Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Happy New Year's Eve

Which do you prefer? New Year's Eve or New Year's Day?

In my world, New Year's Eve is better. First off, it's an eve, and eves are at night when it's dark and sparkly, whereas the days are in the harsh mid-morning light of early winter. 

Still, I feel I should be more excited about the day, about the optimism of the New Year. Welcome to the hope instead of goodbye to what's gone.

Maybe I need more New Year's Day traditions. I read that some people clean house and stock the pantry, which sounds AWFUL. Others have handsome men cross the threshold to bring them luck, which I imagine I'd have to hire out just like the cleaning and the groceries. 

I need to make plans on New Year's Day. Optimistic plans.

 

Weekly Paint Progress: 12/30

This week the Ball pitcher went from this ...

... to this:

Some parts I preferred before. The new cartoon contrast nature of the handle is distracting. Plus the way the bottom peony is shaded now suggests it needs a stem. Oops.

Well, I'll patch up those problems and then the table needs a wash of black on top of the brown, and that will be that.

All I can say is that these peonies do not appear to be made of bologna like the ones from January.

Think Outside the Box

Gary often buys "me" Christmas gifts which are transparently technology gifts for himself. Latest stereos, laptops, wireless devices, home assistants, he can only buy himself technology if it is wrapped up as a gift for "me." It's a firm Gary Rule, on par with Never Take the Last One of an Item Off the Grocery Shelf.

This year I unboxed something called a TV Fire Cube, which is similar to a TV Fire Stick, which seems to be a way to play streaming services without having cable. We don't have cable in the basement anymore, so Gary thought "we" could make the basement TV a test bed for transitioning away from TiVos and cable and on to wireless streaming.

Sadly, I couldn't even open the box. I pulled at every edge on the top, and every corner on every side. I thought, "This is why they have those unboxing videos on YouTube."

I whined at Gary who strode over with great confidence and got just as stuck. Eventually he rotated it upside down and pried open the bottom.

I assumed he did it wrong. Nope. This image is 44 seconds into the unboxing link above.

You can click the link and watch as the man confidently opens the bottom and flips it on its belly and turns what was clearly the bottom into a front flap, as you do in the twenty-first century. Someday soon this box will be a test for when they glean out the Olds. "Say shibboleth while you open this box, Boomer."

And if you doubt me, look at what popped up when I searched for how to spell "shibboleth' ...

Yesssss. Shibboleth means stream! (Also, Soylent Green is people.)

Review: The Matrix Resurrections

Last night Gary said, "What movie do you want to watch?"

I answered, "I picked the last one."  (Being the Ricardo's, excellent, needed some more eyebrow pencil for her and Spanx for him.) "What do you want to watch?"

"The Matrix Resurrections," he said.

"Oh god, no. I hate those movies. They make no sense."

He wore me down, and people, they wrote this new Matrix movie for me. Me, and everyone else who hates the Matrix movies. No only does it make sense on its own, I feel if I went back and watched all the old Matrix movies that they might make sense now too.

Cunning and clever and clear. Add to that all the Binary/The One/Gender subtext, and I can recommend it.

Rewriting the Novel: The Return

Well, I thought the next draft of the book was going to be easy, compared to erecting the scaffold and hanging all the plot points. But now viewed as a whole, the novel is a funhouse mirror of my injured inner child, and she is not pretty to look at. Then again, I'm on the other side of the keyboard, so if anyone sees it, they won't see me eye to eye, much less po9nt at me and say, "You have some whiny abandonment issues, get over it."

Awful people write awful books, awful, venal, transparent books. (The Bridges of Madison County.) How do you hide yourself, or do you? And I know it's strange that I am asking this on a blog where I don't hide myself. Maybe that's the thing - because I'm putting characters through my biggest issues I feel guilty becuase I'm dodging what I want to say directly. 

Maybe I need to write up a paragraph of the personal issues I want to paint with my broad brush and heavy hand. Then I won't feel guilty or transparent because then the book will seem subtle. Well, that's step one, anyway.

Thermometer

So, I finally bought the fancy Kinsa crowdsourcing thermometer that Rachel Maddow recommended at the beginning of the pandemic. (No fear. I am fine if the Gubment watches my temperature for the Greater Good.) I promptly took my temperature, and a then few days later I got an email from a nurse.

See below.

---------------

HEADS UP

Hello!

Kinsa’s Nurse Blake here, writing to you from my living room in Colorado. I’m the clinician that writes all of the medical guidance you’ll see in your Kinsa app and in additional guidance emails. I’m writing to introduce myself so you aren’t alarmed if I reach out to you if someone in your household falls ill.

With two now-tween girls of my own and a background in a hospital NICU, pediatric and adult units, I’m all too familiar with the panic that sets in when a family member - especially a little one - is sick.

'Is this serious? Should I be worried? Is it safe to care for this from home, or should I talk to my doc or go to the hospital? What can I do to keep myself or my child comfortable?'

Your mind just spins and spins.

Think of Kinsa as a tiny nurse in your pocket, there to quiet the panic and answer these common questions.

If you take a feverish temperature or enter a symptom, you have age-specific medical guidance at your fingertips. All this medical guidance is vetted against the American Academy of Pediatrics / American Academy of Family Practice, then triple-checked by Kinsa's on-staff doctors.

To supplement the guidance you see in the app, I’ll likely also follow up with you via email with a more detailed care guide to keep you (or your little one) comfortable at home. 

While I don’t hope to speak to you anytime soon 😉 , if anyone in your household falls ill - I’m here for you!

--------------

I am FULLY freaked out. Am I reading this right? She'll be monitoring our temperatures? In case we get fevers? And then sending me an email? A stranger? I signed up to have my temperature crowdsourced. I didn't sign up for a FRIEND who says she'll be watching me AND MY CHILDREN.

Christmas Waffles

The Christmas traditions in my tiny family of two are limited to food. There were specific things we ate when Mom would come over for Christmas, buffets Mom set up when we went over there, and now that Mom's gone we have waffles on Christmas morning -- or we have the last two years.

I am gorging on all the Christmas food anyway (the Turkish Delight KC recommended for a Liberty Orchards is lovely) and I went up six pounds last week. Don't care. Christmas is Keto Rumspringa.

Bring on the waffles> Also, bring on the melted butter, maple syrup, and the GrubHub hamburgers planned for later this week.

In a Christmas miracle, I've been eating this way since Thanksgiving, and this week I lost three pounds.

Christmas Eve

Santa may be busy out in your world, but here, this year, Christmas is about as minimal as Christmas can be. Well, except for the cookies (Eight kinds of cookies plus a fruitcake). 

Merry Christmas!

Weekly Paint Progress: 12/23

This week the Ball pitcher went from this:

... to this:

I know, it looks like I'm going in the wrong direction, but I have a plan. A plan for three washes.

Domestic Mysteries Resolved

1. The desperate beeping is coming from the CO 2 detector, and it has been thrown out and a new one installed.
2. The KitchenAaid plate token came from this tiny cutting board that must have been in the washer, and the heat was high enough to melt the glue.

 

Speed Covid

I woke up a week ago with a runny nose, headache, weird throat congestion, and a cough. I also wheezed when I was on my back. 

I remembered my friend who had Covid said for the first few days it just felt like a bad cold. I also remember she said the first few pharmacy tests were inconclusive. I contacted the doctor to find my best path forward.

The doctor said come on over, there's a floor of the parking garage devoted to giving tests, and you should come in if you have symptoms, and our test can tell in four hours.

I had meetings until 3, and I arrived 3 minutes before closing. I decided to come back the next morning.

Overnight, everything cleared up but the wheezing. I went in for the test anyway, because what if the Covid was in stealth mode? Viruses do what they can to live, the bastards.

The test was not as easy as my brother described, or as horrific as Gary described. I'd say it was the nasal equivalent of a Pap smear, not an endometrial biopsy. 

And of course, it came back negative for not only Covid but RSV and the flu. If it hadn't, you don't think I could have sat on that news for a week, do you?

Garyoke 2

Back in the day, Gary and I had Karaoke software on our old IBM PC, and we called it Garyoke. That PC died, and none of the replacement software had the Doris Day / Dean Martin songs we liked. 

Gary bought himself a Christmas present: one of those Alexa devices that has a video screen. It might have a dozen uses, but we're going to use it to sing the Garyoke again.

You can sing along with a video with scrolling lyrics, but you will still have the original singer at full volume, so it's not true karaoke. Still, he's talking about setting up a mixing board with microphones again.

We sang the Garyoke again last night. Lots of fun.

Rewriting the Novel: I Miss the Novel

Many nights for the past six months I went to bed guilty because I'd gone another day without working on the novel.

Now that I am supposed to let the book rest for a month, I want to pick at it and futz with it all day every single day. 

All I let myself do is to plan for another revision or take notes on what I want to change. And I can't even do those things at the end of the month. I have to begin with the Great Gutting, in which I pare my words down to the bone just as I did Jerry's.

I'm telling myself that this phase will be less difficult than the first. No doubt it will be just as painful in a new way.

Nervy

In the last week I have been encouraged to kill off some of my nerves. I don't like it.

I understand why people kill their nerves if the nerves do nothing but cause them pain, but I have to assume those people have nerves to spare. My nerves, on the other hand, are coated with  a tasty layer of fatty myelin that my immune system cannot help but nibble on, so I have no nerves to spare.

I went ahead with the root canal, killing off the nerve for that lower half of my tooth, because there was no other option given. I suppose killing the nerve was just a side effect of routing out the infected canal in the root. 

On the other hand, I know someone who will be killing off some nerves in his spine. He has  severe spinal stenosis, whereas mine is only moderate. He is opting for nerve ablation to kill off his offending spinal nerves. There is not a chance in hell I will do that. I need all my spinal nerves to act as decoys for my few essential spinal nerves, the big boys, the ones I can't lose. I need those to walk, plus the bowel, bladder, and arm nerves. I don't know what I'll think after a few years of spine problems, though. 

New Chair Redux

Yesterday was a bad day, with work frustrations and spousal frustrations and health frustrations. I'd been crying on and off for no reason since the weekend anyway. (I say "for no reason" but of course I watched the pivotal first episode of a certain show that rebooted on HBO Max.)

Late in the afternoon I was again speaking to Gary enough to list my dozen complaints for the day, and he was speaking to me enough to say, "Well, this will be a bright spot in your day: your chair's here."

It was a bright spot. Until I began putting the chair together.

Step one, read the instructions. "If a part is missing please check if it was left in the corner firstly" ... and I would put a period at the end there but there was no period, in fact there were very few periods, but they made up for it by adding superfluous punction in "it's" and other locations.

So, instructions that didn't inspire confidence. That was step one. 

Step two, attach the casters to the base. I put the roll-y casters in, I pulled them right out. They did not snap in. This annoyed me, and it also got me close to the base, which I saw was scratched.

That's a scratched brass leg. I know it looks all Georgia O'Keefe-y.

"Damn Wayfair human-traffickers," I thought, "I'm going to have to call them."

Step three, call the customer service line, where a very nice lady helped me conclude that I needed a refund, but that I didn't need to return the chair. This surprised me. "Well, wouldn't I just go to the hardware store and see if I can't fix it myself?" Evidently I could.

Step four, tell your husband that the child-slavers at Wayfair have sent you a defective chair with bad casters. 

Step five, watch your husband as he looks at you steadily and picks up a caster and JAMS it into the slot until it clicks. 

Step six, wail, "Damnit, now I have to call them back and tell him to undo the refund."

"Yes, you do."

"Or do I?" I asked, because I am a bad person.

"Yes, you do, because you are a good person."

As it turned out, the baby-eaters at Wayfair just told me, "Don't worry about it, it's all right," which either means they never submitted the refund or that I have a free chair.

(If they are giving out free chairs as a business model that does support the human-trafficking theory, though, because they would need a revenue stream.)

Weekly Paint Progress: 12/16

This week the Ball pitcher went from this:

... to this:

I knew this was going to happen: I get all fiddly with the background and reflections and now they compete with the foreground. Also, I need to lose the blue strip that goes up to the top, or else extend it to the edge of the closet door. Or make it the same shade of grey as the side of the molding. And the wallpaper reflections on the desk need to be smaller than the original. The leaf of the right flower needs to extend into the wallpaper. And then finally the flowers need more depth. Lots to do.

New Chair

Just about everything in "my" room suits me, with one exception. My office chair simply doesn't  fit in with the wallpaper and cherry wood and Queen Anne aesthetic.

Even after research I couldn't find a chair that fit my brief:

• Ladylike
• Rolling, but not a typical office chair
• No black metal arms or legs
• Weight limit over 250 for the hubby 
• Low arms to fit under the desk
• Cream upholstery 

I'm not surprised that I didn't find anything for months. 

However, the medical bathroom toilet brush broke and that led me to Wayfair.com to see if they  might have a medical or apothecary-themed replacement toilet brush.

(I went to Wayfair because it has been accused by Q-Anon for human trafficking, because of course it has. ("Goody Wayfair is a witch!") Thus I was disposed to throw some money at them to offset any conspiracy-theorist bullshit boycott.)

After I put a vaguely apothecary-themed toilet brush on the order, I was one penny shy of free shipping, so I poked around for chairs. And there it was, the Holy Grail, even unto the built-in Queen Anne curves.

Ticks all the boxes. And, bonus, the stripes sewn into the upholstery echo the stripes in the wallpaper. Score. Plus, at first it wasn't going to come until February, and now it is has shipped already. And the frosting on the cake? All this angers Q-Anon. 

Updated: Immunocompromised News is Less Exciting than First Thought

Well, I have read some more about this Covid solution for the immunocompromised and evidently there was one thing I misunderstood about the new protections.

I thought when they said it was "prophylactic" that you would take it to protect yourself before you stepped out in the world.

Now I see that "The treatment ... can only be issued after a person has been exposed to the coronavirus. (This means you can’t take it without knowing you’ve been exposed to the virus, say, because a close contact, such as someone in your household, has become infected.)"

Seriously? My first instinct is to go nuzzle with some Covid-infected person so that I can go to the hospital and get a massive dose, six times higher than normal. Then I suppose I would have to marry the infected person so he'd be a "household member," but then I could get the meds and eat at a restaurant and go on vacation.

I will not be the only one who feels this way.  This is a bad idea.

+==========

UPDATE; I am wrong. I am confusing two separate "prophylactic" measures, the one authorized on Dec 8th and another one. The AstraZeneca one authorized on the 8th is truly protective and doesn't require exposure -- unless you need to make a case for it, which you will, because there isn't nearly enough of it.

Domestic Mystery #2

I was fishing about in the dishwaasher, extractiving something from the fork and spoon area. Of those compartments in the fork and spoon area we have one with a lid. It's semi-loose lid, but not so loose that something could just show up in there without warning.

Last week this showed up in that compartment without warning:

 A stainless steel name plaque, 3 inches long, for a KitchenAid ... thing. 

The last thing I put in that compartment was a glass jar. It had no such plaque. 

The only KitchenAid thing I have is my mixer, and I see no spot where this could have been. There is some glue on the back; no similar glue is on the mixer.

The only other explanation I could think of is that the washer itself is a Kenmore, which are just brand-name appliances rebranded for Sears. I suppose it is possible our dishwasher started life as a KitchenAid and then was stripped of any personality so it could be sold at Sears, and then the one remaining bit still clinging on of its birth identity finally let go.

That still doesn't explain how it ended up in the special compartment, except I don't think I locked the lid down.

I don't know. I feel like someone is gaslighting me.

Domestic Mystery #1

The smoke detector downstairs began to chirp, and we had it so long I decided to assume it was the chirp that says "Don't trust me, I am an aged smoke detector" and I just got a new one.

The new one chirps too. Nothing is raising an alarm, just a pouty "pay attention to me" chirp.

I love debugging things, while Gary does not. Gary says, "Ignore the chirp." Instead I cleaned out the housing and turned off the light bulb that is just inches away instead of the recommended 3 feet.

Then Gary said, "That chirp is coming from the back of the basement, not where I replaced the smoke alarm." 

It turned out that it was an old CO2 alarm we'd forgotten about. Gary agreed we could relocate it up to his room and see if it had any complaints. 

Yesterday morning I heard eight chirps in a row. Not three. Eight. Now that I hear they can network together I think the eight chirps are  "Mom? Where are you? Mom? Mom?"

Also, the eight chirps came from the basement.

Covid Antibody Treatment for the Immune-suppressed

I am dismayed that I keep hearing Breaking Vaccine News for the Immunosuppressed from the Late Show. (Evocative of Garrett Morris and News for the Hard of Hearing from early SNL.)

If you didn't hear, they will be giving a year's mega-dose of monoclonal antibodies to those of us who are essentially immune to the vaccine. Like a  year's worth of preemptive monoclonal antibodies. You can see all about it in the video below --Two minutes and 50 seconds in.

I showed it to Gary and he was still skeptical. 

 

Snow Queen

Years ago our department re-framed the Christmas Party into a "Festivus" party. Now that we have merged with the HR department, we attend a "Winter Celebration'' party.

I was excited about the Winter Celebration, because the invitation encouraged us to wear winter-themed costumes.

I planned on donning my tiara, my rhinestones, a white boa, and a blond wig. Then I intended to  powder my face as white as I could with flour or cornstarch or something. So, I was all set up to attend the party in costume as the Snow Queen from Narnia. I confess that all I remember about the Snow Queen is that she is evil and offers children Turkish Delight, but if one has a tiara, what is one to do? One must be a queen.

That was my plan, then I checked the invite and it just says "wear your best winter attire" which is NOT the same as "come tarted up like the Snow Queen." Additionally, I  saw a Zoom image of all the attendees from last year and every person is wearing a holiday sweater as their holiday costume, with the exception of one party-pooper: me. I didn't even change my Zoom background. 

So, I guess I'm conforming this year. I don't think I even have a holiday sweater. Maybe I can be the Snow Queen just to amuse myself. 

(Thankfully I found a classic Santa hat when I was digging in the costume box for the blond wig, so I am going with that.)

Weekly Paint Progress: 12/9

This week the Ball pitcher went from this:

... to this:

Oops. Should have taken off the scotch tape that's in there to give a straight line for the upper wallpaper. Also, I think the glass vase needs a white line on the right. I don't know why. I can't see it in the original photo, but it seems it should be there.

Language Uptick

It seems like everyone in my Facebook feed is learning Spanish or Portuguese or some language. DuoLingo is this year's sourdough. I am really enjoying learning Russian. It reminds me of Latin: they strip out all the useless articles and "helper" words. "The taxi is there?" Not four words, but two. "такси tam."

In high school I had a very interesting Latin teacher who taught us by acting out all the nouns and verbs. There was a time mid-semester that he used his hands to act out a line graph, that would go up ("super", he said as his hands went up) then "conplano," (his hands drew a plateau), then "super" again. Eventually he broke down and explained in English that we started out learning a lot, then didn't appear to have learned much in the middle of the semester, but our recent test scores showed we had risen again, and sometimes that's how people learn: in spurts.

That's how I feel about Russian. Suddenly I know what they're saying. It's a lot like when I learned the guitar and suddenly I could play without engaging my brain. My hands just knew.  They say some combination of letters and I know they are saying, "This is a cafe and not a circus" or "Here is Russia and here is Ukraiiiine!"

On a related note, I cannot hear the news about the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine without saying "Ukraaaiiiine!"back at the anchor.

The Root Canal: Second new thing of the day

Yesterday I did two entirely new things:

1. I made a fruitcake. 
2. I got a root canal, which, like the fruitcake, was better than I expected, given what it was.

I asked for and got a view of myself in the dental dam. It looked a lot like this.

I have become tooth.

I didn't get to see how I looked in the bite block, but below is a bite block, a genius bit of low-tech:

It nestles right in the hinge of your jaw and takes care of your one dental responsibility: opening wide. 

Finally, just as phase two of the root canal began, I heard the beginning of One Week by Barenaked Ladies, as proof from the Spirits that they are on my side.

I did not have to have my tooth extracted immediately after, unlike my poor husband, and I will not be tempted with any drugs more powerful than Advil, though a new drug would have been a nice third New Thing to Try Today.

Christmas Ornaments

On the right is my ornament, the Hot Wheels car to commemorate the purchase of the new car.

On the left  is Gary's ornament, to commemorate ... well, to commemorate a side effect of the pain medicine he took for his recent root canal and tooth extraction. I got to see a new ... side of Gary. And I got to find out where the all-night pharmacy is. 

I don't know if Santa has Gary's physique, but he does have Gary's smile.

Zoom Protest: A New Form of Business Communication

There's a new thing going on at some Zoom meetings at work. Let's say the leader of a Zoom call drops some bad news. The team in the call behaves with utter professionalism, no one breaks stride, but one by one their zoom backgrounds turn to:

A Kermit-sipping-tea meme with an annotation referencing the bad news.

A Before-and after meme with an annotation referencing the bad news.

The This-is-Fine meme with an annotation referencing the bad news.

A photo of a dumpster fire. That one was mine. I didn't annotate it with the bad news, because by then it was clear what we were protesting, and because Grandma here didn't know where the meme generators are.

I am so delighted by this new form of quiet protest that allows the work to continue without the typical interruption for ten minutes of complaining that I am ...

This Post Brought to You by the Letters Bird-Legs and P-Duel

I've been using DuoLingo to learn Russian (as you do). They do a really good job switching up the challenges so you are asked to interpret what you see, what you read, and what you hear.

• What You See: New nouns are introduced with an image of the noun, which feels like cheating. I try to ignore the image, for some reason. I don't know why I'm trying to make Russian more challenging. 
• What You Read: I fail consistently on interpreting what I read, not surprising given that when I read I think things like, "That starts with the L sound, so I should search for the answer that looks like it has bird legs in the beginning." (For those unfamiliar with Russian, Ls look like bird legs, F's look like two Ps standing back to back before a duel, and V's are Bs, and Zs are 3s.)

• What You Hear: First off, everything sounds as if it's being read by Ambassador Molari from Babylon 5, so it's all vaguely comical. Second, they made an effort to record each word in a flat affect so it can be plugged in to any spot in any sentence, except for one word: Ukraine. They throw a little emotion in to that word. Just a little touch of excitement, but next to all the other words it sounds like it's the name of the hot new Broadway show, Ukraine! Amerika, yawn, Ruzsia, yawn, and introducing uKRAYnnnn!

I understood exactly one word in the video below: Hello.

 

Weekly Paint Progress: 12/2

This week the Ball pitcher went from this:

... to this:

Why is that pitcher so damn hard to paint? 

 

In Which We Mock the Terrifying Power of the US Military

I was watching Fail Safe.  I rarely catch the start of this movie, so it was nice to see it on DVD. The ban on commentaries continues, so I had to go to IMDB, where I saw this trivia:

The US also declared DEFCON 2 at the start of the Gulf War in 1991. The stated sequence of colors is correct - blue, green, yellow, red. Omitted is white, DEFCON 1 - imminent and all but unavoidable nuclear war.

I was astonished - I'd lived through DEFCON 2? Was was I doing? How was I not even aware?

Reason 1: Well, I was in a theater on January 15, 1991, watching Edward Scissorhands after work with some friends. Oddly, before the movie the projectionist showed an image of the UN building accompanied by the national anthem. We commented that was weird, but guessed the theater owner was fond of the UN for some reason. NPR let me know we were at war on the drive home.

Reason 2: It all depends on what you mean by DEFCON 2: evidently it isn't a universal defense condition. The strategic command may be at one defense condition and the Army another. (It also depends on what you mean by 'Gulf War', the Internet seems sure it means Bush the Younger's Shock and Awe, not Bush the Elder's Desert Storm, but this interesting article from the 1991 Baltimore Sun plants it on  G.H.W. Bush.)

 Scary. By the way, 9/11? DEFCON 3.