Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Radio and Rain

Last Friday afternoon I had an errand to run. I checked the weather report and rain was not expected, no doubt because it wasn't the weekend yet. During the ten-minute drive, I thought I heard on the radio that bad weather might be moving in, but I dismissed it because I only half-listen to the radio.

When I first got in the car the sky was blue, then ten minutes later when I got out the sky was so black the streetlights were on. This happened with the Great Flood in '93: thunderstorms would pop up out of a literally clear and literally blue sky.

So, counting the police on Bennington and the thunderstorm, this is twice in a row that the radio has tried to alert me and I have dismissed it. I think I started ignoring the radio when they began playing the hockey team's favorite song 24 hours a day, and who could blame me?

Radio

Thursday morning I heard on the radio, "blah blah something parking lot blah Bennington blah officer shooting."

"What was that?" I thought, "I drive on Bennington on the way to work." I reached for the device that lets me rewind the radio but I couldn't find it because it DOESN'T EXIST even though there's one for the TV and the CD player. (Bogus.)

When I turned on to Bennigton later that morning I thought, "I wonder if I can figure out where the shooting took place. Slim chance of that, though, Bennington's a long road, and for all I know they were talking about Jordan Bennington, the Blues goalie, and ... hey... check out all these police cars outside that parking lot."

And truly, there were dozens of police cars, all lights flashing by the parking lot entrance, and there was even police tape across the parking lot entrance. It was a show of force, or perhaps a celebration, considering the the police won this one.

Rain

It is officially summer, and the end of a very wet spring. In my area it rained every weekend in spring, with one evidently forgettable exception. The garden is lush, but so are the weeds, and I can't get out to pull them because of the rain.

I sound pouty to you, don't I? No. I'm quite happy to not pull the weeds.

Other people get dismayed by rain. I love it. Rain has always been on my side.

Rain meant I didn't have to go out on the playground at recess and waste good book-reading time.

Rain means I don't have waste $70 a month watering the lawn to maintain Gary's status as a suburban Lawn Master.

And today, I can spend the morning inside with tea instead of outside with the weeds.

No One Cares What I Had for Dinner Before the Opera

It feels like it's been years since I had a nice dinner out. "Nice" defined as not a chain, but instead inventive, devoted to modern-day food -- which frankly can be an expensive risk. So, with apologies to my husband who treated me to a nice steak dinner at a chain the night before, I really enjoyed my meal before the opera at Big Sky Cafe.

But, like the opera, I enjoyed one half more than the other.

I elected to have two "small plates," and they were both entrees and I don't care. This was not like the day I got out of the hospital on steroids and I went to Uncle Bill's Pancake House and ordered two entire platter entrees for myself. (The waitress even objected and I did it anyway, and I ate it all.)

Before the opera, I got scallops, which were perfect. Little bites of melty sea-butter.

In addition to the safe scallops, I odered one daring thing: Pork Cheeks. I keep referring to them in my mind as Pig Jowls, but the menu said Pork Cheeks.

I was expecting something fatty, like Pork Belly, or something I couldn't even imagine (Pig Face? Pig skin Bacon ? Snoots?), but it ended up being something that resembled Beef Pot Roast so much in taste and texture that I had to ask the waitress if I got the right order.

Friend Anne had a very melty crabcake and, I believe, wasted her second gamble on field greens.

Now that I've given my opinion, I'm safe from influence and I can look up reviews of Big Sky Cafe. It would be astonishing if anyone disagrees with me.

Summer Plans

I am writing these things down. Supposedly, writing things down helps you hold yourself accountable.

I am determined to do these things this summer:

Visit the Tiger Sanctuary.

Watch a movie of the stage production of Kinky Boots (already have the tickets). By a coincidence, I'll be watching the filmed version of the London Adelphi performance while the same thing is showing at the municipal opera. This might end up being a good way to see shows that are at the Muny theater, but avoid the heat and the DAMN GNATS.

Visit the new Arch museum. This has been on the list for a year. I was very concerned that the crowd under the arch for the Stanley Cup rally might have tried to stand on the grass-covered roof of the museum and collapse it.

Leave the house on the weekends if it is under 83 degrees.

Garden in the evenings after the DAMN GNATS all die later this month.

See Samantha Fish at the Atomic Cowboy with Friend 2. I need  another concert for the list. The Kathleen Madigan concert isn't until November. And, I know, Barenaked Ladies are in town, but they're only opening for Hootie and the Blowfish, and decent seats cost over a hundred dollars, and can I justify $200 to watch my band play for an hour?

Encourage Gary to get the toilet and the driveway installed and the new basement crack fixed. This is out of my control, of course, and I know any amount of encouragement will backfire on me. Yeah, strike that off the list.

Participate in life in general instead of just waiting it out.

Gnats

Last week at work I overheard someone say, “Oh they were awful. I couldn’t get away from them.”

I whirled around. “Gnats!” I said. “You’re talking about gnats.”

”Yes! What is it with the gnats this year?”

”It’s the flood,” I answered, because I had already Googled “what is it with the gnats this year” and found that every news station along the Mississippi has run a gnat report.

The only thing is, I remember the Great Flood of ‘93, and there were no gnats. Then again, that crested in August, and gnats are a springtime pest. 

I’ve become able to identify gnat bites (a circular bruise surrounding a small bump). I got these bites while Gary and I were working in the in-laws’ garden. He finally had to resort to working with a handkerchief pinned to his face by his glasses. (It was just thin enough for him to see through.)

Damn you, gnats, for making me want hot and dry weather over my lovely soft rain.

Chicago Rivalry

Chicago and Saint Louis have a rivalry. I believe it originated when Chicagoans got tired of being a first-class city with a second-rate baseball team, while having to exist near Saint Louis, a second-rate city (a hard truth) with a first-class baseball team. The injustice makes them bitter.

But, since then, the Cubs won the Worlds Series, and good for them. Given that the St. Louis Cardinals are in the baseball playoffs, like, every other year, the Cubs can win one. I will allow it.

And now, so soon after, just as that feeling of Chicago baseball superiority was beginning to fade then BAM! Like a body slam against the boards, Saint Louis gets another first-class sports team when the Blues hockey team finally wins the Stanley Cup. Will Chicago be magnanimous, or will they start to feel insecure again?

Opera: Fire Shut Up In My Bones

First off, yup, trigger warning:

I loved the second half of this opera. Let's talk about the second half. It was poetry. There was ballet. Everything came together. Of course that was all at the expense of the first half, which needed to be devoted to setup and exposition, not so much with the parallels and the poetry that were to come.

The author was there. I spotted him before the curtain call, adjusting his socks. (Or touching his shins for luck: not sure.)

The music was jazzy and rambling, the singing was amazing. It's just that first half ... well, you know the bad stuff is coming for him as a child, so there's a lot of time in the first half spent worrying about every male relative. (I would apologize to Uncle Paul for doubting him, but I think the source book might implicate him.)

Now, in the second half, there are two ballets straightforward enough that even I "got it," and a very enjoyable part about getting laid. (I had no idea my "honey" had such restorative powers.)

I wonder how the author of the book feels about having his book turned into an opera? In a book, you can document your therapy in detail and it doesn't turn into a facile "Let it go" aria. Anne and I both want to read the book now.

Overall, I liked it ... no, can't "like" an opera based on someone's sexual abuse. I found it moving.

Dentist Post Stanley Cup Win

My neighborhood was in chaos Wednesday night after the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup, finally, or more accurately, for the first time ever. Great vindication for my dad who so wanted to see the Blues win that he bought season tickets for many years.

So my corner of the metro area had fireworks coming from every direction, people just standing around hollering, car horns blaring, etc.

Then, Thursday morning I went to the dentist, and after I walked in I heard the dentist say “LGB,” shorthand for “Let’s Go Blues.”

Odd. Because the Blues have no where else to go, unless the plan is to have them win the Stanley Cup every year. But the dentist is enjoying the afterglow, and deliberately tuned the office radio station to the station that is playing nothing but “Gloria,” the Blues’ theme song.  I heard Gloria every fifteen minutes for an hour and a half.

A Recommendation: Gentleman Jack

The TV show Gentleman Jack is based on Anne Lister’s diaries. Anne was a famous 19th century  traveler and lesbian.   I understand that the actual diaries are heavier on the finance plots and lighter on the lesbian seduction plots. As for the TV show, I don’t care about either plot, which is odd because I love a good plot. It’s only rarely that I like anything character-driven.

That’s why I’m surprised I have fallen in love with this giant lesbian character from Halifax. (That’s Halifax in the UK, not Canada: you should know that before you start watching or the travel implications can get very confusing.)

This woman - or at least the way this woman is portrayed by this actress, Suranne Jones, is constantly described as “fascinating,” and she is.  I can’t take my eyes off of her, specifically the way she gets out of carriages. They need to create a Special Emmy Award for Getting Out of Carriages. I lean forward in my chair every time a carriage stops because boom, the carriage door opens and this giant gangly woman pops out, hits the ground, levitates over a curb or front stair and bursts through a door in one awkward yet graceful motion. It’s like if Abraham Lincoln could fly. It’s like when John Belushi dances in the Blues Brothers movie. It’s impossibly graceful.

Also, I never skip the opening credits because she gets dressed in the opening credits and it’s sexy as hell. I don’t know how actual lesbians can stand it.

A Recommendation: Sloggers

A few months back I was at the local nursery, looking for gardening shoes, because it's discouraging taking ones nice leather shoes into the garden. Back when I thought my leather shoes were made of rubber, this didn't bother me, but since those shoes fell apart I was down to my nice leather shoes or my signed Barenaked Ladies Crocs.

She said, "We don't have any, but I would recommend these" and these are those:

Sloggers. Comfy, plus, you can keep wear them out to lunch if you've hosed them off.

It has be a good shoe if I'm going to enclose my heels and risk blisters - and there have been no blisters.

This Week's Mystery

Last Saturday morning Gary read me the story of Everett Palmer Jr., the man who died in police custody and his body was missing the heart, lungs and throat. Before the end of the day that mystery was solved (evidently that's standard procedure for the police autopsy:  just take out your pertinent parts and send you back home).

However, I have not yet heard the end of this story: months after he went missing, former mouseketeer Dennis Day's body was found in his own home. So many unanswered questions in that story. Who is looking after the partner now? Who loans a car to strangers? How did the police not find the body in the initial search of the home? And with all horrifying stories, how do I keep this from happening to me?

Impending Rally / Riot

Game Six of the Stanley Cup Hockey Final is tonight, at the hockey venue in downtown Saint Louis, and everyone in Saint Louis* wants them to win this particular game because then they'd finally win the championship, and win it at home. They could win it in Game Seven, but then it would be in Boston.

*Everyone. I was in a work meeting Friday, and The Hockey Game should have been on the Agenda. Someone even played Gloria on their cell phone.

The City Powers have been showing the game on the display at the hockey arena, and at the big screen by the ballpark, but now they've taken three square blocks of downtown and devoted them to a watch party.

I would go, because I'd like to hear the noise the city makes when they win or if they lose, but I feel this is fundamentally Not A Good Idea. There's going to be a bad call (say, the referees will blatantly ignore a trip or a hand pass) and there will be thousands of angry, angry people in a small space.

 

 

Rachel Whiteread Exhibit

I won tickets to the Rachel Whiteread exhibit at the art museum. I wasn't familiar with her work, but if I had been in London in late 1993 I would have heard about her. She became famous for filling an abandoned house with concrete, then tearing off the exterior of the house, revealing a cast of the inside.

That's what she does: she fills objects with resin and plaster and such and makes a cast. Generally, the result looks like a smaller version of the original:

... and sometimes the source is a mystery:

I went alone, though I had four tickets. I think my mistake was using her casting of a storage shed to explain what she does. No one was interested after that.

After the exhibit I when to visit my friends: the Degas ballerina statue, the DuBuffet gnome - and, the gnome is gone!

DuBuffet's Geste et Parole is gone, and I can't see where he has gone to.

I flew back to the information desk and the Information Lady denied all knowledge of him - or at least, she said he wasn't in their collection any more. In response I grouched that the museum has too many Max Beckmann paintings. "That's your opinion," was her answer, then she pointed me to a Max Beckmann painting that was not displayed next to the twenty other Max Beckmann paintings in the Max Beckmann Hall of Post-War Nightmares, but is instead in the room with the Van Goghs. She said, "It's a Mac Beckmann, but you wouldn't believe it."

"Because it isn’t ugly?" I grumped. I went to see it, and it is lovely and peaceful, because it's from 1907.

Still sad my little gnome friend is gone. I knew there was a reason I couldn't find him seven years ago. You would think there would be some provenance trail on the Internet, but no. No forwarding address. No, "Sold like a dog to fund even more Max Beckmann paintings."

You know what else I didn't see this time? The Medicine Cabinet piece. Am I going to have to visit the art museum every week just to be sure my friends haven't been sold off?

Opera Attire

Kimono

The Kimono selected for Rigoletto was the colorful one that prompted Gary to say, "You aren't leaving the house in that, are you?" Gary hates everything wonderful, so I felt confident from that point on. I felt even more confident when a random woman said we looked lovely and asked Anne and I where we got our clothing. 

Hair

I had been the random woman myself earlier when I went out of my way at the start of intermission to compliment a young girl's gorgeous Downton Abbey hair. (The girl was sitting the The Germans' seats, by the way, so we'll have to wait for The Germans to cross our paths again.) She liked the compliment so much she gushed about it at the end of intermission to the woman sitting right behind us. (I don't think she saw my face because I leaned behind her ear. So that was also a nice case of Rigoletto-like mistaken identity.)

The woman right behind us had googly eyes pinned into her ornate hairstyle and googly eyes glued to her temple, and I give her a big thumbs-up for her effort as well.

Scarf

I was speaking to the gift-shop attendant about how I cannot wear scarves. I leave the house with the scarf artfully pinned, it looks great, and by the time lunch comes one half of the scarf is choking me and the other half is entirely askew. She then tried to show me a way to arrange a scarf that the scarf artist had shown her, and after a long time, she thought she had it, looked in the mirror and said, "That's not right. What did I do wrong?"

And I said, "The scarf senses I am here. That's how bad I am with scarves."

I hadn't seen Rigoletto yet, or I would have said I was cursed.

Rigoletto With Spoilers

Just stop here if you have tickets to Rigoletto. If you plan to see it later in life I am sure you'll forget this blog post by then.

I went to Wikipedia the afternoon before I went to see Rigoletto and my eyes went to the words "when his daughter is murdered." Damn! Self-spoiled. I shut down Wikipedia immediately.

Then, during the opera, the daughter, Gilda, opened her mouth to sing, and I was horrified, because the singing was so gorgeous, and then she was going to be murdered any minute. So I spent the whole time poised for her murder (and there are many opportunities). I should not have worried, because she is murdered in the penultimate scene, and then we discover she isn't quite dead yet and she almost sings the very last line.

If she hadn't sung so well I would have wanted her dead long before then, because she is infuriatingly stupid. Falls in love with the Duke while he's impersonating a student. "I love him!" She continues being in love with him ("But ah luv him" she warbles incessantly) for the rest of the opera, even though he is proven to be a man whore who thinks women are fickle. (Fickle, as he sings in the aria everyone knows:

... which ends up being a satisfying plot point.)

As for plot: our Duke was hefty and our Gilda was wee, and there is no way Rigoletto could confuse one for the other, even if they were in a sack.

So, it's hard to say if I preferred Rigoletto to Marriage of Figaro. I preferred the singing in Rigoletto, but I didn't want to shake everyone in Marriage of Figaro.

Chernobyl

Has anyone else been watching Chernobyl on HBO?

My god it is bleak.

I had just finished Episode 4 when a friend commented that she had seen it through Episode 2, and, of course, she commented on the bleakness.

I said, "You think Episode 2 is bleak? Episode 2 is a romp. Wait until you get to Episode 4."

In our house we have taken to using Chernobyl as a descriptor, as in, "The Blues are Chernobyling the Bruins" or "The thunderstorm made the elm tree all Chernobyly."

The Germans

I didn't mention it at the time, but when Friend Anne and I went to see the Messiah back in December, we sat behind a German couple. Well, at least the man was German, and I only know that because at one point he opened up his iPad and began reading Wikipedia, bright as day, during the performance.

I nudged Anne and gestured at the man. My face said, "What question is so pressing you cannot wait to look it up until the intermission?" At the intermission I voiced that question.

She said, "I know! I looked. I couldn't tell what he was reading because it was in German."

He didn't speak German, he spoke English with a British accent, which certainly makes sense. (I wonder if Indonesians who learn English from Australians speak English in an Australian accent. I suppose they must. That would be jarring to see and hear.)

Also, I can tell you he was very tall, and I know this because I was sitting behind him. His wife was much shorter, and did not have an accent. I know about their accents because they conversed loudly enough for me to hear over The Messiah.

Annnnnnnd ... Guess who sat next two seats away from Anne and I at the opera. Yesssssss. The loud German/American Tall/Short couple. Luckily, we were in the front row so they were not in front of us, but they were again loud enough that several heads whipped toward them when they piped up during the overture. I don't know if they have season tickets, but if they do, I am sure the people behind them will say something. Or perhaps we will become fast friends and I can say something then.

There's another opera this weekend. We shall see.

Marriage of Figaro: A Review

Hilarious. Hilarious. I laughed more during The Marriage of Figaro than I have during any movie or sitcom in recent memory, and I usually don't like farce. However, I do like physical comedy, and there was quite a bit of that.

The last scene ends with the female lead hopping up and down in delight and that segues into the curtain call: just an explosion of color and music.

It was so good that I want to find some other versions on YouTube and see how they staged everything.

FancyPants Are Out of the Closet

I bought a pair of wide-leg black pants ten years ago, during the Great Eileen Fisher EBay binge. I didn’t notice they were silk chiffon. They have been in my closet since, hanging in the corner, waiting for an Event. 

Recently, I got pants liners. I am sure FancyPants’ gossamer heart skipped a beat when the liners took the hanger next to her.

And now, FancyPants, after being paired with a ivory lace duster and black shirt, has gone to the opening night of Marriage of Figaro. (How many other women also dressed in wedding-themed attire? I counted five.) 

Awful Movie Leads to Interesting Wikipedia Search

The TiVo suggested I watch Too Many Husbands, because it has the same premise as Move Over Darling and My Favorite Wife.  A spouse is declared legally dead, survivor moves on, spouse reappears, hilarity ensues.

Only, while Too Many Husbands is classified as a comedy, there is not so much hilarity, and there just isn't enough exposition time spent on how neglected the wife must have been to merit her reaction, or the extremely awkward ending.

Of course, this sent me off on a search to find more movies. I found a few interesting things:

• If I want to get back to the original source, I have to go back to a Tennyson poem: Enoch Arden.
• I can look at Three For the Show, which was based on the Tennyson poem, and stars Jack Lemmon, so one would think it would be funny.
• There are very, very few cases of spouses returning from the dead in real life, but the one case is remarkable: Lawrence Bader. "Why isn't that an hilarious movie?" I ask.
• What I find remarkable is the law. If you are declared dead, it appears that for purposes of your spouse’s remarriage, you are dead. Your marriage ends as soon as you are declared dead, and like the NHL, there is no review even if the decision is found later to be entirely wrong. However, life insurance companies are like the Kentucky Derby: they run the replay and reverse the decision to pay out.
• I am struck, really, by how rarely it happens, especially given that even two generations back people easily disappeared and reappeared. Both my grandparents had those interludes. Dad's father disappeared for ten years, then returned one day. (Then he had a stroke and his wife visited revenge on him daily.) And of course Mom's grandfather left prison, changed his name, ignored his five children, and had to be tracked down by my grandmother.
• I also learned a wonderful word: Pseudocide, or faking your own death.

Famous Families

I recently watched The Center Will Not Hold, the Netflix documentary about Joan Didion. (An aside: Yes, I am watching lots of television. The landscaping is taking up all my energy, so nights are spent in front of the TV.)

What struck me was how every member of that family excelled. Well .... excelled or died. Well ... at least, achieved fame or died. For example, I noticed mid-way through that Joan Didion and the director were related, and after a brief Alt-Tab from Netflix to Wikipedia, I did find that the director was Griffin Dunne, nephew of Joan's husband, writer John Dunne. And then come to find out every celebrity named Dunne is related including writer Dominick John Dunne and his murdered daughter/actress Dominique Dunne.

At one point I just stopped checking Wikipedia to track this web of celebrities. I saw a Dunne was married to RoseMary Breslin. I wondered, "Is she related to writer Jimmy Breslin - oh, I'm not even checking. Of course she is." (I don't have any DNA evidence, but Jimmy Breslin did have a daughter named RoseMary, and I'm sure the reason she isn't a famous writer is because she too died early).

I suppose some families just tell their children, "You can be or do anything you put your mind to," like all families do, only ... their children believe them? They have connections? Or perhaps Baby Dunnes are just are so acclimated to public attention they seek it out when they grow up, as if they move out of their parent's fame and still need the spotlight to grow? Why?

Of course, I have a friend with semi-famous TV host relatives. He shows no ambition. Cybill Shepard went from dating Elvis and Peter Bogdanovitch to marrying a car salesman and a chiropractor.

All I know is, Joan Didion's life was so amazing that at no point do they even mention that she has Multiple Sclerosis. I kept waiting for that and it was just too mundane to be included. I loved that.

Three TV Recommendations

The first one is brief: remember the Apollo 11 documentary I watched in the IMAX theater and loved so much? It is coming to your tiny TV screen on June 23 on CNN. Space nerds, enjoy.

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The second recommendation is They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, the story of  Orson Welles and his last movie. Orson Welles appears to be the Benjamin Button of directing: adept in his first film, Citizen Kane, and then callow in his last, The Other Side of the Wind.

If you watch it on Netflix, you will segue immediately into a re-imagined The Other Side of the Wind. I didn't make it very far in to the actual movie. But the documentary is as good as the movie is bad. So much to applaud: Alan Cummings superior air. The clever cutting. The one spot where my jaw dropped. 

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Also on Netflix: Fleabag Season Two has arrived, and they are doubling down on the winks and asides. The third wall is broken and openly discussed. And, to make an even greater connection, she pulls her hair back. I spent a good deal of the first season trying to catch glimpses of [NO SPOILERS] her forehead. It's been very gratifying.

Saint Louis Sports

Saint Louis has a secret cabal of TV sports execs who orchestrate game outcomes to make the most satisfying stories and get the highest ratings.  

Here is a sample of their meeting minutes from last year: 

Saint Louis Sports Cabal Meeting Summer 2018

Meeting called to order 9:30 am

Old Business

Saint Louis Cardinals Baseball on path to follow standard playoff trajectory: sucking until the All-Star game and then pulling out a playoff bid at the last minute. No additional drama required at this time.

New Business

• Motion: To plan Blues hockey Stanley Cup bid 2019
  Vote: Motion carried
  Resolved: Take Blues from last place to winning the Stanley Cup

Discussion

Too far? Will raise suspicion? Resolved: No.

How to heighten drama if Blues get ahead? Resolved: Re-run bad call story arc from 1985 World Series. Modify "bad umpire at first base" to "referees not seeing blatant (BLATANT) hand pass."

Music tie-in needed? Laura Brannigan's agent wants Gloria to be team song. Concerns: has nothing to do with hockey.

Tabled: Team response to White House invite.

Meeting adjourned at 9:45

Hockey

This whole town has gone hockey mad.

The Blues — the Saint Louis hockey team — started the season in last place and are now in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The real, pre-cup playoffs, not just the bogus extra rounds of pre-playoff wild card playoffs. 

For some superstitious reason I don’t understand, the players adopted the Laura Branigan song “Gloria” as their team victory song. A local radio station played Gloria for 24 hours in a row. It progressed, and now if your name is Gloria you get free movie tickets. I mean, not everywhere, but free tickets at the Science Center’s pricey Omnimax theater, currently showing a documentary on Cuba, so no big win for the Glorias out there, but still. I’m sure lots of women will be claiming the name Gloria for free drinks at hockey bars.

And now some fans are attaching significance to the number 7, because on May 7 they played Game 7 for the 7th time on home ice and the winning shot was made by number 7 and I am seriously worried about the mental health of these people. (It goes on. Seven letters in “The Blues” and the puck drop was at 7:00.)

I watched part of game 7 (that phrase was seven syllables!), and though it was exciting because they clinched it in double overtime, I still prefer baseball. Fans don’t do this crazy hokum in baseball.  Well, sometimes a squirrel runs across the field and magically provokes a rally: but that’s just verifiable cause and effect.

Driveway

After thirty-plus years, it is time for a new driveway. (Granted, Mom's driveway is 70 years old and still excellent, but the man who built the original driveway, the homeowner, was a cement worker. Our driveway guy was evidently related to the people who built the subdivision.)

There was an on-line driveway cost estimator. The estimated amount was not bad. We have that in savings.

Then I found that the neighbors paid quadruple that amount for their driveway. We could go to Paris for a solid 10 days for the cost of their driveway.

Recently, we got an estimate and it’s “only” triple the on-line estimate. I should be happy about that. I am not happy about that. I asked Gary to get a second estimate, which he hates, because he falls in love with every salesman he meets.

The second estimate came in only twice over the on-line estimate. Close enough. And, strangely, it’s the same company that charged our neighbors 10 days in Paris. 

This is worse than buying a car. If this did not require a cement mixer, I would be out there doing it myself.

Derby Drama

“BULLSHIT! THIS IS SOME GANGSTER BULLSHIT!” - Gary, after the Kentucky Derby reversal, in which the Kentucky Derby winner had his victory given to the second place winner.

Upon instant replay, the favorite was found to have strayed from his lane and evidently had to be penalized.

I personally was rooting for the pink-masked Japanese horse, and for Code of Honor, who was pretty. For a moment I confused the names of Code of Honor and Colony House, the eventual winner, and thought my horse had won on appeal.

I think everyone knew something was up when the usual blonde reporter jockey was not the first to interview the winner. Instead, the broadcast showed the trainer giving a pep-talk to the jockey, who was having none of it. It ended with the trainer telling the jockey something like, “It’s fun, it’s a game, enjoy it.”

Just as I thought, “Who is this yokel?” — the reporter on horseback showed up and the first thing the jockey said was, “The crowd scared him. He’s just a baby.”

Then the outcome was challenged, and the first thing the jockey said was, “The crowd scared him. He’s just a baby.”

Then the outcome was reversed and they didn’t even show the jockey’s face, which I felt was good form. Of course, I don’t know why newscasters give more personal space to jockeys than, say,  tornado victims, but I guess that’s just how we do.

Gary was fairly open-minded about it until he found out the odds for the favorite were 4-1 and the odds for the eventual winner were 65-1. Now he blames the mob. It’s a regular Black Silks Scandal.

Avengers

I’m not a big fan of Marvel movies. Some are charming (first Guardians of the Galaxy), some are  pointless (Ant Man and the Wasp). The worst thing is that I can’t hop up and pee as soon as they’re over: I have to stay for any extended scenes.

I am a big fan of hype and group-think, though, and even though Gary was willing to wait a week after it came out, I got tickets for  the opening weekend of Avengers Endgame. The only pair of tickets available were on Sunday night, starting at quarter till nine pm, ending at quarter till midnight. Evidently kiddos can’t be out on a school night, so two seats were free. Hah! Up yours, kiddos.

Why though? Why was I determined to watch a movie I am not invested in? I can only think that it’s the same reason I watch the World Cups - I don’t care about the game, but if the entire rest of the world is experiencing something, I don’t want to miss out. 

So, being part of the world, that’s half of it, and also I hated the prospect that there was some incredible secret ending that 1.2 billion people would know about, and I wouldn’t know the secret. 

Anyway, as of last night it was 1.2 billion and 2.

Patton Oswalt: Review

We went to see Patton Oswalt, finally, at the Saint Charles Family Arena.

Sigh. I feel like Patton Oswalt personally thinks I am too white, too conservative, too rural.

Why do I think this? Because ....

1. The concert took place in Saint Charles, my extremely white commuter community next to Saint Louis county. He remarked on it a number of times. “Tell me again, am  I in Saint Louis or Saint Charles?” “SAINT CHARLES!” The crowd would roar. “Don’t tell him that,” I thought plaintively. “Saint Louis is so much more open-minded than Saint Charles.”
2. The opener,  Adrienne Apalucci,  was a New York woman who specialized in shock comedy. The two men behind me did not appreciate her abortion / miscarriage / dick jokes. After every joke they would tut, or say “geez,” or “that’s too far.”  No doubt they are currently discussing the people in front of them who guffawed at every tasteless joke. 
3. She led off by pointing out how white the crowd was. I looked around. We were all white. Couldn’t deny it.
4. Patton Oswalt twice went into the crowd and engaged with individuals, which I assume he did to fill in the time lost to the anti-Trump bits he must have edited out on the fly, given the crowd. (“Where’s the topical humor?” I thought, again, plaintively.)
5. So, instead of some good Trump-bashing, I instead heard the details of the life of a rural Washington, Missouri body piercer. Patton asked, “So, do you ever do a piercing like an eyebrow piercing attached to a chain that runs down to a clit piercing and then there are lead Dungeons and Dragons figures hung off the chain?” “We don’t do that,” she replied. “What about those things where people have horns and metal put between their skull and their scalp?”  “There’s not a lot of call for that in Washington, Missouri.” It made me want to get a clit piercing attached by a chain to some metal horns protruding from my scalp.

Best Cheese Ever

Cheese. Chewy creamy cheese. Very tasty for mold. Comes in a variety of textures and flavors.

What is better than cheese? Think about it ... Yes. Fried cheese.

I’m not talking about deep fried cheese. I mean take the raw cheese and fry it up in a skillet. 

You say no? You say, “No, the cheese will melt and burn.”

Sure, Brie would not brown up in a skillet, nor Parmesan, but my new best friend and favorite cheese, Halloumi cheese, was bred like a dog to fry up in golden brown chunks in a pan.

Of course, I have taken it out of its brine to try it. Damn. Now I have to fry it all up and eat it.

Shazam

We went to see Shazam last weekend. This isn't about that.

(Well, a little about that (no spoilers):

• Big cuteness points for dealing with how both D.C. and Marvel both have a Captain Marvel.
• I felt there was too much of a personality difference between the superhero and the day-to-day incarnation of the superhero.
• Too many boys - three - in the first half hour. Can't keep that many brunette boys straight. It was like the Thin Man Returns -- in which every man is dark-haired with a thin mustache.)

Anyway, we got to the theater for the 9 a.m. $5 show, which was about half-full. And the screen was dark. "Well that's odd," I thought, "There's usually something on the screen all the time, like movie trivia or interviews or ads or trailers. But, it is 9 in the morning, maybe things are different for the first show."

So, everyone sat and stared at the blank screen. For twenty minutes. You notice certain things when you are in a quiet theater.

• Popcorn is very noisy.
• Candy is very noisy.
• People are very noisy, especially men who were fishing earlier and feel that merited a recap.

Eventually I realized that those things weren't particularly noisy that day, just that they are usually drowned out by the ads and trailers.

Eventually a woman left, came back, and announced to the crowd, "THEY SAY THEY'RE WORKING ON IT."

Everyone in the theater, including me, bellowed "THANK YOU" back.

Ten minutes after that, a man made a foray and came back with a field report: they had called in the person who could fix it. Scattered applause and whooping (fishermen) from the crowd. We were all friends by then.

Ten minutes later, the pre-movie trivia/ interviews / trailers / subliminal advertising roared up and we all clapped.  I realized, "I guess that means we have to sit through a half-hour of this filler and then fifteen minutes of trailers too? Good thing I have nothing else to do today." Almost immediately, a mom hopped up and went out to talk to management. Moms have other things to do.

Management came in soon after, and made a puny effort to raise her voice above the Dolby stereo sound, and said they were sorry about this, we have to watch everything because that's how it's programmed, and here are some free passes for your inconvenience. It was awesome.

We're saving our pass for a 3-D IMAX 7:00 Saturday night show.  I feel like I was in a class-action lawsuit: everyone else did the complaining and I reaped the benefit.

Best Cheese Ever

Cheese. Chewy creamy cheese. Very tasty for mold. Comes in a variety of textures and flavors.

What is better than cheese? Think about it ... Yes. Fried cheese.

I’m not talking about deep fried cheese. I mean take the raw cheese and fry it up in a skillet. 

You say no? You say, “No, the cheese will melt and burn.”

Sure, Brie would not brown up in a skillet, nor Parmesan, but my new best friend and favorite cheese, Halloumi cheese, was bred like a dog to fry up in golden brown chunks in a pan.

Of course, I have taken it out of its brine to try it. Damn. Now I have to fry it all up and eat it.

House of Blur

If you ever have even a little bit if anxiety upon leaving your house, I recommend Google Street View.

I was in Google Maps, looking at a street very close to my house, when I noticed this house was blurred.

I got all excited. I remembered that Dick Cheney insisted that Google Maps blur his house, and they did. "Does Dick Cheney live by me?" I wondered.

Since then I have taken great pains to drive slowly past that house every day and peer in to see if Dick Cheney is there, having drinks with Barbra Streisand and enjoying the Streisand Effect.

Leopold and Loeb: The Sequel

I thought I knew everything about the Leopold and Loeb murder case, but then I watched the L&L American Experience episode.

I’ve always assumed that after their conviction they lived out their life sentences in separate prisons, but no. They ended up in the same prison and hung out as buddies. (Or possibly, they continued on as lovers.)

"Well, there's a story," I thought, and started researching.

Here’s what I learned:

They worked in the same area in prison and were allowed to do projects as a team. (Teamwork makes the dream work, whether it’s prison literacy or child murder, I suppose.)

Loeb died ten years in, when he was sliced to death by another prisoner, James Day. Leopold stayed by Loeb’s bedside until he died.

Leopold had to see Loeb’s murderer every day after that, because they were both penned up in the psychiatric ward. Leopold took to screaming into his hands a lot. 

He was eventually paroled after 33 years. He married and lived in Puerto Rico for another 13 years after that, but still had affairs with the ex-con men he sponsored when they got out of prison.

In his post-prison life, the reformed Leopold kept a photo of Loeb in his bedroom, which did not seem to bother Leopold's wife at all.  

She explained it away, saying her husband was “complex.”

This is a pathological level of forgiveness. I suppose she might have said other things, such as, “He’s a different person now,” or, “He only murdered that one child.”

Notre Dame and My Poor Google Skills

I was at work, mourning Notre Dame, and a friend consoled me by saying:

“All the wood and stained glass? It’s not that old. It’s only 100 years old, because Notre Dame, the inside? It was all shelled during World War I. They were these long guns the enemy hauled with a train, and they shelled the cathedral. But they rebuilt it all in 100 years. They’ll just do it again.”

“Why, that makes me feel just a little bit better,” I said. I can get over the loss of a 100 year old pew much more quickly than a 700 year old pew.

It made me feel so much better, that I tried to find more information about the WWI shelling of Notre Dame, especially after Rachel Maddow referenced it in her show.

I found two things:

• In the Wikipedia entry on the Paris Gun:

 A parody of the Paris Gun appears in the Charlie Chaplin movie The Great Dictator. Firing at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the "Tomanians" (the fictional country that represented Germany) succeed in blowing up a small outhouse.

“Did my friend watch The Great Dictator and remember that scene?” I wondered. “It is the very first scene.” You can watch it here.  Notre Dame does not make an appearance, but it is mentioned.

• There was a Notre Dame in Reims, France that was destroyed in WWI, and it certainly did resemble the one in Paris. Here it is mid-shelling.

I was feeling almost chipper after I found out that - with the exception of the northern rose window - the stained glass was all new as of 1965. But then, I looked through my own photos.

What has happened to these angels?

=====================

Update: Apostles, not angels, and they were beheaded and packed up well before the fire.

... and my friend did indeed confuse the Reims Notre Dame with the Paris Notre Dame.

Hoarder

The deer turned their noses up at the apples in the manger.  They chose instead to eat the woody debris from the Black-eyed Susans. Gary did some research and reported that deers’ bellies are seasonal, and they can die if they eat something in winter that they would usually eat in summer. Were I a deer, I would die from this. 

Gary is now using the manger to hold peanuts in the shell. He still throws shelled peanuts on the ground, but he thought some of the raccoons might like a challenge. 

After a few days, some smaller raccoons investigated the manger but ignored the nuts. This went on for weeks, until this guy showed up. The raccoon in the video below performed that same move over and over and over and - I would say thirty times in one night, he walked up to the manger, got one peanut in the shell, and left with it. The next night, same thing.

 

We thought at first he was the Meals On Wheels service for invalid or overweight raccoons. But Gary chatted with the man at the feed store, and it appears that peanuts in the shell are popular with Wildlife Dads who need to go on food runs for the New Moms who are stuck in the den. 

Why are nuts in the shell popular? You get two nuts for one run. Also, the discarded shell is a good nesting material. 

The math adds up - babies stay in the den with Mom for six weeks, and historically the babies arrive early June. 

Gary thinks all the wildlife whimpering earlier that week (when the raccoon jumped the fence to see the uproar) was a Mom giving birth outside the den. I suppose early births can happen in Raccoon World as easily as anywhere else. I’ve never thought of it, but since there are no Raccoon Epidurals, birth would probably cause some whimpering.

Improvement: Backyard

In addition to the impending improvements in the side yard, the backyard needs so much work I cannot even begin to think about it. I only know one thing: the patio has dropped six inches and that is exposing the dining room subfloor to the elements.

 That's the only known thing. The rest of the backyard is up for grabs.

• It needs a raccoon feeding station and play area.
• It needs a raccoon highway so no one needs to jump the fence when there's a raccoon in crisis.

 

• If I decide to get rid of the trumpet vine (the official weed of Missouri), the vine bed needs to be encased in concrete. Only way to defeat a trumpet vine.
• It needs a cactus garden in the back corner where the sprinkler doesn't quite reach, where last year I planted sedum that the rabbits ate in a day.
• It needs a special shrine where I can house the parental ashes that are currently under the brass sundial. Ask me where the brass sundial is. I don't know: it has been overgrown by Lamb's Ears the past five years.

Improvement: Side Yard

We are staying close to home again this vacation season, so that means we will again invest in home improvements instead of memories. The driveway absolutely needs to be resurfaced or replaced, and if I put in a large, slow-growing evergreen, a mugo pine perhaps, the front bed will be done.

The side yard and back yard also need to be attended to. I am at a loss on the side yard. We've had a side yard like our neighbors: a bed extending a few feet from the side of our house, only ours had the added attraction of a rotting wood border. 

I have been looking at a lot of Pinterest images of side yards. I do not need a spectacular side yard: just a place to keep peonies and flowering plants and one evergreen to cover up the spot where the hail dinged the siding. 

I want something between this, which everyone has:

and this Pinterest extravaganza:

Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger thanked the staff at the hospital following his emergency heart valve replacement. I suspect this was Mick’s first time in the hospital. He seems very healthy for an old man. In fact, all The Rolling Stones seem oddly healthy. When I imagine myself in a rock band (and you know I do), I get as far as imagining the bathroom facilities on the tour bus private jet (my imaginary rock band: very successful) and it all falls apart. Do they make private jets that have a bathroom for every member of the band? I don’t think they do. 

I believe I have been to the doctor more in the past month than Mick Jagger has in his entire life. One visit to the GP was canceled, but the neurologist visit begat an OB-GYN visit and an extra blood test in two weeks.

I understand that Mick devotes much of his time to a very intense training regimen. The neurologist pointed out my lack of exercise as just one example of my non-compliance to doctor’s orders. It’s just hard to spend a half hour a day when there is no result. No muscle gain,  no fat loss, even after three months of it. I suppose Mick is the result of fifty years of it.

Killer Software

This Boeing air disaster story is just a nightmare. Now it seems that Boeing was warned about the software problems four days before the most recent crash.

I feel like I dodged a bullet. Boeing (nee McDonnell-Douglas) is one of the biggest employers in Saint Louis. I don't work for Boeing, but I do write software. Happily, I don't write aviation software. When my software fails, people have to ask questions instead of looking something up in a database. No one dies.

I cannot even imagine what those Boeing software developers are going through. There must be William Mulholland levels of guilt.