Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: August 2024

  • tontine

    It occurs to me that I have won the family tontine, in that I have outlived every single relative, and now I have all their stuff. (I haven’t done this deliberately. People just die young in my family. Jerry at 48, Dad at 52, Dave at 62, Mom at 71.) I sold Mom’s house in…

  • Gary Due Diligence

    See, with Gary, the thing is that he has an odd interpretation of “due diligence.” To him, if someone else is installing our new mailbox, Gary’s due diligence is learning how to install a mailbox. Not to install it himself, mind, just to be sure that they’re doing it right, that they aren’t overcharging him,…

  • MRI Firsts

    I had an MRI recently, and it was full of firsts. First MRI without contrast. I always get two passes through the MRI machine: pass one, and then they pull me out and push the “Contrast” solution through me so that — literally — the images of the new lesions will show up in higher…

  • TWIL: Popcorn ceilings

    This week I learned that helium balloons and popcorn ceilings do not mix. I didn’t learn it by experience, happily, but, as I understand it, you will watch happy children’s faces fall as the balloons rise up to their imminent destruction on the sharp texture.

  • Too Much

    I have been having the worst arguments of my life with Gary on the topic of his health. This is the timeline of events. 1954. Gary was born. Born unto a family that fed sick children ice cream because that’s the reward for being sick. Mid 1980s. Gary wed me. In my family, sick children…

  • Groundhogs of Hell

    I was out working in the garden and saw a hole in the dirt. Snake hole? I thought. No, too big. Moles? Voles? No, wait. Groundhog. The groundhog appears to be widening its territory. There are four groundhog holes by the arbor in anticipation of some tasty fall flowers. But, this new hole was on…

  • Weekly Paint Progress; 8/15

    This week The Cat went from this: … to this. Photoshop and the tracing projector for the iPhone have destroyed any faith in my drawing skills. (I have to buy a new projector for the new incompatible iPhone. This was done with old-school carbon paper.) I admit the freehand version has more character. I am…

  • Spitting for the greater good, Part 2

    Earlier, I signed up to be in the NARCOMS database of people with MS who have DNA and can spit. The scientific spitting supplies have arrived! Tube for spit: VERY exciting baggie to hold the spit: And there are instructions that I must put the tube of spit in the exciting baggie and take the…

  • Fence hopping

    One day in the fall of 1968, Mom, my brother and I went on a date downtown with Mom and her “new” boyfriend. (I use the quotes because he had originally been her old boyfriend, and then Mom got married to Jerry, then divorced from Jerry, and now this guy was back in the picture.)…

  • Fly

    With the new back door, the indoor flies have diminished significantly. On occasion, though, one will get in, and I am gratified when I can kill it with the electric fly zapper racquet. One got in yesterday. He had an attitude. He was animated. He was savvy to my games. He liked beef stroganoff, especially…