Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

The Wet Dry Vac

For over thirty years the Wet/Dry Vac in the basement has been a sticking point. I'm a grown woman and I am not allowed to use it. I'd like to use it, especially when the basement floods. But no. Gary says he's afraid I would try to wet-vac up water without cleaning out the dirty dry-vac bin.

Last week Gary was gone, it began to rain, I said, "Today is the day," and I sucked up all the water. It smelled particularly bad. 

That's because there was a wee dead mousie in the bin. I only saw him after I sucked up 15 gallons of water and was just about to dump it in the sump pump. Tiny mouse, floating on top.  

I used the hand-baggie dog-poop disposal method to fish it out. It was quite wet on the outside and desiccated on the inside. He died a sad death alone in a giant red bin.

Evidently all this fearlessness convinced Gary that I can use the wet/dry vac without supervision. I have it planted on top of the mouth of the Nile and I plan into tturn in on and leave it on in the next rain.

Oscar Movie Re-education Program

I just looked through a list of all the Oscar-winning movies ranked by IMDB score and somehow I have missed at least a third of the Oscar-winning movies.

I have avoided some that were designed to depress me.

WAR: BAD

To start, I don't need to be convinced that War is Hell, so it's been no thank you to these movies despite their IMDB rating:

• Wings (7.5)
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (8.1) *
• Patton (7.9)
• The Deer Hunter (8.1) *
• From Here to Eternity (7.6)
• Platoon (8.1)

Three of those movies topped 8, though, so perhaps they have something to say that's worth stomping my heart down into the mud. I'm all up for The Bridge on the River Kwai, then, and maybe I'll just shut my eyes during the Russian Roulette scene in The Deer Hunter. La La La.

PEOPLE: BAD

• Moonlight (7.4)
• In the Heat of the Night (7.9)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (8.7) *
• No Country for Old Men (8.1)
• Green Book (8.2) *
• Dances with Wolves (8.0)
• 12 Years a Slave (7.5)
• Gandhi (8.0)

Well, the obvious choice is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, because of that insane rating, 8.7, see what I did there, and because I fall into the oppressed category and not the oppressor. I have tried to watch Dances with Wolves and Gandhi, and I know they'd be good for me, but just like rehab, I ain't got 70 days. Green Book, then.

BUMMERS IN GENERAL

• Nomadland (7.3)
• Million Dollar Baby (8.1) *
• Calvalcade (5.9)
• How Green Was My Valley (7.7)
• On the Waterfront (8.1)
• The Lost Weekend (7.9)

Cavalcade sounds like the seminal Upstairs/Downstairs, right up my alley, but if I'm sticking to my self-imposed rule of highest IMDB rating I have to go with Million Dollar Baby, oh god, because I have tried three times to finish On the Waterfront.

MOVIES I MIGHT ACTUALLY ENJOY

• The Broadway Melody (5.7)
• The Greatest Show on Earth (6.6)
• Cimarron (5.9)
• The Great Ziegfeld (6.7)
• Around the World in 80 Days (6.8)
• All the King's Men (7.5) *
• The Life of Emile Zola (7.2) *
• Going My Way (7.1)
• Tom Jones (6.5)
• An American in Paris (7.2)

Notice how this category has lower ratings than movies that will make me a better person. All the King's Men is about a populist corrupt politician, so I should have watched that a few years back already. All I know about Emile Zola is he was somehow involved in the Dreyfus case, J'accuse, and I don't remember who was accused and of what, and if I had any sense I would go look it up on Wikipedia right now, but frankly I feel so shitty now that I no longer care. 

So. I wonder if I should save this for my March vacation. Seven Movies in Seven Days to a Better Me. 

Rewriting the Novel: Half Done with Revision One

Well, we are close to the second anniversary of the pandemic, so the novel is two pandemic years old. I guess one year was the outline and one was the first draft? 

The second draft is half done in six weeks. If a draft takes 3 months, and I have 17 drafts, that's 51 weeks. (Though, half of the 17 drafts are things like "check if it really was a full moon that day.")

Of course, after the 17 drafts it'll just be good enough to show to writing groups.

Will I have forgotten to play the guitar by then? That's the real question.

Cavuto News

If you are curious, read Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto's experience with MS and Covid.

It's encouraging that he didn't die, and that his doctors think his vaccines and boosters did some good, though I don't see them quantifying it. 

I would think if there were anything that might make one come to Jesus and disavow one's slimy employer it would be 5 weeks fighting for your life in the ICU, but evidently not. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/24

This week the daisies went from this:

... to this.


So, just the birds left.

Googly Eyes

A friend posted this on Facebook:

I don't have any Googly eyes, but I made my own.

Googly eyes have been purchased, have no fear. That addition needs to be there for a while.

Witness Protection Squiirel

Something was going on outside my guest room window. Whatever it was, it was in  the front yard and made a sound alternating between bangs and scratches. I peeked through the blinds and it was a squirrel spread-eagled on the window screen in a classic Looney-Tunes pose. 



That isn't a photo -- when I turned to get my iPhone, he jumped away. He seemed like the nervous type anyway. He had the affect of a squirrel desperately trying to evade someone. "Let me in, they're after me."

I knew he wasn't starving, because there are literal piles of peanuts in the back yard. And I knew he wasn't cold: it was a freakish 58 degrees.

Five minutes later I heard the sound again. Peeked through the blinds, no squirrel. Checked the window in the next room over, no squirrel. Looked out the front door, no squirrel. Turned around and there he was on the opposite side of the house, plastered to a screen that looked out on the backyard.

I took a step across the great room to get a better look and he jumped away again, only to run to the peanut pile and start eating. 

So I don't know. Was he saying thanks for the eternal supply of nuts? He looked too desperate. Did it occur to him that if we stopped with the nuts that he would starve because he never learned to scavenge and he was pleading for independence?

Maybe?

It haunts me.

Chinese, Healthy?

A work discussion recently turned to guilty secret comfort food, the food you get when no one is watching you.

"Captain D's hush puppies" I said, and I should have shut up then, but I did not. I did not  because someone else said their super-secret sin was Chinese food.

"But Chinese food is healthy," I said. "It has vegetables." Beef with Broccoli, Chicken with Vegetables. Mu shu Pork.  

"No," they said, "Chinese food is deep fried chicken submerged in sweet and sour jelly."

And then someone said Lion's Choice was their favorite, because it was made of roast lion, and that's where the conversation went then, but, tell me what you think, people.

Does Chinese qualify as a guilty pleasure comfort food?

 

Tucks

My crotch affliction is back AGAIN. The lower parts have definitely thinned and rusted to the degree that they are just intermittently tender, sore, and a touch ... gory.

I have eschewed the rough toilet paper and tried all the creams and unguents in the house. I even tried the Monistat 7, which took me down a rabbit hole while I researched what could cause bubbles in one's urine, and by using the scientific method I can say -- decisively -- Monistat 7 will make your urine bubbly. Not your thyroid, or proteinuria, or other alarming  things you may have Googled. 

However, because none of the ointments dealt with the problem, I began poking around in the backs of drawers and found that when I stocked the health larder one thing I bought in preparation for the future was an item called "Tucks."

I heard of them from a commercial that was too vague to say, "THIS IS FOR HEMORRHOIDS," just that they were for relief of rump itching and unpleasantness, and who among us has not been struck by that? 

I figured all the nether holes must be made of the same essential tissue, so why not open the tidy little tub and take out one of these damp circles and poke it up in my lady hole?

This is why: because Tucks are tucking COLD. As cold as witchcraft, frozen nitrogen, dry ice. Cold.

"What is in this stuff," I yelped, and found there is only one active ingredient: witch-hazel. (Witches, there you go. Cold as a witch's crotch.)

That was this morning. Now that I know to expect, the popsicle-in-the-crotch numbing effect is not the surprise it was before. It's actually kind of nice. And I think it might be helping. I'll give it a week and I'm sure things will have improved by then. No doubt the pudenda would improve on its own, and the pads are just a placebo. Don't care. I like placebos. 

Absurd Purchases

I need to memorize the phone number of the credit card fraud department. I ignored a phone call and a text and an email because I thought they were conning me. 

But, no, they were the good guys, not the bad guys. And of course this is a three- day weekend. Three-day weekends are evidently prime hacking opportunities because people are too busy having fun to check their credit cards.

I got a peek at about twenty of them -- all romance-related, oddly (flowers, hotel, flowers, dating apps). It was so fast that it must have been a computer doing it. Perhaps Russian cyber criminals, as a prelude to war? Not cool, Russians, not cool. 

 

Zoom Dress Code

The TeddyJ powers that be are making optimistic plans to have us all back in the office in April. I think it's April. I didn't pay close attention because I will not be going back in the office, thank you, no. I'll change over to home-based; the pay is the same.

For those going in they are making one remarkable adjustment, the office dress code is dropping to business casual. (This after I got myself down to five suits that fit. Those five suits no longer fit, but by April they could.)

You ask why I care about the dress code if I am not going in to the office. Well: there is now a Zoom dress code for people working off-site. Two rules:

• no T-shirts
• no denim shirts

So, goodbye to 20% of my wardrobe right there. My denim shirt (the one I bought to allow for bra-free days) is now struck from the roll, bra or not.

I put it on immediately after I read the email. Perhaps I can wear it out at the seams by April. And I fully intend to protest by wearing nothing but underwear downstairs. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/17

This week the daisies went from this:

... to this:

I think it will all start to pull together next week when the flowers get some depth.

Smells: the Second

For the past few days Gary has been very dismayed by the smells that have been coming out of him. 

I have encountered Gary's smells in the past, and it is true, sometimes he goes through episodes of gas that are bad. Regrettably bad. Labrador-level bad. Called on the carpet before HR bad. Bad. 

However, this time, I can smell nothing. I see him shriek and wave his arms and apologize, but there is nothing. No smell. He tells me there is something wrong with me, and then of course I must prove I don't have Covid by smelling other things, and then he concludes as always I don't have the refined nose he does. I would buy that, only I have been getting running over and dropping my nose down to ass level to try to see if he is really making these smells, or if he is hallucinating.

The jury is in: I think he's hallucinating, mainly because here are no pains or sensations that accompany these smells. It might be the same meds that once made him think snakes and bugs are crawling on him. Or, it could be his epilepsy; when I looked up things that can cause olfactory hallucinations, temporal lobe epilepsy was at the top of the list, and that's the very kind he has. 

I'm going to keep an eye on it. Or my nose on it. It might just go away.

Smells: the First

Last week at the dentist, the assistant put the lead (?) blanket over my chest for the X-rays, and I smelled the most delicious smell. I immediately assumed it was some strawberry gum-numbing agent drooled on the blanket by the precious user. I didn't care, I just sniffed it.

And then it smelled so good, and I got so relaxed, that I began to suspect the dentist was piping drugs in through the air vents as an experiment, and I made a note to ask him.

It was nothing so exciting. The assistant had binged on a Michael Kors summertime scent. (Though, she said she always tries to keep it off her wrists so it doesn't get in patient's faces.) Sadly, I don't recall which one. I wouldn't be allowed to use it, because Gary's nose is so sensitive. 

More on that tomorrow.

Walgreens Super Bowl Vaccine Appointment

So, there I was, at the Walgreens, ready for my fourth vaccine. I walked in, there were about ten people in the whole store and they were all at the register. Fine, because I was headed back to the pharmacy.

The entirely closed, shuttered pharmacy.

The sign showing that pharmacy was "open'' was right next to the metal grate locked down over the counter.

I found an employee who said their pharmacist was "out," so they had a temp who left already, and they were going to reschedule all the appointments. 

WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT, I thought, and I said "Well, okay then, see you later."

But I will not see you later, Walgreens. I will not. I felt pretty comfortable out and about so now I'm trying the grocery store tonight at 7:00 pm. And they better not have any of these shenanigans.

It's a Conversation, Right?

So, I keep hearing that Biden had a phone call with Putin, and that Biden said X, or Y, or Z.

It's been a week of this, and I haven't heard from American media what Putin said. Did he say, "I have no idea what you're talking about?" or "I can invade who I want,"  or possibly, my favorite, "благодарю" (it just translates to "I thank you," but it's pronounced "blogga-da-you"). 

So I turned to Reuters, and look, third paragraph.

"The Kremlin said Putin told Biden Washington has failed to take Russia's main concerns into account, and it had received no 'substantial answer' on key elements including NATO's expansion and the deployment of offensive forces to Ukraine."

Those concerns seem to be: "Putin, jostling for influence in post-Cold War Europe, is seeking security guarantees from Biden to block Kyiv's entry into NATO and missile deployments near Russia's borders."

Seems like there's lots of room for compromise. 

India Leap Month

As I said last week, the daffodils are on their way.

I needed to draw a daffodil on the calendar to mark the last day of February, which is often the advent of the daffodils. And for that, I needed to know if the last day was the 28th, or the 29th, so I asked Alexa, "Is twenty twenty two a leap year?"

Alexa said yes, the "coming leap year is 2022."

Cool, I said.

And YES I KNOW ALEXA LIED. I know that because people at work corrected me. 

I needed proof that it was not my fault, that Alexa had lied, and that was when I noticed that her reference was the India Times.

"Could India have different leap days?" I thought, and yes, they do indeed. There are leap days and leap MONTHS and they add and remove them at will following rules outlined in this article.

Of course, everything in that article might be a lie. I have no confidence now that I can't trust Alexa.

Rewriting the Novel: Fun with Exposition and Kinky Hat Porn

Well, this draft is turning into a simplification draft.  For example, the heroine doesn't need two supplemental father figures. The stepfather and the foster father have now merged, and I don't know why I didn't think of that before. I suppose because I had a stepfather. 

This draft is also doling out the exposition so it isn't all crammed into chapter one.  It's like a puzzle, like programming.

But, because I have exposition on my mind, I'm painfully aware of the exposition in anything I watch. For example, I'm watching The Gilded Age on HBO, and a woman says something to her husband prefaced with, "Well, as you are already aware, [blah blah blatant exposition]."  Tsk, I say. Tsk, Tsk, Tsk.

Then again, I'll take it, and even some stilted dialog on top, as long as I get tea porn and architecture porn and hat porn. Even some kinky hat porn.

Are those provocatively posed turkey legs dressed in ruffled paper anklets? I think so.

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/10

This week the daisies went from this:

... to this:

Currently in the ugly adolescent stage.

Big Finance

I am tremendously stressed by the prospect of selling my late mother's house. I can only imagine how I would have felt selling it right after she died, instead of renting it out. 

So now that I'm selling, I worry that:

• Every move I make is wrong
• There are too many moving parts and I will get confused
• Mom AND Dad are looking down from heaven disapproving of my every choice, and ...
• There is so, so much money at stake that any mistake will cost thousands

Then I thought about the converse: a big purchase instead of a big sale. Just last year we bought a car that cost about 25 - 30 percent of the potential proceeds from this house sale.

And how much time did I spend stressed about that purchase? Not a second. How much time did worry about the different options and moving parts? An hour, max. Was I stressed that I was making a poor financial decision that would cost me thousands? No, because I could hear Mom AND Dad say, "Don't bother us about some crazy electric car, we're drinking Brandy Alexanders up here."

Yet, even though that is some AIRTIGHT logic, I am still stressed out. 

T-Minus Three Weeks

There should be clouds of daffodils this month. I put out at least 60 bulbs, and this time they're surrounded by tiny subterranean chicken wire cages. Hah HA you voles and squirrels. 

I love the daffodills so much, you would think I'd put out snowdrops and crocuses too, but no.

Maybe next year. Definitely next year.

Seriously, Quit Changing the Rules

I was supposed to get vaccine shot #4 five months after my third, so on January 17. But I delayed my fourth booster to get past the omicron surge. When I get it Super Bowl Sunday I will be one month behind.

Right?

But no. As of last Saturday the CDC said, "Move that fourth shot up. Get it three months after your third shot."

So now I'm three months behind according to this new time table. Tiresome. I wonder if I can argue I should get an extra shot because it's been six months since my third shot, and if we are now doing a shot every three months I should get two.

I'm just waiting for Paxlovid (or as  NPR calls it, "hope") to come out, at which point  they will tell me I can't take it if I've had a booster in the last year of some such nonsense. 

(Actually no, I'm happy and grateful for anything.)

Dentist

I'm quite happy with my decision to delay my dental visit. Omicron is trending down now. Here's the graph for my county:

(No one I know died this week, but a vaccinated coworker went out sans mask and lived to regret it.)

Gary kept his appointment, but he had a little debate with the dentist about his level of concern. They were talking about how Gary elected to sit in his car and not the waiting room for fear of catching the virus. He quotes the dentist as having said, "You should be worried about us."

Gary interpreted that as, "You should be worried about me and the rest of the staff catching it, not about your selfish paranoia," and I say it the dentist meant, "You should be worried about me and the rest of the dental staff spreading it." 

Will I remember to ask the dentist to clarify when I see him tomorrow? We shall see.

 

Big Snow

The Olympics just started, and every country will soon unite to tweet the same reactions to a ski wipeout or a big hockey win. I do love global events.* 

We just got past a big national event here in the U.S.: a big national snowstorm. It's so odd that my brother in Albuquerque was in the same snowstorm I was in.

He got an inch, though, and I got nine.

(Spunky says brrr.)
(Spunky also snorts and says, "Nine inches.")

*Except for global pandemics. Hate global pandemics.

Okay, I Am Really Getting the Extra Vaccine this Time, Start the Clock, Honest.

Gary has been infuriating me by insisting the environment in which I get the vaccine will be perfectly safe, and even more infuriating, that at his advanced age of 68 he is just as immune-compromised as I am. I just sent him this:

Seriously, dude. I have Facts and Charts. Also, it is pitiful my husband and I are both so starved for mutual sympathy that we are arguing over who has the worse immune system.

What is most infuriating (to total three infuriating things) is that we had this conversation:

"Hey Gary, I signed up for the vaccine."

"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT YOU HAVE TO GET THE VACCINE."

"But I -- "

"THERE IS NOTHING THAT PUTS YOU AT RISK YOU ARE JUST STANDING IN LINE AT WALGREENS FOR GOD'S SAKE."

"But I will -- "

(Mutters) "You are being a baby about this."

So, as I tried to tell him, I signed up for my fourth useless vaccine on the last appointment available during SuperBowl Sunday. Hoping it's pretty quiet at the Walgreens. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/3

This week the daisies went from this:

... to this:

Muddy. It's getting muddy. And the highlights and bottom edge of the green metal pitcher are off now. Not good, except for the table, which is great.

 

Rewriting the Novel: Alliteration

I'm in editing mode now.

Like today, I started with:
Five minutes later I was sitting at the crowded cafe counter, elated that I finally had something to say.

Tighten that up, I thought, and I got:

Two minutes later I was at the crowded cafe counter, finally with something to say.

That was not an improvement, now it was awkward, still had too many words, and now I noticed the intrusive alliteration. Crowded-cafe-counter-something-say.

Two minutes later I was at the cafe counter, at long last with something to say.

Damnit! Long last? More alliteration snuck in there.

Two minutes later I stood at the noisy cafe counter, at long last with something to say.

Can a counter be noisy?  Are there other words for a cafe counter that don't begin with C, L, or S?

Two minutes later I was at the crowded cafe counter. I finally had something to say.

Closer.

Two minutes later I was at the crowded cafe counter. Finally, I had something to say.

That's when I stopped. No doubt in a month I'll see that and think, that should be shorter.

 

Come Together

Go listen to the Beatles' Come Together and tell me if you hear the words Amazon hears.

I don't mean simple misinterpretations, such as how I hear:

"Hold you in his arms, yeah you can feel his disease"

... when it's supposedly

"Hold you in his armchair, you can feel his disease."

No, I mean the "Shoops."  A Beatle or a synthesier is making a repetitive "Shoop" sound through the song, which Amazon tells me is:

Shoot me
Shoot me
Shoot me
Shoot me

and this article says it's -- even worse --  John Lennon singing "Shoot me," but then it doubles  back and says it's a heroin reference, which is a step up.