Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Mini Update

One nice thing about the pandemic is that we really don’t need two cars. It’s entirely possible we just take the sick Mini off the insurance and leave it in the garage ... well, forever.

But, Gary’s Honda Fit has as many miles as the Mini, and if it goes out then we have zero cars, and then I think, you can buy a lot of taxi rides for what a new car costs. 

But thinking ahead, in a year or so, there will be concerts and museums and visits to other cities, and potentially there won’t be the $7,500 tax credit for the electric Mini. 

I think we just need one more thing to tip us into car buying mode. A discount, which Mini evidently doesn’t do. A good price on our trade-in.

“OR, WOULDN’T IT BE COOL IF THEY DELIVERED IT RIGHT TO OUR DOOR?” Gary said. “WE LOVE GETTING THINGS DELIVERED.”

True. That would do it.

Signs

One thing about Gary: he doesn’t like to be told what to do. I know, no one likes to be told what to do, but Gary hates it so much he even resents road signs.

We were in the car together for the first time in months, and he encountered two road signs he felt were trying to oppress him. 

The first sign that stepped outside its station and dared to tell him what to do was a “NO OUTLET’ sign. 

“I HATE THAT SIGN. NO OUTLET. STUPID SIGN TRYING TO KEEP ME OFF THAT STREET.”

”I think it’s to keep you from getting stuck  — “

”NO THOSE PEOPLE DON’T WANT ANYONE TURNING AROUND IN THEIR PRECIOUS STREET.”

The next sign was worse: it didn’t just boss him, it tried to play mind games. 

It was a digital sign that said our exit was going to be closed for construction starting at 9 that night. 

”I DON’T READ THOSE ELECTRONIC SIGNS. WHO KNOWS IF THEY’RE EVEN RIGHT.”

I thought, “Of all signs, the electronic up-to-the minute signs would be the most accurate: no one has to come out and unscrew the sign,” but I didn’t want to be seen as defending the double-plus-ungood signage mind control plot.

Obligatory Easter Post

Remember Gary’s Easter preparations in years past?

Remember 2012?

Or even 2007?


Not so much anymore. I didn’t even recognize this years paltry patch of mummified bunnies.

Three bunnies! Bubble-wrapped and tucked in the fridge.

(Minutes later - ah, I see on Amazon he bought three more.)

My Continuing Fight Against the Apnea, Part III

So, Gary’s gone from using his Oxygen ring monitor to test the efficacy if different sleeping positions to simply sticking in denial gear. He’s landed on: “One of the three summaries it gives  shows I’m in the green zone. No problem.”

So I offered myself up as a control. I could wear the ring to show him what a normal person’s numbers look like. If I came up short I would go to the hospital and get the test, and then that would shame him into doing the same.

At first I couldn’t sleep because the ring kept buzzing with ever-increasing desperation every time I started to drop off. “Oxygen is 80%!” After a few hours of that I marched out to tell Gary I was going to die, and he said the ring was just loose. Also, you can turn off the buzzing. 

In the morning I was able to show him his report compared to mine.

His report - note his numbers tell one tale and his graph another.

Versus my report:

The numbers aren’t that different, especially if you ignore the ones you don’t like — but the graphs are.  

He said he would go back to wearing the ring and tracking his different sleeping positions, so that’s a gear shift to a lower level of denial, anyway.

Gary’s Continuing Fight Against the Apnea, Part I

Gary’s been creeping toward getting a C-Pap to deal with his sleep issues. So far, after being told be probably has sleep apnea, he has purchased an Oxygen ring monitor and found that yes, his oxygen does dip under 90 up to 40 times a night.

Since then he has gone through these stages of denial:

Minimizing: “Well, still, 86% oxygen isn’t that bad.”
Cherry-Picking: “See, this number says overall I got 94 percent, and that’s in the green zone.”
Delaying: “Instead of a wearing a mask I am going to lose weight.”
Alternative medicine: “I am going to [a) sleep on my left side b) elevate my back c) lie on my back and elevate my feet and jam my jaw shut with a pillow] and then see what my oxygen numbers look like.”
Prioritizing: “My swollen feet are the real problem, and I can’t lie on my side and elevate my feet at the same time, so a I can’t deal with sleep apnea right now.”

And of course I have said all the things (you can be on a machine while you diet, you can be on a machine while you elevate your feet, when I come out and see you sleeping in a recliner in the living room it reminds me of my dad in a hospital bed in the living room, I don’t think you’ll end up addicted to oxygen, etc.)

Gary still needs another twenty days of processing until he starts repeating back to me the points I’ve made. (“You know, it occurred to me, I could diet and be on a machine!”) After that we’ll just need to clear some books out of his room, that will be the next insurmountable obstacle, and then he’ll get hooked up probably mid-summer.

Gary’s Birthday

It is both the first day of spring and Gary’s birthday today. He hasn’t made any outrageous demands this month, except for the ornate shaving reliquary, which he still uses even though it has been almost a week. 

He has been on an Amazon binge, trying to fill some hole in his heart with classic movie DVDs. I asked Alexa where the ETA on some shampoo I ordered. She said:

”A package for Gary’s order should arrive today, containing movies. Another package should arrive tomorrow, containing movies. Another two packages should arrive tomorrow, containing physical media, and movies. Another seven packages are on the way.”

I don’t get the movie hoarding. They are all readily-streamable Alfred Hitchcock movies. I think  Gary is using Amazon as his new form of applause. Gotta encourage Alfred Hitchcock. 

However, I can’t complain, at least I don’t, because some husbands buy boats and liquor and other unnecessary things. 

Gary’s Birthday Present

What does a man who has everything — like hoarder-levels of everything — what does he long for?

Evidently it is a more difficult shaving experience.

He came in to see what I thought of replacing his Bic razors with this contraption. I responded, “Happy birthday!” because birthday month rules apply.

I also agreed because this would look fine in the medical bathroom after he stops using it. As he will. He isn’t using the bowl, already, because he just uses soap, and even though there’s no straight razor, the fancy razor is still “too sharp,” and then even if he uses the brush to soften his soapy beard, I don’t see this lasting more than a week. 

Just the right size to sit on the shelf by the speculum, though.

Every Year With this Birthday Month Nonsense!

Ah, March is back, the month in which Gary has his birthday, and as it is his birthday month he gets everything he wants with no argument.

I’m already doing everything except feed the raccoons and hit the Start button on the dishwasher. He has started a new thing, where he asks me to get the throw and put it on him. The throw is in arm’s reach. He would have to un-recline the recliner to reach it himself. 

This is going to be an extra strain this birthday month, because he’s experiencing covid fatigue, chronic migraine fatigue, and now a doctor looked at his weight and suggested he might want a sleep study for his sleep apnea fatigue, and my god you’ve never seen anyone so insulted.  I hope he gets over that. I tried to convince him that maybe if he has three things making him fatigued and one can be fixed, he should FIX IT. (I was also mad enough to throw something so I tore off my shirt and threw it at him. Can’t really be taken seriously topless. Didn’t think that out.)

I know I should be glad he’s still here, and I am. It’s just a whole month of slavery is tiresome.

 

Gary’s Safe

I am generally cranky when Gary wakes me up, which he did right before midnight. He barged into my room, which is my room because I was thrown out of the marital bed for keeping him awake with my “energy,” and said, “Well I’ve got mine.”

”Got your what? Why are you waking me —“

”Vaccine appointment.” He held up his iPad.

That woke me up. I went from muttering into my pillow to sitting on the edge of the bed.

He said, “Oh no, it’s tomorrow. I can’t go tomorrow. That’s too soon.”

”Too SOON?”

“I was going to sleep tomorrow. And I want to wait until it’s warmer and do a drive-through vaccination.”

To summarize what I said in response, it was multiple iterations of, “So you’re going to put the rest of us at risk so that you don’t have to get out of bed?” and that seemed to convince him.

He said it was a 40 minute wait, but people were distanced, and he got the Moderna Vaccine. I feel I plumped up just from the the unwinding of every muscle. I might have gone boo-ii-ing.

Gary’s Dance

I made a mistake this past Thursday. I left the guest room door open when I was in a Zoom meeting, and Gary came home and poked his head in.

I gave him a barely perceptible nod, because I was paying attention to my meeting, and I am a professional.

He began a sinuous dance. He waved his arms like a hula girl. I bit my lower lip hard.

He began flipping his long white hair and I lost it, and I reached to turn off my camera just as my boss asked, “Ellen, are you in some kind of distress?”

And then, everyone had to meet Gary, only, no one really met Gary. They met Retired Gary. All I could think of was how furious Work Gary would have been if I had tried that. 

Continuing on With the Skip Principle

Skipping Thanksgiving and Christmas was vital for getting through the holidays. Evidently it worked so well that we are also skipping the observation of the Feast of Saint Valentine. 

It’s interesting to me how Gary’s expression of love have changed so much of late. Gone are the days of 21 gifts for my 21st birthday. Gone are the days of 40 roses for my 40th birthday. I tell myself it is because he is secure in my love.

But then, we did recently have The Unfortunate Croissant Incident, in which he brought home an unsolicited chocolate croissant and I refused to take a bite. I was not aware this meant I no longer love him, but evidently, it does. It turned into a whole production.

(I would get a chocolate croissant and take a bite just for him, but I already did that the next day.)

2000 a Week

According to Gary, the car mechanic asked Gary how far he drove a week. 

Gary answered, “Two thousand miles.”

I am not good with math, but even I knew this was wrong, and I questioned him.

This tells you all you need to know about Gary: he argued with me, doubled down on it, questioned my logic and my ability to  multiply by two because it was a round trip, and then said there was a decimal point on the odometer he didn’t account for, then when I said “still, even two hundred miles is insane for the one trip you make a week,” he said, “I am not having this discussion anymore.”

The Road [SPOILERS]

Seven years ago when I was on my Pulitzer binge, I read The Road by Cormack McCarthy. I had some issues with it.

1. First, I confused Cormack McCarthy with Carson McCullers, so I was a generation off to start, and then I was really taken aback at how dark she must have gotten in her old age.
2. Second, Hero’s Journey plot? Hate them.
3. Third, you might expect that I had a problem with the [SPOILERS] Roast Baby, but I didn’t: in fact that was the most memorable part.

So, that was seven years ago, and last night Gary mentioned he was “almost finished with The Road.”

“Oh, yes, I hated that.” I said.

”Did you make it to the end?” He said this in a haughty manner, as if to suggest he had made it to the end and it was quite an accomplishment. 

I assumed by his tone that he was done and wanted to discuss it. I said something like, “What did you think of the ambiguous ending? When the father died, did you — “

”THE FATHER DIES?”

Seriously, he hadn’t gotten that far yet. And since that and the Baby Kebab are the only things that happen in The Road, I spoiled the end of the book for him.

I felt bad, but it was his own fault. “Did you make it to the end,” indeed.

Gary and the Men

Gary’s a loyal true husband, with one exception: if he can throw me over to make friends with a workman he will do it in a heartbeat.

It’s particularly ridiculous because the man has no friendships with any other men.  I don’t know if he was a plumber or a repairman in a previous life, but he longs to bond with them. The quickest way to do that is to ridicule me, pat my head, wink at them, and chuckle about The Wife.

Pisses me off. 

This was particularly evident when we met with the drainage men. My stance was, “Hmm. We paid many monies to fix this basement puddle, and yet here it is again.”

I was friendly. If I’d been hateful I could see how he would have wanted to counter my venom, but I was pleasant. 

When he decided we lived in the fifties I said, wryly, that if he would “let me” use the Shop-Vac this wouldn’t be a problem, but he did not get the hint. Instead, he doubled down and ended up explaining to me that this huge expenditure we laid out to fix a problem was actually a step in debugging what was wrong with our basement, and now we needed to move on to the next step in the debugging process, for many more monies. 

Oh my God. It’s infuriating. 

Home lab

Way back pre-pandemic we would go to the doctor and have machines check our vitals. Then Gary got sick, and he got a blood oxygen meter. Then he got one of those fingertip electrocardiographs, and we both played with that for a day. Now he has added a home blood pressure machine to his collection. 

I asked, “When’s the home EEG machine coming?”
He said, “We need a home MRI first.”

 

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.