Flamingo series, or FROTH!

When I polled you yesterday to ask which part of my cat astrology puzzle to work on last night—and it’s pressing matters like this that bring you back here time and again—you voted most often for Gemini, with 23% of the hard-hitting votes.

But Faithful Reader Susan pointed out that last night, the new moon entered Taurus (so, starting today, everyone who’s having a birthday for the next month is a Taurus, including my old friend Marianne, whose bday is today), so it seemed fitting to do Taurus last night. Just like I did my friend Marianne for all those years.

{scandal} {not-at-all-true scandal} {not that Marianne wasn’t a Taurus-ian hottie} {I’ll move on now}

I like how the Taurus cat has a picture of himself. Like Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life having a huge portrait of … Mr. Potter in his office. I always admired that.

My friend Marianne’s birthday 27 years ago (dang) resulted in one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever had in my life. The very worst hangover I ever had in my life ever was when I went to the Microsoft Christmas party with Faithful Reader Seattle Steve, hung with a relative of Timothy Leary there, and saw triple by the end of the night.

Marianne’s birthday was in a more sedate setting, although also in Seattle. I blame Seattle. I worked in this really pretty art deco building that conveniently had a bar/restaurant in the lobby. A bunch of us from work were regulars there, as you can imagine, and we invited Marianne for a drink to celebrate her, like, 28th birthday or what have you. God, we were young.

Seventy-nine drinks later we got up to leave, and oh, man, did I feel bad. I’d been fine till I, you know, stood up. The next day was worse. Nevertheless, being TWENTY-FREAKING-SEVEN, I was better by like 3:00. I remember playing badminton by early evening, saying, Man, was I hung over.

I drank like that now you’d have to take me to the ER. Step aside, corona patients. I gots a hangover.

None of that is why I gathered you here though.

Some people at my workplace work remotely. I mean, we ALL do now. But back when most of us went in daily and enjoyed the open germ plan, some people did not. We have one person working from Switzerland. She officially yodles all the aa-hee-hoos.

There’s another editor who’s in, like, Missouri? I think? See, that’s what’s funny. I work with her alla time and I don’t even know. Ima call her Erin Granite, and we didn’t at all make that name up together yesterday or anything.

She and I work on something together usually twice a week. She writes the stuff and I copy edit her. Each time she has a key phrase she has to use a certain number of times, and she not only actually does it, but she does it so gracefully. Whenever they’ve let me write, they’ll tell me, June, you have to use the word “froth” 16 times in this piece. And I’ll be all, 

FROTH! Many people like to say the word froth. Many froth at the mouth to say froth. Because FROTH!

And that is why they keep me copy editing and not writing a lot.

Also, everyone at work knows who she is, despite her being in—Iowa, maybe? Kansas? I dunno. Anyway, everyone likes her. Everyone. People will be all, Oh, you’re working with Erin? Tell her [insert secret joke between Erin and that person here]. “Tell her FROTH!”

Anyway I like her too and at first I was annoyed that everyone else liked her, cause I thought I’d found a little treasure out there in remote world but no. I’m all smug. I’m like, Oh my god, I know this one little-known actor named Tom Hanks and no one but me knows he’s likeable.

There is a point to this story, and that is this.

“Have you seen Erin’s art pictures?” asked my boss, who—guess what—likes Erin Granite. My boss knew I’d joined in that art challenge, reenacting Hopper’s Automat, and what I do not have are visual skills and also the desire to go back and find those pictures here in my archives.

Anyway I had not seen many of Erin’s images, because she was showing them on Facebook, so when I decided to finally get back on Facebook just to plug my blog and then scurry off before you could upset me about coronavirus, I happened to see one image of her as I was scurrying.

Ohmygod. Ohmygod, what’s Erin up to, I wondered, noting the Naughty Professor had clicked Like on her image, because of course he knows and likes her too. SHE EVEN GOT THE RINGS right. So then I looked more.

  • (my personal favorite)

Seriously, ARE YOU DYING RIGHT NOW? Because I’m dying. I’m dying of death, and also froth, because I love these so hard, I do. Now all of you are going to like Erin Granite, and she will be dubbed Most Popular Gal in … Minnesota? Is she in Minneapolis? I forget.

Basically, her poses blow my puzzle all to shiitake mushrooms. Also, I do not need to be told that “my personal favorite” is redundant.

Frothily,
June

52 Comments

  1. Thanks for all the love! You can follow the rest of the Flamingo Series on instagram: @crmarble. I’ll keep going until stay-at-home orders end or I get tired of it, whichever comes first.

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  2. OMG those are fantastic. I would so do that if I could stand to look at a picture of myself, which I cannot!! Thank you for writing in spite of the sameness of your days! My conversations with friends currently revolve around what we’ve been eating and what we’ve been watching. Oh, and the dumbass who somehow is President of our once great country.

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  3. I made the blog! Also Erin came to work once before she live in state M in a complete Carmen Miranda costume for Halloween… and we didn’t even have the prize contest then.

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  4. So very much to love. I adore the first flamingo with cap and ruffle. But no, it is impossible to choose a favorite. Thanks for sharing, June and Erin!

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  5. I, too, love the open germ plan. Those recreations are outstanding. I like Erin, too. While everyone else is cleaning out or contemplating cleaning out closets she is making good use of whatever the hell she finds in her closet. Impressive.

    I was drunkest in college. Blame the long island ice teas. Woke up on my friend’s dorm room floor. She said I danced a lot at the bar. Then said, “If I were you I would not wear that red jean mini skirt again. It is um . . . memorable.”

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  7. Oh Erin Granite is so amazingly creative! Love the flamingos. I especially love Queen Victoria and her staid self juxtaposed with the flamingo version. Of course you are creative in an entirely different way June.

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  8. THE CROWN!!! WHERE DID SHE GET THAT CROWN???

    Sorry for shouting. But as a tiara/crown connoisseur, I NEED to know.

    I’m trying to think of the worst hangover I’ve ever had. I think it’s a toss-up between the hangover I got from drinking too many Gin & Tonics on an empty stomach at a Christmas party that caused me to puke at work the next day (how I didn’t get fired I will never know but at least they sent me home to sleep off my “flu”) and the morning after a motorcycle race celebration bash and we ended up at Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner where we were so dehydrated that we kept begging the waitress to just bring pitchers of water and pitchers of Pepsi and as many biscuits as they could spare. I think we took our actual chicken dinners to go because we just couldn’t eat. Man, my 20s were fun. Good times, man; good times.

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  10. Erin Granite..what an incredibly creative person!! I am in awe of her artistic talents!! I am frothing with envy.

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  12. I just cannot get over the first one, with the crown. Lace neck ruffles and all. The woman is brilliant! Who has all those things in the right colors during a pandemic? Gifted, is what she is.

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  16. I think I’m most impressed by the recreation of the puffy white dress and just happening to have a fancy crown hanging around to be used in such situations. It’s pretty hilarious how often the flamingo mimics a shape or action from the original artwork. An aside: what is with the rings on the pointer finger in portraits from the days or yore? I guess that marks them as ladies of leisure.

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    1. When I was a kid I INSISTED my rings be worn on that finger, which is clear evidence I was a lady of leisure. As opposed to now, with my go go go lifestyle.

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      1. When I was a baby, I drank from the bottle and then cups with a raised pinkie. Because I was born high-class and fancy. Alas, no…it’s actually a developmental flaw in my nerves or tendons or something. So if I’m not paying attention, I’ll still drink with my pinkie up. But now I *am* high-class and fancy. (No, I’m not.)

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  18. Having just remembered that you had, you know, surgery back in the days when you could do such things in hospitals, I started to wonder how you are feeling these days.

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    1. Oh, I’m fine. I had my first postsurgical workout last night, via Zoom, and I do not at all have this in my head: Come on and zoom zoom zoom-a zoom. Come on and zooma zooma zooma zoom.

      You’re welcome.

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  20. How do I find this talented genius on Insta? Or Facebook?

    Also, i went to a frat party once called a “Ka-Bong Party.” We drank something gawd awful punch out a wading pool through big ol’ long stays and I was fine until I stood up and it hit me. “KA-BOOONNNNGGG!

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    1. I’m reluctant to give her real info out because she’s not, you know, trying to get followers or anything. But if she reads this she can reveal all, if she wishes!!

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  21. The pictures were topnotch! She was able to come up with perfection. In awe!
    You however should not discount your puzzling skills. I don’t do puzzles because they stress me out……no patience.
    Are you framing your masterpiece when you’re finished?

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  23. If Erin lives here in Mpls, I’d like to raid her costume closet. The flamingo is the cake topper to this scheme. How does she go from Queen Victoria to Virginia Woolf to her own Handmaid’s Tale outfit? Awesome.

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  24. Open germ plan! [flump]. You would be sooo much fun to play the penny game with, if you have done something that the “it” (not IT) person has never done you have to put a penny in the collection container. The person that ends with the most pennies wins. This is especially fun to play at church people parties. You find out who has been arrested, who has been knee-walking drunk, all sorts of hilarious, unknown facts about friends. Only thing, when you are my age it can be hard to think of things you have never done… for the record, I’ve never been drunk.

    All of those photos are beautiful! Erin did a most excellent job of recreating the paintings. I like her.
    Tee

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        2. PJ, I’m making masks so the dresses are on hold, but I did make number 500 recently. There’s been lots of prayer with the virus and the storms ripping through Georgia.

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      2. Nope, I feel bad enough on my own. Having suffered with inter-ear problems for a very long time I’m not wanting to repeat that feeling, ever.
        Tee

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  27. Holy shitsnacks – she is brilliant! And so accurate! How long does it take her to set up each one? And how does anyone have all that stuff?? I marveled at the tiara in the first, but by #14 I was just in serious awe.

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  28. I love her! And her flamingo! On a totally unrelated note, I just ordered cat face face masks. My husband is already rolling his eyes at me and they aren’t even here yet. If we have to wear masks we might as well have fun with it.

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  29. OMG! I love those! I frothed at the mouth as I scrolled!

    Thanks for making this day start off so wonderfully — yesterday was such a clusterF**k of a s**s**tstorm, I took today off. (The entire ouevre of Jane the Virgin awaits!)

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  30. Those are so cool! Yours, too, June! I can totally appreciate how much time it took to roam around the house and Macgyver the costumes and props. I love this kind of creativity! It’s one of the really good things about being at home.
    Great post, June!

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  33. She’s BRILLiant! How are people so much better than me at everything? I mean, you’re finishing a PUZZLE. I had to scrap mine due to the pain in my neck that is not The Virus.

    You’re smart to stay off the Face. I will officially have no friends left when this is all over. I mean, I don’t actually have any REAL friends, but I’m going to lose all my fake ones, too.

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