Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Wig Disappointments: Headband Wig

There was some reason I wanted to try this wig beyond self-delusion.

I do have an eBay wig that did not suit, and seemed to me I could dismantle this eBay headband wig and then replace the hair in the other, and with some judicious cutting it could be presentable. (I have evidently reached the manic overconfidence state of the wig hobby.)

Gary won't LET me. He loves this wig. He put it on and strutted about, and when I told him my plans he snatched it back out of my hands. "Nooooo, it's beautiful," he crooned, stroking the wig .

I don't think he wants it for himself, or for me, but he just likes the feel of the soft silky polyester hair. Kind of like having a fake fur coat that doesn't fit either of us. You have to keep it around because it's soft.

Wig Disappointments: Healthy Wigs

I keep returning wigs that don't suit me. They don't suit me because they are designed to look like healthy, young, attractive hair. 

And I am old and unhealthy.

This makes me sad.

I don't think that would ever have looked natural on me, even when I was young. It's a cruel trick of fate that if you were born with thin, curly hair, and you want a wig to look normal, you are trapped into short, low-density, wavy wigs for your lifetime. 

It's a shame, because that brand of wigs fit my skull perfectly, but even the shortest styles are made of healthy, thick-shafted fibers. 

Well, I need to enjoy what i can wear now, because in a few years (months?) I'll need to transition to gray. Gather ye roses, young people who long for good hair.

Grammarly Report

I downloaded Grammarly last year to get another level of typo protection, because TypePad's editor will no longer suffice. 

Last week it sent me an email with some unsolicited criticism.

I liked the Mastery comment best. I am more accurate than 31% of Grammarly users, and I say, what disease do those people have? Are they typing with a stylus attached to their noses? How am I not at the lowest 1 percentile?

It also joins the chorus of complaints about my "tone."

Interesting at the end there. I have been concerned as of late.

In Which I Am Wrong

The things I do consistently:

1.) Turn on the subtitles and closed captioning in Netflix, prime, live tv.

2.) Audibly correct the spelling any time I see "nerve-wracking" spelled as "nerve racking." Last week I even asked someone. "It's spelled with a 'w' right?" She confirmed that yes, like wracked with pain, it gets a w. 

(THE HYPOCRISY yes, I know. I cannot see the beam in mine own eye. I should have out a typo in that sentence just to make the point.)

I saw "nerve-racking" again yesterday, on the CNN closed-captioning, and went in search of the answer, and I found that while both are right, 'nerve-racking' is preferred.

"This is some horseshit," I said aloud, but all sources seem to agree: nerve-racking evokes ones nerves stretched on the medieval torture device The Rack, while nerve-wracking evokes ones nerves wracked and ruined: or wrecked.

One article hinted one was A.P. and one was Chicago Manual of style, and I would hold with A.P. over Chicago, but I think I like the Chicago comma exception. Can't mix styles.

It's odd to me that 'rack' with its dozens of definitions won out over the very specific "wrack," in both the U.S. and England, but okay. I am wrong.

Talk with Hospital

I finally took the first step toward calling Dave's surprise cancer doctor, I called the records department.

• I called them once and hung up on the answering machine.
• Then I drafted everything I wanted to say and edited it for length.
• Then I called them back and read my statement to the answering machine. I tried to sound natural.

In Saint Louis I would expect an answer in a week, but this is Albuquerque, and so I'll hear in two and a half months. Or, possibly, not. I have my theory, that he was in denial that he could die of cancer. He might have thought it would be easier on me if he kept quiet about his complaints, only that is completely antithetical to his personality.

It might just need to be a mystery. 

YouTube Training

Last week I realized the top rack of the dishwasher is broken. Literally, the wheels have come off AND it's off the rails. (I looked to see if there might be more idioms that might apply literally to my top dishwasher rack and I find that Austrailians say “There's a kangaroo loose in the top paddock,” which is ridiculous and I don’t believe it. Big Dot, please confirm.)

It seemed like an easy enough fix: just get new wheels and snap them on. I just needed to find the right YouTube video.

Good Lord. YouTube needs to pull any video that doesn't follow basic training principles. Now, you might think I'm being picky because I work in training. No. One man mimed the entire process. Didn't say anything. Another man filmed the process from such an angle that you could only see the back of his hands. He’d hold up a part, then he'd begin to position it and his fingers would be eclipsed by his hammy hands, then voila, the part was affixed. I only found one woman: her video was remarkable because her first step was to clip off the zip-ties she used to hold the rails and wheels together. I almost stopped right there and got some zip-ties.

I finally found someone with my exact dishwasher, who showed me where to find the part number, then after I had it shipped, said, “make sure the new wheels are the same size as the old ones,” then after I ordered a better set, walked me through all the steps. I am quite pleased with myself, chuffed one might say, now that the wheels are on the rails, and the kangaroos are out of the top paddock. 

Basement Complete

I really should wait for the spring floods before I set the basement to rights again, but I can't take the chaos. 

Evidently I rearrange the basement once a decade. See here for how little I had in my basement in 2013.

In 2013, Gary's ping-pong table took the prime spot in the center of the basement. Now that it has lay fallow for ten years I have claimed the excellent light and put my painting table there.

On a whim I took a bite of Gary's drum area and made a shelf for the Christmas reindeer. 

I appropriated Gary's drumming TV for this little exercise nook, where I fantasize Gary and I will exercise together.

Essentially, the basement was Gary-centric and it is now Ellen-centric.

Gary seemed resigned. The only complaint he had was that he had wanted to re-purpose the new Reindeer Central area as a "trash corner," and I pointed out all there were many other well-illuminated corners that could collect trash. 

My guess is that the next time I go into the basement the reindeer will have been repositioned, and that's fine. I took up a lot of his territory, he can get some back. 

Rewriting the Novel: Soft Heart

Right now I am tweaking the phrasing and ignoring the elephant: the climax of the book is a mess. The tension doesn't build, it just ping pongs. Problem, solution, another problem, another solution. 

I know how to fix it, too, but I don’t want to. I am tired of torturing this imaginary woman. So I’ll spend some more time on the fun stuff like word choice, until there’s nothing left to do but give her an unsolvable puzzle. 

I guess it’s like throwing a party: if the guests are having fun that’s because the hostess isn’t, she’s getting drinks and storing coats. I’ll need to suffer so the readers can have fun. 

The Beauty of Forgetting

A few days ago I tried to make homemade pork egg foo young.

I got all the elements, except for the sake for the gravy. “Like I would have sake,” I scoffed. “But I know I have mirin.” And then while hunting for the mirin at the top of the liquor shelf, what was there? Huge bottle of sake. 

It made me happy to have forgotten it. So happy that I started to look forward to senility. I’ve already had the pleasure of finding the perfect Christmas decorations forgotten in the basement. Perhaps old age is just like that, all the time. I can easily see forgetting that I can play the guitar and then picking it up ‘for the first time’ very easily.

I made the gravy first, and it was a dream. Tasty, full of sake, thickened perfectly. And then of course I found I had forgotten the most important thing about Chinese restaurant food, it is a fool’s game to try to imitate Chinese restaurant food.

My recipe called for me to put 2T peanut oil in my wok and sautee and I would be fine. No. After a very disappointing outcome I researched what I had done wrong, and what I should have done was to fling the egg batter into my industrial deep-fat fryer. Because THAT is how you make egg foo young.

The gravy saved it, though. Ordering Chinese for lunch anyway so I can get the yen for egg foo young out of my head.

Rewriting the Novel: Editors

I am now friends with someone who has almost had a book published. I was surprised to learn some of my assumptions about publishing were very wrong.

The editor doesn't necessarily edit. I don’t know when they changed this, but her agent does the editing. I can see the agent suggesting improvements so it would be met with kindness when it gets to the publishing house, but if the agent is editing, what do the editors do?

Evidently the editors have meetings and determine how marketable your book is, and if it is not, it is killed in committee.

So that sounds awful. I would rather have dozens of cold rejection letters than to get an agent, get his approval, find a publisher, and then get the rejection there. 

I asked if she’s going to try again and she’s currently too busy. I don’t know if I would. 

New Hair

Well, after the holiday break I transitioned from the short sculpted Chimera ...

... to the lighter, longer, wavy-er, wackier Senior.

The color difference is not noticeable on Zoom, and oddly, everyone noticed I was wearing a new headband.

I don't know what it is about the headband that gives me comfort. For some reason I am compelled to wear a headband during a wig's introduction. It settles things down for the first week and makes everything smaller, and I guess ... draws attention away from the wig?

After I evolve past the Headband phase I'm fluffing up my old wig as big as it gets. Before Christmas came, Chimera, the OG wig, was fluffed up by at least 50% and those Liza Minnelli sideburns were behind my ears,  and the rest of it was brushed almost horizontally toward my temples. No headband could contain Chimera! Then I put on Senior  and said, we gotta clamp down this nonsense, and grabbed a headband.

Ironically Senior, the hair of my Senior year of high school, ages me a bit, but that will be resolved by the next wig in the rotation, Bob. It's a wavy chin-length bob, way too young for me, especially with a headband.

Rewriting the Novel: Reading Aloud

I thought the book was in pretty good shape, then I took the step to read it out loud to check the flow.

My god, it's incomorehensible.

I taped myself reading it with the plan that if I heard something wrong I would interrupt myself, say the word "wrong," comment, then bookend my comment with another "wrong" -- that way I could have Word transcribe the recording, I could search for the word "wrong," and make the edits. 

I thought I'd say "wrong" once a page. Nope. Every single sentence got a "wrong." Some got "Wrong wrong wrong." Some got "Jesus God what is wrong with you?"

And sometimes it started out bad and was interrupted by breaking news, as it was last week. Here is a raw transcription,  with no punctuation, and spelling done by computer automation unfamiliar with soccer.

"And sometimes it wasn't his fault he was a fool people leave when it isn't their fault all the time like when they die it still hurts WRONG that whole sentence is peculiar and obviously I'm not wanting to deal with the whole abandonment business Jesus God what is wrong with you get some therapy get into that and what is this ding about oh paylays dead damn hang on a second  I need to text people that paylay is dead that's a shame OK back to the book WRONG."

Rewriting the Novel: Treasure of the Sierra Madre

I was watching The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and I noticed some similaities to the novel I've been working on.

• There is an oil derrick. This similarity doesn't rrouble me. Mine is set in an oil town and has more right to oil derricks than a movie set in the Sierra Madre.
• The oil boss doesn't pay the workers. This similarity dates back to Jerry's original.. It's a scene in the movie and just a phrase in mine, but i can't cut it because it's foreshadowing.
• In the movie the workers are stiffed as above and thus there is a bar fight. My bar fight is entirely unrelated to the stiifage, but still, workers are stiffed and there's a bar fight. The bar fight is in Jerry's original too.
• Someone can allegedly smell treasure. It's just a phrase in the movie, but it's a key plot point in mine. The old prospector mentions a friend who thought he could smell gold. I've got a similar situation with oil.
• Finally, in both there are banditos who feel strongly that they don't need no stinking badges. 

No, that last one's not true. But I am concerned to think that I was too influenced by this movie. I'll have to look back in the archives and see if I wrote the outline after I saw the movie.

Red

I don’t know what’s changed, but for the last month I’ve looked at myself on Zoom calls and my face is absurdly red.

In the photo below the arrows on the right point to significant red blotches blooming in the bright pink field of my face.

The arrow on the left points toward the horrifying Trump-like white circles around my eyes. They said Trump had the white circles because he wore goggles while getting his spray-tans. Not to defend Trump, but I have the same weird circles, and I am not being deliberately dusted with this fuschia shade.

I thought it was my Zoom settings, or the light, but now I think it might be the statin medication. So, it's a healthy glow, I guess.

Retrospective

In years past I have eaten up every year-end retrospective.

This year I made myself add the Time Year in Review to the shopping list, and I set the DVR to the CNN Best and Worst. (Let slip a tear for the TiVo, which woukd have recordrd every other retrospective for me without asking.)

I'm not surprised to see the war in Ukraine usurped Covid and the Supreme Court decision on abortion rights  as the story of the year. Of course, abortion rights synced perfectly with my fertility  - Roe v Wade happened  the year I started menstruating and have evidently stopped a few years into my menopause. I feel lucky to have had those rights while they were there. It almost seems a waste to have not used them at all. 

Other significant things have faded into the background. Thee was one day I asked, "Mass shooting? Which mass shooting are you talking about? The one yesterday or the day before?"

And of course Covid is just something we all take in stride, I guess, unless you live in China and are utterly unprotected.

I guess that explains why I'm not looking forward to the retrospectives this year. Too much bad news. 

In Which My Actions Have Consequences

Dave's death made a convenient dividing line in my life.

On one side I was The Responsible One, but now that we are A.D.: After Dave, I am free to eat, spend, and drink irresponsibly.And you know what else? I don't have to improve my mind.

I haven't spent a moment learning Russian on DuoLingo since I went to Albuquerque. Horrors.

 There have been consequences. Evidently my behavior is having negative effects. DuoLingo felt I needed an intervention and sent me this email. 

Duolingo needs to get some perspective.

 

Secondhand Wig Embarrassment

There have been a number of times I have had embarrassing wig conversations. People tell me my hair looks good, and I say, "Thanks, it's a wig!" and there the conversation stops. For a while I couldn't understand why. They seemed embarrassed for some reason. Are wigs embarrassing to non-wig wearers? Did they feel conned or something? The expressions on their faces were just sheer horror. 

Finally I have worked it out. I think they were suffering secondhand presumed embarrassment. They were embarrassed on my behalf because they thought I was embarrassed. Or perhaps they felt I should have been embarrassed. 

There are a lot of expectations that I should be embarrassed. I'm expected to wear transitional wigs, for example, increasingly longer wigs to give the illusion my hair is growing, because otherwise people would have my unashamed wigginess thrown in their faces. God forbid I switch it up and change hair colors for a day.

It's just odd. I'm trapped in this silly deception so I don't generate secondhand embarrassment. Perhaps the next time it comes up I should just describe myself as a proud wig wearer? I don't know. I'll try it next time it comes up. 

Chemo Snack

I was prowling around the house looking for a salty snack, when I remembered Dad’s favorite.

Saltines with pats of salted butter. I particularly remember him eating these when he had chemo. This is how he would eat them, too: one serving eqaulled one small plateful. 

I was horrified by it when I was a teenager, because really it is gross. You’re essentially eating a quarter of a stick of butter with some decorative crackers for propriety.

Was it good? Not particularly, but I think that’s because saltines today have about half the salt they had back in the day.

I particularly noticed that when I tried my favorite childhood snack: chocolate ice cream with saltines crunched up on top. It was also not that great. On the other hand, chocolate ice cream mixed with butter crackers, like a Ritz or Town House? That tastes like ice cream in a butter pie crust.

Dad's chemo snack of saltines with butter was remarkable mainly because it was the only time I ever saw him eat a snack. If Dad wanted a treat he reached for vodka. 

When I look at drunks I wonder what kind of loss they have suffered that made them drink. I wonder if others look at fat people like that. I ask because I just poured half-and-half on my breakfast cereal. 

The Beleaguered Minnie Ornament

Gary’s Hallmark Minnie ornament arrived with her right arm broken off like the Venus De Milo.

I glued it back on. Easy. Fixed. Then I dropped her on the way to the tree. Here she is on the right.

Her replacement is on the left, recuperating after a procedure to re-affix her left arm that was also broken in transit. These Minnies don’t travel well.

Gary asked that we smash up both and make a Hindu Minnie multi-armed goddess, but that was beyond me. Instead I just glued Broken Minnie’s head back on backwards with her nose tucked between the presents. 

(“Killlllll meeeeee,” Frankenminnie moans.)

Rewriting the Novel: Forensic Literary Criticism Has Been Done

I noticed that in what I am now calling "Dave's draft," things are textbook dull  -- until chapter 3 when the hero shows up. It's buried in Chapter 3 here, but my copy starts with it. 

I started to notice that other things in Dave's draft were regressing, and I compared the two. Based on the handwritten edits, it's pretty clear that Dave's is actually draft number one.

To confirm that, I thumbed to the end. The last seven chapters were just plotted out in blurbs, fleshed out in mine.

Thankfully, some of those planned chapters from Dave's copy died on the vine, especially this one:

"Dude and Ida Mae get married. Joe and his friends give him a bachelor party that results in them taking over a Negro roadhouse outside of Five Trees, locking the doors, and keeping the patrons inside for 36 hours during the party."

Glad I didn't have to read that. Overall, I say thank God that this new copy's the first draft, not the last. The one I worked from is the last, and even at that still pretty unfinished.

I am so relieved I didn't turn up something polished. Would have been grim to find I'd rewritten the Great American Novel.

Terrifying Drive

I was behind the steering wheel, in the dark, way too early in the morning, with Gary, and it was rainy, and there was road construction, and good god -- it was horrifying.

Here are the events:

1. Gary disagreed with me, Siri, and the Mini GPS on what the route should be. 
2. His suggested route took us on a road closed for construction, where I had to make a u-turn, accompanied by Gary's screaming.
3. I chose a better route, a safer route with no construction, and he insisted that we now blindly obey Siri, who ...  
4. ... took us into construction, which would have been fine in the daylight, but I veered into the actual construction area and had to swerve back on the rainy highway.
5. I actually went the wrong way on a major road, and during the resulting screaming I redirected into the wrong way lane on an entirely different road.
6. Gary demanded he drive instead, great, awesome, thank you, and then after the passenger/driver swap neither of us could get the car started again. 
7. We swapped again and when I was back in the driver's seat we found the car won't start with the door open. He insisted I drive home, since I was in the driver's seat already.

It was awful. Gary kept trying to make jokes about it after, and I was having none of that. So, in the future there will be no drives through construction zones with Gary at night when it is raining. And thus my dotage begins.

Feral

Here's something I recently learned.  

Let us say you have been making friends with a semi-feral cat.

You read that cats will show their trust by sniffing your face.  

If you lean in close to a semi-feral cat and gently whisper "I like you best" then the cat will look lovingly in your eyes and then suddenly claw the wig off your head, after which your wig will fly several feet to the side, but if you are quick you can grab it before another cat runs off with it. 

TV - Hooked Again

When we had cable the TV was on all day, usually on some muted news station. Then in the evenings something was usually being taped for later. 

Now that we have the fiber streaming service, the TV is almost never on, unless there is breaking news like election coverage or a sports game. 

Why? Because the hunt is gone. You never get the thrill of stumbling across a repeat of your favorite episode of your favorite show. The excitement of,  "Oh, look, American Experience has that new documentary I heard about." 

Now? None of that. I don't hear the radio so NPR doesn't give me new beasts to hunt, and I don't run up and down the channels so there are no surfing safari finds. There are entire days when the TV is not on at all. And all I record is Colbert, SNL, and Rachel Maddow, I suppose because they're all topical enough that I might not get what's going on if I wait to watch it later.

However, today it rained, and I remembered that Christmas it rained for a month, and I stayed in and watched a marathon of The Curse of Oak Island. I got hooked on that damn show. Even still, after years of arguing with the narrator. (Him: "Have the brothers found gold in the treasure shaft?" Me: "NO. They have found trash. Give up; it's a sinkhole.")

Well, now of course that sent me off to record the new season and I find I have missed four episodes.

I thought, "That's four hours in real time; I don't know if I can do my 20 minute fast-forward digest version on this new TV setup."

And then I swear to you I thought, "But I have to watch them, they might have found something." 

And then I laughed and laughed.

 

Rewriting the Novel: Chapters 1 and 2

Well, this this latest version of Jerry's novel launches by letting you know all about all the characters, and frankly I can't tell who the main character is anymore. And really, I don't know which is better: getting a fifty-page long textbook on oil derricks in chapter six or thirty-five pages at the start. 

What I like best is that he has a technical editor now, someone who is an expert in the oil drilling trade, who is a little disgusted at times with Jerry's lack of knowledge.

I have to assume the editor who says "No!" is Jerry's father Ellis, a.k.a. "Grandpa Son" -- he was a roughneck. Of course, I'm imagining that because I've grown bored by imagining a relationship with Jerry through this book, and now I want to rope in my absent grandfather.

I imagine Grandpa Son would be proud that I already knew how to pronounce the abbreviation for blowout preventer. ("Bop.")

... but probably sad to hear I learned it from Wikipedia.

I Swear This is the Last Wig Post

I found a wig that looks pretty much like the hair I had in my senior photo. 

(Another way to view things is to say "In my senior photo I look like I am wearing a wig." I choose not to see things that way.)

This is me in the wig. I call it Senior.

Then I found I have the same style of shirt.

I tried to recreate the pose and the expression, but I don't think it's possible for me to still look that innocent.

Roof

I was appalled at the quote I got for a new roof, so I delayed it until I saw the water stain on the ceiling of the master bedroom. I called them right away.

The next step was to pick a shingle color. The receptionist gave me an address that matched my request for “the darkest grey that wasn’t black.” I drove there, not black enough, drove back, and on my porch there was a sample of the black shingles that had not been there when I left. 

Spooky, like they were reading my mind or low-jacking my car. 

Epilogue: Since then they quickly slapped up the roof, looks good, impressive, only there’s one spot that isn’t done. They came out to inspect it and since then, silence. I suspect I have fallen off their tight schedule, or else they know that our street is being torn up and there's no place to park.

Rewriting the Novel: That New Draft, and Again, May I Say, FFS

One of the reasons I had trouble closing my suitcase on the way back from Albuquerque was because I was carrying Fave's ashes and Jerry's evidently-finished novel. If you recall, a few pounds of Dave had to stay behind, because I wasn't going to trust Jerry's novel to UPS.

But then, when I got to the airport I realized there was no way I could get the extra weight of Dave and Jerry into the overhead bin. I risked a Hemingway novel railway situation and checked the bag. 

Based on the first 25 pages, I shouldn't have made any Hemingway comparisons.

Well, to be fair, the first sentence is good:

"Duke Pritchard did not like the sound the rotary table was making. He did not like it at all."

That is followed by three and a half pages describing the specific actions Duke takes to correct the problem. From "He kicked in the clutch on the rig's drawworks and reached up in back of him with his left arm until his hand found the engine throttle" to eventually "Dude maneuvered the drawworks brake up and down until he eased the bit back on bottom."

I would have written, "Duke fiddled with the drawworks and corrected the problem." 

Speaking of Hemingway, I thought my writing was tight, but perhaps it's just tight in comparison. I ran my third draft through the Hemingway App and evidently mine is bloated as well. Also, I use the word "just" every other sentence. (See above.)

This Year's Christmas Ornament

Usually I have bought a Christmas ornament by this time. 

I was debating with Gary what might make a good ornament symbolizing the the year.

I don't know if they make tiny little wig ornaments, bur that didn't happen to "us."

On review, all that happened was that we sold Mom’s house. (I mean, of course Dave died. A little vial with Dave's ashes was the first thing I thought of, but that's just a little too morbid, even for me.)

So, no vial of Dave. Focusing on Mom's house.

Gary, on the other hand, is so enchanted with Dave's Apple watch that he's dedicating his ornament the Minnie Mouse watch face.  I can see the appeal. She's the only female who giggles at him.

Death Food

When I was at Dave's it was just too easy to Grubhub all the food. Sure, it was ridiculously expensive (like fifty bucks for Taco Bell), but with the terminal agitation and the expired food from Shipt, it was easier.  

It was also easier when I came back. I had enough stuff to do with lawyers and catching up on work that I didn't want to spend any time making butter chicken from scratch. 

After two weeks back I realized that there are frozen pre-made meals at the grocery, and that would be almost as convenient as Grubhub. It isn''t as tasty, but it's handy.

It's also pretty fattening, even though I really did make an effort to skip the ones with starch. This plus Thanksgiving and Christmas - I'm pretty sure I'll have put back all my Covid weight by the new year.

Sometime I wish I were a little bit of an alcoholic. I doubt I'd be fat if I didn't soothe with food. I could never drink all the calories in a Thanksgiving dinner. Plus, I'd have more friends. My god, the friends Dave had. They're still calling his phone to leave messages even though they know he's dead (which is disconcerting).

But I suppose a dozen-donut-hangover is better than an booze hangover. 

Rookie / Cookies

Rookie. Every synthetic wig wearer does this once: opens a hot oven and scorches the nylon that her wig is made of. I went a whole two months without doing it. Technically I could take that wig to a stylist and have her clip out the scorched hairs then use mild heat to re-route the ones that remain, but it seems to me that with supplies and practice I could acquire that skill. In the meantime I just bought the same wig again, and because the floodgates were opened I bought a different style. Just to see how it looked on me. 

I was on the fence but Gary surprised me by being very positive about Shirley. 

Cookie.

Speaking of frying ones wig, it was a dutch baby in a 425 degree oven that got Chimera 1.0.  Even 350 degrees will cook any wig, so I have slapped a cautionary post-it note over the pre-heat button in preparation for this year's Christmas cookie bake.

Bad Things: Dust and Mysteries Part 1

Per his wishes, I cremated Dave. Part of Dave will join part of Mom and part of Dad in my back garden. (To be specific, I'd say it's 2 cups of Mom, one cup of Dad. I'll make sure that Dave doesn't overwhelm them.)  

After Mom died I followed most of her directions: I amended her last name on the headstone, then I sprinkled some of her cremains on the plot, dug up some of Dad's ashes from her garden, and mixed hers and his for my garden.  So now part of Dave will join the mix.

Only part will stay with the family, because per his wishes, I divvied him into baggies for his AA friends to put in their gardens "to help things grow."

Let me tell you, while it may be practical to distribute ashes among friends, and relatives, and friends you love more than relatives, Dave's friends do not necessarily relish the responsibility of a baggie o'Dave. Maybe they think it's gross, or maybe they think he's out there expecting them to take him to Europe or something. I was surprised how taken aback they were by the suggestion. Eventually I found one sympathetic ear and gave him a dozen baggies of Dave to distribute how he saw fit. Will it happen? Who knows?

Rewriting the Novel: FFS

So I finally found the bookcase that Dave said had the family stuff "on the left."

I was looking for things like the Transfer on Death papers he claimed he filed, or the car title, that would be helpful, but what did I find instead?

Another draft of Jerry's novel. A better draft, at least judging by the first page. 

Does it have the themes of abandonment? Probably not. But seriously, come ON. 

 

Rewriting the Novel: Benchmark

I can't believe it, but before I cam to Albuquerque I knuckled down last month and finished all of the third draft. Almost all. Ten pages shy.

It's changed so much since draft one. It's only five percent shorter, and it flies. It spins out like a kite string. 

Still, I have realized I need another swing through it to make it less judgmental. And another for descriptions, now that I have room. And of course the other remaining seventeen for consistency in dialog and the like. This might actually be done before Christmas.

Good Things: Medical Marijuana

When New Mexico legalized medical marijuana, Dave really leaned in to it. The people at the local Pure Leaf know him well. So then this week he discovered that he might be in pain and not be able to drive to get his pot (or "cannabis," as everyone corrects me). He could send me to buy recreational pot (cannabis) but that is weak compared to what he is used to buying with his medical marijuana card.

However, the hospice people say that given a few weeks they can transfer his rights to me and I will have a caregiver card. Then I can sashay into the establishment and stockpile reefers and the like. This will be interesting if it comes to pass.

Good Things; No Terror on the Ground

Dave has, as you know, a pit bull and a blue heeler.  

I don't know these dogs, they don't know me. There were many scenarios in which I would have to enter the house without Dave and they would, I assume, kill me.

It turned out that didn't happen. Dave was here, so it was cool.

The blue heeler doesn't know I exist. She knows me as "The One Who Doesn't Know About Dog Food Portion Control, Read the Bag, Moron." 

The Put Bull is temperamental. She is often snuggly, but if Dave yelps out in pain she looks right at me and growls. And that makes sense, because in her mind all of this hospice nonsense started right around the time I showed up and she is suspicious.

But Dilaudid has entered the picture, so maybe there will be less yelping.

 

Good Things / Bad Things

Given two choices I try to list the pros and cons and make my decision that way. Gary decides based entirely on the cons. So anytime I make a decision Gary thinks he's helping by telling me all the negatives. So there's lot of "YOU PICKED CHOICE A? BUT WHAT ABOUT --" followed by all the negatives, and if I change my mind it's "YOU PICKED CHOICE B? BUT WHAT ABOUT --" and so on, eternally.

I cut him off this time and insisted we focus on the positives this time. You wouldn't think there were positives, but here is what we came up with.

1. This is not my first hospice. I'll have some idea of how things operate. Mom's hospice was the worst experience of my life, but I know what to expect now.
2. I had half the money from the sale of Mom's house earmarked for David anyway, so I can throw money at any problems. No place for me to sleep at Daves? Order a bed. Hire a home health aide and live in a hotel. Hire an aide anyway. (Though I know from the experience with Mom one month of 24 hour help would eat up all the earmark. But hush, that's negative.)
3. The financial advisor and I agreed to leave the earmarked house fund in an accessible account. That means I don't have to pay any fees or penalties to access it.
4. Forget the earmark funds, I am RICH in frequent flyer miles. A quarter of a million miles piled up during the pandemic from our daily Amazon purchases. I could hop on a plane and fly back to see Gary on a weekend if I had to.
5. I just got Evusheld, and as long as I can avoid any BQ viruses I'll be protected.
6. I am on a lull at work. I won't be dumping work on someone else, and I have a month and a half of sick and vacation time. After that I can go on Family and Medical Leave and chew up the earmark faster.
7. Gary had a migraine all last week that meant I had to shuttle him around two hours each day, but he says he's better.

Medical sites

You know how you'll look at a page in German and Google offers "Translate this page?" I want that for medical journal pages and doctor's notes. I've read a lot of those pages recently, because of my brother's decline. 

At some point, though, sadly, things become crystal clear. Cancerous requires no translation. Malignant ascites; I needed some help with that at first. Still, very clear. Very definitive. 

Brain Soaps Redux

I realized that a month ago I spent time crafting soap into brains and didn't document the results for future generations, all of whom will have 3-d printers built into their iPhones and will not be impressed by soap carving.

The carved soap project began with some Yardley's lavender soap I got as a gift, years ago, that always seemed meant for a higher purpose than being rubbed into my armpits.

Here is that result.

Carving soap is easy. Like all humans I know how to carve soap, but for the molded soap project I had to learn how to melt stable store-bought soap, plus how to fashion a silicone mold from an existing 3.5 inch brain soap and a butter tub. 

Here is that result.

A little lumpy, some pits, but what brain does not have a few pits and holes?

Wigs Again! Will She Ever Shut Up About The Wigs?

Today I learned: sometimes even though you spend hours conditioning and de-tangling a used wig, you will put it on and look like a man.

And then later you realize you had it on backwards and then you turn it around and look like a woman.

So, getting the hang of the wig thing. Got to put the wig on the right way.

Wig Month: the Wig of My Youth

Against all protests I am keeping this wig. There should be protests, because I do look a little like a 60s hippie. Or a country-western singer.

I also look a little bit like I did when I was young. GARY even volunteered that. True, if you cut the volume in half.

So this one is staying, but staying in the closet until it can go to a stylist and be thinned,  maybe next year.