Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Gary And Stress

Street work is going on outside our house. Evidently the lifespan of a suburban street built by the contractor's son-in-law is about 30 years. We got the note in the mailbox that in four days our stretch of the nepo-street is to be re-poured, and we cant use our driveway. So we must park on the street, thus our in-home electric vehicle charging station will also be inaccessible. 

This one tick of stress kicked Gary up over his stress horizon and he was out of control, stomping around the house, escalating. 

"THEY WANT US TO PARK ON THE STREET SO THEY CAN DROP GRAVEL ALL OVER MY NEW CAR AND IF WE DON'T MOVE OUR CARS OUT OF THE GARAGE IMMEDIATELY ALL THE SPOTS WILL BE GONE."

I told him I didn't have time for this, shut the door, and ignored him until he came back in completely calm. 

"I PARKED MY CAR IN THE Street ... And ... I feel better."

I pointed out he had places to go in the next four days, and he said he knew that, he knew it was irrational, but he felt total peace now. 

So I suppose that's the trick. I always try to reason with him, but really I just need to wait until he invents whatever personal stress placebo he needs.

TWIL: Barbara Jordan Had MS

This week I learned that Barbara Jordan -- famous for her defense of the Constitution -- not only had MS, but leukemia, and she was likely gay.

She didn't speak publicly about any of it, and supposedly her doctors outed her on the MS after she almost drowned in her pool. 

It was a different time before HIPPA, I suppose. You know I can't keep my mouth shut about my own business, but I would be livid if I were famous and some doctor discussed my diagnosis to a reporter.

I don't know if he ever spoke more definitively than in the link above, but dude. Even if you think it's for her own good, shut up.

Evidently she just kept blaming her issues on her bad leg, which seems fine to me, as long as she kept her family up to date on her situation.

Side note: No one at the hospital is forthcoming about Dave's records. So three years ago, I heard from him he might have cancer, then Dave said that was a misdiagnosis, then evidently he just hid it from me and possibly himself. I think it's been a month now.

So, my thoughts go out to Nancy Earl, her longtime companion, just in case she had the frustration of dealing with someone who just elected to ignore a diagnosis. 

Congee Hubris

Oh, my God, I made congee that KC recommended and made a hash of it. I got over-confident. "I've made risotto at least fifty times. I can do this," I thought. No. 

1. First, the recipe specified Jasmine rice, but I only noticed that after I bought sushi rice, so then I added jasmine rice to the shopping list but it was unclear if it was 4 oz of cooked rice or uncooked rice. My directions also cut the cooking time by 60% if you used frozen rice - but that didn't help. Again, I said, "I can cook rice, come on," and almost put in two times as much sushi rice as called for and added in the pre-cooked jasmine rice, and then used chicken stock instead of water.  Amazingly, at one point it turned into a very glutinous paste. That part seemed to work out.
2. Then I added flavors and destroyed it.
   A. I cooked the shiitake mushrooms for four minutes at the right temperature and they burned. So no mushrooms.
   B. Then I added the shredded pork, saying, "it doesn't matter that this is BBQ pulled pork, there's no sauce, I'm sure it isn't that seasoned. Maybe just a little smoky flavor." Wrong, wrong, wrong.
   C. I was able to add the green onions and soy sauce correctly.

I took two bites and pitched it. Happily, I made so much of the rice base that I have a big tub of frozen unflavored congee that I held back. I plan to take some unflavored chicken breasts and poach them and mince them and try again. This time I won't be all cocky.  

 

Head Surgery

DO YOU KNOW  you can get cosmetic surgery ON YOUR SKULL?

I have an awful skull. If I were utterly bald I could not leave the house. My head shape is box with a beanie. I am the before side of the image below.

All they have to do is tuck that blue padding between your scalp and your skull. Don't even have to shave your head. 

I'm not doing it, of course, a wig covers all sins, but it's nice to think that I could. 

Black Star Sapphire

I was watching The Naked City last weekend, which features a ring of jewel thieves. A matron was particularly dismayed they took her black star sapphire. 

And ... up popped a memory not accessed for forty-five years. When I was a child of twelve, someone gave me a black star sapphire necklace. 

(It sounds fancier than it is. Black star sapphires are not black, nor are they blue, they are brown. They do not sparkle, nor do they gleam. I don't mean to trash it, I just think if I were giving a 12 year old a black star sapphire I would describe it as a highly polished distinctive brown stone with a unique star feature that will be difficult to see in most lights.)

I can picture it, I remember twisting the pendant and trying to see the star, and I even remember the sweater I wore it with, but I can't for the life of me remember who gave it to me. I am pretty sure it was my [step]Dad. He had been a geology major, so that tracks. Plus he often gave me fancy grown-up lady presents, like roses and letters in the mail. 

I wish some were around who could remember that necklace too. All gone. Just stuck in my memory, and were it not for that Naked City movie, it would have been gone forever.

High Maintenance Spunky

Spunky Labia, International Foot Porn Superstar, had complaints.

"Appendage!" she cried, "You have not serviced me with a foot peel since before the pandemic!"

"You didn't seem to need one." I answered.

"I AM HIDEOUS."

"Oh, all right. We still have two of them."

I applied a foot peel and followed all the directions. A week later there had been some progress but not the reptilian shedding as before.

"Check the expiration date!" she demanded. And Spunky was right, the foot peel had expired last month.  She felt bad, and to please her I had to buy the most expensive foot peel, and for once the men's version of a product was the more expensive one. 

So next week expect Spunky to man up with this. extra-large, extra-strength foot peel for men.

Spunky: "BRING IT!" 

Gary: "No, it will hurt your toes!"

I seriously doubt it will hurt. Perhaps they add an astringent that might dupe some into thinking it's working, and it might tingle, but that's all.

Spunky is tapping her toes impatiently. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 3/23

This week the purple clouds went from this:

... to this:

The confusing thing about this one is that other than the clouds, the mountain, and the beach, I have no idea what these things are. Especially the light circular thing at the end of the beach slightly off center. But I like the clouds a little better. 

And even if it's more accurate this way, I am bringing the old graded sea back on the bottom half.

Civilization Continues to Decay

Civilization has gone to hell. First we had the Clydesdales falling over themselves, then the champagne carpet.

Now, twice in the past week, I have been conversing with my husband when has gone into the bathroom, and from the clarity of his tone it has been evident he has not closed the bathroom door.

And his tone is not the only thing I can hear clearly.

We can't have this. It's easily fixed. As soon as he sees my face in the bathroom mirror while he's got the door open  --  problem solved.

I have no idea why after 37 years he has decided to lower his standards, though. It’s a strange shift in intimacy.

I can't complain, though. I can retaliate. But can I? Can I actually leave the door open and converse with him?  I think not.

Dave Food

I thought I was dealing with Dave's death pretty well. My calorie intake bumped up because I was eating moderately instead of getting permission from MyFitnessPal. But then a few times a week I would eat really recklessly.  It was binge eating.

The therapist encouraged me to log what I was eating and what happened before the binge. 

Here are the comfort foods I turned to:

Buttered popcorn. It was just one night, Oscars night, and "Buttered popcorn" is not as accurate as "Popcorned butter." I went through a stick of butter and an insufficient number of bags of microwave diet popcorn. At the time I thought the catalyst was Oscars = movies = popcorn, but more probably it was because Dave would annoy me every year by watching the Oscars on his feed several minutes ahead of my tiVo and spoiling all the surprises. 

Mini Pop Tarts. You know I've been eating these. I've been going through three pouches a day, because there are three flavors, and we are supposed to eat a varied diet. And they look like dollhouse poptarts. I've actually been scaling back on those, palming them off on Gary. I see the connection with Dave in that poptarts, that was breakfast when Dave and I were growing up, Poptarts and Instant Breakfast and Quisp.

Quisp. My god they still make Quisp. I just ordered some.

I promise I will be vigilant to track what triggers me to actually pour milk on the Quisp and put it in my mouth. Right now I think my breakfast triggers are 1)waking up and 2) that's it, just waking up, but no doubt I can pin this on Dave somehow.

Well That Was Lucky

If ever anyone asks what I want to do with my body after I die, I always proselytize for full body donation. That's my plan.

The documents say to put me on the loading dock at Barnes Hospital downtown. After that, they can do what they want. I am told the medical students are very respectful, but truly I don't care. I might like to be a little disrespected.

However, the point is moot. I was looking at the documents today. Look at this stamped nonsense.

Approved in 1998, VOID one year later?

This thing has been void since 1999?

Seriously. Thank God I didn't die in the last 23 years. 

This Year's Birthday Month

Conveniently, all my major marriage celebrations take place on minor holidays,. The calendar reminds me it's Flag Day, so that's my anniversary, or it's the first day of Spring, which is on or about Gary's birthday.

He is not particular about his exact birthday, because as you know, we celebrate the Birthday Month. (During the month of ones birth one wins all arguments de facto.)

This morning the news alerted me that Spring was on the way, and thus almost Gary's birthday, and I immediately woke Gary up to tell him it had been his Birthday Month for three weeks and he had not yet exercised his Birthday Month Privileges.

He had not forgotten, He was aware. I would think we had not argued but of course we had. 

Less than an hour later he came to me and said, "I think we need to buy a bidet and install it in my bathroom."

He was evidently holding that Birthday Month card close to his vest so he could play it for something ridiculous. I sent him off to research installation. We'll just see if he follows through.

TWIL: Dutch Baby Experiment

This Week I Learned what happens when you swap out half the all-purpose flour in a Dutch baby pancake with bread flour, and you don't follow the blending directions, and you put frozen butter in the hot  pan -- and you just generally set your baby up for failure.

Instead of a flat pancake with risen edges, you get an extra brainy baby.

I can't decide if it was the bread flour that made this pancake look so cranial, or if it was the reduced surface heat from the frozen butter. 

It sank as they all do. After that it went from cranial ... to ... well frankly, a little scrotal. But it was extra crunchy around the edges, though. I'd do it again.

I don't know why I can't leave well-enough alone, though. Here's the perfectly-good recipe.

 

Rewriting the Novel: End is in Sight

Well, the end of the line-editing is in sight. Thirty pages of line edits down, thirteen more to go. I am aiming for a page a day, though to be fair I'm circling and skipping anything that's too hard, like "the climax falls apart." (It really does, entirely too much navigating here to there.)

I do still have the list of (now) 23 planned revisions, but those are things like "check for semicolons" and "make dialog consistent for [character x]." I see color-coded post-its for those. 

Though with all that said, yesterday I spent half an hour tweaking the third paragraph on the first page. 

So, progress. But based on the way I write computer programs, once it's functioning correctly I'll recognize what made it difficult, then I'll tear it all apart and re-do it again. I certainly don't do that with paintings, though. Perhaps I won't do that with a book.

Weekly Paint Progress: 3/16

This week the purple clouds went from this:

... to this.

That's not a lot of cloud for an exercise in painting clouds.

 

Review: See How They Run

I saw See How They Run on HBO a week ago and was enchanted. So clever, so self-referential, so full of easy charm. Just darling. Nominated for a BAFTA.

Somehow, unhappy people have given it a low score of 6.5 on IMDB. I don't know why these dour people kept saying, "Not that funny." "Thinks it's so clever."

It was clever! It was funny! If you've read more than Agatha Christie story it was really clever and funny.

Honestly, someone should track down these reviewers, preferably by alphabetical order by residence, and give them all whooping cough. 

If you have read more than one Agatha Christie mystery then I highly recommend it.