Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Emotional Urination

Yes, I’m going there.

I know fear makes people pee.

In addition, there are a lot of medical articles explaining how anxiety causes excessive urination.

I am looking for the article that explains why every time I have an argument with Gary, and I get angry enough to cry, I also get angry enough to pee. 

I mean, it’s handy, because I have to leave the fight to visit the bathroom, and perhaps we both cool down a bit.

But it takes me only thirty to forty seconds to pee. (I’ve timed it. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.) 

Rage pee.  It’s a thing. 

Assumed Level of Knowledge

Gary and I differ.

If I know something, I assume Gary knows it. We have been having those old people conversations in which one of us says, “Who was that one guy in that one show?” and the other says, “Jerry Stiller.” So I assume we have the same neural pathways and cultural references. (To be fair, recently I didn’t know “that big French woman” was Juliet Prowse.)

Recently I was trying to think of the name of a particular band. I said, “You know, the thing in that one weird book everyone has sex with.”

To my surprise, he said, ”What are you talking about?”.

By then I’d remembered the band name. “Steely Dan. You didn’t know how Steely Dan got its name? I assumed you did.”

”No one knows that.”

“Alexa, where did the band Steely Dan get its name?”

Alexa answered, “Famously, Steely Dan takes its name from a sex device featured in Naked Lunch.”

I said, “‘Famously.’ Common knowledge.” 

As you see, I think all knowledge is shared with Gary. If I know it then he does. However, if Gary knows something, he assumes that means I must not know it.

This is how the conversation would above would go if Gary had just learned this Steely Dan trivia.

Gary would say, “[blah blah blah], Steely Dan. Steely Dan got their name from a sex device in a book.”

”Yes, I know. Naked Lunch,” I would say.

”No, it was Naked Lunch.”

”Yes, Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs.”

”No. Alexa, who wrote Naked Lunch?”

”Naked Lunch was written by William S. Burroughs and published in 1959.”

My fear is that we both treat the rest of the world the same way. I know Gary “mansplains,” and I suspect I gibber on making arcane references until people ask if I’ve had brain damage. I suppose both of us would be more tolerable if we prefaced everything with Today I Learned or Did You Know. 

Horns

We have been watching Bridgerton on Nextflix. It’s a period drama — not in all senses of the word, because the female lead does not seem old enough to to have her period, though there are dramatic scenes with missed periods and surprise periods. 

The girl is luminous enough that Gary feels called upon to slight her appearance, specifically a specific  hairstyle choice he just rails on. 

“Horns!” he screams. “Why would she do that? It looks like she has horns!”

So, of course, today he came home to this:

He did scream when he finally looked at me, about fifteen minutes into our evening together.

Christmas Gift

Last week:

“Gary, your hair has grown so much since March. Can I French braid it?”

”No.”

“What about a high pony?”

”No. What is that?”

”Think Sarah Palin.”

”Absolutely not.”

”Can I put you hair in a high pony for my Christmas gift?”

Further Decor Negotiations

Well, Gary won the battle of the loveseat. I have given up and now every morning I rearrange the living room. I have let it go.

I had to let it go becuase there is a new battle front: the Battle of The Spinning Utensil Holder.

At some point when Gary was cooking he bought this so his spatulas / spatulae would all be in easy reach. Since he got sick, he has taken a giant step back on the food prep, so I decided that since I am the only one using the utensils, I decide where they go.

He had decided to place them  next to the microwave, so when you spin them they bang into the microwave. I took a firm hand and re-prioritized the kitchen. The Sous Vide container in front of the toaster went under the sink, replaced by the spinning spatula thing. Spatula carousel?  Ladle-go-round?

The next morning I woke up and the spatula spinner was no longer where I put it, spinning freely in front of the toaster. Why? “IT BLOCKS THE TOASTER.”

(He hasn’t used the toaster in months. The sous vide blocked the toaster more.)

Quietly in the night I put the toaster in front of the spinny thing, so there is full toaster access and yet the spinny thing still spins.

Even though I thought this was a good compromise, the next morning I woke up to “DON’T THINK YOU'RE FOOLING ME WITH THIS TOASTER THING.”

I haven’t moved it. I’m standing firm.

Gary Update

You may be wondering, has Gary calmed down now that we will have at least four years free of Trump? The answer is: yes, yes he has. But still, no, because he’s just changed the topics he’s yelling about.

He just spent half an hour telling me the plot of a horror novel he is reading. He’s reading Birdbox. 

He said, “It’s about this monster that makes you commit suicide if you look at it.”

[SPOILERS for the three people who did not see Sandra Bullock in the Netflix production two years ago]

”Yes, Gary, I know, we watched the Sandra Bullock production on Netflix two years ago.”

”No, we didn’t. Maybe you did. I never saw this. There’s this mother —“

”Sandra Bullock.”

”No. She takes her two kids out on a boat on a river —“

”Yes, a canoe —“

“NO, they never say what kind of boat it is. Or maybe it’s a dinghy. I think it’s a dinghy.”

”On Netflix it was a canoe, and they float until they find this utopia where —“

”NO, NO, NO, this is a totally different book. I’m halfway through and they don’t know where they’re headed.”

So, still starting every sentence of a conversation with “No,” still stubbornly insisting I have NO idea what I’m talking about, still forgetting that he and I sit right next to each other and watch the same television programs. 

I could be wrong. But, only, I’m not wrong. The difference is that I accept I might be wrong. Still, he gets much less exercised about horror books than he did about politics.

Turkey Soup Recipe

1. Go into kitchen at 8:30 am and assemble all the turkey soup parts on the counter.
2. Roast bones.
3. Make stock.
4. Realize you need to de-fat this if you want to eat it today.
5. Do speed de-fatting like Mom did with the ice cubes.
6. Research Best De-fatting device and order it on Amazon so this doesn’t happen next year.
7. Chop vegetables.
8. Ask husband to help chop vegetables and season the stock in his special way.
9. Watch as husband adds butter and sautés each vegetable before he adds them to the de-fatted stock, essentially adding a stick and a half of butter to the broth. 

It turned out really well, though. I suppose milk fat is tastier than turkey fat.

 

When I Heard

I think I was watching CNN, and they had just preached a lesson on how everyone needed to be patient while waiting for the results, because there are rules about how to call an election. Then some field reporter refreshed her phone numerous times, and the news desk began talking about how we needed to wait for results from another county, and then I blinked and they called it. The big green check mark the world was waiting for.

I switched to MSNBC, and it was there too.

I switched to FOX. No check mark. No “President-elect.”


Evidently FOX just couldn’t bring themselves to put the words on the screen. That empty FOX NEWS ALERT void stayed there for half a minute. Then they had to stamp the screen with the banner that signals their demise.

I thought I would cry with relief and joy, but I didn’t. I texted The Young People at Work. After that I told Gary through the bathroom door and he immediately advised me to stay vigilant. “This means nothing! Trump could corrupt the electoral college and stay another four years!” 

And then I got tired. (I imagine the vigilance hormone drained out of my body.) Gary got tired too. I think the country needs a good long nap.

Critters

I was painting in the basement when I heard a scrabbling noise. It came from the top of the basement wall.

Then I heard some some soft grunting. 

“GARY GET DOWN HERE THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE BASEMENT.”

(faintly, from upstairs) “Do I need my bat?”

“NO JUST GET DOWN HERE,” because seriously, can you picture Gary clubbing an animal to death with a bat? 

Gary came down and we both listened to the animal scrabbling and grunting. 

He said, “Well, it’s getting cold, critters are trying to get in to the house.”

I mentioned that the patio has dropped and they can walk right in between our sub floor and the basement ceiling, and he said “let them.”

I disagreed. I suspect this is not the first critter to sneak in, given the way the basement smells now. 

We never saw the basement animal, but the next day we heard the tell-tale signs of a squirrel sitting on our chimney cap. Their claws scrape, and it echoes, and you would think they were playing American Ninja Warrior in the fireplace.

I reassured Gary that every other time I’ve heard this noise I’ve looked outside and there is a squirrel sitting on the chimney cap. Not this time.

I came in. Gary shushed me. “Listen.”

Tell-tale fluttering. A bird. A invisible bird banging around in the fireplace. Gary threatened to take the ladder up to the roof and dismantle the chimney and release the bird, while I said, “It got in. It can get out.”

While he went off to research how long it takes for a bird to die of thirst, I opened and shut the flue three times, loudly.

Haven’t heard the bird since. Still, something needs to be done. Time to block off the easy access to the house.

Excellent Start to Halloween

I woke up early while Gary was brushing his teeth.

I crept into his room, got in to bed, and covered myself entirely with the coverlet.

He called out, “Morning, Ellen.”

I waited a beat and whipped off the coverlet. 

I finally got revenge for all this nonsense.

 

Clue

We are well into Poirot.

Season six, episode two is Hickory Dickory Dock (co-starring a young Damien Lewis, eee).

There’s a point where Poirot trips up a young “Keats expert” by quoting some Keats at her. 

He then says to Hastings, ”She professes to be the expert on John Keats, yet the lines that I quoted to her - “

“ — were from Shelley.” Gary interrupted.

‘... they were from Shelley,” Poirot continued.

I was impressed. I said, ”I guessed it wasn’t Keats, but I was a English Literature major and I didn’t know that was Shelley. How did you know that?”

”I read ahead on the closed captioning.”

Invisible Guests

Gary conceded that the blue chair doesn’t fit in the Stickley room. Points for him. 

He has been using the reclining feature of the replacement chair instead of elevating his feet on an enormous black exercise ball. Bonus points for him. 

But then I wake up every day and on my way to the kitchen I see this.

Poof. Gary loses all the points.

He asks, “What‘s wrong with that?” 

“If you need it right next to the loveseat, it needs to scoot back so the front of the chair lines up with the edge of the loveseat.”

He does not agree.

(And, don’t talk to me about moving the loveseat. It is not obvious from the photo but the loveseat is the same size as the fireplace hearth. I can’t argue with magical furniture serendipity.) 

“Gary, if people come over they can’t hurl themselves on the loveseat. It’s not inviting.”

”No one is coming over because of the pandemic. You can move the chair if someone comes over.”

“Then I’m troubled by the ghosts. There’s a ghost trapped on the right side of the loveseat. She can’t stand up because your chair is there and she can’t scoot down because you stacked all the pillows on the right.”

That seemed to get through to him. 

I just woke up to the photo above. I put the pillows on the right, and you know what, it’s not as bad.

 

 

Halloween

Ten days to Halloween! I have no idea how Halloween will play out at this house.

Gary claims that we will shut the doors, turn off the lights, pretend we aren’t here, sit in the dark, avoid the windows. This pretense will not hold. He loves Halloween. Think of how he loves feeding the raccoons. On Halloween, children are like raccoons who will talk to him while he lays out piles of food.

I have no idea how he’ll deal with it. My guess is he’ll hold out until we hear the first child in the street giggle and then he’ll hand out baggies of straight sugar. 

I need to have a pivot plan for the 31st. Perhaps he can wear his raccoon gaiter over his mask, or there may be time to Sharpie a jack-lantern grin over an existing mask. Personally, I think this is the ideal time to wear our paper hazmat suits.

 

Guitar Performance Anxiety

I find it reassuring, somehow, to demonstrate the progress I am making with the painting. All the flaws are out there, and hopefully there are fewer and fewer errors as time goes on. 

I am not as confident with the guitar, though. My husband just told a family member that I can play the guitar “like a professional!” No, I said, I can play the guitar like a five year old, searching for notes, not at tempo at all . For my latest flaw, my right hand gradually scoots away from the guitar ... hole (I don’t know the name), and everything sounds leaden and plunky.

So, I had to give a command performance and MY GOD I WAS BAD. I just froze up. I went from being a halting five year old to a halting two year old, fumbling with a too-large guitar, playing at half-speed, doesn’t know the name of the guitar hole. (I just looked it up. It’s the sound hole. I was close.)

I then went home and played better than I ever have in my life, alone.

Binge Selection

Now that Gary and I are back to our old habits, we are having our old disagreements. 

One disagreement is over what to watch on the television. He was quite miffed that I refused to  watch The Nutcracker with him. (“Dancing mice,” I said. “Sugar plum fairies. Hard pass.”) I may still use The Nutcracker as a bartering chip to get him to watch the 1970’s Jim Hutton Ellery Queen series.

Instead, what we settled on was Poirot. It’s a mystery series, with some much needed English charm, and absolutely no dancing mice.

Once we got three shows in, I checked how many seasons there are. It’s no fun when your binge-watch prematurely ends. 

My heart stopped when I saw that it ran for 24 years. 1989-2013. Luckily, there were “only” 13 seasons and 70 episodes.

Cough Syrup

I have been plagued with an annoying wet cough. Not bad. It’s a little cat cough. It could be allergies.

Gary also has a cough, one of those dank phlegm-y coughs where you think the cougher must be putting it on. I don’t see how his lungs are still anchored after one of these coughs.

Yesterday afternoon we were both coughing.

Me: Mheh.

Him: HUAACCHHHKKKKIKKUKUKUK. Ack. HARUMMM HARUMM. Ack. HUAACCHHHKKKKIKKUKUKUK

Me. Mheh. Is there any cough syrup? 

Gary looked in the medicine larder and announced there was no cough syrup. 

Given that I was working and he was not, I asked if he might go out and get some cough syrup. Flat no.

Last night I was awakened at one am by Gary coughing. I wearily slogged out to the room where he was fully awake, watching the news, and shaking the walls with his coughing.

”Gary. I can’t sleep with all this coughing. This is ridiculous. I’m going to go out and get cough syrup.”

And here is what happened next: I spent an hour finding the all-night stores now that Walmart is not open at night. I found many closed stores that teased me with their blazing lights. I tried the convenience store, but they only had pills, not syrup. I finally found, and bought, $75 worth of NyQuil/DayQuil at the all-night Walgreens.

While I was doing this, Gary took some cough syrup and went to bed.

“Wait, what,” you say, “I thought there was no cough syrup.”  (Yes. That was my question, too.) But what I said to my sleepy husband was, “You took something?”

”Oh,” he said, “I had some of MY cough syrup. I said there wasn’t any for you because you can’t use my bottle. It has my germs.”

So it would appear we have separate medicines now. While he was roaring and harrumphing (HUAACCHHHKKKKIKKUKUKUK!) — I was asleep, and then he thought my little cat cough (Mheh) woke me. Then I was so dismayed by my wee cough that I made a nighttime run for my own sterile bottle of cough syrup. Because evidently we have his-and-hers bottles now and his is secreted in his room.

That was early, early this morning. 

After I woke up, I thought we might have a conversation about the wisdom of hoarding separate bottles of cough syrup.

“What are you saying, cough syrup?” he demanded. “I don’t have any cough syrup.”

”But you .. But ... In the middle of the night you SAID you had taken cough syrup.”

”I did not. I took NyQuil.”

”Gary ... NyQuil IS COUGH SYRUP.”

”No. It does many things.”

I got his special personal bottle of NyQuil (yes, I touched his bottle) and pointed at the word “COUGH,” but he was right, it does not self-identify as cough syrup. I mean, for THIRTY FIVE YEARS we have referred to it as a cough syrup (THIRTY FIVE YEARS) but now there’s a new marketing campaign and it’s “the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, aching, coughing, stuffy-head, fever, so you can rest medicine” now. 

His cough is totally gone today, by the way. I am still making my Mheh sound.

New Chair

Thirty-two years ago Mom bought us a chair, to ensure she would always have a comfortable living room chair she could use when she came to visit.

It was a nice enough blue La-z-boy, not one of those giant Taj-Mahal padded monstrosities, but a sleek, acceptable model.

Then at the turn of the century, the living room went all-out Mission/Craftsman, and there was a reproduction settle and a Morris Chair, and the modern-day blue chair was shunted into the bedroom and became Gary’s chair. 

A few years ago, Gary deemed the living room Morris chair too uncomfortable - so we compromised and added a Mission-inspired faux leather recliner for him. He accepted it, but would never recline in it, out of loyalty to his blue chair.

The blue chair was so dear to him that he would repair it when bolts and screws pinged off the frame when he reclined.

Gary’s loyalties changed early in the pandemic, when his lungs felt bad enough that he wanted to sleep in a recliner. Then, twice, the blue recliner refused to un-recline and Gary got caught like a turtle on its back. As a result, one early morning when I was too asleep to argue, the living room faux-mission recliner and the torn, worn, and broken La-z-boy swapped places.

“No” I said, when I woke up.

But he pled Covid-lung, and he couldn’t recline in this without the fear of being trapped, and he would consent to recline in the faux-Mission recliner in the bedroom now, and I realized the pandemic meant that no one would see it anyway. 

It’s been defiling the living room for months, but when he became stuck in the blue chair again in the living room while watching the news (picture an angry purple-faced turtle), a new compromise was reached. A twin of the now-beloved faux-Mission recliner has been purchased, but for now the twins will stay in separate rooms, and the blue La-z-boy ...

” ... will be out out at the curb,” I said.

“Really? Your Mom bought us that chair.”

”She is looking down from heaven and believe me, she is behind me on this.”

”It can’t go out with the trash.”

”Well, then, down in the basement.”

“No, I can use it in the computer room when I read the newspaper.” 

I suspect it will be used as a base for the unread paper collection, freeing up the black trumpet case, but whatever.

Next time he is turtle-trapped in the blue chair I will force him to put down the newspaper and watch an episode of Hoarders.

The Reign

Gary has been feeling a little bit better - enough that he can stay awake for four or five hours a day, so we are back to binge-watching television in the evenings. 

I came upstairs from painting last weekend and I noticed he was still watching what he’d had on when I started painting two hours before. 

“You have to watch this,” he said, breathlessly, “It’s really good. It’s all about Mary,  Queen of Scots.”

“Mary, Queen of Scots!” I said in the obligatory Monty Python voice.

“You would love it. It’s a historical drama.”

So I asked about the only bit of MQofS trivia I know. “Does Elizabeth’s I’s rival in love end up at the bottom of the steps with her neck broken? I remember that was so suspicious she couldn’t end up with the man she supposedly loved.”

”Yes!”

”Did they mention the rival had advanced breast cancer and that’s probably what really did her in?”

”No, you are wrong. I mean, she did have cancer but then she threw herself down the steps and framed her husband. Mary wouldn’t do that.”

Based on the cancer-nod to historical accuracy, I decided to give it a chance. It was like history slanted toward teenagers. Or tweens. Tweens who would own a grimoire, like my husband, and believe in seers and prophecies. 

It was called Reign, and as the IMDB review states in the first sentence, “This is a show for girls.”

Days later, after it was all over, we went to Wikipedia to sort out what was true and what was not, and he was bereft to hear some of his favorite characters were not historically accurate. (“No! Not Leith! He wasn’t real? Are you sure?”)

Then he was bereft and wrote some poems in his grimoire. 

 

Gary. Chair. Hair. Outlet. T-shirt.

Feel free to rag on the non-mission blue La-z-Boy defiling the room. There’s a tear in the back that I mean to ironically patch with duct tape.

Yard Sign 2020

Here is a quandary.

As I said during the 2016 election, I don’t like yard signs.

Put another way, I like getting along with my neighbors more than I like yard signs.

So here is the 2020 yard sign debate.

1. The neighbors are selling their house. 
2. The instant Kamala Harris was announced Gary started looking for a yard sign we could stake out.

I said, “Gary. We can’t put out a yard sign. It will affect the neighbor’s sales potential. Let’s wait until after they sell the house. It’s just common courtesy.”

For a moment he looked like he saw the point, and I could tell, because he frowned instead of yelled.

But that was only for a moment, and then he yelled “DO YOU WANT TO LIVE BY NAZIS? IF THEY DON’T AGREE WITH BIDEN I DON’T WANT THEM MOVING IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD.”

Seriously. No doubt the rest of the neighborhood feels that way about us, but I didn’t mention that, and I haven’t brought it up again.  I think the realtor is going to make the decision for us. I think that sign is going to vanish in the night.

Delusional

I apologize if I have mentioned this before. A few months back, Gary was driving back from his family’s house and became convinced he had flies in his hair and (giggle) a snake in his pants.

He told me this story when he got home, I looked up “delusions in older men,” and I became convinced he has Parkinson’s. There are even tremors (which he claims he has had all his life).

This morning, we were getting ready to leave for the family homestead, we were discussing some strange sound and he said, “Oh, that’s the bathroom fan. I know, it sounds weird. At first I thought that was one of my delusions, like the hair flies and the pants snake —”

“So you’re still having the delusions, then?” I asked. 

“Well, I’m still taking the medication, so I’m still having the delusions.”  And then he blinked at me as if to say, we talked about this, right?

No. We had not talked about this. And we didn’t talk about it this morning either, because I asked if he had confirmed this with a doctor and he huffed at me. 

Come to find out that of the four medications he is on, guess how many list delusions as a side effect? Four! I’m amazed he isn’t petting the ferrets that are nesting in his chest hair.

Dr. Pepper Shortage

Well, now it’s personal.

Actually, the impending Dr. Pepper Shortage in the link above comes at a good time for Gary. For years doctors and dentists have  questioned Gary’s Dr. Pepper habit, and he finally began to listen to them. For three months he’s cut his Dr. Pepper consumption in half, if not more.

Perhaps he will start sipping them now like a rare fine wine.

My Birthday Month

It is my Birthday Month. During my Birthday Month I supposedly win all arguments. So far I have not won any of the arguments we have had. 

Our current argument stems, again, from Gary’s determination that he alone can work on the house. He is the Noble Repairman; outside repairman are not to be trusted. His biology degree authorizes him to  install toilets or fix patios as well as anyone with experience.

For example, the threshold to the back door is rotting, and I no longer think it is an exaggeration to say that we will soon have a threshold made of duct tape. 

And now, one of the two toilets is leaking. I am feeling quite dismayed because he feels that if there’s a leak, you patch it. I feel that if there’s a leak, you find out why there’s a leak and stop it. 

Right now he is patching a leak in the plumbing, and soon he will come to me looking for praise. Praise for patching after I had to beg him like a housewife to get the problem fixed. 

Infuriating.

Color Adjustment

While I might someday be the old lady who cannot use the remote, I do like new technology. I think that must be because I remember old technology. Gather round, young’ns, and let me tell you about ye olde television color settings.

When I first married Gary, he had a black and white television. My family had purchased a color television ten years earlier, so this was an adjustment. My Mom made a few remarks, and may have fronted some cash, and the soon we had a color television. 

One day Gary said, “I think these colors could be brighter. You had a color TV. How do you make it brighter?”

”There’s a color dial Dad said we were not allowed to touch.” That would be the same Dad who fixed the TV after Gary adjusted the image to colors accurate only on Mars.

I don’t blame Gary. I screw up and adjust colors every time I paint. There are infinite ways to screw up color.

I thought of this last night when Gary was watching TV and said, “I think these colors could be brighter.” 

Then he got the remote, navigated to the menu, and picked one of five color settings off the menu. Definitely better.

Skunk Encounters Of the Third Kind

Late last night I was playing my guitar. I was just sitting there in my room: playing, relaxing, breathing; and then suddenly: playing, gagging, crying.

I had taken a deep breath of skunk. A recently discharged skunk must have just walked under my front window.

”GARY OH MY GOD GARY COME IN HERE AND SMELL THIS. GARY! ... GARY?”

I heard the back door slam and Gary came in.

“Gary! We’ve been skunked again!”

”I know,” he called out happily, “It was so cute!” 

Our conversation after that was a call and answer of me wailing “Can’t you smell that?” and Gary saying either A) “That nutty aroma? I’m sure it will waft away” or B) “It was so cute! You should have seen it!”

Eventually the smell dissipated enough for me to have a conversation. Here’s what happened.

1) Gary was taking some bags of peanuts to the backyard. He had on his nerdy headlamp so he wouldn’t disturb the animals with the porch light. He stepped on to the porch.

2) There was a skunk on the porch. It immediately went in to skunk DEFCON 5: Stomping, in which the skunk stomps its front feet as a warning.

3) Gary, seduced by the cuteness of the skunk, whispered, “Oh, you’re so beautiful! Look at you!” He whispered so as not to “alarm the skunk.”

4) The skunk, alarmed, went to DEFCON 4: Scooting Backward while stomping. In retrospect, Gary thinks that he should have turned his headlamp off, because the skunk might have been blinded by the light and not have recognized him. Gary was still hypnotized by the cuteness and was cooing baby talk.

5) The skunk went to DEFCON 3: Raised Tail, and then, according to Gary, skipped DEFCON 2 entirely (which is Whipping Around to Show the Glands). So, instead of aiming his rear at Gary, the skunk had his butt pointed away from Gary when he went to DEFCON 1. 

6) Gary claims the skunk did not emit a full spray. “He was just young and he got too excited. It was just a little premature skunk poot.” 

After Gary finished describing it from his point of view, I was more sympathetic. The baby skunks are pretty cute, and when they stomp and scoot, it’s hard to look away from the skunk siren song.

How cute are they? Here’s a video of a stomp and a scoot when a baby and a mom take on a raccoon that is no smarter than Gary.

A Recent Conversation With Gary

When Gary gets enthusiastic about a movie he has seen, he tends to relate the plot with such detail that you could watch the damn move in less time it takes to get the Gary re-enactment. 

About twenty minutes in to his version of every damn detail of Warrior Nun, when I pointedly pointed at the bored expression on my face, he said, “Wait, be patient, I’m almost at the best part.” Then he talked for ten minutes more, until I said:

”And THEN Glencora goes to Europe with Plantagenet Palliser, even though he’s just been asked to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

He went on. ” ... So then the one nun says, even though she’s been healed with the magic halo ... wait .. what?”

I continued, ”So she decides it’s better to be a Duchess than to be poor and in love with Burgo, but then she gets pregnant and it’s really cute how Trollope lets you know because it was serialized in the London papers and of course they couldn’t say someone was ‘pregnant’ and —“

And that’s how I got Gary to stop telling me about Warrior Nun.

Separate Lives

So, it’s the oddest thing. Since he retired, Gary and I have spent all our evenings together, but during his recent illness, we kept apart. He’s feeling better now, but yet somehow we’re still keeping our distance.

I’d say we only spend every other evening together. it’s very odd. In the past if I went into the bathroom and didn’t return within a minute he’d want to know where I was and what I was doing and if I was coming back. Nowadays, I pick up, go downstairs, and he can occupy himself. Surprisingly, he doesn’t care if I’m coming back.

There’s no active resentment. I guess we figured out that we get along better in smaller doses. Or, more likely, he has a mental quota of how much time we should spend together, and now that I don’t leave the house ever, he fills his quota in the morning and doesn’t need me in the evening. 

Strange days, strange days. 

Mask Order

I know, I know, Gary already has too many masks, but how could I not add this raccoon mask to the pile?

Driving Mask

I was driving in the car with Gary, with my mask hanging around my neck (because Gary’s finally over his illness), but I suddenly found myself with the mask over my nose again when:

• a Dodge Charger passed us on the right and revved his engine aggressively
• Gary glanced in his blind spot and didn’t notice that the car in front of us was braking hard
• Gary, the car to his left, and the car behind him all ran a red light

It seems if I am frightened I instinctively put the mask on, as if the mask will keep me safe from ALL things, not just the virus.  How will I cope with fear after the vaccine is invented? What will comfort me when I drive with Gary? I might have to keep the mask around as a security blanket.

Garbage Disposer Rules

I heated up a sausage that had lived in the freezer entirely too many months, stabbed it with a fork, and I took a bite, and then I pulled it off the fork, and introduced it to its final resting place in the garbage disposal.

Gary saw this, and said, and I quote, “AAAAAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHH!”

”What?”

”YOU JUST PUT THAT DOWN THE DISPOSER!”

”It’s bad!”

”IT’S FOOD!”

”I’m not eating bad food!”

”YOU DON’T PUT FOOD DOWN THE DISPOSER!”

I just stared at him, and then slowly extracted the sausage from the garbage disposer. While staring at him.

”THROW THAT AWAY IN THE GARBAGE.”

I did, and then he calmed down enough to explain to me the rules for what goes in the garbage disposal. 

Things that do not go in the garbage disposer:

1. Garbage. Even if you want to dispose of it. It would be nice if there were a machine you could use to dispose of your garbage, a garbage disposer, if you will, but no.

Things that go in the garbage disposer:

1. Fluids
2. Particulate Matter

I don’t know when the rules changed, be we are no longer to use the choppy/grindy blades of the garbage disposer to mince up food into particulate matter, because the water processing plant has had enough of sluicing stuff out of the sewage system. 

He was able to find many citations on the Internet about how you shouldn’t put foods, rinds, shells, or anything down your disposer. I suppose kids today are all about the composting. I told him I would be happy to hurl our bad sausages out to the raccoons, and he didn’t like that idea. (“NO THEY’LL GET SICK.’) So I am now to put all food trash in the trash, and so that it doesn’t draw flies, you’ll love this, I need to put it in a ziplock bag. 

And the awful thing is that I can’t sneakily do what I like on Saturday mornings when he’s asleep, which is to run a garbage disposer on the down-low. Too loud.

Is this crazy? This is crazy, right? Is this because I’m old? Do young folks only use their garbage disposers for sour milk and sugar that fell into the sink?

Gary Takes a Brief Turn for the Worse

Gary woke me up at two in the morning to come in my room and complain about a sudden hip and ribcage pain that was keeping him awake.

I grabbed the iPad. I knew enough about ribcage pain to look for shingles. I typed “hip pain in shingles.”

I told him, “Hip pain is an early harbinger of shingles.”

He said, “I don’t have shingles. I’ve had shingles. I’m immune.”

”It’s contagious.”

”You are wrong. You can’t catch the shingles.”

Back to the iPad. I let him know “a person can catch chickenpox from another person who has the shingles.”

”I didn’t catch chickenpox. I’ve had chickenpox.” He sighed. “That’s how you get the shingles —“

”I could catch chickenpox from your shingles. Me. I haven’t had either. I’m only done with half the vaccination. Get your hand off my doorknob.”

”I don’t have shingles!”

”Go away. I need to find someplace else to live.”

I don’t really think he has shingles, but, wake me up at two am, will you? I can play that game. I knew that just a little dose of escalation would make him back down, because often it seems he has no opinion but for those in opposition to me.

Twenty minutes later he came back in to tell me that he had done his own research and he was dehydrated, that was all, that was causing the hip and ribcage muscle pain. So don’t worry. 

God, wouldn’t it be awful if he does have shingles? I really would have to move out. Well, the chances of that are slim.

Gary and Masks

Gary is doing some magical thinking. He’s collecting face masks as amulets to protect him from the virus. The more face masks he has, the safer we are, though we can only wear one at a time, generally (see below for the exception).

I tried to make a face mask, but as we know the spirits of evil murdered my sewing machine after one seam.

Gary’s much happier stimulating the economy, so here is his face mask collection.

Our first masks were N-95s, because of course Gary did the research.

This mask caused friction in our marriage. Right after it came, doctors began begging for N-95s, and he wouldn’t make the sacrifice.

Turns out the N95 was a construction grade one, not a medical grade one, so he turned on it and picked up two KN95s.

I was quite happy with mine. It’s washable and it covers my wattle. I may permanently integrate it in my wardrobe for that reason. When I’m in my sunglasses and this wattle-cupping mask I look only forty-five years old.

Gary decided this mask by itself was insufficient and needed to be topped by another layer of mask, the sporty, fashionable overmask.

I might have gone with the layered look, but more masks arrived before I had a chance to leave the house: a very snug canvas Chinese mask that Gary couldn’t even fit over his German nose, and a cute one with clouds.

I liked the cloud mask so much so that I believe I said, “Please stop buying masks,” but it was another mask too snug for Gary, so he bought two types of mask extenders.

Mind you, Gary hasn’t left the house for weeks at this point. Then a box of 50 paper masks arrived that he bought a month before.

He started wearing those disposable masks whenever he passed me in the hall or heard my voice. When he left the house for his nose test, he wore the white mask (without the coordinating black overmask, mind you.)

I don’t know when he ordered the next mask that arrived, but this was the ideal, the ultimate, the one mask to rule them all: the blue Take Care mask. I liked this one so much I said, “Cut it out with the fucking masks, already.”

Gary said, “I will. This is the best mask. It has a pocket for a filter and it fits so I won’t have to use those extenders I bought for the cloud mask.”

“So no more masks, right?”

“Well, I won’t buy any more.” He paused. “There might be some still in the pipeline.”

There were: these individually-wrapped wrapped K-95s:

“But look,” he said when I complained. “These are individually wrapped. And they’re from China,” because I guess he wants a mask from every continent for his international mask collection.

When he went out to get his blood draw last week, he came in and gushed, “I found a mask in the car! They had it for me when I got the nose test, but I already had a mask on, so I stowed it in the glove compartment. It’s the best mask! It’s disposable, and it’s yellow.” Face it, from a practical point of view all these masks have been disposable.

Since then no new masks have arrived, but that’s not to say he’s stopped buying them. I wonder how long Gary will keep trying to keep us healthy by laying money on the mask altar.

Game Play Suspended Animation

Gary began feeling much better the other day - so much so that he surprised me with a kiss. There has been no kissing for these three months while he has potentially fought off the virus.

In the afterglow of The Kiss we sat in the same room and watched the same television, another thing we haven’t done in months. During his confinement he seems to have gotten out of the habit of interrupting the television every 20 seconds to share his opinion. God willing he won’t pick that up again. 

Months ago we were in the midst of a session of Mansions of Madness when the whole of America heard what was up in the rest of the world (and then left the house to buy all the toilet paper). Of course we couldn’t get back to it until last night.

I rolled the dice one time, made one move, and Gary decided Rachel Maddow was more appealing than Cluthulu and his minions. It would seem that I have preserved this game, in situ, on the dining table for three months, for absolutely no reason. 

When Gary Wants to Talk

Gary must have separation anxiety, because he can’t abide a closed door. 

We’ve worked out our issues with the closed door during work hours, with a few exceptions. The big issue now is the closed bathroom door.

Growing up, my family never talked through the closed bathroom door. After I was married I gradually adjusted to having chats with Gary if I was in the bathroom, waiting. You know, waiting, as opposed to doing. Not talking if I’m doing.

However, Gary’s now started to talk to me through the door while I am busy in the bathroom. He seems to want to talk when I am in the bathroom and I can’t hear, which happens when:

1. I am brushing my teeth
2. I am urinating

Gary uses the electric toothbrush too, so it will be easy to break him of habit 1. I just have to wait for him to starts brushing his teeth and start up a conversation. He’s very good at seeing another point of view when you force him into it.

However, habit 2 will be harder. He is a man, so his ears are over a yard from the deafening noise of the pee hitting the water, whereas I am right on top of it. The new Toto toilet is bigger, so there’s more of an echo chamber, and really it’s deafening. 

All I could do is have him sit and pee while I talk to him outside the closed door. That is not happening. I suppose I can just start ignoring him if I can’t hear him. 

Spite Mammals

I woke up this morning to this chaos on the sidewalk to the front porch. Lirope leaves and mulch were strewn across the sidewalk and pulled into a right-hand corner where nothing grows.

At first I blamed the deer. “Damn deer,” I said, “Last season they ate all the Ajuga and licked the shrubs to death. Now they’re after the Lirope.”

Then I wondered why some of the Lirope debris was on the right side of the sidewalk. I remembered that I had blocked off the rabbit warren there.

Here's how it looked last week when I blocked it off.

All sealed up, no Lirope leaves.

Here’s how it looked this morning:

So, evidently the chunky rabbit did not like having his front door blocked, and decided to knock the block down and repay vandalism with vandalism.

Overnight, he grumbled, “These humans have infested my home. Pests. A nuisance.” He then checked Rabbit Wikipedia for “how to rid your home of humans.”

“I see. I need to destroy their nest. Well let’s wipe out the landscaping they built.”

Then he chewed off half a Lirope ...

... and dragged it across the sidewalk to cover the offending rock. (Obvious homage to The Godfather and the horse head.)

I complained to Gary, who OF COURSE TOOK THE RABBIT’S SIDE. He even said, “We are living in their field, you know. They have a right to be here.”

Two against one. I had no choice but to remove the rock and stuff some extra Lirope in the hole as an acknowledgement of who is in charge. 

Blood Drive (thru)

Our doctor’s office has done a wonderful job of keeping up with Gary. Since he’s been feverish for nine weeks, they wanted to check if possibly his thyroid was off (or, I suppose, if he’s suffering side effects of the medication). 

So, for that they needed a blood draw, and while I was special enough to get the nurse to do the porch visit, Gary needed to use the drive-up lab at the hospital.

This is how it’s supposed to go:

1. Drive to the special lot at the edge of the Hospital complex.
2. Park and call the special number posted in front of every parking space.
3. An operator will answer and get your insurance info.
4. The operator tells you to drive to the parking garage and get in line.
5. Hang your arm out of the window and get your blood taken.

Five minutes after we called Gary got impatient and said, “Let’s leave,” and then he said that every ten minutes. After Gary’s “Let’s leave” at the one hour mark I snapped “Fine,” and started to drive off.

I had just backed out when the operator came on line, so while she got our info I was circling to get back to the lot. There is a camera on the lot and she must have seen us leaving. I can only imagine that’s why she skipped step 4 - the step to tell us to drive to the parking garage. She must have seen us on the lot camera and thought that was where we were heading.

So we drove back to where we had been for the last hour and sat on hold again while we fought another forty-five minutes, and then gave up and went home.

Of course, the next day Gary went on his own and everything went seamlessly — he called, they picked up in five minutes, they told him to go to the parking garage, and he did all the waiting there. 

The best part was finding that his thyroid numbers are in the right zone. I suppose the increased meds that helped with that are what’s causing the fever and misery. 

Gary Update

At long last, after these many weeks, Gary has turned the corner. He’s not totally healed, but he can go through the night without a fever, though not through a whole day.

He was even feisty enough to try to pick an argument with me, but I did not engage. It was a sign of good health.

What has he had? I don’t care. The doctor’s office checked up on him, which was nice. I don’t know what he told them. I don’t care. All I know is I’d rather have a feisty troublemaker than a big lump of feverish flesh in the bed.

 

 

Baby Time

I was surprised to look through the wildlife cam photos and find baby raccoons.
Usually the babies don’t show until the first week of June. Based on the date these were two weeks ahead of schedule. They look pretty chunky for babies, too. I think someone’s been holding out.

But it is baby season. Gary complained that he put out half a bag of peanuts and they were all gone the next day. Usually this means that Gary will put out an entire bag the next night, but he said, and I quote, “screw those piggy little babies.”

There had been some drama deep in the night when another mama had to defend a baby that had just done something indefensible.

In contrast to the chubby baby raccoons, at dusk I have been seeing the tiniest baby squirrels ever. I read that you rarely see small squirrels, because they don’t leave the nest until they have fur. I take that to mean they have to hit puberty. Well, this year we have four tiny peach-fuzz squirrels out here. Size of baby kittens, if you don’t count the tail.

Raccoon babies too big, squirrel babies too small. That should go in the Farmer’s Almanac as signs of a global pandemic.

Butt Stuff

Gary and I are pretty grabby with each other, which is strange because I’m not physical with anyone else. I’m not a big hugger. 

I didn’t realize how much time we spent nose-booping or hair-ruffling until the covid kept us away from each other. 

We have now established a new tradition to take the place of our nightly goodnight kiss: the nightly goodnight baboon butt rub. We stand on opposite sides of the hallway in the doorways of our respective rooms. Then we face away from each other, back into the hallway until our butts meet, then spend some time rubbing our butts against each other. 

Every night the butt rub takes a different tone. Some nights it’s a big rumbly rub fest, some nights it’s a perfunctory bump. Last night there was a repetitive thrusting quality that reminded me of early sex, when you both have your own rhythm going, and one person’s on the out-step when the other’s expecting the in-step.

I think I might miss the butt-bumping when life goes back to normal.

Gary’s Visit

Well, the day began with Gary stomping around, demanding that he could drive himself to urgent care center where he was supposed to get the chest X-ray to rule out Covid pneumonia. The stomping wore him out so much that he said I’d have to drive him: he was too weak. We expected to get the chest x-ray at the urgent care, and then be sent to the hospital if needed for a swab test.

The access to the Urgent Care was complex. We had to drive to the back service door, park, call a phone number, a nurse came out, asked some questions, and then led Gary into the building.

Half an hour later I got a text from Gary I did not expect.

Surprise! In addition to administering the chest x-ray we expected, the nurse offered a nasal swab. Gary said she actually discouraged it — she said if he’d been sick for three weeks there probably wouldn’t be any virus left in his nose. He said “No, my wife has a compromised immune system and I need to know everything.”

When he came out, I asked if the nasal swab was as bad as they say. According to Gary, yes, it’s bad. His right eye was still watering. I was going to kid him about having a long thing violate him in a sensitive, internal place and how he might get a bladder infection. I didn’t, though, since it seems swabs are his new love language.

He actually got three tests: the chest x-ray, the nasal swab, and the antibody test. So far the chest x-ray did not show any covid pneumonia: the doctor called with those results a few hours later. Gary’s pulse oxygen was at 93%, which was a little lower than expected. (The home pulse oximeter has said 95-97%.) I don’t know when the swab and antibody tests are expected. Probably sometime Tuesday or Wednesday.