Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

New Treat for Gary

What is Gary's favorite drink? Bailey's Irish Cream.

What is Gary's favorite treat? Premium ice cream.

What have they invented just so Gary can have both his favorite things at once?

The box claims that "For this indulgent treat, we topped a rich dark chocolate cookie with luscious Irish Cream infused ice cream swirled with silky chocolate fudge then dipped it in decadent dark chocolate with a white chocolate drizzle."

He even prefers dark chocolate. He is in heaven.

Each contains less than 0.5 percent alcohol. How many would he have to eat to get drunk? He could do it.

Past Birthdays

I was trying to remember what Gary got me for my birthday last year. I know I get an entire month of playing the Birthday Month card, and using it to win every argument, and that Gary does all the chores, but it is nice to unwrap one thing.

Then I remembered I have a blog, so I can look at a list.

• 2019 - We ate lunch at Salt and Smoke, a trendy BBQ place. He still has three weeks to present a present.
• 2018 -  iPhone
• 2017 - No gift listed, just whining about how I've done everything new there is to do and it is time to turn old.
• 2016  - Briefly really wanted a Sodastream, and got a pie carrier and a sex toy (as you do).
• 2015 - I don't know what happened but I was just really cranky.
• 2014 - This was the month Ferguson happened, so any silliness about birthdays fell off the blog, maybe?
• 2013 – No gift, but many demands were met: shelves assembled, art museum visited.
• 2012 – I remember that I spoke on a panel, but forgot that I got an iPad.
• 2011 – This was all about the food. Gary bought me food every day, and we ate Peking duck, which requires forethought so that is a Big Deal.
• 2010 – Gary did selective weeding, and I'm guessing that since we went to Paris the next month there was no gift.
• 2009 – I got some type of electronic for "me." I suspect a new TiVo. 
• 2008 – No gift listed, only that the Wii Fit wore a birthday hat on my birthday. Google changes the doodle on your birthday now, so it's quaint that I liked the Wii Fit programming.
• 2007 – My gift was the pink computer I am using right now to type this. I have had to fight to keep this 12 year old laptop.
• 2006 – No gift listed, only that the Friends tried to embarass me at Ozzies (yes, the long-defunct Ozzies).

You know what? Seeing it all listed out, I realize that with the exception of the pie carrier, Gary only buys me tech for my birthday. (For those saying, "What about the sex toy," it was iPad-enabled.)

Well, I might as well accept it. I'm going to the internet to see what new tech there is that I can ask for.

Chore Catalyst

I’m quite delighted the toilet has finally been installed. I’ve been trying to work out what magic led to Gary knuckling down and calling the plumber.

I know you are wondering, “Does she not know how to use a phone and call a plumber?” It’s just that house maintenance duties are his, and I know how it would make me feel if he ham-fisted his way into something that’s “my” job. I know some people feel nagging is necessary, but I avoid it - at times I will try to employ subliminal reminders, like: “Oh, just put the mail on top of the toilet tank in the foyer.” 

So, here’s the timeline. I need to record these events so I can try to reproduce them the next time a Gary project happens.

• Mid-April: toilet is purchased and the three resulting boxes are unpacked in various spots in the house.
• Late April: driveway contractor is contacted and contracted. They will be coming out in early July.
• Early May: crack appears in basement, crack repair is contacted. They will come out "some time this summer."
• May, June: n o t h i n g happens on the toilet front, because he has three balls in the air now. I know at work I can only juggle five projects at once.
• Early-late July: driveway is put in, so no trucks can visit for a month while the driveway hardens.

This is how I handle projects. 

• Sunday, Gary complained he couldn't get the Tennis Channel anymore. I said, "I haven't had the right channels since the royal wedding. I believe you've been meaning to call them."
• Monday at four p.m., while Gary was taking a nap, I called Charter and they came out that evening and it was fixed by 6 pm.

And I believe that's why on Tuesday Gary called a plumber and the toilet was installed on Wednesday. I shamed him. Shaming: just as emasculating as nagging, but much more effective.

Toilet Birthday

Today is my 57th birthday. (Or, as it shall be known, The Day After Gary Said, "Your birthday's on the 27th, right?")

It's okay if he forgets, because he already gave me a great (and pricey) gift on Wednesday: he got the second Toto toilet installed. This time it cost three times as much, which is no doubt why we couldn't get the previous installer to come back.

No more three boxes full of toilet parts cluttering the house, no more upside-down toilet in the bedroom, no more surprising variety in toilet heights. It's all I have wanted since April.

Yard Weeds

I have noticed a new weed poking up through our lawn and landscaping.

You know what it is? It's a peanut plant. For just a moment I actually thought, "Huh. How did I get peanuts in my yard?" 

Of course, I didn't put the peanuts in the yard, Gary gave them to the squirrels and raccoons, and the squirrels and raccoons stashed them away for retirement. I suppose they haven't sprouted in previous years because it hasn't been rainy enough to soak through the shells and germinate the nut.

Though the squirrels ignore them, the raccoon use the plants as little markers where they can go and dig up nutritious peanut sprouts. After that, the mowers take care of them before they can mature enough for nuts.

(I might take one from the landscaping, protect it, and then see if I can get it to grow enough to sprout nuts. If the animals are delighted enough perhaps I can make Gary into a peanut farmer.)

Onions

So, as I say, we have a problem with onions. We love them, but they make Gary's eyes burn.

It's the gasses that make you cry, evidently, and when I chop up a gallon of them as I do when I'm making onion soup, even I will cry.

One thing I did the last time I caramelized onions is that I tested all the anti-tear strategies for cooking onions.

I had already used the two most popular: cutting off the base entirely and using sweet onions. Using a candle to create a chimney effect? That only worked in conjunction with using the vent over the cooktop, and the vent just vents back into the house.

You know what really works to keep the gasses out of your eyes? Goggles. I went out and bought swim goggles.

Works fine if you are the one cutting the onions, but what if you are Gary, trapped in a house with toxic onion gasses?

I went out again and bought Gary some swim goggles too. I think that will fix the problem. Also, he looks like a superhero.

Sneaky Stuff

One week ago I took a vacation day on a Thursday. Why Thursday? Because that's the day Gary is out of the house, and I can do all the surreptitious sneaky stuff I can't do while Gary's around.

I rushed around and I ...

Painted the Foundation. This was tiresome. Due to time constraints I had to do this one while he was still here. That meant I had to tape off the basement windows, because he couldn't have slept through window removal, and then he'd be up and giving his expert opinion.

Caramelized Onions. I can't cook onions when he's here because if I do he spends all night moaning about his eyes and the pain, and you burned something, Ellen, do you think I can't smell the burnt onions? Somehow, he routinely cooks onions with no ill effects.

Painted the Back Door. To paint the back door one must open the back door, which is not allowed, because FLIES FLIES YOU ARE LETTING IN THE FLIES.

Killed the Flies. About six flies did accumulate in the house. I killed three, Gary killed one, and I don't know where the others are. I hope they plague him.

 

Celebrate

Last Saturday I found Gary and sang (to the tune of Celebrate by Kool and the Gang):

"Cel-e-brate drive-way, comeon!"

At long last (specifically one month) Gary has deemed the driveway accessible to all. He says he is now comfortable if a truck gets on it, even a plumbing truck. He claims he will call a plumbing company soon so someone can install the upside-down toilet.

Gary’s Drug Adventure

Gary's very particular about his anti-seizure medication, because he feels the effects in his brain immediately. He's finally settled on a particular generic of Tegretol. The doctors insist the generic is exactly the same as the original, but Gary claims he can tell.

The pharmacy sent him the generic this last month, only this time they sent a generic made by a different manufacturer.  Two days later Gary reported:

• Racing heart (pulse of 150)
• Uncontrollable hand twitching
• Hallucinations that biting flies were in his hair
• Hallucination that there was a snake in his pants (pause for giggling)

I wasn't around for the hallucinations: they happened while he was on the highway. I was appropriately horrified when he told me, and patient while he slept it off for two solid days. He was fine two days later, though the first day he did tell me the bathroom sink had little black bugs in it, which it does not.

At any rate, he promptly called the mail order pharmacy and they told him to put dirt in a trash bag, mix in the pills, and throw the bag away (because you can't flush drugs anymore, I suppose, or else Bug Hallucinators need the earth ritual to believe). They also made a note to never send him that particular generic again.

Finding your Drama Threshold

I think everyone has a unique drama threshold: the level of drama you can tolerate in your life.

My drama threshold is pretty high. I remember someone at work once sent me an email because she was concerned because I seemed to have a lot of drama in my life. It seemed she thought I was courting it (no), or using it as currency to get attention (totally).

Gary, I am sad to say, has a higher that Hollywood drama threshold. He'll experience an awful situation and then relay it to me with extra added painful drama, just so he can see how I react (usually tears) and then start to dial it back. "Well, they might not have said exactly that," and, "Well, I might have exaggerated that."

It is torture, because I feel for him, and then I get the figurative football pulled away and land on my back like a fool.

Or perhaps he's changing his story, not because he's exaggerating but because he doesn't want to see me upset.

I don't know. I've got to toughen up my drama threshold though.

More Moon

Last week was moon week! We landed two people on the moon fifty years ago. Did you hear? It was the only "first" we had in the space race. We dogged the Russians in every other achievement.

I heard the phrase "the U.S. was the first to land two men on the moon and return them successfully to the Earth" so many times it began to sound suspicious. Did someone else land one man on the moon? Could Luna 15 have crashed hours before we got there instead of after? Did the Russians land someone who didn't successfully return? I remember all the Lost Cosmonaut theories that once seemed so believable.

Because splitting hairs is in my nature, I have to ask any Apollo 11 conspiracy theorists out there: at what point do you stop believing the moon landing? I can't imagine you deny the liftoff, because thousands of ordinary citizens were there. The splashdown: how do you fake that? Catapult a lunar module into the stratosphere that then floats down in the cheery red and white striped parachutes? So then, do you believe we went into earth orbit, orbited for eight days, televised a faked landing, then splashed down? And then did that five more times, with one extra sweeps-week version for Apollo 13?

I recently had an argument with Gary about returning to the moon and launching the Mars rocket from there. He thinks it's too dangerous. I say, dude, that's not the spirit. I even said, "We do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hahd."

Driveway Grand Opening

Sure, most people can use their new driveway after a week, but Gary always doubles down. We parked the cars in the street for two weeks.

Now, finally, the cars can drive in to the garage.

Of course, this photo is just staged. He kept the tape uncut, because only  OUR cars are allowed on the driveway. He says, “If trucks park on our driveway in the first month it will crack - I read it on the internet.”  So we have to move one of the stakes every time we drive on our driveway until the end of the month.

Summer Heat at the Arch

I knew it was going to be a hot day (over 90 Farenheit /32 Celsius), but I am so sick of being inside that I thought the heat wouldn't bother me. We went on with our plan to visit the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Park ...

...which has thankfully just been renamed the Gateway Arch National Park.

I was fine walking the four blocks from the parking garage to the front doors of the new arch museum, but then we also wanted to see if the roof of the Old Cathedral had been repaired. It had been ripped up by a high wind on April 15, on the same day as the Notre Dame fire. We couldn't tell, since we were on the ground. If only there had been a high observation point nearby would could have taken some kind of tram up to ... oh.

After that we went down to the riverfront to see if the steamboats were running (nope, river too high for boats). That put us four blocks plus one national park away from our car. We got back by darting from shade tree to shade tree - and the shade trees were all newly planted during the park rebuild last year, so the give as much shade as a child's umbrella.

The heat didn't keep Gary from testing to see how hot it was by doing a typical tourist activity: touching the metal arch on a hot sunny day.

He reported that yes, it did feel very very hot, but he is a man and he can take it.

Driveway

In 2011, I had soaring dreams of installing a heated driveway "next year." Next year turned into eight years, and in the meantime the one salesman I spoke to about heated driveways told me flat out it isn't cold enough in Missouri to merit one. (Given that we've used our snowblower three times in the last five years, I think that man was right.)

This year, we had soaring dreams of driveways, sidewalks, and back porches, and then we talked to the construction company, and they said, "EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS." I don't remember what I said after that. I imagine it was profane. We kept talking to them, whittling down our needs until finally it was just "Driveway." "FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS" they said, and I said,"It's not like our current driveway is broken," and eventually they said "FORTY-FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS." I don't know if they shouted it as the ALL CAPS would suggest, it's just that the shock of the large numbers made me woozy and I picture them yelling to get past the brain fog.

It was totally worth that amount. The removal crew came in and beat up the old driveway with a jackhammer-equipped Bobcat, and then swapped out the jackhammer for a scoop and delicately scooped around my landscaping and sprinklers and dumped the old chunks into a truck.

The next day the installation team arrived with a cement mixer that they artfully maneuvered around my new mailbox and overgrown tree. The installation team all spoke to each other pleasantly, there was no bickering. The best part was that when each of them had a momentary break they would spend it standing and looking at my driveway. They liked how it looked, and they liked what they were doing.

The cleanup team comes today. It will be a week before we can put a car on our new driveway, so the cars are parked on the street and the front door is getting a lot of use.

We now have the prettiest driveway on the street. Sadly, I was out of the house when a neighbor lady came by and spoke with Gary about how nice it looked. She offered to let us park in her driveway, too. Gary, to his credit, kept the conversation going, even though he had come to the front door expecting to see me, and he was utterly naked from the waist down. He just cracked the door open far enough for his t-shirted torso to lean out in a neighborly way.

Of course, he refused the neighbor's offer to let us use part of their driveway, but I'd really like to take her up on that offer. I just don't know if I can talk to her without telling her that Gary was naked when they spoke. Can I? I don't think I can.

Stuckcation

So, I am lucky enough to have four weeks of vacation, and since we aren’t traveling this year I can make those four weeks coincide with holidays and parlay them into five weeks off. 

No travel means I get to have five weeks of “staycation,” in which we enjoy the sights close at hand. There are a lot of fun activities within a two-hour drive that we haven’t experienced yet. Very few of them are things Gary would want to do: things like the economy museum at the Federal Bank downtown. I am intrigued by the economy museum. Aside from a 1920s stock ticker, what could possibly be in there? 

Gary is not intrigued, plus Gary is a lump of butter that needs to kept at a particular temperature, and it’s in the 90s this week. I thought I hated the heat, but Gary truly feels it’s a deal-breaker. He is willing to go out into the heat and gnats to see Pat Benetar and fireworks with Friend 2, but that’s it. I’m always happy to go to a concert with Friend 2: we just went to see Samantha Fish and had a lovely time watching Samantha rock the curl out of her hair. 

You would think that there would be air-conditioned things I could get him to do, like see a summer blockbuster movie. Sadly, as it turns out, this is the week that the new driveway is scheduled to be installed, and Gary insists we stay in the house in case the workers need us.  Assuming the workers even show up in this heat.

I suppose with five weeks of vacation one of them can be spent idling around the house. So far I’ve learned how to spatchcock a chicken and I’ve gone out grocery shopping “for fun.” (*Drums fingers, stares sadly out of window.*)

Days Spent Inside

Gary asked me this weekend what vacation I would go on if we could go on vacation, and I had no answer. It surprised me that I had no answer, because if he'd asked me two years ago I would have said "Venice Ireland Yukon Pacific Northwest."

It also surprised me that he asked, because when we are granted the gift of pleasant weather on a weekend I still have to drag him out of the house, even if it’s just to do yard work at his parents’. It seems a sin to me to waste good weather. Last weekend. when I went to a party, the opera, and the art museum while he stayed home, he behaved as if I was abandoning him.

I hope this stay-at-home mentality isn't the next stop on the inexorable march to old age. Werthers, birding, then agoraphobia? Or is it Werthers, birding, knitting THEN agoraphobia? If that's so I just have to never take up knitting.

Toto Two

We have this interesting sculpture sitting in the corner of our bedroom.

One month ago today, we ordered another Toto toilet through Amazon. This is the upside-down lidless toilet.

It would be installed right now, only Gary wanted the same installer he got last time, and that man is suddenly very busy. He only responds when Gary hints that he might want to find another installer because this work of modern art has graced this bedroom for one solid month.

(Make that one month, not one solid month. Some words you want to avoid when discussing toilets.)

 

Gary's Sudden Weight Gain

Gary and I have been doing some muddy sweaty yard work, and as such every day we've been coming in to the house through the garage, stripping in the laundry room, putting the mud-soaked clothes in the washer and then padding naked through the house directly to the shower.

Friday, when I was at work, Gary looked for his clothes, didn't see them, and then remembered they were probably in the dryer.

Evidently he tried them on in the living room.

The reason they are still in the living room is, as he told me, "The shirt was a little tight, so I figured it shrank, but then the jeans wouldn't fit me at all."

I wish I had been there to watch him try to put on my jeans. I might have said."Hey, you didn't do any yard work yesterday, I did, and sometime I like to coordinate what I wear so we match, not obviously, but wearing a green t-shirt if you're wearing a green t-shirt, even though we are way to old for such shenanigans."

Would I have said that? I like to think I would have just watched him struggle to put on my clothes.

A Problem Shared

Gary is a big believer in the adage, "A problem shared is a problem halved."

(Clearly I believe in it too, given that I have a blog devoted to sharing most of my problems. However, Dear Readers, I trust that when I cut my worries in half you don't end up weighed down by the half I just gave you. You go on about your days of dilettante coke-sniffing /caring for your family without another thought of me.)

The thing is, I care about the same things Gary does, like his parents or our finances, and when he unloads on me that means I have a new worry I will carry with me for days, long after he's said, "Thanks for listening, hon, I feel a lot better."

I think I know the moment he starts feeling better. At first I will be rational, but as I can't take it any more and I start crying I hear how helpful it's been for him. I think next time he shares with me I'm going to burst in to fake tears almost immediately.

It’s Just Like the End of Jane Eyre

I don't know why, but Gary and I have been having communication problems lately.

At least five times in the last week one of us has shouted, "I DISTINCTLY HEARD YOU SAY THE WORDS [fill in the blank]" followed by "I NEVER SAID THAT. I NEVER SAID [fill in the blank]" followed by "YES YES YOU DID I HEARD IT WITH MY OWN EARS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU."

And it's both of us. And on top of that, the problem arises immediately. I'll say, "So, I see, you did [XYZ]" and he will shout "I NEVER DID [ABC] HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT" and then "I NEVER SAID [ABC] I SAID [XYZ]" etc., see above.

I think I know what's going on now, because at 6:36 this morning, I was coming out of the bathroom and I heard him say, "Hey, Ellen, got a minute? I need you."

I padded into the room. "You need me for something?"

"How did you know I wanted to talk to you?"

Because you just said, "Got a minute? I need you."

"I didn't say anything."

"I DISTINCTLY HEARD -- Oh. It's this again."

So evidently we've been communicating telepathically, and we're new at it, hence our communication difficulties.

Mindful TV Viewing

At times, Gary becomes self-aware, realizes he’s in emotional pain, and takes steps to take care of himself. Most recently he has realized that watching the news all day is not good for his emotional health. As a result, he will watch the news, yell at the news once, keep watching, then yell at the news again, and then before he yells a third time he switches over to tennis.

So now when I come home, either I hear a dour review of This Day In Politics, or an enthusiastic review of This Day In Tennis.

On the other hand, I have followed the path of so many I know and have started re-watching The West Wing, which was like soft-core political porn two decades ago. Usually morals in society loosen and what was soft-core porn becomes mainstream. In the current political environment, The West Wing has gone the other direction and seems like triple-X smut. A government that cooperates, the press secretary doesn’t lie, the President is rational, ooh, kinky. And almost laughable. Like a Penthouse letter. “Dear Penthouse, you’ll never believe this but I’m the President of the United States,  and the other night I saved Social Security.” 

Mueller Report Due Today

I have alerted my company that I need to work at home today. The Mueller report is due.

• If the report exonerates Trump, Gary will be in a state.
• If the report is heavily redacted, Gary will be in a state.
• If the report shows definitively that Trump is guilty, Gary will be in a state.

I anticipate I will need to take about half an hour to listen to the ranting, calm him down, then hold his hand another ten minutes or so. I'll just work an extra forty minutes.

Punishment

Recently, Gary was late to an appointment with someone who had annoyed him. He said, "He doesn't realize it, but I'm punishing him by being late. He'll never know that he annoyed me."

I asked, "Isn't that kind of passive-aggressive?"

He answered, "No. It gives me satisfaction," which was no answer at all.

I thought a moment. "So all those nights when you came home late from work, were you punishing me for something?"

"No. I really had to work, which, I don't know why, was important at the time." He paused. "That wasn't a punishment."

The way he stressed "That" made me continue to press. "Porn? Do you look at porn? Is that my punishment? Are you having affairs? Sleeping all day? Is that why you don't throw away the stick from the ice cream bar, you just leave it on the table?"

"Yes!" he laughed, "That IS one of the ways I punish you."

"What am I being punished for? What have I done?"

"I will never tell you."

"But that means I can never stop. How will I learn?"

"It is not about you learning. It is about me getting ... satisfaction."

Truly, it was a horrifying conversation.

The next day, I went to put on deodorant and noticed that a lot of the gel deodorant had been extruded from the container, and was just there lying on the applicator, as if some strong-handed husband had decided to just squeeze the gel out by brute force instead of patiently spinning the little dial to extrude just the right amount of gel. 

“I know what this is!” I thought. “This is a Punishment.”

When I confronted him later he claimed it was not a punishment, and that frankly he had seen the same glop and had assumed I had done it and I was punishing him.

I would have thought that the man was gaslighting me, but then it occurred to me that the latest Bomb Cyclone is probably to blame. I could see the reduced air pressure acting on gel deodorant. 

I continue to be punished, though, just not by means of the deodorant. Every day he leaves one of those ice cream bar sticks on the table. I must really be fucking up somehow.

Banana Hanger

Gary brought home a kitchen banana hanger. He hasn't had a banana for months, but he explained, "IT HAD A MONKEY ON IT," so what can you do?

He also brought home bananas, so I embraced the banana hanger, if it gets him to eat bananas.

But then, what happens when the bananas are gone? If you are Gary, you hang a monster from the Mansions of Madness game on the banana hanger.

I had to counter. We have lots of monkeys aound here, since that was Gary's nickname in his youth.

Gary’s Birthday

A week ago, on Gary’s birthday, I called him to see if he wanted some acknowledgment of his day. We have this debate every year. Gary feels that since he is celebrated and pampered every day of his birthday month, any celebration on the actual day is moot. Every day in March is his birthday. I was not raised with the "birthday month" hogwash tradition and I need to mark the day.

"Let's go out to dinner," I begged him. "Let's go to that place where you had Piglet, the pork chop."

"Okay, sure," Gary sighed. "I'll shave."

Five minutes later, he called me back, all pouty.

"It's MY birthday and I don't want to go out. I want you to come home and bring me Chinese food."

Bringing home dinner is not a celebration, I thought. Bogus.

So instead of just bringing home Chinese, I zipped over to the bookstore and bought him a copy of Salt Fat Acid Heat, so he doesn't start thinking he can get away with ordering me to bring home Chinese every night. To counter his no-recipe cooking style, I also got myself a copy of America's Test Kitchen's Giant Compendium of Every Recipe Ever Plus the Complete Winners of Every Food and Equipment Challenge Oh My God (and if you are intrigued buy it there on Amazon where it is essentially half the price.)

Driving to get the Chinese I noticed a newly-opened Mellow Mushroom pizza parlor -- the same place we enjoyed in Asheville, NC. So he got a book, a pizza, and Chinese food for his birthday. Everything he never asked for.

The Torture of the Self-cleaning Oven

I opened the oven the other night and of course, smoke billowed out of it, and Gary began yelling.

"Gary, calm down. That's not the food burning, it's the stuff that dripped on to the oven floor the last time we cooked something."

"Well can't you clean that up?"

"I would if I were ever permitted to use the self-cleaning oven. I can't use it if you're in the house, and you're always home now that you're retired. Plus, it has to be spring because I need all the windows open so you can't smell even a hint of the noxious fumes. You say they poison you."

(The fumes, I admit, are noxious, and I don't know why: all the oven does is heat up to 750 degrees and incinerate all the organic material. Somehow, though, it smells like chemicals. I don't mind smelling the odor, but Gary is convinced it is going to send him into respiratory arrest.)

This time though, he shut himself in his room and "allowed" me to clean the oven. After the three-hour cremation of five years of pie fillings and pizza crumbs, I opened all the windows and doors and ran all the fans. Finally, I went in to tell him the coast was clear.

It was hard to open the door to his room because he had jammed towels under it. I’m surprised he wasn’t wearing a gas mask.

What Games Reveal

When I was in high school, Mom and Dad hosted a croquet game in the backyard.  I don’t remember the exact rule, but Dad was presented with the option to either a) proceed toward a wicket or b) wallop an opponent’s ball across the yard. He chose option b. The opponent, Bob (Mom’s best work-friend), immediately left the party, outraged.

Games seem to be designed to reveal a person’s deepest personality flaws. Dad was competitive beyond all reason. Bob .. I didn’t know him well, but I imagine that perhaps he took things too seriously. 

Gary and I played our game today in an epic four hour session. We won spectacularly, but the journey to the finish line was ugly. Our worst traits were revealed in the stress of the game.

I am impatient. Gary could not find the cards quickly enough for me, given that they were in alphabetical order. I would say ugly things like, “The Pocket Watch card is under the P’s,” and then sigh deeply. Every time. 

Gary casts blame. There was one door-opening move I chose not to take, and it cost me, because  Gary then prefaced every move with, “Well I wouldn’t have to do this if you had opened that door. What were you thinking?” He was relentless. 

We had to have a little tiff about it, and then I shut up about alphabetizing and he shut up about the damn door and then we enjoyed the game again.

Gary's Hobbies

I was digging around in the junk drawer and I saw some junk I did not recognize. After some research, I realized it was a wine foil splitter from back in the day when Gary was into wine, five years ago. Gary dropped wine four and a half years ago, because he follows his interests until BAM suddenly he's off wine, or biking, or making pie. “I am off lifting weights.” And weights are then dead to him.

At least I drop interest in hobbies as soon as I buy some expensive accessory. Gary gives no warning.

Gary's current interest is the Mansions of Madness board game. He owns every expansion pack and fiddly accessory you can find on Etsy. We’ve played it since Christmas. We have won exactly one round.

We were considering having some friends over to play, until he decided we would need to take the iPad that the game runs on and plug it into a giant monitor so everyone can see it, and do we have any monitors large enough, and maybe we need to buy -

"Stop right there." I said. "We are not buying a big-screen TV to play games on."

And since then he hasn't played the game. It's taking up our entire dining room table and we haven't touched it for two weeks. Now I fear he’s off games forever. Then again, maybe this is the secret to making him drop his hobbies. Maybe I’ve cracked the code on how to make Gary drop an obsession I don’t like. Maybe I just need to tell him his 18 hours cable news binges are using up too much electricity.

New Toy

Last week Gary bought this dog dish, because Gary feels his parents’ dog is no longer challenged by licking treats out of a Kong. Evidently pets like to chase their food around.

After it arrived I said, "You know who would love that? The raccoons." I know that our raccoons feel their lives are too easy.

He surprised me by saying, "I would love to use that. I should at least test it out."

"I just bought grapes."

It was surprisingly difficult.

Eureka Springs

Mom would stock up on groceries in the fall and then not set foot out of her house all winter. "I am in for the duration,” she would say. 

It looks like I will be in for the duration as well, given the viruses wafting about in the dry air, and the ice storms, and the like. I don't even have any entertainment booked until late late April, when Patton Oswalt makes up for the concert he canceled.

Because I haven't left the Saint Louis Metro area for a year, I want a vacation, even with the risks.

I'm not looking too far afield, because I'm hoarding airline miles, and also because after this week the prospect of getting into a tube filled with viruses is not appealing. One place I was considering is Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

It's supposed to be a really interesting little town, and it's only about a five hour drive away. There's allegedly an excellent art museum nearby, there's a wildlife park, and the town is supposedly a sweet little Victorian gem.

I broached it to Gary. "EUREKA SPRINGS ARE YOU CRAZY WHY WOULD I WANT TO GO TO THAT PLACE OF ..OF ...CHARLATANS?"

Evidently, among the faithful, the springs in Eureka Springs are said to have miraculous healing properties. So of course now the whole town is tainted. Strike it off the list. 

I did try a Google search for “Midwest science vacation” but that gave predictably poor results. Hmph. We will probably just run down to Saint Genevieve and visit the tiger park there.

Gravity is my Dumbwaiter

We store extra toilet paper in the basement.

Schedule

Gary grew up on a schedule. According to him, not only were breakfast, lunch, and dinner served at precise, set times, but there were schedules and time limits for bedtimes, fun outings in the weekends, and so on. His parents still adhere to a schedule - they allow themselves thirty minutes a day for local news, a certain number of hours for the newspaper, and their evening fruit snack is always at the same time.

Naturally, Gary rebelled as soon as he began running his own life. He has never stuck to itineraries or set work hours. And now that he's retired, one night he goes to sleep at 5 a.m., another night he's asleep at 7 at night. And more power to him, I say. I get it. Where I grew up dinner was scheduled when the food was done cooking, so I can't even imagine what it might be like to have to leave the zoo at three p.m. because dinner was scheduled at five.

The only time his impromptu lifestyle is a nuisance is on the weekends. I want to get a few tiny personal goals done on the weekends, because I Have a job, and weekends are rare and precious. It's just hard to plan my time, given the moving target that is Gary's day.

The friction begins when Gary wakes up.

Me: "I'm going to run  to the grocery for milk."
Gary: "If you just wait a minute I will go with you."

And the for the next two hours Gary does a variety of things, and when I say, "What's this? We were headed to the grocery and now you're Facebooking / in the bathroom / feeding the raccoons / clipping your toenails/ shopping on Amazon?" Then he says "Stop bugging me! You know I hate being on a schedule! Gimme a minute!" And, then, repeat.

What I need to do is yell from the garage, "MILK, BYE!" and not wait. I've learned this lesson before, when he worked all evening and would show up when it suited him. Don't wait. Live your life and if he's there when you're there, all the better, but don't wait.

Of course, that’s just going to lead to more friction. 

His / Mine / Ours

Gary and I have always had separate bank accounts, and when he retired we re-purposed his into a 100% responsible savings account and mine into a 100% reckless spending account, and we both share both accounts. Of course, we transfer a percentage into the savings account automatically, and when extra money accumulates I shuttle it to savings after a few weeks, because I can't wait around forever for that money to be spent. The grasshopper gets at most a month to spend it, and if he doesn't, then the ant takes over.

It has worked out well, after a disastrous early start in which I tried to get him to economize. If you look at his actions it seems that he's fine with the arrangement: he spends money on me, he spends money on his parents, he spends lots of money on raccoon food, but only on rare occasions will he spend money on himself. Recently he bought his father a muffler he admired, and I couldn't get him to buy one for himself. "Spend your money on yourself for once!" I will say.

It's frustrating, because he will say, "Well, it's not my money, it's your money."

I always counter this with the same argument: We can spend at least a mortgage payment on him per month because he spent years paying off our mortgage. We can spend a car payment on him because  he doesn't want to buy a new car for his ego. We can spend the extra money he saved up for retirement because he isn't taking social security.

The second argument, which I never get to, is: if it's my money, why does he think I'd have a problem spending it on him? Does he think that I'm too stingy for him to have new shoes, but that I'd prefer that our gold is alchemized into raccoon poop?

I got his iPad while he was asleep and bought him that muffler.

 

Valentine’s Day

When Gary and I agreed on Wednesday night that there would be no exchange of Valentine’s gifts, I admit I thought forlornly of my fortieth birthday, when a put-upon florist deliverywoman staggered into my foyer under the weight of a Chinese vase full of forty roses, one for each year.

So when I heard him come home today I was surprised to see this:

He couldn’t decide between red or yellow, so he asked the floral department if they could put two different types of roses in one vase.

This is how he is. This is good. I asked if he was annoyed that I hadn’t purchased a surprise gift for him (because WE AGREED) and he said, “The red roses are for you and the yellow ones are for me.”

Gary 2.0: The Appetites

The other day, I read that the Mother-In-Law restaurant will soon be acquired by the Rack House restaurant, a place I’d never heard of though it’s only three miles away. I looked up their menu on-line.

“Hey Gary. There’s this place by us that has chicken-Brie-bacon sandwiches and - ”

“Let’s go. Let’s go now.”

Unexpected. The old Gary would not have been a) that spontaneous or b) that hungry. But now we have Gary on drugs, specifically the thyroid drugs. We went immediately to the restaurant, where he did not have the chicken sandwich but instead put away an ample pork chop the size of my upper arm. We named the chop Piglet. “Piglet went down easy” and “Piglet kept me up all night.”

Then, all day Sunday, he made suggestive remarks about women. Any woman. Every woman. The Progressive Insurance lady. Joy Reid. Amy Klobuchar. All are hot, incredibly smokin’ hot. He has never noticed before how sexy Nancy Pelosi is. Unprompted: “I would do her.” I have not met this version of Gary. Even when he was 29, yes, he would appreciate a well-formed lady, and yes, he would share that opinion with me as if I were a guy, but it was not this day-long game of MSNBC Hot or Not. It was as if I had a glimpse into the mind of 18-year-old Gary, a man I have never met.

All his appetites are stirring. He’s awake, hungry, and if I can spruce myself up to compete with Nancy Pelosi (she does have nice hair), he might be looking for love. Interesting.

Night Sounds

A few days ago, Gary woke me up at four thirty in the morning.

“Ellen! Ellen!”

“Whaarmfmumu ... ?”

“Ellen! There’s something dying in our backyard.”

“Whuh?”

“I think one of the raccoons is wounded in the backyard and it’s dying. It’s making awful sounds right outside the window.”

We went together to the back door where I heard the doleful, anguished, desperate,  unmistakeable cries of a ...

”Beagle. That’s a beagle, Gary.”

I convinced him after a few minutes of “Really, that’s what beagles sound like, there’s a beagle across the street, I thought they were torturing him when I first heard him,” and so on, he settled down. 

I may be painting all beagles with too wide a brush, though, because I thought all beagles made the same god-awful sound the neighbor's beagle does. I was surprised when I had to hunt on the internet to find video of a beagle that makes the same noise I hear every morning and that Gary heard that night. The neighbor’s beagle sounds like the one here. You have to wait nineteen seconds: it takes a little coaxing to make the same distinctive sound the neighbor's dog does.

Sadly, neighbor beagle does not require any coaxing. It really sounds like a dying animal.

We Are Too Stupid to Have Nice Things: YET ANOTHER Ill-Advised Purchase

We have had two ill-advised purchases lately, both from Amazon, and one successful purchase from a brick and mortar store.

That's exactly why when we ran out of printer ink we skipped Amazon and just went to Target, as we did back in the day. I carefully made a note of the printer model. I emailed myself that note, so I would have a backup, because I have bought the wrong type of printer ink before and it is very discouraging.

We were inside the Target, and I could not find the note or the email. ‘Not to worry,” Gary said smugly, “I will look up our printer model on Amazon because I bought it there.” He did. “It’s a Canon TS9020.” 

“You are the Best,” I cooed. ‘You have Saved the Day. You are So Smart.”

An hour later my email finally let me know that I needed to be sure to get the right HP ink for our HP printer. 

(Yes. Shhh. I know. You spotted that right off, didn’t you? That’s because You are So Smart.)

”Oh, there’s the email about the printer ink.” I said, “We don’t need that anymore. You Saved the Day.” Delete. Do not read, of course, no, no, because ... stupid.

Days later I got around to replacing the ink, and of course I sat there looking befuddled at the two vastly different ink cartridges until I noticed the printer said HP and the ink cartridge box said Canon.

After I shook Gary awake, it became obvious what had happened - the printer purchase Gary saw on Amazon was the printer he’d bought his Dad six months ago, not the one he bought us in October.

So, it’s fine, Gary’s Dad is going to get a backup set of ink cartridges. Gary felt guilty and bought the right cartridges immediately .. off .. of Amazon ... kind of in a rush, so ... who knows what we’ll end up with.

Ah-nomatopoeia

Gary has a little trouble with accept / except, and frankly, I do too. They’re homophones and then the two exceptions just throw it all off. I have to study up every time. I once edited his Facebook posts for accept/except, but it’s just too much.

I’ve also noticed that instead of typing  “Uh-oh,” he spells it “Ah-oh.” 

I don’t know if I could truly correct that. Perhaps that’s what he hears and what he means. If Ukrainian cats say “nyav” and not “meow,” then I think Gary can say “Ah-oh.”

Speaking of what cats say, does anyone know what bats sound like? Gary has come in from feeding the raccoons these last few days and he says he can hear a chorus of bats in the trees. I’ve heard it too. It sounds like dozens of squeaky birds singing in the night. 

Bats would be SO cool. But, sadly, I looked it up and unless they are flying around (and unless we both have remarkable hearing), they don’t make any of the typical freaky static bat sounds.

Yet Another Ill-Advised Amazon Purchase

First I bought the German book. This time it was Gary's turn.

He was trying to buy a big salad bowl, because if he makes salad then I can't use the metal bowl to make pie crust (it's the smaller one).

He claims he measured. He claims it didn't cost that much. It cost FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS.

To be fair, he has no idea what a metal bowl costs, and there was nothing in the photo on Amazon to use for scale.

He tried to justify keeping it. I suggested we make an in-ground pool for the raccoons. Or, if we had a baby, we could use it to bathe the baby. Or chop it up in a salad.

 

Snack

Gary makes a salad for dinner sometimes. It's mainly olives and peppers and artichoke hearts and feta. And, a little lettuce. The salad fills up our biggest metal bowl and takes up half a refrigerator shelf. We go through it like an archaeological dig. It takes us over a week. Of course by that time the lettuce is limp but the rest is fine.

Usually that's acceptable to me, but last night Gary elected to go for some salad that was two weeks old.

"Throw that out!" I said. "That's rotten."

"NO IT'S FINE."  He gestured at his bowl of salad that had a dressing of pink slime mold. Suit yourself, I thought.

He sat down by me. Salad goes in mouth. "ACK." Salad comes out of mouth. "THIS SALAD IS ROTTEN."

He got up to throw out all the salad and returned with "A SNACK TO GET THIS TASTE OUT OF MY MOUTH." Pretzels and Philadelphia cream cheese.

Pretzels go in mouth. "ACK." Pretzels come out of mouth. "THIS ISN'T CREAM CHEESE."

I can see how he thought the half-used stick of Crisco shortening was cream cheese: they are both wrapped in foil with blue lettering and measurement markings and stored in the catch-all refrigerator deli drawer. I felt for him.

Later he went in for a goodnight kiss. I am afraid I instinctively pulled away from the Pink Slime Mold Crisco mouth.