Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: November 2025

  • AI has learned, but only a little, and has not passed it on to Siri

    I was tooling around in the car last week, and I asked Siri a question through the dashboard interface. (I have no idea if I am using the correct vocabulary. I talked to the car. What would kids today call that?) I said “Hey Siri,” asked a question, and he (with his South Asian accent)…

  • TWIL: Why astronauts retire

    Well here I was in January asking what would make an astronaut retire, and it turns out Gary knew the answer all along. “Radiation,” he says. “There’s a certain amount of radiation they can absorb, and when they hit their limit they’re grounded. So if anyone goes to Mars that’s all they can do. They…

  • Fun, mitigated

    FUN Well, I have hit the fun part of weight loss, when you donate your old clothes that swamp you you try on all on the even older clothes you kept for years waiting until you could wear them again you turn on all your old clothes that fit and buy new clothes that fit.…

  • Yet another benefit of aging!

    Gary is now officially old enough to use an adjustable bed. When he tested it out he made an audible moan when it propped his head up. Suddenly he could breathe, he said. I let out a similar audible moan of pleasure when I put on the fitted sheet. Look! You can make it do…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 11/6/2025

    This week Tulips 2025 went from this: … to this.

  • Closet chaos: Gary edition

    Evidently I had so much fun this weekend cleaning out my closet that it inspired Gary to do the same — only multiplied by a factor of two on the Gary Scale. Took me a day and a half; took him three. I donated two trash bags; Gary gave four. His organizing frenzy spilled into…

  • St. Louisans Fun Concert Ahead

    So happy! I have been waiting for this! Choir! Choir! Choir! is coming to Saint Louis Feb 25. It’s at Hawthorne, a new venue downtown on Washington Street. This happened the last time I saw them: Gary had his own chance to be called out from the stage when we were at the Choir! Choir!…

  • Symphony wear

    Yesterday afternoon I went from “Can I wear a purple faux-fur lined cape to the symphony?” to “I want the purple one AND the black one because where else am I going to wear a cape?” I stopped myself at eighteen button gloves. Before you judge me, remember Amazon’s generous return policy. And that Friend…

  • TWIL: Murph the Surf

    With all the talk about the Louvre robbery this week, I thought, and I swear I thought this, “Where does America keep its crown jewels?” Of course I remembered, No Kings here. No tiaras for Melania. (In fact … have we ever seen her in any gaudy gargantuan jewels?) As it turns out, we do…

  • Closet chaos

    I have delayed my yearly closet purge for five years now. Currently everything is on the bed, sorted into piles of: Fit me (Headed for the front of my closet) Don’t fit me yet (Will be waiting in the back of the closet) Never will fit me — either too big or too small (Slated…