Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: July 2020

  • Pallisers Annotated

    In Which We Summarize Mom’s annotations on the Palliser Series by Anthony Trollope. On the title page she notes how many times she has read it: The annotations for Can You Forgive Her were focused on underlining every time Trollope uses “it does not signify.” She also commented on this description of George Vavasor’s work…

  • A Recent Conversation With Gary

    When Gary gets enthusiastic about a movie he has seen, he tends to relate the plot with such detail that you could watch the damn move in less time it takes to get the Gary re-enactment. About twenty minutes in to his version of every damn detail of Warrior Nun, when I pointedly pointed at…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 7/9

    This week the crypts went from this … to this … I swear, short of writing a computer program I have done all I can to correct those angles and they are still wrong. The seascape went from this … to this … Man, that’s bright. The next step in the book better tone that…

  • Separate Lives

    So, it’s the oddest thing. Since he retired, Gary and I have spent all our evenings together, but during his recent illness, we kept apart. He’s feeling better now, but yet somehow we’re still keeping our distance. I’d say we only spend every other evening together. it’s very odd. In the past if I went…

  • Musical Influences

    When I was about twelve, in 1974, I got a bright blue handheld transistor radio as a gift. I started at the bottom of the AM dial and the first station I found was KXOK, back in the day when it was a pop rock station, and the very first song I heard was Billy…

  • UPDATED: For Every Bear You See There are Ten Bears You Don’t See

    Late on Sunday night: Evidently a black bear is on his way to my house. They say he’s looking for love with a female black bear, but no bear in Wisconsin or Illinois suited him. Now he’s trundled his way through several states and been spotted in Hannibal, Missouri, and if he continues his southern…

  • Review: Hamilton

    I had no intention of getting yet another streaming service, especially a Disney one, but then Disney offered the filmed Broadway production of Hamilton on Independence Day. I had concerns. “What if they sing too fast for me to understand the words? What if I’m the only person alive who doesn’t love Hamilton? What if…

  • New Vacation Options

    Now is the time transportation companies should begin to concoct new ways to travel. Just like everyone in the current circumstances, until there is a vaccine I would only consider traveling domestically by car. I’d be poking along in little-four hour jumps, inching my way to national parks, or Machu Picchu, or the Yukon. It…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 7/2

    This weeks the crypts went from this … … to this: It is clear I need to apply tape to this one to keep the lines moving to the vanishing point. It’s wobbly already. The beachscape went from this … to this: I don’t quite understand why those grasses are painted in those colors –…

  • Band of Brothers Vs The Pallisers

    Gary reads this many books at one time: Given that, I don’t know why it troubles me so much that I am binge-watching two shows at once. The two shows are as different as you can imagine: The Pallisers (50% romance and 50% political intrigue) and Band of Brothers (15% relationships and 85% battle scenes).…