Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

  • I become even less sophisticated in my drinking habits

    I looked through the drinks menu at the Symphony bar. There was “Irish cream,” which sounded Christmassy (no doubt due to some late 1970’s ad campaign).

    I was served some Five Farms Irish Cream, and I steeled myself for a slug of dessert followed by a shuddering turpentine finish of whiskey. That’s how Baileys and Godiva Irish Creams taste to me.

    This, though, was delectable.

    I saw them open the bottle, and they didn’t shake it as I would have, so I thought perhaps all the alcohol was at the bottom.

    On a whim I bought my own bottle last weekend. I shook it vigorously, poured it into a tumbler, and it was heaven. Only one of the twenty sips had a slight note of alcohol.

    I haven’t had a Vodka Gimlet Like a Grownup for months now. I seem to be regressing to my alcohol childhood.

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  • New wig specifically for high-heat events

    As you may recall, it is all too easy to pull a batch of cookies out of the oven and singe a synthetic wig, as wigs are essentially nylon. The flames at the Zoo last week made me think I need an inexpensive human hair wig in case I was going to be in the path of random bursts of heat or flame. Paul McCartney concerts. Glass-blowing exhibitions. Fishing a bit of pottery out of a kiln. Airplane crashes. Campfires. Almost all of these things have happened to me at some point, and had I been wearing a synthetic wig it would have shriveled up like pantyhose in a dryer.

    Then I remembered I have an inexpensive human hair wig somewhere in my wig horde. It never sat correctly on my head, and worse it’s a one-length curly blunt-cut chin-length bob.

    That photo is very deceptive. Mere seconds later the bits tucked behind my ears fell into harsh curtains and the curls became frizz.

    I looked critically at that wig and thought “What this needs is length and either no curls or a better curl pattern,” and put it away. It’s not synthetic, so I could flat iron it, eventually, if I wanted.

    But then the company emailed me recently and said they had a longer curlier version on a half-price sale.

    I was at first encouraged. Very curly. Very long. Then I looked in the mirror.

    So this one, obviously, shall be named Weird Al.

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  • Plain vs Vain

    I have been on an uncharacteristic campaign to improve my appearance. Usually I’m content with my state. I’m average, plain, unremarkable. Not particulary ugly. Not particularly pretty.

    That’s fine with me. I’ve seen the life of pretty women and I’d rather not have strange men chatting me up. Plus, I haven’t had good experiences with vain women as role models.

    However, I have had some experiences lately in which I have caught sight of myself in unexpected mirrors and windows, and I look too much like my grandmother. Plain is fine, but Plain with Aged on top pushes me past my comfort zone.

    So, I’m doing little things to improve my appearance. Losing weight. Straightening my teeth. And recently de-chipping my two front teeth.

    During the de-chipping the dentist realized he could make a little correction and have my two front teeth be even, so I said okay, and he did.

    I am sorry but the changes in the before and after photos are barely perceptible to me. Honestly, if this was a Spot the Differences game I would fail. He seemed very pleased with the result, though.

    Perhaps it will subliminally balance out some eye wrinkles and I’ll be back up to the level of Plain I expect of myself.

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  • TWIL: How to make tea

    I think anyone who drinks tea knows the English have scorn for the way Americans make tea.

    “BOILING,” they grumble. “The water must be BOILING!”

    And I do boil the water. Up until this week I have dutifully used a pot and boiled the water to a rolling boil which I pour directly over the (borderline acceptable) tea bag, and then I wait 4 minutes for it to steep.

    This makes pretty good tea. It’s strong enough I can add milk and a ridiculous amount of sweetener and I still taste the tea.

    However, I have a new way to boil water now, thanks be to the drain flies. Gary heard the suggestion to pour boiling water down the sink, so to ensure the flies would be extra dead he paid extra money for extra-boiling water. He bought a fancy gooseneck self-heating induction kettle that gets the water up to a documented 270 degrees, when water boils at 212.

    He used it once and declared all drain flies dead.

    I’ve been the only one who notices the stray orphaned flies so it’s been up to me to remain vigilant. I feel we got the best results killing the drain flies with the Green Gobbler fluid so I’ve been using that instead. That’s fine.

    I knew from the start the tea kettle would be used once and abandoned by Gary, but then I thought I could use it for … tea. But really, how different could the tea be? I decided to try it.

    The water took two minutes or so to hit max 270 ultra-boiling, and when that water hit the tea bag I immediately had full-on brewed tea. No time at all spent steeping it. And it tasted quite good.

    So, all tea shall be made properly in the future with the special kettle. I can’t even imagine what would happen if I poured it over loose-leaf tea.

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  • Messiah 2025: Traditions

    As is tradition, they did dress up Powell hall, and the new addition as well. I wondered which decorations had been in storage the past two years and which wre new. I don’t remember there being a giant nutcracker by the grand staircase positioned just so for a photo op. In fact, I don’t remember so many photos being taken on the staircase ever before.


    We sat in the box, which was new, not a tradition, and found that the seats in the upper balcony boxes are narrow. Very. Very. Narrow. (“Noted,” Anne said, primly.)


    The Messiah was much the same as always, except for one thing: the baritone was out and another baritone subbed in, and it was so sweet to watch the faces of the tenor and baritone when they stopped singing and returned to their seats at the edge of the stage. Whichever one was seated would give a look of affection and encouragement to the other, as if they wanted to applaud but their faces had to do the work.

    I’d like to see more of the first and last, and fewer narrow seats.

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  • Review: [SPOILERS] Death by Lightning

    I’ve been enjoying the Netflix series Death by Lightning. It’s about [SPOILER] the assassination of President Garfield [/SPOILER].

    I’ve enjoyed it so much that I feel the need to analyze why. Somehow the writers manage to ratchet up the tension even though you know the outcome. I don’t know how they do it.

    The committee assembling the James Bond movies should learn from this. No matter what predicament James Bond is in, we know he isn’t going to die. Or have his bits severed by a laser, even. Goldfinger says, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die,” but I don’t expect that at all , and it puts me to sleep.

    (I suppose the tension is in how James Bond gets away from the laser. I have utterly forgotten how, and I don’t care.)

    Our other James, James Garfield, has no business being president, and I think part of the trick in how they make this suspenseful is that in your concern for this nice man thrown into the presidency you completely forget he’s going to die.

    Then they smack you with some Omen of Doom, like his views on assassination … it’s like “death but lightning, too rare to worry about.”

    I haven’t finished it, I have one more episode to go, but I am pretty sure he gets shot in episode four. Or, you know, maybe he won’t. They might do a Sopranos thing where they cut right before the bullet is fired. I might like that.

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  • Weekly Paint Progress: 12/11/2025

    This week Tulips 2025 went from this:

    … to this.

    tulips with highlights
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  • Mailbox misunderstanding

    The postman drove too close to our mailbox. I was listening and heard the truck accelerate, then a shriek of metal, a hollow crash, then silence, then the doorbell.

    There he was on the doorstep with the mailbox and bracket in his arms. The pole was still upright at the curb.

    The mailbox had a scratch, but no dents, and that made me feel pretty proud. Evidently the box caught on the truck and the metal screws holding the bracket to the base sheared off, but there was no other damage.

    We agreed that it looked like an easy fix, probably just a few hours.

    He said, “I can just hold it then until it’s fixed.”

    I reeled a little at the thought of that. Did he want me to fix it now? I mean, I could. He’d have to stand over by the curb and hold it there and — wait.

    “Oh,” I said. “You mean you’ll hold the mail.”

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  • Fanning sisters fashion

    I spent a day in another of these tops with the built-in bra, and needed an honest opinion of the state of my bosom.

    Gary, who can always be counted on for an honest opinion, said, “They are sitting a bit lower than usual. But that’s fine. The Dakota sisters say women are wearing their breasts lower this year. It’s the fashion. It was all over TikTok.”

    I would give anything to see a clip of Elle or Dakota Fanning saying that “Woman are wearing their breasts lower this year.”

    I can see where one of them said that wearing a corset displaced their internal organs, and they might have used the word “fashion” in that conversation, but not that women everywhere are “wearing their breasts lower this year.”

    Ladies, have you heard this? Am I just not in touch with 2025 breast fashion trends?

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  • Antiquated

    We are in the twenty-first century, and this box in the women’s toilet stall is precisely the same as it ever was.

    Seriously. Same as the sixties and seventies.

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