Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Not Enough Info for a Full Review: Excelsior

Last week there was an online listening party for the new Steven Page album, Excelsior. I believe it's out today.

That was a new experience for me -- getting to hear the music before it comes out.  But, with that,  you give up something else: the liner notes. I feel the best part of new music is listening to the songs while reading along. 

So, I can't give you the liner notes, but I can pull out the lines that I liked. Some songs were very musical and soaring, some catchy, but these had lines that struck me.

Feel (Death and loss and funerals) - "They can’t help but lie when somebody dies"

Human Doll (AI) - "It can emulate a realistic kiss"

How Much is Enough  (Breaking up) - "Talk yourself into leaving a little self for yourself"

The Golden Age of Doubling Down (society today) - "We're in crazy town led by circus clowns / Let’s go underground for an ultrasound"

Zoom (fucking pandemic) - "No immunity, just community"

That last line got me. Zoom made me cry with its general theme of "when is this horseshit going to be over already."

Weekly Paint Progress: 9/29

This week the third dog went from this:

... to this.

Candy Corn Recall

I have been preparing for this all my life. Here I am, with the egg intolerance, but I wisely thought ahead and developed an aversion to Candy Corn.

Candy Corn Recall Over Potentially Deadly Egg Mishap

 

Agile Artemis

Well, I see NASA has delayed the Artemis launch again, this time because a hurricane is coming. Did they not watch the Gregory Peck movie Marooned? Do they not know it is possible to launch a space rocket during a hurricane? You just have to wait for the eye and yell "go" a lot.

Speaking of NASA, I read an interesting article this week on how NASA is changing its business model from "Failure is not an option" to the more failure-friendly Agile model. Here it is if you'd like to see it, and another more terrifying technical one, especially the Harsh, lunar polar conditions bullet on page four.

Forgetful

I was asked to give a status on my current work projects.

These are my thoughts, in order:

Well I had a meeting yesterday. What was it? It was for that project with that woman with the tall hair. The Doomed Project. What's the actual name of the project? What's the status of that project?

I was able to answer after I recalled the name of the woman with the tall hair, Diane, and my status was: "I had a meeting with Diane to discuss her project."

But then the manager said, "So that's XJT. How's it going on the AGW project?"

Crap, I completely forgot I'm on the AGW project. To to be fair, we've only had one kickoff meeting and it was yesterday afternoon. 

I replied the status was much the same as it had been yesterday afternoon and he moved on.

I was still shook that I had blanked out complexity on my two projects when someone reported on another project.

Damnit. I'm on that project too. What is wrong with me?  Why have I forgotten all my projects? 

This amnesia seems to be specifically work-related. I'm still aware of the outstanding list of projects in the hopper for the house. Back in the work office I had a physical list I updated every day. Maybe I need to institute that for the home office.

Big Slide

The pebble-dash elementary (Graham elementary, corner of Graham and 270, I need to drive by and see if it still exists) made me think of other dangerous buildings of my youth.

The most dangerous was the Catholic church we briefly attended when we first came to Saint Louis after the divorce, before they discovered the remarriage and refused Mom communion, at which point she said, fine, I'll raise them as atheists then.

It was St. Martin des Porres, and the roof looked like this:

Yes, a big green slide from the steeple to the vestibule.

Even worse, that church was mere blocks from this enormous slide.

See the tiny people on top? Those are Catholic children driven mad by going to God's Green Slide every week and never being allowed on the roof. I am astonished Protestant children weren't driven mad by the juxtaposition and that just bumped up attendance at the big slide, which lasted quite a while until a child was injured. 

I only went once and I was so scared the attendant put me on  his lap and slid down just to get the line moving again. 

Pebbledash

I was watching the most recent episode of The Great British Baking Show, in which people are tasked with portraying their childhood homes in cake, and they joked there might be a lot of buildings covered in "pebble-dash."

I looked up the term immediately, as I do so often during the Baking Show, and saw the image below.

In all my life I have seen precisely one pebble-dash building, but the one I saw was my elementary school from second to sixth grade.

For the first time I thought about pebble-dash as an adult, and for God's sake, why the hell would they coat an elementary school in sharp gravel? Because those aren't pebbles, I can tell you. The thing to do was to take a ketchup packet and impale it on one of the many sharp pebbles sticking out of the wall bordering your playground, and then remove if after it wept out a trail of "blood" in a convincing Halloween tableau. 

As best I know there is only one building covered in this nonsense in Saint Louis. To think it's common in Britain is alarming. I think a few people on the British Baking Show fashioned pebble-dash out of raisins and nuts or some safe material. Not realistic.

Speaking of the Baking Show, Netflix has a Junior version of the show, with different hosts but also with children as the contestants and so far, three episodes in, it is delightful. Droll British children rubbing their little hands on their brows and saying things like "But my Mummy says she likes my baking" in very serious tones. (No one actually said that, but they think it, you can tell.) 

Now I'm concerned those children go to schools covered in razor-sharp gravel. Disastrous.

Zen of the Landline Number

It has now been since 18 business days since the twenty-fifth of August in this the Year of Our Lord 2022. I still cannot get incoming calls on the telephone number I have had since the Year of Our Lord 1985. 

I have no boots, and the road disappears into a frozen blankness. I am cold. I do not see a path ahead of me on my quest.

Business Day 10: I call and someone tells me that the phone number has not been released as numerous phone representatives have claimed on Business Days of Our Lord 1 - 10. This resets the clock back to zero. I become so testy that I become short with the representative. This earns me a computerized satisfaction survey. 

Business Day 12: I Google "Is AT&T gaslighting me?" This takes me to an interesting article on how even the most well-meaning AT&T sales reps lie like dogs. Eventually someone tells me that there is a physical problem on my street. It is true that the trucks were there earlier working some vague problem.  However, the same individual told me he would call me at noon the next day and give me an update. This was a lie.

The Spectrum guy I spoke with on day 10 told me to expect to wait a month to get my phone back. So, that means I could make outgoing calls some time at the end of next week. 

Business day 16: I eschew my daily phone call to see if the phone is active. It isn't. It never will be. Stage of grief: acceptance. I dig a hole in the snow and wait for death.

But, seriously, I truly don't see a way out of this. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 9/22

This week my brother's third dog went from this:

... to this.

The dog's face can't match the carpet that exactly: it looks like he has holes.

Elvis! Elvis! Elvis!

Three Elvis-related movie reviews in one.

Movie 1: Elvis (2022, the Baz Luhrmann version)

We started our Elvis evening with the recent biopic. I did love how inventive the direction was. So fanciful. I wished they had warned me that the Young Elvis was not dubbed but old Elvis was. It was distracting, when you are listening to something and your brain knows exactly what the next note will be, especially when you've bought in to the idea that the actor is singing, as he was in the early scenes. I felt the acting was good, with one notable exception: Tom Hanks. More than once he would say a line and his mouth didn't move, I suppose because of the prosthetics. (Picture Roddy McDowell in Planet of the Apes.) Plus, I don't see why they dropped the most salacious parts of the story. Was there some agreement with the Presley people so no one mentioned Elvis shipped Priscilla over when she was a child and waited to marry her until she was legal? And why hush the fact Col. Tom was the lead suspect in a murder? That's why he left the Netherlands and assumed a name. Odd omissions.

Gary review: Gary fell asleep.

Movie 2: Jailhouse Rock

Elvis plays against type. His lead character is a jerk, and stubbornly remains a jerk until the last few minutes of the movie. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it.

Gary review: Gary gave a constant commentary of "This is ugly, this is misogynistic, why are we watching this?"

Movie 3: King Creole

Holy crap, this movie was terrific. Why in earth didn't he do more movies like this? He was good, Walter Matthau was good, Morticia Addams was good. I see why it was Elvis's favorite. 

Gary review: hypnotized through the whole thing.

Wig

Well, I took a step toward covering my dreadful hair.

I purchased what my mother would call a "wiglet." Just a little mammal to perch on top of my head and cover my now-significant bald spot. Sadly, it also has heavy bangs.

I have named the wiglet Moe, for obvious reasons.

Moe may or may not be going back to the wiglet farm. I was expecting Gary to mock me, and he didn't.

So far Moe has taught me that no one with human hair as thick and shiny as Moe would ever need a wiglet. Also, the clips that attach Moe to one's own hairs are pretty durable; I could take Moe to the Mosh pit. 

I'm still on the fence about Moe. For the time being I can dodge the question of the wiglet reveal. How do you let people know you are wearing fake hair? 

I considered a Zoom background with arrows pointing to my head that say "FAKE HAIR" and "SHHH" and "DON'T STARE AT THE HAIR."

It made me wonder how wig reveals happened during history. Let's say the 60's, when Mom was 30 and rocking her wiglet.   Did my Mom wear hers with defiant pride, her eyes daring her co-workers to say something? Or did she wait until the first day of a new job? 

I don't know. Gary really surprised me by not doubling over in laughter. I would feel better if I could thin out Moe's luxury, make Moe look 50 instead of 20. 

Perhaps I could buy Moe a brother. Maybe Curly! 

New MS-related News

MS people - This article discusses a new treatment for our cousin lupus.

"The therapy involves modifying a patient’s T cells, a key component of the immune system, and turning them into assassins to efficiently seek out a specific target in the body. In this case, the target is B cells—the immune cells that make antibodies in healthy people and self-attacking autoantibodies in people with lupus."

It's so poetic - turn the enemy against itself. Sow division. Foment discord.

New Toy

At night when the house is silent, the fan on Gary's new laptop roars like a typhoon. I let Gary know.

I don't think he listened to the laptop before purchasing an extra cooling fan for the laptop to sit on.

I know he didn't look at the image of the fan on Amazon. Or read the description. Or looked at anything on the page before clicking Buy Now.

It was quite a surprise.

2022 Fox Visitation

Every few years the raccoon buffet will draw an aged and sickly fox. 2018 was the last year with a sickly fox, and now we have another. 

Like the 2018 sickly fox, this one gets hungry enough to venture out during the day.

 

Rewriting the Novel: Regression

I was hand-editing the printed draft and discovered that when cobbling the full draft out of the individual chapter files I inadvertently copied one chapter twice. 

That means my 190 page draft is really only 170 pages. It's still 55,o00 words, which is what I'm aiming for with a book aimed at 13 year olds, but it's discouraging. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 9/15

This week my brother's third dog went from this:

... to this.

Vacation Result

Well, I had to spend a good part of labor day week on the queen's deathwatch, and family obligations, so I didn't have nine full days. But, here's an update on all my plans for the week off:

I added and finished two tasks, 1) purge garage and 2) make a throw pillow (the sewing machine miraculously healed itself).

Of the 31 initital tasks:

19 are entirely done, especially all the creative pursuits. I have two brains for the bathroom: one hand-carved and one cast from an impression I made from a silicone mold that I also made. (I got it right on the second try.)

4 Weaning items are in wait mode, because the weaning has been delayed, because the phone still isn't fixed. It ended up being my fault, because I told the Spectrum man to transfer my phone and then turn off my service. What I neglected to say was "turn off my service after the transfer is complete, not immediately after you hang up the phone, because they can't transfer an inactive phone number." 

3 home repair tasks have not begun, because I have no heart to take on that many improvement tasks at once, really. No better reason.

1 item was dead in the water before it began, and that was shop for a car for Gary. As expected, he's waiting for technology to advance before making a decision. 

4 things were entertainment and media rewards for completing all my tasks, so I denied myself 3 of things, but I did watch 1, the Emmys, which was a painful waste of time.

Pretty good for an ambitious list. 

Gary Suddenly Becomes Elderly: Part the Second

The Packet

The next day we were setting up the two televisions to use AT&T's facsimile of live TV, and when we ran into a hitch Gary said, "WELL WHAT'S IT SAY IN THE PACKET?"

"Packet?"

"THE PACKET. THERE'S GOT TO BE A QUICK START BROCHURE IN THE PACKET."

"No packet, babe."

"WHY DID YOU LET THE INSTALLER LEAVE WITHOUT GIVING YOU THE PACKET?" 

"No, Gary, I mean Kids Today don't need a packet to get started with technology."

He gripped his forehead because he didn't have his cane on hand to shake at Kids Today.

He was so dismayed that I quietly compiled all the notes I'd taken during the installation visit and during the various endless phone calls, printed it, and presented it to him with "Here's your Welcome to AT&T packet!"

But still, that so soon after the Amazon freakout and it looks like Gary's going into the final stages of codgerdom.  It was just so alarming to see, as if a crystal planted in his hand was going to begin flashing as he nears 70 and then he'll be taken off to Carousel.

No matter how on top of things we are, the world just races ahead.

Gary Suddenly Becomes Elderly: Part the First

It didn't worry me when Gary's hair turned grey. Older men are hot. I was fine when he started losing his hair. Happens to all of us. However, just this last week he has exhibited two signs of aging that have concerned me. 

Scam Panic

Because we're changing our email, Gary is getting a lot more spam than he's used to. Last week he had me call the credit card company because he got an email that our Amazon account had been locked. 

I said, "It has not been locked. Here, click the sender's address and you'll see that it's  --"

"IT HAS BEEN LOCKED AND I HAVE A LOT OF STUFF COMING AND THEY WANT ME TO CLICK A LINK AND I WON'T DO THAT. SO JUST CALL THEM."

Just ten years ago this man was in charge of a computer room and fended off hackers pinging him every day. 

So under Gary's direction I called the credit card company to see if a lock had been placed on the card, knowing it had not. Gary was "coaching" me though the call and finally, thankfully, he grabbed the phone and the credit card support person explained the basics of Spam 101 to my husband. 

It was embarrassing, but I've  had fraudsters on my credit card twice and I know how that feels. Rational thought just goes out the window. And he's been retired ten years, maybe the Amazon credit card nonsense wasn't as prevalent back in his day. And to be fair, he absolutely did not click any links in the email, so points for that.

(To Be Continued...)

9/11 Again

"Why aren't the Emmys on Sunday night," I wondered.

Then I looked at the calendar. 9/11.

I thought, "Well, that makes sense. Can't have an awards ceremony on the anniversary of September 11. I wonder when September 11 will be like the anniversary of Pearl Harbor?"

Already, evidently. Turns out they moved the Emmys to Monday because of Sunday Night Football.

I know that parents mark the passage of time by children. They might say that a child born on 9/11 can now legally drink. (Or that 9/11 can legally drink, which is a bit funny, but not funny enough.)

No kids here, so I can only observe my roof. I replaced it after the Great Hail of 2001, and it's balding. So I suppose it has been a while. 

 

Covid Card Odometer Rollover

Seventh shot. I went with Moderna this time, because why not? 

So elated I got to keep the old card. 

Many thanks to Dave at Blogography for sharing that the wait is only two months this time. 

The Queen

The Queen is dead; long live the King.

I wish we had a Queen Elizabeth II in America. Some nice stable figurehead. A nice wealthy lady who does good deeds and represents her country well.

I certainly wouldn't want someone who has had an affair, lusted after young girls, wanted to be a tampon, dressed up as a Nazi. I'd want someone who bored the tabloids. 

Would I want Kng Charles III? Queen Consort Camilla? Would I want that if I were to pay for it with my taxes? 

Sad to see her go, though. 

I can say that here in the states the response to "Long live the King" has been, "Yeah, but not to 96." 

Weekly Paint Progress: 9/8

This week the latest dog went from this:

... to this:

Deer On Tape

The sprinkler repairman said, "You have deer," and pointed to the tracks.

I answered, "I know. We used to catch them on the video camera, but they've been avoiding it the last few years."

They must have been listening.

This deer says, "Looking for me?"

It's almost time for them to switch to their woody diet. I'd think these  peanuts in the shell are an ideal choice.

 

MRI Appointment

My MRI was long. It was for my brain and my spine, with and without contrast, so it was just shy of an hour and a half. (Some of that time was spent in a waiting room watching Grey's Anatomy, which seems like the worst possible thing to show in a hospital.) I expected to fall asleep, as I'd never gotten more than four hours of sleep any night that week, but I only floated off to a few mini-dreams before the banging brought me back again. 

After, while I was waiting to get an extra bonus cholesterol test, someone came on the Public Announcement system and said, "ATTENTION STAFF: EP SEARCH LEVEL THREE INITIATED." 

I waited for the blood hounds or the SWAT team, but they never came. (Grey's Anatomy would have had a whole episode out of that.)

I see from the University of Toledo that EP is Emergency Procedure, that's pretty straightforward, but while they use a cunning color code so that patients don't know what's up, Missouri Baptist just comes out and says "We are searching for someone! Heads Up!" It was a level three, which I assume is on a scale of one to five, or a scale of five to one, same difference.

All I know is that they had that MRI result in my inbox by the time I got home. Unchanged in both the spine and brain, so that's good news.

The cholesterol test is the one I'm really excited about. The results say I'm in the normal zone, not dead center, but pretty great, given that I'm only on half a dose. If you recall, the cholesterol test is baby step one toward the same vaccination status normal people have. Step 1) good cholesterol 2) fewer heart concerns 3) able to take the Evusheld with its heart side effects 4) have some protection against the Covid. And then step 5, stop worrying I was going to spread the virus like some unvaccinated person.

Good news all around: brain is safe (optic nerve is no doubt safe) and spine is safe, and, maybe someday I'll be safe.

Eye Appointment

So, after hearing last week that three people I know had caught all Covid, I decided the Flu and Cold and Covid season was beginning and I'd better get my health maintenance taken care of. I made an eye appointment and an MRI appointment as soon as possible.

The eye appointment was unremarkable. My suspicions proved true: my vision is worse than ever. Except, the peripheral vision? Better than ever. 

Well, there were two semi-remarkable things that happened. 

Thing One

I was looking at frames and a lovely young lady was helping me. She looked goodnatured, with a jolly, open face, which I didn't expect from someone with a half-shaved head and one of those horseshoe nose piercings. 

She promised to tell me if I looked absurd, and let me look at the pair I had planned to buy, and while she deemed them acceptable, she said, "Look at these."

I had just said I don't look good in dark frames, but it must be I don't look good in thick dark frames, because these were perfect. So that was remarkable: I only tried on two pair before I found something I liked. And the young lady with the semi buzz cut said, "I have those at home." So I share a fashion sense with someone with a horseshoe-nose-thingee, which I did not expect.

Thing Two

I was discussing the images of my optic nerve with the eye doctor.

She peered at the images on her screen and asked, "Hm. When is your next MRI?"

"Day after tomorrow." I said. 

She paused, and then just made a note on the screen. YES. A catastrophic note on the screen the screen that probably said something like, "Visible lesions engulfing the optic nerve, brain detritus clearly visible."

I have had enough MRIs to realize I catastrophize before every one. The neurologist orders a spine MRI I wasn't expecting; it's going to be bad breaking news on the MS-MRI channel. This just added an extra dollop of imagined catastrophe. A dollop on top of the buzzing leg I've had this last month. Luckily the MRI was just two days away.

 

 

Vacation Plans

Just ignore me. I am publicizing my goals because supposedly that makes them easier to accomplish.

The Purging

• Clean out computer / book room. (We call it The Library around the house, but that is an affectation. I don't think an 8x10 room can be a Library.)

• Continue to purge the basement.
• Fix wobbly sawhorses.
• Destroy old PC hard drives with a hammer (satisfying).
• Consolidate miscellaneous basement stuff into bins.
• Contact junk people to haul away the purge.

The Weaning

• Dress Firebox and TV cables.
• Store extra Roku and Firebox in basement
• Set up TV software to suckle at the live news teat.
• Wait for Tuesday when it will be seven full business days and I can talk with Tia and Mike about the phone. 
• Set up HBO because it will not be a promotion as Gary thinks it is.  
• Sever the cable TV and internet.
• Stop auto-pay.
• Deliver hardware back to Spectrum.

Creative Pursuits

• Paint my brother's next dog. Wonder if Monet hated his haystacks the way I hate these dogs.
• Carve the lavender soap into a brain for the small skull in the bathroom. 
• Grate the Ivory Spring soap, moisten it, and press it into the modified mold currently in the basement workbench vise. Wait till it dries.
• Write four hours a day on the Book. That should knock out 25% of what's left for this draft.
• Finish Margaret Atwood's masterclass.
• Start the Oil Painting Masterclass.

Something That Can Only Happen When Gary's Around (That Won't Happen)

• Shop for a car for Gary. He's just talking about it. Not going to happen.

Something That Can Only Happen When Gary's NOT Around

• Self-clean the oven. (TOXIC FUMES ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME.)

Home Repair

• Look inside fireplace to see if the crack that was there 20 years ago us still there and is possibly why the floor is damp by the fireplace.
• Contact fireplace repair people.
• Contact fireplace flashing people.
• Contact siding people for fireplace and window screen.
• Get estimate from roofers. 
• Contact cement people for an estimate.
• Contact door people for an estimate. 

If All Other Chores are Done

• Watch the rest of Severance (I stalled out on episode three.)
• Watch Emmys to justifying paying for live TV.

It is ambitious, but I think it's doable.

Gary Screams

So, a few days ago I was working and I heard Gary scream. Like a mother with a toddler, I know the different screams and what they mean, and this was a scream of horror.

I thought he was listening to a scary movie, so I ignored it, until it was followed by multiple short screams of horror.

I rushed out to find he had brought in the raccoon camera and was checking the batteries only to find some big chunky ants ("WITH MANDIBLES!") had set up house inside the case. 

That was a few days ago. I have killed three. Gary is still horrified by them. 

Rewriting the Novel: Slooooowwww

So now that I'm hand-editing the novel, you would think it would go faster, right? I don't have to type, just scribble in the margins.

Nope. It takes a half-hour per page to make edits and arrows and strikouts, and then -- and this is what staggers me -- it takes another quarter-hour per page to transfer the edits to the digital version. 

Of course, it doesn't feel slow while I'm doing it. Still, somehow I've spent a week doing this and I've only edited thirty pages.

It'll be Christmas when this draft is done at this rate!

Weekly Paint Progress: 9/1

So, I have decided to hand-draw the next dog, then check it against a traced dog.

Original dog needs to have his eyeballs redirected. 

Eyeballs still need tweaks.

Oh, and I amputated a foot. Need to fix that too.