Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

TWIL: baby elephant snack foods

Not just me ... This past week St. Louis learned what baby elephants snack on.  

If you don't want to click the listen button, I can just tell you. It's poop. They snack on their mother's poop. They aren't born with gut bacteria, so they have to ingest it somehow.

This seems like something i should have learned from Big Dot on Travelskite.com. Perhaps I did and then punted it right out of my head. 

My brief time as a live figure drawing model

A Facebook Cracked article made me remember how, in the 1940s, my father swam in the nude in his gym class at Normandy High. That was a thing public schools did, back in the day.

Thankfully, girls didn't have to do that, and they phased that out for boys before I got to high school. However, what they didn't phase out was figure drawing class. Not nude drawing class. But still, figure drawing class. So that meant everyone had to take their turn being the model instead of the artist. That also meant, in my case, that all the artists voiced opinions on why my figure was particularly difficult to draw. 

"My drawing looks weird because her legs are so short."

"How can she be so tall with such short legs?"

"I think it's because she's long-waisted. All her height's in her waist and not her legs."

"I think she's long-butted. Her butt covers up half her legs."

"Mr. Y, can we have another model? I've erased her legs three times now."

(I'd like to say that Mr. Y had gone out of the room, but he had not. In his defense he did have a brain tumor that killed him a few years later.)

(I’d also like to say Mr. Y. took pity on my 16-year-old mortification and switched to another model, but instead he walked around the circle, observed the work, and silently concurred that the artwork, particularly the work from the long-butted side, would be too much for me to view.)

He told me to sit down. The class all tore their work off the newsprint pads, and started again with a more normal person. 

My freakishly short legs (”seriously, it’s like she’s half dwarf”) might be why artist boyfriend Virgil chose to have me sit when he did the silkscreen of me.

So, do teachers still do this in high school art class figure drawing? Or is it like naked swimming, just a cruel thing to do to high school students' self-worth?

A day out

I have had enough of being home-bound, getting things for Gary, turning on fans, driving to appointments.

So today I bolted. I said I was going to Walgreens to pick up a prescription for him, but I was going another place first, so it might take a few hours.

I made it sound like an errand. Behind his back, I took myself to the zoo, where there are two new polar bears and a baby elephant.

And because Gary wasn’t there, I parked like this.

At first all I saw of the bears was one butt, and had it not wiggled I would have thought it a rock.

Then I went on a baby elephant hunt, and come to find out he was taking a personal day, literally not on display, plus there’s construction and it’s almost impossible to get to him anyway.

So I was a little disappointed, having walked in a circle, and then found myself back at the polar bears, who were now out.

I waved my arms at that bear and said, “I came a long way.” He rolled over in response.

Weekly Paint Progress: 4/24

This week the Art Book Cover went from this:

... to this.

 

Blood draws

This liver number kerfuffle is keeping me busy. 

The lab at the nearby hospital is remarkably quiet, and I’ve got the whole thing organized so it only takes 45 minutes from when I leave to when I return.

At the end of the three blood draws in the last week, and one the week before, this is what my most reliable vein looks like.  

I think it looks pretty, but it looks pretty human as well, so that’s why it’s after the jump.

Appetite

There is a show called Man vs Food, and it is devoted to following a host who signs up for eating challenges. Quite often those challenges follow the format of “Eat [X amount of food] in [Y amount of time] without [throwing up / leaving the table / dying].”

The host would generally put an hour on the timer and tuck into the 72-ounce porterhouse or 15 grilled cheese sandwiches in good spirits, and at some point would flag and get “the meatsweats,” or literally stretch to make room. And I would think, “Oh, man up, fella. I could eat that right now.” But of course, I could not. It would take me half a day to eat 15 grilled cheese sandwiches. 

My appetite was not as strong as the Great Aunt who announced she would be eating a snack of Froot Loops, and then ate a full-sized box of Froot Loops in half an hour. I would take longer than half an hour. Three hours, I’d say. 

And now, of course, I’m on this drug, and the prospect of eating even half a cup of Froot Loops makes me flag, unless you give me half a day to pick at it. It’s not even a question of if my belly can accomodate it. It’s just the math of [X amount of food] in [Y amount of time] is recalculated. It’s odd how they can tweak an appetite now. 

However, it is effective. Put me on a scale with nothing on my outsides and nothing in my insides and I’m down almost 20 pounds. 

Medical updates

• Remember when I was in that Supernova clinical trial to help make the next generation of monoclonal Covid antibodies? It sounded good at first, but now this article in The Lancet suggests it’s going to fail just the same way as the previous generation failed: the virus is mutating faster than we can make antibodies. 
• Gary is not allergic to any of the common food allergens. The doctor came out and got me to confirm there were no reactions. He insisted the doctor was wrong even as she said, “You aren't listening to me.” I realized she brought me in thinking he might listen to me, and, no. Eventually, he apologized, listened to her, and we have now decided that 1) she might be right and 2) in the last two months his rash has improved by 50%, and that’s good news and 3) Chrohn’s disease shall be the preferred diafauxsis going forward.
• My repeat liver blood tests showed that the bad liver numbers have mostly trended toward the good after we shut off the statin. The new liver test shows that a GGT number is bad, but who knows what it was before? It all seems positive. Even ChatGPT remained calm.

TWIL: How to bake a Tres Leches cake

I went to a party yesterday at Friend #2's home. The theme was Mexican. They served carnitas, also known as pork deep fried in lard. The suggestion of trefe cooked in a bubbling vat of trefe caused Friend #3 to bring the matzoh ball soup of her people as her Mexican dish.

I wanted to bring a Tres Leches cake. Tres Leches cake (not Dulce de Leche cake, count your leches, people) is a cake made with three kinds of milk. I found the recipe I wanted to use here, where I remembered it, buried deep in Catherine's So That Happened blog.

I wasn't as inventive as Catherine, swapping out one leche for coconut milk, because I'd never had it before. I played it safe and took her reference link to the Alton Brown recipe  and made the cake straight to the brief.

Here is my timeline. 

1. Make and bake basic cake. Looks as promised.
2. Smell cake as it cools; wonder what it's supposed to smell like. 
3. Poke finger at cooled cake, wonder what it's supposed to feel like.
4. Stab it with skewers.
5. Combine the evaporated and condensed milks with the half-and-half (so, technically, Dos point Cinco Leches) and pour over cake to fill rectangular pan.
6. The next morning, whip the cream topping and realize: if it's topped no one will notice if a test edge is missing.
   
7. Try the test slice without topping and say, "No, this is wrong. This is ... juicy cake. Cake can't be juicy. I can't serve this to people."
8. Apply the topping to the test slice and then say, "I was wrong. This is the best cake I have ever had." 

Truly, the cream balanced out the sweetness and texture of the cake and countered the unpleasant sensation of biting into cake and having it squirt milk into your mouth. (Supress your smiles.)

I polled the party and no one had tried Tres Leches cake before, so they couldn't confirm if it was "right," but they seemed to like it just fine.

Nightmares

Gary has lucid dreams every night (hence this blog category devoted to his Big House dreams). I, on the other hand, have had no dreams since I stopped using an alarm to wake up. I have REM cycles, as documented by the Apple Watch. It's just I wake so slowly and gently now that I forget what was going on in Dreamland.

The past two weeks, though, I’ve had nightmares so dreadful they’ve woken me up.

Two weeks ago: There was an open picture window in my foyer, and I was inside reading a book with my feet dangling through the window.  A man came up to the window speaking a language I didn't know. Or perhaps he was having a stroke. I didn’t find out which because he reached in through the window to grab at me and I shouted myself awake.

Analysis: It seems obvious at first. I mean, Spunky out in the world, enticing men to grab at me. But I really think that it was because I am just not keeping up at work as well as I’d like. Remember, the man was speaking a language I didn’t understand. That's how work feels lately. Plus I reacted too slowly when the grabbing started. I remember a friend who slowed down to a crawl before she ultimately retired.  Or, it could be an obvious sex dream and be far less ominous.

One week ago: I dreamed Goldie the cat was still alive and he got into a mysterious substance in the laundry room. It was a black plastic tray filled with a clear gelatin.I found him licking  gelatin off his paws, with an obvious hole in the tray where he'd pawed at it, so I rushed him to the vet. The vet didn't know what the gelatin was, didn't care, lost the cat, and said, "Well, let's see if he dies, then that'll tell us how concerned to be." I got more and upset and again shouted myself awake.

Analysis: Goldie = Gary, obviously.  In fact, about all Gary eats lately is, I swear, Jello. And this is not to say the doctors don't care; it's that Gary seems to not care. He keeps cancelling appointments. He isn't taking any better care of himself than a cat would.

Odd, though, that my subconscious thinks I need to process any of this in my sleep. These are problems I process every day and night already. 

Freudian slip

I was trying to tell someone that in about eight weeks I will have been married forty years.

I said -- and see if you catch the mistake -- “In about eight weeks I will have been buried forty years.”

No way to walk that back. 

Weekly Paint Progress: 4/17

This week the Book Cover went from this:

... to this.

I discovered my remaining canvas and the book were the same size, so the only way to go was carbon paper, or, as some might say, cheating.

New pet peeve

We watched a few episodes of Your Friends & Neighbors (the new series with Jon Hamm) and now I have a new pet peeve.

Theee times in the pilot  -- if not more -- they show Jon Hamm watching black and white movies. Vaguely familiar movie with vaguely memorable dialogue.

The only reference I caught was Gilda, because it was the classic shot where she flips her hair.

But why? What’s the theme? Why those movies? Jon Hamm’s character does have a lot of sex. Maybe the theme is sex is what gets you in trouble? And if so, meh. I would have liked more significance for the distraction. 

After the waiting, the wondering

Good news came in the morning. Liver is unremarkable, just as a liver should be. No stones or lumps or anything. 

There is a wee gall bladder polyp: o.5 centimeters. I understand that to be the equivalent of one ladybug. 

Pancreas could not be seen in the ultrasound due to  -- and this is embarrassing -- “overlying bowel gas”. I suppose an ultrasound could not see through gas because it uses echoes?  And it can't get an echo from gas? 

There’s a check up blood test in a week, so the message ends with, “Do your best to avoid alcohol.” Oh, buddy. This will not require any effort at all. 

It looks like the next culprit is the statin, then, or potentially, no reason at all.

Waiting

I still remember when my parents went to Hawaii in the 1970s.

My Dad wasn't feeling great. Figured he needed a rest. Went to see the doctor a few weeks before. 

The morning before they left, Mom asked, “Did you ever hear from the doctor about what you talked about at that visit?”

“Nope,” Dad said. “Guess everything looks good. They would call if there was a problem.”

Mom called, of course, and the doctor read the file that was still sitting on his desk, and that’s why Mom took three books on cancer along on their trip to Hawaii.

I think of that story every time I wait for test results. Now doctors have prompts to remind them to message you in MyChart or whatever your application is. It’s a much better situation. And I never feel, like my Dad did, that it’s a sign of weakness to inquire about your own health. 

I suppose there are just some people who don’t want to think about problems (Dads) and people who want to deal with problems (Moms). There are also some people who say, “Didn’t you get all your test results back last week?” (Husbands). 

Actually, I feel a lot better after I compared internet liver images with what I saw in my scan on Saturday morning: I think I just have one little round stone, like a gallstone, only it’s in my bile duct and they took many photos of it. That’s the compromise I’ve reached between Mom and Dad in my head: half ignoring and half dealing.

TWIL: Apollo 1

So, while worrying about space in the early morning, as you do, I wondered if I remembered the names of the Apollo 1 astronauts. (I Googled. Turns out I did.)

Among the other related searches Google recommended was, “What happened to Apollo 2 to 6?”

“Well they were boring,” I thought. “Unmanned.” 

I had no idea, but Apollo 1 wasn’t Apollo 1 until after the tragedy. It was originally just Mission AS-204.  They bumped up the mission name to Apollo 1 to honor the dead astronauts.

Then, because there had been two other missions equivalent to that one, those became imaginary Apollo 2 and 3, until they started up again with the planned unmanned Apollos 4 - 6. 

I mean, I am just gobsmacked I didn't know this.