Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Science Girl Moisturizes

So I said to the Lancome saleswoman when she popped the 7-day moisturizer samples in my bag, "You know I'm going to put this on half my face for seven days and see if it makes a difference."

"Do it!" she challenged me.

This is Day 1. I’m following the rules and using the Day 1 packet on Day 1, just in case they fill the Day 1 packet with extra-strong Crisco. (I hate moisturizing: it always feels like I’m slathering on Crisco.)

This is my face utterly bare and unmoisturized. (I also have a high-def full size copy for research, which is even more frightening.) I don’t know why I look so worried. (It’s not the polyp, which is small.)

I'm moisturizing my right side of my face and my neck (Jesus!). Check back in seven days from now and marvel at either the restorative powers of moisturizer or at the wonder of the scientific method.

Weekly Paint Progress 10/17

Okay, I guess this is the end of the line for Gary and the Stone Face. I've never framed an oil painting before.

I think the next painting will be decorative gourds and fruit, because no one will know if the gourds are proprtionate, much less if I have captured the character of the gourd.

Karaoke Party

My last mention of my work husband Tim was back in 2011, when I moaned that he was leaving TeddyJ for another job. Well evidently, you never can truly leave TeddyJ, because he returned to the fold last year. He's in a building across town, so I don't see him as often as I like.

Tim has that a lovely quality that makes you feel like you are the most fascinating person in the room. That quality makes Tim an excellent host. (I know Mom said that Gary had that quality too, props given, though right now I feel Gary finds Rachel Maddow the most interesting person in our room. ("Sh! I'm listening to this!"))

When Tim invited us to his karaoke party, I thought, "How can I get Gary to go to this party? He loves karaoke." Surprisingly, Gary was up for the party and for singing in public. We were up on stage singing his showstopper, Everybody Loves a Lover. Well he sang; I kind of chanted in an atonal fashion. But, I made up for my poor singing by SELLING that song.

The party rekindled Gary's interest in the karaoke, though the machine that we used to run the software has long since died. But I sense a return to Garyoke. That way, if we are invited back to Tim's annual party, I can practice beforehand.

Weekly Paint Progress 10/10 Pre-empted

No oil painting this week. I'm all about the embroidery now.

If you recall, I have to embroider over all the bacon grease spots on my silk shirt. The embroidery is taking up all my relaxation time. It's nice. It's kind of like doodling on your clothing.

The work around the neck was done on machines staffed by what I assume were Chinese children. The chalk marks indicate Bacon. The variously clunky hand embroidery on the torso was done by me.

Weekly Paint Progress 10/3

This week the teacups went from this ...

To this ...

And the bowl in back is still not right, but I can't even see what's wrong. I actually stopped looking at what was there and started painting what I thought should be there, and it's only marginally better.

So, after picking over each little reflection and ending up with the same thing, essentially, I decided it was time to get loose and modern instead of picky and backward and tedious.

So I did this in an hour with a palette knife ...

... which STILL does not capture the beauty of Spunky Labia, International Toe Porn Superstar, but it is certainly better than my first attempt a year ago, and that's progress.

Putting away the teacups. Don't know what's next. Perhaps a Monet-like series of Spunky in various lights and styles. No more exact representation, at least for a while.

 

Tech

Gary loves to buy technology, and I hope his interest in technology continues into his old age. I suppose the Internet will keep us up to date when there are technological advances, just like the newspaper did in the past.  Think of the advances in the last fifty years. What new stuff will there be in fifty years when I will be on my last legs? And will I know it’s out there?

I'm worried about this because Band-Aid technology has advanced without me. I went out and bought a variety pack of Band-Aids, and at some point they invented  a new type of Band-Aid that is easier to apply: sterile sheer Band-Aids.

You tear into the usual individual paper packaging, but instead of a Band-Aid that has the peel-off strips on either side of the pad, the Band-Aid stays stuck to one half of the paper packaging. You can then slap the Band-Aid on your arm, rub it on like a rub-on tattoo, and peel off the packaging. Fewer germs, easier to apply if one hand is bleeding, and you don't end up with the Band-Aid stuck to itself.

And see, no one told me about this. There was no CNN report on advances in Band-Aid technology. I suppose I'll have to keep a close eye on young people to see what their Band-Aids look like, and then if I stop seeing Band-Aids at all then I'll ask the pharmacist for “some of that spray-on sterile Superglue that the kids use today."

Revenge of the Lily

I brought some cut lilies home from the supermarket, snipped off the ends, and popped them in a vase of water. 

By the next morning they had gone from lily buds to huge, blooming lilies. I was quite pleased.

In the process they sucked up the entire vase of water. While I carried the vase to the sink, I buried my face in the bouquet and whispered, "You were thirsty, weren't you? Here's some more water."

Then I did other things for three hours.

Then I went to the bathroom, glanced in the mirror, and saw this:

It had been so long since I nuzzled the lilies that it took me a full minute to diagnose myself with Facial Lily Pollen.

It only took half a minute when it happened again with the next bunch of lilies.

Cursive

Lynn at Turtlehead was writing about cursive, and I worried that I may be losing my cursive skills. Once out of grade school, I began to customize my cursive. I never went for the round, loopy cursive favored by teenage girls, but I wasn't the stickler that Mom wanted me to be. I remember the cursive uppercase F was an issue.

About ten years ago I heard of a job application form that required a sample of cursive writing, which I suppose was to weed out teenage applicants who had never learned to write in cursive. I was in part pleased to know I could get that job, and in part dismayed that people are using cursive as a literacy test reminiscent of Jim Crow laws.

So, today, I confirmed that my notes and scribbles can still be considered cursive (in preparation for the impending Age Wars in which I will be asked to write in cursive to prove I am not a spy). I wrote out all the letters, upper and lower case, and then compared them to what I remember as cursive.

Official Cursive:

My cursive:

(We're just going to ignore those extra girly loops in the top left of each uppercase letter. I call that "style". Style, or "Trying way too hard" (see the uppercase X).)

I did well on the lowercase, but not so well on the upper. Clearly the F is still an issue. That backward tangent never made sense to me, so I merged it with the cross mark.

The most shameful error is of course the S, given that it's the initial of my last name. Oddly, I make a proper S when I forge Gary's signature.

I call that 86%, and that passes. Still, Mom would not be pleased.

Weekly Paint Progress 9/26

Teacups have gone from this:

 

... to this:

I don't know why the reflections are so hard. I see colors, I paint them, and they are wrong. At the very least, the middle of the bowl will need to be painted over and tried again.

Strike

The recent United Auto Worker's strike against General Motors reminded me of my strike experience at the Chrysler plant south of Saint Louis, where I worked in the 1980s.

I wasn't on the line. I worked for a third party vendor and taught computer classes to the union workers. One day, the third party vendor company called from their base in Detroit and said they had heard there was a strong possibility there would be a strike at the plant next week, and our field office needed to prepare.

I had heard all the strike rumblings, so I knew the strike might happen, but I thought it would be like the teachers' strike I had almost participated in. I was expecting a day or two in which I would wake up, check the news, and not go in to work that day.

They explained that not only would we not go in to work, or cross any picket lines, we would be packing up the company office computer hardware and vacating the premises as soon as the strike began. Not that afternoon, not that hour: the moment it began. We had to be seen walking out in solidarity with the union.

The strike was scheduled to begin at the noon shift change, and we knew we couldn't get all the hardware out to our cars in one trip. So, we made several forays to load up our cars, and that meant walking across the plant floor. Let me just say, a car plant preparing for a strike is not like a teacher's union preparing for a strike. What started as grumblings and intermittent whoops at eleven a.m. escalated into a full on fuck-you-Chrysler chorus in the minutes right before noon.

Then the shift change bell rang and everyone roared -- not like it was the last day of school, but more like the roar of an attacking army. We had been told to march right to our cars and leave as quickly as possible, and we did, looking straight ahead.

After that alarming start, the strike was fairly dull. I worked on the company PC at home, and then after a week Chrysler and the union reached an agreement. But, still, pretty exciting at the time.

Ages

At times I look around my house and I am dismayed by its lack of character. I suppose everyone with a house does this, at least those of us who built a house from scratch. The house has to get its character from me, and except for the bathroom, it's pretty bland. I even have some original builder house fixtures, like the lights in the master bathroom and the laundry room, and all the sinks.  I still see it as a new house, while the rest of the world sees it as dated, so until the day 1980's wallpaper and stenciling is considered "character," it will just have to be dull.

Not only is the house relatively new, so are all the contents. These are all the things I own that could be considered "old":

A fossil

A mandolin and a cunning sewing cabinet from my great-grandfather

A tiny engagement ring from my great-grandmother

Carpentry tools from Gary's grandfather

Some old letters from the first World War

WWII semi-fore flags from my father

1950s silver and china from my dead aunt

An old weight pin and a toy bank from who knows where

Some books, none of which are first edition:

The History of England in Words of One Syllable from 1880
Homer's Iliad from 1898
Strange Animals I Have Known from 1931
A Marriage Manual from 1953

And then after that, everything is new, and by “new” I mean late 20th century.

I suppose everything is just on the cusp between dated and vintage. No doubt I'll die someday and a realtor will gush about the original sinks and the hand-applied stencilling. "Waverly wallpaper! You just don't see that anymore!"

UPDATED WITH GENIUS IDEA: New Weight / New Clothes

So, I've lost a few pounds since mid-April, enough to go down a few sizes, enough that my waist has returned and is positioned where it should be, instead of hiding right under my bosom.

So, now reliable clothing staples no longer fit. The black suit has been entirely replaced, but I needed some other basics.

Happily, I am old enough to know what will fit me and I can order things on-line with confidence. I just cannot stand to pay what the retailers want. Almost a hundred dollars for a ribbed silk-blend turtleneck? No. Twelve dollars for the same thing, used? Come to Momma. I'm a big fan of eBay. Sorry to everyone who was looking for ribbed silk-blend turtlenecks last weekend: I bought them all.

One thing I can't find on eBay, though: a replacement for my embroidered silk blouse.

This blouse is - was - awesome. The elbows wore out, so I hemmed it into a short-sleeve. I haven't worn it for a while, because it is now three sizes too large. (The weight loss has been two sizes forward, one size back, so I hang on to things I love.)

Sunday morning I was wearing it when I decided to cook bacon. Just ... idiotic. Despite my efforts, bacon grease went everywhere, including my silk blouse. I can still wear it under a suit jacket, but then you can't see the cunning embroidery on the back. Sad. I feel like I killed this blouse. Negligent Blouseslaughter.

What's particularly sad about the entire clothing situation is that I have five suits and five turtlenecks and I only go in the office one day out of five. What I need are embroidered silk pajamas and an apron.

+=====+========

UPDATE: Why didn’t I think of this before? I know how to embroider. I just get some matching thread and embroider a flower over every grease spot. Brilliant. 

In Which I Forget What I Should Never Forget

"Huh," I thought last weekend. "There's an awful lot of 9/11 stuff on TV this week. Why is that?"

I thought that. I've thought things like that before.

I am the problem. I can’t be the only one: I imagine someone in history forgot the Alamo, or the Maine, or Pearl Harbor. I’m know there was a day they decided Memorial Day would be a good day for a sale instead of memorializing. 

I watched the 9/11 documentary to reassure myself that I did still know the pertinent details. That’s the documentary they showed on CBS six months after 9/11, the one with the French filmmaker brothers, one who filmed from inside a tower while it was collapsing, and the other who filmed from the outside. It’s remarkable. 

Weekly Paint Progress 9/5

Gary and the Stone Face went from this:

to this:

It's horribly dark now, and I hate it, but what's left are the frames of his glasses. Hopefully that will lighten it all up and pull everything together. Maybe some highlights on the cheeks and chin, for Gary and for the Stone Face, not because I see them but because they should be there.

Hacked

Earlier this week I thought my credit card had been hacked.

Here's what happened:

1. We were up late because Gary had wanted to finish binge-watching a show we'd started, but I wasn't interested in it. (Fairies! Centaurs! Magic! Snore.) I had some coffee so I could stay up with him. It was the first caffeine since last Christmas, I believe.
2. While plodding through the last episode of the Fairy Show, I got an email from the credit card company saying that I needed to go online and change my auto-pay so the cable company and the trash company would know to use the new card they had sent me. No one sent me a new card. I didn't request a new card. Clearly a Nefarious Individual had hacked my password and requested a card in my name.
3. I remembered a Nefarious Individual recently sent me threatening emails claiming to have my password.
4. I went online and stopped the card with some new quick stop button. I checked the balances and saw that my card was transferring money over to another card with a number I didn't recognize. Little amounts, mainly under $40, but dozens of them. Nefarious.
5. I then sat on this information, even though I could no longer concentrate on the fairies, because Gary was quite into the fairies and I didn't want to freak him out with twenty-first century realities.
6. The show finally ended. Gary called the credit card company on speaker, and we explained the situation to a fast-speaking help desk person. She said she had no record of my card number in her system (clearly because Mr. Nefarious had cancelled it). She kept having to check on things, and promising to give us a better credit card somehow, and then suddenly she came back, said a lot of things very fast, and Gary said "Ohhhhhhh, thank you, goodbye," and then he hung up.

I was in a state. After talking to yelling at Gary and calling another, slower help desk person, I found that it was the credit card company who was nefarious. They were “upgrading” me to a new better card with a different number. I had gotten a letter about it a few weeks earlier, to which I had said, "Well, they can't just do that." Crumple, trash. There had been a message on screen that said “your card is being converted,” but I assumed the Nefarious Individual was converting the funds to his own account.

The upgrade, incidentally, means that the card name ends with "Elite", I can use the airport Admiral's Club, and I no longer get double miles auto-paying my cable bill. No doubt that is what prompted all this. 

Walking at the Zoo

This past Labor day Sunday, I was tired of relaxing at home, because by "relaxing" I mean "cleaning," and so I dragged Gary to the Japanese festival at the Botanical Garden. Sadly, we couldn't even get in: the lot was full up, and the prospect of a garden stroll along paths packed at maximum capacity didn't sound especially Zen.

So we veered off to Forest Park instead. Gary was tempted by the Gauguin exhibit at the art museum ("Was he  fat naked women? Or was he island naked women?"), but we ended up at the zoo. 

I was glad to be at the zoo, because we started a step challenge at work. My Fitbit had already recorded my three hours of cleaning, so I had a good start on my required 7,000 steps.

It was a good day for bears: the Red Panda was actually awake and active, strolling along the edge of his enclosure and staring happily back at the crowd who had expected to see him curled up in a tree in his usual clinically depressed state. In other bears: the baby brother grizzlies looked regal, but the polar bear was a no-show. I don't know what he was up to, unless he demanded his rights and took Sunday off because he'd have to work Labor Day.

A few hours in, my Fitbit vibrated to tell me I'd reached 10,000 steps. By the end of the day I had 13,039. Good for me. I thought of how impressed my teammates would be.

I woke up the next day, exhausted, and then I found out day one of the step challenge was not September 1, Sunday, zoo day, but instead was September 2, Monday, Labor Day. I was despondent and didn't want to get out of bed, but I thought of the Red Panda and found the strength to rise up and strut and fret another hour upon the stage.

John Spencer

This is what happens when you are committed to taking in a daily dose of the old TV show The West Wing. Something happened on the show [SPOILERS!] that shook me to my core.

I'm not talking about the plot point in which the Leo McGarry character above, played by John Spencer, dies suddenly of a heart attack, because I did remember that from the original series. I remember it as very jarring, but the actor died suddenly from a heart attack while they were wrapping up the series.

The really shocking thing that struck me his time around was that someone remarked during the TV funeral that John Spencer's character, above, was 57.

I am 57. I thought, come on, I'm supposed to believe that the guy above is 57? He's in his seventies. He is old and wise. Then I started thinking, well, they must have had a man in his seventies play a man in his fifties so he'd have sufficient gravitas.

Nope. That actor had a massive heart attack and died at 58. I thought, selfishly, as you do when confronted with mortality, "I am too young to worry about heart attacks." Simultaneously, I also thought, "Wait, people my age are expected to be White House Chief of Staff? Am I supposed to have shaped world events by now?"

President Obama's 58 right now. Real people my age actually have stepped up and changed history. I feel very inadequate.

Pithy

Years ago, I was having a conversation with a teenager, who was indignant that a friend's father didn't believe her about something. She said, "We kept trying to convince him but he just wouldn't listen to us."

I said, "Oh, so you were lying."

"No."

"Yes you were."

"Well, fine, yes."

"Only liars try to ‘convince' people. If you're honest, you just say the truth. There's no convincing." Then I tried to put it into a memorable adage, but the best I could do was "Liars convince, non-liars ... people telling the truth ... honest people ... just convey the information."

Not as catchy as I would have liked, but better than my next alternative, which was "Read Act I of King Lear" (also not catchy).

The whole problem is there is no one-word equivalent for "Liar." Why is that? I remember a rule from college that if you are name-calling, and there's no racial or sexual equivalent to a name you are calling, then you should just shut up immediately. We discussed how there's no W-word. (Though when I was in college no one said the phrase "N-word.” The person who suggested "Cracker" was an equivalent term was laughed at.)

I finally settled on "Liars convince, others convey," but that was well after the time I needed the pithy adage.

Weekly Paint Progress 8/29

Gary and the Stone Face went from this:

to this ...

The things on his face are the shadows from his 1980's aviator glasses.

Now I want to put the blue back in the sweatshirt.

The Sad, Sad, Tale of the Llama Party

Friend Tiffany rented a pet farm and had it brought to a nearby park. Llamas! Alpacas! Goats! Friends! This was going to be epic! I prepared. I put it in my calendar. I brought along four ponchos, because as we know, alpacas spit.

I wanted Gary to be there, and Gary wanted to be there, but Gary's bowels wanted us to be late. I was understanding. We still had time. We were about fifteen minutes late out of the gate.

I had already plugged in the address, so I clicked on the address in Calendar (See figure A) and got the directions in Maps (See figure B).

Figure A! Highway K!

But notice, Figure B! Highway D!

Yessss. I clicked on the right address on the right highway and lying Apple Maps took me to the right address on the wrong highway.

I even said to Gary, "This is so odd, I was sure that we were supposed to go to the end of 367, but I guess this is some better way."

After a long time we arrived at 3589 Highway D (which is a turnoff that leads to a locked gate), investigated, found the problem, and headed back to the right location. Where we found our friends... leaving. No llamas. Llamas all gone.

They told us how wonderful the llamas were, and that did not make me feel any better.

Gary said, "But at least it makes for a good story, right? It was an adventure."

This also did not make me feel any better, but at least he tried.

Weekly Paint Progress 8/22

I made some progress on the Gary Stone Face Mashup.
From this:

to this:

Of course now it's in two different styles so I'll have to get around that somehow, and the illicit carbon-paper tracing technique throws one into a paint-by-numbers mentality. It'll work out. Gary's sweatshirt will almost certainly turn into a cousin of the stone face, with the palette knife and the pinky-grey color. I'm keeping it loose, though, and that was my goal with this one.

Huh. Gary’s head should cast a shadow on the stone face.

I'm keeping myself accountable. Expect one day a week to be Paint Progress day here.

Pants Demographic

Remember these pants? I bought them to wear to the opera, the same day I bought the long vest and the duster and the colorful kimono.

I loved wearing them to the opera, because they dance and move as I trudge along. I hadn't worn them since the opera, but last month I wore them to work.

You know how friends will compliment you when you try something new? You wear your hair curly, then the one day you straighten it people like your hair? Then you wear it straight until the one day you let it curl and then it's all compliments, and you think, "pick a lane, people."

I was expecting compliments on the unique pants, because they are different, and I heard nothing all day. But then I was walking away from the receptionist and she called out "Cute Pants!" so I had to whirl around and come back to tell her the story of how I essentially bought them off the body of the Dillards' saleswoman.

That made me bold enough to wear them a few weeks later. This time the cashier at lunch and a stranger in the elevator liked them.

I wore again them last week, and perhaps I'm more confident, but the pants got compliments from another elevator stranger, and the new hiree.

When I walked off the elevator after compliment number one, and then new hiree said she liked the pants, I thought, "You have good taste, new hiree, and also I should learn your name, and why is it that every person who likes these pants is African-American?"

All black women: the receptionist on the first day I wore them, the cashier and the stranger the next time, and now another stranger, and the hiree. "That is weird," I thought, "But maybe my Caucasian friends are just too uptight to compliment these pants."

I performed demographic research the rest of the day. I encountered three more black friends: two liked the pants. I encountered at least five white women, none of them liked the pants, even when I swiveled my hips to make the pants dance and looked at them expectantly.

This of course made me love the pants more. I continued the experiment the next day. I theorized that perhaps white women just freak out if someone wears something non-conformist, so I wore my colorful kimono to work. One white man joked they wouldn't let him wear his robe to work, but then five white women, some strangers, said they liked it.

I wish I could say that I kept this to myself as it was happening, but I truly did quiz the last two black friends who liked the pants. They had no answers other than to indicate that I shouldn't get a complex about it.

I cannot wait to wear these pants again.

 

New Treat for Me

Evidently Red Lobster heard me complaining that all their crab is in the shell, and they have invented a treat to ensure my loyalty.

I don't think they're really trying to make something to please me. I know that because they only promise a "crab-and-seafood blend," but they're closer. It’s no Bailey’s ice cream, but I appreciate the effort.

Paint Update

So back at the end of April, I gave up on my oil painting of Gary in Bath at this stage:

The original looked like this:

Since then, I have a) decided the previous one was a "study" and b) decided I'm painting, not drawing, and that God invented carbon paper for a reason.

So, after I repositioned some things I traced Gary's face on the canvas. I got this far on my second attempt:

For the stone face I used the palette knife (embiggen to see), because God knows I wouldn't want to focus on reinforcing the skills I have.

I haven't touched it for two weeks. I suspect that's because I'm at the point where I don't hate it, so it can only get worse. Of course, now that I look at it, the right side of the stone face is too dark and small, somehow, and even though I traced it, the mouth on the stone face is skewed down on the left side.

I’m also working on this painting I did based on Friend #2's photograph on the left below. I hated this last week, but now it has grown on me.

Oh, wait, I can see two things wrong right now. I hate it again.

Dolman Sleeves

A saleswoman approached me while I was looking at clothes. Because I was at the swanky Plaza Frontenac, it somehow felt wrong to say,  “I’m just looking,” because of course I wasn’t just looking, I was looking and touching. I wasn’t pawing at the merchandise, in fact I was delicately holding it between thumb and index and my pinkie was upraised, because, as I say, swanky Plaza Frontenac. Plaza Frontenac, where I think “just looking” is probably frowned upon, because that’s the type of thing people without money do. 

That’s why instead of “Just looking,” I answered her with, “I’m looking for something with dolman sleeves.”

It isn’t the eighties, anymore, so this was a perfect ruse. I wish we still had dolman sleeves, or batwing sleeves, or even a generous raglan sleeve, because I am pear-shaped. But I remember when Mom’s lack of arm mobility had me looking everywhere for dolman sleeves, and they are very hard to find. 

I used that line everywhere. 

• Neiman-Marcus - puzzled, shook her head.
• Chicos - really tried, actually got me int0 a scarf/kimono top.
• Brooks Brothers - did not know what dolman sleeves were until I said “raglan” and she said, “oh, dropped sleeves.”
• Eileen Fisher - agreed they would be the place for dolman sleeves (at that point I had convinced myself I really wanted dolman sleeves), but they did have a few things with “ample sleeves.”

I couldn’t use the ruse at Williams-Sonoma, so I was honest and just said, “I’m killing time before the movie.” That broke the spell. 

Of course, they’ll remember me at Plaza Frontenac, so next time I’ll need to look for some other hopeless thing, like neon Qiana fabrics. It would be horrifying if they stocked their stores with dolman sleeves because of public demand.

Little Girl

I was in a stall in the movie theater bathroom when a woman came in with her child.

"Don't touch that. Here's some paper. Don't sit on the actual toilet. I'll be in the next stall."

This always makes me feel very self-conscious. Some day I will have to try peeing in the hover position. I know no one could have a bowel movement from the hover position. Those people don't poop anywhere but home, I'm sure.

Anyway, out of us three I finished first. I washed my hands for a good sixty seconds, because I knew the mother in the stall was judging me. Then I actually dried off with the blower. I had fun watching the g-forces ripple my hand skin.

Then I turned and noticed the little girl was out and staring at me.

Then she made a little wave.

I waved back. I reminded myself that little girls who can't touch anything also can't talk to strangers, so I said nothing.

Then - she came over and hugged me! I swear, I did nothing to provoke it. I don't know if she wanted to break the awkwardness of standing in the bathroom with a stranger she couldn't talk to, or if she was being a little rebel, as if to say, "What's that, Mom, don't touch anything? I'm touching this dirty woman! Who knows where she's been!"

Then Mom burst out of her stall with, "DON'T GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT ME," I suppose because the child had spent a moment without an order, so I left. But it was sweet.

 

 

Baby Feet Knock Offs

I have little goat feet. I don't moisturize, and I rarely wear shoes. My only foot care is to intermittently scrape off the calluses with a callus remover.

That said, when I was giving myself facials for Opera Month, I picked up a Knock-off Chinese Foot Peel. It's all the craze now: you soak your feet in little booties filled with liquid, then in about four days all the skin on your feet sheds off in sheets and you are left with the bare minimum of foot skin.

The most popular brand is called Baby Foot. If you Google images of Baby Foot Peel you will say, "Ugh," then, "More like Leper Foot Peel," and then if you are me you will research up the main ingredient and get very excited about applying leather tanning agent to your feet.

Four days after I used my knock-off foot peel, about half of my problem skin came off as suddenly and dramatically as promised. I wish I'd been strong enough to follow the instructions and not help pick it along. The other half of my hardened callused skin stayed put, giving my soles a nice lunar surface look for Moon Week.

I bought another knock-off brand on Amazon, and after eight days it activated: now I’m down to one-quarter of my problem skin. I can see where this is heading - nail biting, scab picking people like me should not be allowed to purchase this product. They recommend you use this product once every three months. This next one will be my third in three weeks. But I swear I will stop after this next one.

Moon Misapprehensions

Moon week! Anniversary of launching to the moon!

I have done nothing for the last week but watch Apollo space program documentaries. My brother would say this is because we were not allow to stay up until ten to watch the lunar landing.

There is a problem with having been a child during the Apollo program: if you learn something that is wrong you can't shake it, even as an adult who obsessively watches every moon shot documentary there is.

I visited Johnson Space Center once when we lived in Houston, because my father worked there, and somehow in my child mind I decided that all of NASA was located in that one building where he worked. Granted, Mission Control was in that building, but I always thought that the modules were built there and the rockets blasted off from there. I think part of my confusion was that they re-named Cape Canaveral to be Cape Kennedy, and for years I thought Cape Kennedy was the launch site in Florida and Cape Canaveral was the launch site in Houston, you know, outside the building where Daddy worked.

I am fairly sure I asked where the rockets were, and he said "very far away," and I assumed that meant the next exit on the highway or something.

And I still can't shake it. I'll see the launch pad and think "Houston," I'll see people waiting for a launch sweltering in the Florida sun and I'll think "Houston." 

I know I should go back, especially since they've reopened Mission Control. Perhaps that'll get me straightened out.

Clothes Shopping

I went out shopping for clothes, because my personal fashion pendulum has swung again.

Three years ago I turned against all shirts with patterns and buttons. They all looked messy and the collars were always askew. I gave away anything buttoned. Every shirt I own now is in a solid color with a scoop neck that I can pull over my head.

Recently two things have happened:

1. My plump little wattle has morphed into a turkey wattle terminating in a stack of neck rings echoed by the scoop collar and
2. I have been watching old episodes of The West Wing and admiring C.J.'s style.

Before and After

"I could do that," I thought, "I could get a white shirt and pair it with a suit and a shell and leave the top three buttons open."

Because that look is TIMELESS, not dated at ALL, only of course it is. Still, I wanted a shirt with buttons and a collar to hide my neck, if only in profile.

After two days of shopping I have grown to appreciate my current wardrobe, because everything I have tried on either flattens me or plumps me in the wrong spots and somehow I gain thirty pounds in the dressing room. It's like I've been living in a clothing bubble, surrounded by friendly flattering clothes, and now I've had to meet clothing that hates me and does not share my views.

After two days I ended up with three shirts, none of which look at all like the shirt above, only two of which have buttons, but at least I look like a human in them.

Pilgrimage to Big Joel's: Deer

Big Joel's Safari has a new feature called the Deer Encounter. You are allowed to go into an enclosure where there are several deer who are so familiar with humans that they will let you walk among them. I knew about it because a staffer told me personally because we were one of two couples there at that time, because there was an impending thunderstorm. (I asked Big Joel himself: he said it had been very busy earlier in the day. Everyone else was avoiding the rain.)

The sign on the deer enclosure warned me that I needed to walk slowly and calmly, and not shout, and the deer might even let me touch them, but I couldn't touch their antlers. I slowly crept in and was greeted by a staffer who pointed to a spotted deer lying down 10 yards away. The staffer said the spotted deer was pregnant.

"Won't that make her cranky?" I asked. "I've never been pregnant, but I understand it makes ladies very cranky."

No. It makes ladies hungry. I was just coming into the pregnant deer's peripheral vision, when the deer hopped up, came over to me, and bumped my jumbo plastic cup of feed with her nose. And then for ten minutes I fed her. She chewed, bumped the cup, I put more food in my hand, repeat. I was unable to pet her, because I held the cup with one hand and she ate out of my other hand, and she was running the show and there would be only eating: none of this petting nonsense.

I really wanted my husband to see it, but animal behaviorist Gary was protesting the unnaturally tame deer. He turned his back on the enclosure and tried to bond with the naturally skittish deer behind the fence. I couldn't call out to him because of the no screaming rule.

He eventually turned around after I was set upon by two more dark brown deer. The spotted deer was still knocking the cup, so one of the brown deer decided that she would communicate her desire for food by chewing on the front of my shirt. So then I had two deer to feed, and still no hands to pet them with. The third deer was not interested in the grain I was handing out; she just wanted to be nearby to taste some flesh when my body fell to the ground and was trampled.

Eventually, when I was down to the dregs, Gary turned around and came over and consented to feed the deer so I could pet them. He then insisted we walk on a gravel perimeter path to the other side of the enclosure so I could see the deer he had bonded with. All three deer trotted next to me like they were my pet deer now. "Take us home so we can enjoy some onion soup or whatever else you have left over." Eventually after three minutes the two brown deer gave up. I had to pointedly put my hand over the feed cup and shake my head sadly at the spotted deer before she left my side. But for a good twenty minutes I felt like I had my own deer.

Pilgrimage to Big Joel’s: Goats

Gary has finally recovered from the driveway experience and feels safe leaving the house. I really expected him to stay at home and nurse the driveway all week, especially because he read that you are supposed to water a new driveway up to ten times a day. (Evidently the longer it takes to dry the fewer cracks you will have.) He's also rounding up all numbers. If he heard that you don't walk on it for a day then we can't walk on it for a week. You can't park on it for a week rounds up to you can't park on it for a month.

We took our yearly trip to Big Joel's Safari Park and Petting Zoo, where all goats are either pregnant or nursing. My favorite was one that sounded just like a screaming goat. I had no choice but to scream back at it.

Goat: "AAAAAAA!"
Me: "AAAAAAA!"

After a few minutes of this, I heard two staffers. "Do we have another one?" "No, it's that lady."

I felt a little proud that I had mimicked a screaming goat so well, until I spoke to one of the staffers.

1. There is no sub-species of goat called a screaming goat, I was thinking of fainting goats.
2. The goat I was parroting was a momma goat who was calling for her child (clearly because she was full with milk).

I was worried that I had come between a mother and child.

"Enh, she'll figure it out."

There must be 100 goats at Big Joel's this month. I think they sell the goats at the end of the season. I could buy that mother and child and set them free in our yard.

Today I Learned

I just got the Mini back from the Dobbs Tire shop, where somehow the cheap inspection was parlayed up to $800 worth of repairs.

The next day, I was tooling down the road and my Flat Tire indicator came on. The one that looks like a butt.

I took the car back to the shop, where the mechanics checked the tires, found them sufficient, then gathered to solve the mystery of where the tire indicator light reset button was. It was a mystery because my 2005 car is so old that it isn’t listed in any reference document. They looked under the dashboard and in the glove compartment. Eventually they found it ... in plain sight between the seatbelt latch and the parking brake (which they called the ‘e-brake,’ because my car is so old there has been a great vowel shift).

I have had this car for almost 15 years and I have never seen this button. For any mechanics googling “Mini Cooper flat tire light reset button,” here it is:

Has a little butt on it and everything. I was gobsmacked.

Opera Prep: Changing the Tempo

On an average day I take 15 minutes to get ready for work, 25 if I'm washing and drying my (scant) hair.

This was not the schedule I took while getting ready for the opera.

The opera season is over now, but every Saturday before the opera, I would take an entire day relaxing and getting ready, as if I were going to prom. Well, prom, but only if I had to make my prom date Gary promise not to talk to me so I could actually relax instead of getting all worked up with his nonsense.

First, I would spend time relaxing in bed and sleeping as late as possible so I wouldn't fall asleep mid-opera at 9:30, which is evidently my age-enforced bedtime.

Around one I would evaluate my hair and the weather to see what the plan of attack would be. There was the rainy day hair plan and the hot day hair plan and the windy day hair plan. And on top of that, last Saturday the Tiara threw an extra variable into the plan. I wouldn't do anything at one with my hair. I'd just plan.

Then, I would start assembling the components of my ensemble, and select the shoes and bra and jewelry, and lay it out. Then, I would take photographs of all the permutations and decide on the one that looked the best.

After that I'd bathe and commence implementing Stage 1 of the Hair Plan.

I'd stop drinking fluids, because you can't just pop out of the opera and expect to get back to your seat in the middle of someones aria.

Deodorant was applied with a one-hour drying window. Half an hour was devoted to a relaxing face mask. Another half hour was spent measuring, plotting, and plucking the eyebrows.

About an hour before it was time to leave - which was actually four hours before the actual opera was to start - I would start putting on clothing (specifically anything that might muss the hair or touch the makeup).

Then I would begin implementing Stage 2 of the Hair Plan, which frankly would sometimes end with me just brushing my hair out and plastering it back together with hairspray because the weather shifted.

Then, there was the makeup, which incorporated the special Clinique rarely-used foundation and various eye-bag unguents.

After asking Gary how I looked ("Fine!") I would head off to my friend's house, with an extra fifteen minutes to get gas in the car, buy pre-opera picnic food, or duck in to the pharmacy to buy and swig a small bottle of Pepto-Bismol (again, one cannot just leave ones seat, and I wanted to quash any nonsense and rumblings). No chaos. No crisis. No rush.

Finally, after hours of preparation, I would pick up my friend who, I swear to you, would decide what she was wearing minutes before she put it on, which was seconds before she would brush her perfect, thick, weather-independent, straight hair, which was followed by zero seconds applying makeup because she doesn't need it.

Painting

Two nights ago I painted downstairs for about hour. After that, while I was cleaning up the oil paints, I picked up the soda I’d ignored, took a swig, and felt something shift on my head.

I suddenly remembered that on the way downstairs, my hands were pretty full with some painting supplies, so when I had to take down the tiara as well, I just jammed it on my head.

I had painted for almost an hour in my tiara, oblivious.

The odd thing is that Gary came down halfway in, said hello, saw me painting in my tiara, and didn’t comment on it.

 

Tiara

So, last week was a Bye Week for the opera, but tonight brings the premiere of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and given that I muttered "trigger warning" at the intermission of Rigoletto with its rapes and abductions, I don’t know how much I'm looking forward to an opera that might be about incest and sexual abuse. However, the author of the original book showed up on T.V. last week and if he comes I’m certain I could spot him due to his distinctive beard, so that’s exciting.

I am wearing my frayed fringed duster vest for the opera this week, in contrast with next week, when I am blinging out for the Coronation of Poppea.

A big part of the Coronation costume arrived last Friday:

It was purchased for twenty bucks on eBay, and I knew it would fit my tiny pea head because I had tried on similar ones at David's Bridal.

I told the saleswoman why I was getting a tiara at my advanced age, that it was for the opera, and I thought I had explained the situation completely when she asked me, "When's the happy occasion?"

I blinked at her a few times. "The opera? It's later this month." (Jeez, lady. Look at me.)

The e-Bay tiara is missing two rhinestones, but as they say, it'll never show on a galloping pony.

Toto Fails Me

The Toto toilet has been dependable (read: doesn't clog) since last August when we met it and it became part of our family.

Last week began with a four-day period of bowel inactivity. This is average. This is not cause for concern. It is well below my personal best of two weeks. However, when the inactivity was ... over ... the Toto did not dispose of it in its usual charming way, with the deluge and the woosh and the disappearance and the satisfying ca-chunk (go here, jump to 32 seconds in). Instead, there was the deluge, the disappearance, and then it acted like a normal toilet. It filled and it drained, only slowly, and no soul-satisfying ca-chunk.

I told Gary, and thus began an evening of toilet diagnosis. We got quite an education in plunger types and plunging technique. He would see a video, try that technique, I would read an article, try that technique, and all along the Toto would just drain slowly and, as I say, no ca-chunk, the Toto way of saying, "Poop? What poop? No one poops in this house."

This lasted till two in the morning when I pleaded with Gary, "Stop. It. Stop flushing. Stop plunging. I have to get up in the morning."

In the morning, of course, the first flush showed great improvement, and the second ended with the ca-chunk that filled my heart with song.

This week, it has now been five days.

One More Opera Story Before We See the Next Opera

I was in the lobby of the theater, admiring the effort people put into their attire for the opera, especially the two women in full-on ballgowns. One wore a silver ballgown: she had blonde hair, and she was followed by a brunette similarly dressed up.

I nodded at the brunette and said, "Nice." as if to say, "I approve of the effort you put into your dress." She smirked at me, or winked at me, or somehow acknowledged me.

Imagine my humiliation when I looked on stage mid-opera and saw the silver ballgown, with the blonde still in it, because she was playing Countess Rosina. And then I realized the brunette I spoke to was Susanna, the other female lead.

So, evidently the cast moves through the audience in the lobby beforehand and are not just cute kids playing dress-up who need your encouragement! Who knew? Not me!

I will be looking closely at everyone in the lobby tonight who appears to be well-dressed and might have lung power.

 

Irritable Shopping Syndrome

Last week I had to find something to wear to the opera. It was almost an impossible task. From Wednesday through Friday I was shopstipated, and then on Friday the floodgates opened and I bought like mad.

Wednesday, everything looked adequate. Not special. I kept seeing things that would be great for work, until I touched them, and then the rubbery polyester made my skin crawl. I bought three work-worthy natural fiber blouses, but nothing special that said, "I made an effort for the opera."

Thursday, I gave up on my mall on the rural side of the Missouri to one closer to the city (West County). Salesladies would ask if they could help, and I would either touch some polyester and shudder, or I would shake my head and say, "I think I'm in the wrong store." Truly, I would go into a store to discover the demographic had changed from opera-lover to pot farmer. Nordstroms was particularly jarring: all shabby linen shorts.  I saw a few things that might have been nice, but instead in this on-line age it seems stores want to display their clothing in the same fashion you would see it in an Amazon box: wrinkled and wadded up.

Friday, though, I got my act together, and I knew where to go and what to say. "Floaty, with sleeves, for the opera." I had done some pre-shopping and found a kimono at Anthropolgie, a store I had only ever gone into as far as the first price tag. I then had a purpose: find all the kimonos at the Galleria (even closer to the city), test the limits of "One Size Fits All," and then coordinate from there.

After I scooped up three kimonos, linen pants, plus seven work-worthy bras, tanks, and blouses, I was set for the opera season.

Did I have on last-minute beer goggles on Friday? Not sure. We shall see in a few weeks when I attend the Opera in these pants (they're linen, so picture them bunched up around my knees).

I will pair them with the thirty-four year old silk Kimono from my trousseau, and a tiara, because the opera is the Coronation of Poppea.

It's Tornado Season Again

In the last week or so I've heard the tornado sirens twice, twice watched the Channel Four Storm Tracker point the tornado Parallelograms of Death directly at my house, and even took cover in my basement once.

(The Channel Four weatherman is a big fan of phoning up your friends who are in the tornado's path and telling them to seek shelter. At one a.m. during the Jefferson City tornado he exhorted us to call our friends in JC, wake them up, and tell them to seek shelter. Had I any friends in Jeff City I might have done it, but what if they were already in the basement? I would hope they would stay in the basement muttering, "Yes, Ellen, I know there's a tornado.")

Everyone at work has a tornado story: just tree damage like ours, or a roof gone, or entire rooms gone. Friend 4 once lived in the apartments that were damaged in the Jefferson City tornado.

Tornadoes are getting too close.

(Photo of Channel Four weatherman pointing approximately at my house alerting me I have 14 minutes to live.)

Where I Could Live

I know at some point in my life I will be alone. No kids, older husband, unwell brother.

I think about leaving. I know, no matter where you go, there you are, but by the same token, I could be me anywhere. Anywhere on earth.

A friend planned to move to France upon retirement, but it turned out she still has family obligations that held her at home. I don't have those obligations.

Would I stay in the States? I wouldn't have to. (Seriously, States, President Donald Trump?) Would I stay in a city? I think I need to be close to an MRI machine. And croissants. Would I need the English language? Well, that would certainly give my neurons a workout: learning German or Italian.

Freedom, though. Incredible.

I suppose if I'm old enough to be free of my location, I'd be old enough to want the familiar, though.