Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: June 2026

  • Gary’s hobby ends at last

    Well, we are those neighbors. We have been cited by our local health department for feeding the wildlife. This, of course, is the Royal “We”. Then again, I suppose I am complicit. I did clean up the mess for years. And of course, what makes Gary happy makes me happy. However, I also support living…

  • Wattle watch after pricey cream

    Well, it’s been the requisite two months after which I was told I would see results from my twice-daily application of the pricey Lancome cream on just one half of my neck. And …. I think I see results. I have two photos to submit into evidence, both monstrously ugly — I mean, prime fodder…

  • TWIL: Tallow

    Beef tallow is a conservative dog-whistle! Who knew? One of the delights of our trip to England in 1994 was that the London MacDonald’s served Hot Apple pies deep fried in beef tallow, even after the U.S. McDonald’s had switched to pitiful smooth baked pies without the bubbly crust. Everyone seemed to abandon tallow in…

  • Dermatology doppleganger

    I find myself again in the triple-witching month when the six-month doctor’s visits coincide with the yearly doctor’s visits and I see multiple specialists in a short period of time. It’s worse if I count in Gary’s doctor visits. Wednesday was a double-visit day. The dentist let me know my teeth were not perfectly straight,…

  • Two photos

    I have been fascinated by the hospital secret codes since my Grandmother told me about them when I was ten. I’ve been in two of them. For my first stay at the hospital we had a Code Green on the neurology floor (a patient got out of bed and was staggering into other people’s rooms…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 6/25/2026

    Weekly Paint Progress: 6/25/2026

    Here’s the previous: Here’s the progress: … when it was originally this:  Can you see the two issues?. (Aside from the way I took this under LED light when the other was under bulb light.)  

  • Review: Outrageous

    This is a British show about the Mitford sisters. These siblings were in part known for their spouses or cousins (Guinness, Churchill, Duke of Devonshire), and in part known for their politics (Communist, Nazi, Fascist), and then for their novels and autobiographies. There are seven of them. They look distinctive, thank God. It’s not like…

  • Opera Review: Streetcar Named Desire

    I’ve got your TL;DR here for you right here: we left at intermission. Why, you ask? So, Anne and I discussed it at the intermission and we agreed we were not keen on seeing the next act when Stanley rapes Blanche, especially given there’d already been a really explicit thrusting sex scene with Stella. Plus,…

  • Pre-opera: Streetcar Named Desire

    Where we ate – We ate again at at the Clover and the Bee, and I got exactly what I got the first time: delicious chewy crusty bread with soft cheese, honey, and pistachios. Oddly, I didn’t remember what I’d had before, and Ann had to remind me. (This concludes today’s edition of “What I…

  • TWIL: Sneezing/”Snatiation”

    I recently had just an awful sneezing attack. I sneezed twice a minute for at least 15 minutes. When it happened again a few days later, I, of course, thought “nasal cancer,” but no. Evidently people on GLP1s have a new way for our bodies to signal they are sated – or experiencing satiety, or…