Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: November 2023

  • Cone of Food

    Well, it begins again. Gary is a big fan of the Cone of Food. Be it dogs, raccoons, or now cats, all food must be presented in a peak, a Mount Fuji of food, so the animals can munch off the tip of the cone in one bite. I complained the cone scatters too much,…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 11/9

    This week the Basic Shapes went backward, from this: .. to this. I don’t know why my dark glaze isn’t smooth. And it was kind of originally this. No interest in doing blurry cymbals. I might try another still life on the same table and do the cymbals first, and then screw it all up…

  • Once In A Lifetime Opportunity in the Medical Bathroom

    One of my least favorite painting tasks is cutting in the edges under a popcorn ceiling. You can never get a clean line, you can’t use painter’s tape: really, it’s a headache. So, I have some time between last week when the builders put up the ceilings in the bathroom and next week when the…

  • Virgin Bathroom

    We have one room that has never been painted: the master bath. It still has the pitiful coat the scab painters applied when we built the house during a local strike. Now that three decades have passed, and we are waiting for the ceiling guy to apply the popcorn to the ceiling (because it was…

  • Door, Ceilings, Handrail

    If I had been alone in the house last week, I would have had a lovely time eavesdropping on the workmen who installed my new bathroom ceilings, stair handrail, and back door. They were characters: the phlegmatic foreman (picture 1960 Peter Graves from Mission Impossible sighing, “Well, that’s the job.”), the excitable second man (picture…

  • TWIL: Two Week Delay

    A friend has Covid, even though she was vaccinated. I did not realize that after the shot your immune system takes two weeks to get-into full Covid fighting shape. I pass this info on to you normals with your normal immune systems. Tread lightly for two weeks after.

  • The Call is Coming from Inside the House

    I was lying awake in bed this morning, and I don’t know why I was thinking of slumber party horror stories, but I remember the classic The Call is Coming from Inside the House. (Babysitter gets creepy call, police trace it, tell her the call is coming from inside the house, bah bah BAHH, police…

  • Change Machine

    I fear the people at work have discovered that I am generous with compliments, and they know how to play me. For the last few months I have noticed that I’ve been the recipient of compliments, and that when I get a compliment I return the compliment threefold. Like a compliment change machine, they slide…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 11/2/2023

    This week the Basic Shapes went from this: … to this. Brightened up the hand, lowered the horizon / edge of the table, added what may be cymbals in the back. I might change my mind on the cymbals. I like they bring in the third primary color, but do I need it?

  • Cat: Wheelchair

    Goldie the Cat’s very favorite thing to do is to hop up in my Mom’s wheelchair and go for a ride around the house. I mean, I push the wheelchair: it’s not like he’s propelling himself around. He loves it, though. Purrs, makes biscuits, then after going a few rooms he eventually hops off.