Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: October 2025

  • Fall Flies

    It’s finally grown cool, and for some reason we’re having a resurgence of flies. This latest batch are huge articulated flies. Not bulbous horseflies, but wasp-waisted flies that seem double the size of their horsefly cousins. They are big. They are slow. And they make me feel guilty when I kill them. Part of this…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 10/9/2025

    This week the toy bank went from this: … to this. I do feel as if I lost my way with this one, and it’s unfortunate that the paint is still wet and shines unnaturally, but I was gratified that the AI was able to point to it and say “Dog!”

  • Secret Alexa level unlocked

    Years ago Gary discovered that if you are quiet, the Alexa will reduce its volume to match yours. A few nights ago Gary was asleep, it was early, and I wanted him to stay asleep, but I also wanted to know what time it was. I Ieaned over to the Alexa and whispered, “Alexa, what…

  • Gary Soup

    (Apologies to my subscribers who got an early outline of this. Note to WordPress: the dark blue Publish button dwarfs the light blue Save Draft button.) Gary did research on easily tolerable foods and came back from the grocery store with this haul: Vegetables, pears, yams, squash, cucumber, Brussels sprouts, blueberries, baby beets … all…

  • Ellen Health / Gary Health

    I am not well. I feel like I have the Speed flu again. (Oddly, that links to the first post I made in 2005, when I had a fever and decided to make a blog. Earlier posts were just old emails to friends. Just shy of twenty years ago.) As was in the post above,…

  • TWIL: Elicitation

    Evidently a good technique for getting information out of people is “elicitation”, in which you make outrageous or incorrect statements that lead others to correct you. I still like my technique of just hammering away, but this might be handy someday. As a person who shares too much information, I do love getting information out…

  • Review: Guardians of the Galaxy 3

    We were having a lovely day off, and then we thought, hey, we never saw Guardians of the Galaxy 3. That was 90 minutes ago. [SPOILER] This movie is like one of those movies where the dog dies at the end only here the dog dies through the whole movie. [/SPOILER] And you know how…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 10/2/2025

    This week month the toy bank went from this: … to this:

  • Government shutdown comes for me personally

    I think I have mentioned that I missed my chance to see Mission Control when my father took us on a tour of NASA when I was five. Evidently, Jerry wanted to bond with my brother, so when I followed them he pushed me gently out, stating, “They don’t let girls into Mission Control.” I…