Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Fireworks

Last night Gary discovered that fourth of July fireworks and The Clapper do not mix well.

This Just Happened

I just complained bitterly to Gary that he hadn't done or said anything funny for a least a year. 

"You used to be great blog fodder. I could write up some goofy thing you said and get a blog post out of it. Do something funny."

He just frowned at me, and then looked down, then looked back up at me, and I realized he was standing there with his pants off and his penis tucked into the center of a roll of toilet paper.

37th Anniversary

My word, thirty-seven years. It's just sheer stubbornness now. 

What have I learned in that time? I've learned the care and maintenance of Gary. 

• If anyone is not listening to him, I need to schedule time to literally sit at his knee* and listen to everything he says.
• If anyone is arguing with him, I need to schedule time to literally sit at his knee* and agree to everything he says.
• If someone has educated him on a subject, I need to schedule time to literally sit at his knee* and  listen to him explain that same subject to me, even if I am an expert already.
• If he is tired, I need to schedule time to literally sit at his knee* and  listen to him ramble relentlessly the way he gets when he is tired, even though I am equally tired. 

*No, really, there's a footstool I pull up by his chair.

It's pretty easy, now that I've got the hang of it. It keeps me out of trouble: I don't want to be the second person Gary's argued with in a day because I get the fallout from both arguments And not to worry, a few hours after that twenty minutes I'll approach him with the idea that perhaps there's another way of looking at a situation.

I've only learned this in the nine years since he retired. It was harder when he was working, his ego would take a hit at work and I wouldn't know if I should listen, agree, or learn. 

I am sure he does the same for me with my foibles. Well, no, I'm not sure. He does listen to my work conversations and tell me that anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot. 

37 years. Pretty great.

Shortages

So far I've avoided any affects of the recent shortages. There was a shortage of baby formula, and while I was sympathetic, that didn't affect me. Now I read there's a shortage of tampons. That will affect not only pre-menopausal woman but everyone with upholstery. 

The gasoline crunch is so significant that Gary said, "I need to start driving the electric car."  I only leave the house in the electric Mini once a week, while he's been stubbornly sticking with the '08 Honda Fit.

Since then he has declined every chance to drive the electric car. But at least he's talking about it, and given that Gary feels that economizing is an insult, it must be rough out there at the gas pump.

 

High Tech

Gary installed some electronic device that sparked, and after that it went in the trash and all our  devices needed to be reconfigured. 

Gary, who is Mr. Technology, did not want to synch his bedroom light to the Alexa again and I swear he reverted to 40 year old technology.

UPDATED; Syntax Word Problem

I have a question. Gary was expressing something about the doctor's waiting room.

He said that when he's been there, "Everyones not masked."

So if he goes in to the waiting room and he is the tenth person there, how many people (other  than Gary) are wearing a mask?

Update =========

I interpreted his statement to mean there were 0 people masked. I said I only remembered one non-masked person, he said, YES EVERYBODY WAS NOT MASKED. When I pointed out the ambiguity, he said WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO ARGUE WITH ME. One hour later he claimed he said "Not everyone was masked," and did not appreciate it when i pointed to the documentation I'd made pre-post. 

Trash Mystery

About thirty-seven years ago I mentioned to Gary that putting the trash at the curb is the man's job.  He disagreed.

I thought he might embrace the trash after retirement, but that was ... what? Almost a decade ago? 

After patiently waiting a decade, I find that last month Gary became TrashMan. He routinely goes through he house emptying the trash. He also puts the trash at the curb once a week, which is problematic because he puts Monday morning's trash out at 2 pm on Saturday. (Except for last week when he put it out at 9am Saturday.)

Of course, I can't complain to him for the way he does the thing I've wanted him to do for years.  I can complain to you. I'm just waiting for the neighbors to complain, but if they don't complain about the squirrels that bury peanuts in their yards and chew on their truck wiring potentially causing a fire, then they won't complain the trash is out two days early.

Decision Idiocy

Gary and I have been squabbling like mad. Some decisions need to be made in the house, and his decision-making process is this:

Stage 1: Ellen, what do you think of X? (I fall into the trap.)

Stage 2: No, Ellen, you are wrong and stupid, and here is why.

Stage 3: Repeat Stage 2 until all possibilities are exhausted.

Stage 4: Buy the thing / Do the thing based on some whim he has because it doesn't matter, every option is crap.

How do I break this cycle? I wonder if he's expecting me to come up with a pro to counter every con. Like a little Pollyanna punching bag. Nope. Not doing that. 

I suppose I have the option to not fall into the trap. "I don't know Gary, what do you think of X?" He would hate that. No decision would be made, ever. 

I am sure he hates my decision-making process, which is to make the decision without involving him at all. I do know when I ask his opinion, he is great at giving me a list of all the cons, and how it would be best if we do nothing. It's his anxiety. I should be more sympathetic. 

I can't say it's dysfunctional, because it functions, decisions are made, but I have this fantasy that there is a world in which couples make decisions rationally. They write a list of pros and cons and don't turn a debate into an argument. 

I suppose I could try being Pollyanna Punching Bag now that I think of it. It would be awful but I might wear him down. Eventually he would be magnanimous and permit me to do whatever I want. Would it be worth it, though? The emotional toll? 

Opera

I was complaining to Gary that recent Covid developments are going to make it so I can't go to the opera.

"At least not this year," I sighed. "Maybe ever."

"Don't be stupid," he said, sympathetically, "Just sit in a booth by yourself."

"A booth?"

"Yes. One of those booths they have. And don't share the booth, and double-mask, and you'll be fine. I mean not now, but maybe later."

I just stared at him, about to say, "A booth? Do you think the opera's like a diner --" when I realized he meant box, not booth, and that even more amusingly he thinks the Saint Louis Opera has opera boxes full of wealthy women in furs and eighteen-button gloves, and that I would just take an entire "booth" for myself.

 

Rolling Stone Covers

We keep magazines in the bathroom: there's a chrome bucket that holds old issues of the AARP magazine and Rolling Stone. A few years ago I noticed that Gary kept putting one issue of Rolling Stone back in the bucket so you couldn't see the cover. I'd see the back cover instead of these pretty faces:

Turns out Gary found it too difficult to do any seated bathroom business with the girls staring at him.

I have been having the same problem this month.

I have taken a different approach to the problem.

The Gary Diet

Encouraged by the short-lived success of the Gulag Diet and the Six-Bite Diet, Gary has invented another diet: the Caesar Diet.

Every few days he makes a gallon of Caesar salad and gnaws on that when he feels hungry. Hungry at breakfast? Eat some salad. Hungry at midnight? Eat some salad. 

"Healthy salad!" Gary says. Depending on how you define "salad," it may be a salad, but it is in no way healthy. Well, perhaps that's too harsh. There is no broken glass in the salad.

It is comprised of 20% Marie's blue cheese chunky salad dressing, 10% feta, 5% parmesan, 30% bell pepper, 30% shredded artichoke, 5% chicken breast, and 0% lettuce. (He always adds in half a bag of crunchy croutons on the side in case you are worried he doesn't get enough fiber.)

He came back from the doctor, pleased that he had lost 34 pounds Knowing Gary's ambiguous numbering system I double-checked. He lost 24 pounds. Still, that's pretty good. 

He also dropped his Dr. Pepper consumption in half. And of course, that's the key.

Pension

It was last June when Gary began the process to get his pension. He hasn't worked there for decades, so it wasn't a turnkey operation, plus the company was sold to another major aeronautical company late in his tenure. So he somehow had two pensions, and that complicated things. Plus, he wants it dispensed as a lump sum to so we can roll it over and briefly avoid taxes.

Top that off with his laissez-faire attitude about money, even more laissez than mine, and that explains why the kitchen table has been covered with pension forms for nine months. 

Thankfully, through there were many letters from the company insisting they need to speak with him urgently, and zero phone calls from Gary asking anyone for help, that chore is done and the table is almost clear. He refuses to put away the magnifying glass and the last communication. Because he thinks he's done something wrong and they could take it back.

So, nine months. Factor that into your retirement plans.

UPDATED; Easter

For the first time since I have known him, Gary has not purchased an excessive number of Easter Bunnies. He almost got there last year when he bought two bunnies for one person.

This year ZERO bunnies. End of an era. But the day is not over.

========

UPDATE; He didn't make it through the day. Only bought three, though.

Covid In Your Face

Some parts of the St. Louis metro area recently lifted the mask mandate. (Specifically, the area that actually HAD a mask mandate.) I hesitated to go out, because I suspected people would say things to my masked face, because I've heard enough stories. So, what to do?

I felt the masks I'd seen that read "immunocompromised" were not subtle enough, and, I suppose not apologetic enough. My plan to embroider "immunocompromised" on an existing mask did have one flaw: embroidery repeatedly pokes holes into a mask.  

So, I bought this button, and dangled it off the ear strap of my mask when I went out into our mask-optional county to get something notarized. 

I thought it was subtle and non-accusatory. Unlike this t-shirt, for example. "You sneeze; I die" is a bit much for me.

That was not Gary's take. ARE YOU CRAZY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SPIT ON YOU? 

It wasn't worth the argument, so I didn't wear the button, just the mask. But still? There is just a whole map of pandemic politeness I can't navigate.

Control

Last night Gary andI were watching the Marvelous Mrs Maisel and bantering the way you do when Amy Sherman-Palladino's cadence gets in your head, when he paused the television.

"I have to pee," he said.

"I have to pee," I said. "I call the nearest bathroom."

"I have to pee more," he said.

"Who has better bladder control," I said, playing the MS card.

And thennnn thee conversation slooooowed down.

"Hey," he said, hurt. "I clean up after myself."

"Huh?"

"I try." He frowned

"What are you talking about?" I said. I would have let it go, because I really did need to go, but he seemed hurt. 

"I mean, every man leaves a little pee here and there, but I always clean up after."

Turns out he thought I was slighting his aim or something when I entered into the bladder control competition.

 

'Snail' Mask

I was looking at some items Amazon suggested for Gary and saw this:

"Ooh, good call, Amazon. Gary does need that," I thought. "It is his birthday month."

I looked at a few reviews. Some troubling reviews said it smelled. More troubling were the reviews that said, "This mask helped me be the snail I was always meant to be" and "This is a slug mask, not a snail mask!!!"

I bought it so thoughtlessly that I forgot it until Monday afternoon when I was working and I heard Gary open a box, and then laugh.

I'm glad it's a slug. Gary often describes his retired life as "Slug Life."

Smells: the Second

For the past few days Gary has been very dismayed by the smells that have been coming out of him. 

I have encountered Gary's smells in the past, and it is true, sometimes he goes through episodes of gas that are bad. Regrettably bad. Labrador-level bad. Called on the carpet before HR bad. Bad. 

However, this time, I can smell nothing. I see him shriek and wave his arms and apologize, but there is nothing. No smell. He tells me there is something wrong with me, and then of course I must prove I don't have Covid by smelling other things, and then he concludes as always I don't have the refined nose he does. I would buy that, only I have been getting running over and dropping my nose down to ass level to try to see if he is really making these smells, or if he is hallucinating.

The jury is in: I think he's hallucinating, mainly because here are no pains or sensations that accompany these smells. It might be the same meds that once made him think snakes and bugs are crawling on him. Or, it could be his epilepsy; when I looked up things that can cause olfactory hallucinations, temporal lobe epilepsy was at the top of the list, and that's the very kind he has. 

I'm going to keep an eye on it. Or my nose on it. It might just go away.

Dentist

I'm quite happy with my decision to delay my dental visit. Omicron is trending down now. Here's the graph for my county:

(No one I know died this week, but a vaccinated coworker went out sans mask and lived to regret it.)

Gary kept his appointment, but he had a little debate with the dentist about his level of concern. They were talking about how Gary elected to sit in his car and not the waiting room for fear of catching the virus. He quotes the dentist as having said, "You should be worried about us."

Gary interpreted that as, "You should be worried about me and the rest of the staff catching it, not about your selfish paranoia," and I say it the dentist meant, "You should be worried about me and the rest of the dental staff spreading it." 

Will I remember to ask the dentist to clarify when I see him tomorrow? We shall see.

 

Tongue: 60s Edition

I was going to bed. "Please don't come into my room at kiss me at midnight," I complained, "I never got back to sleep." 

Gary said, "Well, you better give me a terrific good-night kiss now. Tongue."

I can't remember the last time our tongues made contact. But we tried it. And of course we laughed.

"That's insane."

"Really, we liked that once?"

Dog Ears

A recent conversation with Gary.

[Stage direction: Gary has been coming in and out of the room to re-enact recent football plays and demand attention.]

Gary: "And then the quarterback - HEY STOP READING YOUR BOOK AND PAY ATTENTION!"

[Ellen dog-ears book to keep her place, and puts the book down and clasps her hands so she doesn't flip her husband off.]

Gary: "That's a big book. How are you going to keep your place?"

Ellen: "You just saw me dog-ear it."

Gary: "YOU DOG-EAR YOUR BOOKS THAT IS AWFUL HERE LET ME GET YOU A BOOKMARK."

I may have asked before, but is this true? Does one not dog-ear books?

Reclaiming My Kitchen

There was a brief time a few years back when Gary was in charge of the food. He took over the kitchen, added an entirely superfluous knife block, bought a "palette" of all the spices, reorganized the drawers and banished my cunning shiny tools to the back of a drawer, then put our ugliest spatulas and big spoons out in the counter in a controversial Spinny Thing.

He hasn't touched any of those tools and spices for a year. I bided my time, and advised him that I would be reclaiming my kitchen. (I did look for a tea towel that said ELLEN'S KITCHEN in big block letters, but I backed off. Too pointed.)

Last weekend, the big basket of herbs were sorted and consolidated, and the ones I use moved out of the basket and organized in the pantry. Knife block was demoted to basement, as were the bulky baskets and milk frother and especially the Spinny Thing. 

The contents of the Spinny Thing were prioritized and the useful ones are on the outside of the fridge, instead of tangled in the farthest corner of the Spinny Thing.

This sparks joy.

Gary was gracious enough to say it looks like a good system.

Gary Has a Stunning Revelation

Gary waved me over to where he had been comparing his can of Dr. Pepper and a protein shake.

"Look at these numbers! For just ten more calories I get all these nutrients. Calcium and stuff. The Doctor Pepper has just ... nothing."

Garyoke 2

Back in the day, Gary and I had Karaoke software on our old IBM PC, and we called it Garyoke. That PC died, and none of the replacement software had the Doris Day / Dean Martin songs we liked. 

Gary bought himself a Christmas present: one of those Alexa devices that has a video screen. It might have a dozen uses, but we're going to use it to sing the Garyoke again.

You can sing along with a video with scrolling lyrics, but you will still have the original singer at full volume, so it's not true karaoke. Still, he's talking about setting up a mixing board with microphones again.

We sang the Garyoke again last night. Lots of fun.

Christmas Ornaments

On the right is my ornament, the Hot Wheels car to commemorate the purchase of the new car.

On the left  is Gary's ornament, to commemorate ... well, to commemorate a side effect of the pain medicine he took for his recent root canal and tooth extraction. I got to see a new ... side of Gary. And I got to find out where the all-night pharmacy is. 

I don't know if Santa has Gary's physique, but he does have Gary's smile.

Thanksgiving

Gary spent the week claiming that he was unable to chew because of his recently extracted tooth. "DO NOT MAKE ANY FOOD FOR ME FOR THANKSGIVING I CANT EAT ANYTHING NOT EVEN YAMS.'

Unfortunately I had already stocked up early on the Turkey Day supplies, and when I say supplies I mean items fully prepared by the grocery store. Pint of dressing. Pint of cranberry relish. The only cooking I intended to do was the turkey and reconstituting a packet of powdered gravy. I cooked everything from scratch last year and set off the smoke alarm -- not worth it.

I suppose I could freeze everything for twelve weeks from now when Gary's mouth is healed. I anticipate I will spend Thanksgiving day, Black Friday, and the weekend nibbling on Thanksgiving, while Gary spoons mashed potatoes on his tongue and swallows without chewing, poor guy. 

 

Beloved

Gary recently saw this post on Facebook. The headline is:

Three 'beloved' snow leopards died of Covid complications at Nebraska zoo.

"So they weren't really beloved?" I asked Gary. "Are those, like, air quotes?'

"People use quotation marks to set things off now."

"I've seen that, but it's wrong."

"They do it online, because you can't use an underline on the web, because people will try to click it."

People, what do you think? I think those people need to learn about italics. Is this acceptable now?

 

 

Car Alexa

Gary was listening to this commercial:

"LOOK AT THAT!" he said. "THAT'S A BMW! THAT'S WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT. WE COULD HAVE THE ALEXA IN THE CAR!"

"Gary. That is what we bought. BMW owns Mini. We do have the Alexa in the car."

"NO! YOU NEVER TOLD ME THAT!"

"Well on the one day you drove the new car, I tried to show you, but you shouted that you needed absolute silence."

(And, to be fair, I respect that. The car is a little intimidating. Each week when I walk out to the garage and open the car door I immediately backtrack to the bathroom, because driving it upsets my stomach a bit. Or else leaving the house upsets my stomach a bit.)

Also, that couple doesn't have Siri always listening for commands at the same time. If they did Siri would but in and respond to the Alexa command with "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

You'd think he'd want to go out play with the car immediately, but no. They just really haven't bonded.

Groceries

I submit the grocery shopping order once a week. I don't add things directly to the shopping application, I still add them to the Alexa shopping list and then shop form the on the grocery store application.

It's an unnecessary extra step because I am too crotchety to change my ways, but at least I'm not as crotchety as Gary. He writes a list.

A list in ink, on paper.

And on the top of the sheet of paper he writes:

1. His name, first and last
2. The date he made the list.

I don't know why. Perhaps he doesn't want thinks his groceries confused with the groceries from all the other I husbands and households I maintain. And perhaps he thinks I am filing his old orders in a special filing cabinet, which is why he needs the date. 

"Gary Schmidt 9/9/2021

Cottage cheese" 

It's just so weird.

Coricidin

Months ago:

Gary: “My nose is stuffed up. I need some Co-RICE-uh-din.”

Me: “You need what?”

Gary: (louder) “CO-RICE-UH-DIN.”

Me: “Well then buy some?”

Last Week:

Gary: “We need to buy more Co-RICE-uh-din. We are almost out.”

Me: “Show me.”

Even after I showed him numerous commercials in which it is pronounced “co-ruh-CEE-din,” he will not budge.

Admittedly, my family bought many containers of “par-MEE-zhun” cheese, but I eventually got it straightened out.

Gary and Football

I don’t understand why, but Gary is watching football again.

He played football in high school (and takes medication daily for the resulting brain injury). Still liked football.

He followed the football Cardinals, of course, until they were cruelly traded to Arizona. Still liked football.

He followed the LA Rams during the time they slummed it in Saint Louis before going back to LA, the bastards. Like many Saint Louisans, that soured him on football for years. 

I have no idea why, but this season he is watching every football game of every team he can get his hands on. I can only guess it’s because he feels justice shall be served in the lawsuit St. Louis filed against the LA Rams and he’s searching for a team he can pin his loyalties on.

 

Color Download

I was walking through the great room, looking for a snack between meetings.

“Ellen, look at the TV!” 

“It’s a commercial.”

“No, look at the picture.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can’t you see? They downloaded more more colors.”

Evidently, according to Gary, they have downloaded new colors to the television and the picture is significantly more glorious.

Here are my theories:

• He has suffered a contact high somehow, or gotten some bad lettuce. 
• Delayed side effect from his medicine.

However, the color increase only happens when he looks at the television, so I suppose Sony was holding back and now, threatened by a class-action lawsuit, they have released the colors  they were stockpiling in the Big Sony Color Warehouse in the sky.

Commentaries

Since the first days of DVDs, Gary has stoutly refused to watch the commentary track. If I try to watch the commentary he leaves the room in protest.

I can’t tell you why.

• Is it because an expert is telling him things he doesn’t know, and therefore he cannot be the expert?
• Is it because someone is talking over a movie and it’s sensory overload?
• Is it because it spoils the magic? 

No, it can’t be that last one — he gobbles up all those “Making of” documentaries. In fact, he has rediscovered his set of discs for Blade Runner with every damn version of Blade Runner ever made, and I finally convinced him to watch the “work print” with the commentary turned on. 

I watched him for the twenty minutes that he could tolerate of the commentary and I’m fairly certain it’s the first reason. Not being the expert makes him very cranky. (See all posts in which he has to listen to doctors or use repairmen.) He already gets a little cranky when I go to IMDB and share details he doesn’t know. 

I suppose when he’s watching a movie his imagination is stimulated and he makes up his own reasons and motivations (such as the “suicide” at the end of The Heiress). Then he’s confronted with what the director actually meant and it enrages him and he becomes Gary Godzilla, squashing  directors and smashing movie sets and rearranging them.

As it turns out, half of IMDB is transcribed director commentaries, so l’m good never seeing another. I’ll need to take some time to manipulate Gary into an expert position soon so he can get his expert fix in some constructive way.

Frog

For the last few weeks there has been a frog on the glass on our back door. We thought he just liked watching us.

I was admiring the frog when I noticed he would move - just a bit - just a little twitch every so often.

Turned out there were an apocalyptic number of winged bugs coming up from the patio, climbing skyward on the glass, and passing right by the mouth of the frog. He just had to sit there on the shoulder of the bug highway and flick out his tongue. 

I pulled Gary over and we started high-fiving each other for every bug that the frog consumed. 

Gary has abandoned his idea that the bugs are taking the air vent superhighway and recognizes them as outdoor animals. Now he has bought an outdoor bug zapper. I even said the zaps will frighten the raccoons and THE FOXES yet he is heartless. 

I am certain that after little baby raccoons are videotaped being startled by the sound his heart will melt and we will be left with a nearly-new outdoor bug zapper in the basement.

Gary and the Flies

Gary’s bathroom, the master bathroom, is plagued every summer with tiny little flies. Last week Gary came out of his bathroom, found me in the kitchen, and said he’d had a revelation.

He saw a moth in the bathroom, and squished it, then wondered what in earth a moth was doing in there. There is a bug zapper inside by the back door, the moth should have gone into the light, figuratively and literally.  

(I HATE the inside bug zapper. I also hate bugs, but I hate the zapper more. Picture an outside bug zapper in the floor inside your peaceful house. ZAP. (Random time passes.) ZAP.

Gary wondered why the moth wasn’t zapped. I will turn the story over to him and his exact words.

“I wondered about the moth, and then I saw a fly inside the air conditioning vent. As I watched, it squeezed through the grate, expanded its wings and fluttered them delicately to dry them out. It then buzzed up into the bathroom.

There is a matching AC grate on the floor near to the bug-zapper in the dining room. Flying insects are getting stunned to the ground, crawl into the AC grate to safety and simply walk to the end of the house where the AC grate comes out in the Master bathroom. Mystery Solved.”

Great, hon. Or the bugs crawl in, see the piles of bug bodies inside the zapper, then opt for the AC detour instead.

Door needs to be fixed. Gary has not felt the door needs to be fixed up to this point. Perhaps the March of the bugs into his bedroom will change his mind.

Spatchcocked Chicken

I have a copy of Salt Fat Acid Heat, and all I have ever made from it is the Spatchcocked Chicken.

So, foodie friends, when you spatchcock a chicken, does your spouse or partner do an impression of a spatchcocked chicken? Gary’s impression has him holding out his arms (ala crucified spatchcocked chicken) and doing an impersonation of a screaming chicken.

I can just imagine how he’d scream if he knew the chicken has no arms post spatchcock. Or if he knew the uncovered chicken spends the night fully exposed overnight in the garage refrigerator. I don’t know if I’ll ever get tired of spatchcocked chicken.

Overbought

I personally don’t like to eat the same thing two days in a row, but Gary delights in it. Given that Mr. S___ will eat no meat, and his wife will eat no carbs, we share no meals. I’m back to cooking home meals for myself on the weekends while he assembles ornate salads for himself. Each salad is a science experiment: he begins with the standing hypothesis (X% lettuce, X% feta, 1/4 cup salad dressing), eats that for two days, and tweaks it slightly on the next round. He has lost sixteen pounds doing this.

So this means Gary’s grocery list is only tomatoes, lettuce, croutons, cheeses, and two sides: cottage cheese and yogurt. Every week he tells me how much of each he needs, and for some reason last week I didn’t notice that he ordered two week’s worth of food, when he already had one week of food. 

I spent last weekend moving my food into the garage fridge, and sorting his 21 yogurts by date so nothing spoiled.

I also did this:

Note how certain bags are marked “OLD” in Sharpie. The font I used was Sarcasm Sans Serif.

Gary countered by not eating the old first, and then yesterday he went through the OLD bags and selected the one green leaf that was not rotted and incorporated it into a special Heirloom Lettuce salad.

Today he says he is off bag salads entirely. He wants to eat his cheese and tomatoes and dressing on a bed of something else. Spinach? Yeccch. Corn? Yeccch. Green Pepper? Yeecch. I suggested he augment his salad dressing with a purée of cheese and tomatoes and eat soup every day.

I think he’ll do a base of artichoke hearts and hearts of palm. He’ll be back to step one of the salad experiment but I think he likes that.

Apologies Robert Browning

Grow old along with me?

The worst is yet to be

The aches and pains from which the quarrels are made;

Our bile grows worse each year

We pass the pain to those held dear,

Once wife, now nurse, with thinning sympathy.

====

Gary doesn’t deal well with illness. Sympathy doesn’t make him feel better, what I think makes him feel better is expelling the venom. I’m always going to be younger, and therefore healthier, and therefore always the nurse and always the target.

That works fine if I’m not filled with bile myself. How do two sickly people stay married? Do they? 

====

P. S. I have a particular hatred today for Rabbi Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra and the poem that bears his because my left foot, the best foot of all my feet, is still jacked up by its encounter with the Grow Old Along With Me sundial.

Salad

Gary speaks well when you get him going. Bring up Trump, he can rattle on in pentameter for an hour without pausing for breath.

In fact, he did that last night, not quite for an hour but for at least twenty minutes, when I interrupted him to ask, “Did you eat anything today?”

Indignant. “You interrupted me! Let me finish my thought!”

”Sorry, but you weren’t winding down, and I was thinking about dinner.”

He said, ”I had …” (waving hand at refrigerator) “one of those round bowl-y things.” 

“What?”

Gary got more annoyed, threw his hands up in the air. “Bowl! White round bowl-y thingy!”

All he’s eaten of late, in a white bowl or not, are salads made of 25% dressing, feta cheese, and croutons, and chicken, and scraps of lettuce. 

I said, “A saaaa … llaaaad?”  I am afraid I pronounced it just that way, slowly, two distinct syllables.

”Yes! A saaaaaaaa … lllaaaaad,” he hissed, and then I laughed for a good long time. He laughed too. Eventually. 

Gary Drives

Gary had not yet embraced the Mini, so Friday afternoon I took him down quiet country roads and busy city streets to a spot ten miles away so he could drive back, only, per Gary, “I am not taking the Mini on this dusty podunk two-lane country road” and “I am not taking the Mini on this busy stop-and-go two-lane city street.”

I threatened him with driving in an abandoned parking lot like a teenager and he agreed to switch places with me and drive home. He was as tense as a cat going into a bath when he pulled out into the city traffic, but then he accelerated and you could see him unwind a little bit. The stop-and-go traffic gave him plenty of chances to accelerate and unwind until he was neutered drunk cat in a sunspot level of relaxed and called the 10 and 2 position on the steering wheel, “where the steering boobies are.”

He didn’t want to floor it on the country road back home, and he doesn’t like the extra power you get in Sport mode, but he was talking about the car when he woke up the next day so I am encouraged.

Review: The Heiress

I campaigned enthusiastically to watch this movie with Gary as part of his effort to find a movie his mom will like. I had fond yet vague memories of loving it, particularly the ending when - well - I didn’t quite remember. 

[spoilers, with additional spoilers for scenes that exist only in Gary’s imagination]

So, two men are awful to Olivia de Havilland, and she has tremendous scenes in which she destroys them. Was your father mean to you? Watch the scene when she confronts her father. Do you have abandonment issues? Watch the last scene. Is your self-esteem based on knowing that other people were wrong about you? Watch the whole movie.

Gary watched the movie and the said, “Well we can’t show that to Mom, because of the suicide.”

”What suicide?”

”Well they make it obvious she’s going to kill herself. She said she’s never going to embroider anything ever again.”

”Yes, she’s abandoning introspection and is going to live life to the fullest.”

”Oh no, can’t you see, she’s going upstairs to kill herself.”

I mean, she does look determined, I’ll give him that … but … a whole coda in which she kills herself because she’s off embroidery?

How many hobbies have I turned on? Has Gary thought I was going to kill myself each time?