Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Happy New Year’s Eve

If you are out enjoying, enjoy. If you are making noise, make noise. If you are comforting pets freaked out by the noise, I wish you well, because nothing works for that.

See you on the other side, in -- good God -- 2023.

Tea

I was watching a Hallmark movie. There was a cute female character, sweater pulled over her knuckles, sipping a cup of tea with the string dangling out.  It made me wonder: in real life does anyone drink tea with the bag in?

I certainly don't. I set the timer for four minutes and when it dings that bag is out.  Otherwise you have bitter stewed tea, right? Why keep the bag in? To remind yourself you're drinking tea?

Someone out there must do this, or know someone who does. What's the appeal of having a sloppy teabag thwack you in the face when you get down to the last drop?

Tell me. I promise I won't judge. Much.

Thursday Paint Progress: 12/29

This week the sea went from this:

... to this:

Ugh. Mud. There are some highlights in the next step that I hope will rescue things.

 

In Which My Actions Have Consequences

Dave's death made a convenient dividing line in my life.

On one side I was The Responsible One, but now that we are A.D.: After Dave, I am free to eat, spend, and drink irresponsibly.And you know what else? I don't have to improve my mind.

I haven't spent a moment learning Russian on DuoLingo since I went to Albuquerque. Horrors.

 There have been consequences. Evidently my behavior is having negative effects. DuoLingo felt I needed an intervention and sent me this email. 

Duolingo needs to get some perspective.

 

Secondhand Wig Embarrassment

There have been a number of times I have had embarrassing wig conversations. People tell me my hair looks good, and I say, "Thanks, it's a wig!" and there the conversation stops. For a while I couldn't understand why. They seemed embarrassed for some reason. Are wigs embarrassing to non-wig wearers? Did they feel conned or something? The expressions on their faces were just sheer horror. 

Finally I have worked it out. I think they were suffering secondhand presumed embarrassment. They were embarrassed on my behalf because they thought I was embarrassed. Or perhaps they felt I should have been embarrassed. 

There are a lot of expectations that I should be embarrassed. I'm expected to wear transitional wigs, for example, increasingly longer wigs to give the illusion my hair is growing, because otherwise people would have my unashamed wigginess thrown in their faces. God forbid I switch it up and change hair colors for a day.

It's just odd. I'm trapped in this silly deception so I don't generate secondhand embarrassment. Perhaps the next time it comes up I should just describe myself as a proud wig wearer? I don't know. I'll try it next time it comes up. 

In Which I am Reminded to avoid Temperature Extremes

Two facts to know:

• We have been under an extreme cold warning. I got down to negative 4 degrees Fahrenheit a few days ago.
• People with MS are supposed to avoid extremes of heat and cold, otherwise their MS symptoms will flare up.

I was reminded of this when I went outside at -4 degrees and I was not two steps off the porch before I peed all over myself, which is, yes, an MS symptom.

My thoughts:

• Glad this unending cough inspired me to start wearing bladder protection.
• How fast does it take for pee to freeze?

I was thinking of all those weather reporters who toss boiling water into frigid air and it instantly turns to snow. Happily, I did not end up with yellow snow down there. 

Merry Christmas!

I am really pleased with the ornament tree this year, enough to tweak it with Photoshop. I filled in the sparse spots with meaningless round red ornaments. Gary called it a "tree of memories" and spent some time murmuring things like, "Yes, there's the llama that spit on me."

I leave it here to wish you a Merry Christmas! I hope everything is merry where you are.

Merry Christmas Eve!

You should be able to find this year's ornaments: Minnie (commemorating Gary's new toy) a lirtle left of center, and the For Sale sign (commemorating an actual significant event) just right of center.

I hope everyone is having an excellent Christmas eve.

Duchess of Duke Street: SPOILERS (even though it's from the 1970s)

I thought I had watched this series back in my youth with my mom, but I was confusing it with  "Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill," which if you have the chance to see that I highly recommend it. I think it might be on Apple TV here. 

The Duchess of Duke Street has its own merits, though. Much is made of her beauty, but I can't see it, mainly because of some chin to cheekbone creases that look a bit too much like my own face. Also, I know she turns into Bridget Jones' and the Dashwood sister's mother later on. And there are odd vignettes while they spend minutes lingering over fruit and place settings. 

I've been pecking away at it for weeks, and now I'm well in to the second season. Through it all there's been a dog named Fred, and they keep feeding him his favorite food, chocolate cake. 

We all know the caffeine in chocolate is bad for dogs, and with all the cake and bonbons Fred has been eating in this second season he may as well be lapping up dog bowls of espresso. It's been giving me anxiety. You know how it is with shows that make you fall for a dog. You always worry the dog will die.

I just finished an episode set in a deep fog. Dog goes outside. I can't focus in the plot because I am sure the dog will be lost in the fog. Then the dog is being snuggled  by a spy. I am sure the spy is going to snap the dog's neck. 

Really it's very upsetting. I might need to stop watching.

======= And that's where I hit save with the intent to post on the weekend. ======

[SPOILERS]

IN THE NEXT EPISODE THEY KILLED THE DOG.

I am outraged. The dog went out to pee during WWI and the bastards dropped a bomb on him. They bring in a puppy to replace him but I'm not having it. I am indignant. People must have rioted in front of the BBC in the 1970's.

Weekly Paint Progress: 12/22

This week the sea went from this:

... to this, which is way too dark:

... and the whole goal was to make the sky flat and I got too wrapped up in the hardest part which is the cloud. Moving on, though.

Chemo Snack

I was prowling around the house looking for a salty snack, when I remembered Dad’s favorite.

Saltines with pats of salted butter. I particularly remember him eating these when he had chemo. This is how he would eat them, too: one serving eqaulled one small plateful. 

I was horrified by it when I was a teenager, because really it is gross. You’re essentially eating a quarter of a stick of butter with some decorative crackers for propriety.

Was it good? Not particularly, but I think that’s because saltines today have about half the salt they had back in the day.

I particularly noticed that when I tried my favorite childhood snack: chocolate ice cream with saltines crunched up on top. It was also not that great. On the other hand, chocolate ice cream mixed with butter crackers, like a Ritz or Town House? That tastes like ice cream in a butter pie crust.

Dad's chemo snack of saltines with butter was remarkable mainly because it was the only time I ever saw him eat a snack. If Dad wanted a treat he reached for vodka. 

When I look at drunks I wonder what kind of loss they have suffered that made them drink. I wonder if others look at fat people like that. I ask because I just poured half-and-half on my breakfast cereal. 

Migraine Cure

Recently Gary went to the NP at the neurologist's office to see if he can get some relief with his migraine. He came back and reported:

• The NP is sick with covid
• The neurologist is not available for three months
• There were remarkably few cars in the lot because, as Gary surmised, Covid

There has a been a 50% increase in daily cases the last week.  I think he intends to have a telemedicine visit with the NP in a few weeks, but in the meantime he needs to get relief through non-scientific Gary methods.

I have never had a migraine, but Gary tells me that these things make his migraine lessen:

• Cold lemon yogurt
• Aggression

According to him, being angry and yelling really helps his migraine. I left the room four times one night. I don't know if this is a common migraine cure. I suppose it might redirect the serotonin. All I know is that I don’t need to be around when he is taking the aggression cure. 

The Beleaguered Minnie Ornament

Gary’s Hallmark Minnie ornament arrived with her right arm broken off like the Venus De Milo.

I glued it back on. Easy. Fixed. Then I dropped her on the way to the tree. Here she is on the right.

Her replacement is on the left, recuperating after a procedure to re-affix her left arm that was also broken in transit. These Minnies don’t travel well.

Gary asked that we smash up both and make a Hindu Minnie multi-armed goddess, but that was beyond me. Instead I just glued Broken Minnie’s head back on backwards with her nose tucked between the presents. 

(“Killlllll meeeeee,” Frankenminnie moans.)

One Dave Thing Still Undone

I have had plenty of opportunities to call the University of New Mexico medical center and go through the steps I have to take before Dave's Surprise Cancer Doctor will talk to me. 

I haven't done a thing, except for listen to people tell me stories of how people they knew, too,  either "bravely" hid a terminal diagnosis from their families, or else denied the bad news was even an option. "You're wrong, doc. I'm never going to die. I feel great." 

I don't want to hear either answer. I strongly suspect it's the second one, a manic belief he was going to cheat death again, because he was Death Defying Dave.

Or else it's a third option, something I'll be blindsided by. What I need before I can hear that is courage. I have to stop saying that I can't call because I'm busy with work, Albuquerque is an hour behind us. If I call at 5:00 it's only 4:00 there.

More, I need to stop wallowing in this anger, skip bargaining and depression, and move on to acceptance.

Not Being Dave

I remember being seven. I was asked if I liked ketchup. I thought, "Does Dave like ketchup? He does."

I answered, "I don't like ketchup."

It was obvious Dave made my parents unhappy, so it was best to be as little like him as possible. It was a shame, and I can't think how anyone could have done better: parents, Dave, they just weren't compatible. 

So, Don't Be Dave was my personal rule, and now that Dave ... isn't, it seems to me I'm free to be Dave.

Ways I have recently been Dave:

• Finished half a big bottle of Peach Schnapps in a week.
• Spent money maniacally.
• Ignored key tasks.
• Complained about my lot.
• Was emotional.
• Considered skipping my medicine.
• Ate with abandon.

If I had called customer support and demanded to speak to a manager, until I got not only a manager but a discount, then I would have hit every Dave character point.

Still, I wasn't entirely possessed by Dave from the Great Beyond: the real estate taxes only sat on my desk a day before I paid them.

Rewriting the Novel: Forensic Literary Criticism Has Been Done

I noticed that in what I am now calling "Dave's draft," things are textbook dull  -- until chapter 3 when the hero shows up. It's buried in Chapter 3 here, but my copy starts with it. 

I started to notice that other things in Dave's draft were regressing, and I compared the two. Based on the handwritten edits, it's pretty clear that Dave's is actually draft number one.

To confirm that, I thumbed to the end. The last seven chapters were just plotted out in blurbs, fleshed out in mine.

Thankfully, some of those planned chapters from Dave's copy died on the vine, especially this one:

"Dude and Ida Mae get married. Joe and his friends give him a bachelor party that results in them taking over a Negro roadhouse outside of Five Trees, locking the doors, and keeping the patrons inside for 36 hours during the party."

Glad I didn't have to read that. Overall, I say thank God that this new copy's the first draft, not the last. The one I worked from is the last, and even at that still pretty unfinished.

I am so relieved I didn't turn up something polished. Would have been grim to find I'd rewritten the Great American Novel.

Weekly Paint Progress: 12/15

This week the seascape went from this:

... to an encouraging beginning. I had three colors to mix:

..which I mixed:

... but somehow they turned into mud on the canvas. Well, I can try again after it dries.

 

Terrifying Drive

I was behind the steering wheel, in the dark, way too early in the morning, with Gary, and it was rainy, and there was road construction, and good god -- it was horrifying.

Here are the events:

1. Gary disagreed with me, Siri, and the Mini GPS on what the route should be. 
2. His suggested route took us on a road closed for construction, where I had to make a u-turn, accompanied by Gary's screaming.
3. I chose a better route, a safer route with no construction, and he insisted that we now blindly obey Siri, who ...  
4. ... took us into construction, which would have been fine in the daylight, but I veered into the actual construction area and had to swerve back on the rainy highway.
5. I actually went the wrong way on a major road, and during the resulting screaming I redirected into the wrong way lane on an entirely different road.
6. Gary demanded he drive instead, great, awesome, thank you, and then after the passenger/driver swap neither of us could get the car started again. 
7. We swapped again and when I was back in the driver's seat we found the car won't start with the door open. He insisted I drive home, since I was in the driver's seat already.

It was awful. Gary kept trying to make jokes about it after, and I was having none of that. So, in the future there will be no drives through construction zones with Gary at night when it is raining. And thus my dotage begins.

Bad Timing

Today scientists announced they cracked fusion. Now they can produce more energy than they started with.

It's possible this is a hoax. But if not, it means:

• My electric car is utterly out of date
• Gary isn't going to buy any new cars until he sees what's next
• Ford has to bring back the Ford Fusion

Feral

Here's something I recently learned.  

Let us say you have been making friends with a semi-feral cat.

You read that cats will show their trust by sniffing your face.  

If you lean in close to a semi-feral cat and gently whisper "I like you best" then the cat will look lovingly in your eyes and then suddenly claw the wig off your head, after which your wig will fly several feet to the side, but if you are quick you can grab it before another cat runs off with it. 

TV - Hooked Again

When we had cable the TV was on all day, usually on some muted news station. Then in the evenings something was usually being taped for later. 

Now that we have the fiber streaming service, the TV is almost never on, unless there is breaking news like election coverage or a sports game. 

Why? Because the hunt is gone. You never get the thrill of stumbling across a repeat of your favorite episode of your favorite show. The excitement of,  "Oh, look, American Experience has that new documentary I heard about." 

Now? None of that. I don't hear the radio so NPR doesn't give me new beasts to hunt, and I don't run up and down the channels so there are no surfing safari finds. There are entire days when the TV is not on at all. And all I record is Colbert, SNL, and Rachel Maddow, I suppose because they're all topical enough that I might not get what's going on if I wait to watch it later.

However, today it rained, and I remembered that Christmas it rained for a month, and I stayed in and watched a marathon of The Curse of Oak Island. I got hooked on that damn show. Even still, after years of arguing with the narrator. (Him: "Have the brothers found gold in the treasure shaft?" Me: "NO. They have found trash. Give up; it's a sinkhole.")

Well, now of course that sent me off to record the new season and I find I have missed four episodes.

I thought, "That's four hours in real time; I don't know if I can do my 20 minute fast-forward digest version on this new TV setup."

And then I swear to you I thought, "But I have to watch them, they might have found something." 

And then I laughed and laughed.

 

Covid Vaccine Eight / Not

I was listening to health officials urge the populace to get their boosters, and it occurred to me that I might be overdue for my next booster. And I am, by over a month.

Remember the days when I went the earliest day possible?  And here I am overdue. I think my natural need to avoid death has really dropped off now that I've had a sibling die. Seems pointless to watch my weight or alcohol intake. That's the only reason I can think of for spacing out on my shot: my post-David laissez-faire attitude about life and death.

So I quickly filled out the on-line questionnaire and lined up at the CVS yesterday afternoon. 

"Was your previous shot the bivalent shot?" they asked.

"Yes."

"Well, we can't give you another shot then, because the CDC hasn't given any guidance on that."

Frustrating, given that the on-line questionnaire asked that same bivalent question, I gave the same answer, was cleared, but now I was stalled.

So, they advised that I keep my eye on the CDC website to see if the policy changes and then try again.

Hmph. Another mark against CVS. I'm curious to see what Walgreens or the neurologist might do.

Rewriting the Novel: Chapters 1 and 2

Well, this this latest version of Jerry's novel launches by letting you know all about all the characters, and frankly I can't tell who the main character is anymore. And really, I don't know which is better: getting a fifty-page long textbook on oil derricks in chapter six or thirty-five pages at the start. 

What I like best is that he has a technical editor now, someone who is an expert in the oil drilling trade, who is a little disgusted at times with Jerry's lack of knowledge.

I have to assume the editor who says "No!" is Jerry's father Ellis, a.k.a. "Grandpa Son" -- he was a roughneck. Of course, I'm imagining that because I've grown bored by imagining a relationship with Jerry through this book, and now I want to rope in my absent grandfather.

I imagine Grandpa Son would be proud that I already knew how to pronounce the abbreviation for blowout preventer. ("Bop.")

... but probably sad to hear I learned it from Wikipedia.

Weekly Paint Progress: 12/8

This is the seascape:

Here we go:

(I am going to paint the clouds, i was just concerned the underdrawing would show through.)

I Swear This is the Last Wig Post

I found a wig that looks pretty much like the hair I had in my senior photo. 

(Another way to view things is to say "In my senior photo I look like I am wearing a wig." I choose not to see things that way.)

This is me in the wig. I call it Senior.

Then I found I have the same style of shirt.

I tried to recreate the pose and the expression, but I don't think it's possible for me to still look that innocent.

Home Repairs

Gary's car search has come at a bad time, because it has been a month after Dave died and I had already re-earmarked the money I set aside for Dave into long-delayed home improvement projects. 

The back door. Do you know they make exterior doors out of fiberglass now, so they don't rust and rot? I started the process to have one installed. Gary was concerned the workers would get pneumonia working in both the hot house and the cold backyard (THEY WILL GET PNEUMONIA AND DIE I DIDN'T THINK YOU WERE THAT TYPE OF PERSON ELLEN) but happily it will take four months just to order the door, so no workers will lose their lives.

Gary wants to weigh in on what the door will look like. So factor in a few months for that.

The sagging bathroom ceiling. The Medical Art Project Bathroom ceiling is sagging, somehow. The salesman said this was first priority, because "you might be in the bathroom at night" (yes) "and then the ceiling might fall in and crush you." Not on his watch. He added $2k to paint the bathroom, which I did not opt for. I can paint a bathroom, especially one almost entirely covered in anatomy charts.

The handrail. I tumbled  down the basement steps years ago and my desperate grab at the handrail saved my life, but broke the handrail in half. I have had half a handrail since then.  That is the easiest fix. 

Gary is not going to like any of this at all. 

Bolt Hunt

Last Friday I arranged work so that Gary and I could go buy the car Gary has finally decided on: a Chevy Bolt. (Not a Volt, Volts were an embarrassment, caught fire, etc..) 

Another all-electric, but this one has better range. These were his conditions:

1. It can not benefit Elon Musk in any way.
2. No flashy interior lighting, because of his migraine.
3. Not be too much of a behemoth, which is impossible because of the last condition ...
4. Get around 200-300 miles in range.

The Chevy Bolt sounded perfect. He found a great deal. Turned out it was a Costco kind of a deal: you had to buy volume. Like, you had to own a pizza company and need a fleet of delivery cars. In fact, according to his subsequent research, dealerships don't sell these Bolts, they auction them off.

So, that was a disappointment. I soothed him by saying, "I'm sure you can find exactly what you want," which is now a BMW, god help me.

===========

Hours Later: Now he says he might go to a dealer and have them order what he wants. 'So," I said, "Why not just order it yourself online?" UNTHINKABLE. 

Roof

I was appalled at the quote I got for a new roof, so I delayed it until I saw the water stain on the ceiling of the master bedroom. I called them right away.

The next step was to pick a shingle color. The receptionist gave me an address that matched my request for “the darkest grey that wasn’t black.” I drove there, not black enough, drove back, and on my porch there was a sample of the black shingles that had not been there when I left. 

Spooky, like they were reading my mind or low-jacking my car. 

Epilogue: Since then they quickly slapped up the roof, looks good, impressive, only there’s one spot that isn’t done. They came out to inspect it and since then, silence. I suspect I have fallen off their tight schedule, or else they know that our street is being torn up and there's no place to park.

More Fun with Gary

Sometimes I leave the Favorite Wig, Chimera 2.o, in the bathroom, where it startles Gary.

He complained about it one too many times.

KFC

Almost five years ago we were in New Orleans, and I ate the most decadent thing I've ever had: the beignet fries at Monty's.

From their Facebook:  

 Now KFC has decided the time for nation-wide decadence has come, and they have introduced "Funnel-cake fries."  

From the web page:

They are actually at the KFC at the corner, but you can only get them in house. Plus I saw no option for add-on chocolate dipping sauce, so why bother?

Thursday Paint Progress: 12/1

There are many step-by-step paintings I never did because they were too challenging.

I think I’m ready for this one now.