Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: July 2021

  • Apologies Robert Browning

    Grow old along with me? The worst is yet to be The aches and pains from which the quarrels are made; Our bile grows worse each year We pass the pain to those held dear, Once wife, now nurse, with thinning sympathy. ==== Gary doesn’t deal well with illness. Sympathy doesn’t make him feel better,…

  • Fox Conflict

    Fox was busy last week. He chased what I imagine was a bunny: He relaxed enough to sit down and have raccoons sneak up on him: He did a little side step in the yard after a squirrel knocked the camera off kilter: Speaking of wildlife … News channels and People Magazine have had much…

  • Stimulus

    So, okay, people with kids now get an extra $250-$350 per child as a tax credit because of the pandemic. That’s a good thing. Don’t begrudge that a bit. But, why? It would make sense if unemployed parents got the extra cash, because I know kids are expensive. But these are working parents. I’d say…

  • Review: Detour De Force

    Friday I was playing Code Monkey by Jonathon Coulton on repeat at Maximum Alexa Volume just so I could hear this line over and over again: “Code Monkey think/ maybe manager / wanna write / goddamned / login page himself” … but then the new Barenaked Ladies CD Detour de Force landed on my porch.…

  • Salad

    Gary speaks well when you get him going. Bring up Trump, he can rattle on in pentameter for an hour without pausing for breath. In fact, he did that last night, not quite for an hour but for at least twenty minutes, when I interrupted him to ask, “Did you eat anything today?” Indignant. “You…

  • Rewriting the Novel: a Step Back and a Step Forward

    I’ve taken some time outlining the plot for the second half, no longer does “some stuff happen.” It’s been confusing just because I’ll be in outline mode, and again characters will begin having conversations while I’m trying to make plans, so I have to duck out of my plotting Word document, make a new conversation…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 7/15

    This week was all about the mulch. The morning view went from this: … to this: The noon view went from this: … to this: The evening view went from this: … to this:

  • Bitter Pouty Post

    It feels as if all my friends are going on vacation, meeting up, going to Hawaii. Enjoy your Prague Summer, I say, we’re going to be locked back down when it gets cold. I don’t see any way to get the US sufficiently vaccinated. And now this Delta variant is causing new cases in half…

  • Mom Speaks Again From Beyond the Grave

    Yesterday I found an old 1950s spiral notebook filled with Mom’s handwriting. It is titled CHI OR DIE, and seems to be an account of a train trip she took to Chicago when she was twenty, along with her sister Dolores and four of Mom’s friends. This is one of three travel journals I have…

  • Steve at Work

    Sometimes you meet just delightful people when you are working. Take Steve. Only photo of Steve I have, appropriately He changed departments about six years ago, and we’d catch up in the cafeteria, but it wasn’t the same as working every day with Steve, because Steve was hilarious on a daily basis, and I was…