Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: December 2017

  • Moms Letters: More Surprises

    It’s so odd to me that everything I remember from my semester stay at Indiana University is documented in my letters home. I wonder if perhaps instead of the memorable stuff ending up in letters, writing it down is what made it memorable. I was wondering that when I opened a letter I’d written after…

  • Mom’s Letters: Mysteries Revealed

    It’s been fascinating to see Mom’s take on family history … it would be better to say “hear” Mom’s take, because I can hear her voice in every word. I’ve got copies of her letters and any letters sent to her by family. I’m glad Mom could type on the electric typewriter, and kept carbon…

  • Mom’s Letters: Ferguson Letters

    Now that Mom’s been dead almost ten years, I’m re-reading all her letters. I keep wanting to look up all her old friends and see if they remember her, or if they ever wondered what happened to her after she divorced Jerry and moved away from Houston. I actually looked up one set of friends:…

  • A New Store by The Mall

    Some last minute Christmas shopping took us out to the mall, and I was surprised to see that this new store has popped up on the outer road: Hm, Tactical Sh*t, I respect your in-your-face attitude. I respect the strength of your views. I would respect a well-regulated militia, if I had ever seen such…

  • Sous-Vide Update

    I’ve been using the sous-vide as regularly as I can. The friend who introduced me to the sous-vide, Anne, called The Splendid Table last week to ask what she could do with fresh bay leaves, so now I’m two degrees of separation from Garrison Keillor. I’ve tried some new recipes. Of the many sous-vide resources,…

  • Dentists on Parade

    This time last year my fancy West County dentist sold his practice to a dentist not three miles from my house. Convenient! Lovely! I walked in and almost walked out. The reception area wasn’t just shabby – it was mangy. Mangy in that every wall had a dead animal hanging on it. Dead deer head,…

  • In Which I Climb the Summit of Elegance That Is Sous-Vide Cooking

    Sous-vide cooking is all the rage now that they’ve invented a device that will let you safely cook food in tepid water in your stock pot. Well, that’s an exaggeration. It isn’t tepid water, because it has to be at least 135 degrees to kill the pathogens. But you put your meat or eggs or…