Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Fauci Fight

The news is full of this feisty exchange:

The Wall Street Journal says Fauci should have just answered the question, which I imagine would sound like, “We think 500 people can die per day then we start opening for business.”

Still, Jim Jordan is pressing that these constraints are standing in the way of our liberties. Well, sure. The Declaration of Independence lists the original God-given rights, with life the first on the list. If we started with the pursuit of happiness, liberty, and life we’d have a different country. 

So, yes, shut your mouth, Jim Jordan.

Weekly Paint Progress: 4/15

This week the salt shakers went from this:

... to this:

Bleeehhh.

The town went from this:

... to this:

Cadence

I am almost done with MSNBC. My problem with MSNBC? 

• My problem with MSNBC it the way they have this annoying three-part cadence.
• My problem with MSNBC is the way they repeat everything three times.
• My problem with MSNBC is how they speak as if there’s an audience ready to stand and applaud when they make the same point three times in a row.

I think it’s called Anaphora. It’s most obvious on Morning Joe. The commentators and the pundits do it, and they all do it poorly. We do not have a dream. We do not fight on the beaches. We grow annoyed. We grow annoyed at Mika. We grow annoyed at Joe. We grow annoyed at the daily talking head. 

Rachel Maddow’s already too repetitive  but not to this degree: if she starts this nonsense I’m shunning the entire channel.

Sick Car

We dropped off the Mini at the mechanic because it’s been oddly doggy. Not quite enough pep to get up a hill easily. Not enough pep to go from zero to anything easily. If I’m at a stop sign at the bottom of even a slight hill, then I am doomed unless if I stomp on the gas and roar the tachometer up to 6.

 I am going to transcribe the remarkable conversation I just had with the mechanic at Dobb’s.

”Hello, Mrs. S_____? I’m calling about the Mini? We got one of our mechanics to drive your car, and I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what’s wrong. It’s something wrong with your transmission.”

Gary had suggested that I had just forgotten How To Drive a Car, so I asked, “So there IS something wrong?”

“Ooooohhhhh yeeeessssss.”

Then he recommended that if I had to maybe I could find someone who would rebuild the transmission entirely. That’s already happened; it was still under warranty when Mini rebuilt it the first time.

So, it’s been 13.5 years since the last car hunt (begin the journey here, then skim to here). This hunt might be easier, Gary wants an all-electric car, and we actually could reincarnate the current Mini in electric. Subtract the rebate and it’s only a few thousand more than we paid for the Mini 16 years ago. And, while the Mini I bought in 2005 wasn’t reliable, evidently in 2015 Mini got religion and they are now loyal and true. 

Or, we could get the transmission fixed. That “Oooohhhhhhh yeeeeessss” really scared me, though.

Not News

This is not news.

Why doesn’t this headline say “Son Behaves Like a Human” or something similar? Why has People magazine been shoving this at me all weekend?

Weekly Paint Progress: 4/8

Okay, here’s a new reference photo for the salt shakers:

...and it’s this far:

I don’t have high hopes for this one. I think it will just be fun.

The town went from this:

... to this:

 

Things to Burn on the Barbecue When the Pandemic is Over

When it is all over, I am seriously lighting up the Weber grill and burning these things:

• A paper mask
• A roll of toilet paper
• A symbolic pair of roomy sweatpants 
• An Amazon box

What else goes on the fire?

 

Watch

I know it’s all just material crap, and I should be more enlightened, but if the material crap talks to me I do get attached in all senses of the word. I’ve mourned every Roomba that died on me, I delight in Alexa’s asides, and I do love the many ways the Mickey Mouse app on my Apple Watch giggles and tells me the time.

Behold, the fate of Mickey:

I put my watch back on after a shower. I was fastening the strap on the back of my wrist, it slipped out of my hand, and Mickey took a gainer directly to the wood floor and landed on his face. 

And of course, I’ve already heartlessly exchanged him for a newer model. Old watch too wrecked up to trade in. I still have it, and when I’m emotionally strong enough I’m going to do an autopsy. I’ve already peeked at his guts. It would be interesting if I could use tape to reconstruct his glass and get him back again. He does show his face for a moment on occasion if I poke at it enough.

The watch is dead. Long live the watch.

(Note the Velcro wrap strap designed to ensure no further Mickey suicides.)

Weekly Paint Progress: 4/1

This week we start the salt shaker still life.

So it begins.

I scooted the salt shakers around: the original positions are confusing. I also added some salt to the one in the foreground. 

I told myself I wasn’t going to compare my drawing to the photo, because it has no bearing on my perspective when I am sitting, but the background leg is so wrong I must. And these new canvases don’t allow for hand erasing: I’ll need to get the gum eraser.

I didn’t think I could make myself draw the bosom accurately, but I did.

The town went from this:

... to this:

 

 

An Easy Solution

The container ship stuck in the Suez Canal is the hot story.

I have a simple question. At what point do they just blow it up? I’m sure they can do some kind of controlled explosion that will blow the debris toward either shore, leaving a hole other ships could navigate through in single file. 

Pricey for the Ever Whatever company. I suppose they are waiting to see if the full moon tide lifts it, and then - kaboom?

 

Weekly Paint Progress: 3/25

This week we consider a new still life: the salt shaker still life.

The town went from this:

... to this:

 

Weekly Paint Progress: 3/18

This week the dog went from this:

... to this:

I did a little experimenting and the pitch-black seemed best. Semi-accurate, anyway.

The town went from this:

... to this:

Fish

In February 2006, five months into the beginning of this blog, Catherine, of the blog So That Happened, left the very first comment.

Since then she’s won Emmys and gotten engaged. Coincidence? Perhaps? Well, of course not. 

Here she is breaking down the mayonnaise ratio and bun pillow rating of every fast food fish sandwich, for the greater good. (Also, Mayo Ratio would be a good band name.)

 

Overdue Daffodil

I get through February waiting for the daffodils. There was a series of years when my daffodils arrived on February 28th. They line up next to a bump-out with a southern exposure. For years they greened up mid-February, and I would have the first blooms in the neighborhood. 

This year they stretched out in mid-February, and then God said, suck on this, ye daffodils, and despair. When the snow cleared the stunted frost-bitten leaves remained, paralyzed, and they didn’t budge for two weeks. “What was that?” they said. “It was cold and dark and it happened just when we were leaving the house.” 

But here they are, two weeks late, blemished, but here. God makes plans and daffodils laugh.

Weekly Paint Progress: 3/11

This week the dog bank went from this ...

...to this:

The thinned black has a different shine than the dog black, so the dog looks like a cutout. Just a mess. I am going to try a technique called “oiling in” and that will be it. Or perhaps I’ll break the rules and cover the oil-thinned layer with a flat layer.

The town went from this:

... to this:

I really like it so far. Then again, I liked the dog. I would paint the damn dog again and fill in the background from step one, but I have a new topic for a still life that I think I’ll really enjoy.

Lack of Imagination

In the last few months I have heard “No one could have imagined Americans would try to storm the Capitol.”

Last year it was “No one could have imagined this global pandemic would have come out of nowhere.”

Last decade it was “No one could have imagined Bear Stearns  and the housing market would fail.”

The decade before that it was “No one could have imagined people would fly planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.”

But yet, no. No one even had to imagine storming the Capitol, it was evidently all over Twitter. The Trump administration supposedly “scrapped the pandemic plan and now there’s no plan.” Did they burn stacks of binders? Did they wipe the PCs storing the Plan? 

So here’s my question: after 9/11, didn’t the government get some screenwriters together specifically to imagine some other disasters? What happened to that? 

Aha - sworn to secrecy. Well,  except for this one guy.

 

.

Mormon Murders

I started watching the Netflix show Murder Among the Mormons. I didn’t know what to expect. And then, they said the word “salamander”.

“This is about that salamander document nonsense!” I thought. “Juicy.”

I remember the eighties when the Mormons were rocked by the salamander story. Almost forty years later, I recalled the basics of the story: documents were discovered that gave another account of the way Joseph Smith came in possession of the golden plates with the original text of the Book of Mormon. In this new account, evidently a white salamander points them out, not an angel. I don’t know why the Mormon church was so thrown by this new account when there are two accounts of the original two people in Genesis, but at any rate they were going to lock up the salamander story in the big vault where they keep the golden plates (that no one has ever seen except the Mormon equivalent of the Pope).

So, that was the last I heard of that story, somehow. I did NOT hear the whole story. [SPOILER] Key individuals are murdered in bombings. 

If you know any more, don’t tell me, the friend I was watching it with (via phone) flagged after episode three. Not until she said:

“This is like the DaVinci Code.”

I said: “Only there’s no albino.”

”Well, the salamander was white.”

Rewriting the Novel: the Accoutrements

Some days I write for an hour and crank out three pages, some days after three hours I only have a paragraph. And, it’s not a particularly good paragraph. It seems futile.

Oddly, some days I paint for an hour, and I feel great about myself, all confident, then I step back and it’s a giant bologna peony. Other days I spend an hour on a croquet ball and it’s still wrong.

I like the painting better, somehow. I think it’s the giant easel and the smock: there’s a prop and a costume to make me feel like I know what I am doing even if the result is awful.

I need a writer getup. An Underwood typewriter? A big mug of bourbon? What are a writer’s props and costumes?

Weekly Paint Progress: 3/4

This week the dog went from this:

... to this:

... and now I hate every part of it. The lips, the box, his back, and the blanket especially. And why is he lighter? I didn’t paint any of the dog but his lip. I really need to study how shades and colors influence each other. Of course, it could be that I put it on a different spot to take the photo, thus different lighting.

The town went from this:

... to this:

...and I can accept that.

March 4th

A dad joke from my Dad: “What is the army’s favorite day? March 4th.”

Replace “army” with “militia”, and it still applies. Supposedly the Trump cult will be marching on Washington again, on March 4th, the day of the original inauguration, from back when people had to wait months to travel after the election in early November. 

Domestic terrorism, normalized. What else could we expect? We have Lies, normalized. Tax fraud, normalized. 

I certainly hope the National Guard marches forth and foils the supposed plot to bomb the Capitol on the fourth. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/25

This week the dog went from this:

... to this: 

I wanted to compare it with the earlier dog.

I like the new one better.

I am going back to the guided books. I noticed I do have a book entirely on Flowers. I seem to have painted the section on Peonies. Bunch of peonies in a white pitcher. Did not stick.

The next thing is square, so it will need to be small, as I have no large square canvases.

I am this far:

German Schmaltz

My brother’s surgical scar from this past summer still has not healed, and interestingly, the wound specialist blames Dave’s fat. It’s fighting to get out and is tearing apart where they stitched up his muscles. 

“Wait,” I said, “your muscles are below the fat. It’s muscles, fat, skin.” I thought back to every raw chicken I’ve met.

”Not with Germans. There was a House episode with about it. Germans have fat, muscle, skin.”

I’ve looked at House transcripts and I can’t find this. Also, we aren’t German. Also, Gary’s drum-tight German belly backs this up. Also, I want to buy a raw German chicken now.

I was so taken in by his theory that I looked things up and we are both right.

So now some of his visceral fat is going to be scooped out, evidently, and a new wound made, but now I’m wondering if he will have some kind of pit and if the extra skin could just be lapped over in a double-breasted fashion to keep all the blood and fat securely inside.

Why don’t I see visceral fat in poultry, though? I suppose it’s all scraped out with the hearts and livers, but then where does it go?

It does explain why I can lose ten pounds and look exactly the same, though. 

Birds

We’ve had an epic snow here in the Midwest, the kind of snow that makes the raccoons stay in torpor, so the squirrels and birds have been eating food that doesn’t smell of raccoon paws. It’s very popular.

We’ve discovered two interesting things about birds. 

First, even though we keep a heater in the ground-level bird-bath in winter, our birds won’t use it to bathe when it’s below freezing. Instead, they bathe in the snow and sometimes leave lovely little wing patterns. 

Second, they are as cute af when they drink from said heated bird-bath. They:

1. Consider drinking
2. Poke their beaks in the water 
3. Come up with a beakful, tip their heads back and gulp, and this kills me:
4. Smack their lips. Well, beaks. Clack clack clack.
5. Start over again.

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/18

This week the peonies went from this:

... and then they took a really surprising turn and went to this:

... when they were originally this:

Dark, thick peonies. No more peonies ever. What next? Maybe a giant croquet ball? A cylinder? A box?

The dog went from this:

... to this, and it’s perplexing. So dark.

Rewriting the Novel: Writing a Treatment

A friend who writes knows I am working on the novel, and offered a peer critique, so I am first presenting her with a ... a précis? A summary? It would be a treatment if it were fifty pages long, but it is only five. 

And wow, if you want to highlight how puerile your novel is,  whittle it down to five pages.

On the other hand, it has solved my problem with the last third, which is the whitest part of the whiteboard, where the outline just says “things get worse then better.” ”Seems that if you push your imagination past “then something happens” into a paragraph then it starts to fall into place.

The summary made evident that this book is blatant therapy. I used some form of the word “abandon” on every page. I’ll have to fight my instincts and delve. Ugh.

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/11

This week the peonies went from this:

... to this, which I hate. No more peonies ever after I lighten things up on the left. And maybe knock down the intensity. It looks like a couch. I like the top right corner and that is it.

Also, as I was painting, my big easel decided to slowly swoon backward to the floor. I caught it as if we were dancing the tango and it went in to a low dip. I pulled her back up and re-tightened some screws.

The dog went from this:

... to this:

Add ellipses to peonies on the list of things I can’t paint. I like the scribble glassware but that’s still not the right shape.

Happily, I think that one will be done sooner than the eternal peonies.

Extra Bonus Impeachment

President Trump is being tried in the Senate today. Of, course, he won’t be convicted. For every seditious thing he said, he said the opposite, because that’s what he does. And his lawyers will be justified in saying the entire Senate should recuse themselves because they are biased, having been in fear for their lives because of what he said. The victims are his jury.

Instead, their argument is going to be “He’s not president anymore: you can’t impeach him.” So, then have the Capitol police wrestle him to the ground? Arrest him as a citizen for the same thing? 

As long as no one riots again this won’t be a story. I don’t want a story. I do want a ring of National Guardsmen around the capitol, though.

That’s All They Needed to Say

I swear, last week I was watching the debate over Marjorie Scott Greene staying in her special House committees, and I keep hoping just one Congressperson would throw the prepared notes in the air and shout:

JEWISH? SPACE? LASERS?

... and stomp off. 

Why was there a debate? Why wasn’t she evicted entirely, immediately? If there were ever a need for a recall election this would be it.

Weekly Paint Progress: 2/5

This week the peonies went from this:

... to this:

Just details on the right. Really subtle. And I noticed I skipped entire flowers, so they had to be whited in.

The dog bank went from this:

.. to this:

I was really surprised at how “off” my first sketch was.

Virus Mental State

I’m perplexed by these virus mutations. I heard an explanation that we are getting more mutations because the virus has ‘realized’ that to survive it needs to stop killing its hosts. It needs to be more like the common cold: more transmission, less death. 

Now, I understand natural selection: the moth that blends in with the sooty deposits in Victorian London doesn’t get eaten and then there are more and more of those moths.

I suppose my problem is that pundit/scientists are suggesting that the viruses got together in a staff meeting and said, “It appears that our London branch is showing a high success rate. London, what’s your secret?” Then the London virus says “I’ve decided to adopt a ‘commuter’ strategy: I use the host for transportation. It’s not as satisfying as the hospitalization strategy but I think it’s better for the brand long-term.”

Viruses are scary enough without giving them rational thought and free will. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 1/28

This week the peonies went from this:

... to this:

Now it looks like there’s a monster jaw. That trifurcated petal at the bottom might have to change.

The dog bank went from this:

... to this:

 

Nuisances

Evidently, my home landline (shush, I need a landline) is so busy with robocalls that my  provider suggests that instead of blocking bad calls, they could just block everything and let me flag the people I want to get through. I don’t know if I like this idea. Paying for a phone line that advertises that its best feature is that it doesn’t allow phone calls. 

Like the phone line, my email is also cluttered with nuisance mail. There was a recent spate of mail encouraging me to join class-action suits. If I had ever used this antacid or that web service I could make some bank. (“Bank” being a maximum of sixteen dollars so far.)

Miss Manners claims that answering machines and spam blockers are like butlers, in that they keep the rabble out. Seems that I am so beset by rabble that my butler is not even putting any calling cards on a silver tray by my front door. 

Missouri Dead Last

Doesn’t matter that I’m not in the few few waves of vaccines: our state doesn’t have any vaccines at all.

Here’s yesterday’s local newspaper headline:

The online version doesn’t use the word “DEAD”.

I’m glad to know that other people winced at that headline. I mean, it’s true, but do I want to wake up to it?

New Press Secretary

Dear New Red-Headed White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki,

I have scanned your press briefing for Inauguration Day, and I am quite that you missed an opportunity.

But it isn’t too late. I will love you forever if you say, “That was the smallest crowd to witness an inauguration, period.“ Think about it, Ms Psaki.

And while I’m at it:

Dear Rachel Maddow,

I already love you forever, but I will love your forever and an eon if you start your next show with this:

“We wrote an entire show, and then, at 4 p.m. ... we did not have to tear it up and start again, because there was no breaking news at 4 p.m., and on top of that it was not a “crazy news day.” It was actually pretty boring. I’m going to tell you now about something boring that happened in the Grover Cleveland administration, and then after twenty minutes I will tie it in with something boring that happened today.”

Think about it, Ms Maddow.

Weekly Paint Progress: 1/21

The big peony went from this:

... to this:

I’ve decided to stop glazing by the book for a while. I need some positive reinforcement, so I’m going to use my cardboard box to combine some things I’ve painted before: the croquet ball, the dog bank, and the small mason jar.

And this time I’m not starting with a white canvas, I’m starting with a neutral color so I won’t be confused by the white of the canvas and white paint.

I am this far!

Thank God It’s Over

I am old - how old? So old that I’ve taken a White House tour.

To further emphasize my oldness, I was there during the bicentennial in 1976. I remember touring the White House, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, some of the Smithsonian. The outside photos would suggest I toured the Capitol, though I have no recall.

What I remember best about my visit 44 years ago was how very boring it was.

Remember? Boring?

Remember four years ago? The grumpy scowl on Michelle Obama’s face, and the fading smile on Melania’s face? Remember George W’s pithy review of Trump’s speech? And, to be balanced, remember how very Jackie O Melania looked in that blue outfit? That was hot. Very TV friendly.

I pray that Biden/Harris Make Americans Bored Again.

Review: 63 Up

I have now the latest installment of the Up series, 63 Up.

(If you don’t know what 63 Up is, it’s a documentary that has followed a group of 14 British children every seven years to test the saying, “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man.” It’s a remarkable capsule of society. Find it, watch it, but good God don’t binge it.  It’s meant to be seen every seven years , so it’s very repetitive. Mom and I loved it.)

So, now that director Michael Apted is dead, will the latest episode be the last episode? Or should the Up series go on without him? Should there one day be 105 Up, with everyone dead except for Tony? Instead of Neal there would be, say, a group of Neil’s friends at a table giving a synopsis of what he died from? (Neil is not dead.)

I did not sing “Waltzing Matilda” in Latin, as these seven year olds do. I sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”  As for, ”Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man,” I’m nothing like I was at seven. I was quiet and shy, and now I am an aged Attention Whore. Then again, I seem to remember getting a lot of attention at seven for being so painfully shy. Perhaps it was all a scheme to get adults to talk a lot in an effort to pry information out of me.

I have decided I do want them to continue the series until everyone is dead, and give the last one standing a prize, like a tonteen. (It will be Tony.)

Life of a Mouse

Well, the mystery chipmunk/rat/wee squirrel has been identified, and it is most assuredly a mouse.

 

Clapping

This morning I suddenly heard someone clapping right outside my window. ClapClapClapClapClapClap! 

I immediately pulled the blinds to see WHO the HELL have the nerve to clamber up in my landscaping and mock me with applause right outside my window, and why. 

No one. No one was there. No flutter of shrubs to show they’d run off. No one could have run off, it was ClapClapClapClapClapClapBlinds!

All I can think is that I encountered one of the clapping birds mentioned in this article.

My money’s on the short-eared owl: they fly in the daytime, they live in Missouri, and it was in the morning. 

Gary heard some raccoon sex last night, perhaps the owl is saying “thank you for breeding the baby raccoon snacks.” 

I tell you, it was really strange.

Weekly Paint Progress: 1/14

This week the big peony went from this:

... to this:

There’s a part I like. Can you guess?
I plan to paint over that part I hate and start that over.

The small peony went from this:

... to complete failure. I give up. Pulling the plug.

It’s just like when you say a word too many times and it stops making sense. It was supposed to look like this:

Of course I realize not that while this was a painting in the glazing book, it wasn’t a step-by-step example. I am going to gesso over this one and reclaim the canvas.