Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: August 2025

  • TWIL: Toad escape mechanism

    When my brother and I were youngsters – I think I was 11 — we caught a toad in the backyard of our new house. I bravely held onto the toad as it peed on my hands while Dave went into the new house. He came out with an empty coffee can, with the requisite…

  • Gary, looking out for my safety

    A few days ago Gary saw some FaceBook post about a special bracelet that has a wee bit of metal one can use to break windows, and somehow this bracelet can also help with handcuff escapes. The man posting said it was designed for women. I saw Gary posted a comment that he was happy…

  • What? Typepad is shutting down? Oh no. I have no idea what to do.

    Typepad, blog provider, tells me: “We have made the difficult decision to discontinue Typepad, effective September 30, 2025.” I squawk, What? What? But you are my one and only blog provider. I have been faithful to you for twenty years. They go on to ask: “What Does This Mean for You?” I immediately think: Not…

  • Nervous

    Stress week continues at work. Yesterday was Defcon One Stress Day. Today is Discretion Day, in which we are to keep our counsel and not gossip. While yes, I see the wisdom, my body is rebelling against the stress and the silence. On me bodily rebellions always look the same: anything food-related is abandoned. The…

  • A slice of life

    “ELLEN WHY DON’T YOU TAKE A DAILY VITAMIN LIKE I DO?” Gary demanded. “I did, but the neurologist wants me on extra Vitamin D, and with that added to the multivitamin I was taking I ended up with too much of that vitamin.” “WHICH VITAMIN?” “D.” “THERE IS NO VITAMIN D.” “Yes,”[sigh] “there is.” “I’VE…

  • TWIL: What a vaginal rejuvenation is

    It seemed like something a 45-year-old divorcee with two kids would get after her husband left her for a 22-year-old. I thought it was to repair an overstretched pelvic floor, and then maybe add some labia liposuction, and finally re-pinkify the parts down there, somehow. (No vajazzling, though.) I was wrong. It can be those…

  • Medical Roundup Part 2: Cervical Cyst

    I was advised to return to the gynecologist to have the doctor give my cervical cyst the once over. I thought, surely he won’t just prise me open with the speculum just to say, “Yeah, the nurse practitioner; she was right. Typical cervical cyst.” But yet, that’s what he did, and it hurt even more…

  • Medical Roundup Part 1: Emesis

    I have a fairly stressful week of work coming up, and I’ve been very phlegmatic about it. People tell me how they feel about the Impending Week of Stress, then they ask me how I feel about it, and that’s happened often enough that I now give a stock answer. I say I won’t know…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 8/21/2025

    This week the Dog Bank went from this: … to this. With all the devices I have to do perspective it baffles me how perspective is so hard for me. I could do it in high school.

  • Belt

    Gary’s belt no longer fits now that he’s lost weight. My belt doesn’t fit either for the same reason. I thought that in the household belt Venn diagram, we might have a situation where he could wear my belt and I could go without. “I CAN’T WEAR A WOMAN’S BELT ARE YOU CRAZY?” “Gary, explain…