Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Do Re Mi

So, sometime last week I said I was going to try to up my guitar skills by training  my ear and perhaps learning some music theory basics, like why you never have an F sharp and a B flat in the same song. 

Somewhere buried in YouTube videos about megahertz and chord roots I saw an advertisement for this wonderful “long-lost technique” for learning music called the Kodály method. 

“Cool!” I thought, “That sounds great.” 

You know what the Kodály method is? It’s this:

... and ... 

This stunned me, because Wikipedia says that this method - all this ta - ta - ti / do - re - mi business - came about in the mid fifties. I can attest it was entrenched in the late sixties: I have a distinct memory of a music teacher giving me the Sol sign at shoulder height and saying “ti - ti- taa!” And clapping, lots of clapping.

What I find amazing is:

1) There was a time — evidently before the mid-fifties — when people learned to sing, and they did it without without any do - re - mis or  ti - ti - taas.
2) The Sound of Music came out in the mid-sixties, just ten years into this method, and already “do - re - mi” was enough of a thing to star in a song.
3) There is advanced do - re - mi. It is how you express the sharps and flats. Do - di - re - ri, etc. Go here for all the notes.

And, it’s no wonder that when I began reading music I asked, “What note is ‘Do?’” Evidently I learned “Moveable Do.” It’s “Fixed Do” that would answer that question, and I believe the answer would be C. 

I am skeptical that this method is out of favor. How else could you ever know what notes were?

Musical Influences

When I was about twelve, in 1974, I got a bright blue handheld transistor radio as a gift. I started at the bottom of the AM dial and the first station I found was KXOK, back in the day when it was a pop rock station, and the very first song I heard was Billy Don’t Be A Hero.

Dad only listened to KMOX conservative talk radio, and Mom came to their marriage with four Pete Seeger records, so I believe this was the first pop song I ever heard. 

I’ve been thinking of this lately, because I requested hounded piano-playing friend Dave to play it during one of his Facebook concerts. I was as obnoxious as the guy who yells “Free Bird.” So obnoxious that he eventually played it.

Of course, I haven’t heard the song in decades. Hearing it again made me wonder how much influence this song had over my opinions. Here are some of my personal preferences that may have been established by my first pop song.

Preference #1 - Anti-war. Billy Don’t Be a Hero has a strong anti-war message.  I don’t know if twelve year old me had any opinions on war or peace. My Dad had been in Korea, and Mom didn’t play her Pete Seeger albums when he was around. Perhaps BDBAH inspired me to begin challenging Dad’s view on the military.

Preference #2 - Pro key changes. I am just barely able to recognize a key change, but I like them. I like them a lot. I think that must be why the ends of musicals always, always make me cry. They must double down on the key changes at the finale. 

Preference #3 - Pro-plot progression. Billy’s alive, Billy ignores his fiancé’s advice, [spoilers!] Billy’s dead. There’s a tidy plot in there. I still like a song with a plot.

Preference #4 - (Barenaked Ladies foreshadowing) Peppy music with tragic lyrics. I don’t know why I find it so satisfying to have an upbeat catchy hook paired with subjects like clinical depression or addiction. 

So, did the song influence me, or was I already formed and that’s why I liked the song? Was there some baby-duck level of bonding that happened here? Did I imprint on Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods? What if I’d heard Don’t Rock the Boat first instead of second? Because I’d like to know where I got these notions.

 

Band of Brothers Vs The Pallisers

Gary reads this many books at one time:

Given that, I don’t know why it troubles me so much that I am binge-watching two shows at once. The two shows are as different as you can imagine: The Pallisers (50% romance and 50% political intrigue) and Band of Brothers (15% relationships and 85% battle scenes). 

I’m not all-in on either of them. I may switch to reading the Pallisers books instead, especially given that I have Mom’s copies and there’s a good chance that they will be annotated.

I was reminded lately that Mom and I watched A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and even though we’d read the book we sobbed like teenagers at the end. That’s added to the list of things to watch. Or, books to read. (Currently I’m in the middle of reading Devil in the White City, and as you can imagine, I’m not happy with the proportions of Architecture and Murder. Less architecture! More Murrrrrderrrrr!)

I think I would like Band of Brothers far better if they condensed each battle scene to a few shots. “I have no ammo!” “Who’s this new fella Fitz?” then: Bang! Whiz! followed by “Where’s Fitz?” “Fitz didn’t make it.”

I know it’s a true story, and that the men at the beginning are probably the older versions of the actual soldiers, and usually the documentary aspect would clinch it for me, but I just can’t abide taking up so much time with the Bullets flying and the plot at a standstill. I’m only on episode 4, though. Perhaps there’s more dialog and plot progression in later episodes.

Obstinate

I find that I have some sort of oppositional obstinacy that makes it so that if there is a chorus of people accentuating the positive, I cannot eliminate the negative.  I immediately pipe up with “But have you considered ____?”  [Fill in this blank with some dire, rare possibility.]

This does not make me popular at work, but recently I discovered that when people are negative at work, I can’t help myself from being Rebecca of Sunnybrook, Inc., supporting the company line and saying all will be well.

This doesn’t just happen at work. At home, there’s no way for me to escape the news that I’m classified as having Secondary-Progressive MS (whispered in most circles as “you know, the bad kind”) and yet somehow that negative news just cheers me right up. As always, I think,  “Sure, you say I have a fatal disease, but have you considered _____? [Fill in this blank with some convoluted logic about how future dire results are best predicted by past excellent performance.]

Evidently I’m not the only person in my family with this quality. My brother just spent a night in the hospital with liver failure, and it has cheered him right up. In fact, he’s very optimistic about his prospects. Of course I’m not saying anything to him, but I can’t find a way this is a good thing. Then again, how much of that is just my oppositional nature?

Wipe

I found this container of wipes in the larder when the pandemic hit us in March. (Only three months ago. Seems like forever, but still not many days before my country embraces the “death” part of “Give me liberty or give me death.”)

We have one wipe left. 

You don’t know how often I have reached for this wipe and talked myself out of using it. 

I do know that I can make my own, and I do have the requisite strength alcohol, but the CDC now claims that it is hard to catch from surfaces. 

So why am I holding on to it? It’s stupid, but I kind of feel like this little wipe is protecting our family in some supernatural way. (I SAID it was stupid.)

No doubt some time this month Gary will casually say, “Buy some more wipes. I used the last one.”

Parking at the Space Station

I am so delighted that we have a spaceship docked at the International Space Station. (I am also delighted that it is the newest, shiniest one, though I know that isn’t in keeping with the International Space Station mission of global cooperation.)

During the Dragon docking they mentioned that almost all the docks were filled up.

They were all filled up a few years ago. 

• HTV - Japan
• Progress - China
• ATV - Europe
• Soyuz - Russia, obviously
• Dragon and Cygnus - US

Party at the space station! This really tickles me. 

New Bathroom Addition

This new eBay addition to my Medical Bathroom makes me smile.

 
Dad had a similar towel labeled “Hotel Property.” I remember how scandalized I was at 7 when it dawned on me how he got it. 

Damian Lewis Day

I thought Sunday was going to star Damian Lewis.

In the morning I finished the last two episodes of The Forsyte Saga. I started to watch that earlier this month because I conflated it with The Pallisers, am adaptation Mom and I obsessed over in the early seventies. I only realized my regrettable error when — sorry, I get stuck in that cadence after watching British costume dramas.

Let’s say instead that “I knew I had the wrong show” when I realized the lead was a dead ringer for Bobby Axelrod on Billions. I was still so convinced the “two” stars were related that I headed to IMDB to see if perhaps there was an uncanny 1970s father/2020s son family resemblance. Of course, The Forsyte Saga was in the early 2000s, and Mom never watched it because she said “that man makes my skin crawl.”

IMDB told me he also starred in Band of Brothers, which along with The Pallisers is on my summer Pandemic watch list. I watched the first episode of that in the afternoon. (I did a lot of gardening over the weekend. I am resting up.)

Then I was prepared to wrap up Damien Lewis Day with the most recent episode of Billions, but turns out that has been delayed by the virus. 


Damn the virus. I could have had a Damien Lewis hat trick.

Herb Tower

Last year I grew some herbs in the backyard. Every time I crossed the 10x10 patio pad to pick fresh herbs I was annoyed they were ten feet away.

i’d been considering how I could have a garden of herbs right outside the patio door, so I could just lean out and snip off some herbs. On a table, perhaps, or hanging baskets.

Then, a friend got this fancy thing: four feet tall, composts and dispenses the compost out of a cunning little door,  spins on casters. Then I saw it was $350, and I got creative.

I bought a Mr, Stacky planter on eBay, and because they mis-calculated the height I got that for free, then bought another less expensive one on Amazon. I took an old cutting board and screwed in some casters I bought, oh, 30 years ago. I found out that online PVC fittings cost one twentieth online compared to the hardware store.

So this cost about $50.

The two colors don’t match, but that’s fine. Then I did this with screws and pvc glue:

... and drilled holes ...

... then this ...

... showing great strategic thinking to make it a) not glued but screwed in one spot and 2) make the top be the detachable part.

Gary said it would be top-heavy and the raccoons would climb it, so I should add some rocks ...

... so then I bought way too many herbs and started packing them in ....

I ended up with multiple varieties of parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano, and mint. There is one level of dianthus, which is not edible as far as I know, and some butterfly-attracting flowers. 

Then I tucked it right outside the back door so that I don’t have to hike across the ten feet of patio or even bend over to get to the basil on top.

All I’m probably ever going to eat is the basil, and the sage and rosemary with pork, but it smells lovely.

I ended up with some extra mint, and some hyacinth bean and spinach that had to be distributed in other spots. I planted the spinach right by the rabbit warren. Perhaps that will satisfy him. 

Guitar Progress

Following my miserable day in which I forgot how to play the low B note on my guitar, I seem to have leapt forward and found new challenges.

In the past, every once in a while, I’ll need to turn a page while I’m reading the music and I’ll know what the next note is and I’ll play it without having to read it or think about it. I think it’s the start of having an ear for music.

A few days ago I tried playing a song without reading the sheet music, just thinking what the next note should be, and if the notes were in two steps of each other I could do it, but if the jump was more than that I failed. I went back to reading the sheet music and found that after that little experiment I could clatter my way right through the piece almost without looking at the music, just thinking along with the tune and it came out through my fingers. It only works with songs I know, though.

So, looks like I’m taking another break to develop my musical ear. Maybe some music theory, too.

Novel Update

I see many parallels between the “loose” cenote painting from yesterday and Jerry’s Novel.

In both cases, I’ve had trouble creating because I have too much freedom. With the cenote it became harder and harder because I didn’t want to be representational. But if I can paint what I like, then what is my goal? What am I aiming for?

Similarly, with Jerry’s novel, I have nothing to aim for. All I know is that I want it to be a certain way (better, looser), but I have no clue what the end result should look like. Some say I should just sit down and write, but I really can’t without having it a plan of where it will end up. I’ve been writing the juicier scenes that I know I want, but I really feel I need to craft the whole plot before I start. Otherwise - no end game.

So I’ve spent some time considering the plot. I want some percentage romance and some percentage criminal heist. I want a novel of manners married to The Sting. I want Jane Eyre minus Bertha Mason after she and Mr. Rochester have been married four years and then she meets Mr. Darcy.

At least that’s an endgame. It’s a very strange endgame but it’s where I’m headed. 

Swipe Type

I had to chastise the young people at work. They told me about the dictation feature for texts, but they did not tell me about Swipe to Type.

On the iPhone, instead of lifting your fingers when you type, just move your index finger to each letter. You can do it pretty quickly, and it is still very forgiving and guesses well. A scribbly trail shows up on the screen depending on the application.

On an iPad you do a two-finger pinch in a blank grey area, then the keyboard becomes iPhone-sized. Then you play connect the dots with the letters and it works. 

But wait, there’s more. I have found how to get your cursor into the middle of a word. When I’ve been working on Jerry’s novel I’ve had to keep re-typing half a word if I want to change a letter in the middle. Turns out all you have to do is press and hold the space bar, and without letting up move around on the space bar, or then even above it, and the cursor will move with great precision.

These digital hints brought to your by Grandma’s Tech Support. (Slogan: “Did you know you can ‘cut’ text and then ‘paste’ it?”)

The Monkey on My Back Is Back

A few days ago Amazon suggested I might want to buy more of the pods that go in my espresso machine. Click, click, done.

They arrived this morning and I realized that Amazon had pushed on me the full-caf version of the pods, though I have bought decaf for years. 

I thought, “Well, Gary can drink those, but I can’t. I will just drink soda.”

That’s when I discovered the grocery delivery company couldn’t fill my request for diet orange soda and replaced it with the world’s only caffeinated diet orange soda.

”Well, I’ll just drink less. I’ll be fine.”

That was yesterday morning. It’s four a.m. now. I AM AWAKE AND BUILDING A PLANTER. I have had one soda and no sleep.  Looks like I’m on milk and water if this doesn’t straighten out.

Interesting Paternal Relative, Finally

Well, I cracked the code on Jerry’s ancestors. At some point they changed their name. This means my maiden name does not mean small fenced-in backyard, but instead large locked sheep pasture. I don’t know if this is an upgrade.

The last time he saw us, Jerry admonished my 9-year-old brother to be good because he would carry on the family name. Hmph. That name he was so proud of didn’t exist 100 years earlier.

Once I knew who I was looking for I found DNA matches and finally, a skeleton in the paternal closet to equal the incestuous maternal side. Someone interesting. Jerry’s side had a confederate solider who went AWOL in 1862, returned, then was declared a deserter in 1864. 

if I held any truck with this ancestry nonsense I would point out the significance of my deadbeat father’s family having a history of desertion.

The Guitar Has Come to This

Two days ago I was playing some song on the guitar. I’ve been trying to get my skills back up to where they were: picking out the notes to a tune and and augmenting that with some easy chords. Essentially, I was trying to clamber back to the second rung of solo guitar.

Every once in a while I’d hit a low B note, and it sounded wrong. I thought perhaps  I was playing a song where all the Bs should have all been flat (other people know what key that is, it isn’t the key of B-flat, it’s something else). I checked and no, that wasn’t it. 

I was actually in the process of re-tuning my guitar before I realized I’d just forgotten that I don't have a special string for the low B note. It’s one fret lower than the low C note, and I wasn’t pressing the fret. 

This is like forgetting how to mix purple, or what an adjective is. Very discouraging. Damn, I thought, I have to go back to the bottom rung.

So I vowed to practice my guitar every day. By the end of the next day I was back up on the second rung and on my way to the third one. Peculiar. I’ve never had a hobby that followed the two-steps forward - one-step-back pattern so consistently.

Peony Update

Remember the refrigerated peonies?

Turns out the trick to refrigerating peonies is knowing what type of peonies you have. Single-petal peonies can be refrigerated in the hard-bud stage, but multi-petal peonies like mine must be refrigerated in the “marshmallow” - bud stage. The peonies in the fridge were clipped way too soon, and are now consigned to a life of permanent adolescence.

You can see them in the photo below: sad little balls of nothing.

The two pink peonies above, however, were snipped at the perfect pre-ant Marshmallow stage and put right into the water, not in the fridge.

And you know what? I don’t even want to see what happens when you put a marshmallow-stage peony in suspended animation in the refrigerator. Don’t care. i don’t need peonies in October. Peonies without ants in the spring are fine for me.

Gather your peony buds while ye may, while the ants are not a-crawling. If you squeeze them and they feel like a marshmallow, you won’t need to drown the ants.

Then you can have a big bouquet in your room the next day, making it even more like a hotel.

Well, Crap.

So, in January I was all set with Barenaked Ladies and Beach Boys tickets. Then there was the Covid, and I was not looking forward to being packed into a concert venue.

Yesterday came the news that Barenaked Ladies are just shifting their 2020 tour to 2021, and tickets will still be valid. Great! Great for everyone, except the people in the four cities where they couldn’t reschedule, like ... Saint Louis.

Poor Saint Louis Music Park - St. Louis built it, and for their first year they get a global pandemic, so no concerts. Still, they promise to send a refund sometime in the next month.

Beach Boys need to cancel next. Then I need to just hunker down here in my room until the virus mutates like in The Andromeda Strain or until the llamas save us all.

Graves

Last Friday I was in a cemetery attending a burial. It isn’t a new cemetery. Not only did I walk through this cemetery on my way home from grade school, Gary did the same eight years earlier, in the ‘60s.

I noticed a new grave a few yards away.

Then I noticed another.

Then I started counting. There were nine fresh graves I could see; who knows how many more if I had turned around. 

Of course, I attributed the fresh graves to the Covid. 

Later, though, I realized that it had rained that morning, at the end of a rainy week. Any exposed dirt will look new when it’s water-logged. I decided what I was looking at were just graves the grass hadn’t covered yet, and the muddy clumps were from the spring rains.

On the afternoon drive home, Gary and I saw a dead deer on the side of the road and said the requisite “Aww.” Still, I thought, odd, because the crews that tidy the roadkill usually get on it in the morning, and that deer looked like it had been dead a while, and “Oh God, is that another dead deer?”

Yes. Within half a mile another slightly smaller yet just as dead deer. 

Again, I attributed the deer carcasses to the Covid. Not that they died of it, just that the crews hadn’t picked them up. I don’t suppose picking up dead deer is considered an essential task, and perhaps the people who usually report the roadkill are sheltering in place.

Or more likely, I want to attribute everything to Covid to give it more importance, because I want my life disrupted by something of significance rather than a nuisance.

Rewriting the Novel: Research

So, you know Jerry’s novel is set in an oil boom town in Oklahoma in 1930. He’s got all the details you would want regarding a 1930 oil derrick, but that’s about all. Even though it’s not a historical novel, I want the other details to be right. 

Initially, all I wanted to know was if they had poker chips in 1930. I started looking a week ago. I don’t know the answer, because then I began reading about the money in 1930, and that was amazing, because 1929 was the year they decided to carve an inch off the money. In 1928 the standard currency was an inch bigger all around. I say standard - there was a lot of non-standard currency issued by regional national banks. Before that, if you were a bank, evidently you could just make up your own currency, and it was very pretty, and before that you could have square bills if you like, like Confederate money, and thirty percent of the currency was counterfeit. I tell you this because I have to tell someone, because that week’s worth of research is going to be boiled down to one descriptive phrase.

For more research I also watched a pretty poor Clark Gable movie named Boom Town — and I was frightened every moment that Jerry might have watched it and I would see an example of subconscious plagiarism unfolding on the screen — but I was relieved to see a) it was about wildcatters and was b) actually pretty inaccurate.

(The money in the movie was entirely wrong for the time period. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.)

Also, they would have us believe that you name an oil well after your girlfriend, as you would a bomber jet, when anyone knows you name it after whoever’s name is first on the land lease. Please. 

[Spoilers, if you can spoil a movie from 1940.] There was one very unrealistic plot hole — Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert meet and spend a pleasant evening at a rodeo. (That was a scary moment - there was a rodeo in Jerry’s book.) The next morning, Claudette’s boyfriend Spencer Tracy shows up and she says, sorry, met and married Clark Gable here yesterday. They weren’t in Vegas, no one was drunk, just somewhere between 12 midnight when they were winding up their date and seven the next morning they fell in love, and, “got married.” I know, 1940’s movie, set in 1918-1940, but for God’s sake. 

Of course, it was actually pretty entertaining to see their interpretation of a boom town and compare it to Jerry’s. The movie has an oil well gusher and it’s a marvelous event — compared to Jerry’s book preaching about how gushers are a scandalous waste of money, they catch fire, burning oil rains down on people, it’s not fun. I suppose it’s some gritty realism. Accuracy over drama.

We’ll have to see what’s next, if I can ever get out of this research rabbit hole.

Goodbye Yell a Big Grow

Am I the only one who has no idea what Elton John is singing? I knew I had a problem understanding the words to Rocketman. It’s not just Rocketman. I recently looked up the lyrics to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

The first verse is fine. It’s intelligible. Then, at the chorus, it goes south.

So, goodbye yellow brick road [okay]
Where the dogs of society howl [let me know if ANYONE knew those were the words - I hear “in the dockside society house”]
You can't plant me in your penthouse [can’t trap me in your henhouse?]
I'm going back to my plough [I did get this by the “henhouse” context]

Back to the howling old owl in the woods [I got “back to the cabin, oh, out in the woods”]
Hunting the horny back toad [“hunting the honey back tow”]

Oh I've finally decided my future lies [“oh, I’m out in the side of my picture life”]

Beyond the yellow brick road

 

What do you think you'll do then? [this I can hear]
I bet that'll shoot down your plane [not “I’ll practice you down the plain?”] 
It'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics to get you on your feet again [I have usually stopped listening by this point, but then he ropes me back in with a whole verse I can understand.]

After the comprehensible verse he gets me again with:

 

Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground [“Steppenwolf tuppence like you,” followed by warbling.]

 

Now that I have looked up the words, they’re really good. There’s a story and progression. All the stuff I love! Why would he ruin his lyrics by singing them that way - and of course I realized, they aren’t his lyrics. They’re Bernie Taupin’s lyrics. I bet Bernie’s pissed about that.

 

What’s really sad is that if I’m not actively looking at the real words, I still hear “in the dockside society house“ — it’s engraved in the neurons. Sad.

 

Basement Vacation

So, if the guest room is my new hotel room, the basement is my new vacation spot: the place I go to unwind. I unwind there because the basement has the pink table that holds the painting area.

The saggy Home Depot box lined with black landscaping fabric is where I have staged any still life - like the gourds and the teacups. You put the object in the box so no other light gets to it, and then you can light it directly — in my case, with the light that sits on my husband’s workbench.

That little iPad next to the light plays “relaxing” episodes of the My Favorite Murder podcast while I paint. Usually when I have a project, what I listen to is woven into to the project in my mind. The art glass project in the backyard contains the news about Chandra Levy and then 9/11. Oddly, I can’t tell you what Murder connects to each painting stacked up on the right side of the workbench.

The best part of any hobby or vacation is the organization. Is that not the coolest pivoting paint storage box? Transparents in one side, opaques in the other.

I suppose like all vacation spots, it has to be close to the water, and in my basement corner, there’s the water that frequently bubbles through the basement floor when it rains. You can see the “shoreline” in the middle of the photo.

Painting is as good as meditation for getting the dark thoughts out of your head. I know painter’s studios as supposed to be full of light, but I’m not there yet. You can stick me in the dark corner of my damp basement with murders in the background and I am fine.

Guest Room Hotel Room

Since Gary’s been sick with whatever it is that he has — flu, covid, a really really bad head cold  — he is shunning me hard. He has his room, I have mine, and when on occasion we accidentally meet in the same room we do the big six-foot do-si-do. He has insisted I take my daily toilette out of his room so I don’t enter the death zone. So now my little guest room / music room / home office has a new identity: hotel room where I now have to keep a smaller version of my stuff:

• the daily pills
• one pair of pajamas that still fit comfortably
• one pair of pants that still fit comfortably
• one boxy shirt I can wear without a bra
• one emergency bra which I have yet to wear
• two face masks

When I’m in a hotel room I immediately stow away anything that identifies the place as a hotel: stationery, advertising, the Things to Do In Our City book. I hide anything that spoils the fantasy that this isn’t normal life. Now that I have moved entirely in my little room, I’ve had to find secret hiding places for the face masks and the work laptop, both things that spoil the fantasy of normality.

I am strangely happy with this set-up. It does feel like a little hotel, or maybe a cunning little campsite. Usually, I am dismayed when Gary shuns me. I mean, if he spends half an hour in the bathroom my abandonment issues bubble up. But this setup is nice. It almost makes me start to think how I’m going to decorate and hide things in my inevitable nursing home room. 

Peonies in the Fridge

There was a freeze warning in our area last Friday, odd for May, and I covered the peony buds with burlap. But first, I harvested half of the buds, because Facebook tells me you can put them in the fridge and force them to bloom later at your will. 

I’ve forced blooms with cut forsythia, I think I remember mom forced paper-whites in the winter, but I’ve never heard about this peony trick. 

If this works — if I can actually have peonies without the ants —that is a game changer.

The Best Thing I Have Eaten These Few Months

So, when the confinement began, I tallied up our food and realized that my desire to limit my carbs didn’t match up with my available food. The highly successful diet  got me five pounds away from my goal weight, but it was just too inconvenient, and frankly, I was ready for a break. I took a break at Christmas, gained seven pounds and lost seven pounds in three weeks. 

So, like Christmas, I committed to eating carbs - not late at night, not solid sugar, just things like popcorn and pasta and bread. That was last month. This month I became determined to pack in all the foods I missed at Christmas, sugary or not. I had Oreos and Pepperidge Farm cookies. Pancakes for breakfast. Ice cream. Stress makes your metabolism go up ten percent, right?

The sugary foods I’m eating bring me no satisfaction. I eat sugar and it does not fill a need.

But then, last Monday, I ate the thing I have been missing. The food to end all foods. The thing that completes me.

Hush Puppies. 

We had just finished getting Gary’s tests, and I had been craving hush puppies for the first time in what seems like twenty years, and I sinned, I sinned. I went through a drive-through, open no doubt because it was the first day Missouri was back to work. I did wrap a Lysol wipe around the cash I handed the guy. I washed my hands after; I hope he washed his hands. And then I got home and ate a hush puppy. It was crispy and tender and creamy and I was made whole.

I bought 12 days worth of hush puppies. I won’t need any sugar.

Kentucky Derby, Kind Of

Like Dave from Blogograhy was saying, sometimes there are so many CoVid diversions that you don’t have time for them all. 

That happened to me on Saturday when the second Steven Page Zoom concert conflicted with the virtual running of the Kentucky Derby. NBC Sports set up a fake derby between all the Triple Crown winners. I had to see my boy Secretariat win the virtual race, given he still holds the record in all three races of the Triple Crown.

I wore the Celebrity Hat out to the backyard to pick some weedy fuzzy scrub mint for my mint julep. It had three ounces of bourbon, which tasted very nice over some ice I made and crushed, and only gave me a little headache. 

Then I went back in and watched the concert. I am sure no one on Zoom noticed me slyly watching the race on my phone for about two minutes. (Spoiler - Secretariat won.)

Toward the end of the concert Steven Page asked the 800 people on the Zoom to unmute and sing along with The Chorus Girl. (Because as he will tell you in his Ted Talk, that’s the most important part.) It was hilariously bad. Picture a Demon Chorus singing ‘la la la laaah la.’ So, still with the delightful screw-ups, only this time it involved the audience screwing up. Fun for everyone!

No Virus In My Head

I have a big database upgrade scheduled. I’ve been planning this database upgrade for four months. When I’ve pictured the Upgrade Day I’ve always pictured myself in the office, holding court at my desk, answering questions, probably in my black jacket and gold turtleneck and new gold pants. (Yes, I planned what I would wear. I think that should be on project plans. Microsoft Project should have an area on Gantt charts for “Ensemble.”)

So, as the day nears, I find that when I make plans / worry / fantasize about the big day I still picture myself at the office, just as I have for months. Of course, I won’t be in the office, I will be at home, oblivious to everyone’s discontent or praise. It’s just hard to shift gears.

I had a similar experience this morning when I bought tickets for the next online Steven Page concert. The web site said something like “concert at 4: doors open at 3:00.” And I actually thought, “I should get there at 3: I want a good seat.” And of course, it’s a concert on Zoom. My seat is my guest bed. It won’t matter if I come early. 

I feels terrible for all the brides who planned their weddings for years and then had to adjust their dreaming at the last minute. The should all get free do-over weddings. 

 

Covid Mask Kills My Sewing Machine

Well, I tried to sew again. I was, of course, trying to make a mask, as is the trend.

Gary was wearing a mask and was yet able to smell his strawberry instant oatmeal, and that was enough to convince him that if an odor could get in, so could a virus. I don’t know how airtight he wants his mask, but I volunteered to make a cloth one with a coffee filter pocket. 

Seam 1 was excellent! I heard a thunk and then the next seam was disastrous. It looked fine from the top, but the bobbin side became increasingly knotted up in the gears of the machine. 

When The Confinement is over I should take it in and have someone teach me how to use it again. I got it my junior year of high school — 40 years ago. Might be time for some maintenance. 

Rewriting the Novel: Percentages

I have found myself working on Jerry’s Novel in spurts. I always start by editing what he has, but then that leads to filling in what he’s missing. 

After a busy night, I calculated how far I was, given how many words I had so far, and discovered I have about one 25% of a Young Adult novel, and 18% of an an Old Adult novel. 

I find this remarkable, especially given that I haven’t hit my first plot point yet. I tell myself that’s because some of those pages are slated to be in later chapters, which is true. 

Wouldn’t it be funny if I finished up and I had a confused mess with a plot that peaks too late and too harshly, with too many characters, just like Jerry did? 

Covid Complication

Leaving the house and putting on shoes made me consider my appearance for the first time in forty days.

While I was out I realized I hadn’t put in earrings in ... forty days. “Oh no,” I thought, “How long does it take for my ears to close up? Are my ears closed up?” Also, Does Gary Have the Covid, in addition to Am I Catching the Covid, but just for a moment I worried my ears were closing up. 

The back of my left ear had closed over to a small degree, but I twisted the lobe around and eventually got in from the back side. It wasn’t pretty.

(So, in Frivolous Health News, how long does it take for pierced earring holes to close up? The internet says eight months. I anticipate people will be visiting Claire’s and Tattoo Parlors in mid-October.)

Covid Cold: In Which I Leave the House for the First Time in 40 Days

Somehow, with all the hand-washing and not touching his face, Gary has still caught a cold.

“I have a cold!” Gary pouted. “And I have no Dr. Pepper.”

”Poor sweet baby,” I said, obediently.

”I’m sick.”

”Poor sweet baby?” I said, confused.

”You have to go out to the grocery store and get me Dr. Pepper.”

“You have to wait until Wednesday for them to deliver Dr. Pepper, you mean.”

Feeble, sickly Gary disappeared and was replaced by healthy, full volume Gary.

”FINE FINE I’LL GO GET IT MYSELF.”

”No, Gary, I’ll go. You’ve risked your life going out to the grocery for your parents for months.” (He wants them to get exactly what they asked for.) Plus, I thought, you’ll see what it’s like to worry just because someone has gone to the grocery store and you picture them touching all the dairy department door handles then rubbing their mouth.

I wore shoes, jeans, and a bulky sweatshirt. (I think we all know this is code for “no bra.”) I also wore a mask, as you do. Well, as I do. Well, as only half of the people in the grocery did. Only half wore masks, or bothered to keep six feet away. I held my breath when the No-Maskers passed and I clutched my little alcohol wipe like my life depended on it.

Ironically, the classic Dr. Pepper that Gary wanted is entirely unavailable in our region. Gary is having to make do with some new Cream Soda / Dr. Pepper mutation.

In thanks for my sacrifice, Gary has taken to wearing a mask and staying six feet from me in our house. I am okay with this.

Covid Cleanup

It was 90 degrees last week, and I’m still sleeping in my winter pajamas.

I pulled down my seasonal clothing storage box, intending to swap my winter sweaters for the linen pants, when I realized that it was futile. Sure, I’ll wear my summer pajamas, but linen pants? Do I really think I’ll be leaving this house before it’s sweater season again? 

I decided to bring out one summer shirt and one summer pair of pants, in case I have to, I don’t know, drive to a funeral where we will all stay in our cars, as is the custom at funerals now. 

I do need a gardening ensemble, but I might just might end up using my painting ensemble for that. I’m sure the neighbors won’t give me odd looks, because the painting ensemble is a step up from the pajamas they see me in whenever I get the mail.

 

Covid Culture

They came for the baseball season, and I didn’t speak out when the baseball season was cancelled, because of the Covid.

Then they came for the hockey season, and I did not speak out, because I was not a hockey fan.

But then they came for my opera —and there was no one left to speak for me.

The 2020 Saint Louis opera theater season is officially cancelled. We’re getting a credit for the 2021 season, to keep our wonderful season ticket seats, but this summer there will be no Carmen or Die Fledermaus, or any other lesser-known operas. 

Darn. I was going to hunt for a red bolero jacket for Carmen, too. 

Covid Comforts

[Editor’s note - I have tried to write posts that are not about the global pandemic. I can’t even try any more. The Covid has crept into every aspect of life.]

Every once in a while a friend will post a covid-related alcohol meme on Facebook and I think, “I have alcohol, right here, in my house. I could drink that alcohol.” 

And why don’t I? I relaxed my carb restrictions, happily trading the immediate six pound gain for fewer grocery trips or deliveries. I’m stress-baking and stress-eating, so why on earth don’t I deal with stress the way the rest of the world does? I’ve got wine and hard liquor and mixers. I’ve got everything but maraschino cherries.

I suppose I’m not drinking because my current stress relievers are more convenient. Why climb the step-stool to get to the liquor when my fingernails are right here, ready to be chewed?

In the other hand, one plus in the alcohol column is that you can drink without physical evidence. Anyone can look at me and see I’m a stress-eater, whether it’s nibbling carbs or fingernails. 

Sadly, I see those memes and think, “Tomorrow is the day I start drinking,” and then I never do. That’s why I am getting some flat Moscato out of the garage fridge and drinking a glass, right now, before 9 am. Cheers.  

Mask Couture in Practice

Why look, you CAN make a face mask out of toddler underwear.

I have been assured by my friends that this is a level of creepiness that even they cannot abide, so I won’t be wearing it out and about.

Mask Couture

Well, I haven’t sewn any masks for the doctors and nurses. I’d hate to think the only thing between a doctor and a virus was my sewing skill. Now that the only life that would be lost is mine, I’m starting to think creatively.

So, how do I make a mask out of the supplies I already have in the house? I can’t expect a doctor to sport a ninja mask made out of my husband’s underwear, but I can do it myself. Sadly, when I tried the ninja mask shown in that link, I found that either my head is too small or Gary’s thighs are too big, or both.

So then, I was thinking underwear, and I thought of tightie-whiteys. They have that cunning flap in front that could hold a coffee filter for extra protection. 

I could cut on the dotted lines and remove the extra fabric in the back.

The waistband would go over my nose, then the leg bands would be pulled back behind my ears, then my mouth would be in the crotch, as you do, with the added protection of a coffee filter tucked in to the cunning little crotch pocket.

Or maybe that would work better flipped upside down. Hm. 

Or I could make this out of papier-mâché:

Ohh! I already have the goggles from my onion-cutting supplies.

I also have heavy black landscaping “cloth” that seems like it might be useful, and really, anything with elastic can be stripped for its elastic parts.

There is also a respirator mask that Gary bought when he thought he’d be spraying our house for bugs. Gary said it wouldn’t work, but I don’t understand. It looks like a WWI Mustard gas mask. Perhaps I could stretch a sock over the air holes.

Seems like I’ll end up making something out of duct tape and landscaping cloth.

Rewriting the Novel: The Last Chapter

Our teacher had previously instructed us that our last assignment was to write the last chapter of our novels. I was fine with that, because I have something of an outline, but on the other hand my ending is so far afield from Jerry’s ending that I had to make it up out of whole cloth, like an actual author instead of a plagiarist. 

I relied a lot on dialog, but given that Jerry’s book is full of five-page blocks of description, if I wanted any consistency I did have to make up some visuals. I took his first description of the town and reversed it, so all the noise and motion became silence and stillness. And I left the romantic triangle unresolved but hinted at.

As the teacher initially said, we don’t have to use it, we just need a place to aim for. 

I think next I need to plan some more plotting so I can string together the good parts. I have transcribed one or two of his best scenes, and I have some scenes I thought of myself, stemming from my new theme. For example, his hero needs to die. (Sorry, that’s what happens Jerry, you made me into a cruel hard woman.) After there’s a plan I can weave in his best scenes. I think after that I’ll end up with a framework.

I have an extra forty minutes a day I don’t spend driving in to work now, anyway. 

Fast Breaking News

I was working at home yesterday (I suppose I don’t need to specify anymore) and I took a break to get some type of diet snack out of the kitchen.

After my snack I walked back into my guest room/bedroom/office and looked at the news. The crawl said:

US DEATH TOLL SURGES PAST 1,300

I turned on my heel, headed back to the kitchen and ate 6 potato chips and one oatmeal cookie. It seemed the only thing to do.

It reminded me of 9/11/2001. September 11 was the last day I ever used my treadmill. I had been on it daily up till that date. I can’t really explain why I stopped.

I suppose it’s all about control. Why would I diet or exercise to control what my body looks like, if the breaking news says that life is going to kill me anyway?

Disaster Tally, Ho-hum

A week ago there was an earthquake in Salt Lake City, which is not an earthquake area, is it? It reminded me that at the end of February, I woke up and felt a funny vibration. It wasn’t enough to make me leap out of bed, just something subliminal enough to make me start thinking about earthquakes.

I have been in two St. Louis earthquakes, the one in my twenties that rattled the cupboards in our new apartment, and the one that hit a week after Mom died and made the lawyer’s walls sway.

Later that day I found out that the funny vibration was indeed a baby 2.7 earthquake. Still counts though, so now I have survived three earthquakes, one tornado, and a global pandemic. Early days, though, with the pandemic.

Oh, who knows. We are all poised on the brink of death. I know three people who have been poised there for years. Perhaps you get used to it.

Texting

I don’t get many texts. Most texts here come from siblings. The Text Ding stimulates an autonomous stomach-sinking response. “Ding!” “Oh god no, now what?”

For some reason on Friday I got more texts than all the rest of my life combined. At one point I was navigating three simultaneous text conversations. Not fun. I was reminded of when I taught Mom to copy and paste: everything was TOO FAST YOU'RE GOING TOO FAST SLOW DOWN.

Also, I forgot which thread had the bosses on it and I cursed, was told to keep it clean, which then spawned a separate cursing thread involving me and the younger set.

I find it amusing that the young co-workers see me as a sweet grandma who does not curse, so therefore my cursing is hilarious. Must remember to curse sparingly around them so I can capitalize on the shock factor.

Luckily, I work with teachers, so they were glad to show me how to use the dictation feature: that was useful. Most important, they showed me how to turn the damn dinging off for specific conversations, which I then did.

Awareness

People are calling this the new normal. No. New Not Normal. New Global Pandemic. 

When I start feeling normal I turn on the news and catch up on whatever Hell is fresh. (CNN, switch your Breaking News graphic to a Fresh Hell graphic.)

As one of the Special Snowflakes who might die from your snot I thank all of you who are staying inside. I’m also regretting my decision to stay on the Gilenya, knowing if I drop it now it’s ... six weeks before my immune system is back up to speed. (I’m glad I looked that up: I thought it was six months.)

Incidentally, as I type this a pundit on CNN is discussing the feasibility of sequestering only the Special Snowflakes and letting everyone else mingle and develop herd immunity. As I have often said during the last month: Jesus Fucking Christ.

I try to stay positive.

• Samuel Pepys had his best year during the Black Plague. 
• I only poop once a week, so I don’t really need toilet paper. Last night I used the shower head to rinse off after a pee, and it’s really not bad. I go right back into baggy pajamas after, so there’s no real problem with any dampness I can’t shake off. I can go without, and this allows Gary to use his standard small roll of toilet paper per poo.
• Thank God for technology: Amazon deliveries, ATMs, FaceTime, streaming, texting, virtual classes, working at home. I don’t know how they made it through the 1918 flu or the Black Death without watching their friends stream all-request piano concerts on Facebook. 

Even with those positives, I am freaking out. How weird is this?