is still with us. If I would just give her a minute she would say, “so I see you’re as crazy as Carleen now.”

Fail of the Week

After four and a half days of six hour-long meetings with minimal breaks, I developed a sore on my rear. 

(Allow me to pause while I compile a list of delicate terms for my hindquarters.)

It was located in a spot where I couldn’t see it unless I … repositioned some of the flesh padding my tailbone.. I couldn’t use a mirror because I would have need several tilted mirrors reflecting each other like the inside of a periscope. 

I did all of this during the lunch break. At one point, Gary yelled through the bathroom door that there were a lot of butt pillows at his parent’s house, and he could pick one up. I came out of the bathroom to say no, not that big of a deal, probably just a pimple or infected hair or something. 

And then faintly, from my room I could hear “Oh it’s Ellen.” ‘Ellen! Mute!” ‘Somebody mute her!” Yes, I had neglected to mute when I went to lunch, I just shut off my camera, and about five coworkers decided to skip lunch or came back early and keep working while some people with work-life balance and sore bottoms had husbands yelling at them about butt pillows. 

I apologized and one person said, it was okay, they all understand, (unspoken: because they have children) and then muted myself for the entire rest of the day. 

State of the Scratch, the End

Okay, it was like this:

And now, after some application of touch up paint from the dealer and some encouragement from the body shop it’s like this:

Not at all perfect, but I have to hunt to see it in low light. I get the feeling I will be using that touch up paint a lot.

 

Rewriting the Novel: A Little More Interesting

So of course now that I’m almost two thirds done. It is expected to write a character so she goes from point a in the beginning to point b at the end, but sometimes it’s better if she hates herself along the way. And if we are to write what we know,  I am an expert in hating myself. 

The plot won’t be affected, happily. I will just need to go back and sprinkle in some self hatred. Another revision for later. 19 now.

Weekly Paint Progress: 8/26

This week the sundials went from this:

… to this:

These are all going to look the same until the details come in.

How I am Consoling Myself Recently

Doctor Fauci says this will go on until next spring. My response was “Opera next summer!” Next spring is only eight months away. I can make it that long, 

In fact, I think I could make it four years total. Past generations have gutted out the global tough times for three to four years at a stretch. Take a World War, any World War. Let’s say World War I or II. They all had their own suspended animation. 

• Four years of being stuck in your country. You can’t leave the country. No visits to Europe.
• No Olympics.
• Horrifying death tallies in the news every day.
• Supply line shortages.

On top of that, no birthday cake because of rationing. 

Check back in 2024 to see if I made it.

 

Mom Again

Remember a few weeks ago when I woke up and forgot Mom had died? Remember, I felt I needed to call her because I couldn’t remember the last time I had called her? And then, I remembered that’s right, she died 13 years ago.

It happened again. I fell asleep with the television on, and when I woke up I thought, on no, that noise is really going to disturb Mom. I’d better turn that off. Then there was a moment of wondering why I thought Mom was at my house, certainly Gary’s snoring would bother her more, and then I remembered, oh, that’s right, Mom is dead.

This might have all begun because it turned August, Mom’s birthday month, or else my subconscious is manufacturing situations in which I am relieved about Mom’s death instead of sad. Like, a few days ago I had a dream I shaved off my right eyebrow (Mom was not involved in that caper). Then of course I woke up alarmed, went to the bathroom mirror, and felt the relief that my eyebrow was intact. Just a bad dream. 

What makes it all even stranger: I rarely dream now that I don’t use an alarm to wake up. So my subconscious is being even more manipulative waking me up so I can get that hit of relief. 

Review: GasLight (1944) vs Gaslight (1940)

In 2012 I watched the movie Gaslight (1944). I think everyone knows the term “gaslighting” and that it got its name from this movie. Only it didn’t - there was a 1940 British movie version four years before the Ingrid Bergman/ Angela Lansbury 1944 version.

I wasn’t interested in the 1940 version until I read that in 1944 the studio making the Ingrid Bergman version bought up all the copies of the 1940s version. Why? Why? Because the 1940 version (seen here) makes the 1944 version look sick, in my opinion.

This is not what critics evidently believe, but I disagree. The early version clips along at less than 90 minutes, while the 1944 version packs in backstory and plods for just shy of two hours. The husband is far more evil in the early version - there’s no reason to torture his wife except he’s just an asshole. It’s 1940 no explanation why people were being evil or fragile, in 1940 they just are. 

And now, of course before 1940 there was a play (Gas Light/aka Angel Street), and now that I’ve heard the radio dramatization it’s almost word for word the 1940s movie.

What is really terrifying? The term “gaslighting” didn’t come to mean psychological manipulation until the sixties. I suppose in the interval the practice was just called “married life.”

 

 

Frog

For the last few weeks there has been a frog on the glass on our back door. We thought he just liked watching us.

I was admiring the frog when I noticed he would move - just a bit - just a little twitch every so often.

Turned out there were an apocalyptic number of winged bugs coming up from the patio, climbing skyward on the glass, and passing right by the mouth of the frog. He just had to sit there on the shoulder of the bug highway and flick out his tongue. 

I pulled Gary over and we started high-fiving each other for every bug that the frog consumed. 

Gary has abandoned his idea that the bugs are taking the air vent superhighway and recognizes them as outdoor animals. Now he has bought an outdoor bug zapper. I even said the zaps will frighten the raccoons and THE FOXES yet he is heartless. 

I am certain that after little baby raccoons are videotaped being startled by the sound his heart will melt and we will be left with a nearly-new outdoor bug zapper in the basement.

Rewriting the Novel: There are no original ideas

So, my heroine is homeless at one point  (well, the entire second half of the novel), and I had to work out how she would survive, and get shelter, and bathe. 

“I’ll just put a water fountain in the town square,” I thought, “That will take care of bathing, she can get up at dawn and take her little sliver of soap and use the water fountain to splash her parts.”

Well, before I even got a chance to write it, I watched Mitchells Against the Machines, and amazingly there is a shot of a man using a water fountain to bathe. And I am annoyed, because in the world of TMATM that scene doesn’t advance the plot or even make sense, technically. The machines haven’t even arrived, if I remember correctly, and if they have, they haven’t been there long enough to require that people bathe in water fountains. That part is set in  Kansas City, famous for its fountains, so is it an inside joke?

Whatever. It inconvenienced me.

So now I have to find another reliable place for her to bathe. The run off from the Men-only Turkish baths won’t work because they’ve been turned into a hotel by the second half. She’ll have to use the toilet in the train station. 

Of course, I could just make it rain, but I already planned one rain shower for that month and it’s Oklahoma. I need to write science fiction instead, where you can just throw in a shower ex machina. Hmph.

Review: The Mitchells Against the Machines

I know it’s been out for a while, but I only just saw The Mitchells Against the Machines and it’s as if Hyperbole and a Half  became a movie. Not the plot - there are no geese in the plot, no sedated party-goers (“Parp?”), none of that, but there’s just something about the animation and the humor in TMATM that favors that blog.

Like this:

Or this:

Also, there’s a nice reference to 1990s toys that I particularly enjoyed. 

Finally, Olivia Coleman is in it, so there you go. Go watch if you have Netflix and you haven’t seen it already.

Weekly Paint Progress: 8/19

This week the wall of sundials went from this barely there stencil of nothing:

… to this:

I Am Delighted to Say I Was Wrong!

I was dead wrong in previous posts about the boosters and interferons: the doctor’s office says boosters are allowed for:

“S1P medications (such as Gilenya, Mayzent, Zeposia, Ponvory), fumarates ( like Tecfidera, Vumerity, Bafiertam, dimethyl fumarate), Mavenclad, or Kesimpta, Lemtrada, Tysabri infusions”

(Don’t take that at face value. Your doctor’s office may have a different list or advice.)

I acted before anyones mind could change. 

Tasmania: Pronounciation

Years ago I was at a party with someone who had lived in Tasmania. Or, as she pronounced it:

“Tes-min-EE-yuh.”

“No,” I said. “Taz-MAY-nee-yuh.”

She corrected me. “That’s not how it’s pronounced.”

”That’s how it should be pronounced,” I said, and I stand by that, because the people would then be Taz-Maniacs, and what could be better?

I recently saw the new Hannah Gadsby show in which she claims she is from “Hobart, in tiz-MAAAAAAAAY-neyuh,” said as written. 

“Good on you,” I thought, because I had already picked up Australian five minutes in. And it is a good, very good show, not as impactful as Nanette but still good.

Could This Be Big Dot?

Big Dot, world traveller (spelled that way for international inclusivity), runs TravelSkite.

Her blog is about the connections and coincidences that bring us together through travel.

I know that she’s been to Rapa Nui. (I recently used that name she taught me instead of “Easter Island,” and it elevated my status at work.)

So is it possible that this photo I saw on Facebook might contain an image of Big Dot herself? Would that be too much of a coincidence?

Maybe? 


Not as blond as Big Dot, and this would be an unflattering photo, but glasses, forearms - could it be? That would be the ultimate coincidence.

 

FDA, CDC, WHO’s on First

Last Friday while I was working I kept one eye trained on the CNN closed captioning so I could see the specifics of specifically which immunocompromised people would be able to get an additional Covid vaccine shot.  At the top of the hour I shouted at Gary: “THEY STILL AREN’T SAYING ANYTHING NEW, JUST HIV, CANCER, AND ‘SOME OTHERS.’”

I forgot I had been waiting for a Zoom meeting to start for five minutes, and if I’d had the sense to mute beforehand no one would have heard me. Luckily, only one person was on time and got to hear my rant that FDA, CDC, and the World Health Organization were not being clear. And of COURSE they announced it late Friday when all the doctor’s offices are closed.

This article suggests I will get a notification, because I noted that I was immunocompromised on my form. Or will I? Who even knows. Well, WHO knows I shouldn’t get a shot, FDA says it’s safe, CDC is saying it’s only the interferon people who should get the shot, but The Media wasn’t reporting it that way.

Whoops, it’s been an hour, now they are.

“Certain — but not all  — “  means biologics, which means interferons, but maybe not Mayzent. And you know what? What would happen if I lied? Oh, right, This shot might do nothing and then I would have used up my chance if they later prescribe two extra shots for people on my drug. Or perhaps I need to go off my drug for a week.

This is just never ending.

Dog Update

Evidently my stalker dog next door told the new dog next door that I am a constant source of amusement, so now they are both stalking me. 

Here’s the problem:  Honey and I had a system. I’d hang over the dance, she’d jump up for head pats, then she’d lie on the ground and I’d stick my arm through the fence and rub her belly.

New dog does not follow the system. I lean over the fence to pat heads, and though I am deliberately spreading my arms as far apart as possible to accommodate all dogs, new dog will only accepts pats from the hand that is patting the Original Dog, Honey. If Honey lays down for a belly rub, New Dog leaps on Honey and shoves in between to steal the belly rub. 

So, I have gone from being ignored to being hounded. I’m sure later on both dogs will shun me again, but for today I am adored.

Rewriting the Novel: GWTW

I am certain everybody who wants to avoid their daily duty of writing dodges it by researching why it took Margaret Mitchell ten years to write Gone With the Wind.

Turns out there are some interesting details, especially in this article by, of course, National Public Radio.

Legend says that the publisher only had two suggestions: change the heroine’s name from “Pansy” O’Hara to something else, and make the first chapter (“Frankly my dear”) be the last (I suppose the other chapters were in flashback.)

So sad she was run over and killed, and sad that she was so determined no one else could ever see early drafts. The one book she wrote as a teenager was revealed in thr 90s by an ex-boyfriend, I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted that out there.

Also a big fan of porn. Who knew?

Weekly Paint Progress: 8/12

So here’s a big photo of all the sundials and the times of day they were taken:

(Yes, the sundial’s accuracy is a little iffy.)

I know it looks like the same image over and over - I may need to exaggerate a bit.

It’s very pale because the stencil’s just been traced in so far - for some reason my ethics allow me to trace a photo if I’m making duplicates like this. There’s still room for error: I missed some rocks in the one on the top left.

I Am Old

I was in a meeting and was chastised for referring to myself as old.

The Young People at Work were discussing “coozies,” and I asked them to define the term. They cried, “Coozies! You know! Coozies!” with increasing animation. Then they actually defined coozies, and they were what I suspected them to be, I just wasn’t totally sure and I wanted confirmation before I started talking about beer and how a beer holder might not be an appropriate business gift.

Now that I have found the article above I realize I don’t know the correct spelling of Koozie. I also don’t really know what Neoprene is, to be honest.

I explained that in the ‘70s when I lived with my beer-drinking dad, there were no Coozies. “Grandma is old,” I said. That’s what caught me the grief.

While I am not literally a Grandma, I still stand by my statement, because I predate beer coozies.  I could have legally had a beer from the first beer coozie, that’s how old I am. Grandma is fine with that.

Birthday!

Today I am now 59 years old. Next birthday might shake me but this one does not seem like a big deal.

What IS a big deal is that my husband selected this as my promised birthday gift.

It’s a bug trap. Sticky paper slides into it somewhere, which is a fair trade if it doesn’t go ZAP. Supposedly the color and fan draw in the bugs, then once inside they are caught on the sticky paper.

He actually listened to me complaining and bought an appropriate gift. It’s very romantic.

Vaccines Coming?

ABC news thinks boosters for the immune compromised are on the way!

But even as I get excited from a selfish point of view, I would think getting all the young kids vaccinated before they go back to school would be the priority. The World Health Organization said “Let’s get other countries vaccinated before the US gets an extra dose, how about that?” which I appreciate. 

So I’m torn. It’s not the right thing to do, big picture. I guess I’ll be okay no matter which way it goes.

 

Gary and the Flies

Gary’s bathroom, the master bathroom, is plagued every summer with tiny little flies. Last week Gary came out of his bathroom, found me in the kitchen, and said he’d had a revelation.

He saw a moth in the bathroom, and squished it, then wondered what in earth a moth was doing in there. There is a bug zapper inside by the back door, the moth should have gone into the light, figuratively and literally.  

(I HATE the inside bug zapper. I also hate bugs, but I hate the zapper more. Picture an outside bug zapper in the floor inside your peaceful house. ZAP. (Random time passes.) ZAP.

Gary wondered why the moth wasn’t zapped. I will turn the story over to him and his exact words.

“I wondered about the moth, and then I saw a fly inside the air conditioning vent. As I watched, it squeezed through the grate, expanded its wings and fluttered them delicately to dry them out. It then buzzed up into the bathroom.

There is a matching AC grate on the floor near to the bug-zapper in the dining room. Flying insects are getting stunned to the ground, crawl into the AC grate to safety and simply walk to the end of the house where the AC grate comes out in the Master bathroom. Mystery Solved.”

Great, hon. Or the bugs crawl in, see the piles of bug bodies inside the zapper, then opt for the AC detour instead.

Door needs to be fixed. Gary has not felt the door needs to be fixed up to this point. Perhaps the March of the bugs into his bedroom will change his mind.

Peculiar

Last Tuesday I woke up and lay there about ten minutes, as is my wont in the morning if I visited the bathroom several times during the “wee” hours.

I lay there thinking about moms I know. It occurred to me I hadn’t seen my mom for several weeks.

I swear I lay there searching my brain for the last conversation or phone call I’d had with Mom, worrying that Mom was feeling neglected. Just as I was thinking “Gotta call Mom right now,” I remembered she died thirteen years ago.

I totally forgot my Mom died thirteen years ago. So I guess healing takes thirteen years. 

State of the Scratch

The new car continues to collect dings and scratches like it’s made of butter. I thought I would calm down about it when it got some other scratches, for example, the abuse the wheel cover took when I scraped the curb in the hospital lot.

I don’t look at the wheel damage every time I go in the garage, but I am entirely incapable of ignoring the new scratch on the new car. 

I can’t stop trying to fix it, either. The car wash did no good. Then I tried a fine point pen; did not adhere. Then I tried Rustoleum and a toothpick, and I had some success with a dot of that but it wasn’t quite the right shade and finish and I backed off. I got an email estimate from a body shop, and after I gaped at that, they suggested I could order touch-up paint from the dealer.

And so I wait for the paint and consider the devil’s bargain of having a new car. The sixteen-year red Mini never had a scratch I noticed, but it was red, and now I understand why every other car on the road is that boring champagne color.

Weekly Paint Progress: 8/5

I liked the multiple bird baths. I liked the three chances to get something right. Working on three versions of the same thing allowed me to break away from the idea that I have to duplicate the one true version. 

So this week, the new subject is my new nemesis:

I need to wait till the sun’s out to take the photos, though. And that’s right where it was when it caught my toe crotch. That might need to move to a sunnier and safer spot. 

Rewriting the Novel: Complicated Plots

I like a good twisty well-woven plot.

I recently watched a film noir movie, The Crooked Web, which was all plot, with all the twists I could ask for. And it was awful. 

[SPOILERS]
There’s a Restaurant Guy, a Plucky Waitress who loves him, and her Brother. 15 minutes in, switcheroo, they are now Restaurant Guy, Plucky Con Artist out to cheat him, and her Lover. Ten minutes later, switcheroo 2, they are now Murdering Restaurant Guy, Plucky Undercover Cop 1, and her Lover Cop.

I was fine with that. I was fine. Then the plot became Get a Confession Out of Murdering Restaurant Guy, and evidently for that you go from Chicago to Germany, where there is a treasure planted in a cemetery, and a guy who casts gold stuff and paints it with lead so you can smuggle it, and that was fine, but then the cemetery becomes a US base, and they can’t get back in so they have to enlist, and at that point you start thinking, “Confession? Just beat this guy up, keep him awake, this is all unnecessary.” And the last five minutes were essentially “I can’t enlist, see, I shot this military guy once,” then hello German police, The End.

I mean I was very pro police violence by then, and wondering how I can avoid such a fate with my book. From my research about The Crooked Web I find that a) one should not write a movie as the movie is being filmed, that was evidently the problem here, just like with Gilda, and b) have a story as well as a plot. The story is evidently the internal motivation that drives the characters to dance through the plot, and there was none of that. 

There is currently none of that in my book either, so that means 18 revisions, not 17.

Room Temp Meds

When I started the Mayzent a year ago, I remember I was instructed to refrigerate it until I opened it, which seemed odd, given those instructions are the opposite of every other thing you put in your refrigerator. We don’t buy refrigerated mayonnaise at the store, then bring it home and open it, and then leave it in the pantry. And because that was so odd I asked specifically if that was the rule. Yes, that was the rule.

So the last batch sent via UPS was delayed in transit for a day, and then arrived late that second day, when the temps were in the high 90s. The ice packs inside the styrofoam box were cool, but not cold, and certainly not frozen. The drugs themselves were room temperature. 

I made a fuss at the Walgreens twenty-plus years ago when my interferon had not been refrigerated. (I came back for what I thought would be a replacement, and while it was cold this time, I peeled off the label and they’d just put a new label on the old box.) 

I thought I should do some research this time before I start worrying, and read this from the manufacturer: 

How should I store MAYZENT? 
Unopened Containers
MAYZENT 0.25 mg and 2 mg tablets may be stored at room temperature between 68°F to 77°F (20°C to 25°C) for up to 3 months. If you need to store MAYZENT tablets for more than 3 months, containers should remain unopened and stored in a refrigerator between 36°F to 46°F (2°C to 8°C) until use.

So, new instructions. (Put the Mayo in the pantry, unless you won’t use it for three months, I’m which case put it in the fridge. In either case, put it in the pantry after opening.) The document is dated January 2021. I’m still going to refrigerate when I get it, but I think I’m also going to place a call to the Mayzent line to clarify. If the rules have changed and we are following Mayonnaise Protocol now, I want to know.

Not the Point

I have posted often about how impressed I am with hotels that take the end of the toilet paper and fold it into a point.

I recently became aware that there is a toilet paper with wavy perforations:

It would seem the Charmin people tested this out. 
And I say: Test this? This is like when they rush drugs through the FDA for humanitarian reasons. Get this on the market; screw the test.

 

Spatchcocked Chicken

I have a copy of Salt Fat Acid Heat, and all I have ever made from it is the Spatchcocked Chicken.

So, foodie friends, when you spatchcock a chicken, does your spouse or partner do an impression of a spatchcocked chicken? Gary’s impression has him holding out his arms (ala crucified spatchcocked chicken) and doing an impersonation of a screaming chicken.

I can just imagine how he’d scream if he knew the chicken has no arms post spatchcock. Or if he knew the uncovered chicken spends the night fully exposed overnight in the garage refrigerator. I don’t know if I’ll ever get tired of spatchcocked chicken.